Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1

by Rachel Kramer Bussel

Desmond Kyle was there, sitting alone. He still wore his scarlet shirt, but he’d undone the top two buttons. He was casually thumbing through his smartphone as he finished a plate of pasta.

  I didn’t hesitate. I walked right up to his table.

  “Mr. Kyle,” I said. The smell of his cologne instantly brought me back to the autograph table. Arousal started to blossom in my belly, but the nerves were muted. I felt stronger and sexier here, in the soft lights and mellow jazz of the restaurant. “I hope you don’t mind if I say hello.”

  “Why, hello,” Desmond said. He turned his phone off and, to my delight, tucked it away into his pocket. I had his attention. “Angela, right?”

  “I can’t believe you remembered my name. You must see thousands of people.”

  He wiped his mouth with a cloth napkin and gestured toward the empty chair. I sat, resting my elbows on the table and leaning forward. The dress was low-cut; I happened to love my breasts, and I wasn’t going to leave without showcasing them.

  “You’d be surprised, actually. There aren’t a million Elemental Heroes fan out there anymore. If people want my autograph, it’s usually because they have the rest of the cast and want to collect the whole set.”

  I shook my head, genuinely surprised to hear that. “Not me, Desmond. I’ve been a fan of yours ever since the show started. I wanted to tell you that earlier, but instead I almost pissed myself.”

  Desmond laughed. His eyes were right on mine, soft and black. “Seeing you in line was a breath of fresh air.”

  “Oh, come on.”

  “I mean it. Seeing a beautiful woman ask for an autograph made my day. I love your hair, by the way.”

  Surprised, I touched my short kinky curls. I knew there was more than the odd grey hair in there, but I don’t think he even noticed. “Do you?”

  “I love a woman with an afro. There’s nothing more beautiful than natural hair.”

  I smiled, trying to play it cool, but inside I was beaming. “Listen, Desmond… What I wanted to tell you earlier is how much it meant to me to have a good, strong, black character like Tecton on television back then. When I was young, it was a weird time to be a geek, and there weren’t exactly a lot of black superheroes to idolize. So, thank you for being my hero.”

  He looked down. Was he suddenly shy? He sure looked like it. “That honestly means so much to hear you say that, Angela. I’ve barely done anything since the show. Didn’t think I was ever anyone’s hero.”

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” I laughed. On impulse, I reached for his hand. He didn’t pull away; in fact, it was only when his large fingers squeezed back that I realized what I’d done. “I had the biggest crush on you. You were like my first love.”

  I wonder if he could feel my fingers shaking. Being here with him—relaxed, thoughtful, honest—made me an entirely different type of nervous than waiting in line for his autograph.

  Desmond chuckled. “You must have been, what—five years old when Elemental Heroes was on?”

  “I was nineteen.”

  He looked me up and down, and I could tell he was trying to do the math.

  “Same age as you, actually.”

  “Hang on—you’re forty-six?” I nodded. He whistled, and his fingers travelled up my hand, rubbing little circles against the pulse point of my wrist. “Damn, girl. You are like a fine wine.”

  I was aching now, so incredibly hot for him. But my lust of years past had morphed; I used to get excited at the idea of Desmond Kyle, at his character and what he represented. And now that I was sitting here, I was falling for the man, for the sweetness, for the way he looked at me, for the way he smelled and held my hand.

  He could have been Desmond Kyle or some random man I’d started flirting with in the restaurant; I was aching for him in a completely different way.

  “Our birthdays are exactly two months apart. Is it weird that I know that? I had all the magazines with all your interviews in them.”

  “It’s weird that you know everything interesting about me, yeah.”

  I gave him my cheekiest smile. “So let’s even that out. What do you want to know about me?”

  Lucky for us, he had a room booked upstairs in the hotel. We barely made it. By the time the door clicked shut, I’d already ripped half of his shirt off. His hand was under my dress, stroking at the soaking-wet fabric of my panties.

  “I want to know what you look like when you come.”

  I’d wanted to tear his pants off in the restaurant, and again in the lobby. It was only once we’d slipped into the elevator and started kissing that I grabbed at the massive bulge in his pants, balancing on one foot so I could rub my eager pussy against him. I’d left a trail of juices on the front of his pants.

  We didn’t even care if anyone saw us in the hallway. He practically carried me to his door, like we were a horny young couple on their honeymoon.

  Inside the room, we fell on the bed, a tangled, sweaty, moaning mess. I got his shirt off and, anticipating his next move, I lifted my back to unsnap my bra. I loved having my breasts exposed, loved the way the sweat collected between them and made me shiver when the cold air bit. Desmond was already all over them, pulling down the top of my dress to kiss and fondle them. I was a sizable C cup, but they felt so small in his huge hands.

  “God,” he said. “You are so hot.”

  “You could have anyone you want, though.”

  “I want you.”

  I kissed him again while he helped me wiggle out of my dress. I crawled on the bed, panting, popping a finger into my mouth and then using it to rub my nipple while he slipped out of his pants.

  Desmond stopped. He was watching me, watching as I stroked my breast and let a hand wander to the top of my trimmed pubic hair.

  “I used to masturbate to pictures of you,” I told him with a purr.

  “Show me,” he said.

  I opened up wide, loving the attention. I spread my slick folds with two fingers, made damn sure he was watching, and rubbed my fingertip against my clit.

  “Oh God,” I said, pouring on the charm. I wiggled my hips at him and plunged two fingers deep into my pussy, moaning like a porn starlet. “Oh Desmond…”

  Turns out he wasn’t much for sitting and watching. I felt his massive hands on my legs, his tongue on the inside of my thighs. Soon his hot breath was on my pussy, then his tongue, knocking my fingers away from my clit so he could taste me. He swapped my fingers for his, filling me, stretching me, while his tongue pressed hard at my clit until I clamped his head between my thighs.

  And then the bastard slowed down, lapping at my pussy lips while his fingers continued to fuck me, long and slow. He was looking at me, peeking over the top of my mound. His tongue was nowhere near my clit but I lost it then, clenching hard around his fingers and moaning like a beast.

  He kissed my belly while I got my breath back, licking the salty sweat between my breasts and the dark little pebbles of my nipples.

  “So,” he said, giving my chin a quick little peck. “That’s what you look like.”

  I pulled him down and kissed him, tasting the salt of my pussy on his tongue. His hands were in my hair, touching it, pulling it, and I was ready for him all over again. I managed to push out a somewhat incoherent “Show me you” between kisses, and lucky for me, he understood.

  Desmond had gotten his pants off earlier, but was still wearing his underwear, and presented me his rather impressive tent as he got up, rummaged around in a nearby travel bag, and pulled out a condom.

  He slid his underwear off, and the cock I’d dreamed about bobbed into view. It was dark brown and deliciously thick, surprisingly similar to what I’d imagined. I sat up so I could stroke it, silky soft and rock hard, and took the condom from his hand so I could roll it on.

  “Lie down,” I told him, and he did as I asked, grabbing my hips just like in my fantasies as I straddled him, spreading my pussy lips over his cock and making sure he could see I was taking my sweet time.

  I was ab
out dripping by the time I let his thick head nudge at my pussy. I couldn’t help opening my mouth wide, like it would help me take him all in, and he encouraged me softly by stroking my belly, rubbing his thumb on my mound.

  He was in me. And then he was out, as I pushed myself up and sank down again, letting him stretch me wide and deep. One of his hands went to my breast, rolling my dark-brown nipple with his thumb. I had to force my eyes to open, to stay on him.

  His mouth was open, just like mine, and he was staring at me. In all my silly little teenage fantasies, I’d never pictured him with that look; he was sweet, he was loving, he was vulnerable. And he was mine.

  Orgasm took me by surprise, shaking me from head to toe. He took over while I tried to breathe through my shudders, grabbing my hips hard—ah, this I’d imagined, only now they weren’t Tecton’s hands, or his alter-ego, Tyrell Jackson’s, hands. They were Desmond Kyle’s hands.

  He pounded his cock into me until I saw the moment he came. His mouth fell open but his eyes stayed on me, dark, sharp—starstruck.

  I fell forward with his pulsing, softening cock still in me, putting my cheek against his sweaty chest and hammering heart. I wanted more, and he wanted more; I just needed a moment. I felt his hands stroking the back of my hair, the rise and fall of his chest as he sighed.

  “You’re my hero,” Desmond said.

  I smiled. I was just thinking that.

  THE ALTAR OF LAMENTED TOYS

  by Jessica Taylor

  for KC Taylor

  I repurposed the light switches on the fading walls of our home into hooks. When I flip the switch up to the “on” position, I remember it was once effortless to illuminate the dark. I hang the medicinal herbs I forage there to dry. The lights won’t turn on though. I used to adjust the thermostat from my cell phone before arriving home from the hospital, too. My whole life I was spoiled with electricity’s availability. I read after sundown. Water boiled in seconds. I curated a collection of toys that plugged into outlets.

  “Jax! Jax!” My husband calls me. He finds me in the walk-in closet of our bedroom, where I often sit. He holds a bunch of wildflowers and his backpack today—the one that fit a laptop.

  After we survived the outbreak, Beau thought we should rename ourselves, as if we had stepped into a Mad Max movie intentionally. He sharpened Jackie into Jax. “Come on, babe!” He told me, “Get into the spirit of things! Adding an X to the end of any word makes it more badass.”

  I didn’t come up with a name to call him. In those early days, I couldn’t let the past go: I did my hair and dressed for clinic, then stood by the door with car keys in hand staring out the window. But when we played “The New Sexting Game” (we hand wrote dirty notes on the remaining Post-Its from the junk drawer), I spelled his name “Beaux.”

  “I brought these for your altar,” he says and hands me a purple bouquet. Beau is in his mid-forties now and I’m just a few steps behind him. Probably, I’m forty-two or forty-three. The hash marks in my notebook kept bleeding together. So I stopped trying to count. My blonde hair has a few grays, but I menstruate regularly.

  “Ah, thanks. I was going to collect some new ones later.”

  “You were always right about this house.” He leans against the doorframe of the walk-in closet in our bedroom.“It really is dark.”

  “Well, you’d come up with good ideas to fix that.”

  “Photovoltaics and solar tubes.” He says the words in a sultry tone, for me.

  I stand, set my hands on his chest, and leave the flowers on the floor beneath my altar.

  He sways with me pressed against him.“Do you remember back in the day when we would go shopping for dishwashers or ovens or water heaters and you would get so horny?” he whispers into my ear. His breath smells like peppermint—he must’ve used the herbal mash I concoct for us as replacement for toothpaste.

  I nod and set a hand over the denim of his crotch.

  Beau slides a hand in my hair. He tugs at the roots and sucks my neck. It doesn’t matter anymore if I get hickeys. When there was still a hospital for me to go to and patients for me to see, it was out of the question. We see another human maybe once or twice a month these days, though it’s getting more frequent. There are more of us survivors exiting the woodwork, boldly declaring ourselves after years in confinement. Some of us made it with natural immunity, others with dumb luck.

  Beau has a soft beard I’ve gotten used to. It was inevitable after the straight razors all grew dull, so he trims it with scissors every other day and still looks dashing for me. He has a dimple so deep on each cheek that a sweet sinkhole forms when he smiles, even with the beard. His hair is mostly brown, and he has smile lines next to his blue eyes. They’ve been there his whole life though, even in his baby pictures.

  “I’m going out scavenging,” he says.

  He cups my face in his hand, kisses my forehead. “Someday you should come with me. You should look at it all. There’s no shame in it.”

  Years later, I’m still sensitive over my failure to help the world when the pandemic erupted. I specialized in infectious diseases, and even ran a virology lab for my research year of fellowship. Those viruses were gorgeously symmetric, like little pets under my microscope. Peering down at them, it seemed like everything was in control.

  Beau is able to whistle as he observes the bleached skeletons scattered about, his backpack slung over his shoulder. The heartbreaking miles of stopped and rusted-out cars from the mass exodus divide the land like a fence. I saw it from a distance once, through binoculars on top of a house I’d climbed.

  “One of these days,” I tell him. “I’ll go with you.”

  “Give me something to remember you by?”

  I’m already naked. I spend a lot of time that way in the summer. Less clothes for us to wash by hand, if we even have the water for it.

  “I love it when you’re naked. Such easy access.”

  “Cheese ball,” I laugh.

  His fingers divide my brown hair. As he strokes me, I bend at the knees and they fall open to him. He kisses me deeply, like he still doesn’t know the contours of my mouth well enough after all these years. I shove my body in circles towards him, inviting him to move down.

  Beau sucks at one breast first while thumbing the other. I imagine the porn we used to watch on the internet. As he smooths his wet mouth and tongue over my nipple, I see the round tits of my favorite performer. While my chest is caressed, I imagine releasing her D-cup breasts and then licking her pink nipples. I swell and flood onto Beau’s hand.

  “Who’re you thinking about?” he asks me, muffled as he looks up from the corner of his eye. “Your tattooed Severin Graves?”

  “No, I’m too old for her now,” I say with my head tilted back and my throat pushed forward.

  “Tabitha Stevens?”

  “You loved her black hair and those big tits, too. I bet you would’ve loved to fuck her while she ate my pussy,” I tell him.

  Beau becomes serious. He grabs my chin.

  “Fucking smack me,” I say. His dick presses harder against my stomach.

  When Beau smacks my face, it’s more of a dull thump, like a slowly speeding pressure into my cheek and chin bone, similar to being spanked or having the roots of your hair tugged. He knows how to correctly execute the move. It sounds just like the muted beat of his thighs and swollen balls against my cunt. The noise of his hand on my cheek is an omen of terrific sensation to come. I’m not submissive. It’s the flow of his energy to me, our mutual charge that gets me.

  I hear the dull smack of his hand before I feel the slight sting. My wetness becomes obvious, as if we’ve been at foreplay for an hour. I move onto my knees before him with a smile, both of us swelling and hot. I undo his worn leather belt and slide his jeans to his ankles. Loudly spitting onto his dick, I look up into his eyes, the way he loves, before I take him into the back of my throat. I stroke him with one hand as I suck. With the other hand, I press my nails gently into the side of h
is ass.

  I pull my face back and the end of his cock makes a popping sound as it leaves my mouth. Gazing up at him, his dick rubs between my tits as I press them together to increase the friction. It’s almost time. It’s almost the moment to give him something to hold during the solitary days of his scavenge. He only needs to hear four small words now.

  “Come on my face.”

  I shove my throat down onto him and it contracts like a climaxing cunt three times as I gag and he groans. He whips his dick out from my mouth and his hot semen explodes on my face while he strokes himself. After his final white pulsation, we both giggle like conspirators. He wipes my face clean.

  We’re next to my altar, the Altar of Lamented Toys, which will soon be decorated with the flowers my love brought. There are a few that don’t require electricity. My favorite of these is a stainless steel wand with an end like the billowing crown of a cock. On the other end, three tapered bulbs. I nod my head toward it. Beau slides the solid metal slowly into my sex. Then he lays his tongue on me as he rotates the wand with patience. It feels like it takes a full minute for him to drag the toy one millimeter. One spin, I grip his shoulders. Two spins, I pull my knees into my chest. Three spins, I rub my breasts.

  “Oh fuck, I’m gonna come.” Another slow spin. Years ago, when I looked down at him tonguing me, I wouldn’t have seen the bones of my hips like I do now. When my climax arrives, all these thoughts stop. My brain shuts the fuck up for a few seconds. After my sharp calls of “Yes! Yes! Fuck!” the world is silent, and I am suspended in it like a bird.

  We curl up on the bed for a few moments before he goes. When the gunshots and looting started in the beginning of the end, we dragged this mattress into the closet and set up a collection of sharpened kitchen knives at its foot. We took those nights in shifts. I remember, now, joking about such scenarios when we’d bought the mattress years before in an ecological furniture store.

  “Honey, the mattress is organic, compostable soy!” I had exclaimed.

  “Sweet, we can eat it after the apocalypse.”

  Three days later, Beau is still gone. It’s midday, the only time there’s enough light in this part of the house to see. I’m starting to worry. If he’s gone four days, I’ll lose it. I won’t know how to track him if it comes down to it. Infection isn’t my concern anymore. Those days are gone. The remaining host population is too small, and probably mostly immune. It’s the leftover people that concern me, the accidents that could happen.