The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels (27 page)

The combination of the smart of the crop with the tidal waves of briny fluid washing over and through him were enough to make his tired flesh sing and his soul sing with joy. It was almost as if
there was still enough alcohol left in her champagne-tinged urine to make him drunk. They really must try her out on some of the vintage wines he had laid down in his cellar.

Amanda was mumbling something about banishing “Master George” but, while she did so, John could clearly see the stern humourless “master” he himself had once been
dissolve. He closed his eyes, breathed deeply and began to see himself kneeling before Vicki, who was seated on a silver throne around which the sea swirled. She raised a wand with which she was
lustily hitting him wherever she could, an impish knowing smile trained directly on him. He knew that they would never switch roles. Even with Amanda, they seemed to have permanently reversed
polarity. She was in charge now. It seemed appropriate that she took him in hand to push him over the edge. As he lost control and felt the tides sweep him away he saw Amanda’s face.
“You belong to me,” she was saying. “You always will.”

And he moaned his agreement as she held him afterwards for what seemed like an eternity. But behind his closed eyelids, he was looking at Vicki’s face as she smiled triumphantly. They
untangled from each other slowly, each unwilling to return to the more mundane world they usually inhabited.

Champagne helped, of course, as did a brief ritual cleansing by Amanda. This may have sent any stray demons packing or it may have merely served as a useful cooling-off period before it was time
to play at being normal again: John really didn’t mind which, after an experience like that.

Then it was time for the women to retire upstairs to replenish their glasses while John swabbed the floor. As he joined them, it seemed that Vicki was drunk on something more potent than
champagne.

“This feels so good, doesn’t it?” said Vicki, with something approaching a wicked grin on her lovely face. “I think I want to be dominant all the time. I really think
it’s me.”

“Glad we could be of service,” drawled Amanda, but whatever irony was in her voice seemed to float over Vicki’s head.

“Yeah, I’m ever so grateful. I mean, if you want me to do you, some time . . .”

Amanda declined the invitation gracefully with just a sideways shake of her head and a dry smile. “I’m going to be too busy training this one for a while,” said Amanda, nodding
over at John. “I think you’ve fused the part of him that used to be dominant. Taught him a lesson he might have needed for a long time.”

It was open to question whether this statement was merely an affectionate little tease which went with the previous session, but John was finding it more exciting, and ultimately more
satisfying, to take it as read. He felt a warm glow suffuse his body and soul at the thought of discarding all the stiff, humourless baggage that went with being dominant.

Let someone else worry about setting the agenda. He could just abandon himself to the moment. Besides, the submissive often got the best of the deal in these exchanges. Everything was focused on
them, and their often notoriously picky desires. (“Up a bit, down. No, not there! Don’t you know anything?”) It was often hard to tell who was actually dominating whom, standing
there listening to a torrent of orders coming from his theoretically submissive partner.

John felt drained but glowing with an inner fire he had not felt for some time – not since he had first met Amanda, in fact. He could hear the occasional waspish undertone in
Amanda’s voice as she replied to Vicki’s breathless babble, but their guest was oblivious to anything except the surge of fire in her veins and the long trapped flow of power and
dominance that had always been rightfully hers.

“You’ve given me wings. I’m ready to fly,” she said, face flushed with an innocent joy that neither John nor Amanda could share right now. For the sake of appearances,
they drank till dawn with their guest, then called a cab for her, remembering to send her flowers later that day. As soon as she had gone they had quickly agreed that it was too dangerous to see
her again too soon. Then they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

What Vicki wrote in John and Amanda’s big black book

I learned so much! I can’t believe it! I thought I knew all there was to know about pervy stuff till I met John and Amanda. They’re really generous hosts. As for Amanda, who else
would lend you their husband to practise being a mistress on? And John wasn’t used to being submissive although he was a quick learner, I’ll say that for him. You two are the greatest!
Thanks ever so much!

John didn’t need to look in their erotic diary any more. He had memorized Vicki’s words, which was maybe just as well as they had agreed that they should wait a
long time before seeing her again. Although Amanda had ritually banished the energy they had summoned with her, Vicki was still a constant presence. He had betrayed too much of his desire for her
to Amanda. As a result, his own status in the house had been considerably diminished. It was also getting harder for him to cope with his growing addiction to Vicki, perhaps not to the real person
but to some quality or value she represented.

He knew that there was nothing more pathetic than a man seeking out a younger partner every time his relationship was in crisis, or so the conventional wisdom had it. Mother Nature, the Goddess,
the life force – however you wanted to put it – she seemed to think it was a very good idea indeed for him to seek out a new partner. In fact, this was whispered in his ear at every
possible opportunity, by some malevolent sprite who had been around several millennia longer than whoever invented monogamy as an instrument of social control.

It was only ten a.m. and John had already poured himself two ounces of a very expensive single malt. Sipped carefully, this would last till lunch, and would hopefully take some of the edge off
his hunger for Vicki. He inhaled the scent of the whisky warily, waiting five minutes before wetting his lips with the merest possible drop of the liquid. It was perhaps half an hour before he
tasted the smoky fluid, time spent entirely in wrestling with his desire to call Vicki, something he had agreed with Amanda he would not do. The two ounces of dark smoky fragrance lasted until
lunch, after which he went for a long walk on the Heath. After which he settled down to serious drinking, after which he called a number of drug dealers, after which it was prudent to stay out
until he had recovered from the effect of their products. At no time did he ring Vicki but when he awoke the next day, suffering from three different types of withdrawal, he was beginning to wonder
whether it was worth the cost.

John knew he was behaving like a teenager but that didn’t alter the way he felt. He missed Vicki bitterly. And as the days grew darker and the nights colder, he started to yearn for her.
It was infantile, it was selfish and it would lead nowhere. He was supposed to have grown out of this stuff. After all, any fool could fall in love. The hard bit was seeing whether it was real
enough to last through decades of living together.

Weeks later, just as he was starting to forget her, a letter arrived. He wasn’t even sure if he should open it. He was already in too deep. He decided to read it on Hampstead Heath, where
at least he could digest the contents without Amanda’s catty comments.

He walked for an hour or so, until the biting wind found its way through his winter clothes into his bones. There was a sheltered spot from where he could see the city centre, but today he drew
no comfort from looking down at those trapped in the traffic. He toyed with the idea of burning the letter before he had read it but forced himself to open it. Would she accuse them of using her
then casting her aside? Would it contain a plea to visit them again? Perhaps she needed help of some kind.

In the event, the contents were far less dramatic than he had thought. It seemed that it was he alone who was suffering from the brief upheaval of Vicki’s arrival.

If only I could say the same, thought John, rather wistfully. He had crossed that line which divides sex as pleasure and sex as an expression of love. He was old enough to know
better but, try as he might, he couldn’t quite dislodge the hooks Vicki had left in him. And this letter didn’t help.

He stared into space for a while then realized that he should burn it. He was already in thrall to her memory. Making a fetish out of objects connected with her would only make matters worse.
Perhaps he should try some of Amanda’s hocus-pocus, create a ritual peace and then banish her.

He breathed deeply and slowly for a while, closing his eyes to intensify his concentration. He then repeated a banishing incantation he had once heard Amanda use as he burned the letter. He
smiled as the flames singed his fingers. With any luck, the pain would add some force to his heartfelt plea to be free of her.

Seconds later, he knew it was no use. He might as well have cut out his own heart. He looked in the flames and saw Vicki’s mischievous smile. There was no way of banishing that presence
and there was probably no way of using new partners to tart up a relationship that had gone sour. And just splitting up with people didn’t work, either. How often had he done that, just to
spend years yearning after the rejected partner? They would have to stumble on somehow, even if a little ghost called Vicki was here to stay, lodged somewhere deep in his heart where other
idealised spirits dwelt.

It was so stupid to compare a living woman like Amanda with a fantasy figure. It was even stupider to be a slave to someone who didn’t exist. He looked at the leafless trees preparing to
endure another long, hard wait for spring and tried not to empathize too much with these gnarled old survivors. Then he ground the remaining ashes of the letter into dust and went home to a real
woman called Amanda.

DE SADE’S LAST STAND

William T. Vollmann

THAILAND

Once upon a time a journalist and a photographer set out to whore their way across Asia. They got a New York magazine to pay for it by claiming they were going to do a story
about the Khmer Rouge.

They each armed themselves with a box of condoms. The photographer, who knew such essential Thai phrases as
very beautiful!, how much?, thank you
, and
I’m gonna knock you around!
(topsa-lopsa-lei)
, preferred the extrastrength lubricated, while the journalist selected the nonlubricated with special receptacle end. The journalist never tried the photographer’s
condoms (he didn’t even use his own as much as he should have), but the photographer, who tried both, decided that the journalist had made the right decision from a standpoint of sensation;
so that is the real moral of this story, and those who don’t want anything but morals need read no further.

Now that we’ve gotten good and evil out of the way, let’s spirit ourselves down to the two rakes’ room at the Hotel Metro, Bangkok, where the photographer always put on sandals
before walking on the sodden blue carpet to avoid fungus. As for the journalist, he filtered the tap water (the photographer drank bottled water; they both got sick). There was a giant beetle on
the dresser. The journalist asked the bellboy if beetles made good pets. Yes, he grinned. It was his answer to every question. Good thing for him he doesn’t have a pussy, said the
photographer, untying his black combat boots with a sigh, putting foot powder on. The journalist stretched out on his squeaking bed, waiting for the first bedbug. The room reminded him of the
snow-filled, abandoned weather station where he’d once eked out a miserable couple of weeks at the north magnetic pole; everything had a more or less normal appearance but was deadly
dangerous, the danger here being not cold but disease; that was how he thought, at least, on that first sweaty, supercautious night when he still expected to use rubbers. The photographer had
already bought a young lady from Soi Cowboy. In the morning she lay on the bed with parted purple-painted lips; she put her legs up restlessly.

Last night
tuk-tuk
fifty baht, she said.

So you want some more money for the
tuk-tuk
ride, is that what you’re trying to tell me? said the photographer in disgust. Man, I don’t believe it. You know, she already got a
thousand baht – that’s why I had to get that five hundred from you.

The woman’s teeth shone. She slapped her thigh, yawned, walked around staring with bright black eyes.

Where do you come from, sweetheart? asked the journalist, flossing his teeth.

Me Kambuja.

Cambodia?

Yes. Kambuja.

We go Kambuja, said the journalist. You come Kambuja?

No.

Why?

She grimaced in terror. Bang, bang! she whispered.

The journalist kept thinking of the hurt look in the Cambodian girl’s eyes. What to do? Nothing to do.

There was a bar aching with loud American music, pulsing with phosphorescent bathing suits. He picked number fourteen in blue and asked her to come with him but she thought he
wanted her to dance, so she got up laughing with the other girls and turned herself lazily, awkwardly, very sweetly; she was a little plump.

You come with me? he said when he’d tipped her.

She shook her head. I have accident, she said, pointing to her crotch.

She sat with him, nursing the drink he’d bought her; she snuggled against him very attentively, holding his hand. Whenever he looked into her face, she ducked and giggled.

You choose friend for me? he said. Anyone you want.