by Astra Rose
2021
Astra Rose´s erotic novella A Splash of Cream at the Alabaster Café is an imaginative, irreverent romp that riffs off of the fetish of hucows--big-breasted women (human cows) who lactate for the sexual pleasure of themselves and others.
Originally from Wisconsin, Summer is a recent college graduate with a business degree trying to land a decent-paying job in New York City. She wants to move out of the cat-infested apartment she shares with her granny, to fulfill her dreams and be independent. She´s having tough luck getting a break, as there seems to be a hiring freeze everywhere she turns. By chance, she learns about a high-paying job as a barista at the Alabaster Cafe, a boutique coffee shop with a decor as white as milk, and where each of the servers are voluptuous.
Sal, the Cafe´s owner, hires Summer on the spot. Her double-D bra size is definitely an asset, as is her experience growing up on a dairy farm in the Badger State. And while the hourly wage of $25/hour is better than Starbucks, Summer wants to know more about what goes on with the secretive "Coffee Club"--a clandestine part of the business where male clients pay the Cafe´s busty babes extra to suck the milk from their boobs in a private room in back. How can Summer get a piece of that action?
Rose takes her time establishing Summer, Sal, and a number of other key characters in A Splash of Cream at the Alabaster Café, so that when the sexual scenes of the later chapters escalate and become more elaborate, we are invested in them and care about them. I don´t want to give away too much of what happens later on in the novella, but I will say that Summer´s childhood experiences on the dairy farm combined with her business degree definitely come in handy as she takes the Alabaster Café to a whole new level of success and popularity.
The writing here is fresh and crisp, and Rose is excellent at balancing a tone which effortlessly alternates between the sensual and the humorous. Even for readers who do not necessarily have a "hucow fetish", the author provides a number of diverse and sexually arousing scenes--from straight sex to groupsex, and from gay to bisexual. Throughout, the spirit of A Splash of Cream at the Alabaster Café is upbeat and irreverent, and the voice of her writing is magnetic. The world of this novella is delightfully over-the-top, and one can feel the pleasure Rose must have experienced conceiving of this bodacious tale.
The refrain on Astra Rose´s social media is "smut is good for you." A Splash of Cream at the Alabaster Café is fun and filthy, and I look forward to licking up more of her erotic writing in the future.