H Is for Hardcore Book

The book itself is very deceptive. It's small and thin with a pink and white cover. On top of that virginal pink and white is a cutsie little Vargus girl trying to cover her naked body with a teasing smile. Outside of the tittle it looks like some kind of gift book you'd find in any of the major bookstores across the country. It looks like something a coworker or a friend would buy you as a gag gift. Inside though, what's written inside is a whole different matter. It's like sucking on an expensive chocolate only to be surprised by it's hard liquor center. No, better yet, it's like taking an innocent looking piece of hard candy from your smiling girlfriend. Then you pop it in your mouth only to find out she had just taken it out of her dripping pussy and come all over it for you. Yeah, that's H is For Hardcore. A sweet innocent wrapper covering the dirtiest slut of your wet dreams. It's need, lust and raw desire just barely hidden under the cover.

Mathilde Madden starts us out with a story about a female domme and her bound object of desire. She wants him, she wants to fuck his brains out. Everything he does only makes her pussy ache for him more. This story isn't about sex. It's about need and desire. It's about domination and submission. I won't give it away. You'll just have to read it for yourself but this is how every sub hopes their domme feels about them.

Gwen Masters is up next with a story about a beautiful starlet and her body guard. She's a smokey brunette with a sexy curvy body that he lives to protect. Her secret? She's sleeping with him. His secret? He likes to take it up the ass. After finding his stash of strap-on porn she surprises him one night by appearing next to his bed wearing a fake cock. She makes him beg and plead to come and he loves every second of it. Frankly? So did I.

Radclyffe gives us a hot little story about a lesbian's first time in a nasty sex club. There is just a hint of guy on guy sex here but it's nothing to get bothered by. Focus on the lesbian and the way she walks around topless. The way she pulls on her pierced nipples until it hurts. Then she's stripped naked and tied to a pole as another hot lesbian makes her come her fucking brains out before ramming her face into her own hot pussy. Focus on that, and somehow, I think you'll be just fine.

John A Burks, Jr. gives us a lesson in control. Rich and powerful Mr. Friar learns what it's like to loose what he's fought so hard to gain. Only in loosing it he finds he gains much much more. This is a hard and fast little story but it's almost to little. I'd like to know more about the sexy red head and her organization. I'd like to know more about the group of naked masked young women. Sadly I have no control over that...

Jean Roberta takes us out on the imaginary high seas for a bit of fantasy. There isn't as much need and raw desire in this tale as there were in the first few stories but the princess does get her tail flogged quite thoroughly.

Sophie Mouette gives us "Don't Move" a story about bondage without bondage. Emily sees a picture in a sex toy catalog and shows her boyfriend. They both think the model looks hot restrained and unable to move. Emily is claustrophobic though so they try some pretend bondage. It's not a bad story but I'm beginning to think "H is for Hardcore" blew it's load with the first few stories and now were just cuddling.

The next offering is Chris Costello's "The Guy Your Mother warned you about." This story is an interesting choice for a book marketed to "heterosexuals." Don't get nervous there's no man on man love here. It another story about two lesbians. One of whom is pretending to be a man. It's well written, a bit mind expanding but, but oddly enough, not much of a turn on for me. I know, how can two women having sex not be a turn on? When one of them is pretending to be your stereo typical sexist guy I guess. Now I get role playing and I get gender play but why would a lesbian get turned on by the sexist guy character? The lesbian being picked up was very femmy so if I stretch my mind a bit I guess I can see it. However I hate the sexist guy character the same way most women hate the blonde bimbo character. It's not that he doesn't exist in real life because we all know he does. He just makes the rest of us look bad so I'm never very happy to see him, especially in my porn.

Rakelle Valencia's "Heading and Healing" is a short story even for this book. It came fast but I guess it did it's job. It had me a little lost at the beginning though. Unless you're a serious cow ropin', horse ridin' cowboy you might be a little confused at first to but push through and you'll get to the good parts quick enough.

Shane Allison's "Flat-Footed" might just send you running to the homophobic hills. After all those near misses we finally have a hit with some man on man action. Relax there's no any anal sex in this story. This was all about the foot fetish. I did my best to read it so I could give a fair review of this book but I couldn't help but skip around. I'm sorry but while I'm submissive I'm also heterosexual so I can't understand why anyone would want to suck on a guy's toes. Ok, fine, from a submissive's point of view I can almost understand it but the way my brain is wired putting any part of a guy in my mouth makes me think of sour milk. While putting nearly any part of the right girl in my mouth makes me think of expensive chocolate. Sorry Shane but I'm not even quite sure what this story is doing in this book? I'm talking strictly from a marketing point of view. I can understand trying to appeal to the widest audience possible but I wonder what the percentage of straight men actually have a bi curious urge? And this story isn't just about the man on man action it's gritty, bathroom in a gay porn store sex. Maybe I'm confused and this book is really being marketed to women? Some straight women do get into gay male sex. The book's pink and white cover with the cutesie girly image might appeal more to women. Hell even the type face and design used on the inside of the book is light and delicate. One might even call it slightly feminine.. However the tittle is very male. H is for Hardcore you confuse me. I'm not really sure what you're going for and who you're trying to appeal to.

Despite all that Teresa Noelle Roberts is up next with "On a Knife Edge." It's an interesting little tale about a woman and her lust after cold steel and tall dangerous men. Knife play isn't really my thing, although, I did once buy two knifes at the request of a mysterious Russian Domme. She used them on me in the middle of a dark Manhattan bondage club. It was more of a threat and a tease though as she never even got close to breaking the skin. Not much more to say about that or this story. Both experiences were a little to short for my liking...

Michael Hemmingson is next to last with "The End of Celibacy." I really liked this story. I didn't think it was all that hardcore though. It's about a sweet quirky girl and a nice guy that we never really find out much about. He's a little slow on the uptake though. She gives him several hints that she wants him to come back to her place that he doesn't pick up on so she just gets plain obvious about it. Back at her place we find out she has some strange rules about sex. Now, maybe it's because I'm more then a little strange myself but rather then frustrating I found it, endearing. It turns out that she's a twenty eight year old virgin who wants to wait until she gets married to have vaginal sex. However she has an ass fetish and she likes to drink pee. Girls who drink pee aren't a turn on for me but there's just something about this character that I like. The real problem with this book is that the stories that I like are to short! I want to know more about this couple. I want to find out how and if it works out for them. Sigh...

Finally we get to the last and shortest story of all Alison Tyler's "Ashes and Diamonds." It's a confusing little story to me. We get no foreplay. There's no warm up. We're plopped right into the middle of a scene. She's standing behind him, he's bent over waiting for her to fuck him and she's crying. Crying women are an absolute turn off for me. Why is she crying though? She's the submissive and he's the Dom who wants to know what it feels like to be her? But wait, he also has a boyfriend that she doesn't sound very intimate with. What the hell is going on here? She fucks him until she comes. Then he whips around and fucks her. She's crying again but this time they're tears of joy? I don't know... Strange slice of life story that is just to small a slice for me to get into.

All in all "H is for Hardcore" had a few good stories in it. It started off hot and strong but cooled off a bit for me at the end. It's an anthology and if you get a few good stories out of an anthology that you like you're doing pretty good. I have an anthology of bondage stories that's about three inches thick that I keep around for just one story. I've gone back to read that story more then a few times over the years but somehow I doubt I'll be going back to this book to reread anything. I feel a little bit tricked by this book. I find the tittle and cover a little conflicting and maybe misleading. I'm a little ambivalence about the gender bending stories that felt like they were sort of snuck in. I have no problem with gender bending. I've done a bit of it myself here and there but I wasn't expecting it and these particular stories didn't flip my switch. All in all it's not a bad book but there are others that I would recommend before it.

"H is for Hardcore" is published by Cleis Press which is better known for it's gay and lesbian tittles. That would probably explain the gender bending stories. They have a whole series of books edited by Alison Tyler with similar covers and different themes. I'm tempted by a few of them. "B is for Bondage," "F is for Fetish" and "K is for Kiny" to name a few but "H is for Hardcore" makes me hesitate. I bought this one over the internet sight unseen to make the minimum order for free shipping. In that sense I got my monies worth. If I need to round out my next order for free shipping I just might give one of the other books a try.

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Think erotica meets fairy tale bestiary. Ogres who love a good whipping, dragons do it, harpies do it, even over-educated human embodiments of emotions do it. I give the book points for being original and putting unique ideas to good display. But... a few of the stories just seemed to be there for shock value (i'm looking at you, reluctant centaur coupling).