The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 5 (30 page)

Back then.

“Oooh! You are spoiling us, Ambassador,” she said.

It’s the kitschiest ad ever, supposedly upmarket chocolates on a silver salver at the ambassador’s reception and the grateful guests greasing up the host. But I know where I would rather be. Between four walls with Madame Petra. Needless to say she would prefer to doing this in a fetish club. To show off. To be validated. I’d rather snuggle up in a burrow somewhere but then why should we agree? We’re a
couple
. Sometimes. These times.

One or two gentle slaps towards the base of the buttocks send soft ripples upwards, warms her a little, says hello and remember the zillion times we did that? Breaking through many pain/pleasure barriers, untying a few psychic knots left-over from various traumas. Converting past pain to present pleasure.

“No, let’s do it face to face,” she said, as I’m starting to manoeuvre her somewhere I could ease in. “Let’s stare in each other’s eyes.”

And be smothered by your desire for a long future together? Can’t do it. But you can’t say that out loud. Not and keep your teeth. How do I get out of this?

“I don’t want a relationship any more,” she says, spotting me looking like a frightened rabbit. Being drilled by the headlights of decades more responsibility, not the first thing you are looking for after an acrimonious divorce. “I
told
you that.”

So she did. But the cold wind still howls. And she’s still Miss Bossyboots. Paid to be bossy during the day and always glad to take her work home with her.

I’m still in thrall, despite it all. Still in harness.

It’s time.

Rather than mess everything up like young people would, we follow our ritual. Moisten the earth before you plant. Follow the anal sex code: glove, lube, fingertip, finger. Although we don’t need rubber gloves, being among friends. Flawlessly filed fingernails goes without saying . . .

Maybe I would have got thrown out for some other reason. Marriage is just a business to women. They have to be more hard-hearted than men about it. And when they’ve extracted the breeding sperm it’s time to downsize. Sorry. We don’t really need an armchair occupier and remote control operative, thank you very much. The children might find you entertaining. They might
love
you. But I want
money.

Write out one million times. Don’t marry for love. At least mistresses don’t want your money, should you have any, or your sperm for breeding. They don’t want you to meet their parents. They just want warmth. Heat. A bit of a break from the bleak midwinter of most people’s lives.

So let’s get back in the warmth. In the flat with the chocolate brown sofa. Back to where membranes sing and deep grunts signal rich, yeasty pleasures. Our heart’s desire. Rude health. Ruddy ruttings.

Some may have heard enough of men burying their faces deep into the widening cheeks and licking feverishly while gently rubbing the clit bar with the tips of their fingers and rootling deep inside the vagina with a busy thumb while snuffling in the scent of life and death. But there’s plenty of soap operas on the telly. I’d rather do this.

And what’s THIS? An actual erection has appeared, a minor miracle in the Chinese year of crystal MDMA and K-addled hog . . . We have lift off. Queue here to enter the tunnel of death.

Feverish fingers fiddle with the condom, unscrew the Prince Albert ring that is really best left out of this delicate nudging, easing, teasing . . . and . . .

“More lube!” she said, yelping a little, also sending out little thought darts intended to lodge deep inside my aura, their sharp steel tips sending out a little starburst of pain which would remind me – forever, hopefully – that the anus has no natural lubrication.

Let there be lube. This be the law. Pour on the oil. Water the earth. Then plant carefully. And slowly.

In.

Again.

“Aaaah!”

This time a soft long sigh of pleasure. It has been said that women can lie about vaginal intercourse. They can fake orgasms, fake every single thing about it. But there is less room for the thespian’s art where the ass is concerned. And no more space for words any more as we head for space. Orbiting Saturn. Dark side of the moon.

Stirring the brew brings us close to fruition. After which there will be a final abandoned sprawl waiting for a brief smudge of sleep. Hugged by a golden ring.

Some call it a starfish. Perhaps it’s a pink snowflake. Which will one day dissolve in crisp, cleansing air. As we all will. Becoming a different energy. Matter in motion.

Someone, something, somewhere else. Wafted along by the wind and the waves.

For ever.

He came in one evening shortly before the library closed, looking for information on nautical knots. I pushed my glasses up on my nose and searched the data base. Four titles, all about knots. He smiled, this quirky little smile that hinted at some secret I couldn’t begin to fathom, thanked me and left with three of the books. The fourth didn’t have enough pictures, he said. He liked pictures.

I forgot about him. You tend to forget the ones that only come in occasionally, that ask one question and never come back. But he came back. I don’t remember how long it was. A month, maybe two? But he came back and something about that little smile reminded me of the knots.

He wasn’t handsome in the classical sense. He was average looks, average height. The kind of guy who could be really cute if you liked him or nondescript if you’d only met him once or twice. But the smile, that made him stand out. It would be awhile before I’d notice that his eyes held the same secretive amusement as his smile.

The next time he came to the reference desk he asked about the Marquis de Sade. Not his fiction, a biography. Not a usual request for a small town library in the heart of Virginia. I checked the database. Just two biographies on the Marquis. He took them both. I felt a little strange leading him back toward the biography section, deep in the shadows of the nonfiction stacks. Maybe it was the smile.

I pulled the books and handed them to him.

“Ever read him?” he asked, tapping the cover of the top book.

I could feel myself blush as I shook my head. “Uh, no.”

That smile again. Amused, knowing. “But you know who he is.”

Not a question, but I nodded. Then I hurried out of the stacks and back to the refuge of my desk with a muttered, “I have patrons waiting.” I didn’t and he knew it. I think I heard him laugh.

After he left, I looked him up. It’s against the rules, but I needed to know. His name was Justin Brant and he was forty-one years old. I knew the neighborhood he lived in, it wasn’t far from my own townhouse. I also knew the types of books he liked – historical biographies of questionable characters and action-adventure. Harmless enough. Yet something about him stayed with me long after he left.

I’m embarrassed to say I checked the status on the de Sade biographies for the next couple of weeks. He renewed them both once. I found that interesting. Either he didn’t have time to read them or he was being very thorough in his research.

He came in one night just before closing. I didn’t see him at first; I was reading over some paperwork when I felt his gaze like a weight on my shoulders. I glanced up to see him staring intently at me.

“May I help you?” I asked, sounding colder than I felt. My palms were already beginning to sweat and he hadn’t said anything to me.

He smirked. “No, I found what I was looking for this time.” He gestured at the stack of books in his hand. The title of the top one mentioned nude photography.

“Oh.”

The smirk deepened. “I was wondering if you’d like to have coffee sometime, maybe one night after work?”

“I don’t think so,” I said quickly, glancing around to see if anyone had heard him. “I mean – thank you, but I don’t think we really have much in common.”

The smirk never faltered. “No? What a pity. I thought I turned you on.”

He was gone before I could pick my jaw off the floor.

I was curious, I admit it. So when I pulled out of the parking lot half an hour later, I turned left instead of turning right. I drove the five miles to the street where he lived. I turned on the street in a very nice subdivision and I drove along the main road that circled the hundred or so houses. I found his house, tucked in a cul-de-sac. I was so intent on making sure I had the right house number, I didn’t realize someone was getting out of the Mercedes in the driveway. It was him!

I sped away, heart hammering in my chest. He couldn’t have seen me, he wasn’t looking in my direction. Still, I could feel my cheeks flush hotly as I drove the few miles to my house. Whatever his charm, I wouldn’t do that again.

I almost dreaded seeing him at the library again. Almost. Here I was, thirty-seven and hopelessly single, mooning over some pervert who used the library as his dirty bookstore.

Still, there was something about him that suggested he’d be able to tell me all the secrets I’d been wanting to know. Questions I wasn’t even sure how to ask. Maybe he was a pervert, but if he was, so was I. Because he had my mind going down a road it had never been, and my willing cunt followed.

By the time I saw him again, I was debating calling him. It would have been highly inappropriate and I could have lost my job for it, but desperate times call for desperate measures, to my way of thinking. Who am I kidding? I wasn’t thinking, I was only feeling. And it felt good.

Strangely enough, it wasn’t the library where I saw him next, but the grocery store. I was standing at the bakery counter, choosing a loaf of bread, when I heard a familiar laugh. I jerked my head around just in time to catch his smile as he turned and walked away. My cheeks flushed hotly, but instead of ignoring him, I followed him, bread forgotten.

“Wait. Hey! Mr Brant, Justin – wait.”

He turned and looked at me. We were standing alone in the wine aisle. It was after ten o’clock and there were few people in the store.

“Yes?”

I stopped in front of him, suddenly speechless. “I was just – I mean—”

He arched an eyebrow. “How did you know my name?”

My face felt like it was on fire. I couldn’t think of a good lie quick enough. “I looked you up,” I blurted.

“I like that.”

That made me feel warm for an entirely different reason. “Can we go some place?” I asked, emboldened. “To talk?”

“Talk?”

I felt like he was teasing me. “Yes, talk,” I said, suddenly angry. Not at him, at myself for being so foolish. “Never mind, forget I asked.”

He grabbed my wrist with a gentle, but insistent pressure that was impossible to ignore. “I don’t forget anything,” he said. “Ask me again.”

Part of me screamed to get out of there and away from him. Part of me never wanted him to let go of my wrist. “Would you like to go somewhere and talk?” My voice was soft, I could barely hear myself, but he didn’t seem to have a problem.

“Good. You’re learning.”

There was a condescension in his voice I wouldn’t have tolerated from anyone else. So why was I taking it from him? Something about his confidence, maybe. Or maybe I was just ready for someone like him. In any case, his approval sent a little thrill through me that I hadn’t experienced in a long, long time.

We each paid for our groceries, waiting in line silently. Then he told me to follow him. I liked that better than going with him. I was curious, but I wasn’t stupid.

He drove to a coffee shop about a mile from the library. I’d passed the place a thousand times, but I’d never been there. I parked next to him and followed him inside.

The waitress nodded to him as if he was a regular. We sat in a booth near the back, the only other patron an elderly man sitting at the counter. Justin sat across from me, studying me with dark, unblinking eyes.

“What?” I said, fidgeting nervously.

“Sit still.”

Like an obedient dog, I immediately quieted. Then I frowned.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. Tell me.”

I started to say I really didn’t know, but I could feel my frown deepening. “I don’t like you.”

He chuckled and it was a soft, seductive sound that washed over my skin like a touch. “No. What you don’t like is how you respond to me.”

I opened my mouth to deny it and he held his hand up.

“Don’t. Don’t lie to me and don’t lie to yourself. You respond to me and it confuses you.”

I thought about that for a moment. “Yes,” I said, though it hadn’t been a question.

The waitress came over and took our order – a black coffee for him and a hot chocolate for me. When she was gone, he stared at me once more.

“Why do you think that is?” he asked.

I’d lost track of our conversation for a moment, so caught up in his steady gaze. “What?”

His lips thinned to a straight line. “Pay attention. Why do you think it bothers you to respond to me?”

I didn’t like the conversation, but I knew if I continued to argue with him, he would leave. I wasn’t sure how I knew it, but I did. I thought hard for a moment, trying to put my feelings into words. “Because I’m used to being in control.”

“And I make you feel out of control?”

I played with the salt and pepper shakers. “You make me question myself.”

“Interesting.”

I felt like a science project. I also felt a need to clarify myself. “It’s mostly curiosity,” I said, sounding defensive even to my own ears. “It’s not like this is going anywhere.”

Again, that soft, sexy laugh. “Oh, really? Is that what you think?”

I didn’t get a chance to respond because the waitress brought our drinks. I waited until she’d gone off behind the counter once more before saying anything.

“I think I’m going to be very careful around you.”

He nodded. “Smart girl.”

We talked then, about inconsequential things. My job as a librarian, his as a college professor. I wasn’t surprised he taught college. He had the air of a man comfortable in academia, in instruction. I wondered, almost jealousy, if any of his female students had experienced his disciplining side. Somehow, I didn’t doubt it.