This story had me turgid and tumescent from beginning to end. Well done, author.

 

+1

 

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sorry, my eyes closed after the first three paragraphs I was just so entranced by the story; about as much as I was reading the IRS's Revised, Simplified Tax Manual.

 

Having read the comments above regarding various historical nit-picks, I must say that I didn't notice a single one, or rather that I was unaware of them - much fiction is exactly that; fiction. Most movies made about historical events take great licence with the actual truths so I feel it perhaps a little churlish to castigate the author of this piece for a few errors.

I thought this was a good read - it captured the spirit of an age when society expected women to only submit to the desires of men, not to have sexual wants and needs of their own, and it came across as a proper period piece. I could easily imagine the scenery in which the action took place - and what action! Hot sex - the writer of that dreadful tome which is currently being released as a major movie could learn how to handle BDSM scenes from this work.

Detractions: A number of small errors in punctuation and spelling, but a good proofreader could easily sort that out. I also felt at times that things were over-simplified so that it felt like the text was explaining the scene to a minor (for instance "Robert was the flag captain (that is he drove the admiral around in his boat)" sounds cumbersome, as does the aforementioned "turned on" - although not actually said by the character it still seems anachronistic in context.

However, this was a good story which I enjoyed reading, it went straight onto my shortlist, as I suspect it did to other readers and voters.

 

Now that I've been outed as the author of this, I have a few comments. Not least of which is I'm feeling almost like a fraud, some of the bits which people seem to like are not my words, but Marie's. I did acknowledge this at the top, but some of her prose when strung together out of context did make the most marvelous Edwardian porn. It was also perfect for providing her motivations.

If you feel like a snooze you can find the text of "Married Love" here: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/stopes/married/1918.html

One thing no one picked up on is that Robert really isn't a fleshed out character, I feel like I'm playing him and writing him as I might myself. When I was looking for a character to write about, I was looking for a woman, I prefer women, so far all my stories have been basically me and random woman. But there are not a lot of women in history (at least compared to all the men). I was also mainly looking at British women, as that's my background. Marie was on a short list of famous British Women along with Bodica, a few other Queens and some even more obscure characters.

I was only dimly aware of Marie and her works before this, but when I read that she knew Robert (Scott of the Antarctic, a brilliant bumbling British hero) I couldn't pass up the opportunity to write the two of them together. Even if I were to play Robert, his criticisms are mine upon reading her work. I am a new writer, I only just took up writing for the first time since high school assignments in the last few months. Up to now I've only written first person fantasy (my fantasies), this is my first attempt at an alternate format.

Thanks for all the criticism, like I said earlier, its quite a thrill to be discussed as though your work mattered.

 

That comment worried me, the story is set in 1907, which was the year that Marie went to Japan.

However Scott's service record shows he was on the Victorious until sometime in 07. I'm not quite sure what the handwritten date is, I suspect Jan. It'd be better if it were Jun.

I'm also not quite sure when Marie went to Japan in 07, though her Journal starts on August 6th.

It looks like I slightly missed the dates that this could have happened