The Mammoth Book of Threesomes and Moresomes

by Linda Alvarez

  “Absolutely.”

  “Even if it hurts?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because . . . it’s hard to put into words.”

  “Try.”

  “I’m not a strong person.”

  “You’re not?”

  “Well I don’t feel strong. I feel more like . . . I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

  “You feel more like a girl?”

  I laughed a little. “Hmm. I don’t know. Maybe. If feeling like a girl means feeling subservient. I know there are, you know, women who aren’t subservient, who are strong and in control, and I’ve tried to find them, you know, because I want to be in a situation where I’m a guy but not in control, because feeling helpless turns me on. A woman hurting me, demeaning me, using me, turns me on. Fuck.” I put my face in my hands. I’d never articulated it before like that and now . . . Bam. “I want you to rip off my guise like when the school nurse ripped off a bandage once and all the fucking skin came off, and I could see my own flesh.” I shuddered.

  “Tyler, that’s . . .”

  “Dumb? I fucking know.” I stared at my hands, dizzy or something.

  “Honey,” she said. “Look at me.”

  I did. And my vision cleared for one stark moment.

  “Don’t cut me off again.” And then Ivo hit me in the face and everything swam.

  When I could see again, Ivo motioned for the bill. Men at other tables looked at her. She ignored them. My stomach churned like you wouldn’t believe. I grabbed a piece of bread and chewed on it to calm the churning. I had to shift in my seat to give my boner as much room as possible, although it was suffocating in there, and the men in the restaurant looked at me like I was a joke or a fucking riddle. What the fuck is she doing with him? But the women, they smiled. Ivo reached across the table and took my hand. I felt heat all the way up my arm. She told me to wait outside.

  That was the night I saw a shooting star, standing outside the restaurant; I mean the sky was full of stars and this one bolted, took a dive. It was beautiful; I almost cried. I saw Ivo through a window. She spoke to a man. He was distinguished looking or whatever, more the type you’d think she’d be with, and when the man put his hand on her arm then leaned over to kiss her ear or something I thought, That’s right, I’m chopped liver, and then I stood there like she’d told me, and Ivo pulled away from the man.

  Meanwhile couples came out of the restaurant; the men would speak to a valet while the women glanced at me.

  Ivo came out. I stood with my hands in my pockets. “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi yourself.” She let one side of her mouth curl. Like a sneer. Like she hated me. Then her eyes lit up. “Come here.”

  I went.

  “Closer,” she said.

  I got closer, an inch away. Ivo tilted her head. I tasted the wine on her breath, the pasta. I felt heat. My hands itched to touch her. Anything.

  “Never mind,” she said.

  Ivo’s apple-cider smell brushed past me. Ivo was across the room again. She told me to look at her. I did. She walked back and forth a few feet away, and her body became a musical as she dropped her clothes on the floor and swayed like a cattail in a breeze; her skin reflected light while her eyes burned like the blue on a flame.

  “Fuck,” I said. “You’re amazing.”

  When Ivo opened her mouth, one side curled back further than the other, and I caught a glint of sharp tooth before she said, “You ass.” Ivo was closer to me now; I reached for her, one second of cool smooth flesh, her narrow, boyish hip, and then she turned on me screaming. “Prick!” She wailed on me full throttle, palms across my head and face.

  “Fuck, sorry, I shouldn’t have touched you, sorry.”

  I dropped to the floor. I liked this game, a lot. My face felt like army ants had gone at it, and my ears rang. Meanwhile, my cock throbbed so much I thought, This particular boner is never going away; it’s fucking permanent.

  Ivo smiled at me. “Tyler, take off your shirt.”

  I did.

  “You have a beautiful body, so skinny. Open your pants.”

  I did.

  “Let me see it.”

  I pulled my cock out. Already oozing pre-come.

  “Sit over there.”

  I sat.

  “You know what you’re going to do for me?”

  “No.” I shook my head, holding my cock.

  “You’re going to take that friend of yours, Micah, to a hotel.”

  I swallowed. “OK.” I noticed a flush spreading across Ivo’s chest.

  “I’m going to meet you there later.”

  “That sounds good.”

  Ivo smiled, one side of her mouth, showing me that tooth again – one hell of an incisor. “I want to watch Micah fuck you, Ty.”

  “You do?” At this point my cock had gone so stiff it was like a body with rigor mortis. I was terrified and turned on beyond belief.

  “Jerk yourself off.”

  I did. Ivo sat on a table in front of the chair where I sat; she opened her legs, so I saw wiry hair, meaty pink cunt lips. I stared at her, swallowing, using my hand on my cock. “Slower,” she said. I slowed down. “Faster,” she said. I got a cramp in my elbow. Her nipples were hard. The flush had spread to her neck and face.

  “I’m going to come, is that OK?”

  “No,” Ivo said.

  I took my hand away from my cock then sucked in a breath.

  Ivo slid her hand over her cunt. With one finger she moved the meaty lips around and then open. I watched her sink one fingernail into her cunt, and then her finger disappeared up to her knuckle. Ivo closed her eyes. “Jerk yourself off,” she said.

  I started again.

  “Want to fuck me, Ty?”

  “Fuck, yeah.”

  I watched Ivo fuck herself with her finger. She pulled it out after a while then rubbed her clit in tight, concentrated circles.

  “I want to fuck you,” I said. “Can I fuck you?” I was about to blow.

  “Stop,” Ivo said. She opened her eyes, glacial bright. She moved her finger over her clit and stared in my eyes.

  “Fuck,” I said “Fuck.” I gripped the sides of the chair. A drop of come oozed free of my cockhead.

  “I’m coming,” Ivo said. Her body gave one definitive shudder.

  She arrived in the hotel room: leather pants and a white shirt you could see her nipples through. She had tight tits and quarter-sized nipples. Right away I caught my breath. Her lips were the colour of blood when the scab comes off, wet and bright. The rest of her face was pale and freckled, crinkles around her eyes. She’d tucked her hair behind her ears. She had big ears, actually. No jewellery. Ivo regarded us without a word. The air became humid with what I guessed you’d call sexual tension.

  Micah stared at her, looked at me. I met his eyes. “Feel her power, dude?”

  “Yeah.”

  I went to my knees. This was the night of all nights. Micah swallowed so hard I saw the lump in his throat bob. “What are you waiting for?” Ivo said to him.

  Micah looked at me then seemed to register I was on my knees. He knelt too.

  Ivo walked around the room. She inspected the empty champagne bottle Micah had left in the ice bucket. “Did you enjoy it?”

  Micah nodded then met my eyes again. Ivo looked at me.

  “Take off your clothes, Ty.”

  I remained kneeling as I took everything off. There I was, skinny and naked.

  “Stand up,” Ivo said. We both did. “Not you,” she told Micah.

  He dropped to his knees again.

  “Bend over,” Ivo told me.

  After a minute I did.

  “Did you hesitate?”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “Look at me.”

  I met her eyes. Two pools of ice in a snowdrift. Ivo hit me so hard in the face one side felt as if it had split like ice over a pond.

  “Shit,” Micah said.

  “Shut up,” Ivo tol
d him.

  I looked at Micah through water in my eyes. He had his hand over his crotch.

  “Let’s try again,” Ivo said. “Bend over.”

  I did. My cock throbbed like a stubbed toe.

  “Open your ass for me, Ty.”

  I pulled my ass cheeks apart. I felt her move closer; she burned me there with her eyes until my own vision blurred as I stared at my feet.

  “You’d like your friend Micah here to fuck you in the ass, wouldn’t you?”

  I bit the inside of my arm then said it. “Yeah.” Good thing I couldn’t see Micah. Had no idea how’d he feel about what I’d just said.

  “I’d like that,” Ivo said. “And you’ll do it for me, won’t you?” I knew she spoke to Micah, but I didn’t hear him answer. I felt Ivo touch my ass cheek. She rubbed it in a circle with her palm then dragged her nails across my skin. I bit my arm again.

  Micah said, “Can I yank on myself?”

  “No,” she answered. I felt her finger on my asshole; she rubbed my hole in circles until it felt good. Until blood rushed to colour my skull. “Come here,” I heard her say.

  I felt Micah stand then come over.

  “Touch him,” she said.

  “Where?” Micah sounded anxious.

  Ivo hit him. Smack. “You know where,” she said.

  Micah fingered the edge of my asshole.

  “Rim him,” Ivo said.

  I felt my asshole flower. Oh fuck. Fuck me. Yeah. That felt nice. I’d never had a tongue at my hole before. Shit. That was so nice. I felt Micah lean over me, gripping each side of my bony ass with his hands while he rippled his tongue through my crack then concentrated on the brown flower of my hole. Fuck. Jesus. That was good.

  Ivo said, “The bed.” We all went. “Take off your clothes,” Ivo said, meaning Micah. My friend looked as skinny and white as me. His cock was short and fat. I’d seen it before. Now I let myself really see it. “Together,” Ivo said. Micah and I scooted together. I felt the taut reed of his leg against mine, the brush of short hairs. Ivo looked pristine in her clothes. She wanted me on my back, Micah on top. For a second our cocks were like two rulers side by side. Then she gave Micah lubricant and instructed him to oil up. His cock glistened. He didn’t meet my eyes.

  “Gentle at first,” she said as Micah pressed the head of his cock to my ass.

  “Shit,” he said, like he didn’t want to fuck me but really did.

  Ivo leaned over me then kissed me like I’d never been kissed before. “You ’re so sweet,” she said into my mouth. Then she kissed me all over my face, and I kissed her back, tongue in her mouth, my hands in her hair. First time I’d ever touched her like that.

  I felt the head of Micah’s cock in my ass. I felt how I opened.

  “Easy,” Ivo said.

  Micah moaned, sank deeper, fucked me. I grabbed Ivo. I was like a butterfly on a pin. She kissed my ear lobe. “Deeper,” she told Micah. “Come in his ass.” His face had twisted above me. The word “Shit,” broke from his lips, and then I felt jizz bust out of my cock like pus from a wound. You know how that is after, right?

  I woke with spunk leaking from my ass. Micah was asleep under the covers, pillow to his face, a familiar stranger. I smelled that apple-cider smell of Ivo, but she wasn’t there. I figured she had another life opposite of what she’d left in the hotel. After Ivo, Micah and I were like what you’d find through Alice’s looking glass. I was cracked open, naked as an egg. Happiness is totally scary like that.

  Kimberle

  Achy Obejas

  “I have to be stopped,” Kimberle said. Her breath blurred her words, transmitting a whooshing sound that made me push the phone away. “Well, OK, maybe not have to – I ’d say should – but that begs the question of why. I mean, who cares? So maybe what I really mean is I need to be stopped.” Her words slid one into the other, like buttery babies bumping, accumulating at the mouth of a slide in the playground. “Are you listening to me?”

  I was, I really was. She was asking me to keep her from killing herself. There was no method chosen yet – it could have been slashing her wrists, or lying down on the train tracks outside of town (later she confessed that would never work, that she’d get up at the first tremor on the rail and run for her life, terrified that her feet would get tangled on the slats and her death would be classified as a mere accident – as if she were that careless and common), or just blowing her brains out with a polymer pistol – say, a Glock 19 – available at Wal-Mart or at half price from the same cretin who sold her cocaine.

  “Hellooooo?”

  “I hear you, I hear you,” I finally said. “Where are you?”

  I left my VW Golf at home and took a cab to pick her up from some squalid blues bar, the only pale face in the place. The guy at the door – a black man old enough to have been an adolescent during the Civil Rights era, but raised with the polite deference of the previous generation – didn’t hide his relief when I grabbed my tattooed friend, threw her in her car, and took her home with me.

  It was all I could think to do, and it made sense for both of us. Kimberle had been homeless, living out of her car – an antique Toyota Corolla that had had its lights punched out on too many occasions and now travelled unsteadily with huge swatches of duct tape holding up its fender. In all honesty, I was a bit unsteady myself, afflicted with the kind of loneliness that’s felt in the gut like a chronic and never fully realized nausea.

  Also, it was fall – a particularly gorgeous time in Indiana, with its spray of colours on every tree but, in our town, one with a peculiar seasonal peril for college-aged girls. It seemed that about this time every year, there would be a disappearance – someone would fail to show at her dorm or study hall. This would be followed by a flowering of flyers on posts and bulletin boards (never trees) featuring a girl with a simple smile and a reward. Because the girl was always white and pointedly ordinary, there would be a strange familiarity about her. Everyone was sure they’d seen her at the Commons or the bookstore, waiting for the campus bus or at the Bluebird the previous weekend.

  It may seem perverse to say this but every year, we waited for that disappearance, not in shock or horror, or to look for new clues to apprehend the culprit: we waited in anticipation of relief. Once the psycho got his girl, he seemed pacified, so we listened with a little less urgency to the footsteps behind us in the parking lot, worried less when out running at dawn. Spared, we would look guiltily at those flyers, which would be faded and torn by spring, when a farmer readying his corn field for planting would discover the girl among the papery remains of the previous year’s harvest.

  When Kimberle moved in with me in November, the annual kill had not yet occurred and I was worried for both of us, her in her car and me in my first-floor one-bedroom, the window open for my cat, Brian Eno, to come and go as she pleased. I had trapped it so that it couldn’t be opened more than a few inches but that meant that it was never closed all the way, even in the worst of winter.

  In my mind, Kimberle and I reeked of prey. We were both boyish girls, pink and sad. She wore straight blonde hair that moved in concert and had features angled to throw artful shadows; mine, by contrast, were soft and vaguely tropical, overwhelmed by a carnival of curls. We both seemed to be in weakened states. Her girlfriend had caught her in flagrante delicto and walked out; depression had swallowed her in the aftermath. She couldn’t concentrate at her restaurant job, mixing up simple orders, barking at the customers, so that it wasn’t long before she found herself at the unemployment office (where her insistence on stepping out to smoke cost her her place in line so many times she finally gave up).

  It quickly followed that she went home one rosy dawn and discovered that her landlord, aware that he had no right to do so but convinced that Kimberle (now four months late on her rent) would never get it together to legally contest it, had stacked all her belongings on the sidewalk, where they had been picked over by the students at International House, headquarters for all the Third Wo
rld kids on scholarships that barely covered textbooks. All that was left were a few T-shirts from various political marches (mostly black), books from her old and useless major in Marxist theory (one with a note in red tucked between its pages which read: “COMUNISM IS DEAD!”, which we marvelled at for its misspelling), and, to our surprise, her battered iBook (the screen was cracked though it worked fine).

  Me, I’d just broken up with my boyfriend – it was my doing, it just felt like we were going nowhere – but I was past the point of righteousness and heavily into doubt. Not about my decision, that I never questioned. But about whether I’d ever care enough to understand another human being, whether I’d ever figure out how to stay after the initial flush, or whether I’d get over my absurd sense of self-sufficiency.

  When I brought Kimberle to live with me she hadn’t replaced much of anything and we emptied the Toyota in one trip. I gave her my futon to sleep on in the living room, surrendered a drawer in the dresser, pushed my clothes to one side of the closet, and explained my alphabetized CDs, my work hours at a smokehouse one town over (and that we’d never starve for meat), and my books.

  Since Kimberle had never visited me after I’d moved out of my parents’ house – in truth, we were more acquaintances than friends – I was especially emphatic about the books, prized possessions I’d been collecting since I had first earned a pay cheque. I pointed out the shelf of first editions, among them Richard Wright’s Native Son, Sapphire’s American Dreams, Virginia Woolf’s Orlando, a rare copy of The Cook and the Carpenter, and Langston Hughes and Ben Carruthers’ limited-edition translations of Nicolas Guillén’s Cuba Libre, all encased in Saran Wrap. There were also a handful of ninteenth-century travel books on Cuba, fascinating for their racist assumptions, and a few autographed volumes, including novels by Dennis Cooper, Ana María Shua and Monique Wittig.

  “These never leave the shelf, they never get unwrapped,” I said. “If you wanna read one of them, tell me and I’ll get you a copy, or xeroxes.”

  “Cool,” she said in a disinterested whisper, pulling off her boots, long, sleek things that suggested she should be carrying a riding crop.

  She leaned back on the futon in exhaustion and put her hands behind her head. There was an elegant and casual muscularity to her tattooed limbs, a pliability that I would later come to know under entirely different circumstances.