I must have made some sound of distress, for there was a sudden upheaval of bedclothes as the stranger in my bed vaulted to the floor with the heart-stopping suddenness of a pheasant rising underfoot. He came to rest in a crouch near the door of the chamber, barely visible in the predawn light.
Pausing to listen carefully at the door, he made a rapid inspection of the room, gliding soundlessly from door to window to bed. The angle of his arm told me that he held a weapon of some sort, though I could not see what it was in the darkness. Sitting down next to me, satisfied that all was secure, he slid the knife or whatever it was back into its hiding place above the headboard.
“Are you all right?” he whispered. His fingers brushed my wet cheek.
“Yes. I’m sorry to wake you. I had a nightmare. What on earth –” I started to ask what it was that had made him spring so abruptly to the alert.
A large warm hand ran down my bare arm, interrupting my question. “No wonder; you’re frozen.” The hand urged me under the pile of quilts and into the warm space recently vacated. “My fault,” he murmured. “I’ve taken all the quilts. I’m afraid I’m no accustomed yet to share a bed.” He wrapped the quilts comfortably around us and lay back beside me. A moment later he reached again to touch my face.
“Is it me?” he asked quietly. “Can ye not bear me?”
I gave a short hicupping laugh, not quite a sob. “No, it isn’t you.” I reached out in the dark, groping for a hand to press reassuringly. My fingers met a tangle of quilts and warm flesh, but at last I found the hand I had been seeking. We lay side by side, looking up at the low beamed ceiling.
“What if I said I couldn’t bear you?” I asked suddenly. “What on earth could you do?” The bed creaked as he shrugged.
“Tell Dougal you wanted an annulment on the grounds of nonconsummation, I suppose.”
This time I laughed outright. “Nonconsummation! With all those witnesses?”
The room was growing light enough to see the smile on the face turned towards me. “Aye well, witnesses or no, it’s only you and me that can say for sure, isn’t it? And I’d rather be embarrassed than wed to someone that hated me.”
I turned towards him. “I don’t hate you.”
“I don’t hate you, either. And there’s many good marriages have started wi’ less than that.” Gently he turned me away from him and fitted himself to my back so we lay nestled together. His hand cupped my breast, not in invitation or demand but because it seemed to belong there.
“Don’t be afraid,” he whispered into my hair. “There’s the two of us now.” I felt warm, soothed and safe for the first time in many days. It was only as I drifted into sleep under the first rays of daylight that I remembered the knife above my head, and wondered again, what threat would make a man sleep armed and watchful in his bridal chamber?
BLIND LOVE
John Gibb
John Gibb first started writing questionable stories for the Erotic Review when it was the only monthly magazine in Europe committed to serious sexual fiction. He learnt his trade as a journalist writing about crime for the London Evening Standard, but the subjects of his stories range from food to education, to the power of innocent love and the erotic potential of the escape mechanism fitted to the Tornado F3 air defence aircraft.
Spicer strolled through the doorway of the Bristol, down the steps, across the deserted lobby until he stood before the desk. “M’sieur?” asked the girl without looking up. “I have a reservation.” “Your name?” “Spicer.” “How will you pay?” He handed over a credit card, “I am expecting my wife.” “Oui, M’sieur.” The girl passed him a key, “Dernier étage, M’sieur.” Looking down, he saw that someone had already relieved him of his case.
He walked across to the lift, a skeletal, fin-de-siécle ascenseur with shiny wooden panels. The liftman, grey haired, formally perched on his wooden seat, stared at the floor. “Dernier étage,” said Spicer. The lift rose slowly, the man leaning forward to open the doors as it hissed to a halt. Spicer’s room was tucked away down silent corridors and he let himself in, glancing at the lights hanging in a constellation above the bed. He saw that his suitcase had preceded him and been placed on a folding platform by the door and he sighed, smiling to himself, sitting on the bed, feeling the softness of the mattress, lying slowly back, closing his eyes. Sleeping.
It was long past midnight when consciousness returned, coming upon him with a shaft of moonlight which sneaked through the curtains and struck soft sparks off the crystals on the chandelier. As his head cleared, he eased his feet onto the carpet, pulled back the curtains and gazed out towards the Madeleine which loomed like a slab of cake above the inky rooftops. He stepped out of his crumpled suit, yawned, rubbed his face, stretched his back. The phone hummed softly, once, twice. He sat on the bed. “This is it,” he thought. A quiet voice, “Votre femme est arrivée, M’sieur.” He slipped on a dressing gown, looked in the bathroom mirror, wondering idly why she was in trouble.
She came into his arms as he opened the door. Florence was smaller than he remembered. He found her mouth, breathed in the Parisian night air from her face, entwined her tongue with his, felt the curve of her bottom through the thin stuff of her dress; fell backwards with her onto the bed, opened his legs, heard her kick away her shoes, felt her fingers in his hair, her breath on his cheek. For a moment he pulled back while she slipped out of her coat. He looked at her face, white in the dim moonlight, saw the tucks at the corners of her mouth, the slant of her eye, the widow’s peak. He smelt her; a dark feral scent spiced with citronella; watched her as she pulled her dress above her hips and tucked her fingers into her white pants; felt her breasts fall from the dress as she slipped the buttons. He reached down and moved aside her coat, turned her over so that his cock, inflamed now and hard, lay along the crease of her buttocks.
“No,” she whispered, struggling beneath him until she lay on her back once more, looking into his eyes as she pulled her legs apart, separating, stretching them, holding a foot with each hand, stretching again, knees braced like a ballerina; offering herself. He felt the coarse hair on her pubic mound hard on his stomach, felt the hot, wet flesh as it slipped beneath his cock, heard her cry out as he entered her, felt her shudder as he lanced the chasm of her belly, his groin suddenly wet from her as he slipped his hands beneath her hips, his finger in her pretty, pink, wrinkled anus until he found that he could feel himself through her flesh and then, in the delirium of her orgasm, he joined her, his body curved above her like a figurehead, his eyes above the horizon, staring sightlessly at the silhouette of the Madeleine in the moonlight.
*
Breakfast arrived at ten o’clock. A discreet knock, followed by a waitress, yellow and black waistcoat tight at her hips, apron to the floor, the trolley crowned with silver trays arranged on a white embroidered cloth, flowers in a crystal flute. She reversed into the room, edging slowly backwards, leaving the food at the end of the bed and departing without turning round, muttering “M’sieur, Dame,” as she closed the door. Florence, still half asleep, groaned, turned and brought her knee up gently into Spicer’s groin. He saw that she was sucking her thumb like a child, watched her slowly wake, realise where she was, smiling, opening her eyes and leaning forward so that her breasts touched his collar bone. “Hola,” she said, running her tongue across her lips, shaking her hair, rotating her shoulders as early-morning energy swept through her.
They took breakfast slowly, peeling nectarines with great care, taking champagne from the fridge and mixing it with the freshly squeezed orange juice. They covered themselves with crumbs, Florence making a hole in a warm brioche and slipping it onto Spicer’s cock, spreading curls of salty butter and marmalade on her pussy and sighing as he licked her clean while she sucked her coffee from a bowl. He watched as she crawled, naked and warm, down the bed, making her way to the bathroom then pulling out the old bidet with its green, metal wheels and long hose into the bedroom where she started to wash with meticulous care
. Spicer watched as she anointed her pussy with oil and trimmed herself with a pair of gold scissors, took a mirror from her bag and examined every inch of her groin and her thighs, pulled herself apart with long fingers, rubbing her pretty little clitoris, pink as a wild berry, as if to lightly lubricate herself for him, while all the time he watched, his heart pounding against his ribs.
And when she was ready, she came to him and led him to the bathroom where she cleaned him as thoroughly as she had cleaned herself. They heard the maid return at midday and take away the detritus of their meal, but they were too busy to break away from the intricacies of their toilet. “Now there are things that I want you to do for me,” said Florence when, refreshed and tingling, she led him back to the bed and tucked him beneath the sheets. He saw that she had smudged the inside of her thighs with blue powder to accentuate the soft, pastel colours of her vulva and while he watched, his chin sedate on the silk-trimmed blanket, she took a bowl of fruit from the sideboard, lay her pillows beside him and arranged herself on her stomach so that her bottom was raised, her legs apart, knees bent, feet kicking slowly in the air, the bowl by her side.
“P’tit choufleur,” she said, “I have suffered a misfortune which means that I must spend some time away.” And, as Spicer listened with growing interest, Florence told him that the gendarmerie were pursuing her and had even issued a warrant for her arrest on suspicion of assault with “une arme mortelle”.
“It happened at work,” she said, “and I am very worried.” Spicer, who had been wallowing in post-coital languor spiked with pre-coital anticipation, returned sharply to non-coital reality, turned his head, cocked an eyebrow and focused on her face.
“Tell me what has happened,” he said. He knew about her job. Amongst other things, it involved unsocial hours at the Alcazar in the rue Mazarine. She never discussed what she did and, for his part, he had not felt inclined to complicate their relationship with activities which occurred outside the bedroom.
But now, she leaned over, bit him softly on the tip of his nose, picked a grape and described how a group of Englishmen had come to the club. They had been there before; middle-aged, coarse men who dealt in the processing of pigs and spent their company’s money to entertain buyers from supermarkets in Britain. The Alcazar is small and intimate; a bar, one or two salles privées, a room for the cabaret with a dance floor and a dozen or so tables. It is a place where wealthy Parisians go to relax in peace with beautiful women.
According to Florence, les Anglais had, two nights ago, brought with them a man who was staggering, drunk and out of control. He was tall, thin, red-faced, smoked cheap cigars; asked the girls to spend the night with him, pretended to offer them handfuls of money, seemed convinced that he was a man of the world even though he made a habit of public flatulence, which he found amusing. “You can picture the type of cochon this man is?” said Florence. Spicer nodded.
Every morning at one o’clock, Florence and her friend Raphael performed their cabaret. It was the culmination of the night’s entertainment at the Alcazar, the prelude to the late hours when the serious business of the night was carried out. It incorporated a Harley Davidson Electra Glide doctored by the stage manager to act as a prop, a limited helping of lukewarm lesbianism, a soupçon of pussy and a few seconds of mock flagellation with a Brazilian bullwhip. The performance progressed as normal until the Anglais, whose name was Postlethwaite, placed his chair on the edge of the dance floor and started inching forward while the act developed. “By the time I had finished with Raphael, he had moved onto the middle of the floor,” said Florence. “I began to work the whip. You have to do it slowly, sending the leather cord forward with your wrist, raising it with your arm flexed before moving your hand down, almost in slow motion, so that the tip cracks like a pistol. It’s tricky, but I remember watching it snake forward as usual; at the last moment I pulled it back with my wrist. I saw him recoil in the darkness, it comes back to me in slow motion as I think of it, the chair falling backwards, the man’s hands clutching at his face. Blood between his fingers, a brief silence before he falls to the floor.”
Entranced, Spicer asked, “Had he been shot?” “No, no, no,” said Florence. “It was the whip. It removed the end of his nose. He was too close, an accident. In the confusion, I ran away. Raphael called to say the flics wanted to see me. I haven’t been back since.”
They lay in silence, side by side, Spicer unable to speak. In the outside world a church bell was tolling the Angelus and an ambulance was wailing on its way down the Faubourg St Honoré. Florence, unburdened, stretched across, wound an arm round his neck, pulled him towards her, took the lobe of his ear in her mouth, ran her tongue into the hollow of his neck, pulled him until he emerged from beneath the warm sheets and lay, his body warm as a freshly toasted croissant, on her curved, receptive back. Sunlight flooded the room illuminating the girl beneath him, catching the motes of dust in the air. He drew back until he was kneeling between her legs, leant forward into the moist cavern of her behind, inhaled her scent, pulled himself along her until he could hear her breathing, feel the flutter of her heart, knew that she was raising herself for him. “Perhaps you could stay here for a while with me?” he said. “No one would ever find you.”
It is part of the service at the Bristol that the chandeliers are inspected and cleaned every day. So it was that at one o’clock, M. Roffey together with his aluminium ladder, apron and a wicker basket containing all the necessary cleaning equipment, arrived outside Spicer’s room on le dernier étage. When his light-knuckled knock was ignored, he slipped a master key in the door, entered the room and erected his ladder at the foot of the bed. Behind him, as he lifted and polished the little cascades of wire and crystal, Spicer and Florence, oblivious to their surroundings, engulfed in their passion, eyes locked together, limbs entwined, breath exploding from their bodies, made love to each other in the Paris sunlight.
They were still at it as Roffey, content with his work, folded his ladder and slipped silently from the room. “M’sieur, Dame,” he muttered as he closed the door and ticked off the completed job on his schedule.
“Time for lunch,” he thought.
GREEN
John Gibb
John Gibb first started writing questionable stories for the Erotic Review when it was the only monthly magazine in Europe committed to serious sexual fiction. He learnt his trade as a journalist writing about crime for the London Evening Standard, but the subjects of his stories range from food to education, to the power of innocent love and the erotic potential of the escape mechanism fitted to the Tornado F3 air defence aircraft.
When I left University, I took it upon myself to follow the family tradition and became a Green. My mother had, for many years, been Secretary of the Somerset branch of the Campaign for Rural Conservation (CRC), a Council member of the National Trust, a Trustee of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Chairman of the North Devon Conservative Association. Father had left home when I was at prep school, commenting that his wife had mated with him once twelve years ago and had been trying to kill him ever since.
After I came down, Mummy arranged for me to work at the CRC and now I am responsible for recruitment, which is to say I try to encourage more young people to join. We need to make the government sit up and take notice, but the membership is elderly and unimaginative and my priority is to persuade role models from show business to support us because it is only by associating ourselves with youth and glamour that we will attract young people to the cause.
Last year Pike, the singer and musician, wrote to tell us of his love for the English countryside and how he wants to do what he can for the national heritage. “Come and talk to me,” he said, “my heart is overflowing with love for our rural landscape.” This was manna from heaven to my Director, Winifred Peterkin-Cope. “Run along, Julian,” she said to me. “Let us get him on board. See if you can winkle a concert out of him. Let’s go!”
Pike lives in a sumptuous Regency villa
overlooking Hampstead Heath. It is set back from the road and the wooden shutters give it the look of a French provincial town house. The front door is painted a glossy sea green and is decorated with an ancient brass knocker in the shape of a Native American head. A Range Rover, a Lotus Elise and a Ford Mustang are parked nose to tail in the drive. My knock is answered by a squat, bloodshot man with a short, lowering forehead, wet lips and thick wiry hair. His cigarette, held low between thumb and forefinger, is angled away from his hip. He tells me that his name is Quince, adding gruffly, as he stands back to let me into the library, that “Tracey will probably talk to you but Pike is recording in Guadeloupe.” My heart sinks.
So I wait, sitting upright and uncomfortable on a gothic chair in the oak-panelled, book-lined room in the front of the house. There is a Persian rug and a wooden mantel, the surround decorated with Dutch tiles. Someone is moving around upstairs and I can hear Quince as he snuffles angrily in his office beneath the stairs. It is twenty minutes before Tracey appears, walking into the room in a pale green silk dressing gown.
“Lovely,” she remarks, kissing me on the cheek. “Please excuse me for a few minutes, I have a little duty to perform, then we’ll have a drink.” As she speaks, there is a hammering on the front door and a stringy woman appears at the head of a column of twelve primary school kids in neat uniforms carrying clip boards. A little Adonis with his grey cap in his hands casts a furious glance at Tracey as she ruffles his golden locks and says, “This is Hubert, and we all know Hubert, don’t we? Now I have a lovely film which I want you all to see.”
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