I love the positive feedback I've been getting for having a woman of color on the cover of
Surrender: Erotic Tales of Female Pleasure and Submission. Which is here! In stores probably next week. The cover photo was shot by the one and only
Barbara Nitke, who I am incredibly honored to have worked with. Introduction is below (might have been tweaked in copyediting, for some reason I don't have that final file, but I'll go over it and correct if if any little things are amiss).
Buy
Surrender from:
Amazon.comKindle editionBn.com (Barnes & Noble)Books-a-MillionBordersPowell'sIndieBound (find your local independent bookstore)Cleis PressIntroduction: Surrendering to Pleasure—and Power
Dear Professor Pervert Donna George Storey
Daddy’s Girl Teresa Noelle Roberts
Power Over Power Emerald
The Chair Lolita Lopez
Without Eyes Terri Pray
The Hardest Part Alison Tyler
Rapunzel Jacqueline Applebee
The Royalton–A Daray Tale Tess Danesi
The Sun is an Ordinary Star Shanna Germain
Belted Rachel Kramer Bussel
Lunch Elizabeth Coldwell
Schoolgirl and Angel Thomas S. Roche
First Date with the Dom Noelle Keely
In Control M. Christian
Wild Child Matt Conklin
Brianna’s Fire Amanda Earl
Forceful Personalities Dominic Santi
Veronica’s Body Isabelle Gray
The London O Justine Elyot
Pink Cheeks Fiona Locke
How Bad Do You Want It? Gwen Masters
Stripped Clancy Nacht
Introduction: Surrendering to Pleasure—and Power
I’m not surprised to learn that female submission is a hot topic. For the many women who fantasize about giving up control, bending over, hearing the click of a pair of handcuffs or engaging in kinky roleplay, that desire can consume them—and lead them to some wicked fantasies.
The stories here run the gamut from couples engaged in hardcore kink to the psychology of submission, with everything from coming in public to submitting to a Krav Maga teacher.
Whether you know you’re a submissive (sometimes or all the time, or just in your head) or you’re curious, this book rums the gamut and is an opportunity to read about things you might want to try, some you’d never dare, and some that will likely stay in your mind (and other body parts) for a long time to come. For me, the best erotica not only arouses my senses, as well as my libido, but takes me all the way into the character who’s experiencing such deliciously exciting erotic encounters.
These encounters are mostly focused on the women, the brats, the subs, the bad girls, but in them, you will find the most wicked of tops—wickedly insightful, wickedly mean, wickedly sadistic, wickedly keen on prompting pleasure out of these women who have chosen them to surrender to. These are the men who know the right time to push a woman’s buttons—and boundaries—who concoct vivid experiments in kink. Some of these tales are from their point of view, offering insight into what it’s like to desire a woman to be bound and at their mercy.
I shouldn’t have to say this, but I feel I must: these stories are not about men violating women. They are not about women being abused or mistreated. They are about women accessing a side of themselves that many of us bury, precisely because we feel it’s not “feminist” enough or is somehow otherwise politically incorrect to want to kneel, bend over, open our mouths, spread our legs, submit, and surrender. As Dominic says in “Power Over Power” to his student, Jackie: “You’re looking for power. In your own way, getting fucked rough like that will make you feel powerful. Is that right?” Vince echoes this to his wife in “Veronica’s Body” when he instructs her, “Don’t ever back down from me.” He wants a woman who can meet him in bed as an equal partner even as he whips her until she trembles. When he disciplines her, it’s an act of love as much as, if not more than, it’s an act of kinkiness.
Good BDSM erotica makes you understand all the emotions that can come into play when, well, playing: there can be uncertainty, nervousness, fear, excitement. I selected each of the 22 stories in
Surrender because they’re blazingly hot and because they illuminate some aspect of submission that I think is
The authors of the stories you’re about to read understand the art of submission and the thrill of surrender, whether that’s personal space, sight (“Without Eyes” by Terri Pray) or culinary choices (“Lunch” by Elizabeth Coldwell).
What the women here want is to give up part of themselves to gain something else. They may still be skittish, but overcoming their fears, surrendering to them, yields beauty, pleasure and, in its way, power.
In “Dear Professor Pervert,” a student learns several very kinky lessons about how to get off—and follow orders.
With “Daddy’s Girl,” Teresa Noelle Roberts takes the topic of Daddy/girl play which, I fully confess, is not something I normally enjoy reading, and turns it into a kinky roleplaying tale which stays hot throughout while also explaining the Daddy dynamic. Emerald delivers a riveting tale of power play in “Power Over Power,” where a Krav Maga instructor shows his student that the heart of her true power lies in her owning her submission and baring more than just her body.
In “The Chair,” the title object becomes the ultimate sex toy for Cal to use in teasing and tormenting Lily, while Susan in “Without Eyes,” goes from being irate to being on her knees in moments.
Anticipation is often the hottest part of a scene, with the sub wondering when and how the action will happen. In “The Hardest Part,” Alison Tyler offers up the exquisite torture of waiting for your kinky fantasies to come true:
I’m over his lap. I’ve been needing a spanking for too long, and he’s been making me wait. In spite of everything I’ve done, he’s ignored the signals. I’ve been bratty. I’ve been bad. I may as well have worn a t-shirt with the words SPANK ME in bold scarlet letters across the front.
With “Rapunzel,” Jacqueline Applebee, when a woman agrees to give up her long locks, she bares herself in an unexpected way (any woman who’s ever submitted to a hairdresser’s chair knows the tension and masochism involved!), while in “The Royalton-A Daray Tale,” Tess Danesi makes a kinky fantasy come true in an upscale hotel.
With “The Sun is an Ordinary Story,” Shanna Germain takes something you wouldn’t expect to read about in an erotica book—cancer—and offers up a vitally human story about the transformative power of kink and how getting back to playing rough makes one woman feel more alive than ever.
In my story “Belted,” the narrator wonders what it is about her lover that turns her on quite so much:
Is it the belt that makes you come? The leather, the thrash, the pain, the jolt? Is it the force behind it? Is it the noises he makes as he does it, the hitches of breath that are nothing like your shuddering sobs but are music to your ears nonetheless--is that what makes you finally go over the edge? Is it him holding you down, him promising you pain that may or may not come?I love stories that delve into the psychology of BDSM, and few writers do that better than Elizabeth Coldwell. With “Lunch,” she will not only have you eyeing your fellow deli customers with a keener eye, but also showing the erotic potential within even the smallest decisions, once we’ve given up the decision making power to someone else.
Erotica impresario Thomas S. Roche gives us “Schoolgirl and Angel,” a top and his sub find a new plaything at a dungeon party, one who’s a little more mouthy than they’re used to. Serena winds up taking off her panties in public, among many other things, in “First Date with the Dom.”
Sometimes a bratty girl doesn’t even know she’s begging to be put in her place, or how much she might like someone else taking control. In “Wild Child” by Matt Conklin, an older man sees beneath the veneer of the young woman sitting next to him on a plane, all too happy to show her what true rebellion is all about. In “Brianna’s Fire” by Amanda Earl, a slave is put to the test, while “Forceful Personalities” come into play when Christa takes a while to submit, even though she wants to, desperately. That tension between wanting to be as slutty as we are in our fantasies, and actually doing it, plays out in numerous other stories as well. A tourist attraction provides a welcome opportunity for public sex in Justine Elyot’s “The London O.”
“In Control” takes us online, to a chat room whose participants XX, while in Fiona Locke’s “Pink Cheeks,” a woman who’s been lurking in another online forum finds out what happens when someone she sees every day finds out her naughtiest secrets. Finally, in Gwen Masters’ “How Bad Do You Want It?” she asks the title question, which I might turn over to you, dear reader. I have a feeling you want it very, very badly, “it” being all the most out-there, I-could-never (yet I can’t stop thinking about them) fantasies that flirt at the edges of your mind when you are getting yourself off, alone or with a partner.
Rachel Kramer Bussel
New York City
Labels: anthologies, anthology, Barbara Nitke, bdsm, Belted, book covers, Cleis Press, Donna George Storey, hot book covers, Rachel Kramer Bussel, submission, submissive, Surrender, Tess Danesi
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