I read an excerpt from the novel The Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo on Sunday at my Erotica 101 workshop in Minneapolis at The Smitten Kitten, but only later, flipping through the pages I'd tabbed, did I realize I had neglected to share one of the sexiest parts. The story is about a young woman who comes to London from rural China, who is learning to speak English. Her English improves as the book progresses but there is always a roughness to it, and in some ways that's what adds to the beauty of this passage. Normally I don't think you need to call parts of a woman's body a "cave" or a "flower" or some other drippy synonym but I also think it's important, vital, in fact, to find your own voice and language that's accessible for you, and for your characters. Not everyone is all about "cock" and "pussy" and in fact, that might be offputting for some people. Figure out wording that goes with the story, makes sense, and is still erotic. From A Concise Chinese-English Guide for Lovers by Xiaolu Guo. - from the passage for "prostitute" (each section starts with a word and its dictionary definition). While I am standing there watching, I desire become prostitute. I want be able expose my body, to relieve my body, to take my body away from dictionary and grammar and sentences, to let my body break all disciplines. What a relief that prostitute not need speak good English. She also not need to bring a diction with her all the time. Now her turn, her power on him. She seduces him. Her hands with scarlet fingernail fondle his delta, a place like a hill covered by the grass. His bird is growing bigger and stronger. And he cannot help to devour her pink nipples, to kiss her snow white neck, and to whisper into her ears. Her body is a ceremony, a power station, a light house. And the neon lights spread the magic colour on her skin. He becomes impulsive. He lifts her short silver skirt, then I see her delta. She has very lush bush, like bush growing by the river in the tropical zone. His fingers travel through her bushes, and disappeared into her cave. Her face now is lighted. Her mouth is half opened. Waiting and arousing. His fingers come out from her cave. He kneels down, starts to kiss her bush and sucks her cave. Her juice is shining on his face. The great decadence is attracting me. The great decadence is seducing me like a magnet. The music goes to the end part. Big melody. Almost disturbing. To me, the standout line of this is, “to let my body break all disciplines.” That is exactly how I feel of late, though I probably wouldn’t have worded it that way, but I feel like I need/want to be pushed out of my comfort zone when it comes to sex, to go somewhere new and possibly scary but hot precisely because of that. To let go of not grammar, like our narrator, but my mind, my overthinking, my ridiculous and, I can’t help but think, very female fears. They’re not ones I can share, lest I a) sound completely insane and b) jinx anything. But I can say they are ones that have little to do with sexuality and so much to do with fear of rejection. I have to work to overcome that sense of “Am I too intense? Too needy? Too much?” I fear it all the time and the fear lurks around the edges of my desire, waiting to prey on it, attack it, eat away at it slowly until it may as well not exist. I think it’s so easy to worry that we will get hurt, or slighted, or make a misstep, that it sometimes stops us, or rather, me, from going forward. So I loved this passage for that line, loved the whole book, really, as bittersweet of a love story as it is.