Desire

by Mariella Frostrup

  This he did until the two-litre carton was empty.

  “Hold on,” he said tenderly, as I admitted having an irrepressible urge to empty my bowels. He unfastened my wrists and got me to sit down in a chair which he’d placed behind me, into the seat of which he’d cut a hole and attached a bucket. I unclenched my sphincter and let my bowels void (ah, what relief!) in a great rush of shit and milk.

  “That’s great,” he said after a while, helping me to stand and refastening me once again. Latif stood behind me and wiped my ass. “Clean as a mother’s tit,” he said quietly to himself while pushing a finger in. Again he seemed resistant of his own desire, but took me anyway, and fucked me quickly in the ass without coming.

  He pulled out and I heard him sigh with his hands on my bum. Then he walked to the back of the store and returned, lumbering under the bulk of his Halloween Machine. The Halloween Machine was an old refrigerator box that he had painted to look like a robot years ago. There were dials and digits and small holes cut into the box through which poked several small christmas lights, which blinked and flickered when the extension cord was plugged in. On either side of the box, Latif had cut large squares to fit the counter, so he could place the box over the counter and me, and you’d have no idea that I was there.

  On the inside of the box, at the same height as my ass, was a plastic funnel, angled down towards an opening painted on the outside to look like a miniature stage. Latif had even fashioned some red velvet curtains and glued them to the box. Level with my hips was another window on the side, also with a curtain, where the puppet master could reach in and insert a boiled sweet into my ass. Latif would do this and see if everything was working. Then he’d yank on the blind and send it spinning up and flip the “closed” sign to “open” and we would wait for a child to come along.

  When the door opened to a little chime of bells, Latif would welcome the children into his shop and instruct them to hold their loot bags up to the little stage and repeat the magic words. “Trick-or-treat!” they would sing, and when I heard that signal, I was to squeeze my buttocks and pop the boiled sweet out of my ass and into the funnel, where it would roll down and out the cardboard box and into the child’s candy bag.

  Latif would often roar with laughter when the candy popped out, and by the sound of their rapidly retreating footsteps, it must have spooked the children. I don’t really blame them. It’s a sinister holiday at the best of times. But sometimes I liked to hear him laugh, too. I liked the fact that we were scaring the kids. It seemed right. It seemed like a warning. I got some kind of conspiratorial satisfaction out of what we were doing. I guess it was my own little vendetta against the neighbourhood. It was sweet revenge for both of us.

  THE SNOW LEOPARD

  David Henry Sterry

  David Henry Sterry’s parents emigrated from Newcastle to the United States just before he was born. While attending Immaculate Heart College in Hollywood, he was employed as a sex worker. This became the subject of his first memoir, Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent, which has been translated into a dozen languages and is being made into a film. He graduated in 1978 from Reed College, where he studied existentialism and poetry. After training in England, he was offered a professional soccer contract when he was twenty-one. He has worked as a building inspector, a chicken fryer, a limousine driver, a telephone solicitor, a soccer referee, a marriage counsellor, and as the Master of Ceremonies at Chippendale’s Male Strip Club, which is the subject of his second memoir, Unzipped. He is the author of fourteen other books as well, and has been featured in (among many other places) The Times, on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, on the BBC and National Public Radio. For more information than you’d ever care to know about David Henry Sterry, go to his website: DavidHenrySterry.com

  When I first saw the bulge in the crotch of her panties I was frankly disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I got nothin’ against a hot trannie, I’m just not built that way. Or maybe it wasn’t a bulge. The black of the moonless night shed no light in the nasty room. Did she/he semi-flash me? I couldn’t be sure. You’re not here for that anyway, I reminded myself. Just get the package and be on yer merry way.

  Chinese Willy said midnight, there was no room for confusion when Crack Harry delivered the message. Room 43, 11 pm. Felipe’s Massage Parlour. There was no Felipe. No one was here for a massage. Occasionally a man would squeal in pain, and a female voice would berate him.

  The Snow Leopard. When Shiva Shiv said that was the contact name, I laughed out loud. I stopped laughing when Shiva Shiv said, “What the fuck you laughin’ at?” in a voice dripping of curry and murder. I couldn’t stop thinking about that name. Snow Leopard. That night I had a dream. I was with the Snow Leopard. She was half-cat, half-woman. And she was in heat. I could smell it. She kept changing back and forth, from cat to woman and back: whiskers, lips, fangs, tongue, claws, breasts, fur, hair, but all crazy hungry jungle feline sex. She was tearing me to shreds, blood and guts ripped open, even as she was pounding me strokingly into submission. I was dying and coming at the same time when I woke up with a cold sweat and a curtain rod for a Johnson.

  And now here she was. The Snow Leopard. And when she got up she flashed me. Or did she? Maybe it was just me. Wishful thinking. Wish fulfilment. Not getting laid nearly enough for a man in my line of work. Call it what you like. Long black straight hair. Barely-there black skirt. Black jacket with white spots. Camouflaged. Moving in the dark of the shabby unchic body-fluid-smelling room, I couldn’t pin down exactly what she looked like. Asian? African? Mexican? Italian? Spanish? Long nails painted black. Coal eyes. I started to ask if she was the Snow Leopard, but as I rolled it around on my tongue, it sounded like something only a rank rookie would say, or someone who watched too many bad cable movies. I smelled that smell from my dream. The smell of heat. An animal in heat.

  Shut up and get the package. Where’s the package? She didn’t have a bag, the skirt wasn’t big enough for pockets. Maybe that was the bulge. Or was it a bulge? I fondled the ten grand in my secret jacket pocket. Why doesn’t she say something? She paced like, well, frankly, like a big cat in a cage. And I could hear the beat of the jungle drum. Or maybe it was just Busta Rhymes booming from the next room.

  I try to explain to people who aren’t in the business why it’s such a fun and rewarding line of work. It’s exciting. I was excited. The blood was pumping. Adrenaline working overtime, I was jacked to the max and stone cold sober. Often when I’m on the job I get what I can only describe as an evangelical feeling, like this is what God wants me to do, like God is watching me and smiling. And today I felt like He, or She – I’m not gender restrictive when it comes to my deity – had brought me to the Snow Leopard to change my life. I can’t explain it really, except to say that this job felt like one of those jobs where you look back from the future and you say, “Wow, that was some job.” Or maybe not. Maybe this was one of those jobs you look back on and say, “I started day-dreaming and let my guard down and that’s how I got this scar.”

  The more we didn’t talk, the more charged the air got, like two saturated clouds bumping and humping and rubbing, the rumbling building as the lightning gathers. I wanted to see her. I reached for the light. This is what prompted the first word we ever spoke. Inevitably that word was: “No.” And she was the one who said it, in that chilled voice of a frosty predator. And so we stood in the dark. “I need your help,” she purred. This was not in the script. When Chinese Willy is expecting delivery of his package at midnight, and it’s 11:13 pm, and ten grand is flaming in your secret jacket pocket, you need to keep your priorities straight. This is an excellent score, and sets up the next score, which is the big score. My dance card is full. Or is God calling me? “Hello, my name is Michael Bradshaw,” I said, trying to cool my way through, “but people call me Mikey the Monkey. And you must be...?” “I got no time for bullshit,” she shot back, those coal eyes glowing. “Any minute now two big guys with automatic weapons are gon
na burst through that door...”

  Before she could even get through the sentence, two very big guys with automatic weapons burst through the door. She dropped straight down, behind the bed frame, and pulled out a tiny little pistol. I unholstered, then ducked and rolled, firing as fast as my fingers would fly. I took down the big guy on the left, first shot in the right shoulder, second in the belly, third in the right leg. As he fell he started firing his Glock, bullets spraying around the room like the gun was prematurely ejaculating. When he hit the floor, eye level with me, I got off the shot I’m truly proud of. Plugged him just over the nose. That’s when the big guy’s lights went out. The Snow Leopard had killed quickly, cleanly, effortlessly, with style and grace. As is her wont. One dainty shot. With her tiny gun. Through the left eyeball of the big guy on the right. I was starting to fall hard for this cool kitty cat.

  As gun smoke hung heavy, and two very big guys sprawled dead, the sounds of panicked screams from Felipe’s clientele filtered into the room. I kept rolling, pulled myself under the bed, and had my gun at her head in the flash of an instant. Suddenly I was face-to-face under the bed with the Snow Leopard, staring into those cat eyes. I felt something hard poking into my ribs. Lo and behold it was her little gun. Maybe it was the blood splashed on the floor. Maybe it was the thrill of the kill. Maybe it was God. But suddenly my lips had minds of their own.

  Our hands ravished each other, and before I knew what was what she had me out, fully in hand, then swallowed me whole. A cold metal pressed into my balls. Her little gun. Made my nuts hop like a couple of Mexican jumping beans. As she gorged on me, she dug those long sharp black claws into my chest. That smell of heat, she was animal-wild growling from way deep inside her throat. I had to be all the way in her. That’s where God is, I remember thinking. I reached down between her legs. The bulge. In all the excitement I had quite forgotten about the perhaps-imaginary bulge. But there it was. The bulge. Before she knew what was happening I was in her knickers and I pulled it out. It was my package. I pocketed it. Thought of Chinese Willy looking fat and happy when I handed it to him. I rubbed my gun between her thighs and she sighed. My nozzle flirted with her fleshy folds, opened and explored the tip of her. I pulled the cash out of my inside jacket pocket, and as I slipped the money into her hand I spilled into her. She was fierce, biting, clawing and scratching, drawing blood. She put the tip of her little gun on my lips. I never wanted anyone or anything more. I rubbed my gun across her nipples, stroked her throat slow. She kept manoeuvring around so she could get at me better, bucking and howling, fast cuz we knew any second that bigger larger trouble could very well walk in. It was in-heat fucking, insane fucking, where time is no more and the mind is no more, and there is nothing else in the universe, even as the universe flows through you and into her then back through you, and then you skydive together off the top of Brooklyn Bridge together. We floated shaking and speaking in tongues together, as we landed back on earth. Breathing fire into each other we panted, this close, glowing in the after-rapture of it.

  Funny how fast the brain can work when it has to. Do I walk away? Do I take her with me? Do I run away with her? That’s when she shot me. Through the left eyeball. With that dainty little gun. Now that I’m dead I can honestly say I’m grateful the Snow Leopard did it so quickly, cleanly, effortlessly, with such style and grace. In the end, when you get into this line of work, that’s all you can really ask for.

  MOONBURN

  Mitzi Szereto

  Mitzi Szereto, an author and anthology editor of multi-genre fiction and non-fiction, has her own blog, Errant Ramblings: Mitzi Szereto’s Webblog, and is creator/presenter of the Web TV channel, Mitzi TV, which covers quirky London. Mitzi has pioneered erotic writing workshops in the UK and mainland Europe, teaching them from the Cheltenham Festival to the Greek islands. She has also lectured in creative writing at a number of British universities. Her anthology, Erotic Travel Tales 2, is the first anthology of erotica to feature a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

  She rarely goes out in the daytime. This is not because she doesn’t like the sun, but because she likes the moon better. It seems wiser and more economical to store up her erotic energy for the night rather than squandering it by day. Besides, pretty much anyone can be out during the day; there’s nothing special about baring your flesh to the sun. And, if anything, she is special.

  One might expect her to look pale and sickly from this self-imposed retreat from natural light, but it’s exactly the opposite. Her skin possesses a rich shimmering glow similar to the kind earned from an expensive Mediterranean tan, although this glow comes from her exposure to the moon and cannot be compared to any identifiable shade of summer bronze. Even her hair appears to have been created from the night – as if the darkness has been pulled from the sky, then combed into silky filaments to frame her face and cascade like silvery-black water down her gracefully arched spine.

  She is neither young nor old. It would even be difficult to say whether she can be defined as beautiful, since nobody bothers to focus on her face. The knee-length khaki trench coat that doesn’t quite conceal her customary uniform of seduction remains unbelted and open in the front, placing on deliberate display a pair of long, black-stockinged legs with diamond-patterned seams snaking up the calves, which stay shapely from so much nocturnal walking. Midway up the thighs the tops of these stockings terminate in the hooks of a red garter belt, the elastic straps forming a lacy frame for the meticulously manicured crossroads of her vulva. She likes the feeling of being closely trimmed. It enhances the subtlest sensation while retaining an element of mystery a complete divestment of hair would have sacrificed.

  With every step, her rounded breasts undulate proudly against her out-thrust rib cage, the dainty, peach-coloured nipples pointing an invitation at passers-by. The extravagantly tall heels on which she manages to balance her slight weight look like weapons designed to be driven into an unsuspecting foot and have on occasion served this purpose. As these sadistically spiked heels sound their call-to-arms against the luridly lighted sidewalks that make up her battleground, their wearer’s clitoris swells with need, stiffening to a nipple-like point in the cool night air. Fortunately the khaki coat performs its intended function of cloaking both her nakedness and her desire from those walking behind or passing to the sides. After all, she doesn’t wish to cause a stir.

  The streets, sidewalks, and doorways of Soho are filled with people, particularly at night when those seeking to burrow into the sexual underbelly of London emerge from their lairs. Hence there is never a shortage of prospects for anonymous encounters – and that suits her just fine, since she likes quantity as well as variety. A dread-locked young busker strumming a cheap out-of-tune guitar and singing an off-key Beatles melody can be as satisfying as the proper middle-aged businessman skulking guiltily from a gentlemen’s club, his enjoyment of the evening’s high-priced entertainment stiffly evident in his tailored trousers, which still retain the pert imprint of the aerobics-honed buttocks of a lap dancer. Hopefully he can brush away this sexual stigma before returning home to his sharp-eyed missus.

  Although summertime is best for these urban peregrinations, she doesn’t curtail her activities in compliance with the fickle English weather. Obviously lust cannot be put away in a closet like a pair of wellies, only to be taken out when it rains. It’s just that in the milder months of summer the city offers the greatest variety of people. American students with their shabby backpacks bursting with traveller’s cheques and condoms, foreign tourists on the lookout for forbidden adventure, staid and tweedy Englishmen stepping out with their wives – the possibilities seem endless, as are the manner of the encounters. If you ask her whether she has a favourite, she couldn’t say. Each experience has something to offer – a pleasure to be tasted and savoured for that particular moment, then set aside as the next pleasure moves in to replace it. And she wouldn’t have it any other way.

  He tells her that he performs as a mime in Covent
Garden, a stepping stone to what he believes will be the professional stages of the West End. His hopeful young face is painted in the mime’s traditional whiteface, with a sorrowful, down-turned mouth edged in black and matching eyebrows in a state of perpetual surprise. Yet even with this theatrical and comical camouflage she can see that he’s very good-looking. He smells of greasepaint and the more subtle and tantalising scents of youthful male sweat and budget cologne. This excites her and prompts her to rub her pulsing clitoris against his blue-jeaned thigh, creating a distinctive wet spot on the fabric. The rough denim provides a satisfactory surface on which to pleasure herself, and she thrusts her tongue between the mime’s eagerly parted lips, sighing her climax into his throat.

  By now, the young busker’s green-flecked pupils have become dilated with desire, and he leads her hand toward the cylindrical bulge straining the front of his jeans. His movements are clumsy as he stuffs her slender fingers inside his unbuttoned fly, his desperation for relief nearly thwarting him from his goal. She will not need to work very hard, for no sooner does she grasp the spongy head of her partner’s prick and proceed to squeeze it than a warm, creamy liquid fills her palm. She wipes the familiar stickiness away on the white cotton handkerchief she keeps ready for such eventualities in the pocket of her coat, her clitoris still fused like a melting flower against the young man’s denim-clad thigh. A pair of fingers finds their way inside the slippery channel of her vagina, and they search about with fledgling urgency, making moist smacking sounds in the traffic-choked evening.