Sexy Books: 'Girl Crush: Women's Erotic Fantasies' edited by R. Gay (Cleis Press)

At the risk of breaking the Internet and exploding boy brains around the world with the weight of this news, allow me to share the not-so secret fact at the core of the sexual fantasies of men (and women) everywhere and at the heart of the latest erotica title from Cleis Press on my review pile:    

Many women – most women? all women? – do indeed have erotic fantasies about other women, whether or not we happen to identify as lesbian or bisexual. And many of us – most of us? all of us? – have acted on those fantasies, or would if the opportunity presented itself, or at least like to think about it from time to time in our most private of moments, which means there’s probably quite a market for an erotica collection like Girl Crush: Women’s Erotic Fantasies.

Yes, guys: We fantasize about some of our girlfriends, and our favorite actresses and artists and athletes and anarchists, and the cute cashier with the sleeve tattoo at Whole Foods, and the lithe whisp of a thing who always put her mat down in front of us in yoga class, and some of the women working out at the gym, just like you've always imagined, just like you do. Go ahead and pick your chin up off the floor: We have girl crushes, just like you do. Some of us like girl-on-girl porn at least as much as you do, and, as any lesbian will tell you, most otherwise "straight" girls don't take a whole lot of arm-twisting, given the right circumstances. Have I said too much? As wild as some of your own fantasies may be, you just might find some eye-opening material in this erotica collection. This book isn't necessarily for you and it certainly isn't about you, but what the heck: I know you guys like this stuff, too. And that's my point exactly: We all do. Just don't tell anyone I told you, okay? For some reason the prevalence of the girl crush is supposed to be some big secret.

Editor R. Gay seems to be as eager to shed that secret as anyone, and has compiled short stories from nearly two dozen female writers (and a handful of men with a little bit of perspective on the matter) around that most fundamental of fantasy questions: What if?

From the introduction:

No matter how the women in these twenty-three stories navigate the passion and promise of their girl crushes, their stories fully engage all our senses. This collection shows us what it might be like to surrender to our girl crushes and cool the burn beneath our skin.

And, lest you judge Girl Crush by its frilly pink-fonted cover and its gently PG black-and-white girl-girl kiss, let me assure you that writer Rachel Kramer Bussel's protagonist is getting slapped around by her BFF (and loving it) by page 6, in the book's first story, "Great Lengths," and that by page 7 her girl-crush Laura is wrist-deep in the yeah-me-too of "something new." Like I said: You might be surprised by some of what goes on the deepest recesses of our imaginations and by some of what we actually get up to when we let ourselves get up to it. And you might be surprised by some of what's in these erotica books we love to read.

Further inside there's a skinny dipping fantasy, a rough co-worker fantasy, a prostitute fantasy, a shampoo sink seduction in a hair salon, a lusty last night with a best friend about to move across the country, a bachelorette party gone wild, an Indian woman ducking out of her arranged marriage, a punk rock poet with a way with words, and even some stalker-ish sex with the ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend. There are contributions from some of my favorites – Bussel, Shanna Germain, Cheyenne Blue – and many voices that were new to me, and wonderful, but my favorite entry in the collection is R. Gay's own contribution, "Psychology 101," with tension between a professor and grad student building to the anti-climactic:

Most people think desire is a simple thing –they think we want therefore we must have. If I've taught you anything, it's that sometimes we have to want without being able to have.

Don't worry, dear readers, Ms. Gay (you can find more of her work at PettyFictions.com) has more psychology to drop on her readers:

...our ability to control our impulses is all about our faith in deferred gratification...

and:

...sometimes we can't control ourselves.

Indeed. Sometimes a crush is just a crush, a joyous tension in and of itself. Sometimes our fantasies are best kept to ourselves. But there's something to be said for losing control, too: Sometimes a crush – boy or girl – can be so much more.