When I was young, romantic, and dreaming about Leonardo Di Caprio or Antonio Banderas coming to sweep me off my feet, I would watch gushy films and make-believe I was the main character, only to feel horribly depressed and disappointed with life when it finished. Regardless of what they try to sell you in hearts and rainbows land, attractive, emotionally available men didn’t fop at my feet and casually ring me up to ask me out on a date. True, I didn’t possess a mobile phone till the old age of eighteen, and I made it a personal law to avoid eye contact with someone I found even remotely attractive. However, the bitter realisation of the fact a tall, handsome, indifferent, but totally in love with me guy wasn’t going to swing by and declare his affections for me was hard to swallow.
I eventually found my happy-ever-after with the hyperactive kid I had met in Year 7. We’ve been married for over a decade and only want to murder each other perhaps three or four times a week, which I count as a win. But seriously, for all those young, impressionable girls out there who are fantasising about Thor or maybe Cillian Murphy (whoever floats your boat), this blog is for you. I call it “Romance Novel verses Real Life”. I feel for you ladies. I’ve lived and breathed those romcoms, which are most likely written by women, and I’m here to tell you it can happen…ish!
Now, being that this is a public blog, I’m going to change the f-word into a more palatable ‘feck’ but know that in both cases, the naughty version is more commonly used.
| Romance Novel (Including films and TV programs) | Reality |
| “Morning baby,” Jack mumbles softly as he rolls over to wrap his strong, muscled arm around Laura’s waist, laying little kisses over her exposed skin before finally reaching her soft, pouty lips. They share a rather intimate kiss before he offers her a warm smile. “You look beautiful this morning!” “Thank you, baby,” she giggles, “I think someone’s happy to see me.” “Always with you babe,” he grins wickedly, waggling those sexy brows in a playful dance for her. | “Errr,” Jack groans before throwing his gigantic arm over Laura’s body, thus crushing the very air out of her lungs. “Get your bloody great big arm off of me, I literally cannot breathe!” she grumbles while trying to shove him far away from her. “Plus, your breath is hanging!” “Oh, I thought we could you know…” he mumbles into her neck, all the while trying to hump her leg like an adolescent dog. “No!” she laughs hysterically before finally managing to shove his builder body off from hers. “You’re bloody horrible, you are!” he mutters before sulking off to his side of the bed. “I know, sucks to be married to me doesn’t it!” she grins widely now that she has her side of the bed all to herself. |
| “You’re so hot right now!” Jack grabs Laura from behind and begins running his hands all over her, inhaling her scent and hissing appreciatively through his teeth. “Baby, I’m trying to cook the dinner,” she giggles as he thrusts his hardness against her back, “you’re distracting me!” “Leave the dinner and let me have you!” She’s spun around to face him where he kisses her so roughly, she can’t even possibly try and stop him. Dinner is left to burn on the stove while Jack throws her over his shoulder and takes her straight to bed. | “You’re so hot right now!” Jack grabs Laura from behind and begins pawing at her IBS inflamed stomach and aching hips from being stood on her feet all day. “I’m trying to cook the damn dinner here Jack!” she growls at him. “Why the feck is it always when I’m trying to do something you decide to get all handsy?” “I can’t help it; it must be your pheromones!” “Yeah, well, those bastards are just trying to trick you into procreating and that is damn well not happening again!” “Oh, come on! Just a quick…” “Finish that sentence and I will spit in your food Jack, I mean it, feck off before I lose my shit!” “Bloody hell! Talk about hormonal!” he mumbles to himself, walking away in a sulk. “What?!” she growls towards his retreating back. “Nothing!” he sing-songs and proceeds to ignore her all night. To be fair, it’s probably a good call for him to make given the mood he’s now left her in. |
| “You, Laura, are it for me! I love you more than anything I’ve ever given a damn about before. I would walk through fire for you, give my life for you. Shit, if you’re not in it, I don’t wanna be breathing anyway. You blow me away with your beauty every single day and when you’re not literally by my side, I physically ache for you. It will always be you!” | “Jack,” Laura appeared before him with her face screwed up in anguish, “I feel fat and ugly today!” “Girl,” Jack lazily looked up at his wife, just about managing to take his eyes away from whatever crap he was watching on the TV, probably something about mining for gold or some dictator’s left nut, “you’re allllright!” “Is that it?! Christ, I’ve given you the best years of my life, children, and look after this place like a maid and all you can give me is, ‘You’re alright’?!” “What do you want me to say?” Jack asks with a dopey-looking expression and a casual shrug of his shoulders. “You make me hard? Cos I can show you if you like?” “Any hope you had of that has well and truly gone out the window! No wonder you forgot to say how beautiful the bride was on our wedding day!” “Oh Christ, here we go!” Jack rolls his eyes over the fact he will never be able to live down the moment he forgot to praise his new wife during his wedding speech. Jack was skilled with a lot of things in life but his use of words wasn’t one of them. |
| “Hey sweetheart,” Jack walked through the front door with a beaming smile on his face, looking for his wife as though they’d been forced apart for months on end and hadn’t known if he’d ever be able to feel the warmth of her touch ever again. He quickly closes the gap between them, takes her in his arms, and delivers the most scorching hot kiss to ever be received outside of the bedroom. “I missed you. How was your day? Did you miss me?” | “Girl,” Jack muttered across the room, only after he had checked out what Laura was watching on the TV. “Jack,” she replied in greeting. “Did you miss me today?” he asks half-jokingly. “I saw you this morning!” Laura replies as though the very idea is ridiculous. “You know we need time apart otherwise I’d end up ripping off your genitals.” “Love you too baby!” he calls out sarcastically. “I know, I’m a real sweetheart. You’re lucky to have me!” Laura replies as she returns her gaze to the TV. |
| It had been a long day for Laura, and she was exhausted. She curled up in bed with the toasty warm duvet wrapped around her, but the chill from the winter’s night still had her shivering. She soon felt the warmth of Jack’s firm, muscular body wrapping around her, with his leg resting on top of hers as though possessing every part of her being for his own. She grinned widely in his embrace. Oh, this man knew exactly how to warm her up from the inside out. “Don’t worry babe, I’m gonna keep you toasty all night!” “Mmm,” she moaned in delight and pulled his arm more tightly around her. | It had been a long day for Laura, and she was exhausted. She curled up in bed with the toasty warm duvet wrapped around her, but the chill from the winter’s night still had her shivering. She soon felt the warmth of Jack’s firm, muscular body wrapping around her, with his leg resting on top of hers as though possessing every part of her being for his own. Two minutes passed by with Jack now beginning to emit soft snores against the back of her head. The bastard wasn’t even snoring to a set pattern, which soon had Laura growing more and more irritated by the second. “Ok, that’s it!” Laura huffed before turning over and pushing Jack away from her, consequently waking him up with a start. “What’s going on?” he asked in a muffled tone of voice. “Your furnace of a body and your damn heavy leg is crushing me and I want my own space back!” “Oh, but I wanted to cuddle you all night!” he replied sulkily. “Not happening! You have space for a whole other family back there,” Laura gestured towards the empty mattress beside him. “Go on, bugger off!” Reluctantly, Jack rolled over to his side of the bed, mumbling incoherently with a pissed-off tone of voice. Not that Laura cared for she had her side of the bed back and was now indulging in the ‘moomptiness’ of it. |
| Jack walked into the bedroom to find Laura wearing something flimsy and deeply erotic looking. With a wicked smile and hooded eyes cased in long, flirtatious lashes, she crooked her finger and gestured for him to come hither. Jack took a moment to take in the delicious scene before him, already hard as nails and beaming over the anticipation of a hot night with the vixen now warming his bed. | “I thought we were going to…you know, last night,” Laura said to Jack the following morning, “but you just went to sleep!” “Well, you should have made your intentions known,” he mumbled back. “I did!” Laura gasped, clearly shocked how he had missed all of her attempts. “Oh yeah, how? Cos I sure as shit didn’t notice them.” Jack chuckles to himself. “Well, I put my kindle away and lay down facing you, and as you are very much aware, I always lie looking away from you.” “Oh,” he shakes his head over her ridiculousness, “see I just thought it was highly annoying because I was trying to get to sleep only to have you breathing all over me.” “Well, you crapped out didn’t you!” she says on a heavy sigh before getting up to go and clean her teeth. |
| “Babe, just so you know, Aunt flow comes to town in a day or two, so it’s best to take advantage of me whilst you still can!” Laura fluttered her eyelashes at Jack before reaching up to deliver a lingering kiss onto his stubbly cheek. “Upstairs, now!” he growled before whisking her away towards the bedroom where he was sure to keep her busy for the next few hours. | “Jesus Jack! You scared the crap out of me” Laura snapped when Jack suddenly appeared from behind the shower curtain. “Just coming in for a feel,” he grinned, then tried reaching out to pinch her for his own amusement. “Jack, this is my one damn time to relax and not worry about kids, work, or the house. Please leave me alone for five minutes!” she warned him with that tone of voice which should be enough to tell him it’s time to go. Jack, being the idiot that he is, decides to hang about and continue winding up Laura to the point whereby she’ll lose her temper. He’ll then sulk because for some reason, after ten years of marriage, it still surprises him when she follows through with her threat to lose her shit with him. “Jack,” she says, now trying a different tact, “my period is due in the next day or two, so if you want any hope of getting some before next Friday, I would feck off now!” Jack ran away so fast he left cartoon clouds and the flap of the shower curtain behind in his wake. |
| “Feck me!” She whispered on a hot breath that skated over his bare chest. Her eyes had turned dark, and she was almost trembling with lust, just waiting for her man to take her. | “Feck me!” Jack tried to say in a sexy tone of voice but was immediately left to feel flat after Laura laughed hysterically over his attempts to be the alpha-potty-mouth male. “What?” he whined whilst she tried to find the breath to speak through her laughter. “I was trying to be sexy!” “First off, don’t ever do that again,” she giggled, now wiping away at her tears of mirth, “secondly, it’s Tuesday and we certainly don’t ‘feck’ midweek, on a school night! At best we have sex, that’s it. Jesus!” Jack didn’t even get sex that night, just momentary vibrations from Laura still laughing to herself over the memory of his words. |
Dedicated to ‘Jack’, who inspires me every day!
Taylor K. Scott 