Bitten: Dark Erotic Stories [Paperback]

I found "Bitten" almost completely compelling. Like, "reading it raptly until two in the morning" compelling. I'm not even a fan of supernatural erotica... and yet, despite the fact that the erotic buttons this book is pushing are totally not my buttons, it still got me to feel what the writers found erotic about this kind of fantasy -- and what the characters in the stories found erotic about this kind of sex.

Good porn -- like the porn in "Bitten" -- gets you feeling what the characters are feeling. Even if what they're feeling, and doing, is physically impossible. And Susie Bright has a unique eye for good porn... an eye that was wide open with the stories in "Bitten." They are unique. They are exceptionally well written. And to call them "vivid" is a grotesque understatement. Lore Sjoberg once wrote that iced mocha "makes me happy to be alive, in the literal sense that it forcibly alters my brain chemistry." These stories forcibly altered my brain chemistry. It was like being violated, in the best possible way. It was like a masochistic fantasy in which a pitiless, unnervingly perceptive top forces me against my will, not just to do shameful and terrible things, but to want them.

If you like dark, spooky erotic fiction, you need to run to your nearest bookseller and buy this book right now. And if you don't much care for dark, spooky erotic fiction but you're curious to see what the fuss is about, I can't recommend a better place to start.

(Excerpted from a review written on the Blowfish Blog)

This book is gorgeous. If you were browsing in a bookstore instead of online, you wouldn't be able to leave it behind. The silver-black edges and textured snake cover beg to be stroked, flicked, and taken, and the words inside live up to the promise of the beautiful exterior: gothic, mystical, sexy, exotic, and taboo. "Bitten" belongs at the bedside of everyone who reads--or wants to read, or wants their lover to read to them--dark, erotic fiction.

I will spare you yet another tendentious discussion of the difference between erotica and pornography, except to say when you read "Bitten" you'll understand the difference between good and exciting writing about sex and sexuality and tedious, repititious, monotonous porno descriptions of oral sex and the old in and out. Susie Bright, the editor of this lively and imaginative collection asked of her potential contributors that they send her "Perverse fairy tales,Erotic spirits, Sexually compulsive haunts,The baroque savage,Bohemian, post-punk, Dark Wave, an obsession, sacred taboos, a mystical view of the sexual body, Elizabethan, Victorian, Cajun, Latin, African, and Catholic tastes. "Give me," she asks "lugubrious passion, unrelieved thirsts, the lushness of black, the velvet hammer, Noir effects, 'A marked preference for dark colors and sentiments'Sexy-spooky, ethereal carnality, Daily horror as subversive social critique, The erotic arc of the unconscious, The bawdy kitsch and cocky comedy of horror." [I've altered the punctuation and line breaks here, because the solicitation in the introduction is presented as the poem that it is]. By and large, she gets a good deal of what she asks for. The very first story, "The Devil's Invisible Scissors"sets the tone. Gina is a professional 'demon' who snips the souls from her potential lovers as she seduces them. The second tale,"Resurrection Rose," offers us an erotic description of a coupling between a woman and a plant: "The rose's branches rustle furiously as the roots stretch to meet her, one giant crimson thorn extended. Vines creep across Lucy's skin; coarse leaves tease her belly and nipples as her robe drops away. The glossy blade of the thorn is as long as a hunting knife-- black at the hilt, shifting to purple, then crimson, then pink, and finally a pale, pearlescent green. Lucy closes her eyes. The thorn plunges into the top of her breast. She moans as the shaft sinks deeper, little by little." That should be enough to give you a hint of the fresh, creative erotica you'll find in this unusual book. Not all the stories are quite as successful as the first two, but they all take us to places we've rarely, if ever, travelled. You'll want to come along for the ride.