Crown of Thorns

If you're looking for romance, tenderness, or feelings other than degradation and pain, turn back. Make no mistake, this is an erotic tale, but there's nothing sexy or sweet about it. [a:Aaron Travis 311444 Aaron Travis https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png] is [a:Steven Saylor 42919 Steven Saylor https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1394768071p2/42919.jpg]'s nome de plume for his erotic tales, in which sex is distinctly observed from a male POV, and there isn't even a hint of romance. Excellent.Eric Christie is 27, blond, and beautiful. He's the product of a privileged Post-War upbringing. He has just been posted to the American Embassy in Istanbul, part of the Foreign Service, posing as an Interpreter, but whose real purpose is to engage in spy craft. He's still green and being tested, so he's charged with ferrying packages and looking innocent. On one such trip he sees Rezi, a brutish Turkish stevedore, and inexplicably falls under his spell. He starts a sexual relationship with Rezi, but to call what Eric receives from the Rezi as sex is almost misleading. Granted Eric is satisfied with what Rezi does for, or rather to him, but I suspect most of my GR friends would be horrified. I was mostly concerned for his physical wellbeing. Eric becomes a receptacle for Rezi's cock, cruelty, and apparently insatiable sexual appetite. There is zero care for Eric's desires or even a hint of the empathy one might show a roach. Quite frankly I'm not too sure that anyone would be able to withstand that kind of treatment with such regularity and function at any level. On a different level this works as a riff on [a:John le Carré 1411964 John le Carré https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1234571122p2/1411964.jpg] spy stories gone haywire; a Western fetishization of the “other”, in this case a larger than life, in sexual endowment, prowess, and appetite, of the Turkish brute; and as a window into a distinctly male perspective on erotica, so divergent from a female eye. Smells, fluids, and pain play an integral role, and those fluids aren't always of the clean variety. There will be no Happy Ending, but while recoiling, I also ‘enjoyed' this tale of abject abasement and degradation. The writing is that good. I'd also like to sign Eric up for extensive therapy and have Rezi have a visit with Michael from [b:blue light 17616585 blue light Aaron Travis https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1419111367l/17616585.SY75.jpg 24579825]. I did this as an audio performed by [a:Kevin Conner 362927 Kevin Conner https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png]. Perfect.