Word usage

[Beneaththesurface]

First off I would like to thank you for the input that I've received on my first story ”A Girl Named Desire”. I've just finished a follow up to it and have a question of how you would word this. The scene is very similar to one in the first story except that the characters roles are reversed. He is now the submissive one so the scene to him is sort of deja vu but the opposite. I found a term jamais vu that sound to me that it means to opposite of deja vu? Or would you write reverse deja vu? Also is the correct wording ” I lay back” or ” I lie back”? I will post a few paragraphs below. I am also looking for an editor if anyone is interested.

I am feeling quite vulnerable as I have never been the prey, always the predator. My hardness grows as I become more and more turned on. She firmly grasps the back of my head pulling me into her as she rubs her leather clad breasts into my face. It feels as though I am receiving a lap dance at a gentlemen’s club but I know that in someway this is going to be so much more than that.

Leaning her mouth close to my ear she whispers, “You have underestimated me. Haven’t you?”

I am only able to mutter out a low groan.

“Lay back,” she orders.

I do as instructed as a strange feeling if jamais vu comes over me. I curiously watch as she turns to the armoire and removes the same long black strips of satin material that I bound her with previously. A chill of excitement runs through my body in anticipation.

She returns to my side and ties one of the strips to my wrist and then to the bedpost. Her heels click against the floor again as she makes her way around to the other side of the bed. She binds my other wrist in the same fashion before returning to the foot of the bed. There she stands looking down upon me with a mischievous smile on her face.

“Now it’s Desire’s time to play, ” she seductively says as she partially unzips her tight leather skirt to allow more freedom of movement.

 

[29wordsforsnow]

From my - non-native speaker - understanding:

• lie refers to action or state of oneself be put down. I lie on the bed. / paper lying on the table
• lay refers to the action of putting something - another object - down. I lay down paper on the table / I pick you up and lay you down on the bed

 

[Nouh_Bdee]

29words is correct, but complicating things is that the past tense of lie is lay, a homonym for the word lay as 29words described. The past tense of that lay is laid

 

[ElectricBlue]

"Lie back" and, given he is experiencing a feeling as if for the first time, "déjà vu."

If in doubt, consult a dictionary:

the illusion of remembering scenes and events when experienced for the first time

a feeling that one has seen or heard something before

the strange feeling that in some way you have already experienced what is happening now

 

[Beneaththesurface]

Thank for the help. It's been a while since I went to English class and probably slept through most of it anyway.

 

[Athalia]

From my - non-native speaker - understanding:

• lie refers to action or state of oneself be put down. I lie on the bed. / paper lying on the table
• lay refers to the action of putting something - another object - down. I lay down paper on the table / I pick you up and lay you down on the bed

What confused me at first was the old children's prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep." It didn't occur to me until later that the "me" was the object of the sentences, and not just a word of emphasis. Substitute "myself" for "me" and the usage becomes clearer.

 

[ArdentHemingway]

Grammatically, "Lay down Sally" isn't instructing Sally to lie down, but instructing someone else to lay Sally down, but we know Eric Clapton actually means the former.

Dialogue may behave differently from narration.