Scenes of affection (SoA) are not the easiest to write—just ask any romance author. It’s a bit like listening to an actor or actress talk about stunt/body doubles, how much or how little to reveal and under what conditions. Add to that the burning question—does this forward the plot or bring it to a screeching halt—and you have only scraped the tip of the iceberg.

What about a romantic scene where emos run high, the stakes are out the roof, but your characters find that there’s more to getting down and dirty than meets the eye? Sometimes nature takes its course, other times… not so much. The result can be disastrous, humiliating, revealing, or just plain jaw-dropping and funny as hell.

Here’s a SoA from Points on a Curve. Rob’s the sports journalist with a nose for news. Tay is the ex-pro basketball star from the Italian League who’s got a past that has Robb’s nose twitching. They’ve done the dance around their backstories, shuffled past a few what-ifs.

In this scene, Tay finally admits to what her ex had done…

The man cradling me was patient but not infinitely so. He pressed me, needing to understand.

“Did he hurt you?”

I answered, “Yes,” and explained, not all of it, but enough. I owed him that. He’d been honest and upfront with me, laying his feelings on the line but letting me make the choices that were best for me, not him.

Watching his face was like plotting the course of a storm: anger morphed to rage to indignation and finally to understanding and compassion. Visibly willing himself to calm down, he said, his voice so quiet I almost missed the words, “We don’t have to do anything. If you aren’t ready, then we wait.” He took hold of my chin and chucked it, punctuating his sincerity with that simple movement of care and concern.

If I needed another reason to fall in love with him, that alone would qualify.

The problem was … I didn’t need any more reasons. I was lost and so far down the rabbit hole that nothing short of him walking out of my life was ever going to change that.

And I wanted him, so badly it hurt like a sonofabitch. I’d been waiting for him my entire life, I was sick and tired of waiting.

So I wailed, “I don’t want to wait!” and pounded the pillow in frustration.

He pierced me with that glinty blue-eyed glacial stare, the one that set my naughty nerve endings in spasms of turmoil, the one that hinted he had something in mind. Whatever was going on inside was a bad boy’s wet dream, because that slow smile spread across his features, melting my bones.

“You need to be in control.” My nether regions liked the way he said that… whisky-thick, two-pack-a-day raspy and raw.

Rational me was on the fence, going If you say so…

Girly-girl virginal me stuttered, “C-c-control?” Why my dear Mister van Horn, whatevah could you mean?

He pointed to the nightstand and waited. It took a few ticks of the internal kitchen timer to register maybe that’s where he stashed the condoms so I did the eyebrow thing and steered my way across his wakening cock and nice turn of hip. If he wanted me to dress him up in Trojan’s finest, I was pretty sure I could handle that job.

What was going to be harder to handle were the soft ropes coiled neatly around the foil packets. Coils that resembled old fashioned drapery ties, like what we had at home when I was a kid, but without tassels.

I liked tassels.

I also liked brass headboards with a sturdy tubular design, sturdy enough to maybe secure a willing submissive while the dom had her way with him.

I asked again, this time with more conviction and an edge of interest I wasn’t bothering to hide. “Control.”

Picking the evil lengths of restraint up with thumb and forefinger, I dragged the loops across his belly and watched the spasms of joy engorge his cock until it looked ready to burst. It was tempting to feast once more, enjoying the safe, the familiar, but Rob offered me a new taste sensation, one I wasn’t willing to turn down.

He scootched to the center of the bed and lifted his arms to the top rung, spreading them far enough apart that it looked uncomfortable even to my unpracticed eye. I kept the knots loose but he growled, “Tighter,” and nodded when his shoulders popped under the tension.

Testing the restraints he licked his lips and dared me to do my worse.

“Can I blindfold you?”

“I like to watch.”

Indeed he did. That made two of us. We needed the Bambi Bimbo who had obviously been on the other end of this contraption at some time in the past because SubRob wasn’t looking all that comfortable about his ‘situation’.

I asked, “Have you done this before?” and that got a ‘sort of’ shrug that told me he’d been the one doing the tickles and giggles, not mimicking a slugabed trussed like a Thanksgiving turkey.

That thought reminded me of Michael. He’d been a wham-bammer, a quick in-and-outer looking for quantity, not quality. I could count the number of orgasms he’d generated on one hand, and those had been from incidental contact and not a deliberate commitment to bring me, his life partner, any measure of pleasure.

I’d been left to my imagination and long hot showers for fulfillment.

My trusty sub interrupted that train of thought with, “Um, have you?” meaning had I done this before.

“Me, uh, no.”

Not that I hadn’t thought about it, the rope a little bit longer, stiffer. With a loop at the end…

Rob looked a lot like I felt: foolish, dumbfounded, naïve and turned on in spite of himself. He was kinda cute, the worried frowny face peeking out from under floppy bangs, anxious to see what deviltry I had in mind and half afraid he was going to enjoy it.

I suspected the other half was afraid he might soil the bed if I brought out the big guns … whatever they might be.

And therein was the problem. I had a shot clock in my head, I could dribble the shit out of a basketball with either hand and I was da bomb in the paint.

What I wasn’t was Taylor the Dominatrix Richardson from Blacksburg, Virginia. I’d never watched porn or read erotica. I didn’t wax graphic when talking with Cordie or my cousins.

I was looking at doing the down and dirty clueless as a box of rocks.

“Uh, maybe we should have a safe word?” He skirted around worried and landed on concerned instead.

“Rocks.”

I may have imagined he gulped and turned a darker shade of whoa shit nelly, but it was what I was thinking at the time. During the appetizer portion of the program he’d been all ‘Oooo, stop, stop now, oh please stop,’ so that wasn’t going to work.

There was always the mount the pogo stick and go for the quick burn, but I felt obligated to come up with something a little more creative.

After all, this was dessert.

That jogged my memory so I said, “Wait here,” and trotted out to the kitchen and the refrigerator. I was hoping to find a container of chocolate ganache that I could nuke to softness and then slather it everywhere I wanted to lick.

I muttered, “That would have to be a damn big container of…” but it was a moot point as there wasn’t any. I moved some bits and bobs around and hit the jackpot. “Ah, whipped cream.” My man had a sweet tooth. I pulled the bottom drawer out and checked the freezer for my buddies Ben & Jerry but found only a few bags of peas and assorted mixed veggies. And two trays of ice cubes. Bingo.

Armed with my treasures, I skipped back to the bedroom only to find both Little and Big Robert dozing.

Great, my career as a Dominatrix was called on account of boredom.

There wasn’t much left in the can so I gave it a quick shake and slathered Little Robert in a festive white foamy coat.

The other Robert bolted awake and nearly tore the headboard off its support, squealing, “What the fu—?”

Holding up the bowl of ice cubes, I grinned and watched recognition take hold. Then we both stared at Little Robert doing a jig as the foam fizzed and slumped onto his groin.

It was a lot like watching your soufflé fall.