INTRODUCTION: SEX TOYS ARE EVERYWHERE

I love sex toys, both the kinds you can find in sex shops and the kinds you can find pretty much anywhere. Because the truth is, anything can become a sex toy in the right hands, and Come Again proves that.

In these pages, you’ll read about vibrators, butt plugs, strap-on harnesses, nipple clamps, a sex doll and even a Superman dildo. But you’ll also read about characters so smitten with sex toys they’re willing to go to great lengths to create their own, whether it’s a special bike designed to make pedaling a woman’s favorite sport (in “Bikery,” by Oliver Hollandaize) or an inflatable ball on a stick (as in “The Prototype,” by Malin James). Perhaps in the future, we’ll have sex toys like the orgasm machine being peddled in “Sex Sells,” by Adriana Ravenlust, or the Simulsphere that provides “The Cure for the Common Lay,” which Valerie Alexander so masterfully serves up.

Sex toys are a perfect complement to a kinky relationship, offering one person the power to control how the other uses his or her toys. In “The Secret Shopper,” by Kitten Boheme, the act of shopping takes on an extremely risqué overtone, while in “Sex Kitten,” by Errica Liekos, a tail and a transgression provide the perfect entrée to a hot scene.

Toys are a wonderful way for couples to double the fun, and that concept is taken to humorous and wonderful heights in “A Tale of Two Toys,” by Chris Komodo, in which the popularity of remote-control vibrators is celebrated. I was awed by the way Giselle Renarde detailed the romance, wonder and pleasure a Japanese sex doll brings to a couple sharing her as they expand their sexual repertoire in “Must Love Dolls.” Are Honor and Tom having a threesome with Natsuki? In their own special way, yes indeed. Dena Hankins’s “Gift” shows that you’re never too old to explore a new toy.

Nature lovers will appreciate the ingenuity of “Vegetable Love,” by Susan St. Aubin and “Get Your Rocks Off,” by Jocelyn Dex, and I know I’ll be thinking about J. Crichton’s “Icy Bed” every time I take out ice cubes from my freezer.

You’ll find proud toy users and those whose private pleasures wind up being exposed in stories like “Dare You To,” by Jillian Boyd, where the jangling of nipple clamp bells is a little too loud for comfort, and “In the Pink,” by Rob Rosen, in which a masturbatory moment in the office turns into some hands-on sex education.

All of these stories celebrate sex toys for the ways they can shake up a routine, enhance an orgasm, transform an identity or simply add new delights to your sex life. Once you’re done reading, I’m pretty sure, like me, you’ll start seeing sex toys—or at least, potential sex toys—everywhere you go!

Rachel Kramer Bussel

Red Bank, New Jersey