When my friends and I decided to start writing dirty stories, we didn't know it was called "erotic literature." Nope, to us it was just plain porn. It was just the three of us, though, Nicky Harrelson, Monty Strode, and me. We each were set on out-doing each other, and with no indication of what our stories might be, we all dropped twenty dollars into a kitty and whoever's was judged the best by an outside source would win the prize.
Three days later and we read them to one another. Nicky's was about a vampire slut who got off on fucking werewolves, Monty's was about a nymphomaniac who would walk the streets at night, fucking winos and the homeless until the wee hours of the morning, and mine, which I had titled
Mirror, Mirror
, was about identical twins who decided that the best way to know what it was like to have sex with herself would be to have sex with each other. Lisa McCardle was chosen as our reader, and by the time she was done I was sixty dollars richer.
"There's a website called 'Literotica' that you might want to look into," she informed me. "I read stuff from there all the time, and the incest genre is really popular."
"Thanks. I'll look into it," I told her. I gave her ten bucks for taking the time to read our stories, and once I got home I logged onto the Literotica website. Yeah, there were stories from every genre one could think of. I looked at them all, saving 'Incest / Taboo" for last. Once there, I looked at the many stories available. I read a few, four total, and decided that I could write just as competently as the other authors had. My first submission would be
Mirror, Mirror
, of course, and depending on how well it was received, I would venture out to other incest topics. That could wait, though, as I had an online algebra test due by eight. I lay my story to the side and took my test—I made an eighty-six, if you must know—and from there I watched
Rick and Morty
until it was time for dinner. Afterwards, I showered and played video games before calling it a night.
The following day I was back at school. I aced my Psychology exam and my English test, and then I was right back home. As I made my way to my room a voice called out to me from the room adjacent to mine, Grandma's room. Grandma had come to live with us after she, an English teacher of some forty years, had retired. Since Grandpa had passed some ten years back, Mom and Dad thought it only right that she live with us, and I was cool with that as well as I liked Grandma a lot. Part of her daily rituals was to take care of the house. She volunteered for this, citing earning her keep, so she would clean here and straighten up there. On more than one occasion she had found questionable material in my room, i.e. a "Pickle Rick" mini-bong and a couple of porn DVDs, none of which she told the folks about. She was cool like that.
"Yeah, Grandma?" I said as I entered her room.
"I found this today while straightening your room," she told me as she held my story aloft. "It's smut, David. Well-written smut, I'll grant you, but smut nonetheless."
"Sorry, Grandma. I'll do a better job of hiding it next time."
She laughed at my honesty, then asked, "Why would you write something like this, though?"
"Oh, me and some guys at school were just seeing who could write the best porn, is all. I won."
"Well, I don't see how," she said as she passed it back to me. In true teacher fashion, Grandma had taken a red pen and marked my mistakes. She had even assigned a grade to it: 84. "I would have graded it higher, but there were just too many damned misplaced modifiers."
I laughed at her. "Well, thanks for grading it. I was going to submit it to a website. Now I can polish it up before doing so."
"While I," she began as she produced my Pickle Rick bong, "feel a migraine coming on."
"Now that you mention it, so do I," I said, then followed her out to the back patio where we smoked some of her medical marijuana. It wasn't the first time we smoked together, and it sure wasn't going to be the last. I'll say this much for her, though: Grandma always bought the good shit. I mean two tokes and I was done.
We returned to our respective rooms. I made all the changes that Grandma suggested, but now I was facing another problem. Should I submit the paper as it was originally presented, that is, a stand-alone story titled
Mirror, Mirror
, or should I incorporate Grandma's assistance into it? I decided to go with the latter. I added the appropriate text and renamed the story
With a Little Help from Grandma
. I told her what I had done and assured her that I had not used her real name of Alice Bentley, but the fictitious "Pearl Diamond." She thought it was cute. Emboldened, I set out to craft chapter two of this story, never once imagining where it could go.
The second chapter involved the twins seducing their mother. My friends at school really got a kick out of it, and once again I beat out Nicky and Monty to take the top prize. I asked Grandma to look at it before I submitted it to Literotica, and she dutifully pointed out all the changes that needed to be made. I made them, added the text of her assistance, and submitted.
I noticed that I had twenty-three followers just from that first story alone. Hopefully the number would double with this latest addition, but I wasn't too sure it would. From what I could tell from other chapter stories, readership dwindled the farther along a story went. I didn't want to write a third chapter until I saw what kind of response this one got.
After three days it was published, and two days after that I was up to fifty-six followers,
and some of them even left comments
. Not only did I have seven comments on this one, but people had actually gone back and commented on the first, telling me how hot a story it was, how they looked forward to the next installment, etc. I immediately got started on the third chapter, the one where Aunt Linda comes for a visit and is indoctrinated into the fold.
"These are really some hot scenes you're writing, David. Have you experienced lesbianism on a personal level?"
"I've never had a threesome, if that's what you mean, Grandma," I told her. "I just write what I've seen in porn, plus my imagination of what the perfect scenario might be." She said nothing. "So, you think they're hot?"
"Certainly. Don't you?"
"Uh ... Yeah. Of course."
"Well, I should point out that, in your ignorance of lesbianism, you got a couple of things wrong there, such as dialogue and scene, but don't worry. I corrected them."
"And what makes you such an expert?" I asked her. She simply touched a finger to her nose, smiled, and handed me back my story, prompting me to near-shout, "You've been with a woman before, Grandma?"
"Your grandmother isn't the prude you'd like to believe her to be," she responded. "I've had many wonderful experiences in my day."
"That is the coolest thing I've ever heard," I responded. "I never would have thought it."
"Well, now you know, but keep it between us, right?"
"Hunh? Oh, yeah. Right. I'd never tell anyone, Grandma. Scout's honor." With that, I kissed her cheek and made my way back to my room where I immediately began adding in the additional text, including "Pearl's" declaration that she had dabbled in lesbianism, but the whole time I did, something kept scratching at the back of my mind.
Is Grandma actually getting off on reading my stories
? I decided to ask that very question at the end of my submission. If it proved to be true, it would open a whole new avenue in which the story could be presented. If not? Well, it's fiction regardless, right?
The more I thought on it, the more I came to understand that this story,
With a Little Help from Grandma
, was being written backwards in that
Mirror, Mirror
was not the prime component, at least, not anymore, but the writer and the grandmother were.
I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning crafting the next chapter of what may prove to be my magnum opus. I was quite proud of it, but I wondered how Grandma would react when reading the following:
As he had done on past occasions, David left his story under the keyboard of his computer so his grandmother could find it easily enough. She did, and after David left for school and his parents went to work, she sat down and began to read. She had surmised that Chapter Four would see the twins finally bring their father into the fold, and she was right. As she read, though, Pearl became aware of just how aroused the story had made her. Subconsciously, she began plucking at her right nipple, sending ripples of delight throughout her body
, etcetera, etcetera, and so on. I even added some cheesy dialogue between the two upon "David's" return home.
Once I was home, Grandma called out to me to meet her on the patio. Once there, she lit up a joint and had me sit next to her at the picnic table. She took a hit and passed it to me. I took a big one, then waited for her to expel the smoke from her lungs so she could begin telling me whatever it was she felt I needed to know.
"I went to that 'Literotica' website today so I could read your submissions." She took another hit just as I exhaled, then passed it back to me. "I was curious as to what you added to the stories before submitting them. That's okay isn't it?"
"Oh, sure, Grandma. It involves you, in a semi-fictitious way, so yeah, every right to know."
"Good. Thank you." Another toke, then, "I noticed the turn the story is taking, David. It is less about
Mirror, Mirror
and more about the grandmother and grandson."
"My Creative Writing instructor says that sometimes a story takes on a life of its own," I said in way of a reply. "I think that's what's happening here, Grandma. I think
Mirror, Mirror
was a gateway to a better story."
"Better in what way?" she asked.
"I don't know yet," I told her. "I'm still trying to figure that out."
"Well, it seems that you have
some
idea, considering what you wrote yesterday."
"I guess I was just testing the waters, Grandma. I can rewrite it, if you like."