James Grieve Press, $0.99
Contemporary Erotica

Now, the idea of a man getting all hot and excited over his wife getting it on with another man—or men, many men at one time, when one is feeling adventurous—is a common trope in erotica, and My Nearly Man is one of those stories. I don’t often read this kind of stories, but I am willing to keep an open mind so long as I am entertained in the process.

Lucy Sterling is married to a man about ten years older than her. She is also a BBW, although her being BBW doesn’t really translate into anything significant here; it’s just a buzzword tossed in to attract readers that want that kind of fantasy. Her husband, Jason, was a very sexually adventurous fellow in his prime, and he wants his wife to experience the same joys that he had in the past. After all, why should she waste all her attention on him when there are so many men out there to be had? She has his blessing to go out and lay the land, so to speak, so long as she tells him in graphic detail every freaking thing. She is hesitant, although she immediately thinks of Bradley, her “nearly man” in the sense that she has had only a fumbled kiss with him and nothing more. He’s an even bigger man ho than her husband, and Jason happily arranges for her to meet him in a hotel room for the grand finale.

I know something is wrong when the story is nearly over, based on the page count, and these people haven’t started shagging yet. Still, the author’s first person narration from Lucy’s point of view has a saucy, carefree vibe to it, so I am happy to go along with the flow, so to speak, hoping that I will taken to somewhere good. Oh please. The climax of the story, ahem, is one page of sex scene that is at best R-rated if I were feeling magnanimous.

Excuse me? The author could have at least, I don’t know, thrown in some rear end thing or got them swinging from the chandelier or even freaking had the bed break from all the energetic romping… anything would be better than the wham-bang-zzzzzz fest that I get.

Seriously, reading this thing is like going through all the trouble to arrange for a hot tryst with some gorgeous hunk, only to realize on the grand day itself that he could only last five seconds and then he’s out for the count, pinning one down right on the wet spot without even a “Hey, babe!”. My Nearly Man, indeed.