Behind Closed Doors

by Alina Reyes, David Watson (Translator)

Behind Closed Doors is a novel in two halves, one presenting the adventures and perspectives of a woman, the other those of a man. The reader decides which gender role to play and which paths of the plot to pursue by choosing from a group of "doors." Following the author's suggestions, the reader designs the architecture of this erotic hall of mirrors and is hypnotically drawn into a carnival of decadent delights.

Genres: Fiction, Erotica, Choose Your Own Adventure, Queer, Roman, Literature

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1994

About the author

Alina Reyes is the pen-name of Aline Patricia Nardone, a French writer best known for her literary treatment of eroticism.

Reviews

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

SECTION 1
You enter a room. On a low marble table lies a paperback book with a vaguely titillating cover. Its pages are well-thumbed; the spine is creased. On the far side of the room, you see another door standing slightly ajar. Beyond it you can hear the sound of laughter and merriment, and the haunting strains of the Benny Hill theme tune played on an accordion. Do you

Examine the mysterious book. ↳ Go to SECTION 3

Investigate what lies beyond the next door. ↳ Go to SECTION 8

Turn and leave the way you came; literature holds no interest for you. ↳ Go to SECTION 9


SECTION 2
Tucking the book under your arm, you pass quickly through the nearest door to find yourself in a small, dark room. It is dominated by a large lectern standing in the centre, the kind of thing you might normally expect to see at the front of a cathedral – except that this one, you realise as you come closer, is covered in obscene carvings of buxom girls and alarmingly ithyphallic goblins. Positioning yourself behind it, you place the book on the lectern and see with satisfaction that its pages fit perfectly.

You settle down to examine the book's contents, which are provocative. Reading from the front gives you a male protagonist, while reading from the back gives you a female one. The female half, at least, is an interesting mix of the cliché (pirates, knights, men in kilts) and the unexpected (clowns?!), ranging dauntlessly from lush, sensual scenes of coy exploration and suggestiveness all the way up to outré descriptions of exhibitionism, orgies, monster-sex, watersports and horny canines. You certainly have to be careful about what choices you make here…. And yet the writing is always dextrously appealing, and not without a strain of playful humour. You scan a chapter in which your heroine and a friend enjoy the company of a whole company of firemen:

Les hommes s'étaient alignés en deux files indiennes, et chacun polissait sa lance à incendie pour nous la présenter dans la meilleur état. Quand ma compagne vit que les deux premiers étaient en mesure d'offrir une queue parfaitement dure et dressée, elle frappa dans ses mains, et aussitôt ils se détachèrent du peloton de leurs camarades pour venir nous rejoindre au petit trot, malgré les pantalons qui entravaient leurs chevilles.

The men were arranged into two lines, and each was polishing his fire-hose so as to show it off to best effect. When my companion saw that the two men at the front were in a position to offer us perfectly hard, upright cocks, she clapped her hands, and they immediately detached themselves from their platoon to join us at a jog, despite the trousers gathered around their ankles.

You stifle a chuckle. But it seems late; there may not be time to read much more. Do you

Leave the room and try to find your way back to the exit. ↳ Go to SECTION 10

Turn the book around and explore the Male half. ↳ Go to SECTION 11


SECTION 3
The book is called Derrière la porte, which is best translated as ‘Behind Closed Doors’. A blush comes to your cheek as you flick through the pages, which seem to detail a variety of fantastical and inventive sexual encounters described in fluid, poetic prose. Like the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books of your childhood, the action advances only as you, the Reader, make choices. Turning the book over carefully, you realise with interest that it can be read from either front or back, the difference being in whether your hero will be Male or Female.

As you are contemplating the book, there is a sound from in front of you. A Beautiful Woman has slipped through the door opposite; she casts a nervous glance to the room behind her, and holds a finger to her lips, begging you not to give her position away. Do you

Stay and talk to the Beautiful Woman. ↳ Go to SECTION 6

Push past her and explore the room beyond. ↳ Go to SECTION 8


SECTION 4
Passing through the crowds, you look from left to right, marvelling at the strange costumes and encounters on every side. Before long, you have lost your way; when you look behind you, the door you came in by seems no longer to be visible, obscured, perhaps, by the sudden orgiastic flashmob enacting Eric Prydz's Call On Me with more than religious enthusiasm.

Just then, there is a commotion of some kind. A woman has entered at the far end; everyone nearby has turned to see her, pointing and whispering excitedly amongst themselves. ‘It's her!’ you hear a bunny-girl murmur to her beau. ‘The Authoress!’ The woman paces calmly through her admirers, until she reaches a small door set into the wall. Smiling graciously at those nearby, she slips through without another word and disappears, to widespread groans of disappointment. Approaching the door, you try the handle carefully, and find to your surprise that it opens at once.

You follow the woman inside. She is standing a short distance away, facing a large wooden desk behind which sits a jowly man smoking a fat cigar. He scowls at you as you enter. ‘Shut the door and keep quiet!’ he shouts. The Authoress only pouts at you conspiratorially. She has a biro behind her ear, and a Hitachi Magic Wand slung in a holster at her left hip.

‘So what's your new project,’ the man demands, jabbing his cigar at her. ‘We need a follow up to that book about sleeping with a greengrocer.’

‘A butcher,’ she corrects him.

‘Whatever. Tell me about the new novel.’

‘It is an erotic choose-your-own-adventure book—’

The man behind the desk is holding up his hand. ‘I've heard enough. Where do I sign,’ he says, pulling a bag of euros from a desk drawer.

The Authoress hands him a contract, and turns to face you. ‘I'm going this way,’ she tells you, pointing to one of the room's many doors. ‘Would you like to come with me? Perhaps we can read my book together.’ Do you

Follow the woman. ↳ Go to SECTION 12

Politely decline, and try the door next to you instead, on your own. ↳ Go to SECTION 10


SECTION 5
You stumble through the corridors for what seems like hours as the light fades. The music you heard earlier seems always to be just around the next corner. Finally, exhausted, despairing of ever finding your way back to the rooms you saw when you first came in, you collapse to the floor, your head in your hands, and gradually sink into a fitful sleep. When you wake, all this will seem, perhaps, like a dream – a strange, feverish dream, like that time you ate too much morbier and passed out on the sofa in front of Nashville. Just a dream: no less, but no more.

Your adventure ends here.


SECTION 6
The woman closes the door behind her and takes a few steps towards you. You know she is French, because she is naked from the waist down and holding a mille-feuille. ‘I hope you have been enjoying my little book,’ she says with a heavy accent and a smile. ‘When I decided to write this little jeu d'esprit, I wanted to provide something for everyone, young and old, male and female, vanilla and kinky. But always elegant: these are, en fin de compte, intrinsically French erotic fantasies.’

‘Ah,’ you nod wisely. ‘Exposing yourself to strangers on the RER, that sort of thing.’

She executes a disapproving moue. ‘Not exactly.’

‘Getting tied up and spanked with a copy of Charlie Hebdo?’

‘No—’

You pause.

‘Fucked by riot police over the back of a Vélib' stand?’

‘Just stop.’

The two of you eye each other warily. Will you

Stay and talk further with The Authoress. ↳ Go to SECTION 7

Leave her, and take the book off to investigate it elsewhere, alone. ↳ Go to SECTION 2


SECTION 7
‘How do you think men and women differ when it comes to sexual desire?’ you ask her, curious.

‘Women's desires are deep and polymorphous, their depths still unplumbed by art or science,’ she says with a shrug. ‘And men – men are adorable. Their desires are best greeted with sympathy and amusement than with disdain.’

‘And what about love?’ you demand, stepping closer. ‘Is there any room for love in all of this?’

‘Mais bien sûr que oui – but that is what my book is all about,’ she says, surprised. ‘That is the whole point. I hope to show that, in the end, the idealised love-object is just as much a piece of unreality and wishful thinking as the most depraved sexual fantasy-figure. Which is not to say that either of them cannot ever be found.’

She holds a hand out to you.

‘Come with me. Perhaps we can explore these matters in more detail elsewhere.’ Do you

Take the woman's hand and go with her. ↳ Go to SECTION 12

Politely decline, and try another door on your own. ↳ Go to SECTION 10


SECTION 8
Leaving the book, you slip through the door and find yourself in a large, open room filled with activity of every kind. Benches and loungers are gathered in one area, scattered with pillows and throw-cushions; nearby, a large pool of the sort normally associated with a classical harem diffuses the warm light that falls from some distant window in the ceiling. Steam hangs in the air, making everything appear dreamlike and insubstantial. Men and women in varying stages of undress are everywhere: couples push each up against the walls, twins in 1960s nursing uniforms cavort poolside, a troop of shirtless lumberjacks walk past wiping sweat from their brows. A large tricolor hangs on the far wall. ‘What is this place,’ you breathe, eyes wide.

‘This is, like, Alina's fantasy world,’ calls out a nearby girl in an abbreviated baker's outfit, complete with white toque, who is doing something obscene with a ficelle. ‘It's like a sexy French Disneyland.’

‘It's all in the book, friend,’ says a muscled centaur in biker's leathers, putting his hand on your shoulder. ‘Here, take my copy if you like, and go check it out.’ He holds out a copy of the paperback you saw earlier, gesturing to a door nearby. Do you

Take the book and examine it more closely. ↳ Go to SECTION 2

Refuse the book and leave the way you came, having seen enough. ↳ Go to SECTION 9

Stay and explore the room in more detail, and perhaps open one of the other doors. ↳ Go to SECTION 4


SECTION 9
As you leave the strange room, you are hit by a bus and killed instantly. Doctors later say that if you had only been carrying a book with you, it may have been enough to cushion the blow.

Your adventure ends here.


SECTION 10
You pass through the door and find yourself suddenly – unexpectedly – back outside, blinking in the sunlight. For a second you wonder if you shouldn't check something else within; but when you try the handle behind you, it is now locked shut. You move away hesitantly. It is time, you think, to go back to your serious literature, to immerse yourself in a David Foster Wallace and chase it down with a slim Russell Hoban. Perhaps even tackle one of the Russian classics on your to-be-read pile. Only, occasionally, you might drink too much and find yourself late at night flicking self-hatingly through EL James, or downloading a self-published BDSM short to your Kindle, written by a middle-aged male accountant under the pen-name of Trixie Valentine – and you'll wonder, fleetingly…what might have been….

Your adventure ends here.


SECTION 11
A contrivance in the lectern allows you to rotate the book through a hundred and eighty degrees, so that it's now upside-down. Flipping to the back – which is now the front – you study the book from the point of view of a male protagonist. The same lyricism and inventive boundary-pushing is in evidence, though here the author coarsens her language slightly and attempts to inhabit a stereotypically male gaze; the women are simultaneously revered and objectivised, their component parts and accessories fetichised. As, for instance, when the hero finds himself standing under a city pavement that has become magically transparent:

J'étais comme un petit enfant, ou comme un chien, tout fou, bavant de joie, émerveillé ici par un slip brésilien en dentelle rouge tendu sur des fesses brunes et musclées et une chatte entièrement épilée, là par des Dim Up blancs et une culotte à fleurs sous une jupe plissée, ailleurs par une touffe de poils noirs dépassant d'un trop petit slip rose en nylon, dont les élastiques s'enfonçaient dans une chair blanche et grasse, ou bien par des collants résille moulés sur des cuisses plantureuses et portés sans culotte avec des bottes et une robe en daim, ou encore par des socquettes blanches et une culotte Petit Bateau sous un ensemble en coton de style marin…

I was like a little kid – or like a dog – completely crazy, drooling with joy, entranced here by some Brazilian-cut knickers in red lace stretched over a tanned, toned bottom and a fully shaved pussy; there by white hold-ups and floral briefs under a pleated skirt – elsewhere by a tuft of black hair poking out from a too-small pair of pink nylon pants, the elastic of which was buried in pale, plump flesh; or again by fishnet tights clinging to shapely thighs and worn knickerless with boots and a suede dress; or again by white ankle socks and M&S knickers under a cotton sailor frock….

This sense of joyfulness to the writing is maintained even through the book's darker moments. But it is now late; the light from above is fading, and you must find your way out.

You drop the book in a hurry, and head back into the corridor. ↳ Go to SECTION 5


SECTION 12
The woman takes your hand and leads you through the door. It takes your eyes a moment to adjust to the light, but when you see what is in front of you, you smile. ‘How did you know?’ you ask her.

‘Because I am you,’ she says simply. ‘I am that part of you. And every time I allow you to make a choice about what to see or do next, I come to understand you better.’ She walks ahead, looking at you over her left shoulder, hips sashaying, whistling the Marseilleise.

You choose again: you choose to follow her. You walk together into to the sunset…and into what lies beyond.


[May 2015]

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a choose-your-own-adventure erotica book, actually composed of two books. The first part is where you can be the hero. If you flip the book over, you can be the heroine.
While the storylines are a bit odd, the whole draw for me was the choose-your-own-adventure aspect. I read those books as a child, and to find one with an adult theme was quite amusing.

[Ametista · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un dedalo oscuro, fantasie erotiche e perversioni.
Il circo è la mente, le stanze sono fantasie segrete, le porte rappresentano l'accesso alla conoscenza e all'esplorazione.
E' un aprirsi e chiudersi di porte in un circo di acrobazie erotiche...

[jennifer fortin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Se lis rapidement. Est ce que j'ai compris quelque chose ? Pas certaine 😅 un livre weird du début à la fin qui explore des fantasmes étranges a travers un labyrinthe de porte. J'ai par contre aimé pouvoir choisir qu'elle porte emprunter et essayer plusieurs final tout aussi bizarre les unes que les autres.

[Svalbard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Negli anni Novanta era diventato di particolare moda il concetto di ipertesto. Erano stati fatti vari tentativi di applicare quello che sarebbe diventato il modello strutturale del web a vari altri campi. In sostanza, al lettore (o al fruitore in genere – si parlava anche di video, di fumetti, forse perfino di arte ipertestuale) sarebbe toccato il compito di scegliere un percorso suo, individuale e personalissimo. La cosa non ebbe particolare sviluppo, sia perché in qualche modo la grammatica della narrazione – quella lineare, con un prima, un durante e un dopo – è troppo connaturata con l’umano sentire per poter essere rottamata con tanta superficialità; sia perché le opzioni di siffatti ipertesti sono comunque limitate e predisposte a priori, quindi del tutto refrattarie a un ruolo “creativo” del lettore (ben altra cosa è la navigazione attraverso un ipertesto immenso, collettivo, vivo e mutevole come può essere, ad esempio, Wikipedia). A questa “moda” si può ascrivere anche il presente libro di Alina Reyes, un romanzo erotico. Esso è doppio, nel senso che ha due “entrate”: una per gli uomini e una, rovesciando il volume, per le donne. Entrambi i percorsi sono viaggi onirici in una serie di stanze fantastiche, in ciascuna delle quali l’io narrante, donna o uomo, incontra svariati personaggi venendo coinvolto in situazioni più o meno erotiche, sempre comunque di grande suggestione. Il libro non è male, la scrittura è bella e a tratti anche molto coinvolgente. Quello che non funziona, che è perfino del tutto pleonastico alla dinamica narrativa, è proprio la forma ipertestuale. In sostanza, alla fine di ogni “stanza” si aprono una o più “porte” che immettono in altre “stanze”, ma spesso non vi sono spiegazioni sul perché il lettore debba preferire una “porta” piuttosto che un’altra. E, alla fine della lettura di ciascuna delle due parti speculari (delle quali, devo dire, mi è piaciuta di più quella della donna, forse perché l’autrice ha saputo immedesimarcisi meglio) tutto quello che resta è l’impressione di essersi perso qualcosa per strada rispetto ad una lettura “lineare” perché, va da sé, saltellare da una “stanza” all’altra ti fa per forza saltare delle parti. Un interessante esperimento proveniente dal breve periodo in cui si pensò, forse perfino in buona fede, che l’ipertesto potesse veramente diventare il futuro della narrativa. Non molto di più.

[Selvaggina, · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a Choose Your Adventure for adults. Some parts are quite silly, others, quite erotic.

[Matthias Williamson · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book, to be read by a man and a woman and as a choose your own adventure. You flip the book depending on whether you want to follow the male adventure or the female one.

[Arax Miltiadous · Rating 1 out of 5]

άπλα δεν μου μίλησε καθόλου ενώ στην αρχή η ιδέα ενός διπλού μυθιστορήματος μου φάνηκε ενδιαφέρουσα.

[Martha van Zyl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Liked the idea of choosing how the story progressed.

[Aldo Marchioni · Rating 4 out of 5]

Erotic, indeed.
I suggest to read it at the same time with your spouse and/or sexual partner.

[Dominique Reeves · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ou comment lire un livre pour adultes

[Derrick Peng · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this out of sheer curiosity after discovering it through that all-powerful hub of erotic energy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook. I am here as a fan of gamebooks like Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf. The mere existence of erotic gamebooks was surprising to me, which I suppose is a failure of mine to observe Rule 34. Anyway, I just had to try it out.
Note that this was not just my first time reading erotic literature, it was my first time consuming any sexually explicit content... ever. To this day, I've never watched porn. I've only read this book and an erotic graphic novel.

Anyway, the book is split into two halves, one female and one male. I mostly read the female side for some reason, though I am queer so it's probably okay. You start the story by seeing a person of the opposite sex, somewhat implied to be the character you did not choose, who becomes the object of your enduring interest in most of the story. Then you make some "choices" to go into different doors and a bunch of sex happens. At the end is a rather disturbing section where, just before you can finally meet that partner of interest, you are greeted by two ghosts/shadows: The Ghost/Shadow of Myself (who is somehow of the opposite sex) and the Ghost/Shadow of Lost Love. Not much makes sense, but at the end those temptations might be your ultimate undoing, unless you decide to press on and finally find your destiny with the person you saw at the beginning of the story.
I don't know why, but that bit has stayed with me. Anyway, I thought it was pretty good, but I don't usually read smut or erotica so I have almost no frame of comparison.
The only real "problem" from a game perspective is that the doors don't really give you much of a hint as to what is behind them. Then again, the book never claimed to actually be a "game" anyway; it's more of a branching-path story for most of the time. And there's a table of contents so you can read everything you want.

[Cheryl Lucero · Rating 5 out of 5]

I haven't read this since I was a teen. And it's definitely not something a teen should have. My middle school principal was cleaning out his office during summer school and I guess he was going to throw it away but I was like.... I'm bored can I read that?
Stupidly he gave it to me.
This was my introduction to sex.
And as I remember it... it was kinky AF.

[Amy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I can't really recommend. I liked the premise of choosing doors to different intimate encounters and I tried both POVs but the chapters were mostly just brief and weird. Like the author was trying to pack in something for everyone, but it just wasn't for me. I think I prefer lingering romance over full on erotica. DNF

[Elisabeth Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Format: Online - this was hard to find as it's banned in Aotearoa New Zealand
Buy: If I could, I would
Re-read: Yeah
Spice: Uh yes. It's banned due to spice.
Love: It's a 'pick your own adventure' with spice.
Iffy: It's banned... what's up with that?!
Favourite: Choose a door - see what happens behind said door.
Is it spice.
Yes. Yes it is.

[Leiana Helms · Rating 5 out of 5]

You have to be very open minded to read this rare gem. Loved the fantasies and the different perspective coming from both sexes. Such a masterpiece. Bummed I couldn’t bring it from Hawai’i.