Then as he usually did, Father Sal peeled off the condom and put it on my bedside table. He cocooned me in his arms. He was still breathing heavy but he managed to speak.
“Unfortunately,” Father Sal said, “the social security system here in America has always been flawed, never has it been properly calibrated to keep up with the cost of living increases.” I was pleasantly exhausted, and already dozing off.
“Lover,” I told him, “Let’s just give this a break, I need my beauty rest.”
“Why, bella,” he told me, “You do not need the beauty rest. You are beautiful already,” and he hugged me close as we drifted off to sleep.
I was dreaming that Sal and I were at the beach at Coney Island, stretched out on a big blanket. The smell of Coppertone was heavy in the air. On a nearby blanket, a radio serenaded us with a song about someone watching us with every breath we take, every move we make.
He was wearing the kind of old-fashioned, baggy, navy blue knit bathing trunks my grandfather used to wear. I was wearing the flesh colored bikini that I shoplifted from Saks Fifth Avenue last week. Father Sal liked my bikini very much. I didn’t tell him how I got it. My head was on his lap and he was feeding me ripe summer cherries out of a brown paper bag. From my horizontal position I had a lovely view of the calm ocean, and the clear blue sky above, marked by not even a single cloud. A crop duster airplane flew into my line of vision, trailing a long white banner. This is the end of the world as we know it, the banner said in black block letters.
Why this frightening message? I wanted to point it out to my darling, but before I could, the sky darkened. There was a great clap of thunder and then another and then another. I saw a giant wave rise up out of the ocean and head right for us! I could no longer feel Sal’s warm lap beneath me. I woke up. I put my hand out to touch him but he was not there. I was all alone in my empty bed. He must be in the bathroom, I thought, he wouldn’t just get up and leave. Then I heard a faint sound, a whispering. I raised my head higher and saw Sal kneeling at the foot of the bed. He was clutching the big silver cross he always wore around his neck in his hands and rocking back and forth on his knees, his lips moving. I put my head back on the pillow and shut my eyes, pretended I was still sleeping. I could just make out what he was saying.
“Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa,” he kept repeating over and over. I knew enough Latin to know this meant he was ashamed.
I wanted to call out to him, tell him there is nothing to be ashamed about, we are so lucky in bed together, but then I said nothing. I did not think he would want my company in his dark night of the soul. After a while he stopped whispering and got back into bed. and pulled the top sheet up to cover us. Then he turned on his side and curled away from me like a question mark.
In a few minutes, he was snoring, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep. I wondered how long my amorous padre had been plagued by guilt, whether he had been harboring it since the start of our affair or had just started to feel guilty because he was falling in love with me too. Perhaps it was a part of all his romantic adventures; after all he had told me this was not his first affair, and he was the one who pursued me.
Perhaps feeling guilty turns Sal on. I thought of my 250-pound Cousin Marcia and the silly little smile she gets on her face as her hand dips once again into the box of Godiva chocolates she always carries with her. She chomps the candy down, smiles even wider; she calls herself a fat little piggy and then reaches for another chocolate.
I couldn’t fall back to sleep, I wondered if he ever wanted to put that cross inside me, to fuck me with it. I lay awake beside him as night opened into morning. Sal always woke up automatically at five a.m. so he could make it back to his parish for the six o’clock morning mass. I kept my eyes shut as he gently kissed my shoulder, then he dressed and left.
Finally I slept, when I woke up it was midday and the room was filled with bright sunlight. I felt groggy and miserable so I decided to go out to Coney Island to try to leach my unhappiness out in the salt water. On the F train I was surrounded by noisy families, children drumming their plastic pails, teen lovers with pierced lips and eyebrows, old couples with canes and hearing aids. I seemed to be the only one alone. I wondered if this was my destiny, a solitary woman travelling to the beach looking for release from her sorrows, her backpack stuffed with a couple of towels, a big tube of sun block #45 and the book review section from last week’s Sunday Times.
Out on the beach, it was a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky. I put my big towel down next to two old women speaking Russian, sitting on a faux leopard skin blanket. They were still so glamorous. Their faces were radiant, filled with life, as they laughed and chatted with each other, smoking cigarettes. They were beautifully made up; their lips painted with come hither reds, their eyebrows tastefully penciled in. Both ladies were wearing black string bikinis, flesh spilling out generously on all sides. They were obviously so happy in their bodies. They agreed to watch my blanket when I went into the water. “Go, darling, swim,” they chorused.
The ocean was warm and calm as a lake. I turned on my back and floated in the salty brine. After a while I reached an island in my mind where anything was possible. Maybe I was forbidden fruit to Father Sal, but nothing was forbidden to me. If we split up, I would keep floating on. As I float into old age, I promise myself I will try to stay as glamorous as the two ladies watching my towel.
I spent the rest of the afternoon going in and out of the water. The sky remained a clear blue; no planes passed overhead trailing ominous messages. Whatever happened with me and Sal, there would always be the ocean. I felt glad I lived in Brooklyn where the beach is just a subway ride away. I bid goodbye to the ladies. I had learned their names were Anya and Maryasha. Feeling much calmer. I brought a kasha knish at Mrs Stall’s Knishes which I thoroughly savored, eating it slowly on the subway ride home.
I got back to my place with a lot of sand stuck in my jam jar and up in my ass crack. I was eager to get into the shower. However, the red light on my answering machine was blinking merrily and I could not resist hitting the message playback button.
Sal’s rich baritone floats out into the room. “My angel,” he says, “I was tempted to wake you before I left to kiss your sweet lips but I managed to resist. I had once again a very good time last night. I look forward to Thursday. I will call you again before.”
He certainly didn’t sound guilty. Hearing his voice made me want him again. Maybe I was making too much of the little scene at the foot of my bed, maybe he was guilty about something else; maybe he uses money from the confession box to play the ponies. I stripped and climbed into the shower.
Sal called me Wednesday to confirm our date the next night. We spoke briefly, now he sounded harried, his tone brusque. Could our affair be entering a roller coaster phase, up and down, up and down like the Cyclone roller coaster at Coney Island?
When I answered the door the next evening, Father Sal was holding not one but two bunches of red roses. He had dark circles under his eyes and he was wearing his black priest’s shirt with the high collar and black trousers. He never showed up for one of our dates dressed all in black before, an ominous sign
“Two bunches of flowers, you’re spoiling me. Is this a special occasion?” I asked. He didn’t say anything. Upstairs, in my apartment, I took the roses from him and stood on my toes to kiss him. He turned his head so I got his cheek not his mouth.
“What is this special occasion?” I persisted, as I put the roses into a vase. He answered me with another question, “So you have some whiskey?” he asked. “Let us have a drink.”
“Sure,” I said, “sit down.” I got a couple of glasses and the bottle of Chivas I had bought us a couple of weeks ago because we deserved the best, and brought them to the table. I sat down opposite him and poured us each a stiff one.
“Now,” I said, “What about this special occasion?” He took a big gulp of his drink, swallowed. “Bella,” he began, “I do not wish to hurt you, but I
cannot continue our, er, er, er, arrangement.” He looked down at his big hands, more the hands of a mason or bricklayer than a priest, “I think about you too much,” he went on. “I’m hearing a confession and I think about your um, um, bust. I’m passing among my congregation putting the communion wafer on a congregant’s tongue and I think about your tongue on my, er . . . and I am filled with impure thoughts.”
“I thought you understood that impure is a relative term,” I cut in sharply. I knew I should try to be Zen about this but I do not have a Zen nature.
“Didn’t you tell me you had made your peace with your wanton nature? Maybe if you are so conflicted about your vocation,” I told him, “you should leave the priesthood.”
“Never, never,” he cried. “It has been my calling since I was a boy, always it was my dream.”
He was almost weeping. Inside my head I heard Bob Marley singing his question about a place for a hopeless sinner . . . “I don’t know what you want me to say,” I told Father Sal.
“Do you want me to absolve you, to give you a penance, a hundred Hail Mary’s, so that after that we can go at it again? Isn’t that how it works? The priest absolves the thief and then after the penance, the thief goes out and steals again?”
“You are so sarcastic,” he said, “Where is my sweet Bella?”
I finished my drink in a gulp. “She went to the beach,” I almost yelled at him. “If you’re trying to tell me you want to break it off, O.K. by me. I don’t want to be with someone who fells guilty about making love with me.”
His face was all sorrowful, his big eyes liquid with tears. I felt a great sadness filling me, puffing me up like a balloon. I floated up out of my body and looked down on us from the ceiling of my room. I saw an ageing sex kitten with a fair figure, whose bottle blonde hair, dark at the roots, badly needed a touch-up. I saw a portly priest with a big bald spot on the top of his head and a huge erection clearly visible beneath the fabric of his black trousers. I saw two middle aged people who had already licked their little plate of happiness clean. I decided to try to not make this awkward scene even worse.
I returned to my body, as Sal was finishing off his scotch. “Well, we had some good times, didn’t we?” I managed to say, in a dismal effort to be a good sport.
He smiled a tight little smile. “Rock and roll,” he answered, in a feeble attempt to be hip.
I gulped down my scotch; it burned like hell fires in my throat. Then, I couldn’t help myself; I put my hand out to rest on his very visible knob. I gave it a few solid yanks. “How about just one more for the road?” I said. I knew he could not resist me.
I moved my chair closer to his, put my knee between his sturdy thighs. I kept a firm grip on him as I pulled and squeezed, pulled and squeezed. “Ah, Bella, Bella,” he sighed unzipping his fly, “but I did not bring, I do not have a . . . a.” I knew he was searching for the word condom.
“But I have one,” I said, and quicker then you could say the wages of sin are death, I sprang up, went into my bedroom and got a condom out of my condom box.
I had it out of the foil packet by the time I got back into the kitchen. He was holding his rod between his hands. I wondered if he was praying to it.
I bent over and pulled the condom on him. I kissed his lips, dipping my tongue into the sweet cistern of his mouth. I spread my legs and climbed astride him, taking all of him deep into me. My thick cunt hair must have tickled him as I slid up and down, down and up because he giggled a little. I kept on faster and faster until the friction generated between us was so great, I thought we would burst into flame. I opened my eyes to see his eyes screwed shut and his face all covered with sweat. My whole body was wet as if all the love juice inside me was seeping out from my pores. A funny smell drifted up from where we were joined, ashes and peanuts and bitter red wine.
He arched his back abruptly and just when I was ready too, shot his loving spirit deep into my heart.
Weightless and free, we bobbed up and down like a top floating in the ocean at Coney Island, but only for a few moments did we enjoy this tender release.
Then he stirred beneath me, his silver cross pressed into my chest between my breasts, I could feel it, even through the fabric of my dress, cutting into me, branding me.
I climbed off. He sighed, he seemed to be weeping. I peeled the condom from his cock and put it into the garbage can next to the refrigerator. I didn’t offer him another drink.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “Sure,” I answered, “Great.”
“Oh, my Bella,” he began.’
“Please,” I said, “Don’t get all sentimental, just go.”
He stood up and tucked his now shy scepter back inside his pants and zipped up. He looked sadly around my cluttered kitchen. “Bella, Bella,” he said, “I will never forget you.” He took a step towards me, his arms out as if to embrace me.
“You better go,” I told him, “before you get tempted again,” and I turned my back to him. I heard him take the few steps to the door then I heard it shut behind him. Then I heard his footsteps growing fainter as he walked down the hall. I couldn’t help but wonder if this was really the end.
The Cigar
Betti Mustang
12:36
He likes the way the girl smells – a mix of cigarette smoke and perfume. The perfume definitely isn’t Giorgio. Giorgio’s the stuff that his wife’s worn for the past seventeen years. Once, it seemed to go straight up his nose and down to his dick. Now it just smells like his wife.
She looks young. She has a tight little figure and a quick wit, and when she laughs, her eyes flash something wicked. She isn’t wearing any makeup, which makes her lips look naked. She’s talking to him and he doesn’t hear a damn thing she says. His construction crew’s a sub on one of the developments that the company she works for is putting up. She has a beautiful mouth. He thinks, I wonder how it would . . . and then she’s off, hurrying back into the site office.
He loves looking at her ass in those dark blue, low-cut jeans. If she’s wearing any underwear at all, it has to be a G-string. That’s it – a G-string, red and lacy. It dips low in the front – just barely covering her patch of curly black pubic hair. The red cord nestles into her ass, right between her two tan, firm asscheeks. He puts down his nail gun and grins at her backside as she walks away.
He takes a deep breath to clear his head. He’s going to put a nail through his hand if he doesn’t get focused.
Shit, he thinks, I’m focused as hell – on her pussy. He feels his dick quiver, as if long fingernails were trailing up his inner thigh.
He adjusts his cock inconspicuously, checks his watch – it’s 12:42 – and gets back to work.
12:42
I am hornier than fuck. Thank God I’m not a dude. I swear, I’d be walking around with a boner all the fricking time.
Having a wet cunt for about thirteen hours a day has nothing to do with working on a construction site. Really. That jerk-off ex-boyfriend was a carpenter, so the whole tool-belt-wearing, me-strong-man thing just doesn’t do it for me anymore. I’m repelled by the smell of sawdust.
Don’t know why I’m so horny. Are my hormones off? Maybe it’s because my fiancé is saving himself for our wedding night? Or maybe I’m just a nymphomaniac. Who knows? Working around big, burly construction workers makes me feel like a vegetarian at a rancher’s barbecue.
Guess I just want one beautiful penis that fits so perfectly into me I could cry. I mean, we’re promising to fuck only each other for the rest of our lives, so why not now? But it’s hard to bitch at my fiancé when he’s trying to be so virtuous. But then again, I’m twenty-seven, hitting my sexual prime, and basically, I need to bone!
Filing’s a bitch when my brain keeps dropping to that heavy ache between my legs.
2:05
He doesn’t know what to do with the cigar. Some hotshot real-estate broker who came to “make sure all was going as planned” gave it to him. He took it to be polite. Back in his bache
lor days, the boys would come over and they’d smoke cheap, skinny cigars wrapped in reconstituted tobacco. This one was big and fat. Why would anyone go around giving out expensive cigars? he wonders. He doesn’t understand all the brown-nosing that goes along with development. He understands wood – putting it together and tearing it apart. Give him an honest paycheck, and they can keep the rest.
He looks down at the cigar in his calloused hand. He can’t smoke it. Smoke drives his wife crazy. She’d complain that it gave her a headache and bitch about it for days.
There she is again – coming toward him holding a big stack of files. She smiles. His blood feels cleaner when she smiles, like it runs faster and younger.
“Watcha got?” Her voice is playful. Her left hip sticks out.
As she tilts her head, an image of her in those red panties flashes behind his eyes. Like a curious kitten, he thinks. He watches her mouth like a tomcat watches a bowl of goldfish, mesmerized and hungry.
“A cigar,” he manages to say. “Somebody just gave it to me. I ain’t gonna smoke it, though.”
“Really? A cigar’s the first thing that I ever smoked.” She bites her lip, lost for a moment in thought. “I was fifteen and I thought that it was the funniest shit in the world. Never thought I’d turn out to be a damn smoker though.”
She rebalances the files she’s holding and takes a big deep breath. Her rib cage rises. He can swear he sees hard little nipples jut out from her tank top.
She exhales and gives him a quirky grin. “Sucks to be me, I guess.”
“You can have it if you want.” He holds out the cigar. I wish you’d suck me, he thinks.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 6 Page 36
