$13.95
ISBN 1555837476
available through Amazon

Reviewed by William Dean
(04/07/04)

"...sometimes a girl needs what a girl needs -- and right then, I needed you down. Bent. Under. Open. Wide."

The editors' co-introduction says that their new collection "captures some of the high points of modern dyke sex." To be quite sincere and honest, I'm not sure what might have been left out. No matter what your particular sexual, sensual, emotional tweak might be, if you can't find some identification in Up All Night, you may need to re-examine your erotic paradigm, baby. Does uncertainty and the freight-train rush of spontaneity make you moist and humid? Does the grab-your-mouth-and-kiss-hard hunger of a hottie kick your temperature up past the boiling-point? Do you love the love that loves to love your love? Then this book's for you and you alone. And you. And you.

I admit I really enjoy transcendent sex. The kind of erotic writing that puts you in the narrator's skin and switches the mind-meld on at full-power, as Charlotte Cooper does in her tale "This is Lesbian Luv:"

There was no pause for breath. Lina crawled on top of me and ate me out. I rested my hands on her head as though I were blessing her. She pushed fingers one, two, three, then a hand curled up inside me. I felt my heart twist around and around inside my chest, like it was performing a duet with the fist in my cunt. I was made of electricity, buzzing with heat and desire. I saw her working at me and I wanted to sing with joy at the sight of her breasts shaking, the look of determination on her face, the smell of her, like pure sex.

Like all good anthologies these days, there's the delighting mix of familiar voices (such as Kramer, herself, Jean Roberta, Alison Tyler, Cooper, and Tristan Taormino) and newbies opening up our eroto-lit minds to their exploring phrase-caresses and perspectives. Traversing the geography of a lover's body and the world-at-large, these twenty-nine stories are packing sizzle and verve, from the Amtrak tracks to the dirty brick wall, from the intimate playrooms where floggers snap to the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the dance club, from the tenderizing grating of pussy-stubble to the velvet licks of sixty-nines. Up All Night has the realities down, dear, and the fantasies that make them so delicious. Khadijah Caturani's "Ungentlemanly Behavior," for example, may have you reaching deeper in your subconscious than you've expected to go.

I slid my hands across the vintage satin lapel, the wool vest, the Egyptian cotton shirt. I shuddered at their sensuality. Their perfection. I remembered shuddering like this once before, the one time Amanda wore them for me, the most romantic night of my life. She was my Bogie, I her Bacall. We danced all night on the deck of that yacht on the Bay, the lights from the Golden Gate Bridge sparkling in our eyes, every couple jealous of our obviously perfect chemistry. Tonight I was to be her -- not Bogie. Not Gable. Not Valentino. I was to be her -- Jimmy Stewart. The perfect gentleman. Masculine and dashing and gentle and kind. I dressed silently until I got to the final step, the bow tie, at which point I cursed quietly while reversing my perspective on a common ritual in our lives. Once I'd tied it to my satisfaction and put on Amanda's black alligator Oxfords, I straightened my tails and walked out to pick up my date for the prom.

Reversing perspective, gender fucking, gender play; these themes show that the authors here know how to keep the erotic life edge-worthy, fun, and thrilling, despite the drudge of the day-to-day. Too easily, we all slip into the wrong kind of rut, the routine, and the rule of the drear. Up All Night is aptly subtitled "Adventures in Lesbian Sex." Life should be filled with adventures where putting away the groceries becomes an exploration of the links between food and sex, where a one-night stand carries the heady whiff of danger and discard after mind-blowing sex, where your own hungers make you slave or conquistador and it doesn't matter much which role you adopt. Sometimes, it's just so good to be bad, isn't it?

She bit my tongue as it left her mouth -- softly, but firmly enough to remind me who she was: the woman in red. The woman with knee-high patent-leather boots, the woman as comfortable discussing Plato as gin and gay men. I felt myself go wet, and now I couldn't get enough of her. My chair teetered forward, threatening to tip over completely and dump me into Allie's lap.

...and let the adventure begin.

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