'Til Death Do Us (A)Part: Love (and Sex) In the Zombie Apocalypse

So there was some sex stuff the other week. I think most people knew it was coming, but if not, uh, sorry to surprise you? Hopefully you don’t read this at work or anything. In the future I think I’ll be tagging those posts with a NSFW tag, so you can make informed decisions and I don’t have to worry that somebody got reported to their manager for reading zombie porn.

I know some people liked that chapter, since they said so. If you’d like to preserve that enjoyment, I suggest you stop reading now, because I’m about to tell you what it was like to write it. It’s not nearly as hot as you’re hoping it will be.

Obstacle #1

Here’s what I want you to do: imagine you’re going to write a sexy letter to your significant other. Nothing too dirty, just something he/she can peek at during alone times and get a little het up by.

Now imagine your mom is going to read it. And one of your professors. And some of your classmates, for good measure, because when somebody asks for the link to your blog letter, you don’t stop to wonder if it’s appropriate to share it, you just hand that shit out. (What’s up, people! Hopefully you wait to read the sexy times chapter until after this semester is over, but if not, I look forward to avoiding eye contact with you for the next six weeks.)

You can’t NOT write the letter. You’ve made a deal; you’ve been writing a series of letters for months, and it’s TIME for this letter. There’s no way around it. You have to write it, and it has to be good. No copping out with euphemisms and fade-to-blacks – get in there, be fairly detailed, make it hot.

Did I mention your mom is going to read it? FOCUS. But also – your mom.

Obstacle #2

You’ve got some kids wandering free-range around your space. A lot of them. Not a classroom-full or anything, you’re not the damn Duggars up in here, but it’s enough. And they keep standing next to you. They’re not reading your letter, they’re just….there. Right there, up against your shoulder, talking about Minecraft and snack time and by the way, when are we going to Grammy’s? You know, that place where YOUR MOM lives.

That’s….well, that’s a mood killer. Common sense says you put your letter away, and you wait until no one under five feet tall is threatening to talk to you. To continue on in the face of the Goldfish Brigade would be fucking weird.

Obstacle #3

Okay, so you’re alone now, and you can kind of sort of block out all those extra people who are going to be reading your letter. Now we have to leave the letter conceit behind, because this is a fiction specific concern, and a problem for everyone who writes stories that involves sex scenes: the people who read it? They’re going to assume that you’re speaking from personal experience. And now you’re worrying, as you’re writing, oh my god. Someone is going to read this, and then the next time I see them, they’re going to give me that Look. The one that says they now know everything about my sex life, or at least they think they do. They’re going to think about it, you know damn well they are, and they’re gonna be like, “Oh wow, I had no idea she likes having sex on a stranger’s couch while her sister sleeps in the next room. What a ho!”

(For the record, I have no sister, and it’s been at least a week since I had sex on a stranger’s couch. AT LEAST.)

The truth is likely that nobody gives a shit, but that’s not what my brain was telling me while I was writing. In that moment, everybody cared, everybody knew me, and they were all waiting outside my front door to point and laugh when I walked to the mailbox.

Obstacle #4

There are no decent substitutes for the word ‘clit’. That really sucks.

The Moral

If there aren’t any more sex scenes for a while, I hope you’ll forgive me. I’m still recovering from the last one.