Flames of Passion, Part 3 of Annie Oakfield’s entertaining and very erotic series The Bucket List, was released this month. As always, Annie writes very well and with detail – here is an author who enjoys research, and I think one of the things that makes her writing so good is wondering how much of this fantasy has been realised as part of her research.
This third episode is an excellent short story, almost (but not quite) as good as the first. Lucy wakes up – or perhaps she’s dreaming – to the threat of fire and smoke. But help is at hand in the shape of eight very attentive firemen.
There were eight guys here. Eight guys! I would never get away with taking only one of them. They’d all want me. A shiver of fear chilled me. I’d never been with more than four…
I suppose if I have a complaint about this one – and it’s a minor and rather philosophical one – it is Lucy’s belief that she is dreaming. The reader will, of course, suspect that it’s not really a dream, and maybe it isn’t.
I pushed back against him, not bothering to wonder if he was wearing a condom. It didn’t matter, did it? It was only a dream.
If it’s not a dream, Lucy is seduced into some very unsafe sex, and we’re left hoping that Amber gave the firemen sexual health checks and that Lucy is on the pill.
And if it is a dream? Well, I generally find dream sequences to be uninteresting as story ideas.
★★★★★
Links
Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, goodreads, Annie Oakfield’s blog (ihearteroticastories)
Francis James Franklin (Alina Meridon) 
You’ve seen through me, Francis. Many of my stories are based on fantasies that I, or others I know, have discussed. Even the Bucket List is based on a real list (lost in a post-party clear-up, sadly) that has been recreated many years later.
Be assured that Amber would only have had her friend’s best interests at heart and would have been certain that the participants were ‘clean.’
The fourth story (Chilled out) tries to bring back some of the fun of the very first story – as well as a couple of familiar faces, and some guest cameos too. Hope it’s more to your liking. 😉 Plus it’s all safe sex.
I find erotica falls into two broad categories: ‘real’ and ‘fantasy’. For the latter the reader can just switch off and enjoy whatever happens safe in the knowledge that it isn’t real – issues of consent, safety and even physical possibility. For the former, much of the eroticism derives from wondering how much truth there is in it – and so the reader will react more as if it is a true story.