SMALL TALK
Luke Jennings
Luke Jennings is an author and the dance critic of the Observer. As a journalist, he has written for Vanity Fair, the New Yorker and Time, as well as numerous British titles. He was shortlisted for the 2010 Samuel Johnson and William Hill prizes for his memoir Blood Knots, and was nominated for the Booker Prize for his novel Atlantic. With Deborah Bull, he wrote The Faber Guide to Ballet, and, with his daughter Laura, the Stars stage-school novels. He is also the author of the Villanelle thriller series..
Another drinks party at the Wentworth Tennis Club. The company tends to be on the conservative side at the club – almost all of the husbands commute to the City, very few of the wives work – and I had no high hopes of any great repartee. In fact it would be fair to say that I could identify in advance every single topic of conversation that was likely to be raised.
It was, however, a lovely evening. The heat of the day had ceded to a golden stillness, and long shadows were painted on the lawn and the clubhouse verandah. And I would venture to say that we ourselves made a brave enough picture, with the men distinguished in blazers and open-necked shirts and the women charming in print dresses and light woollens. I arrived just as the fray was warming up, and after arming me with a gin and tonic – longish on the gin, shortish on the tonic, as is my regrettable wont – the club secretary introduced me to a new member, Davina Harvey-Clissold.
Mrs Harvey-Clissold was an attractive woman of some 35 summers. She was wearing a navy blue linen suit with a pretty sapphire brooch. Her intelligent features displayed a light honey-coloured tan – Barbados, perhaps, or Gstaad – and her smartly cut blonde hair was restrained by a black velvet band.
“So,” I said, when she had accepted a cigarette and I had lit it for her. “Tell me something about yourself.”
She smiled politely and examined the frosted glass of her drink. “I love to guzzle cum,” she told me. “I love it when some big-cocked stud hoses my dirty slut’s face with his creamy wad.”
“And have you and your husband moved to the area recently?” I asked her.
She coloured slightly at the intimate nature of the question.
“I love to feel a massive rock-hard prick between my juicy stiff-nippled chest-puppies,” she said, drawing absently at her cigarette. “But how about you, Mr Corbishley? Do you like to drive your rock-hard piston into the drenched twat of a barely legal cumteen? Or do you prefer to gag on the swollen ebony shaft of a Brazilian she-male?”
Her question went unanswered, for at that moment an acquaintance of hers hove into view. They air-kissed, and Mrs Harvey-Clissold turned to me. “Mr Corbishley, I’d like you to meet Consuela Vasconcellos. Consuela is a filthy spunk-chugging Latina slut-bitch who likes nothing better than to spread her coral pink cunt-lips for a succession of huge-cocked studs.”
Consuela Vasconcellos smiled, and we shook hands. Sensing a directness in her manner – and, I confess, a hint of mischief – I dared a personal question.
“How do you find Berkshire, Mrs Vasconcellos?” I asked.
Her jaw dropped, and for a long moment she stared at me, appalled. Then, with every fibre of her being quivering with outrage, she turned on her heel and marched into the clubhouse.
“Well, that was hardly tactful, was it?” murmured Davina Harvey-Clissold. “I’ve heard you have a reputation for plain speaking, but...”
“I’m sorry,” I said, “but don’t you sometimes feel you want to cut to the chase with people? To dispense with the formalities? I mean, would you really be offended if I asked you your opinion of the property market, or where you and your husband were thinking of sending your children to school?”
Hardly were the words out of my mouth than a stinging slap connected with my face. The report was like that of a gunshot, and I could feel my cheek blazing with the force of the blow. When my eyes had finally cleared, Davina Harvey-Clissold was nowhere to be seen and the club secretary had materialised at my side.
“Dickie, old boy,” he began. “You must stop behaving like this. People are beginning to talk.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m afraid I just don’t seem to have the gift of small talk.”
George Arbuthnot looked at me kindly. “Let’s just forget about it, shall we? Why don’t you help yourself to one of my panatellas and come and say hello to the Hoarwithys. Guy loves chocolate sex-play while wearing a hardened rubber butt-plug and Sophie dreams of being orally and anally violated by a succession of monster cocks in a Transylvanian dungeon.”
The sensible chap, I have always thought, knows when it’s time to throw in the towel.
“Lead on, George,” I said.
THOUGHT WAVES
Elizabeth Speller
Elizabeth Speller studied archaeology and classics as a mature student at Cambridge, followed by a postgraduate degree in ancient history. She is a poet and author of four non-fiction books, including a biography of Emperor Hadrian, companion guides to Rome and Athens, and a memoir, The Sunlight on the Garden. She has contributed to publications as varied as the Financial Times, The Big Issue and Vogue. She lives between England and Paxos, Greece.
Late on a hot night. So late that even in June the velvet of dark is caught between the large white houses by the canal. A smell of jasmine, of privet, the roar of cars on their distant arc around the city.
On the top floor, two men sit in a large room: coffered ceilings, maps, books, eighteenth-century porcelain, a Bechstein and a minstrel’s gallery. Schubert lieder balanced on the night, glasses – several glasses – of brandy, the sash windows hauled open and the one low light behind a chair casting their features in relief.
“Do you ever see that dark girl? Zena? Was that it? Do you still... see her?” The older man smiles as he raises his eyebrows to his friend.
“Zinnia. It was Zinnia,” the figure in the deep chair replies. “Still is Zinnia, actually.”
“So Jane doesn’t mind... I mean she knows, I assume?”
“Yes and no. You know. But would you like to see her – Zinnia, I mean?” The younger man, not young, but younger, asks. “Look, I have her photograph.”
He pulls out a book – one of his more successful novels – from the tall cases; the picture is hidden within its pages. The grey-haired man looks down, tips the picture towards the light, is surprised. The woman is naked, reclining like Maya, on large pillows, one knee up, one arm behind her head, her eyes looking directly at the photographer, between her legs dusk, her dark nipples disproportionately large for her small breasts.
“Lucky man.”
He gazes, embarrassment and arousal struggling within him. He drinks deeply from his glass.
“Do you see her often? I mean, it must be difficult.”
“It is difficult,” the writer smiles ruefully.” She loves me, passionately. I desire her. And she lives in France much of the time. And there’s Jane. But there are ways. And she is very compliant. That’s love you see. She’ll do anything for me; it’s terrifying in some ways. Should I set her free? I often mean to but I never quite do.”
His friend looks puzzled. The writer fills his glass.
“Would you like me to show you? Not photographs, I mean, but how it works?”
At a nod, he picks up a telephone and touches keys in the semi-darkness. The older man can just hear it ringing. It rings and rings. Finally an answer.
“It’s me.” The writer smiles, whether for his friend or his lover or himself, who can tell.
“Yes. I am. Of course. And you?”
“Where are you? In bed. Yes, it’s late. I know.”
“So, what are you wearing?”
“Of course. It’s hot. No, I knew. Do you miss me?”
Is he acting? The one-sided conversation seems unreal.
“Zinnia... I want you to do something for me. I’m here thinking of you. Missing you. You know what would make me happy.”
“Close your eyes. Now touch your breast. Yes. For me. For me, darlin
g girl.”
It is silent in the darkness. Is he being teased? The older man is appalled and captivated.
“Put your finger in your mouth, sweetheart, now wet your nipple for me... stroke it, stroke it for me. Is it hard? Tell me darling? How does it feel?”
“Now take your nipple between your thumb and forefinger... squeeze it.”
“Now the other one. Hurt it a little. Oh, I like that.” He exhales.
“Now you know what I want you to do, don’t you, sweetheart? Tell me, are you ready for me? Are you wet? Open your legs darling. Open them wide for me. As if I were there. Touch yourself. Gently. Gently. Stroke yourself for me.”
He cradles the telephone to his neck like a lover. He looks up at his friend and a smile, sensuous but perhaps mocking, hovers and is gone.
“How does it feel Zinnia? Tell me. Is it opening for me? Is your clitoris hard? Run your finger over it; is it slippery? Yes, darling, go on.”
He reaches forward and presses the handset, and suddenly, shocking yet wonderful, the woman’s voice is broadcast to the room. Her breath uneven, vibrating very slightly.
“Oh.” A ragged sigh. “Oh I love you.” Her words drawn out, soft in the near darkness. “And it feels so good.”
The older man cannot look at the younger, he shifts in his chair but he listens on.
“Zinnia... now I want you to open yourself and slip your finger in. Are you really wet, darling? Tell me... are your lips swollen for me?”
“Oh yes,” the woman’s voice sounds eager. “Yes, yes, I’m doing that now, as you tell me, now, now and... oh I want you... my fingers, no, my whole palm is wet.”
The loudspeaker throws her sighs around the shadows.
“Darling put your finger in your mouth. Suck. Does it taste good, darling? Let me hear you do it.”
Unmistakably in the darkness, faint but magical, there are the sounds of wetness; the woman sucks and she gives a soft groan.
“Now two – no,” the writer looks up at his friend “– three fingers.”
“You can, of course you can. I’ve given you more than that. Much more.” His voice is persuasive.
The woman murmurs assent.
“Push, darling, push them all in for me. Now out, now in again. Is that lovely sweetheart? How does it make you feel?”
“Uh. Oh it’s wonderful. Oh I love you so much. Always. Please...” Her voice sounds young.
They are all three in the night with the woman’s breathing, deep and hoarse and the grey-haired man is afraid that his own must be audible. He tries not to breathe with her. The writer seems not aroused but something else, something darker, less tangible. He smiles on.
“Zinnia, darling. Stroke yourself, long strokes, are you ready? Would you take me inside you?”
“Yes.” The clarity of sound is so good and the room high above the city so silent, that they hear her swallow, a tiny grunt... she moves in the bed... she is in bed, the older man feels sure... the rustle of covers. There is another long, long sigh.
“Darling,” the writer has lowered his own voice now and leans forward, curling the phone in his hand. “You know what I want don’t you?”
“Yes,” she whispers.
“Just like usual.” He looks up, challenges his friend with a stare. He cups the receiver with his hand. “Shall we go on?” he asks him. “Finish it... or...?”
The older man finds himself blushing and yet wanting her to be encouraged not deterred. He stays silent. Does his head nod imperceptibly? He fears that it betrays him.
The writer turns his mouth to the phone. “I want you to find something, darling, something... anything... whatever you like.”
They hear the woman move. For a few seconds her breathing dies down as she moves away. Then, although she says nothing, she is close again. Breathing. Aroused. Unknown yet utterly exposed. The older man has never known such intimacy. There is heat and night and her.
“Have you found something, darling?” the writer’s voice is low but level. “Lie back, bring your knees up the way I like it. Now push it into you. Go on... all the way... up to the hilt.”
For a moment, nothing but the lurching power of imagination. Then she catches her breath and it seems to last forever. “Yes. Oh yes.”
“Is it inside you? Is it filling you?” the younger man asks his lover. “Now move it in and out slowly. Let me hear you, let me hear it.”
The woman calls out endearments; her moans are regular and faster. The two men listen. She needs no instructions now, although from time to time she mutters something almost incomprehensible, then darling then please, then oh Jesus, Jesus.
“Go on, go on,” the writer urges. “Hard, do it hard. For me, sweetheart, I’m with you, it’s just us, so show me, do it for me.”
The woman makes little noises in the back of her throat. The older man’s erection aches and somewhere in his heart there is pain. For the obedience? For the deceit? He does not know. The photograph lies on the table beside him, just within the pool of light. There she lies naked, exposed, vulnerable.
“Oh god, I’m... it’s so lovely, uh uh uh... I’m going to come, oh I’m coming, I’m coming.” Her words tumble, echo, caught up in her falling breath.
“Darling, darling.” She cries out so loud that the great room is full of her... and then she seems to be weeping.
“Oh I love you I love you so much.” And her breath, her voice, her climax subside. The writer waits.
“You’re so good, Zinnia, so good. My darling girl. My only love. Sleep now.”
“I love you.” The faintest fading whisper a long, long way away in the darkness.
The writer puts down the phone. He looks, almost challengingly at his older friend.
“Did you enjoy that? She loves doing it... loves me... she was made for pleasure so why shouldn’t it be shared. No one else need know.”
The grey-haired man, his arousal still unassuaged, meets the eyes of his friend, now a stranger, and knows he sees his need.
In a small flat some miles away, the curtains billow. Zinnia, damp with sweat bends back, sleepily, greedily. The man underneath her, spent but still slightly erect, looks up at her face.
“That,” he says, “that was, well, extraordinary. How the hell I kept quiet when you came, when I came, doing it, knowing he was listening, and getting off on it, having to be so quiet. But God, how erotic. And you like an eel all over the place.” He laughs, lifts her off him.
“Find something... anything you like, eh? And you did. And you did. But did you ever feel anything for him? Did you really do it for real for him?”
Zinnia smiles her slippery mermaid smile, her skin shines in the lamplight. For once she is completely satisfied.
THE WORM ON THE BUD
Louise Welsh
Louise Welsh is the author of seven novels, including The Cutting Room, The Girl on the Stairs, A Lovely Way to Burn and Death is a Welcome Guest (volumes one and two of the Plague Times Trilogy). She has written many short stories and articles and is a regular radio broadcaster. Louise wrote the librettos for the operas Ghost Patrol and The Devil Inside (music by Stuart MacRae). She is Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Glasgow. This extract is taken from The Cutting Room.
Dark and wrinkled like a violet carnation
Humbly crouching amid the moss, it breathes,
Still moist with love that descends the gentle slope
Of white buttocks to its embroidered edge.
Rimbaud and Verlaine,
“The Arsehole Sonnet”
It was too early to go home. I found myself heading towards Usher’s. Once there I knew I had made a mistake: there was nothing in the throng of well-dressed men that drew me. They were too clean, too well disposed.
I took my drink and sat in a corner by the window. In the street opposite, a young man leaned out of a third-floor tenement, taking the air. He stretched his body, then, in a single move, discarded his white T-shirt, pulling it over his head, tossing it
behind him, somewhere into the dark recesses of the room. A shaft of light cut across the building, illuminating his torso, silver-white in the black of the window. He reached up and pulled the blind half down, leaving his body on view, concealing his face.
I sipped my beer, looked at the bustle of men in the bar around me, then returned my gaze to the boy, wondering if he could see me watching him. He was sitting on a chair now, his arm resting on the sill, swinging to and fro, marking time to a beat I couldn’t hear. I watched the shadows creep across the orange sandstone, reaching towards him. When the light was gone, and I could see him no more, I left the bar, crossed the street and pressed the third-floor buzzer. The intercom hummed in response. I let myself in and climbed the stairs.
The door to the apartment was open. I pushed it wide and glanced down the dark, narrow hallway. The place looked derelict. Paper peeled from the walls in jagged tongues, exposing the dark treacle of Victorian varnish on the plaster beneath. The floor was bare, untreated boards. I walked towards a light at the end of the corridor, ready for anything, ready to run if need be. I hesitated, listening for a moment, then, hearing nothing, stepped into a long sitting room.
The light came from two tall picture windows which let in the glow of the street lamps; the only furniture was a wooden table and two upright chairs. The boy still sat by the window. He turned towards me, tousled blond hair, dreamy face, lids drooping as if in an opium trance. I judged him to be about twenty, slighter than me, good muscle tone, but I knew I could take him in an unarmed fight. He smiled a lazy smile, rose slowly, and came towards me.
When he was close enough for our breath to merge he stopped, passive, waiting. I could feel the heat of him, sense his quickening heartbeat. The blood moved faster through my veins, breath shortened, balls tightened. I stood still, playing master, forcing him to make the first move. He tilted his head, glazed blue eyes met mine, then he put a warm, lazy hand inside my jacket, smooth fingers running a light touch up and down my torso, unbuttoning my white shirt, licking his tongue through the dark hair on my chest, tasting the salt sweat on my body, flicking against my nipples hard and strong. I put a gentle hand on his shoulder, tightened my grip slowly, then took him by the hair at the nape of his neck and forced his head back. The boy’s body tautened, panic welling with the change of tempo. His fear gave me an infusion of power. He trembled in my grasp and my cock hardened. I forced his head back further, until he was looking me straight in the eye, then put my mouth to his and kissed him. I felt his young boy skin, soft against my bristles, and our tongues met. I loosened my grip and ran a hand across his hairless chest, feeling him relax, tracing the faint swell of his pectorals, glancing over the pebble-hard nipples, trailing my index finger down to his navel, undoing his fly button, feeling his cock, as hard as mine, straining against his jeans. I rubbed him through the denim and he whispered, “I want you to fuck me.” An American accent.
Desire Page 61