The Best American Erotica 2005

Bright's 12th annual compendium of hot reads makes the perfect lubricious valentine. As usual, she offers her trademarked something-for-everyone mix, which extends well beyond the usual categories of straight/bi/gay. Lisa Montanarelli's ""Loved It and Set It Free,"" for example, recounts the adventures of two girls who decide to watch some porn together, while Bert Hart's ""My Puritan Reader,"" set in ""the Yeare of Our Lord 1692,"" hilariously pits handsome young John Smythe against a young suspected-witch who must be examined closely-very closely-for signs of Satan upon her intimate flesh. Greta Christina flawlessly executes a tale of woman-on-woman sexual humiliation in ""View from the Fourteenth Floor."" And, in Mary Gaitskill's ""Ugly Cock Dance,"" menopausal married love finds its poet laureate. While not all the stories are as deftly written as these four, the collection as a whole stands as a love-letter to humanity, in all its varieties. What Kinsey did for his fellow travelers, Bright does, again, for hers.