It's a tough job, but ... (etc)

Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy; gardener, dastardly toff, thief. Priests, politicians and pop stars; binmen, ballet dancers and the guy in the Bounty ad – in my capable hands, they become superstuds, one and all. Today I'm in the mood for ripping the uniform off a Coldstream Guard. Last week, I did something very distasteful to a young chef. And on Friday – thanks to all my ‘lovers’ - I’ll be submitting an invoice. Bellle du Jour? Nymph du nuit? Nope, I’m another kind of hooker altogether; my sexploits are literary, not literal.

I write erotic fiction. On the odd occasion I’ve come clean about my cheeky little sideline in ‘polite’ company, I’ve met with mixed reactions, ranging from disapproval to raucous guffaws, often via nervous laughter. Some folk get all twitchy and moralistic; others find it fascinating. One man, following a heated debate about the ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ of one of the oldest professions (I’m talking about writing, here) lambasted me for being a slut before downing gallons of Jack Daniels and ‘confessing’ his penchant for abusing prostitutes to the assembled crowd - when sex for sale in any form rears its bulbous head in public, the ensuing debate is guaranteed to get steamy. Meanwhile, back at the office …

I contribute to top shelf collections of sexy stories, ostensibly for women who like their men lusty, romantic, willing, able and respectful (ah yes, this is the stuff of good fiction indeed). But despite the ‘for women, by women’ ethos of my publisher, the majority of the books are bought by men for whom gynaecological images of bored housewives or hard-up ‘glamour models’ does nothing. I write for those who like their lovin’ served up with a bit of style - in other words, readers who appreciate the fact that there’s more than one way to stroke a pussy. Is it exploitative? Only in as much as the salary I’m on is pretty meagre – and there’s another myth busted.

I like to think I’m carrying on a tradition started by literary superstars such as Anais Nin, Colette or Marguerite Duras rather than perpetuating the myths served up by Nuts magazine. There’s a distinct art – a craft, if you like – to coming up with yet another euphemism for a hard cock (even DH Lawrence had to resort to the F-word when Oliver Mellors’ ‘raging manhood’ started losing its thrust), whilst at the same time ensuring that characters don’t mysteriously gain extra fingers or tongues en route to the climax, the condom is always politely in place when it comes and the prerequisite orgasm targets (female every 500 words, male every 800) are hit every time. But while I sincerely hope that the end result is as satisfying for those who read my words as it is for me to see them all coming together, I'm never going to have a fan base. I hide myself behind a pseudonym not because I’m embarrassed about what I do but because there are surprisingly large numbers of hostile strangers – both male and female – who don’t think I should be doing it at all These strangers write to my publisher on a regular basis, making their intentions very clear about the terrible things they’d like to do to ‘women like us’. And the flip side to the hate mail is worse: the vials of sperm with letters of thanks attached; the ‘love’ letters; the marriage proposals – I kid you not. The irony here is that the truly sinister, threatening stories don’t come from the fertile imagination of the storyteller, but from the minds of the self-proclaimed morality police or lonely men who are far, far more threatening than the fantasies that I supply people with.

But despite the downsides, it’s a great job. JK Rowling recently said that good fiction should be liberating, challenging and pleasurable, for both writer and reader; good erotic fiction certainly ticks all those boxes. Harry Potter and the Unspeakable Act? I’m working on it …