Anatomy of a Sex Scene: Moderation, Elaine Castillo

So Elaine Castillo is a literary fiction writer (who, I believe, has written a bunch of fanfiction in her life; I can just sense it; I know she has), and this installment of Anatomy of a Sex Scene draws on her second novel, Moderation. I’m going out on a leetle bit of a limb here: This sex scene isn’t a scene where the two characters have sex. TWIST, I’m full of surprises. Rather, it’s a scene where our protagonist, Girlie, has a sudden, very sharp fantasy about sex. I thought the writer did a remarkably good job with it, enough so that I wanted to take it apart like a horrible nineteenth-century resurrectionist and examine all of its organs.

The context:

Girlie Delmundo is the most guarded and the most financially successful member of her large Filipino American family. After years of being the best moderator of horrifying content at social media company Reeden, she’s recruited to work on content moderation for Reeden’s virtual reality company, Playground. Girlie always makes sensible decisions and never makes foolish ones, which is why she refuses to be attracted to her rich hot boss, William Cheung.

The setup:

Girlie’s sweet younger cousin has invited William to attend her, the cousin’s, birthday party. Girlie severely wished this would not occur, but once the invitation had been issued, she couldn’t contradict it without being rude. She hopes and assumes that William won’t come. (Un?)fortunately, he does, upon which a brief conversation and a long sexual fantasy ensue.

Finally she let herself ask it. “Why did you come?”

Now William let out a strangled chuckle, still looking down. “Oh, I don’t know—no life, probably,” he said, giving her the second and third thoughts.

Then he returned to her gaze, holding himself still. She watched him choosing to give her the first thought.

“You said—I was welcome,” he answered softly.

This business about second, third, and first thoughts is a callback to an earlier moment in the book where Girlie recognizes that William—who’s very guarded, like her—is giving her carefully considered answers. Not the first or second things it occurs to him to say, but the final, polished drafts. The intimacy of this moment is that she’s asking him a question that she hopes/fears will have a really personal (romantic) answer, and he’s choosing to give her that answer. They’re both taking down walls here, and both recognizing that the other person is doing the same. Which leads to:

One thought, arrow too swift, couldn’t dodge it: I want him to lick me open. She nearly doubled over with the horror of it, the jerky as a heart murmur horror-horror-truth of it.

Just what a great way to open up a sex scene. “One thought, arrow too swift, couldn’t dodge it” doesn’t work grammatically, but it works great to evoke what Girlie’s feeling, the urgency and immediacy of it. The syntax of that opening sentence is itself jerky, just as Castillo describes Girlie’s emotions being jerky. Not just jerky, but “jerky as a heart murmur,” something as vital to your continued being as a heartbeat.

The undodgeability of Girlie’s attraction for William is echoed by the sharp switch in narrative register. Up to this point, we’ve been watching an anxious, uncomfortable conversation, which Girlie and William are both navigating very carefully. But now there comes a hard swerve into an explicit sexual fantasy—it’s as shocking to the reader as it is to Girlie. And then it gets more explicit:

She was thinking, right there, in the modern fusion restaurant terrace: I want to see the tendons in his neck straining when he’s trying not to come in his pants while I’m jerking him off.

Here’s a second very explicit thought from Girlie, and Castillo smartly contrasts it with the setting to heighten the tension. “Restaurant terrace” creates one kind of picture in your head. “Modern fusion restaurant terrace” is much more specific and therefore much funnier—just, really not a place for jerking someone off! It’s the incongruity that makes this moment work.

Castillo gives Girlie one fast, specific fantasy that’s about her pleasure, and then one fast, specific fantasy that’s about the outward signs of his desire for her. As this passage goes on, and Girlie starts thinking more into the details of what she wants with William, we’ll see both of these genres return. She wants William, and she wants to have the clearest possible evidence that he wants her back. His desire for her fuels her desire for him, throughout this fantasy.

It was the acute specificity of the desire that made its horror. It wasn’t just the garden-variety horniness of someone who hadn’t fucked for at least six years, hitting her like a two-by-four across the temples; wasn’t just the baseline stupidity of the as-yet-unorgasmed thinking—knowing—that they’d be good together, that it’d be—good with him.

I love this little hiccup at the end here. The idea that they’d be good together is, in a way, more personal than the idea that it would be “good with him,” which speaks more directly to her experience. Not mutually good, but good for her. That’s a tough swallow for Girlie, because she has made a habit of forgetting what might be good for her and prioritizing what’s good for the people she feels responsible for.

When I read Elaine Castillo’s first novel, America Is Not the Heart, I remember thinking “this woman has written fanfiction.” And I am surer than ever after reading Moderation. The fact that this fantasy sex scene and the kissing scene at the end of the book are actually good and hot and not embarrassing, despite Moderation being a work of literary fiction, is the deadest giveaway. On a more micro level, “hitting her like a two-by-four across the temples” says fanfiction to me. That is a fanfiction-ass phrase.

Knowing it without knowing it, knowing it just because. Which was the stupidest way in the world to be wrong—and at this junction in history, the stupid ways to be wrong were, to say the least, legion.

Further brain hiccups from Girlie here—her mind is kind of stuttering over the knowledge she’s suddenly acquired, and she’s trying to intellectualize it. Too bad! You can’t! That’s not how attraction works! I find this bit very funny.

The upcoming bits are very long sentences separated by semicolons, so please bear with me as I break up these semicoloned sentences to have commentary about them. I’m sorry to the text for doing this to it.

It wasn’t just: I want to see what his face looks like when he’s fucking me. But unambiguously: I want to see his eyebrows tight together when it’s that good inside me he’s about to die from it; I want to hear that telltale shaky oh fu-uck when he’s trying not to come in two seconds; I want to see that glassy wet rapture-shock in his eyes the first time he fucks up into me and can’t believe it;

Here comes a whole parade of specificity, which Castillo queues up with the parallel structure of that opening sentence and the first part of the long sentence that follows. I love her unusual punctuation throughout the book—she’s using punctuation for sound, not just sense, which I always enjoy. “It wasn’t just” [colon]…. “But unambiguously” [colon]. Gorgeous use of punctuation to tee up the way Girlie falls into her sudden sexual fantasy.

Castillo zooms in on small details that give a sense of what’s happening big-picture here. They’re having intercourse, she’s on top, it’s fast and desperate—and Castillo’s not telling us those things. She’s giving us high specificity on the small details, like “his eyebrows tight together,” and letting us infer the rest.

I really like “that glassy wet rapture-shock in his eyes.” It captures the fast urgency of the sex they’re having, as well as the fact that it’s good enough sex to take William very slightly offline. This works especially well for these two characters, as they’ve been buttoned-up and guarded with each other. It’s particularly alluring to imagine such a guarded character as William losing control like this—which is what’s getting Girlie hot, in her fantasy.

I want to feel him on a live wire, clawing at then pushing away his orgasm like a needy animal, tensing up, being careful, holding back, wanting to make it last, make it good;

One challenge with sex scenes is that sex is a bit silly, really. All that thrusting! It’s goofy, if you’re not in the moment. As this fantasy starts to build to William’s orgasm, Castillo’s language captures the physical motions of sex with this series of rapid gerund clauses: clawing at, pushing away, tensing up, being careful, holding back. It’s a clever way to do it!

“Like a needy animal” doesn’t quite work for me—I can’t track what activity an animal would be doing that would make it claw at something and then push that something away. However, it’s another very fanfictiony phrase. I have seen it at the devil’s sacrament.

I want to feel the word shudder all through his bones when I say more; I want to hear that agonized oh—fuck when it’s devouring him at last, burning in his blood, want to feel him trying to be valiant, hold on, give me fair warning, I want to laugh a little just to make him relax, then laugh a little more just to hear him cry out at the sweet teasing squeeze of it, tender all around him, ah ah, I want him going to pieces inside me, pulsing apart, straining for it, holding on too tightly, wild for it, hard for it, afraid of it. I want to give him permission; I want him to let go; I want to let him.

More of that syntax that suggests the motions of sex! This passage catches some of the fun and affection that goes into sex, but it also gets at the climbing desperation of getting closer to orgasm, with the repetition of “for it” (four times!) in that second-to-last sentence and the repetition of “I want” in the final sentence. That final sentence is framed as her having, and him relinquishing, control (“I want him to let go; I want to let him”), which previews what’s going to happen in the next sequence, the one focused on her pleasure.

This is so smart! “Inside me” is the closest thing to explicit in this passage, but it feels explicit because you know exactly what’s happening.

Then I want him shattered under me after, shaking, depleted, eyes wide, face new and gleaming like he’s been slapped, shock-laughing from the good of it, the good-good-it’s-good of it.

“Face new and gleaming like he’s been slapped” is another phrase I really like. Rhythmically, this sentence breaks away from the repetitions of the last little bit. The phrases and clauses are all different lengths now; it’s clearly after.

She couldn’t stop thinking, like she’d been holding back the thoughts for so long they’d mutated inside her into something all-consuming, city-destroying, alarmingly narrative— No, before all that:

I’m including “No, before all that” here because I love it as a way to interrupt her beginning to reflect on what it means that she’s having these fantasies of William. Anyway, then we’re back into it:

No, before all that: I want him on his knees, I want him kissing up my tattoos; I want his tongue honey-wet and sure on my clit, I want to come at least five times on the flat of it, I want to be gasping for air, bucking up into the wave; I want to come too much, too quickly, and still not be done, hot as an over-sharpened knife, angry about it, the still-not-enough of it, arching up into the seal of his patient searching mouth, licking down to the core of the comb.

Again, many short breathless clauses all get banged together here to create a sense of urgency, with commas signaling events that are happening together and semicolons marking out progress or forward motion. The use of “honey-wet” early in the sentence predicts and makes sense of “the core of the comb” at the sentence’s very end.

I really like “hot as an over-sharpened knife.” I don’t have anything to say about how she’s using it here, I just think that’s a really smart, unusual simile.

I want to be desperate to come for him again but too sensitized to get back there so soon; scraped-down and thrashing with need, crying out finally from the hungry harrowed tongue-tip hurt of it, the more-more-more hurt of wanting it, the mine-mine-mine hurt of having it. I want to be panting, clutching, electric; I want to finally have to ask him to stop, wait-wait—and I want him to stop when I say.

Girl, don’t we all.

And then I want him to look up and ask, very patiently, in that soft, low, restrained voice of his: red, yellow, or green?

She thought; couldn’t help it, hurt to try: I want to say green. I want to; will want to; I know I will. She couldn’t shut it the hell up—the wet, wrecked, almost-dead heart of her. Murmuring green green green green green.

Just, what a banger of a closing paragraph to this interlude. (Heehee, banger.) The contrast between “the almost-dead heart of her”—because we do know that Girlie is very very closed off emotionally, that she does not consider the needs of her heart as she moves through the world—and the life and health and thriving implied by “green green green green green.”

Why This Scene Works

• Girlie maintains ferociously tight control over herself throughout most of this novel. Even when she’s interacting with a person who’s in no way a threat to her (like her younger cousin, a woman who has no power over Girlie and also worships her), she goes into that interaction with her shields up to ensure that she won’t take any damage. The reader has been somewhat aware of Girlie’s attraction to William, but here it comes bursting out of her like an avalanche, and the reader realizes its vastness and unavoidability—such that it overtakes her at her cousin’s birthday, the least convenient moment imaginable.
• Castillo’s choices of words and syntax are impeccable, and I specifically love how she uses both to control the timing of the reader’s experience of this sequence. The structure of her sentences mimics the action of the (imagined) sex. Her imagery is specific and unusual in ways that make the reader pause over it, and she does a great job of setting up an image in one line and then paying it off a few lines later. There’s a real elegance to her writing here that I just love.