Sommer Lovin'

Guess what? Sommer's got a fan base that's as long as her legs. I asked Kristina Lloyd to share her thoughts on Sommer's writing, and this is what she had to say:

Underpass was the first short I'd read of Sommer's and I was so blown away by it I wrote her fanmail - even though I hardly knew her. The story puts the reader right there in the car with that couple, makes us feel their anger twist into rage, lust and fear, and it just doesn't let up. When you reach the end of it, you feel like you've been fucked good and hard. The dialogue is everything dialogue ought to be, nothing is overstated or over-described in the prose, and the sex is raw, filthy and debasing. It's a fiercely intimate snapshot of a marriage and captures perfectly how jealousy can be simultaneously so petty and yet so dark. It's brilliant. If Raymond Carver had been a pornographer, he'd have written stories like this.

Here's a little tease from Underpass:

I was thrown forward. The seatbelt bit at the exposed skin of my chest and shoulders. My head barely missed hitting the dash.

“What are you doing?”

“What the fuck are you saying to me?” His voice made my skin prickle.

What was I saying? I wasn’t quite sure. I shrugged feeling impotent. I didn’t have words to describe my feeling. Even if I had, Jared was too angry to hear them.

“Let’s just go,” I said.

“No. I want you to explain that.”

“All I know is I went to a party for you. I was dressed by you. Paraded by you. And now I’m being attacked by you. You are acting like a dick,” I blurted.

“Yeah, I’m acting like a dick,” he hissed. “And it looks like I stopped at the right place. They have your name up on the wall.” He smiled at me and my skin went clammy. I didn’t like his smile one bit. I looked in the directing of his pointing finger. On the concrete wall. Bright blue spray paint. One work illuminated by our headlights like an art display:

KUNT

“They didn’t even spell it right,” I snorted. Not even stopping to think, I undid my seatbelt and flung the car door open. I’d fucking walk. I’d walk home in my whorish dress and three-inch strappy heels. I’d walk and risk the druggies and the robbers. I would not drive home with a mad man who set me up to see me fall.

“Where the fuck are you going?”

“I’m walking.” And I did. I started to walk, my heels clacking unnervingly along the broken pavement.

I heard his car door open and I tried to go faster. My ankles bowing painfully as I tried to quickly pick my way through the rubble and glass.

“Get back here!” Jared shouted, and fear shot through me swift and sinister. He was scaring me.

Then his hands were on my wrists, binding them together, and I faltered, wobbling on my heels as I struggled to get free. “Come with me,” he roared in my ear and pulled me along with his strong hands.

I stumbled with him, clutching my purse in one hand. A fist bound behind my back by my loving husband. He dragged me to up the concrete slope and when I lost my footing and nearly fell, he righted me. He marched me to the six-foot letters, and forced my head straight to them like a dog that has been bad.

“That’s what you are, Brenda. A cunt. My beautiful wife. The cunt.”

Want to read more of Sommer's work? Stop by tomorrow!

XXX,
Alison

P.S. Shameless plug alert: Of course, you could also buy J is for Jealousy, if you want to read the whole sexy story!