Where the Girls Are: Urban Lesbian Erotica

When I first began reading Where the Girls Are, I thought I had made a mistake. As I turned the pages of the first short story, Charlotte Dare’s “The Critic,” I thought, “This must be doing nothing for me because I’m not a lesbian.” Oh-oh. Fortunately, things changed as I moved on to the following stories. It turns out “The Critic” just wasn’t very good.

This compilation of short stories is satisfying on numerous levels—there is variety of length, fetish, pace, style, and even talent. We cruise through night clubs, BDSM initiations, taxis, butt plugs, whips, cityscapes, cocktails, and a rushed stint through the backstage of a fashion show. We’re even introduced to a ‘50s pinup lookalike in these pieces of “true tales and explicit fiction.”

Lisabet Sarai’s “Rush Hour” is my favorite. Unpredictable from start to finish, riveting and fun, it’s a non-cheesy tale of opposites attracting that puts you right in the cab with Ruth and Mina. Both characters are bold, independent, and snarky—just the way I like them.

Kathleen Bradean’s “Don’t Fuck with Country Girls” also positively stands out. From the very first sentence, I was drawn in with a smile on my face. I mean, how could you not love a story that begins, “My clit is fat and sassy.”—impossible. Plus, it’s (sort of) a story about two people who meet on the internet. Story of my life.

Of course, I also have complaints. I was positively appalled as I sat on the toilet reading “The City Pony” by Roxy Katt. Granted, there are no actual ponies in the story, but this is the closest thing to zoophilia I have ever read (not that I have searched). Apart from that, it is a long, dull story filled with dialogue both corny and forced, and it ends exactly how you think it will. Feel free to skip it, if only because it just can’t be healthy to roll your eyes for seventeen straight pages.

Other than that, Where the Girls Are overflows with tantalizing tales of both rural and urban girls gone wild in the city—but not in the raunchy sense. Okay, yes, in the raunchy sense. But I don’t think I read anything about cameras.

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