Desire

by Mariella Frostrup

  “Come home with me and let me fuck you,” the mime cries hoarsely into her ear, sucking the lobe in invitation.

  But she never goes home with anyone. There is never any reason to.

  With the night still in its infancy and the moon yet to reach its zenith, she tosses back her head and shakes out the tangles from her dark tresses. They shine silver-black as they catch the waxing London moonlight, providing a striking contrast to the glowing petal of pink protruding from her precisely trimmed pubic mound. Touching the mime’s expectant face, she kisses him a kind farewell, allowing her tongue to lap over his lips to taste his fleeting youth before she continues on her way. She knows better than to drag out these things, since that can lead to something more involved.

  The forlorn young busker will be left alone with his fantasies of what might have been throbbing in his jeans, the only evidence of his encounter with the dark-haired woman in the khaki coat drying to a perfumed powder on his fingers. Within minutes he will be a memory as a man several years his senior attired in a handsomely cut three-piece suit and swinging an expensive black leather briefcase advances toward her, his expression one of dreamy distraction. She has seen his type before. With the emergence of so many gentlemen’s clubs in the area, it is not uncommon to find up-and-coming executives and their high-powered bosses wandering the streets of Soho long after the office has closed. As the man’s footfalls bring him nearer, she checks to make certain her coat remains open in the front, exposing her nakedness and her need to their fullest. Never yet has this startling image failed to entice a man – or, for that matter, a woman – into her sexual sphere. Although the more timid of these Soho pedestrians might pause only long enough for a whimsical exploration with their fingers, the bolder of her male and female quarry have no compunction about giving free rein to their genitals, or their tongues.

  In the darkened doorway of an Indian restaurant whose staff and patrons have gone home hours ago, the rear flap of her trench coat will be flung up to expose her garter-striped buttocks so that the man in the three-piece suit can bend her over and fit the desire-slickened head of his prick into her hindmost entrance. She prefers to take it this way, finding it a less vulnerable thoroughfare than the traditional one, which can easily become sore in the span of a busy evening. The louder the grunts made by the well-dressed businessman stationed at her protruding buttocks, the more vigorously she cries “Harder!” as people pass along the sidewalk, either unaware of this hindward coupling transpiring a few feet away or too jaded by the sexual excesses of Soho life to care.

  Still lodged firmly inside her, the man pulls her disarranged figure into the narrow alleyway that runs alongside the shuttered restaurant, his need for privacy undoubtedly stronger than her own. Here the guttural sounds of masculine lust emanating from his throat will be drowned out by music from an adjacent nightclub, the thunderous pounding matching his strokes beat for beat. Grabbing the rusted iron bars lining the littered alley to support herself, she hikes a spike-heeled foot up onto the man’s briefcase in order to be penetrated more effectively, his amused snort of “Darling, you’ll never walk again!” urging her toward greater abandon, at which point she grasps her ankles and bites her moon-burnished lower lip, waiting for the inevitable filling. With each eviscerating thrust, her sharp heel scrapes across the fine, buttery black leather of the briefcase like the tip of a knife. She smiles at the damage she has unintentionally inflicted upon the innocent and very expensive case. Every time its owner looks at it, he will remember her.

  The likelihood of this alleyway encounter’s going unnoticed is not to be, however. For no sooner does the gentleman in the three-piece suit clench his teeth in climax than a male figure of markedly rougher exterior pauses at the mouth of the alley to light a cigarette and be treated to a performance he concludes is considerably more up-market than the one for which he has just paid good money. His rugged features twist themselves into a lewd grin as he witnesses the other man’s shudders, the grin changing to a raucous chuckle as the stealthily hidden target to which his better-dressed counterpart has been aiming his strokes makes itself apparent on withdrawal. The newcomer steps forward so he will be seen by his rival. Although not above using force to get what he wants, he has found that his rough-hewn appearance is usually a sufficient form of persuasion.

  Stuffing himself back into his tailored Savile Row trousers, the man in the now-rumpled business suit makes a hasty and undignified exit through the far end of the grimy Soho alleyway, but not before pulling his lacerated briefcase out from beneath the dangerously spiked heel of the woman whose posterior has just squeezed a lifetime of come out of him. He would not have minded sticking around for another go, only he doesn’t want any trouble. And the unshaven brute with the cigarette smouldering between his thick fingers definitely looks like trouble.

  With his partially smoked cigarette clamped between his lips, the newcomer moves into his predecessor’s place, forcing the khaki-coated woman’s ankles farther apart with a mud-caked work boot. He acts quickly before the moment is lost, his razor stubble scraping her silky neck as he wedges himself against her buttocks. In his world it’s rare to find a woman willing to volunteer herself so freely in this fashion, and he fully intends to take advantage of his windfall. However, he must first bow to tradition, the hot, slippery opening his fingers meet when they search between her thighs proving too irresistible a lure for his prick. By now her lower half has turned liquid, the rigorous activity she just indulged in prompting this wetness to spatter her nylon stocking tops. Therefore she doesn’t even flinch when her new partner launches the entire length of himself into her vagina. Nor, for that matter, does he flinch when she jabs a spiked heel onto the toe of his work boot at the moment of her climax.

  “We’ll have to do this again sometime,” he replies afterward, zipping up his dampened fly. She offers him an empty smile, knowing such a scenario is unlikely to take place a second time. She takes a deep drag from his freshly lighted cigarette, the acrid rush of smoke to her lungs steadying her and readying her to move on. He had been exceptionally rough when taking her in the rear, dragging out the process longer than she’s accustomed to. She could tell it was a treat for him – although that’s often the case with the men she meets, which might explain why they appear so reluctant to let her go after they have finished. She touches her neck where the man’s facial stubble has scraped it raw, hoping this one won’t get it into his head to follow her. This has happened in the past with others, especially these rough types who are used to getting their way.

  To be on the safe side, she takes a circuitous route past the pubs and strip clubs and thinly disguised bordellos of the neighbourhood, the juices from her two alleyway lovers trickling down the insides of her thighs and fusing her buttocks together. Certain she has not been followed, she pauses in the shadow of a doorway, using the handkerchief in the pocket of her coat to wipe herself clean. She has already forgotten the men whose fluids stain the crumpled white square of cotton, although the image of a muddied work boot forcing her feet apart will abruptly reawaken her passion and keep her walking these moonlit sidewalks for a little while longer.

  As she rounds another Soho corner, she collides with a pair of pillowy lips as red and glossy as those of her vagina after a busy night of anonymous couplings. Eyes lined black with kohl stare unflinchingly into hers, seeming to have the ability to see inside her. Their exotic owner might be a dancer in one of the clubs, or a woman stood up by her date, or a prostitute. She might even be like herself: a kindred spirit prowling the night in search of nameless, faceless pleasure. But none of this matters when their lips meet and her tongue melts like caramel in the other woman’s mouth. Her clitoris still burns from its encounter with the young mime’s blue-jeaned thigh and its ruder chafing by her work-booted lover, who kneaded it relentlessly between his coarse fingers until she climaxed twice in his hand, gracing his palm with a wet and fragrant souvenir of his big night out in Soho.

  The
fleshy fire surging from her closely groomed vulval lips is momentarily cooled by the saliva-moistened softness of the other’s mouth, only to flare up again as two shiny red lips wrap covetously around it. With the ankles of her spike-tipped legs gripped so that they remain flush to the pavement and widely splayed, she finds herself held captive by the kohl-eyed stranger’s painted mouth, which sucks the syrupy wetness from her like liquid siphoned through a small opening. Her ecstasy will be swift in coming and when it does, it leaves her pleasurer’s lips even glossier than before. When she glances down to admire herself – something she likes to do after an erotic encounter – she is greeted by a clitoris glowing bright red with lipstick. She shivers with pleasure, this altered landscape almost as pleasing as the act that brought it about.

  “Can I see you again?” asks the woman, the kohl having streaked beneath one eye.

  The only response is the sound of a khaki trench coat snapping sharply in the night breeze as she walks away from the kneeling figure of her female lover. She doesn’t mean to be rude. There is simply no other way.

  Her body still humming with sexual electricity, she debates whether to continue with these nocturnal wanderings or belt up both her coat and her nudity against the misty elements. A damp chill has begun to blow in off the river and a watery sun is due to replace the moon in a few hours. Perhaps the time has come to go home.

  BURNING DESIRE

  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.

  I just got out of jail. And I’m standing by the door of the Deptford Mission crying in the rain. I’d been given bad love and I made sure it never happened again. Jamie Delaney had turned me over and I fixed him so the only thing he turned over again was a starter motor. And the only place he turned it? In his grave.

  Jamie and me went back. All the way to south-east London’s wet, black streets. Since I was 22 he’d pick me up at night in his fuck-me Merc and take me driving: one hand on the wheel and one hand in my pants, squeezing my cunt and straining himself to slip a finger up there. And I’d grip myself around that finger and drag it deeper up there, ’til his hand was nearly breaking, and he’d have to swerve to miss a kid.

  Then one night he told me to dress up good and stick me finery on: he’d pick me up at eight. When eight rolled round he rocked up: in a cab, with a rose, and a ring in his hand. “Bridie,” he says, from the back of the cab, “you and me are getting wed. Jump in girl, we’re off to the Met.”

  So the cab throbs on through a dark, damp night and it ain’t that long before Jamie Delaney pulls me over. It’s a curling, cupped, strong hand and it reaches for mine and pulls me across to him. He bites at my ear and says he wants to fuck me. I tell him, “Jamie – we can’t in a cab, it ain’t right.”

  So he shouts to the driver, “The long way mate,” and he reaches his hands right under my arse and lifts me up and on to his lap and my legs go down astride his and I’m looking at the back of the cabbie’s head. “I don’t think we should,” I say but he ain’t listening. And his hands shove up my dress and I can feel his shaft getting thick and hard as it rises up against my arse. One hand slips inside my kecks and he fishes around with his meaty fingers ’til he finds my clit and back and forth and around it he goes, and all the time he’s jerking at me from behind. And I know how much he wants it because he tells me all the time, “I want to get inside your cunt.” And when he talks to me like that I find that that’s exactly where I want him: big and thick and up my chuff.

  And so I cast an eye to the cabbie’s mirror and he’s casting his right back at me: you dirty bleeder, I mouth, and he winks.

  Jamie Delaney’s other hand is working under my cheeks to drag down his fly and I step up a bit as I hear the zip. He pulls aside my pants and leans me forward. His other hand grips his cock and he eases it in and it feels like a plunger is stuffed up my box. I let out some breath and he pushes some more: and he’s in. Then he pulls me back down as hard as he can and I’m taking the whole of his dick, right there in the cab. The cabbie is driving with only one hand.

  One hand’s on my cunt, still flicking my clit and the other is gripping my tits, pushing them together. I like it with Jamie, he don’t treat me nice, he’s hard and he’s brutal and it’s over quite fast. I’m a girl that’s built more like a fella, I like it in hard and I come in a tick.

  And all the time he’s up inside me, London closes in and closes down around us, the sound of shutters banging down over spartan shops. Ultraviolet lights and screaming euro blue lamps flash up at us as traffic pounds along our highway, and always sirens, always alarms, wailing through the night.

  So he’s pumping away at me from behind, and my hands are pushed up to the sinking rubber of the ceiling so I can lever myself further down on his cock. And he’s forgotten my clit and just working my tits. Two monkey’s hands pushing my baps together so he can feel what a pair and a cleavage I’ve got.

  And as he comes he splutters that he wants to fuck me through every day and every night that we’re together, from behind, lying on my back, from the side, sucking him off, and he ain’t got no more imagination because he just says it all over again. But don’t worry, Jamie, because I’ve got a book at home. And as he trickles out of my box in creamy little drips he gives another couple of weak thrusts and then leans back, his head on the headrest.

  The cabbie grimaces and jumps a red and it’s a while before both hands are back on the wheel. Then Jamie pushes me up and slips himself out of me. He pokes his cock back in his pants and zips up his fly.

  “You’re at the Met.” The cabbie wheezes like he’s short of breath.

  And we stroll in like we’re the King and Queen of London. The black trousers of his suit are wet around the groin and my hair is curling from the damp and sweat. Our faces are red and shiny but we’re a regal pair and we breeze it.

  “Jamie Delaney!” someone calls, and we turn and she’s beautiful. Tall with stockings with a seam and carrying a cigarette tray like she’s out of the Fifties. “I don’t feckin’ believe it.” And her mouth chews harder on her gum and she sways over to us, looking right through me like I’m glass. “It must be fifteen years since you were in Ireland.”

  And Jamie’s frowning and then he’s grinning like there’s something more than the Old Country that they shared. “Georgia?”

  And she nods.

  I grip onto Jamie’s suited arm and squeeze him tighter, but he wriggles to be free. “Be a doll and order us some drinks, toots.” He rolls off a dirty fifty and slips it down my top.

  “I ain’t thirsty yet, Jamie,” I try, but he looks down at me with a darkening face. “I said, get some drinks. Now beat it, kid.”

  And I go to the bar. And in every mirror that coats the room, I see an old flame licked into life, and a fire is growing, right there in the Met. She leans into him as they talk and he puts an arm against the wall and cups her in his shadow. And he talks to her with his other hand in his pocket and I can see his groin pumping in the slightest of ways, and I know what that means.

  And she’s in her dress of red shining lycra, with her stockings and heels. And she reaches up a hand and touches my monster’s cheek. And I can see that it’s the touch that he’s missed. There’s a tenderness to him that he ain’t never shown me and he smiles and he closes his eyes and leans down to her and kisses her head.

  And that gets me stoked.

  “Oi, Jamie. Ever seen me? I’m the bird what you fucked in the cab on the way. Do you remember this ring?” And I stand there with my ring in his face and I cast her a dirty but she just gives a laugh and she slips a hand in his and says, “Come f
or a walk with me J.”

  And Jamie Delaney turns with a shrug. “Sorry old girl – but she’s the one of me dreams. I never imagined I’d meet her again.” And he turns and they go and I’m left at the bar. And the music plays on and the crowd swallow them whole.

  But Bridie McLean is tougher than that – so I light up a Benson and order a drink. And I drink that and five others and then make a plan.

  At a table in a corner I find them both later, she’s on his lap, his hands on her tits, it’s the same old routine. So I drop my fag on her lap: I’m clumsy like that. And she goes up in flames. And he catches it too. He was right, she was the one of his dreams and together they made a really hot couple.

  DEAD GIRLS

  Anne Billson

  Anne Billson is a film critic, novelist and photographer. She has lived in London, Tokyo, Paris and Croydon, and now lives in Brussels. Her books include Suckers (an upwardly-mobile vampire novel), Stiff Lips (a Notting Hill ghost story) and The Ex (a supernatural detective story), as well as several works of non-fiction, including monographs on the films The Thing and Let the Right One In.

  “You’re fucking insane,” I said.

  It just slipped out. I apologised immediately, because the remark hadn’t been professional, and Nutman would have been well within his rights to take his custom elsewhere. But his options were limited, and he knew it. Our agency was unique.

  Nutman shrugged. “Maybe I am. But I have to try it. Just once. Because I’ve tried everything else.”

  He was exaggerating, of course. Because there were types of sexual congress he hadn’t tried, at least not recently. Missionary position with a normal woman, for instance – he hadn’t tried that one in a long, long while. Male-on-male sodomy was another option that hadn’t appealed. But then Nutman’s proclivities were like none we’d ever encountered before, even in our line of work. His tastes were... I suppose you could call them rarefied.