Back in the present, I turned off the television, splashed water on my face, then went and sat on the edge of the bed. The full-length antique mirror in the corner glanced back at me. It had watched us always, including the night I found myself on the brink of weeping from the melding of our souls. Her breath had fallen softly upon my neck as I held her, close as a person could without disappearing.
“I love you, Carmen.”
I took the few steps toward the mirror and unbuttoned my jeans. Slowly easing down my panties, it came into view. Open and unfolded, it was an exact copy of hers, repositioned so the tendril led to the very top of my folding flesh. I moved a fingertip within myself then brought it higher. The hues of the flower, already quite vivid from daily care, glistened.
I drew a breath as the tears rose up. No longer afraid, I reached for my phone.
CUCUMBERS AND CREAM
Helen Sandler
I only went down to the bar to watch the show. I was feeling pretty chilled, rolling up there just before I expected the act to come onstage. One of the other regular MCs, Tatiana, a big brash doll of a girl in a ripped, punk T-shirt, was sitting at a table in front of the DJ booth with her manly/womanly girlfriend and cheeky-chappie boyfriend. The entwined group was like an ad for the genderfuck love-in that is our little club.
But when I asked, “Are you compering tonight?” Tatiana said, “No, I think you are.”
I reeled away, wondering if I’d got it wrong…spinning right into the arms of the club promoter, Reno. She held me in a comforting bear hug as she asked, “You wanna host tonight?”
“I just came down to hear the band,” I said.
“The band canceled, Tatiana’s feeling vulnerable, Freddy wants to do tech…I can go on, but I’d love it if you’d do it.”
“Oh, okay.” I regrouped. “So who’s on?”
“An amazing burlesque duo who are over here from Paris. They’re backstage now. Go meet them and see how they want to be introduced and we’ll go on in fifteen.”
“You want me to go backstage and talk to the strippers while they get changed?”
“Yes, why not?”
“Why not indeed?” I laughed, shaking my head at my good fortune.
“Just don’t call them ‘strippers.’”
“I should probably tell you I haven’t got a pen and paper, I’m not dressed to go onstage and I’m mildly stoned. Oh, and I haven’t put wax in my hair.” I ran a few fingers through my gray quiff; it was fluffy instead of stiff.
“Go ask Siggy for what you need,” she said, gesturing toward the DJ booth. “Wait! Lemme see what you’re wearing.”
I unzipped my leather jacket to reveal a hoodie and a well-worn T-shirt from the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival with a bent signpost on the front. I didn’t know what year it was from, but it wasn’t recent.
“You’ll do. Call it ‘chilled vintage.’” She looked me in the eye. “How stoned are you?”
I knew Reno didn’t approve of even the mildest of illegal substances. She had told me in the past to avoid making drug references from the stage, in case it encouraged younger people to take up the habit. But I can’t take my drink, so the occasional joint is my way of unwinding.
“A bit.” I crossed my eyes.
She laughed and I realized there would be no condemnations this evening. “This should be interesting. Well, you didn’t plan to go on tonight and neither did they, so anything that happens will be spontaneous. And that’s how we like it here!” She guffawed and I knew what she meant: that the club was all about the improvised, the ad hoc and the edgy—Reno took risks, so did the acts and the audience, and it generally paid off.
I tripped up to the DJ booth where our resident hipster bear, Siggy, asked me not to talk to him. “When I’m DJ-ing, I’m performing, I can’t chat.”
Rejected, I tripped back down to the shabby dressing room. I knocked and entered—and immediately felt welcome. Two beautiful younger women in underwear were exchanging makeup, and they smiled at me in the mirror. I tried to retain a professional demeanor as I introduced myself as the host for the night, while taking in the view.
One girl had wavy blonde hair, generous tits and the curvy belly of an early pregnancy; she greeted me in a French accent, professional and restrained. This was Marie. Her friend Leila had a dark bob, skinny frame, and removed her everyday bra while she was talking to me, to reveal small pert breasts and beautiful pink nipples that I tried not to stare at. Leila was friendly and confident, telling me exactly how to introduce them. She looked me in the eye as she talked about their act…then pressed her fingers deep inside her lacy panties, apparently making some professional adjustment.
“I might need your help after the show,” she said in a light American accent as she put on a raunchier bra to match the panties.
“That can be arranged.” I spoke calmly but had to plant a hand on the counter to steady myself. In the mirror: silvery hair shaved short at the sides with semierect quiff, that “vintage” T-shirt, dark jeans with a telling bulge for those who cared to look…which part of the package had caught her attention?
I had recently watched a TV comedy in which a male scriptwriter is stuck in a dressing room with the female star of his show, who takes off her bra while chatting with him. That moment flashed through my mind.
Rationally, I knew that in this situation, any act would be getting changed, and a burlesque act would be less shy than some others about doing so in front of the MC. It wasn’t a come-on, even though it felt like it. But what was she doing now? Still moving her hand about in her panties for some reason.
I forced myself to look away. The small space was crammed with their stage props: a bouquet of dark red roses; a flowery china tea set spilling from a vintage wicker picnic basket; an abundance of ripe strawberries atop a bag of groceries. These girls did not travel light.
Reno burst into the dressing room. She’s a big soft daddy of a woman who you’ll find in a sweatshirt in winter, a T-shirt branded with the name of the club in summer, leather harness at any play party within a thousand miles of London…all the genders at once.
“You know we’re going to make a mess of the stage?” asked Leila.
“Yes, yes, it’s not a problem. Freddy will clear up after the lights go down at the end of your act. And maybe our host will help if we’re nice to her. Right?”
“Sure,” I said.
“If there’s any piss, I’ll bring the bucket myself!” Reno said with a laugh, and I wasn’t sure if this was likely or not.
They talked about spray-cream and the breakable, antique picnic set, and I wondered what exactly they were going to do. When Reno left, Leila turned to Marie and said, “At the end of the cucumber, can you remember to make allowances for me getting the cork out.”
“Bien sûr.”
My mind was boggling. When they started to discuss whether Leila should or should not be wearing white panties and she said she’d stopped bleeding and reached down to pull out her menstrual cup, I finally found the tact to leave the room.
I had a pee, did what I could about my hair and picked up free drinks from the grungy barman for the duo. When I returned to the dressing room, Leila and Marie were resplendent in 1950s polka-dot dresses with ribbons in their hair and carefully drawn makeup to extend the line of their eyes. They both wore glossy lipstick and were gleamingly perfect.
“Ready girls?” I asked.
“Sure are!” said Leila. She scooped up the bunch of red roses from the counter and pressed them into my arms, taking the opportunity to brush her hands against mine.
“You shouldn’t have,” I jested, as her touch buzzed through my body.
“Strew these round the front of the stage for us, sweetie?”
The air between us was electric as I stood waiting for the theme music for my entrance. My mind was not my own. The encounter with Leila, spiced with the pot I’d smoked earlier, was separating me from reality so that the part of me that would usually be pl
anning what to say didn’t give a shit.
My theme song belted through the speakers: “Intermission” by the Scissor Sisters. I parted the red velvet curtains and stepped out onto the stage I know so well, my arms full of roses. But I was laughing before anything had happened, before I’d said anything funny. Somehow I redeemed myself, giving a bit of chat, then building up the burlesque act and making the odd joke. It helped that Leila had given me a great line.
“Put away your phones and your cameras,” I told the audience, “because there will be no photographs tonight.” There was a groan of protest. “Tonight there will be only mental snapshots .” I loaded the phrase with perversion and they laughed. “Mental snapshots that will stay with you for the rest of your life. If you try to take a photo, the girls will have to kill you. Which would you prefer? No, don’t answer that, you perverts, just put your hands together for…the Paris Paramours!”
As I said this, I cast the flowers down on the stage in an arc. The applause was tremendous. I’d done my job. On came the duo with their wicker basket, as I crossed behind them and quietly slipped out front to watch. No way was I going to miss this act!
They had asked me to give Siggy a CD of four tracks to play for them. The first was a slow, summery number to which they unpacked their picnic before lazing on the ground, feeding each other strawberries. They were both dancers and their graceful movements and charming smiles made it uncertain whether things would get truly raunchy.
By the third track though, the mood shifted. Marie started to doze and Leila gave a devilish smile and threw her arms in the air as a naughty thought occurred to her. She was going to take advantage of her friend’s dulled senses to seduce her.
The more I saw, the more difficult it was to act like a professional compere instead of a drooling fan. The dresses they wore must have had special fastenings for their stage act because Leila managed to rip off the top half of Marie’s frock and reveal her well-filled bra. The blonde girl kneeled up, as if suddenly awoken by this enforced disrobing, and the two of them exchanged dramatic, smoochy kisses.
Piece by piece, they undressed each other to more traditional striptease music, flinging flowery cotton and delicate lace around the stage with abandon. But Leila—“my” Leila as I was beginning to think of her—needed to keep the upper hand. She bent over the picnic basket and pulled out two long, deep-pink bondage ropes that she wound around her friend’s pregnant belly and down around her black lace pants (her one remaining item of clothing), stroking her all the while.
The French girl was now held captive. Leila kissed her delicately, then with a malevolent grin to the audience, grabbed a bunch of roses from the stage, raised them above her head and brought them down with a thrash on the creamy flesh exposed around the ropes. Marie let out little exaggerated cries of pain and astonishment as the flowers came down in rhythm, then she sank to the floor in a faint.
Leila took pity on her. Turning gentle and soothing, she took up a can of cream from their abandoned picnic and sprayed it over Marie’s tits, then made a big show of licking it off. I found myself breathing in time with those licks and realized my mouth was wide open. I like a girl who can take control.
But the tables were about to turn. Marie snuck out from under Leila, broke free of her bonds, took up a cucumber from the basket and started to brandish it about. The brunette beauty feigned horror, pointing at the cucumber and shaking her head—apparently it was too big. So Marie took up a gigantic kitchen knife and wielded that instead. First Leila widened her eyes in even greater horror and the audience laughed, then her tormentor used the knife to whittle down the cucumber.
Apparently we were building toward the grand finale to which they had alluded in the dressing room.
The French girl first pushed the vegetable into Leila’s mouth, watching her suck and lick on it. Then she removed it and moved behind Leila, showing the cucumber to the audience like a magician, before bending to her task. I had a magnificent view of Leila’s naked body as she gave in to lust and bent forward to allow her friend full access. She was about to get well and truly fucked and I was soaked with desire. I wanted to do what Marie was doing, as she eased the wet dong between Leila’s legs and up, up… One person whooped. I thought maybe it was Siggy. The rest of us were incapable of sound, as Marie pulled the cucumber in and out of Leila’s tight pussy, somehow retaining her poise all the while. We were each glued to the spot, watching in awed and delighted silence as this full-on sex show thrust toward its climax.
That cucumber was having quite an impact on Leila’s entire body. As she struggled to stay standing, her carefully composed features now betrayed a hint of her genuine enjoyment of the fucking she was getting. The thrusting grew faster and faster, the music built to a crescendo and, right on cue, the two girls shuddered together in ecstasy. At that moment, Leila somehow managed to pop open a bottle of sparkling wine and spray it dramatically into the audience.
Released from the spell and showered with its magic simultaneously, the audience cried out or laughed in delight. The butches and trans guys standing in the front shouted, “Oi!” as they shook wine from their carefully waxed hair, but really, who could object after what we had just witnessed?
I sprinted up the steps to the wings, ready to go on as soon as the girls came off. But when they appeared, stark naked, from the wrong direction, I realized they must have exited into the audience before following me up the steps and through the dressing room.
“Well done!” I whooped. “That was amazing.” Marie nodded coolly; Leila smirked and winked. I picked my way through the devastation on the stage, trying not to stomp on the irreplaceable china.
“Did you enjoy that?” I asked into the microphone. The crowd roared. I was giddy myself so I knew how they felt. “Give them another round of applause!”
As the clapping burst forth, Marie and Leila pulled open the drapes to take another curtain call. I stood there, watching them in all their glory, curtseying inches away from me. As they left the stage once more, I said to the audience, “Well, I think I need to have a lie-down now…probably backstage.” I winked as I bowed and took my leave.
The two performers seemed calm and neat now in their lingerie, putting things away in boxes and bags. Had my moment passed?
“I’ll go and clear up,” I said.
“Come back when you’re done,” said Leila, giving me an intense look that could mean only one thing. Marie raised an eyebrow at her. I just nodded.
I tried to ignore the fact that my hands were shaking as I helped a mohawked young Freddy to clear the stage. She’d brought the cleaning gear from behind the bar and was already energetically engaged in her task. I wrapped the honored cucumber in paper towels before dropping it into the bin with the kind of respect I might give a dead bird in the garden.
“I just went and had a wank,” said Freddy, with her usual lack of inhibition. “I couldn’t wait.”
She must have been quick about it.
“I think I may have something better lined up,” I told her. “I think…” I could barely say the words. “I think Leila is interested in me.”
“Oh, boy. Oh, girl! They are both so hot. Good luck!”
I nipped into the unisex loos to wash my hands. I hadn’t been in a relationship for a while and I took every chance I could for sex, but this was an opportunity sent from heaven, so good that I didn’t quite believe it…until I passed Marie on her own at the bar and realized she had vacated the dressing room to give Leila some space.
After hosting the cabaret on and off for the past year, I’ve had a few fantasies about what could happen in that room, but this would be the first time I’d put it to the test. I knocked and entered. Leila was standing there, still in her panties, but she had removed the little lacy bra. She leaned back against the counter. “You came back,” she said, smiling. “My silver fox.”
I didn’t trust myself to speak. I tried to make an asset of silence, cupping her face in my hand. Her skin was warm
and smooth; her deep, dark eyes cheeky and seductive. I loved that she had just revealed everything to everyone but saved the after-party for me.
“You had better be packing,” she told me.
I licked her face. Don’t ask me why. I just wanted to do it and I had the feeling I could do anything I wanted. I pressed into her so she could feel my hard cock through my jeans, its head pushing against her crotch through the thin lace of her panties. She gasped. I touched my lips to hers and they opened, our tongues meeting hungrily. I knew her performance had made us both hot in different ways.
“Did you come onstage?” I asked.
Leila shook her head. “It’s a performance,” she said.
“You got fucked with that cucumber in front of all those horny people by that gorgeous friend of yours and you didn’t come?”
“I need a butch to make me come,” she said, with an odd, ironic smile that meant it might be true or might just be a tease. I didn’t mind either way. It was a game I was willing to play.
Her lipstick was still shining and I honed back in on that luscious mouth, her wet lips opening to mine. She was ready to melt for me. I slipped a hand into those gossamer panties and gasped at how wet she was. Her hips pushed forward and my fingers slid into that delicious cunt. “Ohhh,” she moaned from the back of her throat as we continued to kiss like hungry picnickers.
Then she pulled her mouth from mine to murmur, “I don’t have much time. Marie gets tired…with the pregnancy.” She grabbed at my hair and spoke right in my face. “Just fuck me with your cock. Fuck me hard.”
I didn’t need to be asked again. I turned her around to fold her lithe body over the counter, unzipped and groaned as I inched aside those lacy panties to press my silicone dick into her wet cunt, watching it slide in just like that cucumber, watching Leila’s face contort in the mirror, so different from her controlled, onstage expressions.
Best Lesbian Erotica 2013 Page 3
