Dog Days Are Beginning is an awful online novel
Please refer to Rebecca's "review of 'the dog days are beginning'" and "pink and more on 'dog days are beginning'" and "henry wolf's bad gay fiction" and I think I'm missing one.
But my point is that Rebecca's been covering Henry Wolf's "Dog Days Are Beginning" which is an online novel at Nifty.Org which offers LGBTQ erotica.
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Those are the 17 chapters.
She and I were talking about it and she had high hopes for it at the start. But then she ended up really hating it. I told her I'd give it a read. I also told her that, as a lesbian, I'd long ago learned to read while substituting. What I mean is that I knew I was gay in middle school -- and came out then. I didn't have computers and fan fiction to read. And it was the rare novel at the supermarket that had two women doing anything. So I'd read about some straight couple and I'd sub a woman in for the man. He penetrated her with his penis? It became she penetrated her with a dildo, etc.
I don't think that's uncommon for lesbians and gay men of my generation. We had to take what we could and we'd sub whatever we had to. There was one Jackie Collins' novel, for example, where I went through with a pen and changed a man's name to a woman. (Her novel Choices, by the way, did feature a gay character and I do remember him having a sex life that was covered in the novel.)
So I told Rebecca I'd give it a look.
What you need to know? Mark and Steve are a couple in the future. They are married. Mark is established at a corporation and making a good salary. Steve is just a little bit younger than Mark (they met in college) and he has just graduated.
Steve is having trouble finding a job. He keeps getting turned down by everyone -- and having hissy fits at home that Mark has to calm him down from. Mark says he'll check at his company and see if they have anything.
He does but it's just an internship. Steve leaps at that chance but Mark explains that it's only for subs.
Subs?
In this near future, there are Norms and there are Subs. Norms are people who have all the rights that you and I have. Subs are people who have no rights and are owned. You can choose to become a Sub.
Steve has no luck getting a job so he comes back to this Sub idea. As Mark points out, they do a little bondage and domination in the bedroom so it could be like that. Steve wants a job and is game. Mark cautions him that he'd actually have to legally become a sub, they couldn't just pretend.
So off Steve goes for a week of training. At the end, Mark shows up to take him home and first he and Mark sign the papers -- Steve surrenders all of his rights and property and Mark is now his owner.
The interns, we are told, just do menial
activities. We are told that before the training and after. But the
company's merged and, turns out, they'll be sex slaves and their uniform
is basically a jock strap and a collar -- they're all men, by the way.
Now when Mark took Steve home from sub training, Steve was shell shocked (Mark thought he had PTS) and wouldn't do anything, he'd wait for Mark's orders and he wouldn't get on the furniture because he was told subs don't belong on the furniture.
I'll come back to the plot but let me note problems.
This is erotica. That means sex. The two main characters are Mark and Steve. So you'd think we'd have scenes of them having sex. We really don't. Not once the sub dynamic kicks in. We go whole chapters without sex and we get only one -- out of 17! -- chapters where the two have sex as sub and dom.
Do you get how much of a problem that is?
This is garbage. It's garbage written by someone who's never had sex and who is probably a 28-year-old virgin.
It's so disappointing.
Once Steve starts being an intern, Mark changes. And that's fine -- if Wolf had followed up on it.
Mark's talking about how Steve's blowing it at work.
First a friend warns Mark so, at home, Mark tells Steve that from now on, at home, Steve will wear his slave/sub uniform and nothing else -- jock strap and collar. Steve thinks -- but does not say -- that this was only supposed to be for work.
Steve should have said. At any point he should have pushed back.
That's not me saying that Steve shouldn't have been a sub.
He should have. That's the storyline.
But there's no story without conflict.. And if Steve's not resisting or trying, what's the point. He's this aimless, do-nothing lead character and it's boring as hell.
After this, Mark then decides that he will call Steve "boy" and that Steve will always address him as "Sir" or "Master." It'll make Steve more of a sub.
Again, no resistance.
Then Mark is giving Steve orders at home so that Steve's doing all the chorse.
Then he gifts Steve with a padlock to put on his collar. It says "Property of Mark" on it. It's heavy and pulls Steve's neck down and he has to angle himself when he eats because the collar will otherwise scrape the plate.
Then, what should have been their first fight (they should have had an argument long before, but this really called for one), Mark is watching TV and, after cleaning up dinner, Steve joins him in the living room, sits on the couch and Mark informs him that a friend has warned him Steve's still not getting into being a sub at work.
Steve blurts out that he's tried and --
Mark cuts him off and says that, as a sub, Steve shouldn't be interrupting Norms. He should learn to be silent. He then explains that his friend told him that he should treat Steve like a piece of furniture. That would help Mark know how to treat Steve and help Steve learn his place.
Does furniture belong on the couch?
Steve's confused. You want me to sit on the floor?
Yeah.
This whole thing was ripe for an argument, ripe for Steve objecting.
That would have provided conflict and drama. Mark could have asserted his ownership of Steve.
Instead, pathetic and dull Steve just goes along.
He's the most passive and boring character in the world.
It was pathetic.
Mark never got to enjoy being a Dom once.
In chapter 16, the two finally have sex as sub and dom. Finally.
It's the stupidest thing in the world.
It should have been an erotic story about power exchange and the battles within over whether to give yourself or not and, if to give yourself to another, how much.
Instead it was so boring it was like that awful Alyssa Milano movie on Netflix.
Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
