$14.95
ISBN 1562013475
available through
Amazon
Reviewed by William Dean
(05/21/03)
Long ago and far away...right here, right now...
Who knows where it began? Neolithics dragging captive women to their cave by the hair. The rumored whippings of sacred whores by the high priests of Baal. Submissive Eve or Dominatrix Lilith. You call it. It really doesn't matter where it began. It just goes way too deep to explain or even understand. Accept it. Some people crave domination, sexual pain, the erotic exchange of power.
For some it's as light and passing as the shiver when shy eyes meet piercing gaze across a mall. For others it's a daily, nightly need to surrender or to overwhelm and travel to places which those of average passions can never attain. The taking, the giving up, the bended knees, and the electrical charge of utter control. Have you been there, baby? If so, you know it; if not, you never will.
Co-editors Lisabet Sarai and S. F. Mayfair have been there. Their introductions bear testimony to the experience and the need to share what the Sacred Exchange has brought them along with the twenty other authors of the stories included in this anthology.
To my delight, many of the storytellers are new to me (and I read a lot of erotica!), but there are also old Clean Sheets fiction favorites such as M. Christian and Mike Kimera.
Some of the tales explore the religio-shamanistic places that power exchange can take one. The reader may be reminded of martyrs' apotheosis or the sadhi's reach for samadhi or nirvana.
Submissives and masochists often speak of the place beyond the wall -- sub space -- when pain of the body is so intense that the mind and emotions go "elsewhere" from the here and now. Others talk about the immense rushes of adrenalin and ego expansion from inflicting pain, from sexual and sensual overload, from the sheer exuberance of control.
These are literate stories. The crème de la crème, if you will, of modern BDSM awareness and execution; as far different from the old SM pulp paperbacks of yore as day from night. Having cut my baby teeth (almost!) on Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis, and, naturally, read slightly later the classics of De Sade and Sacher von Masoch, nothing in this anthology seems shocking or alien to me, though standard vanilla sex readers may have their eyes opened wider, if not their thighs, by the doings.
If I single out a few stories for extra eloquence or depth of understanding, surely Sarai's "Communion" deserves note.
At first, Father Jerome's strokes were slow and measured. He gave me long moments to reflect on the way the pain flowed through me, ripples of anguish spreading from my back through all my limbs. Soon, though, he increased his pace, stalking back and forth behind me like a tiger, slashing at me with all his strength. I was panting and moaning under his assault. I could hear him panting, too.
"Live in the pain, Ursula. Revel in it. Welcome it. Let it wash through you. Let it drown you."
The stories in Sacred Exchange are not all about blinding pain administered with the expected bullwhip, of course. Domination and power exchange is about so much more. In "Small and Pretty" by Jason Rubis, the exchange takes place between Keiko -- a man in drag -- and another man -- his Master -- who play naughty games out in the city's darker environs.
I grab Keiko's wig, taking care not to dislodge it, and pull; his head jerks back. Mr. Leather's dick -- still proudly erect -- pops wetly out of Keiko's mouth. I notice that it curves a little to one side, and is, while a very respectable size, thick rather than long. I wonder if Keiko appreciates that the way I might. I realize he doesn't, and that it doesn't matter in any case.
Bitch, I say, and swing my hand sharply enough that Mr. Leather winces, even though there's no smack of palm connecting with cheek. Slut. Whore. Wait till I get you home.
Though the styles vary, the twenty-two stories in Sacred Exchange are of a matching quality. The interplays between domination and submission, pain and pleasure are as lovingly portrayed as passages from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isabel Allende, or the poetic lyricism of Pablo Neruda. Like all good erotica, it's often what's implied between the lines of printed words that is most striking and powerful.
At bottom (if that's your place), I rate Sacred Exchange at the top (if that's my place) of the newest crop of evocative, provocative erotic anthologies.
