Apocalypse Sex: Love at the End of the World

With their own demise staring them in the face, the characters in Apocalypse Sex decide to do one thing: have the best sex of their lives. These stories include a range of settings, tones, and sexualities, but they share the feeling of freedom that impending death can provide. And, of course, they share the desperately intense kind of sex that you can only have if you think it might be your last. In J. Daniel Sawyer’s “Buried Alive in the Blues,” a woman finds a speakeasy at the edge of the world, where she discovers the answer to her lover’s mysterious death, she witnesses a stage show that no one will ever see again, and she finds a new lover and a hope for redemption. Elizabeth Coldwell’s “Expiry Date” imagines a world where debtors literally explode if they can’t pay their debts. A woman has 24 hours to find money or die. She has one last chance to have the sex she’s always been afraid to try. Elizabeth Schechter writes “Darkest Night” from the perspective of a sentient ship’s computer who watches her captain’s love-making with curiosity and a little envy. When there’s a problem with the air onboard, the captain runs a simulator that allows him and the computer to do what she’s always wanted. In the lighthearted “Invasion!” by Beverly Langland, Frank and Martha have always had a flirtatious relationship, but they’ve never gone further since Frank’s married. When Martians attack Earth, Frank and Martha finally get their chance, and when they find a scared young girl, they get the chance to do what they’ve never imagined. In “Fences,” by David Hubbard, a virus threatens the entire human race. The X virus can takes years to kill a person; it’s already killed Jeremy’s lover, and Jeremy himself might die any day now. Jeremy uses the time he has left to seduce the straight guy next door. It won’t be easy, but he has nothing left to lose. When the apocalypse looms, you can choose to die or you can choose to live. In these life-affirming erotic stories, inhibitions are cast aside and fantasies are fulfilled as the doomed desperately search for a way to forget the world, and for sex to remember forever.