Lesbian Lust: Erotic Stories & Orgasmic: Erotica for Women

Ladies, start your engines! Two new collections of erotica hit the shelves this month, "Lesbian Lust: Erotic Stories," edited by Sacchi Green, and "Orgasmic: Erotica for Women," edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. Although the first is all women, all the time, and the second features hetero pairings, both collections will get your lady wood going and send you running out to Duane Reade to restock your supply of double AA batteries.

Lesbian Lust: Erotic Stories

Green's collection of 18 short stories delves into the spectrum of lesbian lust, providing something for every taste. These scenes of "uninhibited, unrepentant sex between women" starts off with a bang with Sommer Marsden's "The Girl With the Bettie Page Bangs," a tale of a lascivious lunchtime hook-up between an older lesbian taking advantage of the library's free computer service and a younger library administrator taking advantage of her.

Fantasy and car trouble is a recurring them, coming into play in Fran Walker's "A Midwinter Night's Dream," when a stranded motorist stumbles into a Hotel California-style lesbian scene. It arises again in Crystal Barela's "Camshaft Cutie" and C. B. Potts' "The Angel Connection." Sex in the Porsche is the thing in Ren Peter's "Lovers' Moon."

The bedroom hits the boardroom in R. G. Emanuelle's "The Office Grind," and several other stories deal with longtime lesbian lovers, sex with the married neighbor, and Green's stellar closer, "Danger," that depicts a hook-up between a Vietnam war vet and a tough dyke on the eve of the Stonewall riots.

Scenes of submission also abound, from the fantasy Catholic schoolgirl gang-bang of Catherine Lundoff's "Reunion at St. Mary's" to the S/M piece, "August Crazies" by Miel Rose, to the more intense "Canvas" by Kenzie Mayer.

Bussel is among the contributors in "Lesbian Lust," penning "Swollen," a sensual story of a pregnant lesbian along in Hawaii who discovers that the hotel concierge service is extremely accommodating. Andrea Dale's "Lost and Found" also visits the fantasy of sex with a sloe-eyed local during a Hawaiian vacation.

Orgasmic: Erotica for Women

In the anthology Orgasmic: Erotica for Women, Bussel presents a collection of 25 erotic stories on the unified theme of the female orgasm. This inventive concept is welcome change of pace from standard collections of erotica, and Bussel does much with the idea. From oral sex to digital penetration to sex toys to "the old bump and grind," the stories present myriad ways of reaching the Big O-and I'm not talking about Oprah. And Bussel's approach to these moments of arousal is refreshing.

"I don't want to add to the clamor of the voices saying, You must orgasm now," writes Bussel in her intro. "Instead, I want Orgasmic to be a fictional showcase of some of the reasons, methods and delights women bring to their orgasms. I want these red-hot stories to help get you warmed up, primed, aroused. I want them to make you squirm with desire, identification, curiosity. I want you to read these stories aloud to a lover...or someone you wish were you lover."

The book opens with Elizabeth Coldwell's "The Waiting Game," in which a woman who finds that "the more frequently I come, the weaker, less enjoyable and harder to achieve those climaxes become," is teased by her husband for days before she is allowed to release, until "the pleasure that has been building and building with no outlet for some many days now comes gushing forth."

A similar scene unfolds in Rowan Elizabeth's "Hurdles," when a woman who finds it hard to come gives her lover the explicit instructions needed to send her over the edge. And in Donna George Storey's "The Big O," a woman surprises her husband while he is away on vacation by embarking upon a "sexercise" regimen aimed at strengthened her Kegel muscles and improving their orgasms.

In Velvet Moore's "Chemistry," a woman's arousal is triggered by the smells of a science lab, and in Susie Hara's "Fixing the Pipes," a woman reaches climax when her husband pretends to be a horny plumber. Voyeurism (and sexy heels) takes a turn in Neve Black's "Animal Inside."

Sex toys also play a role in several of the stories. In Lolita Lopez's "The Chair," a sexual submissive earns the right to sit in her master's inventive sex chair, complete with motorized vibrators. In Dusty Horn's "Share," two women explore the thrills of the double dong. And a toy robot does the trick in Sylvia Lowry's "Old Faithful."

Nature even plays its part in Teresa Noelle Roberts "Moon Tantra," featuring sex during a lunar eclipse, and Louisa Harte's "Seeing Stars," in which a woman goes on a midnight nature walk and reconnects with her own primal nature.

Both Lesbian Lust: Erotic Stories and Orgasmic: Erotica for Women are now available from Cleis Press for $14.95 at http://www.cleispress.com/index.php.