The Mammoth Book of Short Erotic Novels (55 page)

“I always wondered what kind of woman Nicky-boy would be shacked up with,” he said. “Some sexed-up little slut with boobs out to here, I figured. I mean, that boy could
fuck
– anyone, any time, any place, any kind of kink you could imagine. But
you
– you’re a little more genteel-looking than what I’d conjured up in my
masturbatory fantasies.”

“Looks can be deceiving, Sonny. You think I’m not a match for Nicholas in bed? You think that’s not partly why I came looking for him? I can find a man anywhere. I can find a
great fuck, if I’m lucky. But a great fuck who also happens to be the person I love – that only comes along once, Sonny. For a lot of people, it never comes at all.”

“So you’re a match for Nicky-boy in bed, huh? Well, you’re gonna have to convince me of that, honey. Fortunately, I got plenty of time to be convinced.”

He came towards her, and she retreated, bumping into the coffee table, upending it with a crash and a shattering of glass. She picked up a shard to ward off Sonny, but before he could come at
her, the phone on top of the TV set bleated, halting them both.

The answering machine clicked on, and a woman’s voice, fluttery and nervous, said, “Sonny, it’s Elise. I need to talk to you. Sonny, will you please pick up? I just saw
Nicholas.”

Sonny rushed for the phone, but Beth was a step ahead and got there first. “Who is this?” she shouted. “Where are you?”

“Give me that!” Sonny grabbed the phone out of her hand and pushed her away. So engrossed was he in what the caller was saying that she could have easily escaped, but she
couldn’t,
wouldn’t
leave now.

“You stupid bitch, you told him
what
?” roared Sonny and slammed down the phone. He whirled on Beth. “You want to find your husband? Well, I know where he is. More
important, I know where
she
is, too.” He reached for her, and she brought the shard of jagged glass down in an arc, narrowly missing his face. He grimaced and jumped back. “You
gonna try and carve me up with that or you gonna come with me to find your husband? C’mon, what’ll it be, Beth? You scared of me or what?”

She was shaking, but she wasn’t scared – not yet. The fear came a moment later, when Sonny was buttoning his coat, and she saw the pistol tucked inside the waistband of his
pants.

“You’re an unusual man, Nicholas,” said Myriam. “After I cure them, a lot of people never want to see me again. They’re grateful, but the
experience they have with me is too frightening, too disturbing, to ever want to undergo again. Some of them decide I’m some kind of witch or demon. I’ve had men claim I stole their
souls.”

“Or their names,” said Nicholas.

“For people sufficiently entrenched in ego, it’s the same thing. They’re so caught up in their mortal identity, that even a few moments outside their own ego feels terrifying
and annihilating. Some of them go insane.”

“So what does happen, Myriam? How do you cure people?”

“As far as how I cure them, I’m not sure myself – only that when the ego dissolves, even briefly, so dissolves the disease. As for the experience you had, all I can tell you is
you aren’t the first to search for it. In the nineteenth century, there was a group of occultists who worshipped what they called the ‘holy wisdom fire’, a fire they believed to
be embodied in all women. Certain women had the power to help bring about a soul’s spiritual integration through intercourse and awaken in their partner the highest spiritual powers from deep
within. These occultists called themselves the Cult of Myriam, which still exists. I studied with the group and took that name for myself.”

“So what happened? You initiated me into some kind of cosmic consciousness?”

“I didn’t do anything, Nicholas, except offer you a glimpse of what mystics and holy people have been preaching for centuries. You don’t have to be Nicholas, you know. You
chose to be that person, but that isn’t the real you and, deep inside, you know that. That’s why you feel compelled to search for that experience again.”

“Not just because I’m a crazy bastard obsessed with fucking you?”

He was joking, of course – more or less – but she didn’t smile. Instead, she took his hand and they sat together on the mattress. Sitting turned into reclining, which melted
into embracing. Nicholas felt such a surge of longing and desire that it was all he could do not to rip off Myriam’s clothing and take her then and there, to hell with her consent.
“You’re thinking you could rape me if you wanted to,” said Myriam, “and you’re right, but it wouldn’t be the experience you’re looking for. It would leave
you much further from your destination than you are now.”

“Then make love with me,” said Nicholas, pulling her against him. “You cured me of my disease: now cure me of my ignorance.”

Her arms wound around his neck. Her legs parted. “I think you have a lot of good in you, Nicholas,” she said. “More good than you realize. I think your soul longs for a kind of
wisdom few people ever find, let alone experience.”

“I think you’re wrong,” said Nicholas. “I’m not a good man. Thirty seconds ago, I was debating whether or not to rape you if you didn’t want to have sex. And
I’m a lot nicer guy now than I used to be, if that puts it in perspective. I haven’t lived a good life. I’ve been a thief and a drug-dealer and, when I was younger, a prostitute.
I don’t long for any holiness or wisdom. The only thing I long for is to slide my cock inside your body and fuck you forever and never, ever leave.”

Her eyes lit up. She laughed gently. “Have you ever considered, Nicholas, that my body might not be the only place you might find what you’re searching for? That if you allowed
yourself to love someone,
really
love someone enough to transcend your own self-centeredness, that might make all the difference?”

But before Nicholas could answer, they both heard the footsteps approaching. Then the door that opened onto the stairwell was kicked open with a crash that reverberated throughout the room.
Nicholas leaped to his feet, galvanized by an appalling and incongruous vision – Sonny Valdez, his wife, and the gun that Sonny was now pointing at him and Myriam.

Someone screamed. Maybe it was Beth or Myriam or even Nicholas himself – maybe all three of them were screaming at once – but he hurled himself in front of Myriam, who was still on
the floor, and the gun went off and suddenly the room was filled with a terrible red rain.

In the instant it took Sonny to recock the trigger, Beth grabbed his wrist and twisted it with all the strength in both her arms. The gun fired again – this time into the ceiling –
as Sonny shoved her away and aimed at Myriam again, firing into her as she lay in a spreading pool of blood on the mattress. With a cry, Nicholas charged Sonny, wrestled the gun away from him, and
then slammed the grip into the man’s skull, again and again, like a gong striking the side of a bell, and he didn’t stop, but kept on bashing the caved-in head, even when Beth grabbed
him and shouted, “It’s all right, Nicholas, it’s all right! He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!”

After the police got through investigating, when they were convinced Nicholas had been justified in taking Sonny Valdez’s life, after Myriam was cremated and her ashes
scattered in the churchyard of St Benedict’s, Nicholas and Beth went back to Detroit and pretended to be making an effort to resume their lives. A grim joke, thought Nicholas, given
everything that had taken place. He’d told Beth the truth about his past, about Elise, and about how Myriam had somehow cleansed his infected blood: everything except the experience
he’d had while he and Myriam were making love. That he couldn’t put into words and he was afraid she’d misunderstand, think he was describing sexual passion and, while that was a
component of what he’d undergone, the experience was really so much more.

Nor could he explain why, week after week, he avoided having sex with Beth – that the encounters he’d had following Myriam had been so frustrating in their departure from what he
sought that he didn’t want to risk adding Beth to his list of bitter disappointments or, worse, using her as a momentary distraction from what he perceived as an unutterable and never-ending
grief.

“Do you want me to leave?” he asked her when they lay in bed one night.

“Is that what you want to do?”

He thought about that, really let the idea sink into him. If he ever wanted to walk out on his marriage, this was the time. If he had lost Myriam and all she represented, he could still go back
to the solace of addictive sex and drugs, immerse himself in the quest for debaucheries that would bring only deeper and darker oblivion.

But what he said was, “No, I don’t want to leave. Unless you’d rather I did.”

She was silent a few moments. Then: “I want you to stay. But at the same time, I love you. And if what you found with that woman Myriam, what you tried to tell me about on the phone that
day when I wouldn’t listen, if you need to go and look for that, then I’d be wrong to try to stop you. It would be more than wrong, I think it would be evil.”

A great swelling of relief passed through Nicholas. Relief and gratitude that seemed to thaw his loins and melt some of the ice from his heart. He was free to leave her if he wanted to, to look
for what he’d lost. That meant that he was also free to stay. Desire, faint but hopeful, stirred in him.

He wrapped Beth in his arms and pulled her to him. She felt warm and welcoming and her body shaped itself to his in the old familiar ways, yet even with some trepidation, there was nothing timid
or hesitant about his lovemaking. He forced her legs apart and mounted her. She arched her hips and guided him inside.

You’re free to go, if that’s what you need to do.

He loved her more then than he ever had loved anyone. A sense of lightness and freedom washed over him, a lifting of bonds. He thrust into her and she moaned his name. “Nicholas, Nicholas,
Nicholas.”

But for the briefest, most ecstatic of instants, he had forgotten who that was.

THE DARKLING BEETLES

Gene Santagada

The door was easy to force. Luckily the fancy inlaid glass didn’t break. Although this building appeared deserted, I did not want to chance being overheard by some
cleaning lady. One firm shove – the door jamb cracked – and I was in.

I felt along the wall for the light switch. I flicked it – but nothing! Some joker had taken all the light bulbs.

Big deal, I thought: I see like a bat in the dark. But lights were not the only things missing from this office. The place was stripped clean: no chairs, desks, or filing cabinets. They had even
taken the water cooler.

Across the room, before a half open window, I saw a tipped-over wastepaper basket. Garbage can be a case’s Rosetta stone, every detective knows that. Before checking it out, I peered
through the blinds. Only a few cars were in the parking lot, two stories below. Some looked abandoned; this was typical for the meat-packing district.

Luck was still with me; the basket was stuffed with papers! This could be the break I needed. I unfolded the first crumpled letter by the dim light of the window.

“Samuel Bigglesworth: Private Detective,” announced the letterhead. What kind of a tinsel-ass name was that? I checked the glass on the door. There it was, in big black stencil: this
was Bigglesworth’s office. I unfolded another letter.

“Dear Mr. Bigglesworth,” it read, “enclosed is a check for $15,000 for your services.” The next letter said, “As we agreed, here is the $6,000 advance.” I
found more and more like this, even a couple of canceled checks. One was for eighteen grand!

This Bigglesworth has a sissy name, but he sure rakes in the bucks. I wish I had this guy’s clientele! Whoever he was, he had to be the best. But it made no sense for a guy with such cash
flow to keep his office buried downtown. I’d be uptown with the big players and corporate guys. He did make mistakes, though. It was not smart to leave records around where someone could find
them. And if I ever got a check for eighteen grand, I would have the fucker framed!

Next in the basket was a dog-eared magazine. A nearly naked babe was plastered on the cover. Big deal, so Bigglesworth was into porn. Who isn’t? I flipped through the pages, and instead of
naked women, I found reams of classified ads. “Thirty-something white male seeks twenty-ish blonde,” that sort of thing. Poor baby! Bigglesworth was lonely, I know how that is! Some
people included pictures of themselves with the ads.

The more I saw, the more I realized something funny was going on. One picture had a guy dressed up like a baby, with diapers, even a pacifier stuck in his mouth. He had to be fifty years old!
Next, I saw a woman holding her stocking clad foot to the camera. Her ad read, “Hi; I am in desperate need of the right person (guy or gal) to worship my feet.” I winced when I saw the
photo of the guy with all the clothespins pinching his cock. CLOTHESPINS? For Christ’s sake!

The more I saw and read, the stranger it got. I never would have figured Bigglesworth for a pervert. But it takes all kinds, doesn’t it? The ads at the back of the magazine were for escort
agencies, “licensed” masseurs, and “professional” hostesses. A sweet bunch of words that spelled one thing: prostitution. Just as I was ready to toss the magazine, I noticed
an ad on the back was circled by a felt tip pen.

“Visit Mistress Amanda,” the ad proclaimed. “Do you need something different?” It went on to say, “Come be a captive in my Dungeon. No posers, beginners, or wimps
allowed! Slaves must submit an application to qualify. Accepting positions for male and female submissives.” The phone number was the exchange of this neighborhood. The bottom of the ad
included a picture of the proprietor. She was wearing some sort of fancy girdle. Even in this low-resolution picture, I could tell she was a beauty. I ripped the ad out and stuffed it in my back
pocket.

The basket held one last surprise: an old hat. It was the kind those pot-smoking Rastafarians use to stuff their dreadlocks under. It had rainbow colors, like something out of a time-warp from
the hippie days. It was embroidered with little metallic beetles. Who would have dreamed up such a thing?