We Mate in the Dark Read online

  He unzipped his travelling bag and pulled out the laptop, a MacBook Pro, all matt aluminium, he never journeyed overseas without. Connected to the internet. Researched for an hour or so, until he found what he was looking for. Then posted an ad on the clandestine site he had hunted down. Making a proposal. Maybe it would find no takers.

  He lay down on the bed next to her cold body and snuggled up to her and dozed off. The pockmarked moon outside the window rose above the bay and the port.

  At around 2 or so in the morning, the bell on his laptop pinged repeatedly.

  Someone had read his posting.

  He pulled the laptop over from the bedside table and placed it on his knees.

  It only took thirty minutes to make the arrangements.

  He moved to the bathroom and emptied his wash bag, and placed a brand new blade in his razor, stripped, showered and then meticulously shaved away all the hair above and around his penis, testicles and anus until he was as smooth as a new born baby. Fully naked. Vulnerable if not quite innocent.

  He returned to the bedroom.

  His safari jacket was hanging from the hotel room door. He pulled the paper bag from one of its many pockets. He had purchased the flick knife this afternoon during the course of his aimless ramblings. This was a good place to buy leather goods and steel souvenirs.

  Tested the tip of the knife against his finger and quickly drew a drop of blood. Which he wiped away against his bare thigh.

  Then undraped her body, stood in silence facing it as if in prayer.

  He whispered her name.

  Once.

  ‘Julie.”

  Twice.

  “Julie.”

  And wielded the knife with a steady hand, carving her open with all the delicacy he could summon and cut out her heart.

  One hour later, he had walked to the furthest reach of the southernmost beach. This end of the town was deserted and the silence around was only broken by the shy lapping of waves against the fine sand beach. He had found a broken deck chair made out of wood and with a few judicious kicks and pulls it had come apart.

  He kneeled down and placed the heart on the criss cross trellis of the deckchair section, and poured a whole tube of lighting fluid over it, then stepped out of his clothes and waded naked into the sea holding the sinister platter and a disposable lighter until the water reached his waist.

  He set fire to the fluid and pushed the miniature raft away towards the open sea, watching impassively as the small funeral pyre bobbed away over the waters, its light reflected in concentric circles as it slowly advanced. Soon, the fire becalmed and the fragile floating edifice began to sink. In an instant, it sank, and the horizon of the sea was empty again.

  “Goodbye,” he whispered into the darkness.

  And retraced his steps towards the shore.

  Once there, abandoning his cast away clothes on the sand, still fully nude, he made his way further south towards the area where the beach intersected with the railway tracks. There was no one around. This was the zone of town which the guide books and web sites warned people away from. The gay cruising grounds the town was also notorious for.

  He walked over the tracks. There were not many trains at this time of night. Passed by the tunnel dug into the mountain and into a labyrinth of bushes and tree stumps. Then remembering the map he had studied earlier on his laptop screen, he took a sharp left and arrived at a small, totally isolated cove. Not the sort of place you would ever come upon by accident.

  In the shadows, he could already see a few shapeless groups of men in the distance, where the small beach met a crop of sharp seemingly unpassable rock formations that extended into the sea, segregating the area from the rest of the world.

  He advanced.

  Reached the first group of men. There were four of them. All tall and muscled. One was naked, studiously stroking an elongated cock, the others were still clothed, in jeans or shorts and vests.

  “I am here,” he declared.

  The time for thinking was over, he knew.

  He had succumbed to the cancer of love. Now was the time to expiate, he realised.

  Behind the first group of men he had approached, an amorphous shape neared closer, as if emerging from the very sea, monsters from the deep, three more men, each fiercer in appearance than the other. Hungry with lust.

  One of the men in the initial group, probably the one he had exchanged mails with on the internet earlier, spoke:

  “Good.”

  The bulky stranger looked him up and own, checking no doubt that he had shaved where instructed.

  “Are you ready?”

  He nodded silently.

  The two groups merged. Circled him.

  “On your knees, slut,” he was ordered.

  He obeyed.

  The sand below him was still wet from the night. All he could hear was the sea and its million echoes of loneliness.

  A hand moved across his face and a piece of material was tightened around his head, blinding him instantly. All he could now experience was his own nudity. He felt himself getting slightly hard, as if the anticipation and the fear had an aphrodisiac effect.

  A cock, hard and unwashed, was shoved deep into his mouth as another hand held his jaw wide open. He gagged and was almost sick on the spot. A hard, sudden slap against his butt cheeks felt like fire. The cock inside his mouth reached for the back of his throat. His tongue mechanically began to lick it, caress it, suck it, service it.

  Things accelerated steadily, like a film being cranked at ever faster speed. His legs were kicked out from under him and he fell flat on his stomach onto the damp sand, releasing momentarily the penis that had been forcing his mouth and throat. Hands pulled him up and adjusted his position so that the cock, or was it another one altogether, invested his mouth again and his rear now presented itself to the predators. Two fingers were forced into his sphincter, stretching him painfully then he heard and felt someone spitting into the newly-receptive orifice and before he could even catch his breath he was violently sodomised.

  The initial friction burned intensely but as the man relentlessly pumped inside him, he somehow managed to get used to it, busy as he was having to satisfy the succession of cocks taking turns inside his mouth. The man inside his rear quickly came, and it was like a torrent of lava spreading within him. There was barely an instant to pause and another man had taken the relay, even larger this time, from the feeling in his bruised flesh.

  He had difficulty breathing as the unrelenting assault continued.

  Maybe daylight would come and he would be reprieved, he briefly thought.

  A foot kicked him the ribs. A surge of pain coursed through his body.

  He choked on another ejaculation spurting below his tongue. Tasting bitter.

  Each man took turns with him, both orally and anally. Some even came back for seconds.

  He felt broken now, like the shadow of the man he had once been. Turned into an object, a fuck doll for all to abuse.

  Which, with a twisted sense of morality, he knew he deserved.

  And more.

  There was a lull.

  The men were resting but he could still smell their hunger in the sea air.

  He lay there, gasping, gaping at every extremity, probably bleeding from the sexual attacks, leaking unholy cocktails.

  But he was also serene, finally at peace with himself.

  The blindfold was removed.

  Somehow it was still night.

  And at that moment, he knew it would be night forever.

  The leader leaned over his prostrate body.

  “You’re a good slut,” he remarked.

  “Thank you, Sir,” he managed to blurt out. His lips were numb, his tongue heavy.

  “So...” some seconds can last a lifetime “are you ready?”

  He nodded as best he could.

  “Perfect.”

  The other men were all standing, cocks at the ready, leering, fists clenched.

  A f
oot suddenly made violent contact with his face, breaking his nose.

  Then another, connecting with his balls.

  The flash of pain was unbearable.

  The sky disappeared as the men all moved closer.

  He felt something (a fist?) being forced into his anus, tearing him forever, while a storm of punches landed on every square inch of his chest and stomach.

  He fainted briefly.

  When he came to, shaken back into consciousness by the heat of urine pouring from all directions above across his face, they had pulled his body to the edge of the lapping sea. Where matters would be less messy and the water would wash away the blood. The men surrounded him. Both his arms were stretched and firmly held back as were his legs, as if he were about to be quartered by a team of wild horses. His sinews screamed.

  He caught a flash of metal in the pale moonlight.

  Closed his eyes and remembered how once she had loved him.

  They castrated him and shared his genitals between themselves.

  They were in no hurry.

  He died from loss of blood.

  Then they ate the rest of him.

  Terrible things happen in the dark.

  By The Spy Who Loved Me

  Some women you have sex with.

  Some women you sleep with.

  And then there are the women you have sex with and then sleep with. A whole night. And during that night, you cannot escape the warmth of their skin close against you on every blurry single occasion you half awaken, you sense their body in the darkness of the room, soft and pale so close to you it could be an extension of your own skin, and you have to repress the urge to pull her against your bulk and squeeze her to death as the tenderness races through your soul like a sweet poison invading your bloodstream, a runaway train with its ineffable cargo of lust and affection

  Those are the women who also break your heart.

  Those are the women who move your heart in quiet, ardent, hypnotic, mysterious ways.

  And she was one of those.

  No ifs and buts; no doubts about it.

  At the wrong time.

  In the wrong places.

  We’d met in the mountains. Snow fell on a picture postcard ski resort like a curtain of cotton buds floating, swirling down from a grey sky, minute patterns against the background of peaks and valleys. Here, France. There, Italy. It was a neutral zone, an ideal place for people to meet who shouldn’t meet, away from the gaze of security cameras or familiar faces. I was staying at a luxury hotel with parquet flooring and uniformed staff. She had been assigned a room a mile away into the steep hills, some rustic inn with wooden beams criss-crossing the ceilings. Arrangements had been made to organise the exchange in the opulent ground floor salon of my hotel. It was late evening; a lounge singer was crooning a song by Coldplay, badly, his fingers flying like errant quicksilver over the electric piano keys. I was wearing black, as planned, so that she might recognise me. It was unlikely anyone in the noisy apres-ski crowd scattered across the deep sofas would be wearing the same colours, and for security, I had a copy of an obscure Italian crime magazine on the table in front of me, next to my glass of tomato juice. The red and the black. That’s what had been agreed. I didn’t know who to expect.

  Her jet black curls fell to her shoulders as she made a beeline towards me, her long, lanky legs devouring the floor. She sat across from me, nodded politely and ordered a coffee from the white-jacketed waiter. We sat in silence, quietly observing each other while the music played and the crowd’s chatter rose and fell around us. She allowed the spoonful of sugar to float briefly on the coffee’s surface before it sank. I noted a few isolated strands of white hairs amongst her darkness. Soft brown eyes. Pale uncovered shoulders. The gentle curve of her neck and slight breasts under the thin material of her white blouse.

  She sank her coffee in one gulp and rose to her feet. She walked away slowly, leaving the manila envelope she had been holding in her right hand on the table. I took hold of it and walked swiftly after her.

  For a moment, there was a look of confusion on her face; maybe she thought she had left the envelope for the wrong person?

  “Come to my room,” I asked.

  The shadow of a smile crossed her red lips, and she followed me to the lift.

  Room 411.

  That first night she let me undress her, but would not allow me to kiss her on the mouth. Her hair fell across her naked shoulders like a lion’s mane, thick, curling to infinity, heavy, dark as night. Her breasts were small enough that I could cup one in each hand and marvel at their softness, pink pale nipples blending quietly into the whiter landscape of her skin. There was a small brown mole growing inside the crevice of her belly button, another texture for my tongue to wander across before exploring further south through the unclipped, luxuriant jungle of her pubes. Unlike so many other women, she had no distinct smell down there, but the initial sensation was of an all-consuming fire that took me by surprise. Time and again, she rode me like a stallion, delaying penetration and rubbing her cunt against my cock, pressing down on my pelvic bones until I hurt, and could bear it no longer and cramped with a muted cry.

  Then we slept, skin touching skin, words redundant, in the peace of the Alpine night, leaving everything unsaid, after our communion of lust.

  In the morning, she left around five -she had earlier set the alarm on her mobile phone just before we had dozed off, arms tangled between crumpled sheets in the room’s penumbra. I didn’t want her to go, but she insisted she had to return to her own hotel, and be seen at breakfast by others. I watched, with pain in my heart, as she slipped on her black tights and then her dress. I blew her a kiss as she moved towards the door.

  “Don’t get up,” she said, as I slipped out from under the quilt, my cock still damp with her juices, and opened the door. I imagined her path, attempting to listen to her steps down the corridor through the wooden partition, shadowing her movements as if practising my spy craft. I did not hear the lift. I stood naked with my back against the hotel room door, with a heavy heart. There was a gentle rapping at the door and I opened it halfway; it was her. She smiled at me and quickly kissed me on the lips.

  “My name is Giulia,” she said.

  I had to stay on at the resort longer, awaiting further instructions from London. She joined me every night. On the second night, we hurriedly undressed right by the door and she suggested we share a bath, while Pink Floyd and other tunes she’d collected MP3 files of played on her laptop which she’d precariously positioned across the sink. Inside the water, she leaned against me and took my cock in her mouth; my throat tightened at her unbidden generosity and purity of desire. The landscape of her body grew familiar, her longs legs, the scattered birthmarks across her flesh, even the small pimples on her rear, the colour of her smile, the look of tenderness in her eyes when she came, the sounds she would make in the throes of pleasure, the way she would turn onto her stomach and invite me to take her from behind and the incandescent vision of my cock digging deep inside her, separating her scarlet sex lips while the puckered hole of her arse almost winked at me in complicity, the way she would say my name, or at any rate the name she thought was mine.

  “It can’t last.”

  “No.”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “Let’s not talk.”

  We were together for now. And we fucked as if we’d never fucked before with anyone else.

  But she was too young, she had another life I knew nothing of and we both were all too aware of how impossible our situation was.

  When the time came to make our separate ways, we exchanged telephone numbers.

  “It’s wrong.”

  “I know.”

  “I have to go to New York. Join me there.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’ll book your ticket.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Please.”

  Our first row, as she and I already counted the number of hours be
fore she had to leave and return home and the pain became too much. Her sitting in a corner of the room, all bunched up.

  Making up.

  Making love.

  “You hurt me,” as I thrust inside her with too much anger and despair.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t do that again.”

  A kiss at Ground Zero, the reflection of her naked body in the room’s closet mirror as she walked naked out of the bathroom and we embraced, her pale nudity shadowed against my all-black outfit, the shape of her arse, the curve of her back, the fragile geometry of her neck. Memories that would have to last forever, I already knew.

  Her voice on the phone.

  “Pronto?”

  The next time we met was months later. She’d made arrangements and rented a room in a stone house in a walled city half an hour’s drive from Rome. It was, again, out of season, and the heating was on the blink and we had to stay in bed most of the time just to keep warm, running clumsily down the steps to the lower level of the small house to fetch water, or snacks to eat. I would watch her in awe as she moved between bed and winding stairs. She suffered from stomach cramps and every time I entered her, she flinched. We had only two nights and time flew like lightning. She would drink water and then straddle me and allow the tepid liquid to dribble back into my open mouth. My heart was melting and my soul was in turmoil. She drove me back to Fiumicino in her own car, and we almost ran out of petrol. I barely made my plane and there was no time for good-byes. Which was better after all, I supposed. She’d also mentioned how much she disliked long, clumsy farewell scenes.

  In Barcelona in the Spring, she told me that while she waited for me to arrive, she couldn't help herself and had masturbated herself on the hotel room bed we were about to share. Halfway through the first night, her period began. We fucked in blood with all the energy of despair, and damn the sheets. Her powerful body waltzing above me, impaled on me, and the flood of red bathing my loins as I grew softer and withdrew from her. My fingers checked my midriff in the room’s darkness and then spread the blood and come and sweat across her delicate breasts, like a painter celebrating the colours of the seasons on his unsteady easel.