He was as excited as I was. The air in the room was heavy with the scent of arousal. The only sound was the gentle metallic click of my alarm clock and our own frenzied breathing. I wanted to taste him, to explore him, to possess him as he had already taken me. I found his stiff brown nipples first with my fingers then my mouth. He tasted salty. Moans and gasps erupted from his mouth as I teased his erect buds. He writhed under me.
I lost myself in the sensations of his body. His nipple in my mouth was hard and rubbery; he wriggled as I nibbled it. His chest heaved, breath coming fast and short as his arousal increased. The warmth of his body engulfed me. I slithered downwards, kissing as I went until I found myself kneeling between his beautiful spread thighs. His cock stood up, hard and proud, pointing at the ceiling. I could see the tip of his cock glistening with pre-come.
I fastened my mouth over his erection, wrapped my arms round his spread thighs and started to suck. I was anxious to do it right but I needn’t have worried. The urgent writhing and thrusting movements let me know that my efforts were having the desired effect. I lapped at his helmet, sucked it, even nibbled on it. I slid my tongue up and down the full length of his shaft, pushed it against the single eye. He was wet and slippery, hard and hot.
I pulled him closer as I sensed his responses becoming more frenzied, more urgent. Tongue darting and probing, lips sucking, I tried to give him as much pleasure as he had given me. It was getting harder for me to keep up with his movements as he thrust his whole pelvis into my face and tried to grind it against my mouth. Moans, groans and sighs escaped his throat. His hands snaked down to join mine and clasp them.
I felt his muscles contract in my mouth. I freed a hand and slipped it between my face and his body. Quickly I curled my hand around the base of his cock, just in time to feel the first throbbing earthquake of his orgasm. He began to cry out then, wailing almost, like the kind of sound Muslim women make at funerals. I guessed it felt good. He began shuddering all over, rocking to and fro with the rhythm of my mouth and hand. He twitched in my mouth and began to pump out spunk. I swallowed it eagerly down.
I thought it would never end but, eventually, the cries faded, the throbbing slowed, then stopped and his breathing returned to normal. Joe smiled and raised his head weakly, his beautiful face surrounded by its halo of sweat-soaked curls and smiled down at me.
We spent the night, all of the next day and the other eleven days of Christmas doing what comes naturally and, let me tell you, when an incubus comes, the whole of the neighbourhood knows about it.
That was a year ago and I never did go back to the video shop. I opened my own florists with the money I’d inherited from my mum and dad and the nest egg I’d always been afraid to touch because it was meant for my old age. Well, I don’t intend to get old for a very long time yet and in the meantime I intend to live life to the full.
Joe works with me in the shop during the daytime and we’re doing pretty well. With my artistic flair and his knack for charming the customers, we seem to be making a go of it. ‘Blooms’ the shop is called – it was Joe’s suggestion. He says that’s what happened to me, I’ve bloomed. Maybe he’s right, I certainly know I’m alive these days.
It didn’t take a trainee angel showing me what life would be like if I’d never been born to bring about the transformation. A beautiful sexy spirit did the trick for me, by helping me to unlock the passion, love, power and joy that lives inside us all. Maybe Frank Kapra knew a thing or two after all.
The End of the Pier Angel Blake
‘I was beautiful – once.’
Steve leant back in his chair, letting his fingers wind through the phone cord, and stared at the photos of her arrayed before his desk, trying to imagine how she might look now. He’d selected the prints specially, out of hundreds he’d collected, as his personal favourites: Lisette bound with ropes around her arms, midriff and legs, gagged, her eyes staring up at the camera in mute supplication; Lisette and another girl, both in leopard-print bikinis, clawing at each other, their hair wild over their faces, eyes sparkling with feigned rage; and his absolute favourite: Lisette modelling a training corset, an impossibly tight belt around her waist and a choker around her neck, gazing into the camera, eyes suggestively heavy lidded, glossy black hair tumbling down over one shoulder, her full lips parted just a little to show the promise of the dark warm mouth within.
If she’d been in her early twenties then, and all his researches for the fan club indicated that she had been, she’d be in her seventies now, and he shuddered a little at the thought of her wizened frame, so far from the voluptuous figure he’d seen so often, fantasised about so much. Yet still her voice held a husky promise, a hint of something forbidden, something more … refined than the young women Steve saw around him today, mincing their stick-insect legs and swinging the ever-present shopping bags, brash and brittle.
‘I’m sure you look just as stunning today,’ he offered, still barely able to believe that he was finally speaking to her. She didn’t seem to be aware of the lengths he’d gone to to get her number; she’d just picked up the phone with a dusky ‘hello?’, and had listened to him rattle off his prepared spiel with hardly any comment, nothing but a whispered ‘oh?’ when he’d revealed, unable to keep a note of pride out of his voice, that he was the president of her fan club; nor had she responded as he’d expected and hoped she would, with delight, or at least gratitude, when he’d explained that he’d tracked her down to make sure she received some of the royalties from people who were still making money out of her image. Surely she’d known she was a cult icon, her picture on the covers of countless fanzines, Camden market badges and rockabilly Tshirts?
Most people seemed to assume she was already dead, although he wasn’t about to tell her that. He’d put more effort into finding this number than anything else he’d done in his life, chasing forever-vanishing hints of it, always elusive, always just out of reach, disappearing like the tail of the rabbit down the hole. After what seemed an eternity of dead ends, bad calls and rumours, he’d finally tracked it down to a second-hand magazine dealer in LA, an individual specialising in the fifties cheesecake industry of which Lisette was such an important part. The man had oozed sleaze on the phone, and had only agreed to part with the number – had only acknowledged that it even existed – when Steve had sent him a signed original of one of John Willie’s Gwendoline paintings, a pony-girl image that it broke his heart to lose; but he wasn’t about to miss out on this opportunity.
The first shock had come when he’d finally received the number. It was a UK number, which wasn’t too much of a surprise – she was British, after all, and, even though she’d modelled for some American photographers, he knew she’d returned home after her star had begun to fade in the US. What was surprising was, when he checked the area code, he found that it belonged to a tatty seaside town in the West Country. He could have understood her ending up in one of the fishing villages in Devon or Cornwall, remote retreats with a genuine beauty outside the summer months, when they were swamped by ice-cream-guzzling tourists; but this was further north, not far from Bristol, and while Steve had never been there he’d heard of it and knew it had a reputation for casual violence and drug problems. A dead town, like so many littering the coast.
Her voice broke into his thoughts with an unexpected question.
‘Would you like to come and see me?’
There was a coquettish tone to the voice that startled him almost as much as the invitation itself. This was what – although he hadn’t dared admit it to himself – he’d hoped she’d ask. The chance to meet her, finally; to be the first, and perhaps only, of the current base of fans, an exclusive treat, and maybe even to see some of her older photos she’d never released. There must be some; surely she’d reward him if he went to visit her?
‘Yes –’ His voice was a croak, and he had to clear his throat before going on. ‘Yes,’ he continued more firmly. ‘I’d love to come and see you. What’s the address?’
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‘Seventy-eight Pier Road. I don’t have many visitors, and I always used to enjoy meeting my fans.’ She chuckled, a low throaty tone.
Steve’s heart was pounding, and he was aware that he’d broken out into a slight sweat, staring at her face in the photo of her wearing the corset. ‘When – when’s good for you?’
‘Any time. But, perhaps, if you could come down this weekend? Saturday?’
Steve would have missed his own wedding to meet her, and as it was he had nothing on for the weekend. ‘I’ll see you then,’ he managed, then stared dumbly at the receiver, as though trying to wring an explanation for the situation he’d suddenly, unexpectedly found himself in from the disconnected tone.
Since his mid-teens, Steve had tried to mould every girl who’d shown an interest in him into the image of Lisette. Some were more amenable than others: a couple of fellow students when he’d been at college, bonding through a shared love of psychotic rock’n’roll and cheap sulphate, had humoured him enough to allow themselves to be tied up in Lisette’s signature poses and outfits, gear that Steve had blown most of his student loans tracking down.
Later girlfriends had tended to be both more involved sexually and more detached emotionally, regarding his obsession with a wry amusement that invariably soured when they realised they could never be, for him, anything more than second-rate copies of an original that had never really existed. Patricia, who’d drawn him in by her evident embarrassment at her voluptuous over-spilling curves, had been the most memorable of these partners, able with judicious application of makeup to pass as a reasonable facsimile of Lisette and throwing herself into the role with a passion that had surprised him.
Shy and prone to blushing in her everyday guise, she’d become a different person entirely when dressed up, demanding to be spanked and fucked hard with the foulest language Steve had heard from anyone, as well as displaying a taste for anal play a million miles away from Lisette’s own tastes, Steve was sure; but even she had tired finally of his inability to acknowledge her as a person in her own right.
He knew his obsession must seem finally like an insult to the girls who were attracted to him, but even approaching his fortieth birthday he couldn’t help himself. And now it hardly seemed to matter: he was going to meet his idol in the flesh.
Steve kicked the wet sand from his leopard-print brothel creepers as he squinted at the corroded street sign. Pier Road. This was it all right. Hunching the shoulders of his black leather jacket against the wind and hugging his bag tightly to his side, part of him wishing he’d worn something more substantial underneath than a Cramps T-shirt, he looked at the house numbers.
One, Two, Three: the numbers ran sequentially down one side of the road, with no houses opposite, just the low sea wall overlooking the bay’s vast expanse of muddy beach. As he walked down the street, he felt a familiar nervous anticipation and took a few deep breaths to calm himself down. It’s OK, he reassured himself: he was about to meet Lisette. It was only natural that he should be feeling nervous.
He approached the end of the road, where it swelled out to a broader area before the gates leading on to the town’s second derelict pier, an abandoned hulk he’d noticed as soon as he reached the seafront. He anxiously counted down the houses, staring at the rusty metal numerals on walls and gateposts, the swell of nervous excitement building to fever pitch, until he reached the final house. Number 75.
He looked around, puzzled, checking again to make sure there were no buildings on the other side of the road. He peered at the number again, then at the two before: 73, 74. He took out the scrap of wrinkled paper from his back pocket and checked that he was looking for the right address, spun round and looked at the gates to the pier, then turned back to the house. He was half-tempted to ring on the bell and ask, but his stomach lurched at the idea. Maybe she didn’t want people to know she was living there – he didn’t want to attract undue attention. He moved towards the pier gates. Maybe there were more properties on the other side.
Closer now, he could see loose trestles hanging down, and holes in the roof of the pavilion at its end of the pier, a rotting pile without even the faded grandeur of the town’s candyfloss and slot machine showcase. Maybe it was being renovated, he thought as he peered through the gates: there were building contractor containers immediately outside, although there was little evidence of anything happening on the pier itself. Still, he couldn’t see much, his view obscured by the concrete wall flanking the gates. A great wave of disappointment built up in him. Maybe she’d given him the wrong address deliberately, trying to dishearten him and make him give up the chase. His neck twitched in an involuntary spasm that made him shake his head; no, she wouldn’t have done that, she seemed too kind on the phone.
There were security notices up on the barbed wire of the fence: trespassers would be prosecuted, the area was under surveillance. That was that, then, there would be nothing ahead. He pressed his face to the gate, clasping the cold wire mesh and leaning on it, looking through to the decayed pier, feeling crushed, rotted, as derelict as the greenish planks, slick with mould, only to feel the gate give, and then swing forwards with a yawning shriek.
At first, he was so surprised that he let go, and the gate swung back towards him. He’d assumed it would be locked, and hadn’t even bothered to make sure. But it wasn’t. He pushed it again experimentally, and when it swung away once more he moved in.
His heart leapt when he saw another small line of houses on the far side of the wall. They were wooden, the planks of their walls faded from the combined effects of sun and salt water, but they looked as ruined as the rest of the pier, unlived in, the windows frosted with salt rime, the roofs sagging under the weight of years. The door of the first house looked like it had melded with the frame, and the handle had entirely rusted into position. But the number was still recognisable: 76.
He walked slowly down past the next house, aware that he should watch his step here, convinced he could feel the entire structure rocking beneath him in the wind, but feeling a mixture of exultation and panic as he came to the final house. Number 78. It looked better kept than the others; the door seemed to have been opened recently. He looked up, and thought he saw a movement at the window; but the light reflecting off the water made him unsure.
He looked around, half-expecting guard dogs to run from wherever the vaunted security was based, but there was nothing, only the distant sounds of the wind and the sea and the groan of the planks underfoot. He knocked on the door, and waited for a reply. Still there was nothing, and he stepped back again to peer up. This time he was sure he saw some movement above him, and he returned to the door to knock again, harder. To his surprise, the door creaked open.
Gingerly, testing the ground with his foot, afraid of stepping on a rotting plank and plunging to the beach below or, worse, ending on the seaweed-slimed rocks, he stepped inside. The first thing he noticed was that the salty sea smell was less strong here, just one note in the musty air, and subsumed by something else; the unmistakable smell of perfume. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could make out a flight of stairs ahead of him, and a corridor leading into darkness to its side.
‘Hello?’ he called out, silently cursing himself for a fool. There could be nothing for him here; at least he hadn’t boasted to anyone else about this errand, but he coloured as he realised that his contact in LA might have tricked him, lured him here, taking one of his most prized possessions into the bargain, and that his humiliation would soon be all over the internet, making him a laughing stock in the community he prized so highly. He turned, his cheeks burning, and was about to step out of the house again when he heard a reply.
‘Hello?’ It was the voice he’d spoken to, low and warmer in the flesh. He stopped. He hadn’t expected a reply. ‘Is that Steven?’
His heart pounded violently in his chest, and he had to pause before replying, croakily, ‘Yes.’
The voice lilted down the stairs to him. ‘Come upstairs; I’m on
the first floor.’
Where he’d reddened with anger just moments before, he knew he was pale now, and felt sick. Still, this was what he’d come for and, as he stepped towards the stairs, his shoes crunching on the sand feathered over the wooden floor, some of his former excitement returned.
He climbed the steps slowly, mechanically feeling the camera in his shoulder bag and looking down to see his shoes leaving prints in the dust lying thickly on the stairs. Nobody had come this way for a while, that much was clear. Perhaps there was another exit? No, it was more likely that she was convalescing from a long illness. She was old, she might not be mobile; perhaps she had a helper, someone who came to do her shopping for her, someone who kept her company, told her stories.
His heart in his mouth, he stood before the door at the end of the stairs and knocked, his arm leaden.
‘Come on in, it’s open,’ called out the voice.
Steve pushed the door open and stepped inside. Immediately his apprehension faded, as he found himself in a treasure trove of cheesecake paraphernalia. The room was lit garishly by hoops of naked bulbs around several mirrors, and he stood in the entrance, blinking after emerging from the gloom. His eyes took in the framed photographs on the walls, almost all of Lisette herself; the movie poster that took up the best part of one wall, for Moon’s Milk, a burlesque film she’d starred in, her one Hollywood feature, which Steve knew back to front: he even had the same poster himself at home. And on a clothes rail running along the wall to his left he saw some of the outfits she’d worn in the photo shoots. He’d had no idea such things existed, and he moved forwards to touch them, amazed, when his fingers made contact with the leather, the satin, the silk, that they were in such good condition.
But even as he felt them, the history soaking up through his fingertips and leaving him light headed, he realised he’d already seen her, sitting in front of a mirror and make-up table at the far end of the room. And what he saw he refused to accept.
Love on the Dark Side Page 24