Pitch or Short Synopsis
Self’s Blossom by David Russell. A Romantic Quest of Self Discovery.
Self’s Blossom is a short novella in the erotic romance genre, with Selene, a woman in search of her sexual identity, as the vibrant main character. Selene is intellectual, independent, free-spirited and totally trapped in the limitations of her peer group and society. pragmatic best friend Janice describes her as a dreamer, living in the cuckoo land of her imagination. Desperately looking to find herself and get a bit of erotic adventure, Selene goes on holiday to South America. Brought to life by the Sun, sea and holiday atmosphere, Selene's first erotic awakening comes about through the ocean – “the spirit of love beckoning her with a pulsing sinewy body”. After this, Selene searches for a lover and has a brief sexual encounter with an eighteen year old local.
But it is her through her meeting with the American anthropologist Hudson that Selene' erotic nature is awakened and she explores herself on many layers. Hudson is her intellectual rival and mentor, and he introduces Selene to the other side of South America – the primal elemental energy of the carnival, the 10,000 year history of South American civilisation and the breathtaking and often cruel power of its environment and landscape. With Hudson, Selene's holiday adventures suddenly become fraught with danger and intrigue – she is threatened with death by hunters when she plays environmentalist with Hudson and his friends, she is bitten by a deadly snake when she goes exploring with him, Hudson has to save her from a barroom brawl with the locals which suddenly explodes due to a sexual indiscretion. The indigenous population have an entirely different culture and life-rule than Selene knows from her predictable friends in London. Although Hudson is the catalyst for Selena’s awakening, it is fair to say that she challenges him intellectually and opens his world weary eyes for the magic of the moment also.
Their mutual search for something beyond the mundane leads them both to the top of a South American pyramid, where Selena visualises herself as a modern God Queen and Hudson as her God King. They have both gone on a dangerous and fascinating journey down through time and braving a foreign culture and environment. It is therefore significant that Selene does not seek full surrender to her lover in the passion of the moment on the moonlit beach – in fact she slaps his face when he attempts to do so – Instead she wants their love to be fully consummated through the pampered and luxurious Western trappings of the hotel Bridal Suite. “True Seduction was total theatre”, “The true ideal lay in laced artifice” not in ‘ideals of naturalness’. Here, in the luxurious trappings of traditional Western romance and eroticism, the adventure ends and the God Queen and God King sublimate their experience like some modern day High Priest and Priestess and the alchemy is complete.
Knowing that they will be unable to ever rival or surpass this moment of absolute sexual apotheosis, the lovers now part and go their separate ways – Hudson to his job in the US and Selene back to London. But the author leaves us with a sense that more has been accomplished here than just a nice holiday memory for Selene and her lover. Selene can now return to the humdrum of her everyday existence and the emptiness of her London life with the alchemical blossom inside her – the Blossom of the self which has been totally awakened inside her. There is the very real sense that Selene will never be the same again after this.
More About the Reviewer
Miranda Moondawn, author of Mooniana and the Secret of the Lost Chronicles of Sophia. 1-7-2015 Copenhagen Denmark.
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