When I wrote the introduction to the first volume in 1993, the erotic shelves in bookshops worldwide were thinly stocked, and in the majority of stores there wasn’t even an erotic section per se. In the previous couple of decades, there had been less than a handful of anthologies published, generally of an historic nature and explicit short stories in mainstream magazines were few and far between. Erotica was hiding, so to speak. Now, as cybersex is already becoming a thing of the past itself, the bookshelves are groaning under the sheer weight of new books in the genre (and I daresay the Mammoths contribute to this by being the longest, and also the best value books!) and anthologies on offer cover every theme and sexual orientation under the sun – or should it be the moonlight, for those who prefer their sexual entertainment to be concealed under a relative cover of darkness. In addition, the cyberworld has taken a leaf from the real world and a wonderful community of web magazines are flourishing and proving an invaluable training ground for so many new writers.
Long may this flourish.
Sexuality is at the core of our beings and the act of writing, of self-expression, must reflect this essential part of our psyche. Explicitness in writing about sexual matters need not be vulgar or downmarket, and there is more titillation in an elegant phrase or original storyline than there is in a picture or photograph in my humble, if prejudiced, opinion. And that’s the difference between eroticism and pornography. Yes, our Mammoth authors wish to arouse your dormant senses but it’s all in a good cause.
This year’s volume encompasses some of the best short stories I managed to come across published during the course of 2002 in a variety of places. There are familiar names for veteran readers of the series (all previous volumes are still in print and available, so go and complete your set and improve your sex life accordingly!), as well as new discoveries, many of whom, I hope, will become future regulars and will graduate to doing books of their own one day.
The stories hail from Great Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia and France and all evoke a rainbow of emotions and sexual feelings with talent and empathy to spare. There is still too much erotica that comes in the form of pseudo readers’ letters describing a particular sexual encounter or ersatz poetic memories attempting to raise the mythic consciousness of a past tryst, but the majority of the authors here transcend these bonds and treat their characters with humour or even darkness, and hence make their fictional creatures of flesh, blood and genitals even more believable. That is the art of erotic writing at its best.
So, get ready for an exciting ride with some of the dirtiest and shrewdest minds in the business, and explore combinations, positions, variations and possibilities beyond even your wildest imagination. And, should you need reassurance, no bedsheets were harmed during the writing of this book.
Maxim Jakubowski
The Two Hellos by Michel Faber
She didn’t phone him directly after she got off the coach, because she was hungry and her bum was very sore. She phoned him about an hour later, after she’d had some breakfast and wandered around the city for a while.
“Hello?” she said, into a public telephone receiver that was cold and damp with other people’s breath.
“Yes?” he said back, having no idea, apparently, whose voice it was – as always.
In the pause before she identified herself, she felt that little prick of irritation which is merely the tip of a giant hypodermic full of fermented hatred. They’d argued about this so many times.
“Why don’t you ever know it’s me?” she would exclaim when she got him alone.
“For Christ’s sake – what do you expect when all you say is ‘hello’?” he would say, or (even worse): “Look – in the course of a day I’ll get calls from any number of women…”
“But I’m your wife,” she’d insist.
“I know that,” he’d assure her. “But what happens if I say ‘Hello, darling!’ and it turns out the woman on the line is a client for data management software?”
“If you knew my voice, it wouldn’t ever happen.”
“Look, lots of women sound… uh… similar. Especially on the phone.”
“No more so than lots of men. And I know your voice.”
“OK, so you’re better at recognizing voices than I am!” he would offer, as a concession that was at once exasperated and sarcastic. “Microsoft should develop you as a piece of voice recognition software.”
Such comments would enter her through the softness of her flesh, and harden inside her – in all the wrong ways.
“When Carol calls, you don’t hesitate: you instantly respond.”
“Carol’s my sister.”
“OK, then: Patricia.”
“Pat’s an old lady. She has a very distinctive voice.”
“Maybe I should take lessons from her.”
“I didn’t say her voice was a particularly nice one – just distinctive, because she’s old and she’s got a mouth like a… like a… uh… an old person.” (Similes – or indeed anything creative – were not his forte.)
“OK,” she would say at this point, if she felt compelled to push the argument to its climax. “What about the times I phone you up, and I say ‘Hello’, and you say ‘Yes’, and I don’t say anything, and eventually you say, ‘Is that you?’ ”
“What about them?”
“If you know it’s me, why don’t you just say so first off?”
“I don’t know… I can’t be sure… I have to think about it.”
She could never win, precisely because she always won. On the defensive every time, he was more reasonable than her, kept things in proportion, observed the rules of debate, only ever raised his voice if she did it first, tried to keep emotions out of it. In the absence of an impartial adjudicator, his expression was her only mirror, and it showed her a reflection of herself behaving irrationally, unfairly. He would stare at her, hurt and at a loss for words, like a quiz show contestant who’s been led to believe he would be questioned on Roman history, and was suddenly being interrogated about the human nervous system.
Yes, she was being unfair. Probably. But it had happened more than once, that in the middle of this same stupid argument about recognizing voices, the telephone had rung and he’d answered it, caught one second’s worth of distant greeting, and immediately replied, “Oh hi, Lynne!” or whoever. The bastard just couldn’t help it.
“It’s me,” she said to him now. “Your wife.”
“Where are you?”
She couldn’t tell yet whether he was worried or angry about her being fourteen hours late.
“Princes Street. Near the station.”
“Well, I’m sorry but I can’t pick you up now.” He still didn’t sound unequivocally worried or angry, merely pained. “I have to leave for work in a few minutes.”
“I know,” she said, secretly pleased that she’d timed her call so well.
“I met the plane you were supposed to be on yesterday evening,” he said. “It came in bang on time, but you weren’t on it. Where were you?”
“Still in London,” she said. “My handbag got stolen at the airport, just a few minutes before the plane was due to leave. Some teenage kid just ripped it off my arm. I chased him, but I was still in the same shoes I wore to the wedding, so it was pretty hopeless.”
“Why didn’t you get on the plane anyway?”
“My ticket was in that bag, my credit cards, mobile, everything.”
“It’s an e-ticket. The number is just for your reference. Your name is in the computer system, that’s all that matters.”
“I was flustered. They’d already started the boarding calls. I didn’t feel I could just talk my way through.”
“You could have phoned me then.”
“Will you listen to me for once? My handbag was stolen. It had my mobile in it; everything. I didn’t even have change for a public phone.”