G E O F F . D Y E R

'She sat on the toilet, squelching and farting his come from her arse.'

In a sustained moment of weakness I let my editor have his way - he said he came over all 'squeamish'‚ - and deleted this charming sentence from my novel Paris Trance. I've regretted it ever since.

A little context will explain why. Luke and Nicole have just had sex, anal sex, and it's all been very tender and nice - a far cry from the famously brutalising encounter in Mailer's 'The Time of Her Time'. So tender, in fact, that they don't feel awkward or embarrassed about the inevitable - but, in sexual fantasies, always ignored - aftermath in the
bathroom. And that lost sentence with its two (if I say it myself) exquisitely chosen verbs speaks volumes about their ongoing, unflinching intimacy. Without it, I fear, the scene has about it some of the coyness of soft porn.