Laws of Attraction--The Early Days (Lynn Kerstan)

Not long ago, I saw again the man I first loved.

I think he was the first. The time-line is a little vague. But this man, and all the others that preceded or followed—ah, yes, I remember them well. Even though I never met a one of them in person.

So, maybe it wasn’t True Love. Call it a "crush." An "infatuation." We’ve all had them. I still have them. I may be a cool-headed, analytical female, but under this shell of sophisticated detachment writhes a hot-blooded woman who runs with the wolves. Why else would I write romance novels? And just lately, I’ve been thinking about the magnetic males who first caught and held my attention.

Sadly (at least for my wispy hopes of a future together), they were all actors playing fictional roles. Then again, I create men out of thin air and cast them into fictional roles. But why did I choose the men I longed for in my girlhood? Or for that matter, yesterday. And are they anything like the men I conjure from my imagination and put into my books?

The history is long, the blog space is short. So I’ll tell you only about my firstest infatuations. And I won’t mention, this time, any of the real-life men who have also inspired me as I carved out heroes for my books. To talk about those guys, I’d need a lot of wine and a large jolt of indiscretion.

For now, let’s start with the ur-hero I encountered t’other night on NCIS, looking considerably older and pudgier than when we first didn’t meet. At that time, he was playing Illya Kuryakin, sidekick to hero Napoleon Solo in TV’s The Man from U.N.C.L.E. Blond, weedy, taciturn, and usually clad in black, he was the ideal Beatnik-y-but-Exotic hero for an adolescent Good Girl with aspirations to be a flower child and/or nun.

I have no recollection of him ever smiling on that show. He was focused. Dedicated. Ethereal. Lethal. And, I have to admit, somewhat asexual. Rather like Orlando Bloom playing the elf Legolas in the Lord of the Rings trilogy. Both Illya and Legolas were lithe, light-haired, light-footed, gorgeous, and absolutely unthreatening as love interests for young girls on the precipice of discovering their own sexuality. They didn’t smoulder, but they were the cause of much longing, giggling, and private smouldering.

Reflecting on them now, I think some of my soldier or otherwise duty bound heroes—e.g Alex (Marry in Haste), Varden (The Silver Lion), and Cordell (Dangerous Passions)—have something of Illya Kuryakin in them. Um, not the asexual attributes, let me hasten to add! But they haven’t considered love, or have been thwarted in love, or haven’t had time for love. So when love comes at them—this type of man usually requires an intrepid, stubborn, and deeply vulnerable heroine— it cuts off all their preconceptions at the knees.

Back to me. Round about the same time as I chastely lusted for Illya Kuriakin, another man—a quite different one—took hold of my fantasies. I confess that in my infatuations, I have always been promiscuous. Besides, what red-blooded woman could resist Bret Maverick?

Even now, my fingertips tingle as I type his name. All my life (including my Real Life), I’ve been an absolute sucker for a handsome, sharp-witted, silver-tongued, glint-in-his-knowing-eyes rogue. As played by James Garner in his prime, Maverick was a wild rover archetype on the lookout for a good time, easy money, and a quick way out of town. Also a quick way out of entanglements of the emotional kind.

But hard as he tried, he kept finding himself called to good deeds and kind but dangerous actions. He kept risking everything to help strangers. Resistant, grumbling, nearly always getting hurt in the process, he couldn’t stop himself from doing the right thing. And then he moved on, with little to show for his heroism. Not even self-satisfaction, because Maverick never saw himself as a hero.

In my own books, I often find myself creating similarly reluctant, resistant, grumbling . . . heroines. Lucy (Lucy in Disguise) is a prime example. But then I paired her with an aristocratic rogue-smuggler who forms the other half, it seems, of the Bret Maverick persona in that book. He haunts me still.

As it turned out, I wound up spending many years of my life in company with actual rogues, gamblers, and charming ne’er-do-wells, so it’s no surprise I’ve conjured up a number of romance heroes who fit that profile. My favorites are Duran (The Golden Leopard) and Lord Dering (Dangerous Deceptions), but there are plenty of others. This seems to be a role model I can’t escape. Nor do I want to. Love always hits these slippery guys hard and fast and where it hurts. And that’s when their real troubles begin.

Some later time, I’ll write about other devastating men (fictional and otherwise), and tell you how and why they have inspired me.

Meantime, which TV or movie fictional fellows have tickled your fancy or plucked your strings? What is it about them that called to you? What kind of hero do you most like to read about?