CHARACTERS: 3.5/5
WRITING STYLE: 4/5
CLIMAX: 3/5
ENTERTAINMENT QUOTIENT: 3.5/5
The Erotic Muse is the story of Ketan (aka K) who hates his name. He hates his father. He has an altercation with his English teacher and ends up losing his degree in English literature and also his home. He shifts to a rented house that he hates. And, he feels that his landowner treats him like trash.
[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]His only haven from all the oddities in his life is Fanny Leone – an Indo Canadian porn star who can ignite in him the feral passion that no other women can.[/perfectpullquote] His search for a job to keep a roof over his head and his head over his shoulder leads him to a day job in a department store while writing erotica for a website at night. His imagination is fuelled by memorised acts in the porn sites as well as his fantasies over the customers that visit the department store. But soon, his content seems forced and artificial and lacks the ‘spice’ and so, the website’s owners indicate their lack of interest in him!His only haven from all the oddities in his life is Fanny Leone – an Indo Canadian porn star who can ignite in him the feral passion that no other women can.
Masturbating to one of the pictures of Leone’s he gets transported to a parallel universe where all the whims and fancies of a person can be sated. There K meets Leone who explains that the place is actually a maze built on unalloyed carnal desires of the human mind. He drowns in his own erotic musings until he realises that this game can be fatal for him. But, there is no way out of the room that contains just his muse and some extreme sensual paintings!
K decides to abstain from surrendering to his longings so as to find a way out of the mess. But, he is chased by a ghoul – Lion Mane – who threatens to kill him if he does not complete the sexual acts created by the paintings! Torn between the decision to go ahead with his musings or to save his childhood affection, he must set on an adventure that brings him face to face with danger and death throughout the course of the book.
Will he survive in this World or will he get consumed by his own uncontrolled urges? It remains to be uncovered by the readers.
Rajeev Singh provides a racy narrative to keep with the force he has created since the initial pages. Such a narration makes this nervewracking games of the mind even more intriguing. His description of the adventure will surely leave the reader’s heart racing.
Certain parts of The Erotic Muse, including the author’s depiction of the rape scene, were disturbing to read but again, it provided a vivid picture of the workings of the mind of a rapist. This seductive fiction has a dose of supernatural elements as well as romance as it confronts social and personal problems and the wont of escaping from the mediocrity to a utopian world by the individuals. He has also discussed varied epicurean fantasies of the human mind along with erotic imagery.
The Erotic Muse is a tale of the struggle of the protagonist as he tries to rise above his middling to look for true companionship and motive for life. A reader interested in the genres of horror, thriller, dark erotica or coming-of-age story should give it a read.