The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 4

by Maxim Jakubowski

  Right about noon he was about to enter the liquor store, looked behind him and saw the whore on her corner underneath the Resurrection sign. This guy walked by with a puppy, and she squatted down and started playing with it; the puppy jumped up and licked her face, and she came back to life, became the little girl she should’ve been, she was alive, her flesh had color, she was happy, she laughed, she was youth, it was achingly beautiful. Eddie stood there slack-jawed; he felt a yearning surge of hope. And then the guy tugged the leash and pulled the dog away and that tug of the leash robbed her of everything she had left. She stood and she sagged and she withdrew into herself with a psychic death rattle that swelled into a monstrous pulse of raw desperation; Eddie could see it surging across the street and down the block, straight toward him. “Oh fuck,” he said, “Oh shit! Jesus fuck! Shit!” His eyes were popping outta his head. He barely ducked into the liquor store in time. He struggled to regain his fake cool, bought a six-pack, strolled into the back parking lot as quickly as he could and guzzled one down just outside the door. Whatever it was that just happened was too fucking close for comfort. Eddie was sure he’d barely escaped death. Now he had to stay inside until the whore was gone, no matter how bad it hurt. She was death.

  He was still kinda shaky when Lisa came over.

  It was meat and potatoes sex. She was the meat and potatoes and he was the plate. She’d push him on his back, grab his head and mount it. There was no seduction. She always had coarse stubble – everything about her was coarse, even her beauty, and she really was beautiful. His face would get abraded. She’d grind and push and rub and grind and push and after a while she’d come with a grunt and a gasp and a hard sudden thrust, and after the second or third time he figured out to push forward on her ass at the crucial moment so that his nose would slide into the wet softness of flesh and not be smashed by the stubbly hardness of bone. Her substantial clit would slide down the bridge of his nose, which would end up deep inside her; he’d feel engulfed, and she seemed to like that.

  He couldn’t sleep without being fucked. He’d doze off for a few hours and then wake up in a pool of cold sweat. The sheets would be soaked, the mattress he pulled from a dumpster behind the Veterans of Foreign Wars Thrift Shop in Glendale would be soaked, it smelled bad, and in the morning he’d drag it onto the back porch and let it air out and dry in the sun. He was too depressed to eat and he couldn’t afford to anyhow; what little money was left over after buying beer was needed to wash the sheets again before Lisa came over.

  The mornings were getting harder. He couldn’t summon up any of the anger that used to get him out of bed. The anger used to fuel him, and the alcohol was the oil that kept the shit from seizing, but Eddie wasn’t very fuel-efficient any more; he was running on fumes, he was burning oil.

  He relied on her for everything. He didn’t even like her. He thought she was vulgar. Her breasts were too big. He wasn’t really into blondes – he thought they had no class. But she brought him food and beer and fucked him, and he needed that. “Oh man, I hope I’m not falling in love. She’s so not my type.” Lisa was his sustenance.

  He always thought of her in terms of food. She had a substantial clit that would swell up in his mouth. He preferred to think of it as one of those baby carrots because he was more or less a vegetarian, but in his mouth it was a little piece of meat. She would thrust it in there. He could almost give her a little blowjob. She would fuck his face. He’d get stubble burn.

  Eddie didn’t believe in God, and was starting to hate Him too. Eddie sat on the floor of his apartment, rolled in a ball, rocking back and forth, bloodshot eyes all bugged out, arms wrapped tight around his knees, pouring sweat, gazing up at the ceiling, beyond which were the Heavens, and mutter “Chickenshit asshole.” He wanted to scream “FUCK YOU GOD!” but didn’t for fear of drawing attention to himself. It was too embarrassing. The Marshal had been by two nights ago with eviction papers. She seemed almost apologetic when she handed them to him, and Eddie was grateful for that. It wasn’t her fault, she was just doing her job and he was just doing his, getting fucked up the ass by life. It was the fault of his landlady. Fat ass bitch. She was just bitter because she couldn’t get laid. Bitter fat ass man hating bitches. More of God’s handiwork. And of all the guys in town, she had to take it out on him, probably because he was an easy target. He’d already decided he wouldn’t fuck her even if his life depended on it. “I have principles,” he said to the TV, and then muttered “Not that they’re doin’ me any good.” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Cocksucker.”

  She’d sit on his cock, he’d feel the heavy flesh and the hair stubble and get hard, she’d smirk and stuff him inside her and start pounding. She’d lean forward, dig her fingers hard into his shoulders or biceps or pin his wrists, her blonde hair covering all of her face but her open mouth, gasping, intent, sweat would roll down her face, sometimes she’d catch the drops with her tongue, or they’d drop onto his face or chest or slide down between her heavy breasts; it was a hot summer and she’d be soaked, her hair would be wet and if she tossed her head back drops of sweat would fly across the room. She’d pound and push and grind and then come with a grunt and a gasp and a hard sudden thrust. She’d lean forward and kiss him with her sweat-soaked mouth, and her sweat-soaked breasts would rub against his chest, and then maybe she’d slide forward, he’d pop out of her, she’d sit heavily on his stomach or chest, take a long slug of beer, look down at him and smile.

  Here’s what God should’ve done. He should’ve taken Eddie aside and admitted he’d fucked up. He should’ve said “Eddie, all that church crap? All that turning the other cheek, do unto others, that shit? Forget about it. I was young and that was just wishful thinking.” Eddie would’ve nodded, because it made perfect sense, and because, hey, God was speaking and you gotta listen. “Eddie, forget about doing good, standing up for what you believe in, what’s right and just. I fucked up. That shit will get you nowhere. You gotta sell out hard and fast, Eddie. What you gotta do is this: drink, shoot dope, lie, steal, fuck your best friend’s wife up the ass and make him watch while she squeals and begs for more, make him call you Sir and thank you and suck your cock clean when you’re done. Enjoy using it while it’s there and leave before it’s gone.” But God never sat Eddie down for this little man-to-man, and Eddie wound up being the guy sucking his wife’s shit off someone else’s cock, metaphorically speaking, so far. What very little dregs of anger and hate he could muster he directed at God. “Chickenshit asshole,” he muttered.

  Pounding away, she seemed completely absorbed in her own pleasure, but she knew just when to ease off, slow down, slide long and slow so that he could feel the stubble rub against the head and then the shaft of his cock on the downstroke, and always, always the grunt and the gasp and the hard thrust down, beefy bone and stubble slamming against him, jamming him as deep inside her as she could pull him, and then a muscular vaginal squeeze that held him hard and fast and he’d come. She was milking him. She was a farm girl. And then she’d sit there, sweat-soaked and heavy, look down at him, take a slug of beer and smirk while he twitched and shuddered beneath her.

  Eddie sat on the floor rocking back and forth. He’d glance at the ceiling, mutter “fuck you,” glance at the clock to see if the whore was still there, 10 minutes since he’d last checked, two hours to go, glance at the damp wad of beer money, and then rock some more.

  She was a meat and potatoes fuck. Nothing fancy, but all he had for sustenance. She brought him food, she brought him liquor, she took him inside her and pounded him until she was nearly satisfied and he was nearly spent and then with a grunt and a gasp and a hard thrust, she’d suck him deep inside her meaty sanctuary and consume him.

  Eyewash

  Michèle Larue

  The three of us sat on the back seat of an Ambassador, bumping along the road from Madras. Our reward was to be Mysore, where the Indian driver ultimately set us down. One of my friends, big-boned and Irish, led us into the first hotel
that came along, the Sapphire, next to the bus station. Corrupted by Indian fatalism, we let her make all the decisions. At dawn, the bus drivers tested their engines beneath our windows before venturing out on to the streets. Kate, the Scot, lit her first Beedee. Our skin was oily, our hair lusterless, we were haggard and marked from the road. We needed to move upmarket.

  Built for some British Vice-Consul, the Lalitha Mahal Palace was the best in town. In a dining room done up in the manner of English pastries, Kate began finding fault with the waiters’ baggy trousers. She came from a family of penniless aristocrats and had latched on to the Irish Laura, who didn’t seem to mind paying her way. They both had the same scapegoat: the English. Kate was into females, but Laura paid no attention to her overtures, she was a man-eater who couldn’t go three days without a fuck. Whenever sex was in short supply, she had a change of personality.

  Then the bonze came in and our laughter froze on our lips. Athletic-looking, holding his shaved head high, he looked the diners over with mischievous eyes as he strode to a tableful of Americans. A childlike shoulder protruded from his saffron robe. Kate and Laura commented on his physique and asked my opinion.

  With tears in their eyes from the spicy food, they went over the games they might play at his expense. Kate would lift the sacred robe with her teeth – “100 per cent cotton, soaked in musk!” – Laura would tickle him with the feather tips of her earrings – “Only ten quid at Harrod’s, darling” – and finish with his bare feet, so appetizing in those sandals, with their well-cared-for toes. Then together, they would lick his buttocks – “Butterscotch, dearie, but zero calories.” The texture of his skin was anybody’s guess.

  The program included exploring his anus with a finger, and Laura held out the copper-green nails she stuck on with Crazy Glue. Kate would make comments on the boy’s expressions while Laura burrowed into him with her ring finger. Would he keep that serene expression that they both envied so much? One thing would lead to another and the next vile act would be tasting his anus. They would suck their greedy fingers right under the bonze’s nose, and soon a makeshift dildo would take their place, such as the penlight bulging through Laura’s pants pocket.

  They finally decided on a banana; Kate would stick it in, but which orifice? They argued. First the mouth, to get it wet. No, no, the asshole first, “It’s so much more humiliating, dearie!”

  My religious sensibility kept me from taking part in this deluge of pornography. Whenever one of them sought my approval, I would answer with a cowardly nod. To keep the fantasy alive, Kate kept ordering fresh pots of tea from the waiter. Beyond the range of their cocky voices, the living statue shone forth.

  Later I learned that the monk lived in a nearby camp of Tibetans. He was a political messenger, pleading the refugees’ cause to foreign benefactors. Kate led the way out of the restaurant and managed to touch the saffron robe. A flicker of amusement lit up the lama’s pupils. Surely that dazzling sparkle was meant for me . . .

  Out in the street, I put my hallucination down to collective hysteria. Kate resolved not to wash her hands for the rest of the day.

  En route for Blue Valley, we passed an elephant with her baby, then a busload of Japanese. An Indian army colonel was waiting for us on a wildlife preserve, in the middle of the unspoiled savannah of my dreams. The camp included a few permanent bungalows. During dinner, an officer wearing a blazer jacket told us of the elephants’ mating season and their sexual excitement, the musth, when they trampled everything in their path. Late that night, in spite of the fire in a ditch, a troop of them destroyed the lamps outside and beat on the walls of our bedrooms with their trunks.

  The next part of my dream materialized the next day. Perched on the back of a tame elephant, I photographed wild animals in their natural state; on the other hand, the idea of wild beasts terrified my two friends and they kept to the camp day after day. There was a private courtyard, safe from prying eyes, where they could strip to sunbathe. In the end, they got an urge for colonial nostalgia, just like their English “enemies,” and set off for Oloon, a tea-growing town in the hills. After a week of safari I’d had my fill of bears and buffaloes, and set out for Mysore, where we were to join up again.

  The windows of my hotel looked out on a ruined palace in an unattended park. By noon, the heat was stifling and I went for a swim at the Lalitha Mahal Palace. Feeling relaxed from the pool, with my hair still wet, I glimpsed a saffron robe going round a hallway turning. I met my rickshaw driver at the entrance. As we drove slowly over the dry lawns, the bonze appeared and waved to us. He was taking an elderly monk to the bus station. Sitting in the middle of the seat, the young lama took advantage of the first turn we took to put his arm around my waist. At the bus stop, I loaded sweets into the old man’s bag and we helped him to his seat.

  Lobsung, for such was the bonze’s name, came back to the hotel with me. No sooner had he come into the room behind me than he’d seized upon a pair of binoculars lying on the bed. Braced against the balcony railing, he was peering at the ruin across the way when he burst out laughing. I took my turn at the binoculars and saw across the lawn a tiny monkey hanging by his rear legs from a children’s swing. He was holding a kitten coiled in his long tail and buggering it as he swung. We could even hear the feline mewing. The monk’s laughing mouth blew cool air on the back of my neck. He pressed his chin into my flesh, began rummaging under my blouse with one hand while the other stroked my belly with juvenile awkwardness. I was dying to slip my fingers inside his robe, imagining the warm gap between his cool skin and the cloth.

  I showed him how to kiss. After that, I had to slow him down. He’d have licked my tonsils, so hungry was he for a woman. He peered down my cleavage: the virgin wanted to see everything there was to see on a female.

  He sniffed me and I did likewise. He had a sharp, woody smell, his skin tasted salty. He gave me the impression of someone who’d been told about sex and was busy checking out his second-hand anatomic knowledge. His breathing was slow and abdominal. “Working on his chi,” I said to myself while his girlish hands stroked my thighs.

  The moment the idea of chi entered my mind, all my thoughts focused on Lobsung and his breathing honed in on me. His mauve lips chanted weirdly into my vulva. The buzzing of a fly. Or sometimes the throbbing of a trombone. He blew his breath into my sex and sucked it out, humming all the while. He drew muted sounds from my nether parts, cavernous echoes of his own melody. I had become a Tibetan bagpipe. Blasts of hot air, gusts of wind, a Buddhist hurricane, blew my dress away like a Montgolfier balloon.

  Now his rangy body emerged in turn from the folds of orange. His legs grew thin at the ankles and his penis hung pointing at the floor. Without further ado, he sat down on top of me and began rubbing his perineum and buttocks against my belly. Then he came into me from above. Only our internal muscles moved, exchanging a series of voluntary contractions.

  He was attentive to my sensations, and waited until the time was ripe to move his organ in the proper way. My pleasure peaked each time he stopped. Orgasm was not a goal in itself, but a point of no return, a killjoy both of us were determined not to reach.

  To make the pleasure last, we drew apart. He lay on his back and worked on his energy, breathing slowly through his nose, not breathing at all for long stretches of time. Propped on my elbow beside him, I watched.

  After our first “climax of delight,” we began to explore further. With this man, pleasure involved different levels of intensity, stages to be negotiated. It was my turn to sit on top, with my legs wrapped around his hips. My belly shuddered electrically and I opened for him all the way. He lay with his eyes shut, motionless inside me, his firm hands resting on my shoulders. Then he withdrew. Wrapping a towel around himself, he went to the window, had a look at the monkey, and giggled.

  He wanted me to sit on him again, but the other way round, facing his feet. This time there was a whole succession of tiny movements and muted vibrations rose to my skull: the Will to Pure Ple
asure by osmosis. A Bengal light began to sizzle in my head. Nirvana lasted a long time, but in the end I couldn’t keep up with his tantric apprenticeship and collapsed on top of him, worn-out before I could come. Lobsung muttered something in his language, more like onomatopoeia than words, and went to sleep with a smile on his lips.

  In the cool of the morning, I went looking for my two friends near the bus station. By telepathy or bush telegraph, the desk clerk at the Sapphire predicted that “the English ladies” would be a day late.

  Back at the hotel, I saw Lobsung in the ruins across the lawn, weightlessly leaping between the windows. He did a double somersault, landed on his feet in a martial stance, went on to do forms. Then he levitated on the veranda steps. I remembered Kate’s horrified expression when a child stuck his fingerless hand through the car window for a cigarette and Laura’s cynical remark: “Eyewash!”

  I was on my way back to the hotel when I saw two silhouettes hobbling up the road with familiar-looking giant-sized suitcases rolling behind them. My friends were on the verge of exhaustion. From a distance, they’d taken me for a boy in my baseball cap.

  The Oloon–Mysore “express” had broken down in the middle of the wildlife sanctuary. Neither Laura nor Kate had left the bus for fear of elephants. They’d been terrified to see several passengers actually go off into the bushes to answer the call of nature. And when they opened their sponge bags, a horde of monkeys had swarmed into the bus through the open windows and made off with their cosmetics! At the Sapphire, they asked the desk clerk for their old room back.