Summary: The primal sense of taking in the essence, taste, smell, and sexy up-closeness of a lover is a powerful aphrodisiac that affects one physically, mentally, and emotionally. Once this special connection is made, the heat of desire, passion, and lust focus before one’s eyes and tie arousal directly to them. Tasting Her explores the ultimate joys of oral sex from a distinctly male point of view.

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Tasting Her, by various authors 7.5

I have oral fixations. I like to keep my mouth busy; I’m always chewing gum. Truth be told, while I like eating, what I’m particularly fond of is licking. Especially melty things. Ice cream is a favourite, and I’ve been know to have something like a dozen flavours in my freezer. And there’s nothing better than letting some great dark chocolate melt in my mouth.

Mmmmmmm.

But there is something better. Far, far better: going down on a woman. The first time I went down on a girl was so amazing that I just couldn’t believe it; given all the misinformation that my teenaged friends and I had been fed, it was an eye-opener to discover just how sexy it was. And how tasty a woman could be. A person could totally get hooked!

It was a formative experience.

The taste of a woman is intoxicating (in most cases: not everyone tastes the same), but the textures make my mouth water equally: I adore exploring all the folds, ridges and openings with my tongue. I can lap it up endlessly, get smeared all over (get drenched, really), and still want more. To quote Prince, I could pack a lunch and spend a while there.

So, ahem, yeah, I have oral fixations.

Over a decade ago, I read an article about the liberal sexual lives of today’s youth, how teenaged girls gave head to their guy friends for their birthdays. A part of me was stunned. But another part of me wondered why I hadn’t thought of that back then: nothing would have said “Happy Birthday” better than serving up cunnilingual birthday action.

(Heh heh… I love the idea that I owe a lot of friends for a lot of birthdays. One can always daydream…)

I would certainly do that today, if it was acceptable; it just wouldn’t be considered appropriate to offer in polite society. And it would be viewed with some suspicion, as though strings were attached to it. Of course, given my predilection, one could be forgiven for thinking that I’m also getting off on it. I would be. In fact, it might as well be my birthday.

Having said all this, a short story anthology revolving around cunnilingus is no small draw for me. So, when I stumbled on ‘Tasting Her’, I just had to pick it up. It must be noted that, unlike some people, I’m not the type to read before going to bed; I mostly read while in transit. So, yeah, my bus rides of late have turned into serious squirming sessions.

1. Cavanagh’s Ridge, by Jeremy Edwards: Our protagonist here is a man whose girlfriend gets too ticklish for him to get close to her pussy with his mouth. So he contrives to slowly get close to it, and its pleasures, under the guise of relaxing her. It’s not bad; I think that his gradual approach helped to build some modicum of tension on the page. 7.25

2. Snatch, by Donna George Storey: This one’s hot because it’s from the protagonist’s perspective: she discovers that her boyfriend likes to look at girls with shaved pussies online, so she proceeds to treating him to the real thing. What I didn’t like was that she broke his trust by browsing his sites without his knowledge. Still, the descriptions were tasty. 7.5

3. Teaching Teresa, by Gwen Masters: This one tells us how Trevor taught Teresa to relax into letting him go down on her. It wasn’t that Teresa was repressed sexually, hardly, it’s just that she had had bad experiences and was far too self-conscious to let men give her face. I liked this angle even if I wasn’t entirely convinced by his approach. 7.25

4. Queen of Sheba, by Jen Cross: This one is about Stephanie, a girl who confides in us about the best cunnilinguist she’s ever had. I liked hearing things from a first-person perspective, with respect to the sensations she felt. I also loved the finer descriptions of her body, including her body issues and how her lover helped her get comfortable with herself. 7.5

5. Suspension, by Craig J. Sorensen: I don’t know about this one; I’ve read (or seen on film) a number of stories about artists who seduce their models, so this seemed a bit run-of-the-mill to me. The ultimate outcome was sexy, yes, but I wasn’t really that interested in the journey there. It doesn’t make it bad; it was just of little interest to me. 7.0

6. Kiss the Cook, by Giselle Renarde: This one tells of an encounter between a woman and her married lover. It was great because it was told from her perspective, like she was recounting the story to us. I especially found it interesting how her description of the man would make him quite average and middle aged, but she doesn’t see him this way; she sees him as a sex god. But, mostly, her descriptions of the sex was hot, as was the whole shaving scene. 7.5

7. Happy Hours, by Adelaide Clark: I’m no great fan of B&D, so I wasn’t very taken with the setting and lifestyle. But the sex was hot because it’s orally-focused, and I loved that our narrator’s sex slave was basically used for his cunnilingus skills by a whole group of women – in what amounted to an orgy of pussy eating. Lucky devil. 7.75

8. Spill, by Alison Tyler: This one was H-O-T. I could sort of understand the protagonist, in that she needs structure in her life in order to deal with the world. That applies to her sex life, in that it only takes place on weekends. But, one evening, her boyfriend changes the rules of the game, ties her to the bed and puts a glass of scotch on her abs. He proceeds to lick her, telling her that she can’t spill any of his drink. But what does he have in store for her if she does? Or, rather, when she does…? 7.75

9. Rain Check, by Emerald: A couple meet on their mutual lunch break for some naughty stuff, but are interrupted on this particular afternoon. So they meet again later that evening, after he offers to eat her out – something she hadn’t let him do until then. I enjoyed her internal monologue, because it brought up a number of issues. But, mostly, I love the thought of him slowly caressing her clit with his finger as he talks her into letting him lick her. Mmmm. 7.25

10. Treatment for a Tongue Job, by Thomas S. Roche: A girl has a one-night stand with a guy who wants to film their encounter. She turns the tables and ends up taking the camera from him and getting a POV video of him going down on her. I enjoyed this one, but read it with a sense of remove. It’s meant to emulate those online videos couples shoot, with descriptions of what the camera is capturing and how the focus keeps shifting, …etc. For some, perhaps voyeurs, this might be appealing, but for me it did little. 7.25

11. The Goth Chick, by Lisette Ashton: It’s called “The Goth Chick”… of course I’m going to like it. But I didn’t like this one as much as I thought I would. For starters, I’m not into the swinger’s lifestyle. Secondly, what made the goth chick special wasn’t practical. Pretty, but not practical. So I just couldn’t get into the vibe of it. But I’d have loved to see a picture. 7.25

12. The Vitality of Youth, by Joanna Christine: This one’s pretty run-of-the-mill: a mature woman has the hots for her young landscaping specialist. But it’s well-written and it reads easily, even if it didn’t do much for me. I’m sure others would dig it. 7.5

13. Cunnilingus 101, by Rachel Kramer Bussel: This one is about a freshman pining for one of his classmates – a cute, but average girl, who sits in front of him in class. It was alright, mostly because I could relate to his desire and inability to make a move. But the outcome was unrealistic, the stuff of daydreams, and it wasn’t especially hot. 7.25

14. Read Her Lips, by Stan Kent: I really liked this one. Our protagonist is a guy who’s in between relationships and is desperately trying to find a partner through various social activities. He’s done them all, but he doesn’t meet anyone. However, he befriends a sizzling redhead who also goes to some of the same activities as him. A lesbian, he has no chance of bedding her, but they become partying buddies and, one evening, she boldly tries to reel in a waitress for him. Instead, she wins the girl and he gets to watch his friend pleasure the waitress – from up close. I just loved the whole idea of that. I’d love to be best friends with a hot redhead and go cruising with her, even if I consistently lost to her. And especially if I got to watch. Wow. The writing wasn’t as appealing, but this fantasy was exciting. 7.75

15. Down There, by Julia Moore: This is the story a fem who hasn’t been very successful finding pleasure through sex – even by herself. One day she crosses paths at the grocery store with the butchy work colleague she’s had her eye on. They hit it off. And get it on. Sexy stuff. I especially like the characterization of the protagonist because she has no sense of direction and her descriptions of just how easily lost she can get reminded me of a couple of friends of mine. It all felt very real to me. 7.5

16. To the Point, by Rita Winchester: I was a bit confused about what this one entailed because the story begins with the woman burning for her partner to put something on – without giving us a clue as to what that “something” was. But her burning desire was infectious and, even after discovering what it was, and the pain it would produce, it was a stirring piece. 7.5

17. Hold On, I’m Coming, by Kristina Wright: I found this one absolutely SMOKING. The protagonist gets turned on by Motown songs and can’t help but masturbate when she’s alone at home, spinning her tunes. That alone was a turn on. But then she’s caught in the act by her spouse, who assists her. The descriptions of how high she was getting, how intense it was for her, grabbed hold of my brain. By the time he plunged fingers into her, I was as into the scene as either of them. 8.0

18. Dropping the Hint, by Drew James Dyer: This one’s a bit… um… different. The protagonist is an accountant and his spouse is a biochemist. She communicates some of her more important messages by using an eye-dropper and giving him a taste of a particular liquid – with each having their own significance. In this story, she expresses her horniness by giving him a taste of her sexy moisture. I really loved the idea, if only because it’s so unusual, but I felt the writing wasn’t up to snuff; the descriptions were a bit goofy at times, not sexy. Of course, it didn’t help that it was from a male perspective… 6.75

19. Pause, by Sommer Marsden: The story is mundane: a girl has just decided to break up with her jerk boyfriend and is intercepted by a friend on the way out. Wanting to soothe her, he insists she come in for coffee. But she has other things in mind, and she proceeds to seduce him. Yeah, I know… And yet I liked the descriptions of her desire, all from her perspective. The sex, though, was nothing special. 7.25

20: All About the Girls, by Shanna Germain: I quite enjoyed this one because it established the protagonist’s desire quite well. I liked the way it started, how she explained why she liked men in the winter and women in the summer. It made sense to me. And I loved the way she described her initial encounter with Celia. The weak point was the sex itself, which was marred by a dingy setting. One nice touch: Celia pulled out a dental dam, something I’ve never read in such fiction before. I like it because it’s responsible, although it kind of muted the fantasy because much of the descriptions I would have liked to read were absent. Oh well. The lead-up remains very erotic. 7.75

21: The Dominance of the Tongue, by Teresa Noelle Roberts: This one was simplistic, taking place at a pool party, wherein a dom takes his sub inside to give her head – yes, not the other way around. The woman was HOT, and I almost wish I had been in the guy’s place (only the aftertaste of pool water spoiled the daydream), but there’s not much more to it than that. Nice, though. 7.5

As with ‘X: The Erotic Treasury‘, ‘Tasting Her’ is a grab bag with some being much better than others. But what I liked about it is that most of the authors were women, and we frequently got a woman’s perspective on the action. They say that the biggest sex organ is the brain. Well, getting into these ladies’ minds really stimulated mine.

No doubt that I’ll go back for another taste from time to time.