I’m reading when you enter the room unannounced–about hard bodies and hared cocks and toe-curling orgasms. My legs are splayed beneath the sheets and the outline of my hand between them is plain to see. I can smell my own arousal and am distracted enough by the words on the page, or maybe the words in my head, that I don’t notice your arrival. You swoop in, ripping the book my my hands. At first, I’m angry, worried that I will lose my page but then l as realization sinks in, I look up to meet your eyes. I act more brazen than I really feel, caught in the act. I expect to see some sort of judgment in your eyes; instead, I see that familiar mischievous twinkle. I hope you can’t hear my sigh of relief.
“Devouring your smut again, I see.” You make a production of scanning the page with your eyes. I’m too busy wondering what you’ll do next to admire their depth or the way your glasses frame them perfectly. You continue talking, reading from the page in your most mocking tone,
“Daniels’ cock entering her pussy, slick with arousal. Jason’s cock… What kind of filth is this? You’re reading about group sex? You’d rather get off from these words than me?” you demand, almost managing to sound convincing. Almost.
I decide to play along. “Yes. Yes, I would. I can get off to any scenario imaginable thanks to my books.” I motion toward the short stack on the nightstand, freshly delivered by the UPS man., I wonder what he’d think if he knew what was in those boxes. “It’s never the same in the stories..” I trail off as you move closer.
“Is that so?” Book still in hand, you reach out and push me back against the bed. My t-shirt falls upward, revealing nakedness underneath, the swell of my stomach and breasts. You move to stand between my legs and your jeans seem an impossibly thick barrier between us. I want to be close to you, to feel if you’re hard. I hope you are.
You’re holding the book in my face as if to scold me for such a guilty pleasure. Without thinking, I reach out my tongue and flick it against the volume, careful not to cut myself on the paper. The atmosphere in the room changes immediately. You draw the binding down my chin, around my breast and belly button then back up around the other breast. My nipples have never felt this alive. You turn the book, grasping one cover and flipping through the pages so they brush against my ribs in rapid succession. It’s only a few seconds but it feels like forever as the air blows my hair back.
You pull your shirt off over your head and now I’m sure that I like where this is going. I wait for your pants to follow but they don’t. Instead, you roll up the book like it’s a newspaper and motion for me to assume the position–on all fours. I do, not entirely sure that a book should be treated in such a manner. The cover makes a “thwack” as it makes contact with my ass. It’s not the most effective impact object but I respect the novelty and naughtiness of the situation. A hard blow lands on the opposite cheek as though you noticed that I didn’t even flinch. They rain harder against my ass, soon leaving it hot and red.
The slick cover feels cold in contract as you change things up and glide it over my skin. I moan softly. The bed shifts and you’re learning over me. I feel your breath on my shoulders as you use a corner of the book to lightly tickle y back in the way that you know I like, eliciting a shiver. Suddenly, you’re pushing the book into my hand, telling me to find my place. I distractedly turn the pages, which now show unexpected wear, looking for where I left off when you grabbed the book.
You’re pulling off your pants and boxers as I search, a fast not lost on me. I give up trying to find my place as you take your stance behind me. Your cock slides inside me easily. In the stories you’d be “impossibly hard”and I “dripping with arousal.”
“Read.” You never command. I want to obey you more than anything. I feel frantic, for just a moment, remembering that I don’t know my place in the book. My mind struggles to find the words to say. I spread the book open beneath my fingers, my body obscuring the words from your view.
“He enters her from behind, his cock impossibly hard. It’s as though he and she are matching puzzle pieces, the way he fits so well. His thrusts seem to hit every spot, even the ones she never knew existed.” I got on, describing our movements, my thoughts. I wonder if you notice. It continues for only a moment before your hand snakes between my legs. My words turn into moans, primal and nonsensical, yet describing the scene somehow perfectly.
You surprise me with the volume of your moan, the intensity of your final thrust as you cum. I hadn’t expected that. You fall to your side, slipping out of me as you do. Your arms encircle my upper body to pull me back against you and I feel your familiar heat, over skin slick with sweat.
But you’re not finished. You reach for the book, pushing it between my thighs. I spread them slightly as you work on edge of the binding against my clit. It’s like a bolt of lightning has hit me and you’re soon moving the book in the hard and fast way that is sure to get me off. Soon enough, I eel my orgasm building. I open my mouth to moan but no sound escapes. The contractions of my pussy are stronger than I’ve ever felt and I squeeze my thighs together, hard, against the covers of the book. You pull it from between them and toss it to the side to replace it with your hand. My pussy pulses against your. Orgasm subsides.
“Good book?” you ask, face buried in my hair.
“Mmm,” I murmur in response.
The pages lie akimbo, like our limbs, looking exhausted as I feel–wet, in disarray and pages wide open for your to explore.
X: The Erotic Treasury
$18.92
from Amazon
There is usually a book or two sitting on my nightstand and, up until now, they have been inconspicuous. Long novels whose covers are adorned with people on horses and flaming swords are a favorite (I look forward to rereading Weis and Hickman’s Death Gate Series). I have also enjoyed Absolute Sandman, which includes some impressive-looking books by Gaiman (rest assured that his writing rivals, if not surpasses, the look of these tomes!); so I am no stranger to beautiful books. And books are no stranger to my bedroom, even erotic ones. But I’ve never had a book quite like X: The Erotic Treasury, grace my nightstand before. Chances are, neither have you.
On the surface, X shares some characteristics of other books I’ve turned to before bed. Like the Ultimate Sandman, it is hardcover and slip-cased, a reprinting of previously published works. Like 5 Minute Erotica, it is a volume of quality erotic writings from two dozen authors, and it will most certainly turn you on. But the fact that it is like both of those books really makes it something else entirely. I don’t think anyone in the business of producing racy reading material has ever gone this route. I think this gives both the editor (Susie Bright) and the publisher (Chronicle Books) an edge over the competition. Quite simply, they did it first.
What is it that they did, exactly? They published a book of the best of the best, with a sexual twist. Susie Bright compiled two dozen stories, many of which were previously published in collections like Best American Erotica or Best Women’s Erotica, to tease and please us. With over 300 pages of erotic content, there is simply a lot more to this collection than others I have written. There’s really not much of a comparison.
On top of the quality stories, the powers that be also decided to make X a book that was also pleasing to the eyes. Slightly larger than most erotica, this hardcover book is encased in red fabric featuring a floral-esque motif in a not-quite-black pattern. The front and back covers are bare, and I’ve opened the book upside down a time or two, but this is not something about which I am overly concerned. On the spine of the book, you will find the name of both the editor and anthology in a very complimentary gold tone. The book fits comfortably in a slipcase that features the same floral design, with colors switched (the not-quite-black is more predominant). On the front of the slipcase, the letter X has been cut so the cover of the book itself will show through. It’s really quite impressive.
Ms. Bright did a wonderful job editing – I noticed no typos or other publishing errors – as well as picking the stories/authors to publish. The caliber of writing in this book is extremely high. It makes me ashamed when I think my writing is any good. The pieces showcased in X are by talented, articulate wordsmiths who are not afraid to express themselves. You can start from the beginning or end or anywhere in between and find yourself immersed in great storytelling.
The stories are of varying subjects, some of which may be considered taboo. They are not your run-of-the-mill erotica written by a bored housewife; they are each truly unique stories. Some are scenarios more creative than my fantasies will ever be, while others are the result of creative minds, skillfully retelling stories, familiar to us all, in ways that seem refreshed. If I have any criticisms of X, is it not about the quality of the stories?
As a testament to the quality of these pieces, I can tell you that I found myself being aroused, more than once, by situations that I do not necessarily consider erotic because the writer is simply that good. This is the case with Michael Dorsey, whose story “Milk” revolves around a Ukrainian engineer living in Russia, following a harsh winter when milk is in high demand. After searching the entire day for the elusive liquid to sate his thirst. He finds his salvation close to home and suckles from a mother’s breast. I have never been a fan of this scenario. Even as I write, I do not like it. Yet, when I read it, Mr. Dorsey’s words turned me on.
Of course, there were plenty of scenes that are more typically arousing for me and proved to be in this book. One piece, “The Man Who Are Women,” chronicles a night of drunken debauchery in which a young man accepts a dare to perform oral on random women while blindfolded. Oral sex is always a winner for me, and this story was no exception.
I also enjoyed Peggy Munson’s “Fairgrounds,” which touched on disability and gender play, as well as “Red Light, Green Light” by Shanna Germain, whose words paint a picture of women partaking in traditional activities in Amsterdam’s red light district (with a twist, of course).
Of course, I didn’t expect to like every story in this book. I found some pieces sexual but personally sexy. I think the stories I didn’t love illustrate quite well what I see as the biggest faults of this collection. First, unlike 5 Minute Erotica, these pieces are not necessarily short. Some are short (for better or worse), but most are longer. This isn’t a problem if I like the content or at least the style of writing, but a long piece that I do not like, as compared to a short one, seems that much worse. Even pieces that contained arousing parts sometimes took too long to get to the “good stuff” for my taste. I suppose I just like my erotica quick and to the point.
Secondly, because these are simply outstanding pieces, some of them simply are not erotic to me. I followed some of them with interest because the storyteller was gifted and the story itself was interesting, but I thought to myself, more than once, “Well, it’s good, but it’s not turning me on.” This was the case with a futuristic story about some sort of cyborg who got off to computerized women in the form of software (“The Portable Girlfriend”). Another story involved the coming of age of a man who has spent his life with a pair of women who embodied every teenager boy’s fantasy (think classic cheerleader), after being granted a wish (“Wish Girls”). I liked the story and was interested in what happened to the main character. Yet, it was written in such a way that something I would normally find erotic just wasn’t.
The high-quality writing contained within these pages sometimes seems to lack the down-and-dirty sexuality of most erotica. However, these common ideas can be the most arousing. Occasionally, I would find myself wondering if high-quality writing and erotica were not mutually exclusive. It seemed like some of the authors preferred hinting at the sex or writing a story that involved sex but was not necessarily about it. I know this is not always the case, as X: The Erotic Treasury contained many well-written pieces that did involve blatant sexuality, yet others made me wonder why they were chosen with this book.
I suppose it must take just as skillful a writer to take something I would generally consider erotic and turn it into something simply interesting, as it does to take the mundane or anti-erotic and make it arousing. Rest assured, all of the authors who have had work included in X: The Erotic Treasury have written pieces worth reading (as is this collection worth perusing). I’m just not sure all of them belong in an anthology of erotica.
A sex blog? Really.
Really, a sex blog. Not that surprising consider how interested I have been in sexuality these past few years. Not that it’s a recent interest, either, just an exponentially growing one.
I remember when I was younger, in middle school, I would spend the night at my best friend’s house. I wold tell stories of a teenaged girl with her skirt too short who snuck out of her bedroom window at night to meet in something of a fort with her older boyfriend. After, she’d boast of her sexual adventures to her friends, showing them the physical signs of her escapades: bruised, scratched and inflamed skin.
Th stories were largely inspired by the movie Fear, a sort of sexual thriller/horror schlocky piece starring Mark Wahlberg and Reese Witherspoon. The male character was based on an older male friend, with whom we both were taken for a short while. I assume we bought imagined the female character to be an extension of ourselves.
At the time, neither of us were sexually active and although we may have thought about it and wondered what it was like – I know I did – I don’t think either of us actually wanted to participate in it, yet.
I spent many of those years and even my younger ones obsessing about sex or, rather, what I thought sex meant and entailed. My assumptions were based on the images and ideas forced on my by the media: television movies and books. Music didn’t seem to hold all the innuendos that it currently does.
Although I understood the mechanics of sex, I don’t think I understood what a complex issue it was. I still felt that my interest was something shameful and although I had been masturbating since before I was a tween, I wasn’t comfortable discussing it. Sex was, simultaneously, something slightly unnatural and shameful as well as something I greatly yearned to be having so that I could join that special club.
My younger self viewed sex as something teenagers were having who were in highschool. It was a social status, something that set them apart. I envisioned my own sexuality as a way to be accepted; if I could prove myself attractive and appealing perhaps I would not have so many issues as I had with my body and appearance, especially my weight. Maybe this would give me an edge over those who would otherwise beat me in every other way.
Could sex really do that for me? Perhaps. I suspect that the thoughts I were entertaining would eventually have led to some sort of downfall and ultimately and even poorer self image than the one I had, as is normal for those who try to validate themselves by being sexually active.
Although erroneous, my thought pattern is typical, I think, especially for young teenaged girls. Sex is a complex and confusing activity about which we’re rarely given the right information at the right time (younger, really is better).
Unfortunately, the realities of sex and the extremes portrayed in the media are often not one in the same. Sex is rarely perfect, often messy and sometimes a disappointment. It’s not always the most wonderful thing in the world nor is it awful, traumatic and debilitating. Sex doesn’t always involve months of romantic planning nor is it always spontaneous (and still perfect!). I think sex is often somewhere in the middle, something Hollywood would never want to admit to.
The reality is that the scope of human sexuality is something far grander than I ever could have imagined at that point and sex is never “always” something. Every time is different and every time offers a new opportunity to learn, to experience and to grow.
Sure, some people will boat their exploits as a way of showing status but, when it comes down to it, there are not the type of people I would choose to associate with and that is not the type of attitude that will get me anywhere.
