In Competition 2838 you were invited to submit a short story entitled Fifty Shades of whatever you chose.
It was a bit of a mixed bag this week but I liked Gerard Benson’s twist on Empson’s Seven Types of Ambiguity, Josh Ekroy’s 50 Shades of Ukip and Carolyn Thomas-Coxhead’s clever, grisly tale of a woman reduced to a piece of meat. Not all of you went the E.L. James route, but Chris O’Carroll’s winning entry clearly took its lead from the queen of erotica. He is rewarded with 50 lashes and £30. His fellow winners pocket £25 each.
Fifty Shades of Dan Brown
‘The Pope!’ he hissed in her ear. The Illuminati! Atlantis! Stonehenge! Inscriptions! Codes! Occult wisdom!’
She winced and writhed as if each word were the stinging stroke of his riding crop across her naked bottom. ‘Yes, yes!’ she choked out, burning with desire to give herself to his passionate conspiratorial worldview. ‘Yes! I want it! I need it! Tell me more!’
His dark eyes flashed and his masterful voice throbbed with conviction as he told her, ‘Oh, I’m excited by the exclamation marks in your prose! This world is not as it seems! The powers that be are fattening everyone for the kill on a diet of lies! It’s up to a few special people like us to uncover their secrets, expose them to the light of day!’
‘Yes, yes!’ She exclaimed. Because, really, what else could she exclaim at a moment like this?
Chris O’Carroll
Fifty Shades of Magnolia
Fifty shades of magnolia accounted for most of the domestic decor of Winterborne Longjohns, a tranquil Dorset village whose unadventurous and generally decrepit inhabitants were untroubled by passing fashion. Transgressions here were few. (Covetousness was more likely to be directed at a neighbour’s ride-on lawnmower than at his wife.
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