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LEATHER + LACE by A.B. Gayle
ISBN-13: 978-1-62380-419-0
Pages: 304
Cover Artist: Anne Caine
Publisher: Dreamspinner Press
I’m so surprised -- and this doesn’t often happen. I didn’t even glance at Leather + Lace by A.B. Gayle, because the world of bdsm is totally alien to me. Then a mate of mine (hi, Claudia) recommended it, not as a bdsm story, but as a book about complex, compelling people, set in Aus. I thought, “Read a bit, you can always quit if it’s incomprehensible.”
Full disclosure: I’ve never been able to understand bdsm. I’m one of those folks to whom pain just hurts, and if you try to tie me up with, or to, anything, I’ll bop you over the head with any handy blunt instrument. However, I’ve read, if one is beaten hard enough for long enough, there’s an endorphin rush -- “better than sex” to some people … makes sense. They do say, past a given point, a victim being burned at the stake didn’t feel a damned thing (for which, thanks gods). So I can see how an individual would permit, invite, maltreatment to get to “better than sex.” Not something I’d ever try, but -- hey, kids, knock yourselves out.
So imagine my surprise to be caught by the lapels and pulled into Leather + Lace, and thoroughly enjoy it on so many levels that have zip, nada, to do with strutting up and down in leather cossies, beating the bejesus out of your sex partners, or getting off on the aforesaid whacking and biffing.
Leather + Lace has a wicked sense of humor. I was laughing my posterior off in the first section, which is what got me reading, kept me reading long enough to get a handle on the central character. The story is told in the first person by Steve, sometime drag queen with traumatic baggage -- the mystery of who he is, and was, unfolds at a measured pace geared to keep readers turning pages.
Second thing in favor of this book: location. It’s set mostly in Sydney, with a trip down the coast and around on the Great Ocean Road, the Twelve Apostles. These locations are brought to life with aplomb, delighting someone who knows the area so well. Nice.
Third big win: motorbikes. A good wedge of the story focuses on bikes, and not merely the typical Harleys you expect of the leather crowd. I confess, I don’t have much time for Harley [blows raspberry], but I love bikes -- namely the big street racers. I spent years around them, so for me, much of Leather + Lace is a big pleasure.
Also, some of the “leather” in the book refers to riding leathers, racing leathers, while the ‘lace’ refers to costumes in which Steve performs as his avatar, Stevie Tricks, the drag alter ego of Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks…
Humor, bikes, Fleetwood Mac, modern Aus, a neat drag performance -- how can you go wrong? But, what’s the book actually about?
Two tortured souls are thrust together by Fate, united by a ratbag who abused both in different ways before getting himself and a culpable third party killed. Enter Don Rossi, as complex a character as I can imagine. The fact he’s a “leather man,” dominant, master, dungeon dude, whatever, means nothing to me. I perceived a vulnerable, sensitive, intelligent human who’s going through a wringer. He’s the perfect foil for Steve, who’s an escaped slave -- on the run from an absolute sociopath, and also a fugitive from his own demons, who give him no peace even after years of therapy.
This is not my usual type of book: it’s a credit to author A.B. Gayle that her style, wit and insight made the characters, setting, situations so alive for me I read to the end, even through the scene where the whips come out at last, and the head-scratching (on my part) begins.
What makes a person want to be beaten raw, whipped to open wounds? Leather + Lace makes every rational case for the bdsm lifestyle, and at the end I’m still clueless -- so I assume it’s something in the genes. You either turn on to getting hurt, or hurting people, or you don’t. If you do, it’s fun. If you don’t, you’re clueless and sprinting in the other direction. But I didn’t read Leather + Lace to be persuaded of the coolness of bdsm, or how marvelous it is to enjoy pain, much less inflict it -- my brain gridlocks at those ideas. I read it because it’s wickedly funny, deeply touching, endlessly fascinating. An exploration of the human psyche.
It’s beautifully written and the sex scenes are not so frequent, or so over-written, that they overpower the story. The sex is actually quite gentle throughout most of the book, and as I said, the whips only come out of the cupboard at the end … can’t tell you how or why without spoilers.
It’s filled with angst, emotion, courage, humor, compassion, gentleness, which are the last qualities I’d expected from a book ostensibly about masochism, slaves, masters, subs, doms and other roles that don’t seem to have any gravitas outside their own context, unless one wants to draw analogies between bdsm culture and politics, military, education and so on -- all dominance hierarchies. But nobody is physically tortured in those worlds (though there are some pollies I might like to biff!). For outsiders, the alienness of the bdsm world has a vein of the seriously weird: readers like self peek through a cracked window, catch a glimpse of the bizarre, pass on…
Gayle likens bdsm to an addiction, warning that users can be sucked in, drowned. If you have the gene, as I speculate above, I can see how it’d be habit forming, likely dangerous -- the torture is real, injuries will happen if only by accident. To those outside the “scene” it’s tough to see a compassionate, sensitive, vulnerable soul inside the leather-tricked dude beating someone he adores black and blue, [brain gridlocks], and this aspect of Leather + Lace is the only one for which I feel no affinity -- so I’ll agree to be puzzled and just say, “Have fun, kids!”
So, for me there’s a lot to enjoy and a little to scratch the head over. The book is actually about responsibility, being blinded by love, the need for clear-headed perception, willingness to play the role of guardian angel, even watchdog, for loved ones. Recommended … and I’m astonished to be saying this. Top marks to Ms. Gayle for producing a book with such depth, I was won over at once.
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