Some Tom Sharpe sex scenes

[inevitableentresol]

On request, here are some brief excerpts from a couple of Tom Sharpe books, namely the sex scenes (or almost-sex scenes). I think he writes this subject pretty well.

The first quote is from Ancestral Vices, because that's the better book.

In this, Walden Yapp is a university lecturer with strict socialist ethicial standards. Away from home, he finds himself lodging in the house of the well-endowed but married Mrs Rosie Coppettt, a lady of low intelligence. This causes him to fall into a rapid and severe moral crisis as he becomes infatuated with her.

Thanks to his Mother's high-minded neglect and his aunt's devotion to low-Church ethics, he regarded such affairs [concerning sleeping with students] with Puritan contempt. Which was all very well but he still had to cope with his own sexuality and in all honesty he had to admit that it wasn't exactly pure either.

At one level it expressed itself in delicate feelings for, and distant devotion to, women who were already marrried and took not the slightest notice of him, while on another, more sinister plane it erupted in fantasies and irrepressible daydreams in which he did and had done to him acts of such remarkable sensuality that he suffered pangs of guilt and the suspicion that he was probably a pervert. In short, Walden Yapp at thirty was still in matters sexual at the age of puberty.

As an antidote to these uncontrollable fantasies he worked harder than ever and, when the strain grew too great, indulged in what he had been brought up to call self-abuse. Fortunately he had, as part of a seminar on Sexual Discrimination in the Cotton Industry 1780 to 1850, inadvertently read R. D. Lang and had been reassured to learn that the eminent psychologist considered that masturbation could for some individuals be the most honest act in their lives. Not that Yapp was wholly convinced. Individualism conflicted with his own collectivist views and in spite of some semantic juggling with Doris [his computer], who suggested that the two views might be combined in masturbation, Yapp felt strongly that interpersonal relationships, preferably on a communal basic, were essential for human fulfilment. His instincts thought otherwise, and continued their solitary and disconcerting irrational eruptions into consciousness.

And so, lying in bed free from the actuality of Mrs Coppett's abundant presence, which had so frightened him, his imagination transformed her into the passionate creature of his fantasies. In fact she corresponded all to closely to his imagined lover, particularly in her lack of intelligence. It was one of the things that most baffled him. He might worship at a distance women of pure morality and high intellect, but his lusts were aroused by mature women with no morality or intellect at all. Mrs Coppett fitted the bill exactly. In his imagination he was in bed with her, he was kissing her extensive breasts, her mouth was on his and her tongue...

Yapp sat up in bed and switched the light on. This wouldn't do. He must put a stop to such irrational dreams. He reached for the folder containing the family correspondence Lord Petrefact had sent him and tried to exorcise the images, but like some welcome succubus Mrs Rosie Coppett was not to be denied. In the end he gave up, turned out the light and tried to act as honestly as he could.

Unfortunately, the incredibly loud squeaking of his bed soon calls a halt to his honesty on that occasion.



The second extract is from The Gropes, a book that isn't Sharpe's best but has a rather touching sex scene in it. In this extract, Horace, an unpreposessing middle-aged man is on the run away from his wife with a suitcase of money which he has hidden from her. Up until this point, Horace's experiences have led him to believe that women aren't interested in sex apart from those few 'nymphomaniacs' one of whom he'd very much like to meet. In Barcelona in his hotel bar he encounters Elsie, a friendly middle-aged woman with her own story.

"My old man was a bloody brute. Used to knock me about something horrible. My name's Elsie, by the way, and you are?"

"Bert. Are you staying here?"

"I rent my house in summer and I stay in the hotel."

There was a pause while Elsie looked round the bar. There was no one else there.

"If you come up to my room I'll show you what that bastard husband of mine did to me." She pulled back her blouse and Horace glanced at a large breast.

"Which floor?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm right at the top and at the back."

"In that case we'll go to mine. It's one floor up and the view is better. Anyway, I've got another bottle of this stuff up there."

They went up in the lift and Horace was surprised that Elsie nestled up close to him although there was no one else with them. As they entered his room he was even more surprised when she locked the door. The next moment she'd taken her blouse off and was busy removing her bra. He gaped at her and groped for the Glenmorangie. She stopped him.

"That's for afterwards," she said.

He sat down on the bed. The whisky was taking effect.

"What do you mean, afterwards?" he gasped. "After what?"

"After what we've both been longing for. You don't imagine for a moment that I don't know what effect a pair of binoculars staring every day at semi-naked girls and practically salivating over them can have? Oh yes, two people can buy binoculars. I followed you and was watching you when you bought them and the moment you came out I went in and bought and even more powerful pair."

She laughed as he stared at her.

"But where were you? I didn't see you."

"Of course you didn't. Look over there at that red umbrella. I cut a hole in it and I look through it every day with a towel over my legs to keep the sun off."

Horace stared at her even more intensely. She was lying on the bed with only her panties on.

"Why did you pick on me?" he said.

She smiled. "Because you're an innocent, my dear. Because you are a typically English innocent - and shy with it. One thing I am certain of: you're not going to hurt me. I've had enough of sadism. Now get undressed and we'll make love."

Horace went into the bathroom, had a quick shower and came out naked and pink. As they clasped each other and Elsie squeezed his scrotum gently, Horace had his first glorious orgasm for many years. He rolled off her and knew he had fallen in love. By the time they went down to an excellent lunch he was made happier still by the knowledge that he finally knew what passionate love was and that Elsie's room was not far away.

By the way, it ends badly for both of these men, and exceedingly so. But not for Elsie, who gets one of the few happy endings I've ever read in a Sharpe novel.