The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of Maxim Jakubowski

by Maxim Jakubowski

  Judy is right. Men do like it.

  A Japanese executive takes her to his suite on the top floor of the Madison-Stouffer. All Puget Sound and the islands beyond are spread out, a Cinemascope vision, beyond the bay windows. Apart from the Sky Needle, there is no way you could be any higher in all of Seattle. He strips her, places her against the tall windows, flattens her against the glass, spreads her legs, an offering to the sky outside, she has to close her eyes for fear of vertigo, only the plate glass separates her nudity from the void outside and the ground fifty or so floors down. He licks her rear, caresses the thin pale hair at the small of her back, her breasts are squashed against the glass, he slides his head in between her parted thighs, advances his tongue and inserts it from behind into her gaping cunt. He licks the pearl, chews her bud until the orgasm races through all five foot ten of her from top curls to toes. Later, he offers her an expensive jade necklace after inserting it one piece at a time into her vagina, then pulling it out with deliberate slowness, every piece bathed in her juices which he proceeds to clean with his tongue.

  Her daily existence becomes a Sadeian procession of humiliation and pleasure.

  One man asks her to pummel his body, harder, harder, I want it to hurt, before he can get hard. She concentrates on all those in the past, the betrayers, the abandoned, to focus her anger and strikes him with repeated fury. When the blood begins to flow from his nose and lips, she panics and flees, without payment.

  She signs on for a porno loop. Three black men fuck her in the arse in quick succession while she stands bent over a wooden table. The filmmaker only has a super-8 video camera and never turns to film her face. For days afterwards, the pain endures and she hurts when walking. They’ve actually torn her. To think she once shuddered at the thought of Caesarians. She heals. For another pervert, she accepts to be tied up in a cave where she is administered an enema by a pocked, butch dyke, while he noisily jerks off. She wallows in the expelled liquid, rubs her skin, bathes in the shit-infested waters surrounding her on the black rubber sheet. She allows a one-legged grizzled and bitter Vietnam veteran to fuck her with his stump. While he moves the bone inside her bowels, he loudly sings Born In The USA off-key. And then actually cries when she leaves his motel room.

  The cycle of inevitable degradation continues.

  Like a penance.

  One night, in dire need of junk, she’s at the bar of this swank hotel, looking for passing custom when Steve Gregory walks in. Silk suit and all attitude.

  “Christ, baby, you’ve let yourself go,” he says. “But, you see, it’s destiny, we meet again.”

  She smiles feebly.

  “I need cash, Steve,” Katherine says.

  “You need a fix, more like. If you stay here, you’re not even going to get spare change, Eddie.”

  He ponders one moment.

  Her brown eyes beg.

  “Come to the car,” he says. She follows.

  He drives out of town. Parks in the darkness, near the Boeing fields. Slips his hand under her blouse. Feels her up.

  “Still nice and firm,” Steve says. “That’s the nice thing about smallish tits, they seldom go flabby. That’s an asset you’ve got there, honey.”

  He opens the glove compartment and hands her the junk. She shoots up. It’s good quality stuff. She listens to the stars out there, allows the river of ice to invade her whole body. It’s too strong, like a whack to the heart, she’s obliged to put her head on his shoulder.

  “I’ll take care of you, Eddie,” Steve says.

  He doesn’t even want to fuck her anymore. She’s beyond it.

  “See, I know this very private club down in New Orleans,” he tells her, caressing her cheeks with genuine care and concern as she dozes on. “I think we’re going to make a great team, you and me, Eddie. A great team. You’ll like it there, the food is just too much and it’s never cold. You’ve never told me if you like sea food? Do you?”

  She assents with a shake of her head, his fingers move through her hair, playing with the tired curls. “Goodbye Seattle,” she whispers. She likes it when men play with her hair. Yes, she does.

  Katherine dreams.

  Of New Orleans. A city she has repeatedly been told is wonderful. Fragrant. And deliciously evil.

  Yet another place her lover insisted he would take her to and no, he hadn’t. They had not embraced in an assortment of fancy New Orleans hotel rooms which had once been slave quarters and where cockroaches roamed free. And never would. A city of cemeteries, storms and bewitching music.

  Her pale skin shivers as a last ferry leaves the harbour for the journey across Puget Sound to the scattered isles.

  New Orleans.

  Katherine finally sleeps. The pain goes away.

  HOTEL ROOM FUCK

  Maxim Jakubowski

  How they first met is unimportant.

  Or, at any rate, another story altogether.

  A different one.

  Here, they both arrive at Kennedy Airport on different flights from Europe, barely one hour and two terminals apart. Initially the flight she had suggested taking was bound for Newark and cheaper, but he had been unable to coordinate his own travel arrangements to match hers.

  After retrieving his case from the luggage delivery area and verifying her flight details, he kills time wandering through the busy, rundown hallways and alleyways of the building cluttered with passengers in various forms of transit. Idly wondering what she might actually look like. Checks out the stroke magazines in the news concession. There’s a new one he’s never come across before, called Barely Legal. He nervously glances aside as he leafs through it. Time passes slowly. A double cheeseburger and fries and a large coke take up another ten minutes.

  He finally makes his way toward the terminal where the Sabena flights disembark, dragging his own case behind him on its dodgy wheels. A screen announces the arrival of her plane. She must now be queuing at passport control.

  He finds a seat to the right of the luggage pick-up area, from which vantage point he will see all the passengers come out of the corridor from immigration. He holds his breath one moment. Suddenly, the whole thing doesn’t sound so wise after all. What if, what if?

  The Brussels flight crowd stream through the corridor. So many of them: the plane must have been quite full. They all saunter down the short flight of stairs towards the luggage carousels.

  She is among the last to emerge. A dozen times already he has convinced himself she wasn’t on the plane. Had been playing a game with him all the time. Had missed the flight by barely a minute or so back in Europe. Had been discovered by her masters and held back in captivity. Had come to her senses and realized this whole New York thing was quite pointless after all.

  Finally, a slip of a girl with luminous features makes her way past the security guard posted at the top of the short flight of stairs and tiptoes her way down, concertina’d almost by two burly six-footed businessmen in charcoal-coloured suits and matching attache-cases. Her dark blue skirt is short, swirls around her knees. Her T-shirt is white, its thin material clinging to her skin. Even from where he sits, he can see the outline of her nipples through it, or is it the rings?

  Jesus, she is so young!

  But he knew that already, didn’t he?

  As she reaches the bottom of the stairs and her involuntary escorts scatter into different directions, she looks around the luggage enclosure, seeking him.

  Her eyes alight on him. The sketch of a smile spreads across her lips.

  He stands up. Smiles back at her.

  His heart skips a beat or two or three.

  She stands there motionless, as the arriving crowds mill all around her, a statue of perfection at the centre of the hurly-burly of the airport.

  She slips her rucksack from her shoulders. He moves toward her, feeling all around him freeze, like a slow motion scene in a movie with the soft rock soundtrack missing and replaced by a cacophony of disruptive languages in a cocktail of voices.


  Inches apart.

  The heat from her body reaches toward him, a hint of spearmint on her breath.

  “Hello, Thalie.”

  “Bonjour.”

  She leans over, kisses him on the right cheek.

  He briefly imagines she’s telling herself he’s so much older than she thought, fatter, less than handsome.

  “For a moment, I thought you weren’t coming,” he says as, behind her, the luggage begins to accumulate on the conveyor belt.

  “I said I would come,” she answers. “Why should I not?”

  “I’m just rather insecure,” he says.

  “I’m a lot of things,” she smiles. “But not that.”

  “So, no regrets?” he asks her.

  “Not yet,” she tells him. “You asked me to come. Here I am.”

  “Good,” is all he can summon as an answer. Then, “What does your case look like? We’ll look out for it.”

  “I haven’t one,” she says, pointing at the rucksack at her feet. “This is all I’ve brought. Some changes of underwear. For my first time in New York, I thought it would be nice to buy some new clothes while I’m here.”

  He smiles. “We can buy them together. That would be nice.”

  “Sure.”

  “They must have been surprised when you checked in back in Brussels, no? Travelling so light?”

  “I just said I was a student.”

  “I see,” he says.

  She bends to retrieve her rucksack. “Shall we?” she asks.

  “Yes.” He picks up his case. “Let’s go and find a cab.”

  The driver must be from Haiti, he reckons. His radio is tuned to a station full of static, reggae and rap and French patois.

  She sits close to him on the back seat. He tries to recognise the perfume she is wearing.

  JFK Boulevard. Van Wyck Expressway. Jamaica. Queens. Past La Guardia and the mortal remains of some long past exhibition by a dirty lake. The car is held up for fifteen minutes on the approach to the Midtown Tunnel. The driver puts a hand through the partition requesting toll money. He still has a pocketful of coins from his last trip to America.

  In the darkness of the tunnel, she places her hand on his. Since meeting up at the airport, they have barely spoken. Mostly about the weather: here; back in London; back in Belgium. How their respective flights had gone. Had she managed to sleep, and how he had spent the time reading. The in-flight movies and meals.

  Small talk at its most banal.

  They finally drive out of the tunnel into the canyons of Manhattan and he breathes a sigh of relief. In the hotel room, he knows, he will be more eloquent, less shy and tongue-tied.

  The traffic in the cross streets slows them down further as they navigate the traffic lights up to midtown.

  They finally reach the hotel he has booked them into. Not the usual one where most staff in reception know him already, but one close by. He pays the cab driver. A porter rushes forward to assist with the luggage. There is only his case, propped in the cab boot against a worn spare tyre. She carries her rucksack by its strap, and straightens her blue skirt as she steps out of the yellow vehicle.

  He catches the porter’s glance. Feels suddenly like a guilty, dirty old man, with this young girl at his side. Twenty-five years’ age difference. I am a cliché, he thinks. Damn it, he’s not going to feel guilt now, is he?

  At reception they make a big fuss of him. Ten years since he has stayed here last, according to the computer.

  The elevator. The long corridor festooned by Andy Warhol prints. He inserts the electronic card key into the slot, the door flashes green and opens.

  “Welcome to New York, Thalie,” he says as a wave of infinite tenderness washes over his heart.

  There is little for him to unpack as she uses the bathroom to freshen up from the journey. He listens to the water splash behind the door as he hangs his shirts and jackets in the cupboard. It’s only mid-afternoon.

  She emerges. Smiling sweetly. Now she looks even younger. Wonderfully slim, her loose dark hair falling over her shoulders, reaching midway down her back. Her waist looks as if he could hold it within his two outstretched hands. Her breasts jut against the thin material of her white cotton T-shirt, and his eyes can’t avert the hypnotic shapes that strain the alignment of the whiteness. He guesses at the strap of a bra over her shoulders, but the cups must be soft and barely disguise the ever-aroused state of their contents.

  “Are you hungry?” he asks her.

  “Not really,” she answers. “I snacked on the plane. But it wasn’t very nice, I must say.”

  “It never is,” he remarks. “Because of the time difference with Europe, I always find it better to have a meal when I get here, as late as possible. Puts one’s body clock on New York time. Otherwise, we’ll end up waking in the middle of the night and we’ll feel even more tired.”

  “If you wish,” Thalie says. “Is it what they call jet-lag?”

  He nods. Gazes at her.

  Her eyes are pale brown, a delicate colour variation he would give heaven and hell to be able to define. The knot in his stomach grows ever more painful with every passing minute. Eventually, he knows, he will have to get to grips fully with this crazy situation he has somehow engineered.

  “Shall we go out? Maybe down to the Village. Have a walk. I’ll show you around. Maybe see some shops for you. Have a bite to eat.”

  “Whatever.”

  It’s spring. The sun is out. Everything feels unreal.

  They walk. It feels like miles, but neither of them are tired. They browse. He can’t help visiting a few bookstores. She gets a top at Urban Outfitters, but will not let him pay. He introduces her to the dark chocolate with dark chocolate Häagen-Dazs bar which is not available in Europe. They have an early dinner, around seven, in a Ukrainian restaurant on 2nd Avenue, near the corner of St Mark’s Place. Night falls. They are about to catch a cab back to their hotel when a pea-coloured chenille sweater catches her attention in the dimly-lit window of a thrift store. This time, he insists on paying. As they exit the shop, she pulls her purchase out of its paper bag and slips it on.

  “It’s suddenly grown colder, hasn’t it?” she remarks.

  “Yes,” he agrees.

  There is sea of yellow cabs cruising down the Avenue, all with their lights on. He extends his arm to hail one. The driver is from Lithuania, and insists on practising his English on them when he discovers that his passenger hails from England. He has relatives in Swindon, and is surprised to learn his passenger has never come across them.

  There is a new porter on duty at the hotel door. To avoid judgment on their apparent age difference or the risk of being told he cannot bring young ladies into the hotel – a thought that has dominated his mind throughout the cab ride up from the East Village – he exaggeratedly holds his card key aloft as they walk into the hotel. Possibly guessing his embarrassment, Thalie holds his hand in hers, whether to compound his self-consciousness or reassure him, he is unsure.

  Green light.

  The door opens.

  The room is not overly large. The sparse furniture purports to be antique, a Picasso face is spread across the left wall, the narrow double bed – by no stretch of the imagination anywhere near king-size – dominates the landscape that is going to be theirs for the next four days. Heavy brocade curtains are drawn. It’s a quiet room; he is not sure whether the window gives on to 44th Street or not.

  She drops her rucksack to the floor, kicks off her flat shoes and approaches the bed. Tests its firmness with her hand and then sits on its edge as he watches her. She pulls the new sweater over her head. Looks him in the eyes.

  He remains silent.

  Attempting to put off the inevitable, maybe?

  “So,” he finally ventures, “am I what you expected?”

  The wrong age, the wrong middle-age spread, the wrong short-sighted eyes, the wrong kind of clothes, the wrong size cock, the wrong man?

  “I don’t know,” she replies. �
��You tell me.” Then, as an afterthought, “But I do like your voice.”

  “Is it the voice of a master, or the voice of a slave?” he asks her.

  “Do you really want me to answer that question now?” Thalie says.

  “You’re right. I don’t. Maybe you can tell me at the end of the week.”

  “Exactly. I’ve agreed to come here with you, but I can only be myself, you know that already . . .”

  “Yes,” he quickly interrupts her. “And, as we talked before, back then, I respect your nature. I shall not attempt to change it. You are what you are: I accept that fully.”

  “Good. I’m not seeking to be rescued . . .”

  “I understand.”

  “I am yours for this week we shall spend together in this room. Totally. Do to me what you will. Use me. Beat me. Humiliate me. My only pleasure is in giving myself. For you, I will be no different than I have been for others, with others. My holes are yours. All I am is a body, with holes made to be filled, used . . .”

  Hearing her say it like this hurts even more than when she had initially written it.

  But he tries to show no sign of the torment spiralling across his heart.

  “I understand,” he repeats.

  As she rises to her feet, she utters the last words he would hear from her until the following morning, “I know there will be tenderness, but please, oh please, do not fall in love with me.” Thereafter, there were sounds. In abundance. But no more words. Only moans, sighs, cries, the whole orchestral palette of sex.