Readerotica - Free Erotica for Your eReader

by PriveCo Inc.

  …A tiny Martha voice cried out in betrayal and pain. How could she?...

  …The phone rang. John lunged to pick it up with a movement that nearly sent Anne/Martha over the edge, but his words sent a torrent of ice water down her spine.

  "Yeah?" he gasped.

  "Jimmy, look, I can't talk right now...what? They were where? The Motel 6?" Terror captured Anne/Martha's mind as John looked down at her, pain blossoming across his face. "No, I -- No, thank you for telling me, Jim." He hung up, looked at her for a long, questioning moment, then got up and left without a word. Emptied and alone, Anne/Martha shook quietly for a long time before the wracking sobs broke free and consumed her…

  …Martha tore the gown in half, ripping it off her body with a strength that would have surprised her if she'd been capable of noticing. How could Anne have done that? How could she have hurt such a good man? For Martha knew John now, knew both him and Anne intimately and completely. John was the most handsome, responsible, loving man she had ever encountered. She could hardly conceive why any woman would stray from him, even having just been inside the mind of one who did. What fool would throw that away? John was perfect. The memory of his tortured face looking down on her, pleading for explanation, tore her heart.

  Riding Anne's mind, she had learned all there was to know about him, his tastes, his loves, his life, their wedding day, his favorite Chinese restaurant, everything that Anne knew. She had felt their thundering passion -- and Anne had cut out his heart. Living through both events in a matter of moments was enough to tear her soul in two.

  Anne's lover seemed a poor replacement. Young and rough and...Martha realized with a shock that the first nightie she had touched in the store, the one with the brutal penetration, had been Anne's as well. She had worn it in the motel.

  Numb, Martha realized something else. This had happened recently. The feelings were too fresh, too intense. John finding out about Anne's infidelity somehow led directly to Anne's lingerie ending up in a thrift shop, and the possible reasons kept Martha awake for the rest of the night. Did he leave her? Did he kill her? No, John couldn't do that. She knew him too well; he was a truly good man.

  With a shock, she realized she could find him. She knew where he lived, what his phone number was, what time he got home. And now, right now, he was alone. And hurting.

  Sunday morning at the thrift shop. The cashier opened the front door and jumped aside as this crazy lady rushed in, yanked an old lace glove off her hand, and began grabbing at every article of clothing in the store. It was the weirdest thing the cashier had ever seen, in a business where weirdness was part of the inventory. The lady would grab a nightgown, her eyes would pop and she'd sag a little, then she'd shake it off and grab the next one. It was like each one gave her a migraine or something, and she was desperate to get 'em all. She went from rack to rack, shuddering with spasms, and almost fell to her knees in the underwear bins. But she never once slowed down.

  Martha drove herself on, memory after memory, life after life. She dashed through the thoughts and lives of thousands of people, searching for clues to John. She had to know if he was all right, if he was recovering, if he was dying inside, if he needed her. All she could think about was a man she had never met, a man she had worshipped completely and betrayed utterly in the space of ten minutes, a stranger with whom she was deeply in love. Waves of second-hand thought washed over her mind, threatening to overwhelm her, but she kept grabbing everything within reach, looking for traces of her lover.

  If I don't find him here, she thought raggedly, there are an awful lot of thrift shops out there. It's amazing the perfectly good things people throw out. And she reached for the next memory.

  ###

  Thank you for reading Readerotica sponsored by Vibrators.com where coupon code “Readerotica” will save you 10% off your incredibly private order.

  (continued)

  Chapter 5 - The Lucky Dick Club

  The night after I won the lottery I made a list of all the men I’d ever slept with. I’m not one of those girls who pretends she can’t remember. There’s only been a couple dozen, and I can recall every moment that my skin has been stroked, every time another human being has spent their energy pleasing me, no matter what their real intentions might have been. This is something basic that men would be wise to tattoo on their hearts—women remember. We believe that it all matters, even when we’re drinking and dancing at the clubs and acting like post-second-wave-feminist-entrepreneurial-sex-goddesses with tattoos on our breasts and condoms tucked inside our stockings. We remember. Girls want dreams to come true.

  Money’s never been much in my dreams, though, so it’s ironic I would win so much. Pay off my bills, buy a new car, share with friends—then what? I have what I need, don’t have kids, my family is long gone, I live my days peering at the world through the vision of things sexual, hiding in my imagination more often than not, consumed by music and art and passion and ideas. I think of the French film Amelie and it comes to me, the need for whimsy and kindness and appreciation of some of the great lovers I’ve known.

  I count them. I rate them. I am surprised to find that for every two bad lovers there is at least one great one to offset them. There are men whose passion still leaves imprints on my skin, there are men whose every word of affection was like diamonds and rubies and pearls falling from their tongues, enriching my soul with the bright colors of the morning sun. I check off the bad lovers, laughing, hoping for them that somewhere along the line they’ve learned to pay attention, learned that they need to do something in this world beside just take up space and waste the time of girls who matter.

  Michael J., New York City—he’s first on the list that remains. I want to share my lotto winnings with him, and the others on the list, and I want them to know it’s because they were great lovers, but I never want them to know it’s from Emily, this girl who now lives in London and who will never forget. I ask my lawyer, Jackson—who happens to also be the man I’m currently sleeping with—how to do this, and we begin.

  It’s a simple letter. We copy the MacArthur Genius Grant idea, the people who call up scientists and artists and philosophers out of the blue—surprise!—and tell them they’ve won a fortune for their good work. Only mine’s a bit more personal. We start calling it The Lucky Dick Club privately, but give it a more formal name for legal purposes.

  To: Michael J.

  From: THE LDC FOUNDATION

  You have been selected by our committee to receive an LDC Powerballs Grant. Our selection is done in secret, and there are no strings attached to this award. The first of four checks for $25,000 is enclosed; additional checks will be issued on the first of September in the next three years, for a total of $100,000.

  You are considered a pioneer in touch, a kind and passionate man in a world of sloppiness and unreturned calls. You have demonstrated particular strength and insights with women. LDC grant recipients are singled out annually by the foundation for extraordinary creativity in their desires. You have been rated as a bold, experimental lover, whose social and philosophical themes speak to the heart of modern society. You have shown a marked capacity for self-direction, and a respect and passion for the female gender that should be emulated by all mankind.

  We share with you one of our committee member’s recommendations:

  I remember Michael J . . . he was tall and kind and had eyes a girl could get lost in. He took the trouble to be romantic—there were strawberries and peonies and cream for tea—and he took the time to worship my body from head to toe with his kisses and his compliments. I am sure he knew prettier women; I am sure he had way more experience than me; but when I was with him I knew that I was the most sensual woman in all of New York City. He had hands that could make love to me all by themselves, hands almost like a masseuse, knowing, caressing, finding the spots that mattered, carrying me up beyond my physical sensations onto a higher plane of loving. When he would finally enter me I knew that there was only one reason
that we had such beautiful bodies that fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and it was so that he could drive me hard and long into the night until I had not a single ion of negative energy left in my soul, left only with light and enthusiasm and gratitude for existing in such a beautiful fucking world.

  The LDC Foundation is proud of your performance. Do carry on.

  Michael J. is in his forties now, he’s a man in New York City, he’s not likely to ever remember who it was, since I didn’t give any identifying details. We send the letter off. I’m going crazy waiting. Jackson loves me passionately to help ease my anxiety, and I swear he seems to be working on becoming a better lover every single day . . . but I don’t even know Michael or any of his friends well enough to check up on what’s happening. Finally, three weeks later the check is cashed, and the “foundation” never even receives a call in question. But I’m betting he thinks about it every single time he looks at a woman, and maybe even every time his lucky dick gets hard.

  The second grant goes to a lover from almost fifteen years ago. I remember Allen McD, now in Toronto . . . he is the hottest man I’ve ever known, hot in that way that you can’t even describe to friends until they’ve experienced something like it. He’d back me into a corner in a club or the subway or just a doorway on the street and begin to make love to me. He made me feel like I was born to fuck. It wasn’t really a sensual thing, more like two animals in the night in heat and in need. It wasn’t a grab and grope thing like guys do, the way women hate, this was in the words and the look and the need to be inside of me, the need expressed as though I was a drug that he would die if he didn’t get another hit of immediately. I began to walk differently during and after Allen McD., a little more swing to my hips, a lot more confidence, an unwritten sign across my chest that said “I am hotter than thou.” Allen McD. wrote those words across me, and I know he wrote them on other women, and whether it was all because we had raging hormones or were nymphos for a while or because he was a troubled soul in so many other ways, it doesn’t matter, because it stays with me today and I still can exude the same air to any man I want every single time I walk down the street.

  The check is cashed, again a month later. Do they sit and ponder, do they hide it, do they think it’s a joke, or finally deposit the check just to see? This time I still have a former business acquaintance in common who works with Allen McD. I wait another month and call her up on some business pretense and chat about things, and then casually ask what good old Allen’s up to these days. “He seems really happy,” she says. “He got engaged last month...and he’s taking her on a long honeymoon to the Grand Caymans . . . you know, he laughs a lot, more than he used to. He ought to bottle it and sell it, whatever it is he’s got going on these days.”

  I’m inspired.

  I’ve finally worked my way up to the man who broke my heart, the lover I had to debate about when making the list. He gave me everything, but then he took it away. Still, time alters perception, and what I remember most about him today is the loving. I remember Nick B., Boston . . . he came to me one day like a bolt of lightning. He tied me up—it’s what I do with all the girls, he told me, it’s what turns me on—he taught me to love the feel of hemp rope against my bare skin, he showed me a different kind of dance, he could control my every move, and he could change the way I breathe. The fact that he did this with way more than one woman at a time more often than not was disappointing, but doesn’t change those midnight hours when I was wrapped up by him and permanently marked with his brand of love.

  I still know Nick B., in that awful ex-lover/friend/ acquaintance way, when you don’t really know a damned thing about each other anymore but pretend that it still matters that you chat occasionally when you’re in town. So I wait, and I call him three months after the check is cashed. He’s doing great, he tells me, he’s finally finished his novel, he has a new inspired state. I ask him if he’s in love, after telling him about my new love, Jackson. “No,” he says, “I decided about four months ago to become celibate for a year and to really think about my history, and what it is that I need to be doing . . . why are you calling me, by the way, what’s up?” I tell him I do volunteer work for a non-profit business now, and just need a stateside referral in Boston from him.

  He laughs. “You were always a do-gooder, Emily.”

  And then it occurs to me, he has no idea how much good I can do. There is more to this story. I am thinking too small, too personally, focused only on my own memories. There are a million lovers out there and more than half of them are bad. I’m watching Jackson sneak in books like From Porn to Poetry, Herotica, 1000 Ways to Tongue Your Lover, and God knows he gets sexier all the time even when I think he can’t get any better, but those books aren’t being read by lousy lovers. This will never do. Jackson often says in his lawyerly way that “money changes everything,” and maybe he’s right.

  I can change the world. Fuck locally, award globally. Life is short. Towers fall down, young people die, still, rudeness is everywhere and lovers continue to thoughtlessly cause pain.

  I can change this.

  This is my calling in life, to rid the world of bad lovers. There are so many women I know, and they’ll share. They remember. We can expand; we can raise funds; we can sneak it to the press; we can inspire lovers everywhere, and the question on everyone’s mind will be—what would someone remember about me? If I work at this long and hard and cleverly enough, by the time we get to post-third-or-fourth-wave-feminist- entrepreneurarial-sex-goddess girls who will still probably have tattoos on their breasts and condoms tucked inside their stockings, they will remember differently, and perhaps all of their dreams will come true.

  ###

  Thank you for reading Readerotica sponsored by Vibrators.com where coupon code “Readerotica” will save you 10% off your incredibly private order.

  (continued)

  Chapter 6 - Bacon, Lola & Tomato

  The first time Lola found out that Keith had cheated on her, she gained ten pounds almost overnight. I love you and I will wait for you, my sweet tomato, his email note had said when she "accidentally" read it on his computer, which was cute, except that he certainly never referred to her as any kind of fruit or vegetable . "It's nobody," he offered with a guilty shrug as she sat slurping her second bowl of ramen noodles, "just a way to waste time online and avoid working on my novel."

  "I am not a tomato," Lola Maria Estonia pointed out to him, just in case he had forgotten. She flipped her long black hair in the way that made men crazy and wrapped it around his wrists as though she could hold him that way. "But you do always wait for me."

  They laughed; she forgave him; they made love; she got up afterwards while he slept and made herself a big bowl of Apple Jacks with raisins and four teaspoons of sugar.

  The day Lola found his cell phone bill she discovered the joy of a box of Krispy Kremes, fresh and warm off the rack, half of them eaten directly while she was still in the bakery, the rest of the dozen melting in her mouth on the drive home. It appeared that the sweet tomato lived just one area code away and received almost daily calls ranging from ten minutes to two hours.

  "I love you, Lola Maria," Keith swore that night when they crawled into their four-poster bed, the same bed they had shared for one year, two months, and twenty-three days. "You are the heart of my dream," he whispered as he slid inside of her and gave the extra soft flesh on her bottom a spank. "You are the voluptuous overflowing lush root of every desire any man has ever had."

  This was why she had moved in with him in the first place, because he had the words that could change the way she breathed. But now his words seemed to be adapting to her new body -- he used to only call her my fragile princess, my little girl.

  "I'm sorry I've hurt you," he whispered as they laid in bed with their legs entangled afterwards. "Is there anything I can do to make it up to you?"

  She hated to think of fighting with him, or worse, to hear him lie again. "I'm hungry," she finally answere
d, sure that more carbohydrates would make her vision of telephone bills disappear into sated bliss. So Keith got up and made her his special omelet with sausage and potatoes, no tomatoes, and for once she ate every single bite on her plate.

  Lola Maria Estonia was up to a size 14 from her former size 8 when she finally went to visit the mysterious tomato. The sun was growing hotter and hotter as she stood on the sidewalk across the street from the address she had tracked down from the phone number. Lola was so fascinated that she took up more space in the world than she used to, even in the middle of the sidewalk, that she only smiled as the warmth grew under her red leather jacket, newly purchased from the Coldwell Collection in a comfy size for the "plus" woman. She had thrown out all of her old skinny jeans, although Keith had suggested that perhaps she should keep them because she would need them again soon. Lola had just smiled and gone shopping.

  It didn't seem that Keith spent much face-to-face time with the tomato, because he was usually at home at his computer, or at his part-time job at the bookstore, or out with Lola. She wasn't about to ask Keith any more questions -- she just monitored his email and phone calls, as though she was a detective. She also checked up on his novel that he said he was almost done with, and realized he hadn't written much of anything in a long time. Why is it that I live with this man? she wondered on her bad days, but then she remembered all the words, and how he made love to her with such passion, and how she was almost sure he was her soulmate, not to mention a good cook.