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    Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair
    Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair
    Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair
    Ebook138 pages2 hours

    Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair

    By Elizabeth McNeill

    3.5/5

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    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.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJul 1, 2014
    ISBN9780062309990
    Nine and a Half Weeks: A Memoir of a Love Affair
    Author

    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.

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    Reviews for Nine and a Half Weeks

    3.5/5

    10 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I 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.
    • 4/5
      Curious 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.
    • 2/5
      The 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.
    • 5/5
      This 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.
    • 3/5
      This 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.
    • 4/5
      Great 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.
    • 2/5
      Not as good as the movie - which wasn't that great either.
    • 3/5
      I 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

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