The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of Maxim Jakubowski

by Maxim Jakubowski

  At last, he rises, as his breath returns. Thalie now sits on the bed, watching him. The strap is now detached from her; her hands shield her jewelled pubes.

  “I hurt you, didn’t I?” she asks, watching him rub his hole with the back of his hand. There is some blood.

  “You did,” he says.

  “Then I must be punished,” she says. “That is the way.”

  As he washes the traces of the fuck away some minutes later, he realizes she is now testing him. It’s scary: could he ever become her master? Keep her?

  He dresses.

  The crease of his boxer shorts rubs painfully against his bruised flesh as he walks back into the room. Thalie is watching a game show on the TV set.

  “I’m taking you out,” he tells her, switching the programme off.

  “Where to?”

  “Never you mind.”

  Somehow, he always knew it would come to this.

  She understands.

  Asks: “How should I dress?”

  “Like a whore. Wear that blouse and no bra, and stockings. And your shortest skirt. No underwear.”

  She nods.

  Night falls as their cab rushes down Fifth toward SoHo. He instructs her. At all times, she will sit with her legs open; there is to be no false modesty. She is his property for tonight and the following day and he will brook no disobedience. She will only talk when spoken to.

  She indicates her assent to his terms.

  “You will take no pleasure from what is done to you, because I won’t, either . . .”

  “A master would take pleasure in displaying me,” she interrupts him.

  He slaps her cheek, as punishment for her uncalled verbal response.

  “Quiet, now.”

  Her cheek reddens from the blow. She lowers her eyes. The driver looks inquiringly into his rear mirror at the older man and the young woman. Even though the light outside is dimming, he clearly saw her nipples through the shimmering blouse as she entered his cab, and he tries to get a better look.

  A jazz club. Grimy walls, cigarette smoke, dissonant melodies running like waves across the ceiling over the sparse audience. He has her drink vodka and orange, although he knows she dislikes the concoction. Men at the bar glance in their direction. Her skirt is hitched up to mid-thigh. He fingers her under the table. She squirms.

  Her rings are wet with her secretions.

  He informs her of the fact. Presents a finger to her.

  “Lick me clean.”

  She does, just as the waitress approaches their table, inquiring after another round.

  “Touching,” the waitress mumbles, visibly disapproving and mistaking Thalie’s appetite for a gesture of love.

  “Isn’t it?” he responds with a wry smile.

  The tension is palpable, as he summons his courage.

  She senses it and remains damningly silent and expressionless.

  Finally.

  “Anything?”

  “Yes,” Thalie replies. “Anything: it is my nature to be a slave.”

  He rises from his seat as the band on stage finish their set in a flourish of drum rolls and reverb, takes hold of her hand and they make their way to the toilets. He briefly holds his breath and then enters the men’s, followed by her. There is a harsh smell of antiseptic lingering in the air; the ceiling is low, the surroundings claustrophobic. There is no one there. Just a yellowing row of urinals, a creaking fan circling like a low-flying aircraft close to the peeling, concrete ceiling, a sink with a dripping tap, a dirty towel and, behind a wooden door painted jet-black, the lone toilet seat. He opens the cubicle and orders Thalie to sit. He pulls her blue skirt up to her waist, unveiling her rings, and opens the buttons of her blouse so that her breasts are also on display.

  “Like that. Yes.”

  She doesn’t answer.

  “The first man to come in,” he says.

  She nods silently.

  They wait. Each passing second extends to eternity.

  Finally, the door to the men’s toilets swings open and a tall black guy walks in, hands already unzipping his flies. He heads towards the urinal, his back to Thalie in the cubicle.

  “Hi.” He recognizes the guy, who played bass in the gang, a lanky man in denim.

  “Hi, man. How ya doin’?”

  “Listen. I have something for you . . .”

  The musician starts peeing. “Nah, man, I have my own supplier. Thanks anyway.”

  “It’s not drugs.”

  The black guy shrugs. “Yeah? What then?”

  “I have a woman here. She’ll suck you dry for free. Interested?”

  The man looks over his shoulder at him, weighing the seriousness of the offer. Notices the open cubicle and Thalie sitting there, splayed open, all her gold rings on display.

  He catches his breath. “What’s in it for you?” he asks, turning round and zipping his jeans up. His eyes are now fixed on the obscene spectacle of the young woman, her white flesh like a beacon in the sordid surroundings. “Wow,” he whispers to himself.

  “I watch. That’s all.”

  “You serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’d always heard you limeys got your kicks in weird fashion,” he says, a grin spreading over his dark features.

  He approaches the cubicle and its immobile prisoner. He unzips and pulls out his cock. It’s long, thick, uncut. Offers it to her, hesitantly as if all this is about to disappear in a puff of smoke and is but a crazy mirage, a drug-fuelled dream. Thalie bends her face forward to take the cock.

  “Sweet gal,” says the musician as her lips first graze his stem, before she takes him all in. “Will she swallow?” he asks.

  “Yes,” he answers.

  And watches the spectacle.

  Black against white.

  Black inside white.

  To the bitter end.

  After it is over, he allows her to adjust her apparel and cups his hands together to allow her to drink the tap water and wash her mouth.

  Relief floods over him that no other man entered the bathroom while the three of them were there. He’s not sure he could have controlled the situation any further.

  Still, she says nothing.

  They finish their drinks and listen to the first quarter of an hour of the band’s second set. He hails a cab and they return to the hotel.

  This is the first night in Manhattan they do not make love.

  Q & A

  “Did things happen that you particularly disliked?”

  “Many. What I still found most difficult was when she invited friends around to demonstrate her power over me and my subservience, and took great pleasure humiliating me in their presence. The sex I didn’t mind. But I did feel shame. More so, when we left the house to go to parties and she had me walk out onto the street wearing accessories and clothing which were so explicit as to provide little doubt as to my status as her personal slave. A dog collar, a skimpy maid’s outfit, sometimes even a thin metal chain that connected to the handcuffs she made me wear for the short walk to the car park.”

  “You were afraid that people might recognize you?”

  “Not really. I did not like the fact that my slavery might be recognized by others.”

  “I’m not sure I understand. You are proud of what you are.”

  “I know. The worst time was when she invited my sister along for tea to the house, one evening. I hadn’t seen her for nearly a year. I had to wear the maid’s outfit with the apron and serve them in silence. My sister’s smile nauseated me. When asked if the tea and biscuits I had baked were to her liking, my sister, no doubt previously prompted by Anne-Louise, expressed reservations and I was told the only recourse was for me to be flogged in her presence. Which Anne-Louise did with unusual ferocity. I was made to bend across a chair a few inches away from where my sister sat, my dress was pulled up above my waist and my knickers pulled down to my knees, and I still remember every blow against my bare skin, even now. When Anne-Louise had
completed the punishment, she actually invited my sister to beat me likewise. Which she agreed to do, the damn traitor. I couldn’t sit for days after that beating.”

  “You were going to tell me about the parties?”

  “There were two sorts. Once or twice a month, Anne-Louise would have friends over: mostly other women, sometimes couples for drinks in the evening. I would be made to serve. Often I would have to give evidence of my servility and accept a flogging or the caress of the whip. The guests would seldom become involved. This was more a demonstration of Anne-Louise’s power over me. At most, I would have to display my body for their after-drinks recreation, allow them to touch and twist my breast rings, provide evidence of my absolute docility and obedience.”

  “What sort of people were these friends of Anne-Louise’s?”

  “Professional, middle-class, middle-aged. The women were lesbian or bisexual but she would never loan me to them. Their fun with me was restricted to the games with me on that particular evening.”

  “The other parties?”

  “They were more extreme. Infrequent, also. I think I only attended five. Usually took place on Saturday nights and ran through the night. Never at Anne-Louise’s place: usually at plush residences somewhere in Brussels or in nearby towns. I never knew where exactly we were, as I was blindfolded by Anne-Louise as we neared the locations.”

  “Sounds frightening.”

  “It was. Anne-Louise said I now had to prove that I was fully trained as a sub and these parties would be my final test. I was eager to prove her confidence in me was well placed and swore I would do everything I was told. It wasn’t easy, but then I had little choice.”

  “What sort of people attended these parties?”

  “People like Anne-Louise. Genuine, experienced masters. They were here to show off their slaves, male as well as female. We all wore collars and were forbidden to talk to each other as we were cuffed together awaiting our fate for the evening. Whatever happened to any of us, we were made to watch, and looking away would result in further punishment.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “Even now, I can’t talk about many of the things that were done to me, or I was made to do to others.”

  “What can you reveal?”

  “Often the masters would play games, make bets on us, pick cards for the humiliations that would be inflicted on us. A party night would seldom pass by without my not having been used in all holes by all the masters present, male as well as female. On my first such party, my anal virginity was auctioned. I was blindfolded and made to kneel and suck every cock in the room, including the male slaves who were present. Unbeknown to me, the first one who managed to make me gag would be designated to be the first to bugger me. I had successfully sucked three of the men and swallowed them when I felt another place himself ahead of my mouth and heard sniggers across the room. I knew something was wrong right there and then. A voice behind me remarked that I might require some help, and my hair was brutally pulled back and my head pushed forward onto the expectant cock. He was so heavily hung that the pressure applied to the back of my head forced me to swallow him and he was shoved all the way into my throat. I couldn’t breathe. My lips were stretched to their fullest around its thickness and no air could pass from my lungs to my mouth. I couldn’t help gagging. It had been a set-up. He was one of the young slaves and his penis had elephantine proportions. At the next party, I was told he measured twelve inches or more.”

  “Jesus!”

  “I had no choice. I was installed at the centre of the room as all watched and the young boy sodomized me. It hurt badly. I even fainted halfway through and had to be revived with smelling salts. They had no pity on me. When it was over and I stumbled back to the far wall, where the other slaves were grouped, I noticed Anne-Louise had not remained in the room for the ceremony. One of the other girls – she was a tall, red-haired beauty with ever such pale skin – whispered to me that she had gone through the same ordeal. They always chose the pimply young slave boy with the enormous cock for a female slave’s first experience of sodomy. Something about stretching us for further use. A master saw her talking to me, chided her and announced this was one transgression too far. Could she not manage to keep her mouth closed long enough? Next time, she would be the one to be punished. She went paler than pale and tried to refrain her tears from flowing. I saw that she was terrorized. In the meantime, the young boy who had hurt me so much was now still the centre of attraction and being made to suck his own master to hardness before he was made to kneel on all fours himself and his master buggered him in turn.”

  “How could you accept such things, Thalie?”

  “Because Anne-Louise ordered me to and I was in love with her.”

  “The things we do for love . . .”

  “While you were being used by others at these parties, what did Anne-Louise do?”

  “She liked to whip and torture the other masters’ female slaves. I once had to watch her fist another girl. She had never, until then, done that to me. The poor kid screamed but Anne-Louise didn’t stop.”

  “You must have been scared by that?”

  “Yes, but not so much as the day I had to watch the tall red-haired girl being punished. She had accumulated too many faults, according to her master, and had to be made an example of. And all of us other slaves present were warned that if we even looked away one single second, a similar fate would befall us. It was awful”

  “What did they do to her?”

  “She fought against them but she didn’t stand a chance. It took four masters to hold her down, while another brought it in . . .”

  “What . . .?”

  “They placed her in the right position, kicked her legs apart and it happened. Even now, I still have nightmares thinking of what I saw. Scratched deep lines of blood across her back once it was over.”

  “God!”

  “That very moment, I swore I’d commit suicide if I ever allowed something like that to happen to me.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “Later, as the others played with the rest of us slaves, I saw her sobbing against the wall. They had connected her collar to the dog’s leash and she sat there motionless while the come still oozed out of her. I never saw her again. She was never brought to the other parties I attended, even though her erstwhile master was present. Now, he had another woman.”

  “What can I say, Thalie? And you were still only seventeen?”

  “After that night, I think Anne-Louise began to sense my unease about the sexual escalation in the relationship. A couple of days later, she stuck a Polaroid next to my bedside table. She had taken it when the red-haired girl was being violated. This was clearly a warning to me not to doubt her resolve and dare any form of disobedience to her will. But we only attended two more special Saturday night parties during the course of the following six months and nothing more untoward than sex and whippings occurred, as if the group knew they had crossed a dangerous borderline. At the final party Anne-Louise took me to, I could somehow feel her distancing herself from me already, but I did not wish to acknowledge that a page was about to be turned. That night, the tall pimply young slave boy with the uncommon endowment came up for punishment and I was fitted with a strap-on and made to fuck him. I had never realized before I could switch from sub to becoming a most ferocious, vengeful dom. I plundered him with a vengeance. I eventually had to be pulled away, out of him by Anne-Louise. She had of course used a strap-on on me, on many occasions, but we had never switched; she was not into penetration.”

  “You said things were changing?”

  “For some time, Anne-Louise had hinted that the present she was planning for my eighteenth birthday would be unforgettable. Two months prior to the event, she took me again to the doctor in Brussels and my lips were pierced and the eight rings installed. I was told it would take some weeks to heal. Anne-Louise seldom used me in the weeks between my labial piercings, and often only returned home late with no wor
d of explanation.”

  “So what did she actually give you for your eighteenth birthday?”

  “There was not even a greetings card in the morning. I slaved away in the kitchen all day and she came home around seven. She asked me to follow her to the bathroom, ordered me to undress, examined my rings and the now fully-healed piercings. I was told to close my eyes and felt her fit something across the rings. It was a special kind of safety pin which fits through both sets of four rings and closes with a miniature padlock, totally sealing the entrance to my vagina. There was a kind of beauty to it, this chastity device whose usefulness I couldn’t quite understand. Later, she explained to me that she had tired of me, wished to install a new friend in the house. By fitting me with the padlock, she would still control me from a distance. I was to leave her house the following day! I was dumbstruck. I cried for hours.”

  They spend their final day in Manhattan together, as normal lovers do.

  They linger in bed, have breakfast sent up, touch, kiss, caress, talk about the weather.

  He plans their day. They will lunch at a small Japanese sushi bar on the corner of 13th Street and 6th. She tells him she has never eaten raw fish before.

  “You’ll see,” he reassures her. “It’s nice.”

  They will catch a movie at the Angelika, trawl Tower Records for the obscure country and western CDs still missing from his extensive collection, explore the quaint streets of Alphabet City and end up with a final meal in a Cajun joint close to the Flatiron Building. Oysters, gumbo and whatever main entrée catches her fancy.

  “Fattening me up, eh?” Thalie remarks.

  “Exactly. You’re all bones and rings, my dear . . .”

  He’s not sure if she appreciates the joke.

  “I’m off to shave.”

  “OK.”

  When he returns from the bathroom, her face is flushed. Her eyes shift when he looks at her; she appears guilty.

  “What is it?” he asks her.

  “I’ve been bad.”

  “How?”

  “While you were washing, I touched myself.”

  “So?”

  “You didn’t use me, yesterday night. I needed relief.”