Title: She's on Top: Erotic Stories of Female Dominance and Male Submission Author: Edited By Rachel Kramer Bussel Publisher: Cleis Press Publish Date: 197 Pages: 2004 Genres:: Fiction, Compilation, Fantasy, Fetishes Reviewer: Jordana Landres

Rating:

Just how good can it feel to be totally in control? If you ask the protagonists of the anthology She’s on Top, the answer would likely be “pretty damn good.” Eighteen S& M prose offerings on a platter are here for your reading pleasure. Yet the irony, which you’ll find as you read further, is how profoundly the male submissives control their controllers.

In “Shades of Red” (Lisbet Sarai), a vacationing woman aching to release a force within herself rents a sexual display window in Amsterdam and is surprised then delighted with what she finds. The sensuality of dominance spills into food and eating in “Feeder” by Adelaide Clark where a domme shares a meal with her lover/slave in a way that nourishes and satiates them both.

Comfort through pain, and physical pain as a highway to relief from soul pain underscore several of the tales presented. A dominant couple locks horns and unlocks even more of their inhibitions when a wife urges her husband to listen to her climax from oral sex with her submissives while he listens over the phone (“The Queening Chair,” Kate Dominic).

She’s on Top keeps a stilettoed foot in both moderate and extreme territory. A female dominatrix with a troubled and lonely personal life learns the joys of give and take exploring dual sides of her nature with a fellow dominant/submissive (“The Mistress Meets Her Match,” Kristina Wright). This story most resembles what you might call the mainstream of relationships. Brutality crashes into and becomes tenderness, and sentimentality seeps out from under the waves of aggression. The bitch goddesses throughout She’s On Top draw admirers, crowds and blood with their whips and words, queens of the ejaculation-inducing double message. The line between love and humiliation blurs and becomes one in “By A Firm Hand” (Debra Hyde) wherein a stern wife exacts retribution for her husband’s infractions much to his ecstasy.

Victorian England’s sexy side also gets its due in a tale of a young lady who demands a suitor prove his mettle in various ways before she agrees to become his wife (“Victoria’s Hand” by Lissette Ashton).  As you might imagine, this bold maiden decrees the tongue mightier than the sword.

Giving a voice to a dark choice. She’s On Top brings it to light, eighteen different and compelling ways.