Title: J is for Jealousy Author: Alison Tyler, editor Publisher: Cleis Press Publish Date: 2008 Pages: 134 Genres:: Fiction,Reviewer: SexHerald Staff

Rating:

A blistering look at how the green-eyed monster affects human relationships, J Is For Jealousy reveals how the pain of coveting and enduring unsatisfied desires crosses all gender, social, life, and sanity lines. It‘s a searing cross section of the causes and consequences of emotional hunger. Often funny, too, but I wouldn’t suggest reading it if you find yourself in bed on a night you’re alone but don’t want to be, although Alison Tyler defends eloquently the deliciousness of psychoerotic suffering in the introduction. I guess it depends on your mood.

This 14-tale venomous but redemptive bilethology swings in topic from sadomasochism to acts of man-to-man lust on the downlow while remaining entrenched and true to its theme. While one woman boils with rage at her lover’s potable mistress, alcoholic addiction (“Intoxication” by Shanna Germain), a man blames his lover for his feeling inadequate and threatened by the attention her outfit generates after asking her to dress seductively when they go out (“Underpass,” by Sommer Marsden) . In “Exes and Whys” (Nikki Magennis), an insecure girlfriend is overtaken by what she imagines a lover’s ex was like and finds that the more deeply she tunnels into the darkest part of her soul’s imagination, the more aroused she becomes. 

Saturated with angst, ecstasy, rage and often tenderness, the characters in these stories all but pull you into the room of their lives with them. In “Postcards from Europe” (Cheyenne Blue), a bitter sibling takes revenge on her condescending older sister by fucking her husband while she’s on vacation. Following is a look at the price partners are willing to pay to ease the jealousy of those they make their lives with shows itself startlingly in “Bend” (Tennille Brown) as a lady in a lot of pain extracts a heavy and highly exciting corporal price for her fiancé’s infidelity. One possessive lover woman is startled by her rock star boyfriend’s suggestion to prove his loyalty to her by having sex in public in “The Craziest Thing” (Gwen Masters). In another turn, a woman dramatically breaks free of her lover’s smothering suspicions and control-freak ways in a spontaneous and thrilling manner in “This Train Terminates Here” by H.L Berry.

Editor and author Alison Tyler also contributes her talent with the anthology’s closing tale, “Just You,” wherein the sub of a dominatrix suffers terrible pain and jealousy when watching her master torment another woman, perceiving it as a betrayal worse than straight sexual cheating.

J is for Jealousy is a powerhouse of an erotic collection.