Best Lesbian Erotica 2013 (26 page)

The Lady's enclosure begins this evening, and I must prepare. The road to heaven is a pebbled one, and she will need a firm hand to steer her through. The contemplation of darkness will help her better than the touch of a hand ever could. Of this, I am sure.

My skin hums with it. My flaxenbelly and my moonsmoke, and there are holes, there are holes in me through which the love escapes. The men are men and they are hard, there are no summits to them, nothing to climb up or slip down. My fingers fit into the gaps between the bricks. The moon is the size of my eye. The buttermilk and the daisies, the redness inside cheeks and within the holiest of holies, within the edges of a girl, and this is grace, and this is glory.

NIKKI ADAMS
lives amid the quiet fields of southern New Jersey. This is her first published work of erotic fiction.

 

VALERIE ALEXANDER
is a writer who lives in Arizona. Her work has been previously published in
Best Lesbian Erotica
,
Best of Best Women's Erotica
and other anthologies.

 

ZOE AMOS
is the pen name Janet F. Williams uses for lesbian-themed romance, erotica and contemporary fiction. You can read her work in
Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2006
and
2008,
and
Best Lesbian Love Stories 2010
. For more stories and nonfiction, please search for either name and please visit
JanetFWilliams.com
.

 

ANAMIKA
has published three novels and a number of stories in India and abroad.
Hem and Football
and its sequel,
Hem and Maxine
dealt with women's football and lesbian love. “Ladies
Coupe” was in
Best Lesbian Erotica
2011. Anamika lives in a satellite township near Delhi, India.

 

SALLY BELLEROSE
is author of
The Girls Club
, which won the Bywater Prize. Bellerose's current project is a short-story collection,
Peeing Like a Boy,
which features old women behaving badly. Please visit her at
sallybellerose.wordpress.com
.

 

TENILLE BROWN's
erotic fiction is widely published online and in nearly forty print anthologies including
Chocolate Flava 1
and
3, Curvy Girls, Making the Hook Up, Going Down, Best Bondage Erotica 2011
and
2012, Sapphic Planet
and
Suite Encounters
. The Southern wife and mother blogs at
therealtenille.com
.

 

RACHEL CHARMAN
is a journalist and author from Essex, UK. Her work has also appeared in
Best Lesbian Erotica 2011
and
Ultimate Uniforms
. Contact her at [email protected].

 

V. C. CLARK's
erotic short stories have been published on
Oysters&Chocolate.com
and in numerous anthologies including:
Sugar and Spice: Kinky Girl-on-Girl Stories
and
Bad Romance
. Her first novella is
The Mistress
.

 

ANDREA DALE
would wear comfy clothes to win a contest but dresses up sexy for rock concerts. Her work appeared in the Lambda Award–winning anthology
Lesbian Cowboys: Erotic Adventures
and
Romantic Times
and
Fairy Tale Lust
, as well as about one hundred other anthologies. Visit
cyvarwydd.com
to find out what she's up to today.

 

REBECCA LYNNE FULLAN
is a writer of various stripes, most of them human. She lives, writes, reads and learns in New York City. This story is for her girlfriend, Charlotte. Come visit her here:
rebeccalynnefullan.wordpress.com
.

 

PENNY GYOKERES
writes poetry, music and erotic adventures, though she would like to write a full-length novel that sells triumphantly worldwide so she can retire comfortably. She was born in Toronto, Ontario, and resides there and “up north” with her partner.

 

SONYA HERZOG
is a fortysomething, lesbian, Yankee transplant living in the deep South with her partner, son, dog and two cats. She enjoys cooking and all things literary: reading, writing and editing. She wishes there were more hours in a day to spend with friends and take up new hobbies.

 

KIRSTY LOGAN
lives in Glasgow, Scotland with her very own fancy lady. She has published stories in
Best Lesbian Erotica 2011
and
2012,
and
Best Women's Erotica 2011.
She is working on a novel,
Rust and Stardust
, and a story collection,
The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales
(which includes “Underskirts”). Say hello at
kirstylogan.com
.

 

SID MARCH
is a nomadic being with half a dozen hometowns who writes obsessively when no one is watching as a way to tame her insatiable wanderlust.

 

ANNA MEADOWS
is a part-time executive assistant, part-time housewife. She writes from her heritage in the Mexican-American Southwest and her passion for stories about women in love. Her work appears in a number of anthologies, including
fourteen from Cleis Press, and on the Lambda Literary website. She lives with her sapphic husband in California.

 

MAGGIE MORTON
lives in Northern California with her partner and their Japanese Bobtail. Her first novel, an erotic lesbian romance, is
Dreaming of Her
. Her writing appears in multiple anthologies
,
and includes the lesbian erotica story “Julie Repents.”

 

HELEN SANDLER
(
www.helensandler.co.uk
) is about to reissue her erotic novel
Big Deal
as an e-book. She has edited Lambda-winning anthologies for Diva Books; she runs Tollington Press and co-programs L Fest. Before moving with her girlfriend to a cabin on the Welsh coast, she was a compere at London's Bar Wotever.

 

BD SWAIN
started writing queer smut because of a deep need to do so. Read more of her writing at
bdswain.com
.

 

AMELIA THORNTON
is a very good girl with very bad thoughts, who enjoys baking, hard spankings, vintage lingerie and writing beautiful naughtiness. She has been published in
Best Women's Erotica 2011
and
2012
and several Xcite anthologies, and lives by the English seaside.

 

With a penchant for flash fiction,
MAGGIE VENESS's
stories have been described as quirky, contemplative and mischievous. She lives on the sunny coast of northern NSW, Australia, where she tutors fiction writing at a local college and works part-time in two volunteer positions.

 

Jamaican-born
FIONA ZEDDE
(
www.fionazedde.com
) lives and writes in Tampa, Florida. She is the author of several erotic
lesbian romance novels, including the Lambda Literary Award finalists
Bliss
and
Every Dark Desire
. Her novel,
Dangerous Pleasures
, was winner of the
About.com
Readers' Choice Award for Best Lesbian Novel/Memoir.
Nightshade
, her latest work, is available now.

JEWELLE GOMEZ
is the author of seven books including the cult favorite lesbian vampire novel,
The Gilda Stories,
winner of two Lambda Literary Awards. Her most recent play, “Waiting for Giovanni,” premiered at New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco in 2011. Her new novel,
Televised,
is looking for a publisher.

 

KATHLEEN WARNOCK
is a playwright and editor. Her erotica has appeared in
Best Lesbian Erotica
,
A Woman's Touch
,
Best Lesbian Romance
and
Friction 7
. Her fiction, essays and reviews have been seen in
Love, Christopher Street; ROCK-RGRL
;
BUST; Ms.; Metal Maidens; It's Only Rock and Roll; Gargoyle
and the liner notes for the Joan Jett CD
Unfinished Business
. Her plays have been produced in New York, Ireland and England, and regionally in the United States.
Rock the Line
was produced by Emerging Artists Theatre in New York and won the Robert Chesley Award for Emerging Playwright. She
is curator of the Robert Chesley / Jane Chambers Playwrights Project for TOSOS Theater, and Playwrights Company Manager for Emerging Artists Theatre. She is Ambassador of Love for the International Dublin Gay Theatre Festival and a member of the Dramatists Guild. She curates the Drunken! Careening! Writers! reading series at KGB Bar in NYC (since 2004). Website:
kathleenwarnock.com
; Twitter: @kwarnockny.

Copyright © 2012 by Kathleen Warnock.

Introduction copyright © 2012 by Jewelle Gomez.

 

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 Inc.,
2246 Sixth Street, Berkeley, California 94710.

 

 

eISBN : 978-1-573-44912-0

eISBN : 978-1-573-44912-0

 

“Pool Party,” by Zoe Amos, was published as an ebook on Amazon Kindle (2011); “Daffodils,” by Sally Bellerose, was published in
Pillowtalk
(Alyson, 1998) and
Ripe Fruit
(Cleis Press, 2002); “Lessons for Leona,” by Tenille Brown, was published on Oysters & Chocolate (2011); “Stella Loves Bella,” by V. C. Clark, was published on Oysters & Chocolate (2008); “Winner Take All,” by Andrea Dale, was published in
The Harder She Comes
(Cleis Press, 2012); “Underskirts,” by Kirsty Logan, was published in
The Winners Bridport Prize 2010
(Redcliffe Press, 2011); “
La Caída,”
by Anna Meadows, was published in
Girls Who Bite
(Cleis Press, 2011); a flash fiction version of “The Invitation,” by Maggie Veness, titled “Letter Under the Door,” was published in
In My Bed
magazine (2010); “Crave,” by Fiona Zedde, was published as “Dreamtime” in
Best Lesbian Romance 2007
(Cleis Press, 2007).