Where to start....  Well, all tales should have a good beginning, and what better way to begin than:

there lived a pure and innocent girl. Now, since her home was in the Bible Belt of the Midwest, USA, such shocking notions as "sex" were quite foreign to her. So she drifted through life for eleven years, pure as the driven snow and free from lustful thoughts, with her halo shining brightly above her.

Then one day a horrid curse befell our heroine. It began, innocently enough, in a library. A dedicated bookworm, she always perused the shelves for something new. This day she stumbled upon something...different. Little did she know that this book held the power within its pages to alter her fate, or she might never have touched it. However, curiosity was her guide this day, and a dark day it was, for she heeded its call. Taking the paperback from the rack, she examined the strange cover.

"Oh my, " she said to herself, a delicate blush rising to her cheeks, "what on earth is this partially clothed and well muscled man doing,  holding a fainting woman in a barely-there dress?" With wide eyes, she opened the book and began to flip through it. "Oh! My!" she exclaimed a few minutes later, her blush deepening.

And so did our heroine discover the romance novel. And her halo seemed to shrink a little, shining a bit less brightly.

This did continue for some time. Checking out multitudes of romance novels, she learned the ways of the damsel in distress and the Arnold Schwarzenegger/Fabio-like hero that always came to rescue and seduce her. Living in the Midwest however, such readings were frowned upon and our heroine had to conceal her new interest from her parents -- although her friends were grateful that she'd finally gotten with the program so they had something juicy to discuss.

Then came the lamented day of . Sitting in English class, talking with her friends while ignoring the funny lady who claimed to be their teacher, they did find themselves turning towards the Forbidden Subject. Amidst speculations of who amongst their acquaintances had done IT, and embellishments to disguise their own lack of experience, the romance novel found its way into their discussion.

Now, many were impressed by the romance novel and spoke highly of its quality. However, two girls among them didn't agree. These two, our heroine of course being one of them, claimed to have the power to write better than the novels! Well, no one had heard such a claim before, so the two were given that night to prove it.

Long hours did our heroine labor that night. Writing by hand, without the benefit of a spell or grammar checker, not having paid enough attention in English class to be knowledgeable of the evils of the comma splice; and yet she persevered, knowing well that her rival would win if she did not.

The next day, weary from lack of sleep and burdened by insecurities, she nevertheless presented her very first piece of fiction to her friends for comparison against that of her rival's. Despite much giggling at the spelling errors, and much blushing at the content, when the judging came, our heroine was victorious!

Realizing that perhaps she had some talent as a bard, she began to contemplate further exploration of this arena. Her thoughts filled with "burgeoning flowers of womanhood" and "throbbing spears of desire", she failed to notice as her halo shrank further, losing more of its shine.

So for many years afterwards did our heroine struggle with pen and paper. Her early readings had filled her head with fantasy, so her writings set off into alternate worlds of unicorns and dragons or, when she discovered Star Trek, off into space and other planets. But always there remained the constant: the damsel in need of rescuing -- from her virginity -- and tall dark and macho who came to her aid.

With only romance novels as her guide, our heroine's fiction became filled with the wondrous metaphors of "he claimed her as though she were a precious jewel he couldn't bear to part with" and "she rode the waves of ecstasy as they washed through her like the rising tide." Her writings became ever more detailed and eventually plots began to work their way in, along with an overdue awareness of spelling. But despite these encouraging advancements, her fiction remained het.

Then the day came when inspiration struck, and she included a gay character in her fic. Of course she never meant to make him so much a part of the story, or so desirable, and she really hadn't planned on him seducing the hero, but these things do happen. And in her preoccupation over this turn of events, she didn't see as her halo grew even smaller, its once bright shine barely a glow now.

Unfortunately, this new addition to her fic left our heroine very confused. She'd had almost no exposure to this type of thing and didn't understand where it had come from. She spent a great deal of time worrying that perhaps she'd lost her mind. It certainly wasn't something she could share with her friends, so she had nowhere to turn, and she began to despair.

But all was not lost! A magical device known as "The Internet" had recently come to her house, and soon did it prove to be her salvation. Searching for pics of Peter Wingfield one night, she accidentally stumbled upon a strange phenomenon. Following a link to another Highlander site, she found herself confronted by this thing called "fanfic", or more importantly in this case, "slash fanfic." Curious, she read one of the stories.

And oh, how our heroine did turn many shades of crimson as she read! It was such a shock to her delicate sensibilities, to read of the many things Methos did to Mac in a very un-platonic manner. Yet she couldn't seem to tear herself away from the story. Once she'd finished it, she found herself moving on to others in the archive she'd discovered.

All that night she read stories, and she continued through that week until she'd read everything on the archive. Then she went in search of more. For, you see, our heroine had discovered that there were others such as she out there. Authors who wrote of what went on between two -- or more -- gorgeous men. And there was nothing wrong with it. Encouraged and relieved, she set out to explore the whole world of slash, never noticing as her halo shrank more, dimming to a bare glimmer.

For some weeks did this continue. However, she had soon exhausted all the Highlander slash available, so she then discovered the worlds of The Sentinel and Star Trek, in all its incarnations. And she was very happy. But in time even these too ran out, and she became desperate for new fic. So she turned to another fandom.

Now, our heroine watched Hercules and Xena every week, but had no interest in seeing Hercules paired with Iolaus. However, she was very desperate, so she read it anyway. But this time she wasn't happy. There were some pairings, she'd discovered, that she just couldn't tolerate. She'd just decided to give up and go back to one of the other fandoms, when she stumbled across a new pairing. Thus did she discover Ares/Joxer.

Struck by the dark beauty of the God of War, our heroine found cause to remain in the Herc/Xenaverse. So did she begin to join mailing lists, hoping to find more fic featuring the gorgeous god and the clumsy yet adorable warrior wannabe. Unfortunately there weren't many of those fics being written, but there were others, and many featured Ares or Joxer, plus other characters she'd come to realize were very attractive.

But it wasn't enough. Soon she'd read everything she could find and new fic wasn't showing up.  So she knew what she had to do. With visions of boys boinking dancing in her head, she sat down at the computer and began to compose her own fic. This time though, she took note of her halo.

Where once it had been large, bright and shiny, now it had tarnished and shrunk. But instead of feeling remorse, our heroine removed her once-halo and smiled as she examined it.

"Oh look," she exclaimed in a pleased tone, "it's just perfect as a cock ring."

And she wrote happily ever after.

(Credit goes to KitKat for the "cock ring/halo" idea, and many thanks to Thamiris for betaing this.)
 

Graphics courtesy of