The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 5

by Maxim Jakubowski

  Madame Petra liked to be listened to. Shame we are a couple who both like to talk too much. Although we are now learning to pause, in the twilight of our youth. We are both still pretending middle age isn’t happening – despite my glasses and her various ailments. We still stay up all weekend every now and again. Which is easier now the chemistry students have shared their homework with the DJs and the club owners.

  I always thought the best times were private parties, most especially ones where there were only two guests. Where pleasure eventually mellows into an absence of strife. Chasing evermore frenetic highs can be a good way of checking out for good. I had so many near-death experiences with Ketamine that eternity will come as no surprise to me. Not after all those chats with St Peter, work experience as an angel and experiencing the interdependency of all matter and energy beyond life and death. You used to have to meditate to get to those places. Fifty years in a Zen monastery. Now it costs about ten quid and a train to Peckham.

  “Some of these sound like you,” she said, flicking through the book of Death Poems. ‘Fifty years. More than enough for me!’”

  “I suppose if you just spent fifty years on a mountain top eating cold white rice that’s probably an adequate sufficiency.”

  I was hoping she wouldn’t put another Rock Hudson – Doris Day movie on; she was hoping for some protestation of eternal love. Maybe that’s why there was extra warmth in the pussycat smile. There was a time when we could make each other literally groan and moan with gratitude. “Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!” we said, where other people would say “Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!” Not much of a poem. But heartfelt.

  However.

  What goes up must come down. And the many extremely bitter “this time it’s final” tussles sometimes lasted for months at a time. E-mails that would sizzle Charles Manson’s hair off. Vitriolic phone calls. Letters written in bile, baked in blood, then soaked in cat piss. It wasn’t nice. Not nice at all.

  Time eventually heals and there came a day when they started to tentatively take steps to start again. Four or five slumber sprawls into the peace process we were on the queen-size chocolate leather sofa, small black cups of aromatic green tea at hand. Various other aromatic herbs were being ingested as we discussed recent club depravity.

  “I saw a Domme make her sub beg for release while being stuffed over a trestle in a club,” I said.

  “Did he ask nicely?”

  “It was a woman. All that ‘Please may I come, Mistress’. It was really horny. It was Mistress Mayhem. And Mitzi. And the biggest strap-on I have ever seen.”

  In cold, damp weather I can still feel her strap-on – a multicoloured totem pole we named after an Amazonian lesbian tennis player. This particular item was not penis-shaped – therefore the weapon of choice for those who did not wish to be associated with men in any way whatsoever. She was the second women I had seen who put a smaller strap on and said, “I wish it was bigger.” Tell me about it.

  So we got the top of the range, if a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth overdoing. Back then our rule was no penetration by penis, to honour my primary partner, my dear beloved ex-wife. Perhaps it’s why our energy kept building. It’s harder to come, sex lasts much longer, you are forced to be more inventive.

  Actually all we ever needed was the scent of her breath or body, some lewd game that fired us up and small amounts of herbal inhibition-suppressants. That and not being chained together by marriage. (“They met, they fell in love and then tragedy struck . . . they got married . . .”)

  Our preliminary fumble was certainly working right now.

  “Look at you!” she said, speaking as if to compliment a child or a pet. Even feminists eventually discovered you get more out of a man with a compliment. Jolly good! And it only took them about twenty years . . .

  “It’s not Viagra, is it?”

  “Your blue eyes are the only blue pills I need.”

  She smiled. “You’re a poet.”

  Certainly poor enough to be one. That’s why you have to be charming to get past women’s insatiable desire for money. And their immediate perception that you don’t have any.

  “I don’t need V when I’m not on MDMA. Or dead drunk,” I said, unwisely. It was true, but reminded her that all men care about is their dicks and not their partner’s emotional and physical well-being. Not to mention whatever that oxytocin nonsense is again, that hormone produced by – what’s the word we often forget when wrapped up in this stuff? Love! Of course. How silly of me . . . A type of love that is easy to reference because it isn’t a sentence of death – thirty years of shared family, money, health and property worries. Married love? Don’t make me laugh . . .

  Marriage becomes a prison pretty quickly. But at least it’s an open jail. As for the transfer to death row that the divorced suffer, the solitary confinement where penniless bachelors wait to die alone . . . the place where I live. Maybe that open jail wasn’t too bad after all. If only men didn’t keep searching while women kept on nesting. If I ever meet Mother Nature I’m going to . . . what can you do? She always wins . . .

  There may be short poems about divorce but I would rather write or read about actual death than spend any more time mired in bitterness, revenge and greed. Except to say: eroticism is a pitiless mistress. She doesn’t like mortgage and marriage. She likes mad dashes across town in the middle of the night and secret e-mails and guilt and terror and beauty and the inevitability of divorce. Even if you can see it coming three years ahead, as I could, there was still no stopping it.

  And then the questionable stream of silly (male) sluts I resorted to when Venus slammed the door shut, the transgender caravanserai: beautiful creatures, exotic blooms. Extremely exhilarating. For a while . . . until all that chitter chatter and tranny prattle starts to pall. Like those snake oil books: “How to keep your marriage hot.” “Making Love to the same person forever.” They might sell. Diet books sell. Doesn’t make them true.

  Maybe I have been drawn to mysticism recently because that is all there is left. Space, silence, asceticism.

  The Zen of

  no

  thing.

  Sweet Fuck All is all I have left.

  In these circumstances it’s a miracle I can persuade anyone to perform any sort of lewd, libidinous service. She backs her soft, insistent undercarriage into me.

  Thank you, Lord. Such abundance. Rolling rump. Humping haunches. It’s always good to slip a thumb in her as she backs towards me, hear her sigh as she bends forward to enable a gentle stir of the honey pot. Once she had that clit bar put in there’s no real excuse any more for not giving her a proper tweak or twiddle. You can’t plead ignorance of where it is any more . . . certainly not when most people are shaved these days. The clean pucker of her anus winks seductively. Demanding to be kissed and teased gently open with the tip of the tongue.

  Madame Petra certainly has one of the plumpest and juiciest rumps, firm yet tender, a big heart-sized bum that wobbles when spanked, sizzles up nicely when flogged and spreads willingly when stroked.

  Her pelvis rotates as slowly and pleasingly as a bossa nova, the circular motion that makes the world go round, the dance that fires up the men and fills up the women.

  It would be tempting to heat her up with a subtle prod or even a cheeky little tweak but we seem to have tired of sub/dom and the often tiresome power games that might have been hot but seemed to have dreadful consequences. We eventually discovered that playing with the dark forces of violence and cruelty was dangerous. Who’d have thought it? say the general public, shaking their heads at the idiocy of it all. Well, yes, perhaps we should have caught on to that one a little quicker. So now it’s a matter of forging an equal exchange. Match up the yin and yang. Let the water find its own level. Having said that . . . as she’s doing some sort of backwards lap-dance right in front of me, taunting me with those gorgeous honey cushions, I might as well plant one upward SMACK on the lower curves and watch her flesh wobble up and then down.r />
  Ride the ripple. Watch the wave. She gasps and sighs. So, while we’re here, we might as well have a few more of those liveners. Just to drop some spice into the pot. And maybe her scent is a little stronger now.

  She peels her flimsiest knickers down and waggles her bottom cheeks at me with a lascivious smile. Lawdy. Miss. Clawdy. Great Globes of Fire. Big heart. Big butt. Something splendid to grab hold of. And knead and stroke and kiss and . . . Stop slobbering, boy, slow down. Most of it’s pheromones and scent, of course. The merest hint of gaminess does help. While it’s nice that scene players’ asses tend to smell more like Body Shop gift packs these days, there should be a touch of truffle in the mix or there is no reason to get excited about these dark delights. It’s time to poke the tip of my tongue through the puckered ring, a moment to hear a long slow grateful moan and breath exhalation.

  Back then.

  “Oooh! You are spoiling us, Ambassador,” she said.

  It’s the kitschiest ad ever, supposedly upmarket chocolates on a silver salver at the ambassador’s reception and the grateful guests greasing up the host. But I know where I would rather be. Between four walls with Madame Petra. Needless to say she would prefer to doing this in a fetish club. To show off. To be validated. I’d rather snuggle up in a burrow somewhere but then why should we agree? We’re a couple. Sometimes. These times.

  One or two gentle slaps towards the base of the buttocks send soft ripples upwards, warms her a little, says hello and remember the zillion times we did that? Breaking through many pain/pleasure barriers, untying a few psychic knots left-over from various traumas. Converting past pain to present pleasure.

  “No, let’s do it face to face,” she said, as I’m starting to manoeuvre her somewhere I could ease in. “Let’s stare in each other’s eyes.”

  And be smothered by your desire for a long future together? Can’t do it. But you can’t say that out loud. Not and keep your teeth. How do I get out of this?

  “I don’t want a relationship any more,” she says, spotting me looking like a frightened rabbit. Being drilled by the headlights of decades more responsibility, not the first thing you are looking for after an acrimonious divorce. “I told you that.”

  So she did. But the cold wind still howls. And she’s still Miss Bossyboots. Paid to be bossy during the day and always glad to take her work home with her.

  I’m still in thrall, despite it all. Still in harness.

  It’s time.

  Rather than mess everything up like young people would, we follow our ritual. Moisten the earth before you plant. Follow the anal sex code: glove, lube, fingertip, finger. Although we don’t need rubber gloves, being among friends. Flawlessly filed fingernails goes without saying . . .

  Maybe I would have got thrown out for some other reason. Marriage is just a business to women. They have to be more hard-hearted than men about it. And when they’ve extracted the breeding sperm it’s time to downsize. Sorry. We don’t really need an armchair occupier and remote control operative, thank you very much. The children might find you entertaining. They might love you. But I want money.

  Write out one million times. Don’t marry for love. At least mistresses don’t want your money, should you have any, or your sperm for breeding. They don’t want you to meet their parents. They just want warmth. Heat. A bit of a break from the bleak midwinter of most people’s lives.

  So let’s get back in the warmth. In the flat with the chocolate brown sofa. Back to where membranes sing and deep grunts signal rich, yeasty pleasures. Our heart’s desire. Rude health. Ruddy ruttings.

  Some may have heard enough of men burying their faces deep into the widening cheeks and licking feverishly while gently rubbing the clit bar with the tips of their fingers and rootling deep inside the vagina with a busy thumb while snuffling in the scent of life and death. But there’s plenty of soap operas on the telly. I’d rather do this.

  And what’s THIS? An actual erection has appeared, a minor miracle in the Chinese year of crystal MDMA and K-addled hog . . . We have lift off. Queue here to enter the tunnel of death.

  Feverish fingers fiddle with the condom, unscrew the Prince Albert ring that is really best left out of this delicate nudging, easing, teasing . . . and . . .

  “More lube!” she said, yelping a little, also sending out little thought darts intended to lodge deep inside my aura, their sharp steel tips sending out a little starburst of pain which would remind me – forever, hopefully – that the anus has no natural lubrication.

  Let there be lube. This be the law. Pour on the oil. Water the earth. Then plant carefully. And slowly.

  In.

  Again.

  “Aaaah!”

  This time a soft long sigh of pleasure. It has been said that women can lie about vaginal intercourse. They can fake orgasms, fake every single thing about it. But there is less room for the thespian’s art where the ass is concerned. And no more space for words any more as we head for space. Orbiting Saturn. Dark side of the moon.

  Stirring the brew brings us close to fruition. After which there will be a final abandoned sprawl waiting for a brief smudge of sleep. Hugged by a golden ring.

  Some call it a starfish. Perhaps it’s a pink snowflake. Which will one day dissolve in crisp, cleansing air. As we all will. Becoming a different energy. Matter in motion.

  Someone, something, somewhere else. Wafted along by the wind and the waves.

  For ever.

  In the Stacks

  Kristina Wright

  He came in one evening shortly before the library closed, looking for information on nautical knots. I pushed my glasses up on my nose and searched the data base. Four titles, all about knots. He smiled, this quirky little smile that hinted at some secret I couldn’t begin to fathom, thanked me and left with three of the books. The fourth didn’t have enough pictures, he said. He liked pictures.

  I forgot about him. You tend to forget the ones that only come in occasionally, that ask one question and never come back. But he came back. I don’t remember how long it was. A month, maybe two? But he came back and something about that little smile reminded me of the knots.

  He wasn’t handsome in the classical sense. He was average looks, average height. The kind of guy who could be really cute if you liked him or nondescript if you’d only met him once or twice. But the smile, that made him stand out. It would be awhile before I’d notice that his eyes held the same secretive amusement as his smile.

  The next time he came to the reference desk he asked about the Marquis de Sade. Not his fiction, a biography. Not a usual request for a small town library in the heart of Virginia. I checked the database. Just two biographies on the Marquis. He took them both. I felt a little strange leading him back toward the biography section, deep in the shadows of the nonfiction stacks. Maybe it was the smile.

  I pulled the books and handed them to him.

  “Ever read him?” he asked, tapping the cover of the top book.

  I could feel myself blush as I shook my head. “Uh, no.”

  That smile again. Amused, knowing. “But you know who he is.”

  Not a question, but I nodded. Then I hurried out of the stacks and back to the refuge of my desk with a muttered, “I have patrons waiting.” I didn’t and he knew it. I think I heard him laugh.

  After he left, I looked him up. It’s against the rules, but I needed to know. His name was Justin Brant and he was forty-one years old. I knew the neighborhood he lived in, it wasn’t far from my own townhouse. I also knew the types of books he liked – historical biographies of questionable characters and action-adventure. Harmless enough. Yet something about him stayed with me long after he left.

  I’m embarrassed to say I checked the status on the de Sade biographies for the next couple of weeks. He renewed them both once. I found that interesting. Either he didn’t have time to read them or he was being very thorough in his research.

  He came in one night just before closing. I didn’t see him at first; I was r
eading over some paperwork when I felt his gaze like a weight on my shoulders. I glanced up to see him staring intently at me.

  “May I help you?” I asked, sounding colder than I felt. My palms were already beginning to sweat and he hadn’t said anything to me.

  He smirked. “No, I found what I was looking for this time.” He gestured at the stack of books in his hand. The title of the top one mentioned nude photography.

  “Oh.”

  The smirk deepened. “I was wondering if you’d like to have coffee sometime, maybe one night after work?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said quickly, glancing around to see if anyone had heard him. “I mean – thank you, but I don’t think we really have much in common.”

  The smirk never faltered. “No? What a pity. I thought I turned you on.”

  He was gone before I could pick my jaw off the floor.

  I was curious, I admit it. So when I pulled out of the parking lot half an hour later, I turned left instead of turning right. I drove the five miles to the street where he lived. I turned on the street in a very nice subdivision and I drove along the main road that circled the hundred or so houses. I found his house, tucked in a cul-de-sac. I was so intent on making sure I had the right house number, I didn’t realize someone was getting out of the Mercedes in the driveway. It was him!

  I sped away, heart hammering in my chest. He couldn’t have seen me, he wasn’t looking in my direction. Still, I could feel my cheeks flush hotly as I drove the few miles to my house. Whatever his charm, I wouldn’t do that again.