Since I've been thinking hard about fairy tales for next weekend's Eroticon, this week's excerpt is from Sleep Tight, my take on the Sleeping Beauty story. It appeared in the anthology Fairy Tale Lust.
And on the bed there’s a body.
In a split second my own body goes from too hot to so cold I’m frozen in place. I feel the gather of sweat at the small of my back form a slow trickle that slides down under the waistband of my jeans like a chilled fingertip.
It’s a body. I can make that out clearly; it’s pale against the dark bedding. Slim. A woman or a kid. My head swims. All I can think, bizarrely, is that I’ve been drinking out of a tap in a room with a corpse. Why the hell didn’t I notice it? How come I didn’t smell the thing?
Because there is no smell. There’s no hint of an odour, except the faintest smell of wild roses and wet stone. I look back to the kitchen door and the hall beyond. My mobile is locked up in the van. I’m going to have to call the police. And then tell them why I was in here to find the corpse. The day’s just turned to shite.
I need to be sure. I’m having problems believing even my own eyes in this light. Inch by inch I shuffle across the flagstones, holding my breath, until I’m close enough to get a proper look.
It’s a young woman. She looks perfect. Her hands are resting neatly on her torso about at the level of her diaphragm. Her bare toes point at the ceiling. Her head floats in a sea of long dark hair and she has dark brows. I can’t begin to guess what she’s doing laid out in the kitchen of a deserted house. How long has she been left here?
Then I see the soft rise and fall of her breastbone, and I realise she’s not dead after all, and the relief is so immense I feel drunk.
‘Ah – Hello?’ My voice is hoarse. And I wonder: what’s she doing sleeping in this place? If she’s a squatter, how on earth did she get in? The only means of entrance I can imagine involves a helicopter and a skylight. ‘Hello?’
She doesn’t stir. I edge closer. Before I reach out I make very very sure that I can see her breathing, that it wasn’t just a trick of my eyes. She’s wearing a long dress of grey lace which doesn’t really hide that much of the pale body beneath. I can see the peaceful expression on her pointed little face. I can see the curves of her waist and hips and thighs. I can see her breasts, flattened a little by gravity but embarrassingly distracting still. They rise and fall slowly and for a moment I’m mesmerised. Black and sticky thoughts crawl in my skull before I shrug them off.
Gingerly I touch her shoulder. ‘Hey?’
No response. Her flesh feels cool but not cold.
Stoned, I think. Or drunk. She’d have heard me otherwise. Grasping the curve of her shoulder more firmly, I give her a little shake. ‘You okay?’
She doesn’t answer. All that happens is that her breathing deepens audibly, and the lace catches on my callused hand and shreds as I lift it. The lace is actually rotten: the threads fall almost into dust. I blink stupidly. Then I reach over to take her by both shoulders and I shake her harder, lifting her an inch from her bed. She falls back upon the dark velvet coverlet with a sigh, and as I withdraw I somehow manage to snag the garment across her breast and tear it open; it offers no more resistance than cobweb.
Fuck, I think witlessly. And I see that where the fabric has pulled and torn across the sweet pale curve of her right breast, her nipple has responded to the stimulus. As I watch, it hardens visibly, rising like a pale pink bud from its areola. I watch as my fingers steal back to brush that swelling mound and it stiffens to dimples.
My head is spinning. This is all like a dream. It can’t be real. There can’t be a young woman asleep in a house that’s been locked up for ten years. She can’t be impossible to wake. I can’t be watching my fingertips touch her - softly, so softly - so that the cushion of her breast is topped by a flushed pearl. I can’t be hearing a gentle moan in her throat.
For a moment I think she’s woken, and I withdraw my hand an inch. She arches a little as if in pursuit of my touch, her breasts rising. Then she relaxes with a ghostly whimper of loss.
It’s like a dream, or a story. An old, familiar story. I moisten my dry lips, knowing what I need to do. Gently I sit on the bed and I lean forward to kiss her. She has full, provocative lips for such otherwise delicate features. They feel cool under mine.
But all she does is smile in her sleep, faintly.
A second time I bend to kiss her, and this time I cup both her breasts, feeling their soft mounds yield beneath my hot hands. She’s as cool as earth and as velvety as a flower petal and she tastes of rosewater. I tug at her nipples until they’re both stiff like beads. I hear her whimper.
Then I sit back. Nothing has changed: her eyes are still shut, their dark lashes etched on her pale cheeks. I’m awash with confusion and shame and arousal. Under my jeans my cock is kicking angrily at its confines, swollen with selfish need. Her pale breasts shine through the shreds of her garment like moons rising through cloud. Without letting myself think I run a fingertip down the length of her body, tearing a furrow through the old grey lace. If it’s so fragile, a part of my mind asks, how did she put it on? - but I ignore the question. She’s just too much of a temptation. I reach the slight swell of her pubic mound and slid my fingers under and through the lace, cupping her.
She’s hairless, peachy, as soft and cool as mounded flour. No stubble. Just velvet petals of flesh hiding a liquid heart, and as I squeeze softly her hips tilt, pushing her sex up against my fingers. Her head tilts back a little and her lips part as she breathes a hungry moan. I nod as if answering a question and curve my fingers in, searching deeper. She’s wet, though surprisingly cool still. I can smell the intoxicating sharp musk of her sex now. It’s on my fingers. My fingers are stroking up and down that furrow, finding the source of the wet, finding the stud of her clit.
This girl’s body, the stretch of her throat as she tilts her head back and the sharp rise of her breasts, the satin slipperiness under my hand – they’re all that count in this twilit dream. She’s extraordinarily responsive to my touch, as if she’s waited a hundred years for this. Maybe she has. I can see the shudder of her hips, the tautness of her flat belly as I stroke her, a single finger making her dance. I can see her fingers flex and pull at her own flesh. But she doesn’t open her eyes, her questing is blind. She needs me. She needs the hand that’s working between her thighs.
She’s close to coming.
And my other hand goes to uncinch my belt buckle, to unzip, to reach into my jeans. My cock bounces free, scorching hot against my palm. I’m aching for release. I swear I only mean to touch myself, to jack off as I watch her climax. But without thinking I find myself climbing on the bed, kneeling over her, parting those slim thighs without regard to the tearing of the lace, slipping into that wet furrow like into a pool of clear water, quenching my burning cock in her cool grip. She’s exquisite. My thrusts are deep but slow as, dream-dizzy, I savour each moment and each move.
I feel her arch beneath me, and I hear her plaintive little moans turn to gasps. I feel the shift of her hips as she lifts her legs and digs her heels into my ass, pulling me in deeper. Her arms furl about my neck. And then I start to ride her faster as the lead in my balls turns molten and starts to rise, as that tight grip clenches and I hear the unmistakable quivering cry of her orgasm.
She opens her eyes and smiles at me.
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