Pansies (Spires #4)

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

1. Paragraph begins with: It all made him feel a bit weird.

Alexis: Alfie is not the most un-oblivious during this encounter. But I think he’s too vulnerable and overwhelmed to really be capable of dealing with either his own emotions or Fen’s.

2. Paragraph begins with: But when Alfie tried to drag him out of his fraying pink jumper…

Alexis: I know I’ve said this before, but the thing that continually brings me back to deep POV (whether it’s first or third person) is the way you can explore the gap between the perspective of the character and the broader perspective of the reader. Of course, here the reader doesn’t know precisely what’s going on with Fen either, but I think it’s pretty clear that something is going on. So I wanted to make sure that, re-reading with that greater understanding, Fen’s actions and reactions do feel more coherent. Like, it’s clearly a somewhat self-destructive impulse on Fen’s part, although the desire he experiences (to be close to someone, to feel someone, to be with Alfie specifically) is quite real. I think there’s also moments where he doesn’t fully believe it’s happening or that Alfie doesn’t recognise him: I think he hesitates here, for example, because getting naked with someone can be so terribly vulnerable and he suddenly thinks it could be a trick.

3 . Paragraph begins with: He was too. Beautiful, if you were allowed to say that about a man.

Alexis: I think it says such a lot about Alfie’s headspace that he’s still thinking in terms of what’s “allowed” when it comes to his sexuality and relating intimately with other men.

4 . Paragraph begins with: Fen went rigid and then his hips pressed forward…

Alexis: With Pansies, I kind of wanted to write a story about, you know, coming to terms with identity but in a sort of…post coming-out way, if that makes sense? Because the reality is that coming out isn’t a door you walk through and rainbows and queerness await on the other side. It’s something you’ll be doing for the rest of your life. And while I didn’t necessarily want to write a story about internalised queerphobia, I did want to explore someone grappling with discomfort.

Identity can (and perhaps should?) be mutable; we change as our contexts change, as the world changes, as our understandings of ourselves change. That is certainly not always easy. Just like it isn’t easy for Alfie, in this moment, to suck Fen’s cock. To deal with the truth of wanting to, and what that means for someone like Alfie, who grew up with a certain set of assumptions.

5 . Paragraph begins with: Out of nowhere, Fen laughed.

Alexis: I think the other thing about this scene is that neither of the characters is fully aware of how the other perceives the power dynamics in play. Like Fen is in a messed-up place, terribly lonely, and carrying all these complex feelings about Alfie. And Alfie is in a different messed-up place, fighting desperately to come to terms with his queerness and how to be okay with it. So they both feel lost and disempowered, and are differently scared the other is going to take advantage (or is taking advantage) in some way.

6 . Paragraph begins with: Fen took his hands away from his face…

Alexis: Something that low-key infuriates me (if one can be low-key infuriated) is when a non-bespectacled person is getting hot and heavy with a bespectacled person in a romance and they, like, take their glasses off for them. This is such a hard no for me, and for nearly everyone I know who wears glasses. Like, don’t go taking away people’s sight without consent. That is not fucking sexy. That’s just rude.

And, of course, nobody wants their glasses to slide off their nose in a torrent of sweat during a significant moment, but, like, unless you’re getting notably acrobatic, you can bang just fine with glasses on. I really don’t understand all these fictional people who whip their glasses off the second they get through the bedroom door. Don’t they want to see what’s happening ?

7 . Paragraph begins with: “H-hold my hands.”

Alexis: I don’t think Alfie and Fen ever realise just how much of their needs and vulnerabilities they express to each other without meaning to in this scene. When Alfie says he’s not particularly kinky, I think that’s, in a strictly literal sense, true. But I’m also on record, on record to the point of tedium, insisting that sex is about context and meaning, more than it’s about acts performed. For Alfie, expressing his queerness with another man he truly desires is always going to feel wild and special and intense and intimate to him—which is basically what he’s communicating when he goes down on Fen. For Fen, in this moment, he just wants to feel safe enough to be weak in the enormity of his grief.

8 . Paragraph begins with: He tried desperately to think of what to say.

Alexis: Is there some kind of prize for worst pillow talk? Because Alfie should be in the running.