The Morning After (Professionals story)

Fanfiction
Title:	The Morning After
Author(s):	Airelle
Date(s):	1993
Length:	8448 words
Genre(s):	slash
Fandom(s):	Blake's 7
Relationship(s):	Bodie/Doyle
External Links:	online here at AO3
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The Morning After is a Professionals story by Airelle. It was originally printed in the zine Dark Fantasies #1.

Author's Summary

"Bodie and Doyle in a committed relationship including S&M."

Reactions and Reviews

Comments at Virgule-L

In 1996, the "The Morning After" was discussed on the Virgule-L mailing list. One of the questions that arose was whether the story's S&M scenes stirred controversy in the Pros fandom when it was published. And, even if it hadn't, would the story create controversy three years later?

Some excerpts from that 1996 discussion:

One fan wrote:

If I remember correctly, [A] said the story was controversial. I did not remember anything controversial about so I hunted out the zine, and I still don't see where controversy could arise. It's an s&m story, but there are plenty of those in fandom, and it is in a zine where the buyer and reader should know what they are getting. I mean, with a title like DARK FANTASIES? Some s&m stories work for me, some don't. This one did not, but I am still sorting out my feelings and reactions to these stories. I can be grossed out fairly easily - I do think I had my ick reaction triggered. [S]'s post now has me thinking that the action was too heavy for the relationship, at least to my taste. [S] also said, I think, that she was glad to finally see a Bodie on the bottom story. We must be reading different material, since most of the s&m stories I remember from the last year had Bodie on the bottom.

Another fan said:

Yes, "The Morning After" was certainly a memorable story, and I recall people talking about it when the zine first came out. Probably the reason you haven't gotten much feedback is that a lot of people really did go "Eeww -- gross!" and thought that it would be better not to say anything at all than to say something negative.

Since you say you really want to know what people thought-- my personal opinion was that the action went farther than I would like to see in a consensual SM scene. The idea of lovers actually doing fairly serious physical damage to each other, just for fun, is one I find distressing. IMO that game could easily have been fatal! Also, even though they thought there would be plenty of time to recover the next day, surely in their profession they must realize that being called upon unexpectedly is a real possibility. I kept thinking that the next day Bodie was going to keel over and be taken to the hospital, and I was a bit surprised that it didn't happen. (By the way, I liked seeing Bodie on the bottom for a change, and thought that you handled that aspect very convincingly.)

I hasten to add that in my case it wasn't the action itself that grossed me out, since I would have liked it just fine if it had occurred in the context of a nonconsensual torture scene. And in fact it was one source of inspiration for a really nasty torture scene in the B7 story "Blood and Shadows" in the next issue of Dark Fantasies. (The other major source of inspiration for that scene was a Servalan/Avon story called "Force and Deception," in Magnificent Tails .) After all, if mechanical devices are being used, there is no reason why the perpetrator can't just as easily be female as male.

So, my overall opinion of "The Morning After:" too gross for friendly sex, too friendly for gross sex. But interesting and well-written and certainly sticks in the mind! I'd be curious as to the reactions you may get from people who read it on the circuit.

Sandy Herrold offered her opinion:

My take was very different from Sarah's. I'm on record as being bored by most SM stories. After all, these guys have life and death issues in front of them everyday. I'm not convinced that they going to be worried about their partner blindfolding them and holding a whip behind them: get real! They spend their days with their partners holding a f#@king GUN behind them. I have a VERY hard time imagining most of my favorite guys impressed by the piddily-ante issues that pass for trust in most SM scenes.

This one though, this one raised the stakes in a way that interested me.

[S] said: too gross for friendly sex, too friendly for gross sex.

My take again was just the opposite. If there hadn't been so much obvious attention to the depth of their relationship, I wouldn't have been comfortable with the extremity of the SM portrayed, and if the SM hadn't been to that extent or close, I'd have been bored.

I loved this story. It is still one of the few SM stories that I ever reread, and I bought the zine for the one story.

Another fan said:

I, personally, don't match SM with "darkness;" there is nothing in Dark Fantasies, besides "The Morning After" that I'm interested in reading. No offense to anyone involved with the zine, I don't like dark stories (angst is ok, but not dark). And most of the stories were, if I remember correctly, in a fandom I'm not interested in. I have, except in years of Page/Plant concerts, enough money to buy zines, but I...also want to support zines & editors who produce the kind of stories I want (desperately) to read. I feel I use my best judgement on when to copy a story from a zine. I feel I'm very fair to the publishers, but I have my limits.

Second, Airelle, I loved your story. I do enjoy s/m type stories, but not when they become too dark. I don't believe SM is about darkness, it's about trust (and endorphins). I felt your story was well written, very easy to read, and very hot, what I especially liked was their love, tenderness, and the depth in which they understood each other. I'm not particularly fond of blood in SM stories, but I had little problem with it in yours. A gentle SM story! What an accomplishment!

Comments in Other Places

[The Morning After] was interesting, but didn't really work for me; the J.S. Barton ones are well-written but don't really have any plot -- yes, there's the development of a relationship between the two, but mostly what you see are a series of scenes. I've seen paper circuit copies of the Barton stories, but they're not available on the e-circuit.

I realized that one of the biggest problems for me in the story was the language; I simply don't buy Bodie saying things like "oh, it's so deliciously painful." "Deliciously painful" is not a phrase I can hear from his mouth. But how could I explain why this is to a non- native English speaker? In fact, I'm not sure I could explain it to a native English speaker, either. And in all fairness this may have everything to do with different takes on the character, or different understandings of the implications of words, and nothing at all to do with language difference per se; I know that some native English speakers loved the story.