I opened the door for him, his face down, not looking at me. And that was when he ran his hands on his trouser legs. He stooped inside. He closed the door behind him. He sat on the seat next to me, and
She saw his dark eyes were lined with long lashes. The sort a wife might know well, might touch so gently as he slept, watch them flutter and be still, as he rested again.
I slid up to him. I put my hand around the back of his neck, the place that I’d seen, that I hadn’t been able to touch for the glass. His skin was warm there, those soft little hairs tickled. And I did dig my fingernails in.
Outside, around us, there was rain. There was noise. Everything in this place strains like a muscle strains, reaching for something that can’t be touched. I dug my nails in, I moved across to him and I could hear his breathing. Quick, like he might jolt forward. Like engines, restrained.
I put my face up next to his face, and then I could feel his breathing. Another tiny inch, and his skin would be up against mine, his mouth would be up against mine. But I didn’t move. I looked into his eyes, so close that there were no contours to his face. I held him there. I held myself there. His mouth was as wet as mine. I saw it on his open lips.
I said, “Put your tongue out, the tip of your tongue, let me see.”
His lip was shaking, oh so slight. And when he did it, I felt my own tongue move, like something in a mirror. Like we could echo each other, and still nothing but breath could pass between us. I would be the audience for him, I would watch every small movement his mouth made, and he would do the same for me, and still nothing would pass between us.
She had come, as some woman on the screen came, some woman with blonde hair. And her own fingers had moved too fast and too hard. They must have both felt the same thing then. The same straining, wanting thing.
So slowly, so perfectly slowly, I moved my mouth closer to his. Even his breathing was wet then. I put my hand on his leg.
“OK,” I said. “OK, OK. Touch my mouth with your tongue. Gently, touch my lips, OK?”
He tilted his head to do it. And when he put his face against mine, I could feel the stubble there. And when he put his tongue against mine, I could taste him, like static.
He moved his body closer, strained it closer. Twisted towards each other in the cab’s back seat, his chest pressed on mine and I could feel the rub of skin underneath his clothes.
I pulled my hand from the back of his neck, scraped his skin as my fingers fell away, and then his hands were in my hair. Grabbing at it, like he could hold me still if he could only get enough of it in his hands. And my hands – my hands were under his shirt then. My fingers were on the hairs there, on the sides of his rib cage, breathing, breathing. The kind of rising, falling breath that makes you want to claw, grab, dig in hard enough that
there’s no distance any more
you’re eating each other, mouths and skin and hands, eating away at each other, like you can’t ever bite enough out. His tongue was in my mouth then, right the way in, all of it and I could feel his teeth and the softness of his lips, and all of it wet. Sharp or soft, all of it wet. All of it wanting.
I moved my fingers up his leg, other hand scraping fingernails on him. And he was trying to get closer. Pulling my hair. Kissing everything, mouth and cheek, uncaring, unaware. I moved my fingers up his leg, and through the cloth of his trousers, I felt it.
He arched.
Through the wetness on both of our faces, I pulled back. Just enough to speak, just enough for him to hear me through our breathing. You want to fuck me? You want to fuck now? Do you
do you want me?
You want to fuck me now? Baby? I can feel you, you want to now. I can feel it. Baby.
And outside this metal and glass, every place around us, London strained. It reached. It wanted. It scraped with the noise of the cars and the buses, it was wet with the rain, with our kissing mouths. Outside Air Street’s archway, there were people pressed so close. Close to each other, feeling it, not allowed to show the feeling. And close to us, to the shadows and reflections across the back window, so close to the place where we moved.
Fuck me now, yes, you want to. I know you want to, it’s all right, you can do it. I want you to. It’s all right, baby. It’s all right to want it, I know you do. I can feel you wanting.
London fucks, all day and all night. It bucks with the movement of a million people. It fucks them, every single one of them, every moment that their eyes are open, it puts its fingers into them, its many tongues, and fucks them while they can’t move or show that they feel it. While they can’t even let their breathing change. And every grey, impassive face can feel it. It’s in the flickers of doubt. It’s in the way that they want to meet your eyes and have to turn away. London fucks every person here, while it holds their faces to the street.
I pressed my fingers there, into his crotch and moving oh so slightly, under his balls, cloth itching him. Around his dick.
That’s it, baby. That’s it. It’s all right.
He strained. In his chest and his legs, in his mouth. And then I moved my fingers to his trouser fly. And he stopped straining. He stopped breathing. For a moment, I could feel him wanting nothing but
me
my hands.
I undid the button. Slow. So slow. I stopped. I reached up under the line of my skirt, as he sat, immobile, watching only. In front of his eyes and his open lips, I pulled my underwear away. I dropped it on the cab floor, in shadow there. And then I moved to sit on top of him. Both fingers in his fly, unzipping, both hands inside, and my mouth all over his mouth again. His fingers in my hair, needing me.
That’s it. That’s right.
Do you want to hear it now? I’ll tell you how it felt.
She couldn’t get his dick inside her, sitting up on him like that. She had to pull him down onto the floor, where dirty shoes had left smears of cold water, her own shoes, and other people’s.
I went down on all fours, with his hands still in my hair that way, and I felt him pull his trousers down, felt the prickle of the hair on his thighs. He put his fingers on my hip, trying to find skin, trying to find something he could grip and hold onto. And when he’d found his grip, he could push himself in. And he did. Kneeling, I felt him. In a little. In a little more, and then he was fucking me. A little more. Again.
She had to let him do it from behind, too dry to be fucked in any way but the easiest. With her head down, she saw the ridged patterns on the floor of the cab. She let him fuck her, too dry to feel anything but pain. Somewhere underneath those patterns, the paving stones let filthy water trickle, out under this arch, and into Regent Street, under other people’s feet. Like tearing, that was how it felt as she let him do it. She thought about the woman on screen, the woman with the blonde hair. They have drugs, for making porn movies, pills that send the blood down into the crotch and give a penis an erection, fills the walls of a vagina with enough blood to make it swell. She didn’t look like that on screen, like she might have taken drugs. On screen, everything was very brightly lit. Watching it, she hadn’t been able to see the line where the set ended. There was a line, though. The carpet in shot was taped down to a hard floor, scuffed around the edges by the shuffling feet of soundmen and cameramen and the boy that brought the coffee in. London shines with dirt and chrome, like every part of it is lit with stage lights. But there is a line where London stops, and only houses carry on. A million rows of houses, like an audience, gathered to watch, hands up against a glass screen. She lived in that kind of row. The kind where grass and weeds struggle around the path and there are four locks on every door. Her front door was painted blue, it was heavy, made of metal. There were skips parked outside, rainwater running now down their sides. Grey sky showed in the windows where she lived. It reflected there, with no lights on in the rooms inside. Behind her front door, the carpet was dim, mail strewn in piles. Behind her front door, there was silence. It settled like cold, in rooms where no one else had ever talked or fucked
or slept.
In the kitchen, there was a photograph, stuck to the fridge. It showed the place where she’d grown up.
I felt him, moving faster. On my hips, his fingers gripped and loosened, every time he moved. And the sound of his breathing was little groans now. Little moans, and I was telling him, yes, you move, you moan, it feels good, doesn’t it feel good? Little needful groans that got faster. And he fucked harder, and he was saying things, saying words then, saying yes. I want it. Let me come. I want to come. He was swearing over and over then. Fuck. Yes. Yes. He was coming, and he told me. I’m coming. Now. Please.
Fuck.
Outside, they must have seen us. They must have heard us and felt us. And knowing, they must have walked past, trying not to let it show on their faces that they could feel themselves, all the more clearly for his dick in me.
He shivered when he came. He purred. He let it go.
That was how it felt. Can you feel it? I want you to feel it, I want you to know. How many chances are there to be part of a fantasy? I was part of a fantasy that day. Every fantasy must have an audience, it must have one, just to live. To be real. This one was mine. Tell me, please. How do you feel?
When He Was Good
Marc Levy
He stood in the parking lot. The black asphalt shimmered like tarmac used on chopper pads. Annette was late. When the Land Rover pulled in he called to her.
“Looks like a tank.”
He kissed her extended cheek.
“Lovely day,” she said. “Isn’t it gorgeous?” Her British accent always new.
He winked at her and stepped in. She slipped her right hand from the clutch to his thigh, then back, pulled into traffic.
“Right, then. Happy to see me?”
He leaned over and kissed her behind the left ear.
“You’re such a naughty boy, aren’t you?”
Annette fiddled with the radio, searched for music, news, anything.
“That’s fine,” he said. “Right there.”
Martin flexed his body in time to the pumping beat, eyed her blouse, the inviting curve of her breasts. Annette was not pretty, he thought; her features were hard, as if she were a salmon that survived the run up river.
“Sometimes I think you work too hard.” .
“Really? But you do put up with all my sass.”
“I figured you’d call sooner or later. I missed you,” he said, fingering the clefts between her knuckles as if they were his own.
“I read all your letters. I was absolutely delighted . . . delighted by what you wrote.” She turned to him. “Sexual love is . . . is so much easier to sustain, don’t you think?”
She snared his hand in hers, then turned the radio mute. He smiled at the distorted reflection of himself dancing in the opaque lens of her sunglasses.
“Frankel says there are three kinds of love: impersonal, personal, and irreplaceable,” he said.
The light changed. Annette accelerated, overtaking a lumbering van.
“Did I tell you my neighbour’s tree smashed into the side of my house last night? He had the nerve to say it was my fault. Mine!”
She swerved into the fast lane.
“Did anyone get hurt?”
He spooled the volume dial clockwise.
Annette turned right on Warton Street; a parade of ornate homes and well kept lawns soldiered into view.
“Oh, have a look. Have a look,” she chortled, pulling up the driveway. “The workmen must have come.” She pointed to the dismembered tree, its trunk and branches neatly stacked to one side. “ ‘You’re so lucky no one was injured,’ ” she mimicked, tugging back the emergency brake. “Well, have a look at my lovely garden!”
Stepping out of the car, she pinched the remote alarm on her key chain. The horn beeped once. He thought it sounded like a great metal goose shot in the wing.
“It’s the deer,” she said, pointing to the wilted stalks and bald patches of earth. “They come down from the reservation. I’ve already called the Mayor.” She looked at him mournfully. “Julian, those animals are positively ruining my land. You absolutely must set out poison or have the hunters in.’ He said he would look into it. Now this.”
He estimated the garden measured ten metres by twelve; the backyard, one acre. Trees and shrubs edged the sides of her property. There was no fence to ward off intruders. A Victorian house peeked through a line of sycamores thirty metres ahead. He noticed the deer tracks, exaggerated a frown, then stepped behind her, embraced her body, nuzzled her neck.
“It looks different,” he said, pointing past the ominous tree line.
“Oh, that. They painted it last week.” She dug her backside into his groin. “I rather liked it when it was blue. Now it’s just . . . Oh, I don’t know . . . who would ever paint their house solid red? Can you imag . . .”
Martin closed his eyes, saw the pith helmeted blur figures running past. His neck snapped left to right.
“. . . or suppose they installed one of those dreadful mosquito-killing machines?” She paused. “Are you all right, darling?”
“Yes, everything is under control.”
He began undoing the hard plastic buttons of her blouse. He dipped his fingers inside, toyed with the lacy bra, dotted the nape of her neck with kisses until she quivered.
Annette turned round and faced him.
“You naughty, naughty man. In front of my nosy neighbours, will you? Inside, or I shall have to call the police.”
“Fancy something to eat?”
“Maybe later. I need to work up an appetite.” “You rascal. Come with me.”
She led him by the hand as they walked from the well-appointed kitchen, its walls lined with gourmet utensils hung from dainty hooks, to the immense living room. A hand-frosted bay window overlooked the lawn and the cobble stoned gas lanterned street
“Isn’t it just lovely?” she said, gesturing to an exquisite glass table and leather bound chairs, the black plush sofa, an array of exotic wall hangings and marble statues. “Mum left it to me. None of it’s really mine. Well, I suppose it is.”
She planted her fortyish chin on an upturned palm.
“How old was she?”
“Nearly ninety. I never told you? ‘I simply must have my own bed and bath, Annette. Really. How perfectly dreadful, those horrid American elder farms.’ Elder farms! Dear Lord.”
“Do you miss her?”
He drew her hand away from her face and thumbed the curve of her mouth.
“Good gracious, no. Nothing ever suited Mum, darling. Nothing. But . . . all that’s past now.” She led him forwards. “What do you think? Charming, isn’t it?”
On one side of the room two bookcases stood packed with grade school reference volumes, toys and games, each item tucked precisely in place. He imagined not one item missing.
“Very nice,” he said, fingering the well worn spines.
“Those are my favourites,” she said, pointing to an orderly shelf crammed with jig-saw puzzles. “I absolutely adore them. Sometimes the girls and I spend hours on the silly things . . . Don’t look so sad,” she teased, looking past him.
Stepping forwards, Annette pushed Play. The blinking answering machine whirred to life. A young man’s voice, coy and energetic, spoke.
“Hi. It’s me. Wondering when we can spend time together. I’ve been working out . . . hard. I think you’ll like what I’ve got to show you. Tomorrow I have tickets for . . .”
“Oh, you and your bloody tickets,” Annette shouted, shutting off the machine.
He knew of her lovers. Once, she had written him: As to my young stallions, well, in fact, how shall I say this, there is one chap I am rather fond of. We tryst weekends, when the kiddies are with their Dad. And, well, dammit, yes, there is a youngster I occasionally visit, a client, but it’s simply puppy love, darling. At least Frederick is gone. The bastard. Martin, I will not be intimate with these two any longer if we have a go at it”
He thumbed a shelf full of ency
clopedias; below it, a tin-cased biology set complete with specimens and microscope. Two adult frogs, vacuum packed in formaldehyde, stared at him, their large black eyes unblinking.
“I thought you weren’t seeing him any more.”
“It’s nothing . . . nothing, I assure you, sweetheart. Can you believe he sent me flowers, with a card, hand written by the florist, for God’s sake. ‘To my busty Brit. Love, Kisses, Yours ever so deeply, Robert.’ Bastard!”
“ ‘I’m whole again,’ ” he said, reading from a sheet of torn paper found wedged in Volume Seven, Renaissance Literature and Art. “ ‘Harpooned by a private doctor the other day. He slipped an illuminated plastic eel down my KY jellied cock and determined I will need only minor surgery. This is good news, Annette. The procedure will not incapacitate my ability to make a certain woman ooze with delight. Yours sincerely, Martin.’ ”
“Whatever will I do with you?” she said, rebuttoning her blouse.
He took her hand away and held it. She continued to speak, her voice trailing after him as they walked up the spiral staircase to her bedroom.
It was their tenth meeting in four months. This time he hoped things would be different. Her response to his personal ad had been straightforward and provocative. What I wouldn’t give for a good and virile lover. Whatever is one to do? Have any ideas? Yours, A. But their encounters were flaccid, uninspired and boring. She had no sense of play: sex was a business deal to be discreetly obtained and offshore harboured, her executive orgasms a curated series of stifled yelps and well-mannered postures. He wished she would just once relax and let him make love to her.
Hand lightly tapping the staircase banister, he imagined her slowly undressing in front of him, heard the soft rustle of silk against her lambent skin, her blouse and skirt falling to the hardwood floor. “Leave your shoes on,” he would say, and watch as she unclasped the lacy bra, slowly unshouldered it and leaned forwards her nipples erect, the full breasts plump and radiant.
“Look what she’s done now,” said Annette, sweeping her hand across the room. “I’ve told Marcia at least a dozen times, solid colour sheets on Monday. Solid. Honestly . . .”
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 2 Page 27
