And I can promise you that none of our writers have a need for handsome millionaires with helipads and naive, virginal students to be introduced to some of the manifold realities of sex. They are not only more subtle in their approach but so much more exciting, and as a matter of fact, closer to real life!
Until another year of brilliant sex on the page comes round, enjoy this one. Awaken your senses.
Maxim Jakubowski
Grounded
Nikki Magennis
Erin arrived first. Her red-eye flight landed hard and ground to a slow halt. She stepped out onto a flat grey desert of tarmac. The air was twelve degrees colder and everything was quiet, the airport still half asleep. Inside the terminal, Erin stashed her case in a locker and then walked circuits round empty lounges and past shuttered shops, trying to work the stiffness out of her legs. It was like wandering in Limbo. A space between destinations, a no man’s land. Airports seemed to exist outside of any particular place, but she loved them, felt at ease in their anonymous spaces, unknown and free. Foreign voices echoed around her, as hushed as pigeons’ wings.
She bought breakfast, a cinnamon wafer and hot, strong coffee, but her appetite dissolved, replaced by a swarm of butterflies in her stomach. Instead, she went to the newsstand and flicked through magazines on the carousel, looking at pictures until the colours blurred: a face painted blue; a crowd at a race; a map of Europe dotted with flags.
An hour later she watched from behind the plate glass windows as Mark’s flight landed. It was like watching silent-movie footage on a vast, blue-tinted screen. He emerged from the plane into the Dutch morning light. The sight of him, six foot, tanned, lithe and weather-roughed, made her heart beat double-espresso fast. She got a glimpse of his two-day stubble and crumpled clothes before he disappeared into the walkway, swallowed by another passage, gone from her again.
She found herself finger-combing her hair and biting her lip, like a teenager.
“Erin.” His smile was as wide as a sunrise. They crossed the last distance separating them as though drawn by gravity, and sank into an embrace so tight she could hardly breathe. She pressed her face into the coarse, air-cold folds of his jacket, inhaled all the smells that made her heart ache. Woodsmoke, cut grass, pine. He smelled like spring.
“God, I missed you,” he said, talking into her hair, his words warm against her scalp. At the sound of his voice she felt her eyes prickle.
“Me too,” she said.
“Oh babe. Where have you been?”
“All over the place,” she said. There was so much to say, but then he held her chin and lifted her face to kiss her and it was clear they needed to touch more than they needed to speak. He tasted sweet. His body was hard and insistent against hers. His arms locked around her and held her tight.
She pulled away, looked around and saw where they were, on a polished floor, in the stream of traffic, taking up space. They’d hardly touched each other but she already felt like she was naked. She coughed.
“Got a bag?” she asked, her voice a breaking whisper. Did the question even make sense? She was fixed on his eyes, their blue gaze still shocking bright behind half-closed lids. He shrugged one shoulder.
“Just this.”
“C’mon.” Her mouth was thick from kissing him. The words bumped against one another. Now, they laced their fingers together and walked over the squeaky, shined floors, past the fragmented groups of people wandering, dazed and sleep-scuffed, around the airport, weaving between knots of Japanese tourists, struggling families, scowling businessmen, cabin crew in their bright, tired uniforms, under signs and hanging curtains of LEDs and scrolling announcement boards and arrows pointing in so many different directions. His thumb brushed the pulse spot on her wrist, and it seemed to turn up the volume of her heartbeat. The ambient sounds faded, her pulse became as loud as their footsteps, louder than all the things she wanted to say but couldn’t and didn’t know how to phrase anyway, until it drummed in her head and all she could think of was his bare skin against hers.
They reached the doorway of the pod hotel where she’d booked a room. “Give me a minute,” she said, pulling out her credit card and trying to find the right slot to swipe it in the check-in machine. Her hands were shaking. Behind her, Mark came up and rested his chin on her shoulder.
“Stop.”
“Hm? I’m not doing anything,” he said, scuffing her neck with the rough scrape of his stubble. Her knees almost buckled and she leaned against the machine with both hands flat on the screen. He laid a tiny, wet kiss on her hairline and she closed her eyes.
“I can’t work the thing. Come on.”
“I’ve waited six weeks,” he said, his voice so low it sunk into the carpet. “OK. Do it. Get us in there. I need you in a room, naked, now.” He backed away, holding his hands up, and she instantly missed the feel of him next to her.
“Don’t go anywhere,” she said. She typed in her number and got the key. They followed arrows, counting cabin numbers along the corridors, trying not to paw at each other, almost succeeding.
“In here,” she said, tugging him through a narrow doorway and pulling it shut behind them. The space was so small a few lungfuls of breath would fill it. Against the spotless white walls of the cabin he was so vivid. So real and so close. At last she could inhale him and touch him and feel the different textures of him – his soft hair, the heat of his skin, his wet, hungry mouth.
She looped her arms round his neck and sagged against him, but he pulled away, placed a hand on her chest.
“Wait.”
“More?” She almost laughed, but it caught in her throat. “Fuck, Mark.” He wasn’t smiling.
“I’ve got something in mind.” He slipped his rucksack off his back and pushed it into her hands. “Open it.”
Erin frowned. She didn’t want gifts. They’d agreed. She had to travel light. “What is this?”
Mark stayed silent. She shook her head and unzipped the bag. Reaching inside, her hand met something cool and silk slippery. Rope. She pulled out a length of long black cord, wrapped around her hand like a waiting snake.
“Mark?” She looked inside the bag. At the bottom were a box of condoms and a small tube of lube. Nothing else.
She paused. She wanted to smile but her mouth wouldn’t cooperate. Her hands swarmed with the need for him. “Drop it on the bed,” Mark said, indicating the rope. She did as he asked.
“I’m going to undress you,” he said, moving towards her and tugging at her buttons. Somehow, she was rooted to the spot. “Let me.” He undid her steadily, tugging her arms free and throwing her jacket on the floor as if it was dirty laundry. “Good.” He nodded, at her mute assent. Now he gripped her arms.
“If you want me to stop say so, OK?”
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. She nodded.
He continued to strip her: shirt, vest, chinos, roughly peeled off and discarded. Erin felt like her breath was too loud. She wanted to swallow but somehow felt embarrassed. “Mark,” she said at last, “please kiss me.”
He laughed.
“It’s been so long. This isn’t fair.”
“Really? You ought to be used to going without. Told me to enjoy the anticipation, remember?”
Erin moaned. “You’re punishing me.”
“Not yet.” Now he unbuttoned the top of his jeans. His cock sprang from his fly, thick and stiff. Then he pulled his shirt over his head, and she got a faceful of his scent – shower gel spice tinged with fresh sweat. He was beautiful. She hadn’t forgotten, but the sight still left her reeling: his work-taut body, always restless, always in motion.
The drift of black hair that clung to his chest and crept down his stomach, spreading as it disappeared into his jeans. And his coolness, his ease in his own skin. Nothing ever seemed to faze him. As he came up hand’s reach close, only a twitch of his pretty red lips showed any reaction to her proximity, or her near nakedness.
He lifted the rope and wound it around his
hands. “Now, let me fix you.”
He pulled her wrists behind her. The subtle pulse that beat between her legs intensified. Every muscle in her legs threatened to turn liquid, and she wondered how long she could hold herself up. The slight touch of his fingers as he secured her and checked the knots was like fine sandpaper. When the edge of his fingernail caught slightly against her hip it stung like she’d been lashed. Not painful, but a bright, dizzying burn, as if her desire was concentrated and written into that one thin dash.
“I’m going to fuck you so hard,” he said, his mouth up close to her ear and so quiet she hardly heard it. But she did. Her body heard it. His words struck deep in her centre, and her spine curled.
“OK,” she said, “Mark, please.”
She held herself tensed and steady, trying not to rock back and forth. She’d wanted him for so long, his voice and hands and mouth and cock. The memory of how good he felt and how tightly they fitted together had been reignited with every phone call, every text and blurry phone video. Standing in the shade of a tall plane tree in Tunis, she’d filled a phone with dull brassy coins and stood listening to the unfamiliar dial tone, each unanswered beep like a castigation, a lament for travelling so far, for being elsewhere; a way of noting the uncountable miles that separated her from her lover.
Now, in this antiseptic little cabin, with the anonymous sheets and the empty corridors, with the endless flow of millions of strangers around them and the thought of how many others had used this room, used this bed, her heart started to ache like it might burst.
“I want you,” she said at last, splaying her hands against each other, feeling the chill of the air-con roughen her skin with goose bumps, seeing the faint smudge of Mark’s reflection in the shower glass and thinking how she so rarely got more than a brief taste, a furious, hurried embrace.
“Yep,” Mark said, as if he was hardly listening. He looked her over, thoughtfully. Then he pulled the chair in close and turned it towards her.
“Sit,” he said, tipping his head at the seat. Startled, she obeyed without thinking, and landed with a jolt. Now, he took another length of cord from the rucksack and crouched down, patting Erin’s calf. “Shift your feet.” He wrapped first one ankle, then the other, fastening them to the cold metal of the chair legs. Erin sat with her legs spread, feeling more exposed as her ability to move was gradually restricted. Mark worked quietly, as calm as if he were fixing a tarp to trailer.
When he was finished, he dropped his hands to his thigh and looked her over. “Test them,” he said. Erin’s eyes widened. She wasn’t used to instructions from him – this was her warm, kind, laughing Mark, all business. There was flint in his gaze, an unsettling purposefulness in his movements. His want reached her as a force, so strong that it couldn’t be deflected. Her hips had started to ache from being spread. Was he testing her? Trying to trick her into giving up control?
“OK,” she nodded. “I’ll play.”
She pulled against her ties to see how far she could move. Not far. The ropes were soft, twisted cotton, and the memory of where she’d felt them before came back to her. Lead ropes. For horses. She pictured Mark walking across the back fields, the rope running through his hands and the dew wetting his boots.
“What are you smiling at?” he asked, lifting his eyes to her face.
“Nothing,” she said, “it’s good to see you.”
“You like that, huh?”
She shrugged, or tried to. “Not what I was expecting.”
“Hm.” He leaned forward and nuzzled at the lace edge of her bra, finding her nipple and catching it in his teeth.
“Ah.”
He bit gently, until she cried out again, then nipped at the other one. His mouth left wet patches. “I could eat you up,” he said, the burr of his accent softened by a whisper but still slanted with the Island accent she used to tease him about.
He gripped her waist, now, with both hands. He worked at her, kneading her flesh, rubbing down to her splayed thighs and pressing into the tender skin there. She could feel the heat of his breath against her belly and it made her want to twitch.
“Mark.”
His thumbs hooked under her knickers and tugged the elastic away from her body. She felt the air-conditioned air on her, heard nothing but the motionless air in the tiny space, slowly heating up and growing closer. Usually she got claustrophobic pretty quickly. Right now she wanted the walls to close in further, to squeeze against her. The desire contained in her was turning almost violent, the immobility wildly frustrating. Waves inside her pulsed from her belly to her cunt and back again. She struggled in her seat. The tightness of her bonds was good. She fought against the rope, confident she would lose.
“You look good like that,” he said, sitting back and leaving her with her pants half pulled down her thighs, squirming in her seat. He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. She stared at his mouth, mesmerized.
“Don’t make me beg you,” she said, her voice cut back to a whisper.
“I won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do, you know that, babe” he said, a familiar, lazy smile hovering over his mouth.
Erin tilted her hips, trying to twist and press herself against the seat.
“Poor girl. You’re in need,” he said, dropping his gaze to her lap. “How long’s it been?”
Erin shook her head. Her cheeks were flushed and her breath was ragged.
“Answer the question. How long?”
“We saw each other in . . . April? Six weeks.”
“Did you miss me?”
“You know I did.”
“Answer the question.” He reached out and pulled at her knickers, tugging the elastic against the back of her thighs so it dug lines into her skin.
“Yes. I missed you.” Erin blushed harder.
“Did you fuck anyone else?”
“Mark. Of course not.”
“Did you want to?”
They looked at each other. “I don’t play jealous games, Mark.”
“Who said I was jealous? I just want to know.”
“I was working, for fuck’s sake. Sweating my way round the Sahara. Sleeping in trucks, sometimes. No, I didn’t want anyone else.”
She looked away, biting her lip.
“Good.” He slid one fingertip inside her, cool and gentle. Curled his hand against her, covering her pussy with his palm and a warm, maddeningly soft touch. She gasped. So slight. Her muscles tried to tighten around him.
“Not yet,” he said.
She pressed her mouth closed. Held still and took a deep breath.
“More.” She kept her voice steady. “Please. Give me more.”
“Funny. That’s just what I was going to ask next.” Mark leaned in close, so she could smell his hair. Mint and seaweed.
“See, I’ve been waiting, too. It’s taken me a long while to realize. I spoke to you last week, remember?”
Erin nodded, trying to concentrate on his words instead of his fingers.
“And you were talking about the fixer and complaining about the coffee and the heat and it hit me.”
“What?”
He looked at her full in the face. “You’re never coming home, are you?”
Erin shook her head. “Don’t do this now.”
“We only have now, Erin.”
“And you want to know if I’m coming home? I don’t have an answer. I don’t even know what that word means any more. Probably not the same as it does to you. The valley. The farm. But you won’t leave, will you?”
“Leave my work? Let my parents struggle on without me? No. That’s not possible.”
Erin threw her head back and squeezed her eyes shut.
“Mark, we are not possible. We’re the impossible couple. We always come back to this. But here we are. Let’s talk about this later.” She sighed. “I just want to touch you. Kiss me. Please.”
“You know how much I want to,” he said. “But this time, not without a promise.”
�
��Don’t do it. Don’t you dare.”
“What, ask you to give it up? Oh, I’d love it. For you to turn up at the farm in the breaking dawn one morning and climb into my bed and tell me you’re never going to leave. We could just sink into each other.” He worked at her now, slowly, his fingers describing a delicate curve over her clit before pinching her, hard enough for her eyes to widen.
“Take our time. See where we got to.” He slid his fingers inside her again, worked at the sweet spot.
Erin closed her eyes. “There. There is good.”
“That’s what I thought. Here. Here is good. You know why?”
“Hmm.”
“Believe it or not, a shoebox hotel room buried on the outskirts of Amsterdam is not my dream destination.”
“It was the best we could do. Next time we’ll make it somewhere sexier.”
“Next time it’s harvest, Erin, next time it’s lambing. Next time I won’t have any weekends left. But it doesn’t matter.”
“Course it does. But so does kissing me.”
“Just stop for a minute.” He pulled away suddenly, and Erin gave a sharp intake of breath. “Listen.” He turned and rifled in his jean pockets, pulled out a condom and tore it open. He kept talking as he unrolled the rubber onto his cock.
“Here is good because a six thirty flight from Tunis can get you to within touching distance of a two-hour flight from Aberdeen. Here is good because you are here and that’s the only place I really want to be.”
As he talked, he manoeuvred himself so that the tip of his cock was pointed directly at her crotch.
“With you.” He buried a hand in her hair. “In you.”
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 12: Over 40 outstanding pieces of short erotic fiction (Mammoth Books) Page 2
