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Click hereWelcome to my entry in Literotica's first What I wrote and Why Challenge where authors share what motivates them to write or discuss a particular story, or both. My choice is this challenging and polarizing piece That Damn Red Dress - Incest/Taboo - Literotica.com one that has had people ask me 'why did you want to write this? Answer below. LC68
Going back to the year 2010 I made a name for myself with a long dark taboo love story called Siblings with Benefits. The story flew in the face of everything most people look for in incest stories, which is lusty fantasy family fun (Ah, Stan Lee and alliteration!)
But I wanted a different take. My characters weren't horned out because they saw each other naked or some other lame porn plot device. No, my characters were people who were broken in every way and only felt whole when they were together.
The series did well score wise but sucked in the sense of getting a lot of attention, but to this day there is not another series like it, and it carries an air of both despair and triumph that can rarely be matched so many years later.
After SWB I decided I wanted to chill and have some fun. Most of my stories for the next few years would be on the fun side. Some depth and conflict, some strife and heartbreak, but nothing overboard and all with an easy path to a happy ending-like, you know, sex with a family member, right?
But in early 2014 I had a conversation with another author about taboos and writing in general. They were huge fans of SWB and asked what happened to me. They said I'd gotten soft and where was that nasty edge and lack of fucks given when it came to my work.
I was now pandering to the masses to get good scores.
Well, I admit to being the type to succumb like a bull seeing a red flag waved in front of it. I pretty much said, "Hold my beer, friend, because I'm going to not only 'go dark' as they called it but put out a piece that is the antithesis of what they want in that category.
First thing to consider is every category has elements that will work, and elements readers don't care for. I/T is no different. It's my belief that most readers like fun sexy fantasy encounters with happy endings.
Why is that? Well, I can answer that as someone who doesn't just write taboo stories but has always enjoyed reading them. The vast majority of incest readers are aware that in real life incest is often a bleak, twisted and often abusive relationship.
Because of that we want our fantasy to be the opposite, we want the focus to be on clean dirty consensual fun, and even some romance and affection tossed in. We want a romance happily ever after, except between family members.
Going into this challenge what I knew I had to do was to point blank shit on everything that readers usually want, but at the same time do it in such a way that it wasn't outright offensive but could draw them into a tough real-life situation that most people could relate to but give it the family element.
I'd set myself on the path to write a story that is not fun, enjoyable, sexy, overall depressing, but make it work. Work as defined by people wouldn't bash it the way they'd want to because within all that depressing content would be a good message.
Slight aside here. I'm a huge horror fan, and the Exorcist is my holy grail of horror movies. The movie has a reputation as being horrific and evil, and many took it that way focusing only on the bed. But end of the day, the good guys win and did so with faith and hope and unselfish sacrifice. Completely different genre, but this was the goal. Male it nasty but let love shine through.
In other words, I would need to create a 'trainwreck' story, which is what I refer to as a tale that has you ticked off or cringing, but you find yourself oddly immersed in it and need to see where it goes. This is why this was easy for me to say, "Okay, watch this," but nowhere near as easy to deliver.
What do most people have experience with? Loss. We have all lost someone close to us at some point and had to cope with it. Addiction. Now, not everyone suffers from this affliction, or knows someone who does, but its common enough that people can have some sympathy and empathy towards someone struggling with their inner demons.
Family, and family will do whatever they need to when it comes to helping family, even if it leads to doing some desperate and irrational things, we will always fight to save those we love from their worst enemy, themselves.
I went to bed that night with a candle lit across from me, and stared into it while I let these concepts roll through my mind. This is my ritual for when I want to write something serious. I then spoke out loud to my muse whose name is Julie (she is a behind the scenes story by herself) I said, "Okay, you're off your leash, Jules, give me something fucked in the head."
If you expected me to say she answered from the shadows, the answer is yes, but from the darkness of the type of vivid dreams any type of creative sort is very familiar with. Put it this way, watch a scary movie, have a nightmare, watch porn, have a dirty dream, think about a bleak situation and.... I ended up waking up in the middle of the night with a crystal-clear vision and said, "Yeah, that's what I'm talking about."
My wife then told me to stop talking to myself, so I went back to sleep, but with that feeling of, yup, got this.
Over the next week I wrote That Damn Red Dress
Let's start with the title. I wanted the reader to know this story wasn't light and fluffy, and once you read it, go back to the title and you can hear Nicole-the main character- voice and the bitterness and angst in it.
This story sets the goal and success of the typical incest story on its ear. This tale wasn't one of daddy lusting for his daughter or the other way around. This is a story of grief, depression, addiction, and sacrifice.
In this story the sex between father and daughter was an act of desperation that defies morals, and some would say sanity, and embraces the mantra that some people will do anything to save a loved one.
The plot revolves around Nicole, a young woman in love with her fiancée who is still dealing with the grief of losing her mother in a car accident a year ago. She's dealing fairly well, but her father on the other hand?
He can't accept she's gone and feels a guilt over it that Nicole doesn't understand as he and her mother were always close and loving. The grief and loss he feels has caused him to drink and spiral deeper into the rabbit hole of addiction.
As the anniversary of her mother's death approaches Dad is drinking more and Nicole often finds him sleeping with a sexy red dress her mother had bought for their Valentine's dinner. Whenever he has the dress, he's sobbing and at his worst, and she's come to see it as that damned red dress.
He's also not just wallowing in sorrow, but he's getting rather creepy with Nicole who closely resembles her mother. He begins to speak to her as if she's his departed wife, Laura, and worse has tried to kiss and touch her on occasion to the point Nicole once had to slap him to snap him out of his delusion.
As this is going on, Nicole's boyfriend, tired of her needing to run off and help him, gives her a choice, and when she refuses to stop trying to save her father, he leaves her. Heartbroken in every way, she will not give up on her dad.
Nicole finally gets an insight into his guilt when while in another bout of drunken sorrow he tells Nicole that they were struggling financially at the time, and her mother had gone out and bought the rather expensive red dress because she wanted to look great for him when they went to dinner.
They had a nasty argument, and later that day she died in the car accident. The dress became the focal point of his pain as it led to their last words being angry. He keeps saying all he wants is one more night with her to say he's sorry and goodbye.
When she comes home another night When Nicole comes home to find him passed out and a bottle of pills next to him, the moment of terror that had her thinking he'd committed suicide galvanizes her into action.
Nicole's desperate plan is born, and she has someone take her father out for drinks to make sure he's drunk and donning the dress and her mother's perfume role plays as her to forgive him and tell him all is well.
The plan derails when he wants to 'love her' one more time, and Nicole goes all in and allows her father to have her while acting as her mother. During the story its mentioned that Mom had a saying, "No matter what you do, do it with love."
Taking it to the extreme, Nicole gives her father everything he wants and as they lay there and he's falling into sleep, "Laura" forgives hm and tells him to move on because their daughter needs him to be okay.
Does it work? You can guess or go ahead and read it.
The general ending also differs from the usual expectation of the typical I/T story. This event does not lead to Nicole becoming daddy's dirty little girl. That might have eased the feelings of some the story might have upset, but to me it would have cheapened the entire point and been a sellout.
In spite of my bluster, I didn't expect the story to be well received. I thought it might have gone too far with the cringe factor as it wasn't much an erotic story as the sex had a tone of dubious consent throughout. I was surprised to see not only an impressive score, but many of the people commenting 'got it."
The best compliments were those saying they weren't even sure if they could say they enjoyed it, but the power was undeniable. A few trashed it for being 'awful' and what was I thinking, but it turned out to be a minority of readers.
It also proves that the I/T readership, often denigrated by readers and some other authors as being easy to please and more insulting terms, are fine with being presented a story that's about more than a mom on her son's lap on a road trip.
I did receive a few negative comments that focused on the subject of her breaking up with her fiancée then sleeping with her father, then eventually moving on, so there's some "cheating slut" comments.
A story where a daughter poses as her mom to her drunken grief-stricken father and that's what some took from it. "She cheated!". Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but I tend to not pay much heed to the bizarre moralists reading in the Taboo section.
However, had the story been dragged through the mud, it wouldn't have mattered because it was the story I wanted to tell. Back in the early days of SWB when people would ask what the hell I was writing I adopted the slogan my stories are my babies, and they're done my way, and that's all that matters.
But the good reception and people applauding the effort, being able to get a positive response out of a bleak and admittedly twisted story is worth more than any type of score or statistic. I was challenged, and feel I delivered.
By the way, if I didn't mention it? That Damned Red Dress was entered in the Valentine's Day contest, because I have a sense of humor.
If there's one thing I'd like any new or aspiring author to take from this story its don't come to the forums asking what works, and what doesn't. Don't ask what people want to read and what will race up the top lists.
Gut reaction is that disturbing subject matter may not fly on an erotic story site, but there's readers for everything here. That, and to leave you with one of my favorite expressions. "The light can't shine without the darkness."
You write what your muse tells you to write. You write it faithfully, you write it with passion, you write it hard, and you make that bitch yours, because that's what it is; yours.
Inspire in whatever way you choose, some will trash it, but some will thank you for it, and those readers, other than ourselves, is who we write for.
Author's Note: Thank you for taking the time to read this essay and support this new event. If this leads you to read the story itself, drop a comment and let me know what you think. There might even be a happy ending in there somewhere. Thanks for supporting my work here all these years, and rest assured, this old dog still has some stories left to tell. LC68
Laura Lovecraft you are one of my favorite writers here on Lit. The way you bring every single story to life it's amazing. I loved the SWB series, said before, the story could be made into a movie and it make 50 Shades run for their money. That rammed red dress, wow! Out of this world, literally. A very fresh outtake on the world of incest. Incest can take many forms, from raunchy sex to loving relationship and sacrifices. Whoever complain about your stories not being enough, they are just sick perverts and they don't deserve your attention. I love you Laura and I will continue being your loyal fan for as long as it may take. Hope you are doing well and may God bless you always!
I guess I have to read the story now. But then any story with a r
ed dress gets my attention.
Very interesting to see how another writer works and your methodly. I like the more human plots which helps to explain the connection as you seem to do.
pk2curious, if you click on show more/all, the SWB series and red dress story will show up since they're both further down the list by "newest" and "alphabetical" sorting.