Dream lover - erotic fiction by Cleis Press Inc. - review by Jenny Swallows

There is one story in this book that will haunt you.

One story that will remain in your mind long after you have forgotten all the others, one that will build and grow in there too, until it becomes a part of your cultural makeup, like a long-ago movie whose plot you've forgotten but whose mood is so close you can kiss it; or a favorite old novel you keep intending to retread, but can never put your hands on when you want it.

For me, it's Kristina Lloyd's "Living Off Lovers," a haunted house with a twist in the architecture, two strangers brought together by something they don't understand, two spirits still seeking a love that they lost eighty, ninety years ago. It's a short tale, and that's a good thing because the best short stories are always the ones that make you want to know more, much more. And the best of the rest of Dream Lover shares that same sensation. Appetizers for a meal that your own imagination will create.

The sex here is not especially graphic. There are few scenes that will leave you breathless with vicarious exhaustion, mind-boggled by the gymnastics that the author conjured up. But, perhaps surprisingly, that doesn't seem to matter. You'll heat up anyway. Maybe it's the frisson of foreboding that builds up around each sequence of events; maybe it's the essential inhumanity of so many of the lovers. Either way, this is erotica at its most erotic. Hiding away behind the shadows that are all the more tantalizing for their darkness.

We run the gamut of supernatural beings, feral beasts and wandering demons, shape-shifters and mermen and living statues... Sacchi Green's "Freeing the Demon" is a remarkable piece of story-telling, not only for its innate passion but also because you have to decide for yourself who (or what) the demon really is, the gargoyle imprisoned in stone for long centuries? Or the life led by Jayne when she meets him?

Supernatural erotica is not a new invention; folk song has a centuries old tradition of demonic seductions and faerie fucking, couched in terms that the original audience would roar at, even though they might sound quaint to modern ears. "At the bottom of the belly," sung the lusty minstrels of old, "lies the cuckoo's nest," and what man among them did not relish the opportunity to ruffle up its feathers?

There are no cuckoos here, but there is the remarkable bird who flies through Lana Fox's "For Humans, Love's All About Weight," and while the occasional story does back itself into the corner labelled "cliché," another comes blazing with such startling style that... Well, we're back where we were at the start of this review, with the stories that live on in your memory, long after you should have forgotten them.

I've shown you mine. Now you tell me yours...