Kitabı oku: «Alison's Wonderland»

Alison’s Wonderland

An Erotic Collection Edited By

Alison Tyler

www.spice-books.co.uk

About the Author

Jacqueline Applebee is a black British woman, who breaks down barriers with smut. Jacqueline’s stories have appeared in various anthologies and on Web sites, including, Clean-sheets, Best Women’s Erotica 2008 and 2009, Ultimate Lesbian Erotica 2008 and 2009, and Best Lesbian Erotica 2008. Jacqueline’s favorite fairy tale is “Three Little Pigs” because she has a thing for adventurous bacon. Jacqueline’s Web site is http://www.writing-in-shadows.co.uk.

Janine Ashbless started her erotica career with her single-author collection of fairy and fantasy stories, Cruel Enchantment, published by Black Lace in 2000. Her follow-up collection, Dark Enchantment, appeared in 2009. In between came three erotic novels and various short stories, including one that made it into Best Women’s Erotica 2009. Her favorite fairy tales are “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” (which she retold as Bearskin in the novella collection Enchanted) and the horribly creepy “Mr. Fox.” She lives in the U.K. and blogs at www.janineashbless.blogspot.com where she enthuses about mythology, Victorian art and minotaurs.

Rachel Kramer Bussel (www.rachelkramerbussel.com) is an author, editor, blogger and reading-series host. She has edited more than twenty anthologies, including Tasting Him, Tasting Her, Spanked, Dirty Girls and Best Sex Writing 2008 and 2009. She is senior editor at Penthouse Variations, writes the “Dating Drama” column for the Frisky, and hosts In The Flesh Reading Series. Her writing has been published in more than a hundred anthologies, including Best American Erotica 2004 and 2006, as well as Cosmopolitan, Fresh Yarn, Huffington Post, Newsday, the New York Post, the San Francisco Chronicle, Time Out New York, the Village Voice and Zink, and she has appeared on NY1, The Berman and Berman Show and The Martha Stewart Show. Her favorite fairy tale is “Cinderella,” with whom she shares a shoe fetish (high heels especially), though she also envies Rapunzel’s long hair.

T. C. Calligari lives in British Columbia, writing in many worlds of what-if. She grew up reading fairy tales and fables from the children’s series My Book House. Her favorite though is “East of the Sun and West of the Moon,” a Norwegian fairy tale based on the Eros and Psyche myth where the woman must rescue her prince. T.C.’s stories have appeared in E Is for Exotic, B Is for Bondage, as well as Open for Business, Naughty or Nice and Guilty Pleasures. “Stocking Stuffers” is featured in the Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica.

Heidi Champa is a typical last-born child. Snarky, attention-seeking and rebellious, she chooses to write dirty stories to keep out of real trouble. Her work appears in Tasting Him and Frenzy. She has also steamed up the pages of Bust magazine. If you prefer your erotica in electronic form, look for her at Clean-Sheets, Ravenous Romance and The Erotic Woman. Despite her latent cynicism, her favorite fairy tale will always be “Beauty and the Beast.” Find her online at heidichampa.blogspot.com.

Portia Da Costa is a British author of romance, erotic romance and romantic fiction, specializing in intense, character-driven contemporary novels, and praised for the vivid emotional depth of her writing. Since 1990, she has had more than twenty titles published, as well as around a hundred short stories, and her work has been translated into many languages including German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Norwegian and Japanese. Always a lover of fantasy and fairy tale, she adores the stories of “Cinderella” and “Sleeping Beauty.” Portia lives in West Yorkshire with her husband and her cats and she enjoys reading and watching television.

Andrea Dale’s stories have appeared in Do Not Disturb: Hotel Sex Stories, Frenzy, the Mammoth Book of the Kama Sutra and Dirty Girls, among many others. With coauthors, she has sold novels to Cheek Books (A Little Night Music, Sarah Dale) and Black Lace Books (Cat Scratch Fever, Sophie Mouette) and even more short stories. In other incarnations she writes SFF and media tie-in. A lover of fantasy, mythology and the fae folk since a young age, her favorite tale is that of Tam Lin, because the heroine rescues the hero for once. For more information, check out her Web site at www.cyvarwydd.com.

Bella Dean is new to the business of dirty stories. She still blushes when she types, but has no plans to give it up. Her work has appeared in Afternoon Delight. She lives with her small family in her small house in her small town. Her favorite fairy tale growing up was “Cinderella.” Even then she had a thing for shoes and hot men.

Once upon a time, a playwright scarred by her first lover’s betrayal and an actor who lost his love in the 9/11 conflagration came together in a shabby off-Broadway theater. Though this is not Erica DeQuaya’s background, it formed the backbone for her critically acclaimed first erotic romance novel, Backstage Affair. Five novels and many short stories later, Erica continues living her own happily-ever-after as she pens erotic and mainstream books (including her well-received hockey romance series) from her middle-class castle in Texas. Erica shares her royal surroundings with her beloved handsome prince and soul mate of more than two decades, a princeling of a son, two loyal, if somewhat neurotic, dogs and a collection of geckos in the backyard.

Benjamin Eliot is a stay-at-home dad and a WWII freak. He has a huge collection of memorabilia and books and has been known to trap unsuspecting people for impromptu historical lectures. He loves his wife, his kids and his old-piece-of-crap car. For the record, he can fix a toilet and even install a faucet. Benjamin was never one for fairy tales, but in college he found he could really get into a good meaty greek myth. Look for more of his work in the future. He’s just getting started with his storytelling.

A. D. R. Forte’s erotic short fiction appears in various anthologies including collections from Black Lace, Cleis Press and Circlet Press. Her favorite fairy tale, of course, is “Beauty and the Beast.” Visit her at www.adrforte.com.

Lana Fox’s erotic stories have appeared in anthologies by Xcite, and she also publishes literary fiction under a different name. She started writing erotica when she gave a reading and members of the audience came up afterward saying, “Your work is all about sex,” when she didn’t think it was! Her favorite fairy tale is “Little Red Riding Hood,” especially when it’s turned on its head and Red has a feisty side.

Shanna Germain’s work has appeared in places like Best American Erotica, Best Bondage Erotica, Best Gay Romance, Frenzy and Luscious. She’s obsessed with the wolf and the girl in the red cloak, and often sings a darker version of “Li’l Red Riding Hood,” by Sam the Sham. Visit her at www.shannagermain.com.

Bryn Haniver, a nature lover and sexy B-movie aficionado, writes fiction from islands and peninsulas whenever possible, and prefers fairy tales with menacing mermaids, like “The Mermaid and the Boy.” Bryn’s work has appeared in Red Hot Erotica and B Is for Bondage.

Georgia E. Jones graduated with an MFA from Mills College. Her stories have appeared in the Santa Barbara Review and the literary magazine Estero. She lives in northern California. Her favorite fairy tale is “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” because the heroine is smart and resourceful.

Tsaurah Litzky is an internationally known writer of erotica whose work has appeared in more than seventy-five publications, including Best American Erotica (eight times), Best International Erotica (twice), X: the Erotic Treasury, Penthouse, the New York Times, Sex For America, K is For Kinky, Got A Minute, The Merry XXXmas Book of Erotica, Politically Inspired, The Urban Bizarre, Dirty Girls, Evergreen Review 12. Simon & Schuster published her erotic novella, The Motion of the Ocean, as part of Three the Hard Way, a series of erotic novellas edited by Susie Bright. Tsaurah Litzky’s groundbreaking erotic writing class, Silk Sheets: Writing Erotica, is now in its eleventh year at the New School in Manhattan. Tsaurah believes that great sex often is inspired by a pair of shoes and that fairy tales do come true.

Kristina Lloyd is the author of three erotic novels, Darker Than Love, Asking for Trouble and Split, all published by Black Lace. Her short stories have appeared in numerous anthologies and magazines in both the U.K. and U.S., and her novels have been translated into German, Dutch and Japanese. She has a master’s degree in twentieth-century literature, and has been described as “a fresh literary talent” who “writes sex with a formidable force.” She lives in Brighton on the south coast of England and her favorite fairy tale is “Little Red Riding Hood” because it’s dark, sinister and short on princesses. For more, visit http://kristinalloyd.wordpress.com.

Nikki Magennis is a Scottish author of erotica and erotic romance. She grew up on fairy tales and has always loved “The Red Shoes.” Lily takes her name from a song on Kate Bush’s Red Shoes album. In folklore, lilies are used to break spells or enchantments. Nikki’s second novel, The New Rakes, is published by Black Lace, and you can find her work in many anthologies. She is currently working on a collection of short stories and could use a spot of lily juice to break her procrastination habit. Read more at: http://nikkimagennis.blogspot.com.

Sommer Marsden writes her naughty fiction from a small town near the Chesapeake Bay. Her work has appeared in dozens of print anthologies and magazines, and her stories haunt many Internet sites on a regular basis. When she was a little girl, she loved the tale of “The Princess and the Pea,” mostly because she is a complainer at heart. You can see what she’s up to at www.SmutGirl.blogspot.com.

N. T. Morley is the author of sixteen published novels of erotic dominance and submission, including The Visitor, The Nightclub, The Appointment and the trilogies The Castle, The Library and The Office. Morley has also edited two anthologies, MASTER and slave, and has contributed to many erotic anthologies, including the Naughty Stories from A to Z series, the Sweet Life series, the Best New Erotica series, and many other anthologies. Morley’s favorite fairy tale is unquestionably Pretty Woman, though there’s something strangely hot about Leaving Las Vegas. That said, there’s lots to love about “Sleeping Beauty,” the Anne Rice version. Visit www.ntmorley.com for more information.

Elspeth Potter’s stories have appeared in The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica, Periphery: Erotic Lesbian Futures, Best Lesbian Romance 2009, Best Lesbian Erotica and Best Women’s Erotica. Her erotic novel The Duchess, Her Maid, the Groom, and their Lover, by Victoria Janssen, was a 2008 release from Harlequin Spice. The Moonlight Mistress was released in December 2009. Her favorite fairy tale is “The Tinderbox.” Read more at www.victoriajanssen.com.

Thomas S. Roche is the author of more than two hundred published stories that fall into the horror, fantasy, crime, paranormal and erotica genres—frequently all at once. His books include His and Hers, two short-story collections written with Alison Tyler, and Dark Matter, a collection of his own stories, as well as four anthologies of fantasy/horror and three books of erotic crime stories. Roche has always had a love-hate relationship with fairy tales. He hated them as a child because there were rarely any spaceships in them. As an adult, he has adapted dozens of fairy tales for various projects, starting with a rewrite of A Midsummer Night’s Dream he did in the mid-1990s. He’s very fond of “The Little Match Girl,” probably due to his lingering goth damage from the eighties. He blogs about such topics as ghosts, aliens, sex and politics at www.thomasroche.com.

Donna George Storey is the author of Amorous Woman, a semi-autobiographical tale of an American’s steamy love affair with Japan. Her short fiction has been published in over ninety journals and anthologies, including X:The Erotic Treasury, Naughty or Nice, Frenzy, Best Women’s Erotica, and The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. Her favorite fairy tale is “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” not only because she played the role of Angelica in a summer-theater production in high school, but because she can really relate to the story of girls who are perfect ladies by day sneaking off to a magical land every night to dance Freudian holes in their slippers with charming princes. Read more of her work at www.DonnaGeorgeStorey.com.

Sophia Valenti’s erotica has appeared in Afternoon Delight and Playing with Fire. She believes in happily-ever-afters, but thinks that sometimes fate needs a little push in the right direction. Her favorite fairy tale is “The Ugly Duckling” because coming into your own is as important as finding your place. Visit her at www.sophiavalenti.blogspot.com.

Saskia Walker loves to read and write stories where magic and passion are found in unexpected situations. Her favorite fairy tales reflect this, stories like “Cinderella,” and the tales of “Scheherazade” and the “Arabian Nights.” Saskia began writing in 1996 and her fiction has now been published in more than fifty anthologies. Her novel-length work spans from contemporary erotic romance to exotic fantasy. Saskia lives in the north of England on the windswept Yorkshire moors, where she happily spends her days spinning yarns. She has lots more stories to tell, so be sure to visit www.saskiawalker.co.uk.

Allison Wonderland has a B.A. in women’s studies, a weakness for lollipops and a fondness for rubber ducks. Her favorite sound is Fran Drescher’s voice, and her cocktail of choice is a Shirley Temple. On the fairy-tale front, she is quite fond of Jane Yolen’s collection, Not One Damsel in Distress. (She finds the dearth of distressed damsels very refreshing.) Allison has contributed to numerous anthologies, including Island Girls, Hurts So Good, Coming Together: At Last and Visible: A Femmethology. See what she’s up to at http://aisforallison.blogspot.com.

For Sam.

Introduction

Down the rabbit hole I go, in search of fractured fairy tales and manhandled myths, the type that would make Snow White blush Rose Red. Why fables and rhymes and stories of years gone by? Because the familiar cadence of these magical tales clings to us like the fabric of dreams. The once upon a time is already in place—the happily-ever-after is waiting for us. It’s the part in the middle that’s rich with promise, the sticky-sweet candy-colored goodness of a whole new type of “Hansel and Gretel” story.

The truth is that we all love a happy ending (traditional or otherwise), especially when the characters turn out to be kinky. To that end, I’ve compiled twenty-seven brand-spanking-new stories from such popular erotic writers as Thomas S. Roche, Tsaurah Litzky and Shanna Germain.

Many fables are immediately recognizable. Sommer Marsden’s “The Three Billys” is neatly spotted as a modern-day goat story, although the gruffest of the Billys has a far dirtier method of dealing with (Ms.) Troll than in the original tale. Kristina Lloyd’s “David” riffs on “Sleeping Beauty” in a myriad of ways. A surreal vampire yarn, her Beauty not only wakes up to her deep sexual submission, but she awakens her very own handsome prince. Bella Dean’s “Wolff’s Tavern” turns the tale of “Little Red Riding Hood” inside out—this Wolff comes to Ruby’s rescue. Sophia Valenti’s “The Cougar of Cobble Hill” is based firmly on the sole of “The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe,” while Jacqueline Applebee’s “Slutty Cinderella” features the only wannabe princess I know who needs a shave. T. C. Calligari spins the Grimms’ somewhat obscure fable “The Magic Table, the Golden Donkey and the Club in the Sack” into “A Taste for Treasure,” featuring a magical stick, crop and cot.

Several writers approached the same story, but with wickedly different results. “Fool’s Gold” by Shanna Germain retells “Rumpelstiltskin” from the point of view of a woman so tightly bound by her own desires she doesn’t know what she wants. Georgia E. Jones tackles the same fairy tale from more than five hundred years in the past, in the boisterous court of King Edward V. Ms. Jones’s story shows that no matter what the date, love is always in fashion. Nikki Magennis’s darkly beautiful “Red Shoes (Redux)” contrasts deliciously with Tsaurah Litzky’s “Dancing Shoes,” which features an older (but just as intriguing) protagonist, with a little bit of Cinderella for good measure.

Other creations in this collection are magical stories in their own right: Portia Da Costa’s “Unveiling His Muse” reads like a brand-new fairy tale, and Andrea Dale’s “The Broken Fiddle” has the cadence of an old Irish legend. In “The Midas F★ck,” Erica DeQuaya delves into what might happen if a woman’s secret wish came true. A. D. R. Forte’s “Moonset” begs the question “Is that a werewolf in my bed, or are you just happy to see me?” In “Managers and Mermen,” Donna George Storey’s fantasy mermaid lives only in her main character’s mind—or does she? In Lana Fox’s “Always Break the Spines,” a naughty coed learns that fairy tales can hurt. Literally. Her lover punishes her with a leather-bound book.

What ingredients are required to create a modern-day fairy tale? Sometimes all that’s needed is a little magic dust—and a bit of lube. Bryn Haniver’s ever-so-dirty “Mastering Their Dungeons” draws on a familiar game, but not everyone could turn a dorm room into a setting for a modern-day myth. Benjamin Eliot has conjured his own version of Sisyphus, with a protagonist forced to fix the same facility for what appears to be an eternity in “An Uphill Battle.” Rachel Kramer Bussel’s “Let Down Your Libido” features a completely different type of prison for a Rapunzel of the new millennium. And Thomas S. Roche’s “Cupid Has Signed Off” takes us from sex play in the online universe to a sizzling scenario IRL (in real life). My own “Rings on My Fingers” features dusky Los Angeles, a shy bookstore clerk and the universal desire for a happy ending, even with a tattooed prince.

Three wishes are all one girl requires when offered to choose in Saskia Walker’s “Kiss It.” What exactly does the protagonist kiss? Well, he’s definitely not a frog. Janine Ashbless’s “Gold, On Snow” tackles “Snow White” from the queen’s point of view. Allison Wonderland’s “Sleeping with Beauty” delves into the bubblegum-pink universe of two princesses who forgo princes (and frogs) in favor of each other. And what if one of those handsome fairy-tale studs liked men?

Are the endings always happy? That’s for the reader to decide. “The Clean-Shaven Type” by N. T. Morley, is a version of “Beauty and the Beast” with quite unexpected results for the Beast. “After the Happily-Ever-After,” by Heidi Champa, describes what happens to poor Cinderella once the sparkle fades from her fairy-tale wedding. The collection rides off into the sunset with a fairy tale told in a hundred words. If you don’t think that’s possible, check out Elspeth Potter’s “The Princess.”

With a combination of retold tales and brand-new fables, Alison’s Wonderland is the perfect naughty bedtime storybook to share with a partner (or enjoy solo style) for your own X-rated Happily-Ever-After.

XXX,

Alison Tyler

Epigraph

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day-to-day basis.

—Margaret Bonnano

…don’t forget about what happened to the man who got everything he ever wanted.

He lived happily ever after.

—Roald Dahl

The Red Shoes (Redux)
Nikki Magennis

Lily had walked past the shoe shop a hundred times. On her way to work at the flower shop early every morning, wearing shabby jeans and baseball boots that were worn the same color as the pavement, she’d walk fast and barely glance at the shiny, chichi window display. She didn’t need to see heartbreaker heels and designer bags that would cost her a month’s wages.

For the past six weeks, though, she’d found herself swiveling on her heel and turning to look at a particular display.

The window stretched high above her head, the plate glass polished so bright it reflected her image like a mirror. But Lily wasn’t looking at herself. Her gaze was totally transfixed on the shoes. Glossy, cherry-red, skyscraper-high, patent-leather fuck-me shoes that made her heart beat faster just looking at them. They had deep curves and a dangerous heel and they stood center stage on a podium by themselves, proud, shockingly beautiful and insanely unaffordable. They made Lily’s mouth water. She could almost taste the red of them.

Once, she’d approached the door, got close enough to feel the cool hum of air-conditioned air on her face. And then she’d checked herself. Girls with ratty hair and dirt under their chipped-varnish nails didn’t enter shops like that. Not without a motorcycle helmet and a package under their arm. Not in a million years.

While she was at work, emptying buckets of stinking slime-water and slicing the stems of stargazer lilies, Lily let her imagination wander. In those shoes, she’d be able to walk anywhere—up red carpets and through gilded palaces, across Hollywood Boulevard and down the Champs-Élysées. She’d be a shameless scarlet bombshell, and take no shit from anyone. Her hips would swing and her lips would pout and men would fall at her feet.

And then her boss, Margie, yelled at her for daydreaming, and Lily snapped out of it and got on with the cold, dirty, green-stained work of the day.

It was the first Saturday in May. The city was full of mist that crawled lazily up the streets and muffled the edges of the morning. Dragging herself reluctantly to work, Lily walked past the siren-red shine of the shoes, and drifted to the window to gaze at her unreachable dreams through half an inch of bulletproof glass.

“You like them.”

Lily nearly fell on her ass. A man had appeared, silently, in the shop doorway. He wore a black shirt and trousers the color of champagne. His face was taut and unlined, and his smile barely tweaked the corners of his mouth.

“I was just looking,” Lily said, backing away.

“I see you,” the man continued, fixing her with fathomless gray eyes, “every morning. You look at my shoes like you’re starving.”

“Your shoes?”

“I design them,” he said.

“No shit,” said Lily.

“For women,” he said, “like you.”

“Oh,” Lily said, and looked down at her faded, raggedy Ramones T-shirt.

A smile snaked across the man’s face.

“It’s what’s underneath that matters,” he said, his eyes hooking on Lily’s chest.

If Lily had seen herself in the plate glass, she’d have seen her cheeks flare as red as the shoes. She looked down at the paving slabs and tried to think of a witty comeback.

“Come in,” the man said, pushing the door open.

Lily’s eyes flicked from the shoes to the man and back again. In her mind’s eye, she pictured the flower shop’s shutters rolling open and Margie cursing the empty street. And then, although she knew it was crazy and although she couldn’t afford to get fired from another job and although everything about the man made her feel she had sleepwalked into some surreal stage play, she followed him into the cool, palatial interior.

The whole place must have been polished by an army of women on their hands and knees, Lily thought. Every damn surface shone like a mirror. Even the light shafts that fell across the room looked glossy. The air smelt faintly of a sweet, spicy perfume, and the shop was silent. There was no sound other than the click of the man’s shoes as he walked across the marble floor to the window display.

He lifted the shoes by the straps and brought them to Lily, dangling them from his hand like a bunch of grapes he didn’t want to bruise.

“See,” he said. “Aren’t they beautiful?”

But as Lily reached out, he swung the shoes away and shook his head. He gave her a smile that made her feel dizzy.

“Not yet. You can wear them tonight. When I take you out.”

When Lily finally turned up to work half an hour late, she was clumsy and preoccupied. She knocked over a display and broke an orchid stem, gave the delivery driver a funeral wreath instead of a get-well-soon bouquet and ruined a hundred silk roses by dropping them in water.

“What is going on?” Margie bellowed. “Lily Spink, get a hold of yourself!”

By six o’clock, Lily was wired. She stood by the door of the shop, stepping from foot to foot anxiously while she waited for Hans. That was his name—the shoe man. It was about all she knew. But she’d guessed he was rich. She had an inkling he’d take her somewhere fancy, and so she’d stripped down to her spaghetti-strap vest and tried to scrub the green stains off her jeans. Her outfit wasn’t Chanel, but it was the best she could do at short notice.

When his car pulled up outside, dark, sleek and quiet, Lily whistled under her breath. It looked like a cruise ship.

“Hold on!”

Lily rolled her eyes as Margie’s foghorn voice called her back. Her boss nodded at her. “Take this, honey.”

She pressed something into Lily’s hand—a sprig of little bell-shaped white flowers nodding on a stem, tied in ribbon—and gave a tight smile.

“Lily of the valley. Your namesake.”

He drove straight to a club downtown, tucked behind the old merchants’ quarter. Hans climbed out of the car and walked around to Lily’s door to open it. When she swung her feet out, he bent forward and stilled her with one hand on her knee. Lily swallowed. Hans crouched at the curb. His hands slid down her calves and looped around her ankles. Slowly, almost daintily, he unlaced her baseball boots. When he tossed the battered boots in the gutter, Lily nearly cried out, but then she saw the hot glimmer of the red shoes and caught her breath.

Hans laid them at her feet.

“Put them on.”

As she stepped, at last, into the arched shoes, they clasped her feet like the hands of a lover, and Lily knew she was beautiful. When she climbed out of the car, her spine unrolled and her hips tipped forward, until her body was an S that leaned toward Hans. Even in her frayed old jeans and with her hair loose and tangled, Lily felt like a queen.

She’d tied Margie’s posy to the strap of her vest, and Hans’s eye caught on it as they climbed the steps.

He raised an eyebrow. “An unusual corsage.”

Lily didn’t answer. She felt a bit dazzled.

They entered the club arm in arm. Every head turned to look at them. The men’s faces were lustful and the women looked as if they’d sucked sour plums. Damn, Lily thought. These shoes work. She swayed across the marble floor, hanging from Hans’s arm. The shoes were so high they gave her vertigo, but there was also a zing and a shiver creeping through her veins. Lily’s tits tingled like they had lithium batteries attached to the nipples.

Hans led her past the jealous crowd and through a pair of long velvet curtains at the back of the club. They entered a dark, cavelike room with black walls and black marble floors, a vast glittering chandelier hanging overhead the only decor.

“Want something to drink?” Hans said, his lips brushing her ear, and Lily shivered. Everything he said made her feel as though she were swimming in syrup.

“Or shall we dance?” Hans slipped an arm around her and let his hand trip over the curve of her buttocks. Lily’s heartbeat seemed to follow his touch, and she had to force herself to breathe out. When he pulled her onto the edge of the dance floor, her feet started to twitch. Lily was restless. Antsy. She felt like there was a swarm of bees in her belly, and it was part sweet torture, part agony as the thrills spilled over and trickled through her veins.

Hans watched her. His gaze stroked down her curves, and Lily felt as though she were being wrapped in hot, wet silk. Delicious shivers ran up and down her legs, and she twisted from side to side to let the tingles travel right to the end of her fingertips. What was going on? She dropped her eyes to her feet. Was it some kind of weird acupuncture?

“Oh, God,” she said. “These shoes—these shoes are…fantastic.”

Hans circled her, still observing her body with intense interest. As she pointed her toes and flexed, like a cat trying to shake an itch out of its fur, he put his mouth to her ear.

“Dance,” he whispered, and gave her a sharp slap on the rounded cheek of her ass. The sting made her leap, and Lily whirled around, her mouth open wide in surprise. Before she could say a word, though, her attention was distracted by a low, pulsing sound. It could have been her heartbeat thumping in her ears or it could have been music, but whatever it was, the rhythm spoke directly to her body, to her hips and belly and the sweet wetness gathering between her legs.

Lily danced. She rolled back and forth and stroked herself, balancing on her tiptoes in the towering shoes. As Hans watched, she danced for him and toward him, winding around his body and rocking against him. The complex, noiseless music continued and grew louder as she ground into his crotch, lifted up tall enough on the shoes to meet the stiff length of his cock as it pressed against her, hot even through the layers of their clothes.

Deep in Lily’s thoughts, a glimmer of apprehension flared. Weren’t there any waiters, any other people wandering into the hidden ballroom? She hunted the dark corners of the room, but found nothing in the shadows except more shadows, deep and thickly layered, and the sensation she was floating underwater, drifting down beyond the depths to a place where no light would reach her. She felt caressed by the dark, just as Hans gently stroked her hips and slid his long fingers inside the waistband of her jeans, reaching down to tickle the top of her ass.

When he kissed her, it was like drinking very fine brandy—smooth and strong and dark gold. Lily smelled the perfume on his neck—civet and patchouli, something dense and elusive—as he deftly unbuttoned and pushed her jeans to her knees. Any shame she might have felt evaporated like smoke, and she closed her eyes as his swaying movements helped them dance closer to each other, until there was nothing between their skin but heat and a damp slick of perspiration.

Perhaps he slid his trousers aside as swiftly as he’d undressed her, or perhaps his clothes somehow melted away, because now Lily felt Hans’s cock, hot and hard, slide between her thighs and nudge at the seam of her pussy. She was molten wax, all liquid heat, and Hans was flowing into her like a knife into butter.

His hands circled her hips and held her fast as he pinned her on his prick, pulling her down slowly until he filled her right. But Lily couldn’t stop moving, like the beat wouldn’t leave her alone, and she squirmed against him, working herself closer and closer.

She no longer knew if she was trying to dance or fuck or swim. Her feet slid around to get purchase on the floor as he took her and lifted her up with each stroke. Lily heard moans, and wondered if they came from her mouth. Her body was wildly restless, insatiable even as she felt the blissful ache of his cock thrumming inside her.

As they worked against each other, his hands moved everywhere at once—cupping her breast, slipping over the fuzz of her pussy, pinching her clit and molding her ass. Gripped in his rough embrace and tugged and dazzled by whatever the shoes were doing to her, Lily’s head started to spin.

“You like that?” he asked, and she heard a dark thread of menace running in his voice.

“Don’t want me to stop, do you?” he asked, while his fingers strummed and rubbed and tweaked at her. She crawled upward, like she was trying to climb his body.

A voice in her head chanted a mantra she was only half aware of. More, more, more. Lily didn’t know what she wanted more of—his cock, his fingers, his voice slithering into her ear like a trance, the brandy kiss or the wet shine of the shoes that clung to her feet. The feeling, the thick, dark, urgent and sweet feeling. The beat of the music rolling into her. Everything, everything.

Lily started to shiver. Hans fucked her steadily, decisively. She had to fight to breathe. The polished floor was slippery under her feet and she felt herself tumbling, slipping, falling as the burn of orgasm rose up through her body.

It started in her feet, red flares of sensation that burned in her veins and swarmed around her thighs, a hot crush inside her that uncurled and licked over her clit, clutched at her heart and sparked in her nipples as the man pinched them tightly. And then it was everywhere.

She closed her eyes and saw crimson, opened her mouth and screamed scarlet, felt the red crash over her and through her and shake her until there was no world anymore, no ballroom, no Lily.

The red splashed across her heart and sizzled in her fingertips.

The waves rocked her back and forth, swaying her until she was seasick. Lily unraveled and spun out like a ribbon caught in the ocean’s deep currents. She was limp, her body shaky. Ready to climb down now, to find air, to break the surface.

But Hans’s arms circled her waist and the shoes were tight on her feet. Although she was flinching, oversensitive, the cock inside her was harder and stronger than ever and her body wouldn’t stop moving against it.

“Hans,” she said, almost ready to beg for a moment’s pause. She was ignored. He rubbed relentlessly at her aching nipples, making her flinch as the too-strong sensation shot through her. She was bathed in sweat, cooling now and slick over the surface of her skin.

She tried to pull away. But she found herself tugged toward Hans, as though there were a strong magnet in her stomach. And her hips—though they ached, they kept on moving. Her body seemed possessed—though she frowned and blinked she couldn’t seem to see clearly.

“Yes,” Hans said, and his smile curdled. “Dance with me.”

“Oh,” Lily said. Her voice was faint. “I think I need a glass of water.”

Hans put his mouth to her ear.

“All you need is this. All you need is me.”

He nodded his head.

“You’re mine.”

Lily’s heart lurched. The music had become dark and hard now, it beat against her skull. Hans let his eyes drop to her shoes. He smiled, and the skin pulled taut over his cheekbones.

“The shoes belong to me. And now you belong to the shoes.”

Lily’s feet twitched and throbbed, and she realized in a split second that she was bewitched. The shoes were a poisoned chalice, a glittering prison, two seductive traps that she’d walked straight into. She pushed Hans away and dropped to a crouch, tugging at the straps on her ankles. It was as though the buckles were soldered shut. Her feet were burning now, and her breath was fighting in her throat. She looked up at Hans and saw twin fires in his eyes, a terrible, cold desire. The tip of his tongue flickered over his lips.

“Mine,” he said.

Desperate and confused, Lily reached to her throat. Her hand brushed the wilted corsage pinned to her breast, and she clutched at the stems. A burst of sweet, green perfume floated from it. Hardly aware of what she was doing, Lily gripped hold of the flowers and held on to them tight. Her head hurt. Her eyes were bleary. With fingers wet from sap, she rubbed at her eyelids.

It was like the sky opened up. A fresh breeze cut through the thick atmosphere of the ballroom, smelling of cut grass and brine and newly dug earth. Lily looked around.

Hans was a few feet from her, but he seemed to shrink as she looked at him. Her eyes were clear. There was dandruff on his shoulder and dust on the chandelier. The music faded. Lily felt an insistent pain in her feet, and looked down at the red shoes. Irritated, she kicked a shoe across the dance floor, and stepped lightly out of the other.

The floor was dusty and small pieces of grit dug into the soles of her feet, but it felt good. She flexed her toes. Lily heaved a deep sigh.

“Well, Hans, you know that was fun, but I think it’s time I got going.”

He didn’t answer, but instead made a hissing sound, like a balloon when the air is let out of it.

“No, don’t fuss, I don’t need a ride home,” Lily continued, rubbing mascara from under her eyes. “It’s been a great night. Really interesting. Although—” Lily leaned toward Hans and whispered loudly across the empty dance floor, “You might want to lay off the Viagra. Too much of a good thing, you know?”

With that, she blew him a light kiss off the end of her fingertips, turned and left.

Fool’s Gold
Shanna Germain

Spin a Yarn

It was a random boast. Too many gin and tonics, too aware of how my ass looked in a new pair of dark jeans. Far too aware of how he’d been watching me across the loud space of a bar table all night, long fingers reaching up to push a few strands of dark hair away from his blue eyes. Not a close friend, but still a friend. And for long enough you’d think I’d have noticed him that way before. But sometimes that’s how it happens, a flip switches, and the guy at the edge slips into the center. He is suddenly all you can see.

This flip was the conversation that turned from usual drunken rants to sex. Specifically to bondage sex. After a few minutes of the boys around the table laughing and the girls not really saying much, I pushed the lime into my gin and tonic with the end of my stir stick. “I don’t know what the big deal is.” I imagined being stuck somewhere, seat-belted in, unable to reach the drink holders or turn the knobs on the dashboard. “I like to move when I have sex. Why be tied down?”

Suddenly, the quiet man that I mostly knew from group nights out was leaning across the table, creating near-perfect paper strips from the bar napkin, talking about ropes and twine and knots in a power voice, a low light flickering in his eyes. He wasn’t talking to me, not specifically, but his gaze flicked to my wrists as he talked. “There’s freedom in constraints.”

I curled my hands around my glass, the bones feeling exposed, the pulse thump-thumping beneath the skin. “There’s constraint in constraints.” My words had made more sense in my head.

He followed the movement of my hand with his eyes, tearing another near-perfect strip from the edge of his napkin as he waved my comment away. “But it’s not really about what you use to tie someone down. At least, not the physical thing you use to tie someone.”

He laid the thin strip of torn napkin over my wrist, holding the edges with a few fingers to the table, as though paper and pressure was enough to keep me there.

“It’s other things. Isn’t it, Elly?” His eyes settled on mine. Such intense blue, like a weight all their own, trying to keep me against the overly warm bar seat.

I dropped my gaze to watch the lime floating in my drink, raising both shoulders in a shrug, my wrist slipping along beneath the paper. “You’re asking the wrong girl,” I said, when I could finally meet his eyes again.

He arched a brow, the low bar lights flaring in his gaze as he shifted his head. “Am I?”

“Yes.” The others faded away. Did they grow quiet on their own or just slip into the edges of my vision, sliding into the place he’d occupied so recently? “I’ve never been bound to anything. Man or bed or chair. And I don’t intend to be.”

He stood suddenly, the lean movement of predator, still holding the napkin strip across my wrist with one hand. His other hand snaked forward to tighten into the length of my blond hair, fisting his fingers at the nape of my neck to pull my head back slightly. My mouth gasped open—I couldn’t help it—and then I was looking up at those blue eyes. Darkening to near black on the edges. “No?”

A single word. A challenge. Something that I would have ignored most times. If not for the drinks. Or for the fact that his fingers were still on either side of my wrist, tightening in, capturing my skin between them. If not for the way my body suddenly responded, a dizzy spin of want that left me hollow and wet.

“No.” Fingers digging into my head, holding me. I tugged my head forward, but his grip only tightened. So tight I saw threads of black and gold through my vision, and still the blue of his eyes through it all.

“You’ve never…” I didn’t know if the others could hear him, even though he was leaning down slightly, the press of his fingers keeping me there. “…called someone master?”

I pulled my body away although my hand, inexplicably, didn’t follow. I was sure I’d meant it to. “Hell, no. And I never will.”

“Shall we bet on that?” he asked. I was sure the others could hear him now, as well as my own bitten-back moan in response. What was my body doing to me? Betrayer.

Still, I suddenly and desperately wanted to prove this man wrong. I didn’t know if it was to knock his ego a notch or soothe my own pulse, which was thumping hard beneath my skin.

I took a deep, unsteady inhale. “What do I get if I win?”

“You won’t,” he said.

“Then there’s no reason to bet, is there?”

He laughed and let go of my hair, touching a single finger to the corner of my mouth as he bent and said softly, his lips whispering along the curve of my ear, “What’s my name, Elly?”

I’m sure I looked at him like he was stupid. How long had we been friends? Of course I knew his name.

“Jackson,” I said. At the same time, I pulled my wrist up, breaking the napkin.

As the paper split, releasing my wrist, he bowed down again to drag his teeth along the curve of my ear. “That’s one.”

Spinning Round

Time goes, as it does. I didn’t see him for nearly six months. I’m sure I didn’t think of him. Or his bet. Or the way I sometimes thought I felt his fingers in my hair, tangling me up.

And then, at a wedding, there he was. Tuxed up in a way that changed him once again. Prince maybe. Or young king, before he leans old and weary. He turned, halfway through the ceremony, looked into me with those blue eyes, and I forgot his name. Forgot my own. I had an image of my wrist held to the table with no more than a paper strip, remembered his fingers threaded in my hair. The heat that filled my cheeks—I knew I was turning the same color as the blood-red dress I wore, and I dropped my head, my blond hair falling forward around me. Closing my eyes for so long, I missed the bride coming up the aisle.

At the reception, he stepped beside me near the dance floor, keeping a careful distance. He touched me lightly on the inside of my arm. Even his voice was soft.

“Come and dance?”

Soft hands, safe hands around my back, careful how he touched me. He brushed a few strands of my hair from my face, his fingertips barely touching my skin, soft as silk. I looked in his eyes, waiting for him to say something like he did before.

“How have you been?” is what he asked.

So formal, so regal and considerate, I wanted to scream. I wanted to arch my hips against him and beg him for…what? I didn’t know. I wanted to see what he would do with a paper napkin, a wedding streamer, the straps of my dress, the bride’s veil.

I bit my lip instead, answered with the one word I could find. “Fine.”

I couldn’t think how to turn the conversation, so I danced with him, aching. I draped my wrists along his shoulders, turning them softly, just to see. I let my long blond hair brush his shoulders. My eyes on him, silent desire, but he merely tucked my cheek to his chest lightly, swayed to the bad music without touching his hips to mine. Every touch so soft, I couldn’t help but bend my body toward it. By the end of the song, I decided I must have confused that night. Or his comments. He’d been drunk. So had I. Perhaps our conversation had been something for only the dark of a backlit bar. Perhaps he’d forgotten our bet.

Besides, I told myself as he maneuvered me around the floor, I hadn’t wanted that, right? No bondage. No stupid calling someone master. Why did I care? I chalked it up to the soft whisper of fabric as his hips edged along mine and to the feel of his breath along my cheek.

As the dance ended, he stepped away with a gentle smile. The quiet press of his hand to my shoulder was so formal that I again thought of kings and royalty. Then he reached and curled a hand to the back of my neck, the blue of his gaze hardening as his eyes settled on mine. His hold was so strong and sudden that I yanked my head forward, pulling it from his grip. Too late, I realized what I’d done.

He dropped his head, mouth edging to the curl of my ear as he laughed quietly along my skin. “What’s my name, sweet Elly?”

“Prick,” I sputtered, so in want and confused that I was sure the dance floor was swaying beneath me.

He winked at me before he pulled away and left me standing in the middle of the floor by myself, only his words remaining. “That’s two.”

Spun to Gold

I spent two weeks arguing with myself. Wearing my seat belt extra tight in the car to remind myself why I didn’t want it. Didn’t want him. But all I could see were his blue eyes reflected in the sky of my windshield.

I called him. Some faltering tone in my voice about dinner, or drinks. I looked at my wrists while I held the phone, their fine bones, the thin length of them. I bent my head forward and touched a few fingers to the nape of my neck.

“Tell me where you live,” he said, and I did.

I slipped into jeans. Then a sundress. Then a T-shirt and a soft yellow skirt that swirled around my thighs. I paced, touching things, asking myself what I wanted. Unable to say the answer aloud.

When he got there, I opened the door, unsure whether I’d find predator or king. Or perhaps just the man I’d known for so long, before that night at the bar.

He was neither. And all three. Leaning against my door frame in jeans and a shirt that fit his wide shoulders. Arms crossed, those long fingers hidden from view, he slid in through the door finally, gesturing to the couch without a word.

I sat, fiddling with my skirt. Wishing I was anywhere else.

“Hold still,” he said, reaching for my head.

The pain was small and short, the backward prick of a needle, and then he was holding one of my long hairs in his fingers. “Golden thread,” he said, “to bind you with.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help it. The sound eased the nervousness in my stomach and made me feel sick and stupid at the same time. “That? A hair?”

Without saying anything, he pushed the coffee table out of the way, then pressed both hands to my shoulders, easing me back. Scooting my hips forward as though I was a mannequin. With just his fingertips, he pushed my shirt up, then laid the hair across my stomach, the thinnest of gold threads. A breath would blow it away.

Down on his knees, he looked up at me, sending me swimming in blue. “Last chance, Elly,” he said, and his teeth were big when he smiled. “You decide.”

He didn’t wait, just curled his fingers beneath my skirt and hooked them into my panties, began to ease them down my thighs with tiny pulls. Bit by bit, until he caught them and pulled them over my knees. His tongue curled along the inside of my thighs, meaningless circles that echoed the turns of my stomach, the spinning ache that made me want to push my hips up from the couch.

With the very tips of his fingers, he pushed the fabric of the skirt up along my thighs, watching me with every inch of skin he exposed. Until I was naked and he was dipping his head between my thighs, glossing his tongue along the heated space between. And still I let him do all these things. I wanted him to do all these things. Only a thread, a hair, nearly invisible, holding me still.

“Wait…” I said. But he didn’t. He dragged his tongue like a cat along me until I was panting, the hair across my stomach rising and falling with each breath. So much as a movement would send it curling and spinning, off into nowhere.

His eyes stayed on the hair even as he slipped a finger inside me, then two, curling them upward, pulling me forward with that small gesture that made me cry out and reach forward to thread my fingers lightly into his hair. I breathed and breathed, careful not to aim my exhales at the hair that lay across my stomach. His thumb touched my clit, and I rose and jerked, the hair slipping just a bit. Settling into a slow, rhythmic circle, his thumb made me want to call his name, to beg him not to stop. I bit the sound back, my teeth hard over my lips.

He laughed, the sound vibrating along my skin. He lapped me between words, until each draw of his tongue sounded like language and each sound felt his tongue. “Don’t…move…”

I didn’t. I couldn’t. Trapped and yet not. My outside still enough that the inside was all I could feel, the pleasure that wove itself through me with its golden promise of release.

“Please…” I begged. I wasn’t ashamed. I wasn’t caught. I arched my body—not the outside, not my skin and bones, but the desire that rose in me, uncoiled itself into a long thread of pleasure. Asking for more, keeping my stomach perfectly still beneath the length of golden hair, while the rest of me spun and spun and spun.

“My name, Elly,” he said.

“Oh…” I clenched my teeth, trying to keep my movements still. “Please…”

He began to pull his thumb away from me, slowing his circles. Sliding his fingers from me. His retreat left me already empty. I wanted to shove myself over him, then sink his fingers inside me with a fast, hard pierce. But I couldn’t move. Couldn’t.