Piffling Lives: Island of Passion

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, No, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah, aka Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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Books should always move us, and few books move us quite so extremely and frequently as Island of Passion, the pornographic classic by Veronica Knight.

Here to explain why is esteemed literary critic Professor Virgil Sodbury, who delves deep into the sticky pages of this seminal text to discover what lies beneath.

This is the village of Pifling Vale, and these are Piffling Lives.

Wooden Overcoats presents

Island of Passion.

Oh.

Yeah, yeah, you know, of course.

Patricia's taking the kids, but, you know, they're not hers either.

God knows how to explain that to the.

What?

Shit.

Um.

Hello there.

My name is Professor Virgil Sodbury, Emeritus Lecturer in Popular Women's Historical Fiction and Design at Piffling Polytechnic.

I've been asked to record this lecture for posterity on the work of one Ms.

Veronica Knight, who, as has recently been revealed, was actually my late brother, Captain Scott Sodbury.

I always wondered why a drunken, slovenly soul like my late brother gave such astute and bang-on-the-money notes on my articles.

And now we know.

Obviously, my late brother was recently murdered, so that's a bum note in the family records.

Now,

I can't say that I'm actually all too familiar with Ms.

Knight's, i.e., my late brother's works, but I know that the most popular, in that he paid for the most copies to be printed, was this, Island of Passion, which billed itself as a sort of philosophical treatise on the nature of loneliness, but was,

as as with all my late brother's work, just a raunchy book.

In this sort of memorial lecture, I'll be reading excerpts from Island of Passion and throwing in some academic tidbits as we come to them.

My late brother left very few notes behind him, although he did write this post-it note in one of the twelve copies he left to me, which reads, Virgil, don't ever read chapter 8, My Night with the Chieftain's Brother, in public.

So we should probably honour his last wishes and skip that bit.

To go over a little bit of context.

For example, why did my late brother write this book?

I've literally no idea.

In fact, I wasn't aware he could write until er, until we found this, so you live and learn.

Veronica Knight.

A pseudonym.

Obviously.

Why Veronica Knight?

It was our mother's maiden name, so while you ponder the horrifying psychological implications of that, on with the show.

Fans of Island of Passion will, of course, know that it is the story of Marianne, a vivacious young woman who was shipwrecked on an island inhabited only by lots of men.

Lots.

And lots.

Men.

And more besides.

We open

as Marianne awakes on the beach.

Chapter 1.

Lives A Beach.

I was woken by the waves brushing over my feet like a lover's tender kisses.

I blinked into the hot, hot sunlight.

My head swam much like I had done after the ship was wrecked.

The ship was wrecked.

I must interject at this point to say that my late brother's prose is, you may have noticed, not terrific.

What he lacks in good writing, he makes up for in filth, frankly.

I've only skimmed bits of it.

I don't think it will hold up to much re-reading, so hey, maybe it does get better.

I could remember little of it.

Crashing thunder, splintering wood, my dress being conveniently ripped from my body, leaving me to spill provocatively out of my undergarments.

No, it doesn't.

It gets no better.

I finally opened my eyes.

There was nothing around but sun and sea and sand, quite a lot of which was now sticking to my damply see-through corsetry.

It hadn't been like this on the boat.

There, I had been surrounded by all the ship's crew, those men, those brutes, those beautiful, strong brutes, their hands tugging on ropes, their sinews scrubbing decks, their hammocks squeaking rhythmically.

I had an awful thought that I might never see a man again.

Oh, cruel fate, that I, Marianne, the most sociable of all women, should be cast out all alone onto this island.

What is a person, if not how they are and what they do with other people?

I have done nothing to deserve such cruelty.

I had loved my fellow man with my whole being, and here I was, destined to starve or thirst or burn to death on this deserted island.

And it's at this point, just a little way into page two, that my late brother entirely gives up on the pretense that this is a philosophical exercise and it becomes just a raunchy book.

I was hopeless.

I was without hope.

I was stranded on an island with nothing but the undergarments I barely stood in.

Yes, here we go.

And the finest, most luxurious hair in the empire.

Along the beach, from where I had washed up, was a rock that jutted from the sea like a man juts from his man areas.

It was here that I resolved to die.

To be taken by whatever or whoever got there first.

I lay down, closing my eyes for this one little death, and something moved in the trees at the top of the beach.

I sat bolt upright.

Out of the forest came, oh, yes, a man.

He was young.

He was handsome.

And to my shame and delight, he was totally chuffing naked.

His skin was bronzed, like bronze.

He held a spear.

It was thick and long and hard.

The spear was made of wood.

I cried out in rapturous ecstasy.

His head turned, and he ran across the beach to me, flapping around intriguingly.

I was frightened, yes, but oh, I was relieved and not a little excited.

Young lady, he cried out as he approached me.

I will never know if it was relief at rescue, or the sound of the Queen's own English, or the total chuffing nakedness.

But before I could stop myself, I had thrown my English arms around this possibly English man and kissed him like a cockney sucking a welcome double-decker.

Liking it too.

Yes, this marks the start of a quite stunning preoccupation with England, its capital, and its empire.

Astonishing, given my brother was wanted for treason for a brief period in the 1960s.

Who knew?

He staggered backwards, quite overcome.

Forgive me, I said.

I just never thought I'd see a man again.

And such a man.

He looked at me, goggle-eyed.

I have been known to have that effect on men, amongst others.

And I never thought I'd see a woman again, he marveled, his eyes lingering on the inexplicably still wet and dust see-through bust line of my undergarments.

He stepped forward, grasped my hand.

I was shipwrecked on this island many years ago.

It is a notorious spot for shipwrecks.

I was shipwrecked too, I told him, breathlessly.

We have so much in common, he said, then looked away sadly.

Many crews have ended up on this small stretch of land.

We have made our home here.

But if a woman's place is in the home.

Oh, and it is, I said with historical accuracy.

Then this is no home.

For there is not one woman among us.

No woman, but you.

I gasped.

How could these men live like this?

You mean

this is an island of

I trailed off.

I dared not even think it.

It was too too much.

Yes,

an island of men.

Only men.

Hundreds of us.

I must have fainted dead away, for the next thing I knew, I was in his very nice arms, being carried into the jungle and towards his village.

Right, yes, so Marianne and this chap, who we learn is Horatio LeMule, which turns out to be a nickname based on his um appendage, which is quite large by my late brother's standards, they've arrived in the village where Horatio lives.

It wasn't quite the village square of my beloved England, but these men were not the town-planning savages one might fear.

Horatio led me by the hand into a large clear area surrounded by small huts and shacks.

Some Some flew the Union flag and my spirits raised.

Horatio, still nude, saluted it.

Gentlemen, gentlemen, please, Horatio shouted.

From the huts and the woods beyond came men.

Just men.

Loads of them.

Tall, less tall, muscular, even more muscular, handsome, really handsome.

All kinds of men.

Some, like Horatio, had cast off the shackles of clothing.

Others still wore tattered uniforms with pride.

Soldiers, sailors, merchants, pirates, foreigners.

All were represented in this buffet.

And all I wanted to do was eat.

Gentlemen, look, said Horatio.

But they needed no encouragement.

All their eyes were on me.

If lust had a stink, it stank of it.

I felt like a fox at a hunt, but all these men were the real foxes.

But before any of them could pounce, there was a commotion in the grandest hut at the back of the clearing.

Out of it came a man wearing the most incredible collections of uniforms.

Flags, beads, feathers, and animal genitalia.

He glittered in the sun.

Gold tangling in his chest hair like I hoped my fingers might do later.

The chieftain, Horatio whispered in my ear.

Your chieftain-ness, he said.

It appears my late brother did as little research into native tribal cultures as he could.

I.e., he did none.

Striding nudely towards the figure in gold.

Then there's a sort of formal ceremony thing to greet the chieftain, lots of lusty glances, brief discussion on the virtue of domesticity for the contemporary male.

Then, oh, oh, I say,

here comes the chieftain's brother of the notorious chapter eight.

What's all this?

A voice boomed across the village.

I removed myself from the chieftain's person.

Outside the same hut as he had come from was a man that distilled all the good bits of all the men around him.

And I would warrant some of the bad bits, too.

Who is that, Horatio?

I asked.

Horatio's eyes flashed green, greener than the nice green they already were.

He must know something about this man to already be jealous.

The chieftain's brother, said Horatio.

He's the reason the chieftain was washed up here.

He was banished from England for being irresponsibly sexy.

His brother went with him, but they were thrown overboard when the crew began brawling over him.

Why isn't he the chieftain?

I asked.

I could not take my eyes from this man who was walking in a very sexy, slow motion towards us.

He had like a really low body fat percentage, so was all muscle and all over the place.

His hair long, but not creepy long.

A jawline you could crack a pelvis on.

Didn't he want power for himself?

Horatio gave a hollow laugh.

Look at him.

He has all the power he needs.

Oh, good lord.

Oh, good lord.

As we're not going to read what happens with the chieftain's brother, let's skip ahead.

Right.

Summarise.

Marianne is gifted a hut on the edge of town.

Lost in the jungle.

Marriage ceremony.

Rescue.

Funny way of showing gratitude if you ask me.

But she's back in the village.

Chapter 8.

I'm not even flicking through those pages.

Pirate misusing a wooden leg.

What happens here?

And that is why we call it hoisting the mainsail, he said as she rolled back in paroxysms of lust and practical nautical experience.

Hmm, yep.

Another shipwreck.

Only a few survivors.

Captain Barnaby.

Lots of fraught glances over the mango trees.

Chapter 11.

The Cabin Boy Manned.

Do not weep, my love, she said, dubbing his young, flushed cheeks in her porcelain doll hands.

They don't respect me, he sobbed.

They still think of me as just.

just the cabin boy.

Come to my hut at midnight.

Then, they will call you the cabin man.

Well, that's nice.

Much of the same for a while.

Spaniards turn up.

Captain Barnaby kidnapped.

Oh, bit of intrigue.

Let's pick up there.

Chapter 17.

Barnaby by Name

Marianne.

Oh, Marianne.

Captain Barnaby clutched me to his chest.

He gazed down into my eyes like lovely puddles.

My ringlets, improbably for a woman who'd been shipwrecked this long, still wringling beautifully.

I'd been told before that I was like a full-size China doll, but not as creepy as that would actually be.

Oh,

Marianne, he said again, which I did think a little tedious of him, considering there were no other women on the island he could possibly have embraced in such a manner.

Marianne, thank God that in my moment of need, trussed like a gimpin raffia by those Spaniard privateers, you knew how to whittle a raffia picker and set me free.

This is the most my late brother devotes to the kidnap and rescue.

Action of that nature was obviously not his priority.

What can I say?

I mumbled, his arm pinning my face uncomfortably into his throbbing right pectoral.

I'm good with my hands.

Action of this nature was.

Realizing what I had said, I flushed as red as the tattered military coat Captain Barnaby so manfully still wore about the island, despite having neither rank nor shirt.

The few brass buttons it still had framing his areoli-like Puantelist guilt.

I mean, I stammered, pulling back from his arms, which, now that I looked at them in a new, sexy light, were so masculinely muscular, they looked like grapefruits in a horse stocking.

Not at all like my hated fiancé, Aloysius, all the way back in dear old England, whose arms merely looked like a man's arms in a horse stocking.

I know exactly what you mean, said Captain Barnaby, his voice suddenly deep like a cinco.

He stood to his full height, his jacket pulling back and his nipples flashing at me like the eyes of a rabbit with really far-apart eyes or two ferrets' noses in a hedge.

Oh, Captain Barnaby, I quivered, to the very vitalist of my vital organs and some of the less necessary ones, too.

It is four long years since I washed up on the shores of this isle, said Captain Barnaby, walking slowly towards me.

Four long years since I have had fellow Englishmen to sup hops with, and to cry a hearty God save the king alongside.

Oh, God, sorry, no, he's dead.

I corrected him.

We've got a queen now.

When did he die?

asked Captain Barnaby, his face falling like a sinkhole.

Ah, about three years ago now.

I'm so sorry to break it to you like this.

He turned from me.

I could tell that he did not want me to see him cry at our fallen monarch, but he did want me to see him wipe away a manly tear, so he only turned three-quarters of the way.

It touched me to my very core, like the chieftain's brother had.

Oh, Captain Barnaby, I said and rushed back to his arms, your grief at the death of an autocrat touches me to the very depth of my English heart.

I took one of his English hands and placed it over the English heart which beat furiously against an ample English bosom.

I gazed into his eyes, deep and dark, like a sinkhole, where a patriotic dewdrop still prevaricated.

We both breathed in as one.

Then, oh, then his lips were upon mine like British rule upon the world.

He picked me up with ease in his big man-arms and tossed me onto his bed, which admittedly hurt a bit, but was still quite a sexy gesture.

He stood at the end of the bed, his red coat flapping behind him like a dressing gown on a bedpost.

He pulled the jacket off.

The true bigness of his arm muscles revealed to me.

The hair across his chest was a perfect replica of a map of the city of London.

He had no visible birthmarks or deformities.

Marianne,

I would have you like a man is meant to have a woman.

On top, briefly and in the dark, I said, remembering what my governess had told me.

He threw his head back and roared with laughter at the British education system.

I will give you pleasures in ways you have never even imagined, he said, thrusting his trouser area rambunctiously towards me.

I doubted that that was possible, but he certainly gave it a good go.

Right, yes, well, we'll probably

skip ahead a bit now.

Yes, right.

Don't worry, Captain Barnaby, it happens to lots of men.

Etc.

Anyway, so she leaves Captain Barnaby to think some things through in his shack and is wandering in the jungle when she meets the Spaniards who had kidnapped him earlier.

I'll skip a bit here.

There's eight pages of them having a discussion over the relative merits of Empire building through the medium of mime, and here we go.

Chapter 19.

Il encontro di Spana.

The Spaniard advanced towards me.

I was frozen in sexy indecision.

My head said no, but my heart and genitals said very much yes, please.

Bly me.

I tried to tell myself that I should not want an Armada-having tapas-eating papist.

But he was a real hot piece and had an earring that gave him a sort of homerotic pirate thing, and that pushes a lot of my buttons.

You're not the only one.

I thought of Captain Barnaby captured by these brutes, how they had their hands all over him and tied him up and carried him off, and I feared they might not do it to me.

A Spaniard, who had a really sexy Spaniard name, like Senor España, wrapped his hands around my wrists like so many Hispanic handcuffs.

Yes, that's the stuff.

Nunca e e cho estuantis, he said, pushing his mouth against my ear.

It was the single most erotic phrase I had ever heard.

Blimey.

Yes, let's probably move on a bit.

Quiero que conos casa madre,

he growled as he pulled Marianne on top of him.

These Continentals really were good at talking dirty.

Bit further, Siri.

Good lord.

On.

Yes, just to clarify, some of his compadres have just come.

Into the scene, that is.

They start fighting over her, getting their weapons out.

Oh, yes, this original trap steals her away into the trees.

Lo estabo quar dun lo amigo.

Tienis que casarte con miga orda.

He sobbed manfully into her shoulder.

Yes, please.

Dirty little.

Oh, my.

Right.

Oh, go on, Virgil.

It's your birthday.

Chapter 8.

My night with the chieftain's brother.

Oh, Christ, it's still recording.

Professor, are you all right now?

Don't come in!

Island of Passion was written by Rosie Fletcher and was performed by Tom Tuck, with additional voices by Paul Putner.

The script was edited by David K.

Barnes, and the music was composed and conducted by James Whittle.

The programme was recorded at the RNIB Talking Book Studios and was directed and produced by Andy Goddard and John Wakefield.

The Fable and Folly Network, where fiction producers flourish.

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