Tipping the Chambermaid

Wow, look at this suite! Dirty glasses and plates all over. Tortilla chip crumbs and egg salad stains on the carpet. The bed--a mess, but I won't point fingers. No wonder the maid is reprimanding us and reaching for her feather duster. Yes, it's time to let the chambermaids take over for this last installment of our hot-el sex party in celebration of Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, edited by Rachel Kramer Bussel.

The first chambermaid story I highly recommend is Andrew Wilson's "The Afternoon of a Venetian Chambermaid" in Maxim Jakubowski's Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, volume 2. I believe I first read this story in Libido or it may have been Scarlet Letters, back when I was a barely published writer, but it's really stayed with me. In spare, but evocative prose, Wilson helps us don a maid's uniform for an intimate tour of Hotel Giorgione as we handle the semen-scented sheets and wiggle our way to a pick-me-up orgasm over a bidet. It's voyeurism at its best and took me right back to the strange and gorgeous decay of modern Venice.

For a more modern taste of the chambermaid with other things on her mind, check out Alison Tyler's "Tightly Tucked," a funny and very sexy story in Do Not Disturb--definitely one of my favorites! Will you recognize yourself in Elian, the hedonist who "uses" hotels in every way he can think of? Or Sophie, who is too busy tsking at the poor maid service to do the naughty things the characters are doing in all the other stories in the anthology? Or maybe you relate to the fair Bella, a chambermaid who shares my bad habit of falling into sailors' dialect a little too easily?

I'll admit I see a little of all three in myself. In the spirit of Elian, I lift all the replaceable hotel swag and gobble up any complimentary fruit baskets or mints on the pillow and love throwing towels on the floor. Like Bella, I swear like a Navy Seal and have freckles. And I also clean up after myself, not as much as Sophie, but I sometimes wonder if the maids tsk at my light footprint, my presence nothing more than a slightly rumpled bed and a dirty novel on the nightstand. Having worked as a "maid" in high school, I don't want someone else to have such an intimate look into my life as I did into theirs--and yes, it's been material for stories. I also do it because some of those maids will re-arrange my stuff, and that creeps me out, too, having someone organize my toiletries in some apparently more proper way.

Bella in Alison Tyler's story would never fuck with my stuff--but that's only one of the reasons I like her. In fact, this party was named in her honor ;-).

Tomorrow--final credits and a big thank you to all who shared wonderful stories and left brilliant comments here at the party in Suite 69. Oh, and help yourself to the pens and notepads. They're on the house!

Eroticafest Xtraordinaire: Martha Garvey and “Night Train”

Rachel Kramer Bussel’s monthly erotica reading series “In the Flesh,” at the Happy Ending Lounge at 302 Broome Street in NYC, is a beacon for our genre—not to mention a great place to get your date in the mood (see Marcelle Manhattan’s “Second Date” in X: The Erotic Treasury). However, this coming Thursday, February 19, the Happy Ending Lounge is going to be white-hot with star power. Here’s the official invitation:

The legendary author, editor, activist and sexual provocateur Susie Bright joins us from Santa Cruz, California to celebrate her beautiful new hardcover anthology X: The Erotic Treasury (Chronicle Books), which includes a story set at In The Flesh which you will hear! Joining Susie will be contributors Paula Bomer, Ernie Conrick, Martha Garvey, Nicholas Kaufmann, Tsaurah Litzky, Marcelle Manhattan, Lisa Montanarelli, Chelsea Summers and host/curator Rachel Kramer Bussel (Best Sex Writing 2008, Spanked). Special guest Maxim Jakubowski, editor of the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, also joins us from London. Note special start time (for February only): 7:30 pm. Doors open at 7. Arriving early is highly recommended. Books will be available for sale by Mobile Libris. There will be a Q&A with Susie and book signing after the reading.

I wish I could make it, although I’m expecting the place will be so packed, it’ll be like the Gion Festival in Kyoto where I was wedged in the crowd so tightly, my feet weren’t touching the ground, but I was still moving (a simultaneously exhilarating and terrifying experience).

One of the main reasons I wish I could be there is to meet up with the wonderful Martha Garvey again. Martha was one of the first people ever to write me a nice note about one of my stories—“The Cunt Book” when it appeared in Clean Sheets. Martha’s poignant and lovely story “Bottle” (which later appeared in Best American Erotica) was also up around the same time, and I was so flattered to earn the praise of such an accomplished writer, my feet didn’t touch the ground for days (and it wasn’t even the Gion Festival). Martha also paid me the great honor of coming to my Kinokuniya reading last October which I’ll discuss in my next installment of my New York City Book Tour Diary—coming soon! And, last but not least, she has a story in X called “Night Train," which is hot and gritty and very New York. A woman buzzed on lattes meets a younger tattooed stud and there’s chemistry aplenty beyond the caffeine. However, he refuses to give her his last name, so she refuses to take him home. But he comes up with an alternate arrangement for a memorable evening—and a trademark MG memorable story.

Here’s Martha’s interview for X about all the things she does besides write world-class erotica--with a little of that thrown in, too.

Susie Bright: Have you received any awards or condemnations in your career as a writer?

Martha Garvey: My short story about having sex with John Quincy Adams ("How to Fuck a President So It Means Something") won 1st prize in Clean Sheets’ Sex and Politics contest.

My short story about a Frankenstein dog won a fiction contest sponsored by a Frankenstein festival at Stevens Institute of Technology.

Condemnation? I was once accused of betraying feminism because of the very story we are publishing in X:The Erotic Treasury!

What's your publishing history, book-wise?

I have published two books about pet health, My Fat Dog and My Fat Cat: 10 Simple Steps to Help Your Pet Lose Weight.

Do you have a scandalous or noteworthy theater life?

Yes. My one-woman show about my mother’s obsession with the actor Brian Dennehy called “My Mother’s Imaginary Husband,” was at the Knitting Factory.

I have also worked as a literary manager and dramaturg, and once worked on play reading that featured David Strathairn and Kevin Bacon…so I am one degree away, baby.