Best of Best Women's Erotica (38 page)

And then we cooked.

Stir-fry veggies over tomato-basil pasta; peppermint tea; fortune cookies. It was an extraordinary meal—I suspect it was the special sauce. “You will attend a royal banquet and meet your first lover,” my fortune cookie said, and I knew I just had.

She changed into a little-girl flannel nightgown and took me into her bed. We slept. No sex. The trust implicit in this act was overwhelming. I never touched her except to hold her tight.

In the morning we laughed together. “Carrots just don't quite work, you know?” she said. “Too thin. But they have some uses. Eggplants and tomatoes and onions and peppers all have uses sometimes too.” She told me that her practice was as old as the Kama Sutra: “How else do you think all those women in the harems got satisfied? Hell, that book even goes into using the root of the sweet potato! Sometimes,” she confessed, almost blushing, “I go out with something inside
me, when I'm going someplace quiet like the museum. It makes you think about sex all day. Melon balls are my favorite—kind of an organic set of ben wa balls.”

If this was foreplay, I wasn't sure I was ready for full sex. I went to see her dance on the third date. She was beautiful. We went back to her place, and I lit the candles and the incense. “I'm yours tonight,” she whispered. “You've passed. What would you like?”

I was ready. What else could a man want? “I want you to love me, to worship me just like you did that zucchini.”

She undressed me while I stood there, and then she knelt in front of me and began. It all came back to me in that moment, why sex is the most important damned thing in the world. She kissed my feet and then she worked her way up, taking forever, kissing and licking my balls and holding them gently in her mouth. Talking to me, saying things, telling me how good I tasted; telling me how much she wanted me inside her, how much she needed to ride me hard. She took my cock deep into her throat all at once, and then there were no rules or they were only my rules and she was mine and I was lying back and holding her small hips and lifting her up onto my cock and driving up into her hard and fast. The world stopped; that was all I knew—that she could make the outside world stop and take me back to where I belonged. She came for me over and over, before I stopped and took her long hair in my fist and held her still for a minute.

“Do you want to please me?” I whispered, knowing that she did, knowing that this girl lived for sex and that I could give her what she needed.

“God, yes,” she whispered, nodding.

“Turn over.”

I owned her. I fucked every part of her body, and she begged for more. I couldn't quite imagine matching her sexual imagination, but I discovered I could more than match her energy and desire. When my cock was finally deep in her ass and my own vision of heaven was high on the horizon, I suddenly knew: I knew this was it and this girl was going to change my life. I didn't tell her this; I thought there would be time later.

I don't believe we slept that night. But I do know that I never let her near the kitchen.

I started drawing again. I sketched her constantly. I still have some of the drawings—
Isabelle in Iceberg
is my favorite one, framed on my wall. Even though she swore the lettuce just didn't do a thing for her.

I stopped eating meat. Isabelle—her name in my mouth was better than any sirloin in town.

I went dancing with her. I don't dance. Little clubs that nobody my age has ever heard of; dark entrances, pounding music, Isabelle twirling and twirling and always coming back to my arms.

She let me go to the beauty parlor with her and watch her get waxed all over. I only went because she told me she loved it, loved the pain, loved the discipline of it all. “Discipline is everything in dance,” she told me.

I would ask her to show me her pussy and she would. Any time. She danced for me whenever I wanted. I wouldn't call it stripping, but I guess that's what it was. And the world would stop one more time.

But when I wasn't with her, she would rarely answer the phone, and I just
knew
she was in bed with a zucchini, and I couldn't stand it. She'd see me once a week—that was
all—and I knew the girl was getting fucked every day.

I got stupid like men do. I followed her—saw her at the produce stand, watched her dancing through the studio window, saw her go out with friends and then go home alone. I knew there was no other man. When I asked her, she told me she'd been in love once and that was enough.

She liked me; I knew she did. And then I realized the problem. It still pains me to admit it. She preferred her vegetables over me, just as she had told me on that first date. How on earth can a man compete with an edible cock?

I couldn't get past once a week, and summer was running down and I wanted Isabelle in my bed every night. She wasn't a tease. There was no game. God, how she could fuck. Some nights she would just lift her skirt and wiggle her ass onto my lap, pressing down hard on my cock before we'd even go out. She'd tell me how much she needed my cock. “It's my real kink,” she confessed, “just being penetrated. Everywhere.”

I tried to force the issue. I asked her outright what the story was, why we couldn't spend more time together. “Trust all joy,” she'd say mysteriously, and then she'd wrap her hair around my cock and take me in her throat until I forgot even what the question was. “You taste wonderful since you stopped eating meat,” she'd whisper after she'd swallowed and licked me clean. She was very into taste. “You taste like cinnamon, you taste like a perfect cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter night,” and somehow I knew this was true and nobody had ever noticed it before.

Saturday nights were heaven. By Tuesday I'd be going crazy. I moaned, I fretted. I knew I was driving her nuts with my demands but I couldn't stop. I studied myself in the mirror and contemplated my fuckability factor. When you're
in competition with a vegetable, every little bit helps.

Other women called me and I simply had no interest. “Isabelle”—her name in my mouth was more appealing than an onion.

What could I do? Move her to the country and give her a farm? Buy out a local produce stand? I couldn't imagine. I studied her apartment. All she owned was cheap furniture and beautiful candles and scarves and one shelf each of music and books. “I used to own a lot more,” she told me when I asked, “but then I learned that possessions mean nothing. So now I read a book and then just pass it on to a friend for their pleasure. The same with music, unless it feeds my soul. I pass it on.” There were no clues about how to get to her. So I got stupider. I bribed her grocer to tell me every single thing she bought each trip. Six-inch zukes, bunches of carrots, scallions…scallions? I had to do something.

One Saturday night, late in August, I tried joining forces with the produce. I used them to fuck her every which way, and it was hot and satisfying, but I was still relegated to Saturday night while they got the other six. I got jealous. I hoped they would wilt under the pressure.

I decided to try an intervention. There are no support groups for this kind of thing. She canceled our date one Saturday night, and I knew I'd never make it another week without her. I laid the plan for Tuesday night: I would simply show up, lock the door, and clean out her fridge. I knew if I could spend enough time with her I could somehow make her replace her veggie vice with me. I certainly knew I could measure up: I'd spent one night with a ruler and tape measure back near the beginning of stupid.

I knocked on her door that Tuesday night and there was
no answer; it pushed open easily. She was gone. No books, no candles, no music, no Isabelle. I could picture her in front of me twirling and laughing in that blue skirt; but when I reached out to touch her, there was nothing but ordinary space. I believe I stood there for close to forever; the world may have even stopped for me one last time.

Then I checked the fridge. It was empty except for one zucchini with a note wrapped around it: “I've gone on tour, darling,” it said. “Pass it on.”

KIM ADDONIZIO is the author of several collections of poetry, including
Tell Me
and
What Is This Thing Called Love
. Her first novel,
Little Beauties,
is due from Simon & Schuster in August 2005. She lives in Oakland, California. Visit her at
http://addonizio.home.mindspring.com
.

 

ISABEL ALLENDE was born in Peru and raised in Chile. She is the author of the novels
Portrait in Sepia, Daughter of Fortune, The Infinite Plan, Eva Luna, Of Love and Shadows,
and
The House of the Spirits
; the short story collection
The Stories of Eva Luna
; the memoir
Paula
; and
Aphrodite: A Memoir of the Senses.
She lives in California.

 

CHEYENNE BLUE combines her two passions in life and writes travel guides and erotica. Her erotica has appeared in various anthologies, including
Best Women's Erotica, The Mammoth Best New Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica, Best Lesbian Love Stories, Foreign Affairs: Erotic Travel Tales,
and on several websites. Her travel guides have been jammed into many glove boxes underneath the chocolate wrappers. You can see more of her work on her website,
www.cheyenneblue.com
.

 

MICHELLE BOUCHÉ is a writer, teacher, consultant, and rabble-rouser. Her erotica has been published in
Best Women's Erotica 2001, Myths Fantastic, Moist,
and the forthcoming
Blowing Kisses.
Special thanks to Liz, who taught me that writing good erotica first and foremost means writing a good story.

 

KATHLEEN BRADEAN's stories have been featured in
Best Women's Erotica 2004,
Desdemona.com
, Blood Surrender
, Logical Lust's e-anthology
Eternally Erotic
, and the Erotica Readers and Writers Association website. She can be contacted at [email protected].

 

CARA BRUCE is the editor of
Best Fetish Erotica, Best Bisexual Women's Erotica
, and
Viscera
. She is coauthor of
The First Year
—
Hepatitis C
. Her fiction has been published in tons of anthologies, including
Best Women's Erotica
,
Best American Erotica, Best Lesbian Erotica,
and
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica
. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in magazines, newspapers, and websites, including
Salon.com
,
San Francisco Bay Guardian,
and
While You Were Sleeping
. She is the founder of
www.venusorvixen.com
and Venus or Vixen Press.

 

RACHEL KRAMER BUSSEL (
www.rachelkramerbussel.com
and
lustylady.blogspot.com
) serves as senior editor at
Penthouse Variations.
Her books include
The Lesbian Sex Book
(second edition),
Up All Night: Adventures in Lesbian Sex, Naughty Spanking Stories from A to Z,
and the forthcoming
Cheeky: Essays on Spanking and Being Spanked
and
Glamour Girls: Femme/Femme Erotica.
Her writing has been published in over 40 anthologies, including
Best American Erotica 2004
and
Best Women's Erotica 2003
and
2004,
as well as in
AVN, Bust, Curve, New York Blade, Playgirl, The San Francisco Chronicle,
and
The Village Voice.

 

ISABELLE CARRUTHERS lives and writes in New Orleans. Her fiction has been published in
Prometheus, Slow Trains Literary Journal, The Mainline, From Porn to Poetry,
and
Mammoth's Best Erotica,
and has appeared in various Internet magazines, including
Zoetrope All-Story Extra, Suspect Thoughts, Clean Sheets, Mind Caviar,
and others.

 

MARIANNA CHERRY has been published in
The 2001 Pushcart Prize XXV, Chelsea Magazine
(Chelsea Award for Fiction 1998),
Fourteen Hills,
and
Libido
. She received a BA from Columbia University and an MFA from San Francisco State University, and is currently working on her first novel.

 

KATE DOMINIC is the author of
Any 2 People, Kissing,
which was a finalist for the 2004 Foreword Magazine Book of the Year Award in the Category of Fiction: Short Stories. Kate has published over 300 erotic short stories, writing under a variety of pen names in both female and male voices, and sliding up and down the Kinsey scale in a variety of orientations. Her
most recent work is available in
The Many Joys of Sex Toys, Naughty Spanking Stories from A-Z, Dyke the Halls,
and at
www.katedominic.com
.

 

ANN DULANEY lives and writes in Copenhagen. Her work has been published in
Clean Sheets, Mind Caviar, Erotic Travel Tales,
and
Best Lesbian Erotica 2002
. Feel free to contact her at [email protected].

 

SACCHI GREEN writes in western Massachusetts and the mountains of New Hampshire. Her work has appeared in five volumes of
Best Lesbian Erotica
, four volumes of
Best Women's Erotica
,
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 3
,
Penthouse
,
Best S/M Erotica
,
Best Transgender Erotica
, and a knee-high stack of other anthologies with inspirational covers. Her first coeditorial venture,
Rode Hard, Put Away Wet: Lesbian Cowboy Erotica
, is scheduled for release in June 2005.

 

SUSIE HARA lives and writes in the San Francisco Bay Area. Her stories were previously published under the name Lisa Wolfe in
Clean Sheets
magazine and in several anthologies, including
Best American Erotica 2003
and
The Big Book of Hot Women's Erotica 2004
. Writing erotica is the most fun she's ever had with a laptop.