When I first started writing erotica in 1999, I would often get the question, “What, exactly, is erotica?” Nowadays, in our post- Fifty Shades of Grey world, I rarely get that kind of confusion. Instead, there remains a bit of a misconception that all of modern erotica is somehow similar to Fifty Shades, with female submissives being the name of the game.
The truth: There’s a lot to discover about the genre beyond E.L. James’ massive bestseller. I should know; I’ve edited more than 60 erotica anthologies and have read hundreds of stories for the Best Women’s Erotica of the Year series I curate. Writing erotica has irrevocably changed my life, and has given me new perspectives on my own sexuality as well as those of my fellow human beings.
The past decade has seen a boom in women turning to the page to detail sexy stories that would very likely make even Christian Grey blush. And for anyone who knocks erotica as anything less than an art form, it’s interesting to note that of the 130 erotic authors recently surveyed by writer Emmanuelle de Maupassant, roughly 30% of respondents said they have formally studied literature.
Women writers come to the world of erotica for different reasons: some as a business opportunity, some to safely explore sexual fantasies they can’t share in their real lives, and some simply to create hot stories that will arouse readers. While I’m firmly of the mindset that fiction is just that, fiction, and can’t be used to divine real-life trends in sexuality, I do think it’s a positive for women that erotic fiction has become more mainstream. Not having erotica tucked away into some dark corner sends the message that it’s okay to think about sex, to think about what turns you on. Erotica gives us permission, in case we didn’t have it already, to acknowledge ourselves as sexual, and sexy, beings, whose desires may be far more complicated than we’re often led to believe.
The fact that erotica, along with erotic romance — from blockbuster print bestsellers to upstart indie ebook publishers to websites and magazines like Congress — is now so widely available means that we are becoming more comfortable talking about sex, including some deeply kinky sex. Take a stroll through any given bookstore romance section and you’re just as likely to see handcuffs as you are Fabio-esque images. Female authors are writing about straight women, lesbian women, bisexual women, male-male erotica, and beyond, and in the process, giving their fellow readers access to all sorts of models of sexual fulfillment that don’t fit any kind of mold.
When Refinery29 asked me to curate a selection of what’s hot in erotica written by women, I wanted to bring you a sampling of that kind of variety. Ahead, you’ll find excerpts from some of today’s top erotic writers, with stories ranging from sweet to filthy, with just about everything in between. These authors have brought forth the heart of what makes sex such a delight by capturing the lusty, down-and-dirty moments right alongside the emotional nuances that make these stories worth reading — and re-reading.
This time, we’re starting with a handful of steamy stories, but we’ll be featuring a new story every month. Even if you think erotica is not your cup of tea, I hope you’ll check the excerpts out in case something strikes your fancy. And if you have suggestions for authors our readers should know about, please leave a comment sharing your favorites!
From The Boss by Abigail Barnette
I couldn’t believe I was doing this. I couldn’t believe it was actually happening, after six years. After I had given up hope of ever having a sexual experience as satisfying as my night with Leif. Every muscle in my body tensed with anticipation. My breath caught in my chest as my fingers ventured down, under the black lace of my panties. I thought back to my white cotton underpants that night at the Crowne Plaza, and I giggled to myself. If anyone had told me back then that I’d be sex-ambushing the man six years later, I wouldn’t have believed I would have the nerve.
I closed my eyes and stroked two fingers down my slit. My hips lifted. I’d been so eager for this moment, now it seemed like my skin was too sensitive to touch. I thought of what Neil would see when he walked in, and remembered the undisguised appreciation in his eyes while he’d watched our hands on my body.
My stomach fluttered with nervous butterflies. What if he was expecting the girl from six years ago, who’d only had sex with fumbling teenage boys? What if he got here and was turned off by my initiative? After all, he’d found my naiveté so endearing the last time we were together.
Oh shut up, I scolded myself. Would you really want to fuck a guy who only wanted you for your sexual inexperience? No, because that would be weird.
I’d made a salient point, I had to concede.
My fingertips circled my clit, and a shaky breath stuttered across my lips. My flesh felt hot and heavy under my hand, and I cupped myself, letting my fingers slip between the folds of my sex.
The door clicked open, and the weight of my desire became like an electric current. My lungs seized, my limbs quivered. I opened my eyes, a soft groan escaping me when I saw Neil there. He closed the door and dropped his messenger bag. His gaze met mine and held it as he walked toward me in his long black coat and leather gloves. I don’t know how I managed to maintain eye contact, but I did, and I had never felt so sexy in my entire life. Why had I ever doubted that this would please him?
His maddeningly neutral expression gave nothing away, but he couldn’t disguise the hunger in his eyes. Oh, he wanted me. He stood over me, looking down as I continued to move my hand beneath my panties.
“Take those off.”
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Illustrated by: Anna Sudit.
From S.E.C.R.E.T. Shared by L. Marie Adeline
We made it down the short aisle. Standing in front of the cockpit door, she gave three quick knocks. A second later, a sandy-haired young man with thick glasses and a space between his front teeth poked his head out. Oh dear. I hated to admit that my shallow Southern heart sank, though I politely pulled my grin a little wider, reminding myself what the C in S.E.C.R.E.T. stood for. If my fantasy man wasn’t... compelling, I didn’t have to go through with the fantasy.
“Is this our lovely visitor?” he asked with a lisp. Oh dear.
“Yes,” the flight attendant said. “Miss Dauphine Mason, this is our multitalented First Officer Friar. Miss Mason is keen to see what goes on in here. It might help her with her fear of flying.”
“Ah, yes. Dispel the mystery and the fear disperses. That’s Captain Nathan’s specialty. He can show you around while I stretch my legs. Three’s a crowd in here! Good luck!”
After mangling all those S’s, First Officer Friar made a beeline to the back of the plane. Out the window in front was a dark sky; below, nothing but black water. The high whine of the engines masked the screams in my own head as my legs now turned to cement. Eileen nudged me through the narrow doorway.
“I’ll be back in a little while,” she said, looking at her watch. “Enjoy your flying lesson.” She shut the door behind her.
The pilot sat silhouetted in the window. The only thing I could see above the seat was the back of his head. He wasn’t wearing a jacket, only his white shirt, the muscles on his arms apparent beneath his sleeves as he flicked a number of switches from left to right on a panel in front of him. Thankfully, the white noise drowned out my pounding heart.
“Be with you in a moment, Dauphine. I just want to make sure autopilot’s running smoothly. A robot takes over for most of the flight from now on. A very smart one.” There it was. That accent again. The man from Security! The man with the sexy British accent! The air left my chest and the pressure squeezed my lungs. Feeling tantalized and terrified at that same time had a bad effect on my stomach. I slapped both hands on the curved walls of the cockpit to steady myself as the plane rose and straightened. The pilot faced a wall of lights and levers that seemed to blink and shift on their own. Then he finally turned his chair around, aviators off, brown eyes on me. I gasped. “Don’t worry, we’re on automatic, but we’re not going to be alone in here for long, so I apologize ahead of time for the furtive nature of our interlude,” he said, loosening the top button of his uniform. “But I need to know, before we continue with our tutorial on the safety of flight: Do you accept the Step, Miss Mason?”
I couldn’t believe this was happening. “Here? Now?”
“Yes. Here and now. Trust me when I say I can help you with your fear of flying. And a few other things too, I suspect,” he said, leaning back into the plush leather of his pilot seat, taking me in from bottom to top.
“I’ve never been in an airplane before,” I muttered, stalling.
“I understand that,” he said, steepling his fingers. “But you are doing a fine job of your first time.”
Standing four feet from a complicated instrument panel that the pilot was no longer facing, I watched dark clouds whip by the nose of the plane through the high, narrow windows.
“Are we...safe in here?”
“Very safe,” he said. “Safer than driving. Safer than almost any other activity you can do at hundreds of miles an hour, high in the air.”
“What if there’s turbulence?” I asked, just as we hit a little bump. I yelped. My arms flew up to grasp the ceiling.
He took it as a cue to gesture me over to him.
Here we go! I slowly, carefully, closed the gap between us, and over his shoulder got a better view of the world before me. It was dusk, but light poked through the clouds, illuminating little towns and villages nestled in the foot of a mountain range. They looked like a strand of jewels dropped from a great height. It was beautiful, but still I felt gut-punched and queasy. Levers and buttons continued to move in a ghostly way all around us.
“Turbulence is just air pockets. The plane will ride through it. And I’m right here if anything goes awry.”
I stood above him now, his head level with my breasts. “Do you accept the Step?” Handsome face, kind eyes, great smell, manly hands, but the clincher truly was his beautifully tailored shirt. Terribly shallow, I know.
“Yes, I accept.”
“Then may I help you off with your knickers?”
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Illustrated by: Anna Sudit.
From The Virgin by Tiffany Reisz
Now, here they were, alone in Kingsley’s bedroom. And she was going to hurt him. And she’d never done anything like this before in her life. Where did she start?
She took a step back and looked Kingsley up and down. He needed something. Not a collar, but something, something to make everything different between them.
“How do you feel about blindfolds?” she asked.
“I don’t mind them, but I’d rather see you.”
Stepping back in front of him, she started to unbutton his vest. She’d undressed him before, at his command, but never of her own volition. He stood there, still and submissive, letting her pull the vest down and off his arms. She thought about folding it, thought about hanging it up. This was part of one of Kingsley’s sexiest Regency-style suits, after all. And likely, one of his most expensive. Instead, she paused, looked at it, and then dropped it on the floor.
“You’re more like him than you can possibly know,” Kingsley said.
To which Eleanor replied, “Don’t speak until spoken to.”
Kingsley bowed his head in apology. She felt something new surging through her veins, something sweet and spiked and utterly intoxicating.
Power.
Kingsley remained still as she unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it out of his trousers. He had such a beautiful body — all lean muscle and old scars — that she couldn’t stop herself from kissing his naked shoulder as she pushed his shirt down his arms. First, a kiss on the naked shoulder; then, on the naked bicep. Then, the naked forearm and the naked wrist.
The naked wrist.
She left him standing there while she went down on her hands and knees by the bed. She pulled out a suitcase and opened it up. Inside was bondage equipment — ropes, adjustable spreader bars, cuffs, and collars.
And gauntlets.
She took out two black leather gauntlets and laid them on the bed. She’d seen male submissives at The Eighth Circle wearing various sorts of leather. Bicep cuffs, chest harnesses, but her favorite were the gauntlets. They looked so medieval, like something a knight would wear under his armor. And after a battle, he’d strip down to nothing but the dirt and sweat and the leather braces on his wrists.
Eleanor lifted Kingsley’s arm and held it against her chest. She wrapped the brace around his forearm and laced it.
“You like leather?” he asked. His voice was soft and the gentleness of his tone made her even more nervous.
“Yeah, I do. On men, especially.”
“Why did you never tell me?”
She glanced up at him. “You never asked.”
Kingsley narrowed his eyes at her. “I should have asked. What other secrets are you keeping in here?”
He touched her temple and let his fingers trail down until they rested on her chest, under her shirt and over her heart.
“Lots of secrets,” she whispered.
“Tell me all your secrets. Tell me everything you want.”
“You,” she said. “Like this.”
“Like what?”
“Submissive to me.”
“You’ve fantasized about this?” he asked. “About me submitting to you?”
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Illustrated by: Anna Sudit.
From To Italy with Love by Fiona Zedde
“Show me your room.”
It was Chrisanne’s voice that did it. Low and urgent with heat, it made Iris’ panties pull tight against her moistening flesh. But even though Chrisanne demanded to see her room, she pushed into Iris’ hips with her own. Iris whimpered at the press of her stiffening dick between them. She blindly reached for Chrisanne and slotted their mouths together. Twin groans filled the kitchen.
“I missed the way you taste,” she gasped into Chrisanne’s mouth.
It was more the way she kissed, an all-in sensuous dance of tongue and lips, her mouth latching on to Iris’ like there was no other sustenance she needed. A hot and sweet sucking on her tongue while her hands roamed over Iris’ back and low on her hips, pressing them urgently together.
Chrisanne pulled back. “If you don’t want me to get pussy juice all over your kitchen counter, you need to show me to your room, now.”
But Chrisanne was already moving them back, guiding Iris toward where she guessed the bedroom was. Her guess was good enough, so Iris closed her eyes and enjoyed the feel of that hot mouth on hers, the firm pressure of Chrisanne’s thumbs tilting up her jaw so she could nibble and suck her neck. Iris shivered, then winced when her shoulder hit a doorway. Her eyes flew open.
Yes, the bedroom…this way.
She guided Chrisanne past the guest bathroom and to the bedroom. She scrabbled backward with her hand for the door handle, turned it, and pushed it open.
Chrisanne stopped dead. “Where is your bed?”
Fuck.
In the rush of all the blood in her body flooding south, she forgot about the lack of an actual bed in her bedroom. Since Jasmyn left and took her bed — she’d called to curse her out and demand it back — she’d been sleeping on a pile of comforters in the middle of room. But that didn’t matter now.
“My ex.” Iris squeezed Chrisanne’s breasts through her tank top. “She took it.”
“Fuck her then.”
“No.” She fumbled with the buttons of Chrisanne’s jeans. “You fuck me.”
“You’re so corny.” But she seemed very much on board with that plan, yanking down the zipper of Iris’ dress and pulling it off to toss it carelessly aside. “Shit.” Chrisanne stepped back. “I actually forgot how beautiful you were.” She stared at Iris’ body, on display in (thankfully) matching bra and panties.
Iris was soaking wet and desperate to get her mouth all over Chrisanne. She yanked down her own panties and got rid of her bra. “Stop telling me and show me.”
“Fuck, you’re bossy.”
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Illustrated by: Anna Sudit.
From The Unicorn by Delphine Dryden
There was a tempo to it, Daniel had realized. A way to pace things, to keep it all in hand. The pain, the rest, the repositioning. The natural end to one whip’s usefulness, and the logical time to pick up a different toy. He was better organized tonight and determined not to accidentally deviate from his planned scene.
Mara’s ass and upper thighs were rosy, glowing from the flogger and vivid red in a few spots from the tawse, but not so bad he needed to stop yet. She was drifting in subspace, and probably able to take more pain now. Give that freshly whipped skin a few moments to recover, he knew, and it would be sensitive beyond belief.
The cane was slender, some translucent fiber rather than bamboo, and slightly whippy. He tested it on his palm awhile, figuring out how it would fly in the air, realizing he would not need to use his wrist as much. A short, almost choppy, flat stroke.
First, more questions.
“What about tabletop games?”
“Uh...you mean like Monopoly, or RPGs? Or European-style? All of them are yes.”
“Nice. Who shot first?”
“Greedo! Just kidding, just kidding. Han, duh.”
The duh thing couldn’t be allowed to stand. Daniel brought the cane down across the crest of her rump. It sounded thuddier than he’d expected. Mara’s reaction, a shocked gasp, was very gratifying. He gave her a few seconds to let her decide whether to continue.
“Original series or Next Generation?”
She answered this one more promptly. “Both, but for different reasons.”
“Fair enough.”
Delia grumbled. “Picard forever. Also Seven of Nine forever.”
Mara lifted her face from the horse; tears streaked the cheek Daniel could see, but she didn’t sound upset when she spoke to Delia. “You are not one of those Voyager people?”
“No!” Delia stroked her dark hair, hastening to reassure her. “No, I just think Jeri Ryan is really hot. Just throwing it out there.”
“Everybody thinks she’s really hot.”
Daniel cleared his throat, getting the subs back on task. He didn’t really mind the conversation, though. He liked the apparent truth-serum effect of the whips. Mara had opened up some online, while they were playing, but he wanted to know more. Delia had wanted to know more, too. And asking her random things seemed to keep Mara from getting too trancy. Maybe it would let the scene draw out a while longer.
But after a few more questions and strokes of the cane, he was having trouble thinking up stuff to ask her. There was so much eye candy in the room he was really mostly proud of himself for not actively drooling. And Mara, he could tell all too plainly, was already so aroused. Her pert, rounded ass was moving in tiny circles between strokes, as she tried to rub against the nap of the time-softened leather bench. And her mouth kept making an O shape that drove him insane with lust.
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Illustrated by: Anna Sudit.
From “Appetizer” by Sommer Marsden in The Sexy Librarian’s Big Book of Erotica edited by Rose Caraway
“Remember now, Ollie,” Jamie said. “Just tongue, lips, teeth. No fingers. No penetration. That’s for me. Not for you.”
“Got it,” Oliver said. He sounded as breathless as I felt.
He looked me over slowly at first. My cheeks burned with embarrassment tinted with need. What did he think of me? Of this? Of us? But then I saw the hump in his khakis and realized he had an erection. A quite sizable one if I wasn’t mistaken. I forgot all that when he bent forward, almost as if in prayer, and kissed my inner thighs. First one, then the other. He dragged his soft bee-stung lips up to the very top of my thigh where the skin was the most sensitive. He kissed a maddeningly soft line across my mound and then down the other side. When my hips lifted up to meet his mouth, to tempt him, he finally gave us both what we clearly wanted. His mouth clamped down on me, his lips soft and hot. His tongue parted me, slickening my already juicy pussy with his saliva. His tongue painted insistent swirls on my clitoris until I was gripping the arms of the chair and moving my body up to meet him.
Jamie sat and watched. His cock was hard, that much I could tell. His eyes were shiny, mouth set in a fine amused line. He was enjoying this almost as much as me, I realized with what bordered on shock.
It had never occurred to me that this fantasy of mine did anything for him. But clearly it did.
“Make her come,” he whispered.
Oliver sealed his mouth to me, using the rigid tip of his tongue to nudge my clit over and over and over until I was panting for breath. Then he stopped. His mouth hovered near my pussy, but he’d pulled back. He didn’t touch me. My head pounded with blood, and I shifted restlessly. I wanted to come. I needed to come. Desperately.
Oliver glanced up at me with his pretty, gem-colored eyes and gave me a crooked grin. Then he blew warm breath across my damp sex. Before I could register this new tactic, his mouth was back on me, his tongue back at me. Working me.
I came with a rough cry and an eager thrust of my hips. Thrusting up with such a force I felt the bite of his upper teeth against the smooth skin of my mound.
I sank back and sighed. Then I began to laugh.
“Good?” Jamie asked. I could tell he was asking both of us.
“Good,” I echoed, trying to catch my breath.
“One more?” Oliver said.
Before I could answer, Jamie nodded once and said, “Yeah, but after that first one she’s really sensitive. So you’ll have to hold her legs.”
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Illustrated by: Anna Sudit.Like what you see? How about some more R29 goodness, right here?
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