... of sexiness! We sent our Carnal Consultants the first four volumes of Alison Tyler's Alphabet Series to see what they thought of the stories... I won't spoil it for you-- read on!
A is for Amour
Review by Anna Pulley
The first in Cleis Press's Erotic Alphabet Series,
A is for Amour is a slim volume of erotic short stories that straddle the line between love and lust. So often we disassociate the two, with love being seen as a kind of remainder, what's left over when the heat and passion of lust fade, only to be stowed away with the Celine Dion cds and Grandma's afghan in the basement. Which is why it's so refreshing to see love and lust bumping uglies again in this arousing collection of erotica. It portrays the intimacy and intensity that love can add to an already steamy sexcapade. A mostly hetero theme abounds, with one lesbian story, two bisexual tales and one straight-cum-gay (or surprise gay) cross-dressing, clandestine fantasy between old friends. A great train read, (
The Red Eye? Dean Koontz? BOR-ing) A is for Amour has a light, rhythmic buoyancy that's unfettered by the usual grandiose shackles of love's intent. All the classics are there: love at first sight ("Arran's Lure"), unrequited love ("Strings"), the love that dare not speak its name ("My Sometimes Girlfriend," "All About Us") and even a little mustache love ("Parker's Mustache") about the facial hair of the narrator's brother-in-law, which she must keep from her husband in order to avoid another potentially hairy situation. The dialogue can be a bit campy, but that's to be expected. Dirty talk is similar to talking to your pets--it does not translate well outside of the immediate situation. So sentences like "She was already crooning her come song as I yelled, 'Here I come right inside you, baby!'" can come off as silly on the printed page, but if you can get past some of the loopier monologues, the stories are often quite provocative, peppered with vulgar witticisms and rambunctious sparring. The plot was unobtrusive, meaning it didn't detract from the explicit nature of the stories and covered a range of illicit affairs to good ol' terry cloth robe monogamy, though nearly every story ended with "the most orgasms I've ever had in my life" scenarios, which seemed contrived after a while.
One of the stumbling blocks I often face with erotica is due to my English major-y, analytical background, which I can't really turn off (as much of a turn-off as it is). This condition causes me to notice things like subject-verb agreement and cliche, fauxetic language that can interfere with overall arousal. In "Arran's Lure," for instance, the narrator exclaims, "He drove the length of his cock inside her, filling her to overfull." Filling her to overfull? That's like saying he fucked her till she was fucked out. Then a few sentences later, she throws in some old English. "'Tell me now, what do you want?' he asked, whilst he screwed her from behind." Methinks words like "whilst," "thither" and "yore" do not belong in contemporary erotica, unless it involves time traveling or a King Arthur fetish. In "Le Petit Dejeuner," a couple tries to make their Cleveland, Ohio home resemble Paris, where they first fell in love. The author slowly begins replacing English words with French ones, creating a lexicon of unerotic deal breakers in the process, especially when he starts referencing genitalia. "She takes hold of my baguette, where a drop of creme has already appeared." Picturing these sad Midwesterners in their berets and turtlenecks made me want to reach for the straight razor, not the vibrator. Though in "The Blonde in 1812," Thomas Roche turns the rules of diction to his advantage when he tries to seduce a beautiful stranger in a hotel. After revealing that he is a writer, the blonde apologizes for ending her last sentence in a preposition. "You should never end a sentence with a proposition," he says, playfully tweaking her apology into foreplay.
Having authored more than twenty erotic novels, Alison Tyler clearly knows a thing or two about keeping the ink well slick and her story "Above You" was my favorite in the collection. Without taking itself too seriously, A is for Amour proves that while love may be blind, it doesn't hurt to also be blindfolded. Plus, any book of erotica that quotes both Shakespeare and The Cure in the same page gets my vote any day.
Stories and authors included in this anthology are:
Arran's Lure by Saskia Walker
Strings by Tenille Brown
All about Us by Radclyffe
An Unexpected Love Story by Brooke Stern
The Blonde in 1812 by Thomas S. Roche
Parker’s Mustache by Jolene Hui
Le Petit Dejeuner by Jeremy Edwards
Sharing the Love by Tsaurah Litzky
Toys by Michael Hemmingson
An Ordinary Love by R. Gay
My Sometimes Girlfriend by Kate Laurie
Above You by Alison Tyler
B is for Bondage
Review by Loretta
B Is For Bondage is a very cute book. It is tiny- less than 7"x5"- the perfect size to hide behind other more boring books while on the El. It's the second in a series of eight (so far) collections that focus on a theme. First, I want to talk about the stories, then the book as a whole.
"Silver Bells and Cockleshells" by Shanna Germain starts out the book. In this story, a woman dominates her client, a once-a-year sexual experience in the sun that revolves around a vegetable garden. I applaud the unorthodox setting, and loved the various uses for vegetables and vines, but I find the idea of a woman paid to cultivate a garden and dominate a man but once a year to be unrealistic, and it took away from the overall impact.
Two lesbians watching Election Night 2004 get off on Republicanism in "Transfixed, Helpless, and Out of Control" by Charlie Anders. The unnamed narrator dominates Lexa through "transgressive sex as an act of resistance" by shouting at her all the horrible things the new administration will do, while spanking, fingering, and sticking a dildo in Lexa's ass. This was hot and funny the first time, but left me feeling depressed, politically.
"Pervertable" by Mathilde Madden follows a younger male as he gets his first taste of the gay bdsm club with his middle-aged mentor. This tale features a great scene with the men shopping at a hardware store, and then a pet store, and our young narrator imagining all the ways to turn the things on the shelves into sex toys. Hot action, with plenty of whipping.
Japanese rope bondage is the subject of "Shinju" by Teresa Noelle Roberts. Thomas uses Juliette as a model at a fetish party. There is a beautiful sense of Juliette struggling to be an impassive mannequin fighting her desire to orgasm from the ropes and the exhibitionism. This one is romantic, with a lovely anticipation for her orgasm.
Sarah DeMuci's "Time for a Spanking" features an unnamed heterosexual pair. The female is stretched out on a specially-built spanking bench, getting pushed to her limits. Personally, I felt uncomfortable with the amount of crying and painful- not sexy- pain that the heroine seemed to be in.
"The Pillar of St Vitus" in Prague is the setting for the story by L.A. Mistral. Brenda and her boyfriend Jess visit a church's crypt and use a pillar that was used for punishment as their playground. A bit lighter on bondage and a bit heavy on religious imagery
"Pearls of Wisdom" by Cynthia Rayne stars Ms. Whitford, an artist interested in her friend's model, Candace. This tragic little piece is about how trust may extend to cuffs and knives, but not to secrets and pasts. The plot is more interesting than the sex- which isn't to say these two are boring in bed, but I left this story wanting to know more about the model, rather than wanting to reach for my vibe.
Barrett uses a belt to punish his emotionally absent girlfriend Lynne in Charles Brasso's "The Consequences of Her Actions." This one had me yelling my emotional safeword and mentally ending the story with therapy for the couple.
P.S. Haven's "Westbound" is about a woman who leaves her husband and gets her hand stuck in her bumper on the highway. She offers oral sex to a garage employee- Richie- to free her from her "accidental bondage." Less intense on the bondage, and the author is vague as to who is in charge- is the woman topping from the bottom, or is she in charge despite her confines?
Bianca and Alexander have sex on art in "Promise of Submission" by T.C. Calligari. Bianca, who has never had a satisfying sexual experience, discovers the pleasure of admitting she needs Alex physically, and has her first real experience with sexual longing. This one was hot, with Bianca getting tied to the bed.
"Good Marketing" by Bryn Haniver takes place in a future where sexual experiences can be ordered at a simulation club. Ginny has several bisexual fantasies while strapped to a chair- spread eagle. This was pretty neat, certainly creative, and exciting except for the part where Ginny is brought the brink of orgasm at the thought of getting caught in a school of fish.
The final story, told by editor Alison Tyler, is called "Safe," features an unnamed woman handed off from her boyfriend Jack to another dom, who uses a crop on her. Soon, Jack is demanding she use her safeword, and she gets a sense of power from refusing to use it, instead submitting to blows from this strange man. This was another story that questions the power dynamic, and is a bit more romantic, with no sex. I thought it was a sweet way to end the book.
Overall, I enjoyed this cute little book. It has many things going for it- a mix of couples and races and relationships between the characters. This book really does show that "bondage is in the eye of the beholder" because all the stories feature different types of bondage- emotional, physical, even spiritual. This is not cookie-cutter BDSM, where all the stories feature the same mind play and the same whips and all that tired stuff. I thought several of these authors took some chances, and while it didn't always work for me, I applaud the effort. Even when the stories were not my cuppa tea, I thought they were all very well written.
However, I do have a few reservations that are preventing me from buying Tyler's entire back catalogue. While there was a mix of couples, it bothered me that, with the exception of the two lesbian couples, there was only one straight couple where the woman was in charge. There was also only the briefest mention of transpeople, playing in the background at a party. There were far more straight couples than other pairings. I would prefer a book with more types of couples and experiences, or less- so there is less of a token feel to the mix. Overall, a fun collection, with at least a few stories that will capture the hearts (and genitals) of everyone.
C is for Coeds
Review by Jack Hyde
I remember someone at college describing September as Freshman rutting season. Finally freed from the constraints of parental supervision, the Frosh got it on with great abandon. College life is filled with sexual excitement and experimentation, and
C is for Coeds brings us stories about these extra-curricular activities.
This is a "something for everyone" collection. Most of the twelve stories feature hetero sex, but there's a gay story, a lesbian story, a few characters of color, and even some older people. There's a lot of spanking in these stories, so if you're into that, you'll find a lot to enjoy.
Here's a synopsis of each story in
C is for Coeds:
Sugar - Awkward guy finds girl who likes to be spanked, rises to the occasion.
Your Wish Is My Command - Girls dress in bondage gear, put on show (including spanking), discover they like it.
Mo - Male grad student meets undergrad woman through the Internet; they have lots of oral sex.
This Week - Female undergrad enjoys weekly spankings by her male professor.
Cunnilingus 101 - Guy hooks up with crush for lessons in licking.
Shady Ways -Nice girl seduced by roommate's boyfriend.
College Reunion -Hetero couple return for reunion, escape to library for spanking and sex.
Janelle’s Spankology 101 -Girl gets invited by her roommate to spank roommate's bound
boyfriend--d more.
I Wanted Him to Feel It -Gay guy seduces straight guy and teaches him how men do it.
Call Me Jenny -Mom seduces son's college friend, made spicier by Christian guilt.
While She Was Dancing -Girl dresses in roommate's lingerie, gets busy with roommate's boyfriend.
On Finding Jon's Porn -Girl borrows guy's computer, finds porn, guy returns and life imitates art (including some spanking, of course).
My favorite story in
C is for Coeds is "While She Was Dancing." The narrator is a young woman confessing to having done some sexual things she shouldn't have. At first, it's unclear to whom she is confessing, but it's definitely not a priest. I found the narrator charming. Her coy description of her escapades was funny and sexy at the same time.
"While She Was Dancing" kept kicking the sexiness to a higher level with each new revelation. It reminded me of one of my favorite Anais Nin stories, the one about the Cuban artist and someone else's nymphomaniac wife (the first tale in "Artists and Models" in the collection Delta of Venus). The characters in both stories achieve incredible levels of sexual excitement, levels unattainable except on rare occasions for most of us. What's amazing is that "While She Was Dancing" goes on for over 20 pages and sustains the sexual excitement throughout.
I enjoyed reading almost all of the stories in
C is for Coeds. Most of them took the trouble to create interesting and believable characters. A few of them were told in distinct narrative voices. Most importantly, almost all of them got me hot. And with erotica, that's what it' all about.
D is for Dress-Up
Review by Sex Toy Goddess
D is for Dress-Up. It's also for a deliciously desirable dominatrix who dabbles in dressing up her dudes. And that's just one story, my friends! This is one fun little book that explores how dressing up can arouse you in ways you never knew possible! It's tiny, which means it can easily pack to be brought anywhere you want it to be. It is titillating, and explores various taboos, fantasy play, fetishes, and is just the right mix of believability and suspension of reality. A wonderful plus to this book is that there are stories of all kinds, so you are bound (sometimes quite literally) to find something that gets you going.
There are two stories in particular that I found to be incredibly erotic. "Rags to Riches," and "The Mysterious Affair at Styles." "Rags to Riches" is a twist on every painter's wet dream. The classic case of painting the exterior of a house, dreaming of fucking the sexy woman who lives inside, and then one day being lucky enough to make that fantasy a reality. This time, however, the painter is a sexy, strong woman, and the rich woman who lives inside fucks her because she wants to wear the sweaty, paint-spattered clothes that her new lover wears. And of course, the story wouldn't be complete without the painter swapping out her work clothes with the designer dresses she's never before had the desire to wear that wait for her inside the massive closet...
"The Mysterious Affair at Styles" is a seriously hot read. I will not give away all the secrets here, but I will tell you that it is a man who is at the most heightened level of sexual arousal he's ever been in. He is NOT in charge. He is being topped by a secret lover--a woman who punishes him in ways he never imagined, and he does not question her. This is a story for any woman who has ever wanted to top her man and needed a clear path of how this might look. Not for the faint of heart, though.
I enjoyed this book, and suggest reading it one story at a time. It's not meant to be read cover-to-cover. And if you're like me, you'll have memorized the pages of your favorite scenes in no time at all. Who knew dressing up could be so fun!?
