Title: Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Lesbian Cowboy Erotica Author: Sacchi Green and Rakelle Valencia Publisher: Suspect Thoughts Press Publish Date: 2005 Pages: 217 Genres:: Lesbian, Fiction Reviewer: J. Henry

Rating:

Cowboyin’ is a way of life for Rakelle Valencia. After Valencia heard Sacchi Green’s lesbian story “Bullrider,” she knew they should tackle the theme of lesbian cowboys in a new erotic anthology. The title of their collaborative effort comes from a quote in Valencia’s story “To Fuck a Cowboy.”

Stetsons, rope, soaked jeans, callused fingers & toes, and many cowboys (the term cowgirl is never used to describe these women) pepper Rode Hard, Put Away Wet.

Editors Valencia and Green compile a satisfying assortment of stories, which contain the right amounts of eroticism and chemistry between women intermingled with levels of sincere intimacy, deep desire, moments of uncertainty and sexual gratification.

Valencia’s inclusions have her signature amount of sensuality. The details Valencia provides at a woman’s height of arousal are enticing and well illustrated. The description of inner torment during self-gratification for a cowboy watching another shear her pubic hair takes the reader straight into the moment: “Struggling within, Austin writhed and convulsed searching for the peak that would end the misery of her teeth-clenched bottom lip and sweetly agonized body.”

“Independence” details a longing for a friend beyond the platonic that is stimulated during an adventure in cattle herding across the States. During the trail ride, in the midst of a female orgy, the narrator, Moira, realizes she’d be heartbroken to lose her companion Delilah. She finds, while being brought to the brink of climax by their trail leader, that seeing Delilah sexually satisfied with other women is just as daunting. Caralee Levy supplies intense sex scenes, all the while never losing sight of Moira’s true obsession: “I nearly reached for her [Delilah] but touched myself instead.”

While the majority of this collection touches on an array of sensations both sexually and emotionally inclined, there are a few that do not live up to the consistency of the group, such as Val Murphy’s “Rode ‘Em and Brand ‘Em,” a sparse tale of a brat being forced into submission by a dominant ranch hand.

The best parts of this collection are their differences. Stories like Green’s “The Flight of the Prairie Lily” take on a woman trying to find her true calling through her uncle’s air balloon while at the same time finding a sexual longing for the woman who’ll help her take flight. And “The Coal Miner’s Other Daughter” by Amie M. Evans follows a teenager coming into her own sexually who hopes that her best friend will come to terms with her true feelings.

The basis for this collection is not only to provide arousing situations the readers can place themselves in, but to have the setting, characters, and themes center around the diligent, gritty, and dirty farm atmosphere that is not typically considered quite so enticing.