Maxim Jakubowski is a London-based novelist and editor. He was born in the UK and educated in France. Following a career in book publishing, he opened the world-famous Murder One bookshop in London. He now writes full-time. He has edited over twenty-five bestselling erotic anthologies and books on erotic photography, as well as many acclaimed crime collections. His novels include It’s You That I Want to Kiss, Because She Thought She Loved Me and On Tenderness Express, all three collected and reprinted in the USA as Skin in Darkness. Other books include Life in the World of Women, The State of Montana, Kiss Me Sadly, Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer, Fools For Lust, I Was Waiting For You and Ekaterina and the Night. In 2006 he published American Casanova, a major erotic novel which he edited and on which fifteen of the top erotic writers in the world have collaborated. He compiles two annual acclaimed series for the Mammoth list: Best New Erotica and Best British Crime. He is a winner of the Anthony and the Karel Awards, a frequent TV and radio broadcaster, a past crime columnist for the Guardian newspaper and Literary Director of London’s Crime Scene Festival.
Recent Mammoth titles
The Mammoth Book of Irish Romance
The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories
The Mammoth Book of Bizarre Crimes
The Mammoth Book of Special Ops Romance
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 8
The Mammoth Book of Sex, Drugs & Rock ’n’ Roll
The Mammoth Book of Travel in Dangerous Places
The Mammoth Book of Apocalyptic SF
The Mammoth Book of Casino Games
The Mammoth Book of Sudoku
The Mammoth Book of Zombie Comics
The Mammoth Book of Men O’War
The Mammoth Book of Mindblowing SF
The Mammoth Book of New Sherlock Holmes Adventures
The Mammoth Book of The Beatles
The Mammoth Book of the Best Short SF Novels
The Mammoth Book of New IQ Puzzles
The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories
The Mammoth Book of Regency Romance
The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance 2
The Mammoth Book of the World’s Greatest Chess Games
The Mammoth Book of Tasteless Jokes
The Mammoth Book of New Erotic Photography
The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 23
The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror 21
The Mammoth Book of Great British Humour
The Mammoth Book of Drug Barons
The Mammoth Book of Scottish Romance
The Mammoth Book of Women’s Erotic Fantasies
The Mammoth Book of Tattoo Art
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2012
Copyright © Maxim Jakubowski 2012 (unless otherwise stated)
The right of Maxim Jakubowski to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication data is available from the British Library
UK ISBN: 978-1-78033-092-1 (paperback)
UK eISBN: 978-1-78033-093-8 (ebook)
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First published in the United States in 2012 by Running Press Book Publishers, A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions
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US ISBN: 978-0-7624-4435-9
US Library of Congress number: 2011930507
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Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing
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Printed and bound in the UK
Contents
Acknowledgements
INTRODUCTION
Maxim Jakubowski
CHAPTERS IN A PAST LIFE
Marilyn Jaye-Lewis
L’ENFER
Alice Joanou
EROTOPHOBIA
O’Neil De Noux
ENTERTAINING MR ORTON
Poppy Z. Brite
WORTH MORE THAN A THOUSAND WORDS
Lawrence Schimel
MRS FOX
Michael Crawley
SWEATING PROFUSELY IN MÉRIDA: A MEMOIR
Carol Queen
TAROT
Florence Dugas
BLACK LILY
Thomas S. Roche
THE PRESCRIPTION
Carol Anne Davis
PLAGUE LOVERS
Lucy Taylor
NIGHT MOVES
Michael Perkins
MOVEMENTS
Michael Hemmingson
DO WHAT YOU LOVE
Susannah Indigo
ONLY CONNECT
Lauren Henderson
BOTTOMLESS ON BOURBON
Maxim Jakubowski
PAYING MY FRIENDS FOR SEX
Matt Thorne
GATORS
Vicki Hendricks
THE COLOUR OF LUST
M. Christian
THE END OF DAPHNE GREENWOOD’S TRAVEL CAREER
Tara Alton
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER
Mark Timlin
AMERICAN HOLIDAYS
Mike Kimera
SCREEN PLAY
A. F. Waddell
SECRETLY WISHING FOR RAIN
Claude Lalumière
WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GIRL
Marie Lyn Bernard
BLINDED
Donna George Storey
THE PENIS OF MY BELOVED
Ian Watson and Roberto Quaglia
NOTHING BUT THIS
Kristina Lloyd
DON’T LOOK BACK
Alison Tyler
THE EROTICA WRITER’S HUSBAND
Jennifer D. Munro
Acknowledgements
CHAPTERS IN A PAST LIFE © 1993 by Marilyn Jaye-Lewis
L’ENFER © 1992 by Alice Joanou
EROTOPHOBIA © 1998 by O’Neil De Noux
ENTERTAINING MR ORTON © 1998 by Poppy Z. Brite
WORTH MORE THAN A THOUSAND WORDS © 1998 by Lawrence Schimel
MRS FOX © 1996 by Michael Crawley
SWEATING PROFUSELY IN MÉRIDA: A MEMOIR © 1994 by Carol Queen
TAROT © 1998 by Florence Dugas
BLACK LILY © 1996 by Thomas S. Roche
THE PRESCRIPTION © 1998 by Carol Anne Davis
PLAGUE LOVERS © 1998 by Lucy Tayl
or
NIGHT MOVES © 2000 by Michael Perkins
MOVEMENTS © 2000 by Michael Hemmingson
ONLY CONNECT © 2000 by Lauren Henderson
BOTTOMLESS ON BOURBON © 2000 by Maxim Jakubowski
PAYING MY FRIENDS FOR SEX © 2001 by Matt Thorne
GATORS © 2001 by Vicki Hendricks
THE COLOUR OF LUST © 2002 by M. Christian
THE END OF DAPHNE GREENWOOD’S TRAVEL CAREER © 2003 by Tara Alton
EYE OF THE BEHOLDER © 2003 by Mark Timlin
AMERICAN HOLIDAYS © 2003 by Mike Kimera
SCREEN PLAY © 2004 by A. F. Waddell
SECRETLY WISHING FOR RAIN © 2004 by Claude Lalumière
WHAT HAPPENED TO THAT GIRL © 2005 by Marie Lyn Bernard
BLINDED © 2005 by Donna George Storey
THE PENIS OF MY BELOVED © 2006 by Ian Watson and Roberto Quaglia
NOTHING BUT THIS © 2006 by Kristina Lloyd
DON’T LOOK BACK © 2006 by Alison Tyler
THE EROTICA WRITER’S HUSBAND © 2007 by Jennifer D. Munro
Introduction
Maxim Jakubowski
Back in 1991 I approached Nick Robinson with a view to convince him to add a volume of erotica to the then fledgling but already successful Mammoth line. It took a couple of years of repeated insistence to overcome his initial resistance to the idea. If crime and mystery, science fiction and fantasy, thrillers, spy tales and horror were the obvious genres to include in the Mammoth list, I pleaded, why not erotica? A literary genre which was similarly looked down at by the establishment but had good commercial prospects and, I argued, a ready-made public and intrinsically had as much quality as other fields of popular writing, together with a prestigious heritage which had been in recent decades muddied by the more down-market and exploitative side of most publishers’ production.
Although he and his team were at first reluctant, they finally gave me the go ahead and The Mammoth Book of Erotica first appeared in 1994, with Carroll & Graf in the USA enthusiastically taking on the reins of the American edition. The book was a surprising success from the outset, going into several reprints and being taken up by a variety of book clubs. Having the field to myself, I was in the privileged situation of being able to select stories and extracts from some of my favourite contemporary writers who had not shied away from writing about sex in an explicit manner in their work. I included Clive Barker, Leonard Cohen, Anne Rice, Samuel R. Delany, Marco Vassi, Ramsey Campbell, Kathy Acker and many others. I wanted to validate my contention that erotica was not just sex scenes but could feature plot, solid characterization and emotions alongside the expected hydraulics. Sex was and always will be an integral part of the human make-up and I do strongly feel it is essentially dishonest to censor it out of our writings for the sake of propriety or social convenience. Further, I was of the opinion that we were going through a Golden Age of erotica that was as good as many of the classics from the 1930s or the 1950s, after which the field had seemingly taken a step back. The only problem was that it remained hidden within publishers’ general lists and was most often not highlighted as such. In all fairness this was not the case in France, for example, where major authors like Apollinaire, André Pieyre de Mandiargues, Aragon, Bernard Noël, Pierre Louys suffered no critical backlash for their outstanding erotic tales and had been succeeded by more modern practitioners like Alicia Reyes, Françoise Rey, Vanessa Duriès and others. Not surprisingly I had spent many years in France and my outlook had no doubt been influenced by this healthy state of affairs.
But in the English language, since the heyday of Henry Miller and Anaïs Nin, erotic writing had remained in the shadows, with the sole efforts of Brian Kirby’s Essex House imprint and authors like Marco Vassi, Michael Perkins and David Meltzer toiling with little critical feedback in a faraway forest, away from the throng.
By highlighting what had been happening for many years in one place, I hoped erotica would again be taken seriously.
It was.
It is now over a decade and a half later, and the Mammoth Erotica series has reached fifteen volumes. Robinson Publishing has now become Constable & Robinson, merging successfully with one of Britain’s most respected and oldest imprints, while in the USA, Carroll & Graf was integrated into the Perseus Group and the series now appears there under the Running Press imprint.
Last year we celebrated the tenth anniversary volume of the series, although technically it has actually featured fifteen volumes, as the first five (The Mammoth Book of Erotica, The Mammoth Book of New Erotica, The Mammoth Book of International Erotica, The Mammoth Book of Historical Erotica and The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels) were not numbered. Sales are now into the hundreds of thousands worldwide and I believe erotica is now held in higher esteem in the world of letters and books as a result.
It is now, of course, a much more crowded area as success naturally attracts imitations. But, on the other hand, the added publishing opportunities have allowed new editors and dozens of writers to make a name for themselves in the field and new talent is emerging on a yearly basis, which personally delights me.
The only drawback, and this is very much a personal bee in the bonnet of mine, is that this profusion of erotica has also diluted the impact of the writing and too many of the new writers see the genre as an excuse for minor sexual fantasies or wish-fulfilment scenarios, which they affectionately treat jokingly as mere smut, with little of the psychological depth or naked emotions I, for one, expect in good writing. Both the plethora of publishing opportunities and the lack of quality control on the expanding internet scene and in self-published ebooks is much to blame for this sorry state of affairs.
But enough of criticism. This is a celebration of what is good about erotica.
The present volume features some of my favourite stories from our first thirteen volumes (the last two are still readily available in stores and online). When I made my initial selection, I ended up with a 1,200-page volume, which I then had to painfully shrink down to acceptable size, such was the embarrassment of choices available to me. I had to restrict myself to one story per author, even though some have contributed several outstanding stories to the series over the years; stories I absolutely adored could not be reprinted because they were just too long; writers who deserved to be here have been left out because of lack of space – the choices were heartbreaking.
At any rate, here are thirty wonderful tales of sex, life, hotness, passion, of erotica at its best.
If you have not been converted to the sensual and intellectual pleasures of our genre already, this is your chance.
Jump aboard.
Maxim Jakubowski
April 2011
Chapters in a Past Life
Marilyn Jaye-Lewis
1. Anal
I knew a woman who had a virgin asshole until she was in her early thirties. I never understood that kind of woman, she’s not at all like me. I’d read about Last Tango in Paris in my mother’s Cosmo when I was only thirteen, for God’s sake – and the accompanying article, too, all about how to do it through the back door and, more importantly, why: because a Cosmo girl is an American girl and American girls love pressure.
I don’t know if it was related to that distant article or not, but I dropped out of college in a real hurry, after only about six weeks. Something about wanting to feel alive instead, and that’s how I ended up in New York; at the tail end of the disco era, pre-AIDS, a time when any self-respecting underpaid New York office worker drank heavily on his or her lunch hour and didn’t have to be choosy about who he or she wanted to fuck when the work day was over because eventually you fucked everybody. And there were so many exciting cross-purposes going on! For instance, drugs. Did you fuck somebody sheerly because s/he had the good drugs? Or did you use the good drugs as bait to get somebody to fuck you? Of course, if you hung in there long enough, the inevitable descent into hell finally occurred. That’s right,
you remember it: you fell hopelessly in love with a completely insane person, a dangerously paranoid schizophrenic perhaps, but you were too fucked-up on the good drugs to even notice it. Maybe for a couple of years.
When it happened to me, it was with a woman. Back then, she was already twenty years older than me, so God knows, if she’s still alive now she’s using a cane to get around. But she was in fine form in 1980, thin as a rail of course. All bone, no muscle, but that was de rigueur in 1980. We didn’t lift free weights. Every ounce of energy was reserved for lifting cocktail glasses off the wet bar (a long distance endurance process) and for raising those teeny-weeny silver spoons, over and over – all right, I won’t go on. I guess your memory’s a little better than I’d thought . . .
So I’ll call her Giselle. Not that her name was anything close to that, but it was similarly unpronounceable and she possessed that quick, nervous energy sometimes, reminiscent of the leaping gazelle. And on our first date – or more succinctly – when we hit on each other in that 10th Avenue after-hours meat rack and went home together to fuck like dogs, she was in fine, lithe, energetic form. I know we were kissing in the back seat of that cab, but I don’t remember how we got from the cab to her sparsely furnished living room in that huge penthouse apartment in midtown, with the vaulted ceilings and all that glass. That part’s a complete blank, but what happened from that point on is clear and that’s the sex part and all that matters anyway.
Giselle’s husband was apparently loaded. And not one of those cash-poor types, either. He seemed to travel on business constantly – or so he said. At any rate, he was away an awful lot and Giselle had nothing but time and money to take his place. You’d think those two things – time and money – would have been enough, but when you’re remarkably thin and nearly forty, and beautiful and sharp and hopelessly underutilized like my dear Giselle, it takes a lot more than time and money to get your rocks completely off. Hence, Giselle’s insatiable drive towards the strange.
I’d agreed willingly from the outset, I just want that part to be clear. I had my clothes off in a hurry and was letting Giselle douche my ass, simply because she wanted it so much. I was happy to let her do it. I was on my knees and elbows in her half-bath, right off the living room, there. Completely stripped with my ass in the air, a bulb syringe squeezing warm water into my rectum while I had a lit cigarette in one hand and a nice glass of Merlot in the other.