"Dangerous and Dark Desires" by Ray Gordon
Reviewed by: Ariana Singer

My first thought was, "Finally! Erotica with a plot!" I had read one of Gordon's other books, "Depravicus," and thought it one of the dirtiest things I'd ever seen in my life. That has changed. These two novels, "Dangerous Desires" and "Dark Desires," have won that particular crown. I now know more about Gordon's personal kinks than any person has a right to know (a hint: he has a fierce fetish for A.I., and I'm not talking about "artificial intelligence." Give it a second to sink in. Not getting it? Then here's another hint: "Hershey Highway.").

The plot of "Dangerous Desires" is intriguing enough to grab interest straightaway: Annabelle, recently divorced from a psycho stalker, finds herself in possession of a few occult trinkets that allow her to psychically control anyone she wants and make them do anything she wants them to do. Of course, she turns into a raving nymphomaniac and spends most of her time sexing up anything that walks through her front door. In short order, she manipulates her brother-in-law, her neighbor (who has a glory-hole fetish that I'd never encountered in erotica before), her neighbor's gorgeous daughter, the pretty girl from down the street, a half dozen teenage boys--you get the picture. Thank God she didn't live close to a zoo. Basically that's it. Annabelle is turned into a raging horndog by some invisible, mysterious force. And she has lots of sex. Period. End of story. Move on to the next.

"Dark Desires" has a fascinating plot, but again, Gordon does little with it. Samantha, a journalist, is trapped in what is ostensibly a "haunted" mansion and discovers that she can suddenly time-travel. Sort of. Her physical body remains where it is, but her consciousness is able to go back to any point in her own life and do anything she wants--so of course she decides to have lots and lots of sex. With her twenty-something mind in a teenage body (which is, of course, nubile and voluptuous and bursting with sexuality), she is able to revisit moments in her past when she *could* have seduced a man (or a group of men, as is the case in several incidences) but was too afraid. With her newfound ability, she is able to go back and have sex with everyone she wants and find that it has no bearing or effect on her present life. Which is convenient, since she doesn't have to worry about popping back to the present-day and discovering she is the mother of five illegitimate kids.

Gordon makes a stab at throwing a semblance of a plotline into the stew (an S&M prostitution ring involving teenage girls), but it's muddled and serves no purpose other than to make Samantha unsympathetic as she decides to use her powers to take over the ring. The sex scenes are as detailed and vivid as always, but Gordon throws in a few too many sadistic "nipple-pincher" scenes and lesbian lickfests for my taste. He's not a bit squeamish about writing gang-bang scenes, however, and treads very carefully on a pedophilic line, with his scenes of young Samantha picking up strange men in the park and having sex with them. It's a vaguely disturbing male fantasy, obviously, to imagine a young girl being so insane with lust and desire that she must have him *right now*, damn the consequences, and Gordon exploits it to its fullest potential.

Overall, I was disappointed with these stories, mainly because I could see the potential in them. I love the idea of blending genres, and I've read some really great horror/erotica stories in the past, but in this case I found myself mentally rewriting as I read, wishing for more of the supernatural, more time travel, more . . . something. The sex scenes, while plentiful, grew stale and tiresome after a while-after the fifth scene, even anal sex loses some of its taboo quality. I generally like Gordon's writing, but these novels would have been better as short stories. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but they could have benefited from a little more plot and a little less sex. Two stars.

Publisher:  Blue Moon, 2004, $14.95
ASIN/ISBN: 1562014226