The campaign sign part of the story was a piece of totally unplanned irony. That or the Muse messing with my subconscious and laughing her ass off.
I had based the story in my old hometown in Ohio, openly identified it, and used numerous actual locations and businesses in the plot. The names of Steve and Andy were completely random picks. I was at least two or three sentences beyond the campaign sign scene when it hit me that the name of the state representative for the area actually was "Andy" also! Plus he is a total, uber-conservative, homophobic tea partier and I had just inserted him into a piece of internet smut! It wasn't planned at all...it just happened.
Now this is a small town where gossip and rumors run rampant constantly. According to a lifelong friend who still lives there and had read the story, for about a week after the story hit the Lit contest, there were whispered conversations all over town where the number one question was: "Who the hell is J. Kendall Dane?"
When she got asked if she had any clue, she just grinned and said, "Well, I'm 'old lady Abicht' in the story, so what do you think? And just HOW do you know about this story anyway? It's a gay romance on a big internet erotica site. Someplace you visit often to read gay stories?"
Hearing that I had given the old church biddies and the retired guys that hang out at McDonalds drinking coffee every morning something to talk about was probably the best feedback I could have gotten.
I had based the story in my old hometown in Ohio, openly identified it, and used numerous actual locations and businesses in the plot....
Hearing that I had given the old church biddies and the retired guys that hang out at McDonalds drinking coffee every morning something to talk about was probably the best feedback I could have gotten.
that's brilliant! We never know who is going to read our smut. 
Hi Naoko!
I know this thread is somewhat fallow, but I'm a long-time appreciator of your blog and writing, and I thought I'd link to a recently written short story of mine in the hopes that you'd have time to read it at some point. In The Smell of Old Books, tired and lonely office drudge Mariko finds her passions reignited, and her slumbering sexuality re-questioned, after a chance encounter with a handsome female store clerk, Tomo. Knowing you're a fan of things Japanese, I thought you might be interested. If you made time to review it, I'd be intensely flattered, but just your reading it would be more than enough for me.
https://www.literotica.com/s/the-smell-of-old-books
Thanks for all the writing you do!
