A New Violin, The Black Gondola, and Sex

Dearest Bookworms,

I bought a violin the other day, a 1920s German copy of a Maggini violin. Maggini was a master luthier, born in 1680 in Brescia, Italy, who pioneered a larger-bodied violin with a more resonant, expressive sound. The violin I bought had been traded around, passed from musician to musician in exchange for other instruments. It appears to have had a lengthy history of abuse, and a proportionate history of haphazard repair.

In my own hierarchy of needs I hold a sliver of mental and physical capacity above all other priorities: the capacity to listen to music. This week I’ve been listening again to Liszt, and a song recommended to me by the author Jeff Stookey: The Black Gondola, Liszt’s memorial of Wagner —

And I’ve been thinking about sex scenes this week, as I’ve slowly been writing one. What makes a sex scene work? What makes it more than mere mechanics, what makes passion pass from writer to reader? When I was younger a mentor told me that to write a female character, I must write them as more than one person, since all women are always more than one person at a time.

The same applies to disabled characters, I think.

I feel the deepest pleasure of sex is in passing one’s body into the possession of another. I hope you will receive me; I hope you take joy in me; I hope my body gives you everything you need.

What makes a sex scene work?

For a start, I suppose, it’s hope. And then, what is done with this extravagant gift of a body.

A poem:

Sitting
by Christy Brown

Sitting with you in any setting is so lovely
it is still so new to me like each new morning
watching each new wonder cross your face
and I a new arrival to joy
happily caught in that wonder.

Your every moment arrests my mind
bringing my senses instantly awake
and in your very stillneess I am aware
of things waving my life restfully
to a joyous conclusion.

With love,
AR. x