Pure Bodies and Clean Hearts by Speranza (Virgin Challenge)

[cesperanza]

Title: Pure Bodies and Clean Hearts (26k)
Author: Speranza
Pairing: McShep
Summary: John gets a do-over.

Thanks to shalott, giddy, and res for beta beyond the call of duty.

Comments

[ladycat777]

I love the thought of all of them being virgins -- and John's giddy happiness as he's made new again.

And, of course, sex that leaves me breathless. Thank you!

[cesperanza]

Yeah, I figured--why skimp. *g* And actually, they were all plausible virgins to me, John excepted, so I took care of that with Speranza's Patented Re-virginizing Treatment!

[cathexys]

omg...leave it to you to take a difficult concept (how to get folks in their thirties to still be virgins) and turn it on its head. i loved the making him a virgin again moment only to sdquee in delight about all the others not *needing* it!!!

and the john/rodney scene was marvelous, the best i love you i think i've ever read, hostile, annoyed, both in giving and receiving...

i loved the style you chose here, all lush and beautiful and your language is like the currents that are dragging john along...

thank you!!!

[cesperanza]

Heey--yeah, why go halfway on something like this? *g* In a way, it's not difficult at all; I thought they could all quite plausibly be interpreted as canonically virgin except for John, so I took care of that. And I'm glad the "I love you" came off; it's a tricky thing, as you know. The lushness--actually, I overdid the lushness in the first draft, and resonant helped me cut it down; lushness not being my usual style, I needed some help with it! There are still a couple of wonky things in it that I'd probably work out if I felt like reopening it, but I don't. *g* That's the beauty of flashfic, really--it forces you to confront these interesting ideas (virgins! drugs! apocalypse!) and make SOMETHING of them in a limited time frame, trying to figure out what the specific instance of the general theme looks like--virginity in DS would be a very different thing, I think.

Anyway, thanks!--so glad you liked!

[amothea]

I really liked this. :)

[cesperanza]

I'm very very glad. Thank you!

[farwing]

This is extremely awesome and interesting and hot.

[cesperanza]

Thank you! I don't know which adjective there I like best! (though oddly, I'm leaning toward interesting; god knows, it's hard some days to be interesting in a first time slash story!)

Mispronunciation Award

[wordwitch]

And the first thing I thought on seeing your title was Ces is writing The Professionals fic now???

OH well!

Re: Mispronunciation Award

[wordwitch]

And, read, it matches up with my usual motto: read anything by Speranza, it's all good.

*loves*

There's a definition of virginity that is silent on sex and instead looks at to whom you belong. By this definition, no mothers and few fathers are virgin: they belong to their children. Most lovers are not virgin, but nearly all one-night-stand people are.

It's a very useful definition of virginity for those of us who lacked control over our first sexual experiences.

Re: Mispronunciation Award

[cesperanza]

Hee, so glad you enjoyed. And yes, obviously there's got to be some definiton of virginity that has to do with love and belonging; in that way, John's right--he's lost his virginity today in a much more real way than Rodney did.