She let me go to the beauty parlor with her and watch her get waxed all over. I only went because she told me she loved it, loved the pain, loved the discipline of it all. “Discipline is everything in dance,” she told me.
I would ask her to show me her pussy and she would. Any time. She danced for me whenever I wanted. I wouldn’t call it stripping, but I guess that’s what it was. And the world would stop one more time.
But when I wasn’t with her, she would rarely answer the phone, and I just knew she was in bed with a zucchini, and I couldn’t stand it. She’d see me once a week—that was all—and I knew the girl was getting fucked every day.
I got stupid like men do. I followed her—saw her at the produce stand, watched her dancing through the studio window, saw her go out with friends and then go home alone. I knew there was no other man. When I asked her, she told me she’d been in love once and that was enough.
She liked me; I knew she did. And then I realized the problem. It still pains me to admit it. She preferred her vegetables over me, just as she had told me on that first date. How on earth can a man compete with an edible cock?
I couldn’t get past once a week, and summer was running down and I wanted Isabelle in my bed every night. She wasn’t a tease. There was no game. God, how she could fuck. Some nights she would just lift her skirt and wiggle her ass onto my lap, pressing down hard on my cock before we’d even go out. She’d tell me how much she needed my cock. “It’s my real kink,” she confessed, “just being penetrated. Everywhere.”
I tried to force the issue. I asked her outright what the story was, why we couldn’t spend more time together. “Trust all joy,” she’d say mysteriously, and then she’d wrap her hair around my cock and take me in her throat until I forgot even what the question was. “You taste wonderful since you stopped eating meat,” she’d whisper after she’d swallowed and licked me clean. She was very into taste. “You taste like cinnamon, you taste like a perfect cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter night,” and somehow I knew this was true and nobody had ever noticed it before.
Saturday nights were heaven. By Tuesday I’d be going crazy. I moaned, I fretted. I knew I was driving her nuts with my demands but I couldn’t stop. I studied myself in the mirror and contemplated my fuckability factor. When you’re in competition with a vegetable, every little bit helps.
Other women called me and I simply had no interest. “Isabelle”—her name in my mouth was more appealing than an onion.
What could I do? Move her to the country and give her a farm? Buy out a local produce stand? I couldn’t imagine. I studied her apartment. All she owned was cheap furniture and beautiful candles and scarves and one shelf each of music and books. “I used to own a lot more,” she told me when I asked, “but then I learned that possessions mean nothing. So now I read a book and then just pass it on to a friend for their pleasure. The same with music, unless it feeds my soul. I pass it on.” There were no clues about how to get to her. So I got stupider. I bribed her grocer to tell me every single thing she bought each trip. Six-inch zukes, bunches of carrots, scallions…scallions? I had to do something.
One Saturday night, late in August, I tried joining forces with the produce. I used them to fuck her every which way, and it was hot and satisfying, but I was still relegated to Saturday night while they got the other six. I got jealous. I hoped they would wilt under the pressure.
I decided to try an intervention. There are no support groups for this kind of thing. She canceled our date one Saturday night, and I knew I’d never make it another week without her. I laid the plan for Tuesday night: I would simply show up, lock the door, and clean out her fridge. I knew if I could spend enough time with her I could somehow make her replace her veggie vice with me. I certainly knew I could measure up: I’d spent one night with a ruler and tape measure back near the beginning of stupid.
I knocked on her door that Tuesday night and there was no answer; it pushed open easily. She was gone. No books, no candles, no music, no Isabelle. I could picture her in front of me twirling and laughing in that blue skirt; but when I reached out to touch her, there was nothing but ordinary space. I believe I stood there for close to forever; the world may have even stopped for me one last time.
Then I checked the fridge. It was empty except for one zucchini with a note wrapped around it: “I’ve gone on tour, darling,” it said. “Pass it on.”
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
KIM ADDONIZIO is the author of several collections of poetry, including Tell Me and What Is This Thing Called Love. Her first novel, Little Beauties, is due from Simon & Schuster in August 2005. She lives in Oakland, California. Visit her at http://addonizio.home.mindspring.com.
ISABEL ALLENDE was born in Peru and raised in Chile. She is the author of the novels Portrait in Sepia, Daughter of Fortune, The Infinite Plan, Eva Luna, Of Love and Shadows, and The House of the Spirits; the short story collection The Stories of Eva Luna; the memoir Paula; and Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses. She lives in California.
CHEYENNE BLUE combines her two passions in life and writes travel guides and erotica. Her erotica has appeared in various anthologies, including Best Women’s Erotica, The Mammoth Best New Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Lesbian Love Stories, Foreign Affairs: Erotic Travel Tales, and on several websites. Her travel guides have been jammed into many glove boxes underneath the chocolate wrappers. You can see more of her work on her website, www.cheyenneblue.com.
MICHELLE BOUCHÉ is a writer, teacher, consultant, and rabble-rouser. Her erotica has been published in Best Women’s Erotica 2001, Myths Fantastic, Moist, and the forthcoming Blowing Kisses. Special thanks to Liz, who taught me that writing good erotica first and foremost means writing a good story.
KATHLEEN BRADEAN’s stories have been featured in Best Women’s Erotica 2004, Desdemona.com, Blood Surrender, Logical Lust’s e-anthology Eternally Erotic, and the Erotica Readers and Writers Association website. She can be contacted at [email protected].
CARA BRUCE is the editor of Best Fetish Erotica, Best Bisexual Women’s Erotica, and Viscera. She is coauthor of The First Year—Hepatitis C. Her fiction has been published in tons of anthologies, including Best Women’s Erotica, Best American Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in magazines, newspapers, and websites, including Salon.com, San Francisco Bay Guardian, and While You Were Sleeping. She is the founder of www.venusorvixen.com and Venus or Vixen Press.
RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL (www.rachelkramerbussel.com and lustylady.blogspot.com) serves as senior editor at Penthouse Variations. Her books include The Lesbian Sex Book (second edition), Up All Night: Adventures in Lesbian Sex, Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z, and the forthcoming Cheeky: Essays on Spanking and Being Spanked and Glamour Girls: Femme/Femme Erotica. Her writing has been published in over 40 anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and Best Women’s Erotica 2003 and 2004, as well as in AVN, Bust, Curve, New York Blade, Playgirl, The San Francisco Chronicle, and The Village Voice.
ISABELLE CARRUTHERS lives and writes in New Orleans. Her fiction has been published in Prometheus, Slow Trains Literary Journal, The Mainline, From Porn to Poetry, and Mammoth’s Best Erotica, and has appeared in various Internet magazines, including Zoetrope All-Story Extra, Suspect Thoughts, Clean Sheets, Mind Caviar, and others.
MARIANNA CHERRY has been published in The 2001 Pushcart Prize XXV, Chelsea Magazine (Chelsea Award for Fiction 1998), Fourteen Hills, and Libido. She received a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from San Francisco State University, and is currently working on her first novel.
KATE DOMINIC is the author of Any 2 People, Kissing, which was a finalist for the 2004 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award in the Category of Fiction: Short Stories. Kate has published over 300 erotic short stories, writing under a variety of pen names in both female and male voices, and sliding up and down the Kinsey scale in a variety of orientations. Her most recent
work is available in The Many Joys of Sex Toys, Naughty Spanking Stories from A-Z, Dyke the Halls, and at www.katedominic.com.
ANN DULANEY lives and writes in Copenhagen. Her work has been published in Clean Sheets, Mind Caviar, Erotic Travel Tales, and Best Lesbian Erotica 2002. Feel free to contact her at [email protected].
SACCHI GREEN writes in western Massachusetts and the mountains of New Hampshire. Her work has appeared in five volumes of Best Lesbian Erotica, four volumes of Best Women’s Erotica, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3, Penthouse, Best S/M Erotica, Best Transgender Erotica, and a knee-high stack of other anthologies with inspirational covers. Her first coeditorial venture, Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Lesbian Cowboy Erotica, is scheduled for release in June 2005.
SUSIE HARA lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her stories were previously published under the name Lisa Wolfe in Clean Sheets magazine and in several anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2003 and The Big Book of Hot Women’s Erotica 2004. Writing erotica is the most fun she’s ever had with a laptop.
DEBRA HYDE considers “Tic Sex” her signature piece, and she’s delighted to see it merits inclusion in this “best of the best” collection. Elsewhere, her erotic fiction appears in Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, Best S/M Erotica 2, Foreign Affairs: Erotic Travel Tales, and many other anthologies. She’s also the brains behind Pursed Lips, one of the Web’s first sex blogs. Google that, won’t you?
SUSANNAH INDIGO (www.susannahindigo.com) is the editor-in-chief of Clean Sheets (www.cleansheets.com), and is also the editor and founder of Slow Trains Literary Journal (www.slowtrains.com). Her books include Oysters Among Us; Many Kisses: Stories of Dominant Love, Sex & Laughter; and the From Porn to Poetry series.
MARYANNE MOHANRAJ is a visiting professor at Vermont College and a PhD candidate at the University of Utah, specializing in post-colonial literature and creative writing. She is the author of several books, including her forthcoming dissertation novel, Bodies In Motion, an exploration of sexuality, marriage, and Sri Lankan/American immigrant concerns. www.mamohanraj.com.
G. L. MORRISON is a righteous, leftist, white, working-poor, omnivorous, vitamin-deficient professional poet, amateur mother, publisher of the zine Poetic Licentious, editor, writing teacher, reluctant journalist, and sometime scrawler of fiction, essays, and bathroom graffiti. Her work appears in Early Embraces 2, Pillow Talk 2, Burning Ambitions, and other print and online anthologies.
LISA PROSIMO’s stories, articles, and essays have appeared in anthologies, journals, and online forums. She lives in Northern California with her husband and several thousand grapevines. When she isn’t writing, you’ll find her traipsing the Sonoma hills sans shoes, her feet stained a curious purple.
ELSPETH POTTER lives in Philadelphia. Her erotica has appeared in the 2001-2004 editions of Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica 2002 and 2005, and Tough Girls. She is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America and of Broad Universe (www.broaduniverse.org).
CAROL QUEEN got a doctorate in sexology so she could impart more realistic detail to her smut. She’s the founding director of The Center for Sex & Culture in San Francisco (www.sexandculture.org) and has worked at Good Vibrations since 1990. Her work has been published in dozens of anthologies and she’s the author or editor of several books, including Five-Minute Erotica, Exhibitionism for the Shy, and The Leather Daddy and the Femme. For more see www.carolqueen.com.
SAIRA RAMASASTRY was an English-speaking Union Scholar to Cambridge University, where she received her MPhil; she received her MS and BA from Stanford. Her stories have appeared in Scifidimensions, Rosebud, and ZYZZYVA.
MARÍA ELENA DE LA SELVA was born in Panama and grew up in a temporary clearing now being reclaimed by the jungle. She lives in Seattle, where she cofounded the School Alliance Program at the Richard Hugo House, an urban writing center. She is a winner of the Mendocino Coast Writer’s Conference Poetry Contest.
HELENA SETTIMANA lives in Toronto, Canada. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared online at Scarlet Letters, Clean Sheets, and Dare. Her work has been featured in many anthologies, including Best Women’s Erotica 2001 and 2002, Erotic Travel Tales, Best Bisexual Women’s Erotica, and From Porn to Poetry: Clean Sheets Celebrates the Erotic Mind. She moonlights as features editor at the Erotica Readers and Writers Association (www.erotica-readers.com).
SUSAN ST. AUBIN is a mild-mannered administrative coordinator by day and a racy pornographer at night. Her work has appeared in diverse journals and anthologies, including The Reed, Short Story Review, Yellow Silk, Libido, the Herotica series, Best American Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Seduce Me: Twelve Erotic Tales, and Dyke The Halls: Lesbian Erotic Christmas Tales, as well as online in Clean Sheets.
CECILIA TAN’s erotic writings have appeared almost everywhere: Ms., Penthouse, Best American Erotica, Asimov’s, and many, many best-of anthologies. She is the author of The Velderet, Black Feathers, and Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords, and the founder/editor of Circlet Press, Inc., publishers of erotic science fiction. She writes about her many passions, which include food, sex, and baseball, from her home in the Boston area. Visit www.ceciliatan.com to find out more.
ANNE TOURNEY started writing erotica in the early ’90s. Since then, she has published erotic fiction and dark fantasy in numerous magazines and anthologies. Her stories have been included in the Best Women’s Erotica, Best American Erotica, and the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica series. Anne lives in Denver, Colorado.
ALISON TYLER’s stories have appeared in anthologies including Sweet Life, Taboo, Wicked Words, Best S/M Erotica, and Best Fetish Erotica. She is the editor of Best Bondage Erotica, Heat Wave, and the Naughty Stories from A to Z series. She lives with Sam, her partner of nine years.
ZONNA died December 1, 2003, from heart failure due to complications from diabetes and colon cancer. A prolific songwriter, author, and seven-time Billboard Magazine songwriting contest winner, Zonna’s published output includes over a half-dozen recordings as well as stories in anthologies from Cleis Press, Alyson, Seal Press, and Arsenal Pulp Press. It has been requested that those who wish to do so make a contribution in Zonna’s memory “to the left-wing charity of their choice.”
ABOUT THE EDITOR
MARCY SHEINER has edited six editions of the annual Best Women’s Erotica series. She is also the editor of Herotica 4, 5, and 6, and The Oy of Sex: Jewish Women Write Erotica. She is the author of Sex for the Clueless and Perfectly Normal: A Mother’s Memoir. Her fiction and essays have been published in numerous anthologies, the most recent being The Essential Hip Mama: Writing from the Cutting Edge of Parenting, edited by Ariel Gore; My Body of Knowledge: Stories of Illness, Disability, Healing and Life; and Carol Queen’s Five-Minute Erotica. Her stories have also appeared on the websites Pulse and Slow Trains.
Copyright © 2005 by Marcy Sheiner.
eISBN : 978-1-573-44784-3
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, or television reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
The following stories are reprinted from Best Women’s Erotica 2000: “Lita” by Cara Bruce; “Ratatouille,” by Susannah Indigo; “Kali” by Maryanne Mohanraj; and “Cal’s Party” by Lisa Prosimo. The following stories are reprinted from Best Women’s Erotica 2001: “Tara’s Stew” by Michelle Bouché; “Contented Clients” by Kate Dominic, which was also published in Leather, Lace & Lust, edited by M. Christian and Sage Vivant (Venus Book Club, 2003); “Tic Sex” by Debra Hyde; “Infidelities” by G. L. Morrison; and “The Heart in My Garden” by Carol Queen. The following stories are reprinted from Best Women’s Erotica 2002: “Emergency Room” by Kim Addonizio; “Shadow Child” by Cheyenne Blue; “Learning to Play Chess” by Isabelle
Carruthers; “Riding the Rails” by Sacchi Green, which was also published in Electric 2 (Alyson Press, 2003) and appears by permission of the author; “The Amy Special” by Susie Hara; “Twisted Beauty” by Elspeth Potter; and “Greek Fever” by Anne Tourney, which was also published in The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica (Carroll & Graf, 2001) and appears by permission of the author. The following stories are reprinted from Best Women’s Erotica 2003: excerpt from Portrait in Sepia by Isabel Allende; “Betty” by Ann Dulaney; “Mail-Order Bride” by Saira Ramasastry; “Thought So” by Cecilia Tan; “Bad Girl” by Alison Tyler; and “What You’re In For” by Zonna. The following stories are reprinted from Best Women’s Erotica 2004: “Grit” by Kathleen Bradean; “Doing the Dishes” by Rachel Kramer Bussel, which was also published in The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, Volume 4 edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Carroll & Graf, 2004) and appears by permission of the author; “A Love Drive-By” by Susan St. Aubin, which was reprinted in the “Sex and Politics” issue of Clean Sheets in October 2004, and appears by permission of the author; “Cutting Loose” by María Elena de la Selva; and “Danke Schoen” by Helena Settimana. The following story is reprinted from Best Women’s Erotica 2005: “Nine Seven Zero” by Marianna Cherry.
Best of Best Women's Erotica Page 29