The Seduction of Susie, novel

The Seduction of Susie is the introductory instalment in the Paradise Two domain of the Two Paradisesfantasy/fiction realm, by author Jonnie Comet.

The novel tells the story of Lady Susie’s initiation into lesbian relations by her classmate and confidante Darby St Claire, between November 1994 and February 1995.

The story’s genesis dates to the mid-1980s, making it one of the earliest-created portions and probably the longest-surviving story arc of the Two Paradises fantasy/fiction realm.

Plot summary
The novel traces Lady Susie's experiences as she her close friend Darby seeks to involve her in mutual masturbation and other intimate activities. Ultimately Darby relies on two other friends who assist Lady Susie in gaining an appreciation for intimacy with other girls. Lady Susie struggles with her own feelings, finally coming to terms with a new area at which she can assert her own sense of self-confidence and take control of her physical and romantic desires.

Chapter 1
A few days after Lady Susie’s 15th birthday, she is visited at home by her friend Darby St Claire, who presents her with the gift of a revealing negligee and insists that Lady Susie model it for her. Darby encourages her to try sexier clothes, even when only alone, or for bed, and suggests she ‘experiment’ more, particularly with doing stripteases for herself.

They meet privately once before before Christmas, to sunbathe together in the fourth-floor spa at Camelot castle, where, lying nude beneath the hot sun-lamps, Darby becomes aroused and masturbates silently, admitting it to Lady Susie as they share a shower afterwards. Lady Susie is disconcerted but dismisses this with characteristic aplomb.

After the New Year, Darby continues to encourage Lady Susie to become intimately involved; but Lady Susie (characteristically) rebuffs Darby's repeated attempts to take control of the relationship.

Chapter 2
After the Cavaliere family return from spending the holidays in Connecticut, USA, Lady Susie models her own elegant blue silk lingerie, a Christmas gift from her family, for herself at Carousel, her private cottage at Camelot. Stimulated by the fit and feel of the silk on her body, she masturbates before the mirror, achieving her first orgasm.

On her way home from a boring party for Darby’s friend Connie Baendegaard’s birthday, Lady Susie stops to swim naked in the ocean, continuing on without dressing. She begins masturbating in the car, steers off into a field and experiences her second orgasm. She has a third in the bath the following morning. Though both surprised and embarrassed by the experiences, she concludes that she is only discovering a new part of becoming a self-aware woman.

Darby invites Lady Susie to her own room for doing homework. There she surprises Lady Susie by appearing in crotchless knickers, in which she performs an exotic dance, masturbates on her own bed and then encourages Lady Susie to do likewise. Lady Susie, only to humour her, strips to her underwear and dances to radio music, teasing Darby about having become so aroused but only mimicking the masturbation as she realises that Darby wants only an excuse to indulge herself again.

Chapter 3
Darby visits Lady Susie at the cottage, where Lady Susie divulges her solo experiences. Envious, Darby insists on masturbating before her; Lady Susie is not sufficiently aroused to fulfil Darby’s fantasies.

At school Darby introduces Lady Susie to Nicole Bonelle, who contrives an opportunity to surprise Lady Susie at the gatehouse, undressing and masturbating before her. The two seek the sanctuary of Dreamhouse Cottage, where Nicole provides Lady Susie’s first kiss and then successfully seduces her, by kissing and sucking her breasts whilst Susie masturbates, with momentous results.

Chapter 4
Bravely Lady Susie invites Nicole to her own cottage after school; the two dutifully do much of their homework before making love together on the cottage bed and again, after dark, on the beach. Having spent the night at the cottage they are awakened by Lady Susie’s friend Jenny Talbot, who is surprised to see her with Nicole, a girl of her friend whom Jenny has never met. Lady Susie offers to drive Nicole home and, on the way, they stop along the lane of mainland Camelot and run off into the woods, where they make love.

Susie confesses her romantic feelings for Nicole; but Nicole gently demurs, despite her own inclination, because she will not cloud the newly-awakened Lady Susie's heart with what may not be true love.

Chapter 5
On Saturday at Surfside beach, Lady Susie and Jenny are joined by Darby and Terri Peale, a fifth-form girl from Derby, who seems to show off excessively whilst sunning topless. Terri invites Lady Susie for tea the following day, and Lady Susie accepts, eager to nurture a more normal relationship with a new friend with whom she seems to have much in common.

At Peale cottage on Sunday afternoon, Terri undresses, dances before her, and encourages her to join her. The two make love, realising that they share attitudes about girl-with-girl sex, both considering it only an activity, not a lifestyle, and based on friendship, not romantic attraction.

Chapter 6
Terri hosts Lady Susie at Peale cottage after school for cold drinks and homework. Terri, in a very flattering blue frock, teases Lady Susie till Lady Susie is motivated to kneel and perform cunnilingus, her first time doing it. They make love several times, have have dinner in the nude, and spend the night together.

Chapter 7
In the morning the two attend school together and, to return Terri's hospitality, Lady Susie hosts her at Camelot. After performing cunnilingus for her at her cottage, Lady Susie conducts Terri down the beach to the cableway by which, both naked, the girls go over to Seagull Cay, where they have dinner and spend the night in the guest house there.

Chapter 8
The following morning, Lady Susie applies jam and marmalade to herself and Terri licks her upon the dining room table. They wander the small island, finding bananas on a tree which Terri shows Lady Susie how to use as a masturbation toy. Still intensely aroused, they take the cableway farther out to Starfish Cay, the romantic hideaway of Lady Susie’s parents, normally off-limits to all their children. There they are surprised by Gretel, one of the Camelot housemaids preparing the place for the return of Lord and Lady Paradise. The girls swipe a pair of bananas from the groceries Gretel has brought and run down to the beach to enjoy the bananas in privacy.

Chapter 9
Terri and Lady Susie report to the castle at Camelot, where Lady Susie shows her friend over her bedroom before they join her siblings for dinner. Afterwards they return to Lady Susie’s bedroom for sex and spend the night there; it is the first time Lady Susie has been sexually intimate with anyone in her own bed.

Chapter 10
The two girls awaken in Lady Susie’s bed, make love and commute to school together, with Terri still maintaining that she will probably not be able to attend Bonnie’s doe party on Friday evening. But she does encourage Lady Susie to give Darby a try, promising her that Darby’s interest is genuine and will prove rewarding.

Bonnie is not the least bit inclined towards girls herself but has known of Darby’s inclination for some time and is one of her closest friends. Having long suspected Darby’s attraction to Lady Susie, Bonnie is wary about the two attending the overnight doe party, relying on Lady Susie’s great pride and family reputation to assure herself that nothing awkward will happen. But Lady Susie arrives for the party dressed in sexy lingerie, stunning all the other girls who would never have deliberately made such an overtly sensual appearance. Darby struggles conspicuously the whole party, especially when Lady Susie undresses to sleep nude on a tatami mat on the floor. In the morning all four girls are aghast to see Lady Susie walk out to her car in the bright morning light, still dressed as she had been for the evening.

Chapter 11
Jenny Talbot’s 14th-birthday party is held at the Cavaliere Casino Inn in Somerset, at which Lady Susie arrives dressed in private attire. After much dancing and drinking, she escorts Darby through the private underground to the Knight’s Head Inn guest apartment, where at last the two consummate their friendship with a night of champagne and ardent lovemaking. In the morning they continue, with Lady Susie finally offering herself as breakfast with marmalade at the table. Darby is completely intoxicated with the whole notion of finding Lady Susie such a good lover; and the two agree to pursue more opportunities for self-discovery and sexual gratification in future.

Characterisation
The story focuses primarily on the relationships Lady Susie has with the three girls who are her first intimate partners. Each appeals to Lady Susie in a different way and each impresses her with a view of self-gratification and lesbian lovemaking that furthers Susie's own unquenchable curiosity, self-awareness and self-confidence. In a certain sense, Darby, Nicole and Terri all become aware that they have created the Lady Susie whose self-indulgence, even at the expense of some friends' comfort or feelings, shall dominate the Two Paradises story arc.

Darby
The relationship between Lady Susie and Darby is characterised by differences in motivation, in separate goals and in very different, almost opposing personalities. Darby is shown to be self-centred, rather vain, and focused primarily on sensory gratification. As a friend she enjoys sharing her views and experiences with Lady Susie, regarding her much more as an equal than as a social superior; but she is also petty, cowardly and conniving, using others’ efforts to her own advantage and allowing others to risk their own reputations before she ventures forth on her own. Less than honest with the girl she claims is her best friend, she frequently tricks Lady Susie and withholds details which Lady Susie, if only due to her title and position, clearly has a right or need to know. She enjoys surprising her, keeping Lady Susie's normally strong sense of confidence off-guard, and seeing, or hearing of, the ways by which Lady Susie extricates herself from, or succumbs to, the various situations which Darby has designed for her own amusement.

Lady Susie
The story is interesting for characterising Lady Susie as inexperienced, somewhat shy and even prudish, an early view of one who later goes on to become one of the most outspoken and audaciously-outgoing characters in the whole fiction/fantasy realm. Despite being the youngest member of her O-level class, she has always thought herself above-average in boldness, bravery, and level of experience; and the events of the novel prove to her, to her chagrin, that she has been woefully self-deluding. Though she is depicted elsewhere as being a sly strategist in the Strategy games, in SOS she seems overly eager to trust new acquaintances and surprisingly vulnerable to falling into their snares; however, she may be only using them, perhaps deviously, on her own terms, as devices to afford herself new experiences she truly wants to have.

Understandably confused by the developments, Susie begins to feel a romantic yearning for Nicole, with whom she experiences her first kiss, and for Terri, with whom she feels an even deeper kindred attraction. Her learning how to balance the desires of her heart with the pursuit of physical (sexual) pleasure is the core of the story.

Nicole
Nicole Bonelle is shown to be an exotic, alluring siren, sultrily softspoken, stunningly shapely, and obviously extensively experienced with herself and with others. Somewhat reluctant to have become involved in Darby’s machinations, she confesses a weakness for Lady Susie's tender heart, open-eyed curiosity, and articulate, artistic sophistication; and at the end of Chapter 3 admits that she might have gone about indoctrinating her much differently; but, by bowing out of Lady Susie's generous offer to become a steady lover, she proves she is more than the agent provocateur whom Darby has posted to the task of seducing her best friend. Even as she delivers Darby’s message, that Lady Susie might allow Darby to demonstrate her true interest with some promise of a return, she reserves the right to see Lady Susie again on her own. The two will reunite later in the Paradise Two domain, both in ‘Private Party’ and in ‘Like Old Times’ as well as in The Goddess and The Princess.

Terri
Terri Peale is effervescent, extroverted, fearless, everything Lady Susie would like to be-- at this stage-- and is truly not. Lady Susie admires Terri's intellectual boldness and sexual self-awareness; when the two discuss romance and dating, Terri artfully-- though perhaps not honestly-- dismisses the idea as frivolous, her candour only further drawing Lady Susie to her as an admiring friend. Terri will continue to resurface throughout the Paradise Two domain’s episodes, most notably in Girls Will Be Girls and in The Goddess and The Princess.

Other characters appearing in the novel include Lady Kimberley Cavaliere, Sherry Moss, Laura Ivey, Jenny Talbot, Alex Whittaker, and Mrs St Claire.

Features
The novel establishes the character of Lady Susie as an intriguing enigma whom no-one ever completely knows. Nearly unique amongst Jonnie Comet novels, The Seduction of Susie never explicitly expresses the inner thoughts of the central character through either inner monologue or descriptive narrative; and so all of Lady Susie's intimate motivations, sensations, fears and desires are left for the reader to discern from context or from the development of plot or of other characters' deductions. The literary device is in keeping with the character's own intention to maintain a self apart from all observers and is consistent throughout the entire Paradise Two series.

The novel contains many examples of fan service, especially in frequent mentions of Lady Susie's nudity and penchant for wearing lingerie as private attire in incongruous situations, such as to and from the all-girls sleepover. Detailed (though not gratuitous) accounts of sexual activity, particularly masturbation and various forms of lesbian sex, represent mature themes not for younger readers. In general such elements are treated with polite respect, the narration being largely constrained to characters' perceptions rather than explicit descriptions.

The interrelated associations amongst Lady Susie, Darby, Nicole and Terri are represented with restraint. It is clear, though not explicitly stated in the text, that Darby has had numerous encounters with both Terri and Nicole before.

The novel's epigram,"'For Barbara, because you always thought you knew what you were about'"is in homage by the author to a former girlfriend, also a Scorpio, on whom the character of Lady Susie is largely based.

The thematic trope of the eager ingenue applies to the novel, as does that of the closeted hussy.

Within the scope of the novel, no male characters have substantive roles in dialogue or in influence over the events or the girl characters of the story.

Sequence
The story’s events are preceded by those of the compilation Twilight Comes Soon (Paradise One) and followed by those of the novella A Night On The Town.

Publication
The Seduction of Susie is the first-completed instalment in the Paradise Two domain, having been published as an e-text in mid-1994. The reedited novel is to be rereleased as a modern e-text (Kindle), with paperback edition scheduled for August 2019.

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