The man who had won the quickly organised auction came forward. He looked quite ordinary, late twenties, an athlete’s build, not very hairy, he had kept his shirt on but his cock already jutted forward as he approached Susi’s receptive body. He was uncut and his foreskin bunched heavily below the mushroom cone of his glans. He was very big.
The man found his position at Susi’s entrance and bucked forward and speared her. A few spectators applauded but most remained quite silent. From where he sat, he couldn’t see Susi’s face, only her white arse and the hypnotising sight of the dark, purple cock moving in and out of her, faster and faster, every thrust echoed by a wave of movement on the periphery of her flesh, like a gentle wind caressing the surface of a sand dune.
It lasted an eternity, much longer he knew than he would have ever managed. The guy was getting his money’s worth. And the audience, many of whom were blatantly playing with themselves in response to the spectacle unfolding before them. She would be very sore at the end of this. Sweat coated Susi’s body like a thin shroud as the man dug deeper and deeper into her and he watched her opening enlarge obscenely under the pressure of that monstrous cock.
Shamefully, he couldn’t keep his eyes away from the immediate perimeter of penetration, noting every anatomical feature with minute precision, the vein bulging on the side of the invading cock as it moved in and out of sight in and out of her, the very shade of crimson of her bruised labia as they were shoved aside by the thrusts, the thin stream of inner secretions pearling down her inner thigh, and neither could he prevent himself getting hard again watching the woman he knew he had fallen in love with getting fucked in public by a total stranger.
That night, she curled up against him in the slightly exiguous hotel room bed, drawing his warmth and tearing him apart inside.
They had packed and waited in the hotel’s lobby for the airport shuttle they had booked earlier that morning. One suitcase each, a Samsonite and a Pierre Cardin. They hadn’t discussed yesterday night, acted as if nothing had happened. They had the same flight to Chicago where they would part. He on to London, she to Vienna. Now he knew, he would want to see her again, in Europe. It would be easier. They had come through this crazy experience and he realised how much she had touched his heart.
The blue mini-coach finally arrived, ten minutes late and he picked up the suitcases and carried them to the pavement. As he was about to give her case to the shuttle’s driver, Susi put her hand on his arm.
“Yes?”
He had never realised how green her eyes were.
“I’m not coming,” she calmly said. “There’s nothing for me back home. I’m staying in New Orleans.”
“But . . .”
She silenced him with a tender kiss to his cheek. When he tried to talk again, she just quietly put a finger to his lip indicating he should remain silent.
“No,” she said. “No explanations. It’s better like this.”
The driver urged him to get on board.
As the shuttle moved down Burgundy, he looked out of the window and saw Susi walking to a parked car with her suitcase. Louis stood next to it. The shuttle turned the corner and he lost them from sight.
The short drive to Moisan was the loneliest and the longest he had taken in his life.
He would, in the following years, continue to write many stories. That was his job after all. In many of them, women had red hair, green eyes and bodies of porcelain white. And terrible things happened to them: rape, multiple sex, prostitution, drug addiction, even unnatural forced sexual relationships with domestic animals. But they all accepted their fate with a quiet detachment.
He would continue to occasionally meet up with strange men and take uncommon pleasure in sucking them off. This he did with serene indifference, because in his mind it didn’t count. It was just sex, meat, it was devoid of feelings.
He never visited New Orleans or saw or heard of Susi again.
The Heart in My Garden
Carol Queen
These days there’s a lot of money to be made if you’re in the right place at the right time, if you keep your shoulder to the wheel. That’s how Mike and Katherine got their nice house, their cars (hers with that new-car smell still in it), an art collection, and a healthy nest egg. The house is close to San Francisco. Her car is a Mercedes. The art is mostly modern, up-and-coming painters you’ll read about in Art Week any day now.
They’re young enough that they don’t have to worry about kids yet, so they don’t – if you asked them, both would say, “Oh, kids are definitely on the agenda,” though they’d sound a little vague. They’re old enough that the honeymoon’s over, neither of them quite remembering when it ended.
Seven years is a long time to be married. Still, aside from that, things are sweet. The rhythm of their weekdays, long-familiar now, has them clacking along toward the weekend like they’re on a polished set of tracks. They fill weekends with rituals of their own.
It dawns on Katherine very, very gradually that she can’t remember the last time they made love. She knows they did when they spent that weekend in Monterey – Mike’s last birthday. In that romantic B&B, how could they resist the impulse to fall into each other’s arms? And it’s always a little exciting to be away from home. But they had to break it off in time to get in a day at the aquarium – the whole reason they went – so Mike could see the shimmery glow-in-the-dark jelly-fish, delicate neon tendrils floating in the black water. He had seen a special about them on the Discovery channel, had to see for himself. She lost her heart to them too: she and Mike stayed in the darkened room for almost an hour, silent, side by side with their hands clasped together so lightly that for minutes at a time she lost track of the sensation of his skin against her palm.
That’s what she likes about being with him. It’s so easy. They can drive together silently, not feeling as if a conversational black hole has swallowed them; they can spend Sunday mornings reading the paper and trading sections with a touch on the arm; they fill each other’s coffee mugs without being asked and hand back the steaming, fragrant cups accompanied by a little kiss. After that they work in the garden, sometimes side by side, sometimes like her grandparents used to: Granddad in the vegetables, Gram in the flowers. She can imagine the next fifty years passing this way.
They must have had sex since Monterey – that’s four months ago – but she can’t remember it. Mostly now they do it late at night, right before sleep, but it’s not on a schedule like practically everything else. Neither is it very predictable, tied to watching the Playboy channel or Real Sex on HBO; lately they don’t watch those shows much anyway. If you asked Katherine, she’d probably say she doesn’t really notice, nor does she notice being turned on, wanting sex, thinking about it very often. There was a time when she lived in almost constant arousal, but that was years ago. She and Mike had just met; she was so much younger then. She’s always too busy now, tired all the time, except when they get away for a few days. And they haven’t had time to leave town since that weekend in Monterey. Katherine’s lawyer; Mike’s software company will go public early next year. And if you asked Katherine whether her friends have more sex than she and Mike, she’d probably tell you not much – everybody’s so busy now. Everyone has to concentrate on reaching for the brass ring. How else could you afford a house with a garden, two cars, the basics?
Katherine masturbates sometimes after Mike has fallen asleep. Lines of code lull him into light snoring, while Katherine’s legal cases keep her awake. She goes over arguments, making mental checklists of every point she’ll have to hit when she’s in court the next day. She considers this productive time, until she has it organized in her mind – then the arguments begin to repeat themselves and she’s so wound up over them she can’t nod off. When she gets to this point, she pulls her vibrator out of the nightstand. It’s one of those quiet vibrators, barely audible – even though Mike sleeps right next to her, once his breath has evened and slowed she won’t wake him.
&nbs
p; If you asked her, Katherine would admit that this proximity feels erotic: a little illicit but comfortable too, like the comfort of being with him while they weed or watch glowing aquarium fish in companionable silence. She sometimes slows down her breath to match the rhythm of his, a lingering synchronicity within which they are alive, alone, together – it doesn’t matter that he’s not conscious of her; it calms her down. Her climax, when it comes, drifts up on her gradually, and its power always surprises her.
Sometimes she gently places herself against him: pressing against his back when he’s turned away from her, or reaching out with just her toes to make contact with his soft-furred calf. It’s funny that she doesn’t necessarily think of making love with him during these times, but in a way she is making love with him. If you asked her, Katherine would say that Mike knows she’s doing it, knows it in his sleep. (When she first developed this habit she used to ask him if he had dreamed about anything in particular, but he could never call up sexual dreams. Or if he knew, he never said so.) Katherine respects Mike’s sleep too much to thrash or buck, and really this is more about her own tension than about passion. And a tension-tamer orgasm can be quiet, an implosion that rocks her to sleep without rocking her world.
She wakes up refreshed the next morning and goes to court.
* * *
Mike has his own private time a couple of days a week, after Katherine leaves for the courthouse. He works a flex schedule, a perk of having stayed at his job for over five years, and two days a week he works at home. He’s just as efficient at the home office as at the one downtown, even though this one overlooks his and Katherine’s garden. In fact, he’s more efficient at home, getting at least as much work done in less time. He takes one if not two breaks to jack off, the first in the still-rumpled bedclothes right after Katherine leaves (she accepts without question that Mike will make the bed on the days he stays home).
The first one is his favourite, especially because the bed still smells faintly of Katherine; he buries his nose in the pillow and lets the scent keep him company as he strokes himself hard. It’s his way of keeping her comfortably close, even though she’s already halfway to work by the time he begins. He takes plenty of time, a slow hand-over-hand on his cock while his mind wanders; he’s in no hurry. His eyes closed, usually, he drifts through a lifetime’s worth of mental images until he finds the one that sends a jolt of heat through his cock, maybe makes it jump a little in his hand. That’s the one he’ll use, embellishing it into a fully fleshed-out fantasy. If you asked him, he’d say he doesn’t feel that he guides the fantasy. He feels like he’s along for the ride, almost like the folio of erotic images riffling inside his brain has a life of its own, each separate image, in fact, a separate reality that he’s simply stumbled into the way Captain Kirk is thrust into a new dimension if his crew doesn’t set the transporter controls just right.
For half an hour twice a week Mike drifts in and out of dreams that take him to all sorts of places, sometimes even out of himself. When his orgasm comes it almost always swells up like music at the climax of a movie, the place in the plot where you’re supposed to just give yourself over to the story, cry if it tells you to, or clench your fists in fear. When he’s done he almost always writes code for two or three solid hours before even thinking of making himself some lunch. When the weather permits he takes his sandwich out into the garden.
He doesn’t always take a masturbation break in the afternoon. Sometimes he’s on a roll and wants nothing more than to work – Katherine comes home at six or seven and finds him still at it, though on those days he falls asleep really early. But once every week or two he gives himself an hour or two to surf the Net.
He has his favorite sites bookmarked. On the Net he always travels with a tour guide, the sensibility of all his favourite webmasters leading him into cul-de-sacs of sexual possibility he hadn’t even known existed. Katherine uses the Net for e-mail and shopping at Amazon.com – for her it’s just a handy extension of the local mall – but Mike goes to the bad neighbourhoods and stays there as long as he can.
He thinks about going in and never coming out. Only his work ethic stops him from spending all day in this perpetual peepshow. If he overindulges, he knows, he could get his telecommuting privileges yanked, so he doles out his Web visits, perks he allows himself when he’s done a good afternoon’s work.
In Mike’s mind there’s no infidelity in exploring chat rooms and cybersex sites as long as he stops before Katherine gets home, as long as she’s busy doing something else. He’s never told her about it but he doesn’t think she’d mind, as long as he gets his work done and their marriage doesn’t suffer. For all he knows, she has her own favourite bookmarks on her computer at the office. He wouldn’t mind that; it’s just play, nothing real. Virtual.
It isn’t often that Katherine comes home early. Once in a while she can get out at midafternoon on Friday, usually because she and Mike have decided to go up to the wine country or to a spa weekend. In the eighteen months Mike’s been working at home, she’s never arrived home before 5:30.
He makes sure he’s zipped up by then, either back at work on his code or in the kitchen starting dinner. They often cook together, and sometimes Mike has dinner waiting when she has to work late. She pages him and dials “7:30” – he knows that’s when to expect her. He doesn’t even call back unless he needs to ask her to swing by the store for bread or a bottle of wine. They shop on Saturdays, though, so usually everything he needs is waiting in the kitchen. Mike likes to cook. So does she, though she rarely makes dinner by herself.
Today, though, the judge continues Katherine’s case because a prosecution witness didn’t show up. She’s out of the courtroom at noon. She usually eats with the rest of her team on court days, so they go around the corner to the little Italian place. It’s so close to the courthouse that Katherine almost always recognizes most of the diners – judges, other attorneys, people from the jury pool.
She’s working with Marla today, the newest member of the practice. Marla’s just married, still trying to balance an intense work life with being in love. She’s never late, but Katherine has seen her come to work breathy and flushed – if you asked her, Katherine would say she remembers those newlywed days when once in the morning and once at night wasn’t enough, when she and Mike would sometimes skip dinner because they were on each other the minute they got home, when once Mike even got them a motel room at noon.
Marla fishes around in her purse and shows off the set of cufflinks she’s gotten Bill for Valentine’s Day. They’re porcelain ovals with tiny pictures painted on them: one has a bottle of champagne, one a can-can girl with her ruffled skirts thrown high. “Wine, women, and song!” says Marla gaily. “And I got him a really good bottle of French champagne, and I’m taking him to see Cabaret. Katherine, what are you doing with Mike?”
Katherine hasn’t planned anything special with Mike because she’s forgotten that today is Valentine’s Day. Jesus, wasn’t it just Christmas?
“Ummm, just a really nice dinner and some private time.” This is the best Katherine can come up with without notice, but it satisfies Marla, who has very few brain cells to spare for thinking about Katherine and Mike. She’s probably too busy imagining the way she’ll tug Bill into an alley when they leave the theater, and give him a sneaky handjob right there in public, Katherine thinks, only a little sniffy about Marla’s single-minded focus. You’re only young once.
Still, with the afternoon suddenly free, Katherine decides to give Mike a Valentine’s Day surprise. He’s probably forgotten it too – he’s been just as busy as she has – but thank goodness it’s a holiday that lends itself to last-minute planning. Katherine detours by Real Foods on the way home, picks up a good wine, some big prawns for scampi, a couple of cuts of filet mignon. On the way to the register she passes the bakery and adds a little chocolate cake to her basket. “Strawberries too,” she thinks, “if they’re any good yet.” The store has a heap of huge ruby berr
ies that look like they were grown in the Garden of Eden. And right next to the flowers stands a card display. She picks one that looks like a handmade Martha Stewart crafts project, a slightly-out-of-focus heart against a sapphire-blue background, blank so she can customize its message. She stops at the coffee shop downstairs for a latte and writes “Dearest Michael, you are the heart in my garden. All my love, Kath.”
She thinks about using the pager – “3:30” – but decides against it, decides instead to slip in and surprise him. If she can get into the kitchen via the back door, she might be able to start dinner quietly without interrupting his work. She parks the Mercedes a couple of houses down from theirs.
Her grandparents’ house and garden were in Idaho: at this time of year the garden would be cut back and mulched, maybe even buried under a drift of snow. Katherine loves living in California because even in February the garden blooms with life. The roses are finally gone but the pink ladies, tulips, and irises are starting; in the corner calla lilies burst whitely out of a clutch of huge green leaves. When she picks them she always includes one of those big leaves in the vase; otherwise the sculptural, curved callas almost don’t look like flowers.
Passing the window of the room in which Mike works, she glimpses him, so riveted to the screen that he doesn’t see her. “Must be on a roll,” she thinks, but then she sees that he is moving in a way that she wouldn’t expect to see from a man writing code. Though his body is partly obscured behind the desk and monitor, it almost looks as if he is masturbating.
Katherine noiselessly lets herself into the house and heaps her shopping bags onto the kitchen work island. She lays the store-bought roses carefully on top, drops her purse and briefcase beside them, slips off her shoes. She makes it to the door of Mike’s office without being heard.
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