Demons Do It Better

I do prefer my characters to be believable, or at least only slightly preternaturally endowed, if they’re supposed to be in the “real” world. As an editor, I come down hard on sex moves and positions and endurance that are clearly impossible.

But why limit ourselves to the real world? I’m going to cheat here and leapfrog right over the possible or even the barely plausible into full-flung fantasy territory. Paranormal, fairy tales, steampunk, High Fantasy with aristocratic elves, urban fantasy with rock-star elves, whatever. If your readers willingly suspend disbelief because they know you’re writing outside the lines of real life, you can play with eroticism in ways you’d never get away with otherwise.

I got my writing start with fantasy and science fiction, and I still dabble occasionally in those genres, usually with a heavily erotic slant. That doesn’t mean that the sex is always other-worldly—sometimes the fantasy elements involve other aspects of the story, and the erotic bits share real-world constraints—but sometimes the fantasy and sex do drive each other. Think, for example, of bondage enforced by magic. Imagine a demon imprisoned for centuries in the stone body of a gargoyle, befriended by a despondent, abused prostitute who arouses him to such a pitch of lust as she stands on a balcony and masturbates that he breaks through the bonds:


His vision of her flashed through her mind; eyes half-closed, lips full and parted, head twisting from side to side as damp, heavy hair coiled over her shoulders and slid across her thrusting nipples, rising and falling to the ragged rhythm of her breathing. It was his will that raised her hand to cradle and press one breast and then the other, gently at first, then harder, sending hot lances downward. She no longer knew which sobbing cries and moans were her own, and which reverberated from the stone.
Somewhere in the outer world there were sounds. Pounding on a door? Or her own blood pounding in her ears? The clamor of her body drowned any intrusion. Linked with this being who watched and shared and demanded, she moved in response to his will as well as her own, hips twisting, undulating, arching toward him, hands stroking and kneading and tantalizing but leaving the hot, pulsing void for him, for his filling, if only he would come to her, into her...
A sharp crack split the air. The balcony shook. A wave of force slammed her against the building, jarring her teeth into her lower lip until it bled. She force down pain-sparked anger; whatever she had incited she would willingly accept.
The pressure surged up and down her body. She couldn't breathe, couldn't see, mist swirled before her eyes...but the force eased at her struggles. She pushed against it and it eased again, in slight, unsteady increments.
As her vision cleared, distant lights and buildings twisted and wavered, distorted by something not quite visible, something trembling between being and not being. She reached out and felt a throbbing as of air propelled by beating wings, or a pounding heart.
He was taking form now, still murky to the eyes but tangible to her hands, her skin, her demanding body.
Wingtips curved around her. Strong arms circled her and hands grasped the soft fullness of her buttocks to lift and press her up against him. Fiery crescent eyes flickered closer and closer as she stretched upward. He bent his head and with a tongue gently rasping, like a cat's, licked the drops of blood from her lip.
She clutched at his massive chest, iron-hard under deep velvet fur; gripped corded thighs with her own, straining to raise herself enough to meet the tip of the great cock pulsing against her belly.


Okay, over the top, and it gets even more so, but with a definite story arc completely dependent on fantasy and horror (and erotica) tropes. This piece was first published in Kristina Wright’s Dream Lover anthology and then picked up for the current volume of Maxim Jakubowski’s Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, so there does seem to be a readership for this sort of thing, even though it’s far from being everyone’s goblet of blood-red wine.

There does seem to be more of a market for fantasy erotica than there was a few years ago. I’ve written for Kristina’s Lustfully Ever After fairy tale anthology and her steampunk Steamlust, and Mitzi Szereto’s Thrones of Desire with a Game of Thrones atmosphere, and even had a good time with shapeshifter erotica (mine was an oriental dragon) for Delilah Devlin’s She-shifters. I also write sometimes for Circlet Press, which specializes in sf/f erotica, and there are plans for them to do a short e-book collection of stories I’ve done for them.

All of which is just to point out, at far too great a length, that fantasy in erotica doesn’t always have to mean unreal portrayals of the supposedly real world. Once in a while you can scrap the real world entirely, drink deeply of that goblet of blood-red wine, and let your imagination go all the way over the top.