The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 10

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “I was born with it.”

  “You have hoodlum in your blood.”

  “I have sushi in my blood. Or it will be in my blood. First I have to stack it in my stomach.”

  “That’s the image I have,” she said and picked up a piece of yellowtail scallion roll, dipped it in the soy and wasabi, moved it into her mouth.

  “It’s a perfect image. Can you keep stacking?”

  “I can stack sushi all night,” she said and there was no hint of sarcasm in her voice.

  “Then we will.”

  I called over the waiter and ordered more. More and more. I watched the waiter move to the sushi bar, place the order. The chefs started cutting.

  I took her to my place. I never took them back to my place, preferred the option of making a speedy bolt in that limbo-moment between drunk and hungover, but I wanted her in my place. I didn’t want to know where she lived or how she lived. I didn’t want to know anything about her. It felt more pure that way. I just wanted to know her, know her lips, know how they felt. I had kissed her in the cab. Her lip lips were perfect and I tested her immediately, kissed her and kissed her and then I pressed my teeth into her lower lip and she took it without a flinch of protest and I pressed harder and she took it and I grew bone hard. I tasted the salt of blood and stopped biting. I kissed her lips gently. The cab stopped. I took her hand, took her up to my bedroom, undressed her on my bed.

  I liked to keep the lights on. A friend of mine, a hunter himself but not a lover of sushi, was the same way. We loved to see it, spread it. We always joked how we would be happiest to go to bed with a miner’s hat on our heads, the attached flashlight providing the perfect beam of light to look deep. It was all about the mystery for us. We weren’t tit men. We weren’t ass men or leg men or feet men or eye men. We were cunt men. It was all about the slit of skin, the pink flesh, the mystery, which, we knew, we’d never fully see no matter how bright the light.

  But I kept the light on and her lip lips had not lied. Her cunt was perfect. She had waxed so I could see its perfect definition, its perfect symmetry. I put a finger inside her and opened the two lips, the color of perfect sushi. I worked another finger in and opened her more and then I put my cock inside her and did what I did best, listened to her, put my head in her head and listened to what would get her there, sensing the tide and then moving to it, closer and closer, picturing the beginning of her orgasm like a small wave, just starting, still far from shore.

  And that’s what I said in her ear, that’s what I said in all of their ears, but none of them had ever felt perfect. I worked for her, talked to her about the wave, about the growing wave, moved to the growing wave, and the wave started to gather water, started to gather strength, the salt water starting to foam, and I moved to it, harder to it, faster to it, talking to her the whole time, making her picture the wave, making her realize I was the only man who could truly fuck her, the wave getting bigger, her voice starting to take over my voice, and I fucked her and fucked her until the wave peaked, was right there, too high to fold in on itself, too high to go back, too high. It was going to crash.

  “Let it crash,” I said.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Let it crash all the way. Let it all go. All of it.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Go,” I said.

  The wave crashed. I lifted myself up, straightened my arms, looked down at her lips, perfect lips, sushi-perfect. I felt the wave start in myself and kept my eyes right there, right there.

  For a full month, every Saturday night, we met and ate sushi and fucked. Each time in bed I went further and further. I pressed my finger hard into her palm, moved my finger up her wrist, up her forearm, hard, harder, streaking her skin red, and I listened. I listened to her sound, listened to hear if it was pain or pleasure. I pressed harder each time and the sound was the same sound she always made, only louder. Pleasure. I took her nipple between my thumb and forefinger and squeezed until my fingers cramped, and the sound was pleasure. I took a knife from the kitchen, moved it along the inside of her thigh, then back, back and forth, pressing in harder every time and finally I cut the skin, a thin line that didn’t really bleed and would heal in a moment and the sound was pleasure. She took it and then she took me and I came into her, my sushi-fed sperm shooting forward, strong and strong and strong.

  I waited outside Nobu. I knew the kitchen closed at midnight, but I didn’t know how long the sushi chefs took to close their station. There were knives to be wiped clean, counters to be scrubbed, fish to be wrapped, uniforms to be put into the laundry, hands to be washed. I pictured what they had to do. It passed the time. I wondered if I would even bother washing my hands, or if I would keep the fish smell on me at all times. I watched the diners coming out of Nobu, glowing from fish and sake. They were different from steak eaters. Steak eaters looked slow. Too full, they were more interested in sleeping than fucking. The sushi-eaters were full of life, their blood fortified, the stacked fish in their stomachs providing energy, not sucking energy the way meat did, pulling blood into the stomach so that the rest of the organs, the rest of the muscles grew fatigued.

  The last people came out, two couples, together, laughing and glowing. Each couple walked hand in hand, energy in their steps, moving fast into the lit darkness of New York City.

  The sushi chef came out.

  He was shorter than he looked behind the sushi bar, but his muscles were as thick, his arms bunched up under a T-shirt, his neck mighty, his broad face hard. He was done performing and his brutality seemed more quiet, more dangerous.

  “Excuse me,” I said.

  He turned to me. He looked at me. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t nod.

  “I always admire you when you work,” I said. “And I wanted to know, what’s the trick to cutting perfect sushi?”

  “The trick?”

  “Maybe that’s the wrong word. What’s the technique?”

  “A technique takes years to perfect.”

  “I don’t have years,” I said.

  “Are you dying?” he said.

  “No. But I have to know.”

  I looked the sushi chef in his hard eyes, made my eyes just as hard, like before a fight, when you put everything away, all life away, like you could fight to the death because your eyes are already there. I had the same nervous feeling going. I was alive and dead at the same time. Nine times out of ten the other guy backed down, but there was no back-down in the sushi chef.

  “A sharp knife,” he said.

  I waited.

  “The sharpest knife,” he said. “I brought my knife from Japan when I came here as a young man.”

  “What else?”

  “You must commit to the cut. You must never hesitate once you start the cut.”

  “Never hesitate,” I repeated.

  This time the sushi chef waited. His eyes were more open now, taking me in, letting me take him in.

  “I want to cut a piece,” I said. “I feel like I’ll fully appreciate eating sushi if I know what it’s like to cut the fish.”

  “You already appreciate sushi.”

  “How do you know?”

  “When I’m working, I see everything around me. I have seen you in Nobu many times. Every time I see the pleasure in your face.”

  “I love sushi,” I said.

  “Haiii,” he said and smiled. He nodded his head once for me and started to walk away.

  “Wait,” I said and he stopped. “I need your knife,” I said. “Just for one night. I promise I’ll return it to you tomorrow. I’ll be here as soon as you start your shift. I’ll be here before you start your shift. I promise.”

  “Do you know how to use a knife?”

  “You commit to the cut. You never hesitate.”

  The sushi chef looked at me. I let him into my eyes. The sushi chef turned, walked into Nobu, came out one minute later with a leather case. He handed the case to me. “I start my shift at four. Exactly at four.”

&nbs
p; The sushi chef walked away and I stood there for a moment, leather case in hand, the knife inside. Then I opened up my cell phone and made the call.

  I met her downstairs and paid for the cab. I treated her like a princess. I’d never believed in princesses, too jaded to see the fairy tale in anyone, but when I thought of her, thought of her in the world outside my bed, I pictured her as a fish princess, swimming through the crowds of New York City, raising herself above the people for a playful moment before diving back down. And when she was with me, I pictured her coming up for air all the way, the most beautiful fish princess, but unlike a fish, whose colors were most vivid underwater, she was perfect on land, most perfect spread out on my bed. And I felt perfect too. Inside her was where I was supposed to be. Inside me was where she was supposed to be.

  She kissed me hard. I kissed her hard back, bit into her lip.

  “Where are we going?” she said.

  Whenever we met, we ate sushi first. Pieces and pieces of sushi and then, nourished, we would be ready.

  “We’re eating in,” I said.

  “In?”

  “I already ordered. Lobster tempura rolls. Inside-out maki rolls. Yellowtail and tuna rolls. One eel roll for you. And one roll with nothing in it.”

  “An empty roll?”

  “For me.”

  She smiled and I smiled. I took her hand and walked her into my building, up to my apartment, into my bedroom. I undressed her and spread her out on my bed.

  I kissed her lip lips, and moved my tongue down, between her breasts, over her stomach, around the inside of her thighs, circling, and then I spread her lips apart and tasted her, fresh and salty, licked her and listened to her rhythm until she was almost there, right at the line, the line that separated coming and not coming, as impossible to measure as the line between sky and ocean on the horizon, and that thin. I kept her there, kept her there until the door buzzer rang and I took my head from between her legs. She kept moving herself forward, fucking an imaginary me.

  “Sushi,” she said.

  “Sushi,” I said and went to the door, stood by it, waited for the Japanese delivery man to ring the bell. The bell rang and I paid the man, took the bag, went into the bedroom. I’d bought a flat, aqua blue platter and I put it on the bed. I unpacked the sushi and arranged the rolls on the platter, the eel roll closer to her mouth, the empty roll, just inside-out rice with a hole in the middle, closer to me. I took the leather case and put it by the bed. I moved my head between her legs and took her to the line once more and then I lifted my head and told her to wait.

  I loved the sound she made and she was making it.

  I put myself inside her and started to move.

  I took a piece of the eel roll, dipped it in the soy sauce and wasabi, fed it to her, her lips holding my finger for a moment, her tongue licking a final drop of soy from my skin. She made the sound. She loved sushi.

  I fed her the whole roll, all six pieces, and while I fed her I fucked her and I brought her right there, but I didn’t let her come. She wanted to. She wanted to after the first piece and she wanted to more with the second piece and up and up, all six pieces stacking up in her stomach, feeding her. I put my head next to her head, my mouth to her ear, and I whispered what I wanted. I moved inside her and told her exactly what I wanted to do and she didn’t flinch, just like she never flinched. It would be the smallest piece, the smallest smallest piece, and it would feed me, become a part of me, the most romantic thing I would ever do if she would let me do it and I moved in her and moved in her and the only sound she made was the sound she made.

  I lifted myself off her and picked up the leather case. I’d already pictured what I would do so many times, so many times since the first time I’d been between her perfect lips.

  I opened the leather case. I took out the knife.

  It was the sharpest knife I’d ever seen. I’d read of Ninja swords, how the artisans melted the steel, folded and refolded it, over and over until it could cut a man’s hair in two, lengthwise. This knife was not a weapon. But I pictured an artisan folding the steel, testing it on a raw piece of fish, cutting the slightest sliver, perfect. That was all I wanted. The slightest sliver. To be inside of her and have her inside of me, fortifying me, making her mine. It had always been just an expression. Your cunt is mine. I said it in their ears when I was fucking them, making them come, but with her, her perfect lips, her love of sushi, I wanted her cunt to be mine. I wanted to commit to more than the words. I wanted to commit to the cut.

  She looked at the knife. I had cut her before, and she had taken it. I pressed the cool steel against her belly and moved my cock inside of her. She made her sound.

  “It’s a sushi knife,” I said, my voice becoming a whisper, as if this blade, this work of art that turned raw fish into works of art, was too sacred to talk about too loudly.

  “I know,” she said.

  “It’s from Nobu.”

  “Nobu,” she whispered back. “Where you had your first sushi.” She remembered everything.

  “The sushi chef gave it to me.”

  “Does he know why you want to use it?” She was breathing heavy.

  “Do you know why?” I whispered.

  “Of course. I knew before you told me. And I trust you enough to let you.”

  “How did you know?”

  “When we met, you weren’t just talking. You gave me your card, you took me for sushi, you take me for sushi every night, and you whisper things in my ear. I listen. I listen between the words. You make me feel good and this will make you feel good.”

  “You won’t even feel it.”

  “I want to feel it a little.”

  “Just a little.”

  “And then we’ll say good bye,” she said.

  “You do listen between the words,” I said.

  “The words stack up,” she whispered and I moved inside of her, to get her to that place again.

  When she was there, when she was on that edge, I opened her up, took a piece of her lip and pulled it taut. The flesh was perfect pink. I pressed the knife’s fine edge against her lip and committed to the cut.

  One. Two.

  It was just a sliver, the smallest sliver, a tiny V of raw, live flesh.

  A drop of blood formed, bubbled and then popped into a thin line of red. I took her flesh and put it into the empty roll. I did not need soy sauce or wasabi. I wanted this pure. I put the roll in my mouth and held its flavor there and I fucked her for me. She was making her sound and I fucked her harder and I didn’t have to tell her to go over now, she knew the words and between the words, all the words, all the meals, all the nights stacked up.

  She started to come and I let myself come and right at that moment, me inside of her, her inside of me, I swallowed the roll.

  Perfect.

  She kept pressing against me. I lifted myself up so I could look down at her. At her perfect lips.

  I was the master sushi chef, the story come to life. I had taken a piece of the fish and then I had let the fish go. This fish would keep swimming. I had nothing else to take and so nothing else to give and this fish, my fish, uninjured, just missing a small perfect piece stacked inside me, would swim and swim, her colors vivid, human-vivid, swimming and swimming out of the water where she belonged.

  Careful What You Wish For

  D. L. King

  “I’ve been thinking about sharing you with another woman; does that idea make your cock stand up and take notice? Oh, I see that it has definite possibilities.”

  Greg lay restrained by his wrists and ankles to the head and footboard. He was also blindfolded and gagged but he could hear just fine. His wife’s words created a zing from his ears, straight to his balls, making his cock shudder. He’d found, aside from moans and groans when he was in this state, he could communicate his thoughts and emotions quite clearly through his cock, and Eagle-eyed Audrey always caught them.

  Greg had been telling Audrey for months how he’d love to submit to her
while her girl friends watched, or maybe even joined in. It seemed she’d finally taken the bait and he was going to get his fantasy.

  “I have a friend, Moira, who thinks you’re just adorable.”

  Greg smiled around the gag and a little more drool ran down the side of his face.

  Audrey slowly inserted a well-lubed, gloved finger into his ass to the accompaniment of his sigh and moan. “And her boy is really quite special. He’s about ten years younger than you and works as a personal trainer. I’ve been thinking that I wouldn’t mind a bit handing you over to her and swinging with Ian. That would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

  Greg’s eyes flew open inside his blindfold. No, no, no, this was supposed to be about him and other women. Audrey wasn’t supposed to be with another guy. He made some appropriate noises and, even though the anal attention he was receiving was certainly arousing, he felt his cock begin to wilt.

  “Oh, what’s the matter, baby? Not what you had in mind?” She continued with her gentle massage until he was nice and hard again before applying a cock ring to keep him that way. “You know, my darling, Moira’s also ten years younger than me, and very attractive. You could do worse.

  “They have an open relationship and go to various swinging functions and play parties. Anyway, I’ve invited Moira over to meet you and get to know you a little better before making up her mind. She should be here any minute.”

  Audrey unbuckled Greg’s gag to a quiet whine. After he licked his lips and worked his mouth, the first words out of his mouth were, “Today? Right now? Both of them?”

  “Yes – and no, just Moira. She wanted to get a sense of what you’re like to play with before committing. She saw you when you came to pick me up after the book club meeting last week and thought you were sexy, but she wanted to watch you in action, or at least, in flagrante, before making a decision.”

  “But …”

  “Oh, there’s the door. I’ll just go and get that, shall I?”