Sexy Strangers, page 1
SEXY STRANGERS
SEXY
STRANGERS
EDITED BY
RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL
Copyright © 2023 by Rachel Kramer Bussel.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 221 River Street, Ninth Floor, Hoboken, New Jersey 07030.
Printed in the United States
Cover design: Jennifer Do
Cover image: Shutterstock
Text design: Frank Wiedemann
First Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-329-3
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-542-6
Contents
Introduction: Hot Strangers, Hot Times
Skate Date • ANNITA TERCIO
A Body in Motion • SULEIKHA SNYDER
Waxing Gibbous • D.J. HODGE
Away Game • SPROCKET J. RYDYR
Take Tuesday • LIN DEVON
Hot Neighbor Guy • KATE SLOAN
Second Season • ASH DYLAN
Ken’s of Kensington • FRIEDRICH KREUZ
Our Reflection in the Mirror, Mirror • JESSICA LEIGH ROODE
Private Beach • A.J. HARRIS
Charlotte the Pirate Queen • DR. J.
Untamed: A Modern Primal Love Story • NIKKI RAE
Life’s Too Short • SIENNA MERIT
Parc-aux-Cerfs • JORDAN MONROE
Half Angel • KIKI DELOVELY
In the Zine Library • EM FARRIS
The Boy Toy • LYNX CANON
Hunger • LYDIA LOOMIS
The Doctor • BARTHOLOMEW MAXWELL
Ember and Ash • OLEANDER PLUME
About the Authors
About the Editor
INTRODUCTION: HOT STRANGERS, HOT TIMES
There’s nothing like the thrill of encountering a stranger and feeling that initial spark, that intuition that even though you don’t know this person, they could be someone you want to get naked with. That’s the premise of Sexy Strangers, where encounters between neighbors, dates, rivals, and others who appear in the lives of the protagonists turn thrillingly sensual.
In these stories, lovers meet in all sorts of ways, from roller skating to beaches to sex clubs to libraries. Wherever they find each other, there’s a moment when they know: This is someone I want to get naked with. There’s a lot more to these sexy stories than casual sex, though. Whether or not these encounters extend beyond their initial sizzling start or are whole in and of themselves, these passionate stories bring all the heat of that initial discovery.
The lovers you’ll read about get to know each other in the most intimate of ways, fueled by various desires—for hot sex, for someone to offer them lust and longing and attention that they aren’t getting elsewhere. In many of these stories, a stranger helps unlock an aspect of a character’s sexuality which has been hidden away, or which they haven’t been able to fully access on their own. These strangers exchange kisses and touches and orgasms as well as deeper gifts, in many cases, as they encourage their new lovers to try something new, whether it’s exhibitionism, voyeurism, sex toys, BDSM, role-playing, or particular locations, positions, or sensations.
Every character you’ll read about in Sexy Strangers is changed in a powerful way by what happens when they strip naked before a new lover, when they communicate in a very particular way about who they are and what they want. They offer the permission these sexual seekers have been looking for to embrace their most uninhibited selves and have the kind of sex they’ve either dreamed about or couldn’t have imagined themselves actually doing.
In “Life’s Too Short” by Sienna Merit, the protagonist succumbs to the sexual charms of the bartender she’s had her eye on, making the most of the title saying. “She was a hungry, merciless wildfire when she got going. I was breathless looking at her.” That same energy is present throughout these stories, a rush to say yes, to explore, to go to those places, literal and figurative, that are a little (or a lot) edgy, daring, and often combine a mix of nerves and arousal. That balancing act of trusting someone new to learn how to read their body’s roadmaps, of going with the unexpected without knowing what will happen beyond the immediate moment, that drives the erotic tension in these stories. I hope they whisk you away with their sexual frenzy and leave you breathless as well.
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Atlantic City
SKATE DATE
Annita Tercio
Please, please, please let no one else be here, Darby thought to herself as she parked her car.
She checked her phone: 7:30 a.m. She glanced at her stuffed tote bag on the passenger seat. She reviewed her mental checklist one more time. Water: check. Elbow, wrist, and knee pads: check, check, check. Cute stripy socks: snug around her calves. Stretchy retro shorts that skirted the edge of being cheeky: settled into the crease of her thighs. Brand new roller skates: teasing her from the top of the bag. Daring her not to fall on her ass.
“Am I really going to do this?” she said aloud to herself. She peered out the car window at the smooth concrete surface of the reservoir. Morning sun filtered through the tall trees and bird-song emanated from the branches. Otherwise, the street was quiet. She studied the slice of pavement visible from the gate. No one glided past. Later in the day it would be hopping, with everyone from parents chasing toddlers on tricycles to the local derby team practicing drills. The reservoir was the place to go if you wanted to be on wheels. Smooth, flat, big, completely fenced in, and free.
Which is why Darby was there. Just hopefully early enough to spare herself the embarrassment of others witnessing a six-foot-tall, forty-seven-year-old woman attempting to roller skate again after last attaching eight wheels to her feet decades ago.
“This is ridiculous,” she said aloud. She looked at the skates. Bright green suede. Sparkly laces. Matching suede toe caps. She’d really gone for it. She’d been wanting to try skating again for over two years, ever since she’d walked past a man sitting on the floor of his garage, clearly mid clean-out, strapping on a pair of skates he’d just unearthed from some dusty box in a corner. He looked giddy. Something about the look on his face, of rediscovering something that must have once given him pleasure, had struck her. She hadn’t felt joy for quite some time, and now, in her post-divorce-fuck-it-I’m-going-to-reclaim-myself-and-have-some-goddamn-fun phase of life, she’d decided to stop withholding from herself. Seek freedom. Seek joy. Play.
So when her chosen skates came back in stock she hit “complete purchase” before she could even talk herself out of it. Three days later, they were at her doorstep.
She touched the silky suede of the skates. Damn they were pretty. And expensive. Darby exhaled, grabbed the tote, and got out of the car.
Nerves tingled in her fingers as she laced the skates tightly around her ankles. Once on, she looked down at her long thighs, a little more muscled of late due to her newfound love of squats. She adjusted her pink-striped tube socks as the metallic threads of her laces caught the sunlight. Unconsciously, she grinned. Double checking the Velcro of her pads, Darby flipped herself over onto her knees and stood up, lunging on one leg, then the other. She wobbled a moment but then remembered all the tutorials she’d watched online. Keep your knees bent. Core tight. Shoulders straight. Look ahead. Breathe. Relax.
She flashed to herself as a kid. She used to skate up and down the driveway, on the back patio, weaving and turning for hours. The only reason she’d stopped was because she’d hit a growth spurt in her early teens and her brother’s friend, staring up at her from his sneakers, had looked at her yellow overalls and immediately nicknamed her Big Bird.
A breeze rustled across her neck and bare arms. The sun washed over the bare pavement, empty except for her.
“Fuck it,” she said and pushed off.
Just like that, Darby was skating. At first her strides were tentative. Then she adjusted her balance from her heels to the balls of her feet, the skates’ leather snug against her shins. The wheels rolling over the pavement thrummed under her feet and with each passing minute, her movements grew more fluid.
She picked up more speed and leaned into a turn, relishing the momentum pushing her into a gentle arc.
She giggled aloud. “I’m doing it!” she said to herself. She rolled back to the spot where she’d dropped her bag. She found her earbuds, popped them in, cued up her favorite 90s playlist, tucked her phone into the top of her sports bra, and before she even had a chance to think, turned around on one foot and propelled herself forward with her toe stop. She giggled once more. Fuck age, fuck self-doubt, she thought.
Gliding across the smooth concrete, music thumping in her ears, sun kissing the tops of her shoulders, Darby skated. Back and forth. Round and round. With each revolution across the expanse of the reservoir, the muscle memory returned. She swung her hips from side to side, her feet swiveling in response. She pushed with her left foot, then drew a C with her right, zooming into a quick turn and stop. “What?!” she shouted, laughing out loud. Yes! This is why she wanted to do this again.
Remind herself that life was more than work, paying a mortgage, wasting time on dating sites with men who told her they th
When she’d first tried on her skates, daring only to stand on her bedroom carpet in front of her full-length mirror, she couldn’t help but think: I look like a giraffe. Standing that close, she couldn’t even see the top of her head in the reflection. But now, skating, gliding, turning, bouncing to the music, she didn’t feel like a giraffe. She felt graceful. She felt strong. She felt . . . hot.
Pushing harder, she lifted her arms above her head. She snapped her fingers in tune to the music. Janet Jackson’s “That’s the Way Love Goes” came on and something about the slow beat, the clench of her ass and thigh muscles, the growing summer heat, all of it, made her rake her hands down the front of her body like she was in a music video. Her nipples puckered at the feel of her fingertips. The tip of her clit pulsed.
She giggled. Darby was literally and figuratively feeling herself.
Why had she waited so long to get back on skates? She turned again and—
Shit.
Someone else was there.
In a shady corner a man was sitting on a cheap fold-up camping chair. He was bent over, furiously lacing inlines to his feet.
How long had he been there? Had he seen her?
He sat up and looked straight at Darby before she could look away. If she hadn’t panicked, she could’ve kept skating with her hands away from her fun zones while looking right past him in an attempt to signal she had no idea he was there. Then she could nonchalantly skate back to her bag, plop down as if she hadn’t just gotten there ten minutes before, take off her skates, and go home for a vibrator session and a second cup of tea.
He lifted a hand and waved. A gesture to say, Hey. Since it’s just us here it would be weird if we didn’t acknowledge each other. Darby waved back weakly as the man slowly stood up.
Well, fine. She wasn’t alone anymore. He probably didn’t see her shaking her ass and pinching her own nipples, right? He’d probably just arrived. Next time she’d get here even earlier, maybe before—
“MERDE!”
Somehow, in the two seconds since they’d exchanged waves, the man had managed to fall. Had he even . . . skated? Darby wondered. But there he was, legs waving in the air and the camping chair resting on his back.
Instinctively she skated toward him, taking her earbuds out. “Are you okay?” she called out.
As she neared, he pushed the chair off himself, yelling out, “ Merde!” once more but less forcefully. He pushed his legs out in front of him as he struggled to set the chair upright.
“Are you—” she started to ask again but cut herself off. She was going way too fast. She jammed a toe stop down but it bounced and skidded behind her. She grabbed the fence to break her momentum, wheels clattering and sliding from underneath her. “EEEEEE!” she squealed as she somehow managed to get her feet back under her.
“I’m okay. You?” the man said with an accent.
Darby looked down at him. What were the chances? He was adorable. Dark salt-and-pepper hair curled out from under a hat. Even under the brim she could see that his eyes leaned toward green. He was dressed simply, in gray shorts and a light T-shirt that somehow showed a trim body without actually being tight. His tan calves curved gracefully into new black inlines.
Darby wanted to climb right up and over the fence and disappear.
She also wanted to climb right on top of him.
“I’m still standing,” she said, pushing the thought away and attempting to smile. She realized she was clinging to the fence. Finger by finger she let go, trying to look casual. “Looks like you took a nasty fall.”
He nodded, smiling at her. He made no attempt to get up. “Yes,” he said. It sounded like “Yusss.” He looked both friendly and confused. In a handsome way.
“Well,” Darby said. Wow. His smile was . . . something. “Good luck!” she called out as she carefully turned, suddenly stricken that she was on roller skates. In tube socks. Wearing tiny 70s retro-style shorts she’d bought for $17 off Amazon. And that she was eight hundred feet tall looming over a charmingly sexy man sitting on the ground. Who, she noticed, was trying not to look at her legs.
She smiled again as she pushed off, fumbling as she attempted to put her earbuds back in.
“AHHH!” she heard from behind her. “Merde, merde, merde!”
Without thinking, she whipped around. Her speed spun her into a three-sixty and her arms flew up as she rocked back, but just as quickly she bent her knees and flung her arms forward, reestablishing her balance. The man, on the other hand, was on all fours, trying desperately to catch purchase with his skates but instead his feet rolled helplessly behind him. He managed to grab hold of the fence with one hand and through force of will and a comically wide stance, got up in a crouch. He glanced at Darby and, laughing, gave her a meek thumbs up.
She couldn’t help herself. Darby skated back, going slower this time and managing to drag her toe stop without it stuttering over the pavement.
“Grab the fence with your other hand,” she said. “Step your feet closer. Then you can pull yourself up.”
He glanced at her again. His cheeks were red. Fuck he was cute. “Sorry,” he said. It sounded like, “sa-REE?” Darby put it all together. Not only was this man completely inept on skates, he was French and barely spoke English. And then, in a nanosecond, right back on his ass.
What the hell was happening this morning?
Darby laughed. She’d been worried that she looked like a giraffe and yet this man might actually be one, albeit reincarnated in a taut French man’s body.
Holding up his index finger, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. With a few taps he spoke into the microphone and then held it out to her. She leaned down and saw that he had translated himself. “I’m sorry, my English is bad and so is my skating. I’m here visiting family.”
He took the phone back, tapped again, then held it for her, waiting for her to speak.
“My skating is not so good either,” she said after a pause, defaulting to self-effacement. He read her words and then looked at her in shock. He muttered some words into the phone. Darby couldn’t understand a single one of them, but the way his words slid around in the back of his throat made her want to bend down and watch his tongue.
He held the phone out. “You are joking. Your skating is beautiful! You are a graceful gazelle.” Just as she took her eyes off the screen, she noticed his eyes traveling up her legs. He quickly averted his gaze. Darby watched his face flush deeper.
He mumbled into the phone. “Apologies, I am just embarrassed to be trying this around such a beautiful woman.” Normally she’d roll her eyes at a line like that, but then he covered his face with his hands, letting out a soft laugh that ended in a sigh. His hands were gorgeous. Thick veins carved into the backs of them, indicating an easy strength. He spoke again into the phone. “It is impossible to stand in these things!”
She laughed. Hm. Maybe you don’t need to stand, she thought.
He dictated into the phone once more, his voice lower this time: “You looked like you were having a nice time by yourself before I interrupted.”
She stared at him. This time, he didn’t glance away as he gazed up at her. A soft grin pulled at his mouth. So he had seen her feeling herself. Figuratively and literally.
Grabbing the fence for stability, she motioned for the phone.
“Did you have a nice time watching?” she asked. Heat flooded her cheeks, but she didn’t break her stare.
His eyes flickered wide for a moment as he read her translated words.
“Oui,” he said. He put the phone down.
She pushed on her toe stop, inching closer. Her shadow covered his face. He licked his lips. On her skates she towered above him. Her hand sweat as she clung to the fence. Darby! What are you doing?
