Book Review: Two Hot New Erotica Collections

Hot fresh smut, come get your hot fresh smut!

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a major voice in erotic literature and Cleis Press has just released two new books with her name on them, and I’ve got the scoop on all the smut!

1. Lap Dance Lust: A Collection of Erotic Stories

Lap Dance Lust: A Collection of Erotic Stories is a bit of a misnomer. It’s not a themed bunch of stories about strippers, sex workers, and anything that involves giving or receiving a lap dance, although that scenario is covered. It’s actually just twenty of of Rachel Kramer Bussel’s own excellent and sizzling stories, collected for our pleasure, previously published stories along with some brand new lusty treats.

The first story is indeed entitled “Lap Dance Lust” and tells the tale of a female customer and a gorgeous female stripper’s encounter with each other. Another story talks about doing the dishes -- hey, if you’re going to do my dishes, this totally ups my chance of putting out. Yet another tells the tale of a tryst at the boxing gym from a transman’s point of view. A couple in another story enters something called a sexathon-- hey, I wanna do that-- I have done the masturbate-a-thon many years ago, that was a great time. One story is basically told around a particular sexual/kink implement-- almost from that implement's point of view. Super fun. Bussel is great at finding the erotic in the mundane, teasing out the lust that has the potential to be just behind the eyes of any given person, and augmenting our fantasies with the rich detail of her wide range of stories.

2. Sexy Strangers: Erotic Stories

Sexy Strangers: Erotic Stories well, does what it says on the tin--- this volume, expertly edited by Bussel-- contains stories of encounters where the characters haven’t ever met, and don’t even know each other’s names, and sometimes they never exchange names. This is an anthology containing 19 brand new stories by 19 different authors who are imaginative, diverse, and unexpected as it's each of their turns to entertain us.

Stranger sex really is a broad category and I'd venture to say the thrill of being with a stranger is a fantasy that crosses bounds of role, gender, and orientation. Sometimes with a stranger, there’s just something about them, a certain animal magnetism that makes you want to absolutely jump their bones, and if you can’t act on it in real life, reading about someone else doing that is the next best thing. The taboo aspect of stranger sex has only increased during the Plague Years, in my opinion. This collection takes us from the collegiate team athletic bus, to the roller rink, to so many other places. There’s all kinds of lust represented here-- two guys having a fuckfest in an abandoned gay bathhouse, for instance, are right alongside hetero people getting it on on a simulated beach in a seemingly post-climate collapse dystopian world where the most beautiful places have gone virtual out of necessity.  There's a goodly sprinkle of kink in the mix as well, always a plus for me.

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Both of these books are excellent additions to your spicy library for solo reading or perhaps reading aloud with a lover.