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Inside these pages you’ll find real-life experiences from some of your favorite authors—including Karin Kallmaker, Radclyffe, Victoria Brownworth, Rachel Kramer Bussel, Lynn Ames, Amie Evans, Joy Parks and many more—as well as thrilling true tales from vibrant and powerful new voices.

Stories include a very special five-year anniversary, celebrated out in the open, in the city… a first-time ever experience a mile up in the sky… a first lap dance that turns into ever-so-much more… one neighbor giving another a helping hand, for just one night—or maybe more… a very different sort of erotic tale, told in an entirely different sort of way… a hot drive-in experience between two traveling strangers… a Tuesday night tryst that breaks all the rules… an eagerly anticipated elevator ride… and just your plain-old heart-stopping, one-night stand…

It's all here, in Wild Nights!

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Story Excerpt Dedication Introduction Behind the Book

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Story Excerpt

I chose excerpts from my stories for this site so that I don't have to worry about pissing off some other writer or violating copyright. This doesn't mean that my story is necessarily the best, just the only one I can excerpt from.

 

Working the Night Shift

by Therese Szymanski

 

“Hey, nobody’s allowed in here.” The big, burly man I had never seen before started to yell at me, then stopped himself. “Oh. You’re a girl. Go on.”

The naked woman whose ass I’d just been admiring as she bent over, stood, turned and smiled unabashedly at me. She was blonde, but I couldn’t tell if she was a natural blonde because, well . . . she was completely shaved between her legs.

I was glad my family wasn’t exactly normal. I mean, really, how many folks go to help a hospitalized brother in another state and end up in a situation like this?

“I’m Leeka,” she said, coming up to me, running a finger along my collar, and tightening my tie. There’d been a chill in the women’s restroom earlier, which the two bachelor party dancers had apparently tried to alleviate by turning both showers on to hot, so the scalding water would heat the air. The result was a much warmer changing room that was rather quite steamy, enough to cause little beads of water to collect and roll down smooth, curvy, luscious skin. “Hey, this isn’t a real tie,” Leeka said.

“Uh, clip-on,” I said. “I never wear clip-ons but if a guard’s going to wear a tie she’d better wear a clip-on ‘cause otherwise somebody can grab you by it and strangle you. That would be really bad.” I could feel my cheeks flush, and that was just one of the places my blood was rushing besides my brain. Her breasts were perky, her nipples hard, and she wasn’t exactly crossing her legs in front of me.

“Hm,” the other girl, a brunette, said. “You don’t have a gun. How’re you gonna protect us from all those joes out there?”

“She’s got this really big stick,” the blonde said, caressing the nightstick that hung at my side. My brain went to some very bad places and I got a bit weak-kneed with the way she ran her soft hand up and down my, er, nightstick. Little did I know at that moment how much time I’d waste during the rest of the night keeping the boys from my big stick, because they wanted to “borrow” it as soon as they saw the girls.

It wasn’t even my nightstick—I’d had to borrow it from my brother, since I’d left mine in D.C. They’d really have been all over my stick and ‘cuffs, since mine were much nicer. “And I’ve got these,” I said, pulling out my borrowed handcuffs.

“Oooo,” the blonde said, running a finger over the hard metal.

“Leeka,” the brunette whined. “You have to help me decide what to wear!”

“I, uh.” I pointed at a stall.

“Heather. Leeka,” the boy said, his arms crossed over his broad chest, “you have to get ready. Let her do what she came here to do.”

“Oh, Brian,” Leeka said. “You never let us have any fun.”

I have to admit, I was grateful as a wino who’d just been given a quart of Boone’s Farm that the showers were running. Otherwise I’d never be able to do what I’d gone there to do.

I raced from the restroom as soon as I was done, never looking back. It’d been a wicked long time since I’d been around dancers, and these two were just so young and . . . nubile . . . and . . . and . . . apparently my inner stud had gone out to pasture sometime during the intervening years.

Plus there was the entire “I’m here to do a job and not get some nookie” bit of it all.

I stopped by the bar to grab a bottle of water, which I ensured was not opened before it came to me, even as I observed the male bartender (obviously the boss) with his arm around a female employee. Slender, with long dark hair and eyes; lush, full lips; and just-right makeup. She reminded me a lot of the hot, bad-girl lead from the movie D.E.B.S.

But I didn’t like the way they were acting around each other—him grabbing her waist, her giggling and flipping her hair, showing cleavage and pushing against him. So I went back to the office, hoping the boys would be able to behave themselves and not trash the building. After all, I was only there to ensure the safety of the building. I was paid by the party-throwers, but only because the apartment complex made them hire a guard from my brother’s security agency if they were to rent the community building for an after-hours party.

Mostly I was here because my sister-in-law really didn’t want to be, since she found bachelor parties extremely tiresome to work, because the boys’d get all testosteroney and all. Once she’d found out I’d still be in town, she asked me to work the job (making sure to mention there’d be strippers, because she knew that’d get bonus points with me).

I was there to help the fam, so of course I was both feet in.

Now, I could do without the misogynistic, patriarchal Chaldean men, however. I knew their sort all too well from all the years I’d worked and gone to school here.

And I wanted to get busy with being my old, bad self, a person I’d left behind years before. I wandered out of the office and the bouncer they’d hired, a big, big guy, grinned at me and nodded me in to see the dancers.

Once I stepped into the room, some dude walked up to me. “Here,” he said, handing me a hundred dollar bill.

I stared down at it.

“Just look the other way when we smoke,” he said.

I brushed past him, ignoring the bill.

Brian, who was overseeing everything while manning the music, grinned at me. “Go on. They do a real good show.”

I moseyed on over, but couldn’t really see anything through the mass of oversized boys. My presence was soon noticed, however, and I was pushed through to the front of the throng. It was as if the boys liked seeing even a uniformed butch like me watching two hot women stripping and dancing and rubbing up against each other. I really didn’t want to be a part of their entertainment.

“Can I borrow this?” some guy said, trying to snag my nightstick, which I instinctively grabbed just before he did.

No matter how much the boys wanted to watch Heather’s and Leeka’s show—their naked forms, their bodies . . . They wanted also to watch me watching the girls touching each other, caressing each other, French kissing each other and licking each other’s skin . . . flesh . . . sweat . . .

Okay, so maybe it was kind of hot.

But really, when they let the boys touch them, hold their naked forms and squeeze their tits, it got a bit too much for me. Boys were rough. Unappreciative. Just squeezing and touching and showing off for each other. Not wanting to make the girls feel good. Not enjoying what the girls were showing . . . giving . . . offering them.

I walked away.

“They always act like they’ve never seen a naked woman before,” Brian said, just as the girls started taking money toward a toy show.

“I am so stressed out,” Leeka said, following my direction into a corner a few minutes later. “I need a cigarette.”

“Really, just five minutes,” the short, hairy dude said, following me and grabbing at my nightstick again. “I’ll give you twenty bucks!”

Brian pulled out a pack and a lighter. I went to fetch a glass of water from the bartender that the girls could use as an ashtray in this nonsmoking atmosphere.

“Oh, sure,” a couple of guys said, moaning and whining. “You’re gonna let them smoke inside.”

“You want me to make them go outside?” I asked, keeping my back to the girls, giving them some privacy in their nudity. I used my body to keep the boys away from them.

They really had no reply to that.

“So are they your type?” the female bartender asked.

I was one of four females amidst more than a hundred guys but I was The Guard, which was to say that I was The One Wearing Far More Polyester Than Any One Person Ought To. Ever. When I was younger, I felt as if such a uniform gave me power. Now that feeling was gone. I used to be able to make boys in situations like this, and in any fast food restaurant, respect me. Now I used my powers for other reasons, and had lost this particular ability.

Also, I wasn’t at my sexy, most confident best. I was wearing my brother’s pants. And I was sure the gun belt made me look fat.

Book Dedication

For all of the many beautiful lesbians around the world, all living and having their own (mostly) true adventures every day.

Book Introduction

As it appeared in the book.

True Fiction:
Where Reality Meets Fantasy

When I sat down to edit this book, I started by thinking about the ever-increasing number of true-story anthologies published in the past several years. Why the interest in such books? Why so many of the same type of books and stories? And, finally, what sets “true” anthologies apart from collections of tales on other topics?

The answer I kept coming up with was simple: Voyeurism. People get a thrill out of living vicariously through others. They like to have the adventures without the risk. They also like to see how the other side lives—and with true stories, they feel as if they might have a chance at doing the same things. In fact, such stories might even give them ideas as to what they might want to, or might actually, try themselves. Or with a partner.

I’ve read a few true-story anthologies myself and always assumed that most stories were not, in fact, true. In editing this book and e-mailing with the various contributors, I’ve been surprised to discover just how many of these tales are indeed true. Or at least mostly true. (I can only guess that many authors in this collection heated up the sex just a touch—including yours truly.)

What I realized, however, in reading through the hundreds of stories submitted to this book was that a great many of the very finest and most delightful tales of heated and exciting lesbian sex were told in a particular voice (first-person POV, for those who are curious). I reckon this sort of telling excites the reader more than a detached third-person narrative, and is also much more intimate and believable. I found such tales to be especially compelling, interesting, and heated—so I decided to include only first-person stories in this book.

After all, if you were telling a true story, wouldn’t you use the “I” word and say it in your own voice about yourself?

I did, however, decide to break one of my own primary rules and include two stories by the same author in this book so that I have the final word (finally) in one of my anthologies: The final story is told in a decidedly… different… voice than any other in this book. I’ve included this tale because it gets right to the heart of the voyeuristic matter while, perhaps, poking a teasing finger at it.

But don’t take any of this the wrong way: This book is meant to turn you on. That is its single purpose. That is what it’s meant for—its sole reason for being.

I hope it serves its purpose well and that you enjoy it. And I’ll be even happier if it drives you to appreciate some aspects of life a little more. This is a book that shows how reality can live up to your wildest expectations—even if it’s just through your imagination, with perhaps a little help from some others . . .

Behind the Book

I think this book originally had an entirely different intro. If memory serves, I got an e-mail when I was on vacation in Britain (well, on vacation and doing some public speaking and research and teaching) saying that the original intro didn’t work.

So I rewrote it to what it is in one night, at Jane Fletcher’s house, asking Jane and my gf, Stacia, what they thought along the way. (Obviously I had to share with them what the problems were with the original in order to see if I came up with enough original ideas and thoughts for the new intro.)

It’s funny how writing an intro was so daunting just a few years ago, and now I wrote one while drinking very fine Scotch whilst on vacation in one night.

But maybe it appeared so easy just because I’d been thinking about it all for more than a year… living with it and the ideas for that long. Cogitating and synthesizing and… yeah.

This book was supposed to be two books edited by someone else. I picked them up at the last moment and Bella was okay with extending the call or anything else I needed. I hadn’t written the call, or the requirements, so I didn’t think extending it would help.

As I read through the submissions, when I first picked up the assignment, I realized a lot—most?—were written by horny straight boys. They were of the lowest level possible, meaning barely readable, mostly illiterate, and really kinda gross. And I refuse to let straight boys into our books for their amusement. (I’ve only ever knowingly published one boy, and you’d have to know him to understand. There are some perfectly fine straight boys out there.) But they didn’t submit to this book.

I told Bella that there was only one book from the submissions. I refuse to accept any story or writer that’s not right, so if I publish it, it’s ready and good. But thus, this book was shorter than I would have liked. Even after I got people who didn’t respond to the original call to write stories for me (frequently having to barter stories of my own in exchange).

BTW: Bella’s issue with the first intro was that it was too personally mine, which was, obviously, a totally understandable viewpoint. If I didn’t think so, I would have argued the point. But they were right, so I wrote.

Now, as for my story… Well, to put it all into perspective, I didn’t plan on ever doing a true-story anthology, since they were so overdone. The only folks doing them were Alyson and, long story short, a friend of mine was doing one for Alyson so I figured I could trust her and she begged ALL of my appropriate stories out of me. Three for one book, in fact. So when this book came up, I had none left. I didn’t want to reprint a story that had just been published, so I had to write something new.

I’d like to say that “fortunately” something happened, which led to this and that. Truth is, there was nothing fortunate about it. I went to Detroit to check on my brother/godfather, who’d pretty much been in a medically induced coma for a month after cancer surgery. I was between jobs, so could do that (and the between jobs is the reason Bella asked me to edit thi anthology. Several folks in different places learned I was between jobs suddenly and came to my aid by giving me contract work. Like editing this anthology.)

During some of my almost month with my brother in Detroit, as a favour to him, I guarded an awful bachelor party. Now, I did, in service to the cause, receive my first lap dance at that party (mind, folks who know me can’t believe I’d never had one before), when the guys at the party pitched together to buy me the lap dance. Between all the guys trying to grab my nightstick and trying to smoke and being disgusting… It wasn’t a happy night. But it did lay the seeds for the story that's excerpted above. (BTW: At the top of the night, I was in the office at the facility, reading and editing stories for this anthology.)

So… if you read the story, realize the basics are all true: I was wearing my brother’s pants, I did get a lap dance, I did use the restroom when…

Anyway, in my life, truth is often stranger than fiction.

BTW: This book really shows a turning point for Bella covers. IMHO, this is quite the hot cover.

Oh, also, btw, I didn’t originally plan on the last story in the book going into it. As I worked on the book I thought about it, then I asked at least a dozen people if I should include it, since I normally don't put in two stories by one author, and would hate to do it just for myself, but they all emphatically agreed that I should include it.

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WILD NIGHTS

(Mostly) True Stories of Women Loving Women

© 2007
ISBN-10: 1594930694
ISBN-13: 978-1594930690

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