$14.00
ISBN 0452284740
available through Amazon

Reviewed by William Dean
(01/14/04)

Sadly to say, there are still some folks whose exposure to male Black writers is confined to appreciating how many times they can loosely rhyme words with "booty" and "fuck." Not to demean rap artists glorifying da pimp masters and gansta sex, but there's more to Black writing. Much more. And the new anthology of erotic stories "of love, lust, and marriage" edited by Robert Fleming is a primo example of the genre by Plume, a Penguin (Mainstream!) imprint.

As a follow up to Fleming's award-winning anthology After Hours, Intimacy is aptly titled and a perfect counter thrust to the clichéd belief, still prevalent, that Black men can't be intimate, tender, and open-hearted. All too often, the images we see are urbanized, tough, angry men, irresponsible in their relationships and treating the sistahs as property, but without their propahs. Not so, says Fleming and his coterie of intelligent, sensitive, and intimately passionate writers.

In "The Post-Cock Box," Brian Egeston begins with a thoughtful paragraph that all lovers can take to heart.

I won't have sex with my wife. I love her too much. Intercourse, making love, whatever people choose to call it. I've always disagreed with the term make love. If people need to make it, does that imply it didn't exist before it was made? And why do those same people who profess their love to each other have to make it over and over again? Does love come in batches with expiration dates? Best if screwed before August '03. Love can't be made. It's derived, isn't it? Cultivated and nurtured, I think. Forgive me for saying so, but it's work more than anything else. And I'm good at my job, I don't mind telling you.

The intimacy of the title goes beyond what's felt and expressed between the lovers in this gathering of twenty-three stories. What's also on view are intimate glimpses into the spirit and psyche of men, not just Black men, but all men. The vast majority of erotica is written by and read by women. The vast majority of erotica -- particularly online -- is composed of fantasies geared to get the solitary reader as hot as possible as soon as possible. Which means it borders more closely to pornography than erotic literature. The best erotica, however, gets under your skin, goes probing into your mind, your sense of relationships, the way you live your life of sexual encounters. It makes you reconsider, perhaps even change your whole point of view. It widens your appreciation of the sensual. In short, it makes you sexier through enhanced perception.

"Hurry," Medea says again. This time the "H" sound is deep and airy, full of passionate anticipation. She bends over the dining room table, skirt flipped up over her back. George pulls her saturated panties to the side instead of taking them off. Medea releases a quivering moan as George's thick fingers slide to the center of her thighs. Just the mere thought of his hand massaging her jewel sends a frenzy of lustful sensations throughout her being. It's been a long time since she's been touched, a long time since she's felt the heat of a man. In the last couple of years, the most important things to her were: Work. Food. Sleep. Work. Work. Work. Sleep. If someone had told her she would be stretched across the dining room table getting loved by the yardman, she would've laughed.

"Mmmmmmmmm," George hums, gripping Medea's waist, surfing in her warm ocean, dipping in and out.

"...Deeper..."

Robert Fleming is a working editor, not a rubber-stamp manager. You can see it in his selections, each carefully chosen to reflect another aspect of what intimacy means, can mean. And intimacy can mean so much, especially in this time of booty calls, fuck buddies, idates, and on-cam relationships that seem crass and too-sudden when compared to, well, to intimacy...

As Fleming himself writes (under the penname Cole Riley):

Three marriages, three tries, three failures. What had he, as a man, learned from all his trouble? Maybe that he had been a dumb cockhound, a booty worshipper, and not mindful of his women's other needs. The only emotions he seemed to feel on a general basis were rage, resentment, and regret: the three R's. He hated the way he'd lived his life, the wasted years, the missed opportunities, the poor choices, the quest for the perfect ass and the best sex. Even though men were supposed to be in charge, make the rules, they damn sure didn't seem to know what the hell they were doing. Most of them bumbled along like he had, believing women were weaker, dumber, emotion-driven, and unpredictable. And, yes, unreliable, too. When the real fact was that women understood men much better than men understood them.

An intimate confession and realization like that can make your entire erotic life change overnight...and open you to true intimacy.

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