Laughing without mirth he slipped himself from her holes and lay down by her side.
“. . . that was a close match and I don’t think either side will consider it to be a clear-cut victory. I think they’ll both be anxious to have a rematch as soon as their schedules allow . . .”
“That was good,” he said honestly. “But next time . . .”
“Next time?” she urged.
He nodded toward the window and grinned. “Next time, perhaps you could book a hotel that doesn’t overlook Madison Square Gardens.”
Photos
Kathryn O’Halloran
The boss raises his eyebrows as Justin walks in the door. “Wet the bed, did ya?” he snickers. “You’ve sure turned over a new leaf lately.”
Justin half-smiles, unamused and in a hurry to get to his grey-blue cubicle. He sits down, eyes on the cabinet next to his desk. It’s dilemma time. The drawer might be empty. Maybe he should turn on his computer first? Get a cup of coffee? She might be watching, and she might be laughing.
But he can’t wait. He reaches for the drawer, wrapping his fingers over the grubby melamine edge, glides it open – closing his eyes – until he feels it pull all the way out. Only then does he open his eyes.
The drawer is empty.
Well, not empty. The plastic tray of pens and rubber bands are still there. But nothing else.
Justin’s heart sinks to the soles of his feet.
Two weeks ago, hangover-hammered and bleary-eyed, Justin had stumbled into work with just another day of form-filling ahead of him. He craved a goddamn mint, or something, to kill the taste of the hundred cigarettes he’d smoked over the week-end.
Turning on his computer with his right hand, he fumbled in the drawer with his left. His fingers struck something square and plastic. He flung it on the desk and continued rummaging. He could have sworn there was half a pack of mints in the drawer somewhere. Bloody Sam must have pilfered them again. Bastard. He’d yell at him, except that he’d disappeared into the mailroom again. Instead he picked up the spiky-edged thing from his desk. His morning-addled head dimly registered that it was a Polaroid photo. Where did that come from? Well it definitely wasn’t his. He would stick it on the tearoom notice-board later so the rightful owner could claim it.
Waiting for his shonky computer to rattle into life, he picked up the Polaroid for a closer look.
It was a picture of a foot. Justin had never thought about feet before. They were just there, at the end of your legs. This foot, though – the voluptuous arch cried out for a tongue around its fleshy curve, for a tongue working its way to that perfect cleavage between the big toe and its neighbour, slipping into that forbidden slit.
Justin jolted in disbelief. Had he just been fantasizing about a foot? Had he just gotten a hard-on over a foot? He put the picture back in the drawer.
At lunchtime it was still there. Maybe he’d hold on to it a while longer. He took another peek. That was a damn sexy foot. He bet it was attached to a damn sexy leg, too.
The next morning, Justin opened the drawer. The photo was gone, but another was in its place. This time, a knee. Not the whole knee, just the side of the knee. Two curves meeting, creating the perfect gully for Justin’s hand. He ached to feel that soft skin. That night Justin slipped the photo into his bag. He wasn’t going to risk losing this one.
Surely it was a mistake. Someone was playing a trick or getting the drawers confused.
The next day, smiling into his cornflakes, he told himself not to get his hopes up. Told himself as he hummed a tune on the train that it was a stupid joke.
His whole body buzzed when he found the armpit photo. He imagined teasing its wisps of hair, blowing softly on them, hearing soft moans in response, working his fingers in smaller and tighter circles. An electric current shot out of the photo directly to his cock.
With the fourth photo, Justin knew what was happening was deliberate. Nobody made four mistakes in a row. Someone was playing games with him. He was smart, he could figure out who it was. In the lifts and in the tearoom, he scrutinised every woman he saw. There were only about a dozen women who could gain access to his desk without looking suspicious. Maybe he should ask Sam or some of the others if they seen anything. Or maybe not: an image popped into Justin’s head of Sam pissing himself over the success of this particular practical joke.
Friday, he found the belly-button picture – a perfect navel, surrounded by a fine velvety fuzz. He started ruling out names. It was casual Friday, and half the women in the office were wearing short tops and hipster jeans. Maybe this was the game, a clue to identify her.
In the lift, he got a filthy look from the temp. Maybe he shouldn’t have been staring at her midriff so intently. She wasn’t the one anyway. Her belly button stuck out a mile, not at all like that dark and welcoming hole in the photo.
That night Justin sat at the bar with his mates. He was on his third beer when Jack asked him what was wrong.
“Nothing,” he replied.
“Nothing? This place is crawling with talent and your eyes are on your beer. Check out that babe in the corner. She wants you.”
Justin glanced over without interest. He could only think of holding that foot in his lap, how it would feel against his cock. Burying his face in that armpit and lapping it with his tongue. The salty taste of her skin. He dressed her in jeans and a tight T-shirt, in a clinging black dress, a gingham skirt and cowgirl boots. Then he undressed her. Slowly.
“I think I’ll call it a night actually. Feeling a bit tired,” he said, finishing his beer.
Back home, he stared at the photos pieced together on his wall. His cock was harder than he believed possible and, as he tightened his hand around it, he thought he’d die if he didn’t find her. Fantasies and photos were fun, but you can’t fuck a photo.
Monday morning, he got to work early to catch her out, but his floor was deserted. Another photo – the back of her neck. It showed the first definite clue: a curl of black hair. He adjusted the picture of her in his head to include dark hair.
Tuesday morning the drawer was empty. Maybe she was bored. Maybe someone else was getting the photos now. Justin snapped at everyone who came near him. The day seemed dull and pressed together. He left work early.
He prepared himself for disappointment the next day. He opened the drawer, just to get a pen, nothing else. He wasn’t even looking for a photo.
The Polaroid was waiting for him: a teasing glimpse of cleavage. Enough for Justin to know that wasn’t either of the A-cup girls on reception. He wondered if the birthmark on her left breast was a clue. He’d look for someone wearing a low cut top, but maybe he should be subtler this time. She was playing with him. He tried not to think about her, but every time he thought he’d beaten down his fantasy, a picture of that tiny brown birthmark floated into his head.
That night he had a brainwave. He had to find out who was off sick on Tuesday. The next day, after admiring the photo of her nipple, he wandered from department to department, making small talk, bringing the topic around to unseasonal colds and other illnesses. He learned that the only person off work on Tuesday was old Mrs Gleeson, and that cleavage definitely wasn’t hers. Her tits hung down around her knees.
Justin pulled the photo out of his drawer again. That nipple was incredible, like a luscious strawberry. He salivated, almost feeling it ripen at the touch of his lips.
“He-hum, Ainsley, not interrupting anything, am I?” His boss’s head hovered over the cubicle wall. He quickly hid the photo.
“No. Nothing at all.” He hoped the old bastard hadn’t noticed his cock straining against the woolen fabric of his pants.
On Friday morning, her belly, her smooth rounded belly. Soft and white and delicious. The photo showed the very top of black lace panties. The picture was slightly unfocused, as if she’d taken it herself and had trouble holding the camera.
Monday morning and no photo. Maybe the game’s finished, she’s given him the full set. He hope
s not. He alternates between depression and fantasy. He wants to caress each part of her body in the exact order of the photos. But he has to stop thinking of her. He’s got to hand a bunch of reports to his boss.
Walking back from his boss’s office, he sees a new Polaroid sitting on his keyboard. He runs to grab it. It is warm and undeveloped, but she’s gone. A faint scent, sweet and citrusy, lingers around his desk.
He waves the photo, wanting to speed up the developing image, not wanting to damage the photo. Slowly the shape of a head appears, details fill in until her entire face appears. Of course. The one person in the office he hasn’t considered.
He pops his head into his boss’s office. “Just popping up to the mailroom. Got a couple of things to sort out with them, might take a while.”
She’s sitting at the mail desk with her back to him, but he has a feeling she knows he’s there. A tinny radio plays quiet rock as she methodically picks up envelope after envelope from the pile beside her, stamps it, and places it into a pigeon hole in the mail rack. Watching her, he wonders if he’s made a mistake. Quiet Alice, the mail girl, has never even spoken to him since she started working here about a month ago. Admittedly, he never really gave her much thought. She seemed a bit drab in her baggy jumper and long skirts. Her long, black hair hangs over her face so he can’t read her expression, but as she flicks it back, he thinks he sees a grin.
Finally he speaks. “I believe you have a special delivery for me.” He tries to sound confident, but his voice quivers.
She swings around in her chair. “Took you long enough. Lock the door.” Her voice is low and husky.
“Quite the photographer, aren’t you?” he asks, walking over to her.
She laughs, a predatory look in her eyes. Her lips brush against his. She tastes of mints and coffee and strawberry lipgloss.
Suddenly her kiss becomes more urgent. She presses into him, fucking his mouth with her tongue. The fuzz of her woolen jumper sweeps against his skin, making his hair stand on edge. She overwhelms him, citrus-scented, whispering, taunting, velvet-fingered, tickling, stroking, unbuttoning, peeling him bare, tingling, tongue flicking, warm bodied, cold handed, mint breathed, hard-lipped, hot mouthed, musky, caressing, teasing, crushing, red-hot-flashes woman.
He’s drowning, gulping air, sinking into her, but she pushes him into her chair. Somehow she already has him half-naked, pants around his ankles.
She moves behind him – fingers running through his hair, breasts pressed hard into his back. His mind is so numbed by pleasure that he doesn’t register the sound of tape ripping until he feels his wrists stuck tight to the spine of the chair.
“What are you doing?” he asks but she puts her finger to his lips and tells him to hush.
Back on the desk, she slowly and deliberately removes her jumper. Justin, speechless, wonders what she’s going to do next. He doesn’t want to stop her. Thank God for the locked door.
Swaying softly to the radio music, she reaches behind and unbuttons her skirt, lets it drop to the floor. She stands before him in just a black lace bra, panties, and her pretty shiny shoes.
He can see her nipples, dark and hard, pressing lace of her bra. Her hands dance over the lace, cupping her breasts, pinching and squeezing. She leans forward, undoing her bra. Her hands are on the back of the chair. Breasts swing centimetres from his mouth, ripe and abundant and teasing. Her arm circles his neck, fingers tangling with the hair at the nape while she sways in front of him. He wrenches forward, tries to catch the nipple in his mouth, but she is too fast for him.
“Please,” he whispers.
She moves forward, offering her breast to him. As his tongue flicks across her nipple he can feel her cunt hot against his legs. His heart beats a tango and his cock jolts with electric charge.
He thinks he has her now, but she moves away from him, sits back on the mail desk. Hands move down her fleshy belly. Her panties, a map of her wetness painted on them, slide to the floor.
She opens her legs. Slowly. A strip of close-cut hair runs along her lips, moist and glistening.
She runs her finger down her juicy slit and opens her legs further. Cunt, swollen dark and crimson. Her fingers move inside it. Her eyes don’t leave his. Flicking her fingers over her inflamed clit, humping her hand, hips squirming. He can smell her arousal; he’s sure it will climb through the air-conditioning vents and fill the whole office, fill the world.
She is silent except for her breathing – hard, furious gasps.
Her cunt fills with juice, a ripe and succulent peach hovering before his eyes. He needs to push his face into it, to slurp out every last bit of moisture, to ravish it with his tongue, to devour it, to feel her juice dripping down his chin. Every muscle in his body is straining toward her. He heaves the chair forward but she raises her foot to stop him.
“Not so fast.”
With her foot poised on his chair the pull of her pussy becomes stronger. She moves her hand faster, hips shudder, breath heavy. Her eyes lock on his – blue and piercing and challenging – and she finger-fucks herself into an orgasmic lather.
As she climaxes, a moan like a tiny kitten’s escapes her lips.
She sinks down as she comes, kneels before him, prises his legs open with her body. Mouth close to his cock, covering it with hot breath. She looks up at him, an unblinking stare, while her mouth lingers. He can feel every heartbeat throb through his body.
She wraps her fingers, sticky from her cunt, around his cock.
Her tongue darts out, licks from his balls to the tip, flicks, swirls around the tip, swirling and spinning in a controlled frenzy. Beads of sweat cover his body. His hips buck up to meet her, but she anticipates his every move, pulling away from him. She covers his balls with nuzzling kisses. Each one makes him jump, shoots iridescent lights through his body. And he can’t do a thing but sit there.
Finally, her mouth closes around the head of his cock. He wants to tell her how magnificent it feels, but he can’t speak. He’s afraid to speak, afraid she’ll stop. Her hair falls onto his legs, tickling. He wants to run his fingers through her hair. He wants to touch her, caress her. This is torture: red, violent, urgent torture.
With her mouth and hand working in perfect unison, she sucks like she’s cock-starved and he’s the only man left on earth. Like there’s nothing in the world but his cock and her mouth. He closes his eyes, squirming in ecstasy. Opens them to watch her head bob while she sucks. Her eyes still hold his.
Just when he can’t take any more, she gets up and straddles him.
Hovers, cunt over cock.
Lowers herself onto him.
Squeezes tight around his cock.
She rocks, gently and seriously. He tries to move, but she’s pinning him down with her hips. Only when he holds absolutely still does she thrust. She grabs his shoulders, digging her fingers into his skin. Her tits dance in his face. Her cunt consumes him. She rides him with a ravenous insistence.
His mind comes back as he hears footsteps in the corridor outside, a fist pounding the door in time with the throbbing of his cock.
He needs to yell as he comes, although it might echo down the corridor and up the liftshaft. He doesn’t care. He just wants release.
She raises her hand to his mouth. He climaxes in silence, biting her fingers.
She stays on top, rocking as though she never wants to let his cock go. He feels their juices mix and run onto his thighs.
Finally she untapes him and lets him up.
But she stops him from dressing. She bends with a smile and squeezes the last drop of come from his cock.
He swears he hears a camera click.
Full Bloom
Amanda Gannon
I worked in my tiny garden while the neighbors shouted at one another, their snarling like thunder rolling in from the plains. It was blue-dark, and I had only one more rosebush to plant. As I packed soft earth around its roots, their screen door slammed. Footsteps thumped just on the other side of the fence
. I stood, a guilty spy, to see what I could see.
That first sight of him was like being shaken. He was everything I shouldn’t want, starting and ending with younger than me. So handsome that at first I didn’t even realize why I couldn’t breathe, but only stared dumbly over the fence, all sense burnt out of me.
He flung up the rolling door of the detached garage and stalked in. After a minute he reappeared, walking a dusty motorcycle out on long, long legs. I glimpsed his face again in the evening light. He was beautiful. There isn’t another word for it. Long-lashed eyes showed no color, just pure dark in the pale of his face. A damp ponytail spread over his shirt, which stuck to his shoulders like he’d put it on right out of the shower. The look on his face was raw and fierce. He didn’t see me. Like a hare watching the wolf pass, I held my breath, afraid to move.
The bike stuttered at his kick, then roared awake. He flicked wet hair from his face. Then he was gone, just the smell of exhaust drifting over my fence.
The neighbor lady stormed out, cigarette quivering with her fury. I stood there, glassy-eyed as a stuffed thing. She chased the bike with a venomous stare. “Did you see?” she crowed. “Did you see that boy?”
Oh, God, yes. I shook my head in denial, wishing I had not. She took it for an answer.
“Little jerk! He got a tattoo!”
“Hunh?”
“Right there!” she said, slapping her upper arm. “One of those devil-stars! Pentagrams! I didn’t send my son to vo-tech to become a devil-worshipper! Just wait until I tell his father!”
“I’m really very sorry,” I said, still numb. “He looked like a fine boy to me.”
I could have swallowed my own tongue in penance for the words that had slipped so carelessly out, but the angry woman was too disgusted with her son to summon further words, anyway. She stalked back in, defeated.
Above, a half-moon rode the cloudless, night-blue sky. Three blocks off, traffic made thunder all along the highway’s distant trail.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 6 Page 18
