The reason I've chosen Mr Macfadyen as this Monday's Mancandy, is because he features in many a story in The Things That Make Me Give In. Or rather, he was the inspiration for at least two of the male characters, and I'm sure you can all see why:
So what I thought I'd do is marry my Mancandys with my book promotion in some sort of unholy union from hell, and give you all a little taste of in what way, exactly, Matthew Macfadyen inspired me.
He inspired me to write about a very, very naughty university Professor, who does very, very naughty things with his student, while looking a lot like Matthew Macfdyen, and a lot like Remus Lupin from the Harry Potter films/books. Tired looking tweedy Professors with hidden strict streaks are hot, I tells you!
See if you agree:
‘Go to the board behind me,’ he says, finally. His voice seems to...deepen when he does, but it’s hard to tell. Harder yet to understand what deepening might mean. That he realises he’s doing something wrong?
He’s about to do something worse, she knows. It’s obvious, even before he tells her to pick up the pen. Though maybe it’s just worse because she obeys, file now closed and pinned back to her chest.
‘Write fifty times: I must write less ridiculous love scenes.’
‘Is that what you think they are? Love scenes?’
‘I don’t know, Clara. Do you feel like you’re in love?’
‘Just shut-up, all right. I’m not doing this, you know.’
‘Fifty times. I must write less ridiculous love scenes.’
‘Don’t you mean fuck? Fuck scenes.’
There is a pause in between her putting the pen to the board, and him speaking next. It’s the heaviest one yet and she feels it pressing on her back– though maybe it’s just his presence that’s pressing, as he stands up behind her. Her legs are now trembling and buckling under the pressure, she knows, but God, at least she hasn’t cried in front of him.
‘Yes, I mean fuck,’ he says, and then too alarming to bear– he puts his hand over the curving top swell of her bottom.
The pen slides up on its own and makes a scything smile of green that isn’t meant to be there. The word scene on her first line is now ruined– she can’t reach most of the shaking mistake, to rub it out.
She goes to turn and say something sharp, but he then pats her bottom. He pats it, and says:
‘Keep writing, Clara.’
The face she had half-turned to him seems to want to turn back, but she doesn’t know if she can bear that. If she turns back, and keeps writing, what then? What then of flowery words and teachers and students and ridiculousness? This wouldn’t happen in her story. It wouldn’t happen. It’s too sordid.
It feels heavenly.
He just strokes her bottom, just slow, ever so slow and in circles. And when she makes fumbling marks on the board once more, then – oh, then – he begins to ruffle her skirt up, inch by inch.
Suddenly his mouth is at her ear, his breath as hot as her own insides feel.
‘What do all good romance heroines get, Clara?’ he says and for a moment she can’t think. She has no idea. Hand holding? Marriage? A yacht and three mansions and–
‘The hero!’ she says, and then is embarrassed that she has yelled it out, like a little apple polisher. Ever the A student, ever the good girl, and apparently also slightly more than the second string character.
Even if he isn’t the hero of anything.
‘And tell me, what are the heroes usually like, in a romance?’
She can feel herself shaking, now. He has his hand on the seat of her knickers, her skirt completely pushed up. As she answers, he strokes just one finger into the split of her buttocks through the material.
‘Aggressive. Arrogant. Dominant.’
‘And the women?’
‘Submissive. Pathetic.’
‘Is that what you really think? That they’re pathetic?’
His fingers strokes tighter into the crease, straining against the taut material. She gasps, and writes things that are not words.
‘Yes. Yes.’
‘And you hate arrogant men, cold men, nasty rotten rakes. You don’t like to write about them.’
‘I...find it hard. I find it hard to write about...dominant men.’
‘Shall I yank your knickers down?’
‘Yes! Jesus, yes.’
