Playing With Fire: Taboo Erotica

Welcome back to the Fleshbot Book Club-your chance to get a sneak peek at some of the hottest erotic literature out now. Today's selection comes from Cleis Press's Playing with Fire, edited by Alison Tyler.

The following excerpt is from "Hot on the Tin Roof," by I.K.Velasco.

There was the time when she'd handcuffed herself to the bookshelves at the library, the 58th Street branch. I found her on the fifth floor, medieval history section. I rocked her against the shelves, shaking the whole row as the leather-bound books clapped the linoleum. Both hands were bound. I always wondered how she'd accomplished that by herself.

There was the time at the Met. While the members of the board and the honored sponsors had cocktails and hors d'oeuvres in the main hall, I fucked her in the Asian Art wing. We did it under the watchful eye of the Standing Buddha, fifth century Gupta period. The mottled red limestone matched the flush of her skin.
There was the time when she'd followed me home, and I'd found her on the Queens West. The subway car stayed empty until Canal Street, but her eyes stayed focused on the windows and the whispering doors, looking for those strangers, for the danger. Her hands clutched the bar above, her craving apparent by the stretched, distended muscles of her arms.

There were those times and many others. But this wasn't the same. There had always been that inky gloom, some blanket of protection in the shadow of night. In the heat of this summer day, there was the luminous glare, the harsh radiation. These are the sources of danger-the light that eats the shadows, exposing reality within. I felt safer in the dark.

I finally looked at her. She looked at me. She was anxious. I could tell from the tightness in the corners of her mouth. Her eyes stayed clear, glassy black lakes. I had delayed enough. She wouldn't ask again. She didn't have to.

I undressed and as the cloth released my skin, there was that perilous exposure—that heat touching the fleshy surface and everything inside. I shivered.

I stood in the inch of water, my feet between her legs. She twisted up toward me, her palms on my hips. Her mouth was there, too fast. She was always this way-quick to act, eager to consume. I pulled away, clutched her shoulders, and moved underneath. She hovered, the wave of her hair brushing my chest. There was the harsh sunlight, mercurial incandescence surrounding the glow of her silhouette. I closed my eyes, crushed her mouth. She tasted like dynamite. There was the burn there, the fever of her softness surrounding my length, swallowing me into her.

"Mmm…it's hot out here," she said.

I opened my eyes. The haze swam into focus on her wayward smile. Not directed at me. I followed her gaze and watched the stranger wave from the next rooftop.

Excerpted from Playing with Fire an anthology edited by Alison Tyler and published by Cleis Press.

The book is also on sale at Amazon.

Copyright (c) 2009 by Cleis Press.

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