by Naomi Darvell
(05/09/01)

Reading mystery novels -- for the real addict, at least -- is a voluptuous guilty pleasure. Hang around a mystery bookstore and you'll hear readers talking conspiratorially, like people swapping contraband. Fans follow their chosen authors, and also the fictional detectives, as if they were rock stars -- all of which makes it surprising how few mainstream whodunits are truly sexy.

Otherwise the books are packed with sensual delights, such as food and exotic locations. Someone might think the authors had been told to give pleasure every way except the erotic. Why? Maybe there's a kind of sublimation at work. In the olden days of mystery, detection would quickly lead to the drama of trial and execution. Remember Lord Peter Wimsey sitting up all night when the perp he'd uncovered was to be hanged? That's a little kinky, if you think about it.

Now, along comes Lauren Henderson: one mystery writer who doesn't believe anything is kinky. Henderson is one of the pioneers of "Tart Noir," whose writers define themselves thus: "Our heroines are Modesty Blaise and Emma Peel, our morals are questionable and our attitudes always need adjustment." Henderson's urban mysteries take us from theaters to art galleries to S&M clubs. Clean Sheets recently caught up with Henderson and asked her how she does it.

CS Your Sam Jones mysteries are wonderfully sex-positive. Sam and her friends enjoy various flavors of sex, including S&M and a bit of genderfuck. Sex is something these characters do unapologetically and with humor -- not, as so often happens in the world of mysteries and thrillers, as the reason they end up either dead or arrested for murder. Have you always been interested in writing about kinky sex, or did you get into it all while creating Sam?

LH The Sam books actually feature the least sex in my writing. I write for the Erotic Review in the U.K. and had a story in the Bumper Book of Erotica (U.K., also) last year. I tend to think that actual sex scenes, rather than what I call top-and-tailed ones, are too much for a mystery -- they unbalance the rest of the plot. Unless it's more a thriller and all about sex anyway. And the word "kinky" doesn't mean much to me. Unless you're using hamsters. The sex I write is just people having fun -- I don't classify types. Sorry if that sounds snotty, it's not meant to.

CS Mystery readers can be a prickly crowd: very particular about what they want to see in the genre. How have readers responded to the sexual content in your books?

LH They probably want even more! The fans, anyway. Probably other people pick the books up and put them down just as quickly after flicking through a few pages, but I don't get any nasty letters. I have a cervix mentioned on the first page of Black Rubber Dress, and an S&M club on the first page of Freeze My Margarita, so it's pretty obvious what they're getting into. Still, everything is always treated with humor -- the cervix thing is a joke -- so I think that makes it easier than if I were writing with tremendous seriousness. I try to avoid that at all costs.

CS Has the response been any different in the U.K. than elsewhere? U.S. writer Candace Bushnell -- or one of her Sex and the City characters -- has complained that too many English men like having their bottoms smacked. Are your fans in the U.K., for some reason, more prepared to accept a little S&M action in a mystery?

LH Yeah, that's because Candace Bushnell, I bet, dates posh public-school boys who were weaned on corporal punishment. Spanking in the U.K. is a real class issue. But certainly the big S&M nationalities are British, and naturally, German.

CS Sam is a powerhouse who can have sex outdoors all night, with a final orgasm in a taxi at daybreak. She's capable of tying a man up and covering him with whipped cream. But she also lets her boyfriend tie her up. How would Sam describe her own sexual orientation?

LH God, I got exhausted just reading that question! Sam definitely tires me out. Sam wouldn't actually classify herself -- she just does what comes next. Actually, in the first book I made her a bisexual, but my then-agent made me cut it out, which I now regret. But I was young and more easily swayed. I certainly wouldn't rule out her having a fling with a girl or two. Basically, she's an animal, in the best sense possible. Instant gratification. She's going to have to grow up sooner or later, but she's resisting it with all her might.

CS Sam, to judge from your descriptions, doesn't look butch at all. At the same time, she likes men who are more "feminine" than she is. What does she find so delicious about such men -- or should I say "boys"?

LH No, Sam is very pretty and can be femme-looking -- long curly hair, etc. Still, she does do a lot of welding, which covers the butch part. I grew up in the '80s, when all the prettiest male singers wore makeup -- Dr. Robert from the Blow Monkeys, the incomparable David Sylvian (Japan), Spandau Ballet, etc. So I like a bit of slap on a boy. Sadly out of fashion now, especially in the U.S. where men (generally) dress so goddamn badly! You'd think they didn't make a pair of trousers to fit in this whole country. I used to live in Italy and really miss the way Italian men present themselves as total sex objects.

And Sam -- like me -- has pretty catholic tastes. Hawkins, her policeman ex, looks like a battered Spencer Tracy. But Hugo balances her out very well. That's why they're still a couple (for now).

CS It's not only sex that gives your mysteries their special fizz; there's a strong dash of drugs and alcohol in the mix. Sam especially likes to do coke before having sex. Does she find drugs sex-enhancing, or is it just a particularly nice combination of pleasures? (I'm thinking of the trippy garden scene near the end of Freeze My Margarita.)

LH There's a good acid bit in Strawberry Tattoo as well -- I wouldn't recommend shagging on acid, though, unless you're very together. Sam is basically in overdrive most of the time and she likes whatever is going to turn up the volume -- as you say, a nice combination of pleasures, rather than "I can't shag if I don't have any coke."

CS Your writing is so sexy, even when it's not specifically about sex, that it makes me wonder what your inspirations are. What sorts of books do you find, let's say, stimulating? What about films or music?

LH Aaah, thank you, how nice of you to say so. I like vampire films and loud thrashy music and trashy pop music and La Femme Nikita on TV and Tanith Lee (best fantasy author I've ever read). But I also like the Cowboy Junkies and Anita Brookner novels and Eric Rohmer films -- that is, pretty subtle, understated stuff. The non-Sam part, in short. I too have pretty catholic tastes.

CS Can you tell me a little bit about how you do research on sex, fetish, what have you -- assuming you don't just pick it all up along the way? Any special sources of knowledge, written or otherwise?

LH Ha -- well, I do read a lot, and I love erotica. I don't actually do any specific research -- a few fetish magazines have enough material to give you ideas for the rest of your life! I love fetish clubs, too, and have friends who are pretty involved with the scene -- a friend of mine's bottom was on the first cover of Skin Two magazine. So I could always ask them questions if I needed to. But basically it tends to be a more organic process. I tend not to go out actually looking for experiences, but to let them find their way to me.

CS What are your favorite places to hang out and, shall we say, find character material?

LH Gawd. Anywhere and everywhere. Again, I don't go looking for stuff -- I don't say, "Oh, I need a scene in a fetish club," for example, and go to one. Instead I tend to have material stored in my head already and just pull it out when it's needed. I pick things up as I go. My heroines in the books tend to live a life not dissimilar to my own -- at least in that we go to the same clubs, like the same music, etc -- so I don't need to make stuff up for them; often it's something I've already done. Having said that, I do some basic research for the crime books -- hanging out on a TV set (Chained!) or a theatre production (Freeze My Margarita). But Strawberry Tattoo, which was set in New York, just needed a lunch with a gallery director and the rest came naturally. Apart from the gallery stuff, everything else was what I did in New York anyway.

CS Are you still writing about Sam? What is she up to these days? Has she discovered any new avenues of erotic pleasure?

LH Yeah, I'm just finishing the seventh Sam book. It's called Pretty Boy, so that should answer your question!

CS Time Out calls you "the dominatrix of the British crime scene." Are they just speaking figuratively, or do they know something? In other words, how much like Sam are you?

LH Heh heh. That Time Out quote was written by a friend and I told him I was much too lazy to discipline anything, which is true! But I do love fetish clubs and dressing up. I always say that Sam is like the cartoon version of me, which is the best answer to that I've come up with yet. She certainly looks like me.

CS By the way, do you own a black rubber dress?

LH No. But I have several vinyl ones.

"Can I lick your boots clean?"

I shrugged. "Be my guest." His face fell. "You filthy little piece of scum," I added, not wanting to disappoint. He cheered up at once and ducked down, tongue poking out of the slit of his leather mask.

He tasted of wine and whisky and smelled deliciously of a spicy aftershave, the lapels of his jacket silky under my hands. The things he managed to do to me, just with his mouth on mine, were quite spectacular. As I finally, reluctantly let him go, I felt as drunk as if the whisky on his mouth had sent my head spinning.

"Do all public schoolboys kiss like you?" I said. "If so, I've been missing out in a big way."

He started walking towards me. The dressing gown remained where he had left it, a puddle of black brocade on the floor. Behind it I could see the bathroom mirror, opaque, damp with the steam from his shower. Around him rose the scent of Issey for Men, warmed by his skin.

"I want to tie you up and cover you in whipped cream," I said.

"For God's sake, come inside," he said, darting glances up and down the corridor in a hunted sort of way."

"You're right," I agreed, "there's nothing to tie you up to out there."

He leant forward and started to undo my shirt. The scent of Issey for Men wrapped itself around us both, and under that was Hugo himself, which was just as good. My head was spinning. Hugo's hand slipped inside my shirt and closed around my breast.

I handed him the martini. "Do you know, if you grew your hair you'd look like Brad Pitt in Interview with the Vampire? I bet all the boys at school were in love with you."

"Sam, if you don't shut up I'm going to revert to type and give you six of the best."

"Promises, promises," I taunted.

This time when he kissed me it was the release of all the energy from the coke and a lot of other things besides. We couldn't let go of one another. Still kissing me, Sebastian started slipping off my shirt, his long fingers just as agile as they looked, one hand holding me tightly while the other caressed me so cleverly and delicately that I bit his full lower lip with pleasure.

I tugged harder at the belt round my wrists. It came loose and fell to the ground with a dull slither. Reaching down, I clasped Hugo's arms; they were still rigid. He tilted his head from side to side, heavy movements like someone shaking water from their hair in slow motion. I leant forward and laid a kiss on his swollen mouth.

I drew myself slowly up and down his body until we were both panting with excitement, all the while kissing him: deep, lingering kisses further lubricated by champagne. I trickled it into his open mouth and he licked the bubbles up with an eager tongue, eyes closed. The champagne made his lips seem moist and swollen, shining in the moonlight as if they had been glossed. Sitting astride him I drained the last drops from the bottle and looked down on him lustfully.

As he lit his cigarette, ducking his head to the match, he looked up at me from under his eyelashes, his big dark eyes unashamedly flirtatious. Les Thomson was a raging tart.