The Mammoth Book of the Best New Erotica Read online

  Willem stops on his way to the kitchenette and looks at Clive. Clive is still smirking, but in a wholly different way.

  “Only for unpacking?” Willem inquires.

  “Well, the bed’s already unpacked, innit?”

  The first sex in a new home is unique, preserved somehow in the watching walls that have already seen so much. It marks the space as your own, and you are conscious of this during the act. It also awakens things in the space that may have lain dormant for years – currents, if you will, or points of energy, or electromagnetic impulses. Or ghosts.

  Clive and Willem don’t know anyone has been murdered here. Clive has heard of Joe Orton and his famous death, though he would be hazy on the details if asked. Willem has seen two of Orton’s plays produced in Rotterdam, but knows little of the author’s life in London. He found the plays very clever, had admired their facile wit. Now here he is, all unknowing, sucking his lover’s cock on the spot where that wit met its end.

  Admittedly, it is the obvious place for a bed, against one of the longer walls under the big window. Thirty years’ worth of paint, the latest coat a semenesque oyster-white, covers the bloodstains and nightmare collages. Clive lies sprawled on the bed, his back arched, his fingers tangled in Willem’s hair. Willem’s mouth is hot and smooth on his cock, tongue teasing the head, lips slipping down the shaft. The soreness and tension of moving day begin to drain away, and Clive lets himself relax into a stupor of equal parts bliss and exhaustion.

  What the FUCK . . .

  This is Joe’s first thought, and he suspects that it is not particularly original. But the feeling is too much to describe: the memory of the hammer blows, the sensation of leaving his body slowly, so slowly, trying to wrench himself free of the mangled meat like an animal chewing off its paw in a trap. Kenneth nearby, but maddeningly cold and dead, having taken the easy way out. Having got the last word. Kenneth was not bound to this place; he could have died anywhere.

  After that, nothing. It might have been a second or a century since the first blow fell. There was no heaven, no hell, absolutely nothing at all. Just as Joe had always expected. Until now. Until he finds himself not only sentient, but in the middle of an orgasm.

  “Willem!” he hears himself gasping. The name is unknown to him, but the sensations are deliciously familiar.

  The young man who has just finished sucking his cock looks up, smiling. His face is square, honest, and beautiful, his eyes china-blue, his full lips still glistening with traces of come.

  “Please, will you fuck me now?” he says.

  “Well – well, all right.”

  “You’re not too tired?” Willem has a charming little accent, German or Dutch; could be Hottentot, for all Joe cares.

  “Absolutely not.” As he gets up onto his knees, he takes stock of this blessed body he has found himself in. Its build is much like his own, smallish but solid. It has a big uncircumcised cock already swelling back to half-mast as Willem kisses his mouth, strokes his chest, bites his nipples. It feels young, healthy, glorious.

  He turns Willem around and rubs his cock between the younger man’s ass-cheeks. The crack of Willem’s ass is lightly furred with gold. He groans as Willem pushes back against him. Willem passes him a tube of lubricant and a condom. Joe applies the lube to his erect cock and Willem’s pretty ass, gently sliding a finger in, then two. He tosses the condom away, having no idea what else he is supposed to do with it.

  Willem feels Clive entering him unsheathed, which is strange but not entirely without precedent; each of them has tested negative three times, and since the third time they’ve gone condomless once or twice. It feels so good that he doesn’t protest now. Clive’s naked cock slides way up inside him, faster and harder than Clive usually puts it in. Clive’s hands are clamped on Willem’s hips, pulling Willem onto him. Clive has always been a wonderful fuck, but Willem cannot remember the last time he felt so thoroughly penetrated.

  It seems to go on for hours. Just when he’s sure Clive is going to come, must come, Clive stops and catches his breath and kisses the back of Willem’s neck for a bit, then starts fucking him again. At one point he pulls out, flips Willem over with no apparent effort, pushes Willem’s legs up to his chest, and re-enters him. They settle into a slow, deep rhythm. Clive is nuzzling at Willem’s mouth, not just kissing him but inhaling his breath, sucking hungrily at his lips and tongue. Hungrily. That’s how Clive is making love to him, like a man starved for it.

  At last Clive whispers, “I’m going to come now.” His cock seems to go deeper yet, and Willem feels it pulsing inside. Then Clive is holding him ever so tightly, pushing his face into Willem’s neck and (Willem could almost swear) sobbing. His sperm sears Willem’s insides, hot and effervescent, melting into Willem’s tissues and suffusing them with something Willem has never felt before. It is a little like an acid trip, if all the hectic colour and strange splendour of an acid trip could be folded into the space of two sweating, shuddering bodies.

  “Thank you,” says Clive, kissing him. Willem sees that Clive is crying, and when he kisses back, the tears taste of salt and copper on his tongue.

  Clive knows something happened while Willem was sucking his cock, but he can’t say just what. It was the sex of his life (both his cock and Willem’s ass are satisfyingly sore for days), but there was something detached about it, almost as if he’d been watching himself fuck Willem instead of actually doing it.

  Never mind, he tells himself. They were both exhausted from moving; that’s why it was a bit odd. Not bad, though. He wouldn’t actually mind if it happened again.

  Within days of their arrival, Clive’s entire Amsterdam portfolio is taken on by a posh London gallery for a handsome commission. He won’t be doing any portrait work for a while. On the way home to give Willem the good news, Clive buys a Polaroid camera.

  When he enters the flat, he is surprised to see Willem banging away on his old electric typewriter. As far as Clive knows, Willem hasn’t done a lick of writing since the move. But now a sheaf of pages has accumulated on the desk beside him.

  “I wasn’t thinking of anything in particular,” Willem explains, “and then suddenly I had an idea for a play.”

  “A play?”

  “Yes, I’ve never written one before. Never even liked the idea.” Willem shrugged. “I don’t know what’s got into me, but I hope it stays.”

  Worth More Than a Thousand Words

  Lawrence Schimel

  I have never been good at keeping a diary. It presupposes an audience, supposedly one’s self, but I have never been comfortable with the idea. I am afraid someone will find it, and read it, and I will have bared my soul to a stranger, or worse, someone I’m close to. I am afraid because I have done this to others. Friends of mine. My sister. I have always been a voyeur.

  Reading someone’s diary is the thrill of the forbidden. The knot of worry in the stomach, the fear of being discovered. When I was younger, I read porn that way. I didn’t need to. My grandfather kept stacks of porn magazines on top of the toilet in the bathroom of his apartment; I could have read them at leisure, in that small locked room, poring over the pictures. But I would go to a bookstore and sneak porn magazines from the rack, hiding them inside a copy of something innocuous like Cats Magazine. I would walk back to the middle of the store and stand in an empty section to flip through the pictorials. I hardly even looked at the pictures, glancing down for a second and taking a mental photograph, my heart racing as I quickly glanced back up to make sure no one was coming down the aisle where I stood, to make sure no one ever saw what I was doing. As soon as someone came near, or if I even thought they would, I closed the magazine and moved from Gardening to Humour, to wherever there wasn’t anyone else.

  My heart pounds the same way when I read someone’s diary, even if there’s no chance of my being discovered – they’re away for the weekend and I have the only key to the apartment, whatever. It is forbidden, and I feel there is someone watching me as I reach for
the slim, clothbound book that’s hidden beneath the bed. I flip through the pages, scanning for any mention of myself, or anything else that catches my eye. I look for moments where the handwriting changes, clues to highly emotional scenes. I’m like a vampire, thirsting not for blood, but vicarious emotion. Thirsting furtively, at night, when no one else is around, lest I be discovered.

  I am always careful to replace the diary exactly as I found it. If it were my own, I would notice if it had been moved, even if anything around it had been moved. I guess that’s why I’ve never been able to keep a diary before. I’m too paranoid. Afraid of exposing myself. I’ve broken the trust of too many friends who left me alone in their rooms while they went to class or work, while they went on vacation for a week, trusting me to water their plants. Trusting me not to read their diary.

  So I know someone else will read this. I can’t help being aware of you. I feel as if I’m writing for you, not for myself. But I have something I want to write down, need to write down, so I don’t lose it. So I don’t forget. I know you’re reading over my shoulder, so I’m going to fill in the background for you. After all, who knows what will happen? Fifteen, twenty years from now, the stranger who finds this book again, buried in an attic at the bottom of a box of books, might be myself. And my heart will begin pounding as I realize it is a diary, and I open it and read all the details I’d long since forgotten.

  There are some who consider thirteen an unlucky number. Not I. But I’ve got reason; I have a lover thirteen years older than myself.

  Not unlucky, but still witchy. She’s definitely a witchy-woman. Enchanting seductress. It’s almost impossible not to be drawn in by her. When we go out together I watch it happen to the men around her. And I, I was drawn in, as well, although it’s harder for me to know what happened, trapped in her glamour.

  I’ve wondered sometimes if it was a potion she made, something she wore. She’s an aromatherapist, always using subtle essences of plants to influence mood. Lavender. Ginger. Scents I’ve never been able to identify. Her home is suffused with a rich aroma of comfort and warmth, an amnesiac to anxiety.

  Yet each time a man is ensnared by her spell she is taken by surprise. It is perhaps that very aspect which is so appealing: she does not wield her sexuality like a weapon or tool, but is so familiar with it, so intimate, that it sits upon her as an integral part of her being, as simply as the features of her face. If you saw her, you would understand what I meant. If you saw her, you would be drawn in by her spell.

  While she may not understand the effect she has, she is now aware of it. We met at a poetry reading in Boston, and exchanged business cards. Later that week, a story showed up in my mail, a piece entitled, “Desire”. It was our first flirtation. I know not to assume that a first person narrator is the author, but I could not help noticing similarities, how men seemed drawn to the protagonist like moths to a porchlight on a summer’s evening. The writing was infused with that same sensuality which surrounds her presence. Though the story wasn’t full of explicit sex, it played a strong role, tantalizingly alluded to or glimpsed. And the writing itself was lush, like a flurry of caresses moving up one’s thigh and across belly and chest.

  A writer myself, I appreciated the sumptuousness of her prose. I was also very turned on by it. Words have always held strong sway over me. Perhaps she’d sensed this about me, and thus chose to make her first move in print. Subtly, yet relentlessly, working my weakness.

  Perhaps because she understood this power words held over me, I was able to persuade her to let me read an erotic fantasy she had written for another lover of hers. Showering after the first night we spent together, I’d found her aromatherapy jars in the medicine cabinet. Later, I asked her if she ever used them in lovemaking. She said she had, and also mentioned this fantasy she had written. The moment she realized what she had confessed she said, “I can’t believe I just told you that.”

  I begged her to let me read it.

  I was curious. I wondered who he was, what he looked like, why she had chosen to write something for him. I wondered what it would reveal about her, her own desires, her fantasies.

  And the idea of reading something meant for someone else thrilled me. I’ve always been a voyeur. In college, I would lie atop the window seat for hours, warmth on my stomach from the radiator underneath as I stared across the courtyard. I could never see much – the buildings were too far apart – but what I saw was never really the issue. It was the looking. Often I would spend an entire night staring at the yellow squares of light across the way, waiting for the brief shadows to cross their frame, unaware of how time was passing, lost in the act of watching.

  Reading a fantasy for someone else held the same appeal. Already I could feel myself begin to grow hard with anticipation.

  She relented. I’m still not sure why. She’d never shown it to anyone but the man it was written for. But for some reason I convinced her to let me read it. Maybe because she had realized how powerful words were to me, and wanted to help me change, to grow.

  I remember almost everything I read. It’s as if I had a photographic memory, which I don’t, since I only remember words. But eventually I will forget, or not be able to remember exactly. I’m sure that already I must have changed things, remembering what I would have found more erotic rather than what she actually wrote.

  He was an actor who starred in horror films. Naturally, he lived in LA, across the country from her. Most of their relationship therefore took place in words, on the page or the phone. Once, it took place like this:

  For Paul

  I woke up this morning with the most luscious fantasy in my mind. Here, let me share it with you. Then we can both enjoy it.

  We are in a luxury hotel; it is night. You sit on the bed in a white silk robe, gazing through the window at the panorama below: a city bejewelled with light. A muffled whisper of traffic filters through to your ears, almost as soothing as the surf.

  Your back is to me. I can see from your reflection in the window that your eyes are closed in quiet contemplation, listening to the city sounds below. I ease onto the bed and move towards you, circle your chest with my arms from behind, rest my head against yours. Your hand lifts to caress mine; you smile, sigh, eyes still closed. A gentle squeeze, and I pull my arms away, letting my hands glide beneath the collar of your robe and slide the silk away like milk pouring from your skin. I knead your shoulders for a moment and am pleased to find you already so relaxed. My fingers wind through your hair, soft, like a spider sorting threads for her web. Your moan is barely audible until it evolves into another sigh. I am so happy to please you.

  Knowing how much you enjoy it, I let my fingertips sneak down to your neck and feather your back with caresses. They play at your shoulder blades, tease your spine, explore your sides as you wriggle against them. I switch to a calmer touch, flat hands soothing nerve endings, then tickle once more, enough to bring delight, no more.

  You turn to kiss me. Once, softly, then again. Our mouths open and we feel the warm moistness of each other’s desire. I hear a tiny sound of surprise from you and you move away, smiling.

  “What’s that scent?” you ask, leaning forward to sniff and kiss again.

  “Can you guess?” I ask.

  “Let me smell that again.” You turn yourself fully around to embrace me and kiss me deeply. “Flower, I think.”

  “Yes, flower. A special flower.”

  Another kiss. Another sniff. “Not roses. Not lilacs; not so sweet.” Another kiss. “Ah! Lavender.”

  “Yes!” I smile. “Do you like it?”

  “Love it. Did you put it on your entire body?”

  “Nothing so dull as that, sweetie.”

  You are intrigued, guessing that there is more. I know the notion of impending discoveries excites you. I can feel your erection against my thigh as you guide me down onto my back. Your hands are delightfully warm; I feel heat through the wine-coloured silk of my robe as they find my breasts. You whisper my name
as your mouth reaches my neck. You kiss, and then you lick. “Lemon. That one’s easy!”

  I turn to bare more of my scented neck to you . . . take it. My fingers find your hair again as you clasp your hungry mouth to my neck. My turn to sigh now. A wave of passion crests inside me and I press you away and onto your back so I can devour you with hot, wet kisses on your neck and face. The fingers of one hand are still entwined in your hair. The other dances across your chest, down your stomach, finds you hard and holds as your hips push against me, a promise of delights to come.

  Both hands move now to your face, learning the features with my fingers as a blind woman might. I close my eyes to enhance the sensation, resculpting the lines of your face. Your hands grab my wrists. You press them to your lips.

  “Peppermint,” you say. “Peppermint wrists.”

  “You’re very good at this,” I answer, kissing your hands. My tongue presses along the inside of your palm, spreads your fingers as it dances between them. “Have you done this before?”

  “Never,” you declare, tugging at me until I rest on top of you. You suck at my wrists like a child with a candy cane until the scent is gone. “But I sure hope to again.” Straddling you in this way, I notice how very wet I am by the way you nearly slide into me without effort. But, ah, not yet, no.

  I move forward, kiss the top of your head, rub my body along yours until my breasts are at your lips. Your lips part automatically and my right nipple stiffens in response to your tongue. You taste the left nipple before making your guess. They are both the same, but you are not sure you’ve got this one right. “Smells like . . . gin? Even tastes like gin.” Determined to make your guess conclusive you taste once more, moving between my nipples, licking, sucking, thrilling me!

  When I can find my voice, I tell you, “Yes. It’s juniper berry. What they make gin from.”

  You release my breast long enough to grin and say, “Hmm, educational as well as nutritional,” then return to sucking. Your right hand nudges between our bodies and finds me wet and wanting. One finger slips inside me and I press against it, moaning softly. Two on the next gentle thrust . . . oh, I could almost come right now! But, no, there are still discoveries to make.