Author Richard V Raiment, Interview & Excerpt

Tell us a bit about yourself...

I write under the pen name R V Raiment, the initials R V R being (in my view) nicely balanced and more importantly the V Raiment making the French 'vraiment' as 'truly' or 'truthfully'. Unable to sustain myself by writing alone I work in a high school in the UK, supporting youngsters with autism. I live and work in the outskirts of London, a city I love and regularly visit.

My own marriage is ostensibly an open marriage in which both I and my partner are free to engage responsibly in physical and emotional relationships with others, though in practice we have found that life leaves little time or opportunity for such encounters and - more importantly - having the freedom actually makes us less inclined to exercise it.

What are your most common story themes?

This is a difficult question to answer as I have tried to write from a broad and varied perspective. I have tried to read outside my immediate comfort zone - which began as a sort of Alex Comfort Zone - and challenged myself to try to write good stories on themes suggested by that reading.

Much of what I write is set in the past, especially in the years and centuries up to around 1800 before women began wearing drawers :-) and I suppose it is mainly hetero since that reflects my own preoccupations. "Jessamie", my 2003 prizewinner at Satinslippers.com was written around toys and the relationship between two hetero sisters. "Ghosts of Christmas Past", published in Cream, The Best of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association is a hetero tale of sex, infidelity and regret. "Third Person Singular", in Maxim Jakubowski's Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, volume 5 can only loosely be described as BDSM, I think, with gay male, lesbian and other threads woven into it.

My recent novel, Aphrodite Overboard, the Erotic Memoirs of a Victorian Lady, is a period piece, actually set around the time of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars though the heroine lives on into Victoria's age. (The 'Victorian' reference was at the request of the marketers :-) In it the heterosexual castaway Lady Susanna is (happily) compelled to play a part which involves her extensively in both hetero and same sex encounters. That, too, is a fairly common thread in most of my stories, since they are written from a perspective which sees any form of sexual interaction between consenting and empowered adults as normal and legitimate.

Which of these words best describes your stories:

Intimate - Yes

Romantic - Yes

Hardcore - No, though explicit. Rarely if ever 'icky' :-)

Humorous - Not as part of a humorous 'genre', but I have a sense of humour which shows, especially in my longer work.

Adventurous - Yes

Fictional (more fantasy or fantastic than 'real life situations') - Real life, I think, in general, but not often 'everyday' life.

Erotic - I love the human body and soul, especially that of 'woman', the heaven's gate through which life is first found and afterward delivered, beautiful beyond description whether young or old. I write predominantly for women, their opening a story of mine implying a tacit consent and an inviolable contract of trust through which I may lovingly and gently caress them. I have never known a deeper pleasure than to receive words from a reader telling me; "I finished your book last night and went to sleep with a smile on my face".

Here's a snippet of "Ghosts of Christmas Past", copyright Richard V Raiment, which was featured in the anthology Cream: The Best of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association and is at ERWA's Treasure Chest:

Looking at the body warm in bed beside me I remember all I have known with my lovely Jodie and I stir, blood flooding warmly where it matters, soft-inflating. I've always woken Jodie the same way, since the first delightful morning of discovery when I found her asleep on her back, one leg diagonally outstretched, one knee drawn up, the lovely sweetness of her sex smiling pinkly open, inviting and sleepy warm.

Not this time, though. This morning is different. The body beside me in a bed still warm and musky with the scents of our sleep and Christmas Eve fucking lies with its legs still softly together, and the difference is poignant, bitterly emblematic of the change between us. Only she drank as much, perhaps, as I did, last night, and I can coax her gently apart without her even knowing.

You can find out more about Richard V Raiment at his website, www.vraimenterotique.com, and in Open Marriage, Lipstick, and Low Necklines: R V Vrainment Discusses The Meaning Of Monogamy.