Hot and Bothered 4: Short Short Fiction on Lesbian Desire

Janet Money is a writer and policy analyst for the Canadian Cystic
Fibrosis Foundation.

Editor Karen X. Tulchinsky, who has put together all four books in this
series to date, distinguishes between erotica and desire, insisting that
this volume is about the latter.

What we have here is a collection of 66 really short fictions (none
longer than 1000 words) about lesbian sexual activity. Some of the
stories are playful (Carol Queen’s “She’s Not a Lesbian”), while
others are raw (Jolie du Pré’s “She”), tender, culturally
intriguing, and so on. Individual stories deal with subjects ranging
from a high-school crush (M Hellenes’s “Magnesia”), to an imagined
encounter with a celebrity (Gabrielle Glancy’s “Dreaming of Jennifer
Connelly”), to sex-toy shopping and its aftermath (Stephanie
Schroeder’s “Play It Again, Sam”).

The collection as a whole is an enjoyable romp through a wide range of
woman-to-woman sexual and emotional expression. A worthwhile acquisition
for the individual or institutional collector of Canadian lesbian
literature.