by Ashley Hind
I don’t even speak to Madam Destiny on my way out. I have to crawl up the stairs as soon as I can find strength to pull my leggings back up and get out of there with something like a clear head. I don’t look at Drummond. I tell myself he has spontaneously combusted and will take this secret to an early grave. Death solves so much. She is in her private chamber waiting to give him whatever reward he earned for seeing her fucked to kingdom come. The pale average-cocked bandmates have slunk off to be bisexual elsewhere, but they will undoubtedly be doing it with less humiliation running through them than I have. I get in my car, my legs almost too weak to press the pedals, my hands almost too shaky to start the engine. Just as I do, my phone bleeps from the passenger seat, informing me of a message received. I already know it is Mr Anonymous. I have barely any adrenaline left to give but I manage some.
I am going to beat your arse with my long, stiff cock, his message reads. I am almost crying with shame and a desire I cannot seem to sate.
Hot Yacht Action
The wake is held on a luxury yacht moored in the swankiest of marinas. It meant the bereaved having to drag ourselves an hour through traffic from the church to get here, which doesn’t smack of convenience. The whole do was shanghaied by a senior partner at Samson’s firm, apparently to aid in giving the deceased the send-off he deserved, but more likely so that the senior partner could show off what a tremendously wealthy and tasteful fuckstrocity he truly is. There is no champagne here, goddamit - maybe adjudged a tad too celebratory for a funeral. I settle for vin of the blanc variety since they aren’t even doing cocktails. What kind of a shitmungus party is this senior partner throwing?
Heidi looks gaunt and ashen, nothing like the girl I have in mind when I lay in bed. I sincerely hope she gets herself back to normality soon. This current ugly phase is most distracting. If she is not going to be the pussy-itcher I have come to know and love, what will be the point of her as a friend? Indeed there are others around our circle with the same wicked sense of humour - that haughty Persian lady married to Gregor, for instance, with her nice plump arse for spanking. She does have quite a big nose, though. Is this something I could make myself look beyond?
Pippa is all of a fluster, hands clenching at her sides, constantly gripping thin air. She wants to be involved because it’s a social function and that’s what she does. She probably can’t believe they haven’t smuggled some champers on board either. They should have a secret stash up in the quarterdeck, whatever the fuck one of those is. She has no words for Heidi to help remove that look of brokenness. She just wants to absorb herself in busyness or fizzy alcohol to fend off the bigger picture, to avoid having to ponder the internal void funerals give to so many, forcing a forlorn search for answers to that burning question raised by death: what meaning do any of our lives have?
The answer is, of course, SEX. Look no further. We are here to procreate, that is all, to ensure the continuation of our species. This is why nature made the feelings we get from sex the most intensely enjoyable that we can know. It makes us want to do it. Nature makes no bones about this. Anyone who ever uses the phrase “better than sex” is not doing it right at all. Some might argue that we are also here to appreciate nature in its other forms - beauty, music, art and such like, that we are here to appreciate emotion, particularly love and happiness. However, these appreciative abilities known only to mankind are merely a by-product of the most advanced brain on the planet. As is boredom - the thing that underpins our need to find things such as music and art to appreciate. No one needs anything to appreciate sex. It is a gratification beyond all others that we know, there for us all.
Love, incidentally, is merely nature’s way of setting your sights on someone it wishes you to have sex with. It is its way of fooling us into staying with someone in order to briefly create a stable environment to afford any children sired the best protection and nurturing, so that they may grow to create more children. It is nothing higher than that - a chemical dupe. It fooled me for sure; over half my life it fooled me, but now I know better. Nature cannot discern between sex for procreation and sex for recreation, nor does it care. That is our look-out. It just drives the need to ensure it happens. And, because we have such fabulously developed brains, we can add whatever eroticism we like, enhancing limitlessly the already wonderful feelings that nature has gifted us.
Money is an invention of those who knew how best to profit from it. Morals are an invention of those able to use their greater intelligence to stay above those of lesser intelligence. The rich and powerful are in the minority so they found ways to keep themselves above the sea of jealousy below. Do not kill me or rob from me, or you will pay in spades. Keep your hands off any woman I tell you to, keeping them clean for me. Don’t even think about coveting my ox, for just the thought is punishable too. Just stay as you are, without complaint, and let me get on unhindered with my far superior life. Dream, by all means, of greater rewards for suffering in silence. Think of bigger pictures whilst I happily gorge.
Life has no meaning; we are just intelligent enough to believe that it must have, to make sense of us having this intelligence in the first place. But that intelligence is just a by-product of us striving to maintain ourselves as a species. Odd that it hasn’t given so many of us the intelligence to realise that all we are here for is procreation. Emotion, appreciation of aesthetics, art and music, the ability to philosophise - these are just add-ons allowable because of our developed brains. Life isn’t even about love - and there was me thinking that it was. If you want a meaning then make it about mankind’s ability to create and enjoy happiness in all its forms, even the ones supposed to be sinful. Make it about our almost magical ability to enjoy sex way beyond its primary function.
Look for higher reasons if you must, but you will just be here looking as defeated as Heidi, searching for any meaning to one’s life other than to be an excuse for a get-together with some drinks when you die. I’m telling you sex is our reason to be. If when someone died you had the right to fuck his wife at the funeral - or, if she was too old, her daughter, or her niece, or that hunky nephew of hers - if someone’s passing was the signal for a free-for-all for everyone to fuck his or her relatives, then I promise you they would be sought-after events. There would be none of this weird maudlin searching incomprehension that goes on now, no tears. People would be sizing up your tasty relatives just waiting for you to pop your clogs. People would be meeting fatal “accidents” all over the place. No one would get past forty, less still reach the age when they were no longer capable of doing what we are here to do. If society deemed that funerals were merely to grant anyone who had dreamt of sex with the beautiful wife or husband of the just departed free rein to do just that, you see how much of a fuck people gave for sorrow then.
I can’t see Heidi maintaining that slapped-arse visage if four or five of the well-dressed sporty hunks here were stood in a line with huge erections in hand, waiting to give them to her. They would too. There must be half a dozen, ten, twenty men here, even those supposedly happily married, who would gladly get inside her if she was looking as good as I have seen her and if they thought they could get away with it. That is their way, their instinct. They can love you and forget you in a moment if someone else seems better for them at any given time. They know this from the start, even when they say their vows. Keeping him happy might not even be enough.
The extent of a man’s love is bounded by how much you fit his ideal. You can try to be the best for him but that might not be good enough, nor will he tell you what his idea of “best” is. A female might think that love is a gift to give to the deserving and to never be squandered, but a man has an urge to procreate. Once unfaithful you are already doomed. He is tainted always, bound to do the same; in spirit he does it constantly. His love becomes mere fondness and dependence - and that won’t keep his cock in his pants. Females have to fight just to stop this indifferent eye-wandering from their male. Are th
ey worth this? To keep their eyes on you it seems you must rule them, dominate them, force them to look nowhere beyond you. If they cannot be ruled our dream of them is gone, and what use are they to us then?
Death solves so much. But I shouldn’t myself to wallow in such thoughts whilst surrounded by all these people trying to have a good time. I am prone to them and they weaken me. I let the resentment boil towards those who would take my one life and make a charade of it; who run when they could stay and make it right, make me right. That is the meaning of life if you want one: to go against all self-serving human instinct and exist entirely for someone else, always, to let them know what it is that makes them such a magnet, that will keep you wanting to be there always and never look beyond them. Devote yourself only to another and mankind becomes a species fitting to dominate this incredible planet. Putting yourself first makes you just part of the problem, and it is a problem that needs to be eradicated.
Speaking of people being there, I spy Lionel, that avid collector of Swiss francs. I get a little flutter inside, plus a now familiar tingle in the tuppence department, despite our less than glorious one sexual encounter. Still, my character is nothing if not contradictory. He is good-looking in a debonair way and more importantly he is making eyes at me, demonstrating that I am his sole focus. He is in a smart black suit but his shirt is open at the neck and there is no tie, black or otherwise. I didn’t see him during the service. It takes a special kind of disregard to not make a funeral but manage to be there for the wake. I like his style.
However, he still needs a lesson in control. There must be countless places on this yacht I could take him and fuck him without interruption. Gripping chrome railings whilst being serviced from behind, the calm water glinting below you. Riding atop the stainless steel surfaces of the galley; washed rude fruit and vegetables abounding and the finest oils in tall glass pourers always within reach; utensils hanging or sheathed in blocks to be grabbed and used upon prone flesh; the juicy swollen clit to suck of one of the maids, lest she face being thrown overboard. Lashed to the deck over some canvas-covered hatch and under the sun; rough binds at the wrists and ankles; all those coils around you and knots that you cannot begin to fathom; bodies emerging one after another from down below.
My mind fills with these things, swirling around like an internal whirlwind. Why are they not being done? Everyone is here in their finery, upholding their pretence of respect. But alcohol is being absorbed and delicious bites taken and naughty asides are going on, leers given. A celebration of life they say, so why not stop this nonsense and celebrate by showing that one grasps the meaning of this life? A martini glass in one hand, held at the stem between delicate, painted-nail fingers; a rigid cock in the other, hot against the palm, straining the grip; scarlet-red lips open and wet, dying to guzzle upon each in turn. That should be everywhere. This room, each room of this plush shagging vessel, should be hot and steamy and smelling of sex right now, filled with squelches and moans and the wonderful sounds of slapping flesh. That is the truest way to send off a man who used to fuck without any semblance of regard or regret.
I move away from Heidi so that Lionel can make an approach. He does so immediately.
‘You knew Samson well enough to go to his funeral wake but not well enough to wear a tie?’ I ask.
‘I confess I did not know him that well. I have been on business elsewhere, and took the opportunity to drop by. I flew in only this morning. I needed to meet with Patrick. Patrick was here; I came here. Samson was a pleasant enough fellow but I can’t pretend I have enough feeling for him to mourn.’
‘I admire your honesty. If you had given me any bullshit about what a great guy the deceased was I might have had to slap you.’
‘You like the thought of slapping, I think,’ he says with a thin smile. Last time he saw me, he saw the mark of Madam Destiny’s cane upon my rump.
‘I like the thought of men doing what I tell them,’ I snap back. ‘If I remember rightly, you proved something of a disappointment.’
That last word is going to jar him for sure. Men like him don’t enjoy having their macho pride dented. I see his eyes flicker a little, a sign that I hit home. He breathes in and considers his come-back, trying to look unbowed.
‘I was perhaps overcome by your beauty, Madame.’
That’s not bad. Humility and flattery rolled into one. No bristling ego. Maybe he understands now what I want from him.
‘Last time I saw you I said that when you are prepared to do exactly what I want then you should call me. I haven’t received any call.’
‘I have not been in this country until now, Madame. More importantly, you did not give me a number to call, or I would have.’
That’s much better. There is sincerity in the eyes, no smirk to suggest he thinks this is a game that will end up with him gripping me by the hair and spurting into my mouth.
‘Obedience is a state of mind, Lionel. I don’t think you have it in you to apply yourself the way I require.’
‘Remember, you are addressing a man who happily kissed your boots,’ he says, in French this time, to thwart eavesdroppers.
‘The thought of me in stiletto heels still dominates your thoughts?’
‘It does, Madame.’
‘And the thought of my bare arse bent over in front of you has you wanting to be my slave?’ I have joined him speaking his mother tongue now so that I can do it plainly and avoid whispering.
‘It does, Madame.’
‘Then perhaps I need a visit from you very soon.’
‘Regrettably I have a flight out at eight this evening. I have a meeting in Frankfurt tomorrow that cannot be missed.’
‘That still gives you this afternoon. The airport is easily within an hour of my house. You will be flying business class, no doubt, so you need not be there much before your departure time. What else were you planning to do today?’
‘I was going to stay here, talk with Patrick. We have things it would be convenient to discuss.’
I have to think on my feet but my mind is alive and diamond in its clarity.
‘Where is your luggage and how did you get here?’ I ask.
‘I hired a car at the airport which is parked outside. My case is in the car.’
‘Then you will talk to Patrick now. You will not tell him of our proposed meeting. As soon as you are done you will leave and check into the Quay Hotel opposite. It is very exclusive so you needn’t worry. You will freshen up there and then make your way to Patrick’s house. Be there by four. My man will be waiting outside for you. If I am satisfied that you have not mentioned anything about this to Patrick - and believe me I will easily find out - then my man will escort you back to mine. I will give you the fuck of your life and then we will eat. Then you can go catch your plane, if you still think that meeting so important.’
He gives me wry smile.
‘That is quite a set of instructions. Would it not be simpler if we both spent the afternoon at the Quay Hotel?’
I put my serious face back on, flashing some anger his way.
‘Simpler for you, Monsieur, but this is not about your convenience. This is a test to see if you are willing to follow my instructions to the letter. I am someone you must earn. You have your phone on you, I presume?’
‘Madame, I always have my phone on me.’
‘Then give it to me.’
‘With respect, I am a man of business and much of my business is done via my phone.’
‘Then it will be an incentive for you to come and get it from me later. I am going to use your phone to film myself sticking my fingers deep inside my luscious, hot cunt. It will be something for you to watch when you are pining for me. You have yet to see my cunt, as I recall. I guarantee you it is not to be missed.’
I see the flush in his cheeks as he wordlessly reaches inside his jacket
to produce his phone.
‘No indeed, Madame,’ he says, the desire for me written all over his face.
‘Four o’clock outside Patrick’s. Don’t be late.’
I ought to be back by Heidi’s side in her hour of need but one cannot say dramatically sexy things like that to a man and then stick around. Plus I need to prepare. I leave without making my excuses and head down the gang plank and back onto dry land. I am pointing the key at the Maserati when Inspector Stark comes out of nowhere. I’m not sure if the fizz inside is just shock at seeing him or a pang of subconscious delight.
‘I didn’t have you down as one to skulk in car parks,’ I tell him. He doesn’t offer me a smile of greeting. He has that usual searching, intense look in his eyes, as if ready to undo me should I let my guard down for a second. It makes my legs tremble a little, and I thought I was so strong now.
‘I was at the funeral but didn’t wish to intrude,’ he tells me, his voice deep and clear, penetrating and going to the heart of me as it always does. ‘There is still an element of suspicion hanging over the death so I wanted to make sure everything and everyone was OK - you included, Mrs Van Peer. I followed on down here since I will need to have words with your friend at some point. You are leaving?’
‘Yes. There is only so much grief and solemnity I can take at present. Fresh wounds and so forth.’
‘I understand. I should like to talk with you soon too, if possible.’
I feel caught out and edgy, no doubt because of my plans for Lionel. However, there is an urge to stay with this man rather than run.
‘Yes, of course,’ I smile as if nonchalant, ‘but could we not do it somewhere a little more salubrious than the docks - perhaps over a coffee or a drink or some such?’
‘As enchanting as that sounds, I am afraid it would be considered most unprofessional of me to fraternise socially with anyone considered a suspect in a murder enquiry.’
