“I’ll bet you were cute,” he said with a smile, as I lowered myself onto him and started my slow ride.
So cute, I told him, that even my oldest cousin – the one I had a crush on, the one who lives in Texas now – gallantly offered me a turn with his train set. Before I’d always had to beg and whine. But that day, I felt like a princess. And in trying to figure out what was different about it, I had my first inkling that the way to get something from boys is to look pretty. Then they’ll do anything for you. Isn’t that true? I asked him.
“Uh-huh,” he replied, arching back into the pillow.
Not long after that he asked me to kneel when he put on the blindfold. Then he went on to position my body with his hands, telling me to keep my back straight, my shoulders down, my chin up. He told me not to move, not even to smile. He proceeded to caress me, starting at my cheeks just below the edge of the blindfold. He traced my lips with one fingertip, drew ovals on my chin, brushed my neck and collarbone with feathery strokes. I managed to hold myself still until his hands moved to my breasts. That’s when he had to remind me of the rules and rearrange my body in the proper position. He even reprimanded me for breathing too quickly. “Slow, baby, nice and slow,” he whispered, smoothing the tension from my lips and jaw until I was quiet.
But then he started up again, rolling my nipples between his fingers like he was fine-tuning a radio, rubbing one breast then the other with a spit-moistened palm. He knew my body. I had my proof then, if there was any doubt before. And all I could do was squeeze my eyes shut tighter and tighter under the blindfold as my cheeks began to burn and a fine sweat rose like lubricant on the skin beneath his hands. Soon my chest was throbbing so violently, my ribs ached. By then he’d moved down to my belly, drawing strange shapes that sometimes – just sometimes – extended further down. Then he’d come back to tease my belly button with a wet finger, stroking, circling, slipping softly inside.
All the while my clit was growing heavy and hot. I imagined he could see it, poking out between my lips, flushed scarlet and shameless in its need. When he finally did touch it, I shuddered, earning me another scolding.
“Now, now. Don’t you remember? Good girls keep still and quiet while their wet, swollen clits are being rubbed.”
By then there was nothing I could do to stop myself from whimpering, Please, oh, please, I think I’m gonna come, but I guess the rules suddenly changed, because he pushed me back on the bed and entered me with an urgency that surprised me, that tiny part of me that was still capable of coherent thought. How could just touching me – a statue – excite him so much? But his breath was coming as fast as his thrusts, and I was not far behind.
The experience of orgasm in general is something I can easily conjure in my mind, but specific ones elude me. Even when I remember the circumstances of the lovemaking, the things we said and did, the climax blurs into a vague sensation of bliss. An ending. But that orgasm is one I still remember in my body, a searing rush of pleasure as my desire finally burst free, my skull blasted open to the rush of night wind, the chilled fire of the stars. And I remember marvelling afterwards that we had done it: we had found a way to make each time better than the last.
Of course it couldn’t go on for ever.
Earlier tonight I convinced him to watch an episode of an English TV series about a king with too many wives, because it was one of my favourite shows as a child. I had fond memories of sitting before the television with a notebook, sketching the Tudor gowns. But as I watched it again, I realized there was a lot I didn’t remember. The growing sense of doom, the ugly marital quarrels, the political intrigue, the scene where the queen’s musician was blinded under torture with a knotted rope. It was altogether too gloomy and talky, so I didn’t complain when he started reading something halfway through. I decided to be satisfied he was there with me, idly rubbing my toes with one hand, holding the magazine with the other.
I noticed, however, that he started paying attention again when the queen was imprisoned on trumped-up charges of adultery. When it got to the execution scene, he put down the magazine. And so we both watched, transfixed, as the queen glided over to the scaffold, made her poignant farewell speech, kneeled down before the block. The lady-in-waiting tied a narrow, snow-white blindfold over the kneeling woman’s eyes. In that one moment, before the sword, the actress looked more beautiful than ever, at least those parts of her set off by the blindfold above and the low-cut dress below: her pouting crimson lips, her fragile neck and the swelling of her breasts that rose and fell with each breath. I remembered something else from long ago, my brother and cousins in the back of the station wagon on a hot summer day, talking about that same television show. The only part of interest to them was when the queen “got her head chopped off”. At the time, I didn’t understand the edge of excitement in their voices.
But now I did.
We turn to each other with the same crooked, tight-lipped smiles.
“So, that was your favourite show?”
“Mmm,” I reply. “I’d forgotten about that part.”
We sit in silence.
Then I say to him, “What do you think goes through someone’s mind at a time like that?”
He thinks, brow furrowed, then shakes his head.
More silence.
“So what do you want to do now?” I ask.
He shakes his head again. “I don’t know. I’m in a weird mood.”
I’m well aware that interesting things happen when he is in a weird mood.
I give him a sidelong glance. “Do you want to blindfold me?” I can’t remember the last time we’d made love without it.
He looks at me curiously. “Now that would be too weird.”
“But I want you to. I guess I’m in a weird mood, too. How about it?” I poke him.
“No,” he replies sharply.
“How about ‘yes’?” I say, taking up the challenge. I’ll overcome his reluctance, make him want to do it. Before we had always glided into the game together, willingly, but I discover that this new element of conflict excites me.
He seems uneasy. “What’s with you tonight?”
“What’s with me? Who started this blindfold business anyway?”
“You didn’t take much convincing, if I remember correctly.”
This goes on for a while, until finally I ask, “Come on, what are you afraid of?”
That’s when I know I’ve won, even before he stalks off to the bedroom and returns with the blindfold balled up in his fist.
“Should I get undressed?” I ask with a coy smile. I am still expecting him to smile back, still waiting for that flicker of desire in his eyes. It’s always the last thing I see before the blindfold goes on.
But he just stares at me coldly. I’d never seen him quite like this before.
I sit up. “Well, what should I do?”
“Just get down on your fucking knees.”
He doesn’t seem to be pretending. I know I’m not pretending when I jump, when my jaw falls open in surprise. I really am afraid of him. Afraid to meet his eyes. Afraid to breathe.
I stand up and look around the living room for a place to kneel. The coffee table takes up most of the well-worn oval rug, but there is plenty of scarred hardwood floor.
“Can I get a pillow or something?” I attempt another smile.
“Shut up and kneel,” he says.
So, I kneel down and he ties the blindfold over my eyes.
The floor is hard and cold. I hear the tip-tap of his shoes as he leaves the room. I am alone. At first my mind is racing as I wonder what he could be doing. But then, as I wait in the stillness, with the blindfold on, I begin to feel safe. This darkness is familiar, with its memory and promise of pleasure, of yielding myself to him. The very air seems to press against me, heavy and faintly moist, the boundaries of my body softening with each breath.
Suddenly I hear footsteps behind me, a faint metallic clink. My shoulders tense, the air grows thin. Something very
cool and smooth settles on the right side of my neck. In the next instant I realize it is his hand. In a glove. A leather glove. It rests there for a moment, the fingers gripping my throat. The leather grows warm, sucking up the heat of my skin. Then it begins to move, stroking my neck, brushing my cheek. I sigh.
“Do you like this?” His voice sounds far away.
I hesitate, afraid to get the answer wrong. “Yes.”
“Then enjoy it while you can. Because after tonight I’ll never touch you again.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“I mean, this is the last time.” His hand slips away.
“I don’t understand. You’re leaving me?”
“Don’t worry, when it’s all over, you won’t care.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Come on now.” His voice is low, mocking as he turns my own words against me. “What are you afraid of?”
I swallow hard.
It is fear, this tightness in my chest, the tingling where my neck curves into my shoulder, the very place a blade would strike.
But he wouldn’t really go that far, would he?
Maybe he just enjoys watching me like this, the way my breasts quiver with each gasp and my lips part in an “o” as if I’m about to come. It would be more like him to tease me with the saber, ease the cool metal up between my thighs so I’m forced to ride it, avoiding the edges with exquisite care. He might even hold it to my neck as he pushes his cock into me and whispers, The last time, the last time, the words alone awakening hot tendrils of pleasure deep inside my cunt. And the ending would be sweet: no slow, grey withering, but a flash of silver behind my eyelids, a crimson flush rolling across my skin, a princess suspended in the prime of her beauty.
“This is part of the game, right?” My voice is pleading, hopeful.
At first he doesn’t reply. I hear the floorboards creak, another clink of metal. Footsteps circle around to my left and stop somewhere in front of me. Then he snorts, a soft hiss of air. “Don’t you see I’m tired of playing your sick games?”
My games?
For a moment I am aware of nothing but a coldness spreading up through my chest, down my arms, settling in my fingers as a dull, distant ache.
But suddenly I do see it, hovering against the blindfold: the image of myself as he really sees me now, as he must have seen me all along. A body – exposed and vulnerable – but not beautiful, not beloved.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I cry out, half choking on the words as I collapse to the floor, chest sagging onto my knees. I don’t want to cry, not in front of him, not now, so I press my palms over my eyes, but the tears come anyway, stinging as they rise, spilling over into the silk.
Hands grasp my shoulders. I twist away instinctively, but they hold me fast, and I begin to feel, through the cloth of my shirt, the warmth of skin, a gentleness in his fingers. Then he pulls me up, murmuring something I can’t hear through my own sobs. I struggle to my feet and bury my face in his shoulder. He strokes my back, swaying.
As I cling to him, I say less in accusation than wonder, “You were torturing me. Do you see that?”
“Isn’t it what you wanted?” he whispers.
“No. I don’t think so. I don’t know,” I say. In truth, I don’t think I’d ever really been aware of what I was asking him to do.
“Believe me, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I never want to hurt you.” His arms tighten around me, squeezing me with a force just short of actual pain.
It is the blindfold that suddenly seems unbearably tight.
“Take it off now. Please?” I could pull it off myself – it has always been a voluntary bondage – but I want him to do it. I want him to break the spell.
His hands fumble at the knot. Then he pulls the scarf free and lets it fall to the floor.
I look up and see that his eyes are wet, too, like wounds. I lean towards him. He closes his eyes, and so do I, an unthinking act that all lovers do. In that simple darkness we find each other’s lips. I want at this moment nothing more than the exquisitely ordinary comfort of his lips against mine.
It is enough.
The Penis of My Beloved
Ian Watson and Roberto Quaglia
During my Beloved’s lifetime his penis was of great importance to me – how could it be otherwise? Of course, there was much more to my Beloved than his penis. For instance, there was his tongue. I don’t merely refer to his skill at licking, but also to all the words he said to me (except obviously whilst licking). Words are so important to a woman during love, just as they are in the everyday aspects of life. Also, there were his dark eyes, which spoke volumes of silent poetry. Also, there were his arms which held me. I need not enumerate more – there was all of Oliver.
When my Beloved suddenly died of a heart attack, how desperately I craved to have him back again, alive.
This was possible due to advances in rapid cloning. However, a whole body cost a small fortune. Oliver and I had never given much thought to the morrow. Even by availing myself of a special offer from the Bodies’r’Us Clinic, and by paying on the instalment plan, the most I could afford was the cloning of a small part of Oliver.
Which part should it be? His right hand, sustained by an artificial blood supply and activated to a limited extent by a nerve impulse box with control buttons? Even a whole hand was out of my financial reach!
Should it be his tongue, likewise sustained by a costly blood supply?
Minus mouth and throat and vocal cords, a tongue could never say anything even if it wanted to, although it ought to be able to lick, for such is the nature of tongues. Body parts are aware of the role they play in the entirety of the body, consequently this memory lingers on even when they’re amputated or dissected, or in this case cloned. Oh yes, his tongue ought to be able to lick, although the sensation might seem to me more like a warm slug than his robust tongue of yore.
How about one of his eyes, which spoke volumes? The eye could rest upon an egg cup and form an image of me. Before going to bed I could perform a striptease for his eye. Yet to be perfectly frank, what could his eye do for me? Also, although I had no intention of ever being unfaithful to my Beloved, a naked eyeball might seem like a spy camera keeping watch. This wasn’t the kind of continuing intimacy I craved.
Really, my choice could only be the penis, especially as the cost was based upon the “normal” size when flaccid rather than erect. In this instance, the money I would be paying in any event for the blood supply, so as to keep the part alive, would provide a special bonus benefit, namely erection when the penis was caressed. You couldn’t say about any other cloned body part that your investment could grow ten-fold, as it were!
“You mightn’t realize,” the cloning salesman said to me, “that a penis becomes stiff not because of blood pumped actively into it by an excited body, but because certain penile muscles relax, which allows the blood to flow in and fill it. Normally the muscles are tense and inhibit the volume of blood – otherwise men would have permanent erections.”
“So if you feel nervous and tense, you never get an erection?”
The salesman flushed, as though I had touched on a sore point. He was a young man with ginger hair and many freckles. The wallpaper of the consultation room was Klimt, so we were surrounded by hybrids of slender women and flowers.
“Madam, it’s simply that you might be expecting too much. We can’t absolutely guarantee erection, for that would be to alter the biology of the penis. In effect we would be providing you with a bio-dildo rather than with a genuine cloned organ – and we don’t supply such things. Prostho-porn isn’t our profession.” This was spoken a shade tartly. The salesman may have been upset by my previous remark, supposing that it reflected upon his own virility.
I was sure that my Beloved’s cloned penis would remember my own particular touch and wouldn’t feel inhibited.
I made like a wide-eyed innocent. “Is ‘prostho-porn’ anyone’s profession?”
�
��I’ve heard that in China . . .” The salesman lowered his voice. “Multiple cloned cunts of pop stars in pleasure parlours . . .” Now he seemed mollified and was all smiles again. “This won’t be the case here! Your commission will be unique to you.”
“I should hope so!”
It goes without saying that I’d arranged for sample cells from all of Oliver’s important organs and limbs to be frozen in liquid nitrogen – which wasn’t too expensive – before the majority of his dear chilled body finally entered the furnace at the crematorium. I’d read that in another few years it might be possible to coax a finger or a penis, say, to diversify and regenerate from itself an entire body, but apparently this was a speculative line of research pursued by only a handful of maverick scientists. Small wonder: it’s much more common for a body to lose a penis than for a penis to lose a body! So I was sceptical of this possibility. In the meantime my dream of recreating the entirety of Oliver, to rejoin his penis, would remain a dream because of the cost.
“So that’s the famous penis!” exclaimed my neighbour Andorra, who was short and who spoke her mind. Andorra and I were best friends even before the sudden death of my Beloved, about which she was very consoling. Currently Andorra was working for the Blood Donor service.
Her parents chose the name Andorra to suggest that she would be adorable. Naming her after the tiniest independent state in Europe did prove prophetic as regards her stature and personality – she was short and assertive. Yet as regards adorability in the eyes of the opposite sex, the ploy failed. Andorra had only had one boyfriend, and he was a disaster. No one else tried to get into bed with her, or courted her. I think Andorra trained as a nurse due to reading too many doctor-nurse romance novels, many of which still littered her apartment next door to mine.
Next door to our apartment, I should say. Oliver’s and mine; mine and that of his penis.
Andorra’s dog Coochie sometimes chewed her romance novels or carried them around her apartment while awaiting her return from work, and a walk, and an emptying. Coochie was a yellowish Labrador.
The Mammoth Book of the Best New Erotica Page 53
