Erotic Tales
by Sylvia Petter writing as AstridL
Consuming the Muse is a collection of erotic tales flirting with time, space and the senses, on a woman’s journey through Eros. Some of these stories may titillate, some may make you think.
Sensual: of the senses or the indulgence of appetite: fleshy, sensory; devoted to, or preoccupied with, the senses or appetites; voluptuous...
Food, drink, Dionysian indulgences, passion, obsession dominate AstridL’s collection of erotic stories. Some are amuse- bouches, ‘By the Skin of the Nose,’ and others a groaning-board of orgiastic excess. I loved ‘Dancing with Chopsticks’ and chuckled through, ‘It’s All in the Nose.’ Appetites of all sorts are bound together as the most essential of human need, and it’s done with intelligence and wit, with twists that lend piquancy in unexpected places and ways. Interspersing these are the palate cleansing, ‘Soul Kill’ and, notably, the gentle, sad, ‘Just Lunch.’ What struck me as I read through the book was the growing maturity of voice in the stories, playful, naughty, stunning, turning thoughtful, detailed, beautifully crafted. It’s an interesting read, complex and varied. I hope you enjoy it. ~ Helena Settimana.
AstridL has a wonderful way of combining the art of arousal with the art of cooking. Her writing mixes both subjects in such a beautiful way as to arouse all of one’s senses at once. What an incredible feat and such a luscious treat for her readers. ~ Jamie Joy Gatto (Editor-in-Chief of Mind Caviar)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Several stories have appeared, some slightly differently, online and in print in Mind Caviar, Ophelia’s Muse, Scarlet Letters, The Erotic Woman, Travelrotica for Lesbians #2 (Alyson Books, US), Five Minute Fantasies - Seriously Sexy 1 - Ultimate Sins (Xcite Books, UK), In My Bed Magazine (Canada), The New Black Lace Book of Women’s Sexual Fantasies (edited by Mitzi Szereto for Virgin Books, UK), The Summer of ‘76 (Stringybark Books, Australia), Back Burning (IP, Australia), and as mobile downloads at Ether Books.
‘Matilda’s Waltz’ was inspired by ‘Waltzing Matilda’ by Banjo Paterson (1864-1941).
‘Butter Cup’ was inspired by Austrian, Elfriede Vavrik, who at 79 published her autobiography, Nacktbadestrand (Ullstein, 2010), to critical acclaim.
I am grateful to Jamie-Joy Gatto, Editor-in-Chief of
Mindcaviar, and Helena Settimana for their support.
My thanks to Sharon Ratheiser, for allowing me to use her artwork in this collection. It also appears on the cover. I also thank Jake Moss for his editorial eye.
My thanks to my husband and to my Swedish brother, for believing in me and my stories and giving me the space in which to write them.
AstridL, Vienna, May 2013 http://www.astridl.blogspot.com
After having lived in Europe for 40 years, I'm now back in Sydney.
Following a career with a Geneva-based UN specialised agency, I completed my PhD in Creative Writing at UNSW and worked for ten years in education research at the University of Vienna. My stories have been published widely and my debut novel, All the Beautiful Liars, was published in 2021 by Eye Books, UK, and has been translated into German and Portuguese. I will be adding my story collection, Mercury Blobs, to my bookshop here. Flash fiction will also be added as well as several novellas in flash. I am currently working on my PhD novel, Ambergris.
- all over the place in the space of a mind - short and shorter stories, sometimes quirky, often dealing with love, death, food and belonging, lies and the possible truths within.
Some of the pieces might make you laugh; others might make you cry.
They will all make you think.
The brilliant stories in Sylvia Petters' Mercury Blobs are sometimes very funny and sometimes very moving, and often, they are both at once, which is one of the best tests of a truly serious writer. Moreover, she is a master of the very short fictional forms that have become a crucial expressive medium of the 21st-century sensibility.
This is a splendid collection from a gifted writer.
— Robert Olen Butler, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain.
