Exhibitions, an anthology of erotic short stories combining sex with travel, succeeds on certain levels but fails on others. The foreword, by Bust magazine editor Debbie Stoller, explains that sex is a type of journey and so an exploration of eroticism in foreign cities makes perfect sense. Michele Davidson, the book’s editor, claims that the stories here are “intended to feed your passionate nature.” And they do. To an extent. But most of the stories are, for all their exoticism of locale and situation, just too conventionally written. How much bump, thrust, squeeze, and suck can a reader take before becoming bored with the uniformity of the language?

The collection succeeds, however, with literary stories from writers such as Natalee Caple, Leo Cullen, Robert Labelle, Stan Persky, and Ron Smith. These contributions combine sexual acts with passionate writing and a flair for subtlety. In Caple’s story, “The Traveller Is Lost,” a war reporter writes to his lover, “So turn the bed upside down and we’ll make love in the curtains.” Persky mixes memory tricks and masturbation in his soldier story, “Autobiography of a Tattoo (2: The Barracks).” And Cullen’s “Let’s Twist Again” tells the beautifully comic tale of a young boy in Ireland on his first date. These are strong pieces – solid, brief images of lust, love, and desire.

The stories that fail only fail because they come to seem repetitive. Karen X. Tulchinsky’s “A Working Dyke’s Dream,” about lesbian sex in a travel office, is competently written. But it is no different in image and voice from “She Was a Mountain of a Woman” by Erin Graham, about a powerlifting woman who seduces a female referee, or “Seeing Stars,” by Mary Sheiner, about teasing sex in a planetarium.

All 23 of the very short stories in Exhibitions will turn you on. But if you’re looking for powerful literature, stories that will stay in your consciousness longer than that after-sex smoke, concentrate on the beauties mentioned above.