Spanked: Red Cheeked Erotica is a collection of twenty short pieces of fiction detailing what Bussel in her introduction calls “a fantastic kind of pain.” While this is not Bussel’s first collection of spanking stories, she does go on to say that the pieces in this particular collection took her breath away and that while editing the collection she learned that “there are an infinite number of ways to talk about the pleasures of getting spanked or spanking someone.”
You can say that again.
Which is why this collection should be read in small doses. Actually, I think any collection of erotica should be read in small doses. Especially if one isn’t used to this sort of thing. Plus, you pick up a lot of new lingo. Which it takes some time to assimilate.
It’s interesting reading erotic short stories apart from, say, regular short fiction. Much short fiction has, of course, scenes of a sexual nature, but it is quite clear that the premise of these stories stems from the sex act itself. The story is secondary. And yet, in a number of the pieces, it works very well.
A few of the pieces in Spanked are actually quite literary, aside from their erotic nature. Thomas Christopher’s “Riding the Storm” is very beautifully and lyrically written and when I looked up his bio his credits were indeed impressive. M. David Hornbuckle’s “Still Life with Infidels #56, with its superb title just crying to be read, could have been any better-than-average adultery story, just with a, well, spanking twist. Simon Sheppard’s “Fiscal Discipline” could not have been any better timed: imagine a story about the financial markets, homosexuality, and spanking! Plus, it was clever and funny. And I loved Bussel’s story about fear and pain that went far beyond the subject matter of the book. Donna George Storey’s “A Rare Find” and Shanna Germain’s “Perfect Bound” both revolved around books, in odd and wonderful ways. Teresa Noelle Roberts’ “Daddy’s Girl” creeped me out, but in a good way. She set up a premise that she then undid, and she did it quite well.
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