Desire

by Mariella Frostrup

  “But we weren’t in love, I suppose, and though I’m not the most romantic man in the world, I do believe in that vital spark between two people: something more than just good sex or shared enjoyment of the sensual pleasures. I’m not sure if it was the unswervingly homely nature of the smörgåsbord and the sex or the thought that our relationship was essentially a sterile one, but I told myself in a rather priggish way that I was leading the poor girl on, that she would start to expect more than I could possibly give her. All in all, I managed to convince myself that I should do the decent thing and end the affair before it was too late.

  “It was on a Friday, when, as you know, the mood of the city lightens somewhat with the prospect of the weekend ahead. I knocked on the door of the little apartment that she rented. It was plainly decorated, yet Birgit had somehow contrived to make a virtue of her apartment’s lack of furnishings; normally I found this unfussiness refreshing, but this evening it seemed only bleak and filled me with gloomy foreboding.

  “The smörgåsbord was set out with her usual geometrical precision, and I sat glumly as she prepared the drinks and busied herself in the tiny kitchen putting the finishing touches to the meal.

  “She joined me at the table and only then did she notice my downcast expression.

  “‘What’s the matter, Claude?’ she asked, in her curious, lilting accent.

  “It all came out in a rush, without any finesse. By the time I had finished I felt awful, a real heel. Birgit made me feel worse by saying bravely, ‘Oh well, never mind. It was fine while it lasted. Let’s eat.’

  “We ate sparingly and drank rather a lot. Beer with akavit chasers. Then more beer. Then more akavit. By the end of the meal I think that we were both quite drunk. I got up to go.

  “‘Goodbye, Birgit. I’m so sorry it didn’t...’

  “‘Don’t worry. It happens this way sometimes. But listen – for goodness’ sake! Why don’t we have one more – you know – for good luck?’

  “For some reason, knowing that this was our last fuck together made me incredibly randy and I think she felt the same way. While Birgit pulled off her clothes I watched as her breasts tumbled out of her brassiere and noticed, as if for the first time, how beautiful the soft curve of her belly was. For some reason I remember the slight imprint that the zip of her skirt had made and, as she turned away from me and bent over to fold her clothes, the full swell of her buttocks tinted by a faint, rosy blush.

  “Lord, we fell into each other’s arms and soon we were at it like minks. We were oblivious to the hot night air that surrounded us like a blanket and we fucked in every position we could. I kissed, licked and tasted every square centimetre of her body. Her cunt was the real meal of the evening: its lips were pink and suffused and lay scarcely hidden by its soft, golden curls; imperfectly sealed was its secret reservoir of sweet juices like a ripe plum. I had an erection that reminded me of the ones I had when I was a teenager – I was so stiff it almost hurt. Birgit’s big warm breasts swung in my face as she straddled my prone body and, holding my prick, eased herself down onto it.

  “She was so wet! And then she fucked me. She fucked me almost as if she were a man, grunting and taking her pleasure, rising and falling, grinding her clit against my pubic bone. I grabbed the smooth, heavy globes of her bottom, one in each hand and squeezed and kneaded and pulled and pinched and slapped and generally punished them. I introduced a finger alongside my cock, which made her moan with pleasure; then I slipped it into her arsehole, something I had never dared do with her before, which made her moan even more. Soon we were both slippery with sweat and before either of us had come, we went to the refrigerator and got more beer to drink. I found a carrot, which, childishly, she inserted up her cunt so that the fern-like leaves hung down from her blonde pubic bush, the green and the gold together. We laughed so much it hurt and then she insisted on shoving another carrot up my arse and we laughed a great deal more.

  “We went back to bed and fucked in the missionary position, then on our sides, then with her on all fours, until she came, explosively: I followed soon after. It was her ‘safe’ time and when this was the case, she loved me to ejaculate inside her, so I did. Then we collapsed and slept. I was woken by Birgit’s hand between my legs, searching for my cock.

  “While she groped around looking for my prick, my fingers flew to her cunt and got busy there: she was oozing sperm and I opened up her tight channel by slipping in two fingers. Her vagina squeezed and throbbed like some sort of animated glove, she quivered and shook every time I thrust inside her, mimicking the action of fucking; Birgit wanted to be fucked again, very badly, I thought, but by a real cock, not just my fingers, and I was not yet ready. The Devil whispered something in my ear and I passed it on to Birgit in a low, urgent voice. Her reaction was to shudder, I thought from disgust, but she said ‘Yes!’ in a low, passionate tone.

  “I took her firmly by the arm, made her get up and, keeping my fingers in her cunt, walked her over to the little balcony outside the window. We looked down into the street below and saw no one suitable. Eventually a couple of sailor boys strolled into view. I knew that if they looked up they would be able to see Birgit’s breasts and my naked chest. They looked slightly drunk, but they were at the happy stage of drunkenness. To my surprise, it was Birgit who called down to them, ‘Want some free pussy? Come up here, boys...’ and then she looked at me and laughed. The sailors glanced up, puzzled, until they located the source of this delightful invitation, then grinned and ran for the entrance below. I felt her wriggle, as if she had suddenly had a change of heart, but I took her face in my hands and I spat at her, ‘Do you want more cock or not? Make up your mind!’ She sighed and I felt her body slump against me in a gesture of mute resignation. We both knew that she did.

  “There were footsteps on the bare boards of the staircase outside the apartment and the sailors, resourceful lads that they were, were soon knocking on Birgit’s door. I met them in the little vestibule.

  “‘Look – help me out here, boys,’ I said in a low voice that I hoped Birgit wouldn’t hear, ‘I’ve just fucked my girl and she’s still desperate for more cock – but I’m totally fucked-out!’

  “The two shipmates looked at me suspiciously, then at each other, as if there were a catch to this otherwise splendid suggestion. But they could see Birgit standing behind me naked, legs well apart; they could see the dribble of semen running from the pink and bruised lips of Birgit’s cunt and Sailor A, dark and swarthy with curly hair, said, ‘OK, we’ll fuck her for you Mister. No problem!’ And they started to pull off their uniforms, their squashed hats with red pompoms sailing through the air to land in a corner. I put an arm around Birgit and realised that she was shivering, as if she had a fever. ‘Are you nervous?’ I asked. ‘Do you want to change your mind?’ She looked up at me, her eyes half-closed and she smiled at me as if I were a simpleton. I realised that she was literally shaking with lust, trembling with lust and excitement, so I pushed her back down on to the bed and parted her thighs so that her cunt was accessible to us. I stood back and realised how beautiful and powerful she was as she lay there, passive, open to the world, yet with all of us in her thrall. Sailor B, with red hair and freckles, asked, ‘Does she take it up the arse?’ At first I was a little cross: he was acting as if Birgit simply wasn’t there, as if this had nothing to do with her. So I said, a little curtly, ‘Why don’t you ask her yourself. Her name is Birgit, by the way.’

  “But by then, Sailor A was standing over Birgit; he already had his cock in her mouth, and she was gorging on it, as if it were some incredible, irresistible delicacy that she had to stuff as much of into her mouth as she could, squeezing his balls in time to the lunges she made with her mouth. Sailor B was sitting next to her, his erection at the perpendicular, and was pawing her superb breasts, rolling the swollen, red nipples between finger and thumb.

  “I sat the other side of her and whispered to her, ‘I think they’ll want to fuck you in the cunt and arse at the
same time. Have you ever done that? Would you like to do that – a sandwich? Just think... those two big cocks inside you at once! Incredible. I’d love to watch that... and maybe I’d fuck you after.’ She whimpered softly with desire. My hand wandered down to the matted nest of hair below her belly. I parted the strands and found her juicy slit. There was still more juice now, a fresh supply... she was ready again. She was ready to fuck. Answering the three of us at once, she looked up and smiled a mad little smile – half apologetic and half hysterical – ‘Yes... I want you all inside me at once.’ Straight away, Birgit got up and pushed back the sailor sitting, Sailor B, and with a rather uncustomary awkwardness, gingerly lowered herself down onto his upright cock, still facing her audience of two.

  “It was somehow a magnificent, moving sight, and I soon realised why she was being so careful – she was about to take the full, quivering spear of flesh up her arse. She steadied herself with one hand on his big, muscular thigh while with the other she delicately circled his cock with her fingers and swept its head along the length of her dripping cunt. Thus suitably smeared with her vagina’s oily secretions, she shifted the head into the slight declivity of her arsehole and, frowning with concentration, started to lower herself. As Birgit slowly impaled herself in a way that she had never attempted before, Sailor A knelt between her thighs and started to lick at her swollen and oozing pussy.

  “I stood a little to one side and caught her eye, trying to read in her expression what was going on, trying to make sense of what was happening between us. It was as if the two men were automatons that I had introduced for her exclusive pleasure, to assuage her nymphomaniac desires, but both of us knew that this was really for my entertainment as much as hers, and I could feel my cock hardening once more. All this was communicated in the gaze between us, in the slight, fleeting, grimaces of pain that she made as her anus and rectum adjusted to this new and extraordinary intrusion. Then she started to rise and fall on Sailor B’s cock, slowly at first, then faster and faster until she reached a steady rhythm that seemed to suit her. Even as she bounced up and down on his cock, breasts dancing wildly, even in this slightly absurd and vulnerable position, she held my gaze and her cool grey eyes locked on mine. I became acutely aware of every new and subtle transformation in the map of her face. Soon I detected the ghost of a smile, a proud smile with just a hint of a raised eyebrow... now I saw the twitch of her mouth’s corner and finally, there it was, a broad, jubilant grin which said everything.

  “It told me that – if she ever had been – she was no longer particularly upset about our parting. It told me that I had been a fool to take her so much for granted, and never to guess that there was an exciting, sexual woman beneath her gemütlich exterior and her clean, tidy life. And most of all it told me that I had probably come to realise this too late. She ran her fingers through Sailor A’s curly hair then clenched her fists, pulled him up to her by two handfuls of his thick, wavy locks and kissed him full on a mouth all shiny with her juices. There was a moment when she broke her gaze towards me to reach down and grab Sailor A’s cock and place the head at the opening to her dripping cunt, where the usually fair hair was now completely dark and sodden with the various liquids of sex. As he entered her with a hard thrust, she gave a cry that I had never heard her utter before. It was more like an animal grunt or groan, not loud, but still I found it utterly compelling, and I was gripped by an intense pang of irrational jealousy. Again, her eyes lost mine and this time she broke our gaze entirely and I could see that she was entirely preoccupied by the activity that was taking place between her thighs. I watched as the twin pistons drove into her soft flesh, and then pulled out; the sailors had created a sort of rhythm to their thrusts and I wondered if they had done this double act before.

  “I moved over to where Birgit’s head lolled on the shoulder of Sailor B. I stroked her cheek and she became aware of my presence. She reached for my cock and pulled me towards her mouth. She sucked me until I was hard again. Then she pushed off Sailor A and said, ‘It’s your turn, Claude. Fuck me – fuck me like you’ve never fucked me before.’ I had never even heard her say the word ‘fuck’ before and it had a galvanic effect.

  “The sensation was strange: I could smell the other man’s sweat, the outside of my knees brushed his hairy thighs and I wondered if I was going to be able to go through with it. Then I was in and suddenly my cock was plunged deep into a fleshy turmoil, as if it were thrusting inside the guts of a squirming octopus, a strange convulsion of moving, rippling flesh. Only minutes later Sailor B groaned and yelled, ‘I’m there! I’m coming up her arse!’ Birgit shuddered with pleasure.

  “We re-arranged ourselves so that Birgit was on top of me, and she started to fuck in earnest, pausing only for Sailor A, who had knelt behind her, to introduce his cock into her arse. I felt him drive it in, separated from my own by a millimetre or two of flesh. I looked up at Birgit and she stooped to kiss me; as she did so I saw Sailor A’s seemingly disembodied hands come around to seize her breasts and torment her turgid nipples with callused fingers, causing her to moan into my mouth with the pleasure born of pain. ‘Come inside my cunt!’ she murmured. ‘Let’s come together!’ But it was Sailor A who came first, cursing and gasping and shuddering: so close were we to our respective crises that this act poured petrol onto our already blazing lust, and we followed suit immediately.

  “The sailors took off as soon as they decently could; perhaps they sensed that we didn’t really want them around any longer. The room stank of sex and the bed looked as though there had been a battle fought there, which, in a way, there had. Birgit looked at me and smiled wanly.

  “‘Would you stay the night? I think I’d like that, if it’s not too much trouble for you...’

  “‘Of course,’ I replied and we held each other as we fell into a deep sleep.

  “The next morning I left early even though I didn’t have to go to work that day. Apart from our almost formal goodbyes, there was not much said and I knew what I had suspected the night before – that something irrevocable had taken place. I looked into her sea-grey eyes for a last time and saw that there was definitely no going back. Some weeks later I heard that she had returned to Sweden.

  “That, gentlemen, is my sad story, and hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of setting off for Gothenburg to find Birgit, but somehow I know that I lost her for ever, back then, when the Devil whispered in my ear.”

  THE PERFECT W

  Michel Faber

  Michel Faber was born in The Hague, Netherlands, before his parents emigrated with him to Australia in 1967. He attended the University of Melbourne. He worked as a cleaner and at various other casual jobs, before training as a nurse. In 1993 he emigrated to Scotland. Faber declined to become a UK citizen in order that his book, The Crimson Petal, be submitted for the Booker Prize as he disagreed with the UK government’s foreign policy. He identifies himself as no particular nationality, and the themes, scope and style of his literary work are not characteristically British, Australian, or Dutch, but broadly European.

  Acting on doctor’s orders, the nurse peered down the neck of Claire’s surgical gown to check that Claire was naked underneath. Satisfied, she whipped the little gauze veil off the green plastic kidney dish. Inside was a disposable hypodermic and some square white sachets that looked like condom wrappers.

  “I’m here to give you your pre-med,” said the nurse. “It won’t put you to sleep, but you’ll feel relaxed and dreamy.”

  The word ‘dreamy’ discomfited Claire like an unwelcome touch; sweat prickled through her underarm anti-perspirant at the thought of dreams. Once again she imagined herself having her recurring nightmare, screaming uncontrollably, then being rushed to some sort of mental institution – doctors would sign the necessary forms while she was drugged or irrational, and the doors would slam shut on her... Years and years later she would finally be released, middle-aged, dull-eyed, and disgustingly fat... Her girlfriends would look at her in shock and pity,
she who always used to be a size 10. In fact, her girlfriends probably wouldn’t recognize her at all – how could they, if her normal appearance was lost?

  But no, Claire reminded herself: none of this would happen; she mustn’t give in to fear. Hadn’t she spent last night in the hospital, and not dreamed the dream? And surely, in a sleep that was anaesthetized, she’d be even less likely to? Oh God! How ironic that in deciding to do something to empower herself, she should risk such powerlessness...

  The nurse ripped open one of the sachets, revealing a pure white alcohol swab that smelled surprisingly like a spirit you might drink if offered. At this exclusive clinic, even the alcohol swabs were luxury quality.

  “This won’t hurt,” murmured the nurse as she dabbed Claire’s arm.

  Claire stared at the nurse’s hands as the needle went in, not really hurting. The hands were perfect, right down to the manicured fingernails. The face was flawless too: no doubt with the help of Dr Nadir or one of his talented colleagues. Claire tried to picture the nurse in a one-piece swimsuit, wondering if she had what Claire would soon have: a perfect W.

  W denoted the shape of vulva that every woman wanted: clearly defined, perfectly symmetrical, pubescent in its smoothness and solidity, plump but pert. All the most beautiful women in the world had one, though not all of them were 100% honest about where they’d got it. There were rumours, for example, that Marielle Coxon had had a simply repulsive cunt before she’d had it surgically reshaped, but she wasn’t admitting anything. In fact, Claire had read an interview with her just recently in FEMME magazine, where Marielle was saying that it really was a little bit invasive, all this interest in her private parts. Of course, there she was in the glossy photographs accompanying the interview, modelling the latest contour-hugging swimwear and panties, her perfect W sticking out for all it was worth. Which was probably about £8,000. That was what Dr Nadir was charging Claire anyway.