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Author Notes on “Maria and the Tack Shop”
Notice that the title is wrong. That's because I changed it to "Maria and the Tack Shop" from the original "... in the Tack Shop", but somehow got it wrong when submitting. It isn't a big enough deal to be worth correcting.
SPOILERS for both “Maria in the Tack Shop” and “Coffee With Blushes” below.
So here are some thoughts about the writing.
General things:
I’m careful not to make this happen in any real place, store, school, or museum. The Maria and Liz stories happen in Never-Named City, which is in Unspecified State. The stores aren’t real stores, the coffee shop isn’t a real coffee shop. All the college students go to Dawson College, which is (as far as a web search can tell) not close to the name of any real school. Raoul mentions a store called “Flower Valley” in this one. “blooming dale” means “flowering valley”. Draw your own conclusions.
James sneaked into the story. I had never thought of him before I got to the middle of “Tack Shop”. Now he’s written into two future stories in my “story ideas” file.
Specific things:
I didn’t describe anyone but James in the first draft. Really, you didn’t know anything about anyone’s appearance. A helpful commenter pointed out that mistake of mine in a previous story, and I immediately went back and described people.
If you follow the internal cues, you can see that “Tack Shop” has to take place at least 10 years before “Blushes”. Maria and James (and Luis) are still undergrads. Maria says in “Blushes” that she and Luis didn’t get together until he was in law school, and now they have two kids, one old enough to get a night vision scope toy (so probably 8 minimum). If you’re really into the subject, you’ll notice that Maria thinks about design “magazines” (not much of a thing now?) and the actual design style is from around 2010-2015. If you’re super into Drake, you’ll notice that the song James is listening to is from 2012.
I originally had way more clues in the story, but as usual I wrote way too much about things that don’t matter to the story, including a paragraph describing Maria’s car and a page describing the outside of County Line and the neighborhood it’s in. All that stuff was before the first hint of any sex. So I cut it.
I also had a subplot about an older slave owned by County Line who hates Maria because she’s young and beautiful. It ended up seeming to come out of left field and elements were repetitive of things from Liz’s story, so Maggie is on the cutting-room floor.
When Maria walks into County Line, she’s immediately analyzing the store’s décor, product placement, the design of the products themselves … and we’ll eventually see that she makes a career of product design (with art as a money-earning side hustle). I overplan.
Later, when she goes into James’ house, again she is aware of and recognizes the decorating styles. She’s actually got an artist’s eye.
When Raoul is pretending to think Maria’s an escaped slave, he says, “… one, a free woman with knockers that big would wear a bra. Slaves are shameless.” Could this be a metaphor for how women are blamed for sexual assault in our world, because they wear revealing or tight clothes? Would I do that?
Speaking of feminist metaphors: when the men in the shop surround Maria and start groping and mocking and offhandedly commenting on her, while ignoring her personhood and refusing to communicate with her, and how they think they’re doing her a favor: you don’t suppose that could be a metaphor for how women are treated in patriarchal societies, do you? DO YOU?
I don’t know how obvious the situation is. County Line does this fake-suspicion-of-escape thing, even though they couldn’t legally take any money from either the women or the men for it. They do it to encourage the men to hang out at their store (and thus, buy from it), and also the customers know that as soon as the registers aren’t ringing for a few minutes, the staff will go ahead and “discover” that their prisoner isn’t really a slave and release her. To keep things going, customers and staff alike know that they can’t get too extreme with these free women, which is why Caleb interrupts out-of-control sadist Nate. It’s worth mentioning that Raoul and Caleb don’t hate or despise the “Full Experience” ladies. They’re sincerely offering them a unique experience that they expect will be enjoyed, or at least valued.
That’s why James calls Maria an “attraction” before he realizes what's happening to who. I wanted to put that idea in the reader’s head.
Going back at least to Joe Doe, slave graders are known to sometimes enslave a woman who’s just there to be graded. Raoul would never do that. He considers himself highly ethical and would not violate a contract. (In a potential sequel, that will be emphasized. Yes, I do come up with sequel ideas for minor characters I never thought about until writing them into existence. I give this one a 40% chance of ever being written.)
Aside from actually having some empathy, this is why a couple of the spectators show some kindness to Maria. They are not there to torture her, they’re there (in a weird way) to entertain her. They completely misunderstand the situation but the guy who wipes away her tears and the one who puts ointment on her crop welts are sincerely hoping to make her feel better.
Just curious: did anyone catch my second musical reference? (One of the men says, “Hey, Jude ...”)
James didn’t handle things perfectly. He was totally thrown by finding someone he knew chained up in front of County Line. He was being reassuring and comforting, but his mind didn’t catch up until Maria was asleep. He should at the very least have gotten Maria dressed. In his defense, he didn’t know what was in the shopping bag.
I didn’t want this story to depend on “Coffee With Blushes” or vice-versa. I did want them to be connected thematically and with story elements, so they feel like part of one narrative. Thus, Maria drinks coffee, teases someone (James), and tells him a story.
I didn’t do it intentionally, but apparently Maria’s way to get close to someone she’s attracted to, when they’re both exclusive with someone else, is to have coffee dates. First James, then Liz.
Maria thinks, “Will I steal him from Luis? Nope, but I'll have him now if I can.” If you’ve read “Coffee” you know that she apparently steals Luis from James.
There’s a couple of paragraphs where James does some of the same physical things to Maria that the men in County Line did. This is about how her enthusiastic consent with James makes them totally different.
Why did I write the last sex scene as a sort of prose poem, an extended metaphor of a medieval battle? Well, I’ll be honest: because I liked Billie’s almost-unread poem, “Urgent”, and I wanted to do something like it. And also, because I didn’t want a lot of repetition. Whether you like or hate the metaphoric sex, at least it isn’t the same as the other scenes.
And finally (here and in the story), the reference to “REPEAT CUSTOMERS” does foreshadow the sequel, should I decide to write it.
I’d love to hear people’s reactions. I did three serious rewrites plus several editing passes. I’m not totally satisfied with this one, but eventually you have to push a story out of the nest and hope it flies.
Notice that the title is wrong. That's because I changed it to "Maria and the Tack Shop" from the original "... in the Tack Shop", but somehow got it wrong when submitting. It isn't a big enough deal to be worth correcting.
SPOILERS for both “Maria in the Tack Shop” and “Coffee With Blushes” below.
So here are some thoughts about the writing.
General things:
I’m careful not to make this happen in any real place, store, school, or museum. The Maria and Liz stories happen in Never-Named City, which is in Unspecified State. The stores aren’t real stores, the coffee shop isn’t a real coffee shop. All the college students go to Dawson College, which is (as far as a web search can tell) not close to the name of any real school. Raoul mentions a store called “Flower Valley” in this one. “blooming dale” means “flowering valley”. Draw your own conclusions.
James sneaked into the story. I had never thought of him before I got to the middle of “Tack Shop”. Now he’s written into two future stories in my “story ideas” file.
Specific things:
I didn’t describe anyone but James in the first draft. Really, you didn’t know anything about anyone’s appearance. A helpful commenter pointed out that mistake of mine in a previous story, and I immediately went back and described people.
If you follow the internal cues, you can see that “Tack Shop” has to take place at least 10 years before “Blushes”. Maria and James (and Luis) are still undergrads. Maria says in “Blushes” that she and Luis didn’t get together until he was in law school, and now they have two kids, one old enough to get a night vision scope toy (so probably 8 minimum). If you’re really into the subject, you’ll notice that Maria thinks about design “magazines” (not much of a thing now?) and the actual design style is from around 2010-2015. If you’re super into Drake, you’ll notice that the song James is listening to is from 2012.
I originally had way more clues in the story, but as usual I wrote way too much about things that don’t matter to the story, including a paragraph describing Maria’s car and a page describing the outside of County Line and the neighborhood it’s in. All that stuff was before the first hint of any sex. So I cut it.
I also had a subplot about an older slave owned by County Line who hates Maria because she’s young and beautiful. It ended up seeming to come out of left field and elements were repetitive of things from Liz’s story, so Maggie is on the cutting-room floor.
When Maria walks into County Line, she’s immediately analyzing the store’s décor, product placement, the design of the products themselves … and we’ll eventually see that she makes a career of product design (with art as a money-earning side hustle). I overplan.
Later, when she goes into James’ house, again she is aware of and recognizes the decorating styles. She’s actually got an artist’s eye.
When Raoul is pretending to think Maria’s an escaped slave, he says, “… one, a free woman with knockers that big would wear a bra. Slaves are shameless.” Could this be a metaphor for how women are blamed for sexual assault in our world, because they wear revealing or tight clothes? Would I do that?
Speaking of feminist metaphors: when the men in the shop surround Maria and start groping and mocking and offhandedly commenting on her, while ignoring her personhood and refusing to communicate with her, and how they think they’re doing her a favor: you don’t suppose that could be a metaphor for how women are treated in patriarchal societies, do you? DO YOU?
I don’t know how obvious the situation is. County Line does this fake-suspicion-of-escape thing, even though they couldn’t legally take any money from either the women or the men for it. They do it to encourage the men to hang out at their store (and thus, buy from it), and also the customers know that as soon as the registers aren’t ringing for a few minutes, the staff will go ahead and “discover” that their prisoner isn’t really a slave and release her. To keep things going, customers and staff alike know that they can’t get too extreme with these free women, which is why Caleb interrupts out-of-control sadist Nate. It’s worth mentioning that Raoul and Caleb don’t hate or despise the “Full Experience” ladies. They’re sincerely offering them a unique experience that they expect will be enjoyed, or at least valued.
That’s why James calls Maria an “attraction” before he realizes what's happening to who. I wanted to put that idea in the reader’s head.
Going back at least to Joe Doe, slave graders are known to sometimes enslave a woman who’s just there to be graded. Raoul would never do that. He considers himself highly ethical and would not violate a contract. (In a potential sequel, that will be emphasized. Yes, I do come up with sequel ideas for minor characters I never thought about until writing them into existence. I give this one a 40% chance of ever being written.)
Aside from actually having some empathy, this is why a couple of the spectators show some kindness to Maria. They are not there to torture her, they’re there (in a weird way) to entertain her. They completely misunderstand the situation but the guy who wipes away her tears and the one who puts ointment on her crop welts are sincerely hoping to make her feel better.
Just curious: did anyone catch my second musical reference? (One of the men says, “Hey, Jude ...”)
James didn’t handle things perfectly. He was totally thrown by finding someone he knew chained up in front of County Line. He was being reassuring and comforting, but his mind didn’t catch up until Maria was asleep. He should at the very least have gotten Maria dressed. In his defense, he didn’t know what was in the shopping bag.
I didn’t want this story to depend on “Coffee With Blushes” or vice-versa. I did want them to be connected thematically and with story elements, so they feel like part of one narrative. Thus, Maria drinks coffee, teases someone (James), and tells him a story.
I didn’t do it intentionally, but apparently Maria’s way to get close to someone she’s attracted to, when they’re both exclusive with someone else, is to have coffee dates. First James, then Liz.
Maria thinks, “Will I steal him from Luis? Nope, but I'll have him now if I can.” If you’ve read “Coffee” you know that she apparently steals Luis from James.
There’s a couple of paragraphs where James does some of the same physical things to Maria that the men in County Line did. This is about how her enthusiastic consent with James makes them totally different.
Why did I write the last sex scene as a sort of prose poem, an extended metaphor of a medieval battle? Well, I’ll be honest: because I liked Billie’s almost-unread poem, “Urgent”, and I wanted to do something like it. And also, because I didn’t want a lot of repetition. Whether you like or hate the metaphoric sex, at least it isn’t the same as the other scenes.
And finally (here and in the story), the reference to “REPEAT CUSTOMERS” does foreshadow the sequel, should I decide to write it.
I’d love to hear people’s reactions. I did three serious rewrites plus several editing passes. I’m not totally satisfied with this one, but eventually you have to push a story out of the nest and hope it flies.
