SCENT-U-OUS YOU!! ~ Why I write sensuous romances

SCENT-U-OUS YOU

Aloha everyone, I was thinking about the question of why I write sensual or erotic romances. It’s because I love to be enveloped in sense-sations and scent-sations and emotions.

I want to be carried away by the entanglement of desires and feelings sweeping through me as I write and hopefully through the reader too. Rolled up in the velvety feel good of sensations in their many forms.

I was asked a question a while back, “When was the last time you were really happy?”

It was a good question and one I couldn’t really answer.

Again today, I was asked what gives me pleasure. Um… Can I get back to you I wanted to say, but thankfully our session was over. Saved by the bell!

Because the truth is…I don’t know anymore. A death in my life has left me with some gaps in my sense of self and my senses. Sometimes I feel like I’m tick-tocking back and forth through the day, just waiting for the end of it and the oblivion of sleep.

But it got me thinking about various things regarding pleasure. What do I love? I love to travel. LOVE it! But as my current teleporting skills are on the rusty to non-existent scale right now, that’s out. I love my American home State of Hawai’i. I miss it. The ocean, the trade winds, the color of the water, the easy going atmosphere on the island, the cruisy people. I wondered what I could do to connect with a piece of home?

I could dig around for my hammock, unroll it, find the hooks… um…somewhere, get the hammer out and bang in other hooks to hang it… And then perhaps also see if there’s an umbrella large enough to cover the balcony in the rain… Hmmm.

Or I could try an easier way and access a piece of home through smell or taste.

I went to the supermarket and tried to find a papaya that wasn’ t the size and shape of a football. (American) No such luck. Right, so scrub that idea. I had visions of a gorgeous sensuous bright orangy pinky papaya with its black gooey seeds cut open, scooped out, fresh lime juice squeezed over to bring out the flavor. Yum. It’s a favorite at breakfast for me at home, or when we go down to the beach. Slices of sticky, sweet, local papaya with lime on the beach. Gorgeous.

I trundled down an aisle and noticed the guava juice—hmmm, that might work. Guava is one of my Hawai’ian things. I always have it at home. Sometimes by itself, but often in POG—a local drink made from Passion Fruit, Orange and Guava juice. The instant smell of the guava transports me back to the island in under a second. Heaven.

I used to go to our local post office here and they have gardenias growing outside. I’d pick a bloom and slide a toothpick into the stem to put behind my ear. A whiff of the rich velvety smell would hit me every time I moved. I always wear a bloom behind my ear at home in Hawai’i, but often it’s plumeria. The fragrance gives me an instant hit of home.

And while the guava drink didn’t give me more than five minutes of pleasure, it was a start in a life that’s doing its own version of Fifty Shades of Grey.

It got me thinking about each country I’ve been too. What gives me an instant hit? Tiny pleasures, but things that give me even a few minutes of feel good. I have to start somewhere in my quest to feel alive again.

When I’m in England, I always order the full English for brekky. Lovely full rasher bacon, poached eggs, fried bread, cooked tomatoes, black pudding. Toast with marmalade. But the best bit for me is the pot of Earl Grey Tea with real cream. That hit of bergamot from the steamy hot tea (made with real boiling water, as compared to “artificial” as hot as it came out of the tap warm.) It’s glorious. A cup and saucer, nice thick cream then the pour of golden Earl Grey, the king of teas for me. Lovely.  

In Ireland it’s the smell and taste of potato and bacon soup, so thick you can stand a spoon in it. A smoky bacon smell with the base of onion and possibly leek, and served with the thick grainy Irish Soda Bread, buttered with half an inch of pure Irish butter. I can feel my teeth sinking into it now. I do like a lot of butter, we need fat in our diet. My mum always had toast with her butter. We used to joke about the teeth marks in it. LOL.

In France, it’s the crispy croissant, shards of buttery flaky pastry that explodes in your mouth. My test for any croissant is that they must still be crispy at four in the afternoon. I eat them without anything on them…heaven. And the crunch of a French baguette. No one in the world makes bread and pastries like the French. Even the fairly plain ham baguettes at the service stations are FABULOUS!!!

Singapore is not ONE taste but hundreds. But it’s ONE smell. “Once smelt, never forgotten.” It’s a conglomeration of steamy heat, scents, spices, lifestyles, clove cigarettes, perfume. There’s a particular smell to Singapore and it’s exotic, sensuous, luxurious. Rich and still the aura of the ‘Mysterious Orient’ to it. The hawker stands have some of the best food in the world. That combination of aromas can jet me back to Singapore in a heartbeat.

Nearly everything has a smell or sensation to it. BMW’s have a particular smell to them. Bourbon always used to remind me of my ex-boyfriend Neil. Then the RV trip to Kentucky with my late husband Aaron. Eating green spearmint leaf lollies always reminds me of mum. She always got herself a wee white paper bag of them every week at the dairy. It was her treat.

I write what I do because I want to feel…alive and have hope. I want to be reminded that there’s a vibrant urgency out there in life and once I was part of it… and hope to be again. And that gorgeous relationships are part of life and will be part of mine again. And one day I'll be back to being a fully sensory being, breathing in life, reveling in a new taste for life. 

 www.troikaromance.com

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