Sex vs. Interrupted Sex

I'm working on a fantasy/sci fi story, and in this story, the main male character has had sex with several girls over 5 chapters. They're all willingly having sex with him, just so you know. But I have introduced one girl who has said that she and he have an arrangement where they will not have sex because of reasons. But in chapter 5, she starts to have sex with him. I have other things going on in the chapter in other areas, and it could very easily be that she's not having sex with the main character but is only dreaming.

If I did have it to be a dream that gets interrupted, would you as the reader (provided you read the story at all) be upset or would you be okay with it?

Working dreams into an erotic storyline can be fun. I started my “Best Friends Forever” series off with a dream sex scene and included another one in chapter two.

You may find readers get turned off unless you can convey it is a dream and not actually happening. Then, you have to bring the reader and character back to “reality” without confusing the flow of the story.

I kept the dream sex scenes as short as possible for a reason because it is complicated to work out in a story and a bit distracting to the actual story being told. Done right, they are a great addition to any erotic story playing off human fantasy using fictional characters; however, I don’t plan on using dream elements in the storyline again.

Looking back, I probably had my reasons to do it early. First of all, the characters were ground zero and no where near a point of being intimate. Brian didn’t know I dressed like a woman, he didn’t know I was gay, and he didn’t know I had feelings for him. Baby steps. Working the dreams in along with diary entries laid a foundation for the story.

I wish you the best of luck. Just remember to keep it simple.
Kant

wildhunt1 said:

I'm working on a fantasy/sci fi story, and in this story, the main male character has had sex with several girls over 5 chapters. They're all willingly having sex with him, just so you know. But I have introduced one girl who has said that she and he have an arrangement where they will not have sex because of reasons. But in chapter 5, she starts to have sex with him. I have other things going on in the chapter in other areas, and it could very easily be that she's not having sex with the main character but is only dreaming.

If I did have it to be a dream that gets interrupted, would you as the reader (provided you read the story at all) be upset or would you be okay with it?

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Unless someone is lucid dreaming, the body will very often wake up during a sex dream because the physical reaction to perceived stimulation is too exciting to maintain REM sleep. From what I understand (and I am definitely pretending to be a doctor), it is more common for men to wake from a sex dream than women.

In other words, waking up from a sex dream is so common that it is relatable. Lean into how relatable that is, by having your protagonist tell a friend about it and the friend is like "Awww duuuude, I feel your pain! I've been there! We've all been there!"

That being said, what you're really talking about here is tension and relief. It's the bread and butter of any story. Things happen that build tension, circumstances make that tension more dire, and then characters mash their genitals together to relieve tension. When your character wakes up from the dream, whether or not they have orgasmed, your story has not had actual relief because the story is about the characters.

In other words, it doesn't matter whether they cum or not in the dream. You need to make them get together later to reward the tension either way.

Can't see why it would be a problem, unless the dream somehow cheats the reader of some part of the narrative. MD's point re narrative tension is a good one.

No, the reader won't be cheated in the least. I don't believe in cheating anyone in a story. Things just might take longer than a reader might like.