by Cecilia Tan
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BEST FANTASTIC EROTICA edited by Cecilia Tan Published by Circlet Press, Inc.
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Best Fantastic Erotica
Edited By Cecilia Tan
CIRCLET PRESS, INC.
CAMBRIDGE, MA
Best Fantastic Erotica: Volume 1 Copyright (c) 2008 by Circlet Press, Inc. Cover art by Sandy Nys Interior design and typesetting by Encian Pastel All Rights Reserved
First Edition
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Contents
Monsoon by Arinn Dembo
Venus Rising by Diane Kepler
Marked by Cody Nelson
The Harrowing by Corbie Petulengro
Capture, Courting, and Copulation: Contemporary Human Mating Rituals and the Etiology of Human Aggression by Carolyn & Steve Vakesh
Copperhead Renaissance by Argus Marks
The Night the New Hog Croaked, Or, The Lascivious Dr. Blonde: A Romance by Thomas S. Roche
Nocturnal Emissions by Joe Nobel
And What Rough Beasts... by Robert Knippenberg
The Bridge by Connie Wilkins
Twilight by Catherine Lundoff
Music From My Bones by Anya Levin
The Lift by Kal Cobalt
The Caretaker by Fauna Sara
Smoke by Jean Roberta
Opening the Veins of Jade by Renee M. Charles
Circe House by Jason Rubis
The Gantlet by B. Lynch Black
A Circlet Crossword by Dan Recht
Acknowledgements
Contributors
Introduction
Back in the Paleolithic Era, or maybe it was 1994, my partner, corwin, would read the Circlet slush pile in bed, to give each story the "one hand test." When the slush pile got too big for him to read everything (or he'd be horribly chafed and also never leave the apartment), we started inviting friends over for take-out Chinese and smut-reading parties. In those days, most of the manuscripts got rejected for being either horribly bad, lacking in sex, or lacking in science fiction/fantasy. It made editorial work efficient and easy when 80% of what we received could be rejected out of hand, 20% had to be seriously considered, and only 10% was actually acceptance-worthy out of the envelope.
But something happened over the decade that followed. As Circlet's anthologies became more and more widely read, and as our pushing of the erotic envelope in the sf/f genre began to bleed over into mainstream genre fiction, the quality of submissions in our slush pile went steadily up. Soon it had reached the point where fully 50% of the manuscripts had to be seriously considered, and even the rejections were containing fewer and fewer of the just plain bad stories. We were not only getting many submissions from writers we'd worked with before, but the pool of talented erotica writers all over the country (and in Australia and the U.K.) seemed to be growing.
I decided it was time to start a contest to seek out the "best" writers of erotic science fiction in the wake of the Bush re-election in 2004. The conservative tone of the country at the time added to the woes of erotica publishers like us, as bookstores were beginning to add shelf sections and publishers were starting new imprints for "conservative voices," and meanwhile the erotic book section was lying neglected much of the time because corporate buyers were not keen to restock too quickly. I wanted something to energize that writing community which had been filling Circlet's pages for a decade and perhaps to attract new writers to the genre.
And so the "Best Fantastic Erotica" contest was born. Many of Circlet's regulars sent in their best stories, and I was very pleased to see how many completely new writers we reached. In fact, the winner of the contest, Arinn Dembo, was not only new to us, it was her first erotic story. Outstanding writing and outstanding vision are the two common qualities of all the stories we ended up choosing. The two runners-up, "The Night the New Hog Croaked," by Thomas S. Roche and "Circe House" by Jason Rubis make a neat triangle when combined with Dembo's "Monsoon." There is humor, there is lush sensuality, there is futurisim, there is kink, there is magic, there is "sci-fi," and you'll have to read the stories to find out which has which. The whole book stands as a testament to the boundaries of the genre Circlet has inhabited and defined since 1994. A testament to the erotic imagination.
Enjoy!
Cecilia Tan
Monsoon by Arinn Dembo
It was June in Maharashtra, and the monsoon would not come. The whole district lay panting in the heat, the burning sky clapped tight overhead like the lid of a tandoor oven. Lean goats stumbled down the narrow alleyways, udders hanging slack and dry beneath them; beggars cried for water in every village. Dust-devils swept over baked clay and through the dry weeds, whistling and shrieking. Hot sand blew into the eyes of torpid bullocks as they leaned into the yoke, whips snapping over their bony backs. A single stream crept along the valley floor, shrunken and muddy, and women stood ankle deep in its shallows, beating their laundry against rocks that rippled and danced in the sun.
Benton watched those women from behind his mirror shades, their saris wringing wet and clinging like crepe to their bodies. The trip to Wainganga by Jeep was long, particularly in a Jeep so old and decrepit as this one; any distraction from the heat and the choking clouds of dust was welcome.
He held up his fist abruptly and Charanjit brought the vehicle to a shuddering, squealing halt by the side of the road, burying the two men briefly in a whirlwind of fine grit. “How long, my friend?” the driver asked. He turned his wrist proudly, showing off the glittering face of a new watch.
“Das,” Benton said, climbing out of the passenger seat with his cameras swinging around his neck. He could speak relatively decent Hindi, and Charanjit’s English was impeccable, but the two men chose to communicate in monosyllables and hand signals more often than not; they had worked together before. Charanjit would now wait ten minutes before he began to lean on the horn imperiously, demanding that Benton return.
The white man limped down the hill toward the water, his right leg aching and stiff with travel. The women continued their work in the riverbed; he crouched beside a thorn bush and took several pictures of them, focusing his lens on wet bellies... brown breasts... flexing thighs... streaming, sopping masses of black hair. It was a prosperous family, the daughters plump and smooth.
The shutter clicked and whirred like the wings of a locust. One of the younger girls looked up suddenly and saw him across the river. Her black eyes flashed. Just moments before her voice rang out in warning, Benton captured one last perfect image of her fac
e, her pale pink tongue-tip passing over the ripe curve of her upper lip. Then all the women were standing, laughing, scowling, chattering to one another in Hindi... all the while drawing the folds of their wet saris about them, arms crossed over their conical breasts to fend off his camera.
He turned away and went back to the Jeep, half-staggering on the incline. The passenger seat had been repaired so many times with silver duct tape that none of the original upholstery could be seen. Benton sat down heavily, letting his long, lean body drop into the burning chair. He massaged his aching thigh absently and drew his filthy red bandanna up to cover his mouth; the taste of dust was thick on his tongue, but he could not slake his thirst here.
Benton had been dry since Mombasa. His original plan had been to stop in the Old Town there. Among those twisting alleys there was an oasis where the caramel-colored daughters of the Faithful could be bought as easily as a dish of fried casava or a handful of sticky dates; it was one of his favorite haunts in the city. He liked the kohl-rimmed eyes of the dancers, lustrous and burning over their filmy veils. In the leaping shadows of the back room, he had drawn aside those veils more than once to kiss the forbidden lips of a Moslem girl.
Time had not allowed for his little diversion, however, and once again in Mumbai it was the same: no brothels, just an endless hurry through passport offices and transit bureaus to get his papers in order. As the Jeep jounced and rattled along the dirt road, Benton counted the days since he had laid hands on a woman.
Half the reason for his choice of profession was the love of women; he always devoured them greedily when he was abroad. He couldn’t capture the flavor of a place until he made love there. The women were as inseparable from the mystique of a foreign land as its music, its language, its liquor and food. Every country offered a subtle variation on the eternal flavor—he sampled them all, like the alien fruit and curry in the marketplace.
The women he could not bring to his bed, he collected with his camera. If possible, he would always do both. He was paid to take pictures of mountains, rivers, rice paddies and ruins—but it was his dream to someday publish his thousands of photos of women. He would present the beauties of the world, all the bright vivid creatures from Mandalay to Manhattan: they would be his gift to the Arts.
For now, however, he was simply suffering, and it seemed that the whole earth was suffering with him. The sere hills of Pusad gave way to the Upper Bhima Valley and then the plain of Nagpur, a broad flat slab that stretched for miles in the blinding sun. The wind roared like a furnace at the nape of his neck. Dead, brittle cotton still stood in the fields; dry leaves rattled, and stinging dust slashed across the faces of water-bearers walking by the side of the road. The women and boys were black and thin beneath their ceramic jars, their arms and legs bent like wrought iron.
When the Jeep passed a town, there were always red-eyed men taking shelter in doorways, sitting on overstuffed sacks and smoking. Water salesmen pedaled along the streets, selling a single drink for three rupees. A sudden gust would turn the sky the color of dried blood; weak, irritable-looking mothers looked out their windows at the passing shadow, holding listless babies in their arms and searching the sky for clouds.
Just a few miles from Darwha, the engine began to make an ominous hiss. Charanjit clucked nervously and continued on, egging the reluctant machine into the next village while the water steadily boiled away. When at last he rolled to a stop, he reached across Benton’s lap to open the glove compartment, unwinding the piece of rusty wire that held it shut.
“No problem,” he said, giving Benton a cheery smile. He took out a pair of oven mitts.
The photographer shook his head, disgusted.
“No problem,” Charanjit repeated. He hurried around to the grill of the Jeep, putting on his oven mitts, and unlatched the hood. Steam rushed out at him in a cloud.
Benton climbed out after him. Standing beside Charanjit, he waved the billowing steam away and bent to inspect the damage. Even from this angle, he could see a long crack in the radiator; the last drops of water and antifreeze sizzled, slowly oozing from the breach and boiling away on black metal.
He straightened up, took off his baseball cap and raked a tangle of dark, sweaty hair away from his brow. “No problem,” he said sarcastically.
“My apologies, Joseph.” Charanjit was shamefaced. “I had hoped it was only the hose.”
Benton sighed, looking around him. The two men were standing in the middle of an open square. In the shelter of the buildings across the way, there was a scanty village market—a few blankets spread out on the ground, each covered with merchandise. Children were already gathering in a loose semi-circle around the Jeep, smiling shyly at Charanjit. As Benton limped away, they began pelting the friendly driver with questions.
Irritable and thirsty, Benton unscrewed his lens cap, looking for a target. An old woman caught his eye in the dust of the market; she was sitting perfectly still and straight against a mud wall. Her hair hung down to her waist, gray as ashes, and her sari was dark chocolate brown. Bright gold flashed from her hands, her feet, her neck and wrists.
He approached cautiously, making his way through the crowd toward her. She sat beside a blanket spread with shallow wooden bowls, each one filled with something different. He looked down at them, fascinated by the array of colors: deep, dark chili powder and golden brown turmeric; lentils in black, yellow, scarlet and green; sugar, salt, rice; peppercorns and cardamoms; beans and fennel; cloves and saffron and sticks of cinnamon.
The old woman herself was blind, her enormous eyes blanketed by silvery cataracts. What a face she had! The bones were sharp and delicate, still curving exquisitely beneath her withered skin—the foundation of a great aquiline beauty, heart-ripping in its youth. Rings glittered on every twig-like finger and toe; a golden serpent wound around her neck, biting its own tail. Benton squatted in the dust a few feet away and snapped a picture of her.
Instantly she turned toward him, a quick avian flick of the head. “Five rupees,” she said, in English.
“For what?” he asked, startled.
“For my picture, sir.” She spoke English with an accent; it sounded as if she had learned the language from a Scotsman. “Surely a rich tourist does not rob a poor old Indian woman?”
“Five rupees? For a picture?” He grinned. “I’m the one getting robbed!”
She smiled thinly. “One must live.”
He unbuttoned the front pocket of his shirt and pulled out a handful of coins. “What if I want pictures of your daal and dalchini as well, mother?” he said in Hindi, rattling the money in his hand.
“For six rupees, everything.” She made a magnanimous sweep of her hand over her blanket and wares, smiling again, more warmly this time. Again he saw the ghost of the girl she must have been, and she tugged at his heart. “I will give you a cinnamon stick, to show that I am not ungenerous.”
The bargain made, Benton squatted and photographed her from a variety of angles, putting the curling tube of brown bark in the corner of his mouth like a cigarette while he did his work. Just as he was rising, a little boy ran up to him, wearing a pair of ragged shorts and a short-sleeved cotton shirt.
“Here, mis-tah,” he said in English. He thrust out his hand; he was holding a fat little plastic bag, filled with green shaved ice. There was a rubber band holding it shut at the top, and a drinking straw poked deep into the middle. He waved vaguely at the crowd behind him with his free hand, smiling widely. “Mem sahib sends this to you, with her com-ple-ments.”
Benton looked over the boy’s shoulder for a mother or sister standing somewhere in the marketplace, but none of the women there seemed to be paying attention. “What is it?” He looked down at the little bag suspiciously.
“Nimbu pani,” the boy said. He held out his hand again, huge black eyes pleading. “It is very good; please try!”
Temporarily unable to remember what the Hindi words meant, Benton took the sweating bag reluctantly and put the straw to his
lips. He took a tiny sip; ice-cold limeade burst on his palate, sharp and sweet.
Seeing the expression on his face, the boy smiled broadly. “Good, yes?”
Benton chuckled and reached into his pocket for coins. “Very good. How much does she charge for these?”
The boy waved his hands no, black eyes sparkling. “Mem sahib has paid already, mis-tah. I will have one for myself and five rupees too, now I have given it to you!”
The boy turned and ran away, wriggling through the press of the marketplace. Benton tried to watch where he went for a few moments, to see if he could spot his benefactress among the villagers... but there was only a glint of blue and silver in the shadowed archway where the boy had disappeared, and a flash that could have been a pale hand.
The photographer passed the bag of ice over his forehead and cheeks, and then drank more deeply from the straw, filling his mouth with chilly sour-sweet. Charanjit had disappeared briefly into a shop across the square; now he was returning with a purposeful stride.
“There is a mechanic here.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “He does not have a radiator for us, but he is traveling tonight to Darwha. I will go with him, buy the part from the dealer, and return tomorrow morning. We will be on the road again before midday.”
Benton sighed. “And what am I supposed to do until then?”
“The man has a small house. It was his sister’s; she does not live there anymore. He offers it for your use tonight.” Charanjit looked over his shoulder, and Benton saw a small white-haired man standing in the shade, watching them. “His wife will make dinner for you, for a few rupees more.”
Benton smiled and spread his hands, helpless. “No problem.” The “small house” was a single-room shack, thatched with mud and straw, which stood in the shade of a great tamarind tree. The mechanic’s compound, with its wilting garden and outbuildings surrounding the main house, stood across a dry plain of pebbles twenty yards away.