Perriam wins Bad Sex in Fiction Award
Wendy Perriam won this year's Bad Sex in Fiction Award for her novel Tread Softly. More and more. In the cited passage, the main character fantasizes about her foot surgeon while having sex with her husband.
She lay back on the bed while he positioned himself above her, then she slid her feet up his chest and on to his shoulders - Mr Hughes's shoulders. She closed her eyes, saw his dark-as-treacle-toffee eyes gazing down at her. Weirdly, he was clad in pin-stripes at the same time as being naked. Pin-stripes were erotic, the uniform of fathers, two-dimensional fathers. Even Mr Hughes's penis had a seductive pin-striped foreskin. Enticingly rough yet soft inside her. The jargon he'd used at the consultation had become bewitching love-talk: '. . . dislocation of the second MTPJ . . . titanium hemi-implant . . . '
'Yes!' she whispered back. 'Dorsal subluxation . . . flexion deformity of the first metatarsal . . . '
They were building up a rhythm, an electrifying rhythm - long, fierce, sliding strokes, interspersed with gasping cries.
'Wait,' Ralph panted. 'let's do it the other way.' Swiftly he withdrew, arranged her on her hands and knees and knelt above her on the bed. It was even better that way - tighter, more exciting. She cupped his pin-striped balls, felt him thrust more urgently in response.
'Oh yes!' she shouted, screwing up her face in concentration, tossing back her hair. 'Yes, oh Malcolm, yes!'
In her acceptance speech, Perriam said, "I am absolutely stunned to win, particularly for a novel about bunions."
