Stripped Down

Where else but a Tristan Taormino erotica collection can you find a femme vigilante, a virgin baby butch, and a snake charmer jostling for your attention? The salacious stories in Stripped Down draw you in like honeyed voices from an upstairs room. In Peggy Munson’s “Into the Baptismal,” two farmgirls decide to test their virginity pledges one rainy summer night. Quinn Vertiz's “Jubilee” describes a classic American rite of passage — a trip to a trailer brothel in the Nevada desert — but with a truck full of butch dykes in place of the local boys. In Skian McGuire’s “Phoebe’s Undercover Bon Voyage,” a group of well-equipped tops indulge a friend’s cop fetish before she — a real cop — goes undercover. And Kathleen Warnock's "After Lunch" makes it clear that the best dish in a small-town restaurant isn't on the menu.Guest editor Eileen Myles adds her street smarts and lyrical dynamism to Tristan...