The Mammoth Book of the Best New Erotica Page 15

  They caress each other for a few minutes. He inserts two fingers deep into the swamp of her cunt, two very long fingers with short, invisible nails, deep into the pit of her belly, exploring her with even more avidity than his cock could, seeking what she desires with an almost feminine science.

  He has no need to change the pressure of his fingers against her neck. She leans over of her own accord towards the cock now surging through the folds of grey material and takes it into her mouth. It feels fresh, almost cold. First the thick, split apricot, which she surrounds with her tongue and bathes in her saliva, then the rest of his mast, as far as she can take it. Three-quarters of it almost, her mouth spreadeagled by this meat of desire, to the point of gagging against this dangerous weapon heading straight for her innards. She retreats to catch her breath and impales her mouth anew against the blood-engorged tip of his cock, torn between the need to suck him forever and forever, to fill herself with his wooden citrus flavour, and the sheer craving to feel him flow wildly inside her mouth, waves breaking against the back of her throat, and the freedom to drink all of him in.

  The man then pulls his fingers out of her heaving cunt and, taking advantage of her position leaning back, moves them, still coated with her vaginal secretions, towards her ass and digs them both into her sphincter. She buckles, rears against the fingers now stretching her wide and, doing so, opens herself even more to his rough caress. And when the man’s thumb at the front now starts applying pressure to her clitoris, she comes violently, feels her asshole spasm against the fingers now burrowing deep inside her, and only the cock now embedded in her mouth prevents her from screaming.

  He allows her to enjoy the moment. His fingers are still digging deep into the very fundament of her ass. His thumb is held hard, unmoving, against her inflamed clitoris. He gently pulls her by her hair and allows her face to rest against his chest while she gasps for air.

  Once the contractions slow down, he slides his fingers out of her and pulls her up against him as he moves onto the seat in front of her, between her splayed legs, and forcefully pulls her down onto him. Initially she fears she won’t be able to accommodate him, that she’s not open enough – he’s so much bigger than anything she’s had inside her before. His cock is still growing as he breaches her, his head brushing her labia aside as his shaft sinks deeply into her. Inside the hot furnace of her cunt, the man’s cock feels as cold as ice. She bites her lips to keep from screaming when she feels the cock assault her back wall, and she takes hold of the top of the seat facing her and, seizing it desperately, allows herself to sway wildly, allowing his cock to plow every inch of her insides as she holds back her pain. The man, his hands gripping the sides of her ass, helps her rise and then again and again brings her down onto him, every time deeper and deeper, as if she were a cave with no end.

  A few metres away from her, she can only glimpse the heads of the other four men every time she rises above the seat: they are still playing cards, oblivious to what is happening to her.

  For a brief moment she realizes she would like to feel him flow inside her, mingling his sperm with all that is floating within her, then the thought is violently abolished because she comes again, ferociously, wantonly, literally screwed onto this cock that is splitting her apart, piercing her very heart.

  She is gasping for breath when the man’s hands let go of her butt and move under her shirt, partly freeing her breasts from the push-up bra, lengthily caressing her hard, sensitive nipples, enjoying himself, then pinching her breasts hard to bring her back to reality from her swoon. Through the waves of ecstasy she is also confusedly angry at him for having discovered she enjoys the combination of pain and pleasure. The man withdraws from her, settles to her left and folds his still-bulging cock so wet from her secretions into his trousers. Will she ever know the taste of his sperm, or just this lingering smell of wet rosewood? His smile is muted, almost affectionate, but distant again as he moves back to his seat, and the last thing she sees of him is his straight neck and his short grey hair.

  She frees herself from the wet panties now cutting into her crotch and shudders, face against the windowpane. She watches the Rhône outside. An old piece of poetry by Victor Hugo comes into her mind: “The noisy river flows, a fast and yellow flow . . .”

  The heat of the sun, the cool of the glass against her cheeks, and the dying vibrations inside her belly now peaceful, moving away, drying up . . .

  She doesn’t wake up in Avignon, nor in Marseilles. When she opens her eyes again, she can still hear the echo in the air of the voice that has just announced their arrival in Saint Raphaël. It is now evening, and only the sporadic lights of the approaching station puncture the darkness.

  She had thought of going to Nice, but why not Saint Raphaël; she’s never been here before.

  She is now alone in the compartment. She rises, still unsteady on her legs – she fell asleep in an awkward position and her left foot has fallen asleep – and moves forward with a slight limp, gracelessly, towards the exit, and almost topples over as she walks down the train’s steps. Blood flows back into her brain, the vertigo fades . . . she takes a few steps forward on solid ground and the dizziness returns.

  I must be hungry, she thinks. And the act of thinking it makes her hungry. She walks towards the station’s exit, figuring that, like all train stations, there must be a bar nearby, a bistro, some Arab grocery.

  But all there is nearby is a Rolls-Royce parked close to the pavement, a very old model with the driver’s seat open to the air and the back shrouded by dark opaque windows. The chauffeur, holding his cap in his hand, turns towards her. “Mademoiselle,” he says, “we were waiting for you. Would you please . . .”

  She is so surprised that she allows herself to be led, just two metres of pavement between freedom and the green English leather seats of the luxury car, and the door closes silently behind her.

  Immediately, it’s night behind the dark windows, which banish even the glow of the street lights, barely allowing pale haloes to survive, just like the mad stars in Van Gogh’s skies.

  The car is totally silent; it could be stationary, just a hint of vibration betraying its motion. They drive for a long time, and the young woman, who is hungry and thirsty and badly needs to pee, is now in a bad mood. They stop for a red light and she tries to get out, but the doors are locked from the outside. She raps her knuckles on the glass separating her from the driver. The man’s neck doesn’t budge.

  The Rolls-Royce leaves Saint Raphaël and takes a small, winding road that rises above sea level and leads deep into the hinterlands. A long time. Hunger. Thirst . . .

  At last, the car slows down as it runs parallel to a high wall that leads them to an intricate metal gate topped by a mess of white metal arrows. The door opens by itself, no doubt electronically controlled, unless there is an invisible caretaker in attendance . . .

  Crunching across a gravel path, the car drives up to a small castle, one of the many modern-style monstrosities that the Côte d’Azur has given birth to over the past century, and comes to a halt in front of its steps. The stylish chauffeur gets out and ceremoniously opens the door.

  In a rush, the sound of the early cicadas of spring invades the Rolls-Royce.

  She alights, intrigued, worried, still angry. A man stands there, on the second step, and, astonished, she recognizes the grey-haired stranger from the train. How in the hell could he have reached this place before her?

  “Please accept our apologies,” he says. “You must be quite tired?” He ceremoniously takes her hand. He is now wearing a smoky grey lounge suit, the same colour as his eyes. “Come,” he says. “We’ve prepared some food for you.”

  She agrees to enter the castle, although she also knows this might be a mistake, that maybe she shouldn’t, now that the falling sun has retreated with all its elementary seduction and the menace of night is ready to take over.

  Once inside, she glances back – intuition or ultimate temptation. The moon is full and s
hines over a freshly mowed lawn at the heart of which stands a white marble statue, maybe of Venus, or even Diana the huntress without her slings and arrows, the languorous shape of the goddess bathing in the moonlight.

  The young woman turns back and, with quiet determination, enters the house.

  “If you wish to freshen up,” the man says, pointing to a door.

  “Yes, I’d like to spray my warpaint on again,” she jokes, repressing the anxiety quickly rising inside her throat.

  As she washes her hands, she gazes at the reassuring image in the mirror: she is still pretty, still looks fresh despite all those hours on the train; some would even say the darker shade below her eyes was an added bonus. “What a face,” she says nevertheless, almost out of habit.

  A snack? On a small table at the centre of the art deco living room filled with delicate furniture, she can see all the things she likes: patisseries, fruit, finger-sized delicacies, lemonade – she is still at an age where you are allowed to enjoy sugary things. In the meantime, the stranger is busy starting a fire inside the big fireplace, kneeling in front of the first orange flames longer than he normally would, exposing his slim neck to her gaze, no doubt aware she is full of questions and in no hurry to supply answers.

  He finally rises from his prone position while she finishes biting into a thin slice of an exquisite tart. “I will take you to your room,” he says. “You’ll find something you can wear for dinner. Take your time. If you want to take a bath, just tell Nora, and she will arrange it.”

  With his hand, he points to a corner of the room where a young coloured woman in a domestic’s uniform is standing, straight and silent. She has pale grey eyes, shining in the light of the nearby flames like the eyes of a cat.

  She hadn’t even heard her enter the room. “We dine at eleven,” he adds.

  They walk up a wide, pink, marbled set of stairs, a bit too ostentatious for her taste. Then, after passing through a red vestibule, down a long corridor punctuated by doors numbered one to nine. At the other end, there is another set of stairs, probably leading up. They stop at number seven. The maid opens the door and stands back to let her go in.

  The room is spacious, tastefully furnished. Not one piece of furniture is contemporary; every single piece, from the straight geometry of the dresser to the vanity table with its crystalline mirror to the bed shrouded with delicate linen, appears to be brand new, although they all obviously were made in the twenties.

  On the wall, a Millet-style print: three farm laborers resting in a field, enjoying a drink, while a woman awaits them, sitting against a haystack; it’s unclear what she might be waiting for, as, unlike any character in a picture by the Barbizon artist, she is totally naked, and when you take a closer look, her hands, though held against her knees, are tied with a thin piece of string.

  This sets her thinking again of the four men playing cards on the train, the same sense of discontinuity between the image you expect and the more disturbing one . . .

  “Do you wish to take a bath?” the maid asks. There is no trace of the Caribbean in her voice.

  “Yes, please . . .”

  The bathroom that connects to the room is huge, all green marble, all three walls covered by mirrors, as is, curiously enough, the ceiling. Exotic plants, suspended from shelves and metal stands, spread a delicate perfume of wet earth and heavy flowers throughout the room. The bathtub, carved out of a single piece of dark marble and held up by sphinx-like feet, is positively enormous.

  The maid runs the water, pouring in perfumed oil that rises in bubbles, the strong fragrance of which blends easily with that of the green plants in the room. The perfume rising through the steam now obscuring the mirrors transports her back to that sense of dizziness she experienced on the train; it’s like feeling slightly drunk on an empty stomach.

  The maid comes towards her, unbuttons her shirt, unhooks her bra and then the skirt. She does not remark on the fact that she is wearing no panties. The young woman allows her to do so, suddenly assaulted by tiredness, or at any rate using the tiredness as an excuse to surrender to whatever is about to happen to her.

  In the water, it feels to her as if she is swimming in the immensity of the tub. Above her, she sees the shrouded reflection of a young blonde woman in the misted-up mirror, her skin ever so pale, like a white mummy floating inside a green marble coffin, the blue-grey of her eyes lost in the distance. But the steam rises and finally wipes out this lazy landscape of curves.

  The maid allows her to soak for a long time in all the fragrances the heat is now breaking up. Finally, she comes back and hands her a Japanese robe, pale green, embroidered with birds of paradise.

  “Do you want me to give you a massage?” she asks. “The bath will wash the journey away, and the massage will wash the bath away. Afterwards, I shall apply your make-up. The commander has given me very precise instructions.”

  She lets herself go, agile fingers skimming across her skin with exquisite softness, slowly untwisting her nerves, polishing her muscles, effectively providing her with strength again after her energy has been sapped by the bath. The maid has her lie down on a folding table once she has slipped out of the robe. First, lying on her stomach, she is massaged from her neck down to her heels, unavoidably feeling something stirring inside her when the long, brown fingers knead her ass and thighs. But she’d rather believe it’s just a feeling of comfort. She almost falls asleep anyway, listening to the gurgling sounds of the emptying bath.

  She is then turned round. Above her, the mirror is clearing up.

  The young Creole woman is working her shoulders, the beginning of her neck, grazing her breasts whose tips are hardening, not that she notices as her hands lower themselves towards her midriff, before moving back to polish her nipples from time to time. Her brown hands make the extreme winter pallor of her pale skin appear almost indecent.

  The young woman looks at herself in the ceiling mirror, and from her perspective, the girl massaging her appears closer to her than she in fact is, as if it were her mouth, her lips massaging her, and not her fingers. But very soon, it is actually her darker lips that are now attaching themselves to her taut nipples, licking then sucking on her hard tips, racing across her tremulous skin, her pretty café au lait face soon ensconced between her thighs. All she can see is the back of her head, a mass of short, dense curls when the maid’s mouth alights on her cunt, and the masseuse’s tongue separating the delicate lips of her opening, skimming across her dilated clit. She feels as if she wants to come that very moment, if only to release all the tension building up inside her since she walked into the house. With her hands, she grasps the short dark curls and pulls the girl’s face hard against her stomach – black against white – her lithe tongue butterflying over her clit now feeling more forceful, more incisive.

  The young maid pulls her body down towards the edge of the table, both her legs now winging over the sides, the indefatigable tongue squirming around her red-hot button, plunging down into her wet vagina, tiptoeing across her anus and delicately forcing it open – she has never had the courage to tell any of her previous lovers how much she would like to be sodomized by a hard, burning tongue – all this while her long bronzed fingers keep on playing with her breasts. Finally she comes, no longer able to restrain her voice, flooding the girl’s face with her juices. The maid rises, wiping her mouth, her chin, and her nose with a towel and, curiously enough, smiles not at her but towards the mirror on the ceiling. The thought that someone has just witnessed the whole scene through a one-way mirror dawns on her with absolute certainty. What other traps are to follow? She slides off the massage table, pulls the young maid by her hair as she had done earlier, forces her to kneel before her and presses her face against her cunt, the heavy-lipped and violent mouth against her small blonde bush.

  “Drink,” she says.

  And she slowly pees into the open, willing mouth that doesn’t miss a single drop, still watching the ceiling as she does so, now smiling at the mi
rror, pleased to be conveying in such a way to the master of the house that by defiling his slave, she is resisting his will.

  She is then made up by the maid, slowly, a bit too gaudily for her taste. Then she is given a long evening dress, a glossy couture piece with classical lines that Madame Gray would have appreciated. Once inside the formal dress, she feels like a marble statue sandwiched inside a skin of blackness, the exquisite pallor of her skin enhanced by the nocturnal black of the material. No underwear or lingerie underneath the dramatic dress. The silk adheres to her breasts, her ass and her stomach; the sudden crispness of the wrap awakens her nipples.

  “You are beautiful,” says the young maid. “I’m happy the commander has brought you here.”

  Once again the stairs. The maid guides her from one door to another. She hears a bit of conversation; she knows that very soon she will be told where she is. She is both curious and worried and slows her steps.

  The girl swings the door open and invites her in.

  She is greeted by intense light. There are four or five men in dinner jackets and six or seven elegantly attired women; they all briefly fall silent and watch her walk towards them. Meanwhile the grey-haired stranger moves in her direction, takes her by the hand, and smiles, putting her at her ease.

  “You are quite ravishing,” he says. And he truly looks as if he believes it.

  She smiles back, still cautiously, but holds on to him, surrounded as she is by all these unknown faces.

  “Friends,” he says, with a semicircular gesture of his hand. “All charming people, as you will see.”

  Why does he not introduce her to anyone? Why isn’t she even provided with a name, a surname?

  Just then a servant attired in quite incongruous Louis XV style calls out loudly that dinner is served, and they all march into the immense dining room, where a very long rectangular table dominates the proceedings. The plates are exquisitely sober; the silver knives and forks and crystal glasses shine wildly under the glow of the candelabras.