Newly out and still in high school, I spent many Friday evenings abandoning my friends in our favorite coffee shop and sneaking next door to the local LGBT bookstore to read lesbian smut. By age 17, I had devoured enough of the stuff to 1) begin to pooh-pooh poor fucking diction, and 2) cling lovingly to a handful of favorite, increasingly dog-eared tomes.

More than 10 years later, I’m happy to find the state of the genre much improved in Lipstick on Her Collar, an erotica anthology edited by writers Sacchi Green and Rakelle Valencia. Imbued with a healthy heaping of femme appreciation, this collection includes stories that take on butch/femme, femme/femme, power play, dykes with disabilities, strapping it on and seducing everyone from the girl next door, to your ex, to your students, professors and employees.

While some stories are more memorable and sexy than others, I daresay there isn’t a true clunker in the bunch — and that, in itself, is something of an achievement. (I did sniff disdainfully, if only momentarily, at two writers who made use of erotica personal pet peeve words: “damp” and “vagina.” Hmmph.) Some of the stories even sent blood rushing to my brain along with the influx to more low-lying regions, inspiring contemplation as well as sweaty, naughty feelings.

In particular, two stories which got my brain working stand out among the rest. “Indentured Servant” by Jean Roberta is a tale of PC, submissive femme meets Archie Bunker in butch dyke’s clothing. Blurring the borders between safe and sane and mind games, the story’s rough edges enhance the hotness, even if it left me scratching my head and wondering if I was more offended or turned on. At any rate, it was memorable! The same goes for “Imaging” by Sharon Waschsler, which doubles as a remarkably layered, tragic character sketch. In this one, a disabled butch dyke alcoholic comes face to face with her ill-used ex under unusual circumstances, and the most squirm-worthy revenge fuck of all time ensues.

Ex sex is the order of the day as well in “Hello, Kitty,” by Rachel Kramer Bussel, in which the use of language is as pleasing to the ears and eyes as is the depiction of femme power. This one is just visceral and messed up enough to make the narrator’s spontaneous erotic ritual read as an especially powerful act of self-healing. Domination and submission is a theme that is played with throughout the anthology, whether the game is well-known to the participants and outfitted with the latest in accoutrements, or whether it’s a simple matter of politics and power between student and teacher, as in “Women’s Studies” by Kristina Wright. Honestly, who among us hasn’t spent many a fond, if distracted, afternoon in class lusting after the professor? This story is vicarious glee and lustful nostalgia at its best.

A smattering of historical fiction pieces changes things up nicely, ranging as far back as the Great War and as recent as Vietnam. The latter story, by editor Sacchi Green and from which the anthology takes its name, is a strong offering, playing with the idea of lesbian visibility in the armed forces long before Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

There are plenty of standouts here. I would be remiss not to mention “Holy Fruit” by Andrea Miller, which is probably the most daring of the bunch in what it finds erotic, and also sports some of the most gorgeously mythic language of the collection. But my two favorites here were definitely “Kingdom Cum” by Scarlett French and Barret Bonden’s “Now and Then.” The first is a luscious ode to the hotness of drag performance and the sacredness of finding precisely what you need, as well as the next step in your journey in the arms of a lover, even if it’s a one-time encounter. On the opposite end of the relationship spectrum, “Now and Then” features a long-term couple who know each other’s bodies and desires by heart, and still manage most admirably to keep things not just fresh, but blisteringly hot. Boasting some of the best kink play and dirty talk to be found here, this story marvelously articulates and then revels in the unique joy of the butch/femme, dominant top/submissive bottom dynamic. Blazing, incandescently hot!

All in all? This book has a little something likely to get just about any girl (or boi) feeling hot under the collar, lipstick or no.

Lipstick on Her Collar, Edited by Sacchi Green & Rakelle Valencia

Pretty Things Press, 2008
ISBN: 1576122980
Paperback, 196 pages
GENRE(S): Erotica, Lesbian