Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 4 Read online

  BEST

  WOMEN’S EROTICA

  OF THE YEAR

  VOLUME FOUR

  BEST

  WOMEN’S EROTICA

  OF THE YEAR

  VOLUME FOUR

  Edited by

  Rachel Kramer Bussel

  Copyright © 2018 by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 101 Hudson Street, 37th Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, New Jersey 07302.

  Printed in the United States.

  Cover design: Allyson Fields

  Cover photograph: iStock

  Text design: Frank Wiedemann

  First Edition.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-248-7

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-249-4

  CONTENTS

  Introduction: The Sexual Allure of Outsiders Who Take Risks

  Take the Shot • Mica Kennedy

  The Dressing Room • Alessandra Torre

  Mark • Rosie Beth Randall

  O Captain! My Captain! • Calliope Bloom

  The Jump • Rebecca Chase

  On Display • Louise Lagris

  The Pick-Me-Up • Suleikha Snyder

  Belonging • Tamsen Parker

  With Honors • Sofia Quintero

  Breathe • Patricia Elzie

  Aftershock • Jo Henny Wolf

  Her Invisible Prison • Jocelyn Dex

  The Invitation • Regina Kammer

  Protest of Passion • Eliza David

  Words with Benefits • Tamara Lush

  Essential Qualities • Alyssa Cole

  Eight Seconds • Madeline Moore

  Seven Sweets and Seven Sours • Megan Hart

  Baby Doll • Sienna Saint-Cyr

  Beautiful Dirty Wonderful • R. M. Wood

  About the Authors

  About the Editor

  INTRODUCTION: THE SEXUAL ALLURE OF OUTSIDERS WHO TAKE RISKS

  The first three volumes of Best Women’s Erotica of the Year didn’t have official themes, but when I was compiling Volume 4, I decided I wanted stories on the themes of Outsiders and Risk. While on the surface those may seem incongruous, both spoke to me regarding current events and seemed urgently relevant. At a time when outsiders of many kinds are being ostracized, discriminated against, and shunned, I wanted to explore what being an outsider feels like on a deeply personal level. I always want the authors I publish to turn readers on, but this time, I also want to make you think.

  The outsiders you’ll read about here sometimes grapple with navigating a new culture, as in “Aftershock,” by Jo Henny Wolf, or the constraints of their own culture, such as the tender, heartbreaking longing in “Seven Sweets and Seven Sours,” by Megan Hart. In Eliza David’s “Protest of Passion,” a community organizer finds herself swept away by a different kind of passion than the one motivating her lover.

  I left it to my authors to define what exactly an outsider means to them, and their characters. All of us have likely been outsiders at one time or another, depending on the circumstances. Outsiders may be able to learn something about themselves via insiders, and in the process enjoy some hot sex, as happens in “The Pick-Me-Up,” by Suleikha Snyder. Sometimes it’s hard to say who the outsider is, such as in Alyssa Cole’s sexy science fiction tale, “Essential Qualities.” The bisexual protagonist of Calliope Bloom’s “O Captain! My Captain!” ventures into unknown territory with her new lovers, going from outsider to insider as she takes a risk that pays off.

  Taking risks in the face of fear has certainly cropped up in past volumes, but the risks the characters take in these stories are heightened. Sometimes these risks are erotic in nature, like trying something new for the first time, for instance posing for an erotic calendar, as the heroine of “Take the Shot,” by Mica Kennedy, does, or starring in a gang bang, like Julie in “Beautiful Dirty Wonderful,” by R. M. Wood. Sometimes the risk itself is a turn-on, such as the illicit but utterly arousing behavior of the naughty narrator in “The Dressing Room,” by Alessandra Torre.

  Sometimes these risks, while sexual in nature, involve confronting aspects of these characters’ core selves that require a great amount of bravery. In “Her Invisible Prison,” by Jocelyn Dex, Eden faces a battle between her desire and her agoraphobia. Her steps out of that “prison” are hard fought and all the more exciting. And lest you think a story involving mental health can’t be scorching hot, Dex will surely prove you wrong. Similarly, in “Baby Doll,” by Sienna Saint-Cyr, Heather pursues her fetish only with the very careful reassurance of her lover.

  Many of these stories involve finding community of one sort or another, whether that’s the world of rodeo bull riders in “Eight Seconds,” by Madeline Moore, or kink club BDSM as in “Belonging,” by Tamsen Parker. While passion and desire are at the heart of these tales, there’s more happening than simple arousal.

  There’s a little something for everyone, I’d like to think, within these pages, from the woman going back to school who gets an education beyond the books in “With Honors,” by Sofia Quintero, to a divorced woman getting seduced by a learned man in “Words with Benefits,” by Tamara Lush. You’ll travel back in time with “The Invitation,” by Regina Kammer, get kinky with “Mark” by Rosie Beth Randall, explore a penchant for tickling in “Breathe,” by Patricia Elzie, and attend an orgy in “On Display,” by Louise Lagris.

  You can find out more about the series at bweoftheyear.com and follow our books and authors @BWEoftheyear on Twitter and bestwomenserotica on Instagram. You can always reach me at [email protected] to share what you want to see more of in future volumes.

  I hope, at least in some small way, this book entertains you and gives you inspiration to take the kinds of risks these characters do.

  Rachel Kramer Bussel

  Atlantic City, New Jersey

  TAKE THE SHOT

  Mica Kennedy

  I could always run away.

  Though my hand’s already on the studio door, I’m sorely tempted.

  No. You promised. Woman up. You are not a chicken.

  The quiver in my stomach says otherwise. But it’s understandable. It isn’t every day your little sister asks you to pose for a sex calendar—or that you agree to it. What was I thinking?

  Truthfully, I wasn’t. I was trying to sleep in now that the university’s spring semester was over. Naturally, this meant a phone call came at the asscrack of dawn. Only one person would dare.

  “Somebody better be dead, Caroline,” I mumbled.

  “How much do you love me?” my sister asked.

  “Oh crap. That never bodes well.”

  “You don’t even know what it is!”

  “But I know you. Spill.”

  “I need you to come model on this photo shoot,” she said. “Candace got stomach flu.”

  “What did you do to my goddaughter?”

  “It wasn’t me. I told her not to do dollar wing night.”

  “Poor kiddo.” I made a note to call her later. “So what, exactly, do you need?”

  “I need you to pose for a few tasteful, sensual pictures with another model.”

  I made a noncommittal noise.

  “Please, Nina,” she begged. “My editor’s after me like I owe her rent money.”

  “D
efine sensual. Not nudity?”

  “No, Prudence,” she mocked. “You’ll be covered. With makeup, no one’ll recognize you.”

  “I’m not a prude.”

  “Not since you dumped You-Know-Who, anyway.”

  “Don’t start.” My ex’s failings were her favorite topic.

  “That asshole spent five years treating you like a prop. You can be mature about it; I will hate him forever.”

  “He was just—uptight—”

  “Uptight? The man has a tree-sized stick up his ass—and not in the good way!”

  “Carly, please. I don’t want to think about my ex or his ass. It’s been a year. Let it go.”

  “I’m just saying. He’d absolutely hate this.”

  She was right. The man was a stickler for propriety. He would hate this.

  Damn. Now I had to do it.

  I breathe deeply and enter the studio. The jumble of lights, stacked backdrops, and enormous umbrella lights in the loft overwhelms me. Carly, however, is calm amid the chaos. Lens checks, shifting furniture, and screechy metal playing in the background. Nothing fazes her.

  When she sees me, I get a huge smile. My baby sis is practically my clone. We share enormous topaz-brown eyes, toothy grins, even the same curvy body (we Johnson girls are particularly blessed in the booty department). Even with our contrasting skin tones—mine deep brown, hers lighter tan—people assume we’re twins.

  “Nina, thank heaven.” She hugs me like it’s been years. “Thank you.”

  “Like I’d let you down,” I scoff. Never mind my momentary freak-out.

  “Going from professor to video vixen is a big step.”

  “What is this video vixen business?” I give her serious side eye. “I agreed to ‘tasteful, sensual pictures.’ That’s a direct quote.”

  “ ‘Tasteful’ and ‘sensual’ don’t make you blush like that.”

  “If you want to see blush, get me some makeup. Stop embarrassing me.”

  “You’re no fun.” She sticks her tongue out at me. I give her my sternest teacher face but she just laughs. My students claim I’m tough; my sister doesn’t even pretend to believe it.

  She leads me to the improvised dressing room at the back of the studio. It’s basically a curtain and rope, but it’ll do.

  “I have to do test shots on set,” Carly says. She hands me a garment bag. “Put this on. Syd will do your face in a few minutes.”

  I draw the curtain shut as best I can. I kick off my shoes, then quickly strip off my yoga pants and sweater. My bra takes longer, of course; when your size involves more numbers than a locker combination, keeping your breasts where you want them involves engineering like the Sistine Chapel. The mass of hooks and underwires takes careful attention.

  Finally, I slip it off and slide into a bustier of deep-green leather attached to a fluttery, translucent mesh skirt. I don’t know how, but the thing pushes my breasts to heights they haven’t seen since the nineties. The cups barely manage to cover my areolae. This can’t be the whole outfit.

  I check the bag. All that’s left are a tiny scrap of a thong and a pair of open-toed stilettos. I put them on, grumbling. Carly and I clearly differ on the definition of covered.

  Deep breaths. I can do this.

  Syd knocks on the curtain. She nods at the outfit.

  “That’s perfect,” she says. “Let’s get you dolled up.”

  I spend an hour in the makeup chair. Between the soft brushes and Syd’s gentle hands, I nearly fall asleep. But when she twirls me around to see the effect, I am stunned.

  The woman in the mirror is alternate universe me. Not a forty-something teacher with under-eye bags like carry-on luggage. She’s a goddess with cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass, sunset-painted eyes, and a mouth drenched in burgundy velvet.

  Syd coats my skin in shimmery lotion that makes me glow. She even weaves a golden coronet and flowers into my hair. I’ve become a buxom woodland nymph. I adore it.

  Syd steps back and nods decisively. “That’s hot.”

  “Not just hot,” Carly agrees. “Bangable.” I snort.

  The set has been transformed into a forest. Tree stumps draped with moss, vines overhead, blue and purple lights. Carly’s plan finally clicks.

  “You’re doing A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” I say. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I’m doing dirty Midsummer,” she replies. “You know how you get.” She gestures at the prop table. It’s covered in BDSM gear.

  Holy cat-o’-nine-tails, Batman.

  Carly’s smirk merely reinforces my resolve.

  “I’m not the prude you think I am,” I say in my most bored tone. “This is fine.”

  “All right, Titania,” she says dryly. “I’m holding you to that.”

  “So. Where’s my Oberon?”

  Carly looks over my shoulder. “Behind you.”

  I’m smiling as I turn, eager to meet my partner in this mad adventure.

  Instead, my face drops as I recognize my teaching assistant, Josh Medina.

  Shit.

  I’ve been obsessively imagining him half-dressed for the last year. The reality is far better than any of my fantasies.

  His golden-brown limbs and chiseled chest could make a sculptor cry. And those raven-dark eyes rimmed with lashes so lush you’d swear he was wearing makeup. He’s the perfect Oberon.

  His eyes light up when he sees me, and his slow smile turns my knees to butter. I pull my sister aside.

  “Carly, I can’t do this.”

  “Why not? Weren’t you just bragging about how much of a prude you aren’t?”

  “This is different. I’m his boss.” I want to shake her, but I’m too busy covering my boobs with my arms. I’d kill for a robe right about now. “How’d you even find him?”

  “That day I helped you move into your office,” she replies. “We were talking, and you glanced over my shoulder. You got this goofy look on your face, like all your dreams had come true at once.”

  I remember that day instantly. We were carting boxes up the three flights of stairs, getting completely sweaty and gross, when Josh strolled by my open door. He’d been wearing that tight blue Henley and jeans that made his ass look like a perfectly ripe peach. I wanted to bite it.

  He’d waved and smiled, polite as always. Something had to be wrong with me if even basic manners made me want to do unspeakably filthy things to him. I thought I’d kept my cool, but Carly had seen right through me.

  “I had to see who could put that expression on your face,” she says. “When I did . . . how could I not cast him? He’s so striking.”

  Striking doesn’t come close. Hot as balls, my goddaughter would say. My twenty-two-year-old goddaughter who, I remind myself, is much closer to his age than I am.

  “You’re both adults,” Carly says. “He’s not in your class, neither of you is pressuring the other, and it has nothing to do with your work. I fail to see the problem.”

  “Of course you don’t see it. But this is my job. How can I maintain my authority when my TA has examined my T&A all up close and personal?”

  “Um, Professor Johnson?” Josh’s soft voice catches my attention. I turn to him.

  “Yes, Mr. Medina?” I say, slipping into my professional register. A little lower and firmer than my usual tone. It’s probably ineffective, since I’m standing here with all my worldly goods on display, but it makes me feel calmer.

  He swallows hard, stands up straighter. I appreciate the chance to take in every glorious, sculpted inch of him.

  “Wow,” he finally says.

  “You look . . . amazing.” “Thank you,” I say. I deliberately don’t return the sentiment. I don’t trust what might come out of my mouth.

  “You’re the last person I expected to see here,” he says. “I wouldn’t think this was your scene.”

  “Spent a lot of time thinking about that, have you?” I ask, arching an eyebrow. He blushes. It’s adorable.

  “Nah, I just�
�I mean—not a lot.” He laughs, in that it’s-a-joke-but-not-really way. Oh god. What if it isn’t? Is he flirting? I don’t know what to do with that.

  “Caroline—Carly—is my sister. She needed a model, so I’m here.”

  “Cool. That’s sweet of you.”

  “Foolish, more like, but I’ll take sweet.”

  “Nah. It’s badass.” His face turns serious. “I overheard you and your sister talking. I know this is a little weird, but I’m okay with it. If you are.”

  “You work for me, Joshua. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “But I don’t. Not anymore,” he says quickly. “I found a job in my department.”

  He’d been admitted too late to get a TA position in the physics lab, but we’d been thrilled to have him. We needed someone who could help our ESL students with scientific jargon.

  “That’s great,” I tell him. “Our loss, but congratulations. I’m sure you’ll be brilliant over there.”

  “I’ll still volunteer sometimes, when I can,” he says. “But since I don’t officially work for you anymore, this is okay, right?”

  “Really? You don’t think it’s weird, taking sexy pictures with me? I mean, I don’t normally do this, but I’ve heard it can be . . . intense.”

  “I am all for intensity,” he says, with another devastating smile. “There’s no one else I’d want here.”

  Eek. Definitely flirting. My head’s spinning a little.

  Try to focus. Carly needs me here. Josh wants me here. And I? I want to be brave.

  He holds out a hand. Trembling, I take it.

  “All right,” I tell him. “Let’s make some magic.”

  The photo shoot is a blur. The heat from the lights, the awkwardness of holding poses, of being watched—none of it matters. I’m captivated by how beautiful he looks bound to that tree, ropes taut against his pecs, ball gag in his mouth.

  I lean against him, eyes closed, bejeweled hands lifting my breasts as if offering them up. His breath grazes my lips, hot and fast. I want to close the gap and devour him.

  Then he’s on his knees, jeweled collar around his neck. Holding the lead in one hand and a whip in the other is intoxicating. It’s too easy to imagine this is real, that he’s mine to do with as I please.