The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels (47 page)

“You don’t have a TV.”

“Stay in bed, fuck.”

“My feelings exactly,” I said.

“Could just lie here in bed till noon, afternoon. I used to do that a lot. Worked nights. Maybe I should get another night job. I’m really a night owl – used to come home late
and stay up late working on my poems and then sleep till past noon and get up for work and – go to work.”

“What’d you do?”

“Delivered pizzas.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No. Thirty minutes or less! I did this for, what? I did this for two years. Undergrad.”

“I can’t see you doing that,” I said.

“Why not? I wore a uniform and everything. I even made good tips.”

“Did any men ever come on to you? Drunk men who ordered pizzas?”

“Not really. Sometimes they’d give me wine coolers as part of my tip. That was always fun.”

“I bet.”

“I want to close my eyes and go back to sleep.”

“Do it.”

“No.”

“Close your eyes.”

“OK.”

“They’re closed?”

“You can see that.”

“How is –?”

“Much better.”

My body was next to hers. “Just go back to sleep.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Nicky,” she said, “hold me.”

“I am.”

“Hold me tighter.”

I did.

“You’re being a bad influence on –”

“Me?”

“Me,” she said.

“I know,” I said.

I went to Zina’s apartment late in the day, after one of McGinnis’ classes. Her front door was unlocked, like she told me it would be, like she said she often left
it unlocked. I could hear her in her bedroom, typing away at her computer. I crept in. Moby Dick was at the doorway, and looked at me. I thought better of scaring her. She was sitting at her
computer in shorts and a halter, hair pulled up in a messy tail.

“Zina,” I said.

She spun around in her chair. “You!”

“Expecting someone else?” I sat on the bed.

“Only you. Only you would be here.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t leave your door –”

“I was expecting you,” she said. “I told you on the phone. I said let yourself –”

“I scared you.”

She sat next to me. “A little.”

“What are you writing?”

“What does it look like?”

“What’s the subject?”

“Flying.”

“Oh,” I said.

“If I had wings,” she said, “I could fly. I could fly here, I could fly there. I’d be rich! Marveling everyone in the world how I can fly.”

“
I
can fly.” I laid back on the bed.

Zina got on top of me. “Can you now?”

“I’m a superhero, you see. But this is a secret. Well, now you know the secret. When I’m a superhero, I can fly. I’m a superhero – with no name.”

“Show me,” she said. She kissed my nose. “I want to see you fly.”

“Can’t,” I said. “Not in costume. Right now, I’m a regular person.”

“But when you’re a superhero –?”

“I can fly.”

“Well,” Zina said, “not
all
of them fly.”

“Superman does.”

“Batman doesn’t.”

“He doesn’t have super powers. He’s a vigilante.”

“Batman is sexy,” and she rolled off me, looking at the ceiling. “I’ve seen those movies. I’m not talking about the goofy Batman on TV. I mean the movies,
armor-plated nipples and everything!”

“All superheroes are sexy.”

“Does Spiderman fly?”

“No. He swings around the city with his fake webs.”

“Who’s that guy who runs really fast?”

“Runs?”

“Like lightning.”

“The Flash.”

“Yeah,” she said, “he wears all red.”

“The Flash.”

She said, “I’d like to be like that, run around all in red, running faster than – faster than I don’t know what.”

I moved to kiss her, to say, “You’re Wonder Woman.”

She got up. “No. I’m too short, if you have not noticed. So,” she bent down, and grabbed my legs, “when you’re a superhero, do you wear one of those tight, sexy
spandex outfits?”

“You bet.”

“And battle evil foes.” Her hands were running up my leg.

“I keep the world safe and clean,” I told her.

“Sexy hero,” she said, unzipping my pants. She took my cock out, and started sucking on it. She sucked long and slow; I relaxed and allowed myself to enjoy this. I came, but she
didn’t swallow. She let it go out of her mouth and down my cock. She looked at it. She moved up onto the bed and put her head on my chest. “So where are we going with all
this?”

“This?”

“This,” she touched my stomach, “and this,” touching my wet cock, covered in saliva and semen.

“This.” I touched her back, her ass.

“Sing to me,” she said.

“What song?”

“Sing to me all night,” she said.

“I’ll sing to you all week,” I said, “all year.”

She kissed my neck, nuzzled her face into my neck. “You smell good.”

“You smell pretty good yourself.”

“You always smell like sex,” Zina said. “Is this a good or bad thing?”

“Everything between us is a good thing,” I said.

“Will it always be?”

“Don’t be a pessimist.”

“Everything just seems to be too good.”

“Zina,” I said.

“We’ll end in tragedy,” she said.

“Tears?”

“Violence?”

“Pain?”

“Maybe blood,” she said.

“You have these thoughts?”

She sat up. “Put your hands here,” indicating her neck. She took my hands, and put them there. “There, there. Now choke me.”

“Why?”

“I want you to.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Keep your hands there and squeeze.”

“Like this?”

“Harder.”

“I’ll hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

“Well.”

“Just do it, you bastard.”

I squeezed her neck hard. “You like this?”

“You know what I like?” She broke free from me. She plopped down on her hands and knees, body on top of me; she said, “What I really like is men to fuck me from behind, my ass
high in the air, and reach over, here,
here
,” taking my hand, “reach over like so and choke me, like so, as they fuck me from behind, like so.”

“Is this romantic talk?” I had to laugh.

“Depends on your upbringing,” Zina said.

I laid next to her. “Let’s not talk.”

“Who said we have to talk?”

“Sometimes,” I said, “I like the silence.”

She kissed me, and put her head on my chest. “Is this getting serious?”

“I don’t know what serious is,” I said. “I’m just an idiot.”

We stopped talking, and started kissing, which led to fucking. I fucked her the way she wanted, my cock in her pussy from behind, and I reached over and choked her. It wasn’t an easy thing
to do; I thought it’d be easier if she were on her back, so I’d have better access to her neck. “Choke me harder,” she pleaded, and I did, and her body spasmed as she came,
my hand still at her neck. “Oh boy,” she said.

I woke up with a short scream. I stopped myself. I was sweating. It was dark in the room. I was naked.

“What is it?” Zina said. “Superhero, what is it?” She pulled me to her breast.

“Dreaming,” I said.

“Hush.”

“I was having a bad dream.”

“Hush.”

“I was dreaming of an angel.”

“Angel?”

“A dead angel.”

“Angels don’t die,” she said.

“I thought I saw a dead angel, not too long ago.”

“Go back to sleep, Nicky.”

We lay there for a while.

“Are you asleep?” she asked.

“No.”

“You were dreaming again.”

“With eyes open,” I said.

“Now I have angels on my mind,” she said. “Could I be an angel? I could really fly then. With wings. Do you know what the beauty of angels is?”

“No.”

“They have no self-pity.”

Zina and I started to make love, in her bed, and she stopped me, a hand on my chest – “Wait.”

“What?”

“Why are you here?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Maybe,” she said, “I like to ask questions.”

“I’m here,” I said, “because I want to be here.”

“I was hoping for a different answer,” she said.

“Like what?”

“Kiss me.”

I did.

“That was a peck,” she said.

I kissed her again.

“Why are you here?” I said.

“Because this is my apartment and I live here,” she said.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” I said. “Something is wrong.”

Zina looked away from me. “Things are getting different. We’re seeing more of each other. I’m sorry. I think I forgot all the moves somewhere: how to budge, how to speak, how
to make eye contact. Been a while since I’ve been in a relationship. Maybe I’m afraid of doing the wrong thing. Maybe I don’t want to do anything at all. Maybe I don’t know
what to do.”

“Don’t do this,” I said.

“What?”

She was looking at her lava lamp, next to her computer. “Come here and look at this.” She went to the lamp.

“What is it?”

“Come and look.”

I joined her.

“That glob in there,” she said, pointing to the lamp, “it almost looks like a person. Like a person looking at me.”

“Seems just like a glob of lava lamp lava to me,” I said.

“I see a person.”

“What person?”

“You.”

“Me?”

“Don’t you see yourself?”

“Well,” I said, “no.”

“What are you doing in my lava lamp?”

I reached for her – “Trying to get out so I can fuck you.”

She pushed me away, hard. I fell on the floor.

“
Get out of my lava lamp
,” Zina said.

“Hey,” I said.

She sat on the floor with me. She looked at me. She said, “Can I tell you something, Nicky?”

“Now?”

“Something I want to tell you,” she said.

“I’m listening,” I said.

“I went crazy, once,” she said.

“Crazy?”

“I mean –”

“It happens to us all.”

“Nicky –”

“It’s a crazy world,” I said, “and a dirty one.”

“
Listen to me, I’m serious
.”

“OK.”

“I wasn’t right in the head. This head: you see my head? I don’t know what went wrong. Something went wrong with this head. I was really paranoid, like all those conspiracy
people who think the United Nations are going to invade America. Well that’s an arcane reference. I should shut up. No, I won’t. I was convinced everyone was talking about me behind my
back – my co-workers, my friends. I had just gotten out of this relationship with an older man –”

“How much older?”

“Older. He was – I told you about him. A professor here. He was divorced.”

“OK.”

“That’s really a different story for a different time. What was I saying?”

“People were talking about you.”

“Oh.”

“Were they?”

“Thought so. I mean, people do talk about you when you’re not around, and I was obsessed. It was driving me crazy.
Crazy
. I – couldn’t sleep.”

“What were they saying?”

“The usual shit.”

“Back-stabbing? The kind of people who smile in your face and stick a huge knife between your shoulder blades every chance they can get? Know the type,” I said.

“No. Well, yes, I don’t know,” she said. “Stop interrupting me,” she said. “It was a major problem, especially when the billboard ads starting talking to
me.”

“Billboard ads?”

“Everywhere I went,” Zina told me, “I was convinced billboard ads were delivering subliminal messages
just to me
. Specifically to me, you see. They were telling me
things, like what these people were doing, how I was displaced in the universe.”

I asked, “Who were sending you these messages?”

She replied, “Spiritual beings, aliens in UFOs, some kind of strange creatures – and then they started to invade my lava lamp and talk to me from there.”

“Sounds like a problem.”

“Somewhere deep down I kept telling myself this wasn’t real. I knew it wasn’t real. Finally, I went to get help. I went and saw a hypnotherapist.”

“You were hypnotized?” I said.

“Oh, yes. It did me a world of good.”

“You were cured?” I said.

“Yeah. I’m not crazy now, am I?”

“No.”

“I used to be.”

“How long were you . . . ?”

“A few months.”

“But you’re OK now?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Good,” I said.

“So,” she said.

“So,” I said.

“Now that you know I used to be crazy,” she said, “do you still want to sleep with me?”

“I’d be crazy not to.”

I began to enter Zina’s world of pain: her delight.

I was touching, caressing her breasts. I pinched her nipples, which were hard; I pinched lightly.

“Pinch them harder,” she said.

I did.

“
Harder
,” she said.

I was afraid I’d hurt her.

“I want the pain,” she said, “it makes me horny.”

She gave an example. She got up, found a pair of clothespins in a cabinet in the kitchen, and placed a clothespin on each nipple. With the clamping down on each nipple, she took in a deep
breath, almost like a hiss.

“Fuck,” she said.

“You like that,” I said.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Take them off.”

I did, quickly.

“Put them back on.”

I did, and this time I took delight, watching the pins squeeze into her flesh.

“Ahh, fuck,” she said.

I took one off.

“Now use your fingers.”

I took the nipple in question between two fingers.

“
Squeeze
,” she said.

I squeezed.

I started to become quite good at choking her while we fucked, whether she was on her belly or on her knees or stomach. Repetition makes you better. I also started to enjoy
this activity. I was never quite sure if it was mental or physical for Zina, but as long as it got her off and made her happy, it made me happy.

We started biting one another, soft at first, then harder, sometimes until we drew blood from each other’s punctured flesh, fragile as anything in the universe. The biting was not just
into the body, but into the soul.