The mums who moonlight as erotic fiction authors

THINK of an erotic fiction author and you’ll likely imagine a leather-clad dominatrix jetting around the world in search of sexual adventures. But she’s just as likely to be a soccer mum, like these ladies.

WHEN pharmacist Tali Alexander returns home to Manhattan Beach, Brooklyn, every evening, she usually prepares dinner for her three children and helps with their homework.

Around 9pm, finally alone after a hectic day, the 35-year-old flops down on her bed, opens up her laptop and starts work on her second job.

“His wide muscular chest pressed against me, enveloping me,” Alexander types, but her train of thought is soon interrupted.

“Mum, I need a glass of water!” her 4-year-old daughter demands from across the hallway.

Think of an erotic fiction author and you’ll likely imagine a leather-clad dominatrix leading a fabulous existence jetting around the world in search of sexual adventures. But she’s just as likely to be a soccer mum who juggles her risqué writing career with bake sales, bar mitzvahs and, in the case of Alexander, dispensing prescriptions.

Tali Alexander.

Even E.L. James, the Brit behind the smash-hit 50 Shades of Grey trilogy has a fairly unsexy life. She’s a mother of two and former TV executive. Her husband, Niall Leonard, recently described their surprising typical existence: “The dog has to be walked and the children have to be fed and ferried around,” he said.

For these New York women writing erotica, it’s much the same.

Until recently, Tessa Bailey, 30, a Bay Ridge office-worker-turned-stay-at-home mum could only focus on her writing while her 3-year-old napped.

“I’d sneak in words whenever I could,” says Bailey, creator of eight titles, including the best-selling Line of Duty series, which features a hunky assortment of police and fire officers.

It’s been nearly two years since Bailey — who, like all of the women in this article, goes by her pen name in the press and didn’t want her real name mentioned — started writing and publishing erotica. She’s earned enough money in royalty checks that last June her husband was able to quit his bartending job and assume the role of primary caregiver.

T.D. Hassett.

FT. D. Hassett’s book.

High-school teacher T.D. Hassett, 41, makes time for her second calling after hours and over school vacations. She also has to make a point of keeping her two jobs separate.

“I certainly wouldn’t put out anything on the school e-mail, saying: ‘Buy my hot romance novel!’” laughs Hassett, whose books include Darling’s Desire and Loving Link. “But it’s kind of fun, knowing that I have this whole other side to my life.”

Bailey, whose parents are born-again Christians, initially refused to disclose her pen name after securing her first publishing deal in December 2012.

“Eventually I told them and it was like ripping off a Band-Aid,” she recalls. “I showed them [the manuscript] and said, ‘This is the C-word and the P-word and the F-word. They’re all there!’”

Bailey’s mother avoids discussing the raunchy themes of her books, but loves having a daughter on the bestseller lists.

Tali Alexander’s book.

All three women say they draw on their own encounters when writing sex scenes.

“We have a very loving marriage,” Alexander, a mum of three, says suggestively, though she admits to also living vicariously through her characters.

Hassett draws inspiration from her “wild” days as a college student. “The erotic material is a mixture of imagination and personal experience,” she says. Her sultry passages include a hot and heavy shower scene.

Meanwhile, Bailey’s name has consistently appeared on The New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists for adult romance. She believes her success is largely thanks to the rough, dirty-talking men in her books. She admits that one particularly sexy character is an Irish bartender, based on her Dublin-born husband, Patrick, 44.

Bailey’s book.

“The book is called Unfixable, but he jokingly calls it ‘50 Shades of Patrick!’” she says.

As for their kids, the authors prefer to shield them from their R-rated material, which isn’t much of a struggle.

Hassett says her son, Will, 10, has no interest in reading her writing. “He always asks, ‘Why aren’t they about something I’d like to read? Why are they about kissing?’” she says.

This story originally appeared on the New York Post

Originally published as The mums who moonlight as erotic fiction authors