Training to Pleasure by Julian Masters

 

Training to Pleasure had the potential to be a good story. Unfortunately, Mr. Masters was sorely in need of an editor. There are way too many punctuation marks! And lots of other odd punctuation that made reading and staying with the story a challenge. Also, compound words were seperated - so anyone was any one. That may sound like nitpicking, but it happened many dozens of times, making me stop and look at it, read through it again, and then realize how it should have been written. And there were other editing snafus, where it appears he reworded part of a sentence and didn't go back and fix the other part of the sentence to fit with the reworded portion. I could continue on with my problems with the  writing, but I'll stop there and get to the story.

The story is one of a woman brand new to the ideas of BDSM who finds an experienced Master online, and then follows as they begin a relationship. It's a cyber relationship for a few months, and then they meet and it becomes a real life relationship. The first part of the book had some pretty big pacing issues, as the action was pretty slow to get started.

Some parts of the story didn't work so great for me, but others did. Or, I should say, they really did. There is a scene where he gives her a taste of something she doesn't want to experience anymore of, and then tells her that he wants her to resist him. If she manages to keep him from taking her for thirty minutes then she won't get more of the bad thing. If she can't last the entire thirty minutes then the longer she lasts, the less she will have to endure of the bad thing. That turned into a very nice scene.

I also appreciated that we are shown two strong individuals coming together in a power exchange relationship. No one is broken, no one needs to be "fixed". One has a kink to Dominate, the other has a kink to submit. That's it, nothing is broken.  The training also has some Zen type stuff, some of which was a nice touch.

Here's the blurb:

Kate is hard working, successful, responsible and smart-yet something is missing from her life. The men she dates quickly bore her in and out of bed. A girlfriend loans Kate an erotic novel of dominance and submission that ignites a firestorm of longing and desire she cannot ignore. Perhaps she has been looking for the wrong type of man in all the wrong places her whole life?

Kate goes in search online, learning all she can about her need to surrender her heart and body to a truly masterful man. A chance encounter in a chat room leads to her eventually meeting James at a beautiful English country house and spending an exquisitely erotic week together that will change both their lives forever.Note: This story was previously released in 2003 under author name Sir Julian. It has been revised and extensively expanded.

Training to Pleasure was a nice story of a couple's journey towards a Master/submissive relationship. There is a little bit of well done puppy play, and a nice description of a colonic (kind of one step beyond an enema) that is also well described. Impact play is not a huge part of the training, but that's okay because the things done in place of impact play are quite creative and (other than a few instances) fairly well described. 

The poor grammar and lack of editing was a real problem for me, though.

BDSM elements:

• Bondage and Discipline: Yes, but nothing too extreme. 2 of 3.
• Dominance and Submission: Yes. 3 of 3.
• Sadism and Masochism: Yes. 2 of 3
• Extra Point: Yes.

As for the writing elements, the plot was the story of how the relationship progressed during their cyber chats, their first date, and then a week in a rented country home in the middle of nowhere. There were no outside influences, which was fine for this story. Pacing had some issues, there was the aforementioned slow start, but there were also too many info dumps and over-describing of mundane things that were not a big part of the story (another place a good editor could have come in handy). Prose had serious issues, dialogue flowed in most places but had issues here and there. Character development was fine.

• Book Rating:Training to Pleasure: 6 of 10
• BDSM Intensity Level: 8 of 10
• Heat Level: 5 of 5

  
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