I’m very sorry, too, that it was a month before I saw you again. I was very busy going to job interviews, cleaning up my mom’s house, reading books to blind children, and definitely not – never ever, seeing that slut Marsha or doing stupid guy things with Earl and that idiot Frank. But I did come by to see you; stopping in for a couple of Twix bars and a MegaGulp was just a lame excuse. I know that my pretending not to recognize you was a very cruel and mean thing to do, but I really thought I was being funny in a stupid, loser kind of way.
I know I was very bad about freaking out like I did when you told me you were late, very politely and sweetly I have to add, just like a lady would, and not like a slut who “did” you in an alley like that slut Marsha said. I like the way you said it directly and to the point, with only a little screaming and crying. It was just hard for me to accept that the dream I’ve had since I was a little boy of having a beautiful wife and a wonderful little house with a white picket fence was finally going to come true. It just took a call from your daddy and a visit from your three brothers for me to realize that it really was happening and that it wasn’t just some kind of fantastic dream I was having.
I know that our wedding wasn’t as good as you wanted. I really wanted to take you to a nice hotel with real silverware and tablecloths and flowers on the table, a really good dance band, and a real big cake with white sugar frosting, and that we could have taken a real trip somewhere for a honeymoon. But even though I really did want to find a real good job where I might even have to wear a suit, I wasn’t making enough money at Bob’s Auto Body to afford the wedding you deserved. I seriously thought that it was better to save my money for my wonderful family – and not spend it on stupid things for my stupid car, or, tragically, our wedding – even though I know you wanted and deserved something so much better, my wonderful, beautiful wife.
I just wish I could go back in time and give you that fantastic wedding, one that would have showed how much I care for you and how happy I was that we were becoming man and wife. I hated that we had to get married in city hall, and I’m sorry that I kept calling it “getting hitched” and introducing you to everyone as “the new ball and chain”. It was nerves, beloved. Just nerves. I really didn’t like that we had the reception at Smelly O’Douls and the dance in a suite at the Budget 8 down by the railroad tracks, and I’m very embarrassed that I went around asking people for money to help pay for “beer and shit”. I’m really glad your dad took me behind the restaurant and talked to me about that and how I was acting, because I really had no idea of how much of a jerk and an idiot I was being, and no matter what Frank and that stupid Earl said, your dad never touched me in any way, and I really did slip and fall and hit my eye on a doorknob.
I really wanted a good band to play for us, not Frank’s cousin who was just out of jail and needed a job. But he was good enough, I guess, and I really liked it when he played “Freebird” and we danced. But I agree with you, darling, that someone had to have stolen your sweet uncle Ray’s wallet and broken into the cars parked behind the Budget 8 and, yes, absolutely he was the only person who could have done it. You’re right, you’re absolutely right.
More than anything, though, I wish we could have had a proper and romantic honeymoon. Your uncle Ray was very nice to give us the money to go to Mexico; I just wish I hadn’t had to use it to take care of my mother, who was suddenly very sick and needed that operation on her “guts”. But even though we spent our three-day honeymoon in Chicago with my friend Skylark, who you’re absolutely right in calling a “smelly hippy”, and one of those three days was spent with him driving around some very scary parts of the city while he did some “business”, I still had a great time, because I was with the woman I love.
The best time, of course, was that afternoon when Skylark had to go see his probation officer and we had his awful little place all to ourselves. It wasn’t a nice hotel with mint chocolates on the pillows, but it was wonderful because I had you all to myself. I still think back on that time, about how beautiful you looked, how happy I was that we were man and wife, and that we had our whole lives before us to raise a family and have good times together. That day was also the best, because we woke up late with the sun streaming through the dirty windows and I looked over at you, staring into your golden eyes, and said, “So, you wanna do it?”
Sex with you, Sandy, is an incredible experience – more than that, it makes my heart sing with pleasure and my body tense with excitement. Seeing you in bed that day, your bosoms surging with sensuality, was more than I could stand. My manhood became engorged, my ardor became profound – it was all more than I could stand. I particularly remember how much pleasure you gave me with your lips and mouth, more than anything because I knew how such an act made you feel, how people had told you it was dirty, a bad thing to do. But for me, for us, it was a good and pleasurable thing. But that was only because we were now man and wife.
After your mouth, I remember how excited you became, how moist your sex had become. I realized that you were ready to be taken in a womanly way, and I was more than happy to oblige, and slid myself into your wet woman-space. I just wish it hadn’t been as good for me as it was, for maybe I would have been able to hold off on my orgasm longer and not been as tired as I had become and so would have been able to give you your own share of bodily pleasure.
The next few months with you were a delight, even though I was idiotic not to say how much pleasure you gave me with your body and in making us a home we could share together. I know my salary wasn’t enough to buy a house, but even though we had to make do with my little apartment over my mother’s garage, I was happy there with you. I particularly liked the little “homey” touches you gave to the place, the lace curtains, new TV trays, and plastic flowers you put in bottles and jars in the kitchen. Even though I cruelly teased you about them, in my heart I knew you were just trying to give us a pretty home.
I just wish my frequent late nights at Bob’s Auto Body didn’t keep me away from you and our house, but I was really trying to earn enough so that we could have the best of lives. I know that coming home at one or even two o’clock in the morning was a rude and thoughtless thing to do, even worse being how I snapped at you for being upset. But, darling, I was very tired from trying hard to earn us enough to make a happy home, and was feeling very guilty and ashamed for not doing enough for you and our lives together. I appreciate your also not mentioning how my breath often smelled of beer, even though I knew you knew I’d been drinking. You are a wonderful woman in so many ways, and your not humiliating me by pointing out my problem with alcohol is just one of them.
I understand that you have needs, and I especially understand that because I was not in our wonderful and beautifully decorated home enough, you felt unloved and unappreciated. I also understand that you’d been craving my love as well as the return of the fantastic sex life we’d shared together. I only have myself to blame for your reaching out to someone else for love and comfort. I agree with you that of all the people you could have reached out to to get what I had been so foolish to deny you, Frank was the worst. I do not fault you for being intimate with him, darling, though I now share your hatred of him, because he told me about your affair in such a coarse and ungentlemanly fashion. That he bragged to me while we were out drinking with Earl, telling me that he “banged her silly”, was unspeakably rude and insulting to you. I consider that to be more insulting than the fact that he touched you. You are, and always will be, a lady. Even though you may still work at the Kwiki Mart, not be as thin or beautiful as those models in my insultingly sexist Playboys (which I know you hate me for having around and am so sorry make you feel uncomfortable), you are beautiful and sexy, and I was always happy with our relationship.
Even when you told me that you weren’t actually pregnant, I may have acted very badly and said all sorts of rude and insulting things, it was only because of my disappointment that we would not be having a new life to raise children together in our pret
ty and well-maintained little home. My being gone for a few days was just my way of dealing with the sadness I felt that we would not be a family, even though I knew that we could always try again and that it would be as lovely and sensual as all of our other sexual interludes.
Perhaps it’s because of the pure depths of my love, Sandy, that I can find no fault in anything about you. You are a pure red rose, a woman beyond compare, as lovely as a woman from one of those romance novels you read – which I apologize for calling “girl trash”. They are lovely stories, with very good writers, as I would know if I would ever pick one up and read one.
Every moment with you, no matter how fleeting, has been magical. I would never want to hurt you in any way, and the thought of it sickens me to my very depths. That is why I’m writing to confess to you my deep and shameful sin.
As I’ve said, Sandy, sex with you has always been a remarkable and magical experience, not at all like the cheap and tawdry images in my stupid magazines. I could never have sex with another woman and have it ever be as good as it was with you. But I am a fool like most men and did not realize how much you meant to me until I’d committed the ultimate idiotic act.
Not that I am completely innocent. I know how you felt about Marsha, but when I saw her I did not respect your wishes to stay away from her. What did you call her? “A villainous vixen.” I remember saying that you were wrong – in a very coarse and rude way – about that, but now I realize that you were absolutely right about her. Instead of listening to you, I allowed myself to be deluded by one of her cheap, slutty outfits and her bargain basement perfume. I thought she just wanted to talk, honestly, and thought that a beer or two wouldn’t hurt.
But it did hurt – and it hurt the one most precious to me. I allowed myself to be led astray and seduced. I was weak, thinking of my own physical pleasure with a slut who everyone knows has slept with everyone in town, and in so doing, hurt you tremendously. I have to say, though, that the experience was horrible and shallow – despite what that jerk Frank may have told you about it being “better than anything I’ve ever had”. Although she put her mouth on my manhood, it was bad, the worst I’ve ever had, and when we performed intercourse, it was so disappointing that afterward I swore that I would never, ever have sex with another woman – except for you, my darling.
But I know now that I can never have the infinite pleasure and happiness I’ve shared with you. I’ve betrayed the magical connection we’d shared together through one stupid act of carnal pleasure. I’ve lost through my own foolishness the one who’s meant the most to me, my reason for living. I’ve lost you.
That’s why I can’t go on, Sandy. That’s why I can’t live any longer. That I’ve hurt you and ruined our lives together has made living unbearable. That’s why I’ve decided to take my own life with my father’s shotgun, which I shot myself with from across the room. I’m sorry for the mess it might cause, but more than anything, I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known, much prettier and sexier than anyone, especially that slut Marsha.
Regrets,
Tom
Sitting on a chair, arms on the desk, fingers on the keyboard, words on the screen . . . Tom, a hole in his chest. Sandy smiled at the note that was long overdue to her, if she did say so herself.
Before she picked up the phone, touched fingers to buttons, dialed the police, Sandy had one quick, certain thought: I’m sorry I didn’t do this sooner.
Blinded
Donna George Storey
I kneel down and he ties the blindfold over my eyes.
Strictly speaking it isn’t a blindfold; it’s a silk scarf. My brother and his wife gave it to me for Christmas, a pretty thing with a floral design in crimson, deep blue and gold. But when I opened the gift, I was thinking: When will I ever wear this?
But I gave it a try. When we got home, I spent a good fifteen minutes in front of the mirror attempting to knot it into an appealing fashion accessory. He sat on the edge of the bed and watched smugly – my brother had gotten him some Charlie Parker CD’s.
Then I got the idea to wear the scarf as a headband, to keep my bangs off my face. Another failure.
“I can’t do anything with this thing. I’m sure it was expensive, too. Do you think they’d get mad if I took it back?”
He walked over. “How about this way?” He pulled the scarf down over my eyes.
I could still see him hazily through the single layer of loose silk. He looked at me for a moment, his head tilted to one side as if he were deciding what to do. Then he kissed me. Hard.
When we finally came up for air, my lips felt tender, a little swollen.
I said, “Now tie it on so I can’t see.”
That was the beginning. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve done it since then, but it’s gotten us through this long winter. Sometimes he blindfolds me. Sometimes I blindfold him. It all depends on who comes up with a new idea. It’s never the same. That’s our unspoken rule.
Not that it’s entirely unpredictable. He seems to prefer that I wear some sort of clothing: one of his shirts or a teddy, something he can eventually slip off me. After more than a year together, it still excites him to uncover my breasts, to weigh them in his hands as if he is touching them for the first time. That’s one of the things I like about him.
I prefer him to be completely naked. The first time I blindfolded him, I was the one who was trembling. Although it was my idea that he kneel on the bed wearing nothing but the blindfold, when he actually began to undress with a cool smile, I almost told him to stop. I wasn’t sure I really wanted to see his big body so exposed, a band of flowered silk over his eyes with the long, loose ends falling softly down his back. I thought it might somehow diminish him.
I was wrong. I’d never realized how beautiful his body was. Not that I hadn’t appreciated it before, but I’d always focused my gaze on his eyes, his expressions. The rest of him I knew better by touch. But now, with his eyes hidden, I could see him with a new clarity: the rich, taut curves of his arms and chest, the hint of soft flesh at his waist that I found oddly pleasing. I noticed that the hair on his belly fanned out more luxuriantly to the left, and by contrast, his right thigh was slightly more muscular, a legacy of his college fencing days. It didn’t take long for him to get hard – it never did when we used the blindfold – and I got to watch that, the delicate jerking movements of his penis as it rose and thickened, drawn upward by invisible strings which, I imagined, led straight to my hands.
I felt like a thief.
I felt my own desire grow in a completely new way. This time the familiar ache seemed to originate from behind my eyes, from the very sight of him unseeing. Then it seeped downward, bringing a warm flush to my cheeks and neck, making my nipples grow erect. When it finally reached my belly, it pooled there as a sharp, shimmering hunger.
I bent closer to feast, on the smell of him first, the cuminy scent of crotch, sharply male, yet intimate. Intoxicating. I’d never studied a cock so carefully, the web of tiny veins embedded in the skin like red lace, the puckered ridge below the head, as if the flesh had been pinched when it was still fresh and soft. With no eyes glowing down at me, urging me to lick and suck and swallow, I could gaze into that other eye, slit vertically like a cat’s, or maybe it was more like a tiny, hairless cunt, what they’d have on Barbie if she were anatomically correct. I pressed my tongue against it, lightly, tasting bitterness and salt, the tang of soap, then took the whole smooth helmet of the head into my mouth.
He moaned.
At last I had the sound of him.
When he decides the game, he often feeds me things. A dish of rice pudding in baby-sized bites. Morsels of praline truffle he pushes through my lips with his tongue. And most often, his cock. I don’t know why, but his semen tastes sweeter when I am blindfolded.
Once he slipped a tiny wedge of soft paper between my lips, struck a match, and instructed me to inhale. It was a joint. Where did you get this
? I wanted to ask, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk, so I just lay quietly next to him on the bed and took long drags whenever he held it to my mouth. It must have been good stuff, because soon I was tingling all over just this side of numbness, floating off the bed into the past. It had been years since I’d smoked a joint. I never bought drugs myself. They were always presented to me as an offering from a boy in exchange for what I could offer him in return. So many things had changed since then, but it took me back to a time when I was so dumb about men I might as well have been wearing a blindfold.
It’s been a difficult winter for both of us. I knew things weren’t going well for him at work, but I didn’t realize how upset he was until that day when I came home to find him practicing with his saber.
When we first started going out, he gave me a demonstration of fencing moves. I liked the way he looked in that white jacket, the single leather glove on his right hand, but I wasn’t so sure about the wire mesh mask. It made him look like a huge insect. Or an executioner.
“Forget The Three Musketeers,” he told me, “what you want to do is keep the blade within an imaginary frame around your body, to move as little as possible and still protect yourself. More important, though, is reading your opponent. It’s a game of chess, move and countermove,” he said. “And when you get it just right, it’s the best feeling in the world.”
But as I watched him, so graceful as he advanced and then retreated, it seemed less like a game than a strange and beautiful dance.
This second time, it was different. He wore no mask and his T-shirt was stained with sweat. There was a fierceness in his concentration, his brow furrowed, his lips pale. I don’t even think he saw me at first. Again and again he lunged at his imaginary opponent: a feint to the chest, then the quick and fatal strike to the head. I could see the cold satisfaction as he watched the body crumple to the floor. Whoever it was died several times over.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 6 Page 53
