My story “Opera Gloves”, which was originally to appear in the canceled Alyson Books anthology Second Skin, will be appearing in the upcoming anthology Dirty Girls: Erotica for Women, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel. It’s scheduled to be released April 2008, with parties and readings in New York and San Francisco, and the cover is extremely hot.
“Opera Gloves” is about a lesbian sexual encounter in a box at the Wiener Staatsoper, and features a pair of very long, very shiny black PVC gloves.
Last night’s In The Flesh was a lot of fun. It was my first time reading any of my writing — let alone sex writing — in public, so I was nervous going in, but once I began reading and the audience started responding, I really started enjoying myself and everything went smoothly.
It’s always like that with “public performances” for me - the piano exams, the debate tournaments, the class presentations. A sense of general nervousness leading up to the event, that intensifies into a knot in the gut just before going on…and then the knot immediately releases once the performance actually starts and everything from that point on is bliss.
The other readers were great - all very different and intriguing and funny. I was delighted to meet some new people as well.
With any luck, photographs will be forthcoming. Stay tuned.
This will be the first time I read my writing publicly. The last few weeks were spent picking out an already-published story to read while simultaneously hoping I could write a new and better one. Although the new story is taking shape nicely, I’ll be reading an excerpt from my story Can I Help You? which appeared last year in Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories about Feet and Shoes.
The other participants look very interesting and I’m looking forward to the entire evening, so be sure to come out!
WEDNESDAY, JULY 18TH at 8 PM
AT HAPPY ENDING LOUNGE, 302 BROOME STREET, NYC
(B/D to Grand, J/M/Z to Bowery, F to Delancey, http://www.happyendinglounge.com)
Admission: Free
Happy Ending Lounge: 212-334-9676
July heats up with a mix of today’s hottest erotic writers delivering sexual demons, erotic fairy tales, and other naughtiness. With Louisa Burton (House of Dark Delights), Myriam Gurba (Dahlia Season), Aimee Herman (If These Thighs Could Talk), Lillian Ann Slugocki (The Erotica Project), Maddy Stuart (Sexiest Soles) and host and curator Rachel Kramer Bussel (He’s on Top, She’s on Top). Free candy and cupcakes will be served.
In the Flesh is a monthly reading series hosted at the appropriately named Happy Ending Lounge, and features the city’s best erotic writers sharing stories to get you hot and bothered, hosted and curated by acclaimed erotic writer and editor Rachel Kramer Bussel. From erotic poetry to down and dirty smut, these authors get naked on the page and will make you lust after them and their words. Since its debut in October 2005, In the Flesh has featured such authors as Laura Antoniou, Mo Beasley, Lily Burana, Jessica Cutler, Stephen Elliott, Valerie Frankel, Polly Frost, Gael Greene, Andy Horwitz, Debra Hyde, Maxim Jakubowski, Emily Scarlet Kramer of CAKE, Josh Kilmer-Purcell, Edith Layton, Logan Levkoff, Suzanne PortnoySofia Quintero, M.J. Rose, Lauren Sanders, Danyel Smith, Grant Stoddard, Cecilia Tan, Carol Taylor, Dana Vachon, Veronica Vera, Susan Wright, and many others. The series has gotten press attention from Escape (Hong Kong), Flavorpill, The L Magazine, New York magazine, Philadelphia City Paper, Time Out New York, Gothamist, Nerve.com and Wonkette, and has been praised by Dr. Ruth. This is not Amanda Stern’s Happy Ending Reading Series.
Rachel Kramer Bussel is Senior Editor at Penthouse Variations, conducts interviews for Gothamist.com and Mediabistro.com, and wrote the popular Lusty Lady column for The Village Voice. Her erotic stories have been published in over 100 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, and she’s edited numerous erotica anthologies, most recently He’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Male dominance and Female Submission, She’s on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission, Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists and Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 2. Rachel has also written for AVN, Bust, Cosmo UK, Gothamist, Mediabistro, Metro, New York Post, Punk Planet, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Velvetpark. www.rachelkramerbussel.com
Louisa Burton is a novelist and the author of the Hidden Grotto series of epic erotic fantasy, in which the beings mythologists call “sexual demons”—incubi, succubi, satyrs, and the like—have lived among us for thousands of years.. The series grew out of Louisa’s fascination with Victorian erotica, history, and mythology. House of Dark Delights, which was released in February 2007, is also being published in Germany. The second book in the series, Bound in Moonlight, comes out in December, and Louisa is currently writing the third, Whispers of the Flesh. www.louisaburton.com
Myriam Gurba is a high school teacher who lives in Long Beach, California, home of Snoop Dogg and the Queen Mary. Her first novel, Dahlia Season, was published recently by Manic D/Future Tense Books. She graduated from UC Berkeley, and her writing has appeared in anthologies like Best American Erotica (St. Martin’s Press), Bottom’s Up (Soft Skull Press), Secrets and Confidences (Seal Press), and Tough Girls (Black Books). www.dahliaseason.com
Aimee Herman has been described as Woody Allen with a vagina. No subject is too risque for her to write. She currently has two chapbooks of poetry out (tastes like cheesecake, if these thighs could talk) and recorded a spoken word CD available through cdbaby.com/AimeeHerman. She does not believe in warnings or disclaimers. All words are meant to inspire/offend/induce perspiration nausea/ and indigestion. Comments, questions, and suggestions for new sexual positions may be sent to:
writerslashpoet@aol.com
Lillian Ann Slugocki, an award winning feminist writer, has created a body of work on women and their sexuality which includes fiction, non-fiction, plays and monologues which have been produced on Broadway, Off-Broadway, Off-Off Broadway and on National Public Radio. Her work has been published in books, journals, anthologies, and on-line; including Salon.com. She has been reviewed in The New York Times, The Village Voice, Art in America, The New Yorker, The Daily News, The New York Post, and recently in London; Time Out, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and The London Sunday Times.
Maddy Stuart paints and programs computers in a cold Canadian city. Her writing has appeared in Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories about Feet and Shoes and Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage, both in the Fetish Chest series. www.maddystuart.com
I’m deligted to announce that my short lesbian-themed story , “Opera Gloves”, will be appearing in a third alliteratively-titled anthology from Alyson Books: Second Skin: Erotic Stories about Leather and Latex.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in times enlightened enough that I was never punished for being left-handed. My only punishment has been a mild awkwardness when using implements designed for the right-handed. I take a strange sort of pride in it, reading stories of how the left-handedness would, in the old days, be trained and beaten out of students. Of course, having ink stains on my hand is irritating at times, but after hearing how they used to be associated with the devil, homosexuality, and various other flavours of subversiveness, they feel almost like a badge of honour.
My heart sank as I realized what she meant. I had been writing with my left hand again, which the school had strictly forbidden, and the side of the offending hand was covered in telltale smudges of black ink. “You see? You have been writing incorrectly,” continued the schoolmistress. “Your teachers here, as well as myself, have constantly reminded you that for you to be a lady, it is necessary for you to learn to write in a style that reflects elegance and refinement. And yet, you continue to ignore our instructions, obeying us when in the classroom but flaunting your rebelliousness when out of it.”
“I am sorry, schoolmistress. It’s just that I find it difficult to –“
“– The left hand is the devil’s hand, Miss Elster, and makes an unholy mess of your hands and your papers. Surely you yourself can see the lack of decorum in a page that looks like this.” She held up a creased sheet of paper, the ink smears clearly visible.
My cheeks reddened and my heart began to pound as I recognized my own writing on the page, and realized that it was a letter I had been writing to my good friend Sara in the city. It was just a short note, nothing of consequence, but I was mortified by the thought that someone must have searched through my private papers in order to find it.
“Your handwriting is not the only reason you find yourself here. We shall discuss the other reasons soon enough. For the time being, I would like to impress upon you the seriousness of our requirements.”
Can I Help You? appears in Sexiest Soles: Erotic Stories about Feet and Shoes. I used to work in a women’s shoe store, and much of the setting for the story draws upon my experiences working there. It’s strange, the mindset I got into when so much of my time was focused on selling. Expending so much energy convincing strange women that a specific pair of shoes was the key to beauty and happiness made me start to convince myself of the same, and it reached the point where a beautiful pair would make my heart begin to pound, thinking of the kind of woman it would make of whoever chose to wear them. Here’s an excerpt from the story:
There were exactly thirty-seven minutes left on the clock when I was jolted out of my boredom by the sight of a black-suited, bob-haired young woman striding through the glass doorway. She was tall, intimidatingly so, and I noted with interest that she hadn’t forsaken the towering heels shunned by more timid women of her height. She was dressed quite professionally, but something in her walk and the cut of her clothes hinted obliquely at more hedonistic pursuits. She was wearing no makeup except on her lips, which were painted a deep wine color that drew attention to their plushness. Her skirt ended just above the knee, with a cut slender enough to suggest the curve of her hips, and her legs were sheathed with nude stockings of a very fine fishnet.
As was my habit with customers, I stole a few glances at her shoes. She wore unadorned black pumps with a pencil heel and a pointed toe that glowed with the muted sheen of expensive leather. As she walked they flashed hints of their red, polished soles, and they were cut low enough in front to expose the cleft between her toes Though pumps with heels like those presented themselves as respectable black dress shoes, they often turned their wearers into little girls playing dress-up, giggling or shrieking as they stumbled about the store. This woman, however, wore them with expert grace and precision, her unflinching steps not betraying the slightest degree of discomfort.
Women like this – professional, rushed, and clearly shoe-savvy – were often good for fast and easy commissions, just enough to buy a decent meal and a glass of wine. But there was something else on my mind as I approached her with a smile on my lips, ready to offer my assistance. I felt my anxious student self begin to peek out from behind some corner in my mind, wondering what it would be like to share a drink with her and later join her in her hotel room.
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