I wish it would rain, so I could go out and sing “Singin’ In the Rain”. D-uh, I am happy! My deadline just got postponed by a week, so I can calmly write all the stuff and go ahead with actually testing it all before committing any of it. Trust me, that’s so comforting, I can think of other things right now.

Like going to the Book Fair tonight. Or of kicking some alien poo-poo in Halo. Getting a cable connection at home. Thinking of things to buy with my up-and-coming credit card. And not thinking about the seven things I gotta do. Heh.

I got into this semi-argument with Navs today morning, on YM. He has been reading Stardust, not the film rag, but the Gaiman novel, and in the first chapter or thereabouts, there is this love-making episode. Pretty innocuous one, too. But Navs felt that it was Out Of Place. “An adult comic book with a love-making scene? What is this – Harold Robbins or something?” , and “It’s ok if the story merits it, but a scene out of the blue! I wasn’t expecting it.” and “If I wanted a sex scene, I would rather read Playboy or Nancy Friday.” and “Ian Fleming never wrote more than a line whem it came to Bond’s sexcapades.” and words to that effect.

Hmm. Now I had a slight problem with that. Frankly, I just couldn’t see why he had a problem with it. I mean, look at this, this is the scene in its entirety.

She said nothing. Dunstan pulled her toward him, wiping ineffectually at her face with his big hand; and then he leaned into her sobbing face and, tentatively, uncertain of whether or not he was doing the correct thing given the circumstances, he kissed her, full upon her burning lips.
There was a moment of hesitation, and then her mouth opened against his, and her tongue slid into his mouth, and he was, under the strange stars, utterly, irrevocably, lost.
He had kissed before, with the girls of the village, but he had gone no further.
His hand felt her small breasts through the silk of her dress, touched the hard nubs of her nipples. She clung to him, hard, as if she were drowning, fumbling with his shirt, with his britches.
She was so small; he was scared he would hurt her and break her. He did not. She wriggled and writhed beneath him, gasping and kicking, and guiding him with her hand.
She placed a hundred burning kisses on his face and chest, and then she was above him, straddling him, gasping and laughing, sweating and slippery as a minnow, and he was arch-ing and pushing and exulting, his head full of her and only her, and had he known her name he would have called it out aloud.
At the end, he would have pulled out, but she held him inside her, wrapped her legs around him, pushed against him so hard that he felt that the two of them occupied the same place in the universe. As if, for one powerful, engulfing mo-ment, they were the same person, giving and receiving, as the stars faded into the predawn sky.
They lay together, side by side.
The faerie woman adjusted her silk robe and was once more decorously covered. Dunstan pulled his britches back up, with regret. He squeezed her small hand in his.
The sweat dried on his skin, and he felt chilled and lonely.

(c) Neil Gaiman . Reprinted without permission, but I am sure he wouldn’t disapprove.

I found this very descriptive, yes, and also very “literary”. Nothing titillating or vulgar about the whole thing. And yes, isn’t it infinitely better than saying – “Dunstan kissed her full on her burning lips. They made tender love in the moonlight. And as the stars faded in the predawn sky, they lay side by side.” ???

Again, I don’t see why it’s wrong to have a love scene in a fairytale, adult or otherwise. (try reading Anne Rice’s Sleeping Beauty series, with its graphic s&m scenes and you will know what I mean) Besides, it’s hardly plausible to see characters in any book behave like Disneyfied nincompoops – or to read an author who is descriptive when it comes to explaining the internal working of a Walther PPK, but coughs away certain aspects of a character’s daily(????) life because he wants to preserve the sanctity of Holy Humanity as laid down by Her Late Royal Highness Empress Victoria.

Hmm, or was it Navs pulling my leg?