Moving forward using all my breath

Making love to you was never second best

I saw the world thrashing all around your face

Never really knowing it was always mesh and lace

I’ll stop the world and melt with you

You’ve seen the difference and

It’s getting better all the time

There’s nothing you and I won’t do

I’ll stop the world and melt with you

(Modern English)

Touch is the essence of bonding between lovers. The deepest and most profoundly erotic moments might be the ones we may not realize as such. It might be the way our skin feels against each other’s during sleep, or a kiss along the back of the neck. Their finger hooked into the crook of yours during a walk together. The scent of their skin remaining on the neck of a shirt. It might be more erotic to discover how much your mate loves his or her feet rubbed during a loving foot massage, when you can allow them to fully let go without expectations. Kissing and licking their toes can be highly erotic in such cases, and chances are good that kissing the arch of their foot expands the horizon on foreplay.

Bonding and intimacy are enhanced by caressing, touching and being together. Touch itself  doesn’t need to involve anything more than just the touch of skin together. Eroticism can be found in the familiarity of our lover’s scent, the tone of their voice or their heartbeat to our chest. Eroticism is discovered when we are being present. Being aware of our senses allows us to open to any state of pleasure. Stopping the world to melt together is pure joy. The pleasure of the discovery of each other can be unlimited.

I’ve been reading a few articles on pair bonding— neurobiology has it that we bond through affectionate gestures like any other pair bonding sort of mammals. Caressing, grooming, cooing, sighing, and eye contact keep us together but not the act of sex itself. So in other words, penetration isn’t the main course of sex and bonding, but touch is. Oxytocin, the “love” hormone, is part of this magical state of being.

When oxytocin is released in our brains and bodies, we feel like we are softly melting. We are high on oxytocin. Oxytocin makes us feel contentment, reduces anxiety and increases good feelings around our mate. Studies have shown that oxytocin levels increase after orgasm and are part of sexual arousal. This does not surprise me at all. Each time I was pregnant and ready for birth, nipple stimulation during active childbirth helped the delivery along. Nipple stimulation produces more oxytocin, which is necessary for increasing uterine contractions. Sex is enhanced by oxytocin and so is childbirth. And so is love.

Oxytocin helps us orgasm too.

Brain chemistry alone isn’t enough. We have that mysterious aspect of us that we call the soul. Our souls must feel safe, secure, cared for and, in the words of Thomas Moore from his book The Soul of Sex, “Like everything human, sensation cannot be separated from the imagination.” Our lover’s body, face, scent and touch inspire us to let go and we succumb to the pleasure of love and loving, of being loved and giving love.

Our minds are also  full of all that buzzing and bubbling chemistry and electric neurological magic. Erotic love is a shape-shifter. It comes alive in the imagination. We can imagine anything we want to during sex, about sex. Erotic fantasies are the playground for our deepest desires and lightest whims. If we want to imagine an orgy in which we are the central focus, perhaps that fantasy satisfies something in us that we need or attentions that we require. But fantasy doesn’t have to mean something psychologically deep either. It can just be a fascination with orgies and a curiosity that we wouldn’t play out in our reality. It can stay in fantasy. The fluidity of erotic fantasy is like dreaming.

Being present with our lover enhances our bond with them. There have been a few times that the idea of only kissing together was discussed with my lover. We tried it a few times. Just caressing and kissing — even in the car. Well, I have to admit, we gave in to having sex in the car. But, it worked. Kissing was powerful foreplay for us.

Kissing is actually highest on the charts for both men and women as the main thing that turns them on the most and brings them together. Men, according to Your Tango Tokii survey, put kissing at the top of the list for foreplay, and 57% of men say “yes” to kissing. So, pucker up and smooch away. Men love it more than you think. They love it even more than women do, supposedly.

 “The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty ‘yes’ to your adventure.” 
~ Joseph Campbell

Sex and love. It’s an adventure. Be present. When we are solely focused upon reaching orgasm we can lose sight of being present. We seek that climb toward ecstasy rather than simply losing ourselves in our lover’s eyes and dissolving into the other. We are preoccupied with orgasm as the goal— for some men trying to hold back from orgasm is the distraction. For some women, trying to have an orgasm is the elusive goal. And when we are yearning too strongly for that marvelous feeling, it becomes the antithesis of letting go. We can try too hard or focus too much on that one moment. Thus, we aren’t being present. We strive for that feeling that will lead us to a better sensation, and then even better: orgasm. If it happens effortlessly, then the beauty of sex is breathing through us naturally. The flow of erotic touch inspires us. There are many women who cannot achieve orgasm at all. Psychological blocks, physical problems, and difficulty staying erect and/or achieving orgasm due to age, along with hormone changes, can all affect a man’s ability to orgasm. Anorgasmic men exist as well.

There are some men that fear that they won’t remain as virile or as hard, and if they can’t then women (their wife, their girlfriend), may not be satisfied. A myriad of worries can run through their minds. What if I can’t stay hard? And, what if? Then what? Will she want another man? What if I can’t please her? Well, women are very forgiving, generally. There are other ways to stay connected and give pleasure. Kissing, touching, oral pleasure (for both— even if he can’t stay hard or orgasm— go for it anyway), caressing and fingers work wonders. Giving each other a massage, pillow talk, and laughter can be satisfying ways to bond and stay bonded.  Believe me, just kissing while naked in bed is really fun. And so is watching your lover’s favorite sitcom while snuggled together in the nude. Do it once, and you’ll feel like teenagers in love again.

The psychological and emotional satisfaction levels increase when we are touching each other with affection. The pornographic internet-generated depictions of sex and its one-dimensional façade is junk food compared to the poetry and art of intimacy: the richness of a lover’s kiss, the soulful expression of their eyes, the sigh of their chest when love fills them with emotion, the tight embrace and the feeling that you just cannot get close enough. The meaningful experience of sex can be discovered before and beyond penetration. In fact, penetration, although satisfying in its own right, isn’t really necessary when all the ingredients for soulful sex are present. It becomes superfluous. Yes, that’s right, I said it. Penetration isn’t everything. Don’t read that as if I don’t enjoy it. Oh, I love it. What I’m saying is, penetration is part of, but not the whole of, sex.

Intimacy is delicate; a vulnerable spot in the heart of our erotic selves. We want and crave the closeness. For women (and I say most of this without any scholarly study, just my experiential references), could it be that the weight of their lover upon them echoes an instinctual craving to be taken, to surrender, to be mated with? Male lions grasp the nape of the female’s neck with their teeth while they mount and mate with them. I found this intriguing and it sounded pretty nice too, the whole act. I love my neck bitten, don’t you? The female instinct to surrender is part of the mating dance.

 Then, the Eastern wisdom of tantric sex and all its mystery lifts its veil. The pleasure of receiving expands our awareness, the height of erotic transcendence.

Ancient Chinese Taoists believed ejaculating depleted a man’s vital life energy, or “chi,” so men were taught to preserve their sexual fluid in order to build their vitality.

In Taoist sexual practices, women are encouraged to have frequent and multiple orgasms. This gives the man even more vitality so he can also stay within the woman for as long as possible in order to absorb the woman’s vital life juices and powerful energy, or “yin essence” (“yin essence” is also a euphemism for “sexual fluid”). Well, it makes me want to be a Taoist.

When I am making love with my man I often, and sometimes with mixed emotion, wish that he would just suddenly come inside of me. (Remember, I’m the one that said “penetration isn’t everything?”) I want him to come because I love him so much; it’s instinctual and in that moment I want him to make me pregnant. I want it down to my bones. Love is made of such dreams. I want to melt with him.

So, yes, I’ve been dreaming about it as well. One dream made me smile during sleep. He was awake and watching my face. He asked what I was dreaming of. In the dream, it was so vivid: I was in a hospital recovery room and I had just given birth. Next to me, my lover’s mother cradling our newborn child. She, his mother and the new grandma, hummed a song and rocked the baby softly. The warmth of the dream, the sweet feeling it gave me inside, radiated through my face while I slept. As my darling caressed my face and asked softly what I was dreaming I just smiled a sweet, happy smile. It was a soul deep happiness and a feeling of wholeness in my relationship. I felt belonging. I felt like everything was right.

Not just for my own pleasure do I want to melt and belong to him, but I want to satisfy his desire, his instinct. We make sex complex when sometimes the instincts are just so true to our human nature. I long to feel his slick come inside of me, hot and milky, smelling like springtime and freshly cut grass. That beautiful tenderness overwhelms me when he gives me so much pleasure. I want to feel him fill me with the pulse of his orgasm, the flood of his ejaculation and that dripping tickle when it runs out from me. When I stand up I want to feel his come trickle down my thigh. Sometimes what brings me to orgasm is the notion that he is going to make me pregnant. When he gazes at me when we are making love, I wonder where he is taking me or how far into me his eyes are going. What does he see in me when he gives me one orgasm after another? It’s an adventure, this tantric kind of sex. In a way, we have transcended to another level of sexual pleasure together.

One day we spent the entire day making love. This sounds exaggerated, but really, the entire day just making love. Parts of “making love” involved him making an omelette for me, some tea for us to share, but still we had sex numerous times and the resting moments in between were still “making love” as far as I’m concerned. Because my body was so attuned to his and I had multiple orgasms each round of lovemaking, the last time we made love I came so intensely I felt an energetic flood of orgasm begin in my sex, radiate through my body going upwards through my belly, through my breasts, nipples, and up further out the top of my head, simultaneously—- I felt this orgasm move through my hips, my legs and down through my toes. I was tingling and shaking. That, my dear readers, was a veritable “full body orgasm” without question. That is what tantric sex is all about. Gosh, everyone should experience that in life. I was so high from that orgasm, I felt it tingle through me for hours. Hours. I was giddy, giggly and completely goofy.

“Love is touching souls.” ~ Joni Mitchell

I already have children and I am a mother; happy with my three children, not wanting anymore. Besides, I’m not young anymore or young enough to handle more pregnancies. I know the dream of becoming pregnant again is just a dream. But something else penetrates me when we make love. I become one with him. It sounds corny, but I feel like we are together when we are apart. I believe in soul mates, and I believe we are part of each other when we love deeply.

I’ve been reading (and re-reading) Obsessed. Nineteen stories of erotic romance that pivots upon the g-spot of love like a 110-volt charged vibrator in search of the female cerebral orgasm. It hits the spot; the emotional and psychological soft spot that causes obsession to grow, germinate, and blossom.

In the introduction written by editor Rachel Kramer Bussel, she hopes that “Obsessed speaks to the part of you that knows what it’s like to do anything for the right person, to bare yourself body and soul in the hope that once stripped to your most secret self, you will be rewarded with someone who sees you for who you truly are.” And isn’t that where the depth of obsession comes from? Our deepest, most secret self; the raw part of us that yearns to be touched, even down to the nerve and bone. The word “obsessed” is fraught with a hungry notion that we cannot get enough of something or someone so painfully compelling to us, and that is the very point and place where we lose ourselves to it.

The Western perspective of “romantic love” has idealized this experience, making an unconscious psychological demand that the person we are obsessed with fit our ideal “other half.” The anima and animus of Jungian archetypes present this kind of obsessive love in a mythical and dreamlike state of being “in love.” In Eastern and Zen philosophies, this kind of emotion is where inner growth begins— the experience of a “red-hot coal in the throat” allows us to evolve, and, as we know, growing pains are part of the experience. Obsession can be beautiful like a thorny rosebush. If we throw ourselves into the thick of it, blood will be drawn. Like sailors entranced by sirens, we crash into the rocks despite of it all when we are obsessed. These nineteen writers tell us about erotic obsession with extreme eloquence. Romantic obsession is one subject to contend with. Add some hot and steamy sex into the equation and erotica has some literary weight.

Each story of women in the throes of erotic obsession has taken me on a journey, caressing my own passionate emotions, comforting me while I read, reminding me that I am not alone in my own experience within the tangle of obsession, sex and love. It is because as I have been reading, I have been obsessed with a man myself. It began as mental attraction, a parallel, and a familiar feeling of like-minded connection. I was a fool to think it was merely a budding friendship, for when I first saw him I was consumed by a fire that only poets throughout history can explain. Then my sexual obsession began to brew, to be sure, after our first time together. Boiling over like a hot cauldron, the flame of my obsession is now a hot pot of scalding desire. But sex is not the only reason. There are many other aspects and layers to my own obsession with my lover. Well, the sex is amazing, I’ll admit. And not for the reasons anyone might assume. It is because he touches that naked part of me that is hidden, my secret place, and he sees me for who I am inside.

There are the obvious symptoms of a woman obsessed with the man she wants: she feels an immense desire, uncontrollably so. She can’t stop thinking about him and all the things he does to arouse her lust. Sometimes, it’s someone she cannot forget. Perhaps it’s the way he smiles at her with a gleam or the tone of his voice, or maybe she doesn’t get to hear his voice at all, as in Silent Treatment, by Donna George Storey, the first erotic tale that opens this anthology of women writers. She’s on a weekend yoga getaway where silence is mandatory, talk is forbidden. During her stay at the retreat, she reconnects with a former lover without words. “He blushed, but kept his gaze fixed on me. It was, in fact, the only way we could speak. In the almost palpable weight of our silence, that prickling warmth of desire suddenly sprang to life down there. Stephen was glad to see me. There was no question about that. And he wanted to express something else with those bottomless amber eyes: Apology. A faint sorrow. And— no mistake about it— hot, smoking desire.”

Yes, I admit, desire began with the smell of his skin, the look on his face, and his kiss. The feeling stirred itself up in my gut, a tingling sensation. Butterflies in my belly. Swarm of bees in my brain. My body became lighter, and my mind dizzy with want. Obsession. It’s real honest-to-goodness passion that takes your life off the path and creates a whole new one you never thought you’d take, and as you follow your heart (and other parts of your lusty body), obsession undoes every bit of reason you thought you had.

I know obsession intimately, and sometimes excruciatingly so— and the pain of falling in love is exquisite. Obsession is a delicate matter; it doesn’t come all neat and tidy, packaged in a pretty box with a ribbon. It can be ink-stained and needled deep under your skin like a tattoo. In Raven’s Flight by Andrea Dale, a woman’s fetish for licking her lover’s tattoo begins her adventure with a silver-tongued Irishman. “I had the overwhelming compulsion to lick his tattoo, trace every spiral and intricate knot and line with my tongue.” She goes from longing to action: His kiss tasted peaty and smoky like the whiskey from his chalice, she explains, and the sweep of his tongue sent her into a full body shiver. “My nipples peaked, my clit trembled. All that just from a kiss. A kiss that rocked my world so soundly, I half thought we were having an earthquake. So I did what any right-minded hussy would: I took him home with me, and I confessed my burning need to explore his tattoo.” Tongues, kisses, and tattoos on the skin and underneath, ink-stained within the heart.

Ah, my lover’s kiss. But, there are other things about him that arouse me. I know the way the heat of his mouth grazes my lower lip in a kiss, how it travels down along the back of my neck. His kiss intoxicates me. And I’m obsessed with his hands, remembering how the wide expanse of them holds my hips firmly as he plunges deep inside. His hands rule my body. His hands are my obsession, too. Looking upon the shape of them sends shivers of longing through me, sensations I cannot describe; there aren’t any words that can explain the way they undo me, bit by bit, like sugar dissolving. In Memphisto Waltz by Justine Elyot, Lily has a reunion with her childhood piano teacher, the passionate Russian Leonid Gorodetsky. She marvels his hands: “Gorodetsky’s hand. I am holding his legendary hand. Those women outside by the rubbish bins would kill to be in my position. It’s a very nice hand, too, warm and smooth, nothing limp or clammy about his grip. It’s the hand I remember from my childhood. The magic hand, the hand that turns notes and chords into sensual experience and fill the critics’ heads with hyperbole. I feel as if I ought to light up, or crackle, or something. Actually, I’m not far off crackling.”

And yet another story about a woman’s obsession with a man and his hands; perhaps there is such a thing as a hand fetish? If so, I have an obsession for my man’s hands and what they do to me.

In Rachel Kramer Bussel’s piece, I Want To Hold Your Hand, Shelly’s obsession is her husband. When he lost over two hundred pounds, he changed from the sexy teddy bear of a giant to more like a linebacker. Her desire is rekindled when she feels jealous over the new attentions her husband receives from other women. But, Shelly admits, she liked her husband heavier, in fact, she preferred him bigger. Knowing that some things don’t change, as Ron still had the heft of his hands and his cock, Shelly thought of what reminded her about falling in love with her husband: “his hands, though, were big, strong, powerful; there was nothing he could do about his man hands. Ron had always been able to speak to her with his hands, even on their first date, when he’d reached for one of hers and massaged it, his thumb tricking along her palm, his fingers tickling her skin, making her curious about him, about what he could do to her.” Shelly and Ron run off to the movies and in the seats of the theater they rediscover their desire for each other, remembering why they came together in the first place.

The whistle of the kettle reminds me of an afternoon when we were in the midst of making tea, and suddenly his hands clasp my waist, then my wrists, and he pins me to the wall of the hallway, the whistle screeching with boiling hot water, his mouth on mine, going down further, until I am forgetting what the sound of steam is persistently calling out for, as the heat of his mouth on my sex causes me to lose control. His tongue dances on my clit, inscribing something, some kind of language. I’m obsessed, and I’m in love. Like a kettle on the stove to boil and whistle, I’ve spouted out “I love you” during the heat of passion, but he doesn’t express the way he feels for me in words. How he feels is secret, hidden. In Secret Places by Adele Haze, Marian’s mouth shaped the words I love you during sex with her lover, Dan, or as she calls him “the boy,” in an unusual coupling between once-strangers on a subway commute, who become tender lovers that hide their emotions from each other.  “Underneath it all, there is so much tenderness, so much of the unnamed, unknowable feeling. The other’s pleasure is the ultimate reward for each of them; they compete to bring each other to the brink. Out of bed, they race to make each other tea, to give comforts, to spoil the other with small kindnesses. Still, neither of them will say the words.” And during their lovemaking and revealing of their innermost places during sex, Marian decides to use her finger to tell her lover what she feels. “With the tip of her finger she writes on his naked shoulder: I L-O-V-E Y-O-U. Her heart whispers the invisible words.” 

Obsession is an attraction that goes beyond the ordinary, a feeling that inspires as well as terrifies, because a woman obsessed is a woman that will do anything for the man she so desires. Obsession runs deeper than lust. It tangles up the mind with feelings you never thought you would ever have. It’s irrational, passionate, and a little crazy. It’s sometimes dangerous. It’s risk and pushing your boundaries. Feelings that overwhelm you when they are near, the smell of their skin, the chemistry that has you obedient like a dog on a leash, the nearness of the one that you desire emanating power over you like gravity, like magnet pull. And sometimes your obsession can be your ex-husband, shaking you up with aftershocks of your desire in Aftershocks by Bella Andre.  “Oh god. They’d just survived one hell of an earthquake in a room full of dangers and instead of crying, instead of freaking out, she was wet. Soaking through her panties from nothing but his arms, tight around her, his breath whispering over her ear. She’d been looking for adventure, had been wanting to live on the edge for so long, that instead of frightening her, the earthquake had been foreplay. That was why she knew that the biggest danger wasn’t going to be from aftershocks and falling boxes. It was staying here with Darren. Because if she wasn’t careful, she’d give in, and they’d be right back to where they always had been. Back to good. But good wasn’t good enough— not when she wanted fireworks and breathless need and desire so strong that pleasure was almost pain.”

I think of my obsession during the day when I’m at work, and I replay scenes from our moments together. He’s just a drive away from me. I have had the pleasure and fortune of having my lover know about my obsession with him, where as Vivian Sinclair, the executive assistant in One Night In Paris by Kayla Perrin, had to fly all the way from Dallas to Paris to let her lover know how much she wanted him. I suppose I would do the same as she did— act on her desire and make her obsession known: “You’re like a fever I can’t shake. Ever since that time we were together, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you.”

Portia de Costa’s eloquent Concubine tells a historical erotic story much like Scheherazade would have done. Merry weaves a romantic and juicy tale within a tale, as she tells her convalescing lover Rick a naughty story about the Concubine Merissa and her obsessive love for her Lord Alaric. Concubine Merissa’s body is moist with longing by the memory of their first night together as concubine and prince, with the memories of their love building within her a desire as strong as his princely male magnificence took her that first time. With her intense and steadfast love for her prince, she brings him back to his virile strength after a battle injury that caused him a momentary lapse in masculinity. “It was almost a miracle, but where had it started? In her mouth, or with him, as she sucked… or in her sex, through the unstoppable force of love?”

Love and Demotion by Logan Belle is about a woman who leads a secret life as a stripper, obsessed with her boss at her day job at a publishing house. Around her obsession Declan she felt like the world was in Technicolor, and when she was away from him, black and white. Hiding her moonlighting burlesque occupation from her employer was as difficult as it was to hide her Vargas girl tattoos onstage while she stripped down to Marilyn Manson’s “Heart-Shaped Glasses,” dressed as a sexy Lolita.

Obsession can be dark, full of the shadows of our souls. It can be wild-eyed lust until our throat is hoarse from moaning out of sheer animalistic fucking, from being taken, and surrendering and submitting to the man of our dreams. It can be voluptuous and full of black magic. Obsession holds us like a voodoo spell. In Spellbound by Garnell Wallace, Kia Monet goes back to her roots in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, under the spell of Jonah’s smile, his voice, and his magnificent cock. “Even his long, tapered fingers buried deep in my pussy can bring on multiple experiences of what we French call “la petite mort,” or the little death, when you are so inflamed with passion at the moment of surrender it feels like you are about to surrender your soul as well.”

Sometimes obsession is a fantasy. In Hooked by Ariel Graham, the obsession is a thing that provokes a woman’s erotic curiosity and dares her to explore it. A couple, Ricki and Jody, just move in to their new home and in one room there is a mysterious hook in the ceiling that fascinates Ricki. It’s too heavy duty for a plant and the light isn’t good in the corner either. Ricki wonders about the hook and imagines all kinds of scenarios that the hook could be used for. She wants to tell her lover Jody about her wildest fantasies involving that curious mounted hardware. “Why don’t you just look back up at that hook?” he’d asked. “Like you want to reach for it.” She reached for it. On tiptoe, as if she could touch the ten-foot ceiling, she reached with both hands. An image came to mind: her hands bound at the wrist, with some kind of silken cord, maybe a curtain tie; something soft but strong enough to keep her bound, even if she struggled. Would she struggle? Ricki held her hands out toward the hook and imagined Jody standing behind her.”

I’ve enjoyed all of these adventurous, wonderful, and genuine stories about obsession and reasons why women become obsessed. Reasons why women stayed obsessed, and things that caused them to follow their hearts and nether parts to explore the wilderness of the erotic landscapes they could not keep from traveling. Reasons to be irrationally lost in the arms of the one they are obsessed with.

Obsessed is a treasure full of tenderness, raw lust, longing, and all of the many things that fill our sexual lives and erotic minds. The nineteen stories written so fluidly fills the oceanic depths of desire where obsession lies. Perhaps the word “obsessed” is as elusive as the state of being it exists in. Like a drug, we want more. More stories, more lust, more sex, more love, and it’s never, ever enough.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Bella Andre (BellaAndre.com) writes “sensual, empowered stories enveloped in heady romance” (Publisher’s Weekly) about sizzling alpha heroes and the strong women they’ll love forever. Her books have been Cosmopolitan Red Hot Reads twice and have been translated into German, Thai, Japanese and Ukrainian.

Logan Belle went to her first burlesque show on her birthday two years ago and has been following the scene and writing about it ever since. Her debut erotic novel is Blue Angel, the first in a series. Her short fiction has appeared on Oysters & Chocolate. She lives in New York City. Read more at loganbelle.com.

Elizabeth Coldwell lives and writes in London. Her work has appeared in a number of Cleis anthologies including Please, Sir; Fast Girls; Bottoms Up and Naked.

Portia Da Costa pens both romance and women’s erotica and is the author of over twenty novels and a hundred-plus short stories. Praised for her vivid, emotional writing, she’s best known for her Black Lace titles, but now writes for a variety of publishers, including Harlequin Spice and Samhain.

With coauthors and on her own, Andrea Dale has sold two novels to Virgin Books UK and approximately 100 stories to Harlequin Spice, Avon Red and Cleis Press, among others. All she can say about her inspiration for this story is “Mm, tattoos…” Her website is at cyvarwydd.com.

Justine Elyot has contributed to a plethora of anthologies from Black Lace, Cleis Press, Constable & Robinson and Xcite Books, and is the author of the Black Lace title On Demand. More recently, she has been writing erotic romance novellas, which are available from Total E-Bound.

Emerald’s erotic fiction has been published in anthologies edited by Violet Blue, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Jolie du Pre, and Alison Tyler as well as at various erotic websites. She lives in Maryland and serves as an activist for reproductive freedom and sex worker rights. Find her online at thegreenlightdistrict.org.

K D Grace lives in England with her husband. She is passionate about nature, writing and sex—not necessarily in that order. Her novel, The Initiation of Ms. Holly, was published by Xcite Books.

Ariel Graham lives, writes and entertains her own obsessions in northern Nevada with her husband who is also her best friend, and her own deeply suspicious cats. Her work can be found in anthologies including Please, Sir; Please, Ma’am; Afternoon Delight: Erotica for Couples and in various web-based magazines.

Louisa Harte’s erotic fiction appears in the Cleis Press anthologies Best Women’s Erotica 2010 and 2011; Fairy Tale Lust; Orgasmic: Erotica for Women and Smooth: Erotic Stories for Women. Currently living in New Zealand, she finds inspiration from many places, including her thoughts, dreams and fantasies. Visit her at louisaharte.com.

Adele Haze writes sexy stories because she doesn’t know how not to. When she isn’t writing fiction, she tries to educate the world about sex-positive attitudes, female gaze in erotic arts, and acceptance of sexual preferences of others. For the rest of the time, she models for BDSM erotica.

Kayla Perrin (kaylaperrin.com) is a multi-published USA Today and Essence®bestselling author with thirty-six books in print. She is published in a variety of genres, including mystery/suspense, romance and mainstream fiction. She has been featured on “Entertainment Tonight Canada,” Who’s Afraid of Happy Endings (Bravo documentary about the romance genre) and “A.M. Buffalo.”

Jennifer Peters has a lot of obsessions, including avocados, music, books and everything kitsch. When she’s not obsessing about the finer things in life, she’s a completely neurotic writer and editor for the Penthouse magazine group, where she obsesses over porn and punctuation, in that order. Her stories can be found in Peep Show, Fast Girls, Smooth, Best Bondage Erotica 2011 and Gotta Have It.

Caridad Piñeiro is the New York Times–bestselling author of over twenty-five paranormal romance and romantic suspense novels and novellas. Her popular The Calling vampire series returns in 2012 and look for The Lost, the latest release in the acclaimed Sin Hunter series. For more information on Caridad, please visit caridad.com.

Teresa Noelle Roberts’s short fiction has appeared in numerous anthologies, includingSweet Love: Erotic Fantasies for Couples, Orgasmic, Dirty Girls and Best of Best Women’s Erotica 2. She also writes erotic romance for several publishers. Disclaimer: author is not liable for injuries incurred under the influence of this story.teresanoelleroberts.com

Charlotte Stein has published many stories in various erotic anthologies as well as her own collection of short stories, The Things That Make Me Give In. She has novellas and a novel with Ellora’s Cave, Total-E-Bound and Xcite, and you can contact her atthemightycharlottestein.blogspot.com.

Donna George Storey believes a kiss is worth a thousand words. She is the author ofAmorous Woman, a steamy tale of an American woman’s love affair with Japan, as well as many short stories, which have appeared in Best Women’s Erotica, Penthouse, Fast Girls, and Passion. Read more at DonnaGeorgeStorey.com.

Garnell Wallace has been spellbound by love stories ever since she read her first one as a teenager. She is hard at work on her own addition to this continually evolving and enduring genre. She can be reached at myspace.com/garnellwallace.

Kristina Wright (kristinawright.com) lives in Virginia with her husband Jay and her son Patrick. She is the editor of the anthologies Fairy Tale Lust and Demon Lover and her short fiction has appeared in over eighty anthologies. She holds degrees in English and humanities and teaches college-level composition and mythology.

About the Editor

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a New York–based author, editor and blogger. She has edited over thirty books of erotica, including Gotta Have It; Best Bondage Erotica 2011; Surrender; Orgasmic; Bottoms Up: Spanking Good Stories; Spanked; Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z 1 and 2; Fast Girls; Smooth; Passion; The Mile High Club; Do Not Disturb; Tasting Him; Tasting Her; Please, Sir; Please, Ma’am; He’s on Top; She’s on Top; Caught Looking; Hide and Seek; Crossdressing and Rubber Sex. She is the author of the forthcoming novel, Everything But…, and the nonfiction book, How To Write an Erotic Love Letter, Best Sex Writing series editor, and winner of 5 IPPY (Independent Publisher) Awards. Her work has been published in over one hundred anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006; Zane’s Chocolate Flava 2 and Purple Panties; Everything You Know About Sex Is Wrong; Single State of the Union and Desire: Women Write About Wanting. She serves as senior editor at Penthouse Variation, and wrote the popular “Lusty Lady” column for the Village Voice.

Rachel is a sex columnist for SexisMagazine.com and has written for AVN, Bust, Cleansheets.com, Cosmopolitan, Curve, The Daily Beast, Fresh Yarn, TheFrisky.com, Gothamist, Huffington Post, Mediabistro, Newsday, New York Post, Penthouse, Playgirl, Radar, San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York and Zink, among others. She has appeared on “The Martha Stewart Show,” “The Berman and Berman Show,” NY1 and Showtime’s “Family Business.” She hosted the popular In the Flesh Erotic Reading Series (inthefleshreadingseries.com), featuring readers from Susie Bright to Zane, and speaks at conferences, does readings and teaches erotic writing workshops across the country. She blogs at lustylady.blogspot.com.

Find out more about Obsessed and the contributors at obsessedbook.wordpress.com.

As I remember all the erotic moments I’ve had in my life, the ones that stand out as “the best” or “the one moment I cannot forget” are very few. I could count, but I don’t quantify; and I’m terrible with numbers. Besides, I’d rather not count. The one lover that has come along and, with a sweeping kiss, undone all of my notions of what “the best sex” is has done so without realizing it. Chemistry and all.

When I was a girl of thirteen, one of my aunts told me that sex was good and healthy to have when I’m ready. That last statement was added for precaution by my auntie, the hippie, the flower child— she had three boyfriends at the time she gave this advice. She then sealed her comment with “and it’s the best when you are in love.” So I thought that this magic combination would be waiting for me when I fell in love one fine day,  I expected it would happen like all young girls that age tend to do.

But falling in love wasn’t easily found, and, when I did have sex, the first time, I was fourteen. That was a year after my auntie gave me her words of wisdom. I wasn’t in love with the first boy I had sex with, of course. I wanted to have sex, and I was ready, or so I thought. The years that followed were explorations in sex and many a guy I wasn’t feeling anything for. I was searching for love and not finding it. I watched awful porn with my so-called boyfriend and thought I was suppose to act like those 80’s porn stars. I had no idea what the best sex was. I did whatever was required to get the approval of the boy I wanted to be loved by. I wanted to be loved, so I moaned and made lots of noise and even let him come all over my face. I swallowed, I sucked, and I fucked him wildly, but clearly this wasn’t the magical “best sex ever” experience I had in mind.

I wasn’t having orgasms during sex in my teenage sex life either. My boyfriend was older than me by a number of years, and he wasn’t very emotional or tender. I was lost in the act of sex. I had thought that sex would be as good as my auntie said. Especially so if I was in love, which I wasn’t. I wasn’t in love, and I was having lots of sex without feeling, straight ahead fucking without romance or sweet nothings. When he and I had sex in the back of his Chevy Impala, David Lee Roth was on the tape deck singing Jamie’s Cryin’ which taunted my young heart. While the lyrics said that Jamie’s been in love before, and that it should mean a little more than one night stands, I got the idea that it should mean more. It could mean more. But, I was fifteen year old girl, and my boyfriend wasn’t in love with me.

I knew I could orgasm by myself, but the mystery of sex was clouded with the idea that other women could orgasm so easily (as I’d seen in porn). But, I wasn’t having such an easy time doing it in real life. One scene I remembered watching was a couple fucking hard. The woman was being taken from behind in an all fours doggy style position— a moaning and gasping blonde porn star, her glistening buttocks shimmying like jello with every thrust as she was being fucked into a frenzied orgasm. Inspired, I tried that position with my boyfriend. He came right away. I didn’t.

The best sex evaded me.

As I entered my twenties, sex became much better. I knew my body, and I was familiar with toys and what worked for me to get off: vibrators, dildos, and anal play, mainly. I read Women on Top and My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday. I read Anais Nin’s erotica and Anne Rice’s erotic writings as A.N. Roquelaure, The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy. I was stripping down nude daily at a seedy club in the San Fernando Valley, affectionately called “The Ball,” and my best friend was a former porn star from the 80’s. She was dancing at the club and found love with a sweetheart of a man. They married, and I was her maid of honor. I wondered what exactly it was that she understood about sex and love that I didn’t. What was good sex with real love? During that time of my life, I had many girlfriends, mostly from the club. Finding a boyfriend or a serious lover was difficult when mostly what men wanted from me was to be had for the price of a table dance or a round of dollar bills around the stage. Men wanted to watch me dance naked. The loneliest time of my non-existent love life was when I was a stripper, in fact. It was a terribly lonely feeling to be sexually sought after day after day but have no one who cherished me once I left the club. The idea of someone taking me to dinner without paying me for my time was a silly notion. Who would just take me out to dinner, just because?

Not that I minded being alone. I preferred my solitude and enjoyed my beautiful apartment, my new car, and my growing bookshelf full of books. Most of the time, after a long day naked in high heels, I popped open a bottle of my favorite champagne, put some jazz on the stereo, and happily made myself a lovely dinner. I dined in candlelight on my patio alone with a good book. I had erotica to read. If the mood struck, I had my fantasies to help me along while using my vibrator. The thing was I still had no idea what the best sex was or how to imagine it happening to me.

I did figure out how to orgasm with a partner, finally. I had a sweet boyfriend who cared a little about me. Me, the young nineteen year old girl-woman. My clitoris was my best friend in that discovery. As long as I touched myself while he slowly went in and out, I came and came. It was good sex, but I wasn’t in love. We never said anything about love at all. Ever.

Playing with other women was exciting— observing how they pleasured themselves and how they liked it. One memorable moment was with a girlfriend that I lived with. We had one of those ‘papasan’ bowl-shaped couches from Pier One Imports that proved itself to be a sex chair of the deluxe kind for two nubile young women. We slathered some oil on each other’s pussies and scissored our legs together while holding each other’s hands. Grinding our pussies together allowed us to come in ways I had no idea existed. The slippery feeling of her pussy on mine was arousing beyond compare. We loved that chair for all its fabulous reasons. That was the best lesbian sex I had ever had. But did Jen care for me? I know she felt something like desire. I did feel a sense of something with her, too, but it was simply lust and sexual curiosity. She had two other boyfriends as well as me. She loved the way I went down on her and used toys to get her to come in a shaking orgasmic release. And it was Jen— the one who climbed on top of me and, with a naughty smile, she knew just what to do. She went down and licked my clitoris while slowly moving a vibrator in and out of me until I came. She also used toys in my other parts, both anally and vaginally penetrating me, while licking my clit and getting me so juicy wet. So far, it was Jennifer that gave me the best sex. And I was barely twenty years old then.

But the idea of romantic love and sex combining itself together into “the best sex” was still mysterious. My gal pal, Kristy, from the dancing days of The Oddball Cabaret, a.k.a. The Ball, was a piano teacher by weekend and stripper during the week. Kristy was a warm and wonderful redhead. She wore thigh high leather boots onstage and danced to Thomas Dolby’s She Blinded Me With Science. We spent most nights hanging out while mixing up Kahlua and cream in iced glasses, watching films, or soaking in her big round bath tub while listening to endless loops of Enya. She had a crush on Rutger Hauer in Ladyhawke, and, for the most part, she was closer to straight than anything. She was a sweet woman and yet .. . Sex with her alone was not really quite ‘it.’ Kristy was a flirt with all the men we knew, and finding boy toys to satisfy us was our specialty. We had one weekend long romp with a lovely guy we met and tired the dear man out between the two of us. But did I remember that as the best sex?

There were many other boyfriends until I had a year-long fling with a musician who didn’t mind that I was a stripper. We did have delicious sex, and I did orgasm every time. I began to discover that I was multi-orgasmic. I felt a slight tenderness for him, and I am sure he felt something similar. But there were no “I love you” moments from either of us, and we never discussed our relationship beyond a sexual one. He wasn’t my boyfriend. He was just a guy I had really good sex with. As far as the idea of love went, he compared me to liking a chocolate chip cookie rather than to a summer’s day. But he never admitted a darn emotion. Not once.

As the years went on, the best sex was hard to find.  Even while I was engaged to a chef, our best times were in the kitchen, cooking for our dinner parties, or traveling together to luxurious locales. In bed, it was vanilla and lukewarm. One hot steamy night in Kona, he was overwhelmed by my hungry need for good and lusty sex. It was too much for him— he rejected my intensity. I had a lot of sun that day. Sunning in the nude always makes me aroused. I had masturbated outside on the grass while at the house we were staying at. The scent of plumeria flowers, the ocean, the sun, and the relaxed Hawaiian air had me wriggling around in the island heat until I touched myself, feverish for some kind of passion. So I made it known that I wanted ‘it,’ but he just liked ‘it’ when I was sweet and demure, half asleep, with my legs spread open. It was a few thrusts, and that was that. I thought that perhaps the idea of ‘the best sex’ or even good sex was something I might just have to give up. The fantasy of having sex with a passionate lover that involved hair pulling and wild sweaty abandon may never happen to me, I thought. I was in my mid-twenties. I had yet to have that magical combination of amazing sex and loving emotions. Maybe the idea was just a dream?

But I wanted passion. I realized that it was something I could not live without. I hadn’t experienced true passion before, but there was a yearning deep within me that ached for it. I wanted passion, and I couldn’t get married unless I had that with my fiancé. But, we were more like good friends and less like lovers, and I wanted more.

He compared me to a diamond in the rough. If I could just polish you, he said, you’d shine. I coiled from the mere comparison, which suggested that I wasn’t good enough the way I was, just as me. So, that led me to a question. Wasn’t I enough for someone just as I am? Why couldn’t I have amazingly good sex with heaping amounts of love? Why was I labeled the ‘diamond in the rough’ and just a chocolate chip cookie?

All these years, I have waited for that mind-blowing orgasmic bliss with a man I am so very into— with passion, desire, and intense kissing. Wanting someone so much like this, I can’t embrace, kiss, and orgasm upon him enough. The desire to bite him out of sheer lusty want is my wild expression of intense affection. I feel so much desire, it’s animal. It’s almost cannibal. I want to eat him because I feel so much. And is it the best sex of my life? Yes.

Yes, years later, now in my forties, I am experiencing what I think is the best sex of my life. And yes, love has something to do with it. Passionate sex has found me. I’m getting close, and I’m coming… closer. I’m closer to that passionate experience I have been longing for. Yes. Finally, the universe has answered my heart, mind, body and soul. James Joyce couldn’t have written it better: And then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will yes. 

It was forbidden, that street. When I was a girl, I was not allowed to go down that road. My mother had made it clear  that I could only go as far as the end of our street when I went out on my bicycle, never to wander. The forbidden street was at the bottom of the hill, just to the left, at the end. The entrance was shaded with trees, sloping down into the park. At the end, the road turned into hiking trails, eucalyptus trees, mystery.

I wanted him to drive me through the neighborhood where I grew up, where I skinned my knees from bicycle falls, where I played and drew in colored chalk on the sidewalk. We drove around and up and through the hills, my memory as a girl following along the asphalt. “Where can we go?” he asks. I give him a look, wanting. We kiss quickly. He leans close to me as he curves the moving car through the narrow roads, guiding the steering wheel through my childhood memories. I nestle my head into the scoop of his shoulder, planting little kisses lightly along his neck, nuzzling my nose to smell his skin. I trail my fingers along the edge of his ear, the curving shell roundness of it. Just then, at the bottom of the hill, was the forbidden street I wasn’t supposed to go down.

“Let’s go down that street. Turn here.”

The street is quiet. There are houses on one side. The other side is hidden by the densely wooded brush and trees. The tires crackle slowly along the road. We look for a spot to park. I have butterflies in my stomach and a melancholy ache in my bones. He turns the car around at the end, finding a place. We kiss for a moment. It’s dark, headlights off, streetlights buzzing in their orange glow. We can hear someone’s television in the distance. Like teenagers on a date, we cannot wait to kiss. I clasp his face lightly with my hands. The natural scent of him, his warm mouth melting against mine, I’m intoxicated by his kiss. He leans across the center and unbuckles his seatbelt. The click of his seatbelt undone, the sound, opens a place in my body. My blouse, my wide leather belt, my jeans, the seatbelt—confining me. I want to remove everything, remove the things in my life that keep me from him. I want undoing. I unbuckle my heeled sandals. I undo the seatbelt. His hands tuck up underneath my hair. He pulls my face deeper into our kiss.

His mouth and mine, his mouth, mine.

I look out the window into the nigh, and see myself as a girl, running down toward the end where the dirt path begins. I see myself looking back at the older me in the car. She knows— that little girl— where I am going. Whatever she knows, it’s discovered here, this secret place at the end of this street. She sees me, thirty years later, in a minivan full of my children’s things– a baby seat, a baseball bag, the sand toys for the beach all cluttered in the trunk, kissing a man I am having an affair with, a man I am falling in love with, in the dark, stealing a moment away. Secret. It seems that my life has come to this secret and hidden end of a street, to rediscover something forgotten within me.

We climb into the back of the van, my jeans pulled off, removing my belt, my pussy wet, his hard sex in my hand. “You are so hard,” I marvel, as the length and swell of his cock is warm and heavy with thick arousal. I caress his sex with one hand. I cup his balls with the other. He is sitting on the seat, half dressed, still wearing his shirt. I lean up and into him, kissing him deeply. Holding his body to mine, my blouse is sticking from sweat and desire, the fabric coming between the smoothness of our bodies. I want to feel him naked and breathing upon me. I pull the fabric away to feel his belly and chest against mine. He pulls his shirt away, too. We want our skin touching. I want to dissolve into him where the world is golden-yellow and soft like sunlight in summertime memories. I want to melt away into the light as he plunges his body into mine. No barriers, nothing between us, not even the years we lived so close to one another, never knowing that all this time, we were already close in parallel existence. I want his hunger, his sadness, his memories, all of his colors inside of me, blending both of our shadows, touching, like watercolors all bleeding together until the paper is saturated with imperfect beauty.

My lover’s face in the shadows is luminous and delicate. There is something within him that is intangible, revealing itself to me. His face is like moonlight through a raincloud. I put my hand to his cheek, making sure he is there. Here in the dark, the blueness of the evening, illuminated by the amber street lamps lighting the shadows within ourselves, the forgotten places within us can no longer stay hidden. I open my eyes to see him in the dark. He cannot see me entirely. We can only see each other in the half-light. We are shadows of each other. We are radiant with desire, opening and tasting what is true, kissing him, kissing him. By this desire, he is awakening my soul. His fingers and hands light along my body, undoing me, releasing me, bringing me back to life.

I feel released from everything when we kiss. Nothing is binding me to the gravity of my existence. I am a butterfly coming out of a chrysalis. I am returning to myself within his embrace, by his kiss. We move around in the back, trying to find the right position. We kiss, and I laugh like a teenage girl. My legs are up, bare and dangling over his shoulder. He can’t see my face at all now. What he can see he finds with his hands. He discovers me in the slip of my wanting. My skin against his, my pussy is flowering with ripeness, and, as he touches me there, as he slides his fingers inside, he has me, he possesses me— all of me— the girl running down the street and the woman in the back seat of the car.

We kiss. I press my body into his. My hands are slipping all around his shoulders, feeling the fabric of his shirt, flattening my palms, smoothing and stroking his chest, squeezing his arms, and pulling him against me. I want him inside of me. My hands caress up along the back of his neck. My fingernails claw into his black hair. I have this erotic need to kiss him in the back of the car, half naked like this. It brings moments from girlhood into womanhood colliding within me like a surreal dream. I pretend it is him that I first gave myself to in the back of a car. I pretend, all this time, it was he, this man I see in the half-light, the blue shadows curving along his handsome face, his smile, his sighs. I suckle his lower lip, and he says something, pulling away, mystified, searching for my face. He says something beautiful. He is beatific in that moment. I suck his lip in a kiss again, and the same reaction comes. He is searching for my face. The kissing is making us dizzy with the feeling we have. We are in this dream together, looking out the windows at the broken indigo and granite colors, just shapes now, the houses, the street. We are dreaming each other. What we cannot see with our eyes, we can see with our hands, with our kisses. We can see everything about each other and all the years that paralleled themselves, bringing us to this moment, all the secrets once so elusive, now illuminated.

Thirty years before, I ran down that street, not supposed to go there, not allowed. Danger. My mother worried about someone kidnapping me, taking me away. Now, I want to be taken, I want someone to kidnap me. “Take me,” I whisper.

We are in the back of the van. My body is longing for him to be deep inside of me. I am sucking him as he straddles the farthest back seat, slinking into a position so I can take his cock into my mouth. My face nuzzles into his belly, making my way down. I inhale his musky scent, petting the soft nest of hair there with my palm, pressing down upon where his pubic bone meets the base of his sex. Tenderly I open my mouth to take him in, my mouth wet, longing to suck him, licking the head, savoring the length of his erect cock. He is hard. So hard, I have never felt him harder than that. I want him to kidnap me, just take me and take me. I don’t want to go back. I want to run away. I want him so much I can’t imagine how it’s happened. It consumes me, this want, and there’s no stopping it.

Outside the car windows, it’s deep night. We can only hear our breath and our sighing, our desire for one another climbing over the velour car seats, reaching the branches of the trees outside, shaking. I am shaking with orgasms. He gives them to me, over and over until everything blurs together and I don’t know who I am anymore.

The gray concrete of the street softly encompasses us. There is no time, only our breath, our hands, our kisses. My body sinks upon him, I climb upon him, slide him within me. When I am like this, on top of him, I am his. I belong to him, and that is what I need. It doesn’t really matter what we do, or how we do it.

He moves us down onto the carpeted floor of the back of the van. My leg is cramped against the side of the car interior. I cannot see his face now, but he can see mine by the dim light of the window. I feel him watching me as I ride him, moaning a little, feeling the marvelous way his cock slides in and half out of my cunt, my wet and juicy place where he is entering me. He grasps the sides of my hips, holding me upon him. He holds, squeezes me, and shakes my fleshy hips with yearning. I feel like a woman. When he holds my hips like that, I feel him possess me. The softest place of me, not just the inside of my body, but the most secret place, he finds, he uncovers. I am naked inside. I am his. I am myself again.

Slipping his fingers into my wet and wanting sex,  he pulls aside my apron from behind as my ass lifts a little higher. I’m leaning over the kitchen sink. He has three fingers buried deep into my pussy; my lips are swollen with a delicious melting sensation. More. The bottle of gourmet olive oil. He spies it on the counter and reaches for it. Pressing his arousal hotly against my bare behind, he pours some of the oil into one hand and slathers my bottom up with it. The delicate perfume of olives fills the kitchen in the heat of the day. With the slippery olive oil he deftly presses his thumb— his one thumb that is wide and slightly flattened– slowly against the tender entrance of my ass. Pushing gently inside, it sinks in slow. His fingers work themselves deeper into my pussy. Deeper. He’s got a way of doing this where I can only surrender to the pleasure. I want his hardening cock inside of me too, but his hands are causing me to vibrate with excitement. I can’t think of anything else. He takes his other hand and, with the long tips of his index and second finger, circles my clit in light, little motions. He flutters his fingers back and forth, lightly, the way he taps an eggshell against a bowl. He pinches my clit and plays with it like sprinkling spices into a pot. The ache of his three fingers in my pussy and the girth of his thumb inside my ass is exquisite. I want him so much that my whole body responds to him like a pot of boiling water, simmering and rolling into heat. He has full control of my body with his hand. He kneels down on the kitchen floor, burying his face in between my legs. His hot mouth is tonguing my pussy, trailing his kiss up, spreading my cheeks open, licking, tasting. I moan with desire, clutching the Formica countertop. Being in the kitchen with him couldn’t get any hotter. His fingers stir me into a froth of lust.

When we are at dinner in a restaurant, sitting side by side, he trails his hand to my thigh, delving downward in between my legs. His fingers tempt me under the dinner table, coaxing the edge of my panties aside, teasing, just until my body bubbles with desire, so close to climax. He smiles mischievously, observing my response. He drinks his wine coolly, watches me with a sideways glance, as I try to not to show anything in my expression. He’s sly and just a bit naughty. Other diners at surrounding tables might notice. Sometimes I just don’t care, it’s so good, what he does to me with his hands.

His hands. Looking upon the shape of them sends shivers of longing through me, sensations I cannot describe. There aren’t any words that can explain the way they undo me, bit by bit, like sugar dissolving.

I watch him peel shrimp in the kitchen. He’s holding the knife steady, his index finger is pressed against the outer part of the blade. With precision, he deftly cuts along the spine of the shrimp, pink and quivering in his grip. I understand how that shrimp feels, much like the way I am when in his command. At the wooden cutting block, he conducts with his chef’s knife— he’s finely chopping fresh wide leaves of mint, frilly clumps of cilantro, his fingers nimbly mincing the green leaves into submission. He scoops the herbs into a bowl as I watch, enthralled by the way his hands take such loving care with what he is making. The watermelon and cucumber, all cubed and ready, shimmer with watery urgency. His long fingers casually shimmy among them, dipping into the bowl, tossing and dressing it with a squeeze of lime. The juice spurts into the bowl. He squeezes the lime until its pulp feathers and separates from the green rind. I notice the juice covering his fingernails, tips of his fingers, palm of his hand. It smells good and citrussy. He pulls me close and kisses me. I smell fragrant mint and juicy lime on his fingers as he touches my face. Then he’s back to preparing our meal. I delight in watching him drizzle olive oil into another bowl; stirring the dressing with the stainless whisk. He slices corn off the cob. While I stand there, barefoot in my sundress, watching him like a little girl, he smiles the faintest hint of a smile. He knows I am melting inside down to the marrow with want. My body is responding from the buttery center of my rising lust, a soufflé of creamy desire.

He sets the two dishes down on the dining table. Just a simple dish: shrimp in a dressing of olive oil, lime, honey, mint, cilantro, corn, watermelon and cucumber— the fragrance and sweetness, the pleasure. He caresses my thigh with one hand as I taste a mouthful of his creation, and suddenly, from the very core of my body, I am shuddering with some kind of mysterious reaction to the meal made aphrodisiac by his hands. I am melting with tenderness. I am noticing how he holds his fork. His index finger points into the silver handle of the fork, controlling its motion. My thoughts are percolating, the agitation in my body won’t stop. His other hand is warm and smooth against my thigh. I am shaking; my knees are gelatinous and unable to hold still. He slides his hand softly along my leg. My mouth is full of watermelon and shrimp, and I can’t stop giggling. I am so moved I want to cry from the joy. Another kind of orgasm, one coming from the depths of me, ripples from within, and all I can do is surrender to it. His eyes gleam at me like champagne glasses as he gives a fizzy smile. We eat from our dishes, and I taste slowly, savoring each mouthful. The heat of his hand and the way he made our dinner is whipping up some unknown place inside my body. A kiss with flavors of watermelon, olive oil, honey and mint on our tongues, the sea-sweetness of the pink fresh shrimp, the tang of pleasure.

Later, again, after the food, in the kitchen, his hands hug my hips close. We embrace. The warmth of his palms travels up my body, wraps in and cups around my breasts, kissing. He holds my face in his hands. The faint scent of herbs, like a magic spell from his fingertips, intoxicates me with its summery bouquet. He gazes into my eyes. I am trembling. I’m in love.

“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” ~ Kate Chopin, The Awakening

Aphrodite awakens in us, born from the sea of our soul. She is symbolic of erotic dreams and desires. The ocean, saline, amniotic, the primordial sea, womb of life. We are made of stardust and seashells, and all of the yearning that stretches beyond our bodies. The erotic within us is that yearning, the coming together and ignition of our souls. We are longing to feel that magical passion for life when we seek the erotic, as Eros was spirited away by his love for Psyche.

From Wikipedia:

“Anyone who falls in love is searching for the missing pieces of themselves. So anyone who’s in love gets sad when they think of their lover. It’s like stepping back inside a room you have fond memories of, one you haven’t seen in a long time.” ~ Haruki Murakami

I could say that I’ve been asleep. Dreaming, for how long I’m not sure, perhaps years. My soul has been caught in the tide of reverie and longing. There are layers of my being that I do not reveal that are sediment, deep within. Places within me that I didn’t know existed. Just as grains of sand are eroded rock and shell, thousands of years have created it— our souls have mysteries like that. When the light sparks and the glimmer of something beautiful is discovered, then that is the moment. It is a memory. So I have been going along this current of memory, like the ocean waves, lost in it, not caring where it takes me. I have had many lovers in my life and many erotic experiences. All fragments of my erotic landscape. It’s all there to use as a palette, along with the imagination. Writing about the erotic is really an adventure on the soul level.

“Writing is a process, a journey into memory and the soul.” ~Isabel Allende

You might say I’ve been in the mood for love. I’ve been dormant, sleeping within. But there has been a marvelous phenomenon happening inside of me lately, an awakening of my soul. This awakening has been sparked, like Sleeping Beauty, by a kiss of life, and now I am vibrating with passion. Like any birth, there is blood involved, and pain, and things that I had not known about myself. All this time, I think I have been sleeping. Now it’s all fire and passion and living in every moment. I haven’t had much time to sleep. My mind is restless, and I am hyper-aware, even my flesh is alive with sensitivity. My soul is awake and my heart is full of passionate fire. Awakening.

“Erotica is using a feather; pornography is using the whole chicken.” ~Isabel Allende

I’ve been writing stories, erotic love stories, but in the process of writing, I am learning something new about myself. I make discoveries. It’s like sifting through soil, finding fragile treasures, tiny shells, whorls of prismatic layers and inner pearly chambers. Inside oneself is the treasure. My erotic self is tender within and soft. I am beginning to see the beauty of this process, searching through my memory, finding things that I never realized until the writing revealed it to me. When I say “erotic” what I am attempting to say is “passionate nature” and thus, we are naturally erotic and passionate beings. Passion is about life. And life is about sex and love, and all the complexities of being human. It is our instinct, to love. Longing is the yearning, to discover what lies within.

“Writing is like making love. Don’t worry about the orgasm, just concentrate on the process.” ~Isabel Allende

When I first started writing erotica, I had no idea what path I was choosing. It is easy to say, “Oh, yes, I will write about sex,” as if doing so automatically makes it something delicious to write about. But what ends up happening in the process is an unearthing of one’s psyche and all the contents. It’s a veritable Pandora’s Box. Sex is life. So I’m writing about life. Yes, even creating fiction is writing about life. Creating characters that are part of one’s self, so you really cannot get away with hiding it all. Sooner or later, it all comes to surface. As a painter, I thought of my paints and brushes as my language. Writing poetry and erotica were secondary. I kept it secret like a diary. It revealed too much of myself. Painting, on the other hand, was pure expression, all color and light. I didn’t have to explain my reasons or confess my darknesses and shadows. I just had to apply the paint to the canvas and allow the feeling to come through.

“We write to taste life twice, in the moment and in retrospect.” ~Anaïs Nin

I love Anaïs Nin’s “Delta of Venus” and “Little Birds” out of all her writings. I admire her use of dream-like imagery and poetic layering. I like that her characters are imperfect and human. When I read various writers’ works in erotica anthologies, I enjoy some the modern stories, but in general, the lewd and formulaic writing is disappointing. I want to say I enjoy most of it, but, just like anything worth its weight in salt, most of the stuff our there sounds the same. I don’t want to churn out the stories full of “cock” and “pussy” and “cunt” and “thrust” without those words being used in a creative way, adding some juice to them; those names for our body parts that deserve more than being thrown about in between verbs and periods and paragraphs. Reinventing those “fuck words” with new life and energy, charging them with cosmic fuel.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anaïs Nin

So, in the quest to write erotica, I have begun to discover, I am writing about life, love and human beings. Writing about being human, sexual and flawed, vulnerable, and other aspects. Fantasy, dreams. Romanticism, shadowy recesses and hidden corners of my erotic mind come into the realm of the written word.

I want it messy. I want it raw and real and vibrant. I want romance and longing. Passion. I know it may sound cliche or corny, but I want love. I want to be covered in the musky scent of sex. I want the stories I write to express something about human emotion and how life isn’t perfect. I want to create dreams and pleasure. I want to write about passion and the impermanent and sometimes heartbreaking beauty of life.

(painting by Gajin Fujita)

Henry Miller loved Anaïs Nin. She was married to Hugh Guiler. Her diaries, Vol.1, 1931–1934, were written when Anaïs lived a bohemian life with Henry Miller during her time in Paris. Her husband (Guiler) is not mentioned in her diary at that time. Henry and Anaïs remained lovers and kindled their passion for one another as artists, as writers, in love with each other; in love with life and the creative fire, passion.

Henry Miller to Anaïs Nin on March 4, 1932
“Three minutes after you have gone. No, I can’t restrain it. I tell you what you already know – I love you. It is this I destroyed over and over again. At Dijon I wrote you long passionate letters – if you had remained in Switzerland I would have sent them – but how could I send them to Louveciennes? Anais, I can’t say much now – I am in a fever. I could scarcely talk to you because I was continually on the point of getting up and throwing my arms around you.” 

Anaïs Nin to Henry Miller on March 26, 1932
“This is strange, Henry. Before, as soon as I came home from all sorts of places I would sit down and write in my journal. Now I want to write you, talk with you. [...] I love when you say all that happens is good, it is good. I say all that happens is wonderful. For me it is all symphonic, and I am so aroused by living – god, Henry, in you alone I have found the same swelling of enthusiasm, the same quick rising of the blood, the fullness, the fullness … Before, I almost used to think there was something wrong. Everybody else seemed to have the brakes on. [...] I never feel the brakes. I overflow. And when I feel your excitement about life flaring, next to mine, then it makes me dizzy.”

Passionate souls and creative spirits, Anaïs and Henry wrote erotica together with other writers and artist friends, for a dollar per page commissioned by a secretive patron. The patron was a wealthy Oklahoma oil millionaire Roy Milisander Johnson. He commissioned these erotic manuscripts from writers like Anaïs and Henry. But. He wanted the poetry cut out. He just asked for the matter-of-fact details of sex.

Anaïs Nin on writing erotica for the eccentric patron:

“I gather poets around me and we all write beautiful erotica. As we have to suppress poetry, lyrical flight, and are condemned to focus only on sensuality, we have violent explosions of poetry. Writing erotica becomes a road to sainthood rather than to debauchery…We have to cut out the poetry, and are haunted by the marvelous tales we cannot tell. We have sat around, imagined this old man, talked of how much we hate him, because he will not allow us to make a fusion of sexuality with feeling, sensuality and emotion, and lyrical flights which intensify eroticism.” 

Anaïs could not continue removing the poetry from the erotic. The wealthy patron became an albatross to her creative juices, and, finding the arrangement intolerable, she and the other writers could not go on writing sex without the poetry of life. She wrote a letter which the patron never received:

“Dear Collector;

We hate you. Sex loses all its its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone, when it becomes a mechanistic obsession. It becomes a bore. You have taught us more than anyone I know how wrong it is not to mix it with emotion, hunger, desire, lust, whims, caprices, personal ties, deeper relationships, which change its colour, flavour, rhythms, intensities…You are shrinking your world of sensations. You are withering it, starving it, draining its blood…”

And in the art of writing erotica, life is what it’s all about. Life and living passionately, as if every single moment was as precious as our breath. A great big “Yes” when we are lost in pleasure. A “Yes” when we are in the arms of our lover.

“All night I could not sleep, because of the moonlight on my bed, I kept on hearing a voice calling: Out of Nowhere, Nothing answered “yes.” ~ Zi Ye (6th-3rd century B.C.E.) Chinese poet

(painting by Gajin Fujita)

Spanking. The rules of the dungeon were such as to initiate me as a submissive. No one graduated to become a dominatrix until they were a submissive first. I wore a white lace bodice that corseted me in and a garter belt with white thigh-high stockings. My submissive attire was to look girlish and innocent. Sweet. And I’m real good at being sweet. I’m a darling girl.

The dominatrix took me into a room fashioned like a classroom. In place were school desks and a chalkboard. She gently bent me over the teacher’s desk. Wearing her black latex outfit and shiny thigh high boots, she looked like a rocker from the late 80′s. I almost expected to see an electric guitar strapped to the front of her. In a way, she looked like Nancy Wilson from the rock band Heart. She was excited that I was so willing to become a submissive. Her thrill bubbling over her cool exterior, she was gentle when guiding my hips into position. Much like a yoga instructor helping me out with the proper pose of “down dog,” she angled my ample bottom into an upwards place. Contrary to my ideas of dominatrix behavior, she was, well… sweet to me.

This was when I realized the connection between my arousal and the sense of trust and safety. Mental connection and mutual respect needs to be the foundation for such explorations. The dominatrix was doing her best to make me comfortable, without pushing me beyond my threshold.

While I was bending over the teacher’s desk, the dominatrix gave my bottom a light swat with her leather paddle. It felt a little cold and kind of soft. The sting didn’t come until a few more swats to my behind. I felt a flush of excitement thrum through my body—my neck turned red and splotched, my face tingled. I was blushing. My body was responding with arousal. She didn’t say much but mentioned that she’d have to give me a number of spanks in order to train me properly as a submissive. The paddle was warming up, and the swats turned into full leather blows to my cushiony bottom. The ample amount of tush I had served me well. She caressed one of my cheeks with her hand, feeling the heat. She devilishly remarked how red my bottom was getting and giggled. It seemed as though she was enjoying it with all the mischievous glee of a naughty child stealing a cookie.

And just when I was getting into it… she was done. My eyes were glazing, my head lowered, facing the desk. A rush of sexual tingling flowed through my sex. I was swollen and wet; juicy through my white lace panties. I wanted her to do it more. The desks were all orderly, lined up in the classroom, facing the chalkboard like good children. I gave her a demure schoolgirl look like I wanted to be taken. I was aroused by the spanking, my breathing was heavy, and if she had pulled my hair and took me with a dildo I would have allowed her to.

“There’s two things in this world: wonderful, visceral, sexy sex. And death. Horrible, boring death.”

~ Kieran, Dinner for Schmucks

Rough sex. It’s like anything extreme or intense. If it’s done properly, with the right ingredients, it’s delicious. If it’s not done with skill, if it’s devoid of emotion, it can be awful. Cooking is much the same.

If you don’t handle your ingredients with care, you’ll ruin the whole meal. Don’t just thrash around the kitchen, stir things violently, cook haphazardly over a high flame, without knowing how to manage things in an artful way. Otherwise you might as well just microwave it and forget about what it tastes like. It’ll end up as inedible cardboard. And that is how I feel about rough sex without the right ingredients.

And I have had a desire for rough sex lately, which is an unusual thing for me. What I thought I liked or what I felt safe with was soft, gentle, and loving sexual encounters. Most of the time, I want it slow. Tenderness, caresses, and kisses. And then, past the point of orgasm and beyond, I long for my lover to take me as hard as he can. I want more. When I enter this zone, there is an emotional realm, a hidden place that runs along the periphery of my brain, and that realm asks for it rough. I want to be pushed into intensity. I want pleasure, and I want more of it. I want it harder, deeper, more. I need that animalistic sex— the pulling of my hair, the pounding into my body, the growling, screaming, moaning, wild fucking of sex.

Most of my life I’ve responded to sweetness. Sweet behavior and treatment opens me up, allows me to respond. If you are sweet, thoughtful, and gentle with me, I will most certainly enjoy (when the mood strikes) rough sex. You see, I don’t respond to rough right away. Crude behavior is a big turn off. Rough doesn’t mean you can be a boorish ogre and get your way with me.

Going back to the memory of being spanked by that dominatrix in that dungeon. Odd to say, but it was one of the most pleasant experiences I’ve had with a stranger. She was caring and feminine, strong yet soft.

It happened out of necessity. After I had moved back from New Orleans, I needed a job. I had just had my son— he was just a baby then. I was a single mother. My body was still carrying the extra pregnancy weight. Add to that, living in New Orleans. All the food. The wonderful, delicious, gourmet-buttery food. The extra weight wasn’t unattractive, just a little zaftig. Curvy.

I was thirty years old. I was in the prime of my life. And the strip club that I once worked at in Los Angeles wouldn’t hire me back. I was once one of their best girls.

Ten years before then, I had made them a fortune. They gave me any shifts I wanted, and I left with hundreds, sometimes thousands of dollars, each day. My body was supple, young, and tanned, with a small waist you could put both hands around, and large, bountiful (albeit silicone) breasts. My hips were sensual and feminine, and my legs as long as a gazelle. In heels, I was towering, over six feet tall. When I emerged from behind the curtain, the slow bump and grind of my hips melted men’s minds, moving like syrupy molasses onstage. With my sultry gaze, I mesmerized men by the crowd. Men lined up for me, waiting, for a private dance. Hordes, dozens, hundreds of men spent their pretty wallets up dry just to have me near. I was in my early twenties. Pretty face, healthy as a thoroughbred, intelligent mind. Not a wrinkle on my face or a reason to be discouraged. To add to my arsenal of seduction, I had a growing comprehension of what men really wanted. My British cousin once said disdainfully: “You’ve always been a man magnet.”

Surprisingly, this time, the club wouldn’t take me back. The manager I dubbed “Valium Bob” poked my belly with his bony index finger.

“What’s this?” he prodded.

“My belly, of course.” I snipped back.

I wanted to say that this was how women naturally look. Surrounded by the new girls, all of them skinny as supermodels in their rhinestone-studded bikinis, Valium Bob was surrounded by girls that resembled greyhound dogs. Compared to my womanly belly dancer curves, I stood out. I wondered, how did this happen? Wasn’t it just years ago I was scooping up bills off the main stage? Slithering out of my satin gowns, giving sideways looks, casting spells over any man like a siren to a sailor, drawing him closer toward the rocky collision of lust. I was the Princess of the Bare Elegance. Where were the girls I knew before? So I had to get over myself. It was all as false as the breasts in that club. And my breast implants had been removed years ago. The moment of pseudo-downfall and has-been realization was no matter. It wasn’t a small world my mind existed in. I saw it for what it was: superficial and nonsense. I had developed an illusion, a mechanism, to exist in that world. But, when my belly was poked by a scrawny, drugged up slimeball, I took offense. My feminist perspective found this behavior in men to push me beyond loathing. I kept my disgust at bay, held my head high, and gracefully stated that I wasn’t about to kill myself with amphetamines or crystal meth in order to work in their club. I walked out.

I had just given birth six months prior to that moment. I was back in Los Angeles, far from the Big Easy of butter and cream. I was not in New Orleans anymore. Dazzling through my mind, thoughts were spinning around, like a dancer spinning down a metal pole. I was wondering what happened to Lucky, Sasha, Heather, Precious, Cherry, Zee, Anita Dawn, and Renee— my sisterhood? The new girls were Fembots, representative of the stereotypical strippers. And those girls were thin, stick-thin, emaciated— some I suspected were anorexic or worse. And everyone in Los Angeles, it seemed, was fixated on body image, whether they knew it or not. It was a rude awakening from the sleepy romance of Louisiana bayou and Nouvelle-Orléans grace. In the Land of Hollywood, supermarkets contained shelves of magazines with celebrities on diets, and diet drinks, diet sodas, ‘lose weight now’ blurbs and fat-free options. Where was the joy of living? The laissez les bons temps rouler of New Orleans left behind, I was lost again in the asphalt maze of Los Angeles traffic and the underground of sex work in a megalopolis. It was a lonely place to be.

So I ended up working at that dungeon. I decided that it was an experimental thing until I lost the pregnancy weight. Then I’d go back to dancing. Or do something else. Besides, I liked being spanked. I guessed it would work out fine if I made some income from it. My behind was pleasantly plump. Spinal Tap’s song of adoration, Big Bottom, was fitting, unlike my old size eight jeans.

When I’ve had rough sex, it was done with love and emotion. The longing and ache to be set free from my contained nature, to have my lover pound me into glorious submission with his hard cock— to be shaken and stirred by the raw instinct— to be utterly taken. Surrender. It’s more about surrender and letting go of all control than violence. If it’s true violence, I’m not in the least interested— violence is not something that arouses me— I don’t want to be slapped in the face or called names. Violence is abhorrent. When I want rough sex, I want it to be about passion.

The most mind blowing rough sex scene I saw was in the erotic espionage film Lust, Caution by Ang Lee. I was pregnant with my third child when I went to see the film in the theater. I have always loved the Chinese actor Tony Leung. Any film he is in, I must watch. A parallel discovered. The parallel: my second pregnancy and my erotic fixation for Asian men which was awakened by a violent sword fight scene in House of Flying Daggers,— and again during my third pregnancy— the realization of my desire for rough sex while watching Lust, Caution. I was shocked to discover how it — rough sex and raw emotion— aroused me still. What was it about violent scenes that provoked? Was it intense love and passion that compelled me? The axis of that parallel erotic response was in correlation to my need for more. For passion and all its reasons, the vicissitudes of my experiential knowledge were weighing upon me. Physical weight, extra body weight, emotional weight—-

I want freedom. I crave lightness of being.

That sex scene in Lust, Caution— rough sex— he takes her with passion bordering on brutality. The emotions were intense, conflicting and layered. It was shocking and erotic. It was dark and dangerous, and tender and instinctual. She wants him; he takes her, roughly, on the bed. His belt buckle in hand, he’s violent with desire. I’m clutching the theater seat; my hands don’t know where to go. I can’t breathe. I’m holding my chest, my breath. I can’t watch. I’m watching. Shaking with undoing, I’m pregnant, and I want to be taken like that. My body is in conflict, wanting gentle treatment when carrying a child within my body. I am thrown into confusion. In the back of my mind, I want someone to take me like he takes her. It was done with finesse. Tony Leung, playing his part, in a sex scene that raised questions in my being as to why I want to be taken so, and the extreme emotions that go with the territory. Much like how lions subdue their mates with a bite to the neck during their mating habits and rituals, I want to surrender.

Perhaps the dangerous amount of intensity, when combined with strong emotion, lights my body up with a thrilling energy. I don’t want brutality. I want passion. Perhaps my body responds to extremes. Anal sex allows my body to feel an extra amount of intensity that vaginal sex doesn’t quite give me. When I am spanked, it’s a similar charge. It’s naughty, erotic. I love the intense orgasms I have during anal sex, which sends riveting tingling sensations and aftershocks of orgasmic pleasure through my entire body. I can reach such realms of heightened erotic stimulation during regular vaginal sex, but it takes longer. Anal sex, spanking, and rough, penetrative, emotional, animalistic sex with someone who adores me, someone I know would never truly hurt me, is the essential ingredient within the landscape of my erotic desire. Surrendering to someone who passionately loves me is the magical link to the core of my erotic being.

Isabel Allende was born in Peru and raised in Chile. She worked as as journalist until she began writing fiction. Her first novel, The House of the Spirits (La casa de los espíritus) (1982), was made into a film.

When Isabel Allende worked as a journalist, she wrote an interview with Pablo Neruda, the Chilean poet. Neruda, during the interview, told her that she had “too much imagination to be a journalist” and suggested that she become a novelist.

I have admired Isabel Allende’s writing, having read The House of the Spirits, Portrait in Sepia, and my favorite, Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.

“Erotica is using a feather,

pornography is using the whole chicken.”

I have loved Isabel Allende’s writings because she weaves such intricate threads with her words into tapestries of stories. Layer upon layer, the emotions and fragments of beauty come through like sunlight through a stained glass window, creating colors and shadows, and nothing is purely sunny nor is it dark. Her feminine intuition and wisdom comes through, as a deeper understanding of people as human beings.

Even her translation of love and eroticism within fiction has human frailties and passion within the pages.

Imagine how excited I was to find this erotic passage written by Isabel Allende in a Penguin Book of Erotic Stories by Women:

Our Secret (1989)

“She let herself be caressed, drops of sweat in the small of her back, her body exuding the scent of burnt sugar, silent, as if she divined that a single sound could nudge its way into memory and destroy everything, reducing to dust this instant in which he was a person like any other, a casual lover she had met that morning, another man without a past attracted to her wheat-coloured hair, her freckled skin, the jangle of her gypsy bracelets, just a man who had spoken to her in the street and begun to walk with her, aimlessly, commenting on the weather and the traffic, watching the crowd, with the slightly forced confidence of her countrymen in this foreign land, a man without sorrow and anger, without guilt, pure as ice, who merely wanted to spend the day with her, wandering through bookstores and parks, drinking coffee, celebrating the chance of having met, talking of old nostalgias, of how life had been when both were growing up in the same city, in the same barrio, when they were fourteen, you remember, winters of shoes soggy from frost, and paraffin stoves, summers of peach trees, there in the now-forbidden country. Perhaps she was feeling a little lonely, or this seemed an opportunity to make love without complications, but, for whatever reason, at the end of the day, when they had run out of pretexts to walk any longer, she had taken his hand and led him to her house. She shared with other exiles a sordid apartment in a yellow building at the end of an alley filled with garbage cans. Her room was tiny: a mattress on the floor covered with a striped blanket, bookshelves improvised from boards stacked on two rows of bricks, books, posters, clothing on a chair, a suitcase in the corner. She removed her clothes without preamble, with the attitude of a little girl eager to please. He tried to make love to her. He stroked her body patiently, slipping over her hills and valleys, discovering her secret routes, kneading her, soft clay upon the  sheets, until she yielded, and opened to him. Then he retreated, mute, reserved. She gathered herself, and sought him, her head on his belly, her face hidden, as if constrained by modesty, as she fondled him, licked him, spurred him. He tried to lose himself; he closed his eyes and for a while he let her do as she was doing, until he was defeated by sadness, or shame, and pushed her away. They lighted another cigarette. There was no complicity now; the urgent anticipation that had united them during the day was lost, and all that was left were two vulnerable people lying on a mattress, without memory, floating in the terrible vacuum of unspoken words. When they had met that morning they had had no extraordinary expectations, they had no particular plan, only companionship, and a little pleasure, that was all, but at the hour of their coming together, they had been engulfed by melancholy. We’re tired, she smiled, seeking excuses for the desolation that had settled over them. In a last attempt to buy time, he took her face in his hands and kissed her eyelids.”

This erotic passage read beautifully to me. It shows two people as erotic and human. There is no idealization of the erotic, no fixation of body parts or intentions. The passage felt beautiful, melancholy, and real.

The book I love of Isabel Allende’s the most is Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.

“I repent of my diets, the delicious dishes rejected out of vanity, as much as I lament the opportunities for making love that I let go by.” ~ Isabel Allende

Aphrodite‘s non-linear form is a melting sensual pot of her romantic and culinary recollections. She blends in her stories like a chef in the kitchen, adding spices and herbs. The book has recipes, erotic excerpts, mythology, poetry, travel notes and stories, and aphrodisiacs. Aphrodite is “a mapless journey through the regions of sensual memory, in which the boundaries between love and appetite are so diffuse that at times they evaporate completely.”

“Appetite and sex are the great motivators of history … All of creation is one long interrupted cycle of digestion and fertility.” ~Isabel Allende

In Aphrodite, Isabel celebrates the aphrodisiacs of many dishes with given recipes and sensual suggestions for their uses. Caviar, for instance, is “the supreme stimulus for lechery” and tells the tales of caviar and its sordid history. When cooking omelets, like making love, “affection counts for more than technique.”

Allende describes her dream of swimming in a pool of creamy arroz con leche, her favorite dessert. She gives her precious recipe for the soul food of rice pudding at the finale of her book. She suggests that we can slather it on a loved one, and slowly lick it off. She notes that, in this instance, the calories would be justified.

Sensuality and food is explored, revered, and celebrated in this saucy book of erotica excerpts, personal stories, aphrodisiac ingredients, and orgies are mentioned along with possible menus for such decadent events.

Isabel Allende’s Works

• The House of the Spirits (1982) La casa de los espíritus
• The Porcelain Fat Lady (1984) La gorda de porcelana
• Of Love and Shadows (1985) De amor y de sombra
• Eva Luna (1987) Eva Luna
• The Stories of Eva Luna (1989) Cuentos de Eva Luna
• The Infinite Plan (1991) El plan infinito
• Paula (1995) Paula
• Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses (1998) Afrodita
• Daughter of Fortune (1999) Hija de la fortuna
• Portrait in Sepia (2000) Retrato en sepia
• City of the Beasts (2002) La ciudad de las bestias
• My Invented Country: A Memoir (2003) Mi país inventado
• Kingdom of the Golden Dragon (2004) El reino del dragón del oro
• Zorro (2005) El Zorro: Comienza la leyenda
• Forest of the Pygmies (2005) El bosque de los pigmeos
• Ines of My Soul (2006) Inés del alma mía
• The Sum of Our Days: A Memoir (2008) La suma de los días
• The Island Beneath the Sea (2010) “La isla bajo el mar”
• “El Cuaderno de Maya” (2011)

I have much to thank Violet Blue for, as she is truly a gifted sex blogger. I admire her for her style, and it is because of Violet that I discovered Cafe Glow. Thank you, Violet, for being my sex blogging muse extraordinaire.

This video of Tatiana in Ravishing is one that captured my attention as I perused the many videos made by Cafe Glow. It reminds me of the sexiness that I was surrounded by when I was a nude dancer. One of the pleasures of being a nude dancer was watching other women onstage. This video, somehow, captures that feeling for me.

>>> Tatiana in Ravishing [vignette] from CafeGlow on Vimeo <<<

Cafe Glow is artistic and exotic. I love the composition of colors and music that compliments each woman’s sensuous movement. They have Grey films, Bleu films, and Red films. Each color describes the content and temperature of the mood.

I also loved the Qream video (Kortney Kane) and Cafe Glow’s hot and erotic Tumblr blog. Here is the link for that creamy beauty in the QREAM video that’s sure to make you want to lick up some cream or make you cream, either way.

I love the visual of a woman drenched in cream… something so marvelously delicious about it.

And there’s the film noir style… Brenna in Don’t Explain…

Brenna in Don’t Explain by CafeGlow.com

(music by Billy Holiday)

Erotic … Kimama

Kimama [preview] from CafeGlow on Vimeo.

A preview of Kimama by CafeGlow.com/glow

&

Sensual… Deseo

Deseo by CafeGlow [trailer] from CafeGlow on Vimeo.

Deseo by CafeGlow

Born into poverty in a squalid East St. Louis slum, a child out of wedlock, wearing newspapers for shoes, she hustled for food and was subjected to abuse. Her grandmother then took her in, loved her, and brought her up on fairytales. Later on, as a young woman, she created her own fairytale as a supreme goddess.

She was the darling of Paris. It was 1925, the curtain rose at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, revealing an all-black revue. Goddess Josephine! There she was in her magnificent splendor of gyrations, legs flying, arms hypnotic, mesmerizing everyone with her Charleston dance. She was the “Ebony Venus” and “Creole Goddess” of the day. She gave all of Paris an erection.

Completely nude except for a bright pink feather between her thighs, she ushered in the Jazz Age with her black magic. Now, Jazz used to be Jass, which was a euphemism for “screwing,” and that was a smutty term for the uninhibited swing of music during those days. Jazz… Josephine was Jazz. She was a sorcière du jour, and men everywhere fell under her spell. La Belle Sauvage she was called. She was most famous for her “banana dance” or “La Danse Sauvage,” wearing only bananas.

“Tall, coffee skin, ebony eyes, legs of paradise, a smile to end all smiles.” - Pablo Picasso

Picasso painted her, Calder sculpted her.

The author Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anybody ever saw.”

She had a sexual appetite of an Amazon goddess to boot. She was super sexed, erotic, and commanded the right of a sex goddess to have as many lovers as she pleased. Having tried conventional ways (she was married numerous times) no one could pin her down or put her in a gilded cage— she had Counts, Princes, and Lotharios alike all showering her with gifts, money, jewels, and adoration.

Even in her 60′s she still had the magical aura of a goddess and captivated the world with her sexuality.

Josephine Baker has been compared to an African female deity, Mawu, a creator goddess, associated with the sun and moon, with a “personality like thunder.” The Brazilians believed she actually was a goddess, because as she danced, she revealed the cosmic secret of the drum, and brought that power to the earth.

She spent the rest of her life in France.

The Official Site of Josephine Baker