The Grievous Bodily Harm Series

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Fanfiction
Title: The Grievous Bodily Harm Series
Author(s): M. Fae Glasgow
Date(s): print 1991, archived online 2004
Length:
Genre(s): slash
Fandom(s): The Professionals
Relationship(s):
External Links:

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The Grievous Bodily Harm Series is a set of three Professionals slash stories by M. Fae Glasgow. They were originally in the zine ...As Two £3 Notes.

The third story is the infamous "catheter story."

The Series

  • Grievous Bodily Harm 1: In the Beginning pdf here
  • Grievous Bodily Harm 2: Seek and You Shall Find pdf here
  • Grievous Bodily Harm 3: Blessed are the Meek pdf here

Reactions and Reviews

1993

Basically, M. Fae puts the boys through a whole lot. I don't always buy her scenarios, but she often makes her point anyway. For instance, I don't think that Doyle is really a cross-dresser, but when she wrote him that way, she made me believe it for the moment. The same happened in the S & M love story (I can never remember the title of this one, but it's the one where Doyle has Bodie tied up in the back room while the party is going on in the front room--AKA the catheter story...)

I don't know what the results would be if someone thought that these were typical characterizations of Bodie & Doyle. I think that the rest of the fandom would pale in comparison. [1]

3-pound Note 2. I just re-read it this weekend, lying in front of the fan. That is a fine all-round zine, with 'heavy' stories by Shoshanna, Sebastian and Thomas and several amusing stories by M. Fae under her lighter pseudonyms. No rapes for Erzebet, but this is the zine with the infamous Foley catheter story; I managed everything up to this one, but the catheter story was too much for me. Everthing else, including the stories leading to the catheter, worked for me, although I do have reservations about Bodie as a bottom in S&M; I don't really understand it, and that's what bothered me in the catheter story as well. Great zine, though. [2]

OK, I finally read it. (MFae's infamous catheter story in 2 3-Pound Notes.) (Story title: Blessed are the Meek. Trilogy title: Grievous Bodily Harm.)

It didn't squick me, at least the catheters didn't. I loved the trilogy as an antidote to "Dance with the Devil." As always, MFae developed the characters beautifully (most believably in the first segment of the trilogy) and the relationship as well.

This catheter-to-catheter thing has turned up in more than a few gay S/M novels and stories I have read, and is prominently featured in "The Leatherman's Handbook," a nice piece of erotica disguised as a guidebook to S/M. (It does contain some useful information, but certainly isn't a comprehensive guide to safe S/M play. More of a guide to the kinds of fantasies that make S/M work for many leathermen.) So the scenes between B and D work in terms of realism without being anachronistic (unlike that story in "Greek" where the characters use Elbow Grease), though as usual one has to give MFae latitude to take the characters in a direction different from the one most writers do. (Strangely enough, although the third part of the trilogy takes place in 1992, I would have found the mention of a trendy lube like Elbow Grease a major detraction even though it wouldn't *technically* be an anachronism. I guess no matter what year it is, I don't like seeing the Pros universe mixed up with the Castro Street universe.)

I disliked the bit about the randy Murphy, and I disliked the idea that it is now 1992 (by the third part of the trilogy) and Doyle is running CI5, because I don't really like watching the Lads age. But MFae handled the latter theme better than anybody else I've seen tackle it, and it worked within the context of her trilogy. [3]

1995

[A slash] story with no sex, it occurred to me that there is a classic example of a slash story that has no sex and yet is completely satisfying: M Fae's GBH trilogy in one of the earlier ...As a 13 Note. If memory serves (and M Fae corroborated this), the whole point of the story was trust in an SM setting (something some woeful soul told her couldn't be done, tsk,tsk.) The story built up to a tremendously intense, satisfying non-sexual consummation (the infamous catheter scene). Again, the key was the relationship , not the sex and it was slash.

You considered M. Fae's catheter story to have no sex?? Hmm, I would have said that was definitely sex. You mean because nobody had an orgasm? (At least I don't think they did — I'd have to reread to be sure.) But if intimate penetration of delicate body parts for recreational purposes isn't sex, what is it?
I disagree on two counts. One: there was sex in the story, there just wasn't consummation, as it were. Much of the story is foreplay. And two: I wasn't satisfied, darn it! Well, yes, the story made its point, and continuing on to describe the sex that we know takes place after the end would have been dramatically anticlimactic (stop snickering, you know what I mean) and might have unbalanced the story. But the fact remains that every time I read it, I close the zine feeling highly, um, frustrated.[4]

1996

[Blessed are the Meek]: This is the third story in the Grievous Bodily Harm trilogy, entitled 'Blessed Are the Meek,' and it's in AS TWO L3 NOTES. It's also, I gather, known as the infamous catheter story. The story squicked me the first couple of times I read it, because the kink in the story isn't a kink of mine. After the immediate reaction, though, I was able to look behind the actions to the characters' reactions to the situation. And from that point of view, it's a lovely story. It's not the kinky stuff that's the basis of the trilogy, after all; it's the story of building a relationship. The first story shows the transition from friends to lovers; the second story shows how, even though they love each other, the relationship isn't complete for them without the BDSM element; and the third story shows a snapshot of a mature, settled relationship that still has room for growth. Or that's how I see it, at least. [5]

I liked the first story or two and then she went beyond what I was willing to believe. But I think that was part of the point of the story, to push past the borders. [6]

1998

Oh, God! You're asking me to put into words something that is basically a gut feeling... I don't enjoy things like Grievous Bodily Harm (I think is the title - the catheter story) in one of the £3 note series, where you have the master/slave scenario - despite MFae's assurance to me that it's basically playacting, and that once the playing is done, the participants revert to their own usual personas, I reckon that the enforced submission of the one to the other during the 'playing' would inevitably spill over into their 'real' lives. (Only there it's Doyle dominating Bodie.) But I wouldn't call the story dark or depressing. It's just one I don't like. Nor do I like the ones where she has done two endings, one 'unhappy', one 'happy'. At least I usually don't like the 'unhappy' ending segments, and usually skip them, but they're not always what I call 'dark'.

But I agree that some of what she has written is light and thoroughly enjoyable. [7]

References

  1. ^ from Virgule-L, quoted anonymously (June 8, 1993)
  2. ^ from Virgule-L, quoted anonymously (July 19, 1993)
  3. ^ from Virgule-L, quote by [E B] (August 13, 1993)
  4. ^ from Strange Bedfellows (APA) #10, #11 (August, November 1995)
  5. ^ In 1996, Jan Levine posted the following to the Virgule-L mailing list. It is quoted here with permission.
  6. ^ Michelle Christian at Virgule-L, quoted here with permission (November 27, 1996)
  7. ^ from Virgule-L, quoted anonymously (August 18, 1998)
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