The "real" Sapphic Letters
If the "Sapphic Letters" trilogy feels real, maybe that's because it is - kind of. Not the details exactly, but the feelings. Let me start from the beginning ...
My inspiration for “Note To Self” came from the Literotica Story Ideas forum. A member (I won’t say who, but let’s call her ‘J’) posted an idea for a story where two straight, married mothers meet at a kids’ function. From one woman’s point of view there was a spark – and she felt that the feeling was reciprocated – but how could she be sure? The story as I remember was to be about her confusion and her emotional journey, and perhaps ultimately her coupling with the other woman. The two characters were to both be petite (5’3” – 5’4”, 110 – 120lbs); a brunette in law enforcement who could sometimes come across as intimidating, and a blonde, career-driven doctor.
Through private communication with J, I discovered (well, I’d already guessed) that the plot was based on a real situation happening to her. She would never have the courage to act on her feelings, but she wanted to see them played out in a story. “Note To Self” is everything I could do with the original idea without dictating a progression of the story, which I was reluctant to do as I had lost contact with J by the time I’d finished it.
After posting it on Literotica, I was delighted that she found it and contacted me to praise the accuracy with which I had captured her feelings. This gave me the prompting I needed to continue the story, writing “Hypnotryst” and then “Friend Me”. J even gave me a fantasy scene that I included, although I won’t say which one it was.
By the end of the series, I had included a lot of hot lesbian scenes, but technically Anna and Susan hadn’t had sex in real life. Readers frustrated a bit? Does a one-legged duck swim in circles? Well, there was a reason. Writing erotica about married people can be fraught, and since Anna and Susan both have husbands and kids, I was going to have to tread a fine line with their romance or risk angering some of my readership who value the sanctity of marriage over a steamy same-sex piece on the side. Using the role-play device in Friend Me gave me some flexibility though; a way to blend fact and fiction (or at least, fiction within fiction).
Well J contacted me again after I published Friend Me and I sent her a copy of the final story. I was thrilled when she wrote back the following day, once again praising the story, but more stunningly, she shared some deeper insights into her relationship with the real life Susan. I won’t share those details here except to say that she is now quite certain that ‘Susan’ reciprocated her feelings, but neither of them were able to admit to their attraction. She also shared some details of a forthcoming outing that would bring the real ‘Anna’ and ‘Susan’ together again, where she hoped that their stalled relationship might be rekindled. I think we can all agree, they both deserve for this to work.
Like you, J wanted to read how Anna and Susan connected in ‘real life’. As a concession, I re-edited a version of the hotel scene in Friend Me to make it ‘real’ and sent it to her. I haven’t heard back, but she’s a private person and this is a very confronting and personal topic, so it surprises me not at all if she chooses to keep those feelings to herself. Maybe I’ll write a proper version of their eventual coupling, but probably not; I don’t want to risk the anger of the sanctity-of-marriage crowd.
