Best Lesbian Erotica 2015

by Laura Antoniou

  Sometimes at night when I rest from working, Father tells us stories about great heroes and battles. I think that I am like Penelope, Odysseus’s wife, endlessly weaving and picking apart her work to fend off suitors. Except that there is no hero I wait for. Except that no cloth of mine is ever picked apart and done over because there is no need. But I am skilled and patient at my loom like her, caught up in the fibers of my web. Still, I wonder how she could have loved so much that Odysseus was worth more than her weaving. I wonder if I could love anyone or anything like that.

  Other times, Father tells us tales of the gods and these I despise. They are nothing but shadows of human failings, full of rage and lust and deceit. I listen because he is my father and both he and my sister enjoy such stories, but in my heart I feel only contempt. I do not believe in gods or their followers. My faith hangs on the power of my shuttle alone.

  And for many years, it is justified. I sit at my loom like a spider in her web and my cloths fly through the cities on gossamer wings. Great citizens and their wives come to watch me while I weave and to marvel at the results. Tapestries and chitons, hangings and coverings for wall and floor and door, all these and more climb newborn from my loom. They leave the city, my children do, to go to foreign lands and across strange seas. I long for them, each one beloved, brought to life with infinite care by my fingers.

  But leave they must, for my sister’s wedding approaches and my father longs to be splendid among the merchants in the agora. I cannot disappoint them for they are the only ones that I love. My winged fingers trail feathers of wool and flax behind them. The beauty and fame of my weavings grow until the day when I weave with threads of gold and silver. The cloth on my loom is terrible as a thunderstorm, beautiful as the sea at rest. A merchant’s wife lays her unlovely hand on its edge and says, “Your work is a great tribute to Athena.”

  I meet her empty eyes with a cold gaze of my own and answer her. “I owe nothing to any god. This work is born of my body alone, and I say it is better than anything you can imagine made by your so-called goddess.”

  She flinches and runs off like a startled doe and Father shouts that I will be his undoing. First he demands, then he begs that I take back my words, so fearful is he that I will bring the curse of the gods upon this house. He and our slaves go to all the temples that day bearing gold and dead birds in a frantic effort to appease those who do not exist nor would care for such sacrifices if they did.

  Word of my foolishness, for so it is seen, spreads quickly and soon our shop is filled with philosophers and priests who buy no cloth. They speak and their words are filled with anger and belief and fear. There is no joy, nothing of the feel of silk, the light touch of linen and I say one word to them, “Enough!” and then two, “Get out!” After a time, they leave and only one old woman stays to give me a last dire warning.

  I look upon my loom and at the beauty glowing there. I turn it so she can see it, too, and I answer her, “What goddess of yours could do such work? Can her phantom fingers fly over the warp threads and birth such children as this? I think not. The gods are nothing but our vices given form and I do not, will not believe in them.”

  She gives me a strange smile and when I look at her again, she is growing, straightening the bent back of age, wrinkles fading into the smooth skin of youth. Her rags turn to silks so fine, so blue and gold and purple that I reach out to touch them, longing to feel their glory beneath my fingers. But her eyes blaze with black fire and I stop my hand where it is, halfway between us. Her black hair cascades down to the floor and when I look upon her face, I know that I have never seen such beauty, such fury. But I will not be afraid: that is the only gift the gods of my people have to give us and I will not accept it.

  “Ungrateful girl.” Her eyes burn into mine but I will not look away. I force myself to bathe in them until their heat warms my skin and my heart. I shiver a little, still refusing to believe that this is real, despite the evidence of my senses. She smells a little of olives, of wildflowers on the hillside, and her pale brown hands are broad, with long fingers, longer even than my own. I imagine them on my skin because real or not, I want to feel her touch. I realize that I would give myself to her for the slightest hint of her smile, and I yield to love for the first time. But I am proud and I will not kneel to beg forgiveness for my boast or my disbelief.

  My father falls to his knees instead and begs for me, his voice breaking, pleading for her mercy. Athena looks upon him and gestures toward the door. “Go,” she says in a voice like thunder. “I would speak to your bragging fool of a daughter alone.” He crawls out on hands and knees and my sister and our slaves go with him with many a backward glance at me. Cowards. I draw myself as straight as my back will permit and wait for whatever comes next.

  She looks at me with immortal eyes and I know she sees all that is in my heart. She holds me in the palm of her hand, and I am hers. With a single gesture, she captures the shuttle and holds it in her light brown hands. “I could strike you down at your loom but I will be merciful. I will challenge you to a contest instead and prove that I am the best weaver. But if you lose, you are mine to do with as I please.”

  “And if I win?” My voice rasps, as with unaccustomed use, and I dream of her desire consuming me until nothing is left but ashes. I find that now I want to believe that she is more than mortal anger and jealousy given form, and because I want it so very badly, I do believe. My longing almost leaps from my lips, held back only by the fear that such as she cannot love.

  She smiles, and I see my fate in her eyes. Either way the outcome is the same and the knowledge fills me with fierce joy and great terror, bound as one. A loom appears before her, already strung and ready to be worked. At the same moment, my work vanishes from the loom before me and I too, have nothing but a blank warp. I cry out in rage at the destruction of my work and her smile remains. “Did you think to anger a Goddess and pay no price for it, mortal?”

  My pride rages within me. “I will win. I am the best weaver in Athens and you cannot defeat me.”

  “I give you your gifts, child. Of course I can defeat you.”

  I reach blindly for the wool and flax, for the threads that will display my rage more splendidly than any words I know. I turn away while the Goddess Athena, who I denied, sits before me and laughs quietly as her shuttle embraces the loom like a lover. I force myself not to watch the way she holds the thread, how she calls the design from it as I do myself. Shuttle and shed, my fingers fly.

  When I finish, I am stiff and tired, but the beauty of the tapestry before me draws tears from my eyes. This is my most glorious work, the most blessed child of my fingers. It is the glory of the rising and setting sun, the pasture in spring, the olive grove at harvest time. But more than that, it is the truth as my heart knows it. She is finished moments after me, but I wait before I look at her loom.

  Athena rises first and turns my loom with a gesture so that the tapestries stand side by side. Hers is lovely, a moonlit pool in the forest, a mountain in winter behind it, each detail lined in shimmering beauty until I could weep to see it. Yet, mine outshines it and when I look upon her face, I see she knows it, too.

  I have woven my father’s tales in threads of many colors: the sins and deceits of Zeus, the betrayals and cruelties of Apollo and Aphrodite and Hera. Here Europa, there Leda, Echo, and others, lovers and would-be lovers cast aside or ravished or transformed, punished without cause. Their pain shines from their faces, their bodies as they flee or are changed and suffer.

  She looks at my loom and her face grows dark as a storm cloud. Her black brows draw together and I wonder what I shall be changed into, how I shall be punished for my superior skill. I nearly laugh in my triumph, for whatever she may do, I have won.

  Her gaze fixes upon me and my shuttle flies from my fingers and wraps the threads around my wrist until I am forced to my feet, my right hand bound tightly to one corner of my loom. The shuttle sails on, guided only by her gaze until I am fastened, each lim
b to a corner and my face toward the weaving. My back groans at being so suddenly straight and my heart races as I wonder what she will do next. At the thought, her hand splits my chiton to my waist and she snarls through clenched teeth, “Do you believe in me now, girl?”

  Rather than answer, I sag against the loom and it stands firm as if by magic. My body begs wordlessly for her touch but I will not let the words pass my lips, will not let her see my weakness. Wool and linen braid themselves together in Athena’s hands until they are like leather in their strength. I watch from the corner of my eye as they swirl, whistling in the air around her before landing on the exposed skin of my back. They trace lines of fire over my skin, tearing a muffled groan from my firmly closed lips. I tell myself I will say nothing, that no cry of pain or desire will she draw from me but the threads pull the words, the sounds from me, despite my efforts.

  I can feel her smile, reveling in her mastery over me. For a moment, I hate her for her power to see into my heart and draw my desires out. I hate myself for desiring her as well as for my failure to speak, to banish her from my world. But I long also for the touch of her hands, her lips, I who have never known love or desire for anything except the work of my hands. I want her to weave me anew, her hands coaxing me into a new shape, one that she could love.

  Fire sings along my skin, and I melt into the tapestry before me. Again and again, she strikes until welts dance over my back and my juices pour down my thighs like rain. I think that she may never stop. I close my eyes and imagine myself a sacrifice to love. Surely capricious Aphrodite must exist if Athena can make me love her. The thought shakes me to the bone and moans and pleas pour from my lips now, a torrent of sound and desire.

  Behind me, Athena laughs and the room goes gray around me. I can no longer stand on my own, and I collapse into my bonds. I hear her voice around me like a cloud: “I see I have a warrior of my own now, one like my sister’s Amazons,” and I wonder who she means. Jealousy sears my heart like a bolt and I want to cry out that I am better than any Amazon but the words, too long held back, will not come.

  This, then, is the moment when she throws the whip from her and her lips touch my skin. Like water, they cool the burning touch of her hands as they explore my flesh. The loom releases me into her arms and I fall almost to the floor. She holds me up with one mighty arm while her eyes once more examine the tapestry before us. This time, her expression is rueful and anger is pushed gradually from her face by admiration. “It is a masterpiece, for all I despise the topic, Arachne. You are well named, spinner. Perhaps you can weave yourself a tapestry about this day.”

  I surrender the last of my pride and reach up to pull her face down to me so that I may cover it with kisses. Suddenly, we are lying on my bed and her lips own mine, devouring them with the last of her fury. I cry out at first as my swollen back meets the fabric, but she drives the pain from me and soon I think of nothing but her. Her fingers find my sex and twist themselves into my wetness, into my being, until I am filled with them. I meet her eyes as my body writhes into a new, straighter shape beneath her caress.

  She takes me then, her mouth consuming me like a ripe melon and I cry out like a Maenad possessed by Dionysus. I imagine my spirit and flesh roaming wild in the olive groves, dancing ecstatically to the unseen music that flows from my beloved. My body is like the fire-mountains in the sea and I writhe and twist beneath her. Her tongue cleaves my lips to find the center of my being, and I am hers.

  Slowly, slowly I return to myself and begin my own timid effort to taste her flesh. She permits me to explore her body, the rounded swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips and thighs and belly with my lips and tongue. Her skin glows as if lit from within and her thighs, too, are wet like a mortal woman’s. Delight shines from me when I see that she, too, knows desire and I set out to coax more from her. I want to know her flesh, to know her heart as she can know mine with her fiery glance. She tastes of honey and of the sea and the scent of olives fills me as my fingers find a road inside her.

  Athena cries out beneath me, her voice like a temple trumpet, and my heart sings at the sound. She rocks under me and her legs tremble as mine did at her touch. For a moment, her eyes open and fall on me and I shudder at the lightning I see there, fearing, yet almost longing to be turned to ash by her fierce gaze. Instead, she strokes my cheek and her voice whispers softly, “My little spider, you will be mine for the rest of your mortal years and beyond.” My heart sings.

  When she sees the answer in my eyes, she sweeps me, loom and all, from my home. Housed in the secret chambers of her temple, I learn how to please her until I am sure of her heart, or as sure as mortals can be. I never forget that she is a Goddess first, though she blesses my body with her hands and tongue and my loom with her eyes. But it is enough. I will live out my days in her temple, known only to those I love because I want nothing more.

  Outside in the agora, the foolish merchants and the priests who want to believe in such things speak of my destruction at the hands of the Goddess. Only my father and sister know the truth and they are happy to keep my secret because I ask it of them. I want no more fame, no more watchers at my loom but one. Athena herself acknowledges my skill and what more can any weaver want than that?

  My sister visits the temple to tell me that she hears I killed myself in shame at losing the contest to the Goddess. They say, too, that she revived me and turned me into a spider as an act of contrition. She tells them nothing in return and I smile a quiet smile as I weave both for my beloved and for the pure joy of it. Her spider, my Goddess calls me and so I will remain. Warp and weft, my fingers fly.

  BEHROUZ GETS LUCKY

  Avery Cassell

  I was sixty, and long past the age of hope, young lust, love and bewilderment. I was sixty, using my senior discount to buy oatmeal, black tea and ginseng at Rainbow Co-op, and silk neckties at Goodwill. I was a time-traveling, part-Persian expatriate. I had been an outsider all my life and felt insulated that way. Insulation is protection, but it is also isolation. Even though I lived in San Francisco, that bastion of sexual and gender freedom, I lived outside of the galaxies of the butch, FTM, genderqueer and leather communities. I’d hitchhiked across the country, been a streetwalker, smoked opium with princes, raised children, been fisted on Twin Peaks, sung in punk bands, grown up in Iran, had threesomes with bikers and members of British parliament, followed family tradition and become a librarian. I’d buried one daughter and two lovers, spent decades in the Midwest, kneaded bread, gotten sober, been homeless, pretended to be a boy wanting to be a girl, driven across town in a blizzard at five a.m. to slap a gigolo who was wearing pleated black silk panties, taught preschool, attended PTA meetings and tickled grandchildren. It’s-a-long-story was my middle name.

  At sixty, and in my considerable dotage, I spent my evenings wearing a quilted, charcoal velvet smoking jacket, foulard silk cravat and worn, cuffed flannels while delicately sipping English Breakfast tea with my cat, Bear, strewn across my lap, a pile of tattered paperback Dorothy Sayers mysteries at hand, and vacillating between wanting to manifest a lover and relishing each delicious second alone. Between chapters and inspired by Lord Peter Whimsey and his paramour Harriet Vane, I imagined a lover, a you. If I could manifest you at six a.m. when I was lolling between the sheets distractedly having my morning pre-work come, or on Sunday afternoon when I was settling in for a leisurely fuck session with myself, my two biggest silicone dildos, nipple clamps, my S-curved metal dildo, a metal sound, a stainless-steel butt plug, Eartha Kitt wafting from the stereo, a fountain of lube, dim lights, and a cushion of towels and rubberized sheeting to soak up the spillage…I would imagine a you.

  Sometimes I craved you when I came home, tired from a day of advising patrons, giving restroom directions, problem-solving minor computer issues and searching for copies of the latest best-selling romance. Sometimes I craved that moment of perfect domesticity when I’d open my door to the oregano- and tomato-scented smells of minestrone soup wafting f
rom the kitchen, and you in the rust velvet armchair in the living room. I’d fall to my knees on the rough wool of our Tabriz carpet, start to crawl across the red-and-gold fibers. Your pipe would be smoldering in the ashtray, filling the air with the sultry sweet aroma of tobacco and cherry. You’d lean back and spread your denim-clad legs, rubbing your cunt as I approached on my knees, the workday rolling off of me the closer I got. Reaching your cunt, I’d rest for a minute, my lips caressing the bulge in your crotch, as grateful for your hand on the back of my neck and your packed jeans as I was for salt. I’d growl softly, nipping at the thick blue fabric, damp from my spit and slightly threadbare from past ministrations. You would unbutton your fly slowly, each button releasing with a soft pop; I’d cover your cock with my mouth until it reached my throat, then ease up and lick the shaft, lost in your smell and your palm firmly pushing my head into your cunt. Your cock would shove the outside world aside, erasing demanding supervisors, aching joints and crowded MUNI buses until all that was left was it in my throat.

  I had a shallow, translucent blue glass bowl on the dining room table that I filled with garnet-colored pomegranates, dusty plums, phallic bananas and tart green apples, and sometimes I longed to see your house keys on the table next to the bowl of fruit. Did I want this complication to interfere with my quiet life? Did I really want someone to know my quirks and fears? To discover that I sometimes ate cheddar cheese, figs and cookies for dinner, to twist her hand into my silver-haired cunt, to be privy to my mood swings and self-doubt, to be content to live with my need for solitude? I’m Middle Eastern to my part-American core, and as such have a deep belief in fate. At a jaded and indecisive sixty, I decided to leave love and lust to fate.