A Peek Beneath the Duct Tape: Spy vs. Guy

Hmm, where to start? Should I begin by reminding you that my model for Guy in Spy vs. Guy is the same fellow I used for Finvarra in Ethna Redux, fetish model Perish (Click the pic for a link to his Model Mayhem gallery)? Or should I begin by telling you that I haven't had this much sheer fun writing an EMC story since Solitaire? Gay men are always a blast to hang out with.

How about detailing all the trouble I went to, trying to find the right sort of EMC fetishists to proof me on my m/m sex scenes, before finally turning to two long-time friends from entirely outside the EMC community? I've done my best to reward the two of them, both with thank-you's in the credits and by addressing their various requests/concerns in the bulk of the story. The slash fan asked if I could let her favorite couple in on the fun, which I did (disguised, of course); and Jordan's "boner" gave my usually-blasé orc pal a literal case of the willies, so I added a "P.S." at the bottom of Chapter One to reassure my male readers that no, it really didn't hurt at all. Certainly not like this would, anyway. ;-P

Speaking of Jordan, I'm sure any of you who've seen The Crying Game know exactly where I got the idea for his big reveal. Oh, and if you happen to like Jaye Davidson (as I certainly do!), you might enjoy this lovely pic.

But there's so much more to this story, so many little geeky references and in-jokes that you might or might not get. The Monty Python and Star Wars shout-outs are pretty obvious, but I wonder how many of you will catch the nod to Stephen King or to the Village People's second-best-known song, much less the "I see your schwartz is as big as mine" moment. ;-) Then again, I suppose many of you are young enough (or Mad-illiterate enough) to miss the significance of the title itself. :-/

I've already discussed the origins of this story in an older post, so I won't repeat myself here. I'll just note the add-on's that occurred to me as I was writing, like the symbolic possibilities of the Samson and Hercules stories (Each of those scenes is "real," though obviously twisted to suit my purposes), and the Freudian connotations of various weapons - which I also played with in "Ethna Redux," as I do hope some of you noticed.

I also toyed with including Jacob's sexy tussle with that angel - it's always seemed to me that the angel let him win, as proven by how easily it disabled him in the end with just a touch - but I ditched that idea before writing a word of it; it was just too much for the story to take. I did, however, sneak in another crypto-homo-biblical reference split into halves, just to make it a little tricker to spot...though I do hope some of you will spot it. I like to add the occasional Easter egg to my stories; unfortunately, sometimes they're so subtle that no one catches them at all (as in Queen Bee Becomes a Drone - I'm really going to have to go back and spell that one out one of these days. In the meantime, please, someone let me know you figured out Morgaine's real identity!).

The design of Wylde's retreat was one of those happy cases where my subconscious did a lot of the work for me, and my conscious only twigged to what was going on toward the end. For those of you unfamiliar with the symbolism of houses (especially in dreams), they signify the totality of a person's soul or self or whatever you want to call it. I didn't realize at first just how appropriate it was that the upper levels of Guy's home are all bright and shiny; while below ground, it's pretty damn freaky. You can thank H.R. Giger for that - and yes, Wylde's sort-of throne in the third chapter is a Harkonnen Chair.

Now, about that ending. Yes, that's two open-ended conclusions in a row for me - though judging by the responses to "Ethna Redux," I'm not sure how open-ended some of you realized that one really was. Both of these stories feature The Lady or the Tiger scenarios, which should be familiar to anyone who grew up in the American school system, at least. I have no idea about the curriculum of other countries.

Then again, maybe "Spy vs. Guy" isn't quite as open-ended as it looks from outside my head. Jacob and the Angel weren't all that got left on the cutting room floor; I had also designed a seal for Wylde, LLC, which would have been a stylized lion's head with the motto split in half above and below the image: "Flexible Ethics - For the Greater Good." Besides, Guy's merry band of brainwashers just ended up being too nice to be true bad guys. Not that I didn't try to make them a bit more sinister in the final scene, but...well, you know. ;-)