The syrup itself carries magic into the world, too, not just the act of making it. Sex and sweat and the rising sap itself are power enough, no need of blood to turn eros into something else. It’s no business of Dionysus, with his bloodthirsty wild-eyed girls strewing chaos, like the chaos that tore this women’s house apart when once I was not careful. Now I leave that for the vintners and brewers and the moonshiners who boil something stronger than sweet amber syrup. What magic gets bottled into gallons and quarts and pints and why is beyond my knowing, except to know it’s there. Is it for love? For healing? For fruitfulness? That’s Her mystery. All I know is the magic of making it. There must be other places where sweet desire is tapped and made into something the human world can use, shut off as most of it is in concrete and steel and rhythms based on prime time and season premieres instead of sunrise and the circle of the year. This is my part.
I rouse my guest into just enough wakefulness to restore her to her clothes, push her boots back on her feet, bundle her into her coat. She leans on me heavily as I guide her back to the old farmhouse, up the creaking steps to the room where her lover lies sleeping. Has one of them ever woken in the night, nothing but an empty place cooling in the bed beside her? Did she lie there, waiting, becoming afraid? Did she shiver by the window, wondering if she ought to pull on her jeans and boots and go out looking? If she did, she thought better of it and climbed back under the heavy quilt to fall into dreamless sleep, her memory of the night haunted only by the faint scent of wood smoke and sugary steam and the bite of the cold night air. I know how it goes: they will wake together at daybreak, ravenous for each other, and if their lovemaking is a little rougher than it usually is, well, whatever slight sweet bruise, whatever red imprint of a grasping hand, whatever soreness of a woman well-fucked might linger into the light of day, there will be reason for. And neither of them will remember anything else.
The moonlight from the hall window is bright enough to see the liver spots on my gnarled old hand, bright enough to catch a glimpse of my white hair in the mirror by the stairs. I move stiff and slow with weariness, but I must return to keep the fire on til morning. No bed for me, yet; no release for my own want, which the years have never quenched. I am crone now, but maiden still. There is power in that, beyond what comes from the sugar and the rising sap and the hunger of women’s desire for each other.
I bottle the syrup and sell it like any other, never knowing where it goes in the world or what it’s for, except to knit the
green earth’s lust for life back into the human heart where it’s grown so stale of late. That’s not my part. Here in the woods, women come and bring me their hunger for sweetness. I take it and give more back, and mix the two with what the winter trees draw up from the waking earth and send it out to make its magic in the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
ZOË ALEXANDRA is a twenty-one-year-old student at Southern Connecticut State University. She has studied creative writing at New York University and has been published in the summer 2005 edition of
Deconstruction Quarterly
. She is involved with Food Not Bombs New Haven and she likes to cook vegetarian delights, ride her bicycle and hang out with her Shiba Inu, Sasha. She is currently working on a collection of erotic poetry.
D. ALEXANDRIA (
d-alexandria.com
), “Boughetto Princess,” a Jamaican descendant, hails from Boston. Her work has been published in
Best Lesbian Erotica 2005
and
2006, Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2006
and, under the pseudonym Glitter, in
Queer Ramblings Magazine
and
GBF Magazine
. She is a regular contributor to
Kuma2.net
. She is currently penning her first novel and a collection of black lesbian erotica.
TARA ALTON (
taraalton.com
) lives in the Midwest where she works as a travel consultant. When she is not working or writing erotica, she collects tattoos and worships Bettie Page. She has contributed stories to online magazines such as
Clean Sheets
,
Scarlet Letters
, and
Mind Caviar
and her work has been included in the anthologies
Best Lesbian Erotica 2006, The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica,
and
Best Women’s Erotica
.
A. LIZBETH BABCOCK lives in Toronto where she has done extensive work in the queer community, including counseling LGBTQ youth, conducting anti-homophobia workshops, facilitating groups for children of queer parents, and developing programming for lesbians with substance use concerns and for people living with HIV/AIDS. She likes beaches, puppets, and street sausages. This is her first published work.
ANNETTE BEAUMONT is a self-described risk taker. Racing skeleton sleds down iced tracks at speeds exceeding 80 mph paled in comparison to coming out in her late thirties in fear of losing her children. She still enjoys a life of multiple identities. A CEO by day, she finds balance in extreme sports and adventure travel. She bravely admits to attempting her first novel, but her greatest thrill comes from her two children who openly take pride in their lesbian mother.
SUKI BISHOP lives in Northampton, Massachusetts. She has most recently been published in
Painted Bride Quarterly
and
Blithe House Quarterly
. Her story, “Where the Story Lies,” has been nominated for the 2006 Rauxa Prize for erotic fiction.
RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL (
rachelkramerbussel.com
) is senior editor at
Penthouse Variations
, writes the “Lusty Lady” column for
The Village Voice
and hosts In the Flesh Erotic Reading Series. Her books include
Up All Night, First-Timers
,
Glamour Girls
,
Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z
,
Ultimate Undies
,
Sexiest Soles
,
Secret Slaves
, and
Caught Looking: Erotic Tales of Voyeurs and Exhibitionists
. Her writing has been published in over sixty anthologies, including
Best American Erotica
(2004 and 2006) and
Best Lesbian Erotica
(2001, 2004, and 2005), and in
AVN
,
Bust
,
Gothamist
,
Mediabistro
,
New York Post
,
On Our Backs
,
Velvetpark
and others.
JOLIE DU PRÉ (
glbtpromo.com
) is a writer of lesbian erotica. Her work has appeared on the Internet, in e-books and in
Hot & Bothered 4
,
Best Bondage Erotica 2
,
Luscious,
and other print anthologies. She is also the founder of GLBT Promo, a promotional group for GLBT erotica and erotic romance.
SACCHI GREEN writes in western Massachusetts and the mountains of New Hampshire. Her work has appeared in
Best of Best Lesbian Erotica 2
,
Best of Best Women’s Erotica
,
Penthouse
,
Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z
, and a thigh-high stack of other anthologies with inspirational covers. She coedited
Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Lesbian Cowboy Erotica
with Rakelle Valencia, and their second and
third anthologies,
Hard Road, Easy Riding: Lesbian Biker Erotica
and
Lipstick on Her Collar
, are due for release in fall of 2006.
LYNNE JAMNECK (
lynne-jamneck.blogspot.com
) is a naughty girl who doesn’t look it. She’s also a complete geek, a “Battlestar Galactica” fan and a biter of hypocrites. Her dirty little secret is that she’s a fool of a romantic at heart. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous markets including
Best Lesbian Erotica
(2003, 2006),
Sex in The System: Stories of Erotic Futures, Technological Stimulation, and the Sensual Life of Machines
and
Hot Lesbian Erotica
.
SKIAN MCGUIRE is a working-class Quaker who lives in the wilds of western Massachusetts. Skian’s fiction has appeared in many anthologies, webzines, and print periodicals
.
He is the founder and editor of
The Shadow Sacrament
, an online journal of sex and spirituality; the current issue and a call for submissions may be found at
shadowsacrament.com
He is currently in the process of transition from F to M.
ZAEDRYN MEADE is a queer self-defined sugarbutch whose erotica has been published in
Penitalia: Collegiate Erotica
,
Best Lesbian Erotica 2006
, and
Secret Slaves: Erotic Stories of Bondage
. Originally born in Alaska, she now lives in New York City.
ANDREA MILLER’s writing has been published in various anthologies including
Best Women’s Erotica 2005, Lessons in Love: Erotic Interludes 3, Tales of Travelrotica for Lesbians: Erotic Travel Adventures
and three previous editions of the
Best Lesbian Erotica
series. Yes, with her sun in Sagittarius and her moon in Scorpio, she was born to write smut.
PEGGY MUNSON (
peggymunson.com
) is the author of
Origami Striptease
and the editor of
Stricken: Voices from the Hidden Epidemic of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
She has published in
Best American Erotica
(2006 and 2007),
Best Lesbian Erotica
(1998-2005)
, Best American Poetry 2003
,
Tough Girls
,
On Our Backs
,
Blithe House Quarterly
,
Lodestar Quarterly
,
Literature and Medicine
,
San Francisco Bay Guardian
, and many other publications.
JOY PARKS writes articles, interviews and book reviews for the
San Francisco Chronicle
,
The Advocate
and many other GLBT and mainstream publications. Her book column “Sacred Ground” appears regularly in a number of websites and in print. She began writing fiction as a fortieth birthday present to herself and her short stories appear in
Back to Basics
,
Hot & Bothered 4
and
Call of the Dark
. She lives in Ottawa, Canada.
RADCLYFFE is the author of over twenty lesbian novels and anthologies including the 2005 Lambda Literary Award winners
Erotic Interludes 2
, edited with Stacia Seaman, and
Distant Shores, Silent Thunder
. She has selections in multiple anthologies including
Call of the Dark
,
The Perfect Valentine
,
Best Lesbian Erotica 2006
,
First-Timers
,
Ultimate Undies
,
Naughty Spanking Stories 2
, and
Sex and Candy
. She is president of Bold Strokes Books, a lesbian publishing company.
CYNTHIA RAYNE’s first erotic book was written when she was thirteen. The most risqué thing that happened in the book was a chaste kiss, but it was the talk of her middle school! Since then, she has had quite a few of her short stories and novellas e-published. She lives in Ohio where she is currently working on a novel.
JEAN ROBERTA teaches English in a Canadian prairie university. Her erotic stories have appeared in numerous places, including
Best Lesbian Erotica
(2000, 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2006). She sings with Prairie Pride Chorus, which has recently released its first CD,
Watershed Stories
, two suites of songs about GLBT life recorded by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
KYLE WALKER has had a notorious and checkered career, including appearances onstage in Ed Valentine’s
Women Behind the Bush
with En Avant Playwrights, as a karaoke-singing biker in a promo for PBS, and as a contributor to
Best Lesbian Erotica
(2003-2006),
Best of the Best Lesbian Erotica 2
,
A Woman’s Touch
and
Friction 7
. Kyle is forever working on an erotic novel,
What People Want
.
ANNA WATSON is an old-school femme living in the Boston area. She is in a long-distance relationship with her butch Beau, which gives her lots of time for daydreaming about naughty things. Her work has appeared in
The Tokyo Journal
,
Common Lives, Lesbian Lives
,
Mothering
,
Unsupervised Existence
, and the anthology
Shaking the Tree
among others. When she’s not writing smut, she can be found on butch-femme. com chitchatting and having a gay old time.
FIONA ZEDDE (
fionazedde.com
) is a transplanted Jamaican lesbian currently living and working in Atlanta, Georgia. She spends half her days as a starving artist in the city’s fabulous feminist bookstore, Charis Books and More, and the other half chained to her computer working on her novels and on an endless collection of dark and dirty stories that she hopes to get published some day. If you see her, please don’t make jokes about her getting a life. She might bite. Those starving artist types tend to do that.
ABOUT THE EDITORS
Born in Dublin in 1969, EMMA DONOGHUE (
emmadonoghue.com
) is a novelist, play-wright and literary historian. She is best known for her contemporary and historical novels, which include
Stirfry
,
Hood
(winner of the American Library Association’s Gay and Lesbian Book Award),
Life Mask
, and the best-selling
Slammerkin
, which won the Ferro-Grumley Award for Lesbian Fiction. Her books of short stories are
Kissing the Witch
,
The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits
, and
Touchy Subjects
. She has also edited the anthologies
Poems Between Women
and
The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Short Stories
and published two works of lesbian literary history,
Passions Between Women
and
We Are Michael Field
. She lives in Canada with her lover and their son.
TRISTAN TAORMINO (
puckerup.com
) is too busy for her own good. She is the author of three books:
True Lust: Adventures in Sex, Porn and Perversion
,
Down and Dirty Sex Secrets
, and
The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women
, a new, revised edition of which was published in 2006. She is currently at work on a book about polyamory. She has won two Lambda Literary Awards for the
Best Lesbian Erotica
anthology series. She runs Smart Ass Productions, a porn production company, and recently signed on as an exclusive director for Vivid Entertainment; her first video for Vivid,
Chemistry, Volume 1
, was released in September 2006. She is the sex columnist for
The Village Voice
and
Taboo,
and the former editor of
On Our Backs
. She has been featured in over two-hundred publications and has appeared on dozens of radio and television shows including HBO’s “Real Sex,” “The Howard Stern Show,” “Ricki Lake,” and The Discovery Channel. She teaches workshops at colleges and universities, and sex and leather conferences. In addition, she coproduces the semiannual national sex event Dark Odyssey. Along with her partner and their three dogs, Tristan splits her time between New York City and Upstate New York.