Elegant and explicit, tender and arousing, these erotic stories articulate your fantasies. Carolyn Banks's heroines come from the ranks of the familiar: housewives, nurses, officeworkers, students - all recognizable. The sexual tension arises as these women manage - through imagination, wit, and an occasional flirtation with the occult or the taboo - to put a fine erotic edge on their daily lives. Some of her heroines are innocents; others have been married long enough to suggest their couplings might be tinged a shade of jade. However, all triumph in these well-crafted sexy stories. These twenty-three stories explore a variety of characters and situations: In "A Long, Long Time," only the impassioned language of the body - of two bodies - is needed when an American tourist meets a handsome native of Florence. And in another story, Carolyn Banks cautions the reader, when eating Chinese, to take your fortune seriously. She's forty-two, he's twenty-four; "Malaquite" tells the story of a passion that bridges the ages. And in "Salon Satin," one woman discovers a delicious way to lose weight that doesn't require dieting. Sometimes teasing and innocent, sometimes biting and arch, sometimes deep in dreamy sensuality, these stories all build to a satisfying last-line release. Whether read alone or shared with someone, Tart Tales will delight and titillate.