The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 11

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “A vibrating saddle.”

  “Like a horse’s saddle?”

  “No, you don’t ride it, it rides you.”

  The split in the table was raised then shortened to allow my legs to dangle from the knee. My thighs were pushed further apart. The position alone made my breath hitch. Everything was open for him to see. And he looked. His fingers touched the delicate furls of my inner labia then probed gently inside. His thumb caressed the knot that was fully exposed now and so swollen I wondered if it were possible for it to burst like a ripe berry.

  His lambent gaze rose to greet mine. “You will like this, I think.”

  He pulled down an oval object at the end of a flexible arm that extended from the ceiling, and pushed it towards my open thighs. The head of the device was contoured to a woman’s sex. A long, ruffled ridge slid between my folds, a slight protrusion anchored it at my entrance without invading so far it might steal my virtue. Straps were buckled around my upper thighs to hold it in place. When it lay against me, the metal quickly heated. The doctor threw another lever and the device shivered and shook, the hum deafening, which was a good thing because my moans came loudly, one atop the other, although the frantic thrashing of my head had to give him enough response to gauge the efficacy of this particular treatment.

  My whole body shuddered. My hips danced upon the table, shoving my sex against the device, which did no good at all since the straps made it move with me. “Doctor, there’s a flaw in the design,” I gasped.

  “Is there now, Nurse Percy?”

  “I cannot . . . thrust against it . . .”

  “Why don’t you hold it against you?”

  My gaze met his as I grasped the sides of the vibrating saddle and hugged it against my core. I ground and ground, but fell back against the table breathing hard and feeling discouraged because I didn’t think I had reached culmination. I wasn’t cooing like a dove. I felt ready to spit and claw like a lioness.

  “My dear, you are a difficult case,” he murmured. “But I am determined to prove that I’m not a fraud. You have two choices. You can allow me to give you a manual pelvic massage or you can help me test my new invention.” His gaze slid to the tarp.

  Mine followed. “I really shouldn’t let you give me a direct pelvic massage,” I said, faintly. “When questioned by any suitor, I wouldn’t want to lie about the fact that I found my pleasure with another man’s hands.” When my gaze returned, his smile stretched.

  “Very admirable, nurse. The machine it is.” He undid the straps at my thighs, lowered the spread platforms, and helped me to my feet. The gown fell down around me, cloaking me, but I didn’t care. It was only a sop to my modesty. I liked the way his glance raked my form, lingering on my breasts and the apex of my thighs.

  “I couldn’t help but notice when I probed you that your hymen isn’t intact. It’s not unusual in virgin women, but it’s convenient for our purposes because you will be able to truthfully tell your future suitor that no man’s member has ever entered your body.”

  I quivered at the implication.

  He drew the tarp from the low-lying contraption and I eyed it, not understanding its use. There was a padded bench and a wand attached to a machine that pointed towards the bench.

  My expression must have given away my confusion.

  “Perhaps you’ll understand if I add one of these.” He fished into a drawer at the foot of the bench, where inside lay an array of phallic-shaped ornaments. He selected the smallest and screwed it onto the end of the wand.

  Understanding at last, my knees went weak. “Do you have a name for your device?” I rasped.

  “I do. However, I’ll have to find a delicate one when I add it to the menu of treatments I offer my patients.”

  “What do you call it now?”

  “I call it a fucking machine.”

  The word made my nipples spike hard.

  “When I start the engine, this wand will piston forward and back, mimicking the motion of a man’s hips as he drives into a woman.” His gaze turned from his treasure to me. “Only this machine will never erupt prematurely, depriving the woman of her culmination, and the strength of the thrusts are controlled by the woman as well, so that she can select what pleases her.”

  “What must I do?”

  “Nothing, my dear. Bend over the bench. I will do the rest.”

  The look in his eyes, at once excited for his new invention and curious whether I would comply, made me nervous. I saw no straps on this device. “If I wish to move away after it begins . . .?”

  “Look over the edge of the bench.”

  I bent and spotted a dial marked “Speed” and another marked “Depth”. I twisted both to the lowest settings but didn’t touch the toggle switch to turn it on. Control truly would rest in my own hands. I cleared my throat. “Must you watch?”

  “However will I determine if it requires adjustment?”

  I stiffened my spine against his crestfallen expression. However attractive the man was, the position I would take before this device would rob me of my dignity. “Can’t I make a record of my experiences?”

  He sighed, but nodded his head. “To adjust the height of the wand, use this turnkey.” He bent and whirled the wand up and down.

  I frowned. “Adjusting it correctly might prove awkward and time-consuming.” I knelt on the bench then rested on the padded platform. “Would you place it for me, and then leave?”

  “Of course, my dear.” He inched up the gown over my buttocks, exposing me. “I’ll just lubricate the phallus with a little ointment.” Moist sounds were followed by a whirring while he rolled the wand up and down, then forward so that it touched my woman’s furrow. “You’ve the dials turned low?”

  “Yes,” I said, breathless now and feeling a little intimidated. “What if something goes wrong?”

  “It’s experimental – in its testing phase. It is possible.”

  “Perhaps . . .” I bit my lip.

  “I’ll face away,” he said quickly, “unless you call out to me.”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary. I’m over my bout of embarrassment.”

  “Wonderful! How brave you are, dear. You have only to flip the switch now.”

  I swallowed hard and reached for the toggle, and as soon as I did the phallus pressed slowly forward, entering me. I jerked in alarm and turned off the switch. I gave a strangled laugh. “Sorry, I knew what would happen, but the sensation . . .”

  “You are inexperienced. Nervousness is to be expected.”

  I closed my eyes and backed up to the phallus again then flipped the toggle. This time, I didn’t demur when it pressed inside me. It only swept forward an inch or two before retreating, but the swelling I’d experienced earlier when I was aroused returned quickly. The phallus came into me again and moisture leaked to anoint its head.

  “Oh my,” I said, slumping against the bench.

  The doctor knelt in front of me, his gaze locking with mine. “I think you can take so much more, Nurse Percy. Your treatment is progressing nicely.”

  “Indeed. Would you?” I said, waving at the dials.

  He turned them, increasing the speed and depth then hurried to the rear of the platform. “I’ll want you to remember everything to document your impressions.”

  I was glad he wasn’t watching my face because I rolled my eyes. The phallus thrust fast and with remarkable precision, but I found I couldn’t move, couldn’t thrash like I wanted to in order to relieve my tension. “Doctor?”

  “Yes, dear?”

  “The machine works quite nicely, but I don’t think I will culminate. Perhaps it’s just me.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with you.” He hurried around the front of the machine and turned it off. “Turn and sit at the edge of the bench.”

  I did so, spreading my legs at his touch. Then he licked the tips of his fingers and thrust two inside me while he rubbed my love knot.

  “You may move and make noises. I love the song a wom
an sings when she culminates.”

  “I’m tone deaf.”

  His chuckle warmed me, and I followed my impulse and tweaked my nipples through my gown. He growled, his fingers thrust deeper, and the swirling created an intense sensation that had me lifting my legs to fold them over the doctor’s shoulders while I lay back on the padded bench.

  My breasts and belly tightened, my channel convulsed. “Doctor!”

  I culminated, my body writhing, my legs drawing the doctor closer until he braced his arms on the bench as he leaned over me. When the explosions rippling through me muted, I panted and opened my eyes to find him smiling softly down at me.

  When I could find my voice, I said, “I’m sorry that I didn’t have the patience to prove the efficacy of your new machine.”

  “Not to worry, Nurse Percy,” he drawled. “We will continue our experiment. I have several new ideas to test.”

  “May I offer a few suggestions for improvements, sir?”

  His blue eyes glinted with pleasure. “My machines await your pleasure, my dear.”

  Dark Side of the Moon

  Kristina Lloyd

  When Jackson came back from the moon, he was a little changed. They warned us this might happen but they couldn’t say how. On returning, his first words were, “I’ve touched the night.” I could see in his eyes that he had, and that he liked it. I’d touched no such thing and knew I’d never be able to fathom where he’d been and what he’d seen. Over time, a distance grew between us until Jackson, sitting next to me on the sofa, watching TV in his replica spacesuit, seemed further off from me than he had been when he was many thousands of miles away, hopping around on that big disc of cheese.

  Locally, he was a hero. When he wore his spacesuit to the supermarket, kids followed him, asking how you go to the bathroom in space and whether he had any moon rock at home. But after a while, even they saw my spacesick Jackson as just an ordinary weirdo, the sort of washed-up dreamer you get in any small town. He must have looked the loneliest of souls, wandering around the freezer section with his empty wire basket, fish sticks and ice cream reflecting in his visor.

  He rarely bought proper food unless I reminded him it was good to eat. Our garage was full of astronaut food, bulk-bought online, and with the help of Mike Herman from number 10, Jackson installed a roll-off-roof shed in our back yard and called it his observatory. While I slept, he shut himself away in there, gazing at the cosmos through an enormous telescope he’d nicknamed “Bettina”.

  I wasn’t happy about this, obviously. Jackson might have touched the night, but he hadn’t touched me in months. I began to wonder if, in the hope of rekindling his interest, I needed to freeze-dry myself like the strawberries in the garage. Perhaps he could suck on me and rhapsodize about the intensity of my flavour when rehydrated with saliva.

  The times lust got the better of me, I would flirt, cajole or even demand my conjugal rights. Unfortunately, my womanly wants couldn’t anchor my man to earth and with each passing day, Jackson drifted further from my orbit. I missed the sex but most of all, I missed him. Before long, we stopped talking about the issue and I resigned myself to being a moon widow, living within a marriage that was a shadow of its former self. I still loved him, of course I did, but we were running on parallel lines, unable even to connect enough to address the issue of our disconnection.

  My marriage was like Apollo 13, sailing on next-to-no power on the dark side of the moon, survival our only goal. Were we going to end up like that mission, a “successful failure”? I could picture us liver-spotted and wrinkly, raising a glass to our golden anniversary. But if we’re trapped and unhappy, what’s successful about those fifty years? A marriage doesn’t necessarily fail if it ends; it fails if it’s being held together by fear of the ending. The trouble was, I couldn’t tell if we were merely going through a bad patch or if we were done for. So I pretended we weren’t happening, and the days kept on coming, as regular as ever and in the correct order, meaning things couldn’t be too bad, could they?

  Houston, we don’t have a problem. Oh, for sure.

  I thought nothing would change until one summer evening, Jackson noticed me again. I was naked and sprawled face-forward on the bed, hot and floppy after a deep, despondent bath, when I heard him climb the stairs, his suit rustling and creaking. Immediately, I felt naked and shy. My instinct was to cover up but that was crazy. I was only resting and hadn’t Jackson seen my body a thousand times before?

  So instead of covering up, I pretended to be asleep, effectively absolving myself of responsibility for my nudity. I heard Jackson pause in the bedroom doorway. Outside, the light was fading, all the neighbourhood birds chirping and shrieking as if scared the sun would never rise again. I understood their panic. Sometimes, I too think the darkness will go on forever. Jackson’s breath gurgled through the vents of his fake oxygen tank, slow and loud, surrounding me like auditory molasses. I focused on drawing the low breaths of a sleeper while battling to convince myself the feather-light creature crawling across my left calf was a figment of my imagination, roused into action by the imperative to keep still. I did not need to shake it off. It was not there. I was fast asleep.

  After a while, Jackson slid back his visor. The heavy breathing stopped. In a gentle voice, he said, “Your ass looks like the moon.”

  I kept on breathing, unsure what to think, given that the surface of the moon is pitted with craters and my ass isn’t the sweet, smooth peach of magazines. Initially, I thought Jackson might be insulting me, perhaps not intentionally but that hardly matters: the sting’s just as sharp, if not sharper. Then I reminded myself: this is Jackson. He loves the moon. He was paying me a massive compliment.

  Deliberately mumbling, I replied, “So, what say you dock there?”

  I actually meant “round about there, in the vicinity of my ass i.e. in my pussy”, but with hindsight (forgive the pun) I can appreciate the ambiguity in my suggestion. Moments passed. 10 . . . 9 . . . 8 . . .

  I thought of Jackson’s hands gliding over my skin, massaging my back, skimming the bulge of my squashed breasts and clutching handfuls of my butt.

  7 . . . 6 . . . 5 . . .

  Would he do it? Ground control to Major Tom: can you hear me, will you touch me? A pulse ticked in my groin, my appetite surprising me. Sex was such a distant memory that simply imagining skin on skin was sufficient to spark my hunger. Once, it would have taken a lot more than that to get me going.

  4 . . . 3 . . . 2 . . .

  The visor clicked back into place. Thick, heavy breathing filled the room again. Slowly, my awkward astronaut turned and, creaking and rustling, made his way downstairs.

  My heart sank. I gave the mattress a frustrated little kick, hurt and anger rising up and shaking their fists inside me. He wasn’t well, I understood that. His circuits were dead, something was wrong. My patience, however, was running thin and the temptation to close off from Jackson grew stronger than ever. I started believing in the old saw contending further suffering can be avoided if you determine never to make yourself vulnerable again. But I knew that was a dumb bargain, merely replacing one type of pain with another. Because what sort of terrified, sucked-dry life would it be if you stopped taking chances? But then again, damn it, this was my husband. Risk and rejection ought not to feature so prominently in a marriage. Was there any point in us continuing? And Jackson, what did he feel underneath that silver insulation? Anything? Was he even in that suit?

  Despite my disappointment, Jackson’s compliment clung to me with the stubbornness of hope. For several nights, I had a foolish fancy he might quit his moon-gazing and come snuggle up in bed to check out the bouncier version. No such luck. Occasionally, I got up to peer through the curtains into the yard below. The shed glowed dimly, and Bettina, her eye on the night sky, taunted me with innuendo, her telescopic shaft jutting through the roof like a gigantic cock poking through a zipper. Oh Jackson, come to bed, my love! Come and crash land in my thighs!

  I figured my se
ductive powers lay with my ass. Jackson’s always been a fan of ass and if he could be reminded I was a woman who had one, maybe I’d get to taste what I was a fan of: Jackson, the original model, not the space cadet who’d replaced him. So I took to bathing at the same hour each evening, then lying prone on the bed, hoping he might come up to admire the scenery again. Twice, he stood in the doorway, breathing heavily before leaving without a word. It must have been sweltering inside that suit. On the third evening, I didn’t hear his approach. The dipping sun, filtered by gauzy voile curtains, warmed my skin and the purr of a neighbour’s lawnmower lulled me towards sleep. I was close to genuinely nodding off when I sensed movement behind me.

  I tensed, fearing an intruder. Could someone have slipped past Jackson unnoticed? Dumb question. Jackson was so removed from the world an entire regiment could slip past unnoticed.

  “You know,” came a familiar voice, “they haven’t really worked out how people would fuck in zero gravity.”

  Oh boy, he just said “fuck”! The word, so aggressively sexy, shocked and thrilled. Jackson hadn’t used such earthy language for aeons. I kept my eyes closed, my heart gathering speed as I wondered what he might be wearing. I could hear that the spacesuit was off so what instead? Nothing? Jeans and a tee? Supposing he was wearing the black tee, the ribbed one with a tiny button on each sleeve? He used to look so handsome and mean in that. Something about the cut of it, about the colour and how it suggested an intriguing villainy in his character. Yes, that top was good. I’d tell him later: Darling, you look great in black but, um, the silver not so much.

  “It’s difficult to maintain contact,” Jackson continued. “People float off. I figure the only way you could do it is by strapping the participants down, fixing them in place. Or, say, strapping them to each other. A sex chamber might work, some Velcro, maybe a few hooks and handles.”

  I stirred to show I was listening. “Uh-huh.”