Product Description

New York Times bestselling author Zane presents a tantalizing short story collection, Zane's Sex Chronicles, which is now the basis of the Cinemax series Zane's Sex Chronicles -- the first urban erotic series on television. The series calls for a sexual revolution and brings forth our favorite characters -- Patience James aka Zane, Maricruz, Lyric, Eboni, and Ana Marie -- as a force to be reckoned with as they balance common day-to-day issues, a slew of hot sex, and the fine men in the big city. Learn more about their backgrounds in this special tie-in edition.

Like the series, Zane's Sex Chronicles is about empowerment and liberation -- both in and out of the bedroom. Pleasurable from beginning to end, this anthology brings together fifteen hunger-inducing stories from the original bestselling editions of The Sex Chronicles: Shattering the Myth and Gettin' Buck Wild: Sex Chronicles II.

Zane's Sex Chronicles weaves together a compilation of bold characters and provocative stories of passion and intoxicating eroticism to seduce both men and women.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #211540 in Books
• Published on: 2008-08-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 219 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781416584117
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

About the Author
Zane is the author of Addicted, The Sex Chronicles, Gettin' Buck Wild, The Heat Seekers, The Sisters of APF, Shame on It All, Nervous, Skyscraper, Afterburn, and Love Is Never Painless and is also the editor of Chocolate Flava and Caramel Flava. She is the publisher of Strebor Books, an imprint of Atria Books/Simon & Schuster, and lives in the Washington, D.C., area with her family. Visit her website atwww.eroticanoir.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Patience James

My life is complicated. It's complicated, stressful and, oftentimes, overwhelming, but I would not trade it for anything in the world. Men have not made it any easier. I do not know if they are taught the "macking game" in elementary school, but by the time most boys reach high school, their main objectives in life are getting paid and making sure that girls get played. The first boy ever to break my heart was named Kevin. Two years after he made me want to evaporate after embarrassing me in the hallway at school when he dumped me for Claire, I looked back on it and wondered what I had ever seen in his ass. I graduated from high school having had three serious relationships and many others that lasted no more than a few weeks and consisted of a bunch of late-night phone calls, provocative talk that led absolutely nowhere, and not a single real date.

I have always had the gift of gab, as my mother calls it. She claims that I came out of the womb ready to shout, kick ass, and take names. It is true that I am the most determined person I know. My family calls me stubborn and I have no problem claiming that, if stubborn means that I want to achieve my goals in life. Failure is not an option for me, and I come from a family full of people who share a similar strength of mind. Sometimes it can be like the clash of the titans in the James household, but everyone is always supportive of one another.

From an early age, I knew that I would end up doing something that involved convincing others to do something. As it turned out, during my senior year of college, I got an intern position at Flava Cosmetics. That was the big break that I was looking for, and I was determined to impress everyone from the CEO to the receptionist. I strutted into the office like I owned the joint from day one. I had all sorts of marketing ideas for the various cosmetic lines, and people loved them, everyone except for Kerrigan, but that is a different story for a different day. Let's just say that Kerrigan is the thorn in my side, but the majority of the time I pay no heed to the ignoramus. We have our moments, but it is all good in competition. It helps to keep me on my toes.

Kerrigan does not realize that women need a different slant on marketing from men. Men will be satisfied with half-naked women in ads looking like they want to fuck the living daylights out of somebody. Yes, sexuality can go a long way in advertisements, but "sensuality" can go a whole lot farther. Women do not want to feel threatened when they look at ads. In other words, women want to see advertisements featuring women who look like them, not some impossible dream version of them. A lot of companies, like Dove soap, are catching on by embracing normal-looking women in their ads and commercials. Average women, especially women of color, are not a size four and do not look like they stepped out of Playboy. They look...normal.

Let me quit talking about my job. You can see that I am passionate about it, and that is what matters in life: being passionate about what you do -- and whom you love.

Love. That can be a good or dirty word for me, depending on the time period in my life. I have had many good men in my life, but all of them eventually faltered and none of them appreciated me until I was history. Devon wanted to control me. I was not then nor am I now the one for that. William had a big heart but he also had a big recreational drug problem. He had to go, but we remain friends. Lincoln was my cheater, the man who wanted to be in a committed relationship without actually making a commitment. I am sure he is somewhere, at this very second, trying to convince a sister to drop her drawers.

Lincoln, ironically since he was the one trying to fuck everything moving, was the most difficult to get rid of. He was so full of himself and so conceited that he never fathomed that I would dump him after he cheated. To this day, he still emails me and even tried to get me to join his network on Facebook. No way, not me. Lincoln broke the cardinal rule: he tried to creep out on me during Christmastime. Every real player knows that you keep your ass home on holidays. He tried to make me believe that he was meeting his best friend, Chris, in Denver to go skiing. Lincoln's ass had never been anywhere near a ski, rather less a slope. When a massive snowstorm hit and the Denver airport was shut down, he still insisted on going, stating that he did not want to disappoint Chris and that the airport would probably open back up. His stupid ass ended up stranded in the Chicago airport on a layover for two days. Dummy. He finally made it back home with his tail tucked between his legs. By that time, I had gone through his cell phone bills and, lo and behold, he had been conversing with some hooker candidate named Bonnie for months. He had been sweating pussy on the internet, surely having met her on MySpace where he spent hours a day, and was trying to go collect his award for putting in so much email and phone time.

I really should not call Bonnie a hooker candidate since I don't know her. She is probably some woman suffering from low self-esteem who can't find a local man to save her life so she fell for Lincoln's okey-doke. A lot of people go on the internet to flirt and call it a day. However, in today's time, the internet has become a breeding ground for more than pedophiles. It is a breeding ground for adults seeking out dick and pussy all over the globe.

I must admit that I found it fascinating, which is how my "double life" first came about. I went into a chat room a couple of years ago and even though my profile was a skeleton with nothing intriguing to make someone approach me, men instantly starting blowing up my screen with instant messages. They would ask my name, and there was not a chance in hell that I was going to say that I was Patience James. That is when "Zane" was born. I had always thought that name sounded cool. Later I found out that it means "God's gracious gift." I embrace every day aboveground as a gift so it actually fits me to some degree, even though the selection for that reason was unintentional.

I met this guy named Marshall in a chat room. He was from Atlanta and we started flirting. Then he asked me to "cyber," and I had no clue what he was talking about until he sent me a link to a private room and started typing shit about blowing my back out. I thought it was hilarious and wondered if he was actually getting off on the other side of his computer. I played along and typed all kinds of nasty things, about licking him from head to toe and riding his dick. He asked for my number, and that was when I exited the room. Not the kid. Marshall could have been an ax murderer and I was not about to find out. Granted, I was kind of in the middle of a dick drought at the time. Not because I could not find any men to take me to bed but because when I allowed it, they either disappointed me by not living up to my fantasies or they broke my zero-bullshit-tolerance policy and did or said something stupid.

Some women do not mind a man saying things to them like, "You can't control this dick!" or "I can get pussy when I can't get sleep!" I find that to be totally disrespectful and will not occupy my time with Jerry Springer nonsense. I watch the show because it lets me know how many women are really stressing over men who probably would not spit on them if their asses were on fire. I realized that there are a ton of women who are completely confused about relationships and their sensuality. So...I started writing my fantasies on the computer. Stories about hot, enticing relationships where feelings and efforts are reciprocated.

The first story that I ever wrote was called "First Night." I fantasized about meeting up with that fellow Marshall, whom I had cybered with but would not give my phone number. We rode up the coast of Maine on the back of a motorcycle, checked into a romantic bed-and-breakfast, and made love on the balcony. I posted it on my free web page provided by my internet host and people went absolutely bananas. Strangers started emailing me, asking to be put on my mailing list. They said it was the hottest shit they had ever read. I thought it was amusing and wrote two more stories, "The Seduction" and "The Airport." Within three weeks, I had eight thousand hits from word-of-mouth before my provider took the pages down for vulgarity. From there, I moved on to posting stories on the ACLU Black Erotica Board, where I met a lot of fellow erotica writers. We became friends, albeit only via email. I was Zane and they were whatever fake name they were using.

Eventually I started Eroticanoir.com, my home away from home, where I now post stories, answer advice mail, and do a monthly e-zine called The Sex Chronicles. Blogging came along, and now I find myself posting whatever, whenever, so that I can get an immediate reaction from people. I might vent about anything from my favorite subject -- women being undervalued in society -- to spawning discussions on whether or not pussy juice is left on the poles at strip clubs when the next dancer comes out. Like I said, I have the gift of gab. Being able to communicate with strangers from around the world excites me. I can say off-the-wall things that I would never say to my friends or family. Speaking of which, none of them know that I am Zane. They talk about Zane all the time, though, even my coworkers. "Have you read her latest blog, Patience?" "Patience, isn't Zane's shit hot?" "Patience, I'm going to write Zane for advice." "I can't wait to try that shit from Zane's story on my man!"

Not only do they have no clue that I am Zane, they act like I have damn near committed a crime by refusing to buy into the entire thing and read her work. Even the men that I have dated since I became "the Queen of Erotica" do not know that I am Zane. However, Patience and Zane share a lot of the same characteristics. We both believe that if women are going to have sex, and most will at some point in their lives, there is no reason for them to walk away from the experiences any less satisfie...

Customer Reviews

Finding sex in unusual places
A variety of women, mostly women of color, lack something from the sexual parts of their relationships. Unfaithful men, men who don't bother checking to see if the woman is enjoying sex as much as they are, or simply women who need more than their men are willing to provide fill these stories by Zane.

Zane's goal, throughout the twenty stories included in the ZANE'S SEX CHRONICLES collection, seems to be a combination of sex advice (take responsibility for your own pleasure and practice safe sex), and a variety of situations where characters don't bother taking that advice. Women find one-night stands in bus stations, laundromats, at parties with others watching, with male prostitutes, even, briefly, with another woman. In Zane's world, sex is commercialized (she deals with both male and female prostitutes), but also sometimes rare as her female characters must sometimes do without for long periods of time.

Zane uses dialect enough to provide a genuine feel for these stories, but not to the extent that they become hard to read (who knew that fine was spelled F-O-I-N-E?). Intriguingly, the sex itself is mostly fairly vanilla--although Zane seems to prefer woman-on-top or doggy-style to missionary positions. It's the surprise factor, the sudden decision to liberate oneself from convention, and the willingness to recognize the role of sex as a key factor in happiness that makes these stories work.

In the short story format, it's always difficult to show much character growth and character is certainly not the focus of these stories. Perhaps that's the point, however. Rather than look at how other women deal with sex and love, Zane allows the reader to put themselves in the place of a fairly generic female character--one surrounded by supernaturally hung and ready males.

Can Be Even Better
I am no fan of Lora Leigh but Zane should take note of the way she describes her sex scenes, they are very lurid without being overly vulgar. Zanes stories are more realistic than Lora Leighs but Lora's descriptions are more vivid.
If Zane can find a way to marry these two aspects I think she can create an even better erotic novel for black readers.