Casey's Story

The character who sassed the author

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"Casey's Story," the fourth title in the "Mapping the Boundaries of Love" series and the third set at the casino, was challenging to write, in part because of the main character. This story was my strongest experience to date of "the illusion of independent agency," the feeling that writers sometimes get of their characters talking back and acting in ways that are contrary to the writer's intentions. While I know, objectively, that Casey is a figment of my imagination, at best an imaginary friend, when I was in the midst of the writing she felt very real indeed, with a strong will of her own and some objections to the story I was writing.

In "Off the Leash," Casey is a hard character to read: she's by turns wary of and enthusiastic about the swingers' convention that the gang is sharing the casino hotel with, and seems to know a bit more about the world of kink and fetish play than you might expect. In "Madeline's Awakening," she swoops in at the end to provide the after-care that Madeline needs after her gangbang experience, almost a deus ex machina (though as "Casey's Story" makes clear, she was hovering on the edges all along). It was obvious that there was more to her than I had originally envisioned — she was going to be the no-nonsense older friend who tried to keep Petra and Madeline in line and focused on the original intent of their girls' weekend; she turned out to be so much more than that.

"Casey's Story" is also Martin and Cynthia's story, though that arc is still opaque. I'm torn between exploring the couple at the center of Petra's breakdown in "Off the Leash" and letting them stay shrouded in mystery. If told just a little differently, "Casey's Story" could easily tip from a dark seduction into outright horror. (Where are Tom and Jane now? What happened at the old summer camp on Lake Makanogin, and what is its relationship to the Blue Haven Retreat Center in "The Contours of Desire"? I think I've talked myself into telling more of this story ...)

Casey careens from kink to kink, both in the back story of that summer of seduction with Tom and Jane, and at the SExC convention itself. There was a moment when Casey encounters a person in a rubber cat suit that I found absolutely fascinating, and I think Casey really wanted to explore the erotic possibilities of that costume. I had to put my foot down and say no, what was already more than 40,000 words of smut was not going to go on another 20,000 just so she could rub herself all over the smooth, supple curves of a woman in a rubber cat suit; I think Casey was disappointed in that, and I may have to give it to her in a coda tale.

All in all, while "Casey's Story" is odd, and its structure can be a little confusing with all the back and forth in time and some dipping in and out of reality (do not trust this narrator!), I think it works. While "Madeline's Awakening" remains my favorite of this series, "Casey's Story" is a close second.