Page 54 of You Had Me at Chateau
We do. We’ve got the fun, flirty banter down for sure, but I’ve always been great at that part. It’s what happens next that I can never quite pull the trigger on.
26
I’m sitting in Caleb’s romantic chalet, with Caleb (who is objectively gorgeous), by a lovely warm fire, eating chocolate, drinking wine, surrounded by a whirlwind of free products, clothes, accessories – all sorts of things. Oh, and I’m getting paid for it. A situation like this should, in theory, make any woman the horniest she has ever been, right? At least from the point of view of writing spicy scenes, but despite Caleb agreeing to help me try to get the ball rolling, nothing is happening.
‘I hear it happens to everyone,’ I joke.
Caleb smiles. He’s lounging on the couch, looking every bit the cool-guy influencer he is, while I’m staring at the empty notebook he gave me, trying to figure out how to even begin writing a spicy scene.
‘Tell me what the characters are doing,’ Caleb suggests.
‘Well, they’ve just found themselves trapped in a beach hut together, and it has forced them to talk about their feelings, and they can’t resist each other any more so they end up kissing,’ I tell him. ‘And then it sort of fades to black.’
‘So your editor wants you to actually write the sex scene,’ he replies.
‘Yeah, but I’ve seen the amount of detail these spicy writers go into, and it’s a work of art,’ I tell him. ‘But it feels right. It doesn’t feel right for my book – take this scene here for example. The two of them were chased into the hut by a giant crab carrying a broken bottle it picked up from the beach. It would be weird and jarring to suddenly launch into a graphic description of her riding him reverse cowgirl.’
Caleb snorts so hard his wine looks like it’s about to come out through his nose. He coughs and splutters.
‘You have to warn a man, before you say something like that,’ he says with a laugh.
‘I’ll know for next time,’ I reply with a smile.
At least he finds me entertaining.
‘Honestly, Caleb,’ I sigh, pushing the notebook to one side. ‘These scenes are so much more difficult to write than you would think.’
‘Really?’ he says, disbelief edging into his voice. ‘Isn’t it just like… descriptive dirty talk?’
‘Oh boy,’ I say with an overly dramatic roll of my eyes. ‘If I even dare to think that is true, and I try to write something, I am quickly reminded that it’s basically a skill people either have or they don’t. And I don’t.’
‘All right, let’s give it a shot together,’ he says, sitting up and grabbing a notebook. ‘How about: “She gazed into his eyes, her heart pounding as he leaned in closer…”’
‘“…and then the giant crab sideways walked in, and asked them if they wanted him to hold the camera”,’ I add.
We both burst out laughing.
‘Go on then, what happens after she leans in?’ I prompt.
‘He takes off her bra?’ he suggests.
‘Does he take off her top first?’ I ask.
‘No, shedoes,’ he continues, like he might be on to something.
‘And then?’ I press him.
‘And then he… he… sucks her tit?’
My sharp intake of breath is louder than I intended it to be.
‘Okay, even you don’t sound convinced by that,’ I tell him with a laugh. ‘That sounds so blokey.’
‘Well, how else do you say it?’ he replies.
‘I don’t know, that’s the problem,’ I insist.
‘If you were going to ask me to do it, how would you ask?’ he says, trying a different route, but it’s a route that makes me think of Caleb ‘sucking my tit’ and it takes all of my strength not to blush or babble.
