Review of "One Night Only: Erotic Encounters" (ed. Violet Blue)

What a treasure trove of great erotic writing! The consistent high caliber of these nineteen short stories makes One Night Only one of the most enjoyable and rewarding  collections to come our way in quite some time. Editor Violet Blue clearly has an eye for quality, along with a gift for effective organization, arranging the contents with an uncanny “right-ness” reminiscent of a great filmmaker—then again, she was undoubtedly inspired.

The unifying theme here is the one night stand; those breathless, fleetingly ephemeral yet utterly unforgettable sexual encounters that often occur by chance, occasionally nurturing regret, though seldom recalled without a tinge of nostalgic delight. So it was in the reading, as well. It would be difficult to choose a favorite from among so many fine pieces, although several do stand out in my memory, reverberating in those sections of the brain that delight in a cleverly turned phrase, not to mention an increasingly cantankerous and picky reptilian core.

I was immediately hooked by Alison Tyler’s Seeing Stars with its vividly imagined main character, a lonely ticket-taker in a decrepit all-night movie palace who ends up taking a chance on a handsome patron. Fast-paced and thrilling, Kev Henley’s Chasing Fate: Exige is a Frank-Miller-esque tour de force of bad boys up to no good, fast cars and the even faster women who lust after both. Performance Art by the gifted Cynthia Hamilton takes a more cerebral tack, but is no less viscerally satisfying in its steamy denouement wherein two visitors to an art museum momentarily become part of one of the exhibits:

She arched up against him, legs rising, feet hooking on the backs of his thighs and finding denim there. She squeezed his cock inside her, and a strangled groan accompanied his next thrust. His legs crushed down onto hers and he fucked her with a steady pace—firm and measured, accompanied by the low claps of bodies joining, and the slick, lewd liquid noise that was evidence of her overflowing desire.

“Sarah . . .” he gasped at her lips.

It took her a moment—a quick moment measured in three thrusts—to remember.

“Yes.” Breathy and low, her answer was encouragement as much as confirmation.

“Sarah, I’m close.”

The words were low, like a growl, and they sent a thrill through her. She tightened her thighs around his, digging her heels in, and felt her sex constrict around his cock. One pulse, then another, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. It welled up in her, each pulse rippling outward like the droplets in the pond, filling her with sensation until she couldn’t help but brim over.

Jan Darby’s Maid Service delves the notion of “invisibility”, that is, the unspoken assumption that “the help” is to remain discreetly out of sight and out of mind. Yet when a guest at a business hotel “notices” the pretty housekeeper, all notions of class hierarchy and propriety are temporarily forgotten.  Donna George Storey’s Hole In Your Pocket evokes a delectable torture with its poignant and powerfully titillating story of lust suddenly requited when a decades-long Platonic relationship explodes into the physical realm. Austin Stevens’ Belle de Soire,  D.L. King’s Whore, and Kristina Wright’s Just a Little Trim are aptly sly and equally satisfying in their portrayals of frisky professional women out for a thrill. A short quote from Wright’s story ought to be framed and mounted on every serious erotic author’s writing room wall:

The only thing hotter than sex is the temptation of sex. Temptation pays the mortgage, baby.

To which I can only reply, yes! Yes! Yes!

Rachel Kramer Bussel’s Rock Star Rewards is a scintillating character study of a tough lady rocker on tour with her band, a woman who knows what she needs with the means to get what she wants. The game of chess was never so sexy or sensually intense as in Abby Abbot’s absorbing and well-imagined Tournament, and in Three Pink Earthquakes, Thomas S. Roche’s gritty, phrenetic style is perfectly suited to the story of a down-and-dirty ménage encounter under a barroom table:

Right there under the table at Blueboy’s, Molly felt the first man since Carl entering her as she pressed her mouth to his girlfriend’s juicy sex. His cock was thick at the head—just thick enough to stretch her a little, exactly at the place where a little met enough met a lot met more than enough met almost exactly too fucking much—and that meant almost. Exactly. Too much. But not quite, which was just fucking right.

Ilaria was perfect—wet as a faucet inside but dry enough outside that it took a long slow wriggle of Molly’s tongue to find the moisture. Then there was the taste, overwhelming her—deeply intoxicating, sexy and bewitching. Then there was the smell all around her, drowning out everything else. Horny pussy. Why the hell did I ever stop sleeping with girls again?

Enthusiastically recommended!