All the Fun of the Circus - Why Espionage and Femdom Make Such Good Bedfellows

Thank you to everyone who's already bought copies of my latest novel The Honourable Boytoy, and a particular thank you to the couple of readers who reached out to me on Reddit to say thanks and ask questions! 

One of those questions, I think, deserves a wider answer: How did I get the idea for ‘The Honourable Boytoy’? 

And honestly? 

It started as a joke. 

I wrote one line in The Ruritanian Pretender where I was talking about how Ruritania made it through the 20th century. I made the country neutral in the Cold War, gave Klara a line that there were sometimes so many spies in Strakenz that some days felt like “the whole Circus had come to town”. 

Which, sure, suggests that sudden influx of newcomers in strange attire, perhaps with their own concerns and traditions and language - but also of course The Circus is a key intelligence service in the works of John le Carré. 

It was just a joke, a throwaway little remark. (And honestly I'm not sure anyone else will ever have noticed it, but I love writing jokes like that anyway, not least because I've been the reader who spots an author's private joke, and it's a beautiful, glowy sort of feeling!) 

But after I wrote that joke, after The Ruritanian Pretender had been published, the idea stayed with me, niggling away at the back of my mind. 

And in the best traditions of le Carré, I found I couldn't stop pulling at the loose thread I'd found. 

Because I found myself noticing that, when you think about it, le Carré damn near writes cuckold femdom without the femdom… 

In which case, what happens if I write le Carré espionage without the cucking? 

(I'm not being hyperbolic, by the way: Smiley is - I would argue Smiley must be - a cuckold; it's a key part of who he is, a man who suffers betrayal constantly, in every facet of his life, and suffers it repeatedly. All the time. It is genuinely a defining aspect of his character: he is not an Ian Fleming kind of spy. He's a cuck.) 

Personally I don't write cuckold content (no shade to those that do, I even tried it in Chaucerian verse myself for Anna Voss Writes The Classics, and I sort of understood the appeal, but I can't quite make it fit in my heart) - but while I don't write it, I can recognise D/s fiction when I read it. I have to, after all: it's my job. 

And there are tells. Subtle clues that show you “This work is written within the register of kink”. 

It may not be intentional, of course (I have no reason to think le Carré himself was a kinkster!) - but his register, the language of his world, the experience of his characters: the signs are all over it if you look from that angle. 

And it makes perfect sense because D/s, after all, is a kink that is entirely about two things (three if you're ethical): it's about trust. It's about power - and ethically it must be grounded in clear communication. 

Take away clear, honest communication from D/s fiction and what you have left is stories about trust, betrayal, power - and power exchange. 

In short, you've got espionage, but with hotter gadgets and cooler safewords (“The weather is unusually inclement for the time of year” sounds good on film, but it's hardly intelligible through meticulously folded knickers, trust me.) 

Consider:

Smiley's wife Ann is perpetually unfaithful, loves him, humiliates him mercilessly and without hesitation - and buys him gifts to make up for the sin. Half George's life is taken up placidly maintaining the fiction he isn't a cuck, even though literally everyone from London to Moscow to Hong Kong knows he is. (Lacon, I admit, is George's boss, but inexplicably fails to cuckold him with Ann, despite all the requirements of the genre; instead he sells him out to the American Cousins) 

But for all her cheating, there's evidence Ann does love George - and cucks and mocks him anyway. She calls him Toad the way another Domme might say bitch: not with cruelty, but with that kind of cruel affection that plays on a sub's sense of self to say mine. 

Throughout the novels, just about everyone serves institutions that they insist - must insist - are perfect and noble and just; nobody ever quite admits their organisation's failings, just as every sub says their Domme is perfect (Whether or not, outside the scene, she insists on truth). 

And the service is humiliating. There is the perpetual fear that Someone Is Witnessing shame, and terrified and humiliated the characters see it through anyway, because they have been ordered to. 

A case in point - it's one of his most famous works, so let's stick with Tinker Tailor: the next time you read the scene of Guillam stealing the file from The Registry, just think: this isn't a scene about espionage. 

This is a scene about a Task, and he isn't enjoying it. His Domme has told him he must, and he's terrified of being exposed and caught, even with all the clever rushes to minimise the risk he's running. He's tense, he's scared, he's humiliated… And he does it anyway, whatever the cost. Because Smiley gave Guillam a Task, and because Guillam believes Smiley when he tells him things, and because Guillam is a Good Boy. Read the scene like that, and I bet you, you'll see what I mean.

(Genuinely I mostly read Guillam scenes and wish I could reach through the page and give him aftercare, because he does need it, poor lamb.) 

Or - say you aren't a fan of the Circus as a setting - it's true of his other works too. The Constant Gardener: love, dishonesty, a man surrendering everything he has left, even the attitudes and beliefs he once had, because he has chosen to believe what his wife told him was true, and he's decided - too late perhaps - to obey her beliefs whatever the personal cost. 

Or The Tailor of Panama - a man so desperate to serve something he invents almost everything, fantasising his own friends into the wildest positions without their knowing… And finds it has got completely out of control and that too many people believe him.

Tell me, does “I wanted a fantasy and I told someone that fantasy, and help, now it's too real” sound familiar? It should - it's the basis of half the chastity captions in the world. (Besides. You do want it, or you wouldn't be looking at captions like that, would you? I know you get a guilty thrill at the ones that tease permanence…) 

So - yes. I'd argue that le Carré is D/s fiction, or at least you can read him with a D/s lens, and the plot will not crumble in the least. 

(This is also, I admit, because they are generally extremely well plotted. But my point stands.). 

The trouble is, my brain can never think a thing like that and then leave well enough alone.

On Chestnut Tree Lane is a Vossian take on Orwell, The Ruritanian Pretender is a Vossian take on Hope, Anna Voss Writes The Classics is a Vossian take on just about everybody… And none of those authors had originally written in a femdom or D/s register. Of course le Carré had to be next. 

And that's where The Honourable Boytoy comes in: my own experiment in loyalty and lust, part homage, part challenge to myself... 

...and, inevitable as a woman's pleasure - inescapably hot. 

If you ever read le Carré and felt yourself thinking “wait, shouldn't spy novels have more hot women?” then… Well, respectfully, le Carré would argue you'd missed the point, but I've got you: The Honourable Boytoy absolutely has beautiful, dangerous women. They are in charge, they are unashamed, they are (in their own ways) perhaps just a shade fanatical about the causes they serve and the rightness of their actions...

...And, like le Carré's leaders, they tend not to mind if one man sacrifices something he thought more important than anything, as long as it serves their ends. 

If you enjoy le Carré - I promise you will like The Honourable Boytoy (Although, while you'll like the plot, I should say if you are the kind of reader to fast-forward through femdom scenes, you may find it rather a shorter book than everyone else!). 

If you love femdom - I promise you will love The Honourable Boytoy (Although, if you're not into John le Carré, you may find yourself googling ‘smiley books where start’ once you're finished; I recommend The Looking Glass War, actually, which - barely spoilers - happens to be set about the same time as Boytoy is…) 

If you don't love femdom, and you don't love espionage, but you still love a good read with deep characters and a solid plot and twists… Well good news: I may be the only femdom author whose work you'll ever love! 

The Honourable Boytoy is available now.