Cuckold
by Amber Leigh

Book Review by Lisabet Sarai

The breadth of erotic imagination is truly astonishing. Consider the most ordinary item—a rubber glove or a pair of shoes—or even something unpleasant, painful, or disgusting. I'll wager that somewhere, there is someone who finds that thing or experience intensely arousing. I'm fond of arguing that sex begins in the mind and that the body is secondary. The huge range of fetish activities in which people engage offers strong support for my argument. It is not the physical reality of the fetishized object or action that arouses; it is the psychic and emotional reactions that have somehow, through history or some native susceptibility, become attached to the fetish.

In CUCKOLD, Amber Leigh deftly illuminates a fairly extreme fetish. Edwin is intelligent, responsible, and hard working. He has a well-paying job, a pleasant and modern home, and a gorgeous, creative wife, Desdemona, whom he loves dearly. Yet he continually feels inadequate. His self-doubt centers particularly on his inability to sexually satisfy Desdemona. He is obsessed by the notion that Des has been unfaithful, even though he has no evidence and she continues to treat him with love and consideration. When he actually discovers a discarded condom wrapper among the kitchen garbage, he sinks into new depths of psychological torment.

It doesn't take long, however, for Edwin to realize the truth about himself. Though his mental images of Des' infidelity torture him, they also arouse him to an unbearable level. Desdemona understands this clearly as well. She begins to flaunt her extracurricular activities, sending lewd photos of other men's cocks in her pussy to Edwin's cell phone, forcing him to sleep in the guest room while she loudly fucks someone else in the conjugal bedroom next door. Edwin lives in a constant agony of horrified lust. Des gives him outrageous orders, threatening to divorce him if he fails to comply. Losing his cruelly desirable wife is Edwin's worst fear. He is heroic in his humiliation at her hands.

Ms. Leigh introduces a cast of salacious characters including Edwin's conceited, well-hung supervisor Jay; Maisie, Jay's bisexual college girlfriend; Sally, the nasty young submissive who works in the mailroom; and Robin, Edwin's womanizing brother and owner of the local pub. The dominating Desdemona uses all these people in her campaign to make Edwin into the most miserable and horny cuckold of all time.

Gradually, though, Edwin finds that this new relationship with his beloved wife is oddly satisfying. He is proud of his ability to follow her orders, holding back his own climax until she gives him permission to come. The thrill he experiences watching his wife with other men is exceeded only by the greater excitement of imagining her when he isn't physically present.

"Edwin didn't know how he knew, but he felt certain they were both exclaiming as Robin's cock was torn from Desdemona's anus. The hole would be left momentarily open, leaving her gaping and wide before the rosebud of her rectum closed itself again. The tiny muscle would look sore and wet. And, he imagined, tremors of sensation continued to tingle through her bowel.

"The perspiration that now soaked him was sufficient to make the sheets stick to his skin. He hadn't breathed in an age, certain that so much movement would force his climax.

"The bed began to creak again."

By the end of the novel, Edwin come to the point where he is more than a passive victim of Desdemona's infidelity. He actively participates in his own degradation by creating new opportunities for her to make him a cuckold. And somehow, this feels like a revelation, a resolution that makes him stronger and happier than ever before.

Ms. Leigh does an impressive job of evoking Edwin's obsessive personality and exploring the complicated twists of his sexual self. It's hard to believe that a man would crave the levels of humiliation that he suffers from Desdemona, but nevertheless, Edwin is real and three-dimensional. Desdemona and her coterie of raunchy confederates are somewhat less plausible. The author suggests that at some level Des really does love Edwin, but she is so intensely cruel, especially in denigrating his masculinity, that I was not convinced.

In fact, for me, much of CUCKOLD was more painful than it was arousing.  I've written my share of female domination, even one cuckold story ("Be Careful What You Wish For"), but Edwin's case is so extreme that I often couldn't share his excitement.

Of course, that is the essence of a fetish. What one individual finds unbearably arousing, another will experience as uninteresting or even distasteful. For fans of femdom with a heavy dose of humiliation (like Edwin), CUCKOLD may well be heaven.

Lisabet Sarai
December 2007

Cuckold by Amber Leigh
(Virgin Nexus; November 27, 2007; ISBN-10: 0352341408)
Available at:  Amazon.com  / Amazon UK

About the Author: Lisabet Sarai has been writing ever since she learned how to hold a pencil. She is the author of three erotic novels, Raw Silk, Incognito, and Ruby's Rules; co-editor, with S.F. Mayfair, of the anthology Sacred Exchange  (Blue Moon); and editor of Cream, the Best of the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. 
Visit her website, Lisabet Sarai's Fantasy Factory for more information and samples of her writing.
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