Best Fantastic Erotica

by Cecilia Tan

  At last the roll was finished, and without a word she turned and walked away in the rain, disappearing almost instantly into the mist.

  Benton returned to his bed and slept again, satiated for the first time in weeks.

  Charanjit came to the door as Benton sat eating the last of his sweet rice, sometime around noon. “We are ready to roll, my friend.” His clothes were soaked from head to toe and his puttees were spattered with mud, but his smile was cheerful. “The radiator is fixed.”

  “Good.” Benton smiled back. “I owe you for last night.”

  Charanjit cocked his head. “It is nothing. Only a trip to Darwha—you have already paid for the radiator.”

  Benton chuckled. “No, not that. I was talking about the woman. You’ll have to tell me what I owe you—whatever you paid, it was not enough. She was very fine.”

  Charanjit frowned. “What woman, Joseph? I did not pay for a woman.” He looked over his shoulder nervously, at the mechanic’s house. “Perhaps we must leave very fast, yes?”

  “She said that you knew her. I assumed you had paid her to come to me.” Benton paused, taking another bite of rice. “Perhaps she was a friend of yours?”

  Charanjit shook his head. “I do not know anyone in this village, Joseph. Of this I am sure.”

  Benton let the spoon drop into the bowl, annoyed. “When I asked her who she was, she said ‘Ask Charanjit in the morning.’ You must know her from somewhere, for godsakes.”

  The driver’s eyes narrowed. “Tell me about this woman.”

  Benton paused, a warm flush rising up his chest. For some reason he suddenly felt shy, embarrassed—reluctant to say more. It was nonsense. Charanjit knew him and had seen him do things far worse.

  “She was... beautiful.” He smiled. “Amazingly beautiful. Black hair, black eyes—her skin was light, but she had no caste mark. Wearing a blue sari embroidered with silver thread....” Seeing no flicker of recognition in Charanjit’s eyes, he coughed and added, “About six months pregnant, I would say....”

  The driver shrugged helplessly. “Did she tell you her name—?”

  Benton hesitated. “She said I could call her Neha.” A chill crept over his arms, and when he looked down he could see the hair stood on end. “She knew your name, Charanjit. And mine. I don’t believe Neha was really her name, come to think of it.”

  Charanjit looked grave. “It is common enough. Neha is ‘love,’ in Hindi, or ‘rain’—we use the same word for both. A good name for a girl.”

  Benton fell silent, looking down into his empty bowl. “So you didn’t pay her, then.”

  “No, my friend.”

  “And you don’t know her.”

  Charanjit silently shook his head, and Benton glanced over at the pile of his camera bags in the corner. They didn’t look as if they had been disturbed, but he sighed nonetheless. “Best to see if she took anything, then.” Even speaking the words made his chest feel hollow.

  The driver stepped over the threshold, tracking red mud onto the floor, and began to pace about awkwardly as Benton squatted to search his baggage. Suddenly, he bent and picked something up from the floor. “What is this?”

  Benton glanced over. Charanjit held a glittering object between his fingers. “I don’t know. Probably the pin that held her sari.”

  The driver turned it over in his fingers, musing. “Most unusual. In the shape of the vajra. Solid silver, I believe... and this stone might be a sapphire.”

  Benton frowned. “Let me see that.”

  Charanjit dropped it into his hand—and seemed curiously glad to be rid of it. Benton held the brooch up, turning it in the light. It was heavier than it looked, shaped like a lightning bolt—the blue gem in the center was nearly the size of a quarter.

  He whistled. “She’ll be wanting this back, that’s for certain. It looks valuable.”

  Charanjit had backed away; when Benton looked up, the driver was strangely pale. “I do not believe you will see her again, my friend.” He glanced anxiously out through the doorway. “It is a gift, I think. You should put it away before her husband sees it.”

  Benton raised his eyebrows. “If you say so.” He put the brooch into the pocket of his jeans. “You think she was rich, then? The wife of someone powerful?”

  “I think he might be more powerful than you imagine.” Charanjit shivered. “I have heard stories of such things before. Come, my friend—let us leave this place. You said you wanted tigers, and we have many miles to go to Chikhaldara.”

  Benton shrugged. It took only a few minutes to look through all his equipment—entirely unmolested, so far as he could tell. He hiked through the muddy village to the Jeep. The rain had never abated, and it continued now in a steady, gentle shower that might not stop for days or weeks.

  As the two men returned to the main road, Benton looked back at the village. The children were out, running together in the rain, laughing and splashing; the earth had already soaked up as much water as it could hold in the night, and now the streets were flowing rivers of mud.

  As they drove through the countryside, he stopped the Jeep occasionally to take pictures of the rain’s passage. He had seen the end of the dry season before, but this time it struck him with particular force. He wanted to capture the sense of relief, the weight that lifted when the heat was vanquished. Everywhere he turned his lens, there was a man or a beast that stooped at last to drink, eyes closed in bliss. For the first time it occurred to him: the rain is a gift.

  Within a few weeks, he had put Neha out of his thoughts; hunting tigers with an arsenal of 35 millimeter cameras took all his attention. It was only when he returned home the next month that he found her silver clasp again, carelessly thrown into a bag with the countless rolls of film he had shot on the trip.

  He smiled slightly, closing his eyes. For a vivid moment he could feel her cool flesh against his skin, smell the rain in her hair—taste the warm, ecstatic juices on his tongue. He sorted through the little black film containers to find the one marked “NF6-2”: Nikon F6, second roll. He always pre-marked the film canisters before he left home; it made various sequences easier to find.

  There was only one subject on this roll. He grinned, tossed it up and caught it in the air boyishly. Yes, this one should definitely be developed first; Neha was by far the most beautiful thing he had seen in India.

  When the film was finally dry, he unclipped the long strip from the clothes-line and held it up to the light. He frowned immediately as he scanned the repeated image—definitely something wrong there.

  There was a cold, queasy tickle in his stomach, but the photographer remained methodical in his work. He laid out the contact sheet: as the white page passed from one bath of chemicals to the next, his heart rate steadily increased. He couldn’t wait for the image in the last bath to sharpen completely; he whipped it out of the tub, scanning the images in the blood-red light of the darkroom.

  No. Impossible.

  In the end he had to make prints of every negative to be absolutely sure. For some reason he kept telling himself that in one of the thirty-six shots he had taken, the woman would still be there: standing in the doorway, looking back over her bare brown shoulder. Those huge, shimmering, merciful eyes... the smile of a satisfied lover on her lips.

  But no matter how many prints he made, the image remained the same. The empty rectangle of gray light—the dark earthen wall enclosing it like the borders of a grave. No matter what he did, the doorway was empty.

  There was nothing there but the monsoon.

  Venus Rising by Diane Kepler

  Those last few hours before Amelia left the house were always hell.

  Years ago, Winston had thought the waiting would get easier with time. But he still clenched his fists. He still ground his teeth. And he still had to bang one out in the john so that he could peck his wife goodbye without a raging boner giving everything away. Even after she’d collected her bags and drifted, barge-like, down their front walk, he would wait another
hour to make sure she hadn’t forgotten her shuttle ticket. The last time, the shock of her unexpected return had nearly done him in.

  But once she was out of the house the waiting got a little easier. He fixed himself a drink and sprawled, leonine, on the couch in the den. The grid was on. A spoken command let him access the all-skin network and it wasn’t long before he was bobbing on a pleasant sea of tits and cunts and asses, of hungry mouths and rigid, pink dicks. Winston rubbed his own through his designer slacks and checked the clock again. It was almost time.

  Once his self-imposed period of waiting was up, he rose and padded to the bathroom. The third shelf of their medicine cabinet held some peachy lozenges in a plain-looking bottle. He shook three out and took them dry.

  Amelia thought they were for his heart. In a way, it was the truth.

  The peach chemistry was an added expense, but it put the necessary distance between him and reality. There had to be something to take the edge off his senses, to soothe that doubting part of his mind, otherwise playtime was no damn fun at all.

  He went back, poured another drink, and then watched the grid until the world got fuzzy and warm.

  “Power off,” he slurred. He had to say it again before the voice-rec software caught on. After that Winston ambled around the house one last time, turning off most of the lights and making sure all the locks were engaged. Then he drifted downstairs, way down. Down to a place that Amelia didn’t know existed. But he could always find it. His cock knew the way.

  Behind a shelf in their cellar was a bare room; just a desk and chair in one corner, a bed against one wall, and a trunk at the foot of it. Matte black and slate gray were the colors of choice. That way, his secret room could become anything he dreamed.

  A keypad was set into one wall. He punched the release code and held his retina to the reader, shivering as the doors slid aside and chilly vapor flowed down over his toes. Waking her up. He always hated this part.

  Letitia.

  Her crﾏche was a clear ovoid filled with the waters that cushioned her, nourished her, and kept her eternally, illegally young. That was reason enough for his secrecy, even without the color of her skin, which he’d specified from the catalog as 041 mahogany. Still, Winston never failed to think about how Amelia would react to this particular feature of his little toy. Little inner-city girls like this were supposed to be cared for in her hospitals and schooled in her shelters, not kept to serve the lusts of some privileged white ape.

  Ah, but Amelia wasn’t here right now. She was off to a dinner party, halfway around the world, where a plate of food cost thousands. A half-empty plate of food, at that.

  “Playtime,” he said to the console at the side of the crﾏche. An orange light flashed on and a countdown started.

  He pulled open the trunk to choose what his baby would wear that night. A pair of tiny plastic shorts caught his eye. They were ones like the street-girls wore. He fingered them, imagining how they’d ride up between her asscheeks and her pussy lips, too. But wait! Here was a complete uniform for Waverly, the city’s best private school. Not that a girl like Letitia could ever be a student there—not after the riots. Still, the fantasy never lost its charm.

  But here, oh here, was a whole new package of scanties he hadn’t even opened yet.

  He tore at the wrapper like a breathless birthday boy. Out fell a cheap neon costume. It was a dancer’s getup: lime green stockings, shocking pink heels, a lacy orange garter belt, and a sheer lemon set of bra and panties. He went back to the crﾏche and laid it all out for her, thankful that she could now dress herself. Before her latest soft-ware upgrade, he’d spent up to an hour just dressing his love goddess—a chore he’d hated, since it meant being up to his elbows in chilly bio-gel. He couldn’t even pause to fondle her tits or slip a curious finger into her crevice. That was downright nasty when she was cold.

  Ambiance was next. He’d dressed her like one of those hot little dancers at an inner-city clubs, the kind of place where girls were numbered like food in a Chinese restaurant. That meant the room would need colored strobes and some kind of music. Eagerly, he stumbled over to the entertainment cube on the desk to pick out a light show. He also dialed up an extended dance mix, something with an urgent backbeat and raw subsonics.

  Then, a dance sequence for her. And then....

  Winston sat down in the desk chair. It wasn’t easy keeping his hands off himself, but he resisted. It was a present for his little girl. Yet despite his excitement, Winston didn’t watch as Letitia stepped out of the crﾏche. He knew he’d see his Venus rising, the gel sliding off her lithe, young body. But her movements were always too jerky in the first few moments. It gave everything away.

  So he waited until she got up onto the matte black surface of his desk and started swaying to the rhythm. Then he watched her, traced his meat with an idle hand, and melted into the fantasy.

  They were at one of those clubs in the core zone, a place he’d only ever seen on the grid. Not like he could go there for real, oh no. They’d take just one look at his tailored suit and his face, glowing with health. Then they’d tear him apart.

  But here, it was all just fine. This was his club. He could come here anytime and feel the pounding rhythms. He could sit here and get offered any of a dozen drugs. Not the sanitary, engineered ones that were relaxing him right now. The old ones, the messy ones, the ones that you injected or smoked or stuck up your ass. He could drink too. The barkeep knew his tastes and there was always something smooth and mellow on a cocktail napkin at his side.

  Of course, all that was nothing compared to the candy.

  Cock-candy, that’s what he called them. Silky-smooth—every one recruited personally. Like this one on stage right now, the one with the pink heels and the fountain of kinky hair. She’d come in last month wearing some rubber skirt with two big holes in the back that let her asscheeks show. God, what an eyeful! Just the sight of those plump, juicy mounds had almost been enough to make him shoot his wad. But that didn’t mean she was hired, oh no. Only after she’d spent an hour worshipping his rod did he agree to let her dance.

  And hey, wasn’t it that same piece up on stage now? Yeah, that was her. She was the only one who could slink around on her heels like that, the only one who could start his pre-come leaking just by licking her lips.

  He watched her smile and shake her little titties. Yeah honey, oh yeah.

  The roar of the crowd came to him then; the shouts and catcalls of two hundred core-zone goons. They’d packed themselves in here good and tight. Obviously, news about Letitia had gotten around. But they couldn’t afford her. Best they could do was just sit and stare at her firm, high knockers, her slim thighs. Even the gangsters, the drug lords—they’d have to settle for somebody else. He’d reserved Letitia. She was only dancing because he got off on showing her around.

  Winston’s pole swelled and twitched.

  He beckoned and she got off that little stage of hers, a platform that looked sort of like a desk. She came over and he pushed her down onto her knees. God, she looked tarty in those clothes. What a perfect little fuck doll. He ought to take it out right here and feed it to her! Right in front of all these goons—give ’em an extra show!

  She didn’t do anything when he took it out. Just knelt and waited for him to part her glistening, rosebud lips. He slid all the way in, all the way back to the trigger at the back of her throat. That got her sucking. And licking. Just slow, nothing fancy, but oh fuck, it was so right.

  What a marvelous little tramp! It didn’t matter who was watching. She just kept at it. Even when he leaned forward, even when he grabbed her head with both hands and just went all out—pumping and groaning and filling her up with jet after hot jet of pearly, white cream. He pulled out and glossed her lips with it. Then lifted her onto his lap and tongued it off. Yeah, bet they were all polishing their knobs by now.

  But he’d had enough of this sitting around. It was time for a little horizontal action. It was time to lie bac
k on the bed, this private bed, so convenient just behind the stage. Time to watch while she crouched over him and called his softened prick back to attention. God, she could tempt a saint, especially with her pussy dripping and her hand so lubed up with juices that some of it ran down and coated his balls.

  When she had him nice and stiff, she dragged aside her yellow thong, squatted down and impaled herself. Then she rode Winston like she was his forever. Which of course, she was.

  He didn’t remember falling asleep and that made getting up a nightmare. The chemistry had worn off during the night, leaving him with a head full of needles and a mouth full of slime. To make it worse, Letitia was on standby. Her body had cooled, making her biomech nature far too obvious.

  Winston shoved at her, but couldn’t move the two hundred pounds of organics, silicate, and polymer, not at his age and not when she was crouched on top of him. Instead, he was forced to wait until she warmed up and rose away from him. Then he had to suffer the indignity of watching his limp cock slide out of her like some kind of overcooked vegetable.

  Alone on the rumpled bed, Winston felt the beginnings of the crash.

  It always started as he watched Letitia disappear beneath the waters of her crﾏche. Despite Winston’s best efforts, Amelia came to mind. He tried to calm down, but knew it was futile. The tide was turning and the guilt was flooding in, filling him.

  “Take it easy,” he told himself, glancing at the clock. There was still time. He’d just drop some more fuzzies, reprogram his girl, and then give her another workout. Then he could come down gradually in the evening.

  Another look at the clock. He rubbed at his eyes disbelievingly. Not eight a.m., like he’d first thought. Eight p.m. One hour ago, his wife had boarded the semiballistic shuttle in Jakarta. Flight time: fifty minutes.