Review Tuesday: Things That Make Me Give In by Charlotte Stein

The Things That Make Me Give In by Charlotte Stein

Black Lace, 2009

ISBN 9780352345424

Envy. It's one of the hazards of reviewing work in one's own genre. Every so often you encounter a book so wonderful that you can't help wishing you'd written it yourself. If you're not careful, it can spoil your whole day.

The Things That Make Me Give In is one of those books. Charlotte Stein has penned a collection of imaginative, intense and extremely nasty erotic tales which manage to stimulate the senses without neglecting the intellect. I'd love to claim it as my own. This book, though, belongs uniquely to Charlotte, because I believe it's a brazen exploration of her personal fantasies (and perhaps her experiences). Usually I refer more formally to authors in my reviews, but this volume demands a more intimate tone. In this book, Charlotte bares all.

She has a distinctive voice, brash, energetic, self-deprecating, introspective, full of sentence fragments and body parts. Her stories rush forward, born along on the current of an inner monologue. Not every tale is first person (though many of them are), but they might as well be. We're in the head of the main character (in every case but one a woman) who is simultaneously analyzing everything and oozing for some action. To give you a taste, here's a segment from one of my favorite tales, “Dirty Disgusting You”:

His leg brushes mine, and it's terrible but I like it. I think about last week in the cinema, watching pinkly sweet bodies pretend to enjoy each other on the screen, the screen then fading to black just as it got to the really good bits. And him whispering through the darkness at me: Do you want to make our own good bits up?

I did. I do. But then he asked me to touch myself and I couldn't do it. I told him so, too, and he laughed. Though he hadn't laughed at all when I told him that I'd never touched myself. Not ever.

The look on his face! As though a grown woman who never masturbated was the equivalent of a straight man never looking at a big pair of tits. That shocked, slightly condescending expression made me say some spiteful things to him, but none of them landed. Or, at least, he never made me feel bad for saying them.

The voice is cheeky, fresh and a bit wild. The stories vary, but the voice is consistent. This is perhaps, the book's main weakness. In some ways it feels more like a novel than a collection of stories. The woman whose mind we inhabit differs superficially from one story to the next, but somehow I had the sense that she was really a single character, a single woman, whom I'm fairly convinced is Charlotte herself.

This woman likes big men, sometimes more than one at a time. She's turned on by power games, whether she's on the top or the bottom. She pretends to be innocent but is willing to do just about anything if someone teases her enough. She loves to be fucked hard and deluged in come. She's drawn to strangeness, otherness, feeling kinship with people who are “Different on the Inside”, to cite the title of one tale.

In “Because I Made You So”, she's a student lusting helplessly for her stern professor. In “Her Father Disapproves”, she's the girl next door, teasing the junior accountant her father has invited to a summer getaway. “Just Be Good” puts her in the role of the juvenile delinquent, challenging the town sheriff to put her in handcuffs. In “Yes/”, she agrees to do whatever her partner orders; in the paired tale “/Yes”, she's the one giving the orders. In neither case does she get exactly what she expects.

The sex in The Things That Make Me Give In is visceral and messy, but it's never just sex. There's always a subtext, always the analysis. Talking is another kind of fucking (the whole point of her bittersweet tale “Phoned In”). Charlotte understands the feedback loop between mind and body; she can't turn off her mind even when someone is trying to fuck her brains out.

I part the lips of my pussy myself, and let that slippery tip slide against it. Pleasure surges and tries to force me over the edge into orgasm, but I hold off. I want him to rub against my clit and then push his cock into me. I want him to fuck me the way that he just fucked himself, in punishing strokes that make me pant harder and say more than I'm doing now.

And when I tell him all this, he sings my praises.

I sing his right back. I tell him all the things I've always wanted to, but left by the wayside because they sounded too cheesy or too clichéd or too much. When he pushes his cock through my slit and down to my wet and waiting hole, I tell him that he's so big, that he fills me like nothing else, that I love his cock in my pussy.

…

He tilts my hips to meet his thrusts, one-handed. Just one big hand on my hip. His fingers stir against my clit, and my orgasm begins something like fluttering. Wings beating against my skin. Saying something now only makes them beat harder.

Given all the fucking and sucking and coming in this collection, I find it interesting that my favorite tale involves no physical sex at all – only stories about sex. “For You”, one of the darker contributions in the book, is narrated by a nurse caring for a cardiac patient who is waiting for a transplant heart. Dwelling in the shadow of death, he concocts lascivious fables of irresistible desire for his caretaker. His words leave her damp and twitching as they bear him away to the surgery which he might not survive.

This story could, of course, represent the entire book in a nutshell.

Review: Control

Control by Charlotte Stein

Accent Press Limited, 2010

ISBN 9781907726491

As any devoted reader or author of erotica knows, complementary fantasies are a potent aphrodisiac. Dom and sub, voyeur and exhibitionist, butch and femme - whatever the pairing, it's an incredible rush to realize that by satisfying your personal kink, you're giving your partner exactly what he or she desires. Charlotte Stein's original and arousing novel Control uses this dynamic to wonderful effect. In Control, two rather quirky and twisted individuals gradually discover the erotic power of their mirror-image desires.

Madison is the introspective, insecure, perpetually horny proprietress of Wicked Words, a bookstore that specializes in erotica. She's a woman who lives as much in her mind as in her body, fiercely determined to chart her own course in life, yet puzzled by her seeming inability to commit to a relationship. When she hires shy, nerdy Gabriel Kauffman as a shop assistant, she tries to convince herself that it's an intellectual decision. After all, she could scarcely hire other applicant, Andy, who somehow managed to fuck her during his job interview. Despite Gabe's social awkwardness and bookish appearance, though, he stimulates Maddie's fertile imagination to the point where she can't leave him alone.

Gabe Kauffman is the most anti-alpha hero I've ever encountered. He's big and rather clumsy, with thick glasses, heavy eyebrows and tons of body hair. A thirty year old virgin, he was brought up so strictly by his possibly schizophrenic parents that he's been permanently warped. At the same time, he's obsessed with sex, a diligent student of dirty books who, as he puts it, is good at putting theory into practice. I adored him.

As Madison teases and flirts with poor Gabe, she begins to understand his desires: to be controlled, "forced" to do things he's afraid to try on his own, pushed beyond the limits imposed by his strange history. Meanwhile, she discovers that taking what she wants coincides almost exactly with giving Gabe what he craves. They're perfectly matched. Every encounter - even those in which cocky, ambi-sexual Andy plays a role - brings them closer. Yet Madison almost loses Gabe when she underestimates his deep-seated lack of confidence in himself.

The description above might suggest that Control is BDSM erotica. It's true that the book includes a bit of spanking, some humiliation, and lots of power games. The interactions, though, are not really typical of the BDSM genre. Maddie's far too much at the mercy of her emotions and physical reactions to be a true top. She really has no idea what she's doing; she's just following her instincts. Her scenes with Gabe rely on inspiration and intuition, and she's as much a slave to her arousal as Gabe.

Control is written in the first person present tense. The intimate perspective allows Ms. Stein mix sensory detail with minds-eye fantasy. Ms. Stein has a breathless, dizzy, stream-of-consciousness style that conveys a sense of urgency. Madison is a sharp observer, marking every subtle shift in Gabriel's behavior and mood. The sex in Control is fabulously complex and nuanced as a result. Madison is unbearably turned on, most of the time, and you will be too.

He doesn't try to fuck me, however. No - I guess he can't wait for that. He just ruts against me - first over my back and the firm swell of my arse, and then... oh then. He fumbles and finds the cleft between, and suddenly increases the frantic, jerking pace.

I just lie there, and let him. Mainly because I can't believe that the slick feel of his prick between the cheeks of my arse, rubbing and rutting, filthily, actually manages to thrill arousal through me. After that huge orgasm. Still.

'Is this OK, is it OK?' he asks, but it's a minute after he's started and his voice is so up and down that I can't take it seriously. I'm right not to, too, because almost at the same time as those words, his body locks against mine. He grunts so gutturally, it sets my hair on end.

And then I feel the hot spurt of his come, all over my arse and my lower back. Which feels so delicious and dirty, I bite my lip and try not to wonder when he'll be up for another round. I'm guessing it's not going to be soon, because a second after he's done it all over me, he apologises. He apologises for making a mess. For fucking...whatever it was that he fucked.

At which I definitely want to do it all over again. Immediately. Continually. For ever.

Seriously - when can we do it again, for ever?

The book has a happy ending. Madison and Gabriel declare their mutual love and even consider living together. Don't let the romantic elements fool you. Control is twisted, filthy, and deliciously perverse - in the tradition of all great erotica. For Maddie and Gabe, sexual connection leads to love rather than the other way around.

With Control, Charlotte Stein has penned an intelligent, funny, perceptive and hugely enjoyable novel. If you like steamy, messy, creative sex involving characters that defy the stereotypes, get yourself a copy today!

Charlotte Does Bollywood

By Charlotte Stein (Guest Blogger)

I very rarely do blog posts about normal things, like upcoming releases. Usually I do them about weird things, like future worlds where everyone has three penises (http://geekandkink.com/2011/07/a-sexy-bunch-of-grapes/) or sexy menz what I happen to like (http://themightycharlottestein.blogspot.com/2011/08/mancandy-monday-brandon-routh.html ).

But for this post, I decided I’d like to actually talk about my upcoming release, for once. I mean, I am an erotic romance writer. I do have books that come out! And this book is extra unusual, because a) I was asked if I’d like to write it and b) it’s about a subject that I’ve never tackled before:

Bollywood movies.

It’s not even really a subject. It’s more of a theme that Total-E-Bound are having for an upcoming collection of stories I’m a part of, and for it I decided to go a slightly different way to the other peeps who have also written some orsum stories.

Mainly because when I think of Bollywood movies, I think of lost Princesses and secret Princes, luscious palaces and evol Maharajas and all of that macguffin. And by macguffin, I mean totally orsum stuff. Because nothing floats my boat harder than secret Princesses and evol Maharajas.

Which is why I wrote Guarded. It’s set in a semi-fantasy world of mystical creatures and forbidden love and prophetic scrolls, and I had an absolute blast writing it. There’s nothing quite as fun as creating a fantasy world – unless maybe it’s a fantasy world that also has threesomes in it.

Which my story totally does. Check it out:

When Amina is captured by the Maharaja of Hadad and forced to read his prophetic scrolls, all she can think of is escape. But then Ashan and Orin are assigned to guard her, and they're giving her some thoughts she's sure she shouldn't be having.

They're both big, they're both handsome, and they're both sworn to protect, guard and be by her side at all times - something which proves increasingly difficult as the steamy nights get longer and their desire for each other reaches boiling point. When she next runs, they're right on her tail, and this time they have more for her than bound hands and stern words. They've got their own needs, and they mean to satisfy them...

And yeah, okay, maybe that doesn’t fully give you a taste of the kind of ménage action I’m talking about. Maybe you’re now thinking: huh. There’s barely a flavour of ménage, there. Where’s our guarantee, Charlotte, that these people all totally get it on together?

Well, I’d never leave you hanging:

Orin did as she expected him to—only unpinning one side of her sari so it fell from her shoulder. And when it went a little low—the material sliding down to near unseemly levels—he made her hold it tight.

Ashan’s expression said it all—Gods forbid he should see a breast.

She hadn’t the faintest clue what Orin would do should such a thing happen. If she stripped down now—just pulled off all her clothes and stood before him naked—would he show offence? It seemed as though he might, but then again…

His expression in the stables. There had been fire there, she knew it. And when he slicked his two big hands with the queer concoction Ashan claimed was ointment, he looked harried somehow. Not himself.

Though truthfully, the same could have been said of Ashan. He had no barriers to hide behind or break down, no restraint she could ever see. But his expression had an odd tightness to it, and when Orin held off touching her for a shade too long, she could almost hear the words Ashan wanted to say—Get on with it!

But he refrained and looked on her instead. Big, blue eyes even bigger than usual, the corner of one thumb edging its way towards his mouth as if of its own accord. As though he had imagined something like this happening a thousand times and had even moved events towards it when the chances had come, but now that it was here…

Now that they were going to…

Gods, what were they going to do? She didn’t know, she didn’t know, but when Orin finally and haltingly placed his big hands on her bare shoulder… It was like nothing else in all the known worlds. His skin was cool and hot at the same time and he was shaking, she felt certain of it.

He definitely wasn’t moving, though. When she dared turn to him, he was just staring at his two hands on her shoulder as though they’d sprouted legs and walked their way to her flesh. She tried to recall another moment when he’d touched her so intimately and could only come up with the time she’d passed out with exhaustion over the scrolls, still reading some tiny scrap of an insignificant future.

He had picked her up and carried her and she’d come around just as he had laid her on her bed. His look had been the same one he wore now—of someone who had been caught doing something they ought not to.

“Go on,” Ashan whispered, but even he sounded guilty. Guilty and hushed as the pair of them went about spoiling the Maharaja’s prize.

Though really, was it so much of a spoil? No one cared one whit about her maidenhead anymore, and she’d been told by many a wizard woman that she’d never bear a child. She would never marry, never need to go to some man pure. She could read the scrolls whether a virgin or no.

Who better to have it than them?

Or perhaps the better question was—who better to talk into taking her virginity than them? Because she could see by this point that Orin was going to take a lot of talking into it. He still hadn’t moved his hands. They remained on her shoulder, slick and tantalising, a warm, wet promise of what might come.

But they didn’t move, and she knew they had to. She knew what had to happen in order for them to share in pleasures and the like. She’d read the books and seen the cook with the water wench, and when she’d been just a young girl, her grandmother had told her and then he puts his great thing in you and you die.

It all sounded very straightforward and reasonable. Until you did it, and then it was all just embarrassing and strange. Her nipples stiffened beneath the thin material of her sari and she knew they could both see—even though Orin had hardly done anything at all.

Her entire body felt flushed too. All over her neck and her cheeks and then down, down, down to other places that weren’t usually quite so warm. Which felt like a blessing when she really thought about it, because if she’d experienced this warmth before she wasn’t sure what she would have done about it, trapped in a room with two men, one on either side of her bed.

She couldn’t possibly have relieved herself. She couldn’t relieve herself now, even though it seemed almost certain they were going to do sex things anyway. Who here would care if she slipped her hand between her legs the way the ache there was begging her to?

Except for Orin, of course. He would probably care. And when she considered it, Ashan likely would too. He’d already sprouted a great ridge in his always too tight breeches, and it looked as though he wanted to chew that knuckle in his mouth clean off.

Finally, he burst out, “Orin, get on with it. Just soothe her ache, would you?”

Gods, how she wished he meant the other ache. The one that had started to thrum, thrum, thrum like a second heartbeat, right between her legs. But then she saw a wicked look flash across his face and she couldn’t deny it. It thrilled through her to imagine that was what he had meant.

And the thrill burrowed deeper when Ashan’s eyes became soft and heavy-lidded and he murmured encouraging words to his rigid and harshly breathing friend.

“That’s it. Just slide your hand down over her arm. Slowly. Slowly.”

Orin did so—but it wasn’t the smooth, calm stroke she’d expected. Instead, his hand stuttered over her skin, slick and thick with oil but far from sure about it. His eyes were downcast though she could make out the things on which he gazed.

Her arm, as the shimmering liquid coated it and turned her skin to honey. The material at her breast, still clinging there and covering quite ably—but only just. If he were to tug only a little, everything would come down, she knew it.

And longed for it.

That’s ménage-y, right? Hooray! So anyway, if you liked that excerpt, and maybe want to see a little more than that tease I’ve just given you, you can buy Guarded from September 5^th, right here:

http://www.total-e-bound.com/product.asp?strParents=&CAT_ID=&P_ID=1352

Along with a bunch of other fabulous Bollywood themed stories! Double Hooray!

And finally, I just wanted to say a big thank you to Lisabet for having me. And for putting up with my haphazard approach to getting things done and actually replying to emails, because I am a total divot.

Big loves, Lisabet!

Charlotte Stein has been writing for over ten years, and perving on hot dudes for even longer than that. However, it’s only recently that she’s had the courage to pair the two together and pen some critically acclaimed, steamy-hot erotic romances. She lives in Brit-land with her very own hunk of manbeef, and their imaginary dog.

You can find her at www.themightycharlottestein.blogspot.com, usually in the middle of rambling about nonsense, squee-ing over her totally unexpected life as a writer, and generally lusting after seriously sexy men.

Review - Ever Unknown

Ever Unknown

by Charlotte Stein

Total-E-Bound, 2011

Imagination is the ultimate aphrodisiac. Molly's imagination is more active than most. When she receives a email noting that the author would be "deliciously pleased" if she would comply with a work-related request, she can't help wondering whether this is some sort of sexual innuendo – especially since rather than identifying himself, he signs his message "Ever Unknown". She pens a subtly provocative reply. Almost immediately she is drawn into an escalating series of sexual adventures that simultaneously shock and arouse her.

Unlike a textbook dominant, Ever Unknown does not order her to perform the various naughty actions he proposes in his emails; he merely suggests that it would please him. But it seems he has the ability to read Molly's mind. She finds herself unable to resist complying, even as the suggestions grow riskier and more outrageous. As long as her clever partner remains anonymous, Molly can pretend the whole thing is just an exquisitely exciting game. When Ever Unknown finally removes his mask, though, she must face reality. Will she be disappointed when she discovers his identity? Will the intoxicating suspense of their shared kinkiness evaporate? Or is their incredible sexual communication a sign of a deeper connection?

Charlotte Stein's enticing tale had me squirming (in a good way!) from the very first page. Her casual, breathless prose pulls you into the story, into Molly's mind - and body. You experience Molly's lust, doubt and confusion with an intensity heightened by Ms. Stein's choice of first person present POV for her incendiary narrative.

Ever Unknown violates most of the conventions of the BDSM genre and yet is true to the spirit of dominance and submission. It focuses on the seductive thrill of playing out complementary fantasies, the excitement of exploring and overcoming one's limits. I'm a BDSM afficionado; I found the story incredibly hot. In short, I loved this book, especially the conclusion, which shatters romance stereotypes while delivering a satisfying and surprisingly realistic happy ending.

If you like BDSM romance - or even if you don't - I highly recommend you get yourself a copy of Ever Unknown. Trust me, you'll be "deliciously pleased".

Finding One's Voice

One of the things that draws me to the work of a particular author is his or her "voice"--a style or a unique manner of expression that distinguishes that writer's work from other people's fiction. It seems to me that most romance readers are mostly interested in the story and the characters, but for me, a great deal of the enjoyment in reading comes from the clever, effective, or unusual use of language.

I recently finished my fourth book by the amazing Jonathan Lethem. Two of those books (Amnesia Moon and Gun, With Occasional Music) I'd categorize as science fiction. One (Motherless Brooklyn) is an offbeat thriller. The novel I just finished (You Don't Love Me Yet) probably would be considered an unconventional romance with a hearty dose of satire. Despite the variety of genres, all Lethem's books share some stylistic characteristics.

Lethem is a master of the surprising phrase, the original image. Consider the following, for example:

As she roused herself from the cubicle Lucinda felt a sweet nostalgic stirring of affection, almost like green shoots of horniness under the pavement of her hangover.

Or how about:

Traffic buzzed past on Sunset and Fountain, isolating Tang's like a reef in time. Elderly chess opponents in vintage suits nudged pawns across squares at their booths, under clicking, humming fluorescent fixtures, as though installed there by some miraculous hand that had plucked them from a 1930's Vienna kaffeehaus.

I love authors who have such precise control of their words -- even though they make me jealous!

Another recent discovery with an extremely distinctive voice is erotica author Charlotte Stein. Her voice is a breathless, messy first person that stumbles over itself in its eagerness, propelled by love or lust.

His leg brushes mine, and it's terrible but I like it. I think about last week in the cinema, watching pinkly sweet bodies pretend to enjoy each other on the screen, the screen then fading to black just as it got to the really good bits. And him whispering through the darkness at me: Do you want to make our own good bits up?
I did. I do. But then he asked me to touch myself and I couldn't do it. I told him so, too, and he laughed. Though he hadn't laughed at all when I told him that I'd never touched myself. Not ever.
The look on his face! As though a grown woman who never masturbated was the equivalent of a straight man never looking at a big pair of tits. That shocked, slightly condescending expression made me say some spiteful things to him, but none of them landed. Or, at least, he never made me feel bad for saying them.
(From Things That Make Me Give In)

Another favorite of mine is Sarah Waters, author of Tipping the Velvet and Fingersmith. Most of her novels have historical settings; she has a talent for bringing her pasts to life, with language that is simultaneously rich and precise.

Sometimes I wonder about my own voice. I deliberately strive for variety in my work. Sometimes I write in first person, sometimes in third. Although the majority of my characters are well educated (many excessively so!), I've tried my hand at writing people from lower social levels--a city stripper with a high school education, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, a Thai bar girl. Are there some common features in my writing that distinguish it from the work of other authors?

Well--I tend to spend a lot of my effort on my setting. I try to bring the time and place where my characters interact into strong focus. In fact, I normally have a less detailed visualization of the characters themselves than I do of their surroundings.

What else? I guess I'd have to say that my sex scenes are distinguished by an emphasis on the characters' emotional reactions, as opposed to their physical actions. In general, reviewers tend to praise those scenes as intense and engaging--but I'd guess that at least half my sentences describe what the characters think, feel and imagine, as opposed to what they do with or to each other.

I don't know. It's difficult, possibly impossible, to analyze one's own style. I do hope that what I write stands out from the crowd, from a stylistic perspective. Because I believe that I'm not the only reader for whom the manner of expression is as important as the matter.