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Category: Erotica/Bisexual Erotica/Erotic Romance
Description: A collection of erotic literary stories all set in New Orleans, by Jamie Joy Gatto.--From the sultry heat of New Orleans comes Sex Noir, a collection of erotic short stories from writer Jamie Joy Gatto. Gatto (Mind Caviar, Opehlia's Muse) mines the rich lode of erotic longing, of wanting, the sublime pain-pleasure in tragedy, setting all of her erotic tales in New Orleans. Written and originally published in print form long before Hurricane Katrina, Sex Noir is Gatto's love songs to the Crescent City, the city that can be equal parts queen of the Mississippi and back-room stripper-whore. This sensuous work on how passion and lust connect with longing and loss, Sex Noir presentes stories of transformative sex, casual encounters, desires both requited and unrequited, and the universal need to fill the emptiness inside. Author/Editor Bio: Jamie Joy Gatto is a sex activist and a widely published author. Her short stories have been included in Best Bisexual Erotica, Best SM Erotica, Ripe Fruit, Guilty Pleasures, Of the Flesh, and many more. She fled New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and currently makes her home somewhere much drier. Table of Contents: Includes the stories: Litany for the Muse of Tragedy Hungry Dahlia Liquid Kitten Verbosity Mastering The Storm Waiting for Claudette My Mistress Is Dead Gilding Lily Water Fall The Perfect Piece I Still Dream To Run With Anguish Quarter Past Four Come Monday Extenuating Circumstances Moon Thirteen Degrees Aquarius Go Your Own Way
eBook Publisher: Circlet Press, 2002 2002
eBookwise Release Date: July 2009

Available eBook Formats: OEBFF Format (IMP) [166 KB]
Words: 37283
Reading time: 106-149 min.

"What is Gatto's recipe for erotic fiction? Her tales combine a joyously nasty, exhibitionistic streak with soulful wisdom. The result is a tasty, appealing stew of stories whose flavor lingers long after the reader has savored it. "--Bill Brent, editor of Best Bisexual Erotica "Wonderful storyteller, elegant stylist, unique observer, and all-around very hot babe. This is a book that you'll not only remember, admire, and love, but it will also fuel the fires of your sex fantasies for years. "--M. Christian, author of Dirty Words, The Painted Doll, and The Bachelor Machine

Come Monday

It was too hot the summer I chose to play with Payne, having broken it off with Mr. Right when he refused to leave his drinking buddies one night at the tavern, even after I paged him to tell him my Granddaddy had died, the grandpa that had shared his same birthday fifty years apart. Yep, one of those summers in New Orleans where it's so humid your flesh becomes one with the liquid air, and if you cry right out in the street, no one will notice as the tears join with the beady sweat covering your face. The French Quarter stank of the rotting garbage they hide down underground, baking in the hot concrete, waiting for the trash men to come Monday to lift it out and cart it away, and something that blew in off the river smelled a bit like diapers, then sweet like applesauce, confusing my senses as to whether or not I stayed nauseated from sorrow, or simply sick from the smell of it.

I figured chasing cock would be easier than chasing tail, since most girls I've met seem to prefer a real relationship over basic sex with a non-committing friend. The last thing I wanted was to get waist deep into somebody else's life and family, history and pain, to allow them to want me so bad, they'd call me from work just to say, "Hi" and stop by my place unannounced on their way home with a fresh croissant filled with buttery mushrooms, let them feed it to me right from the paper sack, let me fall in love with their dog and the smell of their hair and make me cry until dawn when they didn't call, even one time at all, the whole weekend with no explanations or apologies come Monday.

No, I wanted to get laid and get it regularly, preferably at my whim, from some mildly amusing man with reasonable good looks and an absolutely dog-less apartment with nary a book nor self-created piece of artwork in sight. I wouldn't care whether or not he called or if he even had a phone, just so long as he had a dick.

Attending a funeral in August in New Orleans is a pathetic way to begin a week, especially when you are faced with my family and having no steady mate to give you an excuse to play hooky. Instead I had to deal with great aunts upon aunts offering their version of orange-crusted, eggy baked macaroni at the after-the-funeral pot luck buffet. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't worn the only black dress I own, which is made of an itchy boucle, and a pair of cheap, off-black pantyhose in a size too big pulled all the way up to my breasts underneath it. Aunt Iris handed me a plate with a slice of her cranberry mold topped with what looked like a greasy dollop of mayo. I can't even look at food that wiggles. I had to find Rodman.

I knew The Hotel St. Claire was the best place to look for Rodman, since he never answers his phone. I didn't care if he was working, he had to take a lunch break sometime, and I was willing to wait. Rodman is my favorite cousin by marriage on the other side of my family, as my Granny calls it. We grew up in the same little gang of neighborhood kids, so we always called one another by our last names. It must have started the year we played army against the next block's gang. I'm not exactly sure how we're related, but I do know that he was the only boy who ever let me play bride and groom with him. He even let me be the groom sometimes.

The Quarter was hot as hell at noontime, white-bright and steamy with the Mississippi mystery fragrance in full force; it was so bad, even the tourists seemed to be in hiding. Only one or two small groups of maw-maw's shuffled along cracked sidewalks canopied with wrought iron balconies. The women were bedecked with out-of-season Mardi Gras beads and over-sized matching sweat suits, some hand-painted with glitter pens, wearing tangled necklaces of sun-glasses and cameras.

The sky, for sure, was going to fall in sheets of hot Summer rain, which never really cooled off New Orleans, but simply suddenly filled our saucer-shaped city like the bowl it is, steaming us like a pot of boiled crabs, then ending--abandoning us as abruptly as it had begun. As a child, I used to imagine that when it rained, God was watering the Earth's plants with a giant, copper watering can, sprinkling His garden with the loving hand of a man who wouldn't let his creatures die.

I pressed down the fleeting sadness I felt, remembering how Grandpa always loved the rain. In fact it was he who taught me not to be afraid of thunder. I buried my pain with thoughts of lust, cunnilingus, ass-fucking, raw sex. The images flashed before my eyes like a film as the sky cracked open and the rain gushed down. My heart beat with each clap of thunder.

Suddenly I felt small and strange, like a child, which didn't at all cure my rock-steady libido, it only made me long more deeply for a strong man. While I knew casual sex could never take the place of having a relationship with anyone of substance, I also knew what good a roll in the hay would do me. This was somebody's lucky day.

The Hotel St. Claire was happy to greet me, air-conditioned chilly and all done up in maroon velvet; gilded tassels and fringe adorned anything that happened to be swathed in the lush fabric. Payne, busily working behind the front desk, was the first thing I saw as I entered the cramped, though elegantly dressed lobby. He was a quiet and wan boy, and you could kind of say he was cute with a smiling, simple face-but he didn't have much to say, and when he did, he didn't have a great deal of a variety in his conversational wardrobe. Most importantly, I knew he had a cock; conversation was optional.

I should have figured Payne would be working at the hotel with Rodman. Ever since we were all in the seventh grade, right about the time when I'd stopped climbing trees with boy cousins and started chasing the soccer players at school, wherever there was Rodman, there was Payne. I had known him throughout his punk phase, his '80s Quadrophenia Mod phase (he had switched suddenly one summer to "Rocker" mode inexplicably) and everything in between and up until the Seattle grunge look. Let me tell you, you've got to be crazy to wear layers of plaid and sweaters and ski caps during any season in New Orleans. This year it seemed that Vampire Goth was in vogue. And there was Payne-all in black: nails, long dyed hair, clothes and all. He didn't look half bad, come to think of it.

On one side of the room, French doors opened onto a banana tree-shaded courtyard replete with a watery, cornflower blue swimming pool. The wind picked up a bit as the sky rained, coloring itself white-gray. The tropical scene twitched occasionally in an off-beat gust from a breeze that I could see but not feel. Even though I was in the artificially cold air, I suddenly realized I was nearly covered head to toe in nylon; I wanted to rip off my stockings and dress and run naked, splashing into the rain and water.

I imagined Payne already in the pool, bobbing in cool water, his shiny hair glistening with wet droplets, wearing his perma-smile, waving me toward him. I'd be stripped naked and heading cunt-first to his smiling lips knowing he would be completely willing to do whatever I wanted. By the time I had begun to walk from the front door to the front desk, I had already decided that Payne was going to get laid. He had no choice in the matter: right place, right time, right dick, never mind the Goth drag.

Between paying customers and pauses when the manager went to check on rooms, Payne explained that Rodman was on vacation for the week. Payne had also decided that his name was going to be Morte and that I should address him as such (in front of his friends, he whispered) but not at work. Somehow the fact eluded him that his last name, Payne, was somehow ridiculously Goth-sounding almost to the point of being trite. But like I said, the young man was constantly trying to re-invent himself.