Glenn’s glasses were steaming up, but when his girl tried to take them off he barked at her to leave them alone. I could sense we were all waiting for a signal from Adrian that it was OK to start fucking, and it came when he pulled Isobel onto his lap.
I found it surprisingly easy to penetrate Lisa, even though I wasn’t that used to underwater fucking. I sat back with my arms stretched across the tub while she moved up and down on my cock. Adrian and Isobel were facing each other, him underneath and her gripping his wet neck. I kept trying to look over Lisa’s shoulder to see what Glenn and the other girl were up to, and was confused and distressed to see four feet sticking out of the water.
Adrian finished first, pushing Isobel off and standing up. Climbing out of the tub, he wrapped a towel around his skinny white frame and made straight for the cocaine. Lisa looked at him. Scared she was going to follow his lead and stop, I gripped her shoulder hard and sped up until I came.
“Who wants downers?” Adrian asked. “Everyone right, unless you’re keen to see the sunrise.”
He moved among our still dripping bodies, handing out pills from two different bottles.
“Is it safe to mix them?”
“Safe? I’d recommend it. It’s taken me years to find a combo that cancels out each other’s side-effects. But maybe we should all go upstairs first.”
It seemed the arrangement was that we’d sleep in couples. Adrian and Isobel had the biggest bedroom, Glenn’s and mine being of a similar size. Adrian gave Lisa a long kiss goodnight and then retired. I shook hands with Glenn, and then Lisa and I were alone.
We popped our pills.
“How long have we got?”
“Ten minutes max.”
“Then I’ll be brief. What happened to Helen?”
“Who?”
“The girl who was in your butt hut before Kelly replaced her.”
“Oh, Amanda. Why, did you like her?”
I looked at her. “Yes, but that’s not what this is about. I want to know what happened to her.”
“OK,” she said, “get into bed and I’ll tell you.”
The bed was only a queen size, and the two of us had to hold each other tight to be comfortable. Her fingers found my penis and she looked at me inquisitively.
“Oh no,” I said, “I’m completely dead down there. And don’t try to distract me. What happened to that girl?”
“Nothing happened to that girl. You know what people are like when they go to college. They experiment with sex, they experiment with drugs . . . and some people discover that they love that lifestyle, while others get scared and turn to something else.”
“What d’you mean?”
“I mean Amanda found a boyfriend. She was never really that interested in appearing on the site in the first place. Adrian . . . preys on people at their weak moments, and makes it seem like everyone around him is having the most incredible fun. But he gets bored of people pretty quickly.”
“OK,” I said, “so explain this to me. What did Adrian mean when he told Isobel that there would be an opening on the site soon.”
She looked at me. “Did Adrian say that?”
“Yes.”
“And those were his exact words? There would be an opening?”
“Yes. What did he mean?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. Another one of the girls has probably dropped out is all.”
I wanted to question her further but the sleepers had already kicked in and I drifted off into a dark, blank place.
The following morning I was awoken for breakfast by Isobel. She came into our bedroom and shook me awake, making me get out of bed and come outside onto the upstairs landing.
“I’m going to stay,” she told me. “What about you?”
“I’m going home. Just as soon as I’ve found Eric and got my stuff back. And I think you should come with me.”
She shook her head. “I knew you were going to say that. But listen, it’s just an experiment, OK? This is something I’ve always wanted to do, and I’m desperate to experience it for myself.”
“But, Isobel, I don’t think you realise what’s involved here. I’m convinced there’s something sinister going on.”
“Oh, come on, Terry, don’t be stupid. It’s just sex, OK? Just sex.”
Eric was waiting for me. He opened the door on my first knock and gave me a hug. Surprised, I gripped him back. Then I realised he was crying.
“I’m so sorry, buddy.”
“What for?” I asked, surprised.
“Last night. I shouldn’t have left like that.”
“It’s OK. I got Adrian to put me up. Like you suggested.”
“Still, I did a bad thing.”
“Don’t be stupid. But listen, Eric, I have to go back home.”
“It’s because of me, isn’t it?”
“No, Eric, it’s nothing to do with you. It’s just that coming out here was a spur of the moment thing.”
“And now you regret it?”
“No, of course not.”
“Are we still friends?”
“Of course.”
“And you’ll carry on sending me e-mails.”
“Definitely. Now, Eric, could you drive me to the airport.”
“Sure thing, buddy. Just let me use the bathroom and we’ll go.”
The flight back was horrible. Although I hadn’t suffered too much from my indulgence the night before, my body clock was out of whack and I couldn’t tell whether I wanted to sleep or stay awake. So I tried to sleep, then got irritated and watched a bit of a bad movie, then played computer games for a while (unsuccessfully, due to my faulty handset) before trying to drink myself into a coma.
I don’t know how to tell the last part of this story. Just writing this down, and ordering these events into a narrative makes me feel as if I am in some way culpable; as if I’m inviting my own punishment. I haven’t said any of this to anyone, and sat in silence when Stephen came round to find out what had happened to his girlfriend.
I know that once I’ve written this I won’t be able to stop myself feeling guilty, and maybe I’ll even feel forced to report this to someone, although exactly who I don’t know. Maybe I’ll even have to conduct my own private investigation, fly back to Princeton and sort things out myself. But I can’t help feeling that it’s just a bad joke, and I’ve done nothing more serious than accidentally access a disturbing website.
I was feeling edgy from the moment I got off the plane. Certain I would be pulled over and strip-searched, I made little effort to disguise my dishevelment as I shuffled past the customs officers. But, for almost the first time ever, they let me through unmolested. Going down to the luggage carousel, I collected my bag and took a Piccadilly line tube home.
I fell into bed the moment I got through the door, telling myself I’d check on Isobel’s progress as soon as I’d had some proper sleep. In spite of my intentions, it was two days before I returned to the butt hutts. Now I was no longer with Isobel, I felt my past few weeks’ indulgence all the more keenly, and felt eager to reconnect with my family and friends.
The only time I came near to telling anyone what’d happened was when two of my mates at work asked me about the girl I’d been seeing, the one I’d told them was “up for anything”. But I knew if I described my time in America, they would think I was either boasting or lying, or, if they did take me seriously, this rumour would be something I’d have to live down if I ever introduced them to any of my subsequent girlfriends. And that would definitely be it for me with any of the women in the office.
I had known for ages that a time would come when I’d have to clean up my act, although I always thought it’d be a new girlfriend that’d prompt me to change. But now I’d begun to suspect that it didn’t work like that. Most men didn’t meet women like Isobel because they didn’t spend their evenings in Internet exchanges, and even if they did, they didn’t strike up conversations with odd-looking women accessing hardcore porn. If I altered my lifest
yle, it would put me back in a world where I could meet normal women.
By the time I went back to the computer, I’d decided that I was glad Isobel had gone, and that rather than using this site to monitor her progress, I would just check it once and then forego Internet porn forever. It didn’t really do that much for me, and if I went back to using my imagination for masturbation, it’d stop me feeling like I was hiding some terrible dark secret. So I clicked through the huts and there she was, the new girl in hut #5. And as I went through the pictures with a sense of finality, I felt pleased that she was wearing pink socks, thinking this a nice gesture and wondering whether they were the same pair that Helen had once worn.
I printed out paper copies of the pictures of Isobel, then did the same for the rest of the girls on the site. I tried to forget that I had fucked Isobel and Lisa, and found that at least for the moment this was surprisingly easy, and the fact that they were naked in the photos made me feel less emotional than I might have done if they were fully clothed. I shut down the computer and went to bed.
Putting the pages on top of a cupboard, I made myself think about an ex from a few years ago as I masturbated on to the sheet. But after I’d come I didn’t feel satisfied, and, hating myself, returned to my PC. I looked through the pictures of the girls again, then accessed the webcam. What I saw there scared me as much as if I’d been directly connected to a disapproving god. Filling the screen was a huge close-up of Adrian’s luminous face, staring straight into the camera. Within seconds he looked right at me, as if making sure I was there. I knew he couldn’t really see me, but it felt as he was peering straight into my soul. Then he walked back from the camera, turned round so that his back was facing me, and pulled down his chinos. He wasn’t wearing underwear, and he turned his backside towards me. Squatting, he began a bizarre sideways herky-jerky dance, fingers flipping as he crouched and shuffled.
He kept this up for about five minutes, before he stopped, stretched open his bum-cheeks and squeezed out a thick black turd. As he did this, the hut door opened and Lisa wheeled in a bed. Strapped to the bed was Isobel, naked apart from a pair of knickers. With the slow, halting nature of the webcam, it was hard to make out all of the action, but while I watched Lisa seemed to do something unpleasant and gynaecological to Isobel, the image on my screen changing without warning to a bloody close-up. Then the server disconnected. I kept trying to get back on, but every time I attempted access of the Butt Hutt site it flashed me a 404.
That was three months ago.
It’s the only ending I have.
I’ll let you know if anything changes.
Passenger
Sidney Durham
Yellow tank top, tight denim shorts, sandals, backpack. Tanned, blonde, twenties. No bra. Shoulder tattoo, a red rose. Her gum popped. “Well?” she said. “You gonna give me a ride or not?”
“I guess so,” I said. She had approached me boldly, and at first I thought she was a hooker. No way, she said. She just needed to get to Gatlinburg. She said I looked safe.
I thought her incredibly naive to make such an assumption, but if I didn’t take her, she might well get herself into trouble. Besides, I was going to Asheville; it would be on the way. Maybe she would be able to carry on an intelligent conversation.
Wondering what other travellers thought about her getting into my car, I pulled out of the rest area and punched the cruise control when I got the big Lincoln up to exactly five over the speed limit. I still had seven hundred miles to go, and now most of it would be with her in the car with me.
I could smell her. It was cloves, maybe her chewing gum, which seemed to pop incessantly. I cracked the window a little, but it made a whistling sound I knew would anger me quickly.
She slumped in the seat next to me, the impudent tattooed shoulder between us. She had kicked off her sandals and had her feet tucked up, toes moving slowly. Her shorts had inched up, revealing too much flesh. Her breasts sagged in the light fabric that covered them, and her nipples jutted. She needed a bra. She popped her gum again.
“Would you mind getting rid of the gum?” I asked.
She stared at me. I tried to keep my attention on the road, but her gaze drew me and I had to glance at her face. Her eyes were bottomless black, meaning her hair probably wasn’t really blond. “What the fuck’s wrong with it?” she asked. She was grinning, holding the gum between her front teeth.
“I can’t stand cloves,” I said.
She studied the armrest in the door, found the right button and punched it repeatedly, inching the window down in little bursts of motion. Each widening of the opening let in more baked August air. When she had the window all the way down she blew the gum out of her mouth and through the opening, where it disappeared. She punched the window back up again and looked at me. “You didn’t like the popping, did you?”
“No. Thank you for getting rid of it.”
“You a salesman?”
“Accountant.”
“Bean counter. That’s what Lyle calls them.”
“Who?”
“Lyle. My dad. How old are you?”
“Forty-two.”
“Man, I hope I don’t live that long.”
“Forty-two?”
“Sixty-eight. Lyle’s sixty-eight. That sucks. Forty-two is bad enough.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Sure.”
“Okay, twenty-three. My birthday’s next month.” She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. I could see fine golden hairs on her throat. “What’s your name?” she asked.
“Albert. What’s yours?”
“Albert? For real?”
“What’s yours?”
“Indigo.”
“Indigo? I don’t think so. What’s your real name?”
“It’s Indigo. I’m gonna change it to Indigo.”
“What is it?”
“Inez.”
“What’s wrong with Inez?”
She turned her head and looked at me. “It’s stupid. You have to call me Indigo.” She slipped her fingers down the top of her shirt and scratched the space between her breasts, making them move. “You married?”
“Divorced.”
“Dumped ya, huh?”
“Something like that,” I said. It seemed everybody assumed I was the one who got dumped.
“How long you been divorced?”
“It’s not final yet.”
She scratched again. “Does the radio work? Got a CD player?”
“They didn’t put CD players in cars this old. You can look for something on the radio if you like.” I hoped she wouldn’t, but she began fiddling with the knobs, leaning forwards. Her breasts took a peek at me. She found something loud and harsh.
“How fast will this old heap go?” she asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t speed.”
She leaned close and looked at the speedometer. I could smell cloves again. “You’re doing seventy-five,” she said. “That’s speeding. And it says it’ll do one-twenty. Try it.”
“No way.”
“Chicken. If you get it up to a hundred we’ll get there sooner.”
“Not good for the car. It would be dangerous and waste gasoline. I would get a ticket and have to pay a fine, and we would lose all the time we might gain.”
“Bean counter.” She threw herself back in her seat with a loud sigh. “Look. I’ll show you my tits if you get it up to ninety.”
“No. Forget it.”
“C’mon, Al. Go for it.” She turned in her seat so that she was leaning against the door and yanked up her top. Her untanned breasts were like beacons, drawing my eyes. “Watch the road, Al,” she said, pulling the top down again.
“Keep yourself covered,” I said. “And stop calling me Al. And fasten your seatbelt.”
“Ninety, Al, Al-bert. Ninety m.p.h. You can touch these babies when you get this heap up to ninety.” She pulled the top up again.
“Cover up.”
>
“Ninety, Al-bert.” She pulled her top off over her head and rubbed her breasts with it. “They’re real soft,” she said, throwing the top to the floor in front of her.
“We’ll get arrested. Put your shirt back on.”
She got on her knees and leaned close. “C’mon, Al-bert. Push on the pedal.”
“Sit down! People will see you!”
Indigo leaned and pressed her soft breasts against my arm. “Ninety, Al-bert. Do it now.” She began rolling her shoulders, rubbing her breasts on me. Her head was very close to mine and I could feel her breath against my face.
I looked safe, she’d said. Right.
I did books. I didn’t drink. I didn’t even swear. I never watched racy movies, and I never went to nude bars. I wore bow ties and wingtip shoes. And a girl half my age was rubbing her naked breasts on me, offering to let me touch them.
All I had to do was push on the accelerator pedal. A simple muscular contraction, pulling my Achilles tendon, forcing my toe down, was all that was needed. Her breasts shifted amiably against my arm as she continued to urge me. My cock, so long dormant, was reacting, stirring, reminding me it was there.
It was cause and effect: I could press the pedal; I could touch her breast. But there were other effects. In my mind I built an inventory of things that could happen if I touched her breasts. The list scrolled in my head and I watched it, trying to examine the contents, looking for risk and danger. If only she would stop rubbing me with her breasts I would be able to concentrate! It would be irresponsible to “go with it”, as she might say, without carefully considering the implications. I was not that kind of person.
I was a careful, deliberate person, starting a new life. And I was being asked to drive my car faster than I ever had by a young, firm-bodied, impudent girl named Indigo, who was rubbing her bare breasts on my arm. She would let me touch them.
Life is short.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 1 Page 39