The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 2

by Maxim Jakubowski

  My head snapped up and my mouth dropped open, unreasoning outrage colouring my cheeks. “Oh, no, you’re not,” I spat. Then I called him the vilest insult I could think of. In the Jzhat’lan tongue. He took my meaning anyway.

  He didn’t react. We stayed that way, staring at each other, for long moments, the rattling of the shutters as the wind rose even higher the only sound in the room. Finally he motioned to me. “Come here, my property,” he said very quietly. “You needn’t crawl.”

  Something broke inside of me. My anger drained away in that moment, replaced by the shame I’d been fighting. Tears started as I rose shakily and walked to him, head bowed. “I’m sorry, my master . . .”

  He shook his head. “No. Not now. You’ll apologize after your thrashing.” His voice was not unkind. It had, in fact, lost some measure of its coldness.

  He positioned me, not as he did for a pleasure whipping, comfortably bent over the bolsters, but draped over the side of the platform instead, my head and torso hanging down. He gripped one of my lower legs firmly to hold me in place, and tapped my upper thighs with the bundle of branches, apparently judging the angle of his stroke. Then the spanking started.

  The switches were considered an appropriate, mild chastisement for an impudent Beki youth, but on my delicate flesh they had a more extreme impact. Each stroke burned and scratched my thighs, the skin soon fiery hot and covered with tiny, hardly bleeding cuts. On and on my husband spanked me, bringing the bundle of twigs down over and over, and only on my thighs, as I moaned and sobbed. No keening sexual cry. Just tears of humiliation and frank pain.

  At some point I realized the rain had begun, and at some point, that it had ceased. Still the punishment continued. Every time my master stopped, every time he paused momentarily to rest his arm, I thought he was going to end the beating. And every time, the switches would snap down again and I would sob harder. A few times, a switch would break and he would halt the thrashing just long enough to remove it from the bundle. After a while, my tears were not just from pain and shame, but from hopelessness.

  An hour must have passed before he finally ended the spanking. My face was as swelled from my tears as the backs of my legs were from the clatha branches. He helped me up off the platform and back onto my knees. My head swam momentarily from the change in position. “Make your obeisance,” he said.

  I lowered my head to his feet, splayed my upper body against the tile. I raised my buttocks high. He hadn’t switched them at all and they felt strange next to my throbbing, swollen thighs. “I’m so sorry for my disrespect, my master. For my disobedience.”

  “I know you are,” he said softly. “And you are forgiven.” He raised me up and held me to him. Then gently and thoroughly, he licked my face, cleansing it of my tears. When he was finished, he kissed the top of my head. “Now say what else is in your heart, my property.”

  I looked at him, confused, but in a moment I knew he was right. Things were not quite settled between us. I had apologized. He had forgiven me. I had taken my punishment. A child’s punishment.

  The colour leached from my face as I realized what I was going to have to ask for. But he was correct. It was in my heart. I had to finish this. I took a deep, shaky breath and lowered my eyes. “Please . . .” I said. “My master, please . . . please finish my correction. Give me a woman’s punishment. Treat me as your slave, not as a child.”

  He nodded, and trailed a hand down my cheek. “I will.” His voice was tender. “My property.”

  He allowed me over the bolsters this time. I watched him, my head turned and my eyes half open, as he fetched the whip from the closet. The cruel metal studs shone in the dimmed lantern light and I shuddered. What had I asked for? How much more pain could I take?

  He whispered a number to me. My face grew even paler, but I nodded, a small movement of my head, as if giving consent. The first stroke knocked the breath from me. The second made me scream. The third made me scream even louder.

  My husband stopped after the sixth stroke, though we were nowhere near the number he had mentioned, and waited for my howls to stop. “Just because your thighs have already been welted,” he murmured, “doesn’t mean that I intend to spare them now.” Four strokes then, incredibly hard, the stiff, studded leather tongues of the whip cutting into my swollen skin. I clutched at the cushions and shrieked, my keening not as musical as when my husband used me, but even more heartfelt. I wanted this over. We weren’t close to being done. But I wanted it over. The hopelessness I’d felt before hadn’t returned. I felt, instead, panic.

  He reverted to whipping my bottom and my lips parted. What came out was not a scream nor a sob, but the notes of the drzaliin. My face was turned to him. I saw his eyes glaze. I saw an expression of confusion and pleasure come over his face. He raised the whip halfheartedly. The drzaliin continued to pour from me. All I had to do was tell him to put the whip down . . . all I had to do was to say “Stop.”

  I looked at him. Suddenly I understood it. Everything. I stopped singing and began to cry again, great racking sobs. He shook himself as if coming out of a dream and dropped the whip.

  He lifted me from the bolsters and held me. “Tell me,” he whispered. “When you are ready, tell me.” I indulged myself with a only few more minutes of tears before regaining control.

  “It’s the drzaliin, my master. I need to do it. My body needs it. That’s why I have been so . . . so wrong.” I lifted my eyes to him, pleading. “But not with you. You are my owner, my One. I don’t want to gain control of you. Not even to avoid a punishment.” I sucked in a big gasp of air. I was on the verge of tears again. “Especially not to avoid a punishment.”

  He hugged me to him, murmuring reassurance and cursing himself. “I should have known,” he said. “It’s my responsibility. I should have known.” Then he laid me down on the cushions, gently, but not caring that I flinched as my lacerated flanks met fabric, and covered me in possessive kisses. “I’ve been a fool, my property, but I promise, I’ll rectify my errors.” He kissed me some more.

  My devotion had been tested. And proved.

  We didn’t finish my punishment whipping until the following night.

  It took some time, much talk and research, letters back to Jzhat’lan and to one of the brothel owners on Post 3, but we learned to deal with my need. My husband found a tavern owner, a man discreet and trustworthy, who would let me perform for his customers when the need struck. He would even pay me in coin, as if I had need of such. I stayed heavily veiled, anonymous, safe, tucked into a corner of the stage. I would captivate a roomful of men, leave them stunned and panting. When they were in my power, I would gently suggest they drink some more wine and then go home and pleasure their own women.

  One of those suggestions was to repay the tavern owner’s discretion. The other is just a little whim of my own.

  It has worked well for all these years, this small arrangement, as have all the other facets of my life here on Mrw-Bek. I remain my master’s joyful property. Our love has grown through the years till we can no longer, either of us, imagine a life not bonded to each other.

  I tease my husband quietly sometimes about the gift of prophecy he never knew he had. The phrase so beautifully engraved on my marriage presents, now engraved in our hearts. “I will not deny,” I whisper to him softly.

  He cups my chin in his hand, purring. “I do not deny,” he whispers back.

  Bob & Carol & Ted (But Not Alice)

  M. Christian

  “What are you afraid of?” Not spoken with scorn, with challenge though. This was Carol, after all. His Carol. The question was sweet, sincere – one lover to another: really, honestly, what are you frightened of?

  Robert fiddled with his glass of iced tea, gathering his thoughts. He trusted Carol – hell, he’d been happily married to her for five years so he’d better – but even so, it was a door he hadn’t thought of opening in a long time.

  They were sitting in their living room. A gentle rain tapped a
t the big glass doors to the patio, dancing on the pale blue surface of the pool beyond. In the big stone fireplace, a gentle fire licked at the glowing embers of a log.

  Carol smiled – and, as always, when she did Bob felt himself sort of melt, deep inside. Carol . . . it shocked him sometimes how much he loved her, trusted her, loved to simply be with her. He counted himself so fortunate to have found the other half of himself in the tall, slim, brown-haired woman. They laughed at the same jokes, they appreciated the same kind of jazz, they both could eat endless platters of sashimi, and – in the bedroom, the garage, the kitchen, in the pool, car, and everywhere else the mood struck them – their lovemaking was always delightful, often spectacular.

  “I don’t know,” Bob finally said, taking a long sip of his drink (needs more sugar, he thought absently). “I mean, I think about it sometimes – it’s not as if I don’t like what we do, but sometimes it crops up. A lot of the time it’s hot, but other times it’s kinda . . . fuck, disconcerting, you know. Like I should be thinking of what we’re doing, what I want to do with you” – a sly smile there, hand on her thigh, kneading gently – “instead of thinking about, well, another guy.”

  Carol leaned forwards, grazing her silken lips across his. As always, just that simple act – one glancing kiss – made his body, especially his cock, respond with desire. “Sweetie,” she said, whispering hoarsely into his ear, “I don’t mind. I think it’s hot. I really do.”

  Bob smiled, flexing his jean-clad thighs to relish in his spontaneous stiffness. “I know – it just feels weird sometimes. I can’t explain it.”

  “What do you think about? Talk to me about it – maybe that’ll help a little bit.” Her hand landed in his lap, curled around his shaft.

  “Pretend I’m not here,” she added, with a low laugh.

  He responded with a matching chuckle. “Oh, yeah, right,” he said, leaning forwards to meet her lips. They stayed together, lips on lips, tongues dancing in hot mouths. Bob didn’t know how to respond, so he just followed his instincts – his hand drifted up to cup Carol’s firm, large breasts. Five years and she still had the power to reach down into his sexual self – to get to him at a cock-and-balls level. But there was something else.

  “I think it’s hot,” Carol said again, breaking the kiss with a soft smack of moisture. “I think about it a lot, really. The thought of you with . . . what was his name again?”

  Bob doubted Carol had really forgotten, but he smiled and played along. “Charley. College friend.” Charley: brown curls, blue eyes, broad shoulders, football, basketball, geology, math, made a wicked margarita. Charley: late one night in their dorm room, both drunk on those wicked margaritas, Charley’s hand on Bob’s knee, then on his hard cock. “We fooled around for most of the semester, then his father died – left him the business. We stayed in touch for a year or so, then, well, drifted away. You know.”

  “I think it’s wonderful,” Carol said, smiling, laughing, but also tender, caring, knowing there was a Charley-shaped hole somewhere deep inside Bob. Carefully, slowly, she inched down the zipper on his shorts until the tent of his underwear was clearly visible, a small dot of pre-come marking the so-hard tip of his cock. “I think about it when we play – when we fuck.”

  Bob suspected, but hearing Carol say it added extra iron to his already throbbing hard-on. Carol normally wasn’t one to talk during sex. This new, rough voice was even more of a turn-on.

  Bob felt a glow start, deep down. Even to Carol, Charley was something private – but, hearing Carol’s voice, he felt as if he could, really, finally share it. “He was something else, Charley was. Big guy, never would have thought it to look at him – that sounds stupid, doesn’t it?”

  Carol had gotten his shorts down, quickly followed by his underwear. Bob’s cock had never seemed so big, so hard in his life. It was as if two parts of his life had met, with the force of both working to make him hard . . . so damned hard. Carol kissed the tip, carefully savouring the bead of come just starting to form again at the tip. “No, it doesn’t. You’re speaking from the heart, sexy – since when is anyone’s heart logical or fair?”

  He smiled down at her, taking a moment to playfully ruffle her hair before allowing himself to melt down into the sofa. “I wouldn’t call him ‘sweet’ or ‘nice’ – but he could be, sometimes. He just liked . . . fuck,” the words slipped from his mind as Carol opened her mouth and – at first – slowly, carefully started to suck on his cock. “Fuck . . . yeah, he liked life, I guess. I don’t even think he thought of himself as gay or anything. He just liked to fuck, to suck, to get laid, you know. But it was special. I can’t really explain it.”

  “You loved him, didn’t you, at least a little bit?” Carol said, taking her lips off his cock for a moment to speak. As she did, she stroked him, each word a downwards or upwards stroke.

  Bob didn’t say anything, he just leaned back and closed his eyes. He knew she was right but that was one thing he wasn’t quite willing to say – not yet. He’d come a long way, but that was still in the distance.

  Carol smiled, sweetly, hotly, and dropped her mouth onto his cock again. This time her sucking, licking, stroking of his cock was faster, more earnest, and Bob could tell that she was aching to fuck, to climb on top of him and ride herself to a shattering, glorious orgasm. But she didn’t. Instead, she kept sucking, kept stroking his cock, occasionally breaking into a whisper, then said, in a raw, hungry voice: “I think it’s hot . . . not him just sucking your cock . . . but that you have had that. I bet sometimes . . . we look at the same guy . . . and want to know what he’d be like . . . to suck . . . to fuck.”

  Even though Bob was somewhere else, damned near where Carol wanted to be, he knew she was right. It was hot, it was special, and he recognized that. He wanted to haul her off her knees, get dressed, and bolt out the door to do just that. The kid who bagged their groceries sometimes at the Piggly Wiggly, that one linebacker, Russell Crowe: he wanted to take them home, rip off their shirts, lick their nipples, suck their cocks, suck their cocks, suck their cocks –

  Then something went wrong. Just on the edge of orgasm, Carol stopped. Bob felt slapped, as if ice water had just been dumped into his lap. He opened his eyes and looked, goggle-eyed, as Carol got up off the floor, straightening her T-shirt over very hard nipples. “Didn’t you hear that? Of all times for someone to ring the fucking doorbell.”

  Tugging up his pants, Bob rehearsed what he’d say: Mormon missionaries? Slam the door in their faces. Door-to-door salesman? The same. Someone needing directions? “Sorry, but you’re way off,” then do the same . . .

  Just as Bob got to the door to the living room, he heard Carol – who’d been a lot more dressed to start with – saying, “Ted! How’s it hanging?”

  Bob rounded the comer, a smile already spreading across his face. Of all the people to have knocked on their front door, Ted was probably the only one who would have understood.

  Ted and his charming wife, Alice, lived just across town. Normally, Bob and Carol would never in a million years have crossed paths with them – but it so happened that Ted worked in the coffee place right across the street from where Bob worked. After six months of going back and forth, Bob finally struck up a conversation with Ted and found out, much to his delight, that the tall, sandy-haired young man and he had a lot in common: the Denver Broncos, weekend sailing, and Russell Crowe movies. Bob and Carol felt very relaxed and even sometimes sexually playful around Ted and Alice, even going so far as to have a kind of sex party one night, when they all got way too wasted on tequila and some primo green bud that Ted had scored the night before. All they’d done was watch each other fuck, but it had been more than enough to blast Bob and Carol into happy, voyeuristic bliss – and to fuel their erotic fantasies for weeks afterwards.

  “Low and to the right,” Ted answered, smiling wide and broad and planting a quick kiss on Carol’s cheek. Bob gave Ted his own quick greeting – a full-body hug that only when he finished did Bob
realize had probably given Ted more than he expected in regard to Bob’s still rock-hard dick.

  Bob and Carol smiled at each other, feeling relaxed and still playful in the presence of their friend. “Where’s Alice at, Teddy? Somewhere in the depths of Colombia?” Bob said. Alice was the other half of Bean Seeing You, their little coffee-house, and was often away trying to wrangle up all kinds of stimulating delicacies – not all of them coffee-related.

  “Worse than that,” Ted said, playfully ruffling his friend’s brown locks. “Nope: deepest, darkest Bakersfield. I’m kinda worried about her – the last expedition down there vanished without a trace.”

  Everyone laughing, more out of released tension than Ted’s weird brand of humour, they retreated back to the living room and the couch. As Bob and Ted sprawled out on the couch while Carol got some drinks, Bob couldn’t help but wonder if their friend had figured out that they’d been almost screwing their brains out a few minutes before. The thought of it made Bob grin wildly.

  “Come on, bro,” Ted said, picking up on the smile. “Out with it.”

  Suddenly tongue-tied, Bob was glad when Carol walked in with three tall, cool drinks. “One for the man of the house” – Bob – “one for the handsome stranger” – Ted – “and one for the horny housewife” – Carol. “Cheers!” she concluded, taking a hefty swallow of her own drink.

  Bob and Ted toasted her, Bob almost coughing as he drank, the drinks being stiff, and then some. He smiled to himself again as he sank back into the sofa. Talking about Charley made him feel as if a secret had been released from some dark, compressed part of his mind. He felt light, airy, almost as though he was hovering over his body, looking down at Ted – tall, curly-haired, quick and bright Ted – and Carol: Carol, who even just thinking of made his body and mind think of their wonderful lovemaking.

  Sneaking a furtive glance at Ted, Bob looked his friend over more carefully. In his new, unburdened vision, Ted looked . . . well, he wasn’t like Charley, but there was still something about Ted that made Bob think of his college friend – no, his college lover. Something about their height, their insatiable appetite for life, their humour.