Story review: Waiting in Vain

I don't usually review the work of other erotica writers, but I had to tell y'all about how much I enjoyed this story: Waiting in Vain by Charlotte Stein.  It's a fun, bubbly, ultimately romantic story about an ugly duckling who turns out to be a red-hot swan, given the right circumstances.

"When Nancy is invited to her sister-in-law's Christmas get-together so that she won't be alone over the holidays, she doesn't have the heart to refuse. But Nancy isn't counting on just how much fun it's going to be this year. Sexy, sultry Mick Hennessey is on the prowl, and he isn't about to stop at a sly hand on her thigh under the dining room table." No - he climbs into her bed, the git. And there then follows the most dirty and farcical scene as Nancy desperately tries not to disturb Gran, who is sleeping next door, while Mick tries to make her really really loud ...

Hands up here - I first met Charlotte through this blog, and I am a FAN. Her erotica is fresh, funny, hot and deeply idiosyncratic. She has this voice ... Well, what can I say?  Her narrators are almost the only female voices in erotica that I actually identify with - me, not Janine the Writer or Janine the Person I'd Like to Be: me. They are not sophisticated or jaded or wise or self-confident. They come from sheltered English backgrounds. A Charlotte Stein heroine is a horny, self-deprecating, over-analysing young woman with abominable fashion sense, who stares longingly after sexy guys but knows she hasn't a feckin' chance of being noticed. Her reaction when someone actually pays any attention to her is normally to fall over in shock and then protest that it can't be happening. She is the poster-girl for frustration.

Jeez Charlotte, get out of my head!

And a Charlotte Stein internal monologue will have me stitches. Her stories are just so witty, and the characters so undignified.

"Though it could be that he didn’t intend to put his hand on my thigh. Maybe he has some sort of inner ear problem, and thinks he has his hand on his own thigh."

or

"She’s so elderly that I’m sure she was alive before sex was invented. She conceived Mick’s Dad by shaking hands with a stork.

I don’t think Mick wants to do anything with a stork."

But most of all I gaze in longing envy at Charlotte's prose:

“Are you wet?” he asks, and I almost laugh at so foolish a question. But then he follows those words with these, “Because I just need to fuck you right now.”

And I forget anything was ever funny at all.
 
“Fuck me,” I tell him. “Just fuck me.”
 
The scrabbling around on the floor he has to do to get a condom out of his pocket is almost too much for me to bear. I think I actually grind my teeth, and it takes a lot of restraint to keep my own hands away from my slick and aching pussy. It also takes a lot to keep my hands away from his heavy cock when he stands back up again, all harried and pink cheeked and fumbling with foil.

Grudamn. Why haven't I ever used "harried"?

 You can download Waiting in Vain from Total-E-Bound. And you should, you know.