The Mammoth Book of the Best New Erotica Read online

  Good, I thought. It is good and right that all those unable to endure the instinctive realities of our bloodthirst, all those who would deny a chance to witness the feral, the barbaric savagery that sat within every heart, should well leave. L’Enfer was no place for merciful.

  “Please, I’m begging you. Take me from this place,” she said. For the first time I saw in her eyes real terror. I was so disappointed in her. Her eyes, her wonderfully sharkish eyes, were the feature of her I most adored, most admired. And now in the face of this she wanted to run. She had shown her humanity and I couldn’t forgive her.

  The panther tried to lunge into the tables and chairs. She tried to swipe at the conductor in the small pit. But her chain kept her from making fatal contact. I ignored my mistress.

  Finally, as though the panther had had the dignity not to attempt the obvious first, she at last turned towards the prey meant for her. The girl bound in the chair had already started screaming. But when the panther got closer, she stopped and began pleading. The girl beseeched the audience she could only hear. She begged certain people by first names, perhaps her abductors, her masters, her lovers . . . I watched as the panther circled in slowly. I could not pull my starving eyes from the scene.

  “I must . . . I must . . . go . . . I must . . .” My mistress stood and stumbled to the floor.

  I started to laugh when, through spraying blood, the poor girl on the stage began to actually pray to God.

  I yanked my mistress to her feet. She fell against me. We started to move through the thick, sanguine air of L’Enfer. There were very few guests remaining seated. I thought the whole tableau brilliant and knew that I would certainly be back for more. The next morning, as I drank my chocolate in the sunny little flat, the newspaper was delivered. On the first page was a story concerning the murder of a beautiful young society woman found floating in the Seine. Her body had been torn to shreds and the police could only believe it was the work of a beast, a maniac, yet the tears on her body resembled claw marks. Her husband, an elderly gentleman, offered what I thought to be a minor reward to anyone giving reliable clues or information to the police.

  I wake sometimes, plagued by a recurring nightmare. I have finally persuaded my new mistress, a wealthy girl rebelling against her family, to accompany me to L’Enfer. I know that only a visit to that place will sate my appetite.

  I have become so hungry.

  She is to be here any moment, at the flat she has recently rented for me.

  Erotophobia

  O’Neil De Noux

  This story is for Debb

  She shook out her long brown hair, turned her cobalt-blue eyes towards me and winked as the slim Negro named Sammy began to unbutton her blouse. She was trying her best not to act nervous. Sammy’s fingers shook as he moved from the top button of her green silk blouse to the second button.

  I leaned my left shoulder against the brick wall of the makeshift photo studio and watched. The second floor of a defunct shoe factory, the studio was little more than an open room with a hardwood floor, worn brick walls lined with windows overlooking Claiborne Avenue and two large glass skylights above. It smelled musty and faintly of varnish.

  The photographer, Sammy’s older cousin Joe Cairo, snapped a picture with his 35mm Leica. Joe was thin and light-skinned and about twenty-five. Shirtless, he wore blue jeans and no shoes. His skin was already shiny with sweat. Sammy was also shirtless and shoeless, wearing only a pair of baggy white shorts. His skin was so black it looked like varnished mahogany against Brigid’s pale flesh.

  Yeah, her name was Brigid. Brigid de Loup, white female, twenty-seven, five feet three inches with pouty lips and a gorgeous face. Gorgeous. With her green blouse, she wore a tight black skirt and a pair of open-toe black high heels.

  She bit her lower lip as Sammy’s fingers moved to the third button, the one between her breasts. She looked at him and raised her arms and put her hands behind her head. Sammy let out a high-pitched noise and moved his fingers down to the fourth button.

  My name? Lucien Caye, white male, thirty, six feet even, with brown eyes and wavy brown hair in need of a haircut. I stood there with my arms folded and watched, my snub-nosed .38 Smith and Wesson in a leather holster on my right hip. I’m a private eye.

  “You’re going to have to pull my blouse out,” Brigid told Sammy.

  Sammy nodded, his gaze focused on her chest as he pulled her blouse out of her skirt and unbuttoned the final two buttons. He pushed the blouse off her shoulders and dropped it to the floor.

  I loosened my black and gold tie and unbuttoned the top button of my white dress shirt, then stuck my hands in the pockets of my pleated black suit pants to straighten out my rising dick.

  Brigid looked at me as she turned her back to Sammy, who fumbled with the button at the back of her skirt. Her white bra was lacy and low cut. Jesus, her breasts looked luscious.

  I moved to one of the windows and opened it and flapped my shirt as the air filtered through the high branches of the oaks lining Claiborne. The spring of ’48 was already a scorcher, yet the air was surprisingly cool and smelled of rain. A typical afternoon New Orleans rainstorm was coming. I could feel it.

  Brigid had come to me two weeks earlier, in a Cadillac, with diamonds on her fingers and pearls around her neck, and told me she needed a bodyguard.

  Yeah. Right.

  “I suffer from erotophobia,” she said, crossing her legs as she sat in the soft-back chair next to my desk.

  “What?”

  “It’s the fear of erotic experiences.”

  Yeah. Right.

  If someone had told me back when I was a cop that a stunning dish would tell me that one day, I’d have looked at them as if they were retarded.

  She told me her doctor prescribed “shock therapy”, and she needed a bodyguard.

  “I want to feel erotic. But I also want to be safe.”

  She told me she was married and her husband approved of what she had in mind.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “Sexy pictures.”

  Sammy finally got the button undone and unzipped her skirt.

  “Go down on your knees,” Joe the photographer told Sammy, repositioning himself to their side. I kept behind Joe, to keep out of the pictures.

  “Now,” Joe said. “Pull her skirt down.”

  Brigid looked back at Sammy and wiggled her ass. Sammy’s hands grabbed the sides of the skirt and pulled it down over her hips, his face about four inches from the white panties covering her ass. Brigid turned, put her left hand on his shoulder and stepped out of her skirt.

  “Take her stockings off next,” Joe said.

  Brigid lifted her left leg and told Sammy he’d need to take her shoes off first. He did, then reached up to unsnap her stockings from her lacy garter belt.

  He rolled each stocking down, his sinewy fingers roaming down her legs. Brigid put her arms behind her head again and spread her feet wide for him. She bit her lower lip again.

  Sammy, on his haunches now, wiped sweat from his forehead and looked back at his cousin who told him the bra was next. I felt perspiration working its way down my back. My temples were already damp with sweat.

  Brigid started to turn and Joe told her to do it face to face. He switched to his second Leica. Brigid gave Joe a look, a knowing look, and something passed between them. I was sure.

  “If you don’t mind,” Joe added in a shaky voice. “It’ll be sexier.”

  Brigid smiled shyly. “That’s what I want.” Her voice was husky.

  Her chest rose as she took in a deep breath. Sammy stood up and reached around her. It only took him a second to unhook the bra and pull it off, freeing Brigid’s nice round breasts.

  Oh, God . . .

  Her small nipples were pointed. Her breasts rose with her breathing. Sammy stared at them from less than a foot away. He blinked and said, “Wow.”

  Brigid looked at me and smiled and I could see a nervous tic in her cheek. She took in an
other deep breath, her breasts rising again.

  Joe stepped up and tapped Sammy on the shoulder and told him to go down on his knees again. “Now,” Joe said, “take her panties off.”

  Joe hurriedly set up for more shots.

  Sammy tucked his fingers into the top of her panties. Brigid leaned her head back to face the skylights and closed her eyes. Joe snapped away and my dick was a diamond-cutter now. Sammy pulled her panties down, his nose right in front of her bush. She stepped out of them, and he leaned back and stared at her thick pubic hair, a shade darker than the long hair on her pretty head. Brigid turned slowly and pointed her ass at Sammy who reached up and unhooked her garter belt and pulled it away.

  “OK. Stop,” Joe said, sitting on the floor. He pulled his camera bag to him and unloaded both Leicas before loading them again.

  Brigid slowly turned to face me. Her face was serious now and flushed. I moved my gaze down her body and almost came just looking at her. She winked at me when I looked back at her face, she rolled her shoulders slightly, her breasts swaying with her movement.

  Joe told Sammy to stand up when the cameras were loaded. He took several pictures of them standing face to face, looking at one another and then asked them to stand side by side.

  “No touching,” Brigid said, reminding Joe of the ground rules. He nodded and had them sit next, side by side with their legs straight out. Brigid leaned back on her hands and Sammy leered at her bush.

  Then Joe had them sit cross-legged facing one another. I felt my dick stir again when she leaned back and shook out her hair and the light from the skylight seemed to illuminate her body. God, she looked so sexy with her breasts pointing and her legs open and all her bush exposed.

  Joe asked Brigid to stand and put her hands on her hips and move her feet apart as Sammy remained sitting, staring at her pussy, which was at eye-level now. Brigid looked at Joe when he moved her, his hand on her hip. They exchanged brief, warm smiles as he moved her.

  Sammy let out a deep breath and Brigid laughed. I was breathing pretty heavy myself. Jesus, what a scene. Joe moved them around in different positions and snapped furiously and switched cameras again.

  He had them sit again and entwined their legs. Sammy’s dark skin was in stark contrast with Brigid’s fair skin. Joe moved in for close-ups of Brigid’s chest and moved down to snap her bush. She looked at him and moved her knees apart as she sat.

  “Yeah. Yeah,” Joe said, snapping away. “Don’t stop.”

  Joe pulled Brigid up by the hand and had her stand over Sammy, straddling his outstretched legs as he sat. Then Joe had her sit on Sammy’s legs, her legs open as she faced Sammy.

  “Now lean back on your hands,” Joe said.

  Brigid leaned back, her legs open, her pussy wide open to Sammy and Joe behind him snapping away, and me peeking at her pink slit. She was hairy. I like that in a woman. I especially liked the delicate hairs just outside her pussy.

  Jesus. What a sight . . .

  She looked at Joe for a long second, staring at him the way a woman does when she’s getting screwed. She wasn’t looking at the camera, and Sammy was just a prop. She looked at Joe. The look on her face was for him. It was a subtle move, but I caught it. Joe snapped at a furious pace.

  Brigid finally climbed off Sammy, turned and walked to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. She walked purposefully, as if she had trouble moving her legs.

  Sammy lay all the way down and panted, his chest slick with sweat now. Joe picked up his cameras and hurriedly reloaded both. I opened another window. The air was misty now and felt damp and cool on my face. I looked down on the avenue at the tops of the passing cars and then looked straight out at the dark branches and green leaves of the oaks. I wondered what the passers-by would think if they knew what was going on up here.

  The bathroom door opened and Brigid came out, walking more steadily. She stepped over to her purse and took out her compact, then touched up her face with powder, re-applied dark red lipstick.

  She smiled at Joe and said, “No pictures right now. OK?”

  He nodded.

  Brigid moved over to Sammy and said, “Stand up and put your hands on your head.”

  “Huh?”

  She bent over and grabbed his right hand and pulled him up. Then she lifted his hands and put them on his head, the way we did the Krauts we took prisoner outside Rome. She yanked Sammy’s shorts down, pulled them off his feet and tossed them aside. He wore no underwear. His long thin dick stood straight up like a flag pole. Brigid smiled and looked Sammy in the eyes.

  She reached down and grabbed Sammy’s dick. He jumped. Slowly, she worked her hand up and down his long dick. Sammy moaned.

  Brigid looked at me and said, “I don’t want y’all to think I’m just a tease.”

  Jesus, a white woman giving a Negro a hand job. Unbefuckinlievable. I figured she knew it wouldn’t bother me in the way it would bother most white boys. She had me pegged from day one, I guess, from the way I treated Joe and the Negroes we’d come across during her posing sessions.

  Brigid looked at Joe and it was there again, that come-hither sexy look, but only for a moment. She bent over, her legs stiff, her ass straight up, and leaned over and kissed the tip of Sammy’s cock. He rocked on his feet and she increased her jerking motion until he came. She caught it with her free hand and wiped Sammy’s come on his chest when he finished. Then she turned to Joe and asked if he wanted a hand job. He shook his head.

  She looked at me and said, “Need some help with those blue balls?”

  I shook my head slowly and watched her go back into the bathroom. She left the door open this time and washed her hands. She towelled off, left the towel and walked straight back to me. She put her hands on my chest, leaned up and gave me a fluttery kiss on my lips.

  Then she went over to Joe and gave him the same fluttery kiss. I could see him squirm and then close his eyes. He smiled warmly at her when she pulled away.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s finish these rolls.”

  Joe told Sammy to go wash off. When he returned, Joe posed them together naked. The climax of the shooting had Brigid straddling Sammy’s legs again as they sat, her pussy wide open and Sammy’s dick up and hard again.

  When Joe ran out of film again, Brigid got up and told me, “Time to get the film, big boy. I hope you counted the rolls.”

  I had.

  Joe unloaded both cameras and gave me the six rolls of film. We watched Brigid dress. Sammy went into the bathroom. He was still there when Brigid and I left.

  Sitting in my pre-war 1940 DeSoto, her legs crossed and her skirt riding high on her naked thighs, Brigid smiled at me and said, “Next time we’ll shoot in a cemetery.”

  “Yeah?” I could smell her perfume again in the confines of the car.

  “Joe knows some gravediggers at Cypress Grove. Posing naked among the crypts, in front of a captive audience . . . alive and dead, will be so delicious.”

  It didn’t take a fuckin’ genius to figure the one thing this woman didn’t have – was erotophobia. I still hadn’t figured her angle.

  “When did Joe tell you about the gravediggers?”

  She winked at me. “When I called him yesterday. That was when he told me he had his cousin lined up for today’s session.”

  The rain came down hard now and the windshield was fogging as I tooled the DeSoto up Claiborne, away from the Negro section called Treme towards uptown where the rich lily-whites lived in their Victorian and Neo-Classical and Greek Revival homes. I cracked my window and felt the rain flutter my hair.

  Brigid leaned against the passenger door and watched me. Her dress was so high I could almost see her ass the way she rolled her hips. She eye-fucked me all the way home, ogling me every time I looked her way.

  Jesus, she was so fuckin’ pretty and so fuckin’ sexy and so fuckin’ nasty. She hired me to make sure no one raped her. That was the last thing a man would do with a woman like her. At least, that was the last t
hing I’d do. I’d want her to come to me, wrap those legs around me and fuck me back.

  “Want to come in and meet my husband?” she asked when I pulled up in front of her white Greek Revival home on Audubon Boulevard.

  “No, that’s OK.”

  “He’s waiting for me to tell him what it was like.” She raised her purse and added, “And to develop the film.” Her husband had a built-in darkroom.

  She pulled a white envelope from her purse and handed it to me. Cash. She always paid me in small bills. I actually got paid to watch her get naked and pose with her legs open. Tell me America isn’t a great country.

  Brigid opened the door, stopped, moved across the seat and kissed me. I felt her tongue as she French kissed me in front of her big house and I thought I would come right there. I watched her hips as she walked away, barefoot up her front walk to the large front gallery with its nine white columns. Her high-heel dangling from her left hand, she turned back and waved at me and went in the front cut-glass door of her big house.

  The rain came down in torrents that evening. I stood inside the French doors of my apartment balcony and watched it roll in sheets across Cabrini Playground here on Barracks Street. The oak branches waved in the torrent. The wind shook the thick rubbery leaves and white petals of the large magnolias. I looked beyond the playground at the slick, tilted roofs and red brick chimneys of the French Quarter. The old part of town always looked older in the rain.

  I leaned against the glass door and looked down at my DeSoto parked against the curb. The glass felt cool against my cheek. The street wasn’t flooded yet at least. I took a sip of Scotch, felt it burn its way down to my empty belly, and closed the drapes.

  I sat back on my sofa, in front of the revolving fan, and closed my eyes and remembered the first time we’d gone out to shoot pictures. It was in Cabrini Playground. It was a real turn-on watching Brigid sit in a tight red skirt, sit so Joe could see up her dress and take pictures of her white panties.

  The second time was in City Park where she stripped down to her bra and panties to pose beneath an umbrella of oak branches. Two workers came across us and Brigid liked that. She liked an audience. Joe moved us to the back lagoon for some topless pictures, only some fishermen saw us and got pissed at the half-naked white girl with the black boy, so we had to bail out. My dick was a diamond-cutter again as I sat on my sofa. I finished my Scotch, readjusted my hard-on, knowing the only relief I could feel would be in a hot wash rag.