“No,” she said. “The side street there. That will do.”
It was dark, no one around, although the risk of passers-by emerging off Toulouse was likely.
Susi pulled her long skirt upwards and bunched it around her waist, her thin, unending legs bursting into pale view, the plumpness of her cunt in full display under the light from the illuminated wrought-iron balcony above them, and squatted down. He watched, hypnotized, as the hot stream of urine burst through her labia and splashed onto the New Orleans pavement. Her eyes darted towards the main street, begging for someone to come by. None did. Her bladder empty, she rose to her feet, the skirt still held above her waist in insolent provocation.
“It’s a bit wet,” she said to him. “Would you dry me?”
He got down on his knees, wiped her cunt lips clean with the back of his hand then impulsively licked her briefly. Her clit was hard, swollen. Susi was in heat.
“Fuck me here,” she asked him. “I don’t mind if people see us.”
“I can’t,” he said. “We’ve only just got out of bed. I don’t think I could get hard enough again so quickly.”
Susi glanced at him with disapproval.
She dropped the folds of her dress.
They began talking.
“Does it turn you on?”
“Yes.”
“What is it? A feeling of control over people, men, that they can see you but not touch?”
“I don’t know,” Susi remarked. “My body is nothing special, but I love to show myself. Gives me meaning. It’s a bit confusing.”
“Your body’s great. You shouldn’t underestimate yourself,” he answered. “But you must be careful. On the nude beach outside Vienna, with your girlfriend along, there’s an element of safety, but elsewhere it could be risky, you know.”
“Yes.”
“Some people could read other things in your need to exhibit yourself. You could get yourself raped.”
“I know,” Susi answered, with a slight sigh in her voice. “Sometimes, I even imagine what it would be like. Several men.”
“Really?”
“Yes. Five of them. First they fuck my every hole, then I am made to kneel, still naked, at their feet and they all jerk off and come in my face and hair.”
“A bit extreme . . .”
“I know . . .”
He tried to lighten the mood. Already anxious as the darkness neared. “The ultimate facial treatment. Better than soap!”
Susi laughed and led the way back towards Bourbon Street.
He described how Bourbon Street would be when Mardi Gras came. The noise, the coloured beads, the floats, the beer, the wonderfully hedonistic atmosphere that gripped the whole French Quarter, the fever that rose insidiously as the alcohol loosened inhibitions and the music from the bars of either side of the street grew in loudness, competing rhythms criss-crossing on every corner, clouding minds and bodies.
How the revellers on the balconies would bait the walkers below, sprinkling them with drink, offering beads for the flash of a nipple or a quickly bared backside to massive roars of approval from the wild crowds.
He could see Susi’s eyes light up. Yes, she would enjoy Carnival here. No longer requiring an excuse to bare her parts to one and all and the more the merrier.
“And what happens behind doors?” she asked him.
He shuddered to think. He’d only ever stayed in New Orleans for the first night of Mardi Gras. Had heard mad rumours of uncontrollable excess, of sex in the streets. He’d once come across a range of video cassettes in a 7th Avenue porn joint in New York documenting the sexual side of Mardi Gras here year after year. But like with wine, he was unaware which were the good years or the bad years and had never sampled any of the cassettes in question.
His mind raced forward. To a clandestine video cassette in a white box and Polaroid cover shot of Susi’s porcelain-white body, face covered with come, labelled SUSANNE “LOLITA” WIEN, MARDI GRAS 1999. A vintage performance, no doubt.
Bourbon Street night deepened as the beer flowed ever more freely, spilling into the gutters from plastic cups being carried up and down the street by the Saturday night revellers. The music surging from all around grew louder, the lights more aggressive and the crowds swayed uncertainly. Young kids tapped away for a few cents or break-danced outside the bars, the neon signs of the strip clubs entered battle, pitting male strippers against female ones, topless joints against bottomless ones. A row of mechanical legs danced a cancan from the top of a bar window, advertising further displays of flesh inside.
Susi was curious. “I’ve never been to a striptease place before. Can we?”
“Why not?” he acquiesced.
They entered the dark bar. A woman down to a shining lamé bikini was dancing around a metal pole at its centre. A few men sat by the stage desultorily sipping from half-empty glasses. They ordered their drinks from a sultry waitress and watched the stripper shed her bra with a brief flourish. The performance was uninspiring and the most exciting thing about the dancer for him was her gold navel ring which shimmied in the fluctuating light. His mind went walkabout as he tried to recognize the rock and roll tune she was, badly, dancing to.
Several shimmies and swirls later, and a liberal shake of silicon-enhanced mammaries exposed, the song (some country and western standard given an electric and gloom Americana twist) came to an end and the stripper quickly bowed, picking up a few stray dollar notes thrown onto the stage by the isolated punters on her way off.
“Is that all?” Susi turned to him asking.
“I think so,” he said.
“But it’s not even bottomless. She didn’t even show her cunt!”
“Maybe because it’s a bar. I don’t know,” he said, ‘there must be some local by-laws or something. Don’t know much about the rules in American strip clubs,” he continued, surprised by Susi’s interest.
Another stripper, black, stocky, took to the stage and a soul number burst out of the speakers. The previous performer was on the other side of the dance area, soliciting tips from some of the men. One whispered in her ear as she accosted him. She nodded. The man rose and he followed the woman, who now wore a dressing gown, to a darker corner at the far end of the bar. Susi nudged him and they both peered in that direction.
They could just about see the stripper throw back her gown and squat over the lap of the man who had now seated himself.
“A private dance,” he said to Susi.
“Wow! Cool!” she said, one of the more irritating mannerisms he had picked up on when they chatted online back in Europe.
There wasn’t much to see. The stripper moved in silence. The man appeared to keep his hands to himself, but the darkness engulfed the couple.
“I’m turned on,” Susi said in his ear.
“Really?” he said, finding the atmosphere in the bar quite unerotic, the black stripper now strutting her square rump a few feet away from his face.
“Yes,” Susi added. “I don’t think I’d make a good stripper. No tits, as you well know. But I sure could lap or table dance. I’d like to do that for you . . .”
He grinned.
“Sure. Later in our hotel room, I’ll look forward to your demonstration.”
“No. Here,” Susi said, a deep tone of excitement in her voice.
“Here?” he queried.
“Yes.” He could see that her right hand was buried in the folds of her dress, that she was fingering herself through the material. “Can you arrange it? Please. See the guy at the bar, he appears to be in charge. Get him to agree. Please pretty please?”
He shrugged.
It cost him fifty bucks and some haggling.
He walked back towards the stage where Susi was downing the rest of her Jack Daniel’s.
He nodded. “It’s yes,” he said.
She rose, a mischievous glint in her eye. She took him by the hand and led him to a chair, nowhere near the darkness that offered shelter further down the bar but in ful
l view of all. She pointed a finger, indicating he should sit down, which he did. Sensing what was to happen now, the bar attendant stationed himself at the door to Bourbon Street to prevent further spectators and a possible loss of his licence. Susi camped herself facing the chair he now sat on and pulled her dress above her head. You could hear a pin drop as the barman and the few spectators dotted around the stage witnessed her naked form emerge from the cocoon of the fabric, whiter than white, shaven mound plump, and so bare, like a magnet for their disbelieving eyes. A couple of the attendant strippers peered out from the dressing room on the side of the bar counter.
The music began and he had no clue what it was, his mind in such turmoil.
Susi began writhing a few inches away from him, knowing all too well how much she was the centre of attraction.
She danced, wriggled, swerved, bent, squatted, obscenely, indecently, her hands moving across her bare flesh in a snakelike manner, her fingers grazing her, by now, erect nipples, descending across the flatness of her pale stomach and even, although he hoped he was the only one to notice, lingering in the region of her cunt and actually holding her lips open for a second or so.
He felt hot. Even though he by now knew every square inch of her skin, this was a new Susi, a creature he had only guessed at.
It was quickly over.
He held his breath.
A few people clapped in the background.
Susi’s face was impassive but flushed.
She picked up her discarded dress and slipped into it. “That was good,” she said. “Can we go, now?”
On their way to the door and the muted sounds of Bourbon Street, the barman handed Susi a card. “You’re quite a gal,” he said, as she brushed past him. “My name is Louis. If you’re seeking more serious fun, just call me.”
Susi slipped the card into her side pocket without even acknowledging him and emerged into the twilight. “I’m hungry,” she said.
One of the nearby hotels had an oyster bar. They shared a plateful each of oysters and clams. She smothered them with a generous helping of tomato-flavoured horseradish as she gulped them down.
“One of your fantasies realized?” he asked her.
“You might say that,” Susi answered. “But there are others.”
“I have no doubt.” He smirked, still uncertain of the path they had embarked upon.
“Don’t look so glum.” She smiled. “You did say we would come to New Orleans and explore possibilities, didn’t you?”
“I suppose I did.”
The rawness of their sex that night was compelling and savage. She sucked him with hungry determination and wouldn’t allow him to withdraw from her mouth when he felt his excitement rise. Usually, he would hold back and penetrate her, which prolonged the pleasure. He came in her mouth. She let him go, and he watched her tasting his come before she finally swallowed it.
“You taste sweet and sour,” Susi said.
The following day, she insisted they visit a place called the Orgy Room. On Bourbon, of course. As pornographic films were projected on the walls, a group of people pressed together like sardines in a can were force-fed into an exiguous room and allowed to jostle and play on pneumatic fun-fair carpets or were they water beds? Most were drunk. The constant contact was, he felt, somewhat unpleasant, and far from arousing. Soon, he was separated from Susi in the swaying crowd but could still see her at the other end of the room. She deliberately exaggerated her movements and rubbed herself against others, often pulling her short black leather miniskirt up her thighs so her genitals were fully visible to those closer to her. He observed as various men took note of her and soon congregated around her. He could see her face flush amongst the laughs, and the human wave of bodies soon directed her against the back wall where she stood motionless, her skirt now bunched at her midriff and a couple of men frantically fingering her as she pretended to ignore them. He watched from afar, not quite knowing what he now felt. Eventually, the siren rang and the crowds thinned and made for the exit. As Susi reached him, trailed by the puzzled men she had snared in her net, she took his hand in hers. The men observed this and interrupted their progress towards her. Sweat poured down her forehead, her thin red hair plastered down against her scalp. They walked out. He looked up at the sky. There was a storm brewing.
“I came,” she remarked. “Jesus . . .”
“Susi . . .”
“Take me back to the hotel,” she ordered. “Tonight, I want you to fuck my arse.”
The next morning, she expressed a desire for breakfast in bed. They had woken up too late for the hotel room service. He volunteered to fetch food from a nearby twenty-four-hour deli. The night rain had swept away the heat momentarily and the cool air came as a welcome relief as he walked the few hundred metres to the shop and back.
When he returned to the room, Susi was speaking on the phone. She put the receiver down as he walked in.
Maybe he shouldn’t have asked, but he did. Force of habit. He’d left the hotel number with a few friends back in London, in case of sudden business, magazine commissions.
“Was that for me?” he asked Susi.
“No,” she replied. “It was Louis, from the bar.”
“I see.”
“I wanted to find out about the . . . secret places, the real New Orleans, so to speak . . .” She looked down as she spoke, the white sheet lowered down to the whirl of her navel. There were dark patches under her green eyes, from lack of sleep and the intensity of the sex. He’d never found her as attractive as now, he knew.
He set the bread, snacks and fruit juice bottles down on the bedside table. “And?”
“And he’s given me a few addresses. Said it’s his night off, offered to show us around.”
“We barely know him. Do you think it would be safe?”
“You always told me that New Orleans was a city of sex. Not vampires or voodoo. That it was constantly in the air, you used to say, remember.”
“I did.”
“Well, it would be silly not to find out more, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose so.”
“He’s picking us up from the hotel lobby around nine tonight. He’ll show us beyond Bourbon.”
They walked through the market at midday. Beyond the food area full of cajun spice mixtures, chicory blends, pralines, nuts and colourful fruit and fish, there was a flea market of sorts, stalls selling souvenirs, bric-a-brac, clothing, counterfeit tapes of zydeco music, hand-made bracelets and all the flotsam that brings people to a tourist town. On a previous visit on their second day here, Susi had spotted a black felt table where a long-haired superannuated hippy was selling fake body jewellery, which could be worn without the need for piercings. She selected several pieces.
Late afternoon, back in the room, she retreated to the bathroom for a shower. She emerged half an hour later, splendidly naked and scrubbed clean, her dark-red hair still wet. “Do you like it?” she asked him.
He looked up from his magazine.
She took his breath away. How could her body be so damn pale and so heartbreakingly beautiful? She had rouged her nipples a darker shade of scarlet and accentuated the bloody gash of her sex lips with the same lipstick. A courtesan adorned for sexual use.
She had also strategically placed the small rings and clips she had purchased in the market across her body. A ring hung from her lower lip, stainless-steel clamps from her hardened nipples and a stud appeared to have been pierced into her clitoris from which a thin golden chain hung, which she had until now worn around her wrist.
“Like a creature from a dream,” he said. “From a very dirty dream, may I add. You look great.” He could feel his cock swell already inside his boxer shorts. “Come here,” he suggested.
“No,” she said. “I have to dry my hair. Anyway I also want you to conserve your energy. Your seed . . .” she concluded with a smile.
“As you wish,” he said, unable to keep his eyes away from her jewelled cunt.
“This
is my fantasy night,” she said.
It felt like a stab to his chest. He already knew what she had arranged with Louis.
It was a very private club on Ramparts, at the other end of the Quarter. From outside, it looked like any other house, slightly run-down and seedy. But the moment you passed the door, you could almost smell the familiar fragrance of money and sin.
“You sure you still want to?” Louis asked her as they walked in to the lobby.
“Yes,” Susi said.
Louis guided them into a large room full of framed Audubon prints and a fake fireplace and asked them to make themselves comfortable. And left through another door after showing them the drinks cabinet.
Alone with her, he said nothing at first. Then, seeing his unease, Susi said: “It’s not quite the fantasy I told you about. Just the second part, really . . .”
“Oh . . .”
“And I want you to be one of the men . . .”
“I’m not sure I—”
“I’d feel more comfortable with you there,” she interrupted him. “You’ll enjoy it, you’ll see. Anyway, you knew what I am, what I like, when you suggested we come here. You’ll get a kick out of it. You like watching. I see it in you. Even when we fuck, your brain is like a machine, recording it all, storing every feeling, every tremor, every moan away. Memories that will last for ever.”
Before he could answer her, the door opened and Louis came through with three other men. Two of them were black, tall, built like football players, the other white man was middle-aged, stocky, silver-haired.
“Here we are, Susanne,” he said, without introducing the others. “You’re in charge now . . .”
The thought occurred to him he had called her Susanne. “Friends call me Susi” she had said back all those months ago as they caught that New York cab. So Louis was not considered a friend!
Susi indicated the centre of the heavily carpeted room. “A circle around here.” There was something more Germanic than usual in her voice as she ordered them to clear the heavy chairs away from the room’s epicentre.
The circle soon emerged, as the furniture was set aside.
The Mammoth Book of the Best New Erotica Page 32