The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 9

by Maxim Jakubowski

  You got to see all sorts of interesting things that way. The Chicano boy with the dreamy eyes watching his girlfriend sleep on his shoulder. The old women dozing over their shopping bags or books. The heavily made up woman (or was she a man?) in the latex mini who kept checking her (or was it his?) watch and tapping one impossibly high heel restlessly against the train floor. She had a story made up for each and every one of them. That was the best part about riding the city trains; the stories never ended.

  That woman across the aisle this morning, for instance. She must be worried about something from the way she sent nervous glances at the doors every time the train stopped. Between stops, she looked first at her watch, then at the floor, thin brown eyebrows meeting in a scowl over her long nose.

  Once, the other woman’s small brown eyes met hers for an instant before they both looked away. The other woman’s gaze told her nothing really, held no obvious reason for the clear anxiety she was feeling. But there had been something there, something she couldn’t explain. When the woman got off at the next stop, she got up and followed her.

  Why she did it, she never could say afterwards. But it was the beginning, this sideways path to follow a stranger for a glimpse into their lives. Was it that it made her own life seem less ephemeral when held up to the mirror of someone else’s? She couldn’t or didn’t want to answer that. She only knew that she was curious. That she needed to know something about this woman’s life and why she was so nervous.

  Up and out of the station she went, trailing a half block or so behind her quarry, but still trying to look as if she knew where she was going. The crowds helped with that, swirling around to hide first her from the woman, then the woman from her. Something about the chase made her hot, made her think of the hottest, sweatiest sex she’d ever had. That part wasn’t about the woman she was following, or at least she didn’t think so. No, it must be about the hunt itself. She grinned a little to herself and followed the nervous woman around a corner.

  Her quarry glanced around before slipping up the steps of a building and she stopped to watch her go inside. Looking up, she noticed that there was a neon sign on the roof, blinking with the name of the hotel. The crowd swirled around her like a river while she wondered what to do next. She watched a group of teenagers walk by, one boy’s hand stuck possessively in his girlfriend’s jean pocket. She looked back at the hotel and thought about sex.

  Then she thought about following the woman inside. But then what? Instead she walked around the block, looking for a way to see into the rooms, maybe see what she was doing. She glanced down the alleyway that ran behind the hotel. It looked empty of rats and muggers and other urban perils. Somebody came out of one of the doors and dumped some restaurant trash in the bin then stopped for a cigarette.

  She waited until he went back inside, savoring the aroused ache that filled her when she thought about assignations in hotels, about steamy affairs that swept you away. The voice of her common sense warned her away, warned her back into the safe and the familiar. She thought about listening to it for all of a single minute.

  Then she walked down the alleyway looking warily around her for unwanted company. So far it looked deserted. She looked up when she got to the middle, wondering if she could see anything in the hotel. She stretched up on tiptoe, stepping back against the brick wall of the alley, heart thumping with anticipation.

  At first, there wasn’t much to see. Just maids cleaning the rooms and someone opening the curtains before they left for the day. She walked down a little further and found a tiny deserted courtyard between the buildings facing the hotel. She looked up at closed and shuttered windows, then walked over to press her back against the wall and stared up at the hotel.

  The courtyard smelled like garbage and pee and she had just told herself that she was nuts and needed to leave for the third time when the curtains on one of the fourth floor windows opened. The woman from the subway looked out as a man’s hands reached around her and started unbuttoning her shirt. She still looked anxious, gnawing her lip as he kissed her neck and shoulder.

  Then her eyes closed and the woman in the alley could see his hands on her breasts, her blouse parting under his fingers. It was almost as if she could feel his hands on her own breasts and she squeezed them experimentally, thumbing her nipples through her blouse and bra to feel something of what the woman in the window must be feeling. The unaccustomed sensation almost tore a moan from her throat. Clearly it had been awhile since anyone had touched her like that.

  She could see the man’s hands unfastening the woman’s pants, pulling them down, then bending her backward into a kiss. The woman in the window clutched at him, her hands desperate even when seen from the alleyway. A hot stab went through the watching woman releasing the wetness inside her so that it ran down her thighs, so that she didn’t think she could bear not being touched. She stuck her hand down her pants, her eyes fixed on the hotel window.

  She was amazingly, wrenchingly wet and empty. Her fingers were never going to be enough to fill all that but she did the best she could and slid them inside herself. Above her in the window, the man was working his way inside the woman from behind; she could see it on her face even from here. The other woman’s eyes were closed, her mouth open and gasping. She thrust back against her lover, taking him in.

  For a moment, the woman in the alley closed her eyes too as she rocked forward on her fingers, picturing herself in the window. Her fingertips brushed her clit and the sensation almost made her scream. She bit her lip, circling her aroused flesh with her thumb. For a wild moment, she thought about taking off her jeans but that was too much. Instead she leaned against the bricks and rubbed herself to orgasm with a muffled moan.

  Her legs hadn’t stopped shaking when she looked up. This time the woman in the window met her gaze. She could see the man reach around and slip his hand between her thighs. The woman frowned down at her before she caught her breath, before she turned back, yielding to the insistence of the man’s hands and dick.

  The frown had been enough to shake her back to reality. She zipped up her jeans again, feeling somehow elated and ashamed all at once. Then she walked away down the alleyway, her stride brisk and businesslike as she headed back to the subway.

  That was the beginning of turning voyeur. At first she was afraid it might have come from some newfound phobia about being touched. Perhaps she just needed a good therapist. Then she worried that it grew out of a fear of dating and intimacy. So maybe she just needed a new lover. A week or so after that, she decided that she just liked to watch.

  The night that she came to that realization, she followed a man out of the restaurant where she and her friends were eating dinner. She trailed him down darkened city streets to the edge of a city park. Then she found some bushes to linger in out of sight while he sat on a park bench. He looked around and she watched as his eyes followed the taut firm asses of the young men who jogged past. She could almost feel him harden as he fidgeted on the bench, looking for the best place to arrange the erection she could see from her hiding place.

  She thought about going over to him, about unzipping his pants and taking his dick in her mouth without saying a word. About licking and sucking him until he came, his hands hard and tight on the back of her head. But she didn’t think it was her he was looking for and she stayed where she was.

  Finally one young guy jogged past, slowing down a little as he passed the bench. She could almost feel his gaze caress the sitting man’s erection, the connection so hot it made her ache even watching it from here. She could almost feel the seated man look up, feel him harden even more as he looked over the jogger’s firm ass, his sturdy, muscular legs. She watched as the jogger smiled a slow, secret smile then turned off the path and headed for a thicker clump of bushes behind the bench.

  She saw the seated man stand up a few moments later and trail the other into the bushes. The thought of it, of hot and forbidden sex with a desperate risk of discovery sent a jolt through her
. She could picture their hands on each other’s bodies, their mouths open and wet, pressed together in a kiss. She found herself standing up and walking toward the other clump of bushes as if pulled on an invisible line.

  A quick glance around told her that there were other people nearby in case there was trouble, but no one close enough to see what she or the guys in the bushes were up to. She circled the clump listening for the telltale gasp of breath, the soft moan that would tell her what she came to see.

  After a minute, she heard it. The moan came just as she found a gap in the bushes behind a tree. She slipped into it, her steps nearly silent on the summer grass. She hunched over, ducking down so she’d be hard to see in the bushes and glanced around the tree.

  They were there, the jogger kneeling in front of the man from the bench. She could see the latter’s dick slip into the jogger’s mouth, see the man from the bench lean backward against a tree, his eyes closed and his head tilted back. The jogger made a small slurping noise as his mouth took in the full length of the other’s hard-on.

  The breath caught in her throat and she rubbed the seam of her pants against her engorged clit as she watched. There would be no time to get her hand down her pants, she could see that already in the standing man’s face, the way his expression changed as he shifted toward orgasm. She rubbed hard, her fingers fierce and demanding against her own flesh. Her hips rocked forward of their own accord, the movement mimicking the men in front of her.

  The cloth of her pants, of her soaking wet underwear scraped against her sensitive flesh until she had to bite back moans of her own. At the same time, she was so wet, so empty that it felt as if it would have taken both men to fill her. She pictured that for a moment, rubbing faster until her orgasm took her just as the standing man came. She missed watching that moment cross his face because her knees gave way and she found herself kneeling in the dirt, thighs shaking with release.

  She crouched there, trembling in the aftermath and watched as the jogger wiped his mouth and stood. He reached out and gently touched the other man’s cheek before he turned away, slipping through the bushes and back to jogging as if nothing had happened. The other man looked after him, his eyes dark with longing and desire as he zipped himself up and followed. She stood up awkwardly and brushed off her knees. Then she left the park in the opposite direction, walking stiffly and carefully so as not to further irritate her already tormented flesh.

  A few days passed, just enough to heal and whet her appetite for more. She went looking for what she wanted to see, watching for it wherever she went. It took time to find the right spot and the right couple but eventually they turned up.

  She was at a bar with a date when she spotted them. Her date was talking about something and she hung on his words until she saw the couple walk in and sit down. She wasn’t sure that it was them she’d been watching for, not at first. But then, just then, the woman slid her hand up her man’s thigh in a slow, sensuous gesture full of promise and she knew she’d found them.

  Her date knew he’d lost her and kept trying to recapture her attention until she finally pled a headache and bolted. Once outside, she circled back to the bar in time to see the couple go out on the dance floor. They were a matched set: all black silk and gothy, the woman’s eyes made catlike with too much eyeliner. They kissed as she watched, the woman catching the man’s lower lip in her teeth as they broke it off. He laughed and she shivered just looking at them, the telltale scent of desire rising from between her legs.

  She followed them when they left the dance floor, headed into a hallway that led back into the rest of the building. She watched as they made out, their mouths wet and fierce against each other’s, his hand reaching down to cup her ass and pull her hips forward against his. Her hands were wrapped tight around his neck, holding him in place as she opened her legs to let his thigh slip between them.

  The watching woman felt a shock go through her, as if she were a part of their scene. She looked around for a place to hide and watch them but there was nothing convenient. Instead, she found a dimly lit table with a good view of the hallway and an empty bar stool. She ordered a drink as she dangled one hand off the table, slowly and carefully feeling her way between her legs.

  The couple had gone a little further while she’d been getting settled in and she could see his hand under the woman’s shirt now. His mouth caressed her neck and even from here, she could see his teeth flash on her skin for an instant. Her own need was more urgent now and she rocked herself against the barstool in a vain attempt at release.

  “Hi there. You here by yourself?” The guy was standing between her and the hallway and it was all she could do not to yell at him. Part of her noted that he was sort of cute. Nice body. Maybe enough to fill the ache inside. But she wanted to watch first. She murmured something about waiting for a friend, one who’d be showing up soon. He moved on just in time for her to watch as the guy in the hallway pushed his girlfriend against the wall, then lifted her up to hip level. Her legs wrapped around his waist as he pushed himself inside her, her mouth open and gasping, his face hidden in her neck.

  The watching woman pulled her purse into her lap to hide the hand between her legs. She schooled her face to stay still, frozen as if listening to the music while she watched, imagining what it would be like to be taken in a public place. The thought got her wetter than she’d ever been and despite herself, she gasped a little as her fingers found her clit through the thin fabric of skirt and underwear.

  “That’s some friend you’re waiting for.” The guy was back, standing behind her this time, so close that she could feel the heat of his body. “Can I help?”

  She hesitated, her eyes still locked on the hallway. The couple was close to climax and she found her head nodding like it was on strings. The guy stepped up to her, hand encircling her waist and face buried in her hair. He kissed her ear as one thumb slid slowly over her rock-hard nipple. She gasped and jumped as his other hand worked its way between her legs. In front of her, the couple in the hallway came, seemingly together. She could see the guy arch his head back, mouth open in a silent cry. The woman with him gave him a fierce smile, all desire and love and power.

  The guy behind her ran his tongue down her neck as she came, silently shivering on the barstool. The couple left the hallway hand in hand while she was still shaking and she didn’t watch them leave. She could feel the man behind her, his hand still wrapped around her and his dick hard against her back. “Do you want to go over there?” he murmured in her ear, nodding toward the hallway.

  She shook her head. “It wouldn’t be the same now.” She smiled at him over her shoulder and let him kiss her lips.

  “Then I think I know another place that might work. Come with me?” She met his eyes for a second, then slid off the barstool and grabbed his hand. He grinned down at her and pulled her out the door with him. And she didn’t watch anyone else for the rest of the night.

  She was on the train again a few weeks later, the memory of last night’s sex with her new boyfriend still sharp and clear in her mind. She remembered the feel of him inside her on his apartment balcony. She could sense his neighbor’s eyes on her, watching as his hands pinched her nipples into diamond points, as her hand dove between her legs. Watching as she came, shaking and nearly collapsing but for his strong arms around her. As he came a moment later, his groan echoing down the side of the building.

  It made her smile remembering it. It made the breath catch in her throat and her eyes darken as she sat on the subway. It was almost enough that she didn’t notice the woman across the way watching her. The other woman’s eyes were hungry, wanting something from her. She recognized that look and all in an instant, knew what her answer had to be.

  She pulled her face into a worried scowl and checked her watch, then her cellphone. She sighed impatiently. Her foot tapped on the floor and when her stop came, she bolted out the door. She could see the other woman follow her and she smiled as she dialed her boyfriend’s numb
er. She hoped the other woman would enjoy the show as much as they did.

  A Different Kind of Reality Show

  D. L. King

  The contract was for a week. I’d have everything I needed to live – everything but the physical presence of others. The ad in Soul-Bound had suggested thinking about the service period like a kinky reality show; it would, after all, be televised for an exclusive paying audience. Pay-per-view kink, yeah, I’d been there before – a lot – however, never as the star of the show.

  It got me thinking and kept me thinking for days, I couldn’t pass it up. I’m sure I wasn’t the first to feel that way and probably wouldn’t be the last. They were going to pay me very well for a week spent in confinement. It would be a week spent alone in a posh condo, naked, submitting to the voice commands of an exclusive audience of women. I would be on camera and on call twenty-four hours a day for seven days.

  I’m kind of an exhibitionist at heart. I like being naked and I don’t mind being watched. My dick isn’t bad; at least I’ve never had any complaints. I think it’s pretty nice when it’s up and ready for action – like I said, no complaints.

  I sent in my application with the required photos and waited. About five months later, an envelope came from Soul-Bound. I had to think for a second: Who the hell was Soul-Bound? About to throw it in the recycle bin, it hit me – starring in pay-per-view kink! I’d all but forgotten about it.

  They wanted me. Cool. Of course they did. Why wouldn’t they?

  I took a week’s vacation from work and on a Saturday night, drove across the Verrazano to an industrial-looking building in Midtown with its own underground garage. The elevator opened on to a reception desk on the fifth floor. The guy manning the desk asked for my ID and after scrutinizing it, announced my presence to someone at the other end of a phone line.