Table of Contents
Title Page
Foreword
Introduction
THE STRIPPER AND THE BUTCH WANNABE
LADIES’ COUPE
MY PRECIOUS WHORE
THE THIRD KISS
THE GARDEN OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS
A QUICK FUCK IN A SHADOWED CORNER
WITCH
ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL
PAINTED NAILS AND PUPPY DOG TAILS
CARRIED AWAY IN SANTA FE
WALK LIKE A MAN
SIGNS
MOST VALUABLE PLAYER
TREE HUGGER
LITTLE LOU
ANN’S ADRENALINE RUSH
ICE
THE SWEET TOOTH NEVER FADES
THE NUMBER 91
SNAPSHOT
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Copyright Page
FOREWORD
Walking down Commercial Street in Provincetown during 2009 Women’s Week, (question: can this sentence get any gayer?) I ran into Lea DeLaria (answer: yes).
We’d seen her perform the night before as a washed-up’80s rock star in Meryl Cohn’s musical Insatiable Hunger and stopped to tell her how much we enjoyed the show. We continued on to our respective brunches, and an idea was born.
I’d been thinking about who I should ask to judge Best Lesbian Erotica 2011, and after last year’s trio of musical judges, BETTY, did such a great job, I liked what musicians added to the mix.
I think many musicians understand what makes short fiction work instinctively, because in their own genre, they have to get in/get out and do it beautifully and uniquely each time, and it has to be a complete thing, not a phrase, or a riff or an idea. Lea’s known for her stand-up comedy and acting, but she’s also made a name for herself as an accomplished jazz vocalist, and I thought it would be fun to see where her instincts took her. (No “scat” jokes, please!)
When I asked her to come onboard, she accepted with alacrity, and I got to work reading the submissions. I have edited, screened, assembled and adjudicated plenty of writing over the years, and I’ve noticed that when you sit down with a great big stack of prose, poetry or plays, certain themes emerge, ideas that seem to be percolating up out of a collective unconscious. You can sense widely felt emotions, fears and also euphoria in better times. In the submissions for 2010’s book, I saw more comedy, more playful stuff and even some political pieces written in the wake of the ’08 elections (with plenty of hot sex, of course).
The submissions for 2011 seemed a little more doubtful. There were fewer outright comic pieces, more pieces about negotiating long-term relationships and marriage (in places where gay marriage is allowed), and the political pieces were less hopeful (but with plenty of hot sex, of course).
And this year the trend was also toward butch: stories told from the butch point of view, of femmes seduced by and seducing butches, and butches being mistaken (and sometimes passing for) men. Lea’s selections included several particularly strong pieces featuring butch characters, and I was glad to see it.
You may have noticed we live in an extremely uncivil age. The term cyberbullying didn’t exist ten years ago, though the action is alive and vicious now. And while it may begin with middle schoolers, it extends through all ages these days, in so many of our social interactions, both in person and online. The vicious quip, the snarling insult, the intent to hurt someone and deny their identity is not only accepted, but standard operating procedure for more and more people. They’re proud that they wound, glad that they’ve called a spade a spade, or a fag, or a pervert, or just “it.”
Even in the LGBT community, there’s always a center and outliers: I know people who think there shouldn’t be a T in the mix and that B doesn’t really exist. On a sunny weekend in June, I went to see a reading of Doric Wilson’s play, Street Theater, set on Christopher Street on the night the Stonewall riots began. In the play, the cops entrapped and extorted from the gays, and taunted and were frustrated by the ones who didn’t fit into their image of what “fairies” were supposed to look and act like. Boom Boom and Ceil were drag queens, Jack was a leatherman and C.B. a butch dyke. The other gays called them “pathetic,” (even as they were attracted to them). In the play (and on Christopher Street), it was the “others,” the outsiders in their own community, who started it all that night.
There are still plenty of others, plenty of outsiders: woman-identified butches, gender queers, trans people and the ones who stubbornly refuse to be one of four or five letters of the alphabet (and plenty of contention and controversy about that identity within the community itself). Because they can’t/won’t “pass,” people who blur the boundaries in such a way are still the ones attacked first, sneered at, scoffed at, discriminated against even by fellow queers who say, “Why do they have to be like that?”
Which is why I’m glad to see such excellent pieces celebrating butch sexiness, identity, and the serious, soulful, lusty interplay between butch/femme. It’s about the need, the desire, the essential connection between two people. It’s not always joyful or pretty, but it’s passionate. It’s not about what body part is doing what to who: it’s about everyone being allowed to get her or his fill and achieve satisfaction.
That’s an essential pleasure, an innate right that can’t be legislated (though you can certainly go to jail for it, still, in many places).
I’d like to thank you for choosing this book and peering into the many worlds and windows of this year’s Best Lesbian Erotica. Thanks to Cleis for championing the series, and to our fabulous contributors, who hail from six different countries this year, and range from first-time authors to masters (or mistresses) of the form.
I hope you enjoy it.
Kathleen Warnock
New York City
INTRODUCTION
I picked up a twentysomething-year-old Jewish straight girl when I went out for Chinese with my manager last Saturday night. There is just something about those inelegant, bespectacled, somewhat tightly wound straight girls. To me they are a narcotic, a kind of annoying heroin that once you shoot it up, you are endowed with a permanent hard-on coupled with a giant stomach ulcer. I know this and I still can’t leave ’em alone, especially the Jewish ones. Especially the Jewish ones with huge knockers.
She invites me up to her Central Park West doorman apartment for “a drink.” Of course we know where this will end. She offers me a glass of wine, which I eagerly accept. I always find with the straight ones that a little alcohol loosens the inhibitions. Remember, you want to “imbibe” her. It doesn’t work to get her to the point where she has a drink and the next thing she knows she’s in the White Castle on 8th and 36th at 3:00 a.m.…and she’s working there. Shoot for becoming the tragic end of a “bottoming out” story at an AA meeting. If it’s a hot night it’s worth it.
I flirt. We move to her couch. We have another glass. I ramp up the flirt a little more. She gives me that look that girls give you when they want you to make the first move, and (without revealing the details a gentlemen should not tell) I give her an orgasm.
She immediately bursts into tears. She won’t let me hold her or comfort her in any way…so I just sit there until she finally chills. We talk some more. She rolls over onto her belly.
“Mmm,” I think. We continue to talk. She starts to move her hips a little. “Mmm,” I think once more. Now get this, she raises her ass in the air. Actually raises it in the air.
“Okay!” I think, and one thing leads to the next. I end up giving her yet another orgasm and…she bursts into tears again.
You have got to be joking, I am screaming in my mind. I mean, I am aware that the fear of homosexuality that a lot of wome
n repress can be stressful but Really? Do you have to fucking cry twice in front of a complete stranger? Or are you one of those babes who cry every time they come?
She then begins a mantra of how she can’t be a lesbian, her family will disown her, what about her job? You know, the stuff we all went through around 135 years ago that nobody really does anymore, at least not since “Will and Grace” went into syndication. Well, maybe they still do it in Zimbabwe.
So I, being the reasonable one (and, by the way, how fucking wrong is that?) start saying nice things to her like: “Having sex with a woman once does not a lesbian make.” And: “Having sex with me certainly doesn’t, as it is exactly like having sex with a man.” None of which is working. She begins a tirade, no, more like dissertation consisting of some very uncomplimentary things about first, lesbians in general; and second, me specifically: That I am callous. That this is just a conquest for me, “another notch on my belt” is how she actually put it. That I got what I wanted and now what was I going to do…?
Of course I am thinking I GOT WHAT I WANTED?! All I wanted was uncomplicated casual sex with a horny babe that I just met. Yeah. I really got what I wanted.
Then she says: “I’m having an emotional crisis, and you don’t even care!” That is when the obvious solution hit me and I answered, “You know what? You’re right.” Then I left.
I am unsure what my lesson should be from this experience. I think some would say, “Be more careful and gentle with women and their emotions and their perception of intimacy.” However, I think the lesson might be this: If a story begins with the sentence “I was fucking this straight girl…” there needs to be a roofie involved, or it will end in tears.
Better still, the next time I’m feeling “anxious,” if you know what I mean, I will put down the girl and pick up a good book of Lesbian Erotica. Why…here’s one now!
Lea DeLaria
THE STRIPPER AND THE BUTCH WANNABE
Renée Strider
Van’s new girlfriend, Julia, was a gorgeous femme, a weekend stripper, and a top in the bedroom—or any room. Van loved femmes. The sight of Julia in her normal outfit of blouse and close-fitting business skirt always sent a surge of pleasure through Van, who loved Julia’s svelte figure, especially her tight round ass and long legs made even more shapely by the high heels she usually wore.
Van didn’t mind Julia being a stripper, as long as she didn’t have to go and watch her lover being watched. She had once asked Julia why she stripped, and Julia had said that the extra money helped support her habit, a taste for expensive clothes and paintings. Besides, she enjoyed it and got to use some of her dance training.
What Van did have a small problem with was that Julia was always in charge when they had sex. Van, whose real name was Vanessa, considered herself a butch, and felt that being dominated by her girlfriend was just plain wrong. But Julia had never taken Van’s butchness seriously in the month or so that they’d been lovers. She often called Van her “sweet little butch,” even though Van was taller. Van was—and looked—younger, though, so that probably didn’t help.
Julia came home late at night on weekends—often Van picked her up—still smelling of sweat and smoke because she preferred to shower at home. When she was warm and clean and soap-scented, Julia was always ready for sex.
Last Saturday, with her damp, black, shoulder-length hair combed back from her face and her color high from arousal and hot water, she’d approached Van, who was sitting sprawled on the couch, waiting impatiently and wet with desire. Julia was naked except for a towel knotted around her waist. She knelt in front of Van and took off her lover’s socks and unbuttoned her Levi’s and yanked them off, along with the briefs. She didn’t let Van do anything. The tone had been established, somehow, right from the beginning. And Van could hardly complain, especially at a time like this, when Julia spread Van’s legs wide, urging her to tilt her pelvis toward Julia’s waiting mouth. Groaning blissfully, Julia sucked her and licked her to a jerking climax.
Van was still limp and moaning softly when Julia got up, untied the towel and straddled her. She arched against Van and grabbed her hands, pulling one to a breast and one between her thighs. She rocked on Van, onto her hand, forcing the fingers deeper. Van tugged on one of Julia’s hard nipples and shivered as Julia’s hands caressed her roughly under her T-shirt. They kissed, their tongues repeating the rhythm of Van’s thrusts into her, until Julia convulsed with a sharp cry.
Obviously the sex was good, but Van thought it could be even better, at least for herself, if she could just gain some control. So she hatched a plan.
Early the following week, she bought a new suit—at a men’s store, of course. It was charcoal, of the finest summer wool and, although it wasn’t custom-tailored, it fit her slim androgynous lines perfectly. Elegant. Then she had her hair cut very short, so close to her head that not the slightest trace of curl remained.
That Friday, she was supposed to pick Julia up at the strip club after her second show and as usual, spend the night. Van decided she would arrive early this time and actually watch Julia perform. She wanted to know her new lover better, even if it meant seeing Julia exposing her body to strangers.
Van dressed carefully. To get the wet look she liked, she applied some gel to her buzzed hair still damp from the shower. A small gold circle glinted in one ear. Under her new jacket, she had on a black silk shirt, short sleeved and unbuttoned at the collar. On her feet, she wore ankle-high boots of satiny-smooth black leather.
By the time she arrived at the club, a knot of nervous anticipation had formed in her stomach. She had never been inside the Plaza Gentlemen’s Club (written discreetly on the outside in blue neon script). There were two more signs, both framed in lights but not too garish, considering: EXOTIC DANCERS / EVERY NIGHT AND ROXY ROCKS / EVERY WEEKEND.
Roxy was Julia’s stage name. She had her own sign because she was the house dancer—the best performer and the most popular. To keep her there, the club paid her a salary. According to Julia, this was unusual. Normally the strippers at this club made their money only from tips and from private dancing in the Champagne Room. Roxy did take tips but didn’t do private dancing. There was no public lap dancing here. For that, you had to go to a dive of a strip club a couple of blocks away, the sort of place where they had hung grungy signs with stuck-on red and black letters, like OIL WRESTLING / XXX STYLE.
Van entered the Plaza. After paying the cover, she stood for a moment looking into the bar, enjoying the loud dance music. A handsome, muscular bouncer looked her up and down boldly, eyebrows raised in appreciation.
“Good evening, sir,” he said. “There’s still an empty table near the stage.”
“Thanks. I see it.” Van almost laughed out loud as he did a double take at the timbre of her voice. He looked a little disappointed, but grinned widely.
“Nice suit,” he said.
Van was relieved that her table wasn’t very close to the stage, and separated from the action by another table. As soon as she sat down, a waitress in a black bunny costume without the tail and ears but showing lots of cleavage and bare cheeks, took her order for a double scotch.
She looked around curiously at the large, cabaret setting as she sipped her drink. The floor lighting was muted, provided mostly by a dim lamp on each small table and by light reflected from the thrust stage jutting into the room. She knew Roxy wouldn’t be able to see her from the stage. It was bright, with spotlights trained on two wild-haired dancers who were down to fluorescent lime and orange thongs. They took turns undulating against the pole and each other to a techno beat. Van hadn’t expected to enjoy it, but she did, admiring their supple naked bodies, and relieved that neither of them was Roxy.
As far as she could tell, the audience consisted mostly of men, with a few mixed male-female groups. Between her table and the stage sat three women, obviously dykes. They had barely glanced at the good-looking butch as she sat down, apparently also taking her for a man. Van smiled, th
en felt a stab of jealousy when she thought she heard one of them say, “Roxy.” She didn’t like the idea of men drooling over Roxy but hadn’t even considered that lesbians would also be part of the audience.
The spotlight on the stage went out, and the volume of the music lowered. The two strippers came down to the floor and mingled, chatting at each table and collecting the cash placed in their hands or tucked in their thongs. When Orange Thong reached the dyke table, one of the women pulled her close, stroking her bare butt. The stripper giggled and pushed her away.
“Not now,” she said. Van wondered if they were lovers.
When the dancers reached her table, she was generous. She placed some bills in their hands, and they thanked her and smiled prettily. Lime Thong kissed her cheek and called her “Loverboy,” and suggested they meet in the Champagne Room.
Suddenly, a pale blue light bathed the stage. For a few moments, all was quiet, then a murmur rippled through the audience. Van caught her breath. Roxy stood there motionless, dressed in a full black leotard. Only her head and hands and feet were bare, tinted blue. Her eyes were closed, head thrown back, light catching her blue-black hair. Suddenly a blast of music—angry, in-your-face, screaming rock. Roxy didn’t strip, just danced to the hard pounding beat. Van sat mesmerized, watching her lover’s athletic moves. Halfway through the song, Roxy rolled down the bottom half of the leotard, removing it to the rhythm of the music, muscles flexed in her bare thighs and calves. The audience yelled and whistled, including the women at the table in front of Van.
Roxy took off the black top more slowly. The audience seemed to hold its breath, and Van’s cheeks burned. It seemed as intimate and sexy as if Roxy were taking it off just for her. Roxy even seemed to look straight at her, and Van had to remind herself that she couldn’t be seen from the stage. When the music stopped and Roxy finally stood there with legs apart, hips thrust forward and arms upraised, she was wearing red—a short, skintight camisole and bikini bottom. Van’s eyes were riveted on her nipples, their outlines clearly visible. She recalled sucking them, and a flame of arousal burned in her gut. Roxy pirouetted a couple of times to provide all on the floor a clear view as the audience clapped and yelled their approval.
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