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Reviews by
Jean Roberta
Telling it like it is - - -
Women, Passion and Darkness
Night's Kiss, a collection by Catherine Lundoff (Torquere Press, 2006).
The fifteen erotic lesbian stories in this downloadable collection from GLBT publisher Torquere Press include historical sagas, reworked myths, fantasy or paranormal plots, and poignantly realistic stories that show the ups and downs of lesbian life at the very time they were written. The characters include a sexy dyke in a wheelchair, ãwomen of color,ä women who impersonate men for fun, survival, or revenge, and women at various points in the spectrum from butch to femme or vice versa. And immortal women with supernatural powers, of course. Most of the stories include some elements of ãpower exchange,ä but organized BDSM as a part of modern, urban culture is nowhere in sight.
Roughly half of these stories appeared earlier in print anthologies, including Best Lesbian Erotica (1999 to 2006), several lesbian anthologies from Alyson Books, Naughty Spanking Stories from Pretty Things Press, the groundbreaking Zaftig (on ãwomen of sizeä), two fantasy anthologies from Circlet Press, and Stirring Up a Storm, which includes stories by mainstream women writers such as Joyce Carol Oates. Finding fifteen of Catherine Lundoffâs stories in one place saves the reader from having to search for them in numerous current erotic anthologies ö not that the search wouldnât be a pleasure in itself.
As the title suggests, most of these stories explore darkness, both literal and metaphorical. Several take place at night; in the three distinctly different vampire stories, the reasons for this seem obvious. One of the two vampire stories set in colonial Mexico, ãBeso de la Noche,ä is literally named ãNightâs Kissä in Spanish, and therefore it could be read as defining the tone of the whole collection. Several stories begin, in classic style, with a pickup in a bar. (One of these is the most realistic vampire story, set in a modern American city where ãgothä is assumed to be fashion rather than a nocturnal hunt for fresh blood.) ãViva Las Vegasä takes place in the desert city that never sleeps, where two dykes turn a clichŽ every which way but loose as they try to outdo each other as Elvis impersonators.
Two of the most daring stories in this collection are the reworked Greek myth of Arachne, a proud woman weaver who challenges and provokes the goddess Athena, and the spaced-out ãPlanet 10,ä on which an ordinary (so to speak) dyke mates with a kind of lizard-woman and begins to change, much like the victim of a vampire or a goddess.
Lundoff also has a way with historical fiction, in which the atmosphere and the details ring true. ãOn the Spanish Mainä is her raunchy sailor-story about two women pirates of the early eighteenth century, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, whose remarkable partnership in crime has been described in several historical accounts. The author also reimagines the Victorian London of Jack the Ripper, and suggests a reason why he suddenly stopped killing ãladies of the evening.ä
In general, these stories are visual and sensory, containing just enough background information to clarify the setting, the characters and the sex. The shortest story in the collection, ãBurn,ä entirely consists of a scene involving two women and some hot wax:
ãTilting the candle slowly brings the wax down, white drops gleaming dully in the candlelight, little points of liquid fire splashing hard against your skin. With the flick of a wrist, I leave a small red trail on your pale back, each spot bigger than it seems, burning your body, stoking the fires inside until they scorch everything in their wake. I must seem almost impassive as I watch you tug at the cuffs, groans muffled by the gag as each tiny hot wax sun finds its way through your skin to your pussy.ä
The authorâs use of ãyouä in this and a few other stories seems to be her most experimental touch. Her style is generally realistic, concise, well-paced and not overly introspective. One of the stories (ãThe Modelä), while infused with sexual tension from beginning to end, includes no explicit sex. In this case, the mutual acceptance of a ãwoman of sizeä (the model) and the dyke photographer who wants her resolves the tension in a way that mimics and foreshadows orgasm.
The author shows her range in this collection. It would be interesting to see how much depth she could achieve in the longer space of a novel.
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