A few months ago I read Erica Jong’s Fear of Flying and reviewed it on here. It was part of my 2021 reading challenge and for that month I’d set myself the challenge of reading some classic erotic fiction. The post must have got me noticed in certain quarters because shortly afterwards I was approached to participate in a book review tour. Now, this was my ‘first time’ so I agreed, rather excitedly! I may have been blogging for some time, but clearly there is a whole sector of book bloggers out there that I have never discovered before! They mostly inhabit Instagram and post short punchy reviews with lots of hashtags. (Note to self: must log into Insta again one day.)
Briefly Yours by Cat English is a non-fiction erotic memoir. ‘Cat’, her nom-de-plume and working pseudonym, is a call-girl, but she is no ordinary sex worker. It is very much a career choice which she has made in order to help fund her sister’s law degree and to support her passion, which is rescuing feral cats, feeding them, helping them to get well and arranging veterinary treatment, including neutering. Cat has worked in other sectors and in the book she takes time out from the sex work to try her hand at something more conventional, working in a department store. However, the lifestyle of the commuter and the bullying she is subjected to by her supervisor, are not worth the pitiful salary.
Cat’s life story is interwoven into her accounts of work at the parlour and many episodes of encounters with clients. She creates three separate worlds – the parlour, with the other women who work there, the clients and staff, a fun and credible cast of characters; her cat world, with all the feral creatures she names and cares for, with the help of her sister; and her family life, her mum, sister and brothers. She seems close to her family and they are aware of her lifestyle, even though she tries to keep it a secret generally from friends and neighbours. I would have liked to have had a little more sense of her sister’s gratitude – wow, what a sacrifice! Cat grew up on a council estate in the north west, so she is a down to earth girl who comes across as both deeply caring and pretty shrewd.
She deals with the issues around her sex work head-on. She invites the reader to set aside their prior assumptions and asks whether what she is doing is really any more exploitative than working for minimum wage in a dead-end job she hates. Whilst I was deeply uncomfortable with some of the issues she raised, it did open my eyes. It helps that she actually enjoys the work, both the sex and the customer service aspect (she meets people’s needs, and knows that she does it well). Some of the clients are ghastly, some are cruel and borderline violent (the set-up of the parlour brings with it a degree of protection), but Cat certainly feels like she has a degree of control. She has mixed feelings about the clients; some she really likes, others she has no respect for particularly if they have partners and children at home, but insisting their wives don’t understand them. There is a nice camaraderie in the parlour, but this is high-end, and therefore expensive. Even if you can accept prostitution at this level, one does wonder about the women who are doing it for much less, or to support a drug habit, or putting themselves at great risk on the streets. I found that quite difficult to get out of my head.
I suspect I am not the target audience for this book! I have to say though that I did enjoy it. It’s a light fun read. There is a lot of really bad erotic fiction out there, that is written for a certain kind of stimulation. I think this definitely better than most of the ‘written to a formula’ trash in that category. The sex scenes are very graphic (though not much more so than, say Luster or Queenie, even though those books would fall into a more literary category), but mostly they ring true. Cat writes well, actually, and with charm; she captures the array of clients really well and it feels authentic. I suspect she might not find the life of an author quite as lucrative as that of a call-girl, but I wish her well!
I was sent a complimentary advance copy of this book by Literally PR.
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