Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair
3.5/5
()
About this ebook
The classic erotic memoir of an intense and haunting relationship that spawned the film.
This is a love story so unusual, so passionate, and so extreme in its psychology and sexuality that it takes the reader’s breath away. Unlike The Story of O, Nine and a Half Weeks is not a novel or fantasy; it is a true account of an episode in the life of a real woman.
Elizabeth McNeill was an executive for a large corporation when she began an affair with a man she met casually. From the beginning, their sexual excitement escalates through domination and humiliation. As the affair progresses, woman and man play out ever more dangerous and more elaborate sado-masochistic variations. By the end, she has relinquished all control over her body and mind.
With a cool detachment that makes the experiences and sensations she describes all the more frightening in their intensity, Elizabeth McNeill beautifully unfolds her story and invites you to experience the mesmerizing, electrifying, and unforgettablly private world of Nine and a Half Weeks.
Elizabeth McNeill
Elizabeth McNeill is a pseudonym for Ingeborg Day, author of the memoir Ghost Waltz. She was an editor at Ms. magazine when both books were published. She died in 2011 at the age of seventy.
Related to Nine and a Half Weeks
Related ebooks
The Sexual Life of Catherine M. Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Scorpion's Sweet Venom: The Diary of a Brazilian Call Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Future Sex Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Sadistic Love: My Twenty-Two Year Marriage to a Sexual Sadist Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEpilogue: The Dark Duet Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Venus in Furs Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Out of Bondage Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Secret Life of a Submissive Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Made for Love Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Tribes of Palos Verdes: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/550 Shades of Kink: An Introduction to BDSM Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Getting Off: One Woman's Journey Through Sex and Porn Addiction Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fetish Girl: A Memoir of Sex, Domination, and Motherhood Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Exhibitionism for the Shy: Show Off, Dress Up and Talk Hot! Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Not That Kind of Girl by Lena Dunham (Trivia-On-Books) Rating: 1 out of 5 stars1/5The Education of a Very Young Madam Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Henry and June: From "A Journal of Love," The Unexpurgated Diary (1931–1932) of Anaïs Nin Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Girlvert: A Porno Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Ordeal Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tristan Taormino's True Lust: Adventures in Sex, Porn, and Perversion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dirty Thirty Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Towelhead: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Under His Protection (Brie's Submission, #14) Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Lie: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lady Chatterley's Lover Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Sport and a Pastime Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Thy Neighbor's Wife Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mrs. Fletcher: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Personal Memoirs For You
Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, HER Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Glass Castle: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Child Called It: One Child's Courage to Survive Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'm Glad My Mom Died Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dry: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Stolen Life: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Stash: My Life in Hiding Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Be Alone: If You Want To, and Even If You Don't Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mediocre Monk: A Stumbling Search for Answers in a Forest Monastery Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Diary of a Young Girl Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Choice: Embrace the Possible Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Son of Hamas: A Gripping Account of Terror, Betrayal, Political Intrigue, and Unthinkable Choices Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pity the Reader: On Writing with Style Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: the heartfelt, funny memoir by a New York Times bestselling therapist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Everything I Know About Love: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Solutions and Other Problems Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Down the Rabbit Hole: Curious Adventures and Cautionary Tales of a Former Playboy Bunny Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Becoming Sister Wives: The Story of an Unconventional Marriage Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Becoming Free Indeed: My Story of Disentangling Faith from Fear Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A Billion Years: My Escape From a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Man of Two Faces: A Memoir, A History, A Memorial Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bad Mormon: A Memoir Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Nine and a Half Weeks
10 ratings8 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved the movie with actor Mickey Rourke. After discovering this was based on a true story, i decided to read the book. The book is more in depth about their love affair compared to the movie. But both the movie and book were good. The ending to this story will forever stay in my mind and the events that she experienced during the love affair. This could happen to any woman.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Curious as to the BDSM trend in recent years and the popularity of these titles, I decided to read this book (after being disappointed with 50 shades). Keep in mind that this a true story (memoir).
What I found remarkable overall was the candid voice of the narrator, her honest, at times quite rational, explanation of her experiences, without regard to the shock and condemnation she risks eliciting in the reader. The fact that this was written in the mid seventies makes her 'I don't care how you perceive me' attitude all the more admirable. Her prose, although at times erratic, is for the most part poetic and impassioned. One cannot escape the feeling that she is writing this for herself, searching for whatever is inside her to have made her submissive love affair so all consuming.
I also was intrigued with the way she presented her lover, whose name we never learn, and who is only exposed through his habits and his short dialogues. An in-depth profile of him is also cleverly presented when she rummages through his doors and describes his clothes and possessions, a potent method of giving a stark picture of him and adding depth to his persona.
During the course of their relationship, she comes to a personal revelation that her submission is liberating, resulting in an unmatched satisfaction and euphoria. Her emotional breakdown at the end is not surprising given that the author has had previous bouts of depression, and the trigger could have been the realization that she will never experience something so intense again. - Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The most fucked-up book I've ever read. I can't say I recommend it. At the same time, it was interesting from the psychological perspective.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This review contains some spoilers. I loved this book, so it was hard for me to shut up about it!
Nine and a Half Weeks is a memoir of a brief but intense sadomasochist love affair between the book’s author and narrator Elizabeth McNeill (a pseudonym) and a man she met at a New York City street fair, only referred to as “he”. The events in the book take place in the 1970s when Elizabeth was an executive for a large corporation. During her daytime hours she is an independent, successful, liberated woman, while at night she relinquishes her control to him and longs to be dominated, hurt, and helpless.
The glimpses of their relationship that Elizabeth shares with us are fascinating. She tells us in one chapter everything he did for her. He cooked all the meals, fed her, bathed her, dressed her, brushed her hair, took care of her laundry, lit and helped her smoke cigarettes, turned the pages of her book, and yes, even inserted and removed her tampons. In the next chapter, she shares what she did: nothing. She spent most of her evenings handcuffed or tied to the table, so he HAD to do everything. He was in complete control, and her response was, “I loved it. I loved it. I loved it.” He slapped her, beat her, humiliated her, and she only craved more.
What is most intriguing about Elizabeth was that she admits reading The Story of O years before and being “horrified and repulsed” by the sadomasochism. It makes me wonder how she slipped so easily, so quickly into the same type of relationship she was disgusted by. Was she simply not aware of her innermost desires? How easy would it be for any of us to lose ourselves completely in such an affair?
Though to many their relationship may seem extreme, even unhealthy, I truly believe they had a deep love for each other. She goes into great detail about how he took care of her when she had the flu. They enjoyed each other’s company, talked for hours about various subjects, became friends as well as kinky lovers. They were content to pass the time alone in his apartment as life in the rest of the world went on without them.
Toward the end of the two months, the affair had completely consumed Elizabeth, turning her into someone her former self would never recognize. She contemplates just how far she is willing to go for him and wonders if he will eventually kill her. She thinks the answer is no, because it would be too difficult for him to find another her. So what is it that shocks her back into reality? A few drops of blood on his sheets. Seeing her own blood spilled pushes her over the edge into a mental breakdown.
This was a difficult review to write. I loved the book, but putting my feelings into words had me stumped. It is the kind of story that will stay with me for a long time. The ending is a sad one, at least to me. Elizabeth’s experiences with this man completely changed her to where she wonders “whether my body will ever again register above lukewarm.” What a depressing way to think about the future. One of the reasons I love this book is that it reads like a novel, not a memoir. I had to keep reminding myself that perhaps this extraordinary relationship was real at one time. Nine and a Half Weeks was a quick read – just 117 pages. I highly recommend it if you’re interested in BDSM relationships. If still alive today, they would probably be in their sixties. I wonder what became of them. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This is a short erotic novel that chronicles the downfall of a woman who falls in love with a man who wins her over with his elaborate love making techniques that became more violent as the relationship continued.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Great book if you're into obsession and sexual addiction. This woman was so caught up in this man that she didn't mind the abuse he was giving her. Again, a book where the movie showed it no justice (this coming from a fan of the movie). I kinda felt sorry for her in the end of the book, but then again, she brought it all on herself. Read it.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Not as good as the movie - which wasn't that great either.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I don't really remember this. I read it when I was a teenager, years ago. I do remember it being fun and very perverted. Not for the prudish. Completely different from the movie.
Book preview
Nine and a Half Weeks - Elizabeth McNeill
Chapter 1
The first time we were in bed together he held my hands pinned down above my head. I liked it. I liked him. He was moody in a way that struck me as romantic; he was funny, bright, interesting to talk to; and he gave me pleasure.
The second time he picked my scarf up off the floor where I had dropped it while getting undressed, smiled, and said, Would you let me blindfold you?
No one had blindfolded me in bed before and I liked it. I liked him even better than the first night and later couldn’t stop smiling while brushing my teeth: I had found an extraordinarily skillful lover.
The third time he repeatedly brought me within a hairs-breadth of coming. When I was beside myself yet again and he stopped once more, I heard my voice, disembodied above the bed, pleading with him to continue. He obliged. I was beginning to fall in love.
The fourth time, when I was aroused enough to be fairly oblivious, he used the same scarf to tie my wrists together. That morning, he had sent thirteen roses to my office.
Chapter 2
It’s Sunday, toward the end of May. I’m spending the afternoon with a friend of mine who left the company I work for over a year ago. To our mutual surprise we’ve been seeing more of each other during the intervening months than while we worked in the same office. She lives downtown and there is a street fair in her neighborhood. We’ve been walking and stopping and talking and eating and she has bought a battered and very pretty silver pillbox at one of the stalls selling old clothes, old books, odds and ends labeled antique,
and massive paintings of mournful women, acrylics encrusted at the corners of pink mouths.
I am trying to decide whether to backtrack half a block to the table where I’ve fingered a lace shawl that my friend has pronounced grubby. "It was grubby, I say loudly to her back, a little ahead of me, hoping to be heard above the din.
But can’t you picture it washed and mended. . . . She looks back over her shoulder, cups her ear with her right hand, points at the woman in a very large man’s suit who is perusing a set of drums with ardor; rolls her eyes, turns away. Washed and repaired,
I shout, can’t you see it washed? I think I should go back and buy it, it’s got possibilities. . . .
Better do it, then, says a voice close to my left ear,
and soon, too. Somebody else will have bought and washed it before she hears you in this noise. I whisk around and give the man directly behind me an annoyed look, then face forward again and attempt to catch up with my friend. But I’m literally stuck. The mob has slowed down from a slow shuffle to no movement at all. Directly before me are three children under six, all with dripping Italian ices, the woman to my right waves a falafel with dangerous gusto, a guitarist has joined the drummer and their audience stands enthralled, immobile with food and fresh air and goodwill.
This is a street fair, the first of the season, says the voice at my left ear.
People get to talk to strangers, what would be the point, otherwise? I still think you should go back and get it, whatever it is."
The sun is bright, yet it’s not hot at all, balmy; the sky gleams, air as clean as over a small town in Minnesota; the middle child ahead of me has just taken a lick from each of his friends’ ices in turn, this is surely the loveliest of Sunday afternoons. Just a mangy shawl,
I say, nothing much. Still, it’s intricate handwork and only four dollars, the price of a movie, I guess I’ll buy it after all.
But now there is no place to go. We stand, facing each other, and smile. He is not wearing sunglasses and squints down at me; his hair falls across his forehead. His face turns attractive when he talks, even more so when he smiles; he probably takes lousy photos, I think, at least if he insists on being serious in front of a camera. He wears a frayed, pale pink shirt, rolled up at the sleeves; the khaki pants are baggy—not gay, anyway, I think; the way pants fit is one of the few remaining, if not always reliable, ways of telling—tennis shoes without socks. ‘I’ll walk back with you, he says.
You won’t lose your friend, the whole mess is only a couple of blocks long, you’ll run into each other sooner or later unless she decides to give up on the whole area, of course.
She won’t, I say.
She lives down here. He has begun shouldering his way back toward where we’ve come from and says, over his shoulder,
so do I. My name is . . ."
Chapter 3
Now it’s Thursday. We ate out Sunday and Monday, at my apartment on Tuesday, Zabar’s cold cuts at a party given by a colleague of mine on Wednesday. Tonight he is cooking dinner at his apartment. We are in the kitchen, talking while he makes a salad. He has refused my offers of help, has poured a glass of wine for each of us, and has just asked me if I have any brothers or sisters, when the phone rings. Well, no,
he says. No, tonight’s a bad night for me, really. No, I’m telling you, this shit can wait until tomorrow. . . .
There is a long silence while he grimaces at me and shakes his head. Finally he explodes: "Oh, Christ! All right, come on over. But two hours, I swear, if you’re not set in two hours, the hell with it, I’ve got plans for tonight. . . ."
"This dope, he groans at me, disgruntled and sheepish.
I wish he’d get out of my life. He’s a nice guy to have a beer with, but he’s got nothing to do with me except he plays tennis at the same place and works for the same firm, where he keeps falling behind and then he needs a crash course on his homework, it’s like junior high. He’s not too smart and he’s got no guts whatsoever. He’s coming down at eight, same old thing, some stuff he should’ve done two weeks ago and now he’s panicking. I’m really sorry. But we’ll go in the bedroom and you can watch TV out here."
I’d rather go home,
I say. No, you don’t,
he says. Don’t go home, that’s just what I was afraid of. Look, we’ll eat, you do something for a couple of hours, call your mother, whatever you feel like, and we’ll still have a nice time after he leaves, it’ll only be ten, O.K.?
I don’t usually call my mother when I’ve got to kill a couple of hours,
I say. I hate the idea of killing a couple of hours, period, I wish I had some work with me. . . .
Take your pick,
he says, all you want, help yourself,
holding his briefcase toward me eagerly, making me laugh.
All right,
I say. "I’ll find something to read. But I’ll go in the bedroom and I don’t even want your friend to know that I’m here. If he’s still here at ten I’ll come out with a sheet over my head on a broom, making lewd gestures.
Great. He beams. ‘I’ll take the TV in anyway, in case you get bored. And after dinner I’ll run down to the newsstand on the next block and get you a bunch of magazines—for looking up lewd gestures you might not think of on your own.
Thanks,
I say, and he