I love stories about sex and sexuality, including what happens after lovemaking itself, be this afterplay, affection, growth or moving on. Whatever the genre, sexual connection often has a transformative quality. This week, I thought I'd mention a few authors who write beautifully about an after-sex moment, and today, I'm going with the wonderful Erin Cressida Wilson, who wrote the screenplay for Secretary and, along with Lilian Ann Slugocki, published (and carried out) The Erotica Project.
This excerpt is from Wilson's microfiction piece, entitled The Shell, and it contains some magical realism I find powerful. During a tender climax, a woman produces a shell, which lands in her lover's palm - a gift:
"He held it and turned it, and moved it in his hand. Later, he took it out and laid it on top of the bureau. And when he left in the morning, he forgot to run his hand along the top of the bureau.
He forgot to take the shell they'd worked so hard to make.
She sat up and watched this happen."
Shells, of course, can be deeply erotic symbols. It's said Venus was born from one, and the female sex has often been likened to one in shape. Plus the sea is seen as a powerful sexual symbol, all rhythm, salt and shifting tides. But of course, what Erin Cressida Wilson really appreciates here is the transformational power of sex and the sense that something is made from it. Be the process easy or difficult to achieve, what is born from intimacy is precious.
And that's why afterplay can be so meaningful, I guess.
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