The Best American Erotica 2002

Is this sex in America? Let's hope so. The Best American Erotica 1999 is a melting pot of inventive selections that run the gamut from bittersweet stories of youthful passion to Henry Miller-esque vignettes of cosmopolitan lust. There are detours along the way to raunchy merriment, steamy liaisons, erotic sorrow, and many other landmarks in the erotic landscape, both fresh and familiar.

Explore the bittersweet of yesterday and today, growing up with Elise D'Haene in an excerpt from "Licking Our Wounds." If Kirk-Spock fantasies are getting to be old hat, take a titillating peek into an amorous Boy Wonder's diary in Kelly McQuain's "Je T'aime, Batman, Je T'adore." The erotic imagination of America wouldn't be complete without a rock star fantasy: Ben Neihart's "The Number One Song in the Country" delivers, in spades. Cecelia Tan suggests an answer to the age-old question of what women do in bed together--and provides some ingenious toy ideas for those who already know--in her thrilling "Penetrations." And celebrating our ever-increasing Internet usage, Robin Sweeney's "Picking Up Daddy" provides an exhilarating narrative about nervously meeting and amorously greeting a lover met online.

The fabric of America's erotic life--twosomes, threesomes, same sex, opposite sex, gender benders, realistic sex, outrageous fantasies, revenge fantasies, dainty love stories, no-holds-barred one-night stands, and more--is well chronicled in this anthology from sexpert Susie Bright. --Cheryl Trooskin