“I love you too, Jerome.  I’ll be through reading these depos before midnight. Wait up for me, won’t cha, honey?”

Penelope Moon was amazed how easily she was lying to her husband again. She was smooth, like blood seeping from an open wound. The more she did it, the more effortless it became. The key was to “KIS”-keep it simple. She took off her Bluetooth and turned to her lover.

“Does your husband feel better now?” Leon Teal moved behind Penelope, ground his huge cock between her petite buttocks and wrapped his arms tightly around her small waist.  She leaned back against Leon’s muscular chest and gazed out the window of his loft. She squinted, trying to make out the mountaintops barely visible from behind the thick ribbon of smog. A symphony of horns and police whistles drifted in from the streets below.  L.A.’s downtown day trippers were being replaced by the city’s night crawlers.

“I should have called him earlier,” she purred.  “We’d better hurry. Sorry doll.”

“Maybe we should have skipped Sayonara,” Leon sighed, “but I was starving.”

At the dimly lit restaurant, sipping sake, Leon listened rapt as she spoke of her past in Seattle District Attorney’s Office including a brush with the Green River killer case.   With her dimples flashing, her auburn bun, unraveled and set free Leon’s admiration grew-along with his hard-on.

“The University legal department must seem really boring to you now,” Leon said. Penelope shrugged and gave a faint smile. When the check came, she looked away and Leon happily snatched it up. He figured it was the least he could do. After all, Penelope had hired him, her newest University attorney, six months earlier. She was the best boss he ever had.

In his loft, Leon ran his tongue up and down the arc of her neck, the swelling in his crotch growing more demanding. She tasted like vanilla and smelled like lavender.             Penelope pushed her ass against him and moved her hips in a circular motion, keeping rhythm with Marvin Gaye’s “After the Dance” playing in softly in the background.

She turned to face him. His green eyes reminded her of the fluorescent lights on a dashboard.  His lips were moist and inviting.

Leon enveloped her mouth with a big kiss, his tongue in a wet tango with hers.

“I love Jerome,” Penelope whispered between kisses.  “He is my husband.” She paused. “Th-th-things are not perfect between us, but… we… have …a good life… together.”

Leon pulled away and held her at arms’ length. Penelope rarely talked about anything having to do with her personal life. Hearing her husband’s name was the jolt of reality, Leon did not need.

“Must you, Pen?” Leon tried not to sound wounded.

“I am not looking for absolution,” Penelope said, her eyes fastened on his. “You know I am crazy about you.”

She took his chin between her thumb and forefingers. “Don’t be mad at me, baby boy.”

She stroked his cheek with the back of one hand and started to unbutton her top with the other. Before she could finish, he slid off her blouse, pushed her bra away and massaged her small nipples in unison until they stood erect. She rubbed the bulge at his crotch and searched for the tip of his dick.

“Come on,” Leon lifted Penelope into his arms, their open mouth kisses, deeper and wetter, their tongues groping and insistent. He carried her to the bathroom and placed her on the edge of the sink.  The space smelled of patchouli oil and sex.

Penelope hiked up her skirt and lifted her legs, her thighs pressing against Leon’s chest, her ankles dangling over his shoulders. Leon inched his middle finger inside her milky cunt and another finger in her asshole.  She scooted herself further to the very edge, he thumbed her fattened clit, softly, waiting for her to squirt. She let out small cries, bucking wildly, her swollen pussy spilled sticky juice.  Leon thumbed her till she soared, whirling to an orgasmic cloud.

“Inside me, baby now,” Penelope was breathless, “please inside me, baby.”

Leon pulled out his heavy penis from his trousers and she flailed wildly at him, trying desperately to pull him to her. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, his face twisted in ecstasy, her calves squeezed his jaws.

“Do you love me Pen?” Leon held his swollen dick milliseconds from her dripping cunt.

“I-I think about you all the time. I do. I am crazy about you.” Penelope panted. “Please, please, put it in.”

Leon penetrated her and began pumping, pumping, pumping furiously, his head buried in her shoulder, his palms gripping her gyrating hips.

”Fuck me baby,” Penelope was screaming now, “yes, Leon you do it, baby, yes, work it baby work”. When he felt her pussy contract around his dick, Leon pulled out in time to ejaculate on Penelope’s breasts. He slumped over her like helium escaping a balloon.  Their gasps were swallowed up by the rhythm and blues vibrating from the sidewalks of the city.

Leon released her legs and held Penelope tight against his chest for a few minutes. He wished Penelope would not dress quickly, peck him on the cheek, call out “love you” over her shoulder and head for the door.

Leon wondered if he was more like Penelope’s husband than he would ever admit. Maybe he needed her to lie to him too.

April 10

The serene almond shaped eyes and the familiar scents of vanilla and lavender, should have tipped Leon off, but they didn’t.

“Hi ya, Popi,” the girl sang out. She was tall with huge breasts pushed up and jiggling from the top of her low cut sweater. Her skin tight skirt showed off luscious hips and a round tummy. Short black hairstyle looked as though she stepped out of the roaring twenties.  A big flower over her left ear was the same color as the burgundy on her heart shaped lips. She walked slowly towards his office and he felt swelling between his legs. He shifted in his seat.

Plucking a business card from his desk, the girl read his name aloud in a voice that sounded soaked in nicotine.

“I saw you in the cafeteria earlier, Leon Teal.” She paused. “I said to myself, ‘Girlfriend, you need to meet that dude. He looks just like Derek Jeter.’”

“Who?” Leon heard the attorney across the aisle snicker at his question.

“Boy,” the girl said, “you must be older than you look.” She smiled with teeth as straight and white as piano keys.

“Excuse me?” Leon raised an eyebrow feigning insult. “I am thirty seven. Who is this dude Derek Jeter, and how’d he get so lucky?”

“Jesus, man,” an exasperated voice yelled out. “He’s a New York Yankee.”

“Oh,” Leon shot back. “I guess I am too busy winning cases to follow sports.”

The girl comically lifted her eyes to the heavens and took a seat across from Leon’s desk. She picked up a yellow legal pad and wrote down her phone number.

“Call me Saturday, Popi, we’ll have a date okay.”

Leon quickly looked at the number and watched the girl get up and run her palms slowly over her tits and ass. Her legs were thick and sturdy, so smooth they reminded Leon of high heeled bowling pins. Leon felt his underarms begin to sweat.  She blew him a kiss. He grabbed it from the air, and pretended to throw it back.  Leon felt like butterflies were doing somersaults in his stomach. He sat and instinctively put a hand over his crotch.

April 11 8:00 am

When Leon dialed her number she answered on the first ring. “Hey you,” he said, “I didn’t get your name.”

“Maya,” she said. “It’s Hindi. It means “illusion.”

“That’s interesting,” Leon replied.

“If you pick me up in an hour,” she said, “we’ll get all the best deals.

“I’ll be there,” Leon assured her.

The Farmers Market was teeming with shoppers, hundreds of them strolling between row after row of wooden stands and carts and tailgates.  Maya went to work right away collecting extra large brown eggs, organic strawberries, juicy nectarines, plump green grapes, stacks of corn tortillas, bunches of oversized chrysanthemums and several jars of red honey. When she spotted the over-ripe avocadoes, she snatched at them as through reaching for an errant child. “Guacamole,” she announced and held them up in triumph.

“This is great Maya,” said Leon said scanning the crowd. “I’ve never been to the Farmer’s Market.”

“Ever been to The Grove?” she asked

Leon shook his head.

“What about the Staples Center?”

He shook his head again.

“For Christ sakes,” Maya was exasperated. “What about freakin’ Disneyland?”

Leon laughed and nodded vigorously.

“You grew up in L.A.? You need to get out more, Popi” She eyed him curiously, “Are you a loner?”

He thought for a moment and said, “Naw.  “I just work a lot.”

Maya shrugged.

“How old are you Maya?” He said, pulling her to him.

“How old do I look?” She looked up with a serious expression.

“’Bout eighteen.”

“Good answer, Popi,” she giggled. “I am twenty-four.”

Leon hoped to sound diplomatic when he asked, “What actually do you do, for a living, I mean?”

Maya gave him a peck that left the shape of her red lipstick on his jaw. “I paint…I draw…and I dream.  That’s what I do.”

“Pays the bills, I guess?”

“You could say that,” Maya said mysteriously.

They walked and talked leisurely. Leon told Maya about Tiffany, his high school sweetheart he wanted to marry.

“But she couldn’t wait for me to do college and then law school.  She wanted a family.” His voice was filled with regret. “She dumped me for an older guy. I think he was in real estate.”

He paused. “She was a good egg.”

“I can’t believe she let a sexy dude like you get away,” Maya said earnestly.

“Well I don’t know about that,” Leon said.  “When I won my first case-I nailed a popular priest for molesting kids-it was all over the papers. Thought I might hear from her then, but I didn’t.”

“I guess we all have that one that got away.” Maya quickly changed the subject. She knew from experience, talking about exes to a guy you want to be your boyfriend was no win situation.

“I want to visit every country on every continent.” She waved her arms as if commanding the seas. “Beginning in India.”

“Can I go with you?” Leon’s green eyes were twinkling.

“Sure you don’t have to work?” She laughed.

It dawned on Leon the last time he strolled hand in hand, was when he was a boy. Back in the day, with Tiffany. He had never held hands with a woman, only with girls.   He wouldn’t dream of public displays of affections with Penelope. Too risky.  With Maya, it seemed perfectly natural to touch and be close.

It was just about noon when they got back to Maya’s place. Leon went straight to the bathroom to relieve himself. When he got back to the living room it was as if he had stepped into a séance. There were candles and incense every where, the fragrances so overwhelming they made Leon dizzy.

“Lay back, Popi,” Maya put a joint to his lips and he hit it. She was completely nude, save for a belly dancer’s chain around her waist. She scooted between his thighs and unzipped his jeans. Leon stood briefly, and she helped him yank his pants and boxers away in one swoop. She eased off his shirt and pulled him back down to a sitting position, his legs splayed.  She gave him the weed again, and he took a deep inhale. Maya roughly handled his dick and put it in her mouth as far as it would go. She sucked him until he was as hard as granite. Leon felt like an eagle, soaring high above earth, his mind floating, weightless, and unhinged.

“A butterfly?” Leon glanced down at huge colorful wings covering her ass, the head of a butterfly peeking out from her crack.

“Painted it myself.”  She circled the tip of her tongue around the head of his penis and tasted droplets of semen. When he was about to explode she lowered herself down on him with a groan, until they were face to face,

“Slap it Popi,” Maya was breathless riding him, his face buried between her enormous rack. “Slap my ass, Popi,” she bellowed. The pop of his hand against her flesh reverberated throughout her apartment. She yelped in delight with every strike.

They screwed until the daylight dissolved into dusk. They came simultaneously over and over gain. Each time Maya let out a guttural howl.

“Woo Leon,” she panted. “You’re delicious.”

They spent the rest of the day butt naked, drinking strawberry mimosas and smoking joints. Maya cut and deep fried the tortillas and added avocado and salsa for nachos. The melted cheese nearly burned their lips and they ate and laughed till their stomachs ached.

Later, they went online and searched for other couples who wanted to watch them fuck. Maya’s camera was set to an elderly pair’s site who wanted Leon and Maya to “do the 69”. Leon was overwhelmed. He never knew such things existed. Most he did with his computer was send emails, write briefs and pay bills.

Night arrived and they collapsed, but not before devouring chilled strawberries dipped in white chocolate.  Leon remembered the question he had been meaning to ask.

“Were you by yourself at the University when you said you saw me in the cafe?”

“I meet my mom once in a blue moon for lunch,” Maya said drowsily.  “We don’t get along that well. She is really uptight.”

“Your mother works at the university?” Leon was surprised.

“Yeah, she has been there since I was a kid,” Maya wished Leon would stop asking about her mother. The last thing she wanted to talk about after a day of good screwing was her mom.

“Since you were a kid? What does she do at the university?”

Maya let out a loud yawn. “Can we talk about this later?”

“Yeah, sure,” Leon said.  “One more question:  “What’s your mother’s name?”

“Penelope Moon,” Maya said. “Good night love.”

Listening to Maya’s soft snores, Leon could not believe what was happening.  How could he be in bed with Penelope’s daughter? Seven months ago, he was at home jacking off to Seven Eleven porno. And now, a mother and daughter are his lovers?  Two beautiful women, so different, and they both wanted him?  He couldn’t believe it.  He figured it was the gods’ way of rewarding him for years of horny nights at home all alone.

May 3

More than once Leon wished he could combine the two women and create one perfect partner.  Penelope was sexy in a calm, mature way. With her he felt like an anxious student as she doled out lessons on life and law. It didn’t even bother him when he caught Penelope in little white lies. Like when she said she sold jewelry at Saks to put herself through law school.  Another time she said her parents paid for her education and she never had to work.

With Maya, he felt like her comrade in a world of sexual adventures. The two of them spent hours online searching for voyeur sites, buying sexy lingerie at the Pleasure Chest, making love on the beach or in his office before sunrise. They had recently decided to try a threesome.

Leon was happier than he had been in years. He was madly in love with both women. And, even if he did have a best friend to talk to about his good fortune, he would never kiss and tell. Not like those clowns in the office. Usually when a man bragged about all the pussy he was getting, he wasn’t getting shit. All talk, no cock. So Leon kept his business to himself.

“It’s the quiet ones you have to look out for,” his mother used to say, “They’re the ones getting all the nooky.” Leon wondered if Derek Jeter was having this much fun.

June 1

“I am pregnant.”

The shock of her words was like a baseball bat to the stomach and Leon almost hit the guardrail on the 405.

“Are you sure…” Leon could not get out the two most important words, “it’s mine?” Maya’s friends she called lovers and lovers she called friends were an open secret between she and Leon.

They were driving back from a visit to the Getty Center. Maya had told him there was an isolated spot on the grounds where she wanted him to eat her pussy. When they arrived there, a guard waved them away.

“Lots of folks must have had the same idea we did,” Maya laughed. She had to settle for being eaten out in the far parking lot of the museum.

“Are you sure?”   He weaved in and out of traffic, desperate to reach the nearest exit.

“Positive. I have been pregnant before,” Maya was matter of fact. “But I am keeping this one. What’s the matter Popi?”

“Nothing,” he grumbled. “I mean this is just a surprise. More like a shock.”

“Well don’t flip out yet, baby,” she reached under the wheel and stroked his penis.

He cursed himself for not wearing a rubber. Whenever he tried, Maya would tell him there was nothing to worry about “I want to feel all of you,” she told him. “A condom is like swimming with a raincoat on.”

“I have to pee.” Leon turned into a Shell gas station.  He jogged to the men’s room and once inside he splashed cold water on his face.  He held on to the sink and took several deep breaths before heading back to the Expedition.

“Are you all right,” Maya leaned in and reached to undo his fly and whispered in his ear,. “You know what they say, “pregnant pussy is the best pussy.”

Leon let out a groan, “Maya, please be serious for once.”  She stuck out her lips in pout.

“No matter, what happens,” Leon said, “I’ll be there for you. Seriously, I will take care of you no matter what. I’ll do the right thing. I love you.”

“I know Leon,” Maya unzipped him. “I believe you.”  He pulled to the side of the station, rolled up the darkened windows and locked the doors.  She took him into her mouth and gave him one of the best blow jobs he ever had.

June 15

When Maya said she was pregnant, it was an emotional earthquake for Leon. Weeks later, when Penelope told Leon, “I am going to have a baby,” it was a sudden, mind numbing aftershock.

June 24

Sitting across from Penelope in his bathtub, Leon noticed tiny lines around the corners of her eyes he had never seen before. Her hair was slicked back to her shoulders, her tiny breasts felt bigger and firmer than even a few weeks before. Taking on an oval shape, her stomach was smooth and hard. She was glowing from her rosy cheeks to the insides of her ripening thighs.

“I never undress in front of Jerome now,” she sounded worried. “He doesn’t say anything. Sometimes I get scared.  After two decades of marriage I know him better than he knows himself.  But how much is a man supposed to take?”

When Penelope told Leon that her husband had a vasectomy, years earlier, he realized he had entered a dangerous and unpredictable realm. He shuddered.  Penelope could not even pretend that the baby was her husband’s even if she wanted to. But Leon did not want her to pretend.  He wanted to shout from the mountaintops they were in love and having a child. Maybe a son.

“My body’s changing,” Penelope sighed. “Can you imagine me a big woman?”

“I’ll love you no matter what size you are.” He pulled her atop him. Leon held the back of her head and gave her a long, probing kiss.  They played with each other other’s tongues and nibbled each other lips like playful, hungry kittens.

“I never thought it would get to this,” Penelope slithered away to the other side of the tub.  “I have so much to tell you.  So much I want you to know about me.”

“I have things I want to tell you too.” Leon was wondering when would be a good time to tell Penelope about her daughter.   How could her tell Maya was also his lover, and she too could be pregnant with his child too?  He cared so very much for Maya. But he was in love with Pen.

Leon’s watch beeped and when he looked at it he could not believe they had been in the tub for two hours. The water was lukewarm and the only remnants of the once voluminous bubbles were the scent of lilac and musk.

“It is getting late,” Penelope said.  “I’d better get going.”

“What are you going to tell Jerome?” Leon could not mask the anxiety in his voice. He wanted her husband to know that as soon as possible. He wanted the world to know they were going to be together.

“I’ll tell him I showered at the gym,” Penelope answered, misunderstanding his question.

“No,” Leon said.  “I mean when are you going to tell your husband, that you’re… you’re leaving.”

“Oh,” Penelope gazed at the water for a few seconds before she answered in a soft tone. “I will tell him tomorrow, at breakfast.  I have rehearsed it hundreds of times in my mind.”

“Are you sure you are ready for this, Leon?”

“I am ready,” he said.

She lifted her leg to step out of the tub but Leon held on to her wrist. “I want to see you cum one more time,” he said.

He pulled her down into his lap and spread her legs.  He positioned her pussy right under the faucet, opened up her lips and turned the water on. Holding her arms from behind, he watched her move her hips thrust as the rushing water sprayed her juicy pearl.

“Ah, ah, ah, baby,” Penelope moaned. “Baby, it is…”

“Go head and get it baby,” Leon urged, “get it good girl.”

The warm water hitting her clit made goose bumps rise on her skin, her nails, dug deep into Leon’s arms leaving a mark.  After she came, he turned off the water and mounted her, stroking  as hard as he could, his ass high in the air with every thrust.

“Goddamn,” Leon hollered out when he could hold back his load no longer.

Their came in a duet, their violent orgasms stilled the waters.

That night was the first time Penelope mentioned her age, “pregnant and forty-two” she said scornfully.  It was also the first time she mentioned Maya, or Marie the name she gave her daughter at birth.

“We are waiting for Marie to find herself,” Penelope sounded weary. “She is really quite a talented artist, but she is rebellious and unfocused.  She’s an only child, in her own world. We’ve been paying her way for years,” Penelope shook her head.

Leon always connected Penelope and Maya in his mind, but hearing Pen say her daughter’s name, was weird and unsettling. They were not just two women, they were mother and daughter, connected by blood and love and so much more. And if they both had his kids, what would the children be related? Brothers or grandkids or aunts or uncles?

July 15

It was as if Penelope Moon had vanished from the face of the earth.

Dozens of Leon’s phone calls, emails, even notes slid under the door at work, all went unanswered. One day he called Maya, peppering her with questions about how she was feeling.  She admitted to no morning sickness or fatigue.  Leon casually inquired if she had seen her parents lately.

“Unfortunately,” Maya said, “They had Fourth of July barbecue yesterday and they demanded I attend. I can’t stand their uppity, meat eating friends.” She sounded disgusted.

“So everybody’s okay?” Leon wanted to add “Why won’t your mom call me back?” but of course he could not.

“Mom looks like she gaining a little weight, finally. Probably all that pork eat,” Maya laughed.

July 20

The man standing at Leon’s door was tall and slender, wearing a Panama style hat, sad eyes framed by thick black glasses, his hands stuck deep into the pockets of his tan linen jacket.

“I am Jerome Moon.”

Leon wasn’t sure if he should invite him in or slam the door in his face.

“Can I come in?” Jerome said.

“Ah, ah sure,” Leon stood in the doorway for a few seconds staring at Jerome. He held out his hand to the older man who shook it. Jerome’s hand felt rough and Leon caught a whiff of whiskey when he passed.

“I know about you and my wife.” Jerome’s voice was low and steady. “She sent me here to talk to you.”

Leon fought to steal his nerve. “I don’t know what you are talking about,” he said.   “Penelope Moon and I are just friends,” he replied

“You’re shaking and giving yourself away, son,” Jerome looked over the top of his black frames.

The two men sat in silence for a few long moments.  Leon felt like he was floating above his body, watching the scenario play out from up in the air.

“Do you want something to drink? Leon said at last. Jerome shook his head, and fixed his eyes on Leon who gradually became aware of his cell phone vibrating in his pocket.

The caller id read Maya. Leon mentally debated whether or not to take the call. The phone stopped buzzing for a few seconds and started up again.

“Excuse me,” Leon said.  Leon moved toward the balcony. What freaking timing.  This guy comes to confront me about having and affair with his wife, and his daughter who I am also fucking calls at that very moment. Shit, will this get any more bizarre?

Jerome nodded.

“Hey, babe,” Leon hoped he sounded carefree, not sounding like a man who a gun to his head.

“Got some news for you Popi,” Maya was shouting over Madonna blaring in the background.

“Where are you honey?” Leon could see Jerome sitting patiently. He had removed his hat and put it on his lap.

“At Smooth’s in Long Beach,” Maya yelled. “Hey dude, it was a false alarm.  I am not preggers after all. Let’s celebrate.”

Leon dropped the phone and quickly retrieved it.   “What do you mean, baby girl, I thought you were sure?”

“I thought I was sure too,” Maya said. “I finally went to the doctor and they said no way.  They told me to take my birth control pills religiously. If I skip my pills, I miss my period.”

Leon knew she was lying. She had told him she had been pregnant before and that she was absolutely sure this time.  He felt relieved and angry at the same time. Did she really think she was pregnant or was she just playing a game?  Did she have an abortion? Leon did not know what to believe.

“Look, I’ve got to handle some business now,” Leon ran his hand over his face, “but I’ll call you back.”

“No,” she shouted.”Don’t call me back, dude, meet me here.”  Maya described breathlessly how she had introduced herself to a couple visiting from Germany. They were more than willing, so she had invited to her place for a foursome.

“We can be international swingers, Popi. Have you ever done the group thing?”

Leon assured her he had not. Before hanging up, he promised to call her after he finished his business.

“I’ll be waiting,” Maya yelled. “I think you will really like the girl. She looks like me, only she’s blonde.”

Leon felt like he was moving in slow motion. Back in the living room, Jerome Moon was already on his feet.

“The gig’s up, son,” Jerome Moon said. “Maya and I are going back to Seattle; raise this baby as a family.” Jerome’s tired eyes waited for a reaction from Leon.  “Law says this baby is mine.”

“You can’t do this,” Leon sounded helpless. “It’s my baby. Penelope loves me.”

“You think she loves you?” Jerome smirked.  “You’re a bigger fool than you look.”

Leon felt the blood rush to his face. He wanted to punch Jerome’s lights out.

Leon decided to go for the jugular. “She doesn’t want you anymore.  You can’t please her the way I can.”

“Is that what she told you, son?” Jerome asked.

“Stop calling me son,” Leon’s voice was raised. “She didn’t have to tell me. Let her go old man. You can’t even have kids. She told me about your vasectomy,” Leon suddenly felt bold, his anger at Maya fueling his desire to humiliate her father.

“You’d better slow your roll, guy,” Jerome said, his words were hard and cold.

“I have been through this before in Seattle with a guy like you,” Jerome looked Leon up and down. “He got mad when it was over and tried to ruin my wife’s reputation. That’s when we moved to L.A.”

Leon could not believe what he was hearing.

“My wife just gets a lil feisty, a lil bored,” Jerome said, his hands stuffed deep into his pants pockets. “After twenty-seven years of marriage, boredom can set in. Sometimes, well, I mean, sometimes she strays. But she always comes back to me.  Know what I mean?”

Leon remained silent.

“Naw, you don’t know anything about marriage and what keeps people for better or worse,” Jerome said. “You are just out for a good time.”

Jerome tipped his hat and said, “And now that she is with child, she is back where she belongs. With her husband.”

July 4,  a year later Seattle, Washington

Maya looked lovingly at her baby brother in her arms.  “Well, you’ve got your mother’s nose, that’s for sure,” she cooed.  “But where on earth did you get those green eyes?”

Maya had always thought her father had himself fixed years ago, so Mom could concentrate on her career. Why else was she an only child?  When Maya asked her mother about it, Penelope replied, “Whatever gave you that idea, darling? We used birth control all these years. Little Noah is a pleasant surprise.”

Noah’s green eyes brought Leon Teal to Maya’s mind.  What the hell ever happened to Popi?  She called him for three weeks straight, seven or eight times a day, but he would never call her back. The last straw was when someone called security when she went to Leon’s office.

“Usually guys disappear when you tell them you’re pregnant, not when you tell them you are not,” she smiled at Noah. Oh well, Maya thought, no worries.  She was having a great time with the Germans and she was so happy they had decided to move to the L.A. permanently.

July 4 Los Angeles

His home phone was ringing again and Leon did what he always did-he ignored it.  Leon’s first day off work in two weeks saw him, sipping Jack Daniels and watching a black girl and an Asian girl dressed like nurses, feeling each other up and tongue kissing on his TV.  Leon had the video on mute while he listened to “Distant Lover” on his stereo.

With the crescent moon shining into his loft, Leon reflected on the price he paid to love and be loved.

Last year he was making love to two amazing women. Today, another man was raising his child (was it a son?) and he had no idea where Penelope was.  Should he track Penelope and Jerome down, go to court, demand his parental rights?

What judge in his right mind would give me custody?  Leon fast forwarded the video.  The law says any child born during a marriage automatically belonged to the two people in the involved. In reality Leon had no rights. And this fact was like a shank to Leon’s heart.

And Maya…what a beautiful liar she was.  Was she ever pregnant? Leon felt like such a sucker. He was so embarrassed, he refused to see her or take her calls.  She was an illusion, just like her goddamn name.  “Be careful what you wish for,” Leon sang in tune with Distant Lover “you just might get it.”

On the video, a large white man had joined the two women. The Asian girl was giving him head and the black girl was butt fucking him with a pink dildo.  These images left Leon’s pecker soft and uninterested.

After turning off the porno, Leon turned up the volume on his answering machine. He yawned at the stream of messages from his law interns, telemarketers and charity organizations asking for money. The last message made Leon do a double take. He could not believe what he was hearing.

“Leon, is this really you? Oh my God, I have been trying to find you,” the familiar voice said,  “It’s me, Tiffany Sole, well you know me as Tiffany Ryan, from San Pedro High.  I can’t wait to talk to you. Call me.”

© 2010 Moxie Rich

Moxie Rich is the pen name of a Los Angles based writer, whose credits include articles in Seventeen Magazine, American Sexuality journal and assorted blogs and websites. A popular public speaker, Moxie Rich lectures to women around the U.S. about body image, dating violence and popular culture. She has appeared on BET and NPR, among other media outlets.

Currently teaching college level writing and critical thinking classes, in her free time Moxie loves to travel, collect antique books, Pilates and power walking.

Moxie Rich, whose motto is “gardez votre sang froid” (stay calm), is working on a collection of sexy short stories. Her next tale titled “Date Robbers” features two bombshell bandits, prowling for love and money in the wealthy  playgrounds of Los Angeles

Regardless, Mick was as steady as ever.  Sixty-five years old and the hands of a surgeon, he would tell his drinking buddies at the Lucky Green.  He holstered his gun and knelt down by the dead woman.  She was a comely Sally, he thought, always having been a sucker for blondes with long straight hair.  Her high heeled shoes caught his eye.  They were made of some sort of clear shiny plastic, with sparkles trapped inside.  The amber light from the light bulb above the back door of a Chinese restaurant down the alley made them glimmer, as if each shoe held inside it a tiny universe of stars.

Her faux fur coat reeked of powder burns and cheap perfume, forcing a sneeze out of Mick.  With one hand he brushed the loose strands of hair out of her face while rummaging in his pants pocket for pennies with the other.

“I’ll be dammed!”

Underneath her long bangs the woman’s eyes were open, darting from side to side. She was still alive.

From the main street he heard a car approach.  It turned down the alley behind him but he didn’t move; he recognized the sound of the sputtering engine.  It was his son Johnny.

While Johnny positioned the car, trunk side to his father, Mick stared at the woman’s eyes.  He had seen plenty of people die.  There was always a look of confusion mixed with panic, but it invariably faded away into death.  What he was seeing now was not a fight to stay conscious.  This was something different.

“Something wrong, Pop?”  Johnny stepped up behind his father.

“I just put six rounds into this streak of piss, and look at her, still hanging in there.”

Johnny peered over his father’s shoulder but the alley’s shadows left him with little to see but a red dress, blonde hair and a pair of the tallest heeled stripper shoes he had ever seen.

“Best back up some, she’s gonna spill out all over your slacks,” Johnny observed.  “Don’t want that to happen, ya know?  How you gonna explain coming home minus your pants again to Ma?”

Mick looked down to his feet.  His son was right.  He should be in the middle of a spreading pool of blood by now, yet he wasn’t.  “Can’t be, I put six bullets in her.”

“Sure, Pop.  I know you never miss.  I’ll open the trunk.”   Johnny walked back to the ’82 Cadillac Eldorado he’d borrowed from a friend’s junkyard earlier that week.

The woman’s eyes continued to flick around, but she showed no other signs of life, made no sound. Okay, this has to be some sort of weird muscular thing, he told himself.  Pulling the woman’s fur coat open Mick saw five black entry wounds right where he expected them:  three in the sternum, two in the heart.  She’d been hit, no question.

“Shit!”

“What?”  Mick looked up from his examination of the dying woman.  “Something wrong?”

“Broke the fucking key in the trunk’s fucking lock.  God dammed piece of shit!”

“Watch your mouth.”

“Sorry.”

Mick shook his head; the younger generation’s lack of respect always grated on his nerves.  He blamed upbringing, and he’d taught his son not to use the Lord’s name in vein.  But the kid was hanging out with some real low-lifes these days.

“Brought your tools, right?”

“Yeah, I’ll get a wrench.”  Johnny sighed.  Mick knew that the kid hated looking the fool in front of his father.

He looked down at the woman again.  Summer Nights was her name, he’d been told.  Her stage name, anyway.  He’d also been told she was a blackmailing bag of bile, but looking down at her he was beginning to suspect she was more than just a cheap opportunistic slut.

Where was all this bitch’s blood, he wondered, she should certainly be bleeding out?  The low light of the alley masked the details of the wounds so he recklessly ran his bare hand over her chest.  Expecting to find her dress soaked, Mick recoiled when he felt nothing but dryness; dust, her skin felt like ash and sand paper.  He held his hand up to his face but it was clean.

“Don’t you touch me again.”  She turned her darting eyes directly to his.

“Pop?” Johnny said curiously as he walked back to the trunk, his tool belt swinging in his hand.

“Something is very wrong here.”  Mick would have said more, but he heard the woman whispering.  Leaning down he tried to understand her words, but the language she used was foreign to him.

“Fuck!” Johnny screamed louder than he should.

Mick heard his son break open the trunk behind him, but he did not take his eyes off the woman.  He just could not stop staring.  He wanted to, but her eyes held him.

“I sliced open my fucking hand,” Johnny moaned.

“Don’t you bleed on…”

Suddenly the woman’s mouth opened wide with a hissing exhalation.  Mick went cold: protruding from her upper jaw were two large pearl-white fangs.  The shock kicked him to his feet, as if his old swollen knees were brand new.  He took two steps back, bumping into his son.

“Pop?”

“This slapper is touched by the devil.”

“What?  What the hell’s wrong?”

His father did not answer, he simply pointed at the woman’s sneering face.

“Pop, it’s a joke, right?”

“No.”

Mick saw her gaze shift away from him to his son’s injured hand and the blood dripping from it down his shirt.

“Johnny, do me a favor.  Take a step closer to her.”

“Why?  What the fuck, Pop, my hand–”

“Just do it.”

The closer Johnny moved to their “victim,” the more animated she became.

“Johnny, it looks like we were hired to kill a vampire.”   Mick grabbed his son’s shoulder before he got too close.

“What, like in that movie with Brad Pitt and your favorite, Pop; Tommy-boy?”

“He’s not my favorite.”  They had had this argument before. “I just fancy Top Gun.  Anyway those are movies, boy, this is real.”

Johnny pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and started winding it around his hand.  “Who hires a pair of hitmen to kill a vampire?”

Mick shook his head.  He had never allowed religion into his profession before.  Now, however, he questioned God and contemplated damnation.  Clearly this woman was lost.

“Somebody who obviously had a problem that needed to be solved.”

“Who was it?  Someone from church?”  Johnny winced while he wrapped his hand.

“No,” Mick answered, “but he was referred to us by someone from church.  He wanted this slut dealt with because she was a bloodsucker.  Here I thought he meant she was blackmailing him about bopping his secretary.”

“So you think he knew?”
“Yes.”  Mick leaned over the woman before he spoke again.  “He knew what you were, didn’t he, Summer?”

He unholstered his revolver.  Staring deep into the woman’s eyes he emptied the used shells into his hand.

“Pop, I don’t think bullets will kill a vampire.”

“Six put her on her arse.”

“Truly, but she’s still moving.”  His son pointed down.

“All I need is one more.”

Rummaging about his jacket pockets Mick found the last bullet he was looking for.  One more, one shot, just one more shot.

“Time!” Johnny called as his digital watch beeped.  “Cops will be here in five, gotta shit or get off the pot.”

“One shot,” Mick told his son as he chambered the round.

“I tell you, I think we need to cut off her head to kill her.”

“She wants your blood,” Mick said, raising his gun.  “She sees you bleeding.  She smells it.”

Aiming the pistol at her head Mick looked one last time in her deep-set eyes.  She sang out a line of words that made even less sense than those she used before.  Whatever she was, whatever it took to kill her; Mick no longer cared.  His head was swimming now, and her words seemed to fill his ears.

Turning suddenly Mick buried the revolver into his son’s belly and pulled the trigger.  Johnny’s guts splattered out his back and dribbled down the front over Mick’s gun hand. Shock stole the scream from his son’s lungs but not the utter dismay from his eyes.

Unable to control his actions, Mick shoved his dying son to the ground right on top of the vampire.  The moment Johnny’s body landed on hers, Summer came alive.  She wrapped her arms and legs slowly around Johnny as he moaned in agony.  Summer took her gaze off Mick and turned her attention to Johnny’s neck.  Biting down hard her teeth tore through flesh and muscle alike.  Johnny shuddered and quieted leaving only revolting sucking noises to fill the night air.

“What have I done?”  Mick tried to reload his gun, but his hands shook too badly.  He dropped the first bullet to the ground where it rolled under the car.  A tear trickled down his old jagged face as he spilled two more rounds to the street.

“You have no weapon that can kill me.”  Summer rolled his son’s corpse to one side and slowly stood.  Mick could see she had regained her strength.  He had never failed a job before, but known men who had.  Some of those men ended up targets themselves while others crumbled under the stress of knowing their families were in danger.

“You will tell me who sent you to kill me,” Summer said, stepping forward.

Mick’s emotions steadied.  He was stronger than this.  “You killed my son, you filthy demon!”

“You killed him the moment you looked into my eyes.”

A whiff of something from the Cadillac’s trunk brought an idea into Mick’s mind.  He turned his back on the beast, remembering a passage from the Bible, Corinthians 3:15.

“Only a coward is afraid to face death,” she hissed.  “But your blood will serve nonetheless.”

He rummaged in the darkness of the Cadillac’s trunk and found what he was looking for: a plastic jug.  The click-clack of Summer’s shoes grew louder as she walked calmly toward him.  Mick breathed a prayer.  His test was upon him.

Popping the lid of the gas container with his right thumb, Mick spun around on his old Oxfords.  “I have never failed a job.”

Clicking the green Bic lighter in his left hand he added, “Never.”

The gasoline container erupted into a burst of fire that engulfed Mick, the vampire, and the old Cadillac behind them.  Through the crackling flames Mick’s heard Summer scream.  Taking one last look into her eyes, the old man finally saw it: the gaze of death.  He had seen it so many times before.

Image © Boris Vallejo

©  2010 Kevin James Breaux

Kevin James Breaux is a published artist, photographer and writer.

“Kevin is both a storyteller and an artist, and that’s evident in the art he creates: every picture tells a story that is both complex and subtle. I highly recommend him.” — Jonathan Maberry author and two time Bram Stoker Award winner.

Having written several novels Kevin is currently seeking publication for his newest work. ONE SMOKING HOT FAIRY TAIL, a dark urban fantasy that runs 86,000 words and is a fast-paced read with summer blockbuster movie elements and a devastating emotional resolution.

For information about his writing and art please visit www.kevinbreaux.com .

One night I was making love to my then-fiancée––I’ll call her X.

We were fucking near the long bedroom mirror below our dresser. Seeking a visual flourish to enhance our foreplay, I asked X whether she might put on that men’s hat—her fedora–– like she used to back when we first met.  My question didn’t sit well. She pushed off me and then she grilled me about the request, as if I’d just asked her to get on all fours or give me a rim job. I mean, a hat––a goddamned hat fetish is hardly even a kink.

My X challenged me with a cold gaze. “I guess I’m not good enough to make love to unadorned, naked?”

I told her that went without saying.

“Then why’d you ask me to put on that ratty old hat?” X asked.

I told her to just forget it. “Forget the fucking hat.”

***

Enter Lilah.

Lilah was a work friend of X’s at one of those save-the-world non-profit foundations and I was first introduced to Lilah the night after the hat-skirmish with X.  It was the foundation’s Christmas party.

I am sure that Lilah and I spoke a good deal at that first meeting. But all I remember is shaking her hand and studying her long straight dark hair, her dark eyes, her little black dress, her black choker with its pearly cameo, her black teardrop earrings. Her lovely ass almost visible against the pleats of her black skirt. I remember thinking that I’d bet big money that Lilah probably would wear a hat when she made love. I also remember, later in that party, Lilah and I reached out to grab the last brownie on the dessert tray. We laughed awkwardly, one of those impromptu fits of laughter know you’ll remember sharing even if you don’t know exactly why. I was a gentleman. I let her have the last brownie. Oddly, some part of me wanted to hang around her and hover, watch her eat it.

But I left her alone to enjoy it, wandering back toward X, X who was too busy proselytizing about one of the foundation’s pet causes to even think about dessert.

X, I realized, was losing her sweet tooth.

***

X and I saw Lilah socially now and then. Each time between the next get together with her seemed, for me, longer than the next.

Then one evening during dinner, X told me Lilah had quit the foundation. The news punched me in the gut.  I realized my crush had taken me over, full-tilt.

“Why’d she quit?” I asked, as if just knowing why Lilah had quit I’d be able to intervene and get her back working at my fiancée’s office.

“I have no idea why she quit. She’s materialistic, she’s shallow,” X said, her tone like a high school principal. “She’d rather leave the office at five to go shopping at Saks than stay a little longer to go the extra mile for our charities.”

X’s self-righteousness irked me; I wanted to defend Lilah as if she were my lover.

I knew that Lilah wasn’t shallow. Materialistic? Who the hell isn’t materialistic?

“So she likes expensive handbags,” I told X. “That doesn’t make a person shallow.”  I didn’t convince X, who took up our plates, shaking her head with the kind of patronizing disapproval that I associate with nuns.

***

Often, when Lilah phoned our place, X wasn’t home. “She’s out saving the world,” I once said.

“Well, I got out of that racket,” Lilah said, gleefully.

These fortuitous calls happened a lot. I kept the conversations casual, and mildly flirtatious. Besides, I sensed Lilah didn’t go there with unavailable men. I sensed a woman who enjoyed her single life, her small studio, her unattached, personal freedom. Still, from the phone calls, she and I graduated to email.  Back then you graduated to email from the phone: I was new to email then and very few people I knew had it at home, so it felt like Lilah and I were in our own little world exchanging messages. And our phone conversations had a teenage innocence. They were almost always about pleasure. Simple, simply pleasure. Music. Movies. Even candy. We both liked Butterfingers candy bars. Once, on the phone, we were discussing what ingredients made that chocolate bar so sweet to the tongue and as we were talking, a call from X came through. I apologized to Lilah that I had to take the call.

“No worries,” she said, “we’ll solve the mystery of the Butterfinger another time.”

***

One winter night, X and I were supposed to meet Lilah in the city to go see a new singer-songwriter at a Manhattan club. X bowed out at the last minute. She had a save-the-world type speech to write for her Ethnic Studies course.

“You go,” X. told me, “Go. And tell Lilah I am sorry.”

So, I went. As agreed, Lilah met me under the clock in the center of Grand Central Station. She stood out from the crowd––and then some. For one thing, she was in a long black Italian coat, like she’d stepped out of the film of a smoke-filled 1940s movie set.  She wasn’t rushing hither and thither like the swarm of middle-class commuters. Instead she seemed part of the Beaux-Arts elegance of Grand Central Station itself, her right hand with red-painted fingernails resting delicately on the marble ledge of the kiosk. Her tiny, square-shaped handbag was slung gracefully off her shoulder, and she had one boot-shod leg coolly crossed over the other. I almost had to slap myself in my face to make me realize that woman is waiting for me. For all my eager admiration, I was overcome by shyness as we greeted each other. But Lilah was so unguarded that it forced me to “man up” and shed the shy sixteen year old bullshit. I directed us to the taxi stand outside where snow was starting to fall. The midtown winds were blowing the flakes in topsy-turvy plumes as our cab headed south.

Lilah smelled of jasmine perfume, a fragrance so strong that the whole cab was filled with it. Both of our hands were pressed into the cab seat, almost touching, while our other hands held on to the straps near the back windows. We made inane comments about the passing shops and streets. Her velvet skirt rode up her left leg and unveiled her luminous skin beneath her black stockings. I caught her looking at my loafers and the piping of my black jacket. For most of the ride, we talked about X––a safe topic––and we agreed it took more discipline than either of us had to stay in on a Saturday night to write a paper. As we discussed the noble charities which the foundation sponsored, my eyes wandered to the diamonds on Lilah’s handbag and for a while it seemed those jewels were the only light in our dark taxi.

***

Downtown at the club, the burly bouncers said the show had been cancelled because the singer couldn’t fly in due to the snowstorm.

“Snow storm?” we asked.

“Try blizzard,” the bouncer told us.

Lilah and I laughed at our failure to watch the weather reports. I suggested we retreat to a bar before I “head back to the ‘burbs,” and then I remembered that Lilah didn’t drink.

“Feel a sweet tooth?” she asked me. She knew a cafe nearby where we could get dessert and we found a small candlelit table in a place called Dessert Isle. She helped me parse the menu options, her finger gliding across my menu. I ordered a profiterole and a dessert wine and she had a crème brulee and mint tea.

I admitted it had been  “a lot of years” since I’d gone out just for dessert.  We joked about how we’d fought over the brownie at that Christmas party. She told me about an ex-boyfriend from college––who didn’t eat dessert.

“Sugar-free diet,” she said, in a tone that was at once disbelieving and dismissive. She delicately spooned her crème brulee and held the spoon in her mouth. Then she took it out and dug in for another spoonful. “Hence the ex in ex boyfriend,” she said and her smile turned me on.

Under the small table, our feet grazed each other’s and on the tabletop our fingers brushed more than once.

Instead of announcing that I ought to head back to the train before the storm got worse, I ordered myself a Sambuca.

The longer we talked, the more it was obvious we were trying to avoid the very thing that was a happening: something like a date arranged by some force other than ourselves.  We shifted our chairs so that we could face the pane glass window and watch the snow piling up. I put my hand around the back of her chair careful not to touch her shoulder. The waiter said they were expecting a foot within the next three hours and we stared at the falling snow.

***

Lilah insisted on coming back to Grand Central just to be sure my train was running. Ice had formed on the sidewalks so she had to hold on to my arm. Our hips bumped as we battled the wind. The lapels of our coats flapped upwards and wet snow pelted our reddened faces. My heart sank when we saw that the trains were listed as “On Time.” The anxious crowds wandering around others who were squatted on the ground indicated something different. Then, as if the gods had intervened, the station’s PA announced a twenty-minute delay “on all trains into and out of Grand Central.”

To kill time, Lilah and I wandered around the newsstands where she pointed out her favorite magazine––Vogue’s fat spring issue, some 500 pages thick.

“I have skipped on groceries to be able to buy their fashion issue,” she said, as she purchased the copy.

I held up a Greenpeace magazine with a photo of an oil-slicked turtle. “As a former world-saving foundation person, shouldn’t you reading this instead of Vogue?”

“Don’t go there,” she warned, and as she waved her Vogue at me I wanted to snatch it out of her hands and kiss her.

In Grand Central, the schedule-boards had changed. Trains were Cancelled. A collective groan rose from the waiting crowds. I was ecstatic; Lilah raised her eyebrows and shrugged and then she smiled. Before the crowd could converge on the pay phones, I called X to tell her what was up. She barely heard me. She had just read some article for her paper and she was going on about an atrocity in some distant country. As she babbled on, I saw from the corner of my eye, Lilah holding a piece of paper. In her neat red handwriting it the note said,  “You can use my couch!”  The operator was asking for another quarter; I made sure to ask X if she was okay with my “borrowing Lilah’s couch.”

“What’d she say?” Lilah asked.

“She said fine and went back to ranting about war and orphans.”

Lilah and I shrugged, our eyes glittering like liberated kids whose parents were so wrapped up with their own activities that they couldn’t be bothered enforcing curfew.

***

At a deli near Lilah’s place we stocked up on Butterfingers candy bars and expensive English tea.

Her apartment was spacious for a studio, with high ceilings, lofty windows, tall, fancy Japanese screens that set her bed off from the living room, and bookcases and shelves filled with CDs, art books, books on fashion.

“My old Vogues,” she said, pointing to rows of magazines on the colorful shelf near the window.

As we watched boring TV new reports about the blizzard, I admired her high-heeled boots that were still glazed with melting snow.  We talked shopping–about buying patiently to get quality versus settling for shit. “If you are patient shopper you can nab designer clothes on a shoestring budget,” she said. “And still keep a politically correct carbon footprint.” I told her that I admired her nuanced approach to values.

She asked me would I mind if she thumbed through her copy of Vogue?

“As long as you don’t think me less a man if I peruse it with you,” I said.

She patted the couch and I sat comfortably next to her as she held the magazine on her black-stocking lap. She flipped patiently through the magazine, occasionally pausing at certain images: a leggy blonde leaping over a puddle in a Burberrys. Or a supermodel in a micromini slouched in the backseat of a Porsche donning a Tiffany’s bracelet. She was pleasantly surprised that I could tell Chanel from Versace, couture from kitsch. The magazine’s special feature was a lingerie spread filled with models in teddies, in hooded terrycloth robes, in cat suits, in stilettos and hot pants.  I told her what X. had said to me recently, that lingerie was invented by men to “corset and bind,” women.

“Well I must be pretty oppressed,” she said, “I’ve been obsessively collecting this stuff since I was eighteen.” As Lilah pointed out an Estée Lauder ad, she explained the Egyptian origins of make-up and glamour, and I recalled the stupid argument X and I had that night, about the fedora.  Poles apart, I thought. It felt like a cosmic joke being played on me. Marrying the wrong chick, sucker.

Lilah tossed Vogue aside with a thump. She got up and went behind the screen and rummaged in a closet. As if on a dare, she emerged with hangers filled with lacy, frilly items and spread them on the couch with a collector’s contagious self-satisfaction. Pale blues. Ivory whites. Midnight blacks. Blood reds. I felt sure I was in an insanely erotic dream and would wake up with X at my side, but the sharp scent of perfume and the loud crackles of heat her apartment’s pipes were all too real.

Together, like factory line workers, we inspected the stitching and fabric and the labels of each item, turning them inside out.  I put my hand into a green stocking and made a talking puppet of my hand. “Save the frogs of the rain forest,” I said and we both laughed.

As she kneeled on the couch, her knee brushed my crotch and I boldly put my hand on her leg to encourage her to keep the pressure there between my legs. As she did, she coyly asked me whether X wears lingerie now and then, “I mean, despite how ‘oppressive’ it is.”

I explained that she had quite frequently when we first met but that she didn’t any longer, not now that she thought it was “patriarchal and controlling.”  Plus, I added, “when you’re saving the world you’re not allowed to have fun,” I said.

“Who says?” Lilah asked, stretching the fabric of a baby blue lace bra.

“Not I,” I said. “Definitely not I.”

***

Sometime between slicing up the Butterfingers chocolate bars and carrying tea into her living room, Lilah and I kissed. It was a sloppy but a long kiss sweetened by our hesitancy and guilt. When we let go and stood close enough that our chests were touching, I could feel her rapid breathing. My eyes wandered the run of her pale neck. I smelled that jasmine again. I clenched my jaw and closed my eyes to calm down. Feeling like I had to say something, I wondered whether it was a wise idea for me to stay over. “I hear you,” Lilah said. “It sort of feels like we’re lighting a fuse here.”

We went to the window and inspected the snowfall, she pointed out the cars half buried in snow. “We have no choice,” she said and then we both laughed. On the couch, we snacked on Butterfingers and she read from the wrapper and the litany of weird ingredients pronounced in her cute falsetto was enough to make me hard. “Confectioner’s Corn Flakes…Nonfat Milk….Salt… Lactic Acid Esters, Soy Lecithin… Soybean Oil.” Her voice seemed to be singing in a pitch far above the banal list of ingredient.

I took the wrapper from her and asked her why she was so into lingerie from such an early age. “Did you want to be a designer?”

She explained how she used to go out a lot with friends but that chasing boys seemed less fun sometimes than staying home listening to music and copying from fashion magazines and drawing plans for cocktail dresses, wedding dresses. She used to dress her little sister in her mother’s costume jewelry. Between summers at college, she got sales jobs at boutiques, but her talent for managing egos and for fund raising led her into charity, non-profit.  Listening to her story, I offered how I’d always disagreed with so-called sex experts who say men are more visual than women when it comes to desire because, to me, it was obvious women were visual as well––“Just look at who reads Vogue,” I said.

She agreed with me. “Entirely.”

By now it was one a.m. and the sugar high and the tea were still coursing through us. She wondered aloud whether our visual tastes were the same as our taste in dessert.

We decided to play a game––a dangerous one, but a game nevertheless.

She’d model four  lingerie ensembles from her vast collection. In turn, I would be a judge and I’d rate each of them, “like an Olympic judge, on a scale from one to ten.”

Then after I judged each outfit, she’d let me know how she ranked each one too and by comparing scores, we’d see if we have the same taste.

“And as added bonus,” she said, “I’ll take the one that you chose as the best one and I’ll sell it at the neighborhood boutique on consignment. Then we send the profits to a charity.”  She winked when she said “charity,” and I hopped onto the couch and steeled myself to be a discriminating––and lucky––judge.

***

Her first outfit was a white bustier with a sheer white satin garter belt centered by a pink rose.  It was called “Maiden at the Maypole.”

She strolled, smiling, “A walk on the blushing bridal side,” she said, adjusting the white stockings at the garter clasp. At first I couldn’t get over how the white lingerie contrasted with her dark eyes and dark hair and how her legs looked especially long in the white hosiery. She had drawn her hair back into a prim bun and she posed near the window holding the curtain over her white legs. She lowered her head and pretended to blush and then she turned around to reveal that the back of the panties sported a pink bow. I scribbled a “7.5” into my notepad. As she got to me on the couch, she picked up my hand and I held her and said, “With this hand, I thee–”

“You thee what?” she asked, grinning. “you’re spoken for, you rascal!”

I stood up and held her hips and pressed my lips onto her shoulder and even kissed the satin bra strap. “This outfit gives the lie to ‘an innocent bride’,” I said.

She tapped my nose. “And I’ll probably never wear this in its intended context,” she said, giggling. “No offense. But marriage and lingerie seem incompatible.”

***

Her second ensemble was a jet-black kimono with white peonies painted on its sleeves. “Peony Kimono.” The liquid effect of the kimono’s fabric made it seem that Lilah was robed in a black water that shined in spots as if from the reflecting sun. As she walked, she held something behind her back.  When she got to the center of the room, she opened the robe with one hand to reveal the silken yellow lining. Then she let the kimono fall to her feet. “I gave up two summers of vacation pay to buy this kimono,” she said.

She wore those expensive hold-up European stockings––the ones with the five-inch lace tops, tops that extend all the way to the top of the leg––and a matching demi-style black bra that barely covered her breasts. Her neckline was jeweled by a coral red necklace. She’d brushed her hair so that her long hair draped down to the left of her face, feathering like a painter’s inky brush against her pale breast. Her stockings were semi-opaque. The mules she wore were high-heeled but she moved effortlessly in them.

From behind her back she pulled an English-style bowler hat. She put the hat on her head and put a leg up on the couch. It was as if she had known about the fedora argument X and I had. Then I thought, no. This is who she is. It’s not about X.

I stared at Lilah’s leg, as if I were studying the geometry of the stocking’s weave. Really I was gazing through the fabric at her luminous skin. My eyes traveled upwards to her black panties. Red threads were woven into its black lace. Lilah saw me staring at the panties and, as if she knew I was seeing the red threads, she ran her finger on them to guide my eyes. I ran my finger along the border between her skin and the black fabric, then lightly over the soft mound of her sex, tickling the surface as she kept her leg on the couch and closed her eyes. She bit down on her lip as if trying to stifle whatever urge that my admiring eyes had stirred. When she lowered her leg from the couch and walked off, disappearing behind the Japanese screens to put on the next outfit, my cock was so hard that I could barely shift in my seat as I scribbled the number “10” in handwriting so sloppy you’d think I was drunk.

***

Lilah’s third ensemble was a navy blue body stocking.

“This is ‘Russian Cat Suit’” she said. She wore a dark blue thong and dark blue star-shaped pasties over her nipples. She strode into the living room barefoot, bouncing gingerly with each step, her hair in a bouncy gymnast’s pony tail. “Let me see if I can,” she said before raised her arms over head in a V and dashing forward, curling into a single somersault. She raised her hands like an Olympian and I applauded.

“Zee Amerikan Lilah has vowed dis crowd,” I said, mimicking a Russian accent. I gave the outfit a 7, mainly for its for spunkiness.

“More than spunky,” she said, sidling up to me, showing me the leaf-and-clover filigree stitched into the garment’s navy blue rayon. I put the pad down and told her she looked so much like a gymnast I wanted to see if I could lift her up.

“Hey, this is no bridal outfit,” she said as I cradled her, holding her bride-like in my arms. She kicked and swayed her feet and we kissed softly.

“We’re being very bad,” Lilah said.

“Yes,” I said, letting her down. “Judges can’t kiss the models.”

“Right, you must avoid bias,” she said as she tiptoed back behind the screen.

***

The final ensemble she called, “Parisian Peek-a-Boo,” crotch-less designer pantyhose with a frilly lace blouse that was long enough that it almost hid her sexy black panties. Lilah flipped a white beret onto her head and sashayed through the living room, poised on backless high heels, bending forward teasingly as if to pick something off the floor, the bright white skin of her ass positively glowing against the frilly hem of the blouse.

When she stood up straight she ran her finger along the scallop-shaped trim of the pantyhose, up her waist and across her tummy and down the inside of her fair-skinned thighs. I wrote a “9.5,” on the pad.

She came over and sat on the couch. I tossed the pad on to the floor, and we stretched out on opposite ends. She let her foot wander toward my crotch and rubbed up and down on the fly of my jeans while I caressed her calf, her knee, mildly tapping her thigh as she writhed.

She sat up so I could reach higher up, between her legs and as my hand slipped in there she closed her legs on it, like a vise, moving her right foot up and down so fast on my crotch that I told her if she kept that up we’d have an “accident,” on our hands.

“Better not,” she said, springing up from the couch, “I wouldn’t be able to give you a clean change of clothes. All my undies––as you see––are strictly women’s.”

***

Lilah called out to me from behind the screen and I went around. A mound of lingerie sat on the bed edge but she had changed back into the kimono outfit. Her hair was wild and spilled over her shoulders and the bowler sat on her lap. “This is my favorite of the four,” she said. “Which was your fav?”

I showed her all the scores on my pad, and she clapped when she say the “10” next to Peony Kimono. I added the phrase “with Bowler Hat” to the name.

“I had a strong, strong premonition our taste would coincide,” she said, as she stretched her legs and wiggled her toes.  Her voice was spiked with a warm confessional spark. “I used to dress up when I young and my parents would go away,” she said. “This blizzard reminds me of  one weekend when they had gone away and were stuck upstate and I, well, how can I say this without blushing, I discovered, um, the pleasures of the flesh. I must have been fifteen or so. I dressed up in tights and underwear and costume jewelry and strutted in front of mirrors just like I was posing for you now.”  She told me  that was the first time she’d seen herself as if she were someone else—“almost like I wasn’t me. But I was me, and I loved how I looked. And that’s the night I–– “ Her hands ran over her own legs and her voice trailed off. My hand was still on top of hers. She reached down and closed her eyes, dragging her finger along the red embroidery in the black panties, her finger so strictly following the red filigree it was as if she knew every microscopic warp and weave of her panties without having to see.

***

I asked her why someone as in touch with her likes and dislikes hadn’t found the right man. “You answered your own question, maybe,” she said, tossing the hat onto the bed, shaking out her hair. “You know, it’s a bit sad but they say single girls have the best lingerie collections.”

“It’s not sad. I’m enjoying this––“ I said, and she repeated “this” like we both knew what we were sharing even if we couldn’t put a name on it.

We got to talking about relationships and  also about being happy alone. The pleasures of self-pleasure. She asked me whether men pleasure themselves a lot when they are alone. I answered that men didn’t discuss that subject with other men, any more than women did, but that I guessed it was quite common. “Especially among the married set,” I added, somewhat cynically, and we laughed.

“Girls are no different from guys on that score,” she said. Then she reached into the kimono and drew out a black dildo and held it out for me to see, as it were proof of something. She bit her lip and lowered her head, not blushing so much as avoiding eye contact. That dream-like sensation from earlier washed over me again. Her gleaming dildo matched the lacquer-black of her kimono and black of the sleek mules on the floor, shoes she was kicking nervously as we sat there in the deafening hush, suspended in a haze of kinky karma. She recalled the snow outside and wondered how much had fallen. I took her dildo from her as if to inspect it and I asked her. “Would it be cheating––if––“ I stopped myself. She told me finish my thought.

“If two friends were to––share. Share private pleasures in each other’s company?”

She raised her eyebrows and grinned and said she had no idea what the rules are for that.

“But it’s certainly not the same as sleeping together, is it?” she asked

We agreed it absolutely wasn’t like sleeping together, and I was so turned on by our budding conspiracy that I wanted to throw her back on the bed and peel off her clothes and admire her, like I were the guardian of this private nook of pleasure, here, surrounded by these Japanese screens, warm inside on a snowy night.

***

Lilah helped me out of shirt and my jeans. We sat on her bed facing each other as we had earlier in the evening on the couch. I could see the outline of her dark pubic hair under those black panties. Her skin beneath her stockings reminded me of the snow, the snow that we could not see except for the glowing whiteness that emanated from under the window blinds.

Without letting her fingers touch my skin, she helped me slip off my underwear and then she took off hers and we dropped them on top of each other on the floor by the bed.

“Touch yourself,” she said, the way kids often dare other kids in a playground. “And I’ll touch myself.”

It felt pre-adolescent, all this, awkward and yet exhilarating, like some strange experiment in closeness that really didn’t feel like I was cheating on my fiancée.

Once I’d stroked my cock till it was hard, Lilah squeezed a lubricant from a black tube, letting the fragrant oil pour over my knuckles and my fingers and onto my cock. The cool relief and fresh slickness on my cock almost made me erupt.

Then she lubed her black dildo with the oil, her dark eyes watching me jerk off all the while, “Play,” she said, and I licked my lips and repeated, “Play.”

She rubbed the shiny black toy against her labia, up her mons. Then she raised her hips off the mattress and shifted the dildo below, toward her snug little asshole, pressing her feet into the mattress to lift herself, her gorgeous legs arched at my sides. The tip of the dildo vanished into her butt and her moans almost sounded like laughter as she played with the black dildo like that.

I paused for a moment in my own pleasure. With my grease-less left hand I tossed the bowler hat towards her. She sat back down on the bed and put it on, letting it tilt forward till I could barely see her dark eyes. Then she leaned her head back and slid the dildo in and out of herself with such dexterity that I was awed by the balletic strokes of her hands. “A woman who knows her own pleasure,” I thought, “is the sexiest woman alive.”

Lilah pleasured herself in and out so rapidly that I was amazed the bowler hat stayed on her head.  Watching her, feeling safe within the confines of this bedroom, I stroked my cock faster and faster, studying the slide of the red coral necklace on her breasts, admiring her close-eyed assurance as she fucked herself with that shiny black dildo, black against her pink sex. Her cheeks flushed and glowed. Her dark hair gave off an even darker sheen as it swayed behind her back. The hat seemed glued on her head. She moved the dildo between her legs as if it were a tiny clarinet––and as if her pink sex were its sacred music.

I stroked myself with more and more speed and from time to time she stared across the bed at my cock in my fist. Occasionally her legs brushed mine; and my eyes returned her stare as my balls filled and my foreskin burned with delight and Lilah shoved the dildo in and out of her pussy, rearing her head so far backwards that her bowler hat slipped backwards off her, tumbling off the edge of the bed and rolling along the floor, and as I stroked my cock, I followed the hat and recalling that fight with X, about wearing the fedora, I groaned and erupted, coming warm jets onto the bed sheets.

Lilah barely heard my guttural groans. She was busy, half-raised off the bed and lost in the ecstatic silence that rose from what she was doing for herself between her legs with that black dildo.

In my exhausted afterglow, I held her calves to give her better balance and I watched her with friendly, intimate encouragement. She smiled. She stretched her whole body out tightly and I could see her legs tense as her rasping moans punctured the hush of the room with increasing frequency, the slick dildo easing in and out, ever faster.

I took the tube of oil and squeezed a long trail of oil that slicked onto her hand and on to the dildo as she moved it in and out. She rubbed the excess oil onto her nipples and pinched them. Her eyes were closed and wondered who or what she was thinking of. The dildo’s slickness freed it to slip and slide along her wet clit more deftly, as she moved it in and out and in until she shuddered, thrusting her hips violently and then folding her legs around her shaking hand, her happy shouts booming off the ceiling as her legs flailed against mine before she let go, holding the dildo up like a magician triumphantly flourishing her wand.

***

The next day, when I got home to X, it was no lie that I had slept on Lilah’s couch.

X seemed indifferent; she was finishing her speech and ranting and raving about the sorry state of the world. I spent the afternoon swapping thankful emails with Lilah. Things went south pretty fast after that and X and I broke off our engagement a few months after that snowy night at Lilah’s.

Lilah, meanwhile, eventually moved out to the Far East for foundation work. She and I stayed in touch on email but between the vast distance and with my X out of the picture our former erotic tension—that forbidden quality of our connection––no longer spiced up our exchanges, and after a while my contact with Lilah faded.

***

Then one day, almost two years to the day of that snowy evening, I got a message from Lilah suggesting I go to a certain boutique in the Village and check out their window display.

I bundled up and took the train down. In the shop’s window, I saw that Hong Kong outfit, complete with the red coral necklace. Even her bowler hat and those lacquer-black mules were set in front of the outfit.

I went inside and asked how much the kimono outfit in the display window was, “I think I’d like to buy it for my girlfriend,” I lied, shoring up my lie by pretending to inspect the size. I asked the saleswoman to add the bowler hat and mules as well. “Are you sure these shoes will fit your girlfriend?”

I said I was sure they would fit. No question.

The ensemble was over two grand. I didn’t even wince as I handed over my Visa.

I took the outfit home and stored it safely in a garment bag in a cedar closet. I kept the bowler hat on a shelf above my work desk. I sent Lilah an email that her ensemble was there and that, coincidentally, it had sold to someone while I was in the shop.

Lilah answered two weeks later to say she’d received a handsome check from that Village boutique and that she had sent the proceeds from the boutique’s check to a worthwhile charity.

“Nice,” I answered, “That ensemble saved the world.”  Lilah said she appreciated my remark. But I also know that to this day, she doesn’t know the half of it.

© 2009 Thom Gautier

Thom Gautier lives and works in New York City. His stories have appeared in Oysters & Chocolate, Sliptongue and Clean Sheets. His previous story in Lucrezia Magazine, “The Bet,” appears in Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 2009, and he has a story in the forthcoming New York City volume from Mammoth’s Sex and the City book series. He is completing a collection of erotic short stories. http://thomgautier.blogspot.com

© 2010 Karl Koweski

Artwork: Jeff Koons

Karl Koweski’s erotic stories have appeared in Ruthies Club, Swank, Hustler Fantasies, Clean Sheets, Chocolate and Oysters and in the anthology The Mammoth Book of Erotic Fantasy.  His first collection of smut stories, Low Life, is due out in November from www.zygoteinmycoffee.com.

“Hillary?”

“Finally you’re here.” Her partner smiled and kissed her. She was wearing the strap on again underneath her wool slacks, and Lynne pushed her hips against it, feeling its stiffness against her leg.

“I’m all yours.” She’d been looking forward to this all day, all through the depositions she’d been listening to over with her law firm. They were boring as Hell, but she knew by the end of the day she’d get some kind of release.

“Ready?”

“Yes, Mrs. President.”

Her partner pulled the dildo out from her wool slacks and rubbed it between Lynne’s thighs. She smiled that camera-perfect smile, with her eyes wrinkling at the sides and the reddish lipstick glimmering off her lips. A wave of dyed-blonde hair fell over her shoulders, shadowing her face. Lynne dropped her eyes and watched her partner run her palms along the shaft of the dark cock, warming up to it.

Lynne helped guide it between her own legs. She shivered as it touched her clit through her clothes, and she felt the warm sensation run down through her thighs and up along her back.

“Finally it’s my turn to get some in the Oval Office,” her lover whispered.

“Hmm, yes.” Lynne laughed softly. She took a step back, knelt down on the floor, and took the dildo in her mouth. As she sucked, she ran her hands up and down her partner’s thighs.

Her partner thrust her pubis against the cock lightly and moaned, but Lynne pulled her mouth away. “Don’t make any noise now,” Lynne whispered. “Those security cameras are sensitive.”

Her partner laughed, and Lynne continued to lick.

A cell phone rang from the desk, and she moaned audibly now. “Damn, that’s my husband.”

“Bill?”

“Very funny. He’s coming here.” The front door slammed, and the phone stopped ringing. “Shit!”

The two women tumbled out of the closet as the footsteps thundered up the stairs.

“Goddamn press!” He walked in the door to his bedroom and greeted his wife. “Hello, Mayor.”

“Now’s not the time, Senator.” She tried to stuff the cock back into her pants, but he barely noticed.

Lynne suppressed a giggle. The Senator’s graying hair looked more disheveled than usual, but he still had that fine curve of a nose and solid chin that the voting public adored.

“Hello, Lynette,” he greeted her. Then he looked at his wife and said, as sarcastically as possible, “You’re not playing Hillary again, are you sweetheart?”

“It’s none of your damn business,” she glowered. “Not that you would ever have the same charisma or virility as William Clinton.”

He ignored this and turned toward the window. “Sorry to bother you, love.” He drew the drapes and peered out through the chiffon curtain. “I know you and your pussycat are having your play time. Meanwhile, your diligent State Senate was debating the Gay Agenda bill today, and the press have been following me around ever since. I thought I’d come home and show them what a happy couple we are.”

“Perfect,” his wife answered. She was finally struggling out of her slacks in order to unstrap the cock.

“Oh, this is grand,” the Senator said from the window. “They’re looking up at me. Honey, will you get that thing off and come smile on my arm?”

Lynne leaned forward and unhooked the Mayor’s harness straps. “My law firm would love to find me in your bed.” She sighed. “I guess I’ll have to sit around and listen to you two bicker, till the paparazzi leaves.”

The Mayor laughed, which she was not known for doing in public. “Maybe I should hire you as my maid, then you’ll have every excuse to stay here with me.” She bent down to kiss Lynne, her mouth still soft and warm. Lynne wanted nothing better than to pull her back down on the bed. The Senator might not even notice.

Instead she caught the harness as it slid off the Mayor’s hips. “I’m not convinced that would be a step in the right direction for my legal career.”

The Mayor shrugged and looked around for her slacks. “Go put that thing in the dishwasher.”

“Hardly necessary,” Lynne said, fondling the silicone. “I’ll make some coffee. Plenty of training doing that.”

She appraised the Mayor from the bed. Her skin was aging and getting leathery but still held that well-polished tone and complexion. Her ass sagged but her thighs were thick and strong, and her pubic hair trimmed nicely. Lynne had done that herself.

The Mayor knew she was being watched. “When you’re my presidential advisor, you can come and go as you please.” She pulled her slacks back on, sans panties, and ran her hands over the wool to straighten out the folds. “Legal advice and all.”

“As long as there’s more coming than going,” Lynne grinned, and rushed down the stairs before she heard anyone groan.

The Mayor sighed and stepped over to the window, to stand beside her husband. She smiled down on the huddle of reporters ogling them from the street. Finally, one or two noticed her, and she waved with the hand that held her wedding ring – a huge chunk of a diamond flanked by smaller stones. When they’d married, the ring had been featured in some high-circulation fashion magazine whose name she could not recall. The article had earned them both a political boost in the ratings for being not only successful, but fashionable and hitched, too.

Downstairs, the reporters started pounding on the door, sending a rattle through the house.

“Blast them!” the Senator cursed, never losing his media smile. He was known for his congeniality under pressure. “They want a quote for their damn articles.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I said, no comment. They know I’m soft on this issue.”

Despite herself, his wife laughed. She really was fond of him, despite that broad chin and beady eyes. “Thank you, dear.” She leaned forward and pecked him on the cheek, but before she could move away from the window, the Senator slapped her ass.

“Anything for my wife.”

© 2010 Sylvie Chambers

Sylvie Chambers is a freelance writer in the San Francisco area, whose erotica has also been published by Clean Sheets magazine and For The Girls. By day she enjoys lounging about on her bright green shag rug, taking photographs, and going for bike rides by the beach.

Later that night, I cut open the package.  There was a sticky note from David attached to the game case, “We really want the full story on this one, go nuts.  Rest of the gear will get there tomorrow.”
The gear?
I pulled off the note, revealing the typical sword-and-gun- wielding Japanamation hero with some symmetrical ball of light forming nearby.  A less-armored, lingerie-clad woman also sauntered in the background beneath the calligraphic title, “The Dark Winds of Celestor.”
A reproduction of the cover art appeared with a glistening  admonition to ‘Press Start’.
So I pressed start, but was disappointed.
“Connect Sensationz, then Press Start Again.”
My ‘Sensationz’ were in the mail, so I would just have to wait.

A large box arrived early the next day while Ariel was still at work.  I tore it open immediately only to find three smaller boxes stamped in one of those eastern European languages that use a lot of extra punctuation.
The first box contained a medium sized dildo molded from dark, golden plastic.  A long USB cable hung off of it.  The second box contained a dark red cylinder with a hole of slick, smooshy material through the center.  It twisted apart, ostensibly for cleaning, and another dozen smooshy liners were at the bottom of the box.  It also had a USB cable.
The third box contained the most absurd piece of clothing I had ever seen, an armless onesy with flaps on the crotch and ass, colored like a dull gray suit of armor with golden adornments.  The flaps were thicker and coated in rubber.  You could tell there were wires running through it like an electric blanket.  The material was a cotton-poly blend that appeared both comfortable and easy to wash, although I wondered how it’s data cable would weather it.
I went to work plugging everything in and then restarted the console, for the first time in my video game experience wearing a required article of clothing.  I had had a chance to wear a Nintendo powerglove at one time when I was a little, but some other kid was so good at Punch Out that he never died in the game so I could have a turn.  It hadn’t made my childhood any happier.
After I pressed start, the game let me in this time, even treating me to a bit of synth music.  The screen darkened, then focused on the main character, lying asleep.  A gruff elder with a candlestick burst into the room, and whispered in halting English,
“You’ve got to wear this clothing or the vile spirit will be able to get to you!  Even your skin!  You are of noble bloodline and now they all know!  All of them! You have to leave town at this instance or you are assassinated!  Quick!  Put it on, they’ll be here any minute!”
And he holds out a dull gray suit of armor with golden adornments and instructions appeared.
“Press A when you are wearing Elthusian Armor”
I was one step ahead, I thought, making note of how different the rubber flaps felt than my normal underpants.
As soon as I pressed A, electrical stimulations charged over my body.  My crotch and ass were startled, giving me a deep tingling sensation.  I shivered.
On the screen, a ghost floated through the door and killed the guy by some kind of electrical exsanguination.  I tried to punch it, which was easy enough to figure out, but apparently you can’t just punch ghosts.  So I went right through and the onesy tingled me again.
The ghost stared me down and said something about waiting for the right moment and then he would strike again.  Then it left.  With his last breath, the gruff man then told me to run.  Assassins are on their way.  I should see a woman, named Nymphia, in a town that sounded like ‘Brucho’ when he said it.  I needed to hurry, he added.
So I ran out the door and I must have beat the assassins because there were only guards.   They were upset with me for trying to escape.  They each took turns swinging at me, but it was as though they were only attacking my groin.  I tried to back away but they got me.
My balls got zapped so hard I yelped.  I dropped the controller,  but they kept on hitting me.  I contorted myself, unable to decide whether to get the controller, remove the electric crotch from the pants, or just unplug the whole apparatus.  But every time I touched the crotch, that’s when I would get zapped.  My body thought I was zapping my own self and I couldn’t convince it otherwise.
I finally grabbed the controller but when I looked up, my character’s health had run out and my armored body was lying on the ground, pants-less, being kicked.
Would I like to start again from the checkpoint?
I looked down at the removable patch over my genitals.
I pressed start again, which gave me the options to save, load, audio, video, game options and what I was looking for, calibration.  I was glad the creators had decided to give the public some choice in how hard they wanted their genitals shocked, but who knew what my junk would have to go through before everything would be dialed in just right.
So I stalled.  I clicked Game Options and adjusted the difficulty, heavily downward.  Then I went to the audio and turned the music off because the mandolin techno was unbearable.
After tweaking the control scheme, I finally moved onto the calibration section.  There were sliders for crotch, ass, body, wand, hole, and then a button to run everything on auto.  The crotch slider was, not surprisingly, all the way up.  That first set of shocks comes with the experience.
My research had found it was an experience that approximately forty thousand Germans, Italians, Hungarians and Moldavians had paid hundreds of euros to bring into their home.  There was no marketing campaign, no website, only a few reviews at obscure magazines.  It was a company that didn’t seem to be in any rush to grow.  Their address was in Berlin but the location of their factory and development headquarters appeared to be a closely guarded secret.
Surprisingly, there wasn’t a single lawsuit against the manufacturer yet, although lawsuits are so convoluted over there it could be years before it would become public even if there were already several underway.
I’d been reading for about an hour when Ariel walked in.
“Half-day! Oh, look at you!  So cute in your onesy!”
“It’s a Hungarian sex game.  Maybe Moldavian, still tracking that down.  If you’re good I’ll get you a matching one for Christmas.”
“What does it do?”  She picked up the cylinder.
“It gives you the tingles.  I haven’t gotten very far in it though.”
“The tingles?  So this video game is one that you wear and is supposed to make you feel good?  Like sexy good?”
I held up the dildo.
“Oh.”  She raised her eyebrows.
“But I haven’t gotten to that part yet.”
“Why is it so small?”
I picked up the box and looked for the name of the company.
“I’m sure the ‘Halzu Uldeng Concern’ put a lot of market research into that decision.  Maybe there’s a plastic shortage over there we don’t know about.”
“Maybe that’s big for them.”
“Makes me feel good, I might as well believe it.”
“Rational.”
“Isn’t it?”
I had an idea.
“You wanna try to beat the part I just tried?”
“Yes.  Oh yes.”
I took the suit off and she stripped then put it on.
“This is sleazy.”
“In a good way though, yeah?”
I handed her the controller and kissed her on the cheek.
“Hit A, the green one, when you’re ready to try.”
Then I acted out the control scheme so she could see.
“Left stick, forward back, right stick, look around, the triggers throw punches,” I said as I made the motions.  We geared up the game to the point just after the gruff man had died.
“Go for it.”
She hit A.  The guards charged her and attacked.  Right in the crotch.
She screamed, dropped the controller, then cursed me, grabbing frantically at the suit.  But then she got hit again and pulled her hands back, experiencing the same counterintuitive feedback effect I had.  She fell to the floor and cursed me again.
“Turn it off!”, she shrieked.
So I unplugged the whole monster.
She fell limp.
“I was just wondering if it might need to be calibrated?”  My grin was audible.
“I am going to get you back for that you know.”
“I hope so,” but I wasn’t sure if I meant it or not.

We left it for that night and cuddled with comfort food and entertainment that we both knew was only mildly interesting.  I think we were trying to live in a world where the onesy didn’t exist, to prove our lives were beyond being as fascinated, tantalized, as we were.  But it wasn’t long before we started talking about it again.
“I wonder what the plot is about.”
“You have be curious what Nymphia’s voice is going to sound like.”
“You don’t have to be part of this if you don’t want to.  It’s just a review,” and I was serious about that.
“It’s more than a review though and you know it.  This is a whole new way of interfacing sexually with existence.  Now all five senses are involved.  Those guards aren’t real, but they made me really feel something.  Like really feel it, like I’ll never forget.”
“So you’re into it then?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Into it enough to do the calibration?”
“Oh yeah.”
“No promises, who knows how much it will shock you.”
“Now I’m ready.”

She put on the suit and we cranked the console back up.
I would use the controller and she would feel the results, with some help from me when she asked for it or I felt like it.  She would retain full veto power with our usual safe word, ‘Dormancy,’ in the event of a true emergency.
It was the first time I ever considered it probable that it would be used.
“Any more negotiating before we continue?”
“You should put that in the review.  If you are doing this with other people, you really need to negotiate before-hand.  And that the first scene involves people shocking your genitals on full power if you don’t do the calibration first.”
“Oh, come on, admit it was an a unique experience. You’ll never go through a door quite the same way again.”
She suited up while I cleaned both the other USB devices with soap.  When I returned, she had moved the recliners as close to the screen as they could go and turned the lights off completely.  She had also activated the game console with her own hands for the very first time.
I picked up the controller and was about to press start, but she interrupted me, giggling.
“No, wait, listen to this.”
There was an introduction movie, I had just missed it because I hadn’t waited long enough.
“I’ll just restart it at the beginning, I’ll have to watch it anyway for the review.”
“You should put it in the review word for word.”
“Okay.”

A woman lays alone in an upstairs bedroom wearing lingerie.  She hears a strange sound outside.  There’s a well dressed man beneath her window.  He speaks in halting, overdubbed English with subtitles.
“My most dearest Nymphia, you must come with me tonight, our powerful future together awaits.”
“I cannot understand,” Nymphia shakes her head.
“I have found a portal to the future, it will only be open for a short time.  The future is wonderful, if we only go through some testing at the processing center there, they will let us be free and together!”
“I don’t like processing center.”
“It’s not that bad, please come with me!”
“Ok, you have my heart, anyway.”
Nymphia climbs down the trellis of her idyllic country home and runs with him toward a shining portal on a hill in the light of the full moon.

“Now can I press start?”
“Absolutely.”
“We’re going to calibrate the hell out of you.”
“You better.”
“You say that now.”
“All talk.”

The calibration was a complicated and painful affair in all the right ways.  It was like I was an optometrist of shocking her body, asking if it was better or worse each time. We gradually completed each section.  She kept adjusting the crotch zapper until she had it at a spot just above her clitoris.
“I never knew there was any part down there that liked to be shocked.”
“But you wince?”
“I like some things that are bad,” she said, but it wasn’t news to me.
At first, we were trapped in a cell.  Turns out, you’re not supposed to try to escape even though the cell isn’t locked.  You are supposed to examine things in the room for a second and feel what it’s like to be trapped in the processing center.
“It’s clever, it begins by making you feel powerless.  You have to wait,” she said, all dressed up with no place to go.
That’s when I noticed the mirror on the wall.  It was displaying what the console’s camera was seeing, which at that moment was the bottom of our recliners.  I had to pick up and set it on a nearby table, but then the mirror on the wall was showing Ariel’s dim outline.  A human voice trying to sound mechanical suddenly shouted out.
“We can see you at all times.  Obey our orders and you will eventually be set free.  Take off your clothes.”
I began to say something witty.
“Alright, process-”
But the game interrupted me.
“Silence!”
“Yow!” Ariel screamed, then yelled, “Oh yeah!”
“Silence!”
“Yow!” She screamed again, than said, “Sorry.”
“Ow!” She screamed, then got very quiet and stared at me, biting her lip.
And that’s when we had our first electroshock sex and I’ll never forget it.

At first, when she saw how much it had hurt me, Ariel said we should put the game away until I was all better.  But the next night, I woke up to the sound of her moaning in the living room, in front of the game, in the onesy.  She was playing alone, moaning quietly in pleasure.  I was aroused, but painfully so.  I didn’t know what to do.
I went with the pain.  And the next night, too.  And then the next.

By the end of the week, she was having in the order of thirty orgasms a day.  She couldn’t sleep through the night anymore and lost her job.  I tried to take the console away but she wouldn’t let me.  She begged me and said she loved it and loved me for letting her use it.
She said she would do anything to keep it.

My doctor says I have to go at least a month without getting aroused or I’d risk permanent scarring, also known as genital mutilation.  After a few days fearing my own erections, the impotence pills were worth their weight in gold.

Roger called to say the magazine loved my review but that it had turned out to be “a little more hardcore” than they could publish themselves.  He was optimistic about it’s chances elsewhere, but came up blank when pressed for specifics.

I hide in the other room when she’s playing now.  I try to keep my mind off it, off of her.  I know there is one character in the game that she always goes to every time she plays.
His name is Cornelius.
His dick never tires.

© 2010 Michael Hudson

Image © Luis Royo
Michael writes short stories and screenplays, fixing other people’s computers when it comes to that.  He is currently a reading intern with Abbot Management.   He is hoping to hear positive news from agents regarding his screenplay about funk music and his short story collection.  He is a Lucrezia fan and hopes more of his saucy stuff will be accepted in the future

I’d had a better time at a wedding near Barcelona then I thought I was going to have, which is what, like a fool, I had told my wife, Melissa, and Melissa was waiting in our suburban Chicago home, likely very, very pissed at me for having downplayed our overseas wedding invitation, and for having told her the trip would be too short to be worth cashing in her precious personal days. In fact, I was so stupid that, while I was in Spain, when I’d had a bit too much to drink one night I phoned her at work, and prattled on about the beautiful ceremony, the baroque church, the outdoor reception on the coast, the exotic dancing, and the barbeque on the beach. And I could hear Melissa’s anger simmering even in her silence. Especially in her silence. “Well, it has been raining here non stop,” she said, as if the rain were my fault. And that was the extent of our conversation while I was there.

So here I was finally out of the airport, having bought her some perfume and a bronze statuette from a museum, still feeling some guilt and dread at having to face Melissa. But I was so exhausted and so horny, that I could barely think about what to say to blunt the resentment.

Between my hangover and the cabin pressure of the long transatlantic flight and the dark-eyed Spanish stewardesses in tight dresses serving me red wine, I was fevered–fired up with a let’s hurry-up-and-fuck-desire that I knew was not going to help me one jot when I got home to pissed-off Melissa.

When I got into the house, I was relieved that to hear the shower running. In the bathroom, I knocked and announced myself home. Through the rushing water she answered with a flat acknowledgment, a simple “hi,” that sounded, at best, half-hearted, as if I’d just come back from the video store around the block.

I drew back the shower curtain.

“Oh look who’s home!” she said, playfully, even as she held a stony expression. She lathered the shampoo in her hair, drawing out long strands of her soapy hair with her fist, the suds and bubbles spilling over her fists and dropping down onto her feet. “If it isn’t Antonio Banderas himself. So it was ‘tons of fun’ in Spain, was it?” Her long fingers massaged her scalp and her voice sounded clear and pointed even over the jets of running water. Her skin was tan and slick and I was beyond happy to be back close to her.

Water beaded on her chin and dripped on her breasts as she shampooed vigorously. Soap suds ran down the sides of her face and more soap bubbled on her nose and chin. Some suds slopped on her stomach and streaked, dripping down onto her dark pubic hair. I nearly came just watching her wash herself.

I told her I’d missed her. “It wasn’t half as good as it could have been.”

“Whatever,” she said. “Get in. Clean your self up,” She motioned for me to join her, “you look like something the cat dragged in.”

I stripped down quickly, somewhat reassured by her desire to be in my company, the intimacy of a shared shower—a homecoming.

As I stood naked and cold while the hot water cascaded and steamed around her, I floated some half-baked small talk––lies really, or exaggerations––designed to downplay my three days in Spain. Lies like that the ceremony had gone on too long. The music at the reception had been cheesy. The decor was Eurotrash, gaudy. Nobody spoke English.

Melissa reached down and grabbed my cock and squeezed it. “That’s not what Mister Happy told moi on the phone,”she said, grinning, gritting her teeth playfully. “He said, ‘this is one of the best weddings I’ve been too, such great time seeing friends, sunset was breathtaking, Barcelona, beach, yadda yadda yadda’ ”

She let go of my cock and shoved me lightly, and then stepped aside, inviting me to take her spot under the shower head.

“Oh! And what were his exact words to moi before he left? ‘There’s no sense Melissa having you spending frequent flier miles and personal days to go to Spain for three days to the wedding of someone we haven’t seen in six years and will likely never see again.”

She made a tsk-tsk sound. “Guess it really made no sense, huh?,”she asked. She pointed at my hard-on, “Oh! Look! At least you bought me a souvenir from duty-free,”she chuckled, brushing my cock with the back of her fingers. “Kind of selfish gift though, no?”

I ignored her sarcasm and scrubbed myself thoroughly, feeling renewed and refreshed by the hot shower and even a little amused by her not-so-jokey recriminations. When I reached out to lather up her breasts, she grabbed my wrists and held them tightly. “I’m already washed.”

I told her I was “sincerely sorry”to have dissuaded her from coming with me to the wedding.

“Never mind.”She handed me baby oil. “My skin is very Midwestern dry,”she said, “I’m not all sunkissed like you are from your Spanish fiesta. Help a girl out.”

I snatched the bottle and squeezed out the baby oil. As she waited with her shoulders poised like some Roman empress, I massaged her back and neck, cupping the underside of her breasts, spreading excess baby oil along her belly, around her hips, reaching around to her back, oiling her wet skin in wide massages along her backside. I worked another oily massage into the back of her neck as she craned her head back and grinned, biting her lower lip as I ran my slick hand across her breasts, dabbing her nipples with my forefinger and gently tapping, tweaking, tickling each nipple, while my other hand worked into the deep and tight muscles of her neck, all the while the warm shower spraying violently against my back.

“Apology half-accepted,”she said, gliding her hands over her own breasts, fondling her own nipples, tripping out with a smile at her own pleasure. She gripped my right shoulder and pushed down aggressively until I took the hint, to kneel –my sorry, I knew, had to take the form of some serious servicing––and so I crouched and knelt under the warm splashing shower, my knees pinched and pressed against the hard porcelain tub.

Melissa stepped closer and looked down at me. She stuck out her tongue spitefully. I crouched tighter and opened my hands and placed them firmly on the slick tops of her feet, holding on to her feet near her ankles to give myself balance as I positioned myself before her wet pussy.

Once I was as comfortable as I could be in the narrowness of the tub, I let my hands feel their way along the tops of her feet, up around her ankles, rubbing up and down her calves. When I looked up, she was looking down on me, grinning. She wiggled her fingers like a greeting and then flipped me the bird. “You know, I watched shitty cable for three days while you were conquering Spain,”she said. “What does Elton John sing, ‘sorry seems to be the lamest word? ‘”

I smiled back at her and then stared straight at her pussy, confronting my task. Make your wife happy, you idiot.

I kissed Melissa’s knees, licking up the beaded water as I tasted the apricot-flavored soapiness of her taut, clean skin.

As my tongue daubed softly, her legs buckled some so I gave her my right hand for balance and guided her left leg over my shoulder letting it drape over me while she let go of my hand. She grabbed hold of the towel bar that some previous tenant had mysteriously installed into our shower wall. It seemed like he’d installed it just for this moment and I was grateful for that metal rack.

As I caught the sweet scent of Melissa’s pink sex, I craned my neck and stared up to study her extended arm, well-toned and tensed as her hand gripped that steel rod, her grip so erotic my cock poked up from between my thighs. Fancifully, I thought of the handyman who had, unbeknownst to him, done us a favor by bolting that towel rack into this tiled wall, and my cock itself felt like a drill, like metal, yet a soft metal, pulsing, throbbing without relief between my uncomfortable thighs. My muscles strained with the pressure of my crouched position. Warm rushes of shower water pocketed and pooled at my thighs, pooling at my balls as I moved in closer to the wet lips of Melissa’s sex. She had reached down near my face and fingered at my lips and then traced her pussy lips’ pink fleshy contours, as if giving my eyes a brief guided tour. At one point her finger pressed and trembled and pressed inward and she let out a groan.

“As forms of apologies go,”I said, loudly, gently taking her hand off herself, calling up to her through the running water, “this is pretty good punishment, no?”

“We’ll see how good,”she said, kicking her the heel of her foot against my backside before gazing down, pulling me in closer to her with that leg as she thrust her hips toward my face, “Get busy with your sorry, Senor Banderas.”

I did just that. I cupped her hips with one hand and ran my other hand from the back of her foot up the inside of her calf, my fingers slowing as I neared the back of her knee. I let my fingers dance back there until I felt her shudder a little, then I moved my hands slower still up the back of her thigh, squeezing her ass quickly and then I moved in and let my lips tease-tip the fold of her sex. I kissed straightaway and pulled back, letting my tongue tease her labia. I thought to myself – it was fucked up to go to Spain alone.

I worked my tongue into a dip-and-lick rhythm. The fleshly swell of her sex was as warm and sudden as the warm and sudden water cascading over my shoulder, my face, my lips, my tongue, my chest.

The stiffness between my legs ached so much and the water around me was so silky against my cock that I thought I might cum as I crouched there, giving her slow and sweet head, pausing now and then to let my lips purse and glide on her inner thighs. She giggled and tugged at my hair. “Tickling,”she said, and she moaned like someone who has just started into a long awaited meal.

With each of my kisses and licks, the shower just as quickly washed my saliva and her saltiness away. My tongue was drenched and coated with water, water perfumed by Melissa’s musky pussy. As I burrowed in closer, rolling the tip of my drenched tongue, flicking and licking her quivering clit, I felt her grab my right arm and abruptly half-yank me up from my kneeling position.

She was holding a bottle of baby oil upside down and pumping it. Without questioning what the baby oil was for, I held out my hand. With an air of vengeful, entitled insistence, she squeezed a long dollop of baby oil into my palm, dropping the plastic bottle drop with a bang right on my toes.

She massaged the oil around my hand until every one of my fingers were thoroughly lubed and greasy. Then she tiptoed as she guided my oily hand toward her ass. The slick sensation of my slippery hand on her soft ass skin forced me to close my eyes and catch my breath before I returned to the task at hand: her wet pussy pulsing and wet right before my eyes.

I let my hand slip and slide along her ass and I could feel her grab at my forefinger. She squeezed my finger hard. “Now. Tell the truth, you didn’t go and seduce any cute Spanish girls, did you?”she asked.

At first I was too thrown by the question to notice how she was guiding my forefinger, as if it were her dildo, right into the cleft of her own ass, planting my finger into its fleshly recess. Then she let go of my hand. Without a word, she shook her head “Put it in there on your own, now. Like that.”I kept my finger in her, pushing deeper into the cleft until I felt a warm snug gap. her bottom clenched, her cheeks squeezed my hand and she sighed. “Perfect.”

Still on her tiptoes she laughed and repeated her question. “You didn’t go over there and fuck any cute Spanish girls in the ass, did you?”As if surprised by her own crudeness, she let out a satisfied burst of laughter. In response to her sarcasm, I shoved another finger in there and turned both of the fingers. She flinched and tiptoed higher, stifling a groan, arcing her back. I held my fingers firmly in and then turned my attention back to her front, and thrust my tongue right into her pussy, gliding up and down her clit with such determination that I almost pulled my neck.

She bit down on her lower lip as I twisted and turned my fingers in her, all the while doing small hot circles on her with my tongue.

“Nah, you didn’t quite conquer Spain that way, did you? Hubby enjoyed himself. But not that much.”She laughed and tweaked her nipples. I drew back from her pussy lips and answered her with hot breaths right between her legs, saying she was right, so right, always right and she convulsed with pleasure as I blew warm air on her.

Reaching behind herself, she placed her hand over my hand to make sure my fingers stayed firmly and deeply embedded in her ass back there. Sensing she wanted some motion back there, I turned my fingers round and then shoved then in and out, slow and then fast, in and out of that snug, hot recess between her wet cheeks, a little anger motivating my two fingers, my neck cramping up as I licked her sex up and down, in and out, my shoulders straining but soaked by the steady stream from the shower, my eyes blinded by the spraying water, my fingers wrinkling like raisins as I pressed them against the wet tub for better leverage.

My tongue felt it was on fire inside her pussy, and my cock was hardened to the bursting by the powerful sensation of my two fingers inside her ass, pushing in and pulling out and pushing back in.

Melissa grinded her hips against my mouth and let out determined and pleasured gasps so loudly they rang clear over the running shower water and cut through the stuffiness in my ear that had built up during the plane’s landing.

With my fingers still firmly in her, I quickened the pace of my tongue, licking, flicking, lapping, drawing my head back if only to loosen the tension in my neck, pausing to nibble and kiss her thighs playfully before swirling more circles onto her pussy, teasing her clit with a stop and start lapping.

And then I guided one long drawn-out stroke with the tip of my tongue, drawing up to the topmost nub on her clit. Then I plunged my tongue into her so insistently that without thinking I instinctively and rather violently shoved my fingers too deeply into her ass and she yelped with happy shock.

Then she regained her poise and even laughed as my tongue brought her clit to a wet swell, and she was so firm on my tongue that I could barely keep my licking motions going.

Her knees squeezed my head from both sides. Though her thighs had closed over my head and I was lost in a quiet wet dark, my mouth planted against her pussy, I could picture Melissa in my mind’s eye, holding onto that towel rack above me ever tighter. Though her legs were like a vise around my head, I clenched my jaw and gave her sex a deep supple kiss until she shuddered, shuddered and muttered “oh––Christ––finally,”as she came, quaking—and like the delay between lightening and thunder her shaking was followed by a drawn out, happy wail, before her hips relaxed and her legs let go of me. I pulled my hand out from behind, drawing my fingers out of her cleft lovingly and slowly.

“Sooo good,”she said, slumping against the wall of the shower.

She groaned some more, cupping her face with both hands in delight and she lowered herself to the floor of the tub, her legs stretching out long and lovely around me, her eyes still closed, her dark lashes and eyebrows beaded with water. Her wet dark hair clung to her forehead, her lovely neck, her breasts. She was panting and she kept her eyes closed, lost in her own satisfaction, a satisfaction that I hoped maybe had made up for my Spanish holiday.

My cock throbbed and jerked, as if my cock were envious at my two hot fingers as I soaped and rinsed my hand under the hot shower.

In her slumped and sleepy position, Melissa’s swollen pink sex looked like it was kissing the watery surface of our pink bathtub.

“Okay!”she said. She clapped her hands and slapped at her legs and sighed and reached around me and turned the water off, her nipples grazing my nipples. As her breasts dangled right before my mouth, she kissed her index finger and planted it on my forehead, mussing my tangled hair as she climbed out of the tub. “That was a decent start toward sorry,”she said.

As I watched her towel herself dry, I studied her gorgeous lithe figure, her tan torso dotted with water drops, her still heavy breaths causing her breasts to rise and fall almost in time to the drip-drop beat of water that was leaking from the shower and plopping onto my scalp.

Awkwardly shifting to try to hide my all-too-obvious hardon, I jumped out of the tub and hugged Melissa from behind, caressing and kissing her shoulders.

She laughed and slipped away and turned around, kissing my nose. “The rain in Spain falls mainly…”she sang and as her singsong voice trailed off she giggled and pointed at my swollen cock. She winked. “Hmm you really should have taken care of that swelling on the airplane. They have first aid on Iberia Airlines, no?”

Then she left me alone for a spell. When she reappeared in the bathroom, she was in her black bra and panties but I could tell from her relaxed air that finishing me off was far from her mind. She waved a pair of my white briefs at me, “FYI–while you were cavorting on that beach near Barcelona, I picked up this week’s laundry.”She dangled and then draped a pair of my cotton briefs onto my hard cock, letting it flop there as if it were an oversized scarf. I winced at the burning tickle that coursed through my shaft, the tingle blooming excitedly into my balls as the cotton fabric rubbed against my crown. Melissa teasingly tugged the fabric back and forth, moving it ever so expertly that I almost doubled over into the sink. “The rain in Spain…”

I held her upper arm and pleaded. “Don’t we have time? For me?”I asked. “I paid my dues for Spain, right?”

“You have sort of paid your dues. But as far as time for you goes, you had time for you in Spain,”she said. “And I made reservations for us at that new Spanish place downtown. Andale! Get dressed. Paella awaits,”she jeered, snapping her fingers.

And with that, I drew my briefs on, and daydreamed, recalling the cool evening breezes and late sunsets of the last three days in Spain.

Sitting on the edge of the tub, I watched Melissa applying her mascara in our bathroom mirror. She blew me a kiss and I reassured myself that, even though I was as hard and horny as when I left the airport, I’d foolishly talked her out of going to Spain with me. But at least I had gotten off the hook with a punishment sexy enough to fit the crime.

© 2009 Thom Gautier

Thom Gautier lives and works in New York City. His stories have appeared in Oysters & Chocolate, Sliptongue and Clean Sheets. His previous story in Lucrezia Magazine, “The Bet,” appears in Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 2009, and he has a story in the forthcoming New York City volume from Mammoth’s Sex and the City book series. He is completing a collection of erotic short stories. http://thomgautier.blogspot.com

Sheila, for instance, this incredibly sexy blonde I have been friends with since my college days, doesn’t like men who’ve been circumcised. She says it just looks funny and swears the way they feel inside isn’t the same as a man whose foreskin is still attached.
“He just felt so, I don’t know… incomplete when were together.” She told me that afternoon as we were sipping our lattes.
Now, before I go further I also have to mention the relationship Sheila and I have had over the years has gone through just about every phase you could imagine. As I said we were good friends during college and had adjoining dorm rooms and one week when a leaky pipe all but flooded out her room we wound up becoming roommates for an entire semester, shared everything and even became lovers for a little while.
It’s not to say we were exclusive. We both had previous experiences with girls and after our first night of lovemaking we agreed there were just too many opportunities on campus to pass up and even wound up a couple of times enjoying a threesome with the guy either of us were seeing. There was even this one very wild time when we went to victory party hosted by our football team (they won the state championship) and both got to find out what it was like to have more than one man at a time.
Things cooled off between us after we each started exclusively dating the guy we thought was “the man of our dreams.” We went our separate ways for a few years, the demands of careers, marriages and children (mine three, hers two) basically kept us from doing more than exchanging the occasional chat or letter.
It wasn’t until we were both going through our very painful divorces that we began to keep in touch and it was after our first chat in the café that we grew to be very fond of, that we agreed to let the past remain in the past and to be there for each other as friends unless we were both sure things could be different.
Looking back, I guess things would have remained the same until that afternoon when the subject about past boyfriends came up and whether circumcision made any big difference when it came to sex.
“And when we had oral I swear he tasted… odd,” she said and just before I was about to share my opinion, that the lack of or presence of a foreskin makes absolutely no difference, her phone rang.
“It’s Debbie, she’s caught sick and wants to come home.” I heard her say after pursing her lips and giving her half empty cup of still hot coffee a mournful look. Sheila has always been a coffee fanatic and regards the waste of a good cup a cardinal sin.
The café was in the same shopping mall as the grocery story where I do most of my food shopping and as I was strolling towards the front entrance I couldn’t help but think about the subject we were talking about, basically, circumcision. You see, as far as I’m concerned, nothing, absolutely nothing feels like a hard, straight penis.  If it’s my mouth, pussy or ass I really don’t care if there’s a foreskin or not as long as the man it’s attached to is clean, sane and decent.
When I got to the checkout line this very handsome, young black man came up to help bag my groceries, the incredibly sexy smile he flashed me causing these warm tendrils of desire to blossom in my tummy just before I felt this pleasant, itchy sensation on my nipples. He chatted very amiably and even offered to help me take my bags to the car, making me wish I had driven there instead of walking even if it was a short distance and after I said goodbye I couldn’t help look back to admire his slim, handsome body under his uniform.
Then, it all came together.
You see, when I got back home and was putting away my food I suddenly remembered the name on the badge that good looking young man at the store had on his uniform was the same as the first man I ever had sex with who was circumcised.
“Alan.”
His name came into my head just as I was sorting out the vegetables and I found myself repeating it while recalling the three times Alan and I had sex and the location, the College Library.
Back then, I was in my second semester (I became friends with Sheila that following year) and had already enjoyed sex with a few guys, all of them uncircumcised, some very adept and good in bed or the backs seats of their cars while others were basically lazy pricks that expected me to do all the work.
I met Alan one day while studying for a test and felt an instant attraction towards his nice smile, smooth, close cropped hair and slender body, his skin that deliciously dark hue that reminded me of dark chocolate. He was waiting for a scholarship to come through that would allow him to pursue his Masters degree out of state and was working in the library full time to make ends meet. After a few conversations with him I couldn’t help feel this very intense attraction to him and just thinking of him always caused this warm, wet sensation between my crotch as well as this itchy feeling in my nipples (yes, that does happen to me when I either notice or think of a good looking man who strikes my fancy).
Well, one thing led to another and on that particular evening when I knew he’d be working late I wore the shortest little skirt I had, a little strappy top, high heels and paid him a visit. I really liked the way he looked at me and before long we were exchanging a long, deep kiss in the back of the library among the bookshelves. His hands just seemed to glide all over my body, touching me everywhere I liked to be touched as we literally devoured eachother’s lips. Our tongues entwined like mating snakes, his hot sweet breath filled my mouth.
While we were taking a breath I asked him if anyone came back their as his hands slipped inside my skirt, my little black thong allowing me to enjoy his beautiful hands on my naked cheeks. He assured me no one came back here that late. As a matter of fact, this area we were in was used on occasion by other couples who needed a little break while studying.
By the time he finished telling me that I had already unzipped his pants and pulled out his cock. The shaft felt nice, hard and warm but when I wrapped a palm around his knob I felt a round, smooth shape and looked down to my surprise to see it naked and glistening in my hand.
I was shocked and when he asked me if anything was wrong I did the only thing a girl could do in that situation. I got down on my knees and took him as deep as my throat could allow.
It felt great and when I began sucking real hard I saw Alan brace himself against the shelves, his subtle gasps and moans music to my ears and after I began humming a little tune (something my sorority sisters had taught me) I felt his body shiver and heave just before the tiny little sweat pearl of his pre-come jetted in my mouth.
Then, he surprised me by pulling out of my mouth and cupping my face, the little drops of sweat on his forehead making me want to lick them off and I was about to do that after he helped me stand but then, he said one of the nicest things I ever heard.
“I don’t want to come just yet. Let me feast on you for a while.”
I literally devoured that incredible mouth of his while groping his hard, beautiful body as if he were the only man on earth. After he slipped my thong down my legs and turned me around I thrust my ass out as far as possible while leaning on a bookshelf so he could bury his hot tongue in my achingly wet love hole.
He had this wonderful technique of alternating between playful nibbles on my wet, shaven lips and the occasional fingering but after a while, my curiosity was up. I had to feel his cock inside of me.
“Take me now,” I said as the hot tendrils of desire coursed under my skin and when he stood I reached back, took that lovely, wonderfully hard, circumcised dick in my hand and guided it inside my pussy, his solid, round, bare knob parting my lips before filling me up in the most deliciously manner a hard cock can only do .
It was so good. I loved the way he slid in and out of me and when he grabbed my tits and started playing with my nipples that delicious feeling sent waves of pleasure all over me and when we kissed I could still taste the flavor of my pussy still in his mouth. Before long I was coming and struggling not to scream out loud, my body quaking and heaving just as Alan surged and gushed inside of me, his hot come bathing my pussy.
So that was the first time. We met to fuck a couple of other times as well, once in a private study room and the last time we actually had anal in the projection room of the Library’s theater when Alan had to be there to work the projector. By then I had made friends with this exquisitely sexy little girl named Ann who had a doll face, a great figure and one of the best asses I ever saw on a woman. She was a part time fitness model and had a very, very active social life and one time, while we were chatting she shared with me a sexy little secret when the subject of anal sex came up.
“Organic coconut oil,” she said with that sexy little voice of hers. “It’s the best and I use it my pussy as well.”
The eager smile on her face and the way her eyes lit up when she described having two guys at one time after hooking up with them at a club and how slick and deliciously sexy the coconut oil made her instantly convinced me. She told me the address of the local health food store that stocked the particular brand she liked and even advised me to put some in a little squeeze tube since it would be better than fumbling with the lid.
So that night after we made out for a while as the movie played on the projector (I was glad it was some kind of opera that would mask out any loud screams I knew I would make), I was just about ready for anything but by then I was really craving his hot, delicious come and decided to do him first. I sucked and stroked his cock until he gushed in my mouth and didn’t stop until he was hard again and kept on going until he was literally begging me to stop (another little trick I learned from Ann).
There was a table in the booth used for stacking canisters of but the other side was empty. Since I loved the way Alan’s tongue went deep inside my pussy I sauntered over to it while keeping my eyes on the almost rapt expression on his face before bending over and shaking my bare ass in his face (it was a night to feel the freedom, so to say).
I was treated to one of the best mouthings I ever had in my entire life. His tongue teased and licked every fold and crease as his hands cupped and stroked my bare cheeks and when his fingers stroked my belly before sliding down to my crotch and finding my clit I came hard and fast, the orgasm taking over ever nerve, leaving me deliciously spent.
I almost forgot about the coconut oil as I lay bent over that table, cupping my tits and liking the way my hard nipples dug into my palms (my top by then was draped over a nearby chair) but when I felt him start licking my anus with that terrific tongue of his I glanced to where my bag lay but decided to wait for a little while.
It just felt so, so good, his tongue probing my cheek hole as he squeezed and caressed my legs, his fingers almost strumming the soft flesh of my inner thighs making me just want to revel in the incredibly sexy waves of pleasure I was bathing in but after a while, I just had to feel him inside me.
I gestured to the my bag was and told him to bring the little squeeze bottle over and the big smile on his face I saw after looking over my shoulders and spreading my cheeks was all he needed before I felt the oil seep inside my cleft and his slick finger gently massage my anus.
Again I felt the rounded, naked tip of his cock stimulate my body but this time, it was my slickly lubricated anus and the way he slowly eased inside of me as every ridge and bump on his cock sent these erotically charged sensations that literally took my breath away. Before long I was telling him to fuck away, every thrust making me gasp for air as Alan’s hard hips pressed against my rounded buttocks, his fingers stroking my clit, bringing me to yet another orgasm. It didn’t take long for Alan to come inside me as well, his hot come jetting inside my belly as I heard him groan and hiss, every thrust making me quake with pleasure until he collapsed on top of me.
And that, was it.
A week later Alan’s scholarship came through which meant he could finally pursue his graduate degree in another state and needless to say, I was disappointed but also knew that would happen any day. I guess, looking back the unavoidable separation we both knew had to happen only enhanced the sex and all I can say is I was really, really glad it happened and after so many years the memories of that sexy encounter with Alan actually led the unexpected surprises I mentioned earlier.
First of all, Alan (the handsome young man I met at the grocery store) is, to my very pleasant surprise, circumcised.
Yes, I am a mother of three but I’ve managed to keep my body trim and fit and actually think I look better now than when I was in my college days (a woman in her forties with kids can look good in a thong bikini as long as she works for it) and, I’m glad to say Alan thinks so too. He even told me one time after we made love, the pleasantly erotic scent of coconut oil lingering in the air as we lay naked in each others arms, sweaty and wonderfully spent, that he had absolutely no desire to have known me when I was younger after I brought up the subject.
“You’re body is perfect and you know what you like and how you like it.” He told me while caressing me with his lovely, dark hands.
The other unexpected surprise was actually for Sheila, especially on that time when Alan and I were supposed to double date with her and her boyfriend at this very nice beachside resort. Sheila’s boyfriend wound up making some lame excuse to break up with her the day before but I made sure she forgot about him and after the very hot threesome we had in the resort’s private sauna I can honestly say she has changed her mind about circumcised men.
Needless to say, we used lots and lots of coconut oil that weekend.

© 2009 N Vasco

N Vasco has been writing erotica for about ten years now. He has had his work featured in publications such as GC magazine, the SCORE Group’s LegSex, Penthouse Variations and Buttman Magazine. He has also had the pleasure of having his work featured in e-zines such as AmatoryInk.com, JustusRoux.com, OystersandChocolate.com, RuthiesClub.com and TasselsandTales.com. He is a native of Colombia, South America, was raised in New York and currently resides in Florida where he lives with his wife, two children and one very arrogant cat.

With shaking hands I lifted the receiver as the bell echoed against the cream-colored walls.

“Hello?”

“Mia.” His velvety, weathered voice. That voice I’d loved from the first moment I heard it. A voice you could wrap up in, like a favorite coat.

“Jack. Where are you?”

“I’m so sorry. Look, I’m not going to make it to the hotel tonight.”

I thought back to the small, white card his messenger had delivered to my office that morning. I had opened it like an artifact. Inside was a note in his own spidery handwriting, drawn from fine black ink. “Mia — meet me tonight at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay. Eight o’clock, room 117. Finally.”

After a long drive on winding coastal roads, I had arrived at precisely eight, more than an hour ago. After the concierge had given me the key, I had briefly considered sedating the wild butterflies in my stomach with a drink at the bar. Instead, I had headed straight to the room, hoping Jack would already be there and waiting. But I had opened the door to an impeccably made bed in an empty room, one that had been my sole companion until the ring of the phone.

“Oh, no.” I twined my fingers into the spirals of the telephone cord, and willed tears away. “What happened?”

“I had to hop on a plane to Arizona this afternoon to do some last-minute shoots for the next episode of the show,” said Jack. He was a co-star on a popular children’s television program. “I’m filming some kind of scene with one of the pueblo communities, but the producers could only get permission to do it early tomorrow morning.”

I could hear him breathing softly into the receiver. For a moment, I could almost feel it warming the fine hairs of my ear.

“What’s your hotel room like?” I asked.

Jack laughed, warm and sensual. “Oh, you don’t want to know. The shower’s too small and there’s this weird drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. The whole thing smells like mildew. Nothing like the room you’re in.”

“You know it?”

“I stay there any time I need a little solo getaway,” he said. “I’m picturing it now – and wishing I could be there. We’ve waited so long for this. I’m going to make it up to you.”

“When?” The question came out more sharply than I intended.

“Now.”

I swear his voice dropped half an octave. Its tones traced along my scalp and spine like pulling a silk scarf from my neck. I shivered.

For a moment, I forgot how forbidden this was. In addition to his TV job, Jack was the mayor for a small town north of San Francisco — one of those towns with nuclear families, perfect hedges, and too many soccer teams. We met because I am one of the co-founders of Pets for Life, a small non-profit animal shelter getting ready to set up shop in his town.

I secretly fostered a crush on him, no matter how ill-advised it was. For the past year, I had been submitting drawings, applications, and fees to his city’s planning department and patiently awaiting the city council’s approval so we could move in. His approval.

During those months, he had reviewed the plans and phoned me several times to ask questions. Whenever he called, the warmth and texture of his voice buoyed me for days afterward. I wondered, many times, whether he was flirting with me, but always chalked it up to his irresistible charm.

I had never dreamed that those long, often bureaucratic phone conversations had somehow bewitched him, too. Even after the Pets for Life proposal was unanimously approved, it was still a conflict of interest for us to meet privately. So it was no small surprise when his note arrived, asking me to meet him.

“Do you remember the day we met?” Jack asked on the other end of the line.

“You were in your office at City Hall, and I had come in to deliver some new drawings for the shelter.”

“And I overheard you talking to the planning department secretary. When I looked up, there was this stunning, black-haired woman standing outside my door.”

“And you –” I started to laugh. “You looked nothing like I thought you would, after hearing your voice on the phone.”

“What did you expect?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I think I imagined you would be taller.”

“And less bald?” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“No, no, no,” I protested. “Okay. Maybe. But you have no idea the effect you had on me right then.”

“Tell me.”

“You stepped out from behind your desk, and you came over and shook my hand. You put both hands around mine, and you looked right into my eyes, do you remember?” Jack made an affirmative sound, little more than a whisper. “You introduced yourself. Not like you’re the mayor or some television actor, but like you’re, I don’t know, the welcoming committee. Right away you reminded me of someone.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. But someone familiar. Someone fond.”

“Do you remember what I asked you?” Jack’s hushed tone quickened with excitement.

“You asked me if I liked red wine.”

“And do you remember why I asked you that?”

“You told me that you collect it. And you promised me that once the Pets for Life project was decided, you would share a bottle with me. But after you told me about some of the vintages you have, I thought there was no way you could be serious.”

“Think again.”

There was a knock at the hotel-room door.

“There’s someone — ”

“Go answer it,” Jack said. “I’ll wait.”

I kicked off my shoes and padded to the door in stockinged feet, smoothing my hair and blouse. Even though I was alone, I somehow felt guilty. I opened the door slowly. Outside stood a tall, young-looking bellhop with dark skin. He held a tray with a bottle of wine, a corkscrew, and a single wine glass, its bowl as big as a grapefruit.

Once inside, the man brought the tray to the small table by the window. Gracefully he cut the metal wrapping from the top of the bottle and uncorked it, pouring a little of the ruby wine into the glass. I pulled a $10 bill from my purse and handed it to him as he slipped out the door.

As I picked up the telephone and pulled it over to the table, I studied the bottle.

“Silver Oak Cabernet, Alexander Valley,” I read aloud into the receiver. Jack chuckled softly on the other end. Silver Oak was made in small batches, and you could only buy it from the winery, making it a collectors’ wine. “1995. Holy shit. I can’t accept this, Jack. It must be worth a fortune.”

“Is it already open?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s too late. You’ve got to drink it.”

I lifted the glass, swirled the wine in the bowl, and lifted it to my nose. A cascade of aromas hit me — fruit, spice, deep woods. “Ohhh, Jack. This is incredible.”

“Isn’t it? Now taste.”

With the first sip, I let the wine pour across my tongue slowly and closed my eyes. “Mmmm.”

“What do you taste, Mia?”

“Cherries.”

“Yes.”

“Violets.”

“Yes.”

“Oh my God. Chocolate.”

“Yes. And.”

“Leather. It’s like — it’s like dancing with a man who wears leather and smokes clove cigarettes.”

“Have you ever done that?” Jack asked. I heard him swallow, and guessed he was drinking the same vintage.

“Once upon a time, it was pretty much all I did.”

“Once upon a time? Just how old are you?”

“Thirty-five. I’ll be thirty-six this month.” For some reason, telling him made my face flush. I knew he was forty-nine.

“Happy birthday.” Jack drew the words out, tasting them. The wine’s rich warmth swirled on my tongue. Droplets settled on my lips and I licked them away, savoring each tiny drink. It was the rarest vintage I’d ever had.

“Hold on.” I crossed the room and flicked the lights off. Then I went back to the window and opened it wide, letting the sound of the ocean waves wash in from the beach down below. I settled into the long window seat and took another drink of the Silver Oak — this time a big one. My senses were awake and hungry.

“Can you hear the ocean?” I asked.

“No, but I wish I could. That’s really a great room, isn’t it? I’m so glad I could share it with you.”

“But you aren’t.”

“Mia.”

“I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right.”

“Yes, it did, and you’re being honest. That’s all right. I’m disappointed, too.”

“If you were here –”

“Yes?” Jack interrupted me.

“If you were here, I would turn all the lights off and make you talk to me.”

“About what?”

I took another deep drink and poured more wine into my glass. “It doesn’t matter. Your work. The crab fleets in Half Moon Bay. The rise and fall of the stock market this afternoon. You could read to me from that environmental impact report you’ve been slogging through. That’s what I loved about you first — your voice.”

“This voice?” Jack purred. This time, his delivery sounded more deliberate. My spine melted, just a fraction.

“That voice.”

“Well. You don’t need me in the room with you to hear this voice,” Jack said. “Why don’t we see what it can do?”

“Okay.” My hands began to tremble slightly. I took another long sip — cherries and chocolate and spice — and set the wine glass back onto the table before it slipped from my fingers. Slowly I lay down onto the window seat, leaving the pillows as the maids had arranged them.

“Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine,” Jack said. I recognized the lines from the Song of Solomon immediately. I smiled; it was just too perfect.

“Let him kiss me,” Jack repeated. This time, behind the sand-swept warmth of his voice, I could imagine faint lips pressing against my own.

“Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee. I have compared thee, O my love, to a company of horses in Pharaoh’s chariots. Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels, thy neck with chains of gold.”

“You’re skipping around, Jack.”

“Mia, sweetheart. Just listen.”

He repeated the lines. This time I sensed the thunder of the horses’ hooves, the riches on my skin. Imagined him admiring me — both from afar and from a place near me by the window. I remembered that first time he shook my hand and held it, and now could almost sense the weight of his hands over mine once more.

“Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples; for I am sick of love,” I replied, letting my voice turn wry.

“His left hand is under my head, and his right hand doth embrace me.” Jack’s voice, undeterred by my humor, was so potent now that I swear I could feel him touching me. With one hand he cradled the back of my head. The other cupped the place between my legs.

I unbuttoned my blouse and pulled it off, letting it slide to the floor. I pulled the cups of my bra down, exposing my nipples to the ocean breeze blowing in through the window. They stiffened quickly.

“I went down into the garden of nuts to see the fruits of the valley, and to see whether the vine flourished and the pomegranates budded,” Jack said.

I flushed again, believing somehow that he could see me undressing in this dark hotel room miles away from his home. But I went on, removing my stockings and then, slowly, inching my skirt off my hips before kicking it to the foot of the window seat.

“How beautiful are thy feet with shoes, O prince’s daughter. The joints of thy thighs are like jewels, the work of the hands of a cunning workman.” Jack’s voice grew hoarser. His breath rasped against the telephone. I could hear him swallow hard. “Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor: thy belly is like an heap of wheat set about with lilies.”

As he read, his voice stroked the high arches of my feet — whose curve drew a telegraph line to my cunt – and traveled up my thighs to the place where they gave way to the soft folds of my cunt. His touch strayed to my belly, and daubed my navel with wine, which he sipped from me in prayerful, bowing motions of his head. The imagined touch of his tongue flooded me with juices. I pulled my panties off.

Could words really do this? I wondered, but not for long. His voice was more potent than my doubt.

“My beloved put in his hand by the hole of the door.” As Jack whispered to me, I felt his fingers stroke into my open cleft. “I rose up to open to my beloved; and my hands dropped with myrrh, and my fingers with sweet smelling myrrh, upon the handles of the lock. I opened to my beloved … ”

I moaned and spread my legs wide. His fingers dipped deeply into me, thrusting slowly in and out of my cunt. With his other hand he feathered my clitoris, summoning heat. I didn’t dare open my eyes and risk knowing I was alone. Jack felt so close now I could smell him, feel his weight pressing against me on the bed.

“They all hold swords, being expert in war: every man hath his sword upon his thigh because of fear in the night.”

I felt Jack’s cock in my hand, silky, stiff, hot to touch. I stroked him long enough to urge a low sound from his throat, then sat up and lowered myself onto him. Lock and key. Sword and –

“Mia, do you feel it, too?” His voice came crackling along the telephone wire. He was breathing hard, much too hard.

“Please, don’t stop — ”

Jack grasped my hips and plunged up into me. Everything now was heat and liquor and the sound of his voice. He kept reading, though his voice threatened to come undone. Each word sunk fingertips into my flesh, tangled into my hair and tugged so hard it brought tears to my eyes.

It was enough to make me come. I shuddered and fought it, not ready to wake up. But Jack’s words pinned me, thrust themselves into every part of me, relentless as a stampede. His hips bucked against me and he groaned, and for one moment he was wordless. I let go in that silence, my body wracked with pleasure and sudden sorrow. My cunt opened and closed on emptiness, like a dying fish desperate for water.

I opened my eyes. In one hand I held the phone to my ear. The other remained, limp and slick, between my legs. He was gone; he was never here. A sob forced its way under my throat and I swallowed hard, so Jack wouldn’t hear.

After several quiet, breath-filled minutes, he spoke.

“Mia?”

“Jack.”

“What … what was that?”

“Something in the wine?” ”

“Maybe.”

“This hasn’t happened to you before?” I asked.

“Never. You?”

“I’m not even sure it happened now.”

“Mia.”

“I love it when you say my name.”

“Mia. Mia. Mia. It doesn’t matter what happened. I want it again. I want you again. Can we try to meet at the hotel sometime soon? I can bring you more wine — something even older than the Silver Oak.”

I pictured him standing in the doorway with a ceramic jug of liquor, so old nobody remembered when it was made. It would taste of apples, nuts and pomegranates. As it warmed between our hands, it would smell of sweet myrrh. Jack would let me in the door and shut it behind me, and he would sing the song for me again, this time with his lips against the shell of my ear and his fingers between my thighs.

But I’d had enough of conjuring, enough of miracles. Ever since I’d met him I’d done nothing but dream of him. From now on, I wanted his simple flesh beneath mine, wide awake, sober, and spoken plainly.

“Don’t bring me anything, Jack,” I said finally. Just bring me your voice.”

© 2009 Frances Jones

Erotica author Frances Jones was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her short fiction straddles the line between fantasy and reality, from the wild trysts between two competing journalists in “Backstory” to the earthy, erotic creature her narrator encounters in “The Wood.” Jones’ stories, borne by experience and imagination, are inspired by everyday people and their not-so-everyday fantasies. Frances is a regular contributing member of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association. Her stories have been published in Honey Flava, Five Minute Fantasies 2 and In Moments of Madness. Online, her stories have been published at Clean Sheets and The Erotic Woman.

She lives in San Francisco with her geeky partner and their four-legged, gray-furred housemate who thinks dead birds are gourmet cuisine. For more information and stories, visit her website.

The last encore of the night was always the hardest. Black’s energy peaked, sweat pouring as he struggled to keep his slippery fingers on the bass’ strings. For a moment his mind went out, into a realm where nothing exists but electricity — in his spine, in the guitar — and deafening waves of music. The girls writhing in the front row felt it, too. Their white breasts, masked in filmy black, shook in time to his hands on the strings. He howled his last lines before the lights went up and too soon the applause and screams died.

Black waved, tossed sweat-slicked picks into the crowd. He smiled at two girls pressed against the stage. He had rituals, ways of letting the roadies know which ones he wanted backstage after the show: if he leaned close to them, or let them sing, they were chosen. Tonight it was twins, hair dyed the deepest amethyst, eyes like amber stones. He felt familiar warmth in his groin picturing their hot, milky skin sliding across him.

Backstage was a tiresome maze of band mates, roadies, managers, fans, radio personalities, industry goons. Tonight was a big city night, probably fifteen thousand in the crowd. It seemed there were that many in the green room alone. He wanted to blow them off, bury his face in twin pussies (would they look the same? taste the same?), but he couldn’t disappoint the fans. He painted a smile on his face and dove in.

“Great show tonight, man.” A skinny kid in torn jeans shook his hand. He wore a t-shirt bearing the band’s name. It was at least five years old.

“Thanks,” Black said. “Nice shirt. That one’s practically an antique.” He signed a piece of cardboard the kid clutched in his outstretched hand.

It was always, “Great show.” Never, “That show sucked,” or even “That wasn’t one of your best performances.” He knew they weren’t all great. He shook his head, handed the kid his autograph, moved on.

Black was buffeted by bodies, all of them wanting a taste of this notorious rock star. Nearly six and a half feet tall, shock of long black hair, dirty mouth and a penchant for posing naked in raunchy magazines: Who could live up to it? Why? Because these people loved it? Black sneered.

Girls asked him to autograph their breasts, and other places. They were all so pale, pale like something buried too long. His songs were like that too, dark and frustrated, clots of anger and melancholy bled live on stage. He wanted to feed those girls, take them out into the daylight, but he wanted to do other things to them more.

Finally Black reached the other side of the green room. The purple twins waited, speaking to each other with their eyes. Twin-speak. He reached long arms around their tiny waists, crushing the lace of their dresses. He leaned down and kissed one on her neck, then the other, his mouth hot on their chilled skin. Then a three-way kiss, their tongues slipping over his, and he grew hard in his jeans.

He led them down the garishly-lit hall to his dressing-room door.

“Wait here,” he said, opening the door slightly. “I want to make sure it’s presentable.” He slipped through the door.

Soft light came from a lamp in the corner, covered with a sheer red scarf. So at first he didn’t notice the shape perched on the edge of the sofa, head down. But as he took a step forward, the shape moved and he froze.

“Who are you? Who let you in here?”

Then he looked. Really looked. Black cowboy boots, gold snakeskin pants so tight they looked painted-on. Endlessly long legs. Then the gorgeous white ermine coat and a shock of pale, creamy skin underneath. Showers of golden hair fell across the shoulders, down the ermine. Black wanted to knot his hands into that hair.

The figure on the couch tilted its head up revealing blue eyes, too large for the delicate face, rimmed with kohl. Black gasped at sharp line of the cheekbones, the swoop of the jaw, the pale lips. Those eyes looked straight through him as the figure on the sofa began to rise. And rise.

Fully extended, this specter was a full six foot three, almost eye to eye with Black. He was accustomed to bending and stooping. Heavy bootsteps as the person came closer and Black could feel the hot breath on his neck, smell the animal smell of sweat beneath fur.

“H-have you been waiting long?” Black asked.

The blond head shook no as Black pressed one of his hands to its cheek, feeling bones like birds’. He found the bristle of whiskers, the skin of a man who has not shaved recently enough. The man leaned up and kissed him full on the mouth, then pulled back to search Black’s eyes.

“Aren’t you … ” Black sucked the kiss from his lips.

“Bastian.” His voice was worn, harsh. Bastian had once fronted a band, disappeared from the public eye, then returned to sing on Broadway. Black had heard rumors that Bastian had gained 50 pounds and skin that showed his age. The beauty in the dressing room buried those rumors.

“What are you doing here?”

Bastian stepped away, paced. “Didn’t you know I’m a fan? I’ve talked about you sometimes, in interviews.” He ran his finger along the back of the chair.

Black shook his head; he didn’t know.

“I meant to surprise you,” Bastian said.

“What do you want?”

“Whatever you want.” Bastian’s eyes were electric.

Black had never been with a man. He had sung scathing songs swearing he never would. But then, he had never lived up to his own persona, had he? Something in him, loosened by the stage’s intoxication and those kisses outside the door, fluttered eagerly. He felt no resistance.

“Just a moment.” Black went to the door. “Just one thing, then I’m yours.”

He cracked the door, put his head through. The twins clutched each other’s hands. “Sorry, girls. Something’s come up.” They pouted, but he kissed each one goodnight, sucking their tongues into his mouth. They even tasted purple.

Black closed the door behind him, hard. He turned the lock.

Bastian came behind Black, hands searching under his sweat-soaked t-shirt. Black let him remove it, turned and buried his face in Bastian’s hair. Bit at the soft flesh of Bastian’s shoulder. Felt the fur, ermine and human, breathed deeply his musk.

Bastian’s hands slid over his back. Black’s mouth traced the curve of Bastian’s neck, under the throat, found his mouth, hot and hungry. Black pushed the fur from Bastian’s shoulders, let it puddle on the floor. He took Bastian’s shoulders, led him toward the sofa. Black sat. Bastian looked down, eyes greedy, then knelt on top of the coat.

Black unbuckled his belt, heat rising on his skin. Inch by inch he pulled the strap free, running its rough underside across his chest as Bastian watched, mouth parted, hands clasped between his thighs.

He is so lovely, Black thought.

Black leaned down, cinched Bastian’s wrists with the belt. Tight enough he couldn’t escape, not so tight he’d lose circulation.

“Is that all right?”

Bastian nodded.

“Is this okay?”

“Yes.” Bastian’s tone suggested it was more than okay.

Black kissed Bastian again, found Bastian’s mouth more giving than a woman’s. Harder. He pinched Bastian’s nipple, felt him shudder. Pinched harder and Bastian gasped sharply, moaned. Black got to his feet, unbuttoned his jeans, let his erection tumble out. It ached with blood.

Bastian’s parted mouth grew wider at the sight.

“May I?” It wasn’t a question Black was used to hearing.

With one hand Black eased his penis into Bastian’s wide and waiting mouth, hot and slick with his tongue undulating underneath. Bastian’s lips slid over the length of it. He ran his tongue around the glans, the groove at its base, the long raised ridge under Black’s cock.

Black thought, losing to delirium, that Bastian had possibly done this before.

Bastian’s mouth raced now. Black thrust into him, breathing hard as he braced his hands on Bastian’s shoulders. Without that, his knees would buckle. Too soon the agonizing orgasm pulsed, surging white-hot lightning in his brain, down his spine, into Bastian’s hungry mouth. Bastian swallowed, licking Black’s cock as his shuddering faded.

Black exhaled a long breath and fell back onto the couch, pulled Bastian beside him, untied the belt. Eagerly Black stripped off, knelt naked on the ermine, its softness unbearable under his orgasm-pricked skin. He tugged Bastian’s boots off, unlaced the fly of his gold pants, caught the heat from Bastian’s groin. Under the gold, he was naked and hard. Bastian lay against the white leather.

Black took Bastian’s penis in greedy hands. Another man’s organ in his palm was unexpected. Soft and silken like his own, different in curve and girth. Dark fur betrayed the artificial honey of the hair falling across Bastian’s face. Bastian cried out as Black stroked, leaned down, unquestioningly took Bastian into his mouth.

Black had tasted his own fluids. Bastian’s were sweeter, smokier. Black took Bastian’s length into his mouth, its weight like meat on his tongue. Hundreds of groupies taught Black what he liked; he tried that on Bastian now, felt him writhe. Black stroked Bastian’s scrotum, circled back, further back. Deep cries ripped from Bastian’s throat.

The sound stiffened Black’s cock. He spit into his hand, slipped wet fingers into Bastian’s anus, surprised at the tightness. Felt him relax. Tugged Bastian’s hips to the edge of the sofa, slicked his own penis with pre-cum. He eased his tip of it against Bastian’s puckered opening, felt the man shudder. Black pushed, holding Bastian’s hips, and slipped in to the hilt. Both men gasped.

Someone pounded on the door, sending jolts through Black. Bastian tightened around him, almost hurting.

“I’m busy!” Black bellowed. Fuck off!”

Sorry, man,” came a voice. We roll out in half an hour. See ya.” Footsteps retreated into the jumble of noises outside.

“Fuck,” Black said.

Bastian reached out, twined his fingers in Black’s black hair. Yes,” he said. Now.”

Black’s heart pounded, angry, startled, hot. He rocked his hips, building a rhythm Bastian matched. He looked down, saw himself move in and out of Bastian. He grasped Bastian’s cock, stroked its length. Bastian wrapped long legs around Black’s waist, face flushed, hair knotted. His eyes locked with Black’s, rolled back as pleasure sucked him down.

Black let his thrusts grow shallow then forceful, ran his hands over Bastian’s chest. Pulled Bastian’s long hair back, kissed his collarbones, tore at his nipples. Bastian lay submissive, head thrown back, never asked for anything.

Now Black thrust sharp and deep, jerked Bastian’s cock in time. Black’s whole body went rigid. Bastian tightened around him, orgasm gripping them both in pulses of heat and screams. Black fell to Bastian’s chest, feeling his heart pound inside.

Slowly Black withdrew, drank the semen that had splashed Bastian’s belly. Nearly slept in the bowl of Bastian’s still-heaving flesh.

Black glanced up, started to speak.

Bastian raised his hand. “Don’t say anything. You need to leave soon.”

“When can I see you?” Black said, helping Bastian find his clothes. “We’re playing tomorrow night.”

“I know.” Bastian laced his pants and pulled the ermine around him. Black absently dressed, studied Bastian.

“Will you be there?”

“I don’t know.” Bastian pressed his mouth to Black’s. “But you will see me again.” Bastian smiled, easing himself out the door.

Two: Leather Interior

Black slammed his pick against the strings, let the hum overtake him. His rage built, felt his bandmates angry too. A bottle narrowly missed his head and clattered to the stage near the drum riser. Black sneered, spitting out the last lyrics.

San Francisco, always passionate: they loved you or hated you, always let you know which. The audience had come to see a band that night, but not Black’s. Their boos and shouts drowned the music. Black mouthed let’s go” to the others, pulled the bass strap over his head.

Good night,” he snarled into the microphone, kicking it over. Black stormed from stage, handed off his bass, wrapped a towel around his sweat-drenched neck. He downed a beer quickly, wishing it was bourbon.

Was it something I said?” He asked no one in particular.

“Shitty crowd,” a roadie said, passing through the room. Sorry, man.”

“We’ll survive. Hell, we’ve seen worse.”

“No we haven’t.” Johnny, the drummer, was splayed across a sofa.

“What about that time in west Texas?” Black asked.

“That wasn’t a crowd,” Johnny said.

“Three drunk guys at the bar isn’t a crowd,” Ken said.

The room fell to silence. Anyone in the green room?” Black asked.

The roadie shook his head. If you’ve got fans in San Francisco, they all had to stay home tonight.”

Well, that’s it, isn’t it? Let’s go,” Black said.

They gathered themselves, headed to the bus. Black’s manager stepped in, stopping him.

Someone’s sent a car for you,” he said, pulling Black aside. Over here.”

A black limousine, glittering like liquid, waited behind the bus. They’ve arranged for you to get to the next stop. I suppose we’ll see you there.”

“Give me five minutes. If I don’t come out, don’t wait.”

Black pulled his hands through his hair, smoothed his jeans. He walked to the limousine. When he reached the door, it opened from inside. Without looking he slid in.

It was dark behind the tinted glass, no streetlights shining down. He smelled cigarette smoke and something like strange cologne.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw a shape opposite him, legs crossed and clad in black leather. The figure leaned forward, the face moved into what little light there was. The deep pools of those blue eyes stirred his memories. Bastian.

It had been more than a month. Black had nearly given up, now studied Bastian fiercely. His honey hair was a mist in the darkness, his pale features lined by deep shadows. Black had known many lovers since that fervent night, but none sated his need for Bastian’s touch.

Black knelt on the floor, cradled Bastian’s face in his hands. Kissed him softly, then deeply. Bastian tasted of bourbon and tobacco; Black’s cock hardened at the flavors. Without breaking free, Bastian knocked on the black glass separating them from the driver. The car glided smoothly into the shimmering San Francisco night.

“Why are you here?”

“I knew you were in town,” Bastian whispered.

“You didn’t see the show, did you?”

“No, I was taking care of some business. Why?”

“They booed us off the stage.”

“What happened?”

“We walked out. The audience didn’t want it. Neither did we.”

“Bastian grinned. We had some hellish shows. We look back on them and laugh. But I never walked off. You can’t hardly shoot me off the stage once I get going.”

Black smiled.

“Want a drink?” Bastian asked.

“Please. Make it hard.”

Bastian pulled out a bottle of Old Portrero, poured a few inches into a glass and handed it to Black. Let his fingers linger over Black’s.

Black tasted the sweet rye, felt it turn to vapor on his tongue. It burned his tension away. Black drained the glass, set it down.

“Thanks. But I prefer the way it tastes on you.”

Black grabbed Bastian’s waist, pulled him closer, kissed him fiercely. Bastian answered, taking his teeth to Black’s lips, his neck. Tugged the shirt from Black’s body. Kissed his way to Black’s nipples, biting one and twisting the other with hot fingers.

Black growled. Grabbed handfuls of Bastian’s hair. Bastian was already working Black’s boots off, undoing the fly of his jeans. Soon Black was naked with Bastian kneeling before him.

Bastian drizzled bourbon onto Black’s chest. Drank from Black’s body. Black shivered at the Bastian’s hot tongue and the cool air that followed. Black’s swollen cock made him feel naked, exposed.

“I’m the only thing you need. Upon your blood I feed,” Bastian crooned.

“That’s one of my favorites.” Black gasped as Bastian’s mouth closed over his penis. Ohh.”

Black slid down the seat, sunk his teeth into the leather beside him. Bastian took him all the way in. Black bucked, demanding release. Just as he threaded his fingers into Bastian’s hair again, Bastian pulled away.

“Oh, no you don’t. You’re not getting off that easily.”

The car sped faster, lights flashing across them.

Bastian sat across from Black, smiling languorously. He tugged off his own boots, worked the fly of his pants. Toyed with the zipper, pulled it down, up, down again. Writhed in the seat, slowly pushed his waistband down. Black moaned. Bastian’s cock fell free. He arched his hips.

Black rose, but Bastian stopped him with a hand. Don’t you move. Not yet.”

Bastian stroked himself slowly, cock tumescing. The men locked eyes, Bastian’s blue depths pouring cold flame. Time stopped. Only Bastian’s hungry gaze, only Black’s desire.

Bastian’s hands moved faster.

Black flushed, his breath broke to pieces. Whispered. “Please. I’ll do anything.”

“Come here.” Bastian moved back and spread his legs. Sit here, in front of me.”

Black did, facing away. Bastian mouthed the nape of Black’s neck, reached for his stiff nipples. Felt Bastian reaching away, then hands down Black’s back.

“Lean forward.” Bastian’s mouth was inches from Black’s ear.

Black folded over, flinched as Bastian’s slick fingers entered him. Exhaled. Not pain, not pleasure, something else. Bastian’s caresses woke nerve endings he’d never known. Black shuddered as Bastian sunk more deeply, thought he might start to cry. He gasped.

Bastian slid to the floor, leaned on Black’s back. Are you OK? We don’t have to,” he whispered.

Black sobbed, but no tears came. Yes. Yes.”

Bastian worked his fingers slowly in and out. Reached around, took Black’s organ, rubbed it firmly. Shocks of pleasure washed through Black. He held still, let Bastian create the joy and ache riding inside him.

“I want you.” Bastian was hoarse now. Black felt Bastian’s cock pressed against his back. “God.”

“Please.” Black had never pleaded before.

Bastian withdrew his fingers, lowered Black onto his organ, clutched Black’s chest. Black turned his head, sucking Bastian’s lips into his mouth. Black pushed deeper, dying to be filled.

Bastian’s hands reached Black’s penis, stroked him with the drumbeat of their bodies. Black pulled Bastian’s hips, sinking him further. The lights of cities whirled past the foggy windows. Black felt dizzy, drunk. Leaned back again, rested his head on Bastian’s shoulder, bucked harder. Screamed.

Black whispered lines from Duran Duran’s “The Chauffeur.” Heat poured from him, his breath fast now, Bastian’s face sweat-slicked. Black’s hair swam on Bastian’s chest in black rivulets.

Black felt his pulse quicken, surge in his groin. “Bastian, I’m –”

“So am I.”

He thrust hard into Black, hugging close. Black’s consciousness slipped with Bastian’s cock inside him spasming. Someone moaned. Black’s orgasm followed Bastian’s as everything slid away into darkness.

Something cool pressed Black’s face. Bastian loomed over him, all gold light, cold towel in his hand.

“What happened?” Black was folded up on the floor of the limousine, now racing at an incredible speed.

“You passed out.” Bastian leaned down to kiss him. “That ever happen before?”

Black grinned. “No.”

“Can you get up?” Bastian asked.

“Think so.”

Bastian helped him to the seat, wrapped him in a blanket. “Rest a little. We’re almost there.”

“Where?”

“You’ll see.” Bastian pulled him close. Black closed his eyes. The car rocked him to sleep.

“Wake up.”

Someone was shaking him. He opened his eyes. Bastian’s face came into focus. He was dressed now, boots and leather pants and long gray sweater that went to his thighs. He pressed Black’s clothes into his hands.

“Where are we?” It was black outside the windows.

“Get your clothes on. Come on. Take the blanket, it’s cold.” Black dressed quickly, wrapped the blanket like armor around him as Bastian opened the door. Sea air swept into the car.

“Where are we?” Black repeated.

“Sonoma Coast. Duncan’s Landing.”

“It’s the middle of the fucking night.”

“That’s the best time.” Bastian stepped from the car, pulled Black’s hand. “Come on!”

Black let Bastian lead him down the dark, winding trail. The moon was full, its silver light enough to see by. When they reached the sand Bastian ran, vanished into the fog. Black followed Bastian’s laughter, found himself at the water’s edge.

Bastian shouted, thrilling in the cold sea night, stopped when a light snapped on in one of the houses above the beach.

“Oops.” Bastian laughed.

“Here, I want to show you something.” Bastian dragged his feet on the sand.

“What?” Black pulled the blanket closer around him.

“Look down. Look at where my feet are.” He scraped the sand again. Sparkles of blue-green light appeared under Bastian’s toes.

“How did you–”

“Plankton. Makes its own light. Try it.”

Black rubbed his toe in the sand. Glowing dots appeared, then faded. The waves were the same color.

“Is that what makes the breakers light up?”

“Pretty cool, isn’t it?”

Black charged at Bastian, knocking him into the sand. He carried Bastian up the beach, lowered him roughly. Bastian laughed, pulled Black into a kiss. Black laid the blanket on the sand, rolled Bastian onto it, opened Bastian’s fly, freed his penis. It was still cum-sticky.

Black sucked Bastian’s cock gently until it began to grow hard.

“Lay down beside me,” Bastian said.

Black did, took Bastian into his mouth again. He felt Bastian unzip his jeans and suck his penis into his hot, slippery mouth. A circuit of pleasure, stoking the fires that had gone to embers. Black thought he could drink forever the salty taste, so like the air around them. Bastian moaned. Black had only done this twice now. He must be catching on quickly.

Black felt faint again, from fatigue now. The waves pounded the beach. Their slow, undulating pace calmed him.

Soon Black was coming in Bastian’s mouth, drinking Bastian’s liquor. He lay against the sand, felt Bastian button his pants. Bastian cupped close to Black on the blanket. Sleep came.

Black woke to the sun cresting the cliffs, glare stinging his eyes. Bastian snored beside him. Black walked behind a large rock to piss. When he returned, Bastian was up, staring at the sea, wind blowing his tangled hair.

“Morning.” Black’s voice was even deeper than usual.

“Hi.”

“Some night.”

“You’re welcome.” Bastian grinned, stood, brushed the sand from his clothes. “I know you have to get to the next show. We’ll take you to the airport. I already booked you a flight.”

“How did you know I’d come?” Black said.

“I didn’t. If you didn’t, I would have used the ticket myself. Tried you at the next gig. Come on, car’s waiting.”

As they climbed the steep trail, Black wondered how they’d descended it by darkness. Inside the car, breakfast waited. They wolfed it as the driver sped south. Sleep claimed them full-bellied, and they woke to the sound of a knock on the glass.

The San Francisco Airport. Bastian reached into a pocket of his coat, pressed the ticket into Black’s hand.

“Go. Your plane’s about to leave,” Bastian said, sucking Black’s tongue into his mouth. The driver opened the door for Black.

“How can I find you again?” Black broke the kiss.

“You can’t. But I’ll find you.”

Three: Shadows

Her lips drowned Black. She smelled like turned earth and dry leaves, but her body was warm as it pressed into him. Her black hair fell into his mouth, veiled his face. He’d written songs about her, tried to capture her elusive visits. Nothing compared.

Each night he lay naked waiting for her until without warning she was on him. Each time he held her tightly. Each time he woke in the morning and she was gone.

Black embraced her now, her teeth sinking into the curve of his neck. Pain shot through him. She reached her hands between his legs. Her black eyes watched him as she grasped his penis, purpled with blood. He moaned and with both hands lifted her nymph’s body, impaled her.

He lifted her breasts, purple nipples between his fingers. Black hung back, began to thrust. With each motion of his hips, she faded. At his climax she vanished, earth-musk lingering.

Black turned over, closed his eyes. Only the noise of his own breath, still jagged. Behind it a slow sound, a hand moving through water. He lifted his head to listen. Again the sound. He held his breath.

Now dripping, and he was sure. He noticed, for the first time, a sliver of yellow light from beneath the bathroom door. His stomach turned over. He rose quietly, wrapped the sheet around his waist.

He crept to the door. Dripping. So quiet, the noise seemed from a dream.

Black pushed the door. Light flooded his eyes. Squinting, he saw a golden body in the tub, something red spreading like feathers in the water. Bastian, his lover twice, who had promised to find him again.

At Bastian’s wrists were wounds like smooth blood bracelets. He gathered Bastian’s body, limp but alive in the warm water, pulled him free, held him tightly. Like the girl, the tighter Black held, the more Bastian faded, mist and golden light. Gone.

I can’t lose you.

Black’s heart raced as he sat up. Sheets wet, hair soaked with sweat. He forced himself to
remember the vision that woke him.

“Bastian.”

Then Black heard it again, that sound of flesh in water. He saw light cutting a path across the bedroom floor. He smelled smoke.

Black walked a second time to the bathroom, winced at the light. Turned to the tub immediately. Bastian lay in the clear water, steam rising like an offering, head resting on the rim. In one hand burned a cigarette, which he lifted to his mouth and sucked. Bastian
opened lazy blue eyes and smiled.

Black knelt. Touched Bastian’s cheek. “Are you really here?”

Bastian nodded.

“I just dreamed … ”

“What?”

Black shook his head. “Nothing. How did you get in?”

“Your door was unlocked.” Bastian took another drag.

“But how did you get all the way in here?”

“I tried to wake you. You must have been dreaming, because you were oblivious. I gave up.”

Bastian stretched his long legs to the other side of the gleaming tub. “It’s nice.”

“I had it custom-made.” Black smiled. “Men like us don’t quite fit in regular ones.”

“I bet we’d both fit.”

Black climbed over the rim, slid into the hot water, spilling it over the top. Bastian laughed, kissed Black sharply. Black moaned into Bastian, tasted tobacco and chocolate, felt his nightmares fade in warmth and light.

“Missed you.”

“Did you.”

“God yes.”

Black leaned back. Bastian lay across his chest, toyed with Black’s dark hair, closed his mouth over a nipple. Teased with tongue and teeth. Bit sharply and Black shouted. Bastian raised his head.

“Don’t stop!”

Black guided Bastian back to his chest. Bastian closed his teeth on the nub, felt the skin split, tasted blood. He drank it, thinking how much like Black’s other fluids it tasted. Thirsty now. Bastian raised up, showed Black the blood on his lips. Black kissed it away.

Bastian’s hands traveled from Black’s neck to hips, back again, down again. Cupped Black’s testicles. In water they were weightless, pliant. He reached further back, touched a fingertip to Black’s anus, watched Black sink, eyes closed, toward oblivion.

Bastian teased, pressed a finger in to the first knuckle, pulled out again. Black clutched the sides of the tub.

“Let’s move.” Lust choked Bastian’s throat. Black led him to the bed, both dripping.

Blue moonlight flooded sheets strewn from Black’s nightmares. Black pinned Bastian’s wrists to the bed, held himself above Bastian’s body. He wanted to devour him. Split his ribs and crawl inside. He bit Bastian’s ear, grabbed a handful of hair, pulled sharply. Bastian’s eyes were wide. The look stole Black’s violence. Not his passion.

“Where have you been?” Black rolled off, looked out the windows over New York City. “It’s been months.”

Bastian was quiet. Black watched tiny cars pass on Lexington Avenue far below.

“I’m here now.”

“Fuck you.” Black didn’t look at him. “I needed you.”

Bastian crossed the room. Pulled the belt from Black’s pants that hung over the back of a chair. On slow feet he returned to the bed.

“Black, lay down.”

Black reclined on his back without meeting Bastian’s eyes. Bastian threaded Black’s hands through the bars of the headboard, then wrapped them with the belt.

“Is this okay?”

“No.” Black licked his lips. “But I want it anyway.”

He watched Bastian watch him. Bastian paused, eyes electric. Ran his fingernails down Black’s sides, leaving red traces. Drew them down Black’s legs, followed them until his head cradled in the shell of Black’s hip. Tangled his fingers in Black’s fur. With both hands he grasped Black’s penis, lowered his mouth onto it.

Black’s bathed skin tasted sweet. Bastian moaned as he took it in. Another time, Bastian would have joked that his big mouth and Black’s long cock were a perfect match, but for now he let it silence him. He heard Black gasp, heard the belt creak as Black strained against it.

Bastian slid his tongue over Black’s penis. Black thrust into him, felt his throat open, tested Bastian’s willingness. With arms bound, all of Black’s energy was focused in his cock, alive in a sea of slick heat. Black’s body heaved as he came. Bastian let Black’s salt slide down his throat.

“Fuck you.” Black fell limp against the bed. Bastian crawled over him, kissed him deeply, let him taste his own fever. He freed Black’s wrists.

“Turn over.” Black did. Bastian tied his wrists again, smoothed Black’s body, limned Black’s back and buttocks. He took the lubricant from Black’s nightstand, flipped the lid, coated two fingers.

He slid one into Black slowly. When Black did not resist, Bastian moved his second finger in and thrust gently. Bastian’s cock hardened as Black moaned.

“More.”

Bastian added a third finger. Black’s breath shuddered. Moaned louder.

“More.”

Bastian swallowed hard, slicked his hand with lube. He inched a fourth finger into Black, waiting for a sign of pain. It never came. Black panted now, sweat streaking his brow.

“More,” he growled.

“You sure?”

“Fuck you. Yes.”

Bastian withdrew, folded his fingers into a tight cone, reached inside Black again. Black took him in, inch by inch, until Bastian could barely see his wrist. Gently he rocked his hand, letting Black control the moment.

Black strayed into the borderlands beyond pleasure or pain, where he and Bastian locked together. A realm of fire consumed him. Nothing but the blood in his ears, nothing but ecstasy bleeding through his body.

He squeezed his eyes shut, tried to contain the steep tide taking him. Black ceased to be, dissolved, burst apart at the seams. Bastian’s touch remade him, cell by cell, bone by bone, thrust by thrust. His penis ached against the sheets. He moved it instinctively. Bastian’s hand slid inside him with the rhythm of his hips. As his orgasm gathered, Black felt whole again and alive.

He gasped as he came, shuddered to stillness, fell to the mattress’ soft landscape. As Black’s body paused, Bastian slid his hand out.

“You okay?” Bastian stroked Black’s back. Black nodded.

Bastian slicked his own cock, pressed into Black’s prone body. Black let the sensation revive him, no longer weak or dizzy. He tied himself to Bastian’s rhythm, breathing with it.

Bastian raised Black’s hips, rode him. Tugged Black’s hair, slapped his ass. Black no longer felt the cutting leather at his wrists. Only the wind in his hair, Bastian’s hot breath on his neck.

Bastian made a low sound, a command had it been made of words. Black caved completely, wanting nothing more than wet sheets and hot moonlight and the stain he and his
lover were spreading across the sky. Tears filled his eyes, spilled out onto the bed. He was full, full of ache and sweat and confusion and semen. Full of Bastian’s orgasm, pounding through him as searing as his own.

“Black.” Bastian lay over Black’s body, cock still inside him. “You didn’t pass out on me again, did you?”

Black shook his head.

Bastian let Black’s hands free. Put his hands into Black’s hair again, this time gently,
urged him to turn over. Black rolled onto his back, feeling utterly naked. Flayed.

“Do you know what you’ve done to me?”

Bastian knelt over Black. “What’s that?” He looked down into Black’s eyes, still wet.

“Bastian. I can’t keep doing this. I have to be able to find you. I needed you. I thought you would never — ” It was all Black could do not to swear again. Not to beg.

“Tell me how find you. Be with me. Or never come back.” He pulled Bastian to him, kissed him savagely, teeth splitting Bastian’s raw lips. He was every nerve exposed, wanted to hurt Bastian now. Split him in two. Shook the thought from his head.

“You sure?” Bastian wiped blood on the back of his hand.

“Yes.”

Black and Bastian slid easily into sleep, cradled in the sopping sheets. Moonlight turned to dawn and the first rays of sunlight cracked Black’s eyes. When he opened them, he was alone, Bastian’s scent everywhere. He rose and found the tub full of cold water, damp puddles on the tiles. His belt lay at the foot of the bed, knotted and twisted.

On the table by the door a scrap of paper lay, and in handwriting scrawled the words: “Don’t forget me. -S.”

© 2009 Frances Jones

Erotica author Frances Jones was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her short fiction straddles the line between fantasy and reality, from the wild trysts between two competing journalists in “Backstory” to the earthy, erotic creature her narrator encounters in “The Wood.” Jones’ stories, borne by experience and imagination, are inspired by everyday people and their not-so-everyday fantasies. Frances is a regular contributing member of the Erotica Readers and Writers Association. Her stories have been published in Honey Flava, Five Minute Fantasies 2 and In Moments of Madness. Online, her stories have been published at Clean Sheets and The Erotic Woman.

She lives in San Francisco with her geeky partner and their four-legged, gray-furred housemate who thinks dead birds are gourmet cuisine. For more information and stories, visit her website.