I felt human bodies pressing all around me, and hands running over me, lips and tongues running over my lips and over my neck and throat, and one who kissed me I knew was Teresa from her perfume and I turned my head a little towards her and smiled at her though blindfolded and she touched a fingertip to my lips and I sucked it softly. Unseen hands loosened my white robe from around my shoulders and drew it down to my waist. Other hands loosened the knot of my belt and pulled it free – I raised my hips slightly to help them do so – and more hands raised the hem of the robe and pushed it up so that it formed a crested white wave around my waist and the rest of me lay naked.
Then there was a pause, and I heard a noise I couldn’t identify, and then the sound of hands being rubbed together, and when they returned to me I knew that they had been rubbing their hands to warm the oil they held cupped. Now they spread what smelled like olive oil over my skin, from my toes upwards, trickling it even between my toes, applying it with both fingers and tongues, warming it on my skin as they went. They held my hands outstretched and poured oil into my palms and massaged my fingers. They spread the grass-sweet olive oil up my legs and over my thighs, and I couldn’t hold back a sigh and a gasp as they slicked it between my thighs, so gently, lingeringly, and I parted my thighs and wished those unseen fingers would stay there longer. Then strong hands lifted my legs behind my knees and bent them right up, and they poured more oil over me so that it trickled down between my rear cheeks, and further hands held my cheeks apart, and then a slim, delicate hand reached down and a small, subtle finger – a woman’s finger, her little finger, surely – insinuated itself between my cheeks and inserted itself, just the tip, inside me, and caressed me there in a circling of oil and I begged silently for more, never to stop, oh more and forever.
They oiled my breasts and my neck and they covered me with kisses as they did so, so that I was exposed and caressed and fed on by countless mouths, tongues circling in dance-like movements over my breasts and around my nipples and then down over me until I bucked and writhed and wanted to hold my arms out to touch their hair and to embrace these unknown lovers, these worshippers. At last I could remain the passive body no longer, and I reached my hands out and caressed the naked flanks of those who stood around me, and a low murmur of delight went up from the throng and I guessed from the voices that the cavern held a hundred people or more and that every eye was on me. I felt two boys, young and firmly muscled, quite naked, standing to left and to right of me, and I ran my hand down over their lean bellies, my mind lascivious, whore-like, and found them rigid, standing out, and my fingers curled around them, each boy my slave in each oiled palm, and began to squeeze and caress them, and I heard their little gasps and felt their whole bodies tauten at my touch.
More mouths tried to kiss me, and I turned sideways to each in turn and felt tongue after tongue – some gentle, some feminine, some hard and probing, some hesitant, some greedy – entwining with my tongue, and then one brought a mouthful of wine and we drank it between us from each other’s ruby, wine-stained lips. Then one of the naked boys beside me pulled free from my hand and turned my head towards him and slid into my mouth and I closed my mouth tight about him and he tasted beautiful. I felt another naked form brush against me, and cool soft hands took my free hand and placed it between smooth thighs and it was a girl now and she pressed my hand flat into her curls and then, using my middle finger almost as she pleased, she used it to caress her lips and clitoris. Soon I was flicking my finger rapidly over her swollen bud, and she leaned forwards and her mouth closed on my breasts and she moaned softly and lay half across me while I brought her into raptures.
Between my legs, I felt tongues taking turns, and even competing to squeeze into me together, one on my clitoris, long feminine hair tickling over my belly, while another, perhaps a man, buried his face between my cheeks and ran his tensed tongue back and forth, slipping a rigid forefinger in and out of me.
My mouth filled with hot sperm, and then wine again, and then more tongues and another man pushed into me, and a woman must have straddled me and I felt her lower her salty lips onto my mouth. Then I felt a blind, probing head between my thighs, rubbing up and down and over the head of my clitoris and then back, teasing me cruelly, entering me just a half-inch and then easing back, and I arched towards him. I longed to reach down and grab the naked buttocks of that unknown lover and pull him deep into me, but my hands were filled with greedy men who would not let me go. Finally the stranger eased into me, strong and wide, stretching me, and beginning to pump faster and faster, fingers buried in the flesh of my buttocks. Others slipped their arms beneath the small of my back and lifted me up, exposing me more, so that a tongue, a woman’s again I guessed, could skim over my clitoris, circle it, her hair draped over my belly, while the man fucked me so hard. I forgot how many times I came, it was impossible to count. It was continuous, without respite, I knew no tiredness. I filled with sperm, the man still throbbing pulled out of me, sperm flowed free and mingled with oil. They turned me on my side and raised one leg and another man quickly slipped into me, while yet another nuzzled between my buttocks and, very gently, oiled and slow, eased into my behind. The unseen, naked orgiasts around me must have watched in delight, and held my cheeks apart for the men to ease in better, and I felt them stroke my skin and heard them murmur soft endearments in my ears as I took them in, took both men in, and lapped greedily on fresh, lemon lips that she, another lover, another worshipper, touched softly to my mouth.
And I thought how they say that the taste of a woman is supposed to be like the saltwater taste of the sea, and then I understood everything, not with my mind but with my body, and my understanding deepened, wordlessly, all that enchanted night as I lay there and was worshipped and adored and made love to by my lovers as numberless as the stars in the sky or the grains of sand by the sea.
When I awoke I was lying under a soft woollen blanket on the sand, and Kit lay beside me. He was awake, propped up on one elbow, looking over me as I slept. Normally he was always asleep until long after me. But he was awake, and his face was alight. We looked at each other for a long time, and I didn’t have a word to say. I knew everything was real. But where had Kit been? Did he know?
Then he leaned over and kissed me. “You were beautiful,” he said, “last night.” He smiled. “The Goddess.”
Then I remembered. “The last one, my last lover – that was you?”
He kissed me in answer.
As the sun came up – and exhausted though I was, though we both were, so tired that we laughed out of tiredness like unruly children – we made love in the surf where the sea broke on the beach of the Island of San Michele. There was no boat, nor another soul around. We might be stranded on the island forever, and we laughed, and didn’t care, and all we could think of doing was making love in the foam, fucking, laughing, he harder, harder, always harder, like a rock, a stone statue like that little smiling ithyphallic god that they worship in some places, and I melting before him and flowing around him like water like a mermaid like the spirit of the water that they worship here . . .
Gators
Vicki Hendricks
It was a goddamned one-armed alligator put me over the line. After that I was looking for trouble. Carl and me had been married for two years, second marriage for both, and the situation was drastic – hateful most times – but I could tell he didn’t realize there was anything better in the world. It made me feel bad that he never learned how to love – grew up with nothing but cruelty. I kept trying way too long to show him there was something else.
I was on my last straw when I suggested a road trip for Labor Day weekend – stupidly thinking that I could amuse him and wouldn’t have to listen to his bitching about me and the vile universe on all my days off work. I figured at a motel he’d get that vacation feeling, lighten up, and stick me good, and I could get by for the few waking hours I had to see him the rest of the week.
We headed out to the Everglades for our
little trip. Being recent transplants from Texas, we hadn’t seen the natural wonders in Florida. Carl started griping by mid-afternoon about how I told him there were so many alligators and we couldn’t find a fucking one. I didn’t dare say that there would’ve been plenty if he hadn’t taken two hours to read the paper and sit on the john. We could’ve made it before the usual thunderstorms and had time to take a tour. As it was, he didn’t want to pay the bucks to ride the tram in the rain – even though the cars were covered. We were pretty much stuck with what we could see driving, billboards for Seminole gambling and airboats, and lots of soggy grassland under heavy black-and-blue-layered skies. True, it had a bleak, haunting kind of beauty.
Carl refused to put on the air conditioner because he said it sapped the power of the engine, so all day we suffocated. We could only crack the truck windows because of the rain. By late afternoon my back was soaked with sweat and I could smell my armpits. And, get this – he was smoking cigarettes. Like I said, I was plain stupid coming up with the idea – or maybe blinded by the fact that he had a nice piece of well-working equipment that seemed worth saving.
At that point, I started to wonder if I could make us swerve into a canal and end the suffering. I was studying the landscape, looking ahead for deep water, when I spotted a couple of vehicles pulled off the road.
“Carl, look. I bet you they see gators.”
“Fuckin’ A,” he bellowed.
He was driving twenty over the limit, as always – in a hurry to get to hell – but he nailed the brakes and managed to turn onto a gravel road that ran a few hundred yards off the side of a small lake. One car pulled out past us, but a couple and a little girl were still standing near the edge of the water.
It was only drizzling by then, and Carl pulled next to their pickup and shut off the ignition. My side of the truck was over a puddle about four inches deep. I opened the door and plodded through in my sandals, while Carl stood grimacing at the horizon, rubbing his dark unshaven chin.
We walked towards the people. The woman was brown-haired, wearing a loose print dress – the kind my grandma would’ve called a housedress – and I felt how sweet and old-fashioned she was next to me in short-shorts and a halter top, with my white-blonde hair and black roots haystack style. The man was a wiry, muscular type in tight jeans and a white T-shirt – tattoos on both biceps, like Carl, but arms half the size. He was bending down by some rocks a little farther along. The little girl, maybe four years old, and her mother were holding hands by the edge.
“That guy reminds me of my asshole brother-in-law,” Carl said in a low tone, as we got closer. I nodded, thinking how true it was – the guy reminded me of Carl too, all the same kind of assholes. Carl boomed out “Hey, there,” in his usual megaphone, overly friendly voice. The mother and child glanced up with a kind of mousy suspiciousness I sometimes felt in my own face. It was almost like they had him pegged instantly.
We stopped near them. The guy came walking over. He had his hands cupped together in front of him and motioned with his arms towards the water. I looked into the short water weeds and sticks and saw two small eyes and nose holes rising above the ripples a few yards out. It was a baby gator, maybe four feet long, judging by the closeness of his parts.
“There he is!” Carl yelled.
“Just you watch this,” the guy said. He tossed something into the water in front of the nose and I caught the scrambling of tiny legs just before the gator lurched and snapped it up. “They just love them lizards,” the man said.
Carl started laughing “Ho, ho, ho,” like it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen, and the guy joined in because he’d made a big hit.
Us women looked at each other and kind of smiled with our lips tight. The mother had her arm around the little girl’s shoulder holding her against her hip. The girl squirmed away. “Daddy, can I help you catch another one?”
“Sure, darlin’ come right over here.” He led her towards the rocks and I saw the mother cast him a look as he went by. He laughed and took his daughter’s hand.
The whole thing was plenty creepy, but Carl was still chuckling. It seemed like maybe he was having a good time for a change.
“Reptiles eating reptiles,” he said. “Yup.” He did that eh-eh-eh laugh in the back of his throat. It made me wince. He took my hand and leered towards my face. “It’s a scrawny one, Virginia – not like a Texas gator – but I guess I have to say you weren’t lyin’. Florida has one.” He put his arm across my shoulder and leaned on me, still laughing at his own sense of humour. I widened my legs, to keep from falling over, and chuckled so he wouldn’t demand to know what was the matter, then insist I spoiled the day by telling him.
We stood there watching the gator float in place hoping for another snack, and in a few minutes, the squeals of the little girl told us that it wouldn’t be long. They came shuffling over slowly, the father bent, cupping his hands over the girl’s.
“This is the last one now, OK, sweetheart?” the mother said as they stopped beside her. She was talking to the little girl. “We need to get home in time to make supper.” From her voice it sounded like they’d been sacrificing lizards for a while.
The two flung the prey into the water. It fell short, but there was no place for the lizard to go. It floundered in the direction it was pointed, the only high ground, the gator’s waiting snout. He snapped it up. This time he’d pushed farther out of the water and I saw that he was missing one of his limbs.
“Look, Carl, the gator only has one arm. I wonder what got him?”
“Probably a Texas gator,” he said. “It figures, the one gator you find me is a cripple.”
Carl had an answer for everything. “No,” I said. “Why would one gator tear off another one’s arm?”
“Leg. One big chomp without thinkin’. Probably got his leg in between his mother and some tasty tidbit – small dog or kid. Life is cruel, babycakes – survival of the fittest.” He stopped talking to light a cigarette. He waved it near my face to make his point. “You gotta protect yourself – be cruel first. That’s why you got me – to do it for you.” He gave me one of his grins with all the teeth showing.
“Oh, is that why?” I laughed, like it was a joke. Yeah, Carl would take care of his own, all right – it was like having a mad dog at my side, never knowing when he might turn. He wouldn’t hesitate to rip anybody’s arm off, mine included, if it got in his way.
The mother called to her husband, “Can we get going, honey? I have fish to clean.”
The guy didn’t look up. “Good job,” he said to his daughter. He reached down and gave her a pat on the butt. “Let’s get another one.”
It started to rain a little harder, thank God, and Carl motioned with his head towards the truck and started walking. I looked at the woman still standing there. “Bye,” I called.
She nodded at me, her face empty of life. “Goodbye, honey.” It was then she turned enough for me to see that the sleeve on the far side of the dress was empty, pinned up – her arm was gone. Jesus. I felt my eyes bulge. She couldn’t have missed what I said. I burned through ten shades of red in a split second. I turned and sprinted to catch up with Carl.
He glanced at me. “What’s your hurry, sugar? You ain’t gonna melt. Think I’d leave without ya?”
“Nope,” I said. I swallowed and tried to lighten up. I didn’t want to share with him what I saw.
He looked at me odd and I knew he wasn’t fooled. “What’s with you?”
“Hungry,” I said.
“I told you you should’ve had a ham sandwich before we left. You never listen to me. I won’t be ready to eat for a couple more hours.”
“I have to pee too. We passed a restaurant a quarter mile back.”
He pointed across the road. “There’s the bushes. I’m not stopping anywhere else till the motel.”
We crossed the state and got a cheap room in Naples for the night. Carl ordered a pepperoni pizza from Domino’s, no mushrooms for me. The room was cl
ean and the air and remote worked, but it was far from the beach. We sat in bed and ate the pizza. I was trying to stick with the plan for having fun and I suggested we could get up early and drive to the beach to find shells.
“To look for fucking seashells? No.”
His volume warned me. I decided to drop it. I gave him all my pepperonis and finished up my piece. I had a murder book to curl up with. He found a football game on TV.
I was in the grip of a juicy scene when Carl started working his hands under the covers. It was halftime. He found my thigh and stroked inwards. I read fast to get to the end of the chapter. He grabbed the book and flung it across the room onto the other bed.
“I’m tryin to make love to you, and you have your nose stuck in a book. What’s the problem? You gettin’ it somewhere else and don’t need it from me? Huh?”
I shook my head violently. His tone and volume had me scared. “No, for Chrissakes.” His face was an inch from mine. Rather than say anything else, I took his shoulders and pulled myself to him for a kiss. He was stiff, so I started sucking his lower lip and moving my tongue around. His shoulders relaxed.
Pretty soon he yanked down the covers, pulled up my nightie, and climbed on top. I couldn’t feel him inside me – I was numb. Nothing new. I smelled his breath.
I moaned like he expected, and after a few long minutes of pumping and grabbing at my tits, he got that strained look on his face. “I love you to death,” he rasped. “Love you to death.” I felt him get rigid and come hard inside me, and a chill ran all the way from his cock to my head. He groaned deep and let himself down on my chest. “It’s supernatural what you do to me, dollface, supernatural.”
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 2 Page 58
