He stood her helplessly in front of him while he continued to lecture her harshly about the wickedness of her immodesty. Throughout the entire scolding, poor Muriel’s pants remained around her knees. The little mound whose unveiling had so recently filled her with pride was uncomfortably on display and now serving as the obtrusive source of her newfound shame.
At thirty-seven, Muriel Bing was as bony as a little bird; her modest breasts, her slender waist and narrow hips, always concealed beneath the finely tailored yet conservative dress suits she wore every day to the law office, where she specialised in real estate. She wore simple silk blouses, buttoned to her throat, and durable navy pumps on her small, sturdy feet.
Muriel lived alone in a well-appointed apartment in mid-town Manhattan and almost never dated. She was no longer a virgin – she wasn’t as pathetic as that – still she had become an expert at repressing any unseemly urges to satisfy her drives; not just the biological urges, but the appetites of her very senses. She ate plain, unseasoned foods cooked at home, almost never drank alcohol, not even wine, and her spotless apartment held no aromas of daily living except for the distinct odour of anti-bacterial cleanser.
The law firm where Muriel had been employed since she’d passed the New York Bar eleven years earlier, was a prestigious, well-equipped, state-of-the-art office on Fifty-seventh Street, just off Fifth Avenue. Each employee’s desk had the latest model computer. They were on-line, networked, firewalled, intranetted, and secure on their dedicated server. No software program could be accessed without a valid password. Outside meetings took place in the form of on-line video conferencing. Office e-mail was monitored and noted in extensive personnel files.
At home, Muriel’s fondness for technology lagged far behind the firm’s. Until recently, she’d had a reasonably respectable computer, a modest printer, and the only software she’d deemed necessary was for word processing, which she did a great deal of late into the night. But gradually, the outside world had caught up with her. Only days before, Muriel had upgraded to a high-speed unit with all the frills, even free. Internet access – a needless temptation Muriel had previously withstood. The only e-mail correspondence she engaged in was work-related and so it stayed on the computer at the firm. Still, acquiescing to the advancement of technology into the privacy of her own home, Muriel logged on to the Internet and set up her first personal account.
Her free Internet access included the option of maintaining a small homepage. At first, she dismissed it out of hand, having no reason to display any part of her private life on something as public as a homepage. Yet, after some consideration, it occurred to Muriel that it could help advertise the law firm. She set about learning the software to upload a humble web page devoted to her occupation as real estate lawyer, listing her experience and the contact information of the office and nothing more.
It was quite late on a Friday evening when Muriel uploaded the newly created page to her allotted space on the server.
After she’d been alerted that the files had been sent successfully, she typed the URL of her homepage into the address locator and waited for her handiwork to load into her browser.
It seemed like she waited a long time. The simple page was loading very slowly, too slowly, as if it were laden with images or those space-consuming enhancements that frequently tried her patience on other websites.
Muriel walked away from her computer and went to the kitchen to peruse the contents of her refrigerator. While the browser continued to load her homepage, Muriel reached for an apple and a diet ginger ale.
In a particularly hot pink hue, the words “Muriel the Magnificent” blinked on and off incessantly on a pitch black background.
Muriel stared at her monitor, first in confusion, then in complete indignation, as jpeg after jpeg of a thoroughly naked woman, in all sorts of obscene poses, assaulted her vision. Clearly she had mistyped the URL. She checked the address in her browser against the address she’d been given by her service provider. It was the same.
Slightly panic-stricken, since Muriel had no ready faculties for processing lascivious feelings and the lewd images veritably bursting before her eyes in a riotous array of digitised colours aroused something primitive in her, Muriel hurriedly closed the page and prepared to resend her files to the server.
Carefully, she re-entered the ftp information, being especially observant about entering her user name and password. When the files had again been successfully sent, Muriel retyped her URL into the browser and loaded her homepage.
This time, in only a few seconds, the page had reloaded. “Muriel the Magnificent” flashed merrily on the screen.
A decidedly buxom, fleshy, full-figured woman in a myriad of wide-spread poses, of bending-over poses, or poses where her substantial boobs were squeezed together tightly – these assorted sordid images greeted Muriel again.
It must have something to do with our names being similar, Muriel decided. Perhaps there was a mix-up on the server because of that.
Yet there was something oddly familiar about this other Muriel, with the teased auburn hair, the heavily made-up eyes and glossy lips, wearing spiked heels and little else. Muriel scrolled down the page to the final photo: the voluptuous woman was bending over, lustily grabbing a sizable portion of her rear end in each of her well-manicured hands. Across the photo, just below a protuberance of shaved labial lips, the words “let’s make contact” flashed annoyingly, while pointing to an e-mail link.
Muriel clicked on it, only to be more horrified when the preprogrammed e-mail address turned out to be her own.
Should I? she wondered. If I do, what will I say?
Muriel didn’t want to make actual contact with this other Muriel, she only wanted to know where the e-mail would ultimately arrive.
She typed the words “testing 1,2,3” into the body of the e-mail and clicked “send”, only to receive an e-mail several moments later notifying her that her e-mail was undeliverable as addressed.
“But how could I have received this e-mail if my e-mail address is incorrect?” Muriel demanded of her monitor in vain.
Anxiously, she dialled the number for twenty-four-hour tech support. It was late enough on a Friday night that she wasn’t on hold for more than ten minutes. After having explained her peculiar problem to the tech support person, he offered to go to her homepage himself.
“There’s some information about a law firm,” he said. “And some résumé or something for a real estate lawyer – is that what you’re getting?”
“That’s what I’d like to be getting,” Muriel whined incredulously, “but what I’m getting is pornography!”
The tech support person was silent for a moment. “I don’t know what to tell you, ma’am. There’s nothing pornographic about what I’m seeing here.”
As he read aloud, verbatim, the brief description of the law firm and work experiences Muriel had composed, Muriel was dumbfounded.
“Well, what am I supposed to do about all this pornography!” By now, Muriel was nearly hysterical. “I want to see my homepage. What if other people see these disgusting photos and assume it’s me? That I’m that Muriel?”
Another uneasy silence came from the other end of the line. “I don’t know, ma’am. I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps you should try to contact this other woman.”
“But her e-mail address is the same as mine – and it doesn’t work!”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t work?”
“I tried sending an e-mail to her, but it came back as undeliverable.”
“Well, maybe it’s a dead website. It happens all the time.”
“No, you don’t understand. It’s my e-mail address. It works just fine.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, I really don’t know what else to tell you.” The tone of the young man’s voice was now edging into patronising impatience.
Muriel slammed down the phone. “You useless piece of . . .” Then she fumed silently for several minutes over her first pers
onal encounter with on-line tech support.
* * *
Muriel stood rigidly in the hot shower, letting the water blast down on the back of her neck, hoping it would soothe her agitated brain. Her eyes closed in defeat and she sighed.
I must have sounded completely insane, she realised, as her conversation with tech support reverberated in her head. What the hell is going on with that computer?
In a burst of rage, Muriel had shut down the machine, overwhelmed by the extent of her unmitigated confusion. She’d elected to give it up for the time being and prepare for bed. Her anger had followed her from room to room, as she’d switched off the lights, secured the apartment, stripped off her clothes and gotten into the shower, but she was determined not to let the anxiety follow her into bed. Muriel was prone to bouts of insomnia, a state of mind she dreaded.
In a white cotton nightgown and a pair of equally white cotton panties, Muriel slid into bed. The sheets felt cool against her skin. Muriel felt noticeably calmer. With luck, she would sleep.
At 3 a.m., Muriel’s eyes opened. She stared blankly into the darkness and the first thought that commanded her attention was this: why were so many grown women determined to look like parodies of little girls?
Muriel couldn’t help thinking about that other Muriel; Muriel the Magnificent, with her womanly figure and shaved labia. It was absurd looking.
Muriel snuggled more comfortably into her pillow. Her hand absently playing at the stray strands of pubic hairs that poked through the leg bands of her cotton panties. As far back as she could remember, Muriel had had a generous thatch of dark brown pubic hair. She couldn’t recall a time when she didn’t have it.
Wait, she thought, remembering the Tommy Decker incident. But in an instant her mind skittered clear of the discomforting memory, and soon enough Muriel Bing was sound asleep.
* * *
On Saturday morning, Muriel slept in. It was uncharacteristic of her to even remotely surrender to the lure of sloth. However, her bed felt so comfortable, a cool breeze blowing in gently over the blankets, and a bird warbling merrily on a sill across the airshaft, that Muriel was lulled back to sleep before she knew it. When she finally roused herself, it was nearly noon.
She sat lazily on the edge of her bed, looking down at her loose-fitting nightgown, her skinny legs. The images of the other Muriel leapt to her consciousness.
How would it feel to be so fleshy? she wondered. What would it be like to always have one’s boobs in one’s peripheral vision?
She tugged open the top of her nightgown and stared down at her modest breasts. She tried squeezing them together in an unsuccessful attempt to create cleavage. She eyed her flat stomach, too. Then she noticed with interest how her cotton panties covered her slightly protruding mound so smoothly. She wondered what she looked like down there, under all that hair. And this time when her mind served her up the memory of Tommy Decker, she let it linger there.
“What’s with me today?” she muttered, feeling her hormones beginning to stir. Then she realised she was thinking about her computer, about how easily salacious images could be summoned from it. Why not? she thought.
She didn’t even put on the coffee pot. She went straight to her computer and booted it up. She got on-line and went directly to the images of Muriel the Magnificent. This time, she studied the images intently. She found herself especially intrigued by the photos of Muriel spread wide, where every labial fold was blatantly revealed. There was one shot in particular where Muriel held her spread knees up to her breasts. Her tummy bulged enticingly in this position and then the smooth-shaven vulva seemed somehow more garish, even the anus was visible.
“There’s something really filthy looking about that,” Muriel said quietly, realising that her pulse had quickened.
As she studied the rest of the images, she fondled her nipples through the material of her nightgown. Then she discovered that the crotch of her panties was soaking.
“Jesus,” she sighed. “Enough!” She closed down the browser and got off-line.
Muriel was too distracted now to make coffee. She decided to go out for a cup instead. She got dressed and went down to the corner café. It was a beautiful sunny day, with a hint of spring in the air. Muriel surprised herself again, this time by ordering a double latte and, at the last minute, adding a cream-filled, chocolate-iced doughnut to her order! She couldn’t remember the last time she’d tasted a doughnut and now, suddenly, she craved it.
Muriel sat down at a small table in front of the window and watched the people on the street walk briskly past. As her teeth sunk into the gooey pastry, her mouth filling with the rich flavour of fats and sugar, Muriel barely suppressed an audible moan. It was delicious, it was the best doughnut Muriel could remember tasting. She made a mental note to have breakfast out more often.
She shifted in the seat and caught the scent of herself. She was still wet between her legs. As she drank her double latte, her mind filled with pictures of the other Muriel’s shaved pussy and spread legs. She watched the girls walking past the window and wondered which ones had shaved pussies concealed beneath their jeans or under their dresses.
This is crazy, she thought. Still, she loved the feeling of surrendering to the lusty pictures filling her head. She felt hypnotised. Before she knew it, her mind was made up. She tossed her empty cup into the trash can and headed home to her apartment, to her bathroom, where she was determined she would shave herself.
Muriel stripped naked and sat on the edge of her tub. By now, she was so aroused between her legs that even something as light as shaving foam felt incredibly exciting. The steel blade, repeatedly stroking her swollen mound, caressing it, revealing more and more of her increasing nakedness, drove Muriel to ecstasy. When she washed away the final residue and admired her handiwork in the mirror, she was thoroughly enchanted with the new vision of herself. She remained naked the rest of the afternoon, studying herself admiringly in the mirror, adopting many provocative poses, masturbating herself to orgasm seven times. When she had finally exhausted herself, she collapsed on her bed and stared up at the ceiling.
What good is it to look so inviting if there’s no one around to appreciate it? she wondered, coming peculiarly close to admitting that she wanted a lover.
Suddenly, Muriel realised she was starving. She pulled on some clothes and headed outside for dinner. She chose a local Italian trattoria, an establishment that had been in her neighbourhood for years but which she had never once stepped inside.
It was early enough on a Saturday evening that the host was able to accommodate a single diner with no reservation without much difficulty. He showed Muriel to a small table in the corner. The restaurant was dimly lit, a single votive flickering seductively on every table, Frank Sinatra crooning out from the speakers.
“Something to drink before dinner?”
Muriel looked up at the waiter as if in a trance. The warm timbre of his masculine voice had melted into her ears. His dark eyes were beautiful, his shoulder-length black hair pulled into a neat ponytail behind his head. Suddenly Muriel wanted wine. Red wine. The best vintage. Maybe even a whole bottle if they wouldn’t serve her the best vintage by the glass. She’d drink what she wanted, without concerning herself about being wasteful for a change.
When the waiter returned with the bottle of wine, Muriel noticed for the first time that he was probably much younger than she, but she didn’t care. She remained entranced. As he poured her a glass to taste, he seemed to eye her seductively, making Muriel wonder if he could smell her from where he was standing. She found herself hoping he could. Soon a busboy hovered around her with a basket of bread, then another came near to pour her some water. A different waiter came by for her food order, and, later, the host was back to see how she was enjoying her meal.
She felt flushed. Never had Muriel been surrounded by so many attentive and attractive men. She returned to her apartment reeling from the thought of so much seemingly available masculinity in the world
.
She couldn’t resist booting up the computer one more time.
The page was back to loading slowly, but within a few moments, “Muriel the Magnificent” was flashing on her monitor once again. Only this time, the selection of jpegs had changed. Muriel felt slightly alarmed: this was an active web page after all. Who was this other Muriel whom she was so voyeuristically enjoying?
She studied the new photos with acute interest, for now Muriel the Magnificent was no longer solo, she had a male companion – one who was remarkably endowed. In one photo, the companion stood behind her, clutching two good-sized handfuls of Muriel’s boobs, while his stiff erection poked up between Muriel’s spread legs. The images became more provocative as the page continued to load. In fact, in one photo after another, a purely pornographic tryst between two rambunctious lovers was thoroughly exposed.
Oh, God, this is what I want, thought Muriel deliriously, as picture after picture assailed her eyes and her fingers worked tirelessly down under her skirt.
The male companion looked satisfyingly familiar – much like the waiter at the trattoria who had poured Muriel her wine, who had kept her glass enticingly filled throughout the course of her incredible meal. The same waiter who had eyed her knowingly, as if he were ready to scoop up a bit of her smell with his fingers; as if he were aching to taste her.
In one photo, the lovers were passionately entwined, their copulating genitals readily captured by the camera’s lens. Another pose illustrated why Muriel was so magnificent: her lover’s substantial shaft filled her mouth to capacity. There were still more shots of the lovers performing intercourse in every position. The final parting shot, of course, was a daunting close-up of Muriel’s snug anus stretching to accommodate every thick inch of her companion’s probing tool.
When the final image loaded in front of Muriel’s eager eyes, she succumbed to another orgasm. Her eighth for the day – by far, a personal record. Muriel forced herself to shut down the computer and find her way to a hot shower. But what a glorious day it had been.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 1 Page 41