The Decadent Handbook

by Rowan Pelling

  She reached the staircase and climbed the first step but the cold was numbing her mind. She fainted, upright and motionless with seawater up to her belly. Lobster swam to her purple feet. Cut off the bloodless hand with his pincers, and climbed up the inside of the leg as far as the clenched knees. He was amazed at the pleasure he felt from being held in this way. His pincers slipped between the thighs, prising them gently apart. His feelers were just able to reach the satin of the panties. They fluttered, made the labia quiver. Under the shimmering material a hint of life was returning. Angelina’s thighs relaxed. Lobster pulled back his feelers. Tensed and released his tail. His strokes were fast and powerful. He was making headway. He sank himself into her warming muscles; his tail did not falter. He moved forward, a centimetre at a time. Yes! Suddenly he could see the fabric clearly, glistening, pearl-like. He brought his pincers forward. Caught hold of the lace border. Pulled back the slippery satin and snipped right through it. The panties opened, the two separate pieces floating soft as seaweed in the swirl. The hair round the vulva was undulating. Lobster put his pincer in and closed it on the clitoris with the dexterity of a practised lover. What he did to Angelina next so warmed her insides that she returned to life, arching her back. Lobster was thrown into the air, stiffening his tail as he slapped back against the water in time with Angelina’s rhythm. And so their wedding dance began: Angelina and Lobster at the foot of the elegant dining room staircase. Her creamy woman’s body, convulsed with pleasure, trailing a bright red crustacean with one pincer secured in her hairs and the other working her clitoris, as they moved between air and water, water and air; the exuberance of these two bodies as the water spurted between her buttocks and surged around her thighs.

  The bay leaf aroma embedded in Lobster’s shell invigorated Angelina, returning her to consciousness. Her heat was triumphing over the cold water. Her thighs kept parting and closing. Lobster was dripping with vaginal juices. Angelina thrust more quickly, coming down rhythmically against the water. The foam around them was a glory to their union. Angelina arched her back, buttocks surging out of the water. Lobster, intimately attached to her, was shaken by staccato vibrations. Angelina reached orgasm for the first time in her life. Pleasure quivered under her nails and shook her jaw. Her toes felt connected to her throat. Unfamiliar sap was running right through her. Gently, her body relaxed and re-entered the water now warm from the fever of their union; Lobster floated motionless on his back with his pincers splayed.

  Happily afloat on the swirl of the sinking ship, Angelina slipped a hand between her legs, picked up Lobster and put his head inside her mouth. She rolled her tongue around his eyes and mandibles. As Lobster was rinsed in saliva he dreamt of his new life – a pleasure to be re-lived again and again.

  The sirens that had been wailing for an hour brought Angelina back to the reality of the shipwreck. She slipped Lobster between her breasts.

  Carrion

  Jeremy Bourdon

  Remember my soul, that thing we saw that lovely summer day?

  On a pile of stones where the path turned off, the hideous carrion…

  Baudelaire

  Pain ripped through my groin as I reached to the top shelf for Marmite. For a fortnight now Marmite is all I have been able to eat. Only this acerbic yeast paste has relieved the tension between my legs. These past weeks have further crushed my frail character, but I have always felt aged beyond my years, a dead man given a young body but no more youth. Still, only a sickened being can capture that deepest sadness which is the most touching aspect of the human condition.

  Disease is the auger point of a pain. That poisoned pinprick strikes out from my spleen. It has produced hard pustules on the perimeter of my lowest chakra. These chancres are savage. They have surrounded my yoni, come to wreck my once proud member. For days the only cloth soft enough to touch my skin has been my organic cotton yoga suit. It was the palest colour of fresh Devonshire cream, now it has turned a putrid yellow.

  Though I have never been of the soundest constitution, I shy from doctors. I feel as though their modern cures cannot help me. Their microscopes could never magnify enough to view the depth of my sickness. But now it has made itself known to all who might be unfortunate enough to witness me unclad. More welts appeared every day. I could not go further alone. I had to reach someone to attend my particular issues.

  I came across the advertisement on the horoscope page of a popular press publication:

  Cures long forgotten

  Save them so besotten.

  020 8473 1494

  I went to him, on the eastern artery. At night Mile End Road crawls with tainted women, a thoroughfare of debauchery. As the jaundiced child of a homeless whore it was not unfamiliar territory. The imposing brick terrace had the presence of a singular building. Gargoyle birds, one either side of the entrance guarded the building. I pressed the buzzer’s white button with a chalky slide. No one spoke, only a signal from the speaker and a click in the crested gate. I walked carefully beneath the gaze of the twin falcons, not just because my inflamed groin had caused me to move in a tight buttocked prance for weeks, but because these birds seemed ready to leap from their granite perches, caught mid screech by Medusa herself. When I emerged from beneath the front garden’s canopy I looked up a small yet imposing flight of stone stairs. I found myself drawn to one room by an urge stronger than just the promise of natural light. I was not disappointed. The medical man was sitting in his office well lit by the room’s southern exposure. The glare left his body obscured by shadow as he faced me.

  ‘You see,’ he said. ‘You were beckoned here by forces of which you are not completely aware. I did not call for you.’

  I agreed that it was, in fact, me that had rung him two days ago, as a result of his advertisement. He, in turn, assured me that it was not he who had placed the ad, rather that occasionally his patients find themselves inclined to advertise on his behalf. He closed the blinds. As he did his shadow crept across the room so I couldn’t register much aside from his enormous desk backed by many austere volumes bound in leather, and an ornate screen of early 18th century Oriental origin.

  ‘My name is Doctor Jean Keyser, you may address me as ‘fellow.’ He said as he directed me to remove my foul garments behind the screen.

  Some days earlier I was so low not even the beauty of Baudelaire’s prose poems could shed light on my hermitage of pain. Shrouded in darkness I saw only one solution. I designated several indurate buboes for deflation. I heated a sewing needle and stabbed while the needle was still burning red. It was no doubt these particular six creatures: one old, one new, two big, two small, that turned my fellow’s face.

  After a brief visual observation my fellow unwrapped a pair of sterilized white cotton gloves. He requested me to lie back. I lowered myself across the unsavoury leather bed. He waited a moment before holding his hands to a variety of points on my abdomen. Throughout this experience I was calmed, as though I was slowly being adjusted from the state of nervous excitement, which had defined my last two weeks, and towards a place where my lack of control was inconsequential. I have always considered myself a man from another time, and with this treatment from a previous century the out of sorts feeling which has always determined my life slipped away.

  ‘Mmmm, I would like to perform a test.’ Said the fellow. ‘First you must understand the relative nature of science. Treatments and tests come and go, not unlike ladies’ fashions. However, just because one is no longer in style does not mean it isn’t suitable. For the most comprehensive treatment, a fellow with extensive historical knowledge best serves a patient.

  ‘Doctor August Paul von Wassermann perfected his test in 1906. It involves machines and calculations which are not easily discovered one hundred years in the future. You will be pleased to know that it is with the utmost competence I can carry out this test, so as to ascertain whether or not you have Syphilis.’

  ‘Syphilis?’ I said. ‘The dreaded pox?’

  ‘Indeed
’ my fellow continued. ‘Qui Ha. All the signs are there, toxic heat invades your lung and spleen.’ I had known the source all along.

  ‘Your breathing is shallow, your liver is damp and hot, Yang Mei Yi Ji San.’ I had drowned my sorrows in so many mulled wines.

  ‘You say you haven’t been so very hungry? Look at your genitals.’ Christ. Look at my genitals. Look at them. I had done nothing but stare and sweat for the past two weeks.

  ‘Soon, Long Dan Xie Gan Tang, the toxic heat will be all through your blood.’ No escape.

  ‘What’s to be done?’ I asked with a tremor.

  On the shelf next to us, my fellow opened a silver case with a click. From it he produced a syringe obviously stolen from a vet of the previous century. He held it through one of its steel finger loops and gathered several syringes, from the look of them also designed primarily for horses.

  ‘The equipment must sterilise. You will follow me.’ My fellow led me through a door I hadn’t seen before.

  He left me, alone and naked, in a square room, a small book room. There were no windows. The electricity glowed dimly through barley brown lampshades. The lights were uncanny six foot gas lamp conversions. I covered the diagonal of the room in three fast paces. There were no other doors. I stopped and turned on my heel. I considered the incongruence of the furniture. I circled the perimeter of my cubicle. The carpet, though handmade, had been chosen for a room of a different colour. The chair’s arms were flat and angular, almost modern, but their cushions’ fabric weaved around moulded foam. Unable to sit for fear the battered furniture might carry some virus; I had little else ahead of me but to face my predicament.

  I felt the sores; the biggest one I hadn’t seared increased its pressure. The room’s air was warm and dry, the rug and chairs horded dust, yet the air was pure. Nothing but the atmosphere of this perverse ensemble took account of its books, some old and cracked, some with gold letters still gleaming, all bound in deep red leather. Standing, nude and singular I was calm and well, healthy for a brief moment.

  Returning to my reality, I hurt. To continue in my current course is to walk straight under the bridge of death. No fellow of this age, nor one long gone, will manage my complaints. I must change the course of my present incarnation. All coolness has deserted me, and I have begun to sweat again. To divert my mind from this timeless cell, I move quickly to a bookshelf. All the books are titled the same, some barely legible, but all the same words through different eras.

  When I turned round from the shelves I was startled to see the door opened. My fellow stood on the threshold.

  ‘You are ready now.’ He said.

  I returned to the office. It was blazing with light. It could’ve been a new day. I had no idea how long I had been confined. Everything in the office was draped with impenetrable white sheets. I could feel my aura heating as my blood moved faster and my heart beat erratically.

  ‘Settle yourself on this bed’, as he pointed to a plinth in the middle of the room. On the bed my fellow again moved his hands just millimetres from my bare skin, occasionally he applied pressure to specific points, repeating a chant I could not recognise:

  ‘Muh em ep in am om. Oorug yah-ah, troom laaka, maan tas laaka aaham, laaka aaham, laaka eeris, laaka eeris, eeris tas. Muh em ep in am om.’

  My consciousness began to dim. I saw my fellow lift the polished syringe. It was filled with glowing bile. The glistening needle hit my deep femoral artery in the bottom of my groin. I tried to scream but could not.

  I was paralysed as I heard my fellow’s words. He hoarsely whispered ‘Carrion.’ It was the title of the books.

  Confessions of a Flesh-Eater

  David Madsen

  The remaining hours of that night, a night pregnant with the intoxicating realisation of opportunity, I reserved for myself and my beloved alone. I selected a juicy, pungent flank from the cold-store – one that seemed to have been waiting for my coming, aching for my embrace, soundlessly crying out for the worship I alone could give! – and carrying it on my shoulders like a bride across the threshold, I bore it aloft to my little attic room.

  I stood for some moments absorbed in contemplation of the huge crimson-deep, fat-speckled expanse of flesh; it lay on the bed like an expectant lover, its silence a high eloquence, its motionless passivity an initiation of seduction rather than a response to it – both paradoxes of passion. Its entire presence was a metaphysical contradiction: it was dead yet shockingly alive, moving perpetually in its own stillness; it was dumb, but the nexus of emotions it aroused in me constituted a lyrical epiphany in honour of stupendous obsession. Oh Christ, what wonders were to unfold? I trembled all over, as with a fine fremitus.

  I undressed myself slowly and clumsily, with all the shy gaucherie of a virgin lover: I hopped from one foot to the other as I pulled off my trousers, catching my sock on the buckle of my belt; a shirt-button snapped and split; my keys slipped out of my pocket. When at last I had finished, standing there erect beneath my underpants, sweating and shaking, I understood with poignant clarity how patient and how courteous my beloved had been; it gleamed richly in the amber-gold light of the shaded lamp, waiting only to satisfy my hunger, to satiate, to plunge me into ecstasy.

  I placed my body carefully across it, tucking my arms underneath it, so that we were locked in an embrace; I lay my cheek against its lightly corrugated surface and, inhaling deeply, was at once inebriated with the sour-sweet odour of chill clotted blood, of heady amino-acids, of a hundred other numinous ichors exposed, expelled and inspissated – this, surely, was the intoxicating perfume that quickened the nostrils of Yahweh as he stirred his forefinger into the chaotic primal slime which was to become Adam!

  With much deliberation I drew my underpants down over my buttocks, so that the revelation of my final nakedness came gently to my beloved, with subtlety and finesse – a last love-offering, a final token of foreplay before the great consummation; they slipped to my ankles and I kicked them to the floor. The impress of damp, ripe flesh, the solid interstratification of flesh and fat against my exposed genitals, was sensational. Then I spread my thighs as widely as I could, curling my legs around each side, pulling myself up and over the great meaty bulk. I kissed its fibres lingeringly, I licked it, gnawed at it with exquisite tenderness, as a young husband might lick and gnaw the stiffening nipples of his new bride. Under the heat of my body it was becoming warmer and slightly greasy, so that when I began the first slow, tentative thrusts, I found myself slipping and sliding in an exquisitely arousing manner, and I knew for certain that at this moment, my beloved was answering the urgent call of my increasing passion.

  I could no longer see the room or its contents, nor do I think I was actually aware of them; I swam, like a foetus in amniotic fluid, in an infinite ocean of blood-red flesh. I was conscious of my movements but not their immediate intention; hence, I knew precisely what I was doing when I rolled onto my back, opened my legs, and pulled the great carcass on top of me, but not quite why. I was reduced to a pure and simple empiricism: everything was sensation, nothing was reason. We moved together like a horse and rider, my beloved and I; when I arched and bucked, so too did the carcass; when I lifted myself and sank back again, it did likewise; when I parted my arms and thighs to embrace, the contours of the resulting concavities were instantly sealed by dead-weight, wine-rich, blood-red flesh.

  Moaning, moaning and shuddering, I clung to my beloved in a sexual systalsis as I released my seed – helplessly, copiously, repeatedly – naked flesh to naked flesh, meat to meat, perfectly and completely made one in a true and mysterious conjunction.

  I heard a voice, which was my own and yet entirely unfamiliar, whisper:

  ‘Oh, I love … love you!’

  Then:

  ‘What the hell are you doing, for Christ’s sake?’

  Master Egbert stood in the rectangle of harsh yellow light that was the doorway: huge, shocking, like an unpredicted eclipse.

  ‘Fucking a side of beef?’
>
  It was then that I lost consciousness.

  In the Gallery

  Hélène Lavelle

  My lord, the Comte, drove us to the art gallery, set at the end of the long parkland drive. The number of cars indicated a light sprinkling of visitors inside – enough, but not too many. While my lord opened the bottle of claret I adjusted my make-up. Outside the car, we breathed in the autumn air, and drank a little wine as we looked around the park, taking no heed of the attention we were attracting from other people getting in or out of their cars. We were on a promenade, and a hunt, and dressed for it.

  The Comte: a young mid-forties, good-looking with a trimmed tawny beard and bright, piercing blue eyes; a strong, confident demeanour, comfortably masterful without a hint of the boorish self-importance that some so-called ‘masters’ need to affect. Dressed in a long raincoat, long black leather riding boots (and the spurs that make women go weak), white duelling shirt, chamois waistcoat with watch and chain, and broad brimmed Italian hat, he held an ivory topped cane and cut an easy, aristocratic figure, good-natured, but most certainly not to be trifled with.

  Beside him I, the Lady: forty or so, a trim figure and a fine featured face (some, including my lord, consider her beautiful, but I will be appropriately modest …), wearing a black fitted jacket, red knee-length skirt, white blouse, and slightly extravagant accessories – a black riding hat with a short veil, a white lace jabot at her throat, black lace gloves, a large display of white lace from the breast pocket of her jacket, and high heeled ankle boots furnished with buckles and chains that hinted at somewhat unorthodox erotic leanings.

  The other visitors would then have seen the Comte say something to the Lady and kiss her on the lips, then see the Lady hand her empty glass to the Comte, step back, incline her head to him as though acknowledging a command, turn, and walk across the gravel and up the stone steps into the gallery. The Comte, at a leisurely pace, put the wine and glasses into the boot of the car, lock up, and, a few minutes after the Lady, followed her into the gallery.