You could call it the ultimate romantic gesture.

Last February, Andrew Shaffer, a writer who had recently moved to Lexington, picked up Fifty Shades of Grey, writer E.L. James' global publishing phenom that has introduced 20 million readers to the world of bondage, dominance and sadomasochistic sex.

Shaffer was appalled, as many have been, by the puerile plot line, wooden dialogue and shallow characters in the story of stalker-billionaire Christian Grey, who sweeps dim young college student Anastasia Steele off her feet and into his sex dungeon, more or less.

Shaffer was offended not just as a writer himself but as the boyfriend of Tiffany Reisz, who was the reason he moved to Lexington and who happened to be a very good erotic BDSM author herself.

So Shaffer, the author of the non-fiction Great Philosophers Who Failed at Love (Harper Perennial, $12.99 in paperback), sat down and quickly wrote a parody, Fifty Shames of Earl Grey (Da Capo Press, $13.99 in paperback), in which Ana Steal and Earl Grey enter a world of half-wits and another kind of BDSM: "bards, dragons, sorcery and Magick."

"I was offended," Shaffer said of Fifty Shades, "because I thought the writing was pretty terrible and I've read other BDSM novels that were so much better, including Tiffany's. On the other hand, it's all turned out pretty well for us."

"Pretty well" is an ending that could show up in a romance novel: For Shaffer, it means a book deal with a sizeable advance, interviews with The New York Times and NPR, and another book, Literary Rogues, on the way from Harper Perennial.

"Pretty well" for Reisz means a huge bump of publicity for her recently released BDSM novel, The Siren (Harlequin Mira, $13.95 in paperback) with a first printing of 60,000 copies as millions of titillated Fifty Shades readers look for their next fix.

Shaffer and Reisz met cute on Twitter and then met in person at the Romance Writers of America conference in New York. (Their first date was when Shaffer escorted Reisz to a Manhattan dominatrix; for a full accounting, check out Reisz's column on The Huffington Post.) They now live a modern-day literary life, white Mac notebooks constantly humming in different rooms of their Harrodsburg Road condo, a running Twitter conversation open in one window, the next book chapter in another.

Reisz, an Owensboro native and Centre College graduate, has worked on her writing for a long time, and she seems bemused by success in both personal and professional fronts happening at the same time.

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Lexington couple benefit from runaway success of 'Fifty Shades'