“Mark, are you OK?”
The next Saturday was perfect beach weather. Mark and Anna decided to take the train over to Long Island and spend the day in the surf. The beach was crowded, and they were lucky enough to find a place to lay their towels without complaining that their spot was closer to the surrounding woods than to the ocean itself.
Mark looked around as they rested after a swim. Anna was reading a book and Mark, having neglected to bring anything, resorted to people-watching.
Once he spotted the woman in the yellow bikini walking on the sand, he was suddenly glad he’d forgotten his book. She had a perfect tan, and sun-bleached hair that blew behind her in the breeze. Her eyes were hidden behind black sunglasses, but Mark could still see her high cheekbones, thin nose and perfect mouth, highlighted by the dark birthmark near the corner of her upper lip. And her body; he hadn’t seen a body like that outside of swimsuit models. She was slender and well toned, the muscles of her tight abdomen glistening in the hot sun, and she generously filled out both the top and bottom of her skimpy yellow bikini.
And then she was gone, lost in the crowds.
Mark let his breath out slowly. He turned to look at Anna – reclining in her blue bikini, the water from the ocean rolling in thin streams off her body – and thought he was going to burst. She met his eyes over the top of her paperback, and smiled.
They disappeared into the woods, deep enough to avoid exposure. Anna slipped off her tight blue bikini bottom, and bent herself over a thick fallen tree. Mark lingered, looking at the dark tangle of her wet pubic hair, smelling the thick scent of her arousal through the salty sea water that still clung to her skin, and listening to the desire in her voice when she said, “I want you inside me.”
He slid easily into her, hunching over her back and kissing the nape of her neck. Mark’s hands glided along her smooth, wet skin, up her sides and around to her chest, cupping her breasts, the wet material of her blue bikini top crushing under his palms.
His hands undid the clasp of the yellow bikini top as he embraced and kissed the woman from the beach, letting their tongues swirl around each other like snakes. The top fell silently to the forest floor.
Her tits were perfect, mashing against him, her nipples so hard he could feel them pressing into his chest. He kissed her neck and, moving down her body, kissed the hollow between her collar bones and, finally, held those big, beautiful breasts in his hands and sucked at them until she gasped.
He spun her around and bent her over a fallen tree, tearing off the yellow bikini bottom and giving her the fuck of her life.
Mark pulled Anna’s blue bikini top off her shoulders and slid it down to her waist, then caressed her small, bare breasts from behind.
The woman from the beach cried, “I’m coming!” and trembled against him.
And then she was gone.
Priestess was bent over beneath him, moving her heart-shaped ass back and forth against his pelvis and moaning orgasmically. She twisted around to look at him, ran a warm hand over his chest and said, “There’s only me.”
He closed his eyes tight as he came inside her.
Rushing darkness . . . bursting lungs . . . no air . . .
Mark gasped, shaking and sweating, unable to remember where he was. Anna straightened, letting him slide back out of her. She turned around and looked at him, touching his arm in concern.
“Mark? What is it?”
“Nothing.” Mark shook himself again. He was burning under his skin. “I must be coming down with something.”
It was a small news story, buried deep in the last pages of the Quick City Sentinel. A local woman drowned at a Long Island beach over the weekend, apparently caught by a fierce undertow and pulled under before anyone could help.
There was a picture of the victim, a photograph from her modeling portfolio. She had sun-bleached hair, a beautiful smile, and a birthmark by the corner of her upper lip.
Mark did everything he could to convince himself it wasn’t the same woman he saw in the yellow bikini, the woman he fantasized about. It had to be a coincidence.
Mark straightened his tie as he followed Anna out of the taxi. It was nine o’clock, the summer sun had set just half an hour ago, and the sky was darkening quickly. He could tell the smile on Anna’s face was fixed there by sheer will; she wasn’t happy being in this kind of neighbourhood after dark, especially on their anniversary.
The street was lined with rows of dingy tenement buildings, their rusted fire escapes casting spiderweb shadows all around them under the radiance of the streetlights. Garbage was strewn all over the kerb, walls were brightly spray-painted, and the street was practically deserted. The taxi sped off as if the driver feared for his life.
“Where are we?” Anna asked.
Mark put a comforting arm around her shoulders. “We’re almost there.”
He led her toward one of the dark tenements, checking the address to make sure he had the right one. It looked no different from the other buildings surrounding it – dirty, rusty, spray-painted – but the address was right. Mark led her toward the steps leading down to the sunken metal door.
“I’m so excited about your big surprise,” Anna said, but her eyes told him she didn’t like being here.
Beyond the battered metal door was a cobblestone courtyard about five yards long, lit by strategically placed colored floodlights, peppered with tall potted plants, and lined with wrought-iron benches. At the other side of the courtyard was a red wooden door. There was also a red velvet rope, and a line of six people waiting behind it.
“Cancellations,” one of them said.
“I’ve got a reservation,” Mark replied.
“What is this place?” Anna asked excitedly. The fear was gone from her eyes, replaced with anticipation.
“My surprise.” Mark rang the bell next to the red door, and it swung open. A woman in a silk Oriental dress, tight and red and flowered, appeared in the dim doorway.
“Do you have a reservation?”
“Wagner, party of two.”
Anna tugged excitedly at his arm.
The woman stepped aside and said, “Come right in.”
The door closed behind them. They stood in a short, dark hallway with tastefully flowered wallpaper and a luxuriously deep carpet. Mark reached into his pocket and pulled out three hundred-dollar bills, handing them to the hostess.
“Right through there,” she replied, pointing to the gold-rimmed door on the other end of the hallway. “Check all your clothes in the room on the left. There’s no charge.”
“Check all our what?” Anna asked.
Mark locked his arm around hers, and said, “Follow me.”
There was another short hallway with a booth in the left wall, and a black door at the far end. Another woman stood behind the booth’s counter. She wore only a semi-sheer bra and white cotton panties.
“Your clothes,” she said. “They’re held under your name, and you can pick them up when you leave.”
“What is this?” Anna pleaded, tugging on his arm again. But Mark noticed she was smiling.
“Just trust me,” he said, and started to pull off one of his shoes.
Undressing before a perfect stranger waiting for their clothes was not the erotic experience Mark thought it might be. They stripped with robotically slow movements. He could see Anna trying to hide her concern – after all, she must have chosen tonight’s outfit with measured precision, and she was probably wondering if her new Italian shoes would be safe in this woman’s care – but she was game. She was always game.
By the time they stood naked beside each other and ready to pass through the next door, they were both giggling like children. Anna took his arm again.
“I’m going to stop asking questions now,” she said.
They were both utterly unprepared for what they saw beyond the door: a cavernous room, filled with red wallpaper, gold mirrors, vibrant green plants, plush brown couches, soft deep carpeting, the fragrance of a thousand delicate
flowers – and people, so many people.
Everyone was naked. Mark and Anna walked slowly into the room, turning their heads back and forth, and staring in slack-jawed surprise at the debauchery that surrounded them.
To their right, two women were giving a man a tag-team blow job. To their left, a man was kneeling before a seated woman, his face buried between her legs, while two other women flanked her, licking her breasts. They heard a high, whirring sound, and turned to see a man with a woman on his lap, her legs spread wide, with both of them holding a pink vibrator to her clitoris. When the woman started bucking away from her playmate in the throes of passion, Mark could just make out the shaft of the man’s penis engorged in her anus.
Mark stopped walking and turned to face Anna. Her eyes were wide, but she was smiling even wider, and he could tell she was getting turned on. He reached out with both arms and grasped her shoulders.
“Surprise,” he said.
Then he leaned down and kissed her, holding her warm body tightly against his, feeling the soft press of her small breasts against his chest, and sliding his hands down her back.
“Let’s make them jealous,” he whispered to her.
She pulled him to her again, locking her lips against his so tight he almost couldn’t breathe.
A gloved hand fell on his shoulder. “Mr Wagner?” came a voice from behind him.
Mark turned around to see a short, rotund man in a tuxedo standing there patiently.
“So glad to see you’re getting into the spirit of things, Mr Wagner,” the man continued. “If you’ll follow me to the VIP room.”
“The what?” Mark asked.
“It is your anniversary, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Anna said.
“Then only the best shall do. Follow me to the VIP room, please. There’s no extra charge.”
Mark and Anna shrugged at each other, and followed the diminutive butler. He led them through the enormous room, then around corners and through corridors and other rooms, all similar to the first. Mark began to suspect, impossibly, that the Aphrodite Club was larger inside than the tenement could conceivably hold.
I wonder if she’s here, he thought. I wonder if I’ll see her.
Tony was right; it was like a porn movie come to life. They saw a man ejaculating all over the face and tongue of his girlfriend; a redheaded woman lying on the carpet with a man straddling her torso and thrusting his penis between her ample breasts, while a second woman, a brunette, ran her tongue between the redhead’s legs; two moaning women, one on top of the other like a yin-yang symbol; everything Tony said it would be.
Anna leaned toward Mark’s ear and whispered, “How do they keep this place clean?” She touched his arm while she whispered, and her hand felt hot on his skin.
“Here we are,” the butler said, stopping before a thick oaken door with a polished brass knob. “Inside, you’ll find complimentary champagne and chocolate-dipped strawberries, as well as private restrooms.”
Mark opened the door, and the butler followed them in.
The room inside was much smaller than the others they’d seen, spanning roughly eight hundred square feet. The walls had the same deep red wallpaper, the floor had the same thick carpeting, but the couches looked bigger and more comfortable. There were a dozen other people in the room, some resting, some making love, and all oblivious to the newcomers’ arrival.
A black door stood at the far end of the VIP room.
“Where does that one go?” Anna asked.
“A room designated only for our most special guests,” the butler replied. “Certain personalities whose privacy must be maintained. I’m sorry, but you can’t go in there. We sincerely hope you enjoy your time at the Aphrodite Club.” And with that, the little man in the tuxedo was gone.
“Jesus,” Mark said, looking around. “Where do we start?” His eyes went to the nearest sofa, where a man with a blond beard was getting a blow job from one woman while making out with another.
“Let’s have some refreshments,” Anna suggested, pulling a bottle from a standing silver cooler nearby.
They sat across from the bearded man and, sipping champagne from crystal flutes, watched as he ejaculated in one woman’s mouth while kissing the breasts of the other. Mark found himself getting so turned on he couldn’t wait any more. He grabbed the glass out of Anna’s hand and placed it with his own on the endtable.
Remaining seated where he was, Mark pulled Anna on top of him, letting her straddle him, and slowly lowered her onto his erection. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back, gasping as he penetrated her.
Anna looked more beautiful than ever, writhing and moaning in his arms. Her mouth still tasted of champagne, and her tongue had the slightest hint of chocolate from the strawberries. Mark cupped one of Anna’s breasts in his hand and lifted it toward his mouth, kissing the nipple and running his tongue around the small, pink aureole. Anna moaned again, bucking her hips against him.
From the corner of his eye, Mark saw the black door slowly, silently open. At first there was only darkness beyond, but a shape began to materialize out of the shadows, walking forward into the doorway: Priestess. She wore a loose red silk dress, with a plunging V-neck that went all the way down past her navel. She stopped just outside the doorway, looking at Mark with a slight smile, her hand grazing along the exposed skin of her torso and just slightly revealing more of one perfect, round breast.
The moment their eyes met, Mark’s body was racked by the most intense orgasm he’d ever had, starting at the base of his penis and moving outward into his entire body. He cried out uncontrollably as he violently ejaculated into his wife. Anna practically screamed in climax, then collapsed against him in a sweaty heap.
Looking over Anna’s shoulder, Mark’s eyes stayed on Priestess. She didn’t break eye-contact.
He finally forced himself to look away when Anna straightened up again and said, “That was amazing!”
Mark nodded, trying to catch his breath.
“I’m going to use the women’s room,” she continued, getting up off him. There were two doors near where a woman was pouring champagne on her breasts and letting her boyfriend lick it off, and Anna went through the one with the picture of a naked woman on it.
Mark waited until the bathroom door shut, then looked back at Priestess. She was still there, smiling at him. He got up and walked over to her.
“Hi,” was all he could say.
“Mark,” she replied. “I’m so happy to see you again. I’ve been thinking about you a lot.”
“Me, too. A lot.”
She ran her hand idly along her torso again. “You want me, don’t you?” Mark couldn’t answer that. He looked away, toward the door of the women’s room. Priestess took his hand. Her skin was warm and smooth. “Come with me, Mark,” she said, pulling him into the dark doorway.
Mark couldn’t resist the fire her touch sparked in him. He followed her into a hallway, and the door closed gently behind him. It was dark, but he could still see her. A thick metal door stood in the distance. Everything else was black.
Priestess leaned back against the wall and pulled Mark close. “Will you let me kiss you?” she asked.
Her breath was sweet and cool against his face, and she smelled like flowers. Their bodies were so close together Mark thought he could feel electricity arcing between them.
“I’ve been waiting so long for someone like you, longer than you can possibly imagine,” she said. “I knew it from the moment we met. When our hands touched in the hallway outside your apartment, when I heard your voice on the phone, I knew we had to be together.” Her eyes bored into his. “I could feel you fantasizing about me.”
“I did,” Mark said.
“I liked it. So much passion. I can’t stand the idea of you thinking about anyone else so passionately. You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before, Mark. You have so much energy. Raw. Uncontrollable.”
“No one understands that about me,” Mark said,
falling into her eyes. “No one but you. I need constant . . .”
“Variety,” Priestess finished. “An endless diversity of partners and positions.”
“Yes.”
“You’re always looking for something new to keep you excited. I’m the same way; it’s why I came here from Greece all those years ago. I can give you an eternity of satisfaction, Mark, and all you have to do is love me.”
Mark leaned closer until all he could see was the smooth porcelain skin of her face. Priestess grabbed the back of his head, pulling him in.
It was like no kiss Mark had ever felt before. It started on his lips, then travelled to his tongue, his whole mouth, down his neck and through his entire body, as if his soul was merging with something divine, something godlike, through the meeting of their lips.
Anna, he thought suddenly. What about Anna?
The one thing Anna had always adamantly refused him was a threesome. She said she didn’t want to share him with anyone, and five years ago tonight he had sworn to forsake anyone else.
He could feel Priestess moving against him; could feel the soft flutter of her dress as it fell off her warm body and landed at their feet. She pulled him closer to her, their naked flesh crushing against each other.
Geoff warned him there was a price to pay, that he would lose Anna forever if he cheated on her. Was Priestess worth the price? To be with her meant never holding Anna again when she was sad, never hearing Anna’s comforting voice after a bad day, never feeling Anna’s hand in his hair on a lazy Sunday morning in bed. Could he live with that?
Priestess looked up into his eyes.
“You’re thinking about her,” she said.
“It’s our anniversary.”
“I’m a jealous woman, Mark. I can give you everything you want, but your heart must belong to me.”
“She’s my wife.”
Priestess shook her head. “No,” she said. “There’s only me.” The bathroom was completely mirrored from floor to ceiling, and Anna found it disorienting as she washed her hands in the marble sink.
The door opened behind her, and Anna glanced into a mirror, expecting to see another woman come in. Instead, she saw the short, tuxedoed butler enter the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3 Page 12