WIWAW: Mama's Beach House

What I Wrote and Why - Mama's Beach House

To be honest, a WIWAW essay was never something I thought I'd post. Mostly because I thought none of the back stories to my tales were interesting enough, nor long enough, to fill the requisite 750 words.

But as I was doing a re-edit and reformat to submit Mama's Beach House on other venues, I got to thinking about the story's origin and just how formative her influence and interest was for me as a writer at the time. Maybe it's interesting enough for a WIWAW, maybe it's not. But I think maybe I sort of owe it to Corrine to tell it.

Mama's Beach House is an 18K word story about a divorcee who needs some help packing the house, and the only one available is her son's best friend from college. Over the first day and a half, they get reacquainted and during their chats; he reveals that he's had a crush on her for a long time. That night, the long neglected wife slips out of her nightie and asks if she's still worthy of his crush. The sex and the story unfold from there with our main male character, Jake, doing his best to treat her like she'd always deserved.

Corrine Eastman, the female main character in my May/December tale, is based on an actual woman that I knew when I was young, whose real name is, of course, not Corrine. At the time she and I were acquainted, she was a gorgeous forty-four-year-old married redhead who lived in my neighborhood and always reminded me of the actress Stephanie Powers. I was her daughter's study partner when we were in community college. My relationship with Corrine was purely platonic, though I had an incredible crush on her. She was a bit of a tease and was never shy about stepping out in bathing suits when I was around, much to her daughter's chagrin. Anyone familiar with my stories knows that lovely mature women are my bag, baby, and it could be accurately said that Corrine was the start of that.

Fast forward a lot of years. After two years of college, I moved around a bit, got married, entered the service, and lost track of Corrine and her family. But, about five years ago, I got a friend request from her on Facebook. Corrine is now in her 70s and is a widow. It was delightful to hear from her and we chatted frequently then, and still do. My wife and I have started a little hobby farm and the Eastman's had done something similar, so we had lots to talk about. We talked about the farm, my wife and kids, her daughter and her late husband, whom I hadn't particularly liked when I knew him.

After a month of getting to know one another, she asked me a rather pointed question. She wanted to know if I'd had a crush on her daughter back in the day, who had apparently claimed that I had. Her daughter was certainly pretty enough, but a little too stuck up for my tastes, and I told Corrine that. Then I told her the truth. That it was her I'd had a crush on. Based on her response, I'd say she was quite flattered and excited by the idea, but it eventually faded from our conversations.

A year later, I began my Literotica journey, starting work on the first iteration of the story that eventually became My Beautiful Debbie, which is the story of how I lost my virginity to a married older woman. It was rejected by Laurel three times, and I nearly gave up on the whole writing idea. Corrine and I talked, and I told her about my disappointing start to writing 'amateur fiction'. After a lot of questions, I eventually admitted that the story was erotica. As it turned out, she's a fan of the genre and is into some really kinky stuff. ???? Our conversations got progressively more personal after that.

After I told her the issues that I was having with my writing, she suggested I shelve the project and move onto a new story and that she would be my beta-reader. I was open to it and we batted a few ideas around, but our tastes are wildly different. Finally, on a phone call one evening, she just said, "Write a story about you and me, if I hadn't been married when we knew each other."

It really surprised me and I told her so.

"You had a crush on me, right? Surely you had some fantasies?" she said casually. That's when I told her that the story would feature hardcore sex and a lot of it. I heard her giggle. "I sure hope so."

So Corrine became my muse. We batted ideas around until we settled on the best friend's mom trope, and the beach house setting. I took a page from the TV show Grace and Frankie, where the main character's husbands come out as gay after decades of being married. Corrine thought that was hilarious when she read the first chapter of the rough draft, which ended after the first sex scene.

Corrine is smart and well read and knows good writing from bad. That first draft went back and forth a dozen times until it was done, adding more sex, a bit of romance, and a bittersweet ending. She did no edits herself, just emailed me a critique each time. More of this, less of that, make it rougher, make it sweeter, and for pity's sake, learn when to use a fucking comma! I still suffer from comma ineptitude, but luckily ProWritingAid helps me sort that out pretty well.

Both of us were thrilled when Mama's Beach House was posted on its first submission. Now, over two years later, it's still my most viewed, most commented on and is rated very well.

Corrine still follows my work, but most of it isn't what she's into. The Ravishment of Melody was her idea, if that gives you any clue where her tastes lie. She sends me critiques every now and again but doesn't comment on Literotica that I'm aware of.

I suppose this is a rather long-winded thank you to my lovely red-haired muse. I'm not the quitting type, so I'm sure I'd have gotten published at some point, but she sure helped things along. I hope she reads this. Thanks, you old tease.

Rob