Carried Away: An S/M Romance [Paperback]

David Stein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2002

Scorching hot leathersex is only the start when a jaded bottomboy and a one-time Master come together for some no-strings bondage and s/m. But after lust is sated, each finds a deeper hunger within that moves them unexpectedly toward partnership as Owner and owned. Set in the early1990s in New York City, Carried Away is not only replete with hard-core bondage and ferocious leathersex: it's a love story between two men who are equals in intelligence and character, but opposites in temperament. Terry Andrews is a successful architect and all-around topman with a passion for bondage and the means to indulge it. Matt Stone manages a large bookstore, but he lives for the times when he can surrender control. When these two come together at the Spike, the legendary leather bar, neither is looking for a new partner, just a night of hot action. They get that, and much more: almost in spite of themselves, they forge a deeper connection. Matt gradually realizes that he needs to belong to someone, not simply let himself be played with and released. For his part, Terry simply needs to own what he loves, and once he falls for Matt, enslaving him is the only option!

"Goodnight, Mr. Benson - it's time to give the '70s a rest. Besides some of the most sizzling, astoundingly detailed bondage and s/m scenes ever written, Carried Away gives us believable, complex characters struggling with jobs and responsibilities, genuine loss, and frightening realities that have nothing to do with make-believe. The author's passion for his subject weaves throughout the text like ropes in the hands of a Japanese-bondage expert. An instantly engaging tour de force. Highly recommended!" - Laura Antoniou, author of The Marketplace, The Slave, The Trainer, and The Academy

"If anyone is qualified to write hot and realistic man-to-man s/m fiction, it would be david stein, whose lifelong activism within the leather community has bolstered the growth of a whole new world of erotic opportunities. The bondage sex in this book is depicted with great accuracy and feeling, and the characters are well-developed and true to life, making it easy to identify with them. This detailed story reads so smoothly, you'll lose track of the number of pages and wish there was more of it." - Patrick Califia, author of Macho Sluts and Sensuous Magic

"Carried Away may not be the great American novel, but for those who can see voluntary slavery as a laudable way of life and courtship by a Master as romantic, david stein has performed a great feat of literature. By showing what is actually possible, he does for our sometimes ploddingly realistic times what John Preston did for an earlier and more fanciful time. The truth of the lives Carried Away examines will never be forgotten by any serious reader." -Joseph W. Bean, author of Leathersex and Leathersex Q&A, editor of Horsemen: Leathersex Short Fiction

"Realistic, compassionate, shocking, arousing - one of the best gay male s/m novels I've read. By making the world of gay Masters and slaves more accessible, david stein has opened doors the narrow-minded want to keep closed. Carried Away shows that love in an s/m context can be the greatest adventure of all." - Victor Terry, author of WHiPs, Masters, SM/SD, and Tying Knot

Editorial Reviews

Review

I applaud david stein's homomasculine love story spun with a bottom's true voice. -- Jack Fritscher, author of Corporal in Charge of Taking Care of Captain O'Malley

If anyone is qualified to write hot and realistic man-toman s/m fiction, it would be david stein. -- Patrick Califia, author of Macho Sluts and No Mercy

The truth of the lives Carried Away examines will never be forgotten by any serious reader. -- Joseph W. Bean, author of Leathersex and Leathersex Q&A

From the Publisher

Written with heartfelt emotion and the authority of someone who takes s/m seriously, Carried Away takes the reader past the place where pain becomes pleasure and to that ultimately terrifying territory we call intimacy. Many leathermen will read it with longing, others with wonderment, and a lucky few nodding their heads in agreement. This is a novel about adult as well as romantic love, about needs expressed and passions fufilled. It offers real people in the real world, not the limiting archetypes of pornography. The sex scenes are moving as they are erotically exciting. Taking us past sex, the author shows us that the world of s/m is fraught with the same emotional pitfalls as any other time and place where two people meet, fall in love, and seek to build a life togehter. Carried Away is sometimes funny, sometimes bittersweet, and ends happily- as one wants a love story to end. It's what we all want to happen after the whipping stops. -David May

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Product Details

• Paperback: 582 pages
• Publisher: Daedalus Publishing; First Edition edition (October 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1881943178
• ISBN-13: 978-1881943174
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #514,533 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time To Bury Mr Benson., October 31, 2003

By 

Tim Brough "author and music buff" (Springfield, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Carried Away: An S/M Romance (Paperback)

I was never a fan of John Preston's "classic" work because I thought the characters were broad and unrealistic, the situations silly and the stereotypes contemptible. Like most fantasy books about D/s relationships, the main characters seem completely removed from life as we know it. What about the usual day to day, like jobs and family? Cleaning the catbox? Laundry? Cooking? The kind of things that real Dominant and submissives do in real time?

Enter Master Terry Andrews and submissive/potential slave Matt Stone. One night, after a very hot encounter, these two men begin a courtship by collar. Terry begins to look at a bottom he considered a gadabout player in a whole new light, and Matt begins a journey in which he has to understand what his urges mean and if they are true to him. Where in most stories, these issues would resolve inside a chapter or two, for "Carried Away" the characters each have to probe what their instincts demand. What will this kind of relationship do to their lives, and not just a fast lane romp, but for a long-term future?

For those reasons alone, "Carried Away" would set itself apart from the pack. Yet there's more. Author david stein infuses the novel with rich detail of the New York scene and the social activities that the city entertains. You get a well fleshed out background for the how and whys of Matt and Terry's actions and emotions. This is a novel in the old fashioned sense; a lengthy story with a well plotted sequence of events. And make sure you remember that this isn't a sex novel as much it's a heavily romantic novel which incorporates sex. Lots of sex. To the point that it becomes one of "Carried Away's" foreground characters instead of a background activity. After all, this is a leather love story.

The backgrounds themselves are described in the matter a masculine bottom would see them and not like an interior decorator. The words daub the spaces with color and detail without distracting from the plot, something usually missing in homomasculine writing. Mr. stein obviously loves these words. Everything from the steaming heat to the emotional tumult is given equal ebb and flow in "Carried Away." Not a phrase is wasted or situation shorted. Threads woven into the story come to realistic conclusions. And it's very important to note that in "Carried Away" nothing seems implausible. Not the sex, the kink, or the emotions of the main characters. I'll grant you that this kind of attention to detail makes for a hefty volume (this is no quickie read or any sort of flick-through book), but when was the last time you had a modern leather story that could satisfy both your lower gonads, frontal lobes and central heart in equal parts?

David Stein has gifted us with the most realistic, imaginative, and thoughtful Gay Erotic Leather novel that I have ever read. It may have taken him ten years to complete, but the literary bar has been "Carried" to a higher level.

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finally - leather realism that makes sense!!, August 29, 2004

By 

slaveBEAST (Toronto) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Carried Away: An S/M Romance (Paperback)

David Stein has done a remarkable job with Carried Away. Leathermen finally have a book that makes sense about the reality, intricacy, emotions, dedication, commitment and personal journey of a consensual dominant/submissive master/slave relationship. This is not a "how to" book, it's a book written with heart and spirit that will touch you and have you thinking about the "why" or "why nots" regarding living the life of a Master or slave. The sex scenes David Stein writes about are HOT - but loaded with such reality you can actually envision yourself doing everything he writes about in real life - because - you can !!! The courtship of Terry (the Master) and Matt (the slave) is romantic but carefully and thoughtfully enveloped by the courage they have to acknowledge and embrace they journey they embark on. David Stein, thank you for Carried Away and sharing it with us.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arousing and convincing, March 20, 2011

By 

Benjamin (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Carried Away: An S/M Romance (Paperback)

Five years after the loss of his lover, Matt Stone, a confident and successful book store manager in his early thirties, is content to be a freelance bottom, and seems happy with his reputation as a proud, sassy, somewhat self-centered regular on the bondage scene. That is until he is one night in a bar he selected by Terry Andrews, the well built Master a few years Matt's senior, who has for some considerable time observed Matt from a distance but perhaps been wary due to Matt's reputation. But the lavish service Matt bestows on Terry's leather boots impresses him, and he takes Matt home for the night and an intense session of bondage, torment and release. Overnight Matt is almost completely besotted, and hopes for a more permanent relationship, but Terry, with his own practice as an architect (guess what his specialty in architectural design is?) is not looking for a long term slave having already suffered one unsuccessful arrangement; can Matt convince him otherwise? And can the seemingly independent Matt really commit himself completely to a Master.

The story, told by Matt, follows their relationship from their first encounter to the point where whatever arrangement they can resolve is achieved. Matt takes us almost day by day through this period revealing his deepest thoughts and and innermost emotions, how he copes with being apart from Terry, and how he enjoys the times spent with him; the arousing phone talk they enjoy when apart. The sessions with Terry are related in the finest detail, cataloging everything Terry does with him, from the various forms of bondage with a range of equipment, his imprisonment in the Terry's purpose built dungeon, and beatings and floggings, and their intense couplings and climaxes. Over the course of these few weeks Terry reveals three aspects of Matt's persona, beside the rather pert and rebellious Matt he uncovers a true and fully compliant slave and a playful pet; Terry has his own names for these additional sides of Matt's character, one some might think humiliating, but Matt is learning a lot about humiliation as opposed to shame.

Matt has much to learn in whatever role he plays, but he is willing to to be taught, and Terry is patient and understanding if stern instructor, willing to explain but impressing more then anything else on Matt that he must learn to trust implicitly in him, that he will always protect and never harm Matt but he will nonetheless push him to his absolute limits of tolerance at the same time promising that if he does Matt will experience highs never before imagined. He would rather not punish Matt for any failings, but when he does Matt soon learns the difference between Terry's beatings as punishment and those inflicted in a scene, and it has little to do with the severity.

While the account centres on Matt and Terry's growing relationship and love, we do meet other characters including Stan, Matt's long time friend and occasional partner, and Master Jake, the wise septuagenarian Master both Matt and Terry confide in. We also enjoy other scenes such as the the day Matt babysits his friend Stan as part of a week long period Curt is kept caged by Stan, when Matt enjoys a role reversal with a brief period tormenting his old pal. And then there are the passages where Matt lets his imagination run riot with hot imagined scenes.

But the overwhelming bulk of this mammoth story, approaching 600 pages, concentrates on Matt and Terry, of Matt's deepening love for his Master, of Terry's increasing pleasure in his obedient slave and of his meticulous attention to detail in his ministrations, and the truly hot scenes the two men enjoy together. The writing is good and truly erotic without any forcing. The scenes are convincingly conceived and thoroughly believable. It is told with wit and humour; Matt's frequent references to his enjoyment barometer as it proudly stands erect protruding from his groin (as no doubt the readers will be for much of this book!) perversely betraying his true feelings despite whatever torment he might be enduring is a constant source of amusement

The author, David Stein is the co-founder of GMSMA (Gay Male S/M Activists), and an active member of MAsT (Masters And slaves Together), and editor or contributor to numerous bondage, leatherman and S/M publications. He has first hand experience having spent periods up to eighteen months living as a slave, he is no doubt writing from first hand experience. This is one of the most involving and enjoyable BDSM books I have encountered, told by a slave but a real master of the genre.