The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine (29 page)

His fingers were livid when he put them into his mouth again, as if he had dipped
them into her chest and pulled out her own heart.

‘The females are greedy for sperm. Have you seen bukkake videos?'

Holly shook her head violently. She had never heard the word and could only imagine
the depravities it might entail. Images flashed into her mind, trawled from memories
she was trying so hard to forget, limbs, raised mouths opening, bodies spasming,
come geysering up in a great pearly arc.

‘Well, the simple mussel would put any bukkake session to shame. The males, the mussel
men—'

Her mother snorted with laughter, hid her mouth behind her tomato-covered fingers.

‘The muscly boys shoot their sperm into the tide. The ocean is a sex aid. The sperm
is gently washed into the wide mouths of the mussel girls. Sperm of a hundred men
sucked into their frilly gills. Can you imagine it, Holly? Sperm of a hundred men.
The delicate subtlety of flavours. The sweetly blended soup of love.'

Holly stood up suddenly, rattling the table. The bowl of mussels slopped over and
puddled on the table in front of her. She took a step back as the spill of red spread
across the white linen.

‘Holly,' her father said, his voice heavy with concern, ‘is something wrong?'

‘I feel ill.'

‘Oh, not a bad shellfish, I hope. They seemed so fresh. I can't believe—'

Holly cut her mother off mid-sentence. ‘Jet lag. I think. I am more tired than sick,
really.'

‘Poor love,' said Michael. ‘We promise to be quiet tonight.'

Holly looked down at the mess on the table in front of her.

‘Oh, don't worry about your plate, sweetheart.' Her father stood and wiped his hands
on his napkin. ‘Michael does that. He likes us to make him do the housework.'

Holly didn't know what to say. She took a tentative step away from the table.

‘Do you want me to tuck you in?' asked her father. ‘Read you a story? You used to
love us reading aloud to you when you were a little girl.'

‘No!' She sounded shrill, panicked. ‘No thank you, Dad.'

‘OK. Sleep well, then. And welcome home, my dearest girl.'

Yes
, a chorus, all mouths shining with the juice of the soup as they chanted a
goodnight
chord.

Holly fled upstairs. She closed the door firmly behind her. She climbed under the
covers. The light was off and yet there was a glow. A blue glow. Holly pressed her
eyes tight shut and pulled the blanket up over her head.

The Butcher

by
ALINA REYES

Jamie's Espresso Bar was all shiny metal surfaces. At a high bench stretched out
along the bar young men with impressive beards sipped long blacks and glanced at
the pretty young girls in the reach of mirror. It was a strange place for Jennifer
to choose. The four of them had often sipped champagne at Cru Bar across the road
but they had never met at Jamie's. There was an edge to the place, the music was
odd, electronic, arrhythmic. The girl behind the counter wore thick tortoiseshell
glasses, her hair tied roughly back in a ponytail. Her expensive black jeans were
stained with chocolate and floury handprints. Holly noticed a heart-shaped tattoo
peeking out from the edge of her lacy sleeve.

The Angels were perched at the very corner of the bar. Jennifer was nipped into a
silver shift, her high sandals glinting like metal between her toes. Holly noticed
that her toenails were gilt and glittering. It was the first time she had seen Jennifer
since she'd stumbled across the beast with two backs. She was struck now by the girl's
beauty, pure and sharp like the blade of a knife. She felt the pain of it cutting
her chest.

Holly smiled tentatively. She ordered a skinny cappuccino from the waitress and moved
down past the bearded men to where her friends lounged by the bar. All eyes were
on her. She felt the eyes of the men following her. One of them sniffed as she passed.
She knew she smelled faintly of electrical fire no matter how much perfume she doused
herself with.

Her friends didn't seem to notice. Jennifer leaped up off her stool and hugged her,
rocking back and forth. Her long fine hair crackled with static as Holly was smothered
in it. Holly breathed in, but she could smell something damp and pungent under the
sweet scent of shampoo. Could it be the now-familiar scent of ejaculate?

She pulled away from the hug. Holly studied the blonde silky strands for any signs
of stickiness but there was nothing to see. Jennifer looked as clean and wholesome
as a debutante.

Becca pushed Jennifer aside and wrapped her arms around Holly. She kissed her cheek,
held her chin between the fingers of her right hand and Holly was treated for a moment
to a briny perfume. Cunt, she thought. This hand has recently touched cunt.

Holly took a step away from the girls. She was mistaken. There was nothing as innocent
as this vision of loveliness. She held her fist out towards them, her abstinence
ring glinting in the light from the low-hanging lamps.

‘Oh,' Jennifer frowned, ‘I forgot. You've been away. You haven't heard.' She held
up her left hand and wriggled her fingers. ‘I took it off. We all took them off.'

Holly noticed a dark bruise around her ring finger, a blistering of the flesh with
white flecks of pus easing from it.

‘Our rings gave us infections. We had to take them off,' said Becca, flashing her
silver nails as she wriggled her fingers. ‘You have to take yours off too.'

‘Yes,' said Jennifer. ‘I am sure it is the silver. There's something rotten in it.
Your finger will swell and fill with pus. Here, let's take it off…'

She reached out to grab at her hand and Holly snapped it away. ‘I can't,' she said.
‘I need to focus on abstinence. I need the ring to keep me chaste.'

The waitress delivered her cappuccino. Holly glanced down into the swirl of crema
and chocolate sprinkle. There was a distinct image of a cock patterned in the chocolate
on the top of her cup. She frowned, stirred the foam until the cock was obliterated.

Jennifer took a deep breath. She reached out and put a firm, placating hand on Holly's
arm. ‘Holly, about our vows of abstinence,' she sighed. ‘There's something we have
to tell you…'

Holly leaped off her stool and slapped her hands over her ears.

‘I'm sorry,' she said, ‘I have to go now.'

‘But Holly, we have to tell you—'

‘No!' snapped Holly. She found her thumb worrying at the silver band of her abstinence
ring. It did feel itchy on her finger. Maybe they were right, the silver had turned
sour, poisonous. She took a step towards the door of the café.

‘Don't tell me,' said Holly. ‘I really, really don't want to know.'

And with that she turned and she fled back out into the gorgeous brightness of the
street.

Jack.

Jack was her only hope now, the last thread of innocence, a man she had loved but
never once fucked. She should have sought him out as soon as she stepped off the
plane. True love waits—and when he opened the door to her, here he was, waiting.
Everything in its right place. She stepped into his arms, breathless.

‘You're back.'

‘I've come back to you.'

‘Oh, Holly. I've missed you so much,' he said. ‘Come in. I was just about to watch
a Disney movie.'

And everything was just as it should have been.

Holly cradled the bowl of popcorn in her lap. Jack had stared at her all through
the opening credits.

‘What?'

‘You are even prettier than I remember.'

Jack was exactly as she had left him. Sweet, uncomplicated love.

Love wins over lust. That is how every movie should end. That was the perfect answer
to the complicated questions posed by all the erotic texts she had been reading.
Love beats lust. Wedding bells. Happily ever after.

She smiled. Even the first musical sequence transported her to a time when she was
seven. What a simple, uncomplicated time. An old animated feature. She found herself
mouthing the words to a song about an April shower. She could still remember the
lyrics. She used to play this movie over and over again. It
was sad and it made her
cry every time but she loved the pretty little fawn, his big impressive stag of a
father, his nuzzling mother.

Jack raised his arm and settled it about her shoulder and, after a quick flash of
something less wholesome, she began to imagine that his hand was the hand of her
mother, cradling her shoulder as she watched Bambi for the twenty-fifth time.

A flash of lightning. Holly flinched. For a moment she thought the flash was coming
from her body, but of course it was just the television screen, a thunderstorm, the
little fawn so shivery and scared. Jack's hand had fallen absently onto her breast
and she moved it away. Just an accident. The sun came out on the forest world. Everything
would be all right.

But there was his hand again, nudging its way towards her nipple.

‘Jack!'

He let his fingers rest on her breast. He curled his hand around it and he squeezed.

‘Jack. We…what about my vow?'

He shifted closer to her on the couch. He let his fingers tweak her nipple through
her shirt.

‘Remember the promise.'

‘I know,' he said, turning his head towards her, nudging his mouth towards hers.
He kissed her and she could feel her resolve melting. It was useless. Sex was stalking
her, forcing itself upon her. There was no way back to a state of innocence.

‘Ever since I opened the door this afternoon, all I can smell is you,' said Jack,
nuzzling closer. ‘It's in my nostrils, your scent. I can almost taste you, Holly.
We are going to get married one day anyway so why don't we act like we're married
now?'

‘True love waits,' she said, pushing him away from her, scratching at the band of
her ring. It had really started to itch now.

‘I waited,' Jack said. ‘I waited for you all those weeks when I didn't hear from
you at all. I waited that whole time. I'm not going to wait anymore.'

On the screen a great impressive stag rose up and filled the sky. There was something
about the film that troubled her.
Bambi
. She had loved it so much as a child that
she had raced out to find the book at the public library. The author was Felix Salten,
she remembered that now. Felix Salten. She had seen his name recently, but where?
She remembered her suitcase of books, scattered, broken, torn,
Josephine Mutzenbacher
flung to one corner of the room.
Josephine Mutzenbacher
, a German pornographic book
published anonymously. When they finally figured out who it was written by, they
added the author's name to the cover of the book. Felix Salten. The same Felix Salten.
How could the author of Bambi have written such smut? She felt suddenly betrayed.

The big stag filled the television screen. Jack clambered up and onto her lap. He
pulled his shirt off over his head and let his muscles ripple for her. His chest
was perfectly sculpted, a red fuzz sprouting on his bulging pecs. Holly didn't care
about his chest. She knew she could resist the biggest muscles in the world as long
as he kept the rest of him in his pants.

She struggled out from under Jack, pushing him away, but she could smell her own
sex as she moved, just a hint of foreplay had started her juices flowing. She saw
his nostrils flare. She knew that he was smelling it too. He snuffled after her.
He fiddled with his belt. She remembered Culculine, lapping at her
cunt, uncontrollable.
She saw the same look in Jack's eyes.

‘No! I don't think you should do that, Jack.'

‘I'll be gentle. I promise. I'll be so gentle.' He moved closer, pinning her against
the side table. He unzipped his pants. ‘You will love it, Holly. You'll start to
love it. Just one little bit of pain and it will be over. You'll be a woman. You'll
be my woman.'

His cock was out.

Oh god. Too late.

Holly looked down at it. Far too late. The light shone hot beneath her skirt. A line
of damp traced the curve of the inside of her thigh. The glow from this single drop
was incendiary. Jack squinted. She noticed the glaze that fell across his eyes. He
looked like a zombie in a late-night horror movie, but instead of rotting dead hands
he pushed a swelling sausage of flesh towards her. Holly felt her hunger rumble deep
in her womb. It was like the thunder on the television screen, signalling some hidden
terror lurking in their future. He was all hands and mouth and cock as he fell onto
her, impaling her. She sucked at him with her cunt. She had endured several days
of abstinence, turning up her record player so that she wouldn't hear the carnal
grunting of the beast with three backs in her parents' room, waking from dreams of
orgiastic adventure and plunging her starved body into an icy cold shower. Missing
Nick. Knowing that if it had not been for her glowing sex, Nick would be a free man.

Now she pulled Jack's body towards her. He opened his mouth and she stuffed her fingers
inside. He sucked them. His teeth clicked on her ring. She felt him suck at it as
if the little circle of silver were her labia. She felt the ring shift with the
slippery
attentions of his tongue. It slipped off her finger and he gulped it down, stopping
mid-thrust.

‘No!' She couldn't let him stop now. She could feel the energy building, like a slow
fire eating its way through the kindling in her belly. His cock was shoved up to
the hilt in her. She thrust at it with her hips, spreading her legs wide. She wanted
more of him inside her. She wanted all of him inside her. ‘Nick!' she cried out,
‘Nick!' Realising suddenly that she was calling the wrong name.