What’s in a Touch?
When I was creating the story arc and characters for Saving Luca, Book three of my Pansy Park series, I knew the narrative would be around Luca, whom I’d introduced in the previous book of the series, Daddy in Love. Luca was on a path of self-destruction and my vision was to bring in a coldhearted Sadist, the perfect avenue for Luca to continue on his path of self-worth. In came Cain, twenty years older, filthy rich, a mammoth physically who’d been in the BDSM lifestyle his adult life and was renowned for the creative ways he inflicted humiliation and pain. I had no plans for Cain to become Luca’s love interest. I’d planned for two other Doms from Daddy in Love to rescue Luca physically and emotionally. But as anyone who writes books can attest, oftentimes the characters write their own stories. Sure enough, Luca began to melt Cain’s icy heart and by the end of the book, they were in love!
In Saving Luca, Cain isn’t hands-on because of his reputation for treating his slaves as property. Now that the dynamic changed drastically between him and Luca, when it came to writing the sequel, Healing Luca, I had to think of a reason why Cain still remained hands off literally.
My conundrum got me thinking a lot about the notion of touching not only in a physical sense but the emotional and psychological aspects of touching in a relationship. Being a submissive in a D/s relationship, I can only speak from my experience. In the world of BDSM, every Dom and submissive has their unique idiosyncrasies. But I think I can safely generalize that for a submissive, the physical touch of their Dom is key in whatever shape or form it might take. For me, when he puts his hand on top of my head, just that gentle physical connection settles and grounds me like nothing else. I’m reminded of being in submission metaphorically under his hand and it is the most freeing feeling I’ve ever experienced. My mind clears of anything that might be bothering me and I’m able to reside in a state of calm in the knowledge my Dom takes care of me. Although I was always aware of how my Dom’s touch settles me, I’d never dug deeply psychologically about it until I had to write Healing Luca. My further pondering made me question what if my Dom wasn’t able to touch me for some medical or psychological reason? That would be incredibly difficult to resolve in a relationship founded on dominance and submission.
As a result, my curiosity for personal reasons along with my challenge for my book had me doing some Internet research. It didn’t take long before I came upon a phobia known as haphephobia, which is the crippling fear of being touched or touching someone else. Not only would the phobia give me a reason to cement Cain and Luca’s love. But it raised the question as I neared the end of Healing Luca. What next? Although the story ends in a happily ever after, it wasn’t truly an HEA as long as Cain wasn’t able to physically touch Luca. As a result my new crossover series was born—Obedience. Touch is book one, and picks up with Cain and Luca, deeply in love and Cain in therapy for the first time in his life to overcome his phobia.
Feel free to go to the contact section on my website and send me an email with your comments either as a submissive or about writing… or really about anything. As long as you’re welcoming of an alternate lifestyle and queer authors, I’d love to hear from you! 💕
