Samhain Publishing, $2.50, ISBN 1-59998-579-9
Contemporary Erotica, 2007
One of the more prevalent clichés in erotic romance is the gay couple who are seeking the perfect woman to be their third playmate. And it’s supposed to be true love. I have no idea why two men who are supposedly happy corn-holing each other will want to bring in a third party because it is not as if two people in a relationship weren’t complicated enough. And of course, the woman is naturally happy that when she’s not being shagged by one guy, another guy is shagging her because she’s a bunny of endless stamina who doesn’t get sore or tired or anything. But this Gay Couple Seeks Bimbo Girlfriend thing must be a pretty lucrative fantasy if so many authors choose to write about it. That or everyone has run out of ideas, I suppose. Fantasmagorical is another of these stories.
Evan Knight – she’s our heroine – travels with her best friend to the exclusive Fantasm Island which is a shag-all-you-want place, although since within pages our heroine’s best friend is on her knees servicing some fellow I find myself wondering just who is supposed to be having fun here. If I come to a sex resort and I realize that I’m expected to service men without them repaying the favor, I’m out of that place faster than you can say, “Wow, that was quick!”
Our heroes Gabe Lariat – with a name like that, he has to be a lacrosse player when he was in high school – and his friend Lance are looking for that one special woman. I’ll let them explain it:
They’d shared women many, many times over their long friendship, especially since discovering some time a few years back that what would make them whole would be a third. A woman to complete their circle.
What circle? Are they some kind of geometry-obsessed nerds? Are they looking for some poor woman to cook and clean after them while they spend the day looking into each other’s eyes and blow air kisses to each other? Why do we have two men thinking that they need to share one woman instead of each finding a girlfriend of his own? Are they from some kind of society where a woman is married to the entire football team?
I don’t know. The author doesn’t tell. This story is therefore just two weird guys shagging a silly woman and telling everything that they are in love at the end. Yeah, right. Fantasmagorical is just a silly short smutty romp for those readers who just can’t get enough of these one-dimensional cardboard twin erection heroes and their ménage à trois silliness. At the rate we are going, “ménage à trois” may soon become another euphemism for “unimaginatively formulaic and silly smutty stories”.
