The Mammoth Book of Erotic Romance and Domination Read online

  Maxim Jakubowski is a London-based novelist and editor. He was born in the UK and educated in France. Following a career in book publishing, he opened the world-famous Murder One bookshop in London. He now writes full-time. He has edited over twenty bestselling erotic anthologies and books on erotic photography, as well as many acclaimed crime collections. His novels include It’s You That I Want to Kiss, Because She Thought She Loved Me and On Tenderness Express, all three collected and reprinted in the USA as Skin in Darkness. Other books include Life in the World of Women, The State of Montana, Kiss Me Sadly, Confessions of a Romantic Pornographer, I Was Waiting For You and Ekaterina and the Night. In 2006 he published American Casanova, a major erotic novel, which he edited and on which fifteen of the top erotic writers in the world collaborated, and his collected erotic short stories as Fools For Lust. He compiles two annual acclaimed series for the Mammoth list: Best New Erotica and Best British Crime. He is a winner of the Anthony and the Karel Awards, a frequent TV and radio broadcaster, a past crime columnist for the Guardian newspaper and Literary Director of London’s Crime Scene Festival. Over the past years, he has authored under a pen name a series of Sunday Times bestselling erotic romance novels which have sold over two million copies and been sold to twenty-two countries, and translated the acclaimed French erotic novel Monsieur by Emma Becker.

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  The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 12

  The Mammoth Book of Urban Erotic Confessions

  The Mammoth Book of Quick & Dirty Erotica

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Robinson, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2014

  Copyright introduction and selection © Maxim Jakubowski, 2014 Copyright individual stories © respective authors, 2014

  The right of Maxim Jakubowski to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library

  UK ISBN: 978-1-47211-167-8 (paperback)

  UK ISBN: 978-1-47211-172-2 (ebook)

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  First published in the United States in 2014 by Running Press Book Publishers, A Member of the Perseus Books Group

  All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher.

  Books published by Running Press are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the United States by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 2300 Chestnut Street, Suite 200, Philadelphia, PA 19103, or call (800) 810-4145, ext. 5000, or e-mail [email protected].

  US ISBN: 978-0-7624-5225-5

  US Library of Congress Control Number: 2014931355

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Digit on the right indicates the number of this printing

  Running Press Book Publishers

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  Philadelphia, PA 19103-4371

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  Printed and bound in the UK

  Contents

  INTRODUCTION

  Maxim Jakubowski

  WHITE IS NOT JUST THE COLOUR OF SNOW

  Vina Jackson

  HOW TO HELP A WRITER

  Teresa Noelle Roberts

  AMONG THE TREES

  Matt Thorne

  HOW TO GET SEX WHEN YOU’RE DEAD

  Kristina Lloyd

  THE SLAVE’S REVOLT

  Ilaria Palomba

  BRUSHED

  Kay Jaybee

  [TITLE FORGOTTEN]

  M. Christian

  THE LOCKED ROOM

  Rose de Fer

  CITIES OF WATER

  Maxim Jakubowski

  MONEY

  Clarice Clique

  VANIGLIA

  Stella Knightley

  THE FOUR-POSTER BED

  Rebecca Chance

  BREAKFAST AT THE FARMER’S MARKET

  Thomas S. Roche

  THE TRESPASS K. D.

  Grace

  TELL ME

  Donna George Storey

  SAVING SAGE

  Michael Hemmingson

  TOMORROW NEVER COMES

  Vanessa de Sade

  A VERY DESIRABLE PROPERTY

  Elizabeth Coldwell

  NO GOOD DEED

  James Desborough

  A BREATH OF PEACE

  Jacqueline Applebee

  TIED NOON

  Victoria Janssen

  JULIETT 222

  O’Neil de Noux

  10 A.M. – A DULL CREATURE, OR THE ART OF UGLY ROMANCE

  Kelly Jameson

  SPANISH FLY

  Ian Watson

  DAMNED LOVE

  Lynn Lake

  THE CROP

  Jeff Cott

  I’M WAITING FOR MY MAIL

  Vina Green

  AUTUMN, NAKED, FAR FROM PARIS N. T.

  Morley

  BRIONY REMASTERED

  Justine Elyot

  SEVEN STRIPES OF COLOUR

  Kristina Lloyd

  THE SUBSEQUENT STATE

  M. Christian

  VEILED GIRL WITH LUTE br />
  Remittance Girl

  Introduction

  2012 was the year that erotica changed forever thanks to the success of a certain trilogy.

  Not that the genre hadn’t been around before as my own editing efforts in the field for the past two decades and the stories and novels of countless writers with a taste and talent for erotica can historically demonstrate. But it was the year when it moved from a relatively confidential corner of the bookstores and shelves to a wider and surprising appreciation and acceptance by the reading public, and in the process attracted the silly moniker of “mommy porn” when it was established that so many of it was being lapped up by women with young families. As an aside, I can certainly vouch for this curious segment of the public if only from the comments on the website and Facebook pages of the collaborative alter ego under which I have also committed much literate if commercial fare in the genre and adorned the bestseller lists to my great surprise in the wake of E. L. James.

  What this means for the future of erotic writing is still unclear, as the inevitable flood of copycat books was promptly unleashed on readers by publishers and has quickly muddied the waters and a disorderly retreat is already in progress, but one can only hope that the fad will leave a lasting impression and that, in the future, the sales and popularity of erotica will have moved a few steps ahead from where they stood far back some years ago.

  Of course, the determining factor in the success of Fifty Shades of Grey was the way it opened people’s eyes and minds to the existence and importance of BDSM and its varied practices in the complicated world of sexual relationships and brought them into the open. Not a revelation for us grizzled veterans who had been writing around and about it for ages or the silent majority who had always indulged in real life, but a new world altogether for the average man and woman, it appeared! Where had they been hiding?

  As is well reported, the Victorians freely indulged in the art of spanking and corporal punishment, a BDSM variation of sorts which still remains highly popular in deeds and words, but the genuine introduction of BDSM and its physical as well as psychological games of dominance and submission only fully came to light with the publication of the classic Story of O by Pauline Réage (a pen name for French academic and critic Dominique Aury) in the 1950s, a groundbreaking excursion into the byways of kink and sex which brought BDSM out from the under the counter territory it had long occupied and proudly into the open. Several generations later, and with all due respect to E. L. James’s mega-selling phenomenon, I daresay that no one has bettered Story of O for its visceral and shattering impact and the way it thrust what had previously been taboo sexual practices and games of power into the limelight of the written word and paved the way for so many other, ever more explicit variations by the likes of Anne Rice, Molly Weatherfield, Laura Antoniou, Laura Reese, Michael Perkins, Alison Tyler, Kristina Lloyd, myself even and a whole palette of new erotica practitioners.

  Hence the reason for this new collection: a wish to present to the reading public how varied and imaginative the influence of BDSM is in everyday life and how sexy (and scary) it can prove on the written page. Unlike my annual Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, which mostly relies on previously published material, all the stories included between these covers were written specially for the volume by the absolute crème de la crème of contemporary writing as well as a handful of brand-new talents. Only a few authors I had hoped to include missed the deadline due to personal reasons or because of crowded deadlines, but overall I would venture that the line-up of contributors is one of the most prestigious that could be assembled today, and the contents are likewise challenging and so terribly exciting.

  We open with a sensational new novella by Sunday Times Top 10 bestseller Vina Jackson, which ties in with her recent Eighty Days and Mistress of Night and Dawn novels. Another welcome newcomer to my anthologies is Stella Knightley, whose recent trilogy of sexy romances was one of the best post-F.S.O.G. efforts and who, like Vina Jackson, is also a ferociously colourful writer with a unique eye for kink and works far from the quasi-vanilla shores of the colour grey! Also on-board are Booker Prize-long-listed author Matt Thorne with a most unexpected take on a familiar theme, award-winning Science Fiction star Ian Watson, ebullient bonkbuster queen Rebecca Chance and the dazzling new star of Italian erotica, Ilaria Palomba as well as the very top ranks of British and American authors on their very best and worst behaviour . . .

  Much to savour and make your eyes spin: imagination truly unbridled. But don’t try any of this at home, please!

  On a sad note, I would like to dedicate this anthology to the memory of Michael Hemmingson, who died shortly after delivering his story. He was a great friend, collaborator and writer who will be sadly missed.

  Maxim Jakubowski

  White is Not Just the Colour of Snow

  Vina Jackson

  As far back as she remembered Nelle had always dreamed in black and white. Colour never came into the equation. The illogical and haunting events that surged out of nowhere when she slept were also invariably soundless, like a silent movie although a touch more explicit than early days cinema would ever have allowed.

  Even the blood that often gushed was white in this strange world of her perverse imagination.

  There were moments when her conscious mind half realized she was moving through a dream and made a clumsy attempt to influence the plot or the outcome but it was, time and time again, to no avail. The dream kept to its inexorable path and she was carried by its tides to the ever-distant but fixed conclusion when she would wake, damp with sweat, her heart palpitating to the rhythm of a tango or pounding like death metal music. Breathless. Panicked. Lost.

  She often tried to recall the strange course of events that had swept over her mind, and body, during the actual dream, but as soon as her soul found peace and she was able to orientate her consciousness, it all crumbled, vanished into a confused mass of faraway clouds, shards flying away to all corners of her memory, and the screen in her brain was just a Cinemascope landscape of white as far as the eye could see.

  Lately, however neutral it was as a colour, black had been draining away from her dreams and all she could remember hours later was an immensity of white. Devouring both the land and the sky. Through which she fell, ran, stumbled, drowned. As you do in dreams.

  That morning, she had rushed from the bed while it was still dark outside and made her way to the bathroom and stood for ages under the hot cascade of the shower, half dazed by the heavy sense of oppression and fear the dream had left her in the grip of. Water was dripping from her hair and shoulders as she slipped into her bathrobe without bothering to dry herself and walked downstairs to the kitchen. She had slept alone. Joseph had not joined her and had likely spent the night in his study.

  He was sitting at the counter, absorbed by the eerie glow of his laptop screen, sipping a coffee. He didn’t look up when she came in.

  “Hi,” Nelle said. “You didn’t come to bed last night. Did you complete your research?”

  He raised his eyes. “Your hair is still wet. You’ll catch a cold,” he replied, ignoring her question.

  Nelle was unsure whether the remote prospect of her falling ill would pain or inconvenience him. His tone was so neutral. He was always like this when working on a new trick. But before she could protest, Joseph spoke again.

  “You must take next week off work. We’ll be going north.”

  Nelle shivered. “The Ball?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Where?”

  “Far. It is to be a White Ball,” Joseph said.

  So this was it, she recognized. What she had been both fearing and expecting for some time now. The event that they had talked about for so long. That Joseph had attended in the past, but never with her. She hadn’t been ready, he’d said. Maybe the reason why her dreams of the past weeks had gradually been morphing into something else, as if the unconscious part of her brain had already been preparing her for the days to c
ome. She shuddered. Her body tingled with anticipation. They ate their breakfast in silence, lightly toasted bagels with a thick spread of cream cheese and then she noticed she was on the point of being late and rushed upstairs to dress and ran out of the house with just a wave goodbye to Joseph, who barely looked up, as she straddled her bike, and pedalled down the grey road, her wheels crunching the autumn leaves.

  Even now, the memory of their first meeting was etched on her mind like writing on a stone tablet.

  Nelle had been distracted. Living on autopilot, relying on her innate sense of grammar and punctuation to get her through the working days that she had previously relished, and barely awake the rest of the time. Still hungover on a past relationship that was leading nowhere slow and had eventually petered out with not even a sense of relief, leaving her wondering whether she had it in her to ever be happy. Or at any rate content.

  Joseph was an up-and-coming magician. He had something of a cult reputation, she had read in a magazine article, compounded by his refusal to ever perform on television. He had been signed up by one of the small publishing houses she had worked for as a freelance copy editor for several years, and his manuscript had only recently been assigned to her. Nelle had received the commission with his copy attached out of the blue, and then been told by one of the publishing company’s administrators that another copy editor had been offended by the contents of his work, stopped midway and had asked to be reassigned, slowing down the whole process.

  Nelle had expected the book landing in her lap would be one explaining his tricks and the art of subterfuge and trick-ery, but it was, surprisingly, actually a novel.

  Had Nelle been less distracted at the time, she probably would have been intrigued at the thought of reading whatever had left one of her colleagues so inflamed, but she merely added the script to her electronic to-do list and then continued with her work, barely registering the interruption to her schedule.