In Competition No. 2924 you were invited to submit a ‘love scene’ from a novel that dampens rather than boosts the reader’s libido. It was a cracking entry, so I’ll keep it brief to make space for as many winners as possible. Dishonourable mentions go to Peter Goulding, Sergio Michael Petro, Margaret Timbrell and Ann Drysdale. The winners take £25 each. George Simmers nabs the bonus fiver.

Their gazes met longingly above their mugs of Freetrade herbal tea. Shyly, he offered a proforma document affirming consent to sexual intercourse. She signed it with an eager flourish. Quickly, they both undressed, taking care not to make any remarks that might be taken as objectifying the other’s body. They embraced.
‘It’s wonderful to be like this,’ he said. ‘Just a man and a woman, doing this most natural of things,’ but quickly added, ‘which is not, of course, to disparage those who make alternative sexual choices.’
Their hands explored each other’s bodies as eagerly as their minds had earlier explored alternatives to fracking. He reached for an ethically sourced condom.
They made love happily in a position that did not imply male dominance, but he sensed that she was not yet quite ready. He whispered in her ear: ‘Jeremy Corbyn.’
‘Yes!’ she screamed. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes!’
George Simmers

Smedley and Morag fell upon one another, limbs writhing in an impersonation of an octopus fixated exclusively on its own anatomy, their tongues attempting to grapple in limbless approximation of a wrestling bout. Wanting not merely to possess one another but actually to have been one another since Whitsun, each snorted hungrily after the whiff of the other; Morag relishing the intoxicant waft of sodden corduroy, Smedley relishing the aroma of boiling piccalilli. Their clothes literally melted, their naked selves emerging, jerking and spitting like sausage dogs copulating atop an electric fence. Smedley felt a Balkan upheaval in his groin, hoped Morag felt it also, knew she did from the way her dilating pupils retreated towards ecstasy. He wanted to cram her to overflowing with his future children, she lodged no Health and Safety restrictions. Thrashing their way to completion with stentorian guffaws, they commingled and collapsed, spent as drachma.
Adrian Fry

‘If you liked that,’ Horace whispered, ‘you’ll love what’s coming next.’
Deirdre doubted that anything could stir her to greater heights of arousal than Joe Dolce’s ‘Shaddap You Face’ already had, but the moment that she heard the opening bars of the Steptoe and Son theme she doubted no more. ‘Ecstasy,’ she purred.
‘My God,’ Horace breathed as he ran his hand up her varicosed shin, ‘you’re wearing surgical support stockings.’
‘Happy 93rd birthday, darling,’ Deirdre purred, tonguing his ear and dislodging a lump of wax that he’d had been trying to shift for days.
‘Thanks, babe. Let me fetch you a bin.’
‘No need,’ Deirdre said with a coquettish smile. ‘I’ve already swallowed it.’ She pulled a bag of wigs and false moustaches from underneath the bed and started to sort through the contents. ‘Now which of the Chuckle Brothers do you want me to be tonight?’ she asked.
Rob Stuart

‘I can feel your pimples rising,’ she said, thinking of the hot, hot wind that morning, and the way he had held her fiercely against the wall of the latrine. Now his fingers began their foxtrot over the yellow sheets. Somewhere in those trews, an old badger was stirring, somewhere its musk was beginning to fill the air. Brock jock cock. She must hang on for him, for his polecat soul. Her bowels began to throb, urgently, and she thought of his Bofors gun, the way it was cranking itself into position, the way it would soon be firing those deliquescent, gelatinous shells that made her simper like a Stroganoff cocktail. Oh mercy. He heaved himself across her with all the power at his disposal. She began to dribble with delight. ‘Tell me again,’ he roared, as he jemmied her polished cleft with wrinkled fingers, ‘What’s your tartan?’
Bill Greenwell

As Scott climbed on top of Amanda, he mused out loud about the use of the word ‘conjugate’ both to refer to the sexual act and to the grammatical practice of adapting verbs to the proper tense and person. Amanda, deeply aroused, winked at Scott through the candlelight and said, ‘Oh Scott! That’s brilliant! But kindly dispense with the passive voice! Give me active, transitive verbs!’
Scott did as she commanded, and as his improper noun found its way inside Amanda’s objective predicate, he asked her, shyly and subjunctively, how she felt about role playing involving intentional solecism?
‘I is all for it,’ she answered, and Scott never felt as dirty in his life.
Roger Slater

As Seymour fussed with the clasp of her flannel brassière, Agnes wondered aloud at the pungent aroma that suddenly filled the room. Seymour touched his dry lips to a small constellation of skin tags on Agnes’s shoulder before whispering, ‘I’ve made broccoli in the microwave.’
Agnes scurried off to the bathroom and returned with small pieces of tissue paper dangling from her nostrils. With a sly and lascivious grin, she said, ‘Now, where were we?’
‘Hold that thought!’ Seymour answered, and scurried from the bedroom to the kitchen where he sprinkled salt and a pad of butter on top of the newly cooked broccoli. He was back in an instant, a crooked smile on his face. Twirling the ends of his handlebar moustache, he explained: ‘It’s for after.’
Robert Schechter

No. 2927: Aa Christmas carol

You are invited to submit a Christmas carol as it might have been written by a well-known writer. Please email entries of up to 16 lines to lucy@spectator.co.uk by midday on 30 November Please note the earlier-than-usual deadline, which is because of our Christmas production schedule.