Leaving Vanilla

January 13, 2014 by E A Fow (Amazon) | 4.0 out of 5 stars

This review is from: he & She (Kindle Edition)

He & She is the story of K, a freelance musician/composer who has barely connected emotionally during his life, drinks way too much, and stumbles through his life as a 40 or 50 something in NYC. He’s very typical of a layer of the creative strata here in NYC, and rings true. He has a girlfriend Alana whom he is barely attached to and registers very few emotional ups or downs – until he stumbles across a dominatrix online. The frisson he feels e-mailing her, and then anticipating meeting with her breaks through his world, much to Alana’s dismay. She does not share his interest in BDSM and ends up falling by the way side as K becomes entrance by meeting and then submitting to his dominatrix. This is an interesting novel; it deals with the inner life of a man whose might seem to be living the single, creative dream, but who really has drifted through life, and the attention and focus he gains through submission manages to wake him up and give him purpose. For anyone interested in why people want to be physically disciplined or tied up, this novel is a pretty clear sighted view of a regular person who needs this. For a book based around BDSM, it is fairly light on sex and discipline scenes, but it is a real exploration of male disconnectedness and the spark that comes from stepping outside of the vanilla world.