Except For That is most definitely not something I would have chosen to read if anyone else but Rachel Windsor had written it.
I read romantic fiction, often lesbian romantic fiction, for the love story and human dynamics, not for the sexual components. Rachel Windsor, however, always seems to pull real and lasting love out of complicated situations. Plus, she tries to see all sides and writes so incredibly well.
In this tale, main character Mo loses her interest in the physical side of her love with her girlfriend Beth because of the medicine she's taking for her depression. Their once active and fully committed to each other love life comes to a halt.
I could never understand being unhappy in a relationship just because the sex "was gone." Of course, there are many reasons why someone would be unhappy about that and I don't really know why I'm talking about something I have no experience with so there's that too. Still, I just can't imagine any scenario where I would be in love and ever stray, at all. Maybe it's easier for those of us who are single (and romantics at heart) to be prissy, but there it is.
If I could put it into any words why this particular story bothers me so, I guess it would come down to this: how can sex ever come before one's love and caring for their partner's health and wellbeing? That is what is making me so irrationally mad. I'm so glad it's on my ereader because otherwise I might toss it down in exasperation.
There are other issues related to the physical side of relationships that come in both straight and gay dating, but I have to say that when I tried (desperately) to go out with guys so that I could be "normal," and then later followed my heart with dating (however short-lived that was) it wasn't the men who had trouble with virginity or lack of sexual activity...it was the women.
I had been used to homophobic people thinking being gay was just about sex, but I had never thought other lesbians would be that way.They were the ones, if we got past a first date, who judged or stopped calling or made it a huge issue...as if the "third date rule" (ridiculous a 'rule' as it is) was somehow carved in stone and just had to be followed.
Sometimes...more than sometimes, in the past few years, actually...I keep thinking it's a blessing or meant to be that what I'm looking for isn't out there...better to stick with books and silly love songs and all that.
Getting back to the book, I can only hope that Beth doesn't go through with the "solution" and that she and Mo stay together. Because I not only can't throw the book down, I want to keep reading and find I was completely wrong to get all bent out of shape...
I finished this morning and there were actually a few times I thought I was going to throw up, that's how bad my nerves were over this, an eighty six page story...Again, I don't understand the intense reaction. I think, in part, it's because Beth goes through with the cheating and it kills me that it's not enough for her that she and Mo have a solid loving relationship in every other way.
It's true that, in the end, the two get back together, both promising to work on their relationship. But the affair has happened and the fact that Mo's health issues aren't resolved is unnerving. Even more unnerving is the implication Mo will do whatever it takes to get her sex drive back.
The title itself comes from when Beth tells the woman she's soon going to cheat with that she and Mo are fine "except for that," meaning their love life. By the story's close, the words have a different, more positive, implication, but it doesn't change (for me) that Beth couldn't be stronger when it came to her urges. Mo, the reader sees, also is deeply hurt by this, despite the fact it was her "idea."
No matter what, or maybe because of it, I think it says a lot about a writer and how powerful words can be, in the right person's hands, when fiction gets to you in a way that physically and emotionally shakes you to the core.
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