The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Erotica

American Holidays ^{Mike Kimera}

Memorial Day

“So what was your best?”

“Best what?”

“Best erotic experience.”

Mark is a sex bore. He talks about it so much it’s a wonder he gets time to do it.

“Mine was with two Swedish twins in a sauna,” he says, leaning towards me conspiratorially. “I’d added a day to a Swiss business trip to get some skiing in and these two and I were first back to the hotel from the piste. Well, you know how the Europeans are with saunas, everyone together and no clothes allowed. Just one of these girls would have been amazing – snow-white hair, all-over tan and sleek body – but twins! I thought I’d died and gone to pussy heaven.”

I hate men who say “pussy” like that. Like a woman starts and ends at her cunt. But I’ve known Mark since grade school, so I give him some latitude. Turning slightly away from him, I look towards the lake where my wife, Helen, and Barbara are sunning themselves. They are the best of friends, and they tell each other everything. I want to sit quietly beside them and listen to their talk. Instead I am standing next to Mark at the barbecue pit, burning burgers.

“So anyway, the shock came when the first one took me inside her. In the heat of the sauna her pussy felt cool. No shit. Cool pussy from an ice maiden in a sauna. How sexy is that! Then, when her sister joined in…”

I think Mark is making this up. Maybe the twins were real. Maybe he even saw them in the sauna. But I want to believe that he doesn’t cheat on Barbara on his business trips.

I am a little in love with Barbara. Helen pointed it out to me one night as we drove back from dinner at their house. She said that she’d noticed that Barbara is always the last person I look at in a room, and that I avoid being alone with her, both sure signs of my attraction. Denial would have been pointless; Helen knows me too well.

After a few seconds of guilt-ridden silence, Helen pulled the car over to the side of the road, and right there, on a tree-lined suburban street, where nice neighbours repaint their picket fences every spring, she fucked me. She didn’t say a word. Mouth on mine, she freed my cock, pushed aside her panties and rode me. I came like a boy. She grinned at me, held my face in her hands and said, “If you ever call me Barbara while we fuck, I’ll cut your dick off.” Then she drove us home.

Only when Mark says, “Your turn,” do I realize I’ve missed his sauna-sex story, and he is now waiting for mine.

“Come on, Pete”, he says, “even a terminally married man like you must have had some erotic adventures. Fess up”

An image of Helen blossoms in my mind. She is nineteen and has just let me fuck her for the first time. She’d insisted that we use her parents’ bed. “It will make up for all the times I’ve had to listen to them screwing,” she’d said as she led me into the master bedroom. I am lying on my back, wrists still tied to the headboard, sated and happy, watching her between half-closed eyes, pretending to be asleep. She is sitting at her mother’s dressing table, brushing her long black hair. The sun streaming through the window behind her seems to me to be a kind of halo. She leans her head to one side so that she can push the comb through the full length of her thick glossy hair. This causes one small upturned breast to push off the silk robe that Helen has “borrowed” from her mother, and to stretch triumphantly up towards the sun.

I am hypnotized by the play of light on her hair; the smooth movement of her arm as she wields the brush and the slight but attention-grabbing movement of her silhouetted breast. She puts the brush back on the dressing table, looks at me and smiles. Many times since, I have returned to that moment of still happiness, crowned with the love in her smile.

“Well?” Mark says.

“Sorry, Mark,” I say, “nobody seems to want erotic adventures with me.”

I mean it as a playful way of changing the subject. Mark takes me literally.

“I don’t know,” he says, “you’re not bad-looking. I know Barbara thinks you’re sexy. You just need to read the signs.”

“I think the food is ready now,” I say, gathering the half-burned/half-frozen products of Mark’s culinary skill onto plates.

“You must have been tempted. At least once,” Mark says.

“I’m happily married, Mark. Temptation is easy enough to overcome.”

“Ah yes,” Mark says, “I’d forgotten about the ‘Peter Brader, man-of-steel’ act.”

I start to walk back towards the lake, hoping to bring an end to the conversation before we get into a fight. Mark has always taken my abstinence from casual sex as a personal affront. Briefly I wonder if he thinks it’s all an act and I’m just refusing to share the details with him.

“Barbara really does think you’re sexy, you know.”

I stop and look at him. He laughs.

“No need to look so horrified. She’s not going to rape you or anything. But she told me that she admires your serenity. Isn’t that a great phrase? Admires your serenity.”

I try for a wry smile but Mark is already striding ahead of me, so it is lost on him.

“OK, girls, the hunters have returned with freshly charred dead animals for their women to feast upon,” he shouts.

Sometimes I think Mark is locked in a parallel dimension. The “girls”, both in their late-twenties, exchange pained glances at Mark’s return, but he either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.

This meal is a tradition amongst us going back eight years, to when we were both newly married couples. Every Memorial Day we drive out to the lake and have a barbecue on the public beach. Back then we slept in our trucks and drank beer with our burgers. Now we rent a large cabin and sip Pinot Noir. Sometimes I think the burgers are the last talisman of the days when we had more hope than history.

I have my head in Helen’s lap. She smells of sunshine and cotton. I relax, content to listen to her telling Barbara stories about the people in her office. I have never visited Helen’s office. I am reluctant to have reality superimposed on the vivid images I have of her colleagues. Barbara and Helen used to work together, and Helen introduced Barbara to Mark.

When Barbara laughs at the punchline of Helen’s story, it is a raucous laugh that seems to escape from her. I turn my head slightly, knowing that Barbara will have one hand in front of her face. Helen feels me move, recognizes the reason and, unseen by the others, pinches my ear lobe as she pulls me back to my original position. I look up at her. She mouths the word “later” and I shiver at the thought.

Despite Helen’s admonition, I find myself wondering about Barbara’s laugh. It reminds me of Miss Honeychurch in Room With a View, whose passionate nature is discernible only by the way in which she plays piano. With a stab of guilt, accompanied by a sudden erection, I have a flash of Barbara coming as raucously as she laughs.

On our second year out here, we almost got into a group thing. We’d stopped talking and started kissing, still in couples but with each couple acutely aware of the presence of the other. I left the decision to Helen, who in turn looked to Barbara. Mark was thinking with his cock and pushed up Barbara’s T-shirt to take her nipple into his mouth. The discomfort on Barbara’s face was obvious.

Helen grabbed me by the belt and said, more loudly than she needed to, “Come on, Peter, I need a bed to tie you to.”

I was happy to leave. Barbara smiled her gratitude while trying to keep Mark’s fingers out of her shorts. Civilized man that I am, I still could not erase the sight of Barbara’s stiff nipple topping a small neat breast that just demanded to be taken into my mouth. Helen knew what I was thinking. When she rode me she held my nipples between her fingernails and used them like a bridle. I was sore for a week but my cock was made of ivory that night.

The scene was never repeated. Barbara confided in Helen her embarrassment at how Mark fucks her. I was puzzled when Helen passed on the remark. She just laughed and said, “Well, you’ve seen him dance, haven’t you?” Mark thinks he dances like John Travolta, but he looks more like Fred Flintstone. He dances vigorously, with his eyes closed, paying little attention to either his partner or the rhythm of the music. The magnitude of the criticism made my balls retract.

I am constantly amazed at what women tell each other. Men brag, women tell the truth. It’s a frightening thought.

A tinny rendition of the James Bond theme fractures the silence. Mark has brought his cell phone, even on Memorial Day. Barbara glares at him, but he turns his back on her and takes the call. Mark uses an earpiece on his phone. He says he doesn’t want to fry the brain cells that survived the drugs. He looks demented as he paces in a circle, apparently talking to himself.

We overhear enough of the conversation to know that he has been summoned back to the city by some European emergency that he must respond to at once. I wonder at that – it’s 9 p.m. in Berlin right now. It occurs to me that I have just seen a piece of performance art. Maybe Mark doesn’t make his adventures up. Perhaps there is someone waiting for him even now in a city centre hotel room.

To my surprise, Barbara lets Mark go without complaint – she just sits and watches as he takes the car, leaving her behind like luggage that we will forward to him later.

“I’m going to lie down in the cabin for a while,” Barbara says once the car is out of sight.

“Are you OK?” I say. Dumb question. Helen digs her fingers into my side to tell me to shut up.

“No, Peter, I’m not OK, but I’m trying to get used to it. Not everyone has a marriage like yours. I live with a man who never touches me, but who tries to fuck anything female that can move without a Zimmer frame. He doesn’t even have the tact not to embarrass me in front of my friends. So I’m trying to preserve my dignity by not letting myself cry until I get back to my room.”

Barbara’s eyes are wet, but she is standing straight and her voice is strong and clear. She holds my gaze until I look away, then she picks up a bottle of wine and heads back to the cabin. Helen follows her. They talk quietly but passionately. I can’t hear what is said. Then they hug in that way that women do, halfway between a caress and a handshake.

Helen waits, head on one side, hands on her hips, for my questions. I don’t ask any. She looks at me for the longest time. I seldom know what she is thinking. She moves to stand in front of me, tilts my head down towards hers and says, “I love you, Peter Brader.”

We give Barbara an hour before we return to the cabin. I head into the kitchen to clear away the debris of our meal. Helen goes to check on Barbara. I have just loaded the dishwasher when I hear Helen say, “Come here, Peter.”

I know from her tone that we have started to play. I am surprised, but out of long habit I go to her and wait, eyes downcast, for her instructions. I love surrendering to her like this. My cock is already thickening and my heartbeat is elevated. It is so exciting not to know what will happen next. Even so, I am concerned. Surely she’s not going to take me here, in the main room. The thought worries and thrills me at the same time.

“Strip, Peter.”

Helen has never done this before. On our Memorial Day weekends she has always used the bedroom for our fucking.

I don’t look at her or speak as I strip. I feel exposed standing there, my cock sending semaphore signals of desire to my mistress.

“Put your hands behind your back,” Helen says.

The steel cuffs Helen produces from her bag are cold against my wrists. They make me feel pleasantly helpless.

“Peter, I want you to stay hard as long as you can. Let me help you.” She ties a soft leather strap around my balls. My cock trembles at her touch. She grins and plants a chaste little kiss just underneath the head.

I wait for her to undress. She doesn’t. Instead she reaches into her bag and pulls out a scarf. Standing behind me she blindfolds me with the scarf. I feel her breath on my neck. Her teeth sink into my ear lobe as her fist closes around my cock. I groan.

“You wanted Barbara today, didn’t you,” she says.

I nod.

“Say it. Tell me what you were thinking”

“I wanted to know how she sounds when she comes,” I say.

She lets go of my cock. A cool finger probes my anus. “So you prefer her to me?”

“No. I love you. I need you.”

“But…?”

“But I like Barbara.”

“Would you like her to fuck you?”

“Yes,” I say. I think I know where Helen is going with this but I can’t believe she really means it.

Helen kisses me; a deep, slow kiss, exploring my mouth with hers. Except it is not Helen. Helen is still behind me.

The kissing stops. Before I can speak Helen presses against my back and whispers, “It will be OK, Peter. Trust me.” I nod my head slightly and she whispers, “Thank you.”

I understand the blindfold. It gives us the option to pretend that none of this has happened.

No one is touching me now. I wait. I assume the women are undressing. I wonder if they are touching. Suddenly it occurs to me that over the years they may have done more than just touch. My mind doubts that this is true, Helen would have told me, but my cock goes with the image and twitches ludicrously.

A hand, strong and purposeful, pushes on my shoulder, signalling for me to kneel. The floor is hard on my knees. I won’t be able to do this for long. I recognize the smell of Helen’s sex, seconds before it is pressed against my face. She holds my head and rubs herself against me. My tongue presents itself for use. She presses her labia against my mouth until my head is forced backwards. She rubs me in a figure of eight against her sex, then she is gone.

Seconds later another sex is pressed against my mouth. To my surprise it smells and tastes just like the first. Maybe I can’t tell the difference between Helen and Barbara. Maybe Helen is returning to confuse me. The message is clear enough: stop trying to analyse, go with the flow, be the moment, let the sex flow through you. That message is at the heart of my sexuality, and I recognize it as their gift to me.

Hands guide me to lie first on my side and then on my back. Cushions are placed under my head and my butt. Care is taken to ensure that I am never touched by both women at the same time. I could let myself imagine that there is only Helen or only Barbara, but now is the time for feeling, not imagining.

A mouth suckles my nipple. The sound of it is loud against the eerie silence that possesses us like a spell. The tongue moves down my belly slowly, skilfully, until it reaches my pubic hair, then it goes away. A hand, warm, strong, grips my cock around the shaft. The palm of a second hand rubs my pre-come over the head of my cock, making me wriggle and moan. It takes effort not to come, but I control myself.

Attention shifts from my cock to my mouth. Swift butterfly kisses that make me smile. Then tickling. Tickling that goes on until I am giggling helplessly with tears wetting my blindfold.

I am allowed to get my breath back, then I am mounted. My cock slides into ripe wetness that grabs at me eagerly. Hands on my chest. Thighs around my legs. Deep forceful strokes, followed, after the shortest of times, by a tremor of passion that passes through to my bones. She falls forward onto me, sweat-slick breasts sliding over me, teeth nipping at my neck.

Then she rolls off me, leaving my cock straining for relief, my body demanding stimulus. Both are granted by the mouth that envelops my cock and the swollen labia that descend upon my face. I lick eagerly at first, then become distracted by the play of teeth and tongue and lips upon my cock.

I break the spell of silence, begging to be allowed to come. The mouth releases me as she slides down my body and impales herself on my cock. She does not move, but she squeezes me with her cunt, milking me irresistibly. She is moaning now, but quietly, as if she were gagged. Her hands are on my ankles; her cunt is pressed hard against my pubis. When I start to come, her grip on my ankles tightens and I hear a groan that starts in the back of her throat and becomes an explosive “Fuck!” She stays on me until my cock softens, then she lets it slide out.

I am exhausted. Cool fingers undo the leather around my balls. My cock is patted gently, like a Labrador being rewarded for performing a favourite trick. I find it hard to focus. My awareness always ebbs after I come.

I am being helped up and led somewhere. A bed. Fresh clean linen. The bed feels so comforting after the hardness of the floor. My hands are uncuffed. My arms are massaged vigorously and asexually. Scarves are used to tie my wrists to the headboard.

I am ready to give way to sleep when I hear that unmistakable buzz followed by the smell of lubricated latex. My asshole clenches in anticipation.

“Spread, Peter,” Helen’s voice. A calm command she knows will be obeyed.

The vibrator is slim and has a slight curve. It is perfect for stimulating the prostate. I relax and let it slide in, wondering who is holding it. My tired cock starts to rally. I think I hear a giggle from beside the bed, but I am distracted by having my balls sucked one after the other.

My brain is fuzzy. I want to sleep. I want to fuck for ever. I turn down the noise in my mind and focus on the cunt that is now raising and lowering itself on my cock. I have no control over the pace. I am a flesh dildo. I am happy.

With the vibrator in place, I manage to stay hard until after she comes. I am rewarded with a skilful handjob that drains my balls and takes the last of my energy.

I hear Helen say, “You can sleep now, Peter,” and I know the game is over. As sleep washes over me, I think I hear a different voice say, very quietly, “Thank you.”

I sleep late. When I awake my hands are free, the blindfold is gone, my ass is sore and my memory is confused. Before I can get out of bed, Helen and Barbara, both fully dressed and looking refreshed and relaxed, bring me breakfast on a tray.

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” Helen says. “We’ve brought you something to build up your strength.”

“Do I need building up?” I ask.

Helen ignores the question and hands me a glass of cold OJ. Barbara is standing at the foot of the bed. She is smiling, not broadly, but persistently. I doubt she is aware of it.

“Barbara is going to come and stay with us for a while,” Helen says.

I look at both of them. Helen posed it as a statement, but we all know it was a question. The silence continues while I think about it.

“It’s only until I decide what to do about Mark,” Barbara says, “Helen thought I could stay in the guest room for a while.”

I think about how long I have known Mark and yet how little I really like him. I consider how comfortable Helen and Barbara are together. I remember the carefully anonymous passion we shared last night. I know that if I say yes, it will change things for ever in ways that I can’t yet predict.

“I’m sorry about you and Mark,” I say to Barbara, “but I’m glad you’re coming to stay. I’m sure we’ll work something out.”

The look on Helen’s face tells me I’ve done the right thing. I don’t know if last night will be repeated. I trust Helen to work that out. I do know that I am still naked under the bedclothes and that I desperately need to use the bathroom.

“If you ladies will excuse me,” I say, “I have some urgent business to attend to, privately.”

Helen grins and leads Barbara by the elbow, saying, “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do,” in a terrible John Wayne accent.

Barbara picks up the theme and says, “Yep, and there are some things a man must do alone.” They are both laughing as they leave the room.

I’m still not sure what I’ve just agreed to, but however it turns out, it won’t be dull. I head off to the bathroom, whistling happily.

Independence Day

“So how often do you fuck my soon-to-be ex-wife, Peter?”

Peter looks the way he always looks, calm to the point of not being there. I wonder if he even sees me.

“Is she good? Does she moan for you? Or does the frigid bitch freeze your dick off?”

I don’t want to be saying this. I don’t plan it. It just comes.

“Or maybe it’s your bulldyke wife that she has between her legs?” I hear myself say.

My mouth fills with blood, my jaw is on fire and the floor of the bar is much closer than it was. The bastard hit me.

By the time I make it to my feet he’s gone. People are trying not to look at me. No one offers to help.

Who would have thought Peter would know how to punch? I knew he was the silent type, but I didn’t think he was the violent silent type. Shit, this is a man who lets his wife tie him to the bed before they fuck – not exactly Mr Macho. I haven’t seen him hit anyone since grade school. And then he just walks away like he’s John Wayne and I’m a bit-part player from central casting.

So much for trying to arrange a meeting with Barbara for tomorrow. Just once I wish I could keep my smart mouth shut. My wife’s been living at Peter and Helen’s since she left me on Memorial Day. Great sense of timing she has. We’ve all been friends for years, Peter, Helen, Barbara and I. At least I thought we had. Now I wonder when I became the odd one out; an unfortunate addition that arrived whenever they invited Barbara anywhere.

I’m sure there’s nothing going on; Barbara is just staying with them while she sorts herself out. At least she hasn’t tried to throw me out of our house. I should be grateful, but you know how it is in the dark hours of the night. I keep imagining them in a continuous three-way. If Peter wasn’t so terminally monogamous and Helen wasn’t such a control freak, I could almost believe it.

All I’d wanted out of the meeting today was to arrange to see Barbara face to face. She won’t talk to me on the phone, but Peter agreed to meet me here. We used to do a lot of drinking here once. Well I did. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Peter really shit-faced. So I get him here and insult him badly enough that Peter the placid actually hits me. Good job!

I decide to stop being the barroom floor show and go to the restroom to clean myself up. The man in the mirror looks older than me, he hasn’t had enough sleep, and his bottom lip is split just below the left incisor. My shirt is history, blood all over the collar. I’m meeting Kirsten for lunch in an hour. “Welcome to the fucked-up life of Mark Grady,” I say. Even my reflection in the mirror doesn’t smile.

My cell phone goes off and the Mission Impossible theme tune, my latest choice of ringtone, bounces around the restroom. This strikes me as absurdly appropriate. “Your mission, Mr Grady, should you decide to accept it, is to get a life.” I start to laugh, way too loudly. I’m still laughing when I answer the call.

“Well, you sound like you’re having a good time,” Kirsten says, “did you start to party without me?”

“Not exactly.”

“Listen, Mark, I know it’s a bummer but I’m going have to blow you off for lunch today.”

“Why?” I say, sounding petulant even to my own ears. I hate the but-mom-you-promised whine in my voice.

“I’ve got to work, Mark. To get things done before the holiday tomorrow.”

I hear a male voice I almost recognize calling out impatiently, “Come on, Kirsten, or we’ll lose our table.”

I pretend I didn’t hear that, and put a leer into my voice to say, “I’d rather you were blowing me than just blowing me off.”

“So would I,” Kirsten said, “in fact, didn’t I do that this morning?” I don’t know if she’s being humourous or genuinely can’t remember.

We always have sex in the mornings. In seven years of marriage with Barbara she never once woke up wanting to fuck. Kirsten does it like it’s part of her morning exercise routine; a warm-up before she goes jogging.

The first time we spent the whole night together I was delighted to wake with my cock already in Kirsten’s mouth. She likes to be on top. She does what she calls “the jockey”. She tells me it’s very good for her pelvic floor. She squats over me so that only the palms of her hands and the inside of her cunt are touching me. Then she rides me. She squeezes me like she’s making orange juice with my cock. She looks wonderful up there: fit, young, tanned, little tits that don’t move when she fucks, topped by nipples so hard you could hang your coat on one. I was in heaven that first morning.

But here’s the thing: she does it every morning. Great, right? Wrong. Some mornings I want to sleep or just hold her. But Kirsten has a schedule and she’s never late. Last week I timed her by the bedside clock. The fuck takes eight minutes. Every day. Exactly. If I’m slow to rise, she grows impatient. I think that if I couldn’t get it up one day, she’d just use her vibrator and then go jogging. But listen to me, I’m fucking an ambitious intern who does sexercises on my cock each morning and I’m feeling sorry for myself? Loser!

“Mark, you there? You’ve gone all quiet. Listen, I have to go. I’ll be late this evening but we can spend all day tomorrow together, OK?” She hangs up before I can reply.

I put my phone away, look at my bruised and bleeding face in the mirror once more, and wonder how the hell I let all this happen. “I couldda been a contenda,” I mumble at the bum in the mirror. Not funny. Not funny at all.

Outside the bar I have difficulty getting a cab to stop. Too much blood on my shirt. So I indulge myself. I’m good at that. I walk three blocks in the noon heat to my favourite hotel and I rent a room for the afternoon. I love luxury hotels. All life should work the way they do. From the comfort of my room I order a fresh shirt from the hotel store, some Tylenol for my aching head, and a good room-service meal with a decent bottle of wine.

I pour myself four fingers of J&B and relish that first-taste-of-the-day moment. Ah, that’s better. So Peter hit me. I can cope with that. Maybe even use it to get some sympathy from Barbara. The day is definitely getting better, until my phone goes off and it’s Anthea the Hun, my boss, looking for me. I made a pass at Anthea once, before she was my boss. Bad mistake.

Anthea comes from that mix of Norwegian and German stock that produces blonde Amazons that can work in the fields all day long and then drink you under the table at night. We’d been working late together on an important project. We got along very well. We had had some Chinese delivered to the office so we could work even later. The meal felt relaxed and fun. It also felt sexy. Something about watching Anthea’s powerful jaw suck down those noodles made my flesh tingle.

We were in the little kitchen area, the only people on the entire floor. We’d been laughing at something. Anthea bent over to dump her cartons in the trash and I couldn’t resist it, I ran my hand up the inside of her leg. She was wearing stockings. Who would have thought it? I love stockings. I love that transition from the rougher surface of the silk to the smooth warm flesh of the upper thigh. It gives me a hard-on every time. Then I got a bit carried away and let my fingers rush upwards and push into her.

The effect was dramatic and unexpected; she clamped her thighs around my hand and then turned rapidly on her heels. I was pulled off balance and ended up on the floor. Anthea stood on my wrist and pressed hard enough to hurt. I was pinned to the floor, wondering how I got there, and trying hard not to look up her skirt. She looked wonderful from that angle. If it hadn’t been for the pain I might have enjoyed myself.

The idea of fun ended the moment I heard her speak. “They told me you were a hopeless letch,” she said, “but I thought they were wrong. You’re bright. You have a nice wife. You don’t need to screw around.”

She sounded very angry and I found myself wondering if she was stronger than me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I just…”

“You just thought you’d shove your fingers up my cunt. Did you think I’d like that? Or that I’d be a good sport and put up with it anyway? Or do you just see me as a cunt on legs, a slot to be filled?”

I didn’t know what to say. I hadn’t meant any harm. I mean, things had gone too far too fast, but it’s not like I raped her or anything. But I’d really pissed her off and she looked scary. She took her foot off my wrist and I went to get up.

“Don’t move,” she said.

I lay still.

“I hate shits like you, Mark. I could have you fired, you know that, don’t you? But then I’d be the ball-breaking bitch who her co-workers can’t work late with in case she accuses them of rape.”

“Anthea, look, I…”

“I’m talking now. You’re listening. I’m going to teach you a lesson, Mark. And then you’re going to leave. Show me your cock.”

Nothing she said could have surprised me more.

“Come on, Mark, get it out. Show me what you were thinking with.”

“I don’t want…”

“Or should I get it out for you? Maybe I should just unzip you and find out what you’re made of.”

She bent towards me and I found myself shuffling backwards on the floor.

“Just a quick feel,” she said. “A compliment really. What’s the matter, Mark? Be a good sport.”

She reached for me again. I was frightened. She looked like she could kill me. I bumped into the cupboard behind me. Instinctively, I covered my cock with my hands, unable even to speak.

Then she stood up straight and looked down at me. “I want you to remember this, Mark. I want you to remember just how it feels. Tomorrow, you’re going to phone in sick. You’ll stay sick for a week and I’ll finish this project alone. Do you understand?”

I nodded. She left. I did phone in sick. She got a promotion for completing that project. We worked together from time to time after that, but always in a bigger group. She never mentioned it again, but there was always some hostility there.

When she was made head of my section, I knew she’d fire me. She called me into her new office. Before I could speak she said, “I’m not going to fire you, Grady—” she never calls me Mark any more “—because you are going to work your balls off for me aren’t you? And I will make sure you get the bonuses that go with that. OK? Good. You can go.” And that was it.

I’ve worked for her for six months now, and every week I wish I had the courage to tell her to stuff her job. One moment of weakness and she crucifies me.

So, as I answer Anthea’s call on my cell phone, all enjoyment of the hotel fades. Jesus, even my balls retract slightly. I hate her for making me feel like this.

“Why aren’t you here, Grady? Did you quit and forget to send me an email? Just let me know where you want the stuff from your desk sent and I’ll have it couriered over.”

Bitch, I think to myself, but I put a smile in my voice and say, “Hi, Anthea. I was just about to call in. I’m not feeling too good. I think I’m coming down with something. Good thing tomorrow’s a holiday.”

“You poor thing,” she says, “Which is it, the booze getting to you, or the intern wearing you out?”

“Look, I came in above target last month, didn’t I? I always make my numbers. I can afford the time.”

“So far, Grady. You’ve always made your numbers so far. But try looking in the mirror some time. You look like a man who’s losing it. I don’t have losers on my team. Are you hearing me?”

I really want to come up with some smart remark; to tell her how wrong she is, but a small voice in my head is whispering to me, “Loser, loser, loser.” I empty my glass of J&B in one swallow to try and make the voice go away.

“Yes, Anthea, I hear you,” I say. I sound resigned and a bit pathetic.

“One more thing, Grady.” She makes me wait three seconds, wondering what the sting will be. “Happy fourth of July,” she says. Then she hangs up.

Shit. Not good. Not good at all.

I strip and head for the shower, wondering when the damn painkillers will kick in. I love showers. It makes me feel I can start everything again from the beginning. Clean, wrapped in a bathrobe so thick and soft it cuddles me, I pour another three fingers of J&B into my glass and I feel better.

I start thinking about tomorrow, Independence Day. I always have a barbecue at my house. Barbara does the cooking, so the guests survive OK. I get to go round making sure everyone has enough to drink. Barbara’s parents moved down to St Pete’s in Florida two years back and mine are both dead now, so it’s a friends and neighbours deal mostly. No one stays long, but lots of people drop by. I think having the game on the projection TV on the patio helps. I call it Al Fresco’s Sports Bar. When I told Kirsten that, she asked who Al was.

It’s not that Kirsten is stupid, in fact she’s very bright, but she’s into numbers and the markets and good health and doesn’t have time for a lot else. The first thing she said to me was, “I really admire your portfolio.”

It was late on a Friday. Kirsten had been on staff for a week. I’d noticed her. She’d noticed me noticing and hadn’t seemed to mind. So, Friday she comes into my office just as I’m going out and hits me with the portfolio line. I don’t know what to make of it, but she’s young and pretty and standing very close, so I decide to smile and wait.

She steps slightly close, too close for normal conversation but not close enough to touch. “I’ve been told you have the biggest one in the office.” No doubting the tone there. She looks me up and down, slowly. Then she says, “Maybe we could stay late one night and you could show it to me?”

“How about Monday,” I say.

“I’ll look forward to it,” she says. She stepped back and then turned to walk away. I enjoyed watching her walk. When she got to the elevators she looked back over her shoulder. “I hope you and your wife have a great weekend.” To me it seemed like she’d just offered a no-strings-attached fuck. I couldn’t believe my luck.

That night I took Barbara to bed early and fucked her hard. She was delighted that, for once, I did the asking. That made me feel bad. We don’t fuck much and I felt like a shit when I saw how pleased she was. But I was a shit with a hard-on and, hell, if I could win points and get off at the same time, why not? Well, because it’s the wrong thing to do and I’d feel bad about it later is why not. But with me, now always wins out over later, so I fucked her anyway.

She was a little dry at first, but once we got going, she lubed up just fine. We did it doggy style, my favourite. When I was in the rhythm, slamming into her and making those flesh-slapping noises that are sort of nasty and exciting at the same time, I closed my eyes and imagined Kirsten in her place. I dug my fingers into Barbara’s buttocks and wondered how Kirsten’s smaller, rounder ass would feel. I came hard, deep inside Barbara. It was good. At least for me. I knew Barbara hadn’t come yet. I knew I should’ve done something about that. What I actually did was pretend to fall asleep. I do that real well. I wish I had really slept, then I wouldn’t have had to lie there listening to Barbara trying to cry silently.

Shit, I hate it when I make myself think about stuff like this. It’s like part of me just wants to keep rubbing my nose in it and say “bad boy”. Well, fuck that. We all do stuff we shouldn’t. It’s part of being human.

I’m glad when room service interrupts my thoughts by bringing me my meal. They know how to do this here: real linen tablecloths, heavy cutlery and crystal glasses. For an hour I manage to lose myself in tastes and smells and textures. The wine is full-bodied and mellow. I probably shouldn’t have drunk the whole bottle, but I enjoyed every sip.

Food is a passion of mine. I don’t cook but I love to eat. Barbara is a great cook. I sometimes think food is the closest we ever came to satisfying each other’s desires.

Now I’m back on Barbara again. That keeps happening to me. It won’t do me any good. Deep down I know she’s right to divorce me. The thing is that my mother-in-law was right: she is too good for me.

I lay back on the bed, wine glass resting comfortably on my belly, and pull out the mental picture album labelled BARBARA AND MARK: THE EARLY YEARS.

The couple in the album is young and inexperienced. Young Mark has learned how to make the quiet and mysterious Barbara laugh. Her laugh is a wonderful thing. It knows no inhibitions. It fills him with warmth, close to lust, that he thinks for a while is love. He will do anything, no matter how absurd, to provoke that laugh.

In the early pictures, Barbara is always laughing, one hand in front of her face, as if trying to cover up accidental nakedness.

In the wedding photos, Barbara has a faraway look, as if she cannot quite believe that she has gone through with the wedding, Young Mark looks as though he has just won the lottery.

I know I am going through these memories because I am drunk. For all my practice, I have never learned to be a happy drunk. Alcohol makes me too honest with myself.

I go to the bathroom and splash my face, hoping to drive away the ghosts of my marriage. They refuse to leave. I know what they want. They want a confession. I look in the mirror above the sink and say the words that will lay the ghosts.

“I am a lousy fuck and I’m sorry.”

This is what I’d always wanted to say to Barbara and never could.

Barbara, in those early years, was a good lover. She wanted to fuck the way she laughed. She was uninhibited and enthusiastic. And she intimidated the hell out of me.

I’d mainly done one-nightstands and orgy fucks before. I’d never had to try to fuck the same woman night after night. It’s not that she was a bad lay, the opposite in fact. But when we had sex I had this image of her as a powerful car that I never got out of first gear. She was patient. She got into foreplay. She read me erotica. She dressed up in sexy lingerie. She shared her fantasies. And every single thing she did made me shrivel up a little more.

Eventually, in the third year of our marriage, she stopped all the fancy stuff and settled for my clumsy, short-lived fucks. She even faked orgasms. And, dumb fuck that I am, I didn’t notice. I thought I’d cracked it. I was walking around thinking, First I learned to make her laugh, then I learned to make her come.

The bubble burst when I came home early one afternoon. I heard her as soon as I came through the door. She was moaning. A deep, low, continuous moan that I could not mistake.

So this is what she really sounds like when she comes, I thought.

I was angry. Some bastard was fucking my wife in our bed and making her come better than I could. I moved up the stairs quietly, looking forward to my dramatic entrance.

The moans were subsiding as I reached the bedroom door. I went in via the bathroom, which has doors to the hall and the bedroom. Barbara was on her belly. Her face was buried in one of my sweatshirts. She was alone. The room smelled of sweat and sex. Her fingers were still trapped beneath her cunt.

When I realized what I was seeing, I left at once. I didn’t want her to know that I knew she preferred her own fingers to me.

My drinking increased after that, and I started to chase women. I hoped that one of them would prove to me that I was a good fuck after all. None of them have. Oh, most of them enjoy themselves, but they aren’t looking for the same thing as Barbara. They fuck me because they like fucking, and I’m safe and generous and no worse than average. Barbara fucked me in the hope that we would fly together. She is the swan who married the penguin because he made her laugh.

OK, so now I’m getting maudlin. Penguin! Jesus wept, where do I get this stuff?

I should get dressed now and go home and wait for Kirsten. But what I want is to talk to Barbara. I want to tell her that I miss her and that I don’t deserve her and I want her back. With the certainty of the very drunk, I know this is the right thing to do.

I dial Peter’s number. The gods are on my side; Barbara answers.

“B,” I say, “It’s me. Mark.”

“What did you do to Peter?”

“What? Nothing. Listen. I have something to say.”

“I saw his hand. Did you hit him?”

“Yeah, real hard. With my chin.” I’m laughing and I want to stop but I can’t.

“You’re drunk aren’t you?” She sounds sad, not angry. “Is she there with you, listening?”

“Who?”

“Who? Can’t you remember her name now?”

“Oh, Kirsten. No she’s coming later. Listen. I wanted to tell you…”

“I don’t want to hear it, Mark. I’m not listening to you any more. It hurts too much.”

“But…”

“Tomorrow is Independence Day, Mark. Take it as a sign. From tomorrow we are completely independent.”

She is almost crying now. I can hear it at the edge of her voice.

“Please, B, I just want…”

“Goodbye, Mark.” She hangs up.

I feel a hundred years old. The phone stays in my hand because I can’t think what to do with it. I listen to the drone of the dial tone and it seems to be singing the song of my life.

Anger helps. Anger is good. I throw the phone away.

Bitch, I think.

I say it out loud, “Bitch.”

Then, “Heartless, man-eating BITCH.”

That’s better; much better.

The hotel arranges a taxi for me. Soon I will be home. Maybe Kirsten will want to fuck when she gets in. Or maybe it can wait until I get my eight minutes tomorrow morning.

Labor Day

“You OK?”

The concern in Peter’s voice makes me smile.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just taking a moment, you know?”

His stillness in the doorway calms me.

I stand, check my hair in the mirror and say, “I’ll be out in a minute and I’ll be the life and soul of the party, honest. After all, it’s a holiday, right?”

He says, “You’ve done the right thing, Barbara,” like it’s not a non sequitur. Then he leaves.

I hope I’ve done the right thing. I hope it with all my heart.

There has been so much change in my life, in such a short time, that I feel giddy. I sit back down, composing myself, staring at the woman in the mirror, looking for signs that she has changed.

When I was a child I used to love to play blindman’s bluff; to be blindfolded and turned round and round and round until all sense of direction was lost and the only way left was forward, into the arms of whomever I could catch. These past months I’ve been playing that game with my life. Now it’s time to take off the blindfold and seize what I have found.

God, I sound like some New-Ager peddling rebirthing seminars. How Mark would laugh at that. I can imagine the “commercial break” voice in which he would say, “Tired of the old you? Give birth to a new and improved one after only five days at our woodland retreat!”

I’ve always sneered at the idea of such fundamental change. You are who you are. You don’t suddenly become someone else. But maybe, sometimes, we settle for not being all of who we are. We shut down the parts that don’t fit. We grow, but we grow stunted, like plants raised in a too-small pot. At the beginning of the summer it came to me that my life had become pot-bound. So I smashed the pot.

God knows, Mark had already put a few cracks in it, with his serial seductions of silly girls. But in the end it was me, not him, who shattered our marriage beyond hope of repair.

When he abandoned me, in the middle of a Memorial Day barbecue with our best friends, so that he could go and fuck his latest Barbie, everything suddenly changed. I didn’t get angry. I got cold and still and then I cracked, like an iceberg snapping off from a glacier and sliding into the sea. One moment Mark and I were connected, the next we were separated by an unbridgeable stretch of despair and disappointment.

I think I might have frozen for ever on that day. Gone into shock and never come out. But Helen and Peter rescued me, right there and then. They took me into their hearts and, for a while, into their bed. I know that sounds bizarre and weird, but it didn’t feel that way. I’ve known them both for ever and I love them in my way. Helen, so brave and fierce and full of energy. Peter, her rock, her keel, always there for her, always calm and true. Being with them felt like coming home. Like rejoining my family. Except, of course, I don’t fuck my family.

But now it’s time to leave. The summer, that started so badly, is coming to an end. It’s Labor Day today. Helen and Peter are having a little party to wish me well in my new job in big bad Chicago. All my friends are waiting out there and yet I can’t bring myself to leave this room which has been my refuge from having to deal with the reality of divorcing Mark and learning to live on my own.

I know I should despise Mark. Everybody else does. But I can’t. He’s weak, not wicked. I know all about being weak. I was weak for years. In a way, my whole married life was a result of weakness.

I let Mark marry me because he wanted it so much. He was the first man in a long time to see past the cloak of invisibility I had wrapped myself in. The dowdy clothes, the shyness, the lack of make-up, didn’t put him off. He wanted me and he wanted to please me. That was flattering. He found ways to make me laugh. That was endearing. And he was always there, like a faithful hound waiting to be taken for a walk. All I had to do was look at him for his tail to start to wag. That, in the end, turned out to be irresistible.

It’s not that I didn’t love Mark, I did. I still do. But the thought of him never made me wet. When we kissed it was nice rather than good. When we fucked it was urgent rather than potent. I told myself that things would get better; that we would learn how to please each other; that we had plenty of time. But that isn’t how it worked out. Things got worse, not better. We never talked about it, but it was always with us; an absence of the passion that should have made our marriage grow.

In the end, that absence became the centre of our marriage. We walked around the hole it left in our lives every day, until it became our habit to circumnavigate sex, at least with each other. Mark found solace in sport-fucking shallow, undemanding women. I let my fingers release what I couldn’t suppress.

I wonder sometimes if things would have been different if I’d been a virgin when I married Mark. But I wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Todd had seen to that.

“You thinking of Mark?” Helen says. “You look upset.”

I didn’t hear her come in. I knew she would want to see me alone before I left. I have, I realize, been avoiding it. Now she is here, looking at me in the mirror, and I can’t read the expression on her face. She can do that sometimes; just switch her face to neutral. It’s disturbing because she is normally so expressive. Mark christened her “Helen, the face that launched a thousand quips”.

“Actually, I was thinking of Todd,” I say.

“Todd the Impaler? What brought him to mind?” Helen moves closer to me. Her face has softened a bit. She knows Todd is a difficult subject for me.

“I was wondering if being with him screwed up my marriage.”

My voice sounds like I’m on the edge of crying. I didn’t expect that. I hate that I cry so easily.

Helen is smaller than me. When she hugs me, I have to bend slightly to put my head on her shoulder. She leads me to the bed and we sit for a moment, next to one another. She holds both my hands within hers and, suddenly, I see her as she was when we were both in our first year in college.

She was my first adult female friend. She told me everything about herself. No embarrassment. No restraints. It was infectious. And one night, when we were sitting on her bed in her room, I started to tell her about Todd. I hadn’t told anyone about Todd. She let me talk. For hours. I think that Helen performed an exorcism that night.

When I had finished she said to me, “You are a good person.” It felt like a blessing.

If I had been prettier earlier, I would never have gone with Todd. Up to my senior year in high school, I was the invisible girl. The one everyone wrote, “I hope you have a great summer” to when they signed my yearbook, trying to remember who the hell I was.

The summer before my senior year I had a growth spurt. I grew three inches, lost some weight, and acquired a waist and hips. Suddenly I had long legs and a good ass. Barbara the boring became Babs the beautiful overnight.

My mother was so pleased that she bought me outfit after outfit. “I’ve been waiting to take you shopping for such a long time,” she said. In the store I became the centre of attention. My legs were applauded and I was encouraged to buy skirts that would display them. I went back to school feeling wonderful.

It didn’t last long. I’d broken one of the prime rules of high school: I’d tried to move out of the slot that my peers had allocated to me. My best friend, Alice, felt slighted by my new look. My study mate, Carl, suddenly became tongue-tied and uncomfortable. But the toughest reaction came from the wannabe prom queens. They started to call me Babs the Booty. They said I looked like a slut. But I wouldn’t give in. I wouldn’t sacrifice the look of pride on my mother’s face just to fit in in high school.

So now I looked good but no one talked to me. Then the boys found me. They weren’t bad boys. They were polite and nice and muscular and I ached for them. I hadn’t dated much so I wasn’t really sure what to do. I knew enough not to fuck on the first date. But the second seemed reasonable. And the boys wanted it so badly. And they were so nice to me. And besides, the sex was good. Sometimes very good.

I was Barbara the Queen Bee, surrounded by a group of adoring drone-boys. We went everywhere together. We had fun. And at the end of the evening one of them would take me home and on the way we would park and I would find out one more time just how good it felt to ride a fresh strong cock.

Looking back now, I think I went a little crazy for a while. The thinking me was switched off. I stopped being shy and introverted and tried hard to live in the now. The now where I was beautiful and the boys were eager. I was aware that they didn’t love me. I knew I didn’t love them. But it felt so damned good.

I’d been Queen Bee for about a month when Todd Rawlins showed up. Todd was two years older than me and had been the star of our football team in his senior year. If it hadn’t been for a knee injury, Todd would have made it to college on a sports scholarship. Instead he was working at his daddy’s Chrysler dealership.

Every girl in school knew three things about Todd: he drove a brand-new LeBaron Convertible, he partied hard and he had the biggest dick in town. One Friday night the drones and I were coming out of the bowling alley and I was teasing them about who would get to drive me home, when Todd pulled up next to us in his killer car. No “hello”s. No “baby, you look good”s. He just said, “Get in,” and I did.

Once we were away from the boys, Todd was nicer to me. He told me how he’d heard that I’d become hot and said he’d decided he had to take a look for himself. I asked him if he liked what he saw. He told me that he hadn’t seen it all yet and that he’d let me know later.

In a way I was still a virgin until Todd fucked me. I mean, I’d had sex, lots of it, but I’d never been possessed by it. Never had it take over my whole mind until I was just a set of nerve endings surfing on wave after wave of orgasm.

That first time, he took me to the woods and we parked. He led me out of the car and made me sit on the hood.

“I got something for you, baby and you’re gonna like it a lot,” he said.

I nearly laughed at that, but realized in time that no joke was intended.

Then Todd unzipped and took out his dick. It wasn’t fully hard yet but it was already bigger than most of the cocks I’d had inside me. My cunt contracted and my mouth went dry. I wanted to see it stand and I wanted to feel it stretch me. That dick of his brought out desires that I didn’t even know I had.

“Told you you’d like it,” he said, “they all do.”

I wasn’t listening. I was spreading my legs and pushing my panties aside and staring at his dick and wondering if it would tear me. There may have been a small voice saying, “Why are you fucking this dick?” but even if I had heard it, my only answer would have been, “Because it’s there! Now shut up bitch and let me fuck.”

The first fuck, he just grabbed me by the back of the knees, spread me so wide that it hurt and rammed it home. Nothing had ever made me feel so full. It hurt but it hurt good. He pounded away at me so hard I thought we’d dent the car. I was breathless and stunned. Not ready to orgasm yet; still amazed at how full I felt; almost afraid to move in case I hurt something.

Then he came and I thought, Shit no, not yet!

I must have said some of that aloud because Todd grinned at me and said, “We ain’t done yet, baby. You feel anything getting smaller down there? All we’ve done is get you nice and lubed.”

It was true. He’d come, but he was still hard. I pushed against him gratefully, eager to chase my orgasm. But he pulled out.

“Time to say hello properly, baby,” he said.

I didn’t know what he meant.

He stepped back from the car and said, “On your knees, baby. Come and show Mr Pecker here your deep appreciation.”

I wish I had laughed then. I wish I had told him and Mr Pecker to fuck off. But I didn’t. I got on my knees and I took him in my mouth. It was bitter tasting and unpleasant but sort of compelling at the same time. There was just so damned much of it.

I didn’t have a lot of experience with giving head. The drones and I had skipped that part and gone straight for the main course. It must have showed.

Todd said, “Jesus, girl, mind those teeth,” and took Mr Pecker away from me.

I thought it was all over then, but Todd wasn’t done. He bent me over his car and took me doggy style. You wouldn’t believe how deep he could get like that. And he was slow now. No hurry at all. It went on and on. He made me come the first time just from the way his cock moved. The second time he got me there by working on my clit while still going with that slow deep stretching in and out movement. My third orgasm was triggered when he spurted inside me.

My legs were shaking when he pulled out. I couldn’t move off the hood of his car, even though I could feel his come running down my thigh. I’d never come three times one after another like that. My mind had gone away completely, a bit like the way you lose your hearing after a gun goes off. I wanted to sleep right there.

Todd guided me back into the car. We drove to my house in silence. I don’t think I could have talked even if I’d wanted to. When we reached my house, Todd just waited for me to get out.

I struggled onto the curb and he said, “You have a great cunt, baby, but you’ve really gotta learn to give head. See you tomorrow.”

Then he drove off.

I lay on my bed thinking about what had happened. It was shameful. I knew that. Todd was using me and I was letting him. My cunt was sore. My legs ached. My pride wanted to say, “Screw you, Todd Rawlins.” I fell asleep still undecided about whether to see him again.

I was late for school the next day. By the time I got there, everyone seemed to know I was one of Todd’s girls. Not Todd’s girl. Just one of them. The drone-boys all found reasons not to be available that night. My ex-best friend told me I should be ashamed of myself.

After school, Todd was there with his shiny car and his big smile. We did it all again. The only difference was that I nearly threw up on him when he tried to push Mr Pecker down my throat.

At the time it seemed to me I was out of options. I couldn’t go back and I didn’t know how to go forward so I just let Todd go on fucking me. It lasted a whole month.

My cunt was sore by then. My mind was working loose from the corner I’d tied her up in and was shouting, “Stop this nonsense right now, young lady.” I gagged her because I didn’t want to hear it.

It ended when Todd called me and asked me to come over to his house. He said his parents were away and he wanted to show me something special.

I went because I couldn’t figure out how to say no.

When I got there the door was open so I went into the family room. Todd was on the big sofa watching a porno movie. Amy Shanks, universally known at school as Amy Skanks, was on her knees sucking his dick. I must have just stood there looking stunned.

Todd said, “Hi, baby. This is what I wanted to show you.” Then he turned to Amy and said, “Do it, baby.”

Amy looked at me. She held eye contact while she lowered her mouth onto Todd’s dick. She swallowed it. All of it. It made her throat bulge but it she swallowed it all. Todd placed his hand on the back of her head and started to move her up and down on his dick.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Todd said. “And Amy here is gonna show you how it’s done. Come on over, baby and get a better look.”

My mind finally broke free of her bonds and all I heard was her shouting, “Run, Barbara, and don’t stop until you’re home in bed.”

I don’t remember getting home. I don’t remember anything until I woke up the next day. Then it all hit me. I was a slut. I had been a slut for months. Everybody but me knew that. And my grades. My grades had seemed so unimportant while I was slutting around but now I knew that they were dropping enough to put college at risk. I stayed in bed all day. And the next day.

Finally, I told my mom that there was a problem at school but I didn’t want to talk about it. I think maybe some of the neighbours had already been talking about it, because Mom quickly sorted things out without any questions. She arranged private tuition to rescue my grades. I worked hard. I made it to college.

But I still had a secret. The secret was that I had wanted to be fucked like that. I’d enjoyed it. I wanted more of it.

My mind was firmly back in control now and she tried hard to banish Miss Libido. She made me dress in baggy clothes and to stop even talking to boys. I became invisible again. But at night, before I fell asleep, my fingers would find my cunt and I would think of Todd and wonder if I would ever find anyone who could make me come like that ever again.

Helen is waiting for me to tell her what’s on my mind.

I manage a smile. “Remember when we talked about Todd that night? You were wonderful. And then you introduced me to Mark,” I say.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Helen says. “He seemed like a nice guy at the time.”

“He was a nice guy at the time.”

We are both smiling now and I can finally say to Helen the thing that needs to be said. “Helen, about Peter…”

Helen’s smile goes. I feel her stiffen.

“I’m so sorry,” I say.

“It’s over now,” Helen says. She removes her hands from mine but manages a smile that almost reaches her eyes. “No harm done,” she says, moving towards the door. “Now stop moping and come and join the party.”

No harm done. I hope that’s true.

The day Mark left me, the day when I could have shrivelled up and nursed my sense of worthlessness, Helen rescued me. She knew that I was attracted to Peter. She’d told me that he was a little in love with me. We’d laughed about that. Imagine quiet Peter harbouring a passion for Barbara. That was back when Helen and I would trade stories about our husbands. When I still felt married. Before the lack of passion in my life made me feel dried up and useless and unlovable.

By the time I reached that Memorial Day barbecue it was painful for me to watch Helen and Peter together. I was like a starving beggar pressing my face against the window of a restaurant, tormented by the sight of food but unable to look away.

When Mark left the barbecue with some insultingly see-through excuse, I headed back to the cabin to cry and to feel sorry for myself.

Helen stopped me. She spoke softly. What she said surprised me. “We love you, Barbara. You deserve better. Let us care for you. Let me share Peter with you. Be with us for a while.”

I could tell that she was sincere and that what she was saying wasn’t springing spontaneously into her head. I knew what “share Peter” meant. Something in the way that Helen said it left no doubt.

Above all else, this felt like an act of friendship. I accepted it, my numb distress starting to be replaced by a sense of dislocation from reality.

The sex was fun.

Helen likes to tie Peter. I’d known that for a long time. Mark was always going on about how odd that was and how Helen “had Peter’s pecker in her pocket”. I couldn’t quite imagine it.

That night, Helen tied and blindfolded Peter and then we both… played with him. My memory of it is so clear. Time slowed down. I tried not to look at Helen. I was at such a high level of awareness that reality was too vivid to be anything but a dream. Peter surrendered himself to us. We took him in turns, never speaking, always preserving the convention that it could have been just the two of them in the room. But we all knew. And we all wanted it.

My orgasm was like a return to sanity. It sounds an extravagant claim, but it healed me. I felt, for the first time in a very long time, happy.

I moved in with Helen and Peter after that. I had my own room. There was no more sharing. But there was love and support and a space to learn to be me again.

Things might have been fine if the walls had been thicker, or if Helen had been less noisy when she came, or if Peter had not been just a little in love with me. I lay there at night and listened to them having sex. I could tell they were trying to be quiet, but there would always be that last moment in which Helen lost control. I would close my eyes and try to remember Peter being inside me. I would try to come when Helen came.

After a while we all started to become less comfortable with each other in the mornings. We took care to dress before coming down for breakfast. I tried not to watch Peter’s every move. I tried not to yearn for him. I failed.

Later Peter told me that he couldn’t get me out of his head. He said the blindfold had meant that he was never sure when it was me and when it was Helen he was with. He felt like he should have been able to tell. He felt like he wanted to experience the difference.

One evening, Helen went to fix us some drinks. While she was out of the room Peter and I accidentally looked into each other’s eyes. We’d each been trying to sneak a quick look at the other. We were still looking at each other when Helen came back. We broke contact guiltily. Helen just stood there. No one spoke.

I wanted to leave or to apologize. I felt as if she had walked in on us fucking.

Helen handed us both a drink. Then she said, “It’s OK. Really. I’ll sleep in the other room tonight.”

Peter started to rise from his chair to protest. Helen stopped him with a glance that I couldn’t read but which brought him to a complete halt. Then she was gone. She took my room.

I was standing too now, staring at the closed door between Helen and us.

Peter and I turned towards each other. I was uncertain. I wanted Peter. Really wanted him. He was so close and so alive that I thought sparks might jump the small gap between us.

I reached up and stroked the side of his face. He was very still. I kissed him.

It was as I had imagined it. Soft lips. Warm. Accepting. Except that it felt wrong. It felt like betrayal.

Peter didn’t kiss me back but he didn’t resist. I know that if I had continued he would have let me. To please me. To please Helen. But I stopped.

Still we didn’t speak. I took Peter by the hand and led him, quietly, into my room. Helen was curled up in a ball facing the wall. She didn’t hear us come in. I said her name. She turned and looked at both of us. There were tears in her eyes. I held Peter’s hand out to her. She jumped up off the bed and hugged him. When I left, they were kissing fiercely, as if they were sucking in oxygen after almost drowning. I went for a drive. They were in their room when I came back and everything was quiet.

The next morning I declared my intent to look for a job. Here I am, five weeks later, ready to move to one.

“B. Are you in there, B? Come out, come out, wherever you are.” It is Mark’s voice calling from the garden. He sounds drunk. I rush out. The last time he and Peter met there was trouble. I expect to see Peter dragging Mark away, but it is Helen, little Helen, who is blocking Mark’s path.

“B. Please, B.”

I put my hand on Helen’s shoulder and she lets me step in front of her. She continues to glare at Mark.

“B, I’m drunk. I’m sorry I’m drunk but I’ve got something important to say to you.”

Mark looks ill. His clothes are dirty and his complexion is pale. I wonder how long he has been drunk this time.

He staggers towards me, reaching for me. I stay still and he stops short.

“I know you’re going away. The lawyer told me. I want to tell you… to say… to let you know that I love you, B. I’ve always loved you.”

He is crying now. He looks lost. I assume his nympho intern has left him. He looks like he wants me to take him in my arms as I have so many times before.

Everybody at the party is looking at us. I step forward so that I can speak directly into Mark’s ear. His arms fold about me as I say, “I know you love me, Mark. I love you. But it will never be enough, will it?”

His face turns towards me. He seems suddenly sober. I wait for the tantrum or the insult. Instead he says quietly, “Good luck in your new job, B,” and walks, a little too precisely, towards his car. Helen sends Peter after him to drive him home.

The party doesn’t last long. Mark has taken the edge off it. By the time Peter gets back people are already leaving. It’s getting dark earlier already. Summer is over and fall, “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, is here.

The last of the guests leaves just before sunset. I stand and watch the slow ignition of the sky. Peter and Helen come and stand on either side of me. I take their hands.

I don’t know who Barbara will become in Chicago. I hope Barbara the Bold, ready to make her own future. But right here and right now, she feels like Barbara the Blessed.

Halloween

“You can’t do this to me, Anthea.”

Mark is more pathetic than fierce. The smell of alcohol preceded him into my office. He looks slightly jaundiced. His cheeks and chin sport small islands of stubble that managed to evade his razor this morning. I’m surprised he can keep his hand steady enough to shave.

“I’m not doing it to you, Mark,” I say. “You’re doing it to yourself. You’ve lost it. Look at yourself. How long can you last between drinks now, Mark? An hour? Two, if you really try? I’m giving you a simple choice: either dry out or ship out.”

For a moment I think he’s going to tell me to fuck off. I almost wish he would.

When we first met, before his long-suffering wife finally left him, he was a maverick. He always had a comeback ready. I liked him. He reminded me of Davey, my younger brother. Or at least how Davey would have been if he hadn’t wrapped himself around a tree riding that motorcycle of his.

I’ve never found it easy to talk to men. Somehow it always turned into a conflict: the strong ones saw me as a challenge, someone to put down either by bedding or ridiculing; the weak ones were afraid of me and their fear made me despise them and despise myself for feeling that way. I built a shell around myself. I out-manned them; being tougher than the strong and ruthlessly removing the weak.

I thought Mark was the exception, that for once I could drop the macho crap and make a friend. I liked the way he smiled and he was easy to talk to. Then, one evening, when we were working late, Mark pushed his fingers between my legs. I wanted to kill him. I felt betrayed. Stupid really, he wasn’t to know that he reminded me of my dead brother.

Mark works for me now. I should probably have fired him, but I always hoped that he’d pull himself together and be the guy I wanted him to be. Now he’s sitting on the other side of my desk with nothing to say. Oh shit. He’s crying. Not big sobs. More like his eyes are leaking.

Part of me wants to hug him and help him, but most of me just wants to slap him. How could he fuck up his life like this?

Of course, I can’t do either of these things. I’m the boss, Anthea the Hun they call me: strong, logical, unemotional.

I look at my watch. Mark is my last chore before I head home. It’s Halloween tonight and I have things to prepare. I let my eyes rest on the picture of Drazen and his daughter that I keep on my desk. The picture is supposed to remind me of home, give me a smile in the middle of the day; increasingly it just reminds me that I spend too many hours at work and most of them are wasted on cleaning up the messes other people make. Time to clear up my last mess of the day.

“I’m going to leave these details with you, Mark. If you want to keep your job then I will get a phone call from the clinic on Monday saying that you’ve checked in. If you want to continue to drown yourself in booze, then just clear your desk and don’t come back. This is your last chance, Mark. Choose wisely.”

Why do I always sound so pompous when I’m doing something unpleasant?

Even though it’s my office, I get up to leave. I want to be home. I want to be somewhere where I don’t have to be in charge and where I can let people love me. Mark starts to cry properly as I leave. I pretend not to hear him and keep moving.

The express elevator, a perk of my executive status, is softly lit and lined with mirrors, presumably so that executives can maintain a positive image. I stand in the centre of the elevator and stare at the infinite number of Antheas that head off in each direction. I don’t recognize them. I don’t want these uptight, asexual women to be me.

Perhaps it is the shock of seeing the wreck Mark has become, or perhaps it is the news I want to give to Drazen tonight, but I feel a strong need to change the images in the mirror. I reach up and release my hair, letting it fall around my shoulders. My hair is thick and soft; I love the feel of it against my face, the taste of it in my mouth. My hair is my freedom, my sexuality. Which is why I bind it so tightly at work, but why I refuse to have it cut.

I bend forward at the waist, letting my hair fall forward over my head. It is almost long enough to touch the floor. Then I flick myself upright, casting my hair behind me like a mane. The images in the mirror, with their legs apart, shoulders back, hair shining in the massaged light, seem more recognizable now. I wave to myself just as the deferential tone sounds to let me know that I have reached the ground.

I opt for a limo rather than taking the train. I tell myself that it’s because I’m late and I need to hurry home, but I know that what I want is the privacy.

In the car I settle back against the leather seat and slip off my shoes. I will be home in less than an hour, but I need Drazen right now. The wireless earpiece of my cell phone (Anthea the Hun always has all the latest boys’ toys) is hidden beneath my hair. I say, “Drazen,” and the speed dial starts.

“Anthea.” A statement, not a question. Drazen’s voice, soft and calm, slides into my ear and makes me shiver. In his mouth my name is “Ann-Tea-Ah” and immediately “the Hun” is left behind. I remain silent, waiting.

“So…” he says, “you can be overheard, but you want to play. Soon, I hope, you will be home, but then there will be other things before… I understand.”

I can hear him walking through the house. He will go to his studio. Soundproofed and secure. I recognize the noise the door lock makes as it snaps shut.

When he speaks again he is more relaxed. His voice is still soft but it has energy to it suggesting the confident strength and controlled arousal of a predator stalking his prey.

“You are in a car. No, it is quiet enough to be a limo. I can hear your breathing, Anthea. Press your shoulders back against the leather seat. Keep your thighs together. Tight together. Squeeze. Close your eyes and remember how it feels when your thighs close against my beard, when my tongue dips into you. Remember the smell of your arousal, the soft drizzle of your juices onto my chin. Remember how hard it is for you to stay still, how much you want to move, to grind, to rock, to press, to drive yourself down upon my tongue until it impales you. Remember all of that but keep a calm expression on your face.”

I look forward at the rear-view mirror. The driver’s eyes are on the road, but if he looks up he will see me.

It feels as though Drazen is behind me, breathing into my ear, as if it is him I am pressing into. I want to open my legs, just a little, slide a finger along my thigh, draw small circles on my mound.

“No touching, Anthea. Keep your legs closed and your mind open.”

I smile. I know he will be imagining me smiling.

“Stretch your legs. Feel the muscles at the back of your thighs tense. Keep them tense. Can you smell yourself yet? Do you think your driver can smell you? Not yet perhaps, but soon.”

My face flushes at the thought. I check the rear-view again. The driver looks up, then looks away.

“You will feign sleep, Anthea. Let your beautiful head rest against the leather. Hold some of your hair across your mouth. Keep it in place. Remember how my thumb feels, pressing against your lower lip, my fingers resting on your cheek, how good it feels to dip your head forward and feel the thumb press into the roof of your mouth.”

I bite down on my hair as the first little contraction hits. Memory flares. The first time that he fucked me in a public place it started like that, a small dip of my head on his thumb, my face scarlet with embarrassment, my sex damp with need. It ended with me bent over the back of a park bench, Drazen behind me, pushing slowly and calmly into my ass, as if anal sex was a normal pursuit on a Sunday morning stroll in the park.

“Good girl, Anthea. Good girl.”

His voice is stroking me. Soothing me. I hear him unzip his fly and a small moan escapes from me.

“Shh, Anthea is sleeping. She cannot see how hard I am at the thought of her, cannot smell the musk of that arousal.”

I love the smell of him. The taste of him. The fascination of playing with his foreskin. The strong scent that rises when I roll back that soft skin.

“In her sleep Anthea will reach beneath her respectable executive jacket, open one button of her pressed and spotless white blouse, push aside the cup of the plain white cotton bra and let her breast rest in the palm of her hand.”

Slowly, shifting to one side as if in sleep, I let my hand slide onto my breast.

My nipples are so sensitive that I can hardly bare to have them touched. Before Drazen, my lovers had always been too rough: pinching and biting when they should have been caressing. I had begun to think that I was a freak with hair-trigger nipples that would be constantly off limits. Drazen, with his pianist’s hands, showed me how wrong I was. He would stand behind me, his mouth on my neck, my breasts cupped gently in his hands, just the underside of them resting against his skin, lifted slightly but with no pressure. Then his thumbs, light as butterflies, would graze the tip of the nipples, coaxing them, letting them rise, working them until they throbbed, finally pushing them back firmly into my breasts and biting down on my neck until I was wriggling with pleasure.

“Anthea is dreaming. In her dream my cock slides, slick and stiff, out of her mouth. She guides it to her breasts. Uses it to draw a wet circle around her nipple. Laughs when I flinch with the extremity of the sensation. Rubs the underside of the gland over the stubby arousal of her nipple, then squeezes the head of my cock until the slit opens. She looks up at me, her eyes on mine as she pushes her nipple into the slit, fucking me and fucking me.”

Drazen’s voice has a ragged edge now. He will be touching himself. His eyes will be closed as he remembers how I took him that night. The first time I really took the initiative.

“Stroke the nipple, Anthea. Slow strokes. Persistent strokes. Suck on the hair in your mouth. Squeeze your thighs. Sweat for me inside your executive suit in your oversized limo. Come for me. Come hard. Come silently. Come for me, Anthea.”

And I do. Not at once. Not on command. It takes maybe a minute of silent struggle. I can hear him breathing hard into my ear, listening to me, sniffing at me through the phone line. The come is a sunburst of warmth spreading up from my stomach, exorcising the tension of the day.

“Good girl, Anthea. Very good girl. Now come home to me.”

The line goes dead in my ear.

I open my eyes and sit up straight. The driver’s eyes flick away a little too quickly when I look into the rear-view. I realize that I am smiling. “Ann-Tea-Ah” smiles a lot.

I open the window, even though the day is cold. I don’t want my smell to stay in the car.

I am nearly home now. We’ve left the freeway behind and are driving slowly through tree-lined streets. I can see jack-o’-lanterns on porches. They are all grinning at me. I grin back.

Drazen was my New Year’s resolution. It was part of project APTGAL (Anthea’s Plan To Get A Life) that I dreamed up when I found myself alone in my house on New Year’s Eve. If I’d been sober when I put the plan together, I’m fairly sure that step one would not have read “Take piano lessons”. Nothing might have come of it except for the card I saw the next day on the noticeboard at the convenience store. It read DRAZEN BEBIC: PIANO TEACHER.

For some reason, “Piano Teacher” had summoned up an image of a kindly old man wearing spectacles and an old brown cardigan and speaking with a Professor Von Duck accent. Drazen was nothing like that. First there was his hair: thick, jet black, and brushed straight back so that it seemed to cascade to his shoulders. Then there was his beard: short, precise, somehow emphasizing the sensual softness of his lips. But most of all there were his eyes, dark but filled with light, and hard to look away from.

He was at least fifteen years older than me and I’d only just laid eyes on him but, by the time he stepped forward and shook my hand, my palm was already damp. When he touched me, my nipples hardened. No one had ever had that effect on me before. Then he said my name, “Ann-Tea-Ah,” and I understood what gives cats the urge to purr.

He sat me down in front of the huge piano that dominated his tiny apartment. I felt like Jane Eyre, asked to play for Mr Rochester, and knowing that every note would diminish her in his eyes. Yet I’d been good at the piano once, back before work spread itself across my life like a gorse bush, leaving room for nothing else, so when, standing so close behind me that I could smell his cologne, he said, “I would like to hear you, Anthea,” I started to play.

He listened and watched. There was nothing flirtatious, but I had his complete attention. I played quite well once I got started. Enough to demonstrate some technique at least. He didn’t tell me to stop, so I played every piece I knew. When I finished I wondered why I’d ever given up playing. I was good and this was fun.

“I would like to know what it is that you want, Anthea,” Drazen said.

I had turned to face him, waiting for praise or at least coaching, wanting to look into his eyes again. His question surprised me.

“I want to play the piano.”

“Ah, I had hoped that perhaps you wanted me to teach you.”

“What?”

“You already play the piano. But you play with these…” He reached out and picked up my hand, holding it gently by the tips of the fingers. My skin prickled where it touched him. “When you could be playing with this.”

He held me by the wrist and placed the palm of my hand against my chest, between my breasts. The contact wasn’t overtly sexual but I felt naked in front of him. The surprising thing was that my body was clearly happy about that. My mind was offended.

I shook his hand off my wrist and stood up. “I’m leaving now,” I said.

Drazen bowed his head. I’d never seen anyone do that in real life before. His eyes stayed on me during the bow. I couldn’t read them but I didn’t want to look away from them. I had to remind myself that he had been rude to me and that I wasn’t going to stand for it.

“Are you always so—” I realized that “rude” was the wrong word. He’d been polite but… “—personal with your students?”

“What is life if it is not personal, Anthea?”

That was pretty much the question I’d been asking myself on New Year’s Eve.

“I’m going now.”

He stepped back and to one side so that I had a clear route to the door.

I didn’t leave. It was Anthea the Hun who wanted to leave. The rest of me wanted to stay. I sat down. “I’m sorry,” I said. “You caught me by surprise. I’d like to stay.”

He didn’t look surprised, but he did smile. “Then I’m glad that I ‘caught’ you at all,” he said.

And he had caught me. We became lovers within the week. But even in bed he was my teacher. He taught me to listen to the now, to surrender to the needs of my body in order to feed my soul. Another man talking like that would sound ridiculous, Drazen just sounds truthful.

Months afterwards, lying in his arms after sex, I asked him about the day we met. I wanted to know what he thought of me then.

He lifted my chin off his chest to make me look at him and said, “I thought then, what I think now. That I want you. That, if you will let me, I will take you. That sometimes life is worth living.” I knew then that he loved me.

“We’re here ma’am,” the driver says.

There are no lascivious looks, no innuendo. I smile at him and tip him more generously than usual.

Anja is waiting for me when I get home. She has the same grave face as her father, one that is transformed when she smiles.

Anja is doing her best to find a place for herself in America, but she has a solemnity about her that is not normal for an eleven-year-old American girl, but she is strong, a survivor. She has survived the war in Bosnia, the death of her mother, her exile in America. Seeing her standing there on the porch, her face lit by the huge jack-o’-lantern that I helped her carve last night, I want to rid her of her ghosts. I want to see her filled with joy.

“Hello, Morticia,” she says, holding out her hand in a formal invitation, “come and meet Gomez.”

Tonight we are, at Anja’s insistence, the Addams family. She will, of course, be Wednesday.

Drazen is already in the double-breasted pinstriped suit that is his concession to costume. I wonder if he was wearing it when I called.

“Gomez, mon cher, mon amour,” I say in a voice I hope is like Anjelica Houston’s.

“Ah, Tish, you spoke French,” he says on cue, taking my outstretched arm and kissing his way from the back of my hand up my arm to my neck. I glance sideways at Anja/Wednesday wondering if she approves, fearing that moments like this summon the spirit of her mother. The edges of her mouth are slightly upturned. I take that as warm approbation.

When Drazen’s head is at my neck I twist sideways, plant a quick kiss on his cheek and say, “Thank you. That was delicious.” Then I send him away so that Anja and I can change.

Anja has prepared everything, the clothes are laid out on the bed, the wigs are on the dressing table. It is all I can do to slip away and shower before she sets about her work.

There is an intimacy in dressing each other that is like nothing else. It is recognition of trust and an offer to reveal and to transform. The costumes emphasize this. I never wear black at home, yet now I am wrapped in it like a shroud.

“How do I look?” I ask as the wig goes on.

“Believable,” Anja says.

Not quite the comment I expected. I wonder how I normally look to her. There is a short silence during which I grow nervous in front of this child.

Then she hands me the make-up bag and says, “Make me look sad, but scary.”

It doesn’t take long.

“Gomez” declines to walk the streets with us. Waving a thick cigar, which I know he will not smoke, he says, “My dears, the two of you are frightful enough, three of us could prove fatal.”

By the standards of the day, our costumes are sedate, yet at every door Anja makes a killing. She never once steps out of character, extorting treats because, from her, the threat of tricks seems so real.

I let her walk ahead of me, keeping to the shadows, arms folded across my breasts, whenever we reach a house. Watching Anja, I see her father, his stillness, his confidence. I wonder which of her gestures belong to her mother, Sanja.

I realize that I am jealous of Sanja, for having Drazen before me. Crazy to be jealous of a dead woman, and yet tonight I feel as though, at any moment, I might meet her.

When Anja’s sack is full we return home. She is so serious that I am uncertain whether she has enjoyed herself or whether this has all been a bizarre experiment in which she has tested the sanity of those around her and found them wanting. Yet when she sees Drazen on the porch, she runs to him.

“Dada,” she says, holding up her sack, “look how much they gave me.”

“You must have made them tremble, little one.”

“No, it was Anthea, standing in the shadows like a threat. She was perfect.”

Drazen looks over Anja’s head at me and smiles. I feel as though I have won a medal. I wait for Anja to turn and thank me, but she grabs her sack and runs into the house.

“Happiness still catches her by surprise,” Drazen says. “She wants to go and hug it to herself in private.” He takes my hand in his, rubs his thumb against my palm and says, “You understand that, I’m sure.”

I almost tell him then, but I don’t want to do it in my costume so I wait. Dinner comes and goes without me finding the right moment. Anja gets permission to sleep in her Wednesday outfit because, as she explained very seriously, “It is still Halloween until morning,” and then Drazen and I are alone.

I go into the bedroom to change out of my Morticia costume. Drazen follows me. Leaning against the door frame, he looks at me, waiting for something.

I want to tell him. But not yet. I need to think some more, I tell myself. Coward, I reply.

“Come to bed,” Drazen says.

“I have to do some work first. I’ll be back later.”

I can see he doesn’t believe me, but he makes no comment when I go back downstairs.

I sit at my laptop, pretending to work, trying to find my courage. I make some coffee and go out onto the back porch.

The moon is full tonight. It sits in the sky, large and round and proud. It occurs to me that the moon and I are both pregnant, except that I don’t show yet.

This is what I need to tell Drazen. So what’s stopping me? We aren’t married. We’ve never really talked about the future. A man with a past like Drazen’s can be forgiven for living in the present. I don’t want to drive him away and I don’t want to force him to commit. And I don’t know how I feel about being pregnant.

I know exactly when this baby was conceived. It was on the anniversary of Sanja’s death. Drazen had never talked to me about how his wife died, but then I’d never found him crying before. I held him and let him cry.

“They hurt her, Anthea, before they killed her; they spent a day hurting her. And I couldn’t stop them. I didn’t even know what was happening until they dumped her body at my door.”

I rocked him, holding his head to my breast.

“She was my life, Anthea. And they killed her.”

There was nothing to say, so I stayed silent.

After a while, he looked up. His eyes had no strength in them, only sorrow. I kissed them one at a time. Then I kissed his mouth, again and again, small healing kisses.

I put his hand between my legs. I don’t know why I did it. Words seemed so inadequate. I gave him what I had. The sex started slowly. I sat astride him and pulled him into me. Then I carried on kissing him. He stopped crying. He held me so tightly that it left bruises. Then he started to fuck me, fiercely, passionately, as if fucking me was the only thing that kept him alive. He clung to me even after he had come. I still hadn’t spoken to him, but now it was me who was crying.

I think he was saying goodbye to his wife that night. I know he was choosing me, choosing life. It turns out that we were also creating one.

I shiver in the cold and realize I have been outside a long time. Drazen is asleep when I reach the bedroom. The moon is washing his face with silver. He looks older, more vulnerable. I want him so badly it frightens me.

Time to choose: trick or treat?

I stroke his face, following the moon, then I sit astride him. He doesn’t wake until I kiss him. I place his hands on my breasts and rock gently on his cock, which is lying flat against his belly. I lift my hips and he slides into me. So good to have him there. So good to have him.

“There is something I need to tell you,” I say.

Drazen puts his finger across my lips pulls my head down to him. He pushes upwards, slowly, without urgency, until he is all the way in. “What shall we call the child?” he says.

Thanksgiving

“You want me to sleep here?”

“Well, this is where you slept when you lived here, Helen. Why should it change now? I thought you’d be pleased to have your old room back.”

I try to read my mother’s face. She must being doing this deliberately. And she must know that I can see what she is doing. But she still has that innocent, not-quite-connected-to-planet-earth look that she uses to avoid any minor questions about her decisions that my father might be rash enough to voice.

I stare in disbelief at the single bed that I slept in as a child. It’s a very narrow single bed.

“I know that you prefer to ignore the fact that Peter and I are married, Mother, but he is my husband and I expect to have him in my bed. We can’t sleep here.”

“Really, Helen, I have no idea where you get these impressions from. I have no opinion about Peter. As I said at the time, who you chose to marry was up to you.”

What she’d said at the time was, “Are you sure you want to marry Paul, dear? He’s such a bland man. I can see the advantage of having someone manageable but marriage needs a little spice if it’s to last. I’ve always preferred to wake up to Huevos Rancheros. The problem with Paul is that he’s just so… oatmeal.”

I’d stood there, with my hands balled into fists and my jaw clenched, trying to quell the desire to hit her. “His name is Peter, Mother,” I’d spat out.

“You see, dear, not even his name is memorable. Ah well. It is your decision, of course.”

Now, seven years later, I find myself having to bite back my anger one more time. My mother is talking. I’m trying not to strangle her.

“I didn’t think that you and Peter would mind being separated for one night. I’ve given him the fold-down bed in your father’s den. He’ll be perfectly comfortable. I had to give the guest bedroom to Troy and Dianna; after all, they have the baby to think of.”

The baby. Of course, we should be thinking about the baby. My younger brother (what kind of mother calls their kids Helen and Troy?) produced a grandchild right off the bat. I, of course, committed the sin of putting my career ahead of my duty to deliver grandchildren, although even that became Peter’s fault in my mother’s mind. “If Peter has a problem dear, I can recommend an excellent clinic.” My mother had left that helpful tip on our answerphone in the second year of my marriage. Peter played it back to me when I got home from work.

I don’t resent the fact that Troy and Dianna got the big bed. I resent the implication that Peter is so bland that I won’t even notice his absence.

“I want him here with me, Mother.”

Even I can hear how petulant I sound.

“Well, if it’s that important to you, dear, I’ll ask your father to move the fold-down bed in here. I’m sure he won’t mind. Although, of course, he has only just set everything up in the den. But then your father always makes sure that his little Helen gets what she wants, doesn’t he?”

I don’t believe it. She is still jealous of the fact that Dad will do things for me.

“There won’t be a lot of room in here. You’ll have to fold up the bed before you can open the door. But, if that’s what you want…”

Oh God. It is always like this. A constant trickle of words that erode my will. I either have to get angry or shut down and give in. Giving in is easier. If I push her now, the topic will come up at dinner. And again in the morning. And the next time we come to the house. If there is a next time.

“Never mind, Mother. Peter can stay where he is. Let’s just concentrate on getting dinner ready.”

“Well, if you’re sure, dear.”

How did this woman live so long?

“You look tense, Helen. Why don’t you take a moment to freshen up? Dianna is changing the baby in the bathroom but you can use the en suite in the master bedroom. I’ll be in the kitchen when you’re ready.”

And then she is gone. The relief is physical, like when your ears pop at altitude.

I don’t really need to freshen up but it gives me a reason to delay going downstairs. Nothing has changed in my parents’ bedroom. The huge wrought-iron bed with the chintz canopy over it is still there. I used that bed the first time that I fucked Peter. I used it because I liked the headboard, because I wanted revenge on my mother for all the times I’d had to listen to her thrashing in this bed in the middle of the night, and because I wanted to see if good, nice, sensible Peter Brader would do what I wanted him to do.

I sit on the stool by the dressing table and summon up the memory of a nineteen-year-old Peter, lying on this bed with his wrists tied to the headboard; so calm and trusting that, except for the impressive erection he was saluting me with, he might almost have been ready to sleep.

Other boys I’d known had only pretended to submit. They’d made comments as I tied them to establish that it was all a game and, as soon as they’d come, they’d started to fret at their bonds, demanding to be let free. Peter didn’t do any of that. He just waited for me to use him. But his serenity wasn’t passive. Somehow it managed to amplify everything I did. The harder I fucked him, the harder I wanted to fuck him. His cock was my lightning rod, calling me forth, daring me to spend myself on him, taking everything that I could give and leaving me discharged and sated.

Afterwards I’d left him tied to the bed while I sat and brushed my hair. A beam of sunlight was shining down on him, highlighting the sweat on his muscles and the small scratches and bites I’d visited on him. He looked happy, even grateful. I’d shown him my wildest side. I’d sworn and fucked and bitten and scratched and shouted my come with my head thrown back and he hadn’t pulled away, he hadn’t been threatened. He was waiting for more. He was waiting for me. For the first time in my adult life I felt as if I’d found a home.

Peter wasn’t my first fuck, but he was my first lover. Actually, he is my only lover. To me that is a statement of how rich my life is rather than how narrow my experience has been.

“Helen dear, if you’ve finished up there, you can help your father lay the table.”

The sound of my mother’s voice makes me feel guilty and furtive and childish. I get off the stool quickly and smooth the cover of the bed, as if I had just used it. Why does coming home always turn me back into a little girl? And why do I hate that so much?

There are six of us at dinner but there is food for at least a dozen. The conversation is stilted at first. Troy and Peter have the mandatory road-number-filled review of the drive to my parents’ house, even though I actually did the driving. I ask Dianna about the baby, revealing my ignorance of modern child-rearing with each question that I ask. Mother fusses over Dad, ensuring that he gets the best slices of meat, touching his hand when she passes him things, keeping his glass full. She always makes sure that he knows he is the centre of her attention. Dad catches me watching them and gives me an unapologetic grin. This is how the world is, that grin says, and it’s too late now to change it.

As the wine flows, words become easier for everybody but me. I feel as though an invisible barrier has settled between me and everyone else. I watch but I don’t speak.

Peter fits in so well. He is a good listener. People relax when they talk with him. When they talk with me it is as if they are always just a little on their guard. Dianna is talking to him now. Peter isn’t talking to her about the baby. Somehow he has learned that she paints and within a few moments the woman I could barely exchange a word with is sharing her passion for abstract art.

As the courses go by, I drink and eat more than I should. I want to speak to Troy. I want to sit and exchange deep truths with him, except that those truths remain just out of reach of my tongue so I remain silent. By the time we reach dessert I am quite drunk. It seems to me that Peter has abandoned me. Everyone has abandoned me.

“I think you might want to have little lie down, dear.” My mother is leading me back to my little virgin bed. I’d protest except that I can’t find the words. And I’m tired. Very, very tired.

I wake with a fierce thirst and a vicious headache. It’s dark. I’ve slept through the afternoon. I groan in self-pity. I’ve made such a fool of myself. I know that mother will be secretly pleased.

I want Peter. Except Peter isn’t here, my mother saw to that.

Sitting up is not pleasant so I lie down again.

The room has not changed since I left it seven years ago. I’ve changed so much since then that it seems incongruous for me to be occupying the same space that I did then. Peter is responsible for most of those changes. Living up to how he sees me, using the quiet space he provides for me to seek refuge in, has changed who I am.

Who would I have been without Peter?

Back before Peter, I’d never really been that comfortable with boys. It wasn’t that I was shy; it was more that I saw them too clearly and I didn’t like what I saw. For them, girls were trophies to show off to other boys. I used to imagine them at swap meets, talking to each other about girls like they were baseball cards: “Had her. Had her. Had her. Want her. I’ll swap you two Heathers for an Alicia.” But the worse thing was that, when it came to sex, they all seemed to want to be in charge although very few of them seemed to know what to do.

I knew enough about my own body to know what I wanted: where and how I wanted to be touched and for how long. I also knew the kind of body I wanted to do the touching: tall, lean, strong. Unfortunately, most of those bodies seemed to come with the supersized ego option as standard.

I tried a few anyway. It wasn’t hard to get their attention – I was attractive enough in a petite, androgynous sort of way – the challenge was to stay in control. The first couple of attempts were an education.

“Tall ’n’ Lean #1” put his hands everywhere but he didn’t know what to do with them. And he got irritated when I moved around. I was supposed to be his bendyfucktoy, something he could pose for his convenience. His dick was nice, smooth and hard, but he wasn’t interested in me touching it for long, he wanted to “slide it home”. I moved to climb up on his lap but he wanted me on my back. He wasn’t in me for long before he came. Then he asked me if I wanted to go get a burger. I realized I’d just had the sexual equivalent of a drive-thru meal: smells good, is over too quickly and lies like a lump on your stomach afterwards.

“Tall ’n’ Lean #2” wasn’t interested in entering anything other than my mouth. He wanted me on my knees, looking up into his eyes. I had no objection to the idea in principle. It was corny but it had a sense of theatre to it. What turned me off was him placing his hand on the back of my head and using my mouth like an extension of his hand. I’ve seen drains unblocked with more finesse. I had to grab his balls to make him stop. I thought he’d be angry with me, maybe even try to hit me, but he actually whined like a little boy, “What did you do that for?” It was the question I was beginning to ask about sex as a whole.

I decided to do some research before seeking out “Tall ’n’ Lean #3”. I went to Barnes and Noble to see what kind of books I could find on sex. I’d done the “Insert Part A into Part B” manuals and the Joy of Sex hippy-type manuals but they didn’t give me what I wanted. They were too much like cookery lessons and not enough like good food. I moved on to the erotica section and found The Story of O and The Taking of Sleeping Beauty. They definitely got my attention. Hours of it. The thing was, I didn’t want to be O or Beauty, I wanted to be the person doing things to them. Well, not them in particular. I wanted to be doing things to “Tall ’n’ Leans”. I’d lie in my narrow little bed, exhausted from my reading or listening to my parents having sex in the room next door, and I’d think about what it would be like to have that kind of control. Then I got to thinking about how I might make it happen. As it turned out, it wasn’t that difficult but it wasn’t that much fun either.

I found “Tall ’n’ Lean #3” in a karate class. I’d signed up because I wanted to be able to protect myself and because I figured the boys there would be more disciplined. He was beautiful, his sweat smelled good, he was a black belt and he was older than me. I waited for him in the parking lot after class. I had decided to be direct.

“Would you like me to fuck you?”

He didn’t look stunned, offended or even pleased, just curious. “Are you sure you mean it that way around? Most girls want me to fuck them.”

“I’m very sure.”

He eyes licked slowly over my body. Then he smiled. “OK,” he said, like he was agreeing to grab a pizza, “but I have a question.”

“Yes?”

“What’s your name?”

I blushed at that. It hadn’t occurred to me that while I’d been noticing the muscles in his forearm and the tight curve of his butt, all he’d been paying attention to was his karate technique.

My parents were away on one of their pagan weekends. Sex was the bedrock of their marriage; you only had to look at the two of them together to see that. The pagan weekends gave them the opportunity to concentrate on fucking each other’s brains out without worrying about making a noise.

I’d decided to have a mini pagan weekend of my own. I brought Tall ’n’ Lean #3” back to my house. I was more than a little nervous. He didn’t touch me or hassle me but there was a confidence behind his eyes that was unsettling. I took him into my dad’s den and gave him the speech I’d rehearsed.

“OK, here are the rules. I want to fuck you. I want you to do what I tell you while I fuck you. If you don’t do what I tell you, the fucking will stop. Do you understand?”

It was supposed to be my first step to establishing mastery over him. He sat on the edge of my dad’s desk, like he had a right to be there, and said, “That speech would work better if you said, ‘I am going to fuck you. You will do what I want.’ You have to sound like you mean it.”

He slipped off the desk and onto his knees in front of me without breaking eye contact. “Tell me how to serve you, Mistress.”

In theory this was just what I wanted. But he was laughing at me. It was gentle laughter, but laughter all the same.

“Shit,” I said.

For a second he looked surprised. He thought I was giving an instruction.

“I so wanted to tie you to my dad’s chair and tease you and fuck you. But it’s not going to work, is it?”

He stood up, lifting me like I weighed nothing at all and placed me on Dad’s desk. I felt a little bit of panic and a lot of excitement.

“Your dad’s chair? How old are you, Helen? No. Don’t answer that. You’re a pretty girl, Helen, and a brave one. You know what you want but you don’t yet know how to recognize who can give it to you.”

I’d known he was a little older than me but I hadn’t expected him to talk to me like I was a child. Who did he think he was, my camp counsellor?

“Well, why did you come here, then?” My eyes were hot with embarrassment.

“You sounded convincing in the parking lot. And I don’t mind switching from time to time.”

“Switching?”

“I’m a dom, Helen. I normally do the tying up.”

“You think I’m stupid, don’t you?”

“No. But I think you need to learn to recognize a sub when you meet one.”

Then he kissed me. It was a slow kiss, passionate but friendly. It made me wonder what it would be like to be tied up by him. To let him do whatever he wanted. Then he wasn’t kissing me any more. “Gotta go, Helen. My name is Jon, by the way. I’ll see you at karate next week.”

I picked up a book from the desk and threw it, but it only hit the door closing behind him. I was mad at Jon for the rest of the day. Then I started to think about how things might have gone wrong: about the risks that I’d taken; about how gentle he’d been. Gentle and strong. I could see why women would let him tie them.

Jon and I became friends but not lovers. He gave me things to read and told me about his life. I left the “Tall ’n’ Leans” alone for a while and concentrated on getting to college. I’d got through two more “Tall ’n’ Leans” in college before I met Peter, both of them one-nightstands, both of them left me feeling hungry and somehow cheated.

My head is feeling better so I check my watch. Somehow it has reached 10 p.m. I’ve missed Thanksgiving and they’ve all forgotten about me. I hug my sense of hurt to me tightly. It serves me right that I’ve been abandoned. You see, I made a mistake. Such a big mistake. I gave Peter away to my best friend. I was so sure of him you see. So certain that I was what he wanted. I thought I could lend him out. Share him with a friend.

It started out OK. Barbara was sad and needed comfort so I tied Peter and blindfolded him and then I shared him with her. It was fun. It felt human and loving. I was so proud of all of us. But the thing is, I get jealous. Just the way my mother does. I hate myself for it but I can’t help it.

I’d invited Barbara to stay with us, to join the Peter and Helen household. I knew they liked each other but I was too vain to think it through. And then I saw how Peter looked at her. How he wanted her. It was my doing, not his. Peter followed my lead, trusting me to do the right thing, and I gave him away.

Except Barbara gave him back. Barbara gave him back. I don’t know if he’d have come back on his own.

I must still be a little drunk. I’ve spent months carefully not thinking about this and now I’m crying into my pillow afraid that Peter hasn’t really come back to me.

You see, I know that I’m not worthy of Peter. I’m not really the person he deserves. For weeks now I’ve been watching him, wondering if I’m living in a charade; whether Peter would rather be with Barbara but is just too nice to leave me. Maybe my mother was right to put him on the other side of the house.

“Helen?”

Peter is standing over me. I didn’t even hear him come in. I sit up on the bed, conscious of how red my eyes must be and how strongly I must smell of drink. I want to get up and hug him but I can’t make myself move.

Peter has brought the toy bag with him. I didn’t even know he’d packed it. Shit, he’s brought the toy bag to my parents’ house.

He places the toy bag on the bed beside me. Normally I choose the toys, but this time it is Peter who opens the bag. He takes out the strap-on. It’s a complicated affair. The strap that goes between my legs will push a dildo and a butt plug into me and leave a long thin curved black latex cock jutting out from my belly.

“I’d like you to use this. I want us to make some noise.”

Peter wants me to fuck him and he wants everyone to know it’s happening. Joy spreads through me like liquid sunlight. Peter wants me.

He’s been watching me figure it out. When he sees my smile start, he kisses me. I am Sleeping Beauty being brought back to life. Except I’m going to reward my prince by reaming his ass as hard as I can.

I take the strap-on from him. “Strip, Peter,” I say.

He sheds his clothes calmly but quickly. He is already hard. I make him wait while I shrug out of my clothes, then I stand with one leg on the bed and tell him to tool me up. I mean to sound stern but I can’t keep the joy out of my voice.

Then it starts for real. Peter lubes me slowly and thoroughly and straps me tight. With both holes full and a strong black cock thrusting in front of me, I feel powerful and as randy as hell.

“Get on your back on the bed, Peter, and hold on to your ankles.”

I love the sound of that. Love the calm excitement with which he obeys. He doesn’t ask why he’s on his back when he should be bent over. He does what I tell him.

I spread lube over my mock-cock, place my finger and thumb around the base of Peter’s erection and push the strap-on hard into his anus.

“Keep your hands around your ankles, Peter.” Then I make the noise he’s been waiting for: in my best rodeo tones I shout, “YEEHAW,” and we’re off.

I ride him hard enough to make him buck on the bed. I keep his cock in my hand like a joystick or perhaps a saddle horn, squeezing it as I pound his ass. The harder I push into him, the deeper the dildo rises into me. When I’m close, I slap his hands away from his ankles, lift his feet up over my shoulders and fuck for depth. The bed is bouncing now.

“Jack off, Peter. Jack off hard.”

His hand moves eagerly on his cock. I am so close that I’m groaning as I grind into him. The heat of his sperm splashing onto my belly pushes me over and I growl my come at him.

I pull out of Peter’s poor abused asshole and collapse on top of him. I feel strong and whole and loved.

Peter holds me gently and whispers, “Welcome back, Helen.”

It turns out that the bed is not too narrow if we lie like spoons. As I fall asleep, I remember that I’m still wearing the strap-on but I’m too tired to move.

We are both sore the next morning but that doesn’t stop us grinning at one another.

“Do you think they heard us?”

“Your parents’ bedroom is still next door, isn’t it, Helen?”

We both laugh.

At breakfast I wait for my mother to say something. She discusses the weather and asks if we really have to leave straight after breakfast but makes no mention of our exploits. As we say our goodbyes, Mother hugs Peter and says something to him. I miss the exchange because I have a crying baby in my arms at the time.

When I’ve driven as far as the freeway, I ask Peter what my mother said.

“She told me you were lucky to have me.”

“What did you say?”

“I said that you would always have me and that I would always give thanks for that.”

I try to imagine the expression on my mother’s face when she heard that. I decide that it would probably be one of approval. Thank God for Peter, I think to myself. Then I start to look for the next rest stop. I want a quiet place where we can do a bit more thanksgiving.