Cover design and typography copyright 2013 by Kevin L. O'Brien
Bodoni Monotype Poster Compressed font distributed under an End User license by Microsoft as part of their Office Professional Edition 2003
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License Notes
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents, including those based on the real world, are either products of the imagination of Kevin L. O'Brien or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Because some ebook platforms do not support special characters, certain words may appear misspelled, but this was done deliberately to avoid the problem of the platforms deleting the characters. Also, the LRF platform used by older models of the Sony Reader does not permit the use of links to external URLs, whereas the PDB platform used by Palm reading devices does not support any form of linking whatsoever.
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Table of Contents
Preface
Disposable Commodities
About the Author
Other Books by Kevin L. O'Brien
Connect with Kevin L. O'Brien
Sample Excerpts
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Preface
A common motif in genre fiction is the exploitation of women by men. This shouldn't be a surprise, even if we all agree it's reprehensible (and not all of us do). The human psyche has its dark side, and if we were perfectly honest with ourselves we would admit that most of us have felt some titillation at the idea of dominating another human being physically and sexually. Studies indicate that rape fantasies are common among both men and women, and while men are more likely to imagine themselves dominant and women more likely to imagine themselves submissive, it is not unusual for either gender to take on the opposite role. Why this should be is open to debate, but such fantasies can be enjoyable, despite the underlying disturbing elements, as long as an individual is in complete control of his or her fantasies.
It should of course be pointed out that having these kinds of fantasies does not mean any of us actually want to exploit or be exploited by others. It's similar to how most of us have fantasized about killing someone at least once in our lives, but few of us ever carry it out. It is simply a way to achieve a safe emotional release without endangering ourselves or others.
The exploitation motif also acts as a form of safe release, for both writer and reader, and, quite frankly, it is the best way to explore certain themes. That most renditions until recently featured dominant men exploiting submissive women is probably due to the preponderance of male writers in genre fiction, but thematically even female writers have and still tend to feature male serial killers and female slave harems, to name but two examples. It is also worth noting that, while there have been a large number of fictional female exploiters, they tend to be more interpersonal and eclectic, exploiting women as well as men in private, whereas male exploiters more often operated in an institutionalized manner and tended to deal exclusively with women.
Yet there is no reason why a woman cannot engage in the same kind of large-scale, systematic exploitation that men tend to do, because exploitation is not about sex per se, but about power: the ability to force another person to obey your will, whatever that will happens to be. Coercing a victim to perform sex acts against his or her will is just one way to express that power. Women are no less inclined to seek power over others than men are, and she who possesses absolute power will usually exercise it in the same fashion as a man.
This story also reflects my love for Rod Serling-style twists, in which a thoroughly despicable character gets the tables turned on him and receives a dose of his own medicine. Even so, Guy Trousseau is a more sympathetic character than Lily. After all, he may be a sleazy Hollywood agent, but she's pure evil.