The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 12: Over 40 outstanding pieces of short erotic fiction (Mammoth Books)

by Jakubowski, Maxim

  So yeah, I returned two weeks later and read for her two classes.

  8.

  Deep down something primal and lizard brain told me this was a mistake, but I was just too damn curious to know more about Lady Postmodern and what she truly was all about. I figured the academic claptrap jargon and posing was just a role, and I wanted to see under that mask. I was the kind of guy always after the ugly truth, because then I could write a dozen poems about it. I was in the produce mode. That’s what my publisher told me: “Produce, man, produce, get out enough for another collection and watch the money come rolling in!”

  Was it really about the money? Where did the art factor in, the “fuck fame and riches” attitude most of the small press poets had? I realized, those days, that poverty was bullshit and the whole “I starve for my verse” was just a way of justifying the fact that 99 per cent of the poets out there made very little, if any, dough off the stanzas and broken lines.

  I was starting to like the money, and this taste of fame. I was getting things I was never able to so easily before. I was forty-one and ready to give my audience more of what they seemed to want, and they did not want my old stuff, the terse verse and clean smooth words from when I was twenty-five and won the Bethlehem Young Poets Award, that first real collection in hardback and published by a university press that garnered much praise, good reviews, but moved few copies: 300 in hardback, 800 in paper. For the award, I was told that was common; for the university press, they said this was good, that most poetry collections seldom moved more than 500 copies all together, hard and soft editions combined, most of those sales going to libraries and die-hard collectors of first editions.

  Speaking of first editions, I started to wonder how much the first printings of Ugly Girls I signed (I guessed 500 out of the initial 5,000 first print run) would go for down the road. I was told collectors were already starting to price them and some of my signed chapbooks of yesteryear were fetching upward to $100. I’d had one guy come by my place, just before Ugly Girls started moving, and pay me $500 for signed copies of all my chapbooks, letting go my personal copies. I needed the money bad at the time: I had an alcohol addiction to nurse.

  I digress. Back to Wanda Merritt, Ph.D., the Postmodern Slut . . .

  9.

  Reading for the first class went well; there were about twenty students, ranging in age from nineteen to fifty, and they listened to me with academic intensity, occasionally taking notes. Notes? About what? About beer shits and herpes and abortions and saggy tits of old women I met at bars?

  The second class was bigger, about forty students, and during my reading some fellow in a rumpled shirt and tie barged in, holding a bottle of tequila, and yelled, “YOU’RE NO POET, WILLIS! ALL YOU DO IS WRITE PROSE FICTION AND BREAK IT UP INTO LINES AND CALL IT POETRY! THAT’S NOT POETRY! WHAT I WRITE IS POETRY!”

  “Yeah,” I said, “prove it.”

  The students laughed nervously.

  “I don’t have my work memorized,” he mumbled, swaying, “and I don’t have my book with me – BUT WHAT YOU WRITE IS NOT FUCKING POETRY! I DON’T GET IT! WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO WHEN FRAUDS LIKE YOU GET LAUDED AS GREAT AMERICAN POETS?!?”

  “Eugene,” Wanda said harshly, “that is enough. Get out.”

  “Give me a swig of that bottle,” I said, rushing to the drunken guy before Wanda could, taking his bottle of tequila and slugging a good portion down. It burned as sweetly as a lip-bite from a $20 Tijuana hooker.

  Wanda ushered the guy out and I still had the bottle.

  “Price for interrupting the Great American Poet at work,” I said, sitting back down.

  The students loved it. They applauded.

  Wanda stood by the door, arms folded, looking at me with a grin, shaking her head as I continued to read and drink the tequila.

  10.

  “I’m sorry about Eugene,” Wanda said. “He’s what you call a tortured soul.”

  We were at the campus pub sharing a pitcher of beer with one of her students, a petite little thing with pink and purple hair and freckles.

  “What an accusation he made,” I said. “Perhaps he’s right,” and shrugged because I didn’t give a fuck what anyone thought about my work.

  “He is wrong,” the petite student said. Oh, her name was Kelly.

  “He can’t get tenure,” Wanda said. “I don’t think he will. He isn’t being published in any important places. Magazines that come and go. Nothing like, say, the New York Quarterly or Ploughshares.”

  “Both those places published me,” I said. “NYQ recently, Ploughshares twenty years ago when I wrote a different sort of thing.”

  “I have both issues,” Kelly said.

  “Kelly is a big fan,” Wanda informed me.

  Kelly was playing footsies under the table with me.

  “Kelly is one of my best grad students,” Wanda continued, “has a bright future. She has already published critical essays in key peer-review journals. She wants to write one about your work.”

  “Compare it to Kerouac’s verse,” Kelly said.

  “How nice,” I said. “Wish Jack’s stomach hadn’t exploded and he was still around, I would’ve loved to meet him in the meat world.”

  “Kelly has agreed to something that I think you will approve and like,” Wanda said.

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “A threesome.”

  ‘“You don’t say.’”

  Kelly had her foot in my crotch. “I do say,” she did say.

  11.

  Everything went pretty damn good the first hour in bed with professor and student. Kelly was so fragile that I thought we might break her, with her skinny hips and flat chest and thin arms, but she kept up with us, going from sucking my dick to eating Wanda’s hairy snatch. They swapped my cum, probably for my benefit, and I knew I had to write a poem about such a thing. I tried to fuck Kelly in the ass but her sphincter would not accommodate, no matter how much lube we used. Kelly was in tears. I said her pussy was fine. “No,” Wanda said, “I want to see you make that little butthole gape.”

  Kelly jumped up and burst into tears. “I can’t do this anymore! I said yes for you, Wanda, because I knew this is what you wanted but it’s not what I want! Do you think I really like fucking men? And an old fat man like him!”

  Old and fat? “I’m only forty-one,” I said. Yeah, I guess I had a bit of a gut, expected with all the beer, wine and vodka.

  “You like it when it’s disgusting,” Kelly said to her professor. “You’re a pervert! I love you, honey, but you’re a pervert!”

  Kelly started to get dressed.

  “You walk out that door,” Wanda started.

  “Or what? Or what?!” said Kelly. “Go ahead, or what?”

  Wanda sighed. “Go.”

  “Have fun with your disgusting old drunk,” Kelly said, and to me: “I’m sorry, Mr Willis, I think you are a genius writer but as a sex partner, you’re too old and your penis is too big.”

  She left.

  I looked at my cock. I was pretty impressive in girth, big veins and smelly of fuck, with a pulsing purple head.

  Wanda groaned. “Never get involved that deeply with a student.”

  “So you’re gay,” I said, thinking of Cindy and the lost possibilities.

  “I go both ways.”

  “Ever fuck male students?”

  “Of course.”

  “And her?”

  “She is in love with me.”

  “Do you love her back?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Wanda Merritt, Ph.D., said. “Come here and stick that fat ugly cock inside me.’”

  “Yes, Doctor,” I obliged.

  12.

  Kelly returned in the morning to apologize for her outburst and asked what she could do to make things right. Wanda said, “Get on your bony knees and blow him. I want to watch.”

  Watch she did, as little Kelly got on her knees before me. I was sitting in a chair in the kitchen, drinking coffee with a shot
of rum. She did her best to get me fully in her mouth. She rubbed my balls as I jerked the base of my thingamabob.

  “Swallow it all,” Wanda ordered.

  Kelly did not. She spat it out and rubbed my cum into my balls. I liked that. “You get over here and lick it up,” she told Wanda, and Wanda did this, and everything now seemed to be right as rain between the two.

  That afternoon, Wanda drove me to the airport (a rare person in San Francisco with a car). “Until next time,” she said.

  We both knew there would be no next time.

  “My book tour starts in a week,” I said.

  “I bet you’ll have a lot of fun,” she said, “if you know what I mean.”

  I did, and I planned to.

  All My Lovers in One Room

  Kristina Lloyd

  Yeah, that’s right: all my lovers, past and present, and it’s not a big room either. This could be a horror story, and maybe it is because I can’t see the ending from here. There are thirty-seven men and two women but, even without counting, I know someone is missing.

  Fancy him being late for my deathbed!

  Ba-dum.

  Baaaah. Dum.

  I’m wired to a machine showing my heartbeat’s on the wane. As if I didn’t know. But I’m hanging in there, hoping he’ll appear any moment. Besides, I have decades left to spare although my body begs to differ.

  To stay focused, I check out the room, mentally putting names to faces: Lucas McGrath, Benedict Purcell (who lost the tip of his little finger in an accident with a glass), Joe Miller and the scruffy blond with the tattoo on his inner wrist . . . Dave, Mark, Mike? Some ordinary, monosyllabic name like that. He was a drunken one-night stand and I adored him for a whole weekend so I suggested we meet again, because you do, don’t you, when it’s been good, hey let’s meet again, and he said, “Don’t bother, I’ll only fuck you about.”

  So I didn’t bother. I can take a hint and I have no patience for games.

  Jason Davis who made me squirt for the first time.

  Saleem Hasan, a third-generation Asian guy with a tireless tongue.

  A beautiful Dutch man on a beach in Sardinia at midnight, moonlight on the waves like this was the movies and sand in my asscrack like it wasn’t.

  Alec – surname escapes me – who declared himself a bondage enthusiast but used knots more suited to a parcel. Still, I couldn’t fault him for his enthusiasm (ouch!) and he never claimed to be an expert, did he?

  Daniel Marcus Frederick Thornton, aka Dan, Danny, Danno, sweetheart, darling, the love of my life for four and a half years, and proof I’m not suited to monogamy.

  And look, there’s Rob, another long-termer, poor sod. He was a competitive cyclist who shaved his legs more often than I did.

  Still no sign of my Charlie.

  Charlie King. King by name, king by nature. I’m concerned he’ll pitch up late as per usual, horny but unhurried, tugging his tie loose and pulling plugs from the wall so he can recharge his BlackBerry and his laptop. And poof! He’ll unplug the life support or whatever I’m hooked up to and it’ll be all over for me, bar the burning or the burial.

  You know that white light you hear rumours of? A glorious white light at the end of a tunnel, brighter than anything you’ve known; a huge sense of tranquillity and long-lost family members awaiting you with open arms? Here’s a tip: avoid the family. Hang a sharp left before the exit and you’ll find yourself in an antechamber with all your flings, exes and casual fucks. I realize it’s not ideal (and some may prefer the family option) but if you want to buy yourself some extra time, it’s a way to duck the point of no return and to avoid all those uncles you couldn’t shake off at weddings.

  The woman we had a threesome with (at Charlie’s request – although to be honest, he practically begged me) is chatting to the chick I had sex with as a student because I thought it would make me cool. I suppose I used them both. I wonder if they’re discussing me but figure I’m of little interest to either woman these days. If Charlie were here, he’d be hoping they were about to give us a floor show. He could be predictable like that, could Charlie.

  But Charlie’s not here, he never fucking is.

  Oh, Charlie! He was the whirlwind I spun from; the storm who thrilled me; the fucker who kept me waiting and wanting. But this time, his rotten punctuality really takes the biscuit. Charlie, I’m dying here! Don’t tell me you’re stuck in a meeting and don’t try texting me either. I’m at death’s door, capisce? I can’t get a signal. I need you here and I need you now.

  I would never have said that to him in life, would never say “need” because I don’t believe in need. There’s only “want” unless it’s life-threatening. But hey, it pretty much is right now!

  Tick tock tick tock.

  And then I feel him approach. I’m like an animal sensing an earthquake before the tectonic plates have shifted. Hairs ripple on the back of my neck and my blood sets up a pulse in my cunt. A thousand and one butterflies dance in my stomach. Oh Charlie, you divine bastard.

  I smell him first. He smells so real, so intimate. He’s the essence of life knocking for six the stink of sterility in my nostrils. I catch the scent of his neck, the aroma of warm skin spliced with muted notes of aftershave and the worn, laundered cotton of his collar. I get the tang of city traffic, fumes and hot rubber, then paperwork like linen and the metallic whiff of cheap, blue ink on his fingers. Maybe my nose is super-sensitive now the rest of me’s shutting down but I think I smell the tabby cat he stroked en route to work that morning, the sun-baked wheat fields in the pasta he ate for supper last night, the heat of his cock in his palm, the spill of his come, the mountain breeze from the Alpine holiday we said we’d go on one day. Or perhaps that’s his fabric conditioner. I don’t know. I breathe him in, wanting to consume all the scents he acquired while he was busy doing other things, living a life I know so little about.

  Tinker, tailor, soldier, spy.

  No, he’s not a spy. He just acts like one. “The name’s King,” I like to say, “Charlie King.” If he’d been more available to me, I don’t know what I’d have done. I might have lost interest but I doubt it. Time and again I tried to let go, move on, find a man who could topple him but how to let go when something’s got you in its grip?

  Ah, and there, now, the softness of his lips, like angels and feathers as he teases with his hello: kiss, murmur, kiss, his fingers sliding down my neck with a tenderness that’s menacingly, enchantingly possessive. Those fingers say more than any words could: I own you, you’re mine.

  And already, I feel myself becoming small, vulnerable and blissfully free, disappearing into the magnificence of Charlie King’s presence. Some people shape themselves to fit the world but where Charlie walks, the world rearranges itself like the Red Sea giving it up for Moses.

  Confidence, grace, integrity, humility. Charlie has these qualities in spades. If he weren’t so damn busy (too many ifs with Charlie), I might fall to my knees in permanent worship. But he is busy so I have to keep my distance. No, it’s not game-playing; I told you I’ve no time for that. It’s the art of self-protection. Nine years I’ve known Charlie. Oh sure, there have been others during this time, for him and for me, and years have gone by when we’ve never exchanged a word. But we keep coming back to each other because we can’t not. He is my magnetic north, my lodestar, the brightest light in my darkest sky. He is the place I am rooted. From head to toe, he has me.

  You know what they say about addicts? Once a smoker, always a smoker? It’s like that for me: once I’d been fucked by Charlie King, I was forever fucked by Charlie King.

  And that’s why I run. I don’t want anyone to have such a hold on me, especially not someone so elusive, so charming, so in tune with what I want. If I give it up for Charlie, I don’t know where I’d draw the line. My fear is I’d give him my everything. And then what? Supposing he didn’t give it back? Who would I be?

  I run three laps of the park before breakfast each day. I do fun runs, 10K r
aces and half-marathons. I put my earphones in and I run to find my strength. I run to get high. I run to get away. Treadmills don’t do it for me. I need to know I’m moving.

  But right now I’m going nowhere fast because Charlie King is with me. He’s checking out the room, his black-brown eyes sweeping over the motley crew of assembled heads. A glimmer of playfulness lights up his face and I say, “Oh no, Charlie, why didn’t I see that coming? No. But yes and oh God, I’m not sure it’s appropriate with the Grim Reaper watching. Oh really, I can’t Charlie but . . . How is it you know me better than I know myself ?”

  “Turn around,” he says softly. “I don’t like your hair that way.”

  I have my hair pinned up in a loose bun studded with diamante pins. Years down the line and I still put effort into looking good for Charlie, even when I’m practically a ghost. Charlie, patient, steady and only slightly rough, stuffs his fingers into the knot, starts unpicking its understructure. It takes him a while. He tugs and shakes. Glass beads rain down like cheap tears. I am being dismantled.

  “Better,” says Charlie. He fluffs at my hair and smiles. I can”t smile back because I’m dazed with desire. “So beautiful,” he says and I believe him, in part because he’s also so very beautiful to me. When he smiles, crow’s feet crinkle around his eyes. He’s ageing well but nothing dents that boyish sense of mischief. I look at him looking at me. Our mutual appreciation is like a mirror to a mirror, running into infinity. We’re surrounded by people but there”s only us here, reflecting each other until the end of time. He winds his fingers in my hair, forming a fist at the nape of my neck. Slowly he pulls, forcing my head back, making my scalp prickle. He gives a sharp jerk of warning and his teeth are gritted when he murmurs in my ear, “So. Fucking. Beautiful.”

  Right back atcha, Charlie boy.

  “Why do you always do this to me?” he asks. Another tug. “Why do you make my dick so hard?”