Competition No. 2658: Bed hopping

In Competition No. 2658 you were invited to submit a bedroom scene written by a novelist who would not normally venture into such territory. A wise choice, it seems: even literary giants come a cropper when writing about sex. John Updike was shortlisted four times for one of Britain’s least coveted literary prizes, the Literary Review Bad Sex in Fiction award, eventually scooping a lifetime achievement award.

You rose to the challenge admirably. The winners earn £25 each and the bonus fiver goes to Chris O’Carroll.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a gentleman in fashionably tailored trousers, the fabric cut tight across the musculature of his thighs, cannot readily dissemble his amorous inclinations when paying his address to a young lady who has aroused his interest. As the bedchamber door swung shut, Elizabeth noted the dexterity with which Darcy’s fingers undid a quick succession of unfamiliar fasteners in his male garments, thereby making further manifest his commitment to an agenda of congress. She shivered pleasantly as the tender skin beneath her gown anticipated the peregrinations of those strong, sure fingers. What he unveiled to her view was, she observed, both more and less than she had imagined it might be. The solid reality was more than the thing merely dreamt of, yet fancy had roamed to extremes no mortal could equal. Elizabeth’s breath quickened as she began to undo her own vesture.
Chris O’Carroll (Jane Austen)

‘Pluck the budded rose of my maidenhood, Bertie. Take me. I am yours.’
‘Right ho,’ I said.
Even to the casual listener this ‘Right-ho’ of mine must have sounded somewhat lacking in the appropriate vim and pep. I admit it. But the fact is a chap can’t simply march on to the tee and smite the ball straight down the fairway.