The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine (22 page)

But her orgasm seemed an anticlimax to whatever had just occurred. The light at the
head of the bed had burst forth, as bright as the light inside her own body. She
had seen it. The flesh withdrew from her body, her legs dropped loose and wide. She
was alone in the aftermath. Nick was there somewhere in the wide pillowed silence
of the bed but he was of no consequence. He was a cog in a machine. She felt no
urge to kiss or to hug him. She lay, perfectly content in the solitude of her own
skin, feeling the trail of juice spilling down her buttocks, her hand soaked in it.
For a moment she had touched it, something indescribable, but it was gone now and
the memory could not do it justice. It was a long, quiet while before Nick shifted
closer and took her hand in his.

He pressed his face close to her ear. ‘When I left college I came to Paris, the city
of love. I thought there would be more chance of capturing sexual energy here. I
never thought to look to Australia.' Nick lifted her fingers to his face and inhaled
the pungent smell of sex. ‘What if you had never come to Paris? We would have missed
each other.'

Holly smiled. In this moment Nick looked beautiful, his eyes wide with excitement,
his cheeks glowing from the exertion.

‘We have found each other now,' she said, ‘here in Paris. City of love. I feel a
kind of love for you already. But it is bigger
than love, somehow. Something more
pure, more powerful. Sex with you eclipses love.'

He smiled and she loved the childlike innocence of that smile. His whole face lit
with it.

‘We are going to have to develop some kind of storage system,' he said. ‘This power,
so much power, but we need to capture it. We really are going to have to make a battery.'

The Recollections of a Mary-Ann

by
JACK SAUL

She was the lure. Her friends back home had shown her how to hunt. Not in a wild
and muddy natural way, but chastely—dishonestly, she now thought, luring each potential
admirer with a flick of an eyelash or a glimpse of thigh. She knew the routine. She
didn't let her gaze settle on anyone for too long. There were no preferences, everyone
was a potential catch. All she needed was a single bite and she would begin to reel
them in. Old, young, boy, girl—it didn't matter for the purposes of the experiment.
She glanced up at the potential fish as each found its way into this random café,
a small corner place with a badly painted mural on the back wall.

She chose an inside seat. It would be easier to make conversation in her halting
French here in the quiet café. The staff were not exempt. She let her eyes settle
for a moment on the pretty young waiter, his flirtatious smile, the way he kissed
his regular customers on each cheek, the way he chattered with the shy
waitress till
she laughed. It might be easy enough to snare him, she thought, loosening her scarf
to reveal a glimmer of her cleavage through the sheer black shirt, pale and quick
as a dragonfly resting for a moment on the surface of a stream. She knew that he
had seen the quick flash of skin and so she flicked the scarf back across her chest.
A glimpse only. This was how to pique the interest of her prey. She knew the waiter
had seen the flash of skin but it was only when he delivered her third espresso that
she noticed the woman in the corner booth. A woman? The person turned towards her
and Holly was struck by the strong jaw, the prick of an Adam's apple. But no, she—it
was a she—levelled a long steady gaze in Holly's direction, let her glance linger
on the copy of
Story of O
placed conspicuously in front of her. The woman—or was
it a man?—was older than Holly but not as old as Mandy, with a youthful uptilt to
her small breasts—definitely female, then—and a face still unlined by the passing
of years. She imagined this woman to be about thirty. Still youthful, still glowing
with potential. Holly chanced a quick smile and was rewarded with a gentle upturning
of rouged lips.

The woman, ignoring the no-smoking sign at her elbow, slipped a slim cigarette out
of a metal case and closed those perfectly painted lips around it. Her hand was large,
the fingers long as a boy's. She lit up, breathed the smoke in and aimed it out at
the ceiling. She smoked as if she were making love to a tiny nicotine-filled penis,
with a flash of teeth, a suggestive pout as she picked a grain of tobacco gently
off her lip. Her eyes were fixed on Holly. When she licked the lipstick smooth again
Holly was transfixed by the slippery glimpse of tongue. She picked up her book and
her tiny cup and moved the short distance to the
stranger's table. The woman—she
was even wearing a skirt—slowly uncrossed and recrossed her legs right over left
this time. Holly saw a glimpse of pink. Silk perhaps. A pretty coloured underwear
that mimicked the blush of a vulva. Holly was mesmerised. She realised there was
little difference now between the fisherwoman and the slippery silver of a fish.

She settled opposite and the woman pushed the cigarette case towards her. Holly shook
her head. She didn't smoke. She wished now that she had taken it up in high school,
wanted nothing more than to open her mouth and let the woman slip her moistened cigarette
between her lips, to taste the waxy flavour of her lipstick. To see her own smoky
breath emerge from her lips and slip into the woman's lungs on an inward breath.

Everything about this woman gestured towards a sexual encounter, and Holly felt humbled
by her own clumsy attempts at seduction. She knew now that she was at the table of
a master.

The woman picked up the book, opened it, balancing her cigarette elegantly between
two fingers as she read a passage at random. She smiled, closed the book, rested
it on the table and stroked the jacket as if it were a small black cat. Holly imagined
she would purr under similar attention.

‘Anglaise?' the woman said and her voice was low and reverberating.

‘Australienne,' Holly managed. ‘Parlez-vous anglais?'

‘Oui,' the woman said, making no attempt to switch to their common language.

‘Voulez-vous venir à l'appartement de mon ami?' Words learned by repeating them just
as Nick had spoken them.

‘Pourquoi?'

‘Sexe.'

The woman inclined her head, tapped the ash from her cigarette. It landed on the
cover of the novel, glaringly pale against the glossy black jacket.

‘Yes,' the woman said in English. ‘Sex. With you? Oui. Sex with your boyfriend too?'

Holly shrugged.

‘Perhaps,' the woman said. ‘If I find him appealing.'

She uncrossed her legs and Holly saw that same pale flash, almost certain this time
that it was smooth, hairless skin rather than the silk of her knickers. The woman
stood, tall as a man, and pulled her long fur-edged coat around her shoulders while
Holly buttoned her new Parisian overcoat.

She led the way, glancing back only once to see that the woman was still following
her, unhurried, puffing on yet another cigarette so that it was impossible to know
if it was cold or smoke or a mix of both trailing from her perfect red lips.

When Holly entered the stairwell the woman slipped her fingers through her arm, giving
the impression that Holly was supporting her up the twisting wooden staircase but
without actually putting any weight on Holly's arm at all.

At the top of the stairs the woman lit another cigarette. Holly knocked quietly on
the door. Nick would be waiting. The woman rested her elegant fingers on Holly's
arm once more.

‘Mary-Ann,' she whispered discreetly but firmly. It suited her.

The door opened and there was Nick looking small and furtive. Perhaps her elegant
companion would reject him.

‘This is Mary-Ann,' said Holly.

The woman stepped forward and raised a hand to Nick's chin. She bent and kissed him
easily on both cheeks. Her fingernails were lacquered, the exact colour of her lips.
She stepped past Nick and into the apartment. She smiled at the bare walls and the
monk-like austerity as if this style pleased her greatly. She turned to the great,
solid, high-walled bed.

‘We will have sex in this?' she asked, ‘we three together? Non?'

‘If it pleases you,' said Holly.

Mary-Ann smiled in agreement. She lifted a foot onto the single chair. Her coat fell
off her shoulders and onto the floor, her skirt was a soft green fabric. She pulled
it up to her thigh to unclip her garter belt and roll her stockings down and Holly
could see that she had been right. Pink skin, the pouting lips shockingly nude, the
colour of a young girl's cheeks. Holly moved to unclip Mary-Ann's other garter, her
face close enough to detect a hint of rose scent emanating from the place between
her thighs. Rose soap or cream or powder. Holly found herself audibly breathing it
in and, as if to give her greater access to the scent, Mary-Ann spread her knee out,
the lips parted slightly, and Holly dipped her head to lick the labia one at a time,
flicking her tongue gently out to caress her clitoris. She pulled back, startled.
Not a clitoris at all but an oddly shaped organ like a small butternut pumpkin or
perhaps like a smooth miniature cock and balls; at the end of the cock, a little
slit.

‘Are you going to send me away?' The voice so deep and sensual. Sending this woman
away was the last thing on her mind. Holly shook her head and dipped her head back
to the smooth and swollen cunt. She let her tongue explore the little cleft, a hole,
felt the sticky wetness gathering there as she probed
the little cunt with her tongue.
The scent of rose made Holly feel as if she were licking some delicate petalled flower.
She saw a bead of juice forming at the little slit at the end of the swell of flesh.
It was some kind of penis. She licked her way up and over the curve of what must
be testicles, but like no testicles she had yet encountered. She let her mouth slide
up over the penis. The almond taste of the juices beginning to gather at the tip
complemented the hint of rose.

Mary-Ann put her foot back on the floor and Holly backed away. She stood beside Nick,
feeling his gentle trembling through the thick fabric of her coat. She could smell
that sweet scent still and held her sticky finger up to her face, sniffing it. Nick
bent to her hand and sucked the wet finger into his mouth. She felt the swirl of
his tongue making circles around it, licking Mary-Ann's juices off Holly's skin;
he licked the length of her finger and Holly felt a sudden flash of how it would
be to have a penis licked like this, up and down the shaft, small circles around
the sensitive head. She felt a contraction in her belly, a small shock of squeezing
flesh like the aftershock in an orgasm.

‘I am glad you approve,' she said. ‘We will have sex together, all at once. But first
I want you to tell me your names,' Mary-Ann said, standing barefoot and beautiful
in her soft green dress.

‘Holly,' said Holly.

‘Pierre,' said Nick.

Holly didn't let herself blink at this deception. Nick slotted his fingers between
her own, his spit and Mary-Ann's juices lubricating their connection.

‘Well, Pierre,' Mary-Ann crossed her arms under her small but upraised breasts, underlining
the perfection of their form,
‘I think you should lift up Holly's skirt for me. Show
her to me. I have shown you mine, after all.'

‘She has a secret of her own.'

‘Really?' Mary-Ann raised an eyebrow. ‘You can imagine I am quite content with any
surprises.'

Nick fumbled for the edge of Holly's woollen skirt. He lifted it with trembling fingers.
She was wearing pale green underwear, the edge trimmed with delicate lace. Her stockings
sat high on her thighs, the kind with lace tops that stayed up without the aid of
garters. Nick slipped the knickers down and Holly stepped out of them. He held her
skirt up, exposing her legs and her wildly furred vagina, the smooth flat expanse
of belly above this. The cunt lips had already begun to change colour. The unearthly
glow was settling around the thickness of them.

‘Well,' said Mary-Ann. ‘I suppose I am a little surprised. But forgive me if I do
not faint. People faint, you know, when they see my, ah, full glory.'

‘People scream when they see mine.'

Mary-Ann laughed. ‘Get rid of the skirt,' she ordered.

Nick unzipped it and it fell to the floor around Holly's black high-heeled shoes.
She was left in the lace-topped stockings and the sheer blouse, the hint of lace
brassiere just showing beneath it in the dim light from the window.

‘Show me the colour of her lips,' Mary-Ann told him and Nick obliged, folding the
dark hair back and exposing the glowing labia beneath. He pulled them apart with
his fingers, revealing to them both how wet Holly had become. Mary-Ann was forced
to shade her eyes with the back of her hand, so bright was the light. The juice dripped
out of her and made the hair into a bright, damp mass of shining curls.

‘Nothing a little colour could not hide,' she said, talking about Holly without ever
addressing her. They might as well have been speaking to each other in French, Holly
thought, but for some reason Mary-Ann continued to speak to Nick in English. ‘I am
the mistress of secrets,' she said to him then, ‘I will show you how you can present
her. Open my purse and take out my lipstick.'

Nick wiped his damp hands on his trousers. She noticed the bulge pulling the fabric
tight at the groin as he bent to search in the purse she had left at the foot of
the chair. He was down on one knee, his head at the height of her crotch; Holly wondered
if he was close enough to smell the rose scent as she had. He extracted a gold lipstick
from her bag and made his way back to where Holly was standing half-naked.

‘Her mouth first. Her kisses must match the other lips.'