The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 7 Read online

  She introduced herself and made some inane comment about how much she had enjoyed the talk. Before her mouth became any dryer and her quavering voice failed her completely, she asked, “Do you really think being a little crazy helps you to become a successful artist?” God, it sounded so lame to her ears.

  He turned on a thousand-watt smile and said, “If you’d really like to talk more about this, we can do it over dinner.” His voice was melodious. An image flashed onto the silver screen in her mind of her cello and the way it sang to her as she held it clasped between her legs. She forced the picture away.

  She wasn’t sure she’d heard right. “Dinner?”

  “Well, yes, but if you don’t want to. . .”

  She hastened to correct any misunderstanding. “No, no. Dinner is fine. Dinner would be . . . urn . . . really fine.”

  She wanted to smack her own mouth for stammering like an idiotic teenager. Well, she was still a teenager, if only for another year, but right now she wished more than anything that she were older and sophisticated like him. What could he possibly find attractive about her? She did not ponder the question long. It was enough that he wanted to dine with her. She was not about to pass up the golden opportunity. It was, as she came to believe, the start of life.

  He was charming and witty. Everything about him exuded talent. Across the dinner table in a cosy booth of an almost empty, out-of-the-way restaurant, she watched him as he expounded on madness and the creative mind. She listened intently to his expressive discourse, though if asked, she would have been hard pressed to repeat what he said. She studied his hands, the hands of a conductor. The fluid motion of his long, slim fingers accompanied the music of his voice. She fixed her gaze upon his lips as they shaped themselves around his words. She wondered how those lips would feel against hers. How they might feel on other parts of her body. His self-confidence was overwhelming. Andrea had never met anyone so assured of his own genius.

  Later, at his apartment, he stood godlike before her. She knelt, with her virgin mouth encircling his cock, and prayed she was doing it properly. Despite the misgivings she had about her ability to fellate with any degree of expertise, she elicited the desired response, a final choking thrust against the back of her throat and a gush of warmth that filled her mouth and her being. She never forgot the sensation of that first time. She gagged and swallowed, but the force of his orgasm caused some of the creamy froth to spurt around her tongue and out the corners of her mouth. She could hold only so much. She was embarrassed by that, thinking she may have done something wrong, but his moans and the way he stroked her hair, even as he softened within her, were reassuring.

  Their subsequent trysts always concluded with this act of obeisance. Aaron’s erect penis was Aaron; long and lean, firm and beautiful. She worshipped it as she worshipped him. She wondered a little at his apparent lack of desire to have actual intercourse with her and longed for him to make love to her. She never thought of it as fucking; that would have been too coarse a description. But she did not question him. He was the master and she the student. She interpreted his proclivity for oral sex as respect for her virginity. She interpreted his request to keep their affair quiet as respect for her honour. Despite his sensuality, he was a true gentleman.

  Andrea found herself daydreaming much of the time when they were apart. She tried to feel sufficiently guilty about the growing disregard she had for her studies, but admitted to herself that she cared more about being with Aaron than she did about her music. She loved the music, but it couldn’t touch her as Aaron did. He was alive, warm, and she was convinced of his devotion to her. She drifted though her classes and ignored first the mild comments then increasingly harsh criticisms from her teachers and fellow musicians. In her mind, she joked with them about giving up the cello and majoring in skin flute instead.

  As spring blossomed, Andrea often sat for hours in her dorm room idly plucking at the strings of her cello, or bowing her way through the first few bars of a composition, then drifting into a fantasy involving Aaron and his magnificent member. In these flights of fancy, it satisfied all her senses. She adored the way it looked bobbing in front of her face, the way it smelled as her nose pressed into the golden curls of his belly once she had it in her and down her throat, the way it felt stuffed in her mouth, the tantalizing taste of pre-come on her tongue. And as his semen flooded her accommodating oral cavity, his agonized groans were all the music she ever cared to hear.

  One day, after she had paid him her usual lip service, he remarked, for no apparent reason that he didn’t really think she had the makings of a world class cellist, that if she were going to be successful at it, she would already be making a name for herself and, obviously, this was not happening. She felt a twinge of panic and, yes, anger, because it sounded almost as if he had lost respect for her as a musician and a person. Then she realized he was right. How could Aaron possibly be wrong? He was, after all, a genius. She truly was not cut out to be a musician, didn’t really have that much talent, and wondered why she ever thought a career in music was part of her future.

  Aaron was at the Conservatory, however, so she remained as well, going through the motions of being a student of music, but knowing it was all a sham. She wanted to be near him, but knew she needed to find another vocation.

  Andrea greeted the news of Aaron’s upcoming departure with fear and dismay. She knew it was coming, but kept denying it would happen. As arranged, she had met him at their restaurant. They sat in their booth. She glanced away from him for a moment, looked around, and wondered how this place ever stayed in business. There was one other couple in the opposite corner and one nondescript patron at the bar. She looked back at her lover. He had already finished his dinner. She merely picked despondently at hers, alternately using her fork to stab at bits of meat and shove morsels from one spot on the plate to another.

  “I won’t be gone that long,” he said. “When I come back, it will be just the way it is now.” He laughed and added, “Except I’ll be famous.”

  She ignored the quip and watched him sip his wine. “Not that long? Two years in Berlin?” She felt sick to her stomach.

  “Well, not two years solid. I’ll be back to visit. Probably in six months or so. In the meantime, it will do both of us good to branch out a little.”

  She had no idea what he meant. Branch out from what?

  “I have something for you. A goodbye gift so you won’t forget me.” He set an unwrapped black box on the table to one side of her plate. She had noticed it beside him on the bench seat, but had declined to ask about it. It might not have had anything to do with her and she didn’t want him to think she was presumptuous or nosy.

  She perked up slightly. A gift! He had never bought her anything before. “Oh, how could I ever forget you?”

  The gleaming smile again. “Well, you’re right there. I am rather memorable.”

  She laughed for the first time that evening. Aaron was delightfully arrogant. She envied him his self-confidence.

  “Go ahead and open it.”

  Andrea stared for a moment at the box. It was covered by paper of a suede-like texture and she ran the fingers of her right hand over it tentatively. It was roughly ten inches long and four inches both wide and deep. She lifted the lid and set it aside then parted black tissue to reveal the object contained within the box. There was no way she was going to remove the item as long as there was a chance anyone else might see it.

  Aaron, however, reached into the box, withdrew the ebony statue and placed it upright on the table between them. A furious blush spread over Andrea’s face. She was hot with embarrassment.

  It was a statue only inasmuch as it had the features of a human male carved into the surface of it. It tapered to a dull point, the top of the little man’s head. The purpose of the sculpture was clear. In reality, it was an eight-inch tall dildo, two inches in diameter.

  Andrea grasped the black toy and replaced it with amazing swiftness into the box, yet even in
that brief moment of contact, she noted the weight of it and she felt a rippling quiver inside her. She shifted and wiggled in her seat.

  “You don’t like it?” he asked sounding surprised.

  Andrea thought, for a fleeting moment, that he looked just a little hurt. She smiled to reassure him.

  “I love it, but. . .”

  “But?”

  “Nothing. Just . . . wow.” She was achingly aware of how much the figurine aroused her. Suddenly, she couldn’t wait to get away from the restaurant and back to Aaron’s apartment. Tonight would be the night. She knew it.

  And she wasn’t wrong.

  As excited as she was, lying naked on Aaron’s bed with him kneeling between her legs, Andrea was trembling. His cock, so familiar to her in one way, suddenly seemed considerably larger than usual. It was about to be used as the weapon in the assault on her virginity. She was afraid.

  “It’s okay,” Aaron reassured her. “Just relax.”

  He reached over to the night table. The black box lay open and he retrieved the dildo. Andrea’s eyes widened. She was having difficulty reconciling the fear with the intense arousal she felt at the sight of him holding the thick, heavy toy.

  “It’s okay,” he repeated. He placed the tip of the wooden tool against the wet lips of her pussy then rubbed it along the length of her slit. She felt him wedging it with just a little more force between her lips. It felt huge.

  Andrea breathed rapidly, shallowly, wondering what was about to happen. Surely he wouldn’t use the dildo on her first. This was not how she imagined it would be. And it was too large anyway.

  He pressed the head of the statue against her clit and she jumped.

  He chuckled. “Think of me every time you use this little guy.”

  He tossed it aside and it rolled off the bed onto the floor with thump. He leaned over her and rubbed his cock along the same path the dildo had just traced.

  Andrea looked into Aaron’s blue angel eyes and held her breath. She flinched then gasped at the first sharp jab. Even though he seemed to be moving gently, it hurt more than she thought it would. Realizing her teeth were clenched, she tried to relax her jaw as well as the muscles Aaron was putting to the test. She could feel tears tracing twin paths along her temples into her hair. She would remember this moment all her life. She had just started to enjoy the rocking rhythm that developed when something changed. He stopped. The stretched discomfort Andrea felt was suddenly absent and she was totally confused. She might be inexperienced in actual intercourse, but she was sure he hadn’t come. This definitely was not how she imagined it would be.

  Aaron pulled out of her.

  She looked up at him. “What? What’s wrong?”

  He appeared to be unfazed, which seemed somewhat bizarre to her.

  “Nothing.” He rolled off her and instead of lying down beside her, sat on the edge of the bed, leaned down to pick up the dildo and put it in the box. “I’m just not in the mood tonight.”

  He stood up, totally unselfconscious of his deflated penis, and looked down at her.

  “Geez,” he said, “you’re bleeding all over the bed.”

  His words didn’t register. Not in the mood?

  He pulled out a wad of tissues from a box on the night table. He reached down between her legs and wiped along her wet, bloody gash. The action was neither gentle nor rough. It was . . . perfunctory. He tossed the tissues into the wastebasket beside the bed.

  “I have an early appointment. I need to get some sleep.”

  A panicky sick feeling washed over Andrea. “Can’t I stay?” she pleaded.

  “I’m sorry, babe, I really need to sleep. You understand, don’t you?”

  Andrea sat up, nodding weakly, and saying, “Yeah. Yeah, I understand. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have . . .” She left the sentence unfinished. “You have a lot to do before you leave, too. I’ll go. You still want me to drive you to the airport on Saturday, don’t you?” She thought she sounded desperate. She retrieved more tissues, pressed them against herself as she stood, lest any more blood escape, and went into the bathroom.

  “Yeah, if you don’t mind.”

  Of course she didn’t mind. She would do anything he asked. She dressed, ignoring the ache between her legs, as Aaron tore the fitted bottom sheet off the bed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I should have done that. I’m sorry about the mess.”

  Aaron balled the sheet up and handed it to Andrea. “Throw it in the hamper, if you would. Thanks.”

  She obliged him then gathered her things together. She was about to leave, after they kissed goodnight, when he said, “Hey, don’t forget your boy.” He handed her the box with the lid covering “The Boy” once again.

  Two days later, Andrea drove Aaron to the airport. They kissed goodbye in the departure lounge – airports and airplanes were still safe places back then – and she stayed to watch, with a curious empty feeling, as the Lufthansa jet faded into a gray, overcast sky.

  Andrea opened her eyes. The water had become tepid. She shut the jets off and the swirling eddies ceased their sensual massage. She reached down and grasped the floating toy half tempted to play with him right now, but the water temperature was unpleasant. She sat up, lifted the chrome plug, and stood up shivering. She stepped out of the tub, listening to the gurgling of the water as it drained. She set the black dildo on end upon the vanity top and wrapped herself in a black terrycloth bath sheet. The Boy invited her gaze standing there upright, ready for action. She picked him up and dried him off lovingly. She placed the rounded tip against her lips and kissed it with a little sucking sound. He certainly had withstood the test of time. Twenty-five years of faithful service.

  A string of boyfriends, some long-term, most of a shorter duration, all wealthy, often wondered at her great affection for the unique sex toy. Several bought her state-of-the-art vibrators or dildos of newer, and they thought better, materials. She let them use their purchases on her and if Oscars were handed out for best faked orgasms, she thought she’d be a shoe-in, very possibly beating out Meg Ryan. Though none ever guessed, no matter what any of her men did, no matter their fervent ardour, no matter how fancy the gizmos, she never came unless she used The Boy. Of course, her clients had never cared one way or another whether she came or not. It was irrelevant.

  For a long time it didn’t bother her, but lately she thought she might be missing something. She thought that perhaps she should broaden her horizons. Her epiphany coincided some months ago with finding the Maestro’s North American tour schedule on-line. Tonight he was conducting in her city.

  As Andrea dressed for the concert, she stopped and looked at the entertainment section of the newspaper lying on the neatly made bed. There was no mistaking the face even in the grainy black and white photo; older, of course, but he was as handsome as she remembered. And now he was a world-renowned maestro. He conducted, he lectured; aspiring brilliant students vied to study under him. He was everything he ever wanted to be. And why not? He was, after all, a genius.

  She remembered the last time she saw Aaron.

  He had come back from Europe in six months for a visit, as he said he would, though she heard of his return through the grapevine. She had attributed his complete lack of correspondence to his devotion to studies. It was something of a reunion party. Many of the students she’d known at the Conservatory were there. Some conversed with her politely, but most did not. She was no longer one of them. When he walked into the room, heads turned. Andrea’s heart went into overdrive and she beamed at him even before he noticed her. She made her way to him and placed herself squarely in his path.

  He seemed surprised to see her.

  “Andrea, how nice to see you.”

  She frowned and looked at him quizzically. He sounded so formal. “How nice to see you?” she asked wryly. “How about a hug?” She smiled and moved in closer to him.

  It was almost imperceptible to anyone else, but Andrea saw how he pulled back and her smile faded.


  “Aaron?”

  “Not now, Andrea. Later.”

  She was about to ask him what he meant, when a ravishing red-haired creature, with the air of a prima donna, strode up beside him. She linked her arm through his, a gesture of easy familiarity. Andrea was stunned to find herself thinking with cool detachment that they made a breathtaking couple.

  “Aaron, my love, you must introduce me to all your friends. Who’s this?” she asked smiling graciously at Andrea.

  Andrea just stared at the woman as she tried to digest the scene. It was difficult to maintain her composure as the world tilted away from her. The sounds around her were muffled and she felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. Though it seemed an eternity, the disorientation was momentary. Her instinct to not look like a complete idiot took charge within seconds. She smiled at Aaron then at the redhead.

  “I’m Andrea. I’m sure Aaron must have mentioned me.”

  Aaron jumped right in. “Andrea, this is Diane. Diane Moore.”

  Diane shook her head. “No, Aaron was remiss I’m afraid. I’m sure I would have remembered an Andrea. But nice to meet you, Andrea.”