The book follows a pattern of bits of Sarah’s life interrupted by increasingly hard sex as she struggles to deal with the affair that awakened her sexually. It has its sexy moments and its wretched moments, and I do not doubt that was the author’s intention, but as a result Sarah becomes quite two-dimensional. I don’t mean that as a cruel and overused trope to indicate that her character is flat. I mean she has two very well developed dimensions: intelligent, witty lit-girl and kinky, submissive slut. Of course, the two play off each other and we see how much of an effect her favourite books have on how she lives her life, but there is not much else to her. The other characters are sketches that revolve around her. Even the dry, older teacher who struggles as much with his love/lust for her as she for him does not jump out enough to make me interested in him either as a tragic lover gone wrong or child-fucker you love to hate. Sarah’s existence outside of these two dimensions seems vague and undefined; there are pieces to put together, but at the end of it all, I was left feeling as if she was nothing but sex and classic books.

I will admit that a few of the sex scenes—especially those that come later in the book when Sarah is all grown up and pushing close to the edge of madness—had sweaty adjectives I appreciated, but there was just too much of the stuff. This should never be a complaint, and I almost feel like a bitch for saying it. Maguire is not at all bad at writing sex, but she overloads herself, stuffing it into every possible page. There are times when I can feel the clichés sneaking up on her like a midnight molester; there is just no need to go directly from biker-rape in abandoned factory straight through to football-team gangbang. I know what she is trying to do and I appreciate it; there are some awesome passages where she gets into the real sickness of the wanton sexual desire that overcomes some of us against all reason and morality. I just think that it could have been done with subtlety instead of blunt-force trauma to her poor character’s sexy parts. Not only would this make the sex sexier and the yuck yuckier, but it would also leave more room to develop background, other characters and the kinds of things that would make it all come together more coherently.

On the upside, “the new bad girl of erotic fiction” (according to Esquire UK) does have a sexy portrait on the back cover. The open mouth and blowjob eyes definitely push it over the edge to at least a two out of five stars (or vibes, or whatever). Does that make me a chauvinist?

image courtesy of Project Gutenberg

I do not know exactly where Editor-in-Chief Laura Roberts found a copy of Career of Sin, a dusty paperback with a thick smell of old soured pages, nor do I have any real information about either the author, Marvin Rhodes, or the book itself. In fact, all Google brings up is a list of Laura’s books to read. I wonder if she gets to cross it off now?

When she handed me the book to review, I was thinking bad 70s smut and dreading it a little. I mean, there is bad and then there is 70s bad which, while bordering between hilarious and inexplicable, is a state of its own that I don’t think I am really old enough to appreciate.

The back of the book, starting with bold red font declaring that “IT TAKES ALL KINDS…” and then in smaller, darker letters to tease the minds of those who would pick it up off a table of used books, continues “…to satisfy a man-eater like Mary Lynn.” The rest of the blurb consists of short descriptions of her lovers: the raunchy millionaire, the virile young sculptor, the gigolo “whose vices were as far out as her own”—I take it you’re getting the idea? This did nothing to ease my mind about what I was getting into. It might seem strange to dread something so deliciously cheesy, but I realized that if I was going to review it, I’d have to actually read the thing, not just appreciate it as some 70s artifact. Could I stomach it?

This was my mindset going into Mary Lynn’s career of sin: the gory trials of her rise from a New Orleans prostitute to a swanky New York socialite/conwoman, and all the sexiness in between. Right away, I noticed something off about what I was reading—or at least different from what I had expected. There was too much talk about getting kicks, gold rococo, eunuch butlers and people saying things like, “I’ll give it to you straight, Cookie.” I flipped back to the copyright: republished 1970, original copyright 1953. Things begin to make more sense, and the artifact got a little dustier, a little more brilliant. Not to suggest it isn’t cheesy; it’s a nonsense game of cons, husbands, wives, madams, eccentric billionaires all constantly trying to swindle each other either out of their money or into marriages. There are blackmail schemes that literally swing back and forth between characters by the page, and the sex, while no doubt racy for the era of the birth of the suburbs, is muted soft-core stuff for us today. Still, the talk of kisses that send convulsive flames down to Mary Lynn’s vitals and her pursuit of “kicks” via a never-ending series of chess-like mind-games and confidence moves have an awesome fedora-tipping quality that couple well with the knowledge that this book was probably once hidden under a mattress or behind an encyclopedia. This is exactly the kind of cheap, smuggled filth that undoubtedly helped to inspire the Baby Boom.

She’s whispering this in my ear, up scary close and I try to realize where I will go wrong. I know my first mistake was getting into bed with her and hoping it’d be innocent. There’s nothing innocent about Mrs. Fred, she sold her innocence to whoever paid for her first cosmetic alteration. Maybe Mr. Fred, maybe not. She’s saying all this to tempt me, tease me, she thinks it’s kind of hot. It’s kind of having the inverse effect, I delude myself successfully. She thinks she’s got this one in the bag, mouth-ripe, figure that could be a portfolio for her surgeon and big wolf eyes vs a scared little college boy too weak to stop his tent and too young to know how to hide it subtly. I think she is too quick, too hungry. She’s got fuck-you-Mr.Fred, not fuck-me-Mr.Case in those eyes when she tells me about his exploits, venting what she hates about him while trying to rile me. I kind of worry and ask if he ever hurts her.

She says yes, but not much and she likes it, she thinks that will really get me going. She’s mostly wrong. Well maybe not, but I know it should sound like she is. I feel the flicker of a challenge here, the chance to resist. Stubborn bratty competitiveness ignored by that little white spark you get from doing the right thing. This bitch thinks she can take me? Please. I am better than that. I don’t even tell myself I could have better, younger, if I want. It’d be a lie and besides, I don’t need a girl. I don’t need anybody. I should just kick her out and jerk off, I’m too nice but I do threaten to demote her to the couch and lock myself in the bathroom. She whispers something naughty about at least getting the satisfaction of hearing me moan through the door. She’s pulling out the heavy-hitters now, batting her big eyes, pouting her big lips.

It’s a close match, back and forth, touching, licking, seeing who can hold out the longest. She’s fighting playfully, young kinky sport, but I am playing for dear life, the underdog and thirsty for the title. Fuck sex, Victory is the money-melon. Every time she gets close to beating me out I tell myself that I will not, she can not, and besides that it’s not the right thing to do. I win round after round, it’s almost dawn before she starts to get frustrated. Upset. I enjoy it, she’s getting a little teenager-ish herself, coming at me cheap and dirty, easy to resist, even easier to enjoy though. She gets genuinely upset and masks it with forged sadness, pretends she’s sad she can’t be with me when she’s really mad she can’t use me. I get over-confident and then she drops her knock-out punch, catches me right here it hurts.

“Do you want me to beg?”

I go down for the count. The bout is hers, she can have me. To hell with fidelity, to hell with my immortal soul, everything melts and quivers and reforms inside me when she says that.

She’s a graceful winner, she could have easily drawn the fight out, teased me until I was prostrate or just walked out without finishing me off, doubling the injury of being KO’d with the insult of not actually getting any despite caving in. Instead she keeps her stance and plays the sad housewife who likes it rough but really just wants me but now the pity for that in me is all drained away, gone with the will to fight. Fuck being a man, fuck the right thing, fuck victory. Fuck Mrs. Fred’s mouth. She could easily of tortured me for fighting back, could of made her bitch. Instead she lets me keep the pretense of being in charge. Somewhere deep in spine I think this is all a sick little charade but most of me uses her and enjoys it. She says she likes it that way, might as well ride the boat. right? Her eyes say fuck-you-Mr.Fred-and-fuck-you-Daddy-and-fuck-you-too-yes-you. I am embarrassed and bitter and resentful but her mouth is so warm and her eyes so goddamn sad and hungry. I don’t take long after all the teasing. Once all the horniness is gone the hate and bitterness and poor sportsmanship spread like a government-designed disease.

It’s morning now and time to get up. I slip on my shirt and she goes to the bathroom to clean up. At this point, I have lost everything. She has no doubt gotten perverse but very hot pleasure out of being the puppetress while I poorly simulate a dominating personality. The only thing left is for me to hand over the physical prize to compliment the mental thrill of victory. I tell her we shouldn’t, lacking motivation. I delight in the pure selfishness of what I am doing. She senses that I might be one of those really childish sore losers. She awakes for a kiss, I tell her I never liked making out, she says that’s not what she meant, I blush.

She says

“Please.”

I say

“No.”

What can I say? I’m a sore fucking loser. I buy her breakfast, at least. Pretend to treat her nice, we chat about things. She tells me a story of seducing someone famous I’ve never heard of, trying to ease the sting of failure. She smiles at me over coffee and French toast; we will never speak again.