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This month: following instructions, quenching thirst and asking for pain. Rate each entry below in three categories: literary merit, heat and originality. Each month's highest-ranked entry will proceed to the year-end competition.
February marks the end of one full year of the Henry Miller Awards. You, the Nerve readers, have cast thousands of votes for the best literary sex scenes; now it's time to tally the results. In March, we'll convene a panel of celebrity judges to pick their favorite excerpts from the past year's nominations. Two winners will be announced: grand prize, as chosen by the panel, and readers' choice. The grand prize will receive $1,934, commemorating the publication date of Tropic of Cancer. |
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From The Best People in the World
by Justin Tussing
(HarperCollins) |
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OVERALL RATING: 4.542
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We left the tent standing, to bleach and billow and snap. When it rained Shiloh brought in the rug and the pillows. A storm carried the sheet down toward the ravine where it trailed off the top of a black maple like a veil or the escape route of an eloping tree-house bride.
In our bed I tried every trick to separate Alice's body from her mind. Her skin drove me crazy. Everything was surface about her, everything was outside. She wouldn't uncross her legs or open her lips or unclench her fists. I wanted to tear her to pieces. I dragged my teeth beneath her jaw. She breathed in snorting huffs. I bit her nipples. The corners of her eyes brimmed with water. I sucked on her hard shoulders.
We were two irreconcilable wills. I was destruction and she was preservation. I kept flinging myself at her. I tried to wedge pillows beneath her. The smells rising from her body seemed to demand all this effort. A slick perspiration grew from the exertion of my attacks and her parries. I wrenched her fingers open. I hooked my thumbs inside her lips and pried her mouth open. She was like some horrible fish. When I finally unknotted her legs, I pushed my mouth against her. She tried to crack my skull with her thighs. We made incursions into the narrow territory where violence borders love. She bucked against me when she came.
I said, "There's no fun like you."
"Say it again."
I said, "There's no fun like Alice Lowe."
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From Bedtime Eyes
by Amy Yamada
(St. Martins ) |
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OVERALL RATING: 5.472
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The room was filled with the heady aroma of coconuts. Leroy was already drunk. I sat down, naked, on the freshly poured cool, white sheet. A sliver of ice touched my hot skin. It felt good. I looked over at Leroy. He was kneeling down, staring at me, completely fascinated. He knew what I wanted. I felt as though my skin were soaking up the sweet alcohol like blotting paper.
"Hurry, or my pussy will be full!"
Leroy clambered over to where I lay and dived headfirst into my pussy to stop her from drinking too much. I writhed on the floor, wrapping my body in the sheet, a thin, white film covering my skin, but by then I was beginning to feel drunk myself and my arms and legs felt heavy. My hair spread out on the floor around me like the long tendrils of a plant on the seabed, swaying in a warm ocean current.
Leroy must have been thirsty. He lapped at me like a dog, slurping at my skin deliciously, flicking the tip of his tongue over my electrified body, gorging himself on every last drop of the sweet, sticky liquid that covered me.
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The room was filled with the heady aroma of coconuts. Leroy was already drunk. I sat down, naked, on the freshly poured cool, white sheet. A sliver of ice touched my hot skin. It felt good. I looked over at Leroy. He was kneeling down, staring at me, completely fascinated. He knew what I wanted. I felt as though my skin were soaking up the sweet alcohol like blotting paper.
"Hurry, or my pussy will be full!"
Leroy clambered over to where I lay and dived headfirst into my pussy to stop her from drinking too much. I writhed on the floor, wrapping my body in the sheet, a thin, white film covering my skin, but by then I was beginning to feel drunk myself and my arms and legs felt heavy. My hair spread out on the floor around me like the long tendrils of a plant on the seabed, swaying in a warm ocean current.
Leroy must have been thirsty. He lapped at me like a dog, slurping at my skin deliciously, flicking the tip of his tongue over my electrified body, gorging himself on every last drop of the sweet, sticky liquid that covered me.
The hot afternoon sun shone down through the open window, bathing my face in its warm glow. The powerful scent of the rum was overwhelming, and I closed my eyes and let it wash over me in waves. Looking down at Leroy, my eyes half open, I could just see his forehead bobbing gently between my legs. Like an old alcoholic, my eyes filled with tears as I watched him.
Leroy stopped licking and looked up at me questioningly, his eyes begging for permission to go further. I shook my head slowly from side to side: permission denied. His tongue returned to work.
Beyond his forehead I could see his firm, round ass and it gave me a warm feeling inside. I felt as though Leroy had been put on earth solely to make me feel good. And the only reason he had been given a tongue was so that he could lick my body like this. But while I refused to let him go any further than that, I did show him some compassion: I allowed him to start jacking himself off.
The hot sun moved slowly around the room and its golden rays filtered down across Leroy's body, casting a long, dark shadow. In the apartment next door someone was playing old records and I could hear the gentle strains of "Where Is My Baby?" drifting in through the open window. I held Leroy's head in my arms.
"Your baby's here . . . "
The sunlight painted Leroy's face scarlet. His fingers were wrapped tightly around his dick, his thick knuckles lined up in a smooth curve down the length of the shaft, and as I watched him, my pussy began to feel lonely, empty without him inside me. I felt as though she were crying to herself, whispering, I miss you . . . from between my legs. But sometimes crying can make you feel better when you're lonely.
"Leroy you're so sweet . . . " I panted in his ear. Thick jets of hot sperm gushed out into the coconut juice, one sticky liquid almost indistinguishable from the other.
All I could think about was pouring more rum over it and licking it all up off the floor.
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From Halfway House
by Katharine Noel
(Atlantic Monthly) |
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OVERALL RATING: 5.420
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In the middle of the night, though, he woke to find her shaking next to him. "Em?" He reached to touch her shoulder and she jerked away.
Then suddenly she turned and kissed him. If she'd been crying it had been without tears: her face was dry. She kissed him, groping for his penis, a knee on his hip. He was relieved.
When he was inside her, she asked him to hit her.
"Emily. Jesus."
In the Grace Kelly voice, she said, "I think you owe it to me to do what I want."
"You want me to hit you?"
"I want you to hurt me." She pushed back his hips so that he slid out of her, then turned onto her stomach. He moved back into her, trying to thrust as hard as he could, hoping that would be enough. "Hurt me," Em said, and he did the only thing he could imagine, holding her hair, wrapping it around his hand, pulling her head back sharply so that her throat was bared. He didn't want to do it, and he didn't want it to excite him but it did, driving into Em without gentleness, jerking back her head. She was crying out, and then he realized she was crying, and he let go of her hair and tried to cover her body with his own, trying to push his face down into the space between her neck and shoulder, trying to kiss her . . .
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From White Ghost Girls
by Alice Greenway
(Black Cat ) |
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OVERALL RATING: 6.429
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I go to the deaf boy's house. It is dark, shady, with lacquered wood floors, high bookshelves. Colored silk pillows glint from low benches. A ceiling fan throbs overhead. It is dark but when I step forward a sharp ray of sunlight pierces through a high window, blinds me. I can't see. But I feel my own face lit up, white, scared, exposed.
The deaf boy takes my hand and pulls me gently forward into the dark. Our wet feet leave silvery footprints on the black floor, up the stairs, glinting like fish scales.
The deaf boy lays me on his bed. Unwraps me slowly, the way I've watched him pry a starfish from a rock. Kneeling beside me, he slips my bathing suit top over my arms, my head, exposing my small breasts. He pulls the pants down over my gangly legs, revealing a blonde triangle of hair, my white skin.
Naked, I lie completely still. Close my eyes. I pretend I am an object he carried in from the beach. A bone washed up, a sun-bleached cuttlefish, a ridged cowrie shell. I am thin, hard. I am not voluptuous. I am a rock with edges, unsmoothed. White quartz, veins of dark obsidian where the rattan shade casts lines of sun and shadow across the bed.
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I go to the deaf boy's house. It is dark, shady, with lacquered wood floors, high bookshelves. Colored silk pillows glint from low benches. A ceiling fan throbs overhead. It is dark but when I step forward a sharp ray of sunlight pierces through a high window, blinds me. I can't see. But I feel my own face lit up, white, scared, exposed.
The deaf boy takes my hand and pulls me gently forward into the dark. Our wet feet leave silvery footprints on the black floor, up the stairs, glinting like fish scales.
The deaf boy lays me on his bed. Unwraps me slowly, the way I've watched him pry a starfish from a rock. Kneeling beside me, he slips my bathing suit top over my arms, my head, exposing my small breasts. He pulls the pants down over my gangly legs, revealing a blonde triangle of hair, my white skin.
Naked, I lie completely still. Close my eyes. I pretend I am an object he carried in from the beach. A bone washed up, a sun-bleached cuttlefish, a ridged cowrie shell. I am thin, hard. I am not voluptuous. I am a rock with edges, unsmoothed. White quartz, veins of dark obsidian where the rattan shade casts lines of sun and shadow across the bed.
The deaf boy examines my naked body. He runs his hands slowly over me from my mouth down to my navel, as if I were a shell, Janthina globosa. He runs his fingers between my legs, feels where it is wet, trails the wetness down my thighs, exploring. I feel my breath become fast and short. I grow full of desire. Desire for the deaf boy's kisses, for death, for drowning. Outside the village sounds are muted, far away. It's midday, too hot to work.
I undress the deaf boy. I do the things he has done to me. I lie him down and touch him until he moans with pleasure. I lick him. The deaf boy's skin is smooth, salty. I trace the lines of his ribs and collar-bone with my tongue. We touch each other this way, nothing more. Then we lie down, we don't speak, don't move.
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