If you aren’t close friends with a
writer, let me explain something to you; we’re needy, nerdy, and tend to
believe that what we write is somehow, how can I put this—crap—even when faced
with publication credits to the contrary.
(D.L. King, from the
introduction to Her Wish is Your Command)
D.L.
King is probably best known as the editor of several award-winning erotica anthologies.
(Her steamy steampunk collection, Carnal
Machines was included on this site’s Best of 2013 list.) King is also a superb erotic raconteur in her
own right, and this collection of twenty-one well-crafted short stories reveals
an impressively prolific and perceptive artist with a teeming and colorful imagination.
Bondage,
female domination and voyeurism are the author’s unifying themes, whether pursued
as a profession (The Tao of Lust, Mistress of Carabas) or spiritual passion
(Perhaps—A Worthy Offering), a lark
for curious tourists (A Different Kind of
Reality Show, Private Viewing), therapy (Mr. Smith, Ms. Jones Will See You Now), or the creative pastime of
adventurous married couples (Festival of
Lights, Big Night). King has a gift for revealing the sensual essence of
the commonplace.
Most
of these stories feature contemporary urban settings. King is very much at home
in the clubs and converted loft apartments of Brooklyn. Her characters are more
often than not relatably bourgeois, occupying a world somewhere halfway between
the sterile high-rise heaven of New York’s most extravagant conspicuous
consumers, and the ant-like working stiffs who struggle in the streets below,
whose unstinting—and mostly unseen—efforts truly make the city run.
One
of the most imaginative, deeply engaging stories in the collection—one of the
best I’ve read in some time, in fact—is the absolutely superb Perhaps—A Worthy Offering; atypical in
terms of setting and atmosphere, it delves more deeply into spiritual and
philosophical space, while offering delightfully sensuous entertainment as
well.
“Some say Melinoe and Hecate are
one and the same. Some say she was the daughter of Persephone and Zeus, the
co-mingling of light and darkness. Still others say she is the darker aspect of
the goddess Aphrodite. Which do you believe, boy? Do you hear the whispers and
far-off screams of ghosts, or is it your own whispers and screams you hear?”
“Please, mistress.”
Mistress Susan, in a black and
white gown that shimmered in the light of the torches on the walls, continued
to caress Gregory’s smooth chest and prominent nipples with the flat of her
blade.
“I like thinking of her as the dark
side of love and beauty. Please what? I’m beginningto think you’re not paying
attention.”
Gregory screamed as the blade
pricked him under his left nipple. A small amount of blood began to flow.
“Oh honestly, don’t be such a baby.”
She licked the blood from his chest, swirling her tongue around the nub of flesh,
which continued to stiffen, and felt him shudder against both her mouth and his
bonds.
This
is truly great stuff! The author, who admits to suffering a great deal of
self-doubt, shows the rest of us how it ought to be done. So far from “crap”,
her personal demons, hang-ups, worries, and divers doubts are akin to the
irritations that ultimately produce pearls.
Recommended.
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