by Krissy Kneen
He pressed his face close to her ear. ‘When I left college I came to Paris, the city of love. I thought there would be more chance of capturing sexual energy here. I never thought to look to Australia.’ Nick lifted her fingers to his face and inhaled the pungent smell of sex. ‘What if you had never come to Paris? We would have missed each other.’
Holly smiled. In this moment Nick looked beautiful, his eyes wide with excitement, his cheeks glowing from the exertion.
‘We have found each other now,’ she said, ‘here in Paris. City of love. I feel a kind of love for you already. But it is bigger than love, somehow. Something more pure, more powerful. Sex with you eclipses love.’
He smiled and she loved the childlike innocence of that smile. His whole face lit with it.
‘We are going to have to develop some kind of storage system,’ he said. ‘This power, so much power, but we need to capture it. We really are going to have to make a battery.’
The Recollections of a Mary-Ann
by JACK SAUL
She was the lure. Her friends back home had shown her how to hunt. Not in a wild and muddy natural way, but chastely—dishonestly, she now thought, luring each potential admirer with a flick of an eyelash or a glimpse of thigh. She knew the routine. She didn’t let her gaze settle on anyone for too long. There were no preferences, everyone was a potential catch. All she needed was a single bite and she would begin to reel them in. Old, young, boy, girl—it didn’t matter for the purposes of the experiment. She glanced up at the potential fish as each found its way into this random café, a small corner place with a badly painted mural on the back wall.
She chose an inside seat. It would be easier to make conversation in her halting French here in the quiet café. The staff were not exempt. She let her eyes settle for a moment on the pretty young waiter, his flirtatious smile, the way he kissed his regular customers on each cheek, the way he chattered with the shy waitress till she laughed. It might be easy enough to snare him, she thought, loosening her scarf to reveal a glimmer of her cleavage through the sheer black shirt, pale and quick as a dragonfly resting for a moment on the surface of a stream. She knew that he had seen the quick flash of skin and so she flicked the scarf back across her chest. A glimpse only. This was how to pique the interest of her prey. She knew the waiter had seen the flash of skin but it was only when he delivered her third espresso that she noticed the woman in the corner booth. A woman? The person turned towards her and Holly was struck by the strong jaw, the prick of an Adam’s apple. But no, she—it was a she—levelled a long steady gaze in Holly’s direction, let her glance linger on the copy of Story of O placed conspicuously in front of her. The woman—or was it a man?—was older than Holly but not as old as Mandy, with a youthful uptilt to her small breasts—definitely female, then—and a face still unlined by the passing of years. She imagined this woman to be about thirty. Still youthful, still glowing with potential. Holly chanced a quick smile and was rewarded with a gentle upturning of rouged lips.
The woman, ignoring the no-smoking sign at her elbow, slipped a slim cigarette out of a metal case and closed those perfectly painted lips around it. Her hand was large, the fingers long as a boy’s. She lit up, breathed the smoke in and aimed it out at the ceiling. She smoked as if she were making love to a tiny nicotine-filled penis, with a flash of teeth, a suggestive pout as she picked a grain of tobacco gently off her lip. Her eyes were fixed on Holly. When she licked the lipstick smooth again Holly was transfixed by the slippery glimpse of tongue. She picked up her book and her tiny cup and moved the short distance to the stranger’s table. The woman—she was even wearing a skirt—slowly uncrossed and recrossed her legs right over left this time. Holly saw a glimpse of pink. Silk perhaps. A pretty coloured underwear that mimicked the blush of a vulva. Holly was mesmerised. She realised there was little difference now between the fisherwoman and the slippery silver of a fish.
She settled opposite and the woman pushed the cigarette case towards her. Holly shook her head. She didn’t smoke. She wished now that she had taken it up in high school, wanted nothing more than to open her mouth and let the woman slip her moistened cigarette between her lips, to taste the waxy flavour of her lipstick. To see her own smoky breath emerge from her lips and slip into the woman’s lungs on an inward breath.
Everything about this woman gestured towards a sexual encounter, and Holly felt humbled by her own clumsy attempts at seduction. She knew now that she was at the table of a master.
The woman picked up the book, opened it, balancing her cigarette elegantly between two fingers as she read a passage at random. She smiled, closed the book, rested it on the table and stroked the jacket as if it were a small black cat. Holly imagined she would purr under similar attention.
‘Anglaise?’ the woman said and her voice was low and reverberating.
‘Australienne,’ Holly managed. ‘Parlez-vous anglais?’
‘Oui,’ the woman said, making no attempt to switch to their common language.
‘Voulez-vous venir à l’appartement de mon ami?’ Words learned by repeating them just as Nick had spoken them.
‘Pourquoi?’
‘Sexe.’
The woman inclined her head, tapped the ash from her cigarette. It landed on the cover of the novel, glaringly pale against the glossy black jacket.
‘Yes,’ the woman said in English. ‘Sex. With you? Oui. Sex with your boyfriend too?’
Holly shrugged.
‘Perhaps,’ the woman said. ‘If I find him appealing.’
She uncrossed her legs and Holly saw that same pale flash, almost certain this time that it was smooth, hairless skin rather than the silk of her knickers. The woman stood, tall as a man, and pulled her long fur-edged coat around her shoulders while Holly buttoned her new Parisian overcoat.
She led the way, glancing back only once to see that the woman was still following her, unhurried, puffing on yet another cigarette so that it was impossible to know if it was cold or smoke or a mix of both trailing from her perfect red lips.
When Holly entered the stairwell the woman slipped her fingers through her arm, giving the impression that Holly was supporting her up the twisting wooden staircase but without actually putting any weight on Holly’s arm at all.
At the top of the stairs the woman lit another cigarette. Holly knocked quietly on the door. Nick would be waiting. The woman rested her elegant fingers on Holly’s arm once more.
‘Mary-Ann,’ she whispered discreetly but firmly. It suited her.
The door opened and there was Nick looking small and furtive. Perhaps her elegant companion would reject him.
‘This is Mary-Ann,’ said Holly.
The woman stepped forward and raised a hand to Nick’s chin. She bent and kissed him easily on both cheeks. Her fingernails were lacquered, the exact colour of her lips. She stepped past Nick and into the apartment. She smiled at the bare walls and the monk-like austerity as if this style pleased her greatly. She turned to the great, solid, high-walled bed.
‘We will have sex in this?’ she asked, ‘we three together? Non?’
‘If it pleases you,’ said Holly.
Mary-Ann smiled in agreement. She lifted a foot onto the single chair. Her coat fell
off her shoulders and onto the floor, her skirt was a soft green fabric. She pulled it up to her thigh to unclip her garter belt and roll her stockings down and Holly could see that she had been right. Pink skin, the pouting lips shockingly nude, the colour of a young girl’s cheeks. Holly moved to unclip Mary-Ann’s other garter, her face close enough to detect a hint of rose scent emanating from the place between her thighs. Rose soap or cream or powder. Holly found herself audibly breathing it in and, as if to give her greater access to the scent, Mary-Ann spread her knee out, the lips parted slightly, and Holly dipped her head to lick the labia one at a time, flicking her tongue gently out to caress her clitoris. She pulled back, startled. Not a clitoris at all but an oddly shaped organ like a small butternut pumpkin or perhaps like a smooth miniature cock and balls; at the end of the cock, a little slit.
‘Are you going to send me away?’ The voice so deep and sensual. Sending this woman away was the last thing on her mind. Holly shook her head and dipped her head back to the smooth and swollen cunt. She let her tongue explore the little cleft, a hole, felt the sticky wetness gathering there as she probed the little cunt with her tongue. The scent of rose made Holly feel as if she were licking some delicate petalled flower. She saw a bead of juice forming at the little slit at the end of the swell of flesh. It was some kind of penis. She licked her way up and over the curve of what must be testicles, but like no testicles she had yet encountered. She let her mouth slide up over the penis. The almond taste of the juices beginning to gather at the tip complemented the hint of rose.
Mary-Ann put her foot back on the floor and Holly backed away. She stood beside Nick, feeling his gentle trembling through the thick fabric of her coat. She could smell that sweet scent still and held her sticky finger up to her face, sniffing it. Nick bent to her hand and sucked the wet finger into his mouth. She felt the swirl of his tongue making circles around it, licking Mary-Ann’s juices off Holly’s skin; he licked the length of her finger and Holly felt a sudden flash of how it would be to have a penis licked like this, up and down the shaft, small circles around the sensitive head. She felt a contraction in her belly, a small shock of squeezing flesh like the aftershock in an orgasm.
‘I am glad you approve,’ she said. ‘We will have sex together, all at once. But first I want you to tell me your names,’ Mary-Ann said, standing barefoot and beautiful in her soft green dress.
‘Holly,’ said Holly.
‘Pierre,’ said Nick.
Holly didn’t let herself blink at this deception. Nick slotted his fingers between her own, his spit and Mary-Ann’s juices lubricating their connection.
‘Well, Pierre,’ Mary-Ann crossed her arms under her small but upraised breasts, underlining the perfection of their form, ‘I think you should lift up Holly’s skirt for me. Show her to me. I have shown you mine, after all.’
‘She has a secret of her own.’
‘Really?’ Mary-Ann raised an eyebrow. ‘You can imagine I am quite content with any surprises.’
Nick fumbled for the edge of Holly’s woollen skirt. He lifted it with trembling fingers. She was wearing pale green underwear, the edge trimmed with delicate lace. Her stockings sat high on her thighs, the kind with lace tops that stayed up without the aid of garters. Nick slipped the knickers down and Holly stepped out of them. He held her skirt up, exposing her legs and her wildly furred vagina, the smooth flat expanse of belly above this. The cunt lips had already begun to change colour. The unearthly glow was settling around the thickness of them.
‘Well,’ said Mary-Ann. ‘I suppose I am a little surprised. But forgive me if I do not faint. People faint, you know, when they see my, ah, full glory.’
‘People scream when they see mine.’
Mary-Ann laughed. ‘Get rid of the skirt,’ she ordered.
Nick unzipped it and it fell to the floor around Holly’s black high-heeled shoes. She was left in the lace-topped stockings and the sheer blouse, the hint of lace brassiere just showing beneath it in the dim light from the window.
‘Show me the colour of her lips,’ Mary-Ann told him and Nick obliged, folding the dark hair back and exposing the glowing labia beneath. He pulled them apart with his fingers, revealing to them both how wet Holly had become. Mary-Ann was forced to shade her eyes with the back of her hand, so bright was the light. The juice dripped out of her and made the hair into a bright, damp mass of shining curls.
‘Nothing a little colour could not hide,’ she said, talking about Holly without ever addressing her. They might as well have been speaking to each other in French, Holly thought, but for some reason Mary-Ann continued to speak to Nick in English. ‘I am the mistress of secrets,’ she said to him then, ‘I will show you how you can present her. Open my purse and take out my lipstick.’
Nick wiped his damp hands on his trousers. She noticed the bulge pulling the fabric tight at the groin as he bent to search in the purse she had left at the foot of the chair. He was down on one knee, his head at the height of her crotch; Holly wondered if he was close enough to smell the rose scent as she had. He extracted a gold lipstick from her bag and made his way back to where Holly was standing half-naked.
‘Her mouth first. Her kisses must match the other lips.’
And Nick bent Holly’s head back, and uncapped the lipstick, which was such a dark red that it was almost purple. She felt the soft touch of the lipstick drawing a dark O around the glint of her teeth. Then he knelt again by her hips this time, and reached towards the bright hair. Their visitor tutted.
‘Breasts first,’ she said. ‘Open her chemise so that her chest is exposed. We want dark red nipples. See that you colour them properly.’
It aroused Holly to be spoken of this way, as if she could neither hear nor reply. She felt the cold air on her chest as Nick pushed her coat off her shoulders and snapped the buttons open one by one. The bra was the same pale green lace as her pants, and her dark nipples showed through clearly, pushing the fabric out like little darts. Nick struggled with the clasp and Mary-Ann laughed at his ineptitude until he finally moved around behind her and roughly unclipped the hooks and eyes. Holly’s nipples were so hard they looked like little stones, pointing directly at Mary-Ann, who took a few steps to get a closer look.
‘Her breasts are too large for her frame,’ she said. ‘Look how they sway even when she just moves her weight from one foot to the next. When they are reddened you could bite them and the blood would not show.’
Nick touched the tip of one nipple with the lipstick then traced the edge of the aureole. He carefully filled in the dark nipple till it was the colour of an open artery and when he was done he moved to the other breast. Mary-Ann reached forward as he did so. Weighed the first breast in the palm of her hand.
Nick knelt and pushed the hair aside again, exposing the bright flash of cunt. Holly felt the coldness of the lipstick settle in the hot damp, the slow creep as it traced the labia downwards then up the other side. Her juices slicked the vulva.
‘She is too wet,’ Mary-Ann chided. ‘Mop that up with your sleeve.’
Nick took off his shirt and Holly felt him dab it between her legs. ‘When you fuck this girl, do you find she is too wet?’
Nick shook his head.
‘No? Doesn’t your cock slip into her too easily?’
/> Again a shake of dissent.
‘Well, rouge her quickly or we will both be blinded. I am going to climb up into your bed now. You must carry her and lie her down beside me. You must test us, one at a time, taking your cock and putting it in her cunt hole and then mine. You will feel the difference when you enter these orifices one after another. You will see how that wetness makes it too easy for you. Mine will be a labour. A sweet labour,’ Mary-Ann smiled coldly, ‘and well worthwhile. Hurry and paint her cunt. You will see.’
‘Who will you pick?’ Mary-Ann was unclothed now. Her small breasts pointed up towards the top of the accumulator, back-lit by the light bulb which had been alight since she bit down on Holly’s breast. She had fingered Holy furiously and Holly had returned the favour, dipping her head to suck on the little cock, tasting the fruity pre-come which lingered on her upper palate and contrasting it with the delicate flavour of cunt that seemed to inflame the tastebuds on the tip of her tongue.
Mary-Ann was lying now, her wet hand aromatic and still glowing, the scent of Holly’s vagina tangled in her hair. There were lipstick traces on Mary-Ann’s fingers, her mouth, her breasts. Holly’s breast was damp from where the woman had demanded she squeeze it between her fingers and insert the whole of it into Mary-Ann’s wide pink-rimmed slit. Holly squeezed Mary-Ann’s cock and was rewarded by the arching of her back as her cunt began to pulsate around Holly’s breast. The cock swelling and spitting out onto her hand.
Nick was red-faced from holding himself back, his cock thick and almost purple. Mary-Ann lay beside Holly, pinching the girl’s nipple between her fingers, demanding that Nick thrust his sheathed cock into one slit after another. She made him take her little cock into his mouth and suck the drying come off it before ordering him back to the task of testing one vulva against the other.
