Those of you who are familiar with Lisabet Sarai’s writing won’t need to read any further.  Exposure is a very good book – another example of how a talented author can make the erotic genre work effectively – and well worth the time and money it takes to purchase and enjoy.  Go out and buy it.

For the rest of you who aren’t familiar with Lisabet’s writing – what the hell is wrong with you?  Why aren’t you familiar with Lisabet’s writing? 

Lisabet is a doyen of erotic fiction.  For anyone who wants to enjoy a guaranteed good read in erotic fiction: pick up one of Lisabet’s titles.  The same advice goes to anyone who wants to know how erotic fiction should be written: pick up one of Lisabet’s titles.  The lady knows how to tell a gripping story, make it saucy and keep the pace cruising along at Ferrari-speed. 

Exposure is Lisabet’s latest title and it tells the well-crafted story of Stella Xanathakeos, a 28 year old stripper who finds herself wrapped up in the political intrigue of a murder mystery.  The story is exciting and compelling, the characters are strong, likeable and credible and the sex is powerfully arousing. 

In many ways a murder mystery shares a lot in common with a typical striptease.  As one layer after another is removed, a little more is revealed but the audience remains hungry to see even more and they won’t be satisfied until everything has been wholly and totally exposed. 

Lisabet manages this authorial trick with typical aplomb, setting the story up so that the reader is presented with a Stella–eye view of reality.  The intrigue of the murder mystery is cleverly executed because Stella’s understandable paranoia allows the reader to have doubts about so many of the characters as they struggle – alongside Stella – to work out who are the heroes and who are the villains. 

This device also allows the reader a chance to experience Stella’s passionate involvement in the story as she is driven by her high-octane libido from one gloriously steamy encounter to the next and then the next.  Stella has a voracious appetite and Exposure gives her the chance to enjoy a lot of life’s most satisfying pleasures before it reaches its fulfilling climax. 

A lot of editors have told me that they don’t like seeing sex and death mixed together in erotic fiction.  I disagree with this arbitrary attitude.  I’ve written graveyard sex scenes and found, as long as the hero doesn’t go into the cemetery with a shovel to find a partner, the two themes can usually work quite well together. 

One of the many things I enjoyed about this title was Stella – the heroine.  Stella is an eminently likeable character.  She knows that her profession is frowned on by most people but that doesn’t stop her from enjoying her work and taking as much pleasure from it as she can.  She tries her best not to take her stage show too far but, when she gets caught up in the moment, Stella knows the best way to keep her audience coming back for more. 

I think it’s fair to say that the world Stella lives in is ruled by men, and the majority of women in Stella’s world are mere commodities owned by the ruling hegemony.  Yet, despite the dual ideologies of patriarchy and money-is-power that control her universe, Stella lives by her own code.  Her attitude toward life is a remarkably refreshing and honest approach. 

All-in-all, Lisabet’s story is a fast-paced action-packed adventure that’s filled with lots of erotic encounters and a plot that twists and turns with the skilful limberness of a well-practiced exotic dancer.  Stella’s appetite is not only voracious – it’s also eclectic.  Stella slips between the sheets with men and women, always ensuring that she squeezes as much fun from each encounter as her well-toned muscles will allow.

In short – buy the book.  It’s bloody well written and a bloody good read.

This book is a re-release. It was originally published by Black Lace in 2000, then again by Blue Moon in 2003.

Kate O’Neill impetuously takes a job in Bangkok, leaving behind her quiet life in Boston and her boyfriend, David. The trip from the United States to Thailand is just the beginning of the adventure. At her new job as a software developer, she’s introduced to the firm’s financial backer, Somtow Rajchitraprasong. Somtow is gorgeous, attentive, and utterly irresistible. He introduces Kate to the Thai view of sexuality, and shows her life on the spicy side with a taste of Thai cuisine you won’t soon forget.

Through her work, Kate also meets a demanding client, Gregory Marshall, owner of the sex club The Grotto. Marshall’s commanding demeanor alternately irritates and fascinates Kate. He’s a Master, accustomed to being obeyed. Kate isn’t quite sure why she follows his orders, but she does. He claims to know her better than she knows herself, and after a BDSM scene in a private room in his club, she begins to believe him. At each of their encounters, he brings out more of her submissive side. She flees to Singapore for a few days to think over the drastic changes in her life, but finally realizes that she can’t escape her true self.

Kate returns to Bangkok and continues her affairs with both of her new lovers. Each offers her something different. Somtow is a committed sensualist who delights in pleasing Kate’s sexual and intellectual hungers. Marshall shows her the truth about herself. Then David comes to visit, and Kate feels the need to choose between her three lovers. The men agree to let her decide, but not before each tries his best to prove he’s the best lover for her.

Do you remember when erotica was just good, wicked fun? Lisabet Sarai does. This story is a skillfully delivered romp through increasingly hot sexual scenarios. Maybe I’ve been reading too many stories full of angst and ennui, but it was such a pleasure to immerse myself in guilt-free, full-throttle, joyous sex. I don’t want to give away any of the plot, but there’s an embezzler and industrial spy, a salacious chauffer, a katoey (lady-man) go-go dancer, and one very wicked Domme, all of whom keep the story rolling along at a good pace.

There are same-sex pairings and some explicit BDSM scenes. As a warning, there is also coerced consent in one scene. You could argue that he did consent, and that he had it coming to him, but given the sex-positive tone of the rest of this story, it did make me a bit uncomfortable. However, that didn’t detract from my overall enjoyment. The Bangkok setting is fascinating and adds to the overall feeling of opulent sensuality. Lisabet Sarai deftly shows the country without ever letting the descriptions take over the story. Good BDSM novels are voyages of self-discovery, and Raw Silk is a journey you’ll enjoy taking.

Rough Caress by Lisabet Sarai is an entertaining e-collection of her BDSM stories that shift the dominant role from gender to gender as well as between the same ones.  Thus there is a whacking good time for all. What makes the book particularly entertaining is that the stories are not simply S/M.  They are based in the way that I think people fantasize about the excruciating sexual adventures they would like to have.  The net result is that a lot of these characters, such as the protagonist in “Poker Night,” take a great deal of bottom blistering punishment that a beer quickly repairs.  Better still, the abuse always leads to what would be a skull splitting orgasm, and yet no one ever seems to want an Excedrin afterwards. 

I can’t fault Ms. Sarai for taking this surreal route with her stories as they become a refreshing relief from the usual tormented souls in S/M erotica who seem so overwrought by the fact that they have any sexual urges at all.  Worse still, are the truly mindless examples of erotic fiction in which sex is on the characters’ brains 24/7 to the exclusion of all else.  Someone has to take out the garbage after all, and let in the guy who reads the meter.  In my experience he or she is not often the sort you want to throttle and carry into your bed once she/he’s collected their data for your gas bill. 

Waking fantasy then deserves its rightful place in the world of erotica and nowhere else is that more justified than in the sexual realm of BDSM.  Such relationships are complicated and they require a lot of forethought as well as insight to turn a session of love-making into more than the esthetic equivalent of beating a rug and then pissing on it. 

Make no mistake, Rough Caress contains more than its share of vigorous, graphic, and lively beating and punitive pissing.  Yet for the most part, it succeeds in rising above the usual trap of being a list of repetitive, icky-sounding activities.

That is a function of two things that Ms. Sarai does very well.  The first is that she is unusually good at entering into the minds of her characters so that their perception of each stroke, lick, finger, and poke is realized in a way that is plausible to the imagination.  You don’t care so much about what is going on as you do about how much the character is enjoying it, even if, at times, they are howling and peeing from the excess of sensation as they do so. 

The second strong weapon in Ms. Sarai’s delivery is her sensibility to local atmosphere.  She is not quite given to Hemingway’s dictum that one should always describe the weather in any fictional account of a place.  However, she understands, as so few do these days, that every city has its own atmosphere, and within it, districts and denizens who respond to the demands of circumstance. 

The best example of this is a brooding murder story called “Bangkok Noir”that carries the reader through the steamy streets of that city’s red light district.  We make the trip through the eyes of a good-hearted, street-wise Lesbian S/M madam whose supply of fetching mistresses is being depleted by a serial killer.  A stickler for authenticity and quality, the madam recruits only the best and the killer is hacking into her profits not to mention her lovelife. 

All of that is balanced off by a stiff-necked Thai policeman who, though eminently corruptible on some levels, resists mightily being sexually bound to the madam’s harsh attentions.  The atmosphere is so rich that it is impossible to put the story down as much for one’s curiosity about the outcome of the plot, as the lyrical turns of sexual play that Ms. Sarai spells out in the text.

If I were going to fault this collection in any way it is that sometimes the writing style is not quite the equal of the task it assays.  “House of Shadows” is the prime example.  A wealthy woman of the Edwardian era yearns to be whipped and otherwise roughly mastered by a domineering male.  The problem is: how does a respectable lady of the upper crust go about getting her jollies without ruining her pristine public façade?  Her perfect husband seems utterly clueless about her desires, and propriety would never tolerate such appetites among the upper echelon in any case.  It might be perfectly fine to spank your wife soundly for some impudence or flaw, but neither one of you had better admit to enjoying it. Thus she finds her way to the underground pleasure dome of the House of Shadows.

Well, okay, that’s fine, but the trouble is that Ms. Sarai cannot manage the languid idiom of Henry James much less the titillating indecorousness of Frank Harris.  Edwardians were masters of subtle indirection, which strove to make the lurid appear commonplace amid the banal.  One thinks of Aubrey Beardsley here, and even more so, his imitators in the home décor field.

Ms. Sarai’s heroine instead affects a stubbornly blind sexual naiveté that becomes plain silly after a while.  This lady knows perfectly well what she wants, and no matter how hopelessly she romanticizes her appetites, they remain brutally clear to her mind and body.  The only person who seems unable to accept that, is she.  The resulting story is a strangely unsatisfying whipping romance.

On the other hand, I defy anyone to fault the style and atmosphere of “Wednesday Night at Rocky’s Ace Hardware Store”in which a rollicking BDSM couple test drive all sorts of handy home gear for all sorts of daily chores in the realm of bondage and discipline.  The Mrs. is bound, bent, bared, and beaten in the aisle next to the ladders with a wide range of gear and gadgets that is helpfully made available because, “Ace is the place for the helpful hardware man.” Indeed he is, and without question, he is a genuine believer in the Do It Yourself disciplined approach to regular home maintenance. 

You may not fantasize at the Home Depot about being spanked by your lover.  But I am willing to bet that, given the level of tedium most ladies experience in waiting for their other half to decide between two identical buckets of plaster, they have a wild assortment of fantasies up and down the aisles from here to plumbing supplies and on to small appliances.