X by Davey Davis

There is a lot of violence in the world. Some of that violence is targeted and premeditated and cruel, some of that violence is accidental or impulsive, some of that violence is institutionalised and indiscriminate and discriminatory, some of that violence is horrifying and unthinkable to all but its perpetrators, and some of that violence is – for those who are involved as both perpetrator and victim – fun and sexy. This last one is the kind of violence this novel is about.

Yes: I read another sex book. No, it’s not 50 Shades of Grey.

X is a 2022 novel (published by Cipher Press, like a big heap of other acclaimed recent books) set in a very slightly more dystopian version of the United States of America less than a decade in the future, in which a fascistic Christian fundamentalist government has begun applying forced statelessness and deportation on those it considers undesirable. This begins with political activists who have dual citizenship, but by the time the novel begins, the government is at the point where it is now – still slowly, but the pace is increasing – moving on from socialists and communists and radicals with guaranteed safety elsewhere and have begun to “export” (render stateless and deport at the person’s own expense) born and raised Americans who are into kink. It is not stated in the text, but the implication is very plain: after the fetishists, the fascists will come for all queer people, for all people who aren’t white, for all people who aren’t “Christian”, for all people who aren’t committed to the white supremacist fascistic project. One hopes Davey’s proximate future doesn’t happen, but the depiction is flawless and direct, and really captures that “being boiled alive” feeling that it is easy to feel when contemplating contemporary politics in the US, as well as here (due to a cacophonous chain of catastrophic life decisions, I currently live in England, like all of the worst people I’ve ever met (knowingly ever met – I was once introduced to a famous (in Canada) right wing politician (while I was on valium and before I’d been there long enough to know who he was))).

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“That’s the setting, but what’s the plot?” someone asks (who?). Well, I’ll tell you. A little bit.

The novel is about Lee, who is a sadist deep in NYC’s kink scene, who is recently single and living on a friend’s sofa while working a dead end office job (surely the worst kind of dead end job, because you don’t even like get to interact with strangers) and obsessed, literally obsessed, with finding the eponymous “X”, a sexy singer and – what a lay person like you and I would call a – “dominatrix” (but as I don’t remember this word being used in the book I’m guessing that isn’t the in-scene term?), who recently beat and whipped and cut and injured the protagonist (who does not identify as a “switch” and thus doesn’t normally do that kinda thing) in a drug-fuelled session in a warehouse squat.

As Lee traverses the city looking for clues to the location of X – who, in the only piece of information they were able to get during their one encounter, Lee knows is exporting (i.e. leaving the country forever) at the end of the month – while reminiscing about their childhood, their last relationship, their top surgery and about the death of their alcoholic mother. Lee exchanges featuring in a waterboarding video for information, exchanges a promise to try and persuade someone else’s ex to call them for information, exchanges beating a guy to shit while he masturbates for information, and also tries to have fulfilling dominant erotic experiences that fail to satisfy, all while trying to find X and not piss off the friend whose sofa they’re sleeping on.

Even though this sounds like a pacey, plotty, novel, that’s not really how it feels on the page, and though there is lots of erotic sadomasochistic content, it also doesn’t feel like a book that’s about sex and nothing else. (I suppose two caveats to that, though: I know so little about the kink scene (and, also, about erotic content in general tbph), so I don’t know if the blood and violence and beating described here is relatively tame or relatively extreme?; I don’t know if this is a book people who like this kind of erotic play would relate to or if they’d roll their eyes at it?; secondly, all of these descriptions (very evocative, very detailed) of violent erotic play aren’t arousing pour moi, so maybe – what I’m saying is – I don’t know if the frequent sex/sexual play scenes in this book would be seriously distracting for a reader seriously into whips and bondage and needles and knives and bruising and bleeding and domination etc.. like, I don’t know if the reader of X is expected to be reading it one-handed most of the time? (Because they’re masturbating with the other hand?)

There’s a lot of sexual content here, and though I didn’t personally find it sexy (as in arousing?) it’s clearly very sexy for the characters described in the acts in Davey’s writing, so it’s not, y’know, not meant to be not sexy. I think? Is it, though – this is my question – is X incredibly sexy for the people who find it sexy? Because that’s obviously a very different experience for a reader?

I don’t know if this is necessarily important, but, y’know, it’s interesting, I think? Maybe?

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It’s a very very strong novel – really well structured, the prose is crisp and direct while still offering lots of ambiguity and complexity… The characters are human and capricious and hungry and driven but also static; it’s relatable and recognisable and knowable…

X is really great – it’s short (and looks like it’s basically double spaced, so could have been printed at almost half the page length maybe?), it’s pacey, it’s emotive and it’s exciting.

Highly recommended, even if (especially if?) graphic (maybe?) torture-adjacent (or maybe casual kink to the initiates?) erotica isn’t your thing.

Order direct from Cipher Press here