Loose Id, $5.99, ISBN 978-1-59632-756-6
Mixed Genre Erotica, 2008
Going Up, Going Down is a collection of two short stories that won some kind of contest called March Madness that was held by Loose Id. I can only suppose that stories won based on the length and quantity of sex scenes that an author can fit into about fifty pages. Story-wise, there really isn’t much going for the two stories here.
Celia Kyle’s What Goes Up is… bewildering. Trevor dumped Ashley when he got promoted over her because his policy is to never screw the folks that work under him. Instead of scratching his car and taking some nails to his wheels, Ashley decides to ambush him in the company building elevator so that she can thrill him with her dominatrix gear and enthrall him with some of the most pathetic attempts at being a dominatrix that I have come across in a supposed BDSM erotic romance. She soon loses control of her boyfriend and ends up in a threesome. The sex scenes seem to go on and on interminably as I am trying to figure out why I’m supposed to care even a little about a silly woman’s efforts to win back some guy who seems like a jerk. The weird message that I get here is that to win back your asshole guy, you should get into bed with him and another guy. Hmm, I don’t think anyone should try that one at home. This isn’t Swingtown, after all.
Renae Johnson’s Heavenly Bodies is a paranormal romance. Samantha Beesley, a stand-up comedian, takes her job too seriously to the point that she dies due to an accident with a blender. The folks in charge of Heaven decide that Samantha has died before her time, however. I don’t know. Maybe they actually feel sorry that she died while trying to make some milkshake. The eulogy at the funeral will be most embarrassing indeed. The guardian angel Adam Rivera is assigned to make sure that Samantha doesn’t blow her second chance at life by getting killed by a toaster or something, and he’s a hot guy, so I’m sure you can guess what kind of Biblical knowledge the two of them will be getting out of each other. Samantha’s entire character is limited to two phrases: “snarky” and “full-figured”. As for Adam, I suppose the phrase will be “holy penis” because apart from him and Samantha having sex for two-thirds of this short story, he doesn’t do much of anything else.
The two stories are pretty much just bare details that make up the “plot” padded with lots and lots of sex scenes. If you like reading erotic short stories where the characters get down to business up and down and left and right before pledging to love each other so that the reader can happily tell herself that she has read “erotic romance” instead of “interminable hollow sex scenes”, this one’s for you. Congratulations to both authors for winning the contest. I just wish that I don’t feel so much like a lollypop for purchasing and then reading this thing.
