Review Tuesday: First by Cheyenne Blue

First: Sensual Lesbian Stories of New Beginnings

Edited by Cheyenne Blue

LadyLit Publishing, 2015

Let me begin by admitting I’m biased. Ideally, a reviewer should approach her task with no preconceived opinions about a book (although I suspect that’s rare in practice), but when I pick up a book with Cheyenne Blue’s name on the cover, I expect it to be great. Given my prior experience with Cheyenne’s work, I can’t help myself. Of course, this sort of bias can be a double-edged sword. If the book turns out to be less than stellar, I might subject it to harsher criticism than a random volume from an unfamiliar author or editor.

In the case of First, I’m pleased to report that my expectations were more than satisfied. This impressively diverse collection rings all sorts of changes on the theme of first times and new beginnings. In “The Opposite of Darkness” by Harper Bliss, a formerly blind woman sees her long-time lover for the first time. Jeremy Edwards’s “The Talkies” chronicles a nervous silent film star moving into the new world of voice. Annabeth Leong’s “Roses and Thorns” portrays a female boxer’s first public fight, a contest that alters the emotional balance in her relationship with her butch partner. Rosie Bower’s gorgeously lyrical “Sea” depicts a woman’s first encounter with the ocean, in all its vast mystery. In “Whole Again”, Brenda Murphy takes readers into the cynical heart of a butch amputee veteran, a short order cook in a greasy spoon diner who lets down her guard just enough to take a lover for the first time since her leg was blown off.

New beginnings shine in Emily Byrne’s gritty and humorous “Repossession”. A woman divorcing from her wife is forced to deal with the bossy female bank officer who’s come to claim their jointly-owned house. Ms. Lydia Chang just happens to be an old fling, which makes the whole transition both harder and hotter.

Cheyenne Blue’s wonderful contribution, “Amelia”, imagines the famous aviator crash landing on a remote island in the Pacific, where she embarks on a new life with a fellow castaway. In this tale, the lush jungles and crystal lagoons of Amelia’s haven mirror the simple beauty of her connection with the supple, coffee-skinned Lae.

Jillian Boyd’s “Ghost of She” vividly portrays the reality of a broken heart, as well as the sweet, subtle process of its healing, while in Ivy Newman’s “The First Peonies”, the protagonist finally risks something more than a one night stand.

In Sacchi Green’s “Pulling”, the newness is understated. The heroine, a cowgirl over six feet tall, is drawn to a femme carny. This story is darn near perfect, from its razor-sharp characterization to its spot-on dialogue:

Her back was turned while she unclipped balloon fragments from the backboard. She’d shot me a little smile when I arrived, but there was something tentative about it, wary. Or maybe even nervous. I kind of liked the idea of making her nervous.

“So what does it take,” I asked, pressing right up against her ass and putting my hands on her hips, “for a big old farm girl to distract you?”

She turned right around into my arms and did a slow grind against me. “It’s been a while since I got that lucky,” she said against my chin. “What do you generally have in mind when you pick up slutty carnival hucksters?”

“Once I pick ‘em up,” I said, digging my hands into her round

asscheeks and raising her so that her breasts rested above mine, “my mind doesn’t have all that much to do with it.” Which was pretty much true. “But I’ve been known to offer to buy a girl dinner. To keep her strength up.”

You can tell the sparks are going to fly. (And believe me, they do!)

Despite all this variety, it happens that two of my favorite stories focus on first-time lesbian experiences. The tales could hardly be more different. In “Before the Bus Comes”, Tamsin Flowers serves up a clever, tongue-in-cheek treatment of a woman determined to experience the F/F intimacy she’s always fantasized about—because you never know when you’re going to get run over by a bus. In contrast, Vanessa de Sade’s “That Summer” offers a dreamy recollection of a long-gone summer when the precocious, bookish narrator first discovered she loved women. The story glows from within, a much-polished jewel gleaming in the sunlight of memory.

Let me say, by the way, that the literary quality of the stories in First in no way detracts from their erotic charge. Some stories are raw. Some are tender. Some are playful. Every one celebrates the succulent richness of female flesh in all its lush variety. In fact, this confluence of craft and heat would make this collection the perfect gift for someone new to lesbian erotica—a delicious first taste of all the flavors the genre can offer.

Savoring Those First Times

By Cheyenne Blue (Guest Blogger)

Hello everyone, and firstly, huge thanks to Lisabet for once again hosting me on her blog.

I’m here to talk about my second anthology, First: Sensual Lesbian Stories of New Beginnings. 

 

The theme for First may seem obvious—you’re probably thinking this is another anthology of first lesbian sexual experiences. Well, yes… and very definitely no.

When I pitched the idea to Ladylit, I wanted to build a collection that took a wider sweep over the landscape of first times. I hoped for stories that captured the emotions that accompany first experiences, whatever they may be. And that is what I got. The fifteen stories that make up First have captured anticipation, fear, excitement, redemption, anger, wonder, exhilaration,, and of course love and lust and these emotions are woven into a plethora of varied tales.

Of course, there are some very fine stories of first time lesbian sex in this erotic collection—it wouldn’t be complete without these stories.

I hope you enjoy the anthology.

Blurb

Dive into these fifteen sizzling tales of lesbian love and romance and experience the wonder, the joy, and the magic of new beginnings.

A woman sees her lover for the first time after years of blindness. For the first time in her life, a top trusts her girlfriend enough to let her take control. A connection forged in a bar in New Mexico encourages a breast cancer survivor to take a lover. Stories of new love and first lesbian encounters intermingle with other emotional and physical firsts, and the excitement of new experiences: an around the world flight, the thrill of a carnival, and even the first time to see the sea.

With fantastic stories by favorite writers such as Sacchi Green, Harper Bliss, Annabeth Leong, Allison Wonderland, and Jeremy Edwards, the variety in this anthology means there is something for everyone.

Table of Contents

Roses and Thorns by Annabeth Leong 

The Opposite of Darkness by Harper Bliss

The Talkies by Jeremy Edwards 

Before the Bus Comes by Tamsin Flowers

Whole Again by Brenda Murphy 

Pulling by Sacchi Green 

The First Peonies by Ivy Newman 

Repossession by Emily L. Byrne 

That Summer by Vanessa de Sade

Amelia by Cheyenne Blue 

The Ghost of She by Jillian Boyd

The Sum of Our Parts by Andi Marquette

Soar Spot by Allison Wonderland

Sea by Rosie Bower 

Dissolving by Cela Winter

First: Sensual Lesbian Stories of New Beginnings is available direct from Ladylit Publishing

(http://www.ladylit.com/books/first-sensual-lesbian-stories-of-

new-beginnings-edited-by-cheyenne-blue/)

Or from Amazon at the following links:

Amazon US
Amazon UK
Amazon DE
Amazon CA
Amazon AU

Add it to your Goodreads Shelf: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26220970-first

My own story "Amelia" is my take on the disappearance of Amelia Earhart, the legendary pilot who disappeared while attempting an around-the-world flight. Here's the start of that story:

When the fuel finally runs out, the engines splutter and fall into silence. Now there’s only the thud of her heart in her ears, the quiet sky and its heavy-bellied white clouds. The increasing panic that had consumed her as she’d tried and failed to contact the ship that was supposed to guide her in to land vanishes. Amelia is calm now, with a clear-headed detachment. She’s an experienced pilot; she knows how the Electra will glide, how it will swoop over the winds of the Pacific, descending, descending, until she bellies down in the ocean.

Next to her, Fred, the navigator whispers “Oh my God, oh sweet Jesus, save our souls” over and over, and one part of her mind thinks how predictable he is, turning religious as the plane and the sky part company and the possibility of death arises.

“Stop that,” she snaps. “Look for land. Howland Island should be here, according to you.”

He stares at her with wide frantic eyes, and she thinks, not for the first time, that the two of them are mismatched as pilot and navigator. She doesn’t even like him much--his inane conversation irks her, as does his habit of releasing gas, blaming the altitude of flight. The thought flashes through her mind that if the Electra crashes into the ocean she might die next to this buffoon, instead of with her husband, or one of her lovers. She shuts that thought out and scans the water. Howland Island is small and flat to the ocean. They could be almost on top of it and not know.

Fred is now reciting the Lord’s Prayer. She flicks him an irritated glance. His eyes are closed. She shouts at him to open his goddamned eyes and look for land, and he might manage to put off meeting his maker for a while longer. He does as he’s told, and they both search the ocean as the plane sinks lower, floating though the layers of wind and air currents, the sea below and Fred's heaven above.

They both see the island at the same moment. It's small, a tiny droplet of land in the expanse of water. It’s dead ahead, and they are too high, it’s too close, and she has no hope of banking or circling back to it. She has to put the plane down sharply and hope there is somewhere forgiving for the plane’s resting place. Amelia adjusts the controls, the little plane shudders, responds, noses down at a steeper angle. Too sharp, she knows, but this is their only option. Her fingers sure on the wheel. She can do it, she knows that. She sees dense green vegetation, and a flock of birds that come bursting out, startled by the silver plane above them that must look like some giant bird of prey.

There is somewhere to land. A lagoon—softest blue, shimmering aquamarine—ringed by jungle, a narrow collar of land around this jewel. She can see the lagoon is shallow—there’s the lazy flap of a ray in the clear water—and she levels out the Electra so that its belly is nearly skimming the water. Fred is tight-knuckled beside her; no doubt he thinks he procured this miraculous island by the power of his prayer.

Cheyenne Blue’s erotic fiction has been included in over 90 erotic anthologies since 2000, including Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Women’s Erotica, Sweat, Bossy, and Wild Girls, Wild Nights. As well as First: Sensual Lesbian Stories of New Beginnings, she is the editor of Forbidden Fruit: stories of unwise lesbian desire (Ladylit). Her collected lesbian short fiction is published by Ladylit as Blue Woman Stories – volumes 1 to 3, with more to come. Under her own name she has written travel books and articles, and edited anthologies of local writing in Ireland. She has lived in the U.K., Ireland, Colorado, and Switzerland, but now writes, runs, makes bread and cheese and drinks wine by the beach in Queensland, Australia. Check out her blog at www.cheyenneblue.com, on Twitter at IamCheyenneBlue and on Goodreads at https://www.goodreads.com/CheyenneBlue

Sunday Snog #175: Clean Slate

My snog today comes from “Clean Slate”, one of the stories in my new collection of lesbian erotica, Her Own Devices. It’s short, but very intense!

Don’t forget to visit Snog Central for links to lots more luscious Sunday kisses!

“You're so wet, chica!” she purred. I was. Her fingers slipped and slithered in my depths like eels in the ocean. “I'm wet, too. I've dreamed about this, about you...since the first day you shed your clothing and showed me your marks, I've wanted to strip you bare and make you writhe...”

“Oh...oh...oh!” I was beyond words, though some distant corner of my mind still observed, commented, analyzed. As though impatient, she pushed the panties down around my thighs, then plunged her whole hand into my sopping pussy. I ground my clit against her knuckles and spread my legs as wide as I could. Elastic cut into my flesh, but I didn't care. I opened myself to her clever fingers, wanting more, more―more of the fierce heat she coaxed from my snow-pale body, more of the pleasure that she woke everywhere she touched.

She nipped at my shoulder, where the anesthetic had started to wear off. Pain sliced through me, a startling contrast to the sweet heaviness pooled between my thighs. I turned my head and she fastened her ripe-plum lips on mine, forcing her tongue into my mouth, still twisting my nipple and stabbing at my clit. She smelled like orange blossoms. She tasted of espresso. She pressed her pelvis against my bare ass. The starched fabric of her lab coat rasped against my cheeks. I could feel her dampness, even through the layers of cloth. I felt her want, a mirror of my own.

Somehow we ended up on the tiled floor. Under her coat she wore tight jeans and a purple tank top without a bra. Cradling her full breasts in my pale fingers, I suckled first one taut nipple and then the other while she struggled with her pants. I ran my tongue up along the outside of one luscious mound, to the sensitive spot under her arm. She stiffened and moaned. I heard tearing fabric and understood that she was as desperate as I was.

I straddled her, pressing my lightly furred bush against her black thicket. Skin on skin, at last! My juices mingled with hers as we rubbed our mounds together. Our rich, musky scent hung heavy in the sterile room. I leaned over to capture her mouth, letting my pea-sized nipples graze her more opulent ones.

She relaxed and let me take the lead. I wanted to devour her. I had to hold myself back. I kissed her ferociously, for a long time, until I could tell she was having trouble breathing.

“Want...to...taste you...chica,” she gasped when I finally released her. I could only grunt; I was too deep into my lust to speak. I nipped at her earlobe, then swung around so that my cunt was in her face. She spread me wide with trembling fingers.

The first sweep of her strong, hot tongue gathered me and drew me to the pinnacle. The second stroke pushed me off. My body took flight, arrowing up into clouds of pure pleasure then tumbling downward to burst against her face. Everything poured out of me, the darkness and the fear and the shame, flooding her eager mouth.