Heidi, a phone sex operator, with her housekeeper housemate Dom, struggle to make ends meet in Silver Lake, Los Angeles, until the the two women discover a winning formula: They combine their talents to create a dominatrix housekeeping service. As their client list grows a young suspicious housewife, Katy, phones the service expecting to confront her husband’s lover. Instead she sees opportunity for herself, as way out or possibly a way to save her marriage. Sexual Mercy is a story about transgressing boundaries in order to make sense of our lives.
Synopsis
Heidi and Dom share a house in Silver Lake, a hipster’s neighborhood in Los Angeles. Heidi’s phone-sex clients fantasize washing her underwear and floors so her roommate, Dom, a disgruntled housekeeper, suggests they combine their businesses. They create a dominatrix service and clean up.
This works well – for a while. As the client list grows Heidi and Dom need more doms and advertise. Katy phones the number she finds on her husband’s cell phone, and Dom thinks she’s answering the ad and applying for the job of dom/housekeeper. Katy goes for it; after all her husband is having an affair with this woman. Kat might as well find out what Dom has to offer, and maybe learn how make a living so when her husband does leave her she can make it on her own.
Within a month Katy sits in a beach house with a wall of glass windows facing the ocean, wearing a black bathing suite top, short leather skirt, black boots and her cat mask. She turns toward Carl sitting half-naked on the sofa, head hanging down. He’s got a paunch and a sense of humor. She’ll whip him into shape and help him find love. Greg, Wes’ colleague is a bigger problem. Wes, her husband, proves to be the biggest challenge of all.
Dom knows what her clients want, but is less sure about what she wants. Heidi is the den mother in this romantic comedy. Rich in irony and empathy, the novel Sexual Mercy provides a rich canvas with colorful, complex characters who transgress boundaries in order to make sense of their lives. In their most unorthodox fashion sexual healing occurs.
About the authors
Are two writers better than one? This sort of collaboration isn’t for the feint hearted, certainly but Paul Savoie and Roberta Morris have both written and published several books separately — Paul over 20 volumes of poetry in two languages and Roberta several novels and non-fiction — so they were ready for a challenge and a risk.
“This was more of a challenge than we anticipated,” they both readily acknowledge. Yet practicing the tricks of improv theater, they considered each offering a gift. They go with the flow, and don’t contradict or argue. Instead of saying “no, but…” they say “yes, and…”
This novel is the exciting result of two unique voices.
