Bad sex award

In Competition No. 2924 you were invited to submit a ‘love scene’ from a novel that dampens rather than boosts the reader’s libido. It was a cracking entry, so I’ll keep it brief to make space for as many winners as possible. Dishonourable mentions go to Peter Goulding, Sergio Michael Petro, Margaret Timbrell and Ann Drysdale. The winners take £25 each. George Simmers nabs the bonus fiver.

Their gazes met longingly above their mugs of Freetrade herbal tea. Shyly, he offered a proforma document affirming consent to sexual intercourse. She signed it with an eager flourish. Quickly, they both undressed, taking care not to make any remarks that might be taken as objectifying the other’s body. They embraced.
‘It’s wonderful to be like this,’ he said. ‘Just a man and a woman, doing this most natural of things,’ but quickly added, ‘which is not, of course, to disparage those who make alternative sexual choices.’
Their hands explored each other’s bodies as eagerly as their minds had earlier explored alternatives to fracking. He reached for an ethically sourced condom.
They made love happily in a position that did not imply male dominance, but he sensed that she was not yet quite ready. He whispered in her ear: ‘Jeremy Corbyn.’
‘Yes!’ she screamed. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
George Simmers

Smedley and Morag fell upon one another, limbs writhing in an impersonation of an octopus fixated exclusively on its own anatomy, their tongues attempting to grapple in limbless approximation of a wrestling bout. Wanting not merely to possess one another but actually to have been one another since Whitsun, each snorted hungrily after the whiff of the other; Morag relishing the intoxicant waft of sodden corduroy, Smedley relishing the aroma of boiling piccalilli. Their clothes literally melted, their naked selves emerging, jerking and spitting like sausage dogs copulating atop an electric fence.