“Draft” in Cunning Linguists

Language. Literature. Lechery.

Thirty authors, including Rachel Kramer Bussel, Sonni de Soto, Kristan X, and Good Sex Award honorees D. Fostalove and jem zero, share clever, sensual stories of the many ways we communicate about and around our desires. From erotic epistolary tales to queer retellings of classics, this collection bursts with memorable and hot new reading material.

Heated banter simmers until the sexual tension boils over. An academic aches with curiosity about the mysterious woman behind the letters she translates–and the mysterious woman working alongside her. Lovers seek a common language after the fall of Babel. Without a physical body, a spaceship’s AI makes love to her captain with words. A domme and her sub negotiate kink titles that reflect all they are to each other. After saving his nonbinary partner, Victor Frankenstein celebrates both erotically and electrically.

Diverse characters find pleasure in body writing, music, virtual realities, fanfiction, first-time phone sex, the queer truth behind local folklore, and reading aloud despite a boyfriend’s best attempts at distraction. Stories ranging from the lighthearted to the bittersweet explore what happens when someone finds just the right thing to say in bed—or says the wrong one—or speaks eloquently without using any words at all.

An excerpt from “Draft”:

A sound shaped itself in Will’s throat — not speech, only proof, surprising even to him, that he still had a voice.

Kit’s hand fastened at the back of his neck, fingers tangling in the curls of his hair, nails passing lightly over soft, vulnerable skin. “Don’t,” he said, “compose poetry now.”

He was right — even all these spilled words whose ink was staining them were meant, in the end, to be acted.

So he did. He let himself move, guided by instinct — nothing in this felt against nature — and by his partner’s guidance.