$14.00
ISBN 0743245504
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Reviewed by Shanna Germain
(12/21/05)
In traditional fairy tales and mythic stories, everything comes in threes: wishes, curses, adventures, beds, and porridges. You rub the genie's lamp or the monkey's paw and get three wishes -- and damned if each one doesn't have a worse outcome than the one before.
Three Kinds of Asking for It, a collection of erotic novellas by three different writers, compiled and edited by Susie Bright, uses this idea of the threes to show sexual fulfillment at its finest.
I don't mean sexual fulfillment in the Penthouse Forum "we fucked and it was perfect" kind of way. Instead, these stories explore what happens when you rub that magic lamp a little too long and a little too hard. They're the kinds of stories you might end up with if you went up to the snarkiest, smartest, funniest, most honest person you know and asked: What would happen if your ultimate sexual fantasy came true? The answers that these writers provide are sexy to be sure, but they're also a complicated and honest, making them part erotica and part cautionary tale, the kind that grandma might have told Little Red Riding Hood before she ventured out in the dark woods.
In Charmed, I'm Sure, Eric Albert introduces us to David, a man ready to make a deal with the devil in order to get over his ex and move on. What he gets instead is a witch offering a four-color business card and a spell that will let him fuck whoever he wants, however he wants. David jumps on board and hands over enough cash to buy his way into his every fantasy for the next 24 hours.
He thrust his hand into his pocket, gripped the charm, and said in a loud, clear voice, "Avrat taldor. Make it all OK. Satisfy me."
The woman turned slowly. Her gaze was strong and serious. What had he done? Her face broke into a wicked grin. "I'm Priscilla. I'll be your server today."
But it isn't long before fantasy and reality collide, and he realizes that the cost of wish fulfillment is much more than money. The story, delivered with wry humor and a deftly sexual touch, walks the fine line of erotic and enlightening. By the end, you'll have been aroused many times over, but you'll also be thinking, "Thank the gods (or witches) that didn't happen to me."
In Greta Christina's Bending, we get an entirely different look at the fulfillment of desire. Dallas has a fetish for bending over and being bent over. But she can't seem to find someone who can give what she wants. Until she meets Betsy, the woman who just might be able to bend Dallas until she breaks.
Dallas pushed her ass up to reach her lover, but Betsy shook her head and pressed her hand into the small of Dallas's back. "Stay put," she said. Dallas was wide awake by now, but she held very still, stifling her moans and keeping her squirming in check, as Betsy ground her pussy into Dallas's ass, and fingered her own clit, and made herself come.
With the help of Betsy and other friends and lovers, Dallas tries so hard to fulfill her fantasy that she practically becomes it and, along the way, finds her true self and her true desires.
The last novella in the collection is Jodi K. by Jill Soloway. Presented in the awkward and completely charming school-speak of 14-year-old Jodi, this story is like Judy Blume for the computer age. Even as Jodi goes through the motions -- and emotions -- of being a normal teenager (kissing the cute boy at school, a version of Spin-the-Bottle called Three-Minutes-in-Heaven, and her first hard-on), she falls hard for her best friend's father.
And then [Donna] lip-syncs to me, "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING ABOUT?"
What would I ever say?! Can you imagine? Oh, hey Donna, I was just thinking I was in your kitchen sitting on your dad's lap so he could feel my hair, and he was seriously about to lay his mustache on me and kiss my ever-lovin' lips, you fool, how 'bout you? Ha.
"Nothing," I mouth back.
When Jodi makes the move to turn her fantasy into reality, she finds that everything is suddenly and unexpectedly more complicated -- and that fantasies are sometimes better left as just fantasies. As with all of the stories in this collection, Jodi K. reminds us that achieving our sexual fantasies and desires is not a free-for-all -- there are definite consequences to our actions. Bright says it all in the introduction when she cautions, "Be careful what you wish for."
So, can I give you a bit of advice before you start rubbing that magic lamp and wishing for the ultimate sexual experience? Make this book your first wish -- that way you'll get all the delicious sex without any of the consequences.
Don't worry, you'll still have two wishes left. Use them wisely.
