This book is WOW! Just take one look at the cover and you want it--most people do. Red Velvet and Absinthe has been much-publicized, but it's not just hype, I can tell you that for sure! I've got a story in it, one I wrote last year at Christmas when I was "vacationing" at my mother's house and pressed firmly up against a deadline. I wrote it sitting at the rather ornate desk in my younger sister's old bedroom, looking out across the snowy expanse of a mid-winter yard.
Red Velvet and Absinthe explores love and lust with otherworldly partners who, by their sheer fantastical nature, evoke passion and desire far beyond that which any normal human being can inspire. Although the greats such as Bram Stoker, Edgar Allan Poe, and Daphne du Maurier are long dead, these contemporary authors keep the Gothic spirit alive and well by interpreting it in new and exciting ways. Red Velvet and Absinthe offers readers a collection of unique and original stories that conjure up the atmospheric and romantic spirit of the Gothic masters (and mistresses) but take things a bit further by adding to the brew a generous dosage of eroticism. Lie back and listen to the wind howling outside your window as you read these stories in the flickering light of a candle, the absinthe you’re sipping warming your body like the caressing touch of a lover’s fingers . . .
My contribution is "Milady's Bath," a lesbian story of adoration and desire, of wild streaks, of a maid bathing her mistress. It's dark and brooding and sensual, and it starts like this:
No sense asking me why she does it. Why scamper out the window every time the moon is full? Why flee the comforts of a warm feather bed knowing she’ll return with her gown tattered and her flesh torn to shreds? Like I said, I’m not the one to ask. I’ve never lusted for any man, and certainly not with such hearty devotion as Milady lusts for that beast she seeks to tame. If ever I had sought the rough touch of man, I might understand why she puts herself in harm’s way every second fortnight. If my inclinations were anything like hers, I wouldn’t be so quick to judge Milady. I also wouldn’t be so quick to run her bath on those nights she returns from the forest wounded but happy as a meadowlark.She wakes me by the rustle of her skirts if I’ve fallen asleep, but it’s rare I should slumber on the nights Milady sets off into the woods. I worry about her something dreadful when she’s gone away. And I always know when she’s gone because, though it in’t the custom with proper folk, I end my day in Milady’s bedchamber.Most girls who work in great houses share sleeping quarters with other maids. Those lodgings are far away from the family’s own rooms. I am far luckier than all those other chambermaids and servants. Me, I share a bed with the girl I adore more than anything else in the world: Milady, my love.
Visit the book's website here: http://mitziszereto.com/redvelvetandabsinthe/
Now Available from Amazon. Keep an eye out in your local book store, and if they don't have it in stock...ask. Red Velvet and Absinthe is worth the risk. ;-)
