The Bodice Ripper Project

Podcast Episode 22 – Desire’s Peak Pt 1

—

by

maren
in

Maren begins reading Desire’s Peak, a story she wrote while on tour in Montana. She also discusses the rise of Asian hate crimes.

The music played during this episode: excerpts from a public domain version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade

Follow Maren…

Anti-Racist resources:

Sign up for the Bodice Ripper Project newsletter and get exclusive behind-the-scenes content: http://www.bodiceripperproject.com/

Purchase Maren’s debut book, Pandemic Passion: A COVID-19 novella on Kindle Unlimited

Transcript

(orchestra tuning)

Hello and welcome to The Bodice Ripper Project, an exploration of sexuality, feminism, and the journey to self-empowerment through the lens of romance novels.

I’m Maren Montalbano, opera singer, coach, and writer.

In this episode, you’ll hear the beginning of Desire’s Peak, and I share my journey into the world of anti-racism.

So make yourself comfortable, loosen your bodice, and let’s begin!

(intro music plays)

Hey there. Thank you so much for pushing play. I’m happy to be back here again with you.

It has been quite a week. Most of my time and energy has actually been spent being a part of discussions about the rise of hate crimes against Asians in this country, as a result of the killing spree that happened in Alabama. I’m sure you’ve heard about that all by now.

The reason that I’ve been a part of these discussions is that this is actually very personal to me. I wanted to touch on it here because it’s a personal part of my life.

Most of my friends know this, but it’s not overtly obvious by looking at me or my name, but I am a quarter Chinese. Obviously I pass as white. If you take a look at my picture, it’s very clear. And I spent most of my childhood pushing away my Chinese heritage. I saw the benefits of being white, even at a very young age.

My middle name was Wong before I got married. That’s my grandmother’s maiden name.

And I wanted to change my middle name when I was about seven or eight. I actually have journal entries where I would like write out my name, um, my new name, Maren Anne Michelle Montalbano. I really wanted it to be very WASP-y, like very, very much so.

When I told my mom that I really wanted to change my name, I was surprised that she was upset. I didn’t understand that by doing these things, I was really pushing away my Chinese heritage. I ended up not changing my name. I’m very proud of Wong, even though I took away Wong when I got married. It was too many names, too many middle names, last names, that kind of thing.

But I have embraced and leaned into my Chinese roots. Actually, my first name, Maren, is a Chinese name. It’s just Americanized. The Chinese version is Mei-ren. It means beauty and love; love in the Confucian sense. So compassion.

And I think about this sometimes, because I wonder, since I did so much to push away my Chinese heritage, am I not Chinese enough now? I don’t know. That’s obviously a loaded question, right? I am exactly enough of everything that I should be. But sometimes I think about that.

Anyway, over the last year I’ve been educating myself.

I’ve been exploring anti-racism, which, part of that journey has included taking classes on diversity, equity and inclusion. And I learned that many Asians, especially first-generation immigrants or people who are like me, who are half or part Asian – “Hapas,” that’s what we’re called – tend to erase their Asian identity to fit in.

So I’m not the only one. Uh, it doesn’t make it any better, but, I’m glad to know that this was not like a, “Oh, I’m just a terrible person.” I’m not, I was just trying to fit in with the white culture that I was growing up in.

And honestly, this has been one way that over the years, over history, whites have been able to stay in power. They pit minorities against one another.

Asians are often seen or spoken of as the model minority, right? Like if you’re going to be a minority, do it like the Asians do. Just don’t speak up about anything, take it quietly. And you know, that’s really unfortunate. Like what a horrible thing to say.

“Just, just be quiet, stay in the corner, shut up. Don’t make a fuss. I know you’re being hurt, but you know what, that’s the price you’ve got to pay.”

Is that the world that we want to live in? Honestly?

What a wake up call. What I’ve been asking myself is how am I benefiting from and upholding systemic racism? That’s how I got to the answer of, well, I really pushed away my Asian identity when I was a kid. I’ve definitely benefited from looking and acting white, for sure.

That’s been a really difficult question to ask myself. I’m still unpacking it. But I am trying to figure out how to do better. And in the end, I truly believe that diversity makes the world a better place. We need to celebrate our differences. We don’t need to use those differences to hold one another down.

Another thing that I’ve been doing is taking the time to just listen to people. Listen to people telling their stories of racism. There are a lot of people who have felt the pain of racism much more keenly than I.

For example, in the discussions that I attended this week, there was story after story about people speaking up to authorities. “This thing happened, this violence was incurred against me or my neighbor or something like that, but I called the police and nothing was done about it.” Over and over and over again. And you know what?

This has been happening to Black and Brown people for centuries. And when I hear Black and Brown people telling those stories, I hear the same exhaustion in their voices, too.

The thing is white people aren’t going to pay attention until other white people start bringing it up. The burden should not fall on the oppressed group to find justice.

The burden should be on the people who actually have a platform. Instead of sweeping these problems under the rug, it’s up to those of us who do have a platform to lift up the rug, shine a flashlight on it. So we can actually clean up the mess.

And as I’ve had these conversations with white people, I sometimes trigger a defensive response.

You might be feeling that response right now. “Well, I’m not a racist, of course I’m not a racist. It’s terrible. Like, why would you think that of me?”

And the thing is we’re all racist. And the sooner we realize that, it’s not, don’t equate being racist with like being a bad person. A lot of this has been socialized into us from a very, very young age.

So it’s all mostly unconscious, but we have to make it conscious. We have to understand that this is happening and be more aware of our own behavior and our own words. That’s when true change can happen.

So what am I going to do to change? I’m going to continue to amplify these stories. I’m going to continue to speak up against racism.

And you know what? I see the power of storytelling. It is so powerful. It has been used to perpetuate harmful racial stereotypes. Think about Sixteen Candles, the character of Long Duck Dong. What an unfortunate character, an unfortunate stereotype. Really, really harmful.

And you know what, here’s the thing. You can look at that and go, “Oh my God, I love Sixteen Candles. Does this mean I can’t watch that movie again?” No. But you can look at it now with the lens of like, was this a beneficial thing for the Asian community? Probably not.

And if you want to talk about where these stereotypes are perpetuated in opera, look no further than Madame Butterfly, the biddable Asian bride, right?

We, as consumers of art, can change the narrative. We can support stories that show Asian characters with many dimensions. Joy Luck Club, for example, that’s a great movie. I just read a fantastic review of the movie Minari. I haven’t seen it yet. It’s out in theaters right now.

And as an artist myself, I’m committed to performing and promoting works by people who are in minority groups, so that I can use my voice to amplify theirs.

So anyway, that was my little rant. We can switch gears now.

I’m finally getting around to telling Desire’s Peak, which I wrote two years ago in Montana.

When it comes to the music that I’m playing as an underscore for this story, I’m not going to be using anything that we performed in Montana. The Crossing is an all new music choir and there’s just, no, I can’t get a license for that music. So we’re going with public domain. And I spent a lot of time trying to find the right music.

So I finally settled on Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, for several reasons. One, I have really fond memories of the piece. I had this record when I was a kid, I had a bunch of story records. One of the records was The Three Musketeers, I absolutely loved that one. And the other one that I loved was Sinbad the Sailor.

And in Sinbad the Sailor, Scheherazade was the underscore to that story. And that kind of makes sense because Scheherazade is the character in 1001 Arabian Nights who tells all the stories and Sinbad is one of the stories that she tells.

I’m also pretty sure that all of those storytelling records trained my ear to be good at this underscoring. I have so much fun with it, you guys, I can’t even tell you. Like, I’m only telling you about this underscoring because I’m geeking out about it so much.

But in a way, tying back to my other conversation, this music could be seen as either cultural appropriation or an example of the celebration of diversity. Either/or, both/and. I’m not sure.

Rimsky-Korsakov, the composer, he was Russian. He trained in Western music, but a lot of times he would eschew the traditional Western harmonic compositional rules and used stuff like Russian folk tunes.

Academics call this practice “musical orientalism,” which in of itself is kind of a racist term. So that really shows you the systemic racism that’s actually built even into musicology.

Scheherazade is an example of program music. So not like an opera, but more like a symphony that has a story that’s being told, kind of like a film score. So that’s one of the reasons I wanted to use it. It already had a lot of evocative elements, imagery that would come up, so I could weave it in underneath my own story.

But here’s the thing. Rimsky-Korsakov was Russian. He wasn’t Arabic. So was he exoticising the 1001 Arabian Nights? Or was he celebrating them? I don’t know. But the music is pretty good.

Let’s get on with the story.

Desire’s Peak

Chapter 1

“Bullseye!”

Stetson Lawrence lifted his head up groggily. His neck was stiff, his back ached, and something on his forehead felt cold and wet. Blood? He touched his fingers tentatively to his brow and examined the residue. It was clear and thin, slightly sticky, and smelled a little bit like kerosene.

“What’s the matter, Stet? You fallin’ asleep again?” Dusty Craig, his best friend and business partner, put down the darts he was throwing and clapped him on the back. “Looks like you gave yourself a little bath with that last drink.”

Sure enough, the evidence was in front of him: he had apparently rested his head on his arm on the bar to take a catnap, but forgot he was holding a drink in his hand.

How many was that tonight? And what the hell had he been drinking? He groaned and stood up, taking the napkin from his friend and scrubbing his head while stumbling to the bathroom.

He ran the tap for a few minutes, splashing cold water on his face and head and neck, trying to get his bearings. Stetson stared at himself in the mirror. 

His sandy hair fell over his brow, dripping with the refreshing water, and his square, firm jaw had softened with a few days of beard growth. He was wearing his best shirt: a button-down blue shirt that his grandmother had gotten him for Christmas. She had said it matched his eyes, so he always wore it on dates.

Dates!

He raised his hand to his forehead as fragments of that evening began to pop back into his head.

He had come to the bar to meet up with a girl he had been talking to online. She had never shown up (Dusty had warned that she was a catfish!), but while he was waiting, he had struck up a conversation with a couple of strangers at the bar: two women who were passing through town, each of them gorgeous in her own way. 

He was sure he’d had only one drink with them, but the only details he could recall came to him in flashes: two sets of full, red lips, generous cleavage on one woman, pert nipples peeking through the thin shirt of the other. One hand on his thigh, another running through his hair. Laughter. But that was all. 

Did he get a number? He put a hand in his pocket to pull out his phone, only to realize that his pockets were empty. No phone, no wallet…only one scrap of paper with a cryptic message scrawled on it: 

YOU HAVE WHAT WE NEED. WE HAVE WHAT YOU WANT. COME FIND US.

Below the words were several numbers, but definitely not phone numbers. GPS coordinates?

“Dude! Stet! You okay in there?” It was Dusty, knocking on the bathroom door. 

Stetson opened the door and looked at his friend solemnly. “I think I’ve been robbed.”

Chapter 2

“Robbed?!” Dusty eyed Stetson skeptically and gestured at his tall, muscled frame. “You ride bulls for a living, Stet. I’m pretty sure nobody would mess with you.”

Dusty did have a point. Stetson’s lean, muscled frame might be bruised from bull-riding, but he stood tall at 6-foot-2 and hadn’t lost a fight since the third grade.

Stetson handed Dusty the note he had found in his pocket. “Was I talking to anyone at the bar when you came in?”

Dusty shook his head as he read the note, a frown furrowing his otherwise perfect features. “You were three sheets to the wind, man. You were talking to everyone, but even Mumblin’ Joe over there couldn’t make out what you were saying.” He pointed towards a grizzled man slouched at the end of the bar.

“Sgrwhog hrrmghf,” Mumblin’ Joe agreed.

Stetson told them both what he remembered of these women, and as he talked, more memories came back. One had long dark hair that fell around her face in wild curls. The other was wearing a thin white cotton shirt and no bra, and he could not take his eyes off those taut little nubs. She liked to talk with her hands, and every time she moved, the cotton fabric would rub them just a little bit harder.

Finally, Dusty handed the note back to Stetson. “These are definitely GPS coordinates,” Dusty declared with a smile. “Looks like we’re going on a road trip.”

Stetson almost protested, but another memory of the women arose in his mind, unbidden. The buxom one had been nibbling on his ear, her breasts pushed up against his arm, and the other one — she had blonde hair, he remembered, cut short like the enchanting pixie she was — had been sitting on his lap. Her little derriere was so…

Dusty cleared his throat, staring pointedly at Stetson’s now-bulging crotch.

Stetson gave his friend a nod, adjusted himself, and walked briskly out of the bar.

“See ya, Joe!” called Dusty as he ran after Stetson.

“Grrrdm flrrrk!”

And I will leave it there.

Join me next episode, in which Stetson meets a mysterious woman bathing in a stream.

Her gaze was so heated that he thought for sure he had stumbled onto some hot springs instead of a mountain stream.

Thank you so much for listening to my little rant at the beginning of this show. I know that everyone is on their own journey down the path of anti-racism. But if you are interested in developing your own anti-racist muscle, here are some easy ways to get started.

You could subscribe to Anti-Racism Daily. It’s an e-newsletter that delivers anti-racist education in bite-sized pieces, with links, of course, that allow you to go in for deep dive, if you so desire. And here are just a few books that you could read. There are dozens upon dozens, if you want to go down that rabbit hole.

But here just a few: White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo; Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong; Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. And I will have those resources listed in the show notes.

Of course, don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter. I do send out love notes and exclusive content every single week, almost every week. So head on over to bodiceripperproject.com and sign up.

And I love hearing from you guys. So if there was anything that struck you about what I said today, or the story or anything else, just reach out to me on Instagram. I’m @supermaren.

The Bodice Ripper Project is a production of Compassionate Creative, and was conceived, written, and edited by me, Maren Montalbano. The background music during the story was excerpts from a public domain version of Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade – and the theme music was written by yours truly. If you liked what you heard, I invite you to give this podcast a 5-star rating – it really does make a difference – and I’ll see you next time.