Brava, $15.00, ISBN 1-57566-698-7
Historical Erotica, 2001

She’s lost it.

The author, I mean.

Gabriel’s Woman is a brilliant example of monosyllable erotica elevated into an art form.

No, I don’t know why I am writing like the author.

Who am I kidding?

The story is familiar.

Vintage Robin Schone.

Gabriel, one half of the gigolo duo (you may have met the other half in The Lover), is suffering.

Incidentally, the author just can’t seem to separate gay people from pedophiles, although not in the off-putting manner she did in The Lady’s Tutor, so people sensitive about this may want to take note.

Incidentally, that last sentence must be longer than any other sentence in Gabriel’s Woman.

Where am I?

The plot.

Oh yes. The plot.

Plot.

Plot…

Okay, I’ll stop that.

I will.

Gabriel is now a super stud, a reclusive one. He lives in this big scary mansion.

Our desperate virtuous heroine Victoria Childers comes to him.

She wants to auction off her virtue.

She wants Gabriel to teach her how to.

Someone needs to teach Robin Schone a new plot.

Danger in the house.

Blood. Vague ruminations. She sees blood! Blood!

Blood.

One finger. Two.

Three.

Four.

Does that feel good, Vicky?

I am suddenly reminded of back last year, when I visited a friend’s cow ranch.

I wished I could black out the scene of a cow getting artificially inseminated with what seems like a giant bazooka up her nether parts.

Thanks, Ms Schone, for reminding me of that scene I tried so hard to forget.

And this time, four fingers – or is it ten? – up both nether orifices.

I can feel my inside tubes all knot up just at the thought of that. Ouchie.

Eeeuw eeuw eeuw.

I mean, I’m all for four fingers.

But when the author does it like this:

One fingers, two fingers, three fingers.

When she does it like that, when she does everything like that, I am reminded vividly of my first year med school cadaver dissection.

“Erotic” is far from how I will describe my experience.

In fact, try “wet fish”, “formalin”, “inexperienced gynecologist”, “Pap Smear test,” and “that incident in Reinaldo Arenas’s book Before Night Falls where this guy got a baseball bat shoved up his nethers and ends up in hospital with a badly ruptured colon”. These are the thoughts that play in my mind as I read Gabriel’s Woman.

I think I’ve lost my appetite.