Why Romance?

Sex is great. It can be fun or intense. It releases endorphins and gives you that glow. It’s natural, an instinctive urge. Yet, although many women nowadays are far more open about their desire, both for having sex and for reading about it, I think it’s also safe to say that when it comes to books romances still rule. And not just the erotic romances, although they’re my personal favourites, but romances in general. We may like it sweet or raunchy, naughty or full of intrigue, outside the box (or the bedroom), sometimes with more than two people, or with same-sex couples but most of the time we demand the ‘happily-ever-after’ ending. Let’s face it, the sex may get you all hot and bothered but it’s the resolution, the knowledge of the couple travelling on together, that satisfies the soul.

I think that, just like sex, the urge to want things to work out between couples is instinctive. Anthropologist Desmond Morris explained it by saying pair-bonding has developed in our specie as a survival technique. Man is not a solitary animal. To thrive we have to interact and cooperate with each other. Pair-bonding allowed the men to go off hunting, assured that their women, who remained behind, would remain faithful. They also no longer had to think of their companions as competitors, but could concentrate on working with them. For their part, the women would be assured that whatever their mates brought home was for the benefit of the family unit, instead of having to share with that hottie-hottie in the next cave.

Of course things have changed, with women working as much as men, but it’s still basically the same. We have the same needs, the same urges—the changes are simply geographical. The jungle is the office. Bringing home the bacon means a stop at the supermarket instead of killing a wild boar. The hottie lives in the next apartment or works in the accounts department at hubby’s company. Or at the wife’s company. We constantly hear stories of infidelity and destruction of the pair bond. Unfortunately that seems to be a part of the way society has evolved.

But when we read, it doesn’t have to be that way.

When we pick up a romance we want to see two people, soul mates, finding answers in each other, even when they didn’t know there were questions in their hearts. In the world the author has created we seek the triumph of right over wrong and reassurance that everything will be perfect, or as close as possible to it, in the end. Maybe it’s a higher standard than we sometimes hold ourselves to, but it seems to be what we crave, what we dream of. And we want it to last, which is why we end the books where we do, leaving what happens after to the imagination. Without romance, both the real-life and the made-up, the world would be a very boring and perhaps chaotic place.

So long live the romance, both between book covers and between our bed sheets, and let’s live our own happily-ever-after, in whatever incarnation we can!

Queen of the Night

The Night Blooming Cereus, also known as the Queen of the Night, is a desert plant and part of the cactus family. For 364 days (365 on leap years) it really isn’t much to look at. In fact, some people consider it to be downright ugly. It’s scraggly. The leaves and stems indicate its relation to other cacti but they’re flattened and seem almost sickly. It’s a rather unassuming shade of gray rather than a healthy looking green. The Cereus plant I remember had twined itself around the truck and lower limbs of a Poinsiana tree, and for the majority of the time it looked one short step away from death.

But once a year, on a moonlit spring night, the Cereus would more than make up for its previously slouchy, lack-lustre, appearance. On that night the tuber-like buds unfurled into huge, glorious, creamy blossoms and released the most unbelievably hedonistic scent into the warm night air. My aunt, who owned the plant, would make an event of it, and that one night of the year it was guaranteed I would be allowed to stay up late, even if I had school the next day. We would sit on the veranda, the small ‘whistling toads’ chirping in the background behind the adults’ voices and laughter. Aunty June would keep the lights dim and the Cereus blossoms, stroked by the rays of the full moon, took on a soft otherworldly glow. And weaving its way into and around everything was that heady perfume. It was magical, a moment out of time.

The Cereus hides its true beauty, only revealing it when the time is right. There is nothing contrived about the moment when the blossoms unfurl. Instead it is natural, primal. In Night of the Cereus, when Marcus and Melanie first meet, the scent of the Cereus provides a backdrop for seduction. For one night the restraints they customarily operate under are released and they experience passion as sweet, as deeply intense, as the scent of the flowers. Instinct draws them together and a chance encounter blossoms into a night of sex so overwhelming neither will ever be the same. But Marcus and Melanie each have secrets that could destroy their fragile connection, and just as the beautiful Cereus blooms wither in the morning light, so could their newfound love.

Warning! The night and the man aren’t the only things that are hot in this novella. The sex’ll make you want to turn on the air conditioner, even in the middle of winter!