Two Erotic "Imports" from Yumiko Ozawa and Alicia Torres

These are not literary masterpieces, and under normal circumstances, I would have given them a pass. In attempting to write explicit stories with broad appeal, both authors fall back, rather lazily, on the imagery, if not the attitude, of conventional mainstream porn. Still, while both books are seriously flawed, even allowing for the obvious “English-as-a-second-language” quality of the writing, I found something to like in each of them. Both are well-enough organized to capture initial interest, and each in its own way has a compelling tale to tell. While I do not recommend either book, I invite curious readers to judge for themselves.

Yumiko Ozawa: Yumiko’s House of Secret Dreams

This is the first in a projected series of books about the life of a contemporary Asian courtesan. It’s not entirely clear whether these are fictionalized accounts, or true stories about the author and her clients. The very personal autobiographical narrative style suggests the latter, but Ozawa is demurely cagey, holding our interest in no small part by keeping us guessing.

Ozawa’s English is quite good, though clearly not that of a native stylist. The narration has the detached feel of English overdubbing in some imported Japanese films; uninflected, dispassionate; a bit stiff. She is at her best when offering glimpses and unique insight into Japanese and East Asian culture. But it is her open-mindedness, her empathy, and above all, her infectious spirit of sensual adventure that hooks us:

I set up this house because I wanted to help people live their most secret dreams. But this is also a place where you can find your true self, a place where the body helps the soul find the right path . . . Do not be shy, my friend. No matter what your age or looks are, you will always find someone who will feel your charm. I have felt the charm of many men, and given myself to them, feeling happy when they enjoyed their sexual fantasies with me. I love to look into the eyes of my lovers and see that they desire me, and they see that I desire them as well. That is why I chose this career. I am not one of those who pretend. . .

Unfortunately, the writing loses much of its artless charm when the narrator tries to relay secondhand her clients’ stories, which are little more than shallow porn-inspired vignettes full of clichéd descriptions of always-unbelievably huge body parts, spontaneous threesomes, convulsive, earth-moving orgasms and bad road-construction metaphors. (Granted, traditional Japanese sexual iconography is quite exaggerated  by Western standards, but that's still no excuse for bad writing.) The well-worn devices of the epistolary novel simply don’t work very well here. In the end it’s Yumiko herself we want to be with, and her gentle, welcoming voice we want to hear.    

 

Alicia Torres: The Devil’s Breath  

A beautiful, sociopathic femme fatale cuts a swath of sexual intrigue and criminal mayhem through contemporary Colombian society in her search for revenge. Noone escapes this ruthless anti-heroine’s seductive wiles or the mind-altering drug she employs to manipulate her marks, whether the naïve British and American tourists she meets in the bars of Bogota and Cartagena, or the brutal narco-trafficker who destroyed her family years earlier. Sexual sparks and tracer bullets fly thick and fast in The Devil’s Breath, with near equal impact.

This purports to be a true story, though I remain skeptical, especially as much of the plot is wildly over the top.  The story is not uninteresting overall, and holds together quite well. The tone and cadence of the narrative do seem authentic (one of my ex-in-laws was from Colombia). The sex scenes are sufficiently steamy, if somewhat formulaic and repetitious, liberally borrowing all the familiar visual clichés and triple-X tropes of lowbrow hardcore porn. Unsurprisingly, the writing is often less than stellar, and the editing is downright amateurish in places.

Yet, in spite of her many literary shortcomings, Torres does manage to succeed in portraying a character with some depth, more than a few interesting thoughts in her head, and even a smattering of human empathy. Good sex writing not only gets into the characters’ beds, but, almost as importantly, into their heads, and the author redeems herself quite well in this regard.

Not so, the publisher, who, I think, must be faulted for attempting to promote this story as a heavily sensationalized pulp-sexploitation piece, when, in fact, it’s more of a splashy telenovela, often quite explicit and gratuitously graphic to be sure. But ultimately the sex scenes have a perfunctory feel to them, as if added in more for commercial reasons or length-padding, than narrative value. Several early passages are conspicuously “redacted,” which seems more a crass, ham-fisted marketing ploy than an attempt to protect the innocent.

Readers in search of steamy, fast-paced entertainment that feels like low-budget adventure cinema may well find something to like in The Devil’s Breath.

Best of 2012

These are the books that dazzled me, turned me on and blew me away in 2012. While not all of them fall strictly into the Literary Erotica category, I’ve always believed in getting my orgasms where I find them, and a good book is truly an orgasmic experience, regardless of where it ends up being shelved.  The one thing that all these titles have in common is a fearless originality; an adventuresome spirit—a willingness on the part of the author to break out and try something new, damn the prudes and censors, full steam ahead. Readers rejoice!  

 

Shanna Germain: The Lure of Dangerous Women

These are stories to be savored, reflected upon and dreamed about, returned to again and again; and always with that same quickening delight of first discovery. Germain's language is lithe and lyrical, prose ravished by poetry; dark fantasies turned on subtle lathes of light. Rare alchemy indeed; these tales are evocations of the elemental drawn from the most exquisite strata of quantum possibility. The author captures those infinitesimal flashes of human experience--the unconsciously commonplace--drawing out what we know in our bones, yet could never express in anything less than music, at least until now. Ms. Germain is fearless in exploring the shadowy erotic impulses at the heart of some of our most chastely cherished legends. She does not blink when the disturbing logic of her premise is carried out to its inevitable, sometimes horrific conclusion. It is a rare author who can so easily break out of established genre patterns to create settings and characters with such consummate economy and soul-searing truth. Germain invites her readers to use their own imaginations in concert with hers. These stories take shape before our eyes as if viewed from over the shoulder of a master artist at work on a drawing; a single boldly sketched line is all it takes to define a whole new world; a few more delicate strokes of the pencil, a hint of shading, bring that world and its remarkable inhabitants to unforgettable life. We may, perhaps, be left guessing, pleasantly, at the end, having been given only enough information as our imaginations require to soar.

 

 

Elizabeta Brooke: Never: An Erotic Retelling of Peter Pan

With Never, Elizabeta Brooke has accomplished a rare feat in erotic literature, creating an elaborate, extended, character-driven story that remains exciting and fresh throughout. Clearly the product of a brilliantly fecund sexual imagination, the story is as vivid as it is varied. Cleverly conceived, elegantly executed and beautifully written, this book has the potential to become one of the great classics of literary erotica. The author’s insistent emphasis on plausible story and character development is remarkable; a probing, deeply sympathetic exploration of her subjects’ inner lives. This takes time to do well. But like the most exquisite foreplay, Brooke’s narrative builds deliberately, logically, inevitably, missing no opportunity for psycho-sexual drama and illumination.  For all the magnificently explicit portrayals of orgiastic excess and visceral delight to come, there are no one-dimensional cardboard cut-outs or stock characters here; these are living beings, complex and complete; each with her—or his—own set of deeply personal conflicts and contradictions. But make no mistake; while this is clearly a well-crafted piece of writing with genuine literary merit and substance, “Never” is also one hell of a sexy read; a veritable smorgasbord of sensuous wonder where we are invited to cast off our inhibitions and revel in every exotic texture and taste. Each new scenario in Brooke’s vibrant omnisexual universe is as unabashedly adventuresome as it is refreshingly irreverent; no obeisance paid to taboo here; no patience for prudery, and, best of all, no squeamish self-censorship—the proverbial lead balloon of far too many failed erotic narratives.  Elizabeta Brooke’s Never is a nascent masterpiece, an unburnished gem; it truly deserves to be read, seriously discussed and widely celebrated.

 

Fulani: The Museum of Deviant Desires

The eleven very-short BDSM-themed stories in this collection are sexy and cerebral; breezy, thought-provoking, laugh-out-loud funny and utterly addictive. The author strikes just the right balance between light fluffy diversion and crunchy intellectual substance, letting his horny inner nerd come out to play delightfully kinky games; whimsically creating new words and worlds even as he establishes fascinating new paradigms for the next generation of erotic fiction. Informed by everything from Roland Barthes and Stanislaw Lem to Nu Fetish, industrial bondage; flash fiction and on-line piracy; underground music festivals, and those pulpy sexploitation magazines of the 50s and 60s with their lurid cover paintings and thick black “censor bars” redacting all the naughty bits in the grainy photos accompanying the articles, Fulani’s stories draw their inspiration from an astonishingly diverse cosmos of commonplace artifacts; vacuum cleaners, toasters, plumbing supplies, burned out autos, melted plastic forms, all weirdly apt when turned to the author’s singularly amusing purpose. And yet, there’s great beauty here, too, however unexpected; the language can be lyrical even as it educes degradation and pain; the poetry of domination and submission set amid dystopian landscapes of industrial decay and urban blight. Entertaining, sexy, hilarious, Fulani’s The Museum of Deviant Desires is a trenchant, self-effacing critique of contemporary erotic literature with its finger firmly on the g-spot of popular culture; a treat, not to be missed.

 

 

 

Elizabeta Brooke: Poe

This sexy, bleak, beautiful, occasionally disturbing short story is well worth the adventuresome reader’s attention. Talented Australian writer Elizabeta Brooke invokes for us a gritty, gray urban world of alienation and despair, illuminated with aching lyricism and deep emotional insight. Brooke’s characters vividly embody W.B. Yeats’ notion that “sex and death are the only subjects that can interest a serious mind”; Eros and Thanatos; the erotic, creative impulse and the self-destructive death wish, not so different from one another in the final analysis. In the author’s deep-probing vision, we find ourselves at that terrifying nexus of sex and death; flesh and mind, introspection and lust. Perhaps most memorable and poignant is Brooke’s  portrayal of her characters’ longing for creative intimacy—an emptiness only a true artist can know—the poignant search for mutual understanding, the melding of inventive minds.

 

James Wood: Taking Jennifer

Taking Jennifer is the second entry in Wood’s Erotic Stories of Domination and Submission series.  This taut, well-crafted story offers a new scenario from the surprisingly introspective point of view of a passionate female submissive. The language is never effusive or pretentious; but reminiscent of the finest chamber music, intimate, logical, transparent, without a single note out of place, nor a syllable wasted—extraordinary prose by the standards of any genre. Wood has a keen eye for the most exquisite, often unexpected details. But the true epiphany to be experienced here is in the author’s probing, poignant exploration of his heroine’s deepest thoughts and feelings as she suffers the agony of anticipation—more painful than her master’s physical disciplines—the long minutes of waiting which seem to her an eternity of unrequited need. With Taking Jennifer, James Wood has written the kind of story with the power to inspire a generation of talented, courageous erotic authors. Why should this genre, so steeped in the intricacies of deep human emotions, be left to the hacks? 

 

 

 

 

Shanna Germain: Beneath Sea and Sky

Ms. Germain is as persuasively adept at sci-fi and paranormal fantasy as she is with more poetically-tinged magical realism and mainstream narratives; her settings, often mysterious, vaguely alien, yet sometimes frighteningly familiar as if viewed through weirdly distorted mirrors, turning taboo on its head and trite assumption on its heels. She takes infectious delight in probing the darker erogenous recesses of familiar legends and fairytales. How, we wonder, can a writer so easily, so believably occupy her characters’ spaces—inner as well as outer?  How is she able to get into their heads so completely, so convincingly? It is, perhaps, Germain’s unfailing sense of wonder that makes these stories so compelling. This is not a naïve or child-like wonder; nor jaded, synthesized sentimentality, the facile façade of lost innocence; but, rather, the inextinguishable joy of discovery; the sublimity of the ever-new.

 

 

Adam Penenberg: Virtually True

This techno-thriller from Adam Penenberg is a frenetic headlong rush through a colorful multi-verse of intrigue and illusion, hard-boiled noir and high-tech magical realism; squalid dystopian nightmare and lush cyber seduction; a cosmic data-storm of brilliant ideas and unforgettable imagery. The author portrays a future not so very far off; unnervingly close to present reality for much of the world; less prophetic vision than logical projection. Into this bleak future, Penenberg’s protagonist, journalist True Ailey emerges from the great literary tradition of smart-mouthed gumshoes and hard-boiled reporters, though he has not wholly succumbed to cynicism. A cyber-savant, able to navigate massive data streams manifested within virtual reality; inside these “meta-worlds” True has no equal. But VR addiction—“mnemonia”—has compromised his health, alienated the love of his life, and all but ruined his professional career. Now he finds himself in the capitol of Luzonia, one of the bleaker corners of the developing world, little more than a stringer for a CNN-like infotainment network, itself part of the vast “corpocracy” that dominates the globe.  An old friend offers a tantalizing scoop—a story that could put True’s career back on track—but the friend is assassinated before he can spill the details, and True is left with more mystery than he can handle on his own.  The search for the killer takes the form of classic whodunit with the smartest elements of sci-fi, techno-epic and geopolitical thriller folded into a rich, spicy mix; think Philip K. Dick at his post-apocalyptic perception-bending best including his familiar recurring theme of the phantom twin; the brooding zeitgeist of Alan Moore’s Watchmen, the cyber-punk whiz-bang of Max Headroom, and the artist’s unerring eye for the minutiae of human suffering in Alfonso Cuaron’s masterful cinematic interpretation of P.D. James’ Children of Men. The dialogue sizzles in the best “better-than-real” tradition of Robert Heinlein, Elmore Leonard and Raymond Chandler. But Penenberg is at his most original, vivid and animated when describing the irrepressible life that teams in the dusty slums and choked thoroughfares of the developing world, far below the radar of sheltered Western consciousness. Readers will be richly entertained even as they wrestle with the most acute questions of our times. How do we maintain our essential human connections in an age of hyper-connectedness? How do we keep ourselves grounded in reality when there are so many realities to choose from; one layered thinly on top of another in a perplexing veneer of “maybes?”  What defines sanity in a world where avatar and self have become hopelessly interchangeable? How do we hold on to those genuine but intangible lifelines to our humanity; emotion, intimacy, community?  And, having “evolved” this far, what is the inevitable next-step in hyper-connectedness? Virtually True is a riveting read that leaves us, as most intelligently entertaining books do, with much to think about and replay in our imagination long after our e-readers have been turned off.

 

Andre SanThomas: Mayia (Realm of Janos series #4)

Bad girls may not necessarily have more fun—but they’re definitely more fun to read about. I’d guess that they’re also a lot of fun to write about, if this engaging, well-crafted tale from Andre SanThomas is anything to judge by. Mayia is the fourth installment in SanThomas’ superb Realm of Janos series, and very probably the best of the lot so far, combining elements of classic High Fantasy saga and heart-stopping heist-caper, pagan erotic romance and BDSM debauch. One of the real joys of this series over time has been to observe the author’s growing maturity and command of her craft. The writing is lovely, spare, and increasingly more direct.  Having established the rules by which her imagined realm is governed, SanThomas has begun to play with the possibilities within those boundaries, and the results are wonderfully entertaining. Where, in some of her earlier books, I occasionally got the sense that she was too rigidly constrained by her own pre-established conventions, often missing opportunities for drama and conflict; here she begins to flex her muscles as an original creative force, recognizing what great artists have always known, that infinite possibilities are found within a well-conceived set of limitations.  With Mayia, Andre SanThomas has given her readers an unforgettable, entertaining, fast-paced character-driven story, and that is a literary feat in and of itself.

 

 

 

 

James Wood: Amy’s Choice

Amy’s Choice is a story about voyeurism and erotic dreams come true, beautifully told. The third in a series of finely crafted short stories, this entry offers a sensuous, colorful glimpse into the world of domination and willing submission. At his best, James Wood is a brilliant miniaturist with an eye for the most exquisite details, working with words as a jeweler might work with tiny precious stones; delicately turning and polishing each facet until it becomes luminous. The reader is enthralled by the sheer art of it; the way in which the connection of the minutest detail to the whole is skillfully revealed. Wood’s   sentences are short, elegant, telegraphic; reminiscent of Hemmingway or, perhaps more aptly, Somerset Maugham at his best; and like Maugham, Wood does not judge his characters for their kinks, or begrudge them their excesses. The language itself puts one in mind of certain passages in The Pearl or The Boudoir, those notorious Victorian-era pornographic magazines, utterly scandalous in their day, though by modern standards somewhat quaint, if not downright tame.  Once enticed, readers will find themselves happily enthralled in this lovely shimmering matrix of language and lust. Yes, this is a story about voyeurism and erotic dreams come true; and what may be most ingenious about it is that we have all unconsciously accepted the invitation to watch. 

 

 

 

Smart Smut: Hot Springs

A masterfully written, beautiful, evocative tale with genuine literary substance, this short story is an erotic tour de force. Set in a region so remote as to seem almost magical, a botanist travels with an aged native shaman in search of a rare flower with legendary medicinal properties, and finds more than she could ever have hoped for.   Particularly striking is the manner in which the author infuses the setting itself with vibrant erotic energy. The narrative has a near-cinematic sweep to it, which in no way detracts from the "turn-on" factor; and while the story itself is fairly simple, the telling of it is so colorful, at times so achingly vivid, as to transport us directly into the scene. Readers in search of a good, intelligent sexy tale need look no further.

 

Big Ed Magusson: Irie No Kaubutsu

Bondage ritual meets monster-movie matinée in this intriguing short story from Big Ed Magusson. The author has drilled deep into the shadowy vaults of the reptilian complex to uncover mysteries of the male Id that most guys would just as soon keep buried. Adventuresome readers will be pleasantly terrified, enlightened and entertained by this unusual, highly imaginative foray into the steamy realm of "tentacle titillation.”


 

Mr. Friday's Midlife Crisis

Brand new and hot off the press, Mr. Friday's Midlife Crisis: An Erotic Entertainment 

is now available on Amazon Kindle. 16,000 words at $2.99 (USD); this title may also be borrowed free through Amazon Prime. (Be sure to check out the kick-ass cover designed by Sharazade and Andre SanThomas.)

 

Sixtysomething and seriously oversexed, Mr. Friday’s long overdue for a midlife crisis. The old man still has two or three items left to cross off his bucket list of ingenious kinks when he meets beautiful Sami Rosenberg; a smart-mouthed, vivacious nineteen-year-old college coed with major cash-flow problems and a boyfriend who bores her to tears.

When Mr. F offers an ungodly amount of cash for her to play the courtesan, Sami tells herself it’s all about the money. But more troubling questions persist. How far will she go to get what she wants? How deep do her inhibitions truly run? What’s the real price of a thrill?

Definitely NOT a sweet romantic yarn about nice, agreeable people, Mr. Friday’s Midlife Crisis is the gritty, sometimes disturbing story of what happens when headstrong opposites attract, when honesty takes a back seat to greed, and lust goes on the take. Sexual sparks fly, triangles are shattered and dark emotions laid bare in this contemporary character-driven erotic entertainment from Terrance Aldon Shaw.

 

 
I’m not sure exactly when I heard it—late 2011 or early 2012—but I clearly remember following a piece that aired on NPR about the inconsistency of condom use in the developing world. One particularly pause-inspiring section of the story involved college coeds in Uganda; eighteen or nineteen-year-old women stepping out on weekends with their much-older sugar daddies; all with the full knowledge of the steady boyfriends left behind. This struck me as an intriguing premise for a story, though I would have to transpose the action to the more familiar turf of my native Midwest, which in itself would prove an irresistible challenge.

A few years earlier the local media had been abuzz with sordid details of a lawsuit against motel employees who had used CCTV cameras to spy on, and sometimes capture compromising video footage of their female guests. Voyeurism always makes excellent grist for erotic fiction, especially when it has that fresh, “ripped from the headlines” aroma about it.

These ideas by themselves, while fascinating, weren’t quite enough to reach what I would call a narrative critical mass; the point at which a story takes on a life of its own, transcends the sum of its parts and achieves natural dramatic momentum. For that, I needed an ensemble of strong, memorable characters. I did not want to populate my story with nice, agreeable cardboard cutouts for whom everything has a way of working out just so with nary a hassle, all difficulties smoothed over with a fairy-dust sprinkling of cutesy coincidence or a mawkish movie-of-the-week moral tacked on at the end. Real, interesting people are not all-good or all-bad all the time; they are steeped in contradiction, animated by the need to overcome obstacles, perpetually piqued by their own intractable inner conflicts. A character who behaves the way we always expect is dull indeed.

The Mr. Friday of the title is based on someone I had the great misfortune to know years ago; selfish, bitter, arrogant to the point of megalomania; so thoroughly convinced of his ultimate damnation as to perceive no gain in being kind. And yet, he could occasionally surprise with bouts of spontaneous altruism and self-effacing humor.  A colorful conundrum to be sure. If anything, the fictional Mr. F has been toned down; his mood swings less histrionic; his internal contradictions not quite so complex; his motives greatly simplified. The fellow in the story is certainly more thoughtful, creative and generous than his real-life alter-ego, who would have been quite happy to bed a nubile young thing like Sami so long as it never threatened to cost him anything. In both cases, I think, the old men’s reflexive orneriness comes from their own unexamined insecurities; their cruelty to others rooted in deep self-loathing.

Less clear is where Sami comes from; this beautiful Amerasian-Jewish coed who speaks with the mildest hint of a southern drawl. My characters are often born in imagined conversations. Sometimes I’ll spend hours simply “transcribing” long stretches of dialogue, even before a story has begun to take shape. It’s a great way to get a feel for a character, to figure out what makes her tick, learn her endearing idiosyncrasies and foibles, all the while growing more familiar and comfortable in her presence. Admittedly, I tend to fall in love with my female characters, and Sami was no exception. I liked the way she talked; her smart mouth and self-effacing humor; her powerful sexual self-confidence and cultivated poise alternating with painful reticence and debilitating uncertainty. There’s a sweetness in Sam’s interactions with her roommate, Gwen; but there’s a callous side to her, too; no small measure of selfishness, and a serious mean streak. Being with Mr. Friday has a way of bringing out these darker tendencies in her, a fact she willfully ignores till it’s too late. I borrowed her beauty from several women I’d admired in Playboy over the years, and built her unusual background from diverse strands of experience—my own, and the freely shared knowledge of others'.

I began work on Mr. Friday’s Midlife Crisis in March of 2012, and completed it in November of that year. It is the seventh in my series of Erotic Entertainments, short stories ranging in length from 5,000 to 16,000 words—the first six stories are collected in Six Erotic Tales (The Complete Entertainments, So Far)

I’ve tried hard to make this e-book user friendly and easy to navigate with an active Table of Contents, Hyperlinks to and from the TOC, as well as active URLs to all my other product pages, blog and e-mail. An added feature in the TOC is the option to jump directly to some of the “juicy parts” in the book.

Let me know what you think.

cheers

TAS

 

 

A few words about "ass".

Let’s talk a little about “ass.” Not the figurative kind you chase, or get a piece of, but the word itself; that oft-used and much-maligned appellation for the human hind end.  

I have a rather extensive menagerie of pet peeves where erotic fiction is concerned, and almost all of them have been piqued at one time or another by something I’ve come across in the work of otherwise gifted—even brilliant—writers. Of all the books I’ve encountered, either as a reviewer or beta reader, perhaps the most persistent and annoying flaw is a dearth of imaginative vocabulary, coupled with the consistent overuse of a few common words. In my own torturously slow writing and self-editing process, I spend a lot more time than I care to admit simply pouring over reference books, dictionaries and thesauruses, ever in search of just the right synonym. Admittedly, I’m a stickler for precise meanings, and a sucker for euphonious wordplay, and the one thing I cannot stand is carelessness with regard to word choices.

Beyond precise definition, the use of any word is dictated to some extent by context and the demands of authenticity. A few months ago, I read a short erotic-fantasy novel in which the author described a solemn religious ritual that involved female nudity and intercourse. After describing this colorful rite in lyrical, evocative, even reverent language, the author came to the point in the story where the young women removed their robes, and offhandedly spoiled the whole effect that had been so carefully established by referring to the girls’ “naked asses.” The use of this one word pulled me out of the narrative matrix, and dissolved the fabric of illusion the author had woven with such skill up to that point.  More recently, I was beta-reading a short story that included a fantasy sequence set in the American Civil War period of the 1860s; a “respectable” young woman is ravished by a cavalry officer. At one point, in telling us how the officer ripped her clothes, the young lady says something to the effect that he had “exposed her ass for all to see.” Problem is, if you know anything about “respectable” women in the 19^th century, this kind of vulgarity sounds phony.

Now, in those same books, the word “ass” is used again, but much more appropriately. In the erotic-fantasy novel, the word comes from the drunken mouth of a smelly pig farmer accosting a woman of supposed low repute in a dark alley. Here it sounds just right, and perfectly at home. In the short story, the young woman who fantasized about being ravished back in the 1860s, describes how she masturbates to that same fantasy in the present time, where the word “ass” is perfectly authentic.  

I decided to do a cursory search for synonyms for ass, and here’s what I’ve come up with so far;

Ass: arse (Ant); arsch (Ger); backside; badonkadonk (Slang); behind; bottom; bum (Br); buns; buttocks; butt; culo (Sp); derrière; flanks; fundament; Gluteus Maximus; haunches; hind end; rear end; rump; seat; tuckus (or tuchis) (Yiddish); toosh; tush; tushy . . .

All this has me thinking. The great American industrialist Henry J. Kaiser had a motto, “see a need; fill a need,” and I’ve noticed a need in the community of erotic writers. We need our own specialized thesaurus! That’s why I’m starting a new page on this site, which, I hope, will eventually form the basis for a reference book; The Erotic Writer’s Thesaurus. I would like to invite anyone who visits this site to offer ideas for additional entries and words. The list will expand as I have time to update it, and, let’s hope, become increasingly more useful.  Who out there knows some more words for “ass”? Comment to this post, or e-mail me at taldonshaw@gmail.com. Include the word “thesaurus” in the subject line.

 

PS; don't you just LOVE the word "badonkadonk"???? LOL

Reviews of Big Ed Magusson's "The Ugly One," "Irie No Kabutsu," "Unexpected Sights"

The erotic fiction of Big Ed Magusson is well worth a look. His website and blog, Big Ed's Place (see links page) is one of the most interesting and consistently entertaining adult sites on the web, and he has made a number of his stories available for free there. Here are three recent reviews to pique your curiosity and whet your appetite. As always, enjoy!

TAS


The Ugly One


On the surface, Big Ed Magusson's The Ugly One is a well-written, competently crafted, if somewhat facile tale of self-discovery; an agreeably conventional story populated with nice, agreeable characters, in which things tend to work out well without a whole lot of hassle. There are no surprising plot twists or striking dramatic turns; no urgent life-or-death conflicts to inspire edge-of-the-seat angst or compulsive page-turning. Motivations are logical and realistic; characters behave the way we expect, and one event follows unremarkably on another with near-mechanical predictability. Ultimately, everything is just a bit too prim and proper.

And yet, this story affected me on a profoundly personal level. I recognize much of myself in Magusson's main character/narrator. John, the eponymous ugly one, has a great deal to overcome in a society that values youth and beauty above brains and character. His insecurities and self-doubt are those of everyman--every honest man, at least; his own excruciating, inescapable self-awareness, his awkwardness and uncertainty where women are concerned, all magnified exponentially by his many physical shortcomings. The author captures these qualities with rare compassion and puissance. In fact, this is possibly one of the most authentic character studies I have ever read, certainly in a work of erotic fiction.

I also appreciate Magusson's honest, deeply sympathetic portrayal of the courtesans in this story. Eschewing the lazy path of exploitation or high-moral condescension, he shows us real working women without resorting to the prurient sensationalism or breathless nudge-nudge-wink-wink flippancy of so many stories about prostitutes with their proverbial hearts of gold. There are no whores here, but fully actualized, independent, strong, smart, three-dimensional women; skilled and imaginative beyond the purely clinical aspects of sex; experienced and wise, as insightful as the most perceptive therapists; possessing abundant gifts for empathy and an extraordinary aptitude for healing. How many guys would kill for advice from life-coaches like these ever-magnificent, always astonishing women? If only reality could work out so well!

 

 

Irie No Kaubutsu

Bondage ritual meets monster-movie matinée in this intriguing short story from Big Ed Magusson. An American graduate student gets more than he expected of both when he accompanies his Japanese fiancé to her home village to meet his future in-laws and learn something of the local customs. I can't give away too much more about Irie No Kaubutsu without dropping a spoiler. Suffice to say, Magusson has drilled deep into the shadowy vaults of the reptilian complex to uncover mysteries of the male Id that most guys would just as soon keep buried. (We do tend to embarrass easily in spite of all our macho posturings.)

Yet, it's hardly a secret. The monsters we imagine may be more real than we care to believe insofar as they reveal something of our darkest desires and fantasies. From King Kong making off with a scantily clad Fey Ray (or virtually making out with a topless Jessica Lange in the 1976 Dino De Laurentiis re-make) to the undercurrent of menace in Julia Adams' silent aquatic pas de deux with the gill-man in Creature From the Black Lagoon; to the giant multi-tentacled carnivorous plant ravishing an hysterical Shirley Patterson in The Land Unknown or the Metalunan Mutant making lustful bug-eyes at a helpless Faith Domergue in This Island Earth, the male libido feeds on female fear and vulnerability. And while any imagined consummation may be unspeakably horrific--not to mention physically impossible--ultimately, it's the damsels' distress that turns us on. Hollywood has always understood this. How many B-movie ingénues were cast for the sheer piercing power of their lungs or the core-shattering sexiness of their screams? Like an aspect of the Jungian primal memory, young boys seem to understand instinctively, even before they can articulate the idea, from the day they first begin to taunt the girls with spiders and snakes for no better reason than to hear their shrieks and feel their terror.

Magusson clearly understands this, too. Adventuresome readers will be pleasantly terrified, enlightened and entertained by this unusual, highly imaginative foray into the steamy realm of "tentacle titillation.”

Recommended.

 

 

Unexpected Sights

This collection brings together four short stories about voyeurism, reminiscent of the famous Letters to Penthouse series, though the writing here is more sophisticated, and the descriptions somewhat less explicit. Big Ed Magusson's style is straightforward, confidential, intimate and engaging. Each tale is narrated in a conversational first person, actions observed sometimes rather dispassionately by a different male character, all clear-headed, reasonably freethinking and refreshingly enlightened about sex; all eager to look, none so ungentlemanly as to touch.

We happily share the adventure of a daring teenaged exhibitionist in a Victoria's Secret changing room (A Mall Tale); spy on some naughty neighbors' late night assignation (Babe in the Night); observe all manner of salacious comings and goings through the eyes of a horny night clerk at a local no-tell motel (Sights on the Night Shift) and get a pleasant eyeful of cleavage from a sexy dental hygienist (A Smile on My Face).

There are no cliff-hangers here, no subtle plot twists, no irony; this is light erotic entertainment presented without pretense. Magusson's scenarios, woven from the most ordinary strands of everyday life, are mildly titillating, but the author does not insult our intelligence with the breathless insistence that what is revealed must necessarily turn us on--that it occasionally does comes as a most pleasant surprise.

 

 

Short Fiction Reviews: Elizabeta Brooke; Andre SanThomas; James Wood; Smart Smut

A round-up of "short takes;" reviews of four recent notable works of erotic short fiction from as many masters of the craft, all originally posted on Amazon within the last several months. Enjoy! TAS

Poe by Elizabeta Brooke

This sexy, bleak, beautiful, occasionally disturbing story is well worth the adventuresome reader’s attention. Talented Australian author Elizabeta Brooke invokes for us a gritty, gray world of urban alienation and despair, illuminated with aching lyricism and deep emotional insight.

Ostensibly a male prostitute, Poe is a sensitive, creative soul; a poet, almost preternaturally intuitive. While turning what ought to be an ordinary trick, Poe encounters Kitty, a troubled young woman who may be more than she seems; an innocent victim of multiple personality disorder, or perhaps, something much darker.

“Unexpectedly intrigued, Poe tilted his head, stared through the smeared glass front of the building. This woman child had not the look of a bored housewife on a dare. Nor that of a bride-to-be searching for a Hen’s Night rite of passage. This female had the look of one hoping to divest a troublesome burden.”

Brooke’s characters vividly embody W.B. Yeats’ notion that “sex and death are the only subjects that can interest a serious mind”; Eros and Thanatos; the erotic, creative impulse and the self-destructive death wish, not so different from one another in the final analysis. In Brooke’s vision, we find ourselves at that terrifying nexus of sex and death; flesh and mind, introspection and lust;

“Time lost its hold on him and he became nothing—a shell surrounding the orgasm that searched for a way out—worming through his loins and into the root of his cock where it gripped him like a whirlpool, sucking him in, and yet needing to explode outwards.

Then the grip tightened, the explosion formed, and he put all his force into the last blinding thrust that carried him over the edge, his rigid torso convulsing against the now quiescent body beneath him. Everything pumped out; his juice, his brains, his eyes, his ears, his sound. There was nothing left.”

Most remarkable is the author’s portrayal of her characters’ longing for creative intimacy—an emptiness only a true artist can know—the poignant search for mutual understanding, the melding of inventive minds.

Highly recommended!

 

 

 

Legends of the Realm of Janos by Andre SanThomas

As of this writing there are four full-length novels in Andre SanThomas’ Realm of Janos series; her highly imaginative, consistently rewarding Erotic-High-Fantasy franchise. Well-established fans of the series will find themselves on familiar entertaining turf with this little collection of four short origin stories from the Janosian mythos. Those readers as yet uninitiated into SanThomas’ vibrant world of ritualized domination and submission may find this an engaging introduction.    

Each story or legend elucidates the character of a beautiful, strong, determined woman—soft and graceful on the outside, adamant, smart and resourceful within. The tales are simple and somewhat formulaic, the style akin to familiar bedtime stories or children’s fables, but definitely for adults only.  All of these stories celebrate the beauty and wonder of monogamous belonging. The constant moral; it is in knowing and understanding one’s role that true satisfaction and bliss—the blessings of the gods—are found.

 

 

Shower Time by James Wood

James Wood’s Shower Time is less traditional short story than contemporary erotic vignette; a single, intimately atmospheric scene that unfolds before the mind’s eye like the most carefully executed tracking shot in a small-scale art film.  The setting is quickly, vividly established with deft economy, even as the author manages to keep us guessing about certain details for a while—truly impressive on such a compressed narrative canvas. The use of language is fascinating in itself, varying throughout the scene from delicately artful to unabashedly raw, without ever noticeably “shifting gears” or inducing stylistic vertigo in the reader’s imagination. The wonderfully subtle use of conversational first-person, in which the narrator says “you” even more often than “I,” is a welcome departure from the banal autoerotic amateurism of so much contemporary “smut.”

A superb example of what skilled writers can achieve with flash fiction, Shower Time has the potential to inspire a new movement in Literary Erotica; call it the “quickie,” the “short-short” or the “ultra-mini.” Gathered together, two or three dozen high-quality stories like this might well form an impressive—and best-selling—anthology. In the meantime, this title may be recommended all on its own.

 

Hot Springs by Smart Smut

A masterfully written, beautiful, evocative tale with genuine literary substance, Smart Smut’s Hot Springs is an erotic tour de force. Set in a region so remote as to seem almost magical, a botanist travels with an aged native shaman in search of a rare flower with legendary medicinal properties, and finds more than she could ever have hoped for.   Particularly striking is the manner in which the author infuses the setting itself with vibrant erotic energy. The narrative has a near-cinematic sweep to it, which in no way detracts from the "turn-on" factor; and while the story itself is fairly simple, the telling of it is so colorful, at times so achingly vivid, as to transport us directly into the scene. Readers in search of a good, intelligent sexy tale need look no further.

 

 

Review of TWO Shanna Germain collections

If you don't yet know the work of Shanna Germain, I urge you to dive in and discover as soon as you possibly can! These two reviews were just recently posted on Amazon, and are here presented as a "double feature." Enjoy! (TAS)

The Lure of Dangerous Women

Shanna Germain may well be among the most accomplished, consistently interesting, imaginative and original prose stylists in contemporary American fiction, transcending all considerations of genre. She is probably best known for her erotic short fiction, though much of that impressive oeuvre is scattered here and there throughout a vast uncharted nebula of anthologies and compilations. I first encountered her story Smoke and Ashes in the Susie-Bright-edited collection, Bitten, and was immediately taken with Germain's gifts for atmosphere and pacing; form and proportion; and, not least, her striking command of what screenwriters sometimes call "the slow reveal." All these characteristics are very much on display in The Lure of Dangerous Women, Germain's new and not-to-be-missed collection of seven short stories

This review must necessarily be framed in broad terms, as trying to synopsize any of these stories too closely would be to give away their hidden prizes and spoil the payoffs that make them so compelling in the first place. Suffice to say these are stories to be savored, reflected upon and dreamed about, returned to again and again; and always with that same quickening delight of first discovery. Germain's language is lithe and lyrical, prose ravished by poetry; dark fantasies turned on subtle lathes of light. Rare alchemy indeed; these tales are evocations of the elemental drawn from the most exquisite strata of quantum possibility. The author captures those infinitesimal flashes of human experience--the unconsciously commonplace--drawing out what we know in our bones, yet could never express in anything less than music, at least until now.

Ms. Germain is fearless in exploring the shadowy erotic impulses at the heart of some of our most chastely cherished legends (as in Trill, the story that opens the collection). She does not blink when the disturbing logic of her premise is carried out to its inevitable, sometimes horrific conclusion (Animal Instincts, Trill, Seed). She can, with seeming effortlessness, conjure up new cultures and civilizations as with the alien matriarchy of Seed—a strange through-the-looking-glass reflection of our own mores and assumptions about propriety—or the Old-West inflected wilderness of One Woman Town, which seems to occupy the frontier between the epic wastelands of Stephen King's The Gunslinger, and the wind-swept post-apocalyptic ruins of William Miller's A Canticle for Liebowitz.

Critics more jaded than I might complain that there's nothing particularly revolutionary about this bending of myth and folklore through the well-worn prism of Jungian analysis. "Hasn't this sort of thing been done to death?" they may sniff. To which I would reply most emphatically, "not quite like this; seldom with this level of originality, and certainly never so beautifully or with such purely entertaining results."

Few writers employ the first person with such unassuming subtlety. Still fewer so easily break out of established genre patterns to create settings and characters with such consummate economy and soul-searing truth. Germain invites her readers to use their own imaginations in concert with hers. She does not assault our senses or insult our intelligence with bald declarative sentences or awkward backstory digressions. Her sense of timing is uncanny; the unhurried, almost seductive unfolding of plot; the artfully controlled "unwrapping" of essential detail. The stories take shape before our eyes as if viewed from over the shoulder of a master artist at work on a drawing; a single boldly sketched line is all it takes to define a whole new world; a few more delicate strokes of the pencil, a hint of shading, bring that world and its remarkable inhabitants to unforgettable life. We may, perhaps, be left guessing, pleasantly, at the end, having been given only enough information as our imaginations require to soar.

The Lure of Dangerous Women is recommended without reservation.

 

 

 

Beneath Sea and Sky

While those of us who believe in erotica as a serious literary endeavor may never fully succeed in winning over the skeptics; we might go a long way to further our cause by gifting them all copies of Shanna Germain’s Beneath Sea and Sky. This collection of six short stories is a feast of sheer sensuous delight, as cleverly conceived and beautifully written as anything currently to be found in contemporary adult fiction.

Though, perhaps, not originally intended as such, Beneath Sea and Sky makes a satisfying companion and compliment to Ms. Germain’s superb recent collection, The Lure of Dangerous Women. The two collections share many of the same broad themes, stylized genre-riffs, lush atmosphere and vibrant moods, and while the stories in Lure are not ‘erotica’ per se, there is a strong, pulsing undercurrent of eroticism in many of them. That same irresistible rhythm—albeit seldom overly explicit or gratuitous—beats much closer to the surface in Beneath Sea and Sky. Readers who relished the sheer virtuosity of Lure (as I did) will not be disappointed; those in search of something more overtly sexy will be astonished and most delectably seduced.

Ms. Germain is as persuasively adept at sci-fi and paranormal fantasy as she is with more poetically-tinged magical realism and mainstream narratives; her settings, often mysterious, vaguely alien, yet sometimes frighteningly familiar as if viewed through weirdly distorted mirrors, turning taboo on its head and trite assumption on its heels. She takes infectious delight in probing the darker erogenous recesses of familiar legends and fairytales. Skin Deep, her lyrical reimagining of Beauty and the Beast owes more to Cocteau and A.N. Roquelaure than Disney, while remaining wholly the author’s own; and in The Princess of Silk and Pain an oft-told bedtime story is given a decidedly grownup BDSM twist.

How, we wonder, can a writer so easily, so believably occupy her characters’ spaces—inner as well as outer?  How is she able to get into their heads so completely, so convincingly? And there are so many very different heads; a besotted gay man in the title story, an unwillingly sheltered noblewoman in The Princess of Silk and Pain, a lonely pastry chef in Devil’s Food, a disillusioned housewife in Hands of Time.

It is, perhaps, Germain’s unfailing sense of wonder that makes these stories so compelling. This is not a naïve or child-like wonder; nor jaded, synthesized sentimentality, the facile façade of lost innocence; but, rather, the inextinguishable joy of discovery; the sublimity of the ever-new. As the narrator of the title story tells us:

“What is there to like about Skye?  . . . I’d say it’s his idealism, his belief that anything’s out there if you just have the right equipment. But I’m not sure he actually believes that, so perhaps, what’s attractive about him is really his belief in his belief. Because if he believes, even without proof, then maybe, just maybe, there really is something out there. Something unnamable and unknowable. Something wonderful and still undiscovered , tucked into that unknown place that lies between sea and sky.” 

Shanna Germain’s Beneath Sea and Sky is highly recommended.

 

Terrance Aldon Shaw (TAS)