I never knew that “Safe Word” was the sequel to “Carrie’s Story”. With as much as I enjoyed Carrie’s Story, I knew I would need to purchase this erotic book, and that’s exactly what I did.
This erotic novel is 248 pages long and took me about four hours to complete reading. (I’m a fast reader though, but the boyfriend kept interrupting me, so it evens out.) The back of the book looks “child friendly”, but the front definitely is not. It says “Safe Word” in large letters with “An Erotic S/M novel” written in smaller lettering. It also, you know, just happens to have a butt-naked girl bending over. So not really all that public friendly. It didn’t stop me from taking it to class and just making sure that I was swift about putting the cover down on a desk so no one could see it, so if you really wanted to, I’m sure you could manage it. In size, the book is about the size of a DVD case, but obviously has more “bulk” and thickness to it.
This erotica is different from “Carrie’s Story” in the fact that it isn’t just Carrie’s story anymore. This book jumps between both Carrie’s perspective and her Master, Johnathan’s perspective. Most of the book is spent with Carrie and Johnathan taking turns sharing their stories about the past. You see, Carrie’s Story ended with her being sold off to a new Master (That’s not really a spoiler.) So for a year, Carrie was apart from Johnathan. In this book, they come back together after that year as equals, and they spend time together on vacation. During this time, Carrie and Johnathan both look back on their lives and what happened while they were apart. As not to spoil it, that’s really the gist of the entire book.
As for specific fetishes- this book touches a lot on pony play. In fact, that’s one of the main themes of the book. While Carrie was a slave for the other man, she became a racing pony, so you’ll end up reading quite a bit about her experience as a human pony. She’s also very “passed around” (Her Masters let other people “take” her as a tip for their service or if another man asks), so if that’s something that bothers you, you probably want to avoid this book. She gives oral sex and has sexual intercourse with lots of people during this book. There is also mentions of corporal punishment and humiliation.
One of the most interesting aspects for me was their “S/M parties”. Each Dominant would just be gathered like it was a social gathering, but all of the slaves would be completely nude except for accessories (Heels, stocking, etc.) and would have a “collection box” attached to their collar. At any time, a Dominant could demand to “use” them and depending on how well the slave did, they would either receive a position coin in their box or a black demerit coin. At the end of the night, the slave with the most gold coins would be the “winner” and make their Master proud, but all the slaves with demerits would suffer punishment. Obviously, it’s written much more nicely in the book, but it’s an interesting concept.
That’s one of my favorite things about this book really. It all seems like it really could be real. Just like in “Carrie’s Story”, Molly Weatherfield writes this book just as realistically. They go out to “high-class” restaurants that normal people couldn’t afford to go to the “back” room where there’s a secret society going on. The slave association is run with lawyers and secret passwords and association membership rules. It all seems like this is something that could really be happening in the world around us, and that’s really one of the reasons that makes this book so enjoyable. It’s like you get to have a look into a secret world you’d never otherwise be able to look at.
As for being an erotic novel, I would have to agree. It, however, is not really erotica. There are sex scenes (believe me, there are hundreds) but they aren’t in large amounts of detail. There’s a paragraph or two tops for each one. In some, it just mentions things like “And he took her” and that’s really about the gist of it. It’s obvious that Weatherfield wrote this book to be sexual but it’s in the story where the real sexuality is. It isn’t blatantly described, but it’s in the way that Carrie pines after Johnathan, or how Johnathan ended up taking another lover as a submissive while Carrie was gone. It was meant to be erotic, but not meant to be something you read only to masturbate to.
I wasn’t quite as impressed with this novel as I was with Carrie’s Story. Yes, both characters were very introspective and the book was written quite amazingly, but I found the back-and-forth between stories to get a little jaunting at times. I mean, to go from Current Carrie, Current Johnathan, Past Johnathan, and Past Carrie could get a little confusing. If I’d take a break for a couple days, it’d take me a couple minutes to try and recall where the last person’s story had left off, and I feel like that lost some important details that could have otherwise have been easily remembered. It was a great idea in theory, and it’s always possible that it’s just me that had the problem with it. It did make this book stand out as conceptually different from “Carrie’s Story” because of it.
I also should add that you needn’t have read Carrie’s Story to come in and read “Safe Word”. It gives enough detail of their “past” adventures with both character’s backgrounds to let you know what’s going on between them even if you haven’t read “Carrie’s Story”. It helps to have that already-there attachment to the characters, but it’s also a stand-alone novel.
Overall, I recommend “Safe Word” to anyone who would love to read a good BDSM novel. It has a great plot line that, although seems a little extreme, can really play out well to anyone who has interests in BDSM. I’d also recommend this to someone who loved “Carrie’s Story” and would like to see her story continue, but I’ll warn you that this erotic novel has an ending you really wouldn’t expect.
