Nicole Foster is the pseudonym used by Annette Chartier-Warren and Danette Fertig-Thompson. “Nicole” has edited more than 20 collections of lesbian erotica, including earlier versions of “Ultimate Lesbian Erotica.” Their work is published by Alyson Books, the oldest and largest Gay/Lesbian publisher in the U.S. In this collection, as in their others, they have chosen an interesting and varied collection of voices, and created an interesting, tightly-edited anthology.

Have you ever started having sex with someone only to find that it is awkward, or predictable, or exceedingly dull, such that you start trying to figure out how to gracefully get out of the situation? Imagine that, then imagine this—suddenly your partner pulls something you’ve never encountered, something so delicious, so delightful, that everything else falls out of your memory.

Such is my experience with the short story collection “Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2009.” I’ve read so many lesbian erotica, and lesbian short story, collections that I am perhaps a bit jaded. How many ways can one talk about the same body parts doing many of the same things? Ah, but in the hands of good writers with strong imaginations, incredible things can happen. This collection has several stories of this caliber, completely unique and engaging:

“Love Letter,” a letter to an old lover that becomes an ode to butches and a remembrance of hot and loving sex long-lost

“P.S. I Love You,” a story told in present-day narratives and flashbacks about life-long lesbian partners who met at Woodstock. Sexy, yes, and also the story of a time and place and how it shaped these women

“Rackula,” a fun, imagined folk-tale about a sexually frustrated Romanian vampire

“The Day the Sun Goddess Got Laid,” another imaginative “folk-tale” about the Japanese goddess Amaterasu, Supreme Goddess of the Plain of High Heavens, who decides she must know why the mortals she passes over each day laugh when touched

“Traditional Inuit Throat Singing,” a contemporary story set in Alaska about families, tribes, and cultures in conflict. The culminating oral sex scene is so sexy, and culminates the plot and characters in a way that left me as a reader as satisfied as Rusidan, receiver of her lover’s perfect attention. This is one of the best lesbian short stories of any kind I have read in years.

Scattered around these gems are a collection of the lesbians we’ve come to expect in erotica collections, including happy exhibitionists, women who receive sexual thrills as a birthday present, women in interesting clothing with hot, horny neighbors, women having hot nearly anonymous sex on cruise ships, women who stumble upon excited hot women who pull them into hot sex then leave them, drained and happy. Most of these are fairly stock characters, although generally well-written. A writing teacher of mine recently defined “porn” as stories that are only plot with no real motive or character, and “erotica” as all about the character. This collection has both of these kinds of stories, in fairly equal balance. I prefer the latter, but if you like stories centered on details that get right to the point, you will not be disappointed in this collection.

“Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2009” definitely tends toward the vanilla; while there is strap-on, group, and hot stranger action, the collection doesn’t have BDSM stories. So many collections are heavily, or mainly, BDSM stories that I was happy to encounter this mix, which explores many other ways of getting down to it. It is written by lesbians and published by a gay press for a lesbian audience, but most of the stories have broader erotic appeal.

While I like a broad range of erotica, including situations hot in fantasy that I wouldn’t do in reality, one story in this collection bothered me deeply, for it is centered around two women orally, vaginally, and anally raping a woman who is unconscious. The character who is the unconscious woman’s partner penetrates her anally, gloating that she could feel her lover’s anus tear. Pushing boundaries can be hot, exploring issues of consent can be hot, but this story crosses a line that I can not see as sexy. The story also seems out of place to me, in a collection that does not otherwise eroticize violence.