Blurred Lines

My newest (waiting for publication) collection of short stories, Wild Enchantments, has undergone a name-change. It's also had the table-of-contents changed, because I dropped one story and substituted another.

I wrote The Sorcerer's Apprentice because I fancied doing something from the point of view of character I didn't like. I wanted to write a narrator possessed of a swathe of attitudes that I do not personally share, just for the fun and the challenge of it. I wanted to make him horrible, and at the end of the story I would turn the tables on him and smirk as he went down in flames. This is really common in the horror genre ... not so much in erotica. I've done it before (say, The Temptation of St Gregory in my first collection), but this time I wanted to push it bit further.

Possibly too far.

I think The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a hot, dirty story. But I felt less than 100% proud of it on, for want of a better phrase, an ethical level. Sure, it's supposed to be ironic. But I don't want to turn into Robin "I've always respected women" Thicke.

So I took it out and wrote another story which fits the same themes (Male-dominant BDSM) without being quite so negative.

Maybe I'm getting old. *sigh*

Anyway, here's an excerpt to show y'all how it opens. To be clear (and these aren't spoilers): the narrator is not meant to sympathetic and the girl in the cage is a sex demon in disguise, not a human being at all, and is completely happy with everything done to her. This story will probably not see the light unless someone puts out a call for revenge-fantasy erotica or something.

*****

The Sorcerer's Apprentice

Mr Deverick kept a woman in the guest suite. In a cage.

Heh. I felt a bit weird about that, the first time I saw her. The mirrored wall slid back and behind it was a dark, windowless room. As Deverick stepped over the threshold the lights came on, and there were the bars beyond him, running floor-to-ceiling. The room was featureless except for the cage, and the cage was empty except for the girl. She was kneeling on the bare floor in a kowtowing position, her face to the hardwood inlay, her long blonde hair fallen over her hands. I could see a lot of bare skin, the colour of clover honey.
The room smelled faintly of pussy.

I thought: Fuck, is this a test? He hadn’t warned me. And I’m pretty sure some of the bugshit-crazy stuff he gets me to do is just to test me out.

This made me nervous, and I couldn’t help making a snorting noise. Like a laugh, only not really, because this wasn’t funny or anything. It was a bit creepy.

But the noise made her raise her head and sit back, and then it became creepy and hot—both at the same time. She was wearing a little pair of baby-pink panties and a T-shirt in the same colour, except that the shirt had been hacked off way too short, covering her nipples but showing a whole load of under-boob. She had big tits, see. And the bit about covering her nips wasn’t even true either, because the room was cold and I could see them poking through the thin cloth like light switches. Those trashy clothes made her look more fuckable than if she’d been naked, I swear. And as her eyes lit on Deverick in front of her, her expression went from sad and pouty to a hopeful little smile, all eager to please.

My cock did 0-60 in less time than it took my hand to reach up and pull nervously at my tie.

‘What’s on your mind, Dylan?’ my employer asked me. ‘Something funny?’

I cleared my throat, knowing that if he glanced in the vicinity of my crotch he wouldn’t have to ask. That girl was just prime T&A. Big tits, teeny little waist, wide hips flaring out below. Hair long and blonde and sleek, streaked with ashy highlights. Big wide don’t-hurt-me-daddy eyes that looked green even from this distance. And a mouth like …

I told my inner art critic to shut the hell up. ‘I was just wondering if they’re real, Mr Deverick,’ I said, trying to sound all cool, and totally failing. ‘Her tits, like.’

He lifted an eyebrow. Flicking a finger at the girl he spoke a few words in a language I didn’t recognise, and though he didn’t raise his voice it was clearly an instruction of some sort. Moving with a dancer’s grace she rose to her feet and came forward to the bars, allowing me to add Incredible Long Legs to my inventory of her assets.

The steel struts were placed far enough apart to allow an arm through—or, it turned out, a breast. She pulled up her T-shirt (WH-ZANGG!! went my heart, or at least my cock) and thrust herself forward so that a bar was nestled right in the valley of her cleavage, and her award-winning golden globes stuck through on either side. Her nipples stared at me.

‘Have a feel,’ said Deverick with a polite gesture.

Say what you like about my boss—and people do say some nasty shit about him, though only when they think he’s out of earshot—Michael Deverick knows a thing or two about perks for loyal employees. Some days, when he has so many women scrabbling all over him that even he doesn’t want them all, he lobs one to me. Today’s particular perks were … perky, to the max. In fact it was hard to believe that tits so majestic hadn’t been sculpted by some surgeon: heavy but without the slightest hint of droop, perfectly balanced, with provocative rosy nipples.

I moved in close. The girl looked up at me through her long lashes, either bashful or plain old nervous, and glanced at Deverick as if for reassurance. At the periphery of my vision I saw him nod.

She smelled like sex in a rose garden.

I cupped those boobies with a feeling of genuine awe. In this cool room, she positively radiated heat. I squeezed slowly, questing—in vain—for the over-firm bulge of silicon implants. I pressed them together round the bar and thumbed her nipples and rubbed her skin. I pulled and twisted and bounced those fabulous beach-balls, and to my surprise I felt her respond: a flush crept up her throat and her eyes darkened as her pupils dilated. Then she moaned, very softly: perhaps too softly for Mr Deverick to hear. It was like a secret between us.

My cock was like a fucking totem pole by this point. You could have held a war dance around it.

‘What do you think?’ he asked me. ‘Are they real, then?’ I could hear the smile in his voice.

‘Oh yeah.’ I gave her nips another tug and saw her eyelids flutter. I knew I should stop, having done the task requested of me, but my hands had a will of their own and my hard-on was voting with them. ‘They’re real alright. Is she Russian? I mean, I know you’ve got a line in luxury imports…’

He laughed softly. ‘No, not Russian.’

‘That language?’

‘Enochian,’ he said, and as I turned to look at him he winked.