Most of you already know that The Initiation of Ms Holly is Lovehoney’s book of the month for June. I’ve been crowing about it since the month started. There’s a really nice interview with me on the Lovehoney website being interviewed by one of my favourite erotica writers and really cool person, Lucy Felthouse. It was loads of fun. BUT, here’s the coolest part of Holly’s Lovehoney experience; Lovehoney are offering a great incentive to buy Holly and to check out all their cool sex toys. If you buy Holly, you get a free vibe! Who could resist?
My husband, Raymond, and I were discussing what a great incentive it was to team up sexy novels with ‘special equipment’ that might enhance the reading experience and encourage further purchases. Raymond is an engineer, a born problem solver, always trying to figure ways to make systems more efficient. As we were looking over the Lovehoney site together, he commented that this was great for print books, but what about eBooks? In true engineer fashion, he came up with the perfect solution, Kindles with ‘attachments!’
We had a good laugh about it, but that got us thinking how many things could be improved with the extra-added incentive of a sex toy. Even a subtle little bullet vibe discretely packaged and slipped into the bags of fast-food take-out meals would improve sales and vastly improve the quality of the meal. This could be the adult version of a Happy Meal. It would be a way to burn off those high-cal lunches and have a yummy ‘dessert’ that’s totally calorie-free and releases more endorphins than even better chocolate.
And fast food meals would be just the beginning. Imagine bullet vibs and cock rings instead of wafer thin mints at restaurants. Maybe each restaurant could have its name and info printed on the side, sort of like a calling card that won’t get tossed in the bottom of the bag and forgotten about. It would be a subtle little reminder that good food and good sex go together.
Sex toy incentives in hotel rooms would be even more beneficial – especially on those long, lonely business trips. Forget the ink pen and pad on the night stand, forget the choccies on the pillow. A little vibe’ll do ya, or a Tenga Egg strategically placed, maybe a vibrating cock ring? Yes, I know a lot of hotels offer discrete access to steamy films, but you have to pay for those. It just seems to me that a little something extra on the night table or on the pillow would be such a nice way of saying, ‘we appreciate your business. Please come again.’
Restaurants and hotel rooms would only be the beginning of the sex-toys incentive program. Once people saw the benefit, I could see it becoming a way to promote better habits in the work place – efficiency being rewarded by a little personal time in the loo with the sex toy of the week. Sounds like the perfect carrot on the end of the stick to me.
From the work place, the sky’s the limits. I think sex toys would be fabulous incentive for negotiating treaties and trade-agreements. Win-win deals would be rewarded by vibes, cock rings and Tenga eggs all around, then everyone would be off back to the hotel for a nice celebratory wank.
Now I can already imagine people complaining that sex for one would make a partner superfluous. My response to that is what’s fun for one is twice as much fun for two. And after spending time at the fabulous Sh! Women’s Erotic Emporiums in London drinking pink fizz, listening to steamy stories while totally surrounded by sex toys, I can say that a party with sex toys and fizz would not go unappreciated. I can’t think of a friendlier way to wrap up negotiations.
Sex toy incentives might even be a way to get rid of guns on the streets, you know, a trade-in program – a revolver for a Rabbit – for the chix, an automatic for a Fleshlight for the blokes. Everyone would be happier if what was being shot was something other than a gun.
From sexy novels with vibes to Kindles with attachments to Tenga treaties Fleshlight financing, I think it’s an exciting vision for the future, a happier, more satisfied future all around. I can easily envision these pleasurable incentives as a way to make the world a better place, one sex toy at a time. 
I can hear you thinking: mermaids, you say? In the Peak District? But isn’t that in the middle of the country and nowhere near the sea?
I’ve been two or three times now but it wasn’t until my upcoming anthology project was born that I thought of using the place and its legend in a story. The anthology (which is likely going to be entitled Seducing the Myth) is an erotic mythology book and when I thought about what I’d like to write for it, this seemed like the obvious option. Granted, there are myths that go thousands of years back in time and span the globe, but I liked the thought of doing something local. And so Down by the Pool came to fruition.
Without giving too much away, the story is about a male journalist who hears about a series of disappearances which are linked to Blake Mere and its mythical inhabitant. He sets out to find out more about the legend and to write an article disproving it. However, on visiting the pool for himself, he has an experience which he can definitely not publish in the local newspaper.
Lucy Felthouse 
