Taming the Beast by Emily Maguire

"The Ancient Greeks believed that at the time of Creation every human being was made up of two seperate people, joined together in body, heart and mind. Angry that these creatures were perfectly content within themselves and therefore had no time or deference for the gods, Zeus tore them apart, seperating each whole into two halves. Ever since, human beings have been miserable and lonely, wandering the planet searching for their other half. Everybody feels dissatisfied and empty until they find the one person who completes them; once the match is made, they need nothing else. Not work. Not family. Not gods."

Taming the Beast
Emily Maguire
Serpent's Tail Publishers

A book review should never give away too much plot. Nor should it focus too heavily on detail. Atleast mine won't.

I think it's only right that I mention on this blog the books I read (many of which are based solely on desire, more specifically, how it twists and turns inside your gut before you have the courage to cut yourself open). The slags and I started this way you see, through books, until reading wasn't enough. The power of literature is seen however in our inability to put a stop to the books even now that we are fully formed slags.

Now, 'Taming the Beast', comes half way through a string of erotic novels that I have had enormous satisfaction/gratification (whichever you prefer) in reading over the past few years. And with time, those too shall feature here, though let's start with this one shall we.

It's about a student teacher affair, in it's simplest form. At it's most complex level, it's about how destructive, soul destroying, physically abusive, all consuming the power of desire is. About how desire trancends the passage of time only to erupt quicker and faster than anybody had ever anticipated. It's the Pompei of lust.

This book made me sad. And erotic books NEVER make me feel sad. This book made me question what it means to want somebody. To really want them so badly that you can't control yourself whilst with them. And It made me realise that desire is lethal. So sharp, so poised. A blink of the eye and you're gone.

The female protagonist, Sarah, is a vivacious, incredibly sharp and intelligent girl with a keen keen eye for literature. She's equally turned on by the sight of an enormous blossoming bell end as she is by Shakespearian sonnets. Now, dear reader, this is sexy. And these two desires combine to form her object of infatuation, Mr Daniel Carr (her english teacher). He seduces her whilst she's 14. So young and so mature, so innocent and so wise. The perfect afrodisiac. Splendid.

Then he leaves her for his wife and children. He leaves a hole in her heart. And the biggest mistake this girl makes is to mistake her heart for her pussy, which, in Mr Carr's absense, she fills with every possible size and shape of cock imaginable. Her greed for sex is something ferocious. The vast majority of this book centres on that time she spends alone and the latter part of the novel focuses on Mr Carr's returns, some eight years later, when Sarah is fully grown. And her vagina is still just as empty as it was when he left her. And the destruction begins....

But this book has me thinking. What if you desired someone so much that all lines of morality and desire vanished. What if you trusted someone so much that you could find pleasure in hurting them, physically hurting them. If this is the ultimate desire, the ultimate happiness, do we even want it?

If you could command somebody's body more than your own, would you? Can seeing someone suffer, making someone suffer, be the ultimate fulfiling of desire?

And how many of us are willing to hurt somebody we love in order to make them pay for the time they spent away from us, even when their with us?