Twice the Pleasure

by Rachel Kramer Bussel (Editor), Nicole Wolfe (Contributor), Valerie Alexander (Contributor)

Rachel Kramer Bussel is a card-carrying bisexual. She writes about it, talks about it, blogs about it and probably tweets, too. She is in a great relationship with a BOYFRIEND but once you go bi you never to back. Bisexuality is not about keeping your options open, it is about looking at the world and seeing a lot more sexy. In a Huffington Post, she went on record, stating "I think ideally I'd like to have a male lover and a female lover, either a triad situation or one on one." There is no better erotic mind on the planet better suited to editing Twice the Pleasure than Rachel Kramer Bussel. This big book of bi explores every option -There are girlfriends and wives, husbands and boyfriends, first dates, threesomes and much more here. There's daring and adventure, women taking risks by stepping outside their comfort zones, whether it's by surrendering to a bodyguard in "The State" by Tahira Iqbal or confronting "The Wife" of a male lover in Kay Jaybee's story, only to be confronted right back. The women you'll read about are attracted to strong women like "The Robber Girl" in Lori Selke's story, and men who surprise them with their sensitivity, such as in Bussel's own story, "A Little Fun."

Genres: Erotica, LGBT, Bisexual, Fiction, Anthologies, Sexuality, Short Stories

238 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

About the author

I'm the editor of the Best Women's Erotica of the Year series and over 70 anthologies including The Big Book of Orgasms and Come Again: Sex Toy Erotica. I've also written a wide range of erotica about everything from French fries to fishnets. I write about books, culture, sexuality and relationships, teach erotica writing workshops and consult with erotica authors and sex writers to help them advance their careers. I read a wide range of genres, from erotica to romance to mystery to memoir to graphic novels and anything that strikes my fancy. See my website for my newsletter with book giveaways and writing samples.

Reviews

[Jillyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twice the Pleasure is an anthology that contains 22 erotic short stories that all, in some way, contain scenes with bisexual women. Though not all of the stories in this collection scratched my particular itch, a majority of the stories proved to be quick, steamy, enjoyable reads.

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+Though I'm not going to critique each and every tale in this book, I'd like to give a tip of the hat to the authors of my three favorites. The first story in my top picks is The Robber Girl by Lori Selke. This story contains sizzling scenes involving the mild use of blood and knives, giving a darker feel. The next story I liked best was Seduction Dance by Dorothy Freed, in which a curious, playful female pet explores her desires for another girl at a BDSM party, at the encouragement of her Master. The BDSM air of this story is one that I seek in adult literature, and I wasn't disappointed. The final story that rounds out the top three is The State by Tahira Iqbal, which contains a sexy female security guard in her undies with a gun- need I say more?

+ A majority of the other works in this collection were solid three stars- enjoyable but ones that will fade from my memory when I read another story.

-The stories that I didn't like (which I'm not naming in particular) each contained flaws that didn't personally rub me the right way. One contained an abundant use of the word "fag" which not only has negative connotations but shows lazy writing. Another was written from a perspective using "you", which made it hard to follow. Others still involved kinks that are not my forte, such as bathroom bodily fluids.

Overall, this is an anthology that I would read again, and recommend to other women in the LGBT (though primarily B) spectrum. Whether your thing is historical stories, trans*, crossdressing, BDSM, knife play, voyeurism, or more caring scenes, there is a story in this collection for you. The pros far outweigh the cons. This isn't my first Rachel Kramer Bussel collection and definitely won't be my last. This book fills a much needed hole in erotic fiction by focusing on bisexuality.

If LGBT scenes, kinky sex, or vulgarity aren't your pleasure, don't get this book. If you like a lot of steam in your short stories, with an extra helping of girl-on-girl play, than this book is one not to be missed.

This review can also be found on my blog, Bitches n Prose. Thank you to Rachel for my copy.

[BookAddict ✒ La Crimson Femme · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twice the pleasure is twice the fun! In this anthology, there are twenty-two tasty tidbits of erotic goodness. Ms. Bussel is always good at bringing together some hawt kinky sex. She does it again with this collection. There are threesomes, infidelity and bisexual switching. The focus of most of these stories revolves around bisexual women and sometimes bisexual or cross dressing men.

As a bisexual, these collection is of great interest. How will bisexuals be portrayed? Negatively or maybe as wanton sluts humping anything insight? There are several stories which addresses the opposition bisexuals face. Many believe there is nothing such as a bisexual. The woman is either a lesbian or not. Sometimes they feel the same about a guy. It's not that black and white. It's good to see a collection which devotes a few stories incorporating this negative perception and then exposes how the bisexual feels by this slight and overcome it. The best part is all of this is delivered in a smexy easily relatable manner. This anthology is more than just heavy material, it's also filled with kinky erotic fantasies.

The most notable tale is "The Wife" by Kay Jaybee. The reader is treated to a mistress confronting the wife and it goes down a way unexpected. It looks as if it the wife is going to hurt the mistress only to reveal some unexpected twists. These depraved twists are so delicious. It makes a reader yearn to learn what will happen next. What will happen that night? Will the mistress submit? Ms. Jaybee is a total cock tease.

Another one which is quite memorable is "Regretable Circumstances" by Lane. This is a fanciful story about movie stars and what could have happened back in the day. This erotic dream is hawt with a bit of a grudge fuck involved. It is smoking with a great f/f/f ménage. This is definite one not to miss.

The most amusing one is "What I want, what I need" by Jacqueline Applebee. This is the one which slightly pokes fun at a woman falling off the lesbian wagon by doing the "nasty" with a man. The woman's next morning regrets causes her to go into a slightly crazed drama tirade. Fortunately, her friend slaps some sense into her.

This erotic anthology is recommended for kinky romantics who enjoy bisexuals.

*provided by BDSM Book Reviews

[Antonomasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've no idea why Cleis Press erotica anthologies aren't better known these days; with the increased popularity of very, uh, populist, examples of the genre, isn't there also more demand for some good quality, alt-ish stuff? (The anthologies did still get caught up in Scribd's recent 'romance purge', despite not many ratings - I hadn't expected the purge to affect any books I was interested in, but it did, a couple - and that's why I rushed to read this now.)

It was always going to be a contrast with reading their earlier volume of Bisexual Women's Erotica from/in 2001; I didn't know or understand myself very well then; I was freaked out by a story which I'd now enjoy by putting myself in a different character's place, which I hadn't quite twigged I was allowed to do. And to make it even more complicated, one of the other stories was by an acquaintance who was, come to think of it, rather cute; how confounding that was: I felt like the wrong person, the wrong persona, the wrong mess even to be thinking that way (and of course I couldn't tell her I'd read the story). Regardless, it cemented the sense that these Cleis anthologies are by, and sometimes about, people from a world I know. (That book also contained a story by Astrid Fox which I liked so much I that, in my past book-hoarding fashion, bought everything else I could find by her. Still haven't finished all of them.)

And this time round I started it in a different frame of mind: I thought wasn't interested in reading about sexual encounters with random men, unless they reminded me of a particular person - wondered if this would bear out during reading. It did: during that phase of reading I pretty much skimmed the scenes with men.

*Asterisks beside the stories I thought best.

*'1 Percent Adaptable' by Nicole Wolfe; *'The Wife' by Kay Jaybee
Really liked these two, though I was following the viewpoints of different characters from those the narrative encouraged the reader to identify with. (The book as a whole takes the viewpoint of a character who's the bottom/the chased more often than not - it needs a bit more balance that way.) Noticed that I also take in edited versions of the stories in my head, which miss out any mild dub-con or read it as purely a game, and where it's not anyone's first time.
In the first story, a previously straight celebrity fitness instructor is visiting France on a promotional tour and the representative of her French publisher who looks after her is a sexy femme lesbian; it messes around slightly with the idea of butch/femme and who's in charge, without directly alluding to roles. And the 'hot French girl' type, often written with male readers in mind, is only into women here.
'The Wife' is a subversive story of what was, at first glance, straight monogamous cheating; given some of the puritanical stuff I'd been reading elsewhere online at the time, it was particularly satisfying and amusing.

In 'Operetta', I couldn't particularly be bothered with the scenes between the narrator and her boyfriend, but what was interesting (maybe I should stop finding this sort of thing remarkable in erotica - it is often there) was the amount of silliness and pratfalling allowed. She's trying to write a feminist/queer comic operetta, it's not that good and she knows it, but she has a lot of fun with it anyway. (Oh also, the author is ignorant about bra sizing: "a ninety pound woman with a pair of size 42DD" is almost impossible: 42DD would be a plus-size woman with a bust that didn't look big on her; she evidently means something like 28GG, using new style measuring.)

'Lifeline' is kinda silly. The protagonist fills two fantasy stereotypes at once by being a car mechanic by day and a stripper by night, and it's all about as convincing as the average glossy TV ad. Then she has sex with an until-then platonic male friend and colleague of many years standing, which seemed equally lame and sitcom-ish and I skimmed it really fast, although I could see the sex might have been hot with different characters/setting.

'Goa' is about a fortysomething American M/F poly couple living in, yes, Goa, who have a threesome with a visiting female friend, named Cybele (ha), who's recently left a controlling lesbian relationship. It's good that erotica characters aren't all in their twenties, but the style and image I associated with these people is not my thing.

Then I didn't read anything more of the book for a couple of weeks. In the meantime, I felt very crowded by some conventional women, who were nice and meant well, but whom I didn't want to spend that much time with. Due to the stuff that brings up, in undergrad days my antidote used to be 'Pull.Man.Now.' to wash it out of my mind. Which is all very well when you're a twenty-year-old student. As a substitute, I'd thought of watching a few Mads Mikkelsen films before picking up this book again. But I didn't bother, and was surprised that my responses to the stories weren't much different from what they'd been earlier: a few of the scenes with men were more interesting, but not much, not enough to be sure it wasn't just that I preferred those stories qua stories.

Perhaps because I came back to them at the obvious subversive outlawry of the characters in the fairytale setting of * The Robber Girl by Lori Selke. This was very cool, although again the obvious audience identification character is the newbie, and I could have done without the couple of metaphors of daughter. What's wrong with apprentice or protege[e]?

The Adulterers is another subversion like 'The Wife' but not as good - it plays cliches too straight; if only it had a bit of irony and laughed at itself I'd have enjoyed it more. (Incidentally, sex in offices is such a big thing in erotica, yet always seems to be looked down on as seedy etc by people who allude to it IRL, in a way that other typical erotica settings aren't.

Sunset is one of those where only certain paragraphs worked. At first it looked like it might be both analytical and hot, e.g. “It’s not that simple,” she’d said. “Life isn’t a porn movie. Girls don’t just walk around making out with one another.” ... Did Tristan know that she found the women attractive, or was he simply attracted to them himself? This question preoccupied her, and made her want to be with a girl less and less.
But it segues awkwardly into a standard-issue fantasy in which the protagonist and her boyfriend go to a strip club and the stripper fancies her. I'd have probably liked this story more 7-10 years ago.
Not sure what possessed me to read a Julie Bindel article yesterday (it wasn't one of the worst), but I'd have liked to read a story set in a strip club featuring something she mentioned: Thankfully, the butch behaviour of old – such as smoking cigars, going to strip clubs, and parodying classic male behaviour – is dying out. Cigars actually make me puke, but it's a story, it's vicarious. And knowing that something pisses off the likes of Bindel only makes it more exciting.

Break, not entirely my thing but must be welcome for the underrepresented femme top/butch bottom SM dynamic.

* In the Mirror by Valerie Alexander manages to pack in a big soapy storyline as well as some really hot scenes. Bi poly couple Will (M) & Jamie (F) have to attend a conservative family wedding and pretend to be more conventional than they are, but they get some welcome time out from this because Jamie's girlfriend lives in the city where the wedding is; since W&J have been together, the only other people they've dated have been of their own sex, but now Will fancies Jamie's girlfriend Hannah, and Hannah has a doe-eyed new boyfriend. Everyone's absurdly cool and filmstar-looking, but it did make for sexier mental pictures than the Goa story.

* Glitter in the Gutter by Giselle Renarde. The narrator's lover is a male-to-female crossdresser, who's going through a period of doubt and angst. (I was surprised someone in a counterculturish urban environment still would have those doubts - it's not like he's in a small town or the forces or something - but I guess it's sometimes people's pasts, not their present, that factors in there.) Was really glad to see this theme, and how much she likes the sight of him in women's clothes, just because it's hot, not for sissification. (It's something I like too, though I need to find the guy attractive regardless.) It's rare it's articulated, beyond girls-who-like-boys-in-eyeliner, or people who had crushes on Eddie Izzard, who I never liked in that way.

Seduction Dance. A straight female sub at a kink party is attracted to another woman and discovers her inner bi switch. It's the only story in the collection that takes the POV of an inexperienced top (in any sense, though here it's clearly BDSM), but it also doesn't really, as her dom is still part of the scene, and she's fantasy-land brilliant at everything (including hitty things) first time round. It was fine as a story, but I prefer the ones that have a bit of humour or imperfection - they're still unexpected.

A Little Fun. A longstanding butch lesbian recovering from a breakup meets a straight guy who has a thing about tomboys. I wasn't sure about some of this - but then I've never been either of these people; thought she might question or analyse some of the things she found herself desiring more than she did, even if she did decide to do them.

Trinity. Two women meet in a gym changing room and go home together for a one night stand. Simple as.

* Meeting at the Hole in the Wall by Aimee Pearl: a really great piece of writing. Even the stuff I wasn't into was hot and there was quite a bit of that (it was narrated by a masochist, about her encounters with a male FWB). I figure this is one of the ways of judging how good erotica is.

The State. A married woman VIP is assigned a female bodyguard after a family member is killed. (The setting made most sense imagined as Latin America.) So many professional boundaries were broken so often it seemed silly written down, but if you can suspend that much disbelief it may be okay.

* Strange Status Quo by Salome Wilde. No-one's having fantasies about Francis Rossi, it's not quite that strange. A writer and her amanuensis/ girlfriend have an old-fashioned sounding household. Apart from when they go to hotels for book tours and fan conventions...

Walking the Walk IRL it would surely be uncool and contradictory to pester people into wearing something they're reluctant to wear on a Slutwalk, but I figure someone found the costumes sexy and made that into this story of an alternative household of three lovers and their games with them.

Regrettable Circumstances. Greta Garbo narrates: now, that's never going to be easy to pull off; it does sound too modern, but could be a lot worse. She's persuaded out of hiding for a 1945 post-war party, where she sees Marlene Dietrich and Tallulah Bankhead, among other stars of Old Hollywood. Was that Lilian Gish with Harold Lloyd in the garden? I found it all too surreal: fanfiction always is except on the rare occasions I've actively sought it out, and the writing here needed to be more apt to elevate it above that.

Right-Red Flagging by Sinclair Sexsmith. An occasionally-bi drag king goes out on the pull to a gay leather bar. The first page of this story, with its multiplicities of identities and genders required the sort of concentration it took the first time I tried to parse Blur's 'Girls & Boys'. (I've not looked closely at the 2001 bisexual erotica anthology again, but I'd guess the genderfuckery is more pronounced here, published 12 years later - a cultural shift. The narrator wonders, for instance: Hell, maybe I don’t pass at all and the boys either know I’m in drag or think I’m a trans guy who isn’t taking T—either way, they don’t seem to care. ) I was still nervous for the narrator in case they got found out a la Crying Game, but later it was the logistics I thought about - "doing both those things at once? hard work, no?" Interesting. Couldn't decide whether or not to put a star beside this one.

Page of Wands. A down-at-heel androgynous Australian and the people they hang out with.

What I Want, What I Need. Set in a corner of London that sounds too scruffy to be post-Olympic, (I kept imagining it was the 80s except when mobiles were mentioned) among people who all work for gay organisations. And they turn out not to be biphobic as the protagonist thought.

[Tof Eklund · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twice the Pleasure, is, like all anthologies, a Hallowe'en goody bag, where some of the candies are more toothsome than others. It is, however, a rather superior goodie bag, the kind you get in rich neighborhoods where they give out entire candy bars and even dark chocolate truffles.

Any reader who is attracted to this work by it's title will find some of is gooey, sinful sweets to be particularly to their taste. I loved the merengue-like Gibert and Sullivan parody lavyered over the richer relationship dynamics of Jean Roberta's Operetta. The bittersweet romance and the gritty medieval setting of Lori Selke's The Robber Girl was hot and sharp, its pleasure and pain commingled. But it was Glitter in the Gutter by Giselle Renarde that was the piece de resistance for me. Sexy, yes, all these stories are sexy, and Glitter in the Gutter is layers with sweet and sour, the narrator's complex bisexuality and her love interest's "trans-curious" gendering sizzle and char, seem about to burn up and then, voila! Such a powerful release, so tender, and so very satifying.

Other reviewers have commented on the ambiguous consent (or outright non-con) of The Wife, which I admit was a turn-off for me. Some readers will be unsettled by the roughness (including a tiny bit of blood play) in The Robber Girl, which I liked. Some of the stories are rooted in bisexual identity, others are about incidental bisexual behavior. Rachel Kramer Bussel's latest anothology is, forgive me for the reference, like a box of chocolates. I think you'll like most of them.

[Geeky Nymph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Someone once referred to bisexuality to me as a "fish or chicken" kind of smorgasbord of options. While it was meant to be funny, it struck me as problematic right down to the core of why people fail in understanding or appreciating bisexuality.

As Rachel states in the introduction of this book, "This is not a book about choosing either/or, male or female, or simply one of each. It's not about narrowing gender down to one size fits all, but about expanding our options, to a both/and approach to how we view and cultivate our sexuality."

There's no straightforward definition of what bisexuality or what being bisexual may mean to people. But, instead of trying to worry about what that might involve, the characters in this anthology are too busy exploring their sexualities to worry about how they might identify.

What I love most about reading this book is that these stories are varied and intriguing, simple and complicated. These are stories about women having sex in scenarios that at times surprise them by teaching them something they didn't know about themselves. The stories are thoughtful and creative in ways that are highly erotic.

[Salome Wilde · Rating 5 out of 5]

So enjoyed this yummy anthology exploring bisexuality from diverse women's perspectives. My favorite story is Sinclair Sexsmith's "Right-red Flagging" for its trans/queer intensity and optimism. Of course, I like my own contribution to the volume, too! So much to choose from, you'll no doubt find your own quickly and thoroughly.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I cherish this book of stories. There's quite a range, but a nice majority of them are from women on the queer / lesbian side of the spectrum, which is a welcome breath of fresh air from the absolute preponderance of stories of "straight" women discovering a "gay" side. (But don't worry, some of those are in here too, and well selected. That is, there's always some interesting quirk that keeps them from just being "I met *this* woman and suddenly my panties were wet".)

You know what else is nice? How some of the stories included have characters that grapple with the politics of identity and choice, which in my experience is something you never can fully escape as a bisexual person. Kudos to this collection for bringing that in the mix.

But are these stories hot? YES. Not all of them will be, not to everyone of course, but ultimately it seems there's something in here for everyone. Brainy smut that any bisexual woman - or anyone who can appreciate the fluidity & many different forms of desire that exist - will appreciate.

(You can check my reading updates for reviews of each of the individual stories, though it might be a little spoiler-y.)

[Sam Warren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rachel Kramer Bussel has once again managed to string together a group of stories rife with well-written sexy.

The thing I always find pleasing about an RKB-edited book is that none of the stories contained within that book read the same. Which is exactly not what you would expect reading an anthology of similarly themed writings. It speaks to her abilities as an editor.

It also accounts for why I have yet to be disappointed by anything with her name attached to it.

P.S. - Did I mention how hot all the stories were?

[Clementine Morrigan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Heads up for some very transmisogynist comments in the second last story. Overall these stories were hit or miss. A couple included the use of condoms and safer sex stuff which I thought was cool to see in erotica.

[Jacob · Rating 4 out of 5]

Edited collections are always impossible to rate because generally you don't like every story the same amount. But overall, this was a good collection. I appreciated all of the stories in this book in a literary sense. I also appreciated the diversity of types of fantasies that it had to offer, which is reflective of the diversity of bisexual womens' experiences. It had less diversity in terms of race/ethnicity (I think almost all the characters were white), however, which was a little disappointing.

The only problem with this diversity is that stories with such different themes/kinks/sex acts/types of relationships & scenarios are unlikely to all appeal to one person. This was my experience, at least. While I appreciated all of these stories in one way or another, and felt they were all pretty well written, they didn't all get my motor running, so to speak. Some of these stories had scenarios I found sexy; others not so much. The majority of the stories were interesting to me rather than hot, and let's be real, I'm reading erotica in search of hotness.

While I like the idea, in theory, of a collection of bisexual erotica, and appreciated characters who were actually bisexual-identified, I think for a collection to be really satisfying erotically, you'd have to get a bit more specific to specific types of scenarios/subgenres of erotica and also feature bisexual characters (e.g. Bisexual Voyeurism)

[Robert Reuter · Rating 4 out of 5]

very interesting