The Moral Line by Vanessa Bogenholm
THE MORAL LINE BOOK COVER
The Moral Line, by Vanessa Bogenholm, is an erotic romance novel that opens readers’ eyes to the world of high-end escorts and the men who frequent them.
Vanessa describes the intense and sometimes deeply saddening process she went through in order to achieve the greatest possible accuracy: “I underwent extensive research while writing The Moral Line in order to fully understand the motivations and feelings of the people who participate in the high-end escort business. I interviewed the escorts themselves, pimps, and the men who commission these services. For the last set of interviews I even went so far as to meet men who wanted to pay me for sex and then would tell them the truth of why I was meeting them. Some were mad, some were fascinated, and all were lonely just like me.”
Synopsis:
After being rejected and left alone, Alexandria, finds herself going down a moral line. Slightly desperate for money, she takes a one-time ‘job’ as a paid for companion by a not so attractive but very nice wealthy man. Is getting paid to be in the company of men really such a bad thing if it feels good? She falls into a world of clients that are wealthy, powerful, successful men with fancy cars and country club lifestyles. But she sees the fragility in all of these men, the loneliness and need for acceptance that is the human condition.
Alexandria becomes ‘Catherine’, a high-end escort with a beautiful laugh who finds the goodness and attractiveness in all men, falling in love with all of her clients just a little. By accepting these men and seeing the goodness in them, she pleases these men in many ways. Is it possible by pleasing others maybe Alexandria can find her true self and find happiness?
Praise for The Moral Line on Amazon:
“Words to describe this book are Emotional, Sexy, Inspirational, and well written in a memorable fashion that will engulf the mind well after you are finished reading. The story line is also original and the plot was extremely entertaining.” – Lazaro
“I went in expecting some titillating erotica, but what I got was an emotional depth that blew me away.” – Kitty Smith
“Well written, delightfully sensual, and exciting in more ways than one.” – Hawk
Excerpt - Chapter 1:
My husband had this little patch of soft, slightly reddish hair right above his tailbone. He slept on the left side of the bed, me on the right. Every night in bed I would snuggle up to my husband
and slide my hand up his thigh, over his hips until I got to this little spot on his lower back right above his tailbone. I would stroke this patch of soft hair and skin with the back of my hand. My soft little spot. This amazing spot of soft skin and hair that was my little wonder zone; my little wonder zone of pleasure for both of us. Nothing felt better to me then touching my husband.
When I touched him like this, my husband would usually back up his butt into my pelvic area and I would slide my arm over his slender hips, our warmth coming together. This would be how we would begin our lovemaking, his soft breaths of pleasure at my touch, and me wanting to feel his warmth. This was my utter comfort zone, snuggled up behind my husband. I always so wanted to be part of him, feel him, please him, and he would get lost in pleasure with me. He always told me he had never had sex like this, this joining we did when we were pleased each other. This is what sex really is, the pleasing of each other, the connection.
But no more did we have that connection. My husband no longer found me attractive or wanted me. How did I know? The scowl on his face most of the time he talked to me? The fact that my husband always looked down at the floor when talking to me? Almost as if it was beneath him to even speak to me? And he never looked at my face, let alone into my eyes. The fact that he never came to watch me play at tennis tournaments anymore? Did I wonder why that happened? Or that he never asked me about my work? Or asked me about anything? The fact that he just hated me even being in the room anymore when he watched ESPN and their talking heads for hours on end? I mean gosh forbid I would start to talk to him when the ESPN channel was on the television. Holy crap, sacrilegious!
No, that wasn’t when I knew things were over with my marriage. We had been going through a rough patch for months, or so I thought. Married couples go through rough patches where they don’t understand each other and don’t have sex. Dry periods, literally dry, due to lack of fucking periods. It is just what happens in marriages, right? I LOVE LOVE LOVE sex and he was, or so my husband said, just in his mid 40s and had low testosterone, or was tired from work or stressed out or whatever men claim to be going through in life. Having sex just seemed like too much of a bother for the man I thought was Mr. Wonderful, my best friend and partner.
I though was the opposite. I was craving sex. The lack of sex was driving me slightly insane from the lack of physical sexual satisfaction and the loss of closeness to my husband. All I could think about was that my husband didn’t want to have sex with me anymore after just two years of marriage and my pelvic area was throbbing with desire most of the time for him.
Then I came home early from tennis one evening; I played tennis most evenings for a couple of hours or so after work, and came home a little early. I could hear the shower running, thought I would jump in with him, surprise him. I loved shower sex. I mean who doesn’t love shower sex, wet slippery soapy skin, warm water cascading down our bodies, very erotic, the taste of clean, fresh smelling skin. Full bodies touching, the ultimate erotic moments.
I tore off my tennis clothes as I walked down the hall to join him in the shower. But the door to the bathroom was locked. I was shaking the doorknob, mystified at why the bathroom door was locked. How strange I thought; I mean why would you even close the door when you were home alone taking a shower? How was I going to surprise my husband and join him? Then I heard it, the moaning. My husband was a quiet shy man, ridiculously so, so this moaning was very odd. I made fun of his shyness often, how verbally quiet he was, tried to get him to come out of his shell, laugh out loud more, tried to get him to talk during sex, tell me what he liked and such, but to no avail. But my husband was anything but quiet now. Now he was screaming to the point that I thought he was singing a heavy metal song. I was laughing, I had never heard him sing out loud before, could never get him to sing 80s songs in the car with me, so I was laughing, and knocking on the door loudly, and he stopped “singing” cold. Then I got it.
He wasn’t singing; he was moaning loudly because he was masturbating and cuming in the shower. Cuming hard from extreme pleasure at his own hand. He couldn’t or wouldn’t have sex with his wife of two years but he could beat off and scream in pleasure in the shower when I wasn’t home. He had never screamed in pleasure like that when he came in me, gosh knows I could never even get him to cum from a blowjob no matter now hard I worked at it. I mean I really, really, worked at it until my jaw and the back of my throat was sore many times.
I was horrified and felt sick to my stomach; rejection overwhelmed me as I stood outside that locked bathroom door listening to my husband cuming. Nausea. This was real physical nausea I was experiencing. I mean when you had a willing wife, a beautiful willing wife that loved to give blowjobs and SWALLOW cum, why would you choose to masturbate by yourself in the shower? How could so many men want me all the time and not my husband? I still got looks from men on a regular basis even though I tried to avoid other men with the way that I dressed and lack of contact. What had I done wrong in my marriage? But more importantly, where do we as a married couple go from here? How do I fix this? I felt dizzy from confusion. I sulked down to the floor on my knees outside the bathroom door cold and naked. The dogs gathered around me trying to comfort me in my sadness and grief. I held on to the dogs desperately. I was shaking from cold, I was naked. Then felt stupid being naked not just physically but emotionally.
He came out of the bathroom, embarrassed, apologizing, mumbling, making no sense. He just stepped over me, like it was perfectly normal for me to be sitting down on the floor outside of the bathroom naked holding onto the dogs. I stood up after he stepped over me, I got angry just looking at him; my husband didn’t know what to do, but one thing was certain, he didn’t want to talk about the masturbation in the shower to me. He walked around the house aimlessly, ignoring me and the dogs. We ignored each other for the next couple of hours until bedtime. He wore sweats to bed so I couldn’t touch him that night which was ok, I didn’t want to touch my husband, I was lost in my own thoughts. His avoidance of me made me feel disgusting.
Obviously I was a disgusting person; that is why my husband didn’t want me anymore physically. I cuddled with my dogs, my wonderful, always loving dogs. I was fat and ugly that must be it, undesirable. I fell asleep with that thought.
About Vanessa Bogenholm:
Vanessa Bogenholm has been writing Romance/Women’s Fiction, reviews and short stories for numerous websites and magazines for years. Her debut novel – The Moral Line – was published in March 2014 by AuthorHouse. It is available in eBook, paperback, and hardback formats from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, AuthorHouse, and many other websites.
Vanessa lives in Los Gatos, California with her three dogs, and teaches tennis.
Readers can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
For more information, to request a copy of The Moral Line, or to set up an interview or appearance by Vanessa Bogenholm, please contact Kelsey McBride at Book Publicity Services at Kelsey@BookPublicityServices.com or 805.807.9027.