Sneak Peek of "Fall in Chastity"

About the CARGO novel I'm working on at the moment...

Photo by Jeffrey Hamilton on Unsplash

Fall in Chastity is about uptight Heather losing her inhibitions as she embarks on a “Sweet Autumn Romance”…

But, it’s also about David, a lonely Chaste, going through a sort of Hell on his journey to accept the endless erotic torment that’s the price of love.

Poor David married young under CARGO provisions. Fifteen years later, he’s separated from his wife, but she still has veto over the removal of his chastity device…

I’m writing Fall partly because there’s something exquisite about the disconnect between Heather’s warm fuzzy Chick lit/Netflix experience, and David’s tortured frustration.

However, I’m also writing it because Bradley Jones’s Chastity gave me a taste for writing semi-realistic relationship novels in the CARGO ‘verse — a world in which there’s a (hard to escape) legal framework for Chaste as a sexual identity, and in which marriage has legally enforceable power exchange options.

It should be no surprise that Bradley Jones is basically a gender-flipped kinky version of Bridget Jones’ Diary, with lashings of brutal femdom.

The CARGO’verse lends itself to that kind of flipping.

Inescapable male chastity creates a dynamic where the man is the sexually vulnerable one. Erotic activity may be hard to resist, but it’s not necessarily in his best interests — imaging lying awake at night, horny from your adventures, and there’s nothing you can do about it? He may also come to discover things about himself and his sexuality that are hard to accept.

However, I think it’s also possible to tell a gentler, more conventional romantic story, without the whips and chains. Chastity still makes him vulnerable, but perhaps he can be the damaged male love interest so beloved of the Romance genre?

That doesn’t mean it can’t be full of explicit chastity action, though.

Here’s some of the draft opening scene. The story takes place five years after Bradley Jones’s Chastity. You may recognise one of the characters…

(If you’re a paid subscriber, you get to see the whole chapter. I’m going to do this from time to time. It’s my way of thanking you for the support, which lets me prioritise my writing.)

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Fall in Chastity — Chapter 1

England, 20 years after the UK Consenting Adults Relationships, Gender and Orientation Act ("CARGO").

The autumn leaves crunched under David's trainers as he jog along the deserted lochside.

Running made him feel free, but he could not run from the glass collar that trapped sweat around around his throat, nor from the cage that permanently enclosed his pierced genitals like an exoskeleton.

This morning's mail had gotten his hopes up. The big brown envelope had Trisha's florid handwriting on it. Maybe she'd finally signed the divorce papers, or at least consented to the operation to remove the chastity device.

But no.

Instead, David's 'wife' had sent him a big card with; "Happy Fifteenth Wedding Anniversary Darling" coiled around two overlapping hearts.

How could he have been so young and foolish?

David hit the level stretch of path without any rocks, picked up the pace and reminded himself to think positive.

At least he'd only granted Trisha a veto over "surgical changes to his sexual identity". Another couple of check boxes would have given her power of attorney and financial control. He'd either be stuck in a dead end job living off whatever allowance she granted back to him, or else would have given up on the legal separation and be back with his crazy ex.

And, he told himself, he was running his favourite path on a warm September afternoon. A breeze ruffled the surface of the loch and made the trees sigh.

Life was good.

Except, if he came back here with his easel, nothing would... catch.

Damn.

And there up ahead was the cute redhead tourist from the hotel. She bounded towards him, pigtails dancing as her skinny legs chewed through the distance.

Another gift from his wife. He could look, but he couldn't fuck. More than look, of course, but that path led to madness.

As she drew closer, he made out the design on her skin-tight running top: the symbol for Virgo Pride.

"Shit."

He skidded to a halt, pushed off the other direction and sprinted.

Maybe he should just rely on his wife's parting gift.

Behind him, leaves crunched, running shoes thudded. Her breath hissed, close. There was a beep. "Gotcha!"

He slowed to halt, winded.

The red haired girl just hurtled past brandishing her phone. She'd scanned the QR code on the back of his collar.

David straightened and called out after her. "It won't do you any good!"

But she was gone.

He turned about and finished his run at a slower pace.

The redhead was waiting for him at his cabin in its cocoon of trees. To be precise, she was doing naked pull ups on his outdoor gym, small breasts pert and quivering in the cool air.

Because of course she was.

David's penis inflated in its cage. "Go away, I'm married."

The redhead did a hanging splits, so the red frizz of her crotch parted. There was a Virgo tattoo on her stringy inner thigh. "Separated."

"How the hell do you know?"

Close too, she looked to old for her girlish pigtails --- mid twenties, perhaps. Gen-C they called them; the first generation to hit sexual maturity after the CARGO act. Some of the women had a ruthless attitude towards men, especially towards chastes.

She closed her legs, kicked and did a kind of gymnast somersault around the bar that ended up with her hanging upside down, red pigtails dangling, with the coppery curls of her groin at his eye level. "There's a Virgo travel forum. You're SmittenArtist, and we know all about you. I'm RedRunner by the way."