Best Lesbian Romance 2010

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 Best Lesbian Romance 2010, edited by Radclyffe.

The following excerpt is from "Firsts," by Hannah Quinn.

The first time I met her, it wasn't like fireworks or thunderbolts or anything, the earth didn't move, there were no helpful portents to alert me to the momentousness of the occasion. I wanted her, of course I did, and not just because I was going through a frustrating dry spell. There was something about her-a kind of charming, disarming self-awareness; a boyish dashing charm, mischief in her eyes. It was as if you couldn't tell whether she was just laughing, or laughing at you, but there was nothing cruel about it. Impish, I suppose, but with a maturity that suggested she had a plan, that she knew exactly what she was doing. We flirted that night, exchanged stories of exes, established positions in some unspoken way. I didn't get her that first time, and of course that made me want her even more.

The first time she contacted me was bewildering. Initially oddly irritating, it beguiled and excited me too. I felt myself being drawn forward into something unknown. Dark water, like I couldn't see the bottom and I didn't know if she could either. I wrote back; tried to take control of the exchange, steer myself into the realms of safety, of what I thought I knew-of sex and secrets and sordid affairs. Games I thought I knew the rules of. I knew a bit more about her then, knew she was with someone, and being single, pretended I had the upper hand.

The first time she phoned me I was dazed. It felt like moving forward, like more commitment than I was ready for and at the same time there was something charmingly old-school about it. There was also more potential to slip up, to be seen, to get trapped, than with the well-crafted texts and emails that were my safe zone. She wrong-footed me there, caught me off guard. Made me late too, and made me get on the wrong train. Captivated by her too-soon familiarity, her disregard for the rules of engagement, I was drawn on, drawn in.

The first time she came to see me, the first time she kissed me, was pleasure and pain like I'd never known. She kissed me, she left me, she possessed me. I didn't know it then, when the door closed, but the dark water was lapping at my knees. That was the first time I fucked myself and thought of her. If I could go back now, taking what I know, that would be the point around which everything revolves, that moment, that instant, that kiss, that kitchen, that hallway, that door. Certainly I didn't know it then, or at least couldn't see it, and I wish I had. I continued my smoke-screen dalliances with my single life, drank, talked, smoked, laughed, kissed, fumbled, heady on my own decadence and denial. Denial that it mattered, that she had any bearing on my life, that I even thought about her going home to someone else. Denial of the dark water, of the precipice, of the threat.

The first time she fucked me was filthy and furious and glorious. We'd both snuck out of work and that stolen daytime hour was all the more filthy and sweet for it. We didn't take our clothes off and I refused to let her in the bedroom. It was all about my boundaries, still pretending I could avoid the dark water, that it hadn't engulfed me. I carried her with me then though, as I went through my day, scratched and bruised and
fucked and elated and astounded. It was physical and necessary and triumphant. It was the appetizer, and it left me wanting; itwas as if we both knew it had to be done like that, just there and just then, before we could truly start. And by then, I knew we would, that it was inevitable.

The first time she stayed over, we went to bed. Sure, I tried to play it cool-canceled on her first, then elented; had some drinks, a little bit of weed; talked, reveled in the fact that we had all night, our abundance of stolen time. I couldn't stand the anticipation, the nerves, the wanting. Just being there, knowing that I was going to be with her, inside her, all over her-that I had her, that the door was locked and neither of us was going anywhere till morning. That was the first time I fucked her, saw her, found her, knew her. Giddy with the sight of her, the smell of her, the taste and feel of her. The silksaltsweetsweat closeness of her. I was intoxicated, addicted, exhilarated but never sated. We didn't sleep that night.

That first morning I was unrecognizable to myself, I was transformed by her, by the joy, despair, pleasure, pain, filthy sweetness; by the physicality of it all, betrayed by my flesh and hooked. My body dragged me into the world that day, made a convincing pretence of being present, said the right things at the right time to the right people but all the time craving, desperate, thirsty for her, for experience, for touch, for taste. I was reduced, stripped down, naked. I was flesh and need and want with no human finesse. I let my life carry on around me but withdrew, snuck off, allowed myself to wallow, to want, to dream, and to fantasize. She had me. I was broken and there was no going back.

The first days, weeks, months we pushed our bodies to their limits. We tended to our basic needs just to enable ourselves to keep going, to push farther, harder, more, desperately trying to slake our thirst for each other. It was primal, animal, and it was survival. We soon found the answers-how much sleep you actually need to hold down a job, how long you can avoid the world before it pushes back in; how many scratches, bruises and bites you can hide; how far from human you can travel in dedicated, determined pursuit of each other.

The first time we really made love, I died. Looked into her eyes looking into my eyes and fell from orbit. Lost, released, untethered, sobbing, and taken. I admitted it then, that I loved her, and we transformed again, became explorers, discoverers, mapping out paths across each other's body, learning, knowing, guessing, trying. We charted our lives around each other, points in common, leagues apart. Reveled in the knowing and the not knowing, the discovery of our selves, mirrored in each other. We awoke then, at some unacknowledged point, and rejoined the world a little, finding it changed in our absence, softer and more welcoming. Found that the truths we had long held were merely places to stand and created our own place to stand together.

The first time we acknowledged what we were, the power and the beauty of it, I cried. We found ourselves somehow, somewhere in the moment, crackling, bright, crisp, pure-like crystal, as though if we held it too tight it would shatter. I looked at her then and saw all that we were and are and will be-the dark water, the secrets, the need, the want, the animal, and the vulnerable. Everything and nothing and now and forever.

Excerpted from Best Lesbian Romance 2010 an anthology edited by Radclyffe and published by Cleis Press.

The book is also on sale at Amazon.

Copyright (c) 2010 by Cleis Press.

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