“No one has ever been there. It’s forbidden and people are afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“The Lady.”
“But who is this lady?”
“The one who arrived naked.”
In a flash I saw her again. The Beauty. The hair. The triangle. The walk.
“Why are people afraid?”
“The island is well-guarded. There are dogs, arabs, armed black men. Mariners say that anyone who lands there never returns.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s what they say.”
“And the village accepts that? There are many men here.”
“The Lady’s rich. She buys everything the men catch in the sea. She brings us everything that comes from elsewhere. It’s enough not to meddle in her affairs. That is the order.”
“And what does she do?”
“She has a large castle in the middle of the island.”
“And before?”
“Before what?”
“Before the Lady ruled here?”
“I do not know. The Lady’s older than me. The village has always depended on the island.”
There was a shadow behind my eyes. I had not known it to begin with, but suddenly I realized I was not seeing Emma anymore. Like a blind man I stretched my hand towards her face, then my tongue towards her tongue. The shadow persisted. At that time, towards her, I was no more than the fool of my own folly.
That night I left our stone house and the white bed to go down to the inn and talk to the fishermen. They greeted me, teasing:
“Emma is beautiful, isn’t she?”
“And what a pleasure, young man, by the look of you!”
I bought drinks and their friendliness expanded with every bottle they emptied of the dark wine. At last, when I thought the moment was right, I asked:
“What’s that island you can see from the top of the cliff?”
The lightheadedness disappeared abruptly. The mariners looked at me then at each other, before one of the oldest finally decided to answer:
“It’s Countess Mona’s island. You pleased her, since she picked you out the other night.”
“Is it always she who chooses?”
“Yes. She presides over our festivals. She started them again, after all. Old Bastien, the one in charge, defended the tradition well but without the countess it was probable that our virgins would keep their holes stoppered till marriage.”
“And Mona? Is she from here?”
“The island belonged to her father, and her father’s father. But the old man did not care much about us. Mona looks after us better, though we must not go near the island.”
“You have never been there?”
“No. It is forbidden. There are dogs and black men. Sometimes when the wind is strong you hear those beasts from hell howling . . . After all it’s her home!”
“Does no one ever go there?”
“Friends of hers who arrive in their yachts from the other side of the sea.”
“And what if I went there, to her island?”
“She said it is better not to go.”
“She has spoken of me?”
“She said it’s better not to go.”
“At any rate, your countess would not eat me!”
“Who knows?” shrugged the old man.
While calling for drink to put an end to my interrogation, he gave me the half-condescending, half-pitying smile that old people sometimes have.
From then on I had but one idea – to see Mona again, to visit her island, her castle. Although I took great care not to show this desire, my assiduity with Emma abated. I kept silent in order to imagine and thus envisage, but who has faith in his own visions?
Frequently, in the afternoon, I escaped to the terrace. I had been able to obtain a telescope easily, but though it drew the island nearer, it did not show me anything. I succeeded in spotting a large white yacht, the castle not at all. The island was hilly enough to conceal it. In any case, did they not call anything the least bit bigger than the poky village houses a castle?
The map told me nothing either. No doubt the island was off the main route, or else so tiny that reduction to scale made it invisible.
I secretly prepared for my expedition, making a habit of borrowing Emma’s father’s boat. It had a shallow draught and I quickly familiarized myself with its handling. The weather was calm, my hopes high: what have I to fear from Beauty?
LILLY’S LOULOU
Michèle Larue
Translated by Noël Burch
My mistress abandoned me over a Chinese restaurant. There are at least twelve on la calle Cuchillo, a busy street in Havana’s barrio chino. The Cuban Chinese chefs threw thick Mexican spaghetti in their soups instead of rice noodles, which always riled my Lilly. When I heard that eight chefs were due in from Canton to teach the locals how to make genuine sharks’ fin soup, I was frightened: I myself am pink – the color of flesh, in fact – and I look a bit like a sausage. When my mistress said melted condoms had been known to replace the mozzarella on Cuban pizzas, I thought to myself that the contents of a condom, i.e. yours truly, might make tasty meatballs in their soup.
I’m ten inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. I’m veined and flexible like a paupiette de veau. Two alkaline batteries set me to twitching, with a choice of three speeds. For years I was Lilly’s favorite dildo. Nestled in a red velvet zip-bag next to a round-tipped candle, I toured the world in her trunk. She always flew during the off-season so that she could negotiate a whole row just for the two of us. She took me out of my case when the movie began. In the darkness, she slipped me under her panties where I started buzzing in low gear like a fly caught in a lace curtain. Lilly began to pant as she slid me sidewise under her panties and pressed me to her flesh. My hum became muffled as I drilled into the zones she chose around her clitoris, then over the little bridge of flesh to the anus. There, I skated around in circles. . . . After a while, my mistress would heave a little sigh and drop me under the seat. She rarely reached climax in the air. When the plane landed, she would pick me up with a fistful of crumpled newspapers.
On the infrequent evenings when Lily was at home alone, I played stand-in, alternating with a black, cone-shaped competitor called Plug. I never knew much about Plug’s capabilities, but they must have been far inferior to mine. One morning, as I emerged from the bag where Lilly had forsaken me all night long, I noticed him lying on the bed. Whenever she chose me for her evening bodyguard, she told all her boyfriends she would be getting her beauty sleep at home that night. I was delighted to count among the treatments meant to make her even more desirable. As she stepped out of her bath and slipped into a slinky Chinese negligee and mules trimmed with black swan feathers, my mistress would already be planning an orgasm. Pulling back the blankets, she would stretch out on the cool percale sheets. I could feel her finger applying a male-scented gel, then the touch of her clitoris as I swung into action. She would put me down and caress herself with her fingers. Pick me up again. Arch her back to see me standing between her thighs. Her pleasure came in moans that made me feel proud. The next morning her hand would come looking for me under the sheets. She’d give me a few licks with her tongue, spit on my tip, and back to work!
When Lilly had a man in her bed, she would let me watch the lovemaking that I had, in a way, initiated. She would bring the man into the bedroom and take me out of my case. I heard the usual “it sure is big” or “just like the real thing.” Wearing the string she never removed with any partner, and for which she was known as “Lilly-string,” she rubbed me against her pink lips to make them moist. When the man tired of my collaboration, she would throw me on the carpet. But sometimes she quietly picked me up again while the man was in the shower. To finish herself off. To drench me with her juices. The mechanism would stop just in time for me to feel her spasms, and it would be my turn to feel the throbbing of my mistress’s body. Her little squeals were more audible and attractive without the sound
of my motor. When the man came out of the shower, kissed her cheek, and asked, “Was it good for you, too?” it was as if he were talking to me.
My role was usually restricted to surface-work. Except for that one time in Africa, when we ran out of batteries. I had a whale of a time! My mistress took me firmly in her hand and slowly drove me nearly halfway inside of her. Never before had she thrust me thus into the sheath of her flesh. It was in Zimbabwe that I realized what Plug was for. Actually, Lilly’s cavity wasn’t my size. Her eyes had been bigger than her stomach when she picked me out in her favorite sex-shop on the Rue de la Gaite in Paris. Was she trying to talk the price down when she told the salesmen I was too big to be of use to anyone? It was under a tent in the African bush that I first experienced confinement inside my mistress, and every night I wanted more. It was soft and maternal in there . . . I still have fond memories of that expedition, although, without my vibratory powers, never once during the long safari did I manage to bring her off.
And so now I don’t belong to Lilly any more. She sold me – traded me, rather – for two boxes of Robusto cigars scarcely thicker than a little finger. How’s she going to manage with those, unless she ties them in a bunch?
The tall black man who bought me puts on a silk fuchsia vest every evening. He claims that anyone who lives for any length of time in Chinatown (where he was born forty years ago) will inevitably turn tradesman. Orestes – for such is his name – has ignored this year’s big craze in Havana: going in for a barman’s job on a Caribbean cruise ship. He devotes himself solely to managing my activities, an occupation well suited to his tropical indolence. Any effort to entrust him with something other than coaching my depraved little body – keeping an eye on the workers painting the family terrassa, for example, or having sex with a woman – makes him terribly nervous. He’s often so stressed that his body ceases to function and he has to lie down. If it were in my power, I’d rebel against this boss of mine, who thinks the exhalations of an expensive scent should fill the street where he walks. Fortunately, I have little contact with the man. I change condoms several times a day and pass from hand to hand: I’m a dildo for hire. When I’m squeezed into a Chinese rubber, it reminds me of Lilly’s tender sex. Her tight vagina. Between jobs, my manager takes me back and washes me clean. When I’m dry, he pours white rum all over me. “She” never washed me at all. I’ve never seen so many black men and women at close range before. The rum has so blurred my memories of Lilly that I can scarcely recall her scent. Some days, I feel homesick.
ALL EYES ON HER
M. Christian
THE CITY SAT around her. From where she was standing, nothing but the silver squares of windows seemed to be watching. But she knew better; she could feel them sitting behind their desks, in their living rooms, in the bedrooms, in their beds, watching her.
The gravel and tar paper of the roof was hot underfoot, but she enjoyed it. It was the totality of it, the completeness of the act, that made her nipples into hard knots, and stoked the fire of her cunt. Wearing slippers, shoes, or anything else would’ve made it incomplete, would’ve ruined the statement: standing naked on the rooftop, letting the city watch her.
At first Cindy didn’t think she could do it. It was a private thing, a crazy thing, something to lay back in a warm, soapy tub and think about – rubbing herself into a rolling orgasm. In the real world the roof was hot, the gravel hurt the bottoms of her feet, and a hard, chill wind cut over the concrete edge of the roof and blasted through her.
Despite the pains in her feet, the chill air, and the hot tar, she stood naked on the roof of her little five-story apartment building, a fire roaring in her cunt.
– there, that little square: formed out of an un-athletic dough, he watched her. His cock was small, and barely hard. He pulled it, tugged at it, the warm roll of his stomach brushing his hand as he masturbated. Slowly, he got harder and harder till all of his few inches was strong and hard in his hand. The fat man watched, smiling, happy and excited. When he came, he selflessly groaned, and got his window messy.
Cindy watched the city watching her. Looking at one silvery window in particular she lifted her right hand to her left breast and stroked the soft skin and pinched the hard nipple.
– they watched her. Taken with her brazenness, the attitude of this obvious species of urban nymph, who could say who started it? Maybe it was Mike who first dropped his shorts and started the kiss, his rock-hard cock fitting so perfectly, so nicely between them. But then it couldn’t been Steve who started it, who put his hand between them to feel his own straining erection. Was it Mike who dropped to his knees and started a grand suck? Or was it Steve? Who came first? Did Steve fill Mike’s mouth with bittersweet come? Or did Mike explode all over Steve’s face? Or did it really matter? The end certainly justified the means . . .
Cindy looked up at the sun. It bathed her, baked her; her skin vibrated with the heat of it, the fire it coated her with. Right still on left, she felt her breast, playing with the texture of it, the underlying muscle, the strong tip of her nipple. Sun on her, she moved left to right, massaging her breasts under the gaze of the warm sun.
– sitting on their bed, she watched the woman on the rooftop across the street. The sun was almost too bright, too hot, and for a moment she thought about what she had to do: shower, get dressed, go to work. But the woman, the daringness of her, the casualness of her, kept her glued to the window. She didn’t seem crazy, but that’s what she had to be. To stand up there in the sight of God and everyone else, and rub herself like that. It turned her on something fierce. It made her horny, that’s what it did. She savored the word as she pulled herself up from sitting to all fours. Her breasts pulled away from her body in this position – they strained against her body and rolled in her house dress. Without thinking, she put a hand down the front of her dress and cradled one of her breasts. The nipple was so hard, it ached, it was so hard. Cautiously, she squeezed and pulled gently at it. Fire raced through her. Her legs felt like they were going to collapse. The woman across the street, touching herself, it was like she was crazy, touching herself and thinking about her nipples and between her legs she could feel herself grow wet –
Her legs were tired, so Cindy lowered herself down till she squatted over the hot gravel roof. Her breasts were heavy and tight, her nipples ached to be touched and sucked. No thought. Not a one. Watching the city watching her, Cindy put a hot hand between her hot legs. Her thighs were wet, her cunt was a damp forest of blond curls. Her lips were wet and hot. She ran a single finger from her clit to her cunt to her ass, and shivered in delight.
– bent over the chair, her ass in the air, her arms down the chair back, her knees on the seat, she could feel Bob’s tongue playing with her cunt. He loved to eat her, and, God, he was good at it. She pushed herself back towards his face, trying to get his hard, strong, tongue deeper into her soaking cunt. Then he found her pucker asshole, and started to tongue around it. Christ! She felt like screaming. She needed cock now, right now in her soaking pussy, she needed to be filled, fucked, she wanted to come and come and come! Then Bob was at her clit, and the world seemed to boil down to the points of her nipples, the glow of her ass, the wetness of her cunt, her lover’s tongue, and the joy of her clit. She was so lost, so incredibly lost getting ready to come, that she almost forgot to look up, to look across the way to see what the chick on the roof was doing next –
Cindy’s cunt juice ran between her fingers. She was so wet. Her cunt was soaking, her clit was a hard bead between her legs, tucked between her lips. She’d worked out a system, and it was working real good: first she’d plunge her hands deep within herself, up and deep till she could swear THERE was her cervix, THERE her G-spot. Then she’d pull out, slow and hard, pushing aside her hot, soaking lips till her fingers glided past her clit. Then she’d work it, rubbing around and around the little bead of her clit. Then back – back to her cunt, the depths of her, her hot lips, her clit, over and over again.
&nbs
p; Sometimes she’d use both hands, pushing all fingers into herself like some huge cock. Sometimes she’d use just one, saving the other, wet and smelling of her cunt, on the knots of her nipples, her aching breasts.
Then she came, fast and oh-so-hard, with the whole world watching.
KISMET
Michael Crawley
STUART MET HER in Toronto, which is ironic. He was from Vancouver, sometimes known as LaLaLand North. The rest of Canada knows that Vancouver is a haven for drop-outs, druggies and weirdos. Toronto, by contrast, is still often called “Toronto-the-Good”.
It was February, in a McDonald’s on Yonge Street, at three in the morning. They were both sitting at the counter. Stuart noticed her eyes first. They were big, the colour of hot chocolate, and sad beneath creamy lids. Her face was thin, feral. The hair that tumbled from beneath a plain navy beret was violently red. She cradled her styrofoam cup in both thin-fingered hands. When she bent her head to sip, enormous hoop earrings swung against her cheeks.
Despite the time and the place, Stuart didn’t think she was a professional. A pro wouldn’t have worn a thin shapeless turquoise topcoat. It concealed without protecting, which is the opposite to what a whore would choose. In any case, she was too old. She had to be about his own age, forty. Yonge Street whores range from prepubescent to old hands of twenty.
Stuart should have drunk up and left. There was a bed waiting at his hotel and it’d been a tiring night. Waiting hours for a mainframe to come up so you can keyboard your last seven entries is more fatiguing than pounding the keys all night.
He should have left, but he crooked a finger for another coffee instead. The woman looked so incredibly vulnerable. It’s hard to walk away from that. There are so many possibilities. A woman’s weakness can give a man the opportunity to be chivalrous. Or it can be exploited.
Stuart had been in Toronto for ten days, with no real human contact. He’d been sleeping through most of the mornings, watching TV in the afternoon, and starting work when the rest of the office left. His friends and family were all back in “Van”. He was hungry for some sort of emotional interaction.
The Mammoth Book of International Erotica Page 60