The Problem with M?nages

I love m?nages.? I’m not alone in that.? Whenever I ask readers what their favorite types of stories are, inevitably, someone says “m?nage,” and everyone else agrees.? What’s the appeal?? Simple.? If one man is delicious, two or more men make a sensual smorgasbord.

I’ve always written M/F/M threesomes.? Other writers do other combinations, and they’re wonderful, too.? But, I’m selfish – I want both men concentrated on the woman and her pleasure.? You see, I always put myself into my heroine when I write, and I get the same wonderful sexual experiences she does.? Vicariously, of course, but I think you’ll get my drift.? As sexy as two men loving each other is, I prefer both of them totally devoted to making me a very happy lady.? That’s just personal preference.? Your mileage may vary.

For someone who’s been writing romance since 1990 and has been published since 1995, M/F/M initially created a bit of a problem.? As much as I love nice guy heroes, no one gets turned on by a wimp.? A good romance hero is not the kind of guy who’ll share his woman.? So, what could make him allow another man to pleasure his mate?

This was a sticky problem for me, and I tried various ways to get around it.? In the first M/F/M scene I ever wrote, the second man was actually an android the heroine had programmed to look and act exactly like the hero.? So, in this sense, the second man was also the hero.? But that was just one scene in an M/F story.

Next, I toyed with the idea that the two men were identical twins.? I thought that would make them identify with each other enough to allow them to share.? Plus, I gave them a reason they had to cooperate – the heroine needed the sperm from two men to conceive the heir to her throne.? My e-book from Changeling, Eria’s M?nage, was born.

Eria’s M?nage

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I gave the men personalities the exact opposite of each other.? Tad was the cool, calculating intellectual, and Brath was the near-Brute.? In fact, Brath hardly ever spoke in more than monosyllables and grunts.? But, that gave me something else that was a lot of fun.? They could pretend to be each other, and so my heroine could never be sure which man was doing what to her.

I followed that theme with a contemporary short that will be out from Harlequin Spice Briefs this year.? It involved two hunky men, one long, pitch-dark train tunnel and one very lucky woman.? But, again in the total lack of light, my heroine couldn’t be sure which man’s hands were where on her body and which man’s mouth was doing other wonderful things to her.

Menage on a Train

Other m?nage stories involved two men making love to the heroine, but neither were her eventual lover.? The guys were just doing their jobs, and doing them very well, indeed.? In Demons R Us, my heroine conjures a demon to get her ex-husband and his lover out of her house.? Instead of one demon two devilish men appear.? In payment, they don’t want her soul.? They want her body.? These guys even have wings, and one scene gives new meaning to “fly united.”? When they’ve done their work, though, they return to the underworld, and my heroine finds someone human who’s also devilishly handsome.

Demons R Us

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Elfin Delights shares a similar theme.? This time, the two guys are elves who’ve been sent to the human realm to find the missing elf queen.? They put my heroine through several sexual tests, and when she passes with flying colors, she gets her reward in the form of the incredibly sexy elf king.? It’s kind of a reverse role Sleeping Beauty.

Elfin Delights

Finally, I bit the bullet and decided to write a historical erotic romance where the hero made the conscious decision to share his woman.? I really, really wanted to be in an up-coming series of stories from Red Sage that told about the travels of a man named Trey across space and time, helping human couples find their happy endings.? I created Edward and Margaret Sinclair as the Victorian couple he’d join.? Edward and Margaret are deeply in love, but in that repressive time, neither of them was taught how to enjoy the marriage bed.? As a result, she’s shy, and he’s clumsy.? Not a good situation to create marital bliss.? Edward makes a huge sacrifice for his wife’s happiness – he allows a stranger named Treveylan to initiate Margaret into sexual pleasure.? And, he watches so he can learn how to satisfy his wife himself.? This story should be out later this year.

And then, one day, I just said, “Aw, what the hell?” and created a man from out of this world to join a married couple who haven’t been having much intimacy.? His name is It, and he comes from another world.? He’s green, and he can shapeshift into all sorts of human shapes.? He can even be part woman and part man and make both lovers happy at once.? The story is called Sexation.

Sexation

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So, you see, the problem of m?nages leads to a lot of different permutations and combinations.? All of them creative and lots and lots of fun.? And all of that fun is for me.

For more on Alice Gaines Visit Her Website at: http://home.pacbell.net/halice/

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