Writing SMUT Abroad Part Two: Finding a God

Over Feeld a man has connected me via WhatsApp with a man called Hercules. He’s been to 103 countries and is the muse Erato of love and erotic poetry. He knows a lot about women’s sexual desire, intimacy, pleasure and fantasy. He’s slept with all the women I know. You should meet him to talk it will help you write your novel.

Being a writer is often a lonesome task, and I am not one to sit for many hours banging away on my keyboard struggling through wordcounts. During the drafting stage I seek movement, visual stimuli, conversation and weird social interactions – the result of which, often helped by daydreaming or the influence of various substances, culminates in the trance state necessary for the creative muse to settle on my shoulders and allow the words to flow easily. Athens, fortunately, is a grungy city fuelled with creative energy so I don’t have to go far to find inspiration. The entire city is full of ancient ruins, murals and graffiti and so many artistic events and festivals that our weekly calendar at the residency is overflowing with options. ‘There are five art and culture festivals one in one week!’ says our host Sara one morning. ‘It’s insanity!’

Over coffee on the balcony with the Bulgarian and two new arrivals from the USA, we discuss the art of creation. One of the Americans is reading my tarot, I have just pulled The Lovers. You are in a moment of creation,’ she says. ‘Relationship or art. Sex is a form of creation.’

The link between sex and creativity is strong, hence the reason why all six of us in this art deco apartment have complicated love lives. Making love to someone is an artform, and I raise this with the apparent Sex God, Hercules, over a Greek freddo coffee on a quiet treelined street at a Kypseli cafe full of locals drinking espresso and pastries. There are a lot of dogs, not necessarily designer dogs, but apartment dogs of small-medium breed sitting patiently at everyone’s feet while they speak to their neighbours about (according to my Greek friend) the costs of housing and their frequent flyer status. Life is not all that different to Wellington. ‘Truth is like a poem,’ he says. ‘But no one likes poetry. Great sex comes when you fulfil the women’s erotic needs, but most men focus on pleasing their own egos.’ He laments the fact that so many women only want him for his body. ‘It’s nice to be appreciated for my brain for a change,’ he says.

The search for a Greek man to photograph led to a variety of coffee dates, most with attractive men in their thirties or early forties who are more interested in fucking me than being photographed by me. But interviews carry me around this grungy electric city to roof top bars and cool local cafes. I learn that the unemployment rate is nearly 30%, that there is an influx of eastern European women into Greece due to the war and the women of Greece aren’t happy about it. I learn that the cost of living is high, that everyone drinks iced café freddo all day long, and no one visits the Acropolis.

After vetting several candidates, I have befriended a young man called Dionisis. He had dropped me a pin two blocks from my residency, along a tree lined pedestrian area filled with restaurants, dogs and children at 9pm at night. The pin turned out to be wrong. The ensuing text exchange became mildly heated to the point that I demand him to come and find me or I will leave.

This is so ungentlemanly, I say.

Your phone is ungentlemanly, he replies.

When he sidles up to me sheepishly we laugh and shake hands. He has deep brown eyes and a massive tangle of dark curls. Over a Mythos beer at a rooftop bar we discuss the problems with society, with nuero diversity and in particular, the need to mask socially. ‘I have to pretend empathy,’ he says. ‘I have learnt to mask it to meet people at their level. In truth, I often don’t care.’ He shrugs, in that very European way and we discuss the Burner community (those that attend Burning Man events) and the concept of thinking like an artist. ‘You don’t need to be an artist to think like one,’ I say. ‘The way you think, you are an artist. It’s about unique creative thought.’ He asks me what exactly I am going to do with naked photos of him. ‘A parody of the Sydney Sweeny sports ad,’ I tell him. ‘Do you know it?’

‘Of course,’ he says. ‘It is very sexy.’

A few days later we agree to meet at his apartment to eat Greek souvlaki together and take the photos. I am providing this address and your photo to my house-mates I tell him.

So that I don’t sell you into sex slavery? he replies. Or harvest your organs?

When he opens the door to his apartment he says, ‘Welcome to my dungeon.’ We proceed to take increasingly ridiculous photos of him, naked, holding various Folly books over his cock, in questionable poses with terrible backgrounds. I put a gold metal crown over his curls, the type sold at the base of the Acropolis. It had been sitting on the bookshelf at Argo residency. ‘You know these are from Temu right,’ he says.

That night I piece together a reel of this wonderful man saying Folly over and over again while holding the book, naked. I send the draft to the Folly Group Chat. Workshopping needed, I say. Is this funny or will it get us into trouble?

Isn’t that the point, one of our New Zealand based readers replies. I reckon the core Folly community will definitely get the reference and the joke.

Remember who the fuck you are, another team mate says. Well behaved women rarely make history.

It’s at this point in my residency when the words start to flow.