I was feeling more&more – filthy, a miscreant outside the halls of Eros. Once, she was writing a poem, sitting at her desk, naked, and she turned to me and said are we really as bad as we think we are? have we strayed from the Garden of Eden?
I said yes, we have taken up camp far from the garden, made our home in the naughty yard. She laughed&said I can’t wait until we get married.
Cynthia says fuck me harder and I think about marriage more and wonder if I ever loved Beth. I told her I did, mostly to please her. I turn Cynthia over on her back, Beth in the head, placing Cynthia’s legs on my shoulders, going back into her ass which is not unlike Beth’s ass after all, Beth the anal-fuck goddess of this vile state we call the land of coitus. I push Cynthia up, her feet near her ears; she looks at me with wide eyes as I drive like Mad Max deeper into her colon; she gasps, says it hurts a little; I ask if she wants me to stop and she says no and I go even harder, wanting to hurt her, I think, knowing I would not have stopped even if she said yes. Cynthia, Cynthia, I say her name, but I still have Beth on my brain, I can see her so clearly, alive: I can see those times when I would jack-off on her tongue; she’d lie there, mouth open to receive, the head of my cock at tongue’s tip, jism slowly seeping thickly. She would draw it in, suck on it, make some of it flow out, come-bubbles on her puckered lips like a European porno. Sometimes, giving me a blow, she’d spit my seed on her palm, rub it all over my cock, making me more sticky, and give me suck again, doing the same with the second load.
Beth, Beth, my decadent nymph, what the fuck happened to you! Where have I buried you at last? Have I forgotten already, so soon? Am I this insensitive to the intricacies of life? No no – I don’t want to think of Beth and our eight months in iniquitous bliss. I was a different human then, not the one I am now: here in the apartment with Kathy&Cynthia. I have to converge on Cynthia, but the more I try, the more I see Beth. I feel wanting for who I was; I feel excitement for who I was, and I know that I am with Beth now, and I come, I come into Cynthia’s intestines, and she grabs onto me, acting like maybe she’s have an orgasm too, and we lay like that for a bit, finally letting go, her legs on the bed now, I to her side, wishing for a cigarette or a drink, thinking of all the couplings I have had this night, the memories&history of my life with sex, in this far corner of the naughty yard.
I tell Cynthia that I can’t sleep here and she says she knows. She wants a kiss. I kiss. I gather my clothes and return to Kathy’s room, wondering if I’ll get aroused again, wake her, have her, top off this bizarre evening. She’s still quite asleep. I lay next to her. She goes mmmmmnnnnn and I wonder about her continuing dreams. I move to hold her, feeling grimy, Cynthia all over me, the haunting of Beth’s revenant all over me. I fall asleep, just a little, that strange place of half-sleep, having a half-sleep halam where in a car with Kathy&Cynthia, Cyn is driving, and then Kath is driving, she’s saying my new name is Forget-Me-Soon, your little Forget-me-Soon. They are dropping me off somewhere. They wave as they leave me in this somewhere; their car gets smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, smaller, and then is no more. I wake, feeling chilled, knowing it was just a half-dream and I have not been abandoned to be alone on the wrong side of the garden. Kathy has turned, her face in my chest, curled in fetal position, her breath warm, a Kathy-breath. I look at her computer, still on, the document of a marine biology paper still on the lit screen. Is daylight soon? I look out the window, see the corner of the moon, a moon that was in full view just a few hours ago. The moon. What had Isabelle asked me? About Beth? I said the moon. The moon&Beth. Somewhere in that relationship, the engagement was broken off, and we were enemies, the sort of thing that happens to me often, and there were those few months when we did not see or speak, until that party, that night of the party, at a house in the suburbs; how we both got there I don’t know but we were, it was a big party, and when I first looked at her I didt think this was Beth, this was just a girl who kind of looked like Beth, this Beth who was not Beth but had short hair, and it was black, real short, like a bos, and she didt have the primordial black lipstick so appurtenant to the look of Beth – red lips now; and she wore a tight tight tight dark blue dress and high heels and she moved my way, slinked my way, smiling a little, saying hello Mike in a Beth voice and I knew then it was Beth. I stared at the long gold earrings she wore, for she’d never had earrings when I knew her, when she almost became a wife. She was sex. She also smelled different, but this may have been a gap in my memory. No, no: I had not forgotten my Beth, I could see this imputation in her eyes, despite the cordial smile; I wanted to say this; I dared not. What could I tell her about these months I had spent away from her; first we had been enjoying our bodies&minds in ways that would have made the residents of Gomorrah blush; and now back to priesthood? Indeed, I was like a monk in a citadel, for in those months of disunion, I had not slept with anyone else, I had not gone out to find new confreres. I stayed behind doors, reading, watching TV; went to work, went home, and that was that. But I wouldt tell her this, and I wouldt ask about her activities since the adjournment of our connection, fearful that she might tell me that she was having the time of her life, true or not. Even coming to this soiree was an effort on my part, but I knew I had to return to the interaction with other human beings sooner or later; that, while it was going to take time, I would have to relearn feeling at ease with the outside world, cast off those sensations that I was being stalked by the unknown; that I was free to venture out, show my face in the yard, without dread of apprsion, without consternation of incarceration and villainy. In the light of the sun or glow of the moon, I often felt I was in the lios maw, the dragon’s asylum – I was a spy in a foreign nation and any second the secret police of this countrs sovereign hand would capture me, torture me for information and protocols. Indeed, I had gone to this party at the last moment, telling myself it was time to move on. Why did other people seem so horrible to me? What did this have to do with Beth? Was this time of solitudeI liked to call it my healing process to make me feel better – necessary? It did not matter now, for here I was, and there was she: Beth; and there was no doubt about this: Beth; just a much different-looking Beth. And I considered this night, this geether: for the moon was out&full, the night sky clear as refined plasma in an IV tube, a California night so close to Wintes breast. I did not run away from her, as I divined I might should this chance rendezvous ever occur. I could have, and by all means I should have; maybe I should have run, that first time, in the dark smoky club where we met. I hardly make the right moves, doing what I know I should not do, straying from the mantel of righteousness and God – like taking Beth into my arms that night at this party; it was a capricious move. She almost pushed me away. I saw she had a cigarette in hand. She should have burned me with it; scorching of the flesh is what I needed. Yes, she almost pushed me away but in that single moment where all truth resides, she embraced me as well, she took me like a perplexed foundling, she was the mother I had always hoped for, a mriarch that didt allow me to go hungry when the inimical times came; for a passing moment, I thought she was going to cry – and I was certain I would break down and reveal to her what a liar I was, a coward. I thought of the intangible likeness of ecstasy when we fucked, our groveling way of fucking, and wondered if we were meant for each other, the antithesis of the first man&woman. It was a Jacques Monad sort of scenario: the chance and necessity of it all. She said my name over&over and people around us gave us inexplicable looks. Wondered if she knew anyone here, had friends here. I didn’t really know anyone, maybe one or two people. I was an interloper, and I liked it as such: I was invisible, free to move untouched in the realm, through pedestrians, space&time. Beth held me, said my name over&over again; it was nice&good&clean. People kept glancing at us, frowns on faces, as if we were vagabonds; malefactors. Perhaps our crime was the scene of affection. I took her aside, took her to a far corner where we could be alone. We had to talk over the music and the laughs and the words of others. This par
ty was not like the kind of parties she&I were used to, the bacchanalia no, this party had too much order&uniformity. We touched each other like the classical lovers of Greece, antiquity in our gaze, having been separated for what seemed like decades, those spaces filled with discourse&adventures suitable to be sung by blind men with bare&bleeding feet. I said Beth and she looked up at me and from behind her new look, behind the average magine-type make-up, I saw the Beth I once coveted&cherished. She said she had some coke but I stopped her, told her she should not. I said we had to change our lives from now on, we had to be reborn in this earth. She told me she had, citing me as a relevant cause. I told her I was not an evil person, that I had, in fact, once been angel (not unlike those Kathy is dreaming of now); she laughed and said well where are your wings, Michael? I was curious, now, about her life: wanting to know what she had been doing these past months. She told me her life was like the temple Samson had destroyed when he regained his strength. She said but instead of potency she felt as if she had grown irresolute. It was then that I acceded to the overwhelming inclination to protect her, to shield her from the imps of mortality. We decided to leave this party. She said she was renting a room in a house not too far away, which was a mile from the local university, which she said she had applied to for higher educational purposes. We started to walk there. It was one of those nights; I was ready for anything. I looked up, commented on the moon. She grabbed me, pulled me down on someons front lawn. It was quiet out; the house of the lawn had no lights. She said take me take me here&now and I tried to fight her away and she dug her fingeails into my face&neck and I felt the blood, the very warm blood, run down, run out of me. Sex&violence, thas all I’ve ever had in my life; this castigating I accepted fully, with all the consequences&corruption. One moment, Beth&I were locked in such a callous clasp that there were no misgivings that it would be the final grasp for both of us, that we would rise to Heaven together; that, untied, united, we would cast aside our mutual cloaks of pain and go on to some premium glory. I woke up in a bed, in a cold room, and the moon was at the window, the full moon, bright. I smiled at this moon and looked at the body next to me. Bets body. She was breathing slowly, her chest rose with each intake of life. I felt good. Here we were, in this bed, alone&safe. Nothing in this city or world could touch us here, nothing could extend its bitter arm and caress us with enmity. I moved against her. She was warm. I grabbed at her. She stirred. She called out to her father, in sleep. I closed my eyes and imagined myself cleansed of the dirty life we once shared. I was back on the grass, the wet grass – or was that my blood? I was caught up in a grapple for both life&fuck. Beth was tearing at my clothes; she squeezed my balls and I screamed. She relished this wretchedness. She kept telling me that I would never leave her again, we would be bound forever, we would marry and the only way the union could end would be murder, or worse. She hissed like some snake of old, going murder murder murder. I tore her skimpy slut’s dress down the middle, pried it off her like reptilian flesh. She was naked, pale under the moon, and I said you like this bitch, yes yes, how much you so very like it, and pushed her down, her face into the wet blood grass, mounting her rear, a coyote’s cry from her – and that wonderful full moon. I lost my edge and she bucked me off, was on top of me now, her hands around my neck. In her eyes, I could read that she apprehended we could never amount to anything, we would never have anything, and she was going to end all anguish now, terminate the memory&image she had of me like grease on a slate, wipe wipe wipe. I clawed at her bare breasts until they bled but this did not stop her intent. I hit her in the face; her nose broke; she fell to the ground. I kept hitting her face until her visage was raw meat, my hands bloody stumps. I prolonged this vehemence because there was no turning back now. I was driven. I was going to take this perdition to its pinnacle. I woke up on the bed and looked at my hands. My hands were all right, my body was all right. I was back in Beth’s bed. I sighed; it was a dream, that grass scene a whole dream, and there was undeniable comfort in this knowledge. But Beth was not beside me. I called her name. I could still smell her; the imprint of her body remained on the mattress. I saw that the bathroom light was on. I got up, knocked on the bathroom door. Beth, are you there? No answer. I went in. She was lying in a full tub. The water was pinkish-red. There was a sharp knife next to the tub, on the floor, blood on that tiled floor, blood smooth&clean, blood dripping from the arm that hung outside the water: the opened gash on small wrist. She had also, I noticed with interest, opened up her neck. The artery was languid as it pumped out the final quart of essence out of the temple of Beth. Her eyes were rolled up, toward the window and the full moon: uninhabited&aloof. I thought I’d never see a finale as exquisite as this. This was her swan song and no one could take it from her. She was – emancipated. I went to her, I went to her, I went to her, she stood up, she got up from the grass, her face a dominion of mess. She said so this is what you wanted all along? I charged, throwing her down again, my hands at her neck this time, using more force than she had on me. Die die die I screamed as I woke up in the bed and the moon was peeking through and Beth was not there. I could still smell her and the imprint on the mattress was evident: new, so very new, so very Beth. I had been having this dream that I was following Beth’s car in my car and it was late and we were going somewhere and as she went across an intersection a fast big car ran a red and hit hers, dragging it, smashing into the wall of a building, a loud sound, and I jumped out of my car and saw that she had been crushed in her car, almost chopped in two, her eyes popped from the sockets, blood everywhere, a baby growing in her womb, a reverie of two deaths, but I was glad now it was all just a dream, but she still wasn’t there, so I called her name, I called her name, I called her name. I saw the bathroom light was on, the door partially opened. I was not going to get out of that bed; there was no way I was going to get up and go in there. Its interior would be a mystery. I would not look upon her body again. I only wanted to sleep. A simple desire. I didn’t know what was real anymore. I grabbed Beth’s pillow and hugged it to me, cried into it, cried, thinking that this will always be my prison.
I seize Kathy, hard, waking her with strident resonance, howling into her hair like a primate in Cimmerian periodicity, thinking the moon the moon the moon.
LILING’S CURE
Delilah De Silva
Liling dried her soft hands and face and applied some compact powder on her skin. Still unblemished and youthful. Next, she proceeded to roll her glossy lipstick delicately over her small, round mouth. With a heavy sigh, she wheeled herself out of the bathroom and greeted him silently with her dimpled smile.
He gazed at her and she lowered her head coyly to the floor. It was his eyes; the peaceful color of the ocean-blue. Deep and shining. On his part, he admired hers, with their thin, feline slant and brown-sugarish tone. His stare made her feel like a delicacy. The sound of ancient sitar melody lulled in the dim-orange hue of the bedroom. Wisps of smoke curled warmly in the air as they rose from the burning incense of ylang-ylang. Liling inhaled the thick and sweet scent, filling her lungs with its seductive intoxication. Her limbs loosened and she peered through the translucent darkness, watching his lean, white body rest against the wall. He got up, pulled the wheelchair closer to the bed and whispered roughly into her tiny ears, “You look beautiful, darling. Absolutely stunning.”
A tingle raced up her spine. Dazed, Liling’s lips lingered against his high cheekbones as she waited for his strong, muscled arms to lift her cautiously from her seat and plant her gently on the waterproof sheet which laid over the purple, satin cover. Two, fluffy, wine-red pillows helped prop her head comfortably without any strain. Quickly and deftly, he peeled off her silky, pink blouse, the long, floral skirt, the lacy, black lingerie which he brought with him for every visit and finally the diaper which he respectfully placed on the bedside table. He did not mind her wetting herself. Liling stroked his milky back as his fingers traced through her sleek, black hair. “I love you,” he kept murmuring,
fixing his bold, blue eyes on her exotic loveliness. “I love you.” Of course she believed him. Since the car crash two years ago, never once did he flinch when he touched her. Instead, it was almost a year ago when he was responsible for her very first orgasm. There was no turning back. She was greedy for more and he willingly supplied her with his mega-doses of painkillers.
“Ouch!” she yelped. He had seized her by her hair, yanking her head back and biting her slender neck hungrily. She clawed at his sweating pink skin as he travelled down to her small breasts and sucked at her right nipple while tweaking and pinching the other in a deliberately painful manner. However, she did not protest. This sort of pain was healing. This sort of pain reminded her of her aliveness. This sort of pain freed her. For so long after the operation which sliced her lower legs off, she had remained numb and corpse-like. It was he who resurrected her, with violence.
Closing her eyes, Liling smiled as his long, moist tongue flicked with feathery sweeps over the tips of her goosepimply nipples. Descending to her navel, he smothered her golden-yellowish belly with drooling kisses and cheekily resorted to parting her stumps. Unable to bear the excruciating pleasure, she moaned, arched and pressed her chopped legs close against his blonde head. With vengeance, he prised her thighs open, digging his nails into her butterish skin. She screamed as he tugged sharply at her triangular tuft of black hair. “Bitch!” he growled and she groaned approvingly. Seconds later, just as she was struggling to gulp some air, he stuffed three of his fingers into her tiny, creamy slash and churned the flow of her sticky fluids. “You Asian chicks are so tight and cute. Makes me horny, baby.” The same lines. Each month. Each visit. Somehow, those words seemed to draw out the savage in him and transformed him further into an insatiable carnivore.
The Mammoth Book of International Erotica Page 26
