by Lucy Taylor
Lucy Taylor is the author of seven novels, including the Stoker award-winning The Safety of Unknown Cities, Nailed, Saving Souls, Eternal Hearts and Left To Die (under the pseudonym Taylor Kincaid). Her short story collections include Painted In Blood, Spree and The Silence Between the Screams, and her stories have appeared in over a hundred anthologies and publications. Most recently, her work can be found in Exotic Gothic, volumes 1 through 4, The Century’s Best Horror, 21st Century Gothic and The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Erotica. Her latest collection, Unspeakable and Other Stories, is available in paperback and ebook form. Taylor lives in Pismo Beach, CA, where she volunteers with the Feline Network trapping feral cats for spay/neuter, and enjoys salsa dancing, painting and kayaking.
Mammoth Books present
The Safety of Unknown Cities
The Best of Lucy Taylor: Five Erotic Stories
Edited by Maxim Jakubowski
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Robinson,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2012
Copyright © Lucy Taylor, 2012
The right of Lucy Taylor to be identified as the author of this
work has been asserted by her in accordance with the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47210-050-4
Contents
Acknowledgements
The Thief of Names
The Plague Lovers
Baubo’s Kiss
The Safety of Unknown Cities
Prenuptials
Acknowledgements
“The Thief of Names” © Lucy Taylor, 2000. First published in The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels, edited by Maxim Jakubowski and Michael Hemmingson (Robinson, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.
“The Plague Lovers” © Lucy Taylor, 1998. First published in The Mammoth Book of Historical Erotica, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Robinson, 1999). Reprinted by permission of the author.
“Baubo’s Kiss” © Lucy Taylor, 1994. First published in Unnatural Acts and Other Stories from Richard Kasak Books, 1994. Reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Erotica, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Robinson, 1994), by permission of the author.
“The Safety of Unknown Cities” © Lucy Taylor, 1994. First published in Unnatural Acts and Other Stories from Richard Kasak Books, 1994. Reprinted in The Mammoth Book of Erotica, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Robinson, 1994), by permission of the author.
“Prenuptials” © Lucy Taylor, 1996. First published in The Mammoth Book of International Erotica, edited by Maxim Jakubowski (Robinson, 1996). Reprinted by permission of the author.
THIEF OF NAMES
Lucy Taylor
Afterwards, Nicholas wondered how he could have ever thought the little blonde with the tattoo on her tit could have been worth the risk she posed to his marriage, his self-respect, and – as it turned out – so much more. Yet still, there was that moment of insanity when he actually debated the point, before admitting that nothing could have been worth what the encounter cost him. It was that second’s hesitation, though, that gave an indication of how much Nicholas Berringer valued sex – or at least what sex represented to him. Fucking, to him, had always meant freedom and conquest and masculine power. Even when consensual, the act was at heart, forced entry and violent gratification, the plundering of empty space by protuberant member. It was also safety and solace and the warm dark heart of his mother’s womb, the sacred place where there was no Nicholas, where nothing was named and there was only One.
Although he would not have put it quite that way. Had he been asked, he would have simply said that fucking made him feel alive, gave him the willingness to make the effort of drawing the next breath. He would have said that, as exclamation points marked memorable sentences, so erections punctuated the climactic points of a man’s life.
Now, as he drove well above the speed limit on I–75 in the pouring rain, headed toward the Ambassador Bridge and the US/Canadian border at Detroit-Windsor, he wondered if trying to track down Sonny Valdez wasn’t the journey of a masochistic fool, a pathetic attempt to feel like he was taking charge, doing something, for God’s sake, to try to save his own life.
I’m going to ask Sonny Valdez for help, he thought, grimacing at the irony of it, for he could scarcely stand to inhabit the same planet as the man. The three best years of his life, of his marriage, had been when he believed that Sonny Valdez was dead, having expired wretchedly in some flophouse in Toronto’s commercial sex district. But Valdez, as it turned out, was still very much alive, and now Nicholas needed his help. Jesus, I am fucked, he thought bitterly, I am truly royally fucked.
“Do you like to fuck?” the cute blonde in the blue satin blouse had asked him.
Her exact words. He’d almost dumped his beer in his lap. She had to be a hooker, of course, but still – talk about coming on strong.
She read his expression and giggled, showing slightly crooked front teeth. “Oh, don’t get me wrong. I’m not a working girl. Well, I mean I work, all right. I work on a road construction crew. I’m what they call a flagger, which basically means I’m one of those chicks stands out in the broiling sun on the highway all day holding a sign says Slow Down and the good ol’ boys goin’ by in pick-up trucks holler at us and try to grope our tits out the window.”
“I never knew that,” he said, quietly bemused.
“I don’t usually talk to guys in bars, either, but my boyfriend – ex-boyfriend, that is – he’s off with some trailer trash whore he met in a honkytonk. I figure what’s sauce for the gander’s goose is – I mean, sauce for the goose –” She giggled raucously. “Aww, you know what I mean.”
She was drunk, of course, and he reminded himself that he didn’t care much for sex with drunken women. They had nasty habits like throwing up on your cock or passing out in the middle of sex. They tended to walk off with your Rolex or look through your wallet when you went to the john.
“So do you?” she said.
“Do I what?”
“You know.”
“What you said?”
“What’sa matter, you scared to say the F-word?”
“I think you’ve had too much to drink.” He turned to the bartender, signaling for his check. He was only in Cincinnati for the one day to look at some lots zoned for residential development. The lots had proved disappointing – people in the market for half-million dollar homes didn’t usually want a view, however distant, of an industrial park – and he was scheduled to fly home to Detroit the next morning. Beth was going in late to work so she could meet him at the airport.
Beth – God, what about Beth? If she had been homely or overweight or uninterested in sex, that might have been one thing, but she was lush and lithe and seductive and fucked the way he did – like h
er life depended on it. Every time he cheated on her, he swore to himself it would be the last time. Afterwards, he would go to church like the good Catholic boy he once was and confess to the priest and vow to be different: yet, sooner or later, it would happen again.
“C’mon, honey, you look like you need to relax.” The girl leaned forward, allowing him to look down her blouse and see the tattoo of a bumblebee on the inner swell of one breast. It was done in vivid black and yellow, its stinger pointing downward at her nipple. “I can help you relax real good.”
“I’ll bet you can.” He debated, but only a moment, for his dick had already decided that she was his type. Her slender, sinewy little body was thinner than he would have preferred, but she exuded that slutty decadence that always made him feel like a conqueror on the verge of sacking some foreign city notorious for its depravity. Eau de wench, essence of whore.
Having made the decision, he felt emboldened, eyeing her up and down with overt and calculating lust, before he said, “But regarding your question, the answer is, ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’ ”
Was it his imagination, or did she flinch slightly? Maybe she’d just been trying to shock him. Maybe this was some kind of game – somebody had dared her to come on to a man in a bar, and secretly she’d been hoping he wouldn’t take her up on her offer. For a second, her lower lip quivered, and her boldness seemed on the verge of disassembling into little-girl sobs. Then she rallied, took a deep breath, and seemed to pull herself together from sheer force of will. From the looks of the effort she exerted, it didn’t seem like she had it in her to do that too many more times.
“My name’s Elise.” She slid her fingers through his. Her skin, he noticed, was surprisingly cold, but she managed a grin as she said, “You got a room?”
“718.”
“You got a wife?”
Now it was his turn to grin. “Not tonight.”
The rain hammered the windshield of the Volvo with such force that the wipers couldn’t work fast enough to sweep it away. A semi, lumbering past like a maddened triceratops, sent up an arc of grey water that inundated the car and forced Nicholas for a few moments to drive blind. When he saw the lights of immigration at the Detroit-Windsor border crossing up ahead, he braked cautiously and pulled up next to a booth, where an immigration agent, after glancing perfunctorily at his license plates, waved him on.
Accelerating back into the rain, Nicholas let out his breath which, until that moment, he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
Although his business trips took him to Toronto three or four times a year, he was always absurdly relieved when it was done, when no need was seen to run his name through the computer to check for misdeeds in his past. Even if the immigration agents pulled his record and realized it was a convicted felon passing through their country’s symbolic portals, there was nothing they could hold him on, of course. In the years since he got out of prison, he hadn’t committed any crime more serious than minor traffic violations. But if they knew about his past, they might be inclined to detain him while they searched him and his car. And this time, for once, there was something for them to find – the 0.9 mm Biretta stashed in the vehicle’s console.
By five o’clock that evening, Nicholas was in Toronto, sipping a Scotch and soda in his lakefront room at the Harbor Castle. He debated whether or not to call Beth, but hated having to add to the web of lies he’d already conceived. Supposedly, he was up here at some kind of Home Builders Convention and would be home Sunday night. Should he need more time, he’d have to invent an explanation for the extended stay and hope Beth wouldn’t ask too many questions.
Too early to hit any of Sonny Valdez’s haunts just yet. He knew he should eat something, but appetite was a memory, these days. His head hurt. He ran cold water over a washcloth and laid it over his eyes as he stretched out on the bed. Outside, the rain was still pounding, grey metallic teeth gnashing against the panes. In the street below, sirens screamed.
When they went up to Nicholas’s room at the Cincinnati Sheraton, the girl – Elise – gigglingly chugged two of the little bottles of Scotch out of the minibar while Nicholas unbuttoned her blouse and reveled in the enchanting sounds of her skirt zipper going down and her silk stockings unrolling. Naked, she was even thinner than he expected, and the untanned areas of her skin stood out in pasty contrast to the rest of her body’s dark, glossy-looking bronze.
Appraising her, Nicholas reflected that she was certainly no prettier or sexier than Beth; her body hinted at no mysteries to be uncovered or exotic depravities to be unleashed, nor did he get any inkling of a psyche ariot with new and perverse fantasies. Indeed, if anything, there was a certain sad banality to the girl, as though she were somehow grievously miscast in her role as a slut, a tramp, an easy piece of ass.
And yet, for all that, Nicholas could no more not fuck her than he could have not fucked the women who had preceded her. Like a compulsive gambler viewing a slot machine or a lottery ticket, for Nicholas, each new sexual encounter seemed to promise the possibility of some as-yet-undreamed-of ecstasy. Each pussy was the potential passage to some state of higher bliss that flickered across his mind in dreams and yet always eluded him.
He went over to the bureau and unzipped his shaving kit.
She looked up. “What are you doing?”
“Condom,” Nicholas said.
She came up behind him, smooshed her tits into his back. “I hate those things. C’mon, you don’t have to worry. I’m just a nice girl getting back at her cheating boyfriend. You don’t need to wear a rubber.”
He turned around to say something sarcastic about what “nice girls” do and don’t do, and she dipped to her knees, his dick disappearing into the tight seal of her mouth, his mental processes magically unraveling.
After that, they did all the things Nicholas enjoyed most – with a few other things thrown in for extra. He fucked her standing up, her spine pressed into the wall, while she stood up on her toes and dug her nails into his shoulders, moaning. Then on the bed, driving himself between those ivory tits, until the bumblebee was covered in come that looked like droplets of honey.
When her eyes started to close and she grew sleepy and sated, Nicholas shook her and said, “We’re only getting started. You asked me, do I like to fuck? I’ll show you just how much.”
He flipped her over then and fucked her from the rear, butt raised, head buried in a pillow. For the last half dozen or so thrusts, he put his hands down on her back and leaned his weight into her. Took note that she must be used to rough stuff, because she didn’t protest, but took what had to be a painful compression of her ribcage stoically, drawing in tiny gasps of air as best she could.
“Like that?” he asked when he was finished for the moment. Recovered from her near-asphyxiation, she snuggled against a pile of pillows and opened up a bourbon from the minibar.
“Christ, you sure can fuck.” Her smile was sly and silly, a drunken smile, and yet threaded through with something else, contempt or fear, something dark and ugly that he tried to pretend he didn’t see. The cheating boyfriend, he supposed. Her anger at the boyfriend spreading out like the hood of a cobra, directed at any man that came within her line of vision.
Reaching for something to say, he remarked, “You look like you spend a lot of time in the sun. What do you do, flag cars in a bikini and a hardhat?”
“Tanning booths.”
“Those are bad for you.”
“Yeah, they give you skin cancer.” She laughed giddily. “But look who’s talking.”
She started to unscrew another of the tiny bourbon bottles. He took it from her. “Enough, OK. I don’t want you to pass out on me. You won’t be any fun to fuck.”
“How about your wife, Nicholas? Is she any fun to fuck? Or is she fat and frigid or maybe fucking someone else, even as we speak?”
“Don’t talk about my wife. You don’t know anything about her.”
“What is it, she don’t satisfy you?” The honey in her voice was
laced with venom. “Aww, Nicholas’s wife won’t fuck him, so he has to cheat.”
He grabbed her arm, gripping it tight enough to get her attention, but stopping just short of causing pain. He wanted her to know he was playing, but also to realize he could shortcut play and go straight to something a lot stronger, a lot more serious, real damn fast.
“Yeah, I cheat on her with little blonde sluts who come on to strange men in bars.”
“I never do this kind of thing.”
“I know, you were a virgin till just now. I could tell the minute I saw you.”
She tried to extricate her arm from his grip. He tightened it a fraction, taking pleasure in the hint of fear that crossed her features, then let her go. She rubbed her biceps, glared.
“That hurt.”
“Sometimes I like to make it hurt.”
“Aw, you’re no fun.”
“I beg to differ. Why don’t you pour what’s left of the booze you didn’t drink over your tits, so I can lick it off?”
He still remembered the rich, dizzyingly sweet taste of the bourbon as it dribbled down her deep cleavage, the scent of her sweat and her floral perfume. He remembered having fleeting thoughts about Beth at home in Detroit and asking himself, “What the hell am I doing? Why am I doing this?” even as he was getting hard again, turning the girl over onto her hands and knees, roughly prying open the cheeks of her buttocks, and ramming himself inside.
And later, although normally he liked to keep some lights on, liked to see a woman looking freshly fucked, he made the room darker as she was getting dressed, because he didn’t want to see her eyes. Something in them, the despair and shame that was also tainted with that ugliness he’d noticed earlier – not directed just at Nicholas personally, but at men in general – filled him with a queasy kind of fear.
He watched CNN until a little after ten, then drove away from the waterfront lined with clean, brightly lit luxury hotels to the narrow, congested little lanes where the sex trade thrived. The sleaze end of the sex trade, anyway.
