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

by Jakubowski, Maxim

  The two who had just walked in charged the smoky air. They looked restless and purposeful and sharp. My three-song set on the main stage was just ending and I went over to them as fast as my five-inch heels would take me.

  “Are you guys gay?” I asked. This kind of opening was a specialty of mine. I favored provocative questions that would engage almost anyone, for better or for worse.

  “Are you fuckin’ wasted?” This came from the tall one.

  “Who else would wear leather chaps over jeans on a sweltering summer night?”

  “We’re bikers.”

  “Oh.”

  He was at least six foot four, with a long, somewhat leonine face and wavy light brown hair. His friend was of average height and had a shaved head.

  “I’m Magdalene,” I offered then.

  “I’m Billy,” he answered. “And this is Lars.”

  How I loved that job then. Up until that evening, it would have been hard to count the number of ways. It wasn’t just the dozens of different men dealt to me like cards every night, and my license to go up to them, touch them, tease them, do whatever I felt like doing. And it went beyond the money flowing in like a rain-swollen stream, though the thrill of that tax-free cash never wore thin.

  It was also the pure pleasure of dancing naked, or nearly so – out in the open, where perfect strangers could see. (When had this last been permissible? Not since the age of one or two.) It was the pleasure, even, of dancing itself – moving to music that underscored the special power of the strip joint stage. Earlier that evening, I’d raked in fifty-four singles dancing to M. C. Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This”.

  The truth was that, though I was far from the best or most beautiful dancer, I made more money than anyone else, all night, every night. I brought a special energy to the job. I was a very young woman, and I knew that I would not always be a young woman. I had the sense of having caught a certain wave before it was too late, and riding it intoxicated me beyond reason.

  The glamour intoxicated me, seedy and small-time as it was. Sometimes in the mirrors flanking the stage, I’d catch a glimpse of the picture I was a part of: two or three young girls on a platform, on display beneath the hot lights, bodies ablaze with youth and entitlement, men crowded at their feet in supplication. It was a sight that filled me with joy. I’d grown up loving the luminaries of burlesque – Gypsy Rose Lee, Marlene Dietrich, Mae West – and I’d longed to join the ranks of those garter-flashing, wisecracking femmes fatales. So when, with a sidelong glance, I’d see facets of this wish brought to life in the smoky glass, it never seemed like less than a miracle.

  I knew that many of the other strippers did in fact aspire to be actresses, or cabaret singers, or real dancers. But I had none of these talents and never would, and so this was my only real chance. To be a dream girl. (Dream girl: the very phrase was like a caress. I wanted to trail it like a cloak, brandish it like a fan, have it crown me like a diadem. U can’t touch this.)

  Almost as delightful as flaunting my near-naked self was wearing the different costumes the job demanded. Dancers had to be able to embody a full range of fantasies. My outfit of the evening might be sleek and black and minimal, or it might be pink and fluffy and sweet. I could be supple as a cut switch, or like so much candy. And maybe that was the ultimate source of the job’s allure: the idea that, as long as I stayed within the dress code (heels a minimum of four inches high; G-string opaque; a garter to match) I could be whomever I wanted.

  No sooner had I sat down with Billy and Lars than Mona was there to enforce the two-drink minimum. Mona was a cocktail waitress and her uniform was a black and gold bodice with fishnet stockings. All the waitresses wore the same outfit.

  “What’ll it be?” Coming from her, these words were more a command than a question.

  “We’ll take two shots of Jack and whatever Magdalene wants,” Billy told her.

  “Just a glass of cranberry, please,” I said, and watched her walk off without another word.

  I admired Mona a great deal. I liked the way she looked and the way she carried herself. Tattooed barbed-wire bracelets encircled her upper arms and her navy-black hair was cropped short as a boy’s. In the dressing room, I would watch her cover the tattoos with beige make-up in compliance with the house rules, blowing lazy smoke rings at her reflection between layers. She had a hard-bitten, don’t-fuck-with-me attitude and knew how to keep customers in line.

  I was the kind of girl that a guy like Billy would want to deflower. The kind of girl who would bring the word “deflower” to mind, despite the unlikely surroundings he might have found me in. Mona was probably the kind of girl he could love, had time been given the chance to tell.

  As she returned with the drinks, I remembered something that had happened the week before, when she and I were in the Champagne Lounge at the same time.

  The Champagne Lounge was the upstairs room where a customer could pay $300 to take the dancer of his choice. This bought an hour of private time with her, and when that hour was up, he could sign on for another if he wanted. Occasionally, a customer would be interested in taking a waitress to the Lounge instead of a dancer, and if there were enough barmaids to fill in for her, this was allowed. The house got $220 of that hourly $300 rate, so the waitress’s feelings about it were of no consequence.

  The high cost of the Lounge always made me anxious. The “Champagne Hostess,” who oversaw these transactions, would explain to the customers beforehand that no sexual activity was allowed in there. But I worried anyway. Even if most of the men knew better than to try to bend the rules, it was still hard to imagine what I could do to make that hour worth so much money. It was a bittersweet tug on my heart every time a man signed that credit card slip. It moved me to know that someone thought my company was worth three-hundred dollars an hour. I wanted my customers to enjoy this interlude, to consider the money well spent and to not feel taken. I was always warm and attentive, hanging on their words, laughing at their jokes, dispensing innocent caresses at every opportunity.

  One evening during the week before, when I arrived in the Champagne Lounge at about midnight, Mona had already been there for a couple of hours. She and her client were in the elevated seating area, on their third bottle of champagne. The man was so drunk that when he got up to go to the men’s room, he stumbled over the edge of the low platform, fell flat on his face like a cartoon, and lay on the linoleum without moving again. The sound of him hitting the floor turned nearly every head in the Lounge. There was an audible murmur from all sides, of startled alarm and concern. Mona was counting her money and didn’t even look up.

  “That girl,” Lars was saying now. He was watching Jade on the main stage. “That girl could make me come from across the room.”

  I sighed in a derisive and theatrical way. “I wish someone could make me come from across a room.”

  Billy turned his grey-green gaze on me. “I could make you come from across a room.”

  I smirked at him. “That’s a good one.”

  “I could,” he said. “I know I could.”

  “Great,” I said. “Go ahead. Go across the room and make me come.”

  For a second, his expression seemed to hover at the edge of consternation. Then he stood and walked to the leather sofas flanking the opposite wall. Lars grinned, enjoying his friend’s predicament. Both of us waited with interest to see what he would do.

  Billy sat down and, staring at the floor, took a pack of Marlboros from an inside pocket of his vest. He took his time shaking a cigarette from the pack, lighting it, and putting it between his lips. As he drew on it, he looked up and fixed me with a fierce glare. Then he exhaled through his nostrils, glowering through the smoke.

  This performance made me laugh harder than I’d laughed in months. Within minutes I had two black raccoon eyes from crying mascara tears. I was still laughing when I was called to the bar stage for my final set of the night, and I had to hold on to the backs of chairs to steady myself on my way to the
front of the club.

  The dj was playing the kind of siren song I loved, “Bette Davis Eyes”. Tired as I was at the tail end of the night, it was carrying me along.

  “Can I give you a ride home?”

  Billy had come up to the bar stage. Apparently he wasn’t one to hold a grudge. We faced each other: he in his heavy boots, jeans, chaps and a leather vest, helmet dangling from one hand; me naked except for a G-string and heels. While I was on that platform in those heels, my eyes were just level with his.

  “What, on your motorcycle?” I asked.

  “On my bike,” he corrected me.

  “What do you drive? A Harley-Davidson?”

  “Fuck no. Harleys are so fashionable right now it’s sickening. I’ve got an Italian bike, a Ducati. Fastest thing on two wheels. It can go from zero to a hundred and ten in about two and a half seconds.’”

  “I’m afraid of motorcycles,” I said truthfully.

  “Why?”

  “Oh, maybe because they’re about the most dangerous thing you can do.”

  “Yeah, well, they’re a rush.”

  “It would be hard for me to get on one.”

  ‘“Look . . . it’s 4 a.m.,” he said. “Other drivers are the most dangerous part of the equation, and at this hour no one else’ll be on the road.”

  “Will you go slow?”

  “If you want. I guess. But you won’t be getting the Ducati experience.”

  “I don’t care about that,” I told him. “I just want to get home in one piece.”

  “Well, look. Meet me around the corner when you get off. I’ll be in the Raccoon Lodge.” The Raccoon Lodge was a biker bar on the next block.

  “Why there?”

  “Because that’s where my bike is.”

  “Why can’t you bring your bike over here?”

  “Why can’t you walk a block and a half ?”

  “Because,” I snapped, “I’m not interested in walking anywhere at four in the morning in downtown New York with all that money. And you shouldn’t be asking me to.”

  “OK, OK. Are you always this high maintenance?”

  When I emerged from the club, wearing a regular summer dress, he was standing there beside a sleek red machine. Wordlessly he held out a second helmet.

  “Remember,” I said as I took it. “You promised to go slow. Right?”

  “Just get on the bike.”

  I made a show out of stopping in my tracks. “No, I’m not going to just get on the damn bike. Promise me you’ll go slow or I’ll get a cab.”

  “Take a fuckin’ cab then.”

  I laid the helmet on the Ducati’s seat and began walking away.

  “Magdalene!” He shouted my stage name. I realized I hadn’t even told him my real one.

  I turned. “What?”

  “Come on. Don’t be like that. I promised you, didn’t I? Why would I go back on what I said?”

  “Just to fuck with me,” I suggested.

  “I’m not going to do that. Come on.”

  I went back and climbed on behind him.

  It seemed to me that he went as fast as it was possible to go between close-set red lights. Not the boasted 110 miles in two and a half seconds, but much faster than necessary. Why did I do this, I had to ask myself. Why endanger my life climbing onto the back of a stranger’s motorcycle? A stranger I met in a strip joint, no less. Why let him know where I lived?

  Sometimes it seemed to me that getting on the back of a stranger’s motorcycle was just another masquerade, another costume I was trying on. I never went all the way into anything. I held myself back while taking what I could; I asked to go slow. But now, in motion with a stranger in the driver’s seat, there was no way to control the experience anymore. I leaned into the turns as he instructed. I closed my eyes and clutched him with all my might until we pulled up beside my apartment building.

  “What a miracle,” Billy sneered once the engine had been cut and our helmets were off. “You made it home alive.”

  I climbed off the bike and stood in front of him on the sidewalk. I was trembling with relief and exhilaration and leftover terror. “Yes I did,” I said. “And I feel lucky.”

  “I don’t think anyone’s ever clutched me so tight in my life. It’s a wonder I could breathe.”

  “You promised me you wouldn’t go fast.”

  “That wasn’t fast! Little girl! I didn’t go anywhere near what this baby can do.”

  “You went a lot faster than you had to go.”

  He shrugged and didn’t deny it.

  “You knew how I felt, so what was the point?” I asked.

  He shrugged again. “Crawling’s no fun.”

  What could I say without sounding like a little old lady?It’s all fun and games until someone loses a limb.

  “Well,” I said finally. “I guess I’m home, then. Thanks for the ride.’”

  He looked at me steadily with his leonine eyes. “Aren’t you going to invite me upstairs?”

  My apartment was a studio with a sleeping alcove. On the wall beside the entrance to this little chamber, a black riding crop hung on a nail.

  Billy walked straight over and took it down from the wall.

  “This,” he said, striding across the room with it. “This – I knew there was some reason I was bothering with you. This has been part of every relationship I’ve ever had.”

  I felt the first inkling of real interest since meeting him. “Most people, when they see that, ask me if I ride.”

  He snorted. “I know you don’t ride.”

  “Then they wonder if I’m a dominatrix.”

  He made the same dismissive sound. “Dominant? You?”

  “What makes you think I’m not?”

  “Come on. Don’t make me laugh.”

  “I like switching,” I said defensively.

  “Yeah, you like a good switching. Come over here.”

  I ignored this. “How many other dancers from the Dollhouse have you taken home?”

  He pulled the wooden chair out from under my writing desk and rested one booted foot on the seat. I watched the tip of the riding quirt, tapping against its steel-toed rim. There was an uncomfortable silence.

  I tried again. “I haven’t seen you in the club before, and I’ve been there almost a year.”

  He let long moments go by before he spoke, then repeated the last thing he’d said. “Come over here.”

  I went to him. I let him take me by the hair and bend me over his thigh. The pungent scent of the leather took all the resistance out of me; there was no way to stand up against that. He lifted the bottom of my dress and I felt my own riding crop slash across the back of my thighs. Not starting light, as so many play-whippings do.

  “Aahhh!!” It was more an exhalation than a cry.

  “Next time I tell you to do something,” he said, his voice low beside my ear, “I’ll only have to tell you once. Right?”

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  He struck me a second time, as hard as before or harder.

  “Yes, what?” he asked.

  “Yes . . . sir . . .”

  And again. “Yes, sir, what?”

  I spoke in a strangled rush. “Yes, sir, you’ll only have to tell me once.”

  “That’s right. That’s my promise to you. I’m going to make it real easy for you to remember that.”

  And here it was, one of the moments I lived for: to have the word sir forced from between my teeth with no hesitation, no irony. To get a good ass-whipping without even trying, pure luck, like finding a hundred-dollar bill on the sidewalk or hitting some lottery jackpot. Not everyone will understand the joy this brought me, but that’s precisely why it was so gratifying. It was more than gratification, it was something like arrival – something like recognition, or homecoming, or relief.

  This act did not segue into sex, as many would imagine. After all, I didn’t really know him.

  The same intuition on Billy’s part that had brought about what already happened
now kept him from asking for, or demanding, something he must have known I truly wasn’t ready to yield.

  That intuition had let him keep hitting me even when I pleaded with him to stop. At that point, the whipping had not yet made me cry. This juncture would arrive, and we were well beyond it by the time he decided it was finished. His promise to me – that I would never again make him repeat an order – had been his final words to me for the duration. It was a silent whipping, from his end of it. He neither gloated nor lectured nor made me repeat the lesson learned. I had the sense that what he wanted, more than anything, was for me to hear myself. When he was done, he laid the quirt on my desk and brought his booted foot to the floor. Still grasping my hair, he asked, “Any beer on the premises?”

  I nodded without speaking.

  He released me. “Get me a beer, then. And wash your face.”

  I moved toward the opposite side of the room, to the little tiled area with a refrigerator, some cabinets and a small square of counter space. I turned on the water and stared at my hands cupped together under the jet: were they really mine? Was all of this really happening? They were trembling when I took the cap off a cold bottle of Coors and brought it to him without a word.

  “Thank you,” he said. “When are you working again?”

  He was a different person, now. And I was a different person. I spoke to him quietly and with deference, and hearing myself now, speaking in this different tone, was almost unbearably erotic in itself.

  “Not till Saturday,” I said. It was only Tuesday.

  “What are you doing tomorrow night?”

  “I’m – actually, I’m going to my friend’s play,” I told him. It killed me to have to say this. “She’s the playwright,” I added in a rush. “It’s an off-Broadway show. Tomorrow’s opening night.”

  “What about Thursday?”

  That was no good either, I realized. “Thursday my aunt’s in town. I promised I’d have dinner with her.’”

  He waited a moment before speaking again. When he did, his tone was both patient and warning. “What about Friday, then?”

  “Friday I’m free,” I said. I wasn’t, but those plans at least I could rearrange. My sister and I were supposed to see a movie. And what were sisters for, if not to understand about these things?