Meeting The Master Modern Erotic Classics

In Wald's darkly erotic stories, characters enact the intricate and subtle ways that dominance and submission play a role in their daily lives: a young girl dreams of submitting to a boy who's not interested in controlling her, an ex-convict is so accustomed to serving his cellmate that he cannot adjust to the outside world, a professional dominatrix is beaten at her own game by a psychiatrist, and a student lies his way into the home of an army recruiter in order to become his houseboy. Meeting the Master is a provocative exploration of the pleasures and rituals of dominance and submission.

A subtle, beautifully crafted collection, MEETING THE MASTER introduces an accomplished new author whose lyrical economy and ability to see the erotic in everyday life make her a true pleasure to read. Elissa Wald's characters embody a wide variety of voices - gay men, bi- and heterosexual women of all ages - and she presents them all with precision and an unusual clarity of vision. Provocative explorations of the pleasures and rituals of dominance and submission, the voyeuristic and darkly seductive stories in MEETING THE MASTER reveal an experience with life and a penetrating wisdom far beyond the author's years.

This collection of stories is not easy to categorize. It is wholly erotic, but only occasionally very graphic. It is straight, gay, & everything in between, & depicts a dark & little-understood area of sexuality, often outside of what we recognize as a sexual context. The range & complexity of S&M involvement is as infinite as human sexuality itself. Author Elissa Wald's stories are precisely & beautifully told, with lyrical economy & an easy grace. They are sexy but not tawdry, & understand that submission is a wish of the heart, not a use of the body. Wald is a born storyteller & a clear-eyed observer of the games people play, erotic & otherwise. Her stories are full of wisdom, insight & dark beauty.

In the forgotten and bricked-up cellars of Winterbourne Hall, the Master's spirit feasted . . . At last, his deliverance was at hand. Hidden deep in the English countryside, Winterbourne Hall is the finest whorehouse in the land, where no fantasy is too wild to be acted out, no desire is too outrageous to be satisfied - and in its splendid isolation, secrets stay safe. Andreas Hunt is a cynical tabloid journalist. He lives a louche lifestyle, with any number of willing women at his fingertips - but he doesn't want most women. Most women bore him. He wants Mara, the luscious-bodied white witch, who has seduced him thoroughly. Where Mara leads, he follows - and she leads him to Winterbourne, where commences a sexual adventure that will soon become a deliciously forbidden nightmare: for at Winterbourne, Andreas will meet the Master, a real life sex vampire . . . Kiss of Death is razor sharp erotica at its edgiest and most thrilling. The first in a captivating series.

Satan, Judas, a Soviet writer, and a talking black cat named Behemoth populate this satire, “a classic of twentieth-century fiction” (The New York Times). In 1930s Moscow, Satan decides to pay the good people of the Soviet Union a visit. In old Jerusalem, the fateful meeting of Pilate and Yeshua and the murder of Judas in the garden of Gethsemane unfold. At the intersection of fantasy and realism, satire and unflinching emotional truths, Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic The Master and Margarita eloquently lampoons every aspect of Soviet life under Stalin’s regime, from politics to art to religion, while interrogating the complexities between good and evil, innocence and guilt, and freedom and oppression. Spanning from Moscow to Biblical Jerusalem, a vibrant cast of characters—a “magician” who is actually the devil in disguise, a giant cat, a witch, a fanged assassin—sow mayhem and madness wherever they go, mocking artists, intellectuals, and politicians alike. In and out of the fray weaves a man known only as the Master, a writer demoralized by government censorship, and his mysterious lover, Margarita. Burned in 1928 by the author and restarted in 1930, The Master and Margarita was Bulgakov’s last completed creative work before his death. It remained unpublished until 1966—and went on to become one of the most well-regarded works of Russian literature of the twentieth century, adapted or referenced in film, television, radio, comic strips, theater productions, music, and opera.

From the olive trees of southern France to Gnostic cults in Egypt, a man and his lovers are invented and reinvented in this first volume of a great literary adventure. For British doctor Bruce Drexel, a return to Provence is bittersweet. Here, at a rustic chateau, he once fell in love with Sylvie, the Frenchwoman who would become his wife, and befriended her brother, Piers. The three made up a peculiar, potent ménage for years until Sylvie’s descent into madness and Piers’s suicide. As Drexel attends to Piers’s affairs, he becomes steeped in the memories of a spiritually transformational trip to Egypt; the band of intellectual confederates who used to be his intimate friends; and a three-sided love that became his reason for being. So begins Monsieur, the masterful first entry of Durrell’s Avignon Quintet, an infinite regress of memory and imagination that challenges the formal conventions of fiction.

A need colder than Siberian winter meets an attitude hotter than the Florida sun in #1 New York Times bestselling author Kresley Cole's sultry new Game Maker novel, the second installment in the series! Get lost in the sizzling world of the Game Maker series with The Professional, book one, and The Player, book three! Everyone fears the Master... Rich, irresistible politician/Mafiya boss Maksimilian Sevastyan prefers tall, obedient blondes to fulfill his…complicated desires. That is, until the icy Russian encounters a disobedient brunette whose exquisite little body threatens his legendary restraint. Except her. Catarina Marín was a well-off young wife until her world fell apart. Now she’s hiding out, forced to start working as an escort in Miami. Her very first client is beyond gorgeous, but when he tells her what he plans to do to her, Cat almost walks out of the door. If pleasure is a game, play to win. After their mind-blowing encounter burns out of control, the lovers crave more. If they escape the deadly threats surrounding them, can Maksim overcome his past—to offer Cat his future? Only then will she tempt him with what he really wants: her, all tied up with a bow.

A Handbook to the Reception of Ovid presents more than 30 original essays written by leading scholars revealing the rich diversity of critical engagement with Ovid’s poetry that spans the Western tradition from antiquity to the present day. Offers innovative perspectives on Ovid’s poetry and its reception from antiquity to the present day Features contributions from more than 30 leading scholars in the Humanities. Introduces familiar and unfamiliar figures in the history of Ovidian reception. Demonstrates the enduring and transformative power of Ovid’s poetry into modern times.

The debut of a hot new voice in lesbian erotica. In a world where so many stifle their emotions, what woman doesn't yearn for a little old-fashioned honesty -- even if it means revealing one's own secret desires? Danielle Engle's heroines do just that -- and a great deal more -- in their quest for sexual fulfillment.