Desire

by Mariella Frostrup

  Max is leaning against the bed, and he’s naked. My eyes roam over his muscled back, the light skin of his buttocks, the tan line that ends mid-tights a reminder of our last holiday; his hands are roaming freely over a pair of bronzed legs spread wide, his head in between them moving back and forth, licking and teasing. And there, lying with her head thrown backwards and moaning loudly, is Giorgia. She’s wearing only a laced black bra, her hands buried deep into Max’s hair as he steadily guides her to orgasm with his tongue. She’s screaming now, pulling at the brown curls as if she wants to rip them off, but he doesn’t seem to mind. His hands rise from her legs and unhook the small piece of lace still covering her, his fingers finding her hard nipples and playing with them as she shakes her arms to remove the piece of clothing. The moment she reaches her peak her body begins to shudder with waves of pleasure and Max pushes her further on the bed, covering her, and in one fluid movement he enters her. Giorgia’s legs wrap around his lower back as he pounds into her, her hands leaving scratch marks on his shoulders, her voice urging him to go faster, harder, to give it to her rough. It doesn’t take long for Max to arch his back and shout her name, before Giorgia captures his mouth into an open, messy, tongue-filled kiss, moving with him as he explodes inside her.

  As he falls, exhausted, on top of her body, I’m released from my weird paralysis at last and let out a whimpering sound. They both turn towards the door and find me there: standing, staring, tears running down my cheeks. I turn and run away, ignoring Max’s shouts that “it’s not what it seems” and “please allow me to explain”.

  *

  Shaking my head to clear it from the images of that night, I force myself to focus on the present. That was the last I’d seen of Max, ignoring his calls and texts for two months until Giulia’s call this morning passing on his message to please come to the hospital to meet him. In the gynaecology department. With Giorgia.

  “Sorry, Max, can you repeat? I spaced out for a second...”

  He throws me an amused look and smiles, and gives his head a shake.

  “Same old Toni, always with your head in the clouds...”

  The laughter in his tone irritates me and I turn to leave, almost bumping into Giulia who just made it into the room.

  “What did I miss?”

  “Nothing, yet, sis. Could I please talk to Toni alone?”

  He grabs my arm and leads me on the other side of the office.

  “Please, just listen to me for a second, OK?”

  Against my better judgement, I nod. He lets out a relieved sigh.

  “Let me start by saying how sorry I am for what I’ve done. It was the biggest mistake of my life. I really need you to forgive me, because I can’t live without you.”

  “Sure, and that’s why you called me here. With her. Who is pregnant, it would seem.”

  He shakes his head in frustration.

  “Please, let me finish. What I’ve done is idiotic, I know, but... well, it may be a blessing in disguise! Yes, it’s true. Giorgia is pregnant with my baby. But – and here comes the blessing – she doesn’t want to keep it!”

  I can hear the elation in his voice, and now I’m utterly confused.

  “I’m sorry, I fail to see the positive side of this...”

  “Don’t you understand? She’s agreed to continue the pregnancy, and then give us the baby. It would be ours. It’s perfect, the solution to all our problems!”

  “Let me get this straight...” (by now I’m so angry I can barely keep my voice from breaking) “...you’re telling me you want me to forgive you, get back together, and raise the baby you conceived with someone else while cheating on me?”

  He must’ve sensed the cold fury beneath my tone, because he grabs my hand and kneels on the floor.

  “I want to be with you, for the rest of my life, and you can’t have children. You know I didn’t want to adopt because I wanted a baby who was mine. But I would’ve done it for you! So this way, we both get what we want: I get a baby with my DNA, and you get a husband and a family!”

  “I can’t believe you!” I’m shouting now, and I don’t care who hears anymore. “You thought this was a good idea? You seriously thought I would say yes? Who do you think you are, but most of all, who do you think I am, to even propose such a thing?”

  “Why can’t you see my side of things for once? This might be my only chance to have a baby that’s mine! How can you be so selfish to deny me this?”

  He’s angry, and incredulous, as if he really thought he was handing me the keys to heaven. And all of a sudden, I see clearly: my family’s warnings, Giulia’s pity every time she looked at me, the friends I lost because they hated him. It hits me, and I start laughing, grabbing my clothes and moving to the door.

  “You pathetic piece of shit! I’m selfish? I gave up everything to be with you: my career, my friends, my family’s respect! And for what? For a caveman who still believes in values from the seventeenth century. You want this baby so much, you can raise him by yourself, ’cause I’m not wasting another second on you.” I look at his shocked face and land my last blow. “Also, I took the job, so I wouldn’t have the time to be the perfect Italian wife anyway.”

  I slam the door in his face and leave.

  As I’m running out of the hospital, someone grabs my arm and I turn, ready to punch Max in the face, when I see Giulia’s smile.

  “You know, I underestimated you. Want a cigarette?”

  Laughing, I take one.

  “Want to go get drunk, dance on a table and behave like we want to, for once, instead of how good little Italian girls should?”

  “Absolutely.”

  A BED FOR THE NIGHT

  Harriet Warner

  Harriet Warner began her career as a journalist writing for The Times, Independent on Sunday, Loaded, the Erotic Review and GQ. In 2003, her focus switched to writing for television, writing and creating her own shows with the likes of the BBC and TNT in the US, as well as working on a variety of programmes including Sinbad, Mistress and Call The Midwife. One of her episodes of Call the Midwife was nominated for a Mind Media Award in 2014.

  The journey across the Carpathian mountains had been long and hard. My body ached to such a degree that I felt the slightest stone beneath the wheels of my carriage; but it mattered not. Whenever the coachman, Strepsil, would slow through weariness I rapped hard with my cane against the roof of the carriage and forced him and his horses on, for I was journeying to my beloved, Jonathan.

  Jonathan and I were to be married the following month but I had received no word from him since his arrival in the peculiarly named Transylvania. Jonathan was to sort out some business with a fellow who by all accounts was most odd. The whole matter had become an irritation to me. How could the signing of documents be so protracted? No. An end must be put to this foolishness. I was to retrieve my fiancé and return forthwith to England with him, where we should be wed.

  Quite suddenly the carriage drew to a shuddering halt. I open the shutter but the night is black and I can see nothing save the flicker of my coachman’s torch. I tap against the glass and slowly he turns to me.

  “It’s no good m’lady. The horses are dead. They’ve died of fright. We must leave this evil place and find shelter at an inn. Come.” And he leads me through the black forest, lit up in shadowy tones by his oil lamp held aloft.

  Presently we see a light glowing in the gorge below us and we begin our descent.

  The door of the inn is low and made of an oak thickened by age. Strepsil beats heavily against it with his large fist. The gentleman who comes to the door seems wary of us and insists on bathing our foreheads in blessed water. However, once he has branded Strepsil’s arm with a holy cross from the fire, he seems in good spirits and I believe we are quite welcome.

  I am seated beside the fire and given a piece of cheese while Strepsil enters into discussion with the tavern owner.

  “M’lady. There is a problem with the room.”

  “Oh.”
<
br />   “He says that only couples that be wedded may sleep in the rooms here.”

  “Well, surely it is permissible if we each have a separate room, Strepsil?”

  “M’lady, there is only one room.”

  My gloved hands flutter to my throat. The walk from the carriage took many hours and I fear that to return would be madness. “Then tell the innkeeper that we are indeed wed.”

  We look at one another before Strepsil nods.

  We climb the narrow stairs while the innkeeper carries a candle and unlocks the door with a heavy key. Pushing open the door I am quite aghast. Why, the room is barely the size of my carriage and is quite completely taken up by a great feather bed! He sets down the candle and creeps from the room locking the door behind him.

  “Strepsil, it seems we must both lay down together in this one bed! Why, there is no other place to lay. There is not even room to sleep on your side on the floor. Oh woe!”

  “Fear not, m’lady. We shall be clothed and shall face in opposite directions. We shall never speak of this again.”

  I nod, relieved.

  The bed is soft but I cannot sleep. The sounds of wolves and other creatures of the night keep me from dreams. I shake Strepsil.

  “Won’t you please put your arm around me? I am afraid.”

  Strepsil in his linen shirt puts an arm lightly around my shoulder. His body is warm, even in such a cold place, and I rather fancy that I enjoy the sensation of his firm chest beside me.

  “Do you know that I seek my fiancé?”

  “Yes, m’lady.” His voice is low.

  “Do you think me foolish?”

  “Begging your pardon, m’lady, but it is not you who is foolish.”

  “Then you think my future husband a fool?”

  After a silence: “If he could leave such a woman as you for months on end, then, aye, he is a fool.”

  And then he turns to me and puts hot dry lips against my cheek. I turn my head away. No. This must not be. But he puts a hard rough finger to my cheek and turns me back to him and this time his mouth is hard against mine. I think of Jonathan, but the thought is brief and it brings to mind his thin damp lips that only ever brushed my hand.

  He reaches a hand around my waist and pulls me so that I am sitting on his lap and he kisses me again and this time drags down my dress so that he can feel my breasts with his rough hands; and it feels good to have them handled, they billow from my corset and he cups them and rolls them, and all the time his mouth is bearing down on mine and he’s pulling my derriere against his lap and I can feel a hardness that I am quite unused to.

  He shifts himself and takes my hand and pulls it down to the flap in his britches. “By the gods, unleash me!” His voice is low and urgent and I struggle with the hard tortoise-shell buttons that seem to be holding a great force behind them. And he is this time pulling up the many-layered skirt of my dress and squeezing at my dumplings and pushing his thumb against my cunt. And it feels quite wonderful and quite strange. I feel as if I want one of the great rolling pins from the kitchen to come up between my legs and push hard inside me. And I have finally got his buttons loosened and I push my hand inside and find a strange hot damp thing that is meaty like the butcher’s fine sausages on Sundays; it needs little help before it is standing high from his britches. But Strepsil is busy still with me and he is tearing down my pantaloons and bringing me towards him and his towering meat. Why, verily, I do believe his meat is quite the thing I require for the curious aching in my cunt.

  “Strepsil? Might I sit on that?” I whisper and with a moan he nods and pushes his finger deep inside me. “Take this first, m’lady.”

  “Oh.”

  But it is not meat enough and I clamber for his cock and suck the thick fellow into me. Strepsil is quite content to serve me and pulls me hard upon him, thrusting upwards and gripping my waist to keep me hard down upon him. His face is amongst my weighty baps which quite cover him and I fear he will suffocate. Then as his thrusting becomes more furious he begins to slap against my rump with a quite uncoordinated hand. I hope to goodness he is not thinking of stopping and I too begin to slap, to drive him on, for the journey I require is a long and hard one.

  REVELATIONS OF THE BRIDAL CHAMBER

  Diana Gabaldon

  Diana Gabaldon is the author of the international bestselling Outlander novels, which have recently been turned into a television drama and is being hailed as the new Game of Thrones. Outlander (published in the United Kingdom as Cross Stitch) is a sweeping tale of 20th-century nurse, Claire Randall, who accidentally travels back in time to 18th-century Scotland and finds adventure and romance with the dashing James Fraser. Dr Gabaldon holds three degrees in science: Zoology, Marine Biology, and a Ph.D. in Quantitative Behavioural Ecology, (plus an honorary degree as Doctor of Human Letters). She spent a dozen years as a university professor with an expertise in scientific computation before beginning to write fiction. Diana and her husband have three adult children and live mostly in Scottsdale, Arizona.

  At the inn, food was readily available in the form of a modest wedding feast, including wine, fresh bread and roast beef.

  Dougal took me by the arm as I started for the stairs to freshen myself before eating.

  “I want this marriage consummated, wi’ no uncertainty whatsoever,” Dougal instructed me firmly in an undertone. “There’s to be no question of it bein’ a legal union and no way open for annulment, or we’re all riskin’ our necks.”

  “Seems to me you’re doing that anyway,” I remarked crossly. “Mine, especially.”

  Dougal patted me firmly on the rump.

  “Dinna ye worry about that; ye just do your part.” He looked me over critically, as though judging my capacity to perform my role adequately.

  “I kent Jamie’s father. If the lad’s much like him, ye’ll have no trouble at all. Ah, Jamie lad!” He hurried across the room to where Jamie had come in from stabling the ponies. From the look on Jamie’s face, he was getting his orders as well.

  *

  How in the name of God did this happen? I asked myself some time later. Six weeks ago I had been innocently collecting wild flowers on a Scottish hill, to take home to my husband. I was now shut in the room of a rural inn, awaiting a completely different husband, whom I scarcely knew, with firm orders to consummate a forced marriage, at risk of my life and liberty.

  And what about my old husband? My stomach knotted with grief and fear. What would Frank be thinking now? What would he be feeling? I had been gone for more than a month; he would have been searching for me, calling out the police as his concern turned to fear, turning the Scottish countryside upside down. Not far enough, though; it would never occur to him to look inside a fairies’ hill, even were such a thing possible.

  I sat on the bed, stiff and terrified in my borrowed finery. There was a faint noise as the heavy door of the room swung open, then shut.

  Jamie leaned against the door, watching me. The air of embarrassment between us deepened. It was Jamie who broke the silence finally.

  “You dinna need to be afraid of me,” he said softly. “I wasna going to jump on ye.’ I laughed in spite of myself.

  “Well, I didn’t think you would.” In fact, I didn’t think he would touch me, until and unless I invited him to; the fact remained that I was going to have to invite him to do considerably more than that, and soon.

  I eyed him dubiously. I supposed it would be harder if I found him unattractive; in fact, the opposite was true. Still, I had not slept with any man but Frank in over eight years. Not only that, this young man, by his own acknowledgement, was completely inexperienced. I had never deflowered anyone before. Even dismissing my objections to the whole arrangement, and considering matters from a completely practical standpoint, how on earth were we to start? At this rate we would still be here, staring at each other, three or four days hence.

  I cleared my throat and patted the bed beside me.

  “Ah, would you like to sit down?”<
br />
  “Aye.” He came across the room, moving like a big cat. Instead of sitting beside me, though, he pulled up a stool and sat down facing me. Somewhat tentatively he reached out and took my hands between his own. They were large, blunt-fingered and very warm, the backs lightly furred with reddish hairs. I felt a slight shock at the touch, and thought of an Old Testament passage – “For Jacob’s skin was smooth, while his brother Esau was an hairy man.” Frank’s hands were long and slender, nearly hairless and aristocratic-looking. I had always loved watching them as he lectured.

  “Tell me about your husband,” said Jamie, as though he had been reading my mind. I almost jerked my hands away in shock.

  “What?”

  “Look ye, lass. We have three or four days together here. While I dinna pretend to know all there is to know, I’ve lived a good bit of my life on a farm, and unless people are verra different from other animals, it isna going to take that long to do what we have to do. We have a bit of time to talk, and get over being scairt of each other.” This blunt appraisal of our situation relaxed me a little bit.

  “Are you scared of me?” He didn’t look it. Perhaps he was nervous, though. Even though he was no timid sixteen-year-old lad, this was the first time. He looked into my eyes and smiled.

  “Aye. More scairt than you, I expect. That’s why I’m holdin’ your hands; to keep my own from shaking.” I didn’t believe this, but squeezed his hands tightly in appreciation.

  “It’s a good idea. It feels a little easier to talk while we’re touching. Why did you ask about my husband, though?” I wondered a bit wildly if he wanted me to tell him about my sex life with Frank, so as to know what I expected of him.

  “Well, I knew ye must be thinking of him. Ye could hardly not, under the circumstances. I do not want ye ever to feel as though ye canna talk of him to me. Even though I’m your husband now – that feels verra strange to say – it isna right that ye should forget him, or even try to. If ye loved him, he must ha’ been a good man.”