The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “You need to grow up, Cole,” she told him and, surprised as he was that she’d remembered his name, he also sincerely believed her. He remained exactly who he had been, and it gave him some pause.

  He took the train back out to his mother’s place in Queens and let himself in. She was out as usual, working the night shift at the hospital. He went to the garage and leaned against his father’s workbench. The dust had piled up but the tools were still in their proper places. The hedgecutter, saws, levels, hoes, and coiled garden hoses all outlined in magic marker on the peg board.

  The old man had moved out five years ago and hadn’t taken a damn thing with him. It intrigued Cole that someone could leave an entire life behind and begin a new one – a different wife, with two other kids already. Cole occasionally went by his father’s house and peeked in the windows, watching the kids on the couch next to him, laughing, everybody always smiling. It gave Cole a warm but somehow unpleasant feeling. Sometimes he fell asleep in the backyard, head propped against the new siding. He’d been arrested twice but the old man hadn’t pressed charges yet.

  The sheet over Joe’s Mustang hadn’t been changed in six months but still smelled of bleach. He drew it off and gazed at the car.

  It was a cherry red Boss 429, with 375 horsepower and 450 lb-ft. Sixty-nine, the year that the rivalry between Mustangs and Camaros became well-defined, with street races occurring every night up and down the highways across America’s midwest. In 69 the Stang became bigger, heavier and gained in its performance options. Increased height meant a jump in horsepower. Handling was much-improved. The famous running horse in the grille was replaced by a smaller emblem, offset to the right of the grille. There were four headlights now. The interior was more rounded off with two separate cockpits, for the driver and passenger.

  He’d almost killed himself with the car before he’d ever driven it. The black depression came down on him at about the beginning of ninth grade, took him low in the guts for three or four days straight and wouldn’t shake free. He shut the garage door, started Joe’s Mustang up, lay on the cold cement floor near the exhaust pipe and listened to the engine thrum. It made him calm again. About five minutes into it the carbon monoxide got him high and he felt a lot better, shut the car off, puked, and watched the Nightmare on Elm Street series on video for the rest of the night.

  It was an heirloom. He remembered his brother taking him down to the beach, Joe’s muscles rigid in the sun, wet and roiling in the surf with girls in bikinis. Cole would sit up on the sand and watch them in the water, the girls frolicking for a while before Joe led them away behind the dunes. Later, when he and his brother were taking showers in the locker room, the scent of salt and seaweed and manhood all around, Cole would tremble at the thought of the engine. When they got back into the Mustang, the seats too hot to sit on, Joe would lay their damp towels down, and they’d fly out of there.

  The first time Cole had toyed with himself was in the back seat, imagining that he was watching Joe in the driver’s seat, roaring down Ocean Parkway, some bikini girl working in his lap. Cole had no idea what the hell he was even doing, it started so oddly, just as a way to get back to a place of peace in himself. Ten years old maybe and barefoot, still sort of wishing he was dead but not quite there.

  This had muscle. This had age.

  Joe had died in the Stang, bolting down Route 25a and dogging it out with a 78 Camaro, 327 intake, Turbo 350 and B&M shift kit. Four in the morning, two miles past the worst of the curves, and they both blew a red light too late. Some baker was off to make the morning donuts, staggering through a left turn in a Gremlin with only one headlight, putting along off a side street. Joe slammed the brakes and spun out, they said, completing three full circles before coming to a stop in a fog of smoking tyres. The Stang didn’t have a scratch on it and neither did his brother. Joes neck was broken.

  Cole went inside and made a few calls. It was easy tracking Terry down. Everybody was still in touch on the grapevine, more or less. Three years out of high school and they were all still tearing themselves up about it, eager to talk, to find one another again. It was stupid the way the system did it. Let you spend 13 years surrounded by the same couple hundred kids, then punt you into the rest of the frenzied world. No wonder he had no fucking social skills.

  He learned that she lived off St Mark’s Place and Third Avenue, around there, but nobody knew an apartment or phone number. Someone said it was over a T-shirt shop, but Cole knew there were about 20 of them on that block so the info was no help. Somebody else said she visited her mother most Sundays, maybe for a family dinner, maybe just to settle her nerves after a weekend of raving. She didn’t take drugs and hardly ever drank. There was a whisper that she’d gone a little nuts since her sister was shoved in front of the E Train.

  Cole showered, shaved, and dressed the way they used to. Jeans, T-shirt, black riding boots, and Joe’s leather coat. It was still in style and always would be. He’d kept the Stang tuned, fuelled, charged. A part of him thought that even if he’d done nothing to it at all, the car would still be ready.

  He got in, and it was like he’d never been gone.

  The Stang started with a roar, the noise surrounding and filling him from the belly up.

  He promised himself he was not going to get out of the car until he had her, and maybe not even then.

  Cole prowled the area for two days, skulking along her parents’ block, living on drive-through, pissing in the extra-large drink cup, and forcing his bowels to back down. The Stang moved like a shark across the asphalt, heading through the Lincoln Tunnel and down through Jersey, gliding back into the city after the rush hour gridlock had eased.

  Sunday, he parked up the street from her parents’ place, watching. He saw Terry come up out of the subway at around three and slowly walk along the sidewalk to the front door. She had a fluid grace about her that appealed to him. She’d toned the goth look down a little for Sunday dinner with the folks, but not by much. Cole sort of missed seeing the ladies’ death entourage, wishing they were here now to hear the tic of his engine. Terry would probably want to take the A Train back before it got dark, so he waited it out.

  She ate and ran, sticking around for barely three hours. She was putting in her time, probably because Mom and Pop still paid her rent, or at least lent her cash when she cried for it. Cole threw the Stang into gear and eased up beside her as she made her way back to the subway station. He paced her for a few seconds until she finally looked over.

  “Get in,” he told her.

  Something like fear in her eyes, but not really. Some wariness and distaste, but mostly cool apathy. Whatever it was, he sort of liked it. Maybe she thought he was looking for revenge for the crushed comic book incident. “No, that’s OK.”

  “I’ll give you a lift back to the city.”

  He had muscle. He had horsepower, wisdom. The ancient dust of lost kings made up the fuel in his tank.

  Cole was no longer himself, and could let go of his little boy nature. What he couldn’t do, the Stang could do for him. Here, in this cockpit, he had become a man and she somehow perceived it. So what if he needed a little help to get there? . . . everybody needed a boost, a kicker, some extra support. There was no shame in weakness. The Stang connected him to the ages of warriors, the rituals of maleness. He was complete.

  Terry did a little double-take, checking to see if it was really Cole in there. She gave a head toss, her black tangled hair flopping one way, then the other. For a second he thought she might scream for a cop, try to ward him off with a cross, something like that. Scream for any murder gurrls in the neighbourhood to come to the rescue.

  Then she sighed and shook her head, berating herself probably, thinking it just more mayhem, and stepped off the kerb.

  She got in and he gunned it, letting the tyres squeal but only for a second, the way Joe used to do it. He didn’t need a big show, the action happened as part of the car, inside, not out there looking at the red roaring by. She
giggled, an unnatural sound for somebody so far into the scene of romantic doom and anguish. It was easy to sense his need.

  “You’re not thinking of your comic books now, are you?” she asked.

  But he was, he always was, the way he thought about novels and movies and everything that mattered when he was younger. Even ten minutes ago. Twenty-one and already he was going grey. He’d be his father in another fifteen years, and he’d already outlasted his brother. You didn’t need to dress up like death to find it, all you had to do was start the engine, sniff the pipe.

  He had a few wet naps, opened, unfolded them, and started wiping her face of all the powder and wax. The chain between her eyebrow and ear swung wildly. “Hey!”

  “I want to see you,” he said. He worked at her clothes too, tearing, unbuttoning her skirt. “Get naked. I want to see all of you.”

  “You’re slow to start but, once you do, you speed along.”

  “Yes.”

  She mattered but she also didn’t matter, right here next to him. He realized he was on the right track now, edging towards a new highway. She fit him perfectly but it wasn’t about that now. It was about the place they were going, where they’d been. His heart was killing him, but it wasn’t about that either. The road offered the earth before him, and he thought he might as well make a move for it.

  Terry removed her panties, opened her blouse all the way up so he could see the entire tattoo. She had a couple of others, a rose on her hip, a wreath of skulls. There was room enough in the seat for her to turn completely around, show him her beautiful pale ass. Another tat at the bottom of her spine: a face he thought he recognized for a second and then didn’t any more. He brushed her with the back of his hand as she clambered around again. Terry reached over and undid his jeans, took him into her hand and began caressing him slowly, with a deliberate and almost familiar touch. She licked her palm and pulled his soul up out of him another half-inch.

  “You like this, hm?” She worked him fast for a minute before she let her lips ease along him slowly, inch by inch, keeping pressure up all the way. He wanted to know who the face was, who it was going to be. The Stang screamed. She made gleeful noises, licking, wiping him across her throat like a knife.

  He drove like he’d never done before, easily, without a wasted motion, sliding in and out of traffic flawlessly, nobody caring.

  “Say my name,” he told her.

  “Hmm?”

  He grabbed her by the hair and hefted her up. She appeared to be growing whiter, the ink of the tattoos standing out even more. He said, “I want to hear you.”

  “You’re the greatest, you’re the best, God, I want you, c’mon –”

  He held her like that and wouldn’t let her get back to it, even though she was struggling now. “Just say it, Terry. My name. Tell me my name.”

  Her eyes cleared and she understood without judgment. “Cole. You’re my man, Cole.”

  Releasing her hair, he settled back, as she dropped again and continued bringing him to life, switching him into something else. Her naked ass shined against the seat and when Cole checked the rearview, he could almost see Joe back there, watching him as Cole had once watched and dreamed of his brother. He looked around and didn’t know where he was any more, and didn’t much care.

  Terry was a biter, chewing. He finally recognized the face on her back: it was her dead sister. Who had shoved her? Who had been down there in the tunnels for no reason? Where had Terry been that night, and how much anger and provocation had stood between them? How much love? More than him and Joe?

  He was ready and shifted, drawing her up with his free hand, the other on the wheel, always on the wheel.

  “Here?” she said. “Now? There’s traffic. Truckers.”

  “Come on.”

  She liked the idea even though it frightened her a little too, and that made it agreeable. They needed more fear at this moment, so that it would last. Maybe she’d never done anything in public with the ladies death watching. Always on the sly, alone, of course, in shadow not on the sidewalk. Or maybe she had started thinking of what would happen next, further down the line, when it was his time. She slinked across him, working one leg over, settling into his lap. She positioned him and slowly slid down, sighing, now hugging him and rocking gently. That’s what he wanted, to feel her this close, and closer. And they had to get closer.

  Terry kept one hand closed, as if she was hiding something. He could guess. As she bit into his shoulder, he reached over and started tossing her clothes out of the half-open passenger window. He was hard everywhere, with the generations of cool and horsepower riding with him. He hardly had to do anything at all, the Stang took care of her.

  Cole kept checking the rearview mirror, waiting, knowing what was coming. It took a while but eventually he saw Joe appear. His brother sat in the back seat, keeping an eye on Cole, watching the world unfolding all over again. Cole couldn’t make out the expression on Joe’s face – jealousy or disappointment? Probably both, it would always be both.

  There was a blur of motion and it took Cole only a second to realize what had happened. She was quick and had practised the move for a thousand hours until she couldn’t be seen, slipping something small between her teeth. She leaned in to kiss him and he pressed his fist under her chin and shoved it up tight until her shoulders cracked. He’d been waiting for the move. If he hadn’t, he’d be dead.

  He slapped her, and her head bounced against the driver’s window. “Spit it out.”

  “Huh?”

  Cole slapped Terry again, much harder, and it did nothing but bring a giggle up in her throat. He mashed his lips to hers and could feel the razor blade pressing through her flesh from the other side. They kissed and her lips parted, and then her blood burst into his mouth.

  He took it in because he had to and he wanted to, then wiped the back of his hand across his chin. “Spit it out.”

  She turned her head and spit the razor blade into the back seat.

  “Don’t try it again,” he told her.

  “No,” she said, “no, not for a while.”

  Fair enough. It was getting dark now but he didn’t put on the headlights. He kicked it up to ninety, still weaving through traffic. She rode and he rode, the engine thrumming, gas gauge more than half-full, staring out at the world descending through the windshield, his neck unbroken, murder just in front, thinking about all the insane and uncompromising curves that lay in wait ahead.

  English Lessons

  Lee Elliott

  Time, time, time, she screamed silently at the indicator light above the door to her prison. Her two students droned on, and Kristi imagined the walls of their tiny booth drawing together until the timid Japanese wool-clad knees touched her skirt. The one that had been talking paused and Kristi smiled and nodded encouragement, oblivious to the conversation. She had learned weeks ago to tune out the hopeless students, like these two women, who just came for the excitement of speaking to a foreigner.

  Finally the red light went on, signalling an end to their thirty minutes. Kristi stifled a sigh as she stood up in the carpeted booth, careful to avoid contact with her clients. They smiled, bowed and disappeared, looking as relieved as she felt that their time was up.

  Kristi stepped out of the beige booth into a hallway dotted with seven other identical torture chambers, all dubbed John’s Language School. Students and instructors all sped for the exit, some rushing for trains, others to catch a smoke or a breath before their next session.

  A low, welcoming rumble reached her ears as Tom sidled up and said, “Tobacco time – going out?” She nodded up at his dizzying six-foot-three height, so unusual in the sea of shorter heads. “How were the Bobbsey twins today?” he asked as they swept into the hall with the tide of staff and students.

  “I’ve finally learned how to comment without actually listening,” Kristi replied, and released her long pent-up sigh.

  “Excellent, my child,” Tom intoned. “Your next lesson will
be sustained visualization. Think of something pleasing and the minutes fly by,” he counselled.

  Tom had already logged two months at the Kobe language school when Kristi began working part-time there. He became her tutor in the Zen approach to English conversational training and survival. The first lesson was in thinking of the money she was earning, or “yen training”. Training then progressed to not thinking at all, and ultimately she hoped to hone her skills in teleportation.

  “I’d like to be sitting on a beach with a large bottle of Sapporo,” Kristi said as she pulled a wilted cigarette from her tiny pouch. “Got a light?”

  “Who’s your next subject?” Tom asked, taking her cigarette and lighting it from the tip of his already smoking clove. They had nicknames for all of their students, and discussing their dismal attempts at English conversation helped to pass the excruciating hours.

  Kristi brightened. “My favourite student. Shy Adonis is up next,” she said. “I like to watch his eyes on my breasts as he tries out new vocabulary.”

  Kristi enjoyed teaching the younger salarymen who weren’t yet completely indoctrinated in Japanese business life. They still clung to lives of their own, and most hoped to learn colloquial English for sightseeing travel to the United States instead of staid business English.

  “Have you taught him any pick-up lines yet?” Tom asked, raising one bushy eyebrow.

  “He still wants to stick to the manual. Maybe I’ll try today.”

  Teachers at John’s Language School were encouraged to teach from an antiquated English guide, but since most of them found out quickly that the sessions were not monitored, they would veer off into more modern usage with promising students.

  “Who do you have?” Kristi asked Tom. He pursed his lips and answered, “Housewife hour coming up. I’ve got two little maids from Motomachi.”

  “Gigglefest,” Kristi commented, and Tom nodded gravely. Idle housewives seemed to take classes only to relieve the day’s boredom, since none of them studied or improved on their original mangled pronunciation. The younger ones spent the hour tittering at each other and at the instructor’s attempts to get through a lesson.