Review: Frank/Eva from Sudden Sex

Well, I have lots going on at the moment, with two new anthologies out with my stories in them: gay erotic romance collection Lust in Time, which you can read my blog post about here, and Smut Alfresco, which I'll be telling you all about later in the week.

But today, I'm pleased to bring you a review of two paired stories from the new Cleis Press anthology Sudden Sex: 69 Sultry Short Stories, edited by Alison Tyler. Thanks to Alison for letting me be part of the mammoth blog tour she's juggling for this fab anthology. 

The stories 'Frank' and 'Eva' by Donna George Storey provide two viewpoints on the same event. The wife and then the husband give their version of their dirty break in a cottage suite at a rural holiday complex. There’s nothing like a quaint country cottage for providing the perfect setting for kinky games. And if there’s a four-poster bed, well, that just makes things a whole lot easier.

Eva’s story sets things up. As they arrive at the hotel complex, she’s getting into character. She points out that although she booked their stay, she doesn’t want to check in and makes her husband do it. She’s on the threshold between ‘normal’ life and their playtime world in which her husband takes the lead. Eva then makes her preparations in the bath while her husband Sean goes out. When he returns he is ‘Frank’, a different man who is happy to tie her up and spank her. The story’s not really about the twist in the tail – that Frank is Sean – but about how an ordinary married couple can change roles and give themselves the freedom to have a lot of fun.

Sean’s story then provides an extra layer to the whole thing. It adds humour that takes a cheeky stab through the facade of polite society. While he’s out making his transformation into Frank, he imagines a conversation with a member of staff at the wine-tasting room in which she asks, ‘Is this your first visit to the wine country?’ And he replies, ‘Actually my wife and I come up a few times a year... We like to play our kinky Dom/sub sex game in your country hotel. Would you like to join us tonight?’

This touches on how such ‘kinky games’ ie exploring your wilder fantasies, cut through the crap of polite society, how liberating it can be to stop having to put on your respectable face. Frank admits as much, saying, ‘I love “breaking her”, using her own arousal against her to reduce her to pure animal desire.’ 

He tells the back story, her fantasies, their first explorations and his latest sexy plan, building the heat level until he goes back to their cottage for the actual encounter. He turns into the ‘man inside Eva’s head,' although that man is actually a level up in terms of dirty fantasy – subjecting her to group fuckings and filming her. The story shows how, as a married couple they can tap into those feelings without actually going to dangerous extremes or endangering their marriage.

It’s all done with care and love and the intimate knowledge of someone’s physical responses that only comes from a long-standing close relationship. In the end it’s all about her. Sean/Frank says with pride: ‘Afterwards Eva thanks me for being such a perfect master. I’ve done well this time.’ The pairing of the stories works perfectly and the kinky contents are both sexy and heart-warming.

The anthology includes a treasure trove of top writers with names such as Sommer Marsden, Lucy Felthouse, Giselle Renarde and DL King grabbing my attention along with many more I'm eager to read for the first time. 

Sudden Sex is available at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk. For links to more reviews, take a look at Alison's blog Trollop with a Laptop.