The sound of language

Music may be the food of love, but the sound of language is lovelier still. Who can resist a word like squelch? Everything about it is soft and wet. Tribbing is fun, but the name doesn’t do it justice. Playing squelchy is a better name for it, but if it were up to me, I’d just call it squelching. Of course, squelch is onomatopoeic, describing a sound, like moan, or slap. However, that isn’t where the beauty of language stops. Take slap and tickle. Tickle doesn’t describe a sound, but if tickling were named bodding, for example, it wouldn’t represent tickling half as well as tickle does.

It might only be English. I speak a bit of French, and a little leftover schoolgirl Latin, but English is the language with which I’m most familiar, and whose richness of expression captivates my imagination. Spank, tug, drip, dribble, and drool. Suck and swallow. Pinch and squeeze. Finger and fist. Love sounds so much more restrained than lust, and not only because lust rhymes with thrust. After all, love rhymes with shove. The difference between grope and fondle is all in the sound of the words. Just thinking about them makes me tremble.

I shan’t dwell on the range of names for the things between people's legs, except to say that I prefer knob to prick and cunt to snatch, but there are other body parts with beautiful names, like thigh, and belly. Thighs sound as if they’re begging to be spread, and a belly is so much fleshier than a tummy. Who’d go to watch a tummy dancer? It’s a pity that there isn’t a really lovely word for breasts. Boobs sound friendly, but hooters and knockers are more like jokes, and they bring with them the idea of size. Tits are in your face, saying ‘look at me’. Breast itself is quite a nice word, but it still doesn’t have quite the quivery wobbling beauty of the thing it describes.

Longer words struggle. Masturbation doesn’t sound half as much fun as the act itself. Boys, would you rather come or ejaculate? Menstruation is a world away from bleeding. Voluptuous manages to pull it off, sounding as fleshy as fleshy, but it’s something of a loner at the party.

Longer also words tend to have more restricted meanings. Compression means compression, and not much else. Ignition just means ignition. Describing the workings of an internal combustion engine could be awfully boring, but it doesn’t have to be that way. Next time you put your foot down, think of it in English. Suck, squeeze, bang, blow. It still makes me smile.

The hills may be alive with the sound of music, but pillow talk does it for me. Whisper to me, and make me melt, what’s your favourite word?

The New Leda

Adele had always loved swans. As a child, she’d loved being taken to the park to feed them, tearing pieces off slices of bread and throwing them into the lake. The swans would thrust towards her, pushing up little bow waves, and as they came close, she’d giggle, and hide behind her mother’s legs, as if they were after her.

She was in her teens when she came across the story of Leda, and Zeus turning himself into a swan, which she thought had been written just for her, with ‘Leda’ being almost ‘Adele’ backwards. Overnight, Johnny Depp seemed to grow white feathers, and her erotic dreams changed direction. She looked at the pictures of Leda on the computers in the library, and although she didn’t think she looked at all like the voluptuous women in the paintings, there was enough variety that she reasoned there would be room for a flat chested skinny girl with glasses somewhere.

She tried reading more Greek myths, but the other images of Zeus, muscular, violent, and bearded, she found distinctly unappealing, so she read about swans instead. One of the first things she discovered was that a male swan was called a cob, which she imagined as the combination of ‘cock’ and ‘knob’. Unfortunately, she also discovered that male swans didn’t have a cock (or knob), just a kind of general purpose hole, called a cloaca, which was the Latin for ‘sewer’. It only briefly dented her enthusiasm, and she decided that ‘cob’ was a much better name for a penis than ‘willie’. She took to collecting swan feathers from around the lake in the park on her days off, which she used to tickle her girlie bits until she could no longer hold back, plunging two fingers inside as her thumb scrubbed against her burning clittie, squeezing out her orgasm. The feathers were definitely single use, ending up soggy and bedraggled, and often bent where the shaft wasn’t strong enough to withstand the demands she put on it.

She took a break from the feathers when she was nineteen, and she started going out with Dave Swann, her first proper boyfriend. He worked with her in Sainsbury’s, and it wasn’t just his name that attracted her. He was tall and handsome, slim and clean shaven, with smooth skin, and not at all like Zeus. To begin with, she enjoyed having him stick his cob in her bits, but it never lasted long enough, so she always ended up having to use her fingers to reach a climax, while he sat and watched. After a couple of months, she dumped him, and went back to using the feathers.

As winter burgeoned leafily into spring, she continued feeding the swans on the lake in the park, and she began exploring around the edges, hunting for a nest. She never found a nest, but she did find a secluded gravelly beach, strewn with white feathers, and hidden from the paths by a dense stand of cherry laurels. When Adele stumbled upon it, it felt as if it was the perfect spot for a tryst with Zeus, in spite of all the blobs of swan shit, and her thoughts of finding a nest fell away. She collected half a dozen of the long feathers, as precious as angels’, planning to use them later, but her girlie bits were already tingling with anticipation. Wishing she’d worn a skirt or a dress, she kicked off her shoes, struggled out of her jeans, and squatted on the little beach, going to work with longest of the quills.

She was already oozing when the swan arrived, with little swishing noises as it pushed through the water towards the beach. Adele kept on going. She couldn’t have stopped, even if it had been a policeman, or her mother. Dropping the broken feather, she slipped her fingers inside, and moaned as her thumb hit the spot. “Oh, Zeussie.”

The swan stepped up onto the beach, its big black feet slapping in the shallow water, and Adele wished she’d kept some bread back, so that she could feed him. She wasn’t actually sure that the swan was male, but since it wouldn’t have a cob in any case, it wouldn’t matter. As she got her breath back, still squatting with her hand between her legs, she whispered to him. “Hello, Zeussie. I did that for you.”

The swan made a chuckling noise, as if he’d understood, and he rattled his big orange beak. He took two steps towards her, and sat down, watching her, and reminding her of Dave Swann.

“I’ve already come. Do you want me to try to do it again?” she asked, still keeping her voice down, as if someone might be listening.

She might have been mistaken, but she thought the swan nodded, and he certainly made the chuckling noise again.

“Okay.” Her bits were sore, but she picked up another of the feathers she’d left next to her jeans and pants. Working around the outside, and keeping an eye on the swan, she tickled herself until the soreness was replaced by the familiar tingling. The second time around, she was gentler with her fingers, but her orgasm was no less intense when it came. The swan just watched.

She stood up carefully, in case she should startle the swan, but he seemed no more surprised than he had when he’d watched her, merely turning his head to follow her movements as she picked up her jeans and shoes. Once she was dressed, she thanked him for the feathers. “Bye, Zeussie. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

When she went to bed that night, she thought about masturbating again, but she was still sore from the afternoon, so she just held her fingers against her bits to keep them warm, until she fell asleep, and dreamt of Zeussie. In her dream, he had a proper cob, like Dave Swann, but unlike Dave Swann, he brought her to a climax, his feathered belly between her spread legs, like in the paintings.

The knocking on her bedroom door woke her up. “Are you all right?” her mother asked.

Half asleep, Adele tried to reorient herself, as the swan disappeared into the darkness. “Mmh. Yes. Why?”

“You were crying out. Can I come in?”

“Yes. Of course.”

Light from the landing flooded past her mother’s silhouette as she entered the room and sat on the edge of the bed. “Were you having a nightmare?”

Adele said, “I don’t remember. I don’t think so.” At least the second part was true.

Her mother touched her hand to Adele’s forehead. “You feel a bit hot and sweaty. Maybe you’re sickening for something. Who’s Susie?”

“Susie who?” Adele asked.

“I don’t know. It’s what you were calling out. ‘Oh, Susie’. Over and over.”

“I don’t think I know anyone called Susie.”

Her mother fetched her a glass of water, and sat with her while she drank it, as if she might cheat, and pour it away somewhere. “You know you can tell me anything you want,” she said, as she took the empty glass.

“Thanks, Mum. I expect it was just a dream. I don’t think I know anyone called Susie.”

In the morning, her mother asked her again if she was all right.

“I’m fine. Thanks for the glass of water.” After breakfast, she took a slice of bread, put on a cotton skirt, and set off for the lake. She hadn’t put on a pair of pants, and in the cool of the morning, the breeze wafting around her bits felt delicious. On the other hand, fighting her way through the cherry laurels to the little beach had been much easier in a pair of jeans. The twigs and the brambles caught on her skirt, as if trying to keep her from her destiny.

Zeussie wasn’t anywhere to be seen when Adele finally got to the beach, but she didn’t mind, she was prepared to wait. She found a patch of gravel that didn’t have any swan shit on it, and sat down, pulling up her skirt to let the sun warm her thighs and her bits. The swan arrived a quarter of an hour later, announcing its approach with the familiar swishing in the water.

“Hello, Zeussie. I’ve brought you some bread today.” Adele hadn’t actually planned what she was going to do, apart from feed the swan and masturbate, so she waited while Zeussie slapped his way out of the shallows and came towards her. Opening her legs, she tore off a piece of bread and threw it between her ankles, wondering if Zeussie would come that close.

He did. Waddling slightly, he bent down, and gobbled the piece of bread, clattering his bill. The next piece of bread went between Adele’s knees, and Zeussie snapped that up as well, taking a couple more steps to get close enough. Trembling with anticipation, Adele put a piece of bread on her thigh, near the top, hoping that Zeussie wouldn’t bite her.

Zeussie took another step, so that his body touched the inside of her leg as he bent forward to eat the bread. He didn’t bite her, and the nibbling tickled. Adele crumbled what was left of the slice of bread as close to her bits as she dared, right up to the edge of the hairs, and as Zeussie worked away, hoovering up the crumbs and catching her hairs in his beak, she felt herself getting wet inside, as if she were playing with a feather.

When the last of the crumbs had gone, the swan seemed to look at her, and then he settled down between her knees, the way he’d sat further down the beach the day before. Carefully, so as not to disturb him, Adele slipped her fingers inside, and pressed her thumb on her clittie, biting her lower lip to stop herself from crying out, in case it frightened him.

Zeussie was unperturbed, but after she’d come, and she took her fingers away, he nosed between her legs, as if sniffing her, and he clacked his bill.

“Thanks, Zeussie,” whispered Adele, reaching out to stroke his neck. The swan appeared to like the attention, stretching out his neck and making little muttering sounds.

She stayed there until her back began to ache. “Sorry, Zeussie. I have to move. Sorry.” Carefully, she eased herself away from the swan, who remained where he was, following her with his small dark eyes. Adele patted his head before she left, but she resisted the temptation to bend down and kiss him. “Goodbye. I’m afraid I have to work tomorrow, but I will be back, I promise.”

The morning had warmed up, but the air around her hot bits still felt cool as she sauntered home, humming T Rex’s ‘Ride A White Swan’ under her breath. She cleaned herself up in the bathroom, and reluctantly put a pair of pants on under her skirt.

It was a couple of days before Adele was able to return to the little beach, but when she did, the swan was already there, as if waiting for her. “Hello, Zeussie,” she whispered, lifting up her skirt to show him that she wasn’t wearing pants. “I’ve brought you some bread, too.”

The swan chuckled, and turned to face her as she sat down on the gravel.

Adele didn’t bother throwing a piece of the bread between her ankles. Instead, she just crumbled the whole slice over her upper thighs and her pubic hair, and by the time she’d finished and was leaning back, Zeussie was already settling between her legs and nibbling, his beak making the little rattling noises. He tugged on the hairs as he tried to get the bits of bread out, which made Adele gasp with pleasure, and when she brought her knees up, he nipped her clittie with his bill.

“Oh, Zeussie,” she murmured. “If only you had a cob.”

By the time he’d finished the bread, Adele was so aroused that she scarcely had to touch her bits to bring herself to a quivering climax, so that even Dave Swann would have been able to deliver. Afterwards, she squirmed down, so that her bits were touching the swan’s breast, which she hoped might make her look a bit like Leda in one of the paintings, except for the glasses, and Zeussie didn’t appear to object.

The following day, the weather wasn’t as good, with the sky overcast, but it was still warm, so she wore just a summer dress and a pair of slip ons, and took the Leda theme still further, undressing completely on the little beach, except for her glasses, which she left on so she’d be able to see properly. Zeussie just stood and watched, and when she sat down, he waddled up to settle between her legs, even before she’d crumbled the bread.

Instead of putting all of it around her bits, she spread some of the bread over her belly and her chest. She hoped that Zeussie might start at the top and work down, but in fact he picked up the biggest pieces first, dipping his head here and there, and nibbling. It was still exquisite. He caught one of her nipples in the tip of his bill, which caused her to squeak, but it didn’t faze the swan, who just kept on nibbling, leaving the crumbs tangled in her pubic hair till last, probably because they were the hardest to get at.

When he’d finished, she fingered herself quickly to orgasm, and lay back, naked except for her glasses, with the swan between her thighs, as if they’d really made love. She must have dozed off, because the next thing she knew, it was starting to rain, with big cold drops hitting her warm skin. Trying not to disturb the swan, she struggled to her feet and put her dress back on. “Sorry, Zeussie, got to go.”

It didn’t rain especially hard, but by the time she reached home her dress was wet, and clinging coldly to her skin. She took it off and hung it over the banisters on the landing before she fetched a towel to dry herself off.

The dress was still damp when her mother came home, and asked about it.

Adele just shrugged. “I went down to the park, to feed the swans, and it came on to rain. I got a bit wet.”

The rain marked a change in the weather, so Adele had to resort to masturbating with feathers again, which she found disappointing after her adventures with the swan. To make matters worse, her bits started to itch, leaving her with an almost uncontrollable urge to scratch. She made an appointment to see her doctor, who said she’d better take a look.

“Just slip your bottom things off and climb up there,” she said, pointing at a leather couch.

Adele took off her jeans and pants, and lay back with her knees in the air while the doctor’s rubber gloved fingers poked and prodded. Unlike Zeussie’s bill, the fingering was just uncomfortable.

“Hmm. It looks a bit red. Can I look inside?”

Adele nodded. “I suppose so. What is it?”

“Probably an infection. Are you sexually active?”

“No.” It was almost true.

“Right. Let’s have a look. This might be a bit uncomfortable.” The doctor picked up a plastic speculum, but when she opened and shut it, it clacked, the way the swan’s beak clacked, setting Adele’s mind racing.

Adele heard very little of the rest of what the doctor said, and apart from the initial intrusive thrust as the speculum was inserted, she barely noticed what was going on. She realised that Zeussie didn’t need a cob, when he had such a magical orange beak that he could use instead.

“I don’t think it’s thrush,” the doctor was saying, as she withdrew the speculum. “It looks like a bacterial infection of some sort. You can get dressed now.” She dropped the speculum in the sink and started to peel off the rubber gloves. “I’ll prescribe some pessaries, which ought to clear it up. You just put them in like tampons, and they’ll dissolve, and I’ll prescribe some ointment for the outside. If it hasn’t gone in a week, come back and see me again. I’ve taken a swab, which I’ll send off, but you should be fine. You might just have wiped your bottom from back to front, that’s the usual cause.”

“Okay.” Adele took the prescription, but she wasn’t thinking about what the doctor had said, she was thinking about Zeussie’s bill in her bits. She was tempted to ask if she could take the speculum away, to practise with.

The itching eased in the first couple of days, and Adele started to imagine that the pessary was a piece of bread, which she’d rolled up, and as she pushed it in, she thought of Zeussie sliding in after it, opening and shutting his bill as he tried to eat it. She was sure that the ointment wasn’t supposed to be rubbed in vigorously, but she couldn’t help herself.

On the other hand, she stopped using the feathers, thinking that they might have been the source of the infection, with all the swan shit on the beach, and not incorrect bottom wiping at all. She didn’t throw them away, but she stuck to fantasy and fingers, which worked just as well.

The week went by, the rain stopped, and Adele’s day off dawned warm and sunny. She waited until her mother had gone out, then she took off her bra and pants and slipped her summer dress on over her naked body. There was plenty of bread in the bread bin, and she was tempted to take two slices, but she worried that Zeussie might have had enough to eat after the first one.

On the way to the park, she relished the breeze around her girlie bits, which tingled with anticipation all by themselves. The bushes seemed to have grown since she’d last been there, but she managed to fight her way through the cherry laurels, and when she reached the beach, the swan was there, sitting with his back to her, looking out over the lake.

Trembling, she took her dress off. She didn’t think she was in the least bit voluptuous, but she did feel beautiful. “Hello, Zeussie,” she whispered. “I’m back.”

The swan clambered to its feet, and turned, clattering his beak.

Adele lay down on the gravel, and crumbled most of the bread over her chest and bits, keeping back a couple of crusts hidden in her hand for the end. For a moment, she thought the swan wasn’t going to approach, but after a moment of hesitation he waddled up, and settled between her knees, eyeing her carefully before he started on the bread.

It was bliss, and by the time he’d mopped up all the crumbs, she was ready to come. “Here, Zeussie, look what I’ve got,” she said, holding up the crusts so that he could see them. She was so wet and open that the crusts slid easily inside, taking her even closer to the edge. Scarcely able to believe what was about to happen, Adele lay back, her heart pounding, and the swan brought his wonderful beak down towards her bits.

Gabriel

A friend introduced me to Gabriel at a party, we chatted, and arranged to meet again, at the art gallery café the following Saturday, where there was some sort of dance thing on, with a jazz band. It was fun, and he was good company, so we met again, and again, and we ended up going to bed together after we’d known each other for about a month.

At first, it was just lovely sex. He wanted me on top, not just sometimes, but all the time, which I suppose was a bit unusual, but not that unusual, and I liked it, because I could see him, and he was absolutely gorgeous. It also seemed to take him ages to come, so there was never any question of my being left behind, the way I had been with some of my other boyfriends. He didn’t move in with me, or anything, but we spent three or four nights a week together, sometimes at his flat, sometimes at mine, and taking turns to do the cooking.

That had been going on for about six weeks when he muttered, “Pinch my nipples. Please?” while we were making love.

I thought I must have misheard, so I stopped pumping. “What?”

“Please. Pinch my nipples.”

“Why?” I’d been close to coming, but I could feel it threatening to ebb away, even though his knob was still as hard as ever inside me.

“Because I like it.”

If I hadn’t wanted to carry on where I’d left off, before everything went off the boil, I might have argued, but in the circumstances, I just gave his nipples a tweak and got pumping again.

He had the decency not to interrupt again, but by the time he grunted and squirmed, I knew that part of the dynamic between us had changed. We cuddled a bit afterwards, but eventually I had to ask. “What was that about? The nipple pinching, I mean.”

He looked a bit embarrassed. “Sorry. I like to be hurt. I didn’t think I was going to be able to come. Thanks for doing it. You could have done it a bit harder.”

My brain was stumbling, trying to keep up. “Sorry. Run that past me again. You like to be hurt?”

He nodded. “I can’t usually do it at all, unless I’ve been hurt first. With you it’s been special, but I still want you to hurt me.”

I couldn’t help laughing, but it wasn’t meant to be unkind. “I suppose you know that makes you a bit weird, but I’m not about to let a bit of nipple pinching come between us. Come here.” I tweaked the nipple I could reach, and he gasped.

“I love that. You can do it a bit harder.”

I didn’t really want to, so I just did the same again, and kissed him. That was the end of the conversation for that night. We went to sleep, and he didn’t mention it until the next time we were in bed together, a couple of days later.

“You know I said about pinching my nipples?” he said.

I nodded. It had been on my mind on and off, but it had made me realise that I’d actually fallen a little in love with him, so I was prepared to put up with it.

“Will you do it some more? Maybe before we start. You could bite them, too.”

I could. Or I could change my mind and walk away. I pulled the covers off him and looked at him. He was beautiful, but his knob was definitely not looking happy, lying on his thigh like a fat slug. It was decision time, and I decided I’d do it. I started with the pinching, then nibbled a bit, all of which had the desired effect. I didn’t especially like doing it, but it meant that he had a useable woody that I could straddle. I pinched him a few more times while we were doing it, and everything worked. I came a few times, he came, and we had a cuddle afterwards.

It turned out to be the top of a very slippery slope. After a while, just the pinching wasn’t enough, and nibbling was replaced by biting. Still, once I’d got him hard, he didn’t ask me to pinch his nipples again, so I could just get on with it.

We moved on to my biting his lip, and eventually to my nipping the skin of his knob with my teeth. Otherwise, we were just a happy couple, and the sex was amazing, getting better all the time. I was still uncomfortable with hurting him, but everything else was perfect.

Even when he bought me a pair of black leather boots and a whip for Christmas, I went along with it. He lay on the bed, and I’d flick his chest and his knob with the whip. Riding him with the boots on felt strange at first, but I quickly got used to it.

The most difficult moment came when he produced the hatpin. I looked at it in horror. “What do you want me to do with that?”

“Just stick it through my nipple.”

The word ‘just’ had probably never been so misused. “Just stick it through your nipple?”

“Yes. You just pinch it between your fingers and pull, and then you can push the needle through.”

“Needle? It isn’t a needle. It’s a fucking hatpin.” Even if I hadn’t been naked apart from a pair of boots, it would have been a weird conversation.

“It’s all right. I sterilised it.”

“It is not fucking all right. You’re asking me to stick a hatpin through your nipple. Which bit of that is supposed to be all right?”

“I want you to. I want to be able to make love to you. I love you.”

In my experience, men said that to me when they wanted to get me into bed, but he’d already done that, without any quibbling on my part. If you ignored the bit where I hurt him, and the boots, it was the best sex I ever had. “A few months ago, all I had to do was pinch your nipples. Where’s it all going to end?”

He looked sad. “I don’t know. Maybe the needle will be enough, but it might not. I’ve never gone any further.”

He sounded like a teenage girl talking about taking her bra off. Remembering that, I gritted my teeth and forced a smile. “Okay. We’ll give it a go. Lie down and give me the hatpin.”

Goldilocks

Most of us are familiar with the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, about a girl who sneaks in to the bears’ house while they’re out waiting for their porridge to cool. Most of us probably feel sorry for Baby Bear, who comes home to find his porridge all gone and his chair broken to pieces.

I feel even more sorry for Mummy and Daddy Bear. The story makes it clear that they sleep in separate beds, and perhaps even separate rooms. What happened? Since they have a baby, they presumably shared a bed at some point, and even if they’re no longer sexually active, what’s wrong with sharing a bed with someone?

You don’t have to have sex with someone, just because you’re in the same bed. I’ve shared beds with friends of both sexes without even a kiss passing between us. It’s just nice to know that you’re not alone. If you wake in the night, there’s the snuffling warmth of another human being there, not far away. I know people who share their beds with dogs and cats, and I doubt very much that there’s sex involved.

Perhaps Daddy Bear got caught with Soo from the Sooty Show, or perhaps Mummy Bear had a fling with Baloo from The Jungle Book, but they’re clearly still on speaking terms, so why can’t they cuddle and make up? What sort of message are they sending out to Baby Bear, sleeping out their lives in separate beds?

Let us feel sorry for Mummy and Daddy Bear. Baby Bear’s chair can be repaired or replaced, and there are probably enough oats left for some more porridge, but there’s no substitute for companionship. Baby Bear doesn’t come out of the story too badly. He ends up with a blonde in his bed.

Writing about sex

Why write about sex? More to the point, what’s the problem with writing about sex? Most people, whether they’re reading this or not, are in the world because their parents had sex. Even the few who were conceived in a test tube were probably conceived in the test tube because their parents had tried to conceive a baby by having sex, and hadn’t succeeded. Their parents were probably having sex because they liked it. In fact, a lot of people like sex so much that they go to considerable lengths to make sure they can do it without conceiving a child.

Unless you’re very unlucky, sex comes closer to our lives than murder, zombies, vampires, or cataclysms that threaten the future of civilisation, but you don’t hear the moralisers complaining about any of those. Along with everyone else, the moralisers might well complain if I went out and murdered someone, but if I wrote about it, that would be fine. Not so with sex. Provided it’s all done in secret, and according to a set of rules that seem rather arbitrary, the moralisers seem happy enough, but if you write about it, you might as well be offering them a slice of cold baby pie. Curiously, though, vampire stories seem to be able to sneak past the censors, in spite of their very obvious erotic overtones.

If you write erotica, you’re probably going to be writing about sex. It’s possible that there are people who just want to read descriptions of sex, but that seems about as much fun as reading a description of a zombie, or a vampire, or a murder. To my mind, the sex should be integral to the story, like the murder in a murder mystery, in such a way that the story wouldn’t work without it.

However, sex in fiction isn’t necessarily restricted to erotica. There are murders in stories that aren’t murder mysteries, though if it’s a murder mystery, there does have to be a murder. Similarly, if it’s a zombie story, there are probably going to be zombies, and in a realistic contemporary love story, there’s probably going to be some sex. It’s what people do. If you’re in a relationship, I expect there’s a better than even chance that sex is (or was) involved somewhere.

You don’t have to want to read about sex (or zombies), but if people do want to read about sex (or zombies), leave them alone. For them to read about it, someone has to write about it. Good luck to the people who write zombie fiction, I’ll stick with writing erotica. I’m obviously crazy, but I prefer sex to being killed by a zombie. I also have an idea for a vampire story that the moralisers might disapprove of. That’s fine. They don’t have to read it.

Evil twins.

This is a chest. It belongs to a friend of mine, and as you can tell, he’s a man. Let’s call him M, for man. Some men have hairy chests, or bulging muscles, or man boobs, but M has none of these. If you like men with hairy chests, bulging muscles, or man boobs, you probably won’t find M’s chest sexy. On the other hand, if you’re like me, you’ll think he’s hot.
 
I have other friends, some of whom are women. Let’s pick one at random, and call her W, for woman. W hasn’t got a hairy chest, or bulging muscles, but she does have boobs, though they aren’t very big. You can use them to feed babies, though W hasn’t had any babies. I don’t especially fancy W, but her boobs have kept their shape better than mine, and they’re generally considered attractive.
 
W goes topless on the beach. Sometimes she gets a few stares, but she doesn’t care. M doesn’t go to the beach, but he doesn’t care if people see his chest either. That’s almost where the egalitarianism stops. If M wanted to take his shirt off in the park on a warm day, he probably wouldn’t get many stares. If W wanted to take her shirt off in the park, there would be people who’d complain that they don’t want to see bare breasts. I can understand their point of view. I don’t especially want to see hairy chests, or muffin tops, but since the logical conclusion to that argument is that both sexes should wear burkas at all times, I’m not going to be drawn down that route. If you don’t like breasts, don’t stare at them.
 
If I wanted to post M’s picture on Instagram, or Facebook, not a problem. If I wanted to post a picture of W’s chest on Instagram, or Facebook, it would be taken down. What’s so evil about breasts? They’re often sexualised, but that doesn’t make them evil. M assures me that he likes to have a woman kiss his chest, so that probably sexualises his chest too. W actually prefers to have the back of her neck kissed. Is Facebook going to ban pictures of necks? If you want to see pictures of women’s chests, there’s a whole lot more Internet out there to explore. Just go to Twitter and search for #tits, for example. You won't even have to log in. Searching for #necks doesn’t work quite as well.
 
In spite of Instagram's draconian 'You may not post violent, nude, partially nude, discriminatory, unlawful, infringing, hateful, pornographic or sexually suggestive photos or other content via the Service’, there are loopholes. If W was pictured breastfeeding, Facebook wouldn’t mind. Or if she covered her boobs with her hands, so that no one could see her nipples, it would be fine for Instagram. Look at M’s chest. Besides the lack of hair, muscles, etc, the thing it has in common with W’s is that they both have nipples. How much hypocrisy would you like with your social media today, sir?
 

How far can you go?

Incest and bestiality are illegal, at least in the UK, but the boundaries aren’t clear. Full sex with my brother clearly counts as incest, and fucking a donkey counts as bestiality, but what about heavy petting, for example?
In Ginger, the toothless cat enjoys licking and chewing Gladys’s ‘thingy’. It’s his favourite, and he prefers it even to mashed sardines. Does that count as bestiality? Gladys enjoys it too, but it isn’t actual sex. A cat licking sardines off a finger is obviously okay, but what about the same cat licking fish sauce off an elderly woman’s ‘boobies’? She tries the sauce on her arm first, to see if the cat likes it, and that’s presumably okay. If I had infinite patience, I could write different versions of the story, with the cat licking a different bit of Gladys in each one, and see where on the scale of finger to thingy Amazon decides to ban it.
If I share a bed with my brother, or my sister, and we just sleep, that’s probably fine. If we kiss each other goodnight, that’s probably also fine. Maybe we can have a bit of a cuddle if it’s cold. However, somewhere along that line we reach the point at which Amazon starts banning things. Am I allowed to wank my brother with my hand? There’s no penetration involved. What about fingering my sister? Is clit play okay, or do I have to limit myself to kissing her boobs? What about kissing my brother’s chest? He hasn’t got boobs, so that’s presumably all fine, and if I can kiss his chest, surely I can kiss my sister’s chest.
In Butcher And Baker, the brother sticks his finger in his sister’s arse, to see if she likes it. She doesn’t, so it presumably doesn’t count as sex, in which case it isn’t incest. If he were a proctologist, he could be checking her out as a favour, and that wouldn’t be incest. If she likes it, though, does it become incest, or do they have to go further than that? Supposing he were only her half brother? Would he be allowed to go that little bit further before it becomes incest, or are the lines in the same place? In the UK, first cousin marriages are legal, even if the cousins are ‘double cousins’, who share 25% of their genes. If I had a half brother, though, I wouldn’t be allowed to have sex with him, because we would be too closely related, with 25% of our genes in common.
According to Wikipedia, consensual incest is legal between adults in Spain and the Netherlands, and I haven’t noticed society falling apart in either country. Maybe I should just translate Butcher And Baker into Spanish, and put it on amazon.es, where it presumably wouldn’t be banned, since the brother and sister are both in their fifties, and they want to do it, thereby sitting solidly within the law.
In the circumstances, it’s a lucky thing I don’t fancy either my brother or my sister, and I haven’t got a donkey, or even a cat. Life's complicated enough.

The naming of parts.

Most of us have names for the things between our legs. I generally think of mine as my bits, short for ‘women’s bits’, and if I refer to them, that’s the term I normally use. There are exceptions. When I see the doctor, I call it my vagina, and if I want to shock someone, my cunt. Sometimes, just for fun, I call it Sophie, but it’s always an ‘it’, and never a ‘her’. Other women call it their pussy, which isn’t a term I use myself, though I can see it’s fun.
 
If I were a man, I could still call the thing (or things) between my legs my bits, except that it would be short for ‘men’s bits’, and not women’s. The most usual vernacular term would appear to be ‘cock’, frequently in conjunction with balls.
 
In my stories, the terms the characters use reflect their nature. Gladys, in Ginger, calls her bits her thingy, the kind of euphemism that a woman of a certain age might use, and when she laments her long dead first lover, she thinks of his willie. Willie is also the name that young Billy uses for his bits in Billy And Rosie. For her part, Rosie differentiates between the inside, which she calls her cunt, and the hairy outside, which she describes as her pussy cat.
 
Mary, in The Virgin, opts for the anatomical ‘vagina’, and ‘penis’, having learnt about the latter mainly from books in the library.
 
The middle aged brother and sister in Butcher And Baker are strictly mainstream, apart from the incest, and the fact that he’s gay, going for cunt and cock. Peter and Em, in Post Mortem, also go for cunt and cock, quite literally, all the way to the end and beyond.
 
In Milk, the hormonal changes that Jan undergoes in pregnancy are accompanied by a change of nomenclature. She begins by thinking of it as her vagina, or genitals, and ends up thinking of it as her cunt. As for the male equivalent, in Milk, it’s mostly just a banana.
 
There are a host of other names for them in both sexes, some of which are fun, like bearded clam or one-eyed trouser snake. My lovely friend and fellow blogger billierosie pointed me to a website with a number of historical names for both lots. Her favourite is ‘altar of Venus’, and mine’s ‘Petticoat Lane’, which rhymes with Lady Jane, another of my favourites. However, outside of erotic romances, I have yet to meet a woman who refers to hers as ‘the core of her womanhood’, or a man who refers to his as his ‘length’.
 
What’s yours called?
 

Blocked by Amazon

My last short story, Butcher And Baker, isn't available on Amazon, but if you want to read it, it's available on Smashwords. I did submit it to Amazon, but it appears it violates their guidelines, possibly because of the incest, so they blocked it. It's fiction, it doesn't exhort anyone to go out and commit incest, and the characters are adults in their fifties. There are plenty of other stories about incest available on Amazon, and at least one with very graphic details, which I won't name, in case Amazon decide to block that too. It seems unlikely that Amazon will block someone as well known as Georges Bataille, whose My Mother includes sex between a boy and his mother, among others, so I'll mention that one. There's murder on Amazon, which is apparently okay, and rape, which is fine. Not even Smashwords would touch Billy And Rosie, which my lovely friend billierosie posted on her blog. It's the story of two children exploring sex. It's gentle, and lots of children have done that kind of thing. Sorry, you aren't allowed to read about it. At least Smashwords will let you read about two ageing siblings having loving and consensual sex. Here's a fairly tame extract.

 

Extract

I watched him get out of bed, and I thought he did a better job of it than I had, with hardly any sitting on the edge of the bed retching before he stood up. He was starkers, and for a bloke in his fifties, pretty hot, with a nice tight bum and smooth skin.

The last time I’d seen him naked, we were both still at home, sharing a bedroom. I was sixteen, and he was fourteen, so mostly we were a bit careful about getting dressed and undressed and so on. I must have been moving quietly, or maybe he was too preoccupied to hear me, but I walked in and found him starkers, sitting on the edge of his bed with one of my 19s open on his knees, wanking to a picture of Marc Bolan. He half looked up, with glazed eyes, still wanking, then he made a funny noise and shuddered, spurting gouts of cum all over my magazine. Quite a day for firsts, really. The first erect cock I’d seen, the first boy wanking, the first cumshot, and the day I found out my little brother was gay. Or queer, as we called it then. I hadn’t seen Marc Bolan with cum on his face, either, but compared with the rest, that didn’t seem important.

“Sorry, Sis,” he panted.

“It’s okay. I’ve read it. You can keep it. Do you want a tissue?”

He nodded, holding up a sticky looking hand. “Are you going to tell Mum?”

“Course not.” I hoiked a tissue out of the box, wiped his hand, and held it out for him. “You can do Marc Bolan and your willie.”

“Thanks.”

I left him to it, and went off to wash my hands. They weren’t covered in cum, or anything, but I didn’t want to have to watch him cleaning up.

He was still starkers when I came back, but standing up, and although his willie was still a bit swollen, he didn’t have an erection any more. “Sorry, Sis.”

“It’s okay. Really. Did you enjoy it?”

He nodded. “I think Marc Bolan’s sexy.”

“Yeah. Me too.” I waited until he’d put a pair of pants on, then I gave him a little kiss, but that was the last time I’d seen him starkers. I left home a couple of months later.

When he came back from the loo, I got to see his cock again, too, and it had the same half swollen look as the last time, forty years before, but I didn’t think he’d been wanking. “You okay?” I asked.

“Yes. Hung over, but otherwise fine.” He slipped back into bed, and shuffled over a bit so that he was close enough to kiss the end of my nose again.

“That’s nice. You did it last night, too. Thanks for yesterday.”

 

The Virgin.

Here's a free read for everyone. If you like it, you might want to try billierosie's blog, or my published short stories Milk and Post Mortem.
 

 
The Virgin.
 
Mary’s seventieth birthday fell on a Sunday, so she went to mass, as she had every Sunday since she was a child. She’d missed mass once, when she was nine, and in hospital having her tonsils out, but the Irish nurse who gave her a blanket bath said it wouldn’t matter, and Jesus would understand. From the way the nurse bowed her head when she said the name of Jesus, Mary guessed that she was a catholic, too. When she was a child, a lot of the other catholics seemed to be Irish, including the parish priest, Father Doyle, who had a red face and who appeared perpetually angry. Once, during his sermon, he’d hurled a prayer book from the pulpit into the aisle, where it had burst apart, loose pages wafting among the scrambling dust motes in the shaft of sunlight.
 
How times had changed. No one bowed their heads when they mentioned the name of Jesus any more, and most didn’t bother to genuflect as they entered and left the pews. Unlike Father Doyle, Father Johnson was young and handsome, sweet natured, and English. If he’d let his fair hair grow longer, he could have looked like the picture of Jesus in the illustrated bible she’d had as a child, with whom she’d fallen in love, clean shaven and smiling and blonde. Mary crossed herself and looked up at the face of the plaster statue of the crucified Jesus behind the altar. He was handsome too, and she recognised that his dark colouring was probably closer to that of the original Palestinian Jesus, though she didn’t particularly like his beard. The statue’s head was turned slightly to one side, and it seemed to her that he was looking down on her and smiling. She loved that smile, and the statue’s smooth plaster skin. Once, when she had been helping with the flowers, she had reached out a bony hand and caressed the feet of Jesus, as Mary Magdalene must have done. Shivering at the memory, Mary crossed herself again, and looked up instead at the statue of the mother of Christ, serene in blue and white, her hands clasped in prayer, a virgin like herself.
 
Mass had finished, but as always, Mary remained behind for a few minutes, kneeling and trying to pray, while Father Johnson shook hands with his parishioners at the church door. The altar boy had snuffed out the candles, adding a whiff of hot wax to the faint smell of incense that seemed to seep from the stones, and the grey smoke curled up towards the statue of Jesus. In her child’s bible, the loincloth that Jesus had worn on the cross had been more ample, like a masculine version of the short petticoat that she wore under her summer dress, and not at all like the skimpy loincloth worn by the statue, which seemed hardly larger than a handkerchief. She pushed the thought of Mary Magdalene from her mind again, and turned to the marble statue of St Michael, in his carved armour, his sword raised to plunge into the serpent at his feet. He was supposed to be her defence against the wickedness of the Devil, but Mary didn’t feel that her love for Jesus was wicked. Jesus was beautiful, except for the beard, and she had loved him all her life, coming to mass every Sunday, to be with him.
 
In the beginning, mass had been in Latin, with strict rules. Men weren’t allowed to wear hats in church, and women had to cover their heads. Mary still wore a lace mantilla, held in place with kirby grips, but a lot of women didn’t even bother to dress properly, turning up for mass in shorts and tee shirts, their bralessness on show for all to see. As if to remind her of her lack of charity, her own bra dug into her ribs under her arm. Mary crossed herself, and asked the statue of Jesus for forgiveness, squirming to get more comfortable.
 
The altar boy emerged from the sacristy as Father Johnson returned from saying goodbye to the departing parishioners, and he held the door for the priest before leaving, with only a glance at Mary as he passed. Mary closed her eyes and imagined Father Johnson disrobing, removing the chasuble and the alb, and she pretended that all he wore underneath was a loincloth, like Jesus.
 
“Mary?”
 
She opened her eyes. Father Johnson had his hand on her shoulder, and his angelic face was smiling down at her. “Father. Sorry. I was praying.”
 
“Yes, but I have to lock the church, because of thieves.”
 
“Yes. Of course. Sorry, Father.” She pushed herself to her feet and picked up her cloth-bound missal, a useless theatrical prop now that the liturgy had changed, but like the mantilla, something she felt she ought to have with her.
 
Father Johnson stood back, to let her out of the pew, and he rested his hand momentarily on the small of her lower back, as though to direct her towards the door. Once they were outside in the sunshine, Mary tried to take her mantilla off while Father Johnson was locking the church, but the last of the kirby grips had managed to tangle itself in her hair, leaving the mantilla hanging over her eyes like a veil.
 
“Let me,” said Father Johnson, reaching into her hair. “I can see what I’m doing, and I’ve got two free hands.”
 
“Thank you.”
 
He freed the tangle without any difficulty, and passed her the mantilla and the last of the kirby grips, his hand touching hers. “Would you like a sherry?” he asked. “In the presbytery.”
 
Mary felt her heart flutter, and she struggled to keep her voice even. “That would be lovely. Thank you, Father.”
 
“Michael, please. I’m not on parade any more, even if I’m still wearing my dog collar.” He tapped it with a fingertip. “We can be a bit less formal.”
 
Mary’s mouth was dry. “Michael,” she murmured reverently, as if it were a prayer.
 
The presbytery was next door to the church, a large Victorian detached house. Mary had attended Catholic Women’s League meetings in the front room when she’d been young, but she hadn’t been inside for years. She caught sight of herself in the mirror, a thin woman with straight grey hair, slightly messed where the kirby grip had been caught. “Come through into the dining room,” said the priest, touching the small of her back again.
 
Mary’s shoes clacked on the wooden floor, and her hands were sweating, leaving dark marks on the cover of her missal where she’d been holding it. “Can I put these down somewhere?” she asked, holding up the missal and her mantilla.
 
“Of course.” He shucked his jacket off and hung it over the back of a chair. “Just dump them on the table. What sort of sherry would you like?”
 
“I don’t mind.” The kirby grips scattered as she put them down. “I’ll have the same as you.” An oil painting above the sideboard showed the crucifixion, with the two Marys and Martha at the foot of the cross, under a stormy sky, but at the far end of the dining room a pair of French windows gave out onto an enclosed garden with a bright green lawn surrounded by trees and shrubs, and a small paved patio with a wrought iron table and chairs.
 
Father Johnson handed her a small glass of pale sherry. “Manzanilla.”
 
“Thank you, Father.”
 
“Michael.”
 
Mary bowed her head. “Yes. Michael. Sorry.”
 
He pointed towards the French windows. “Shall we go and sit outside? It’s a glorious day. It seems a shame to skulk indoors.”
 
“Yes.”
 
Michael unlocked the French windows, and stepped back to let her go first. “After you.”
 
“Thanks.” There didn’t seem to be any flowers in the garden, but the warm air smelt delightful, and when Mary looked around all she could see of other houses were a few glimpses of roofs above the trees. “This is lovely,” she said.
 
He smiled. “It is rather, isn’t it? Do sit down, please. It’s a little like the Garden of Eden. But before the creation of Eve, in that I generally only get to sit out here on my own.”
 
Mary sat down, the legs of her chair scraping.
 
“Cheers,” said Michael, sitting beside her and raising his glass.
 
“Cheers.” She took a sip of the sherry, and choked. It was so dry as to be almost salty, and she felt as though she’d breathed in while a wave was breaking over her.
 
“Are you all right?” Michael asked, putting his glass down on the table and taking hers from her.
 
“Yes,” she said, still coughing. “It’s just it was drier than I expected. I’ll be fine. Thank you.” Michael placed one hand on the back of her neck, and the other on her thigh, which felt so wonderful that she’d have happily drunk bleach if he’d told her that was what he was going to do.
 
One of them must have knocked the table, because Michael suddenly let go of her, and stood up, watching the two empty glasses rolling on their sides. Wet patches on his trousers and clerical shirt showed what had happened to the sherry.
 
“I’m so sorry,” said Mary, a little breathlessly. “Are you all right?”
 
Michael laughed. “Yes. Just a little wet, and smelling of sherry.” He reached behind his neck to unfasten his dog collar. “I’d better get these things off.” He held out the dog collar. “Can you hold this a minute?” His other hand was already on the top button of his clerical shirt.
 
“Yes.” Mary took the dog collar from him, her fingers trembling as she watched him expose his chest, every bit as smooth as the chest of Jesus in the church. He slipped the shirt off, and Mary ran her tongue over her lips to moisten them. “Do you want me to hold that while you take off your wet trousers?”
 
He looked momentarily confused, but then he smiled. “I wouldn’t want to shock you."
 
Mary tried to ignore her pounding heart and stay calm. “I expect you’re wearing a loincloth, or something, underneath, like Jesus.”
 
Nodding, he passed her the clerical shirt. “They’re actually Ralph Lauren boxers,” he said, unbuckling his belt.
 
“Let me help you with your shoes,” said Mary, folding the shirt and dog collar over her arm and squatting at his feet. As she untied his laces, she thought once again of Mary Magdalene, anointing the feet of Jesus. “Would you like me to take your socks off while I’m down here?” she asked. “So that you don’t get them all dirty from walking around without your shoes.”
 
“Thank you, Mary. That would be kind.”
 
When she looked up, he lowered his trousers, and in the bright white of his boxer shorts she could see the elongated bulge of his penis, distinct from the other bulge where his testicles sat. It was the closest she’d ever been to a penis. She’d seen photographs and drawings in books from the library, and sometimes an actor on TV would be naked, but the bulge was real, and no more than a few inches from her face. She could have touched it.
 
Gathering up his clothes and shoes, he said, “I’ll just go and sort all these out. Would you like to pour us another sherry while I’m doing it? You saw where it all was.”
 
Numbly, Mary picked up the two empty glasses and followed him through the French windows, unable to take her eyes off his bottom. She’d never seen Jesus’s bottom, because he always faced her, with his back to the cross, but she felt that it would be perfect, just like Michael’s. In the sideboard, she found the bottle of Manzanilla, and carefully poured out the two glasses, but before she put the bottle away, she took a practice sip, to make sure she didn’t choke a second time, refilling the glass afterwards so that it wouldn’t show. With the taste of the sherry in her mouth, she waited by the sideboard for Michael to return, holding a glass in each hand, remembering the shapes she’d seen in his boxer shorts, and thinking about Jesus in his loincloth. If she’d had a free hand, she might have crossed herself.
 
She’d expected that Michael would have put on some clean clothes, but when he came back, he was still only wearing his boxer shorts, padding barefoot across the polished floor.
 
She looked at the right side of his chest, half expecting to see a scar where the Roman soldier had stabbed him with the point of his spear, but she dismissed the thought as foolish. Michael was probably too young, anyway. Jesus had been in his thirties when they crucified him, and Michael didn’t look much over twenty-five. “Today’s my birthday,” she said, passing him one of the sherry glasses.
 
Smiling as he took it from her, he said, “I shan’t ask you how old you are.”
 
“It’s all right. You don’t have to. I’m seventy. Three score and ten, as it says in the psalms. The days of my years. How old are you?”
 
It made him laugh. “I’m twenty-nine. I don’t think the three score and ten was supposed to be taken literally, any more than the creation in seven days, or the Garden of Eden. They were just convenient fictions to explain the way the world is. Some people lived longer, and some died young, the same as today.”
 
“Yes.”
 
“Shall I get out the deckchairs?” suggested Michael, nodding at the wrought iron furniture on the patio. “We might be more comfortable. The metal’s a bit hard and cold, even on such a warm day.”
 
“That sounds nice. Do you need me to help?”
 
“You could hold my glass, in case it tries to fall over again. Otherwise, I can manage.”
 
Mary took the glass from him with her free hand. Michael disappeared around the side of the house, and while he was fetching the deckchairs, she looked at the rim, seeing the sticky print where his lips had been. Touching her mouth to the spot, she imagined she was kissing him, and drank the rest of her own sherry in a single gulp.
 
Michael returned with a pair of deckchairs and set them up on the lawn, close together and almost facing each other.
 
Mary handed him his glass before she sat down. Stretching out her legs, she said, “The sun’s lovely, isn’t it?”
 
“Yes. I like to sit out here on days like this.” He took a sip of his sherry. “It’s private. No one can see us. I’m sure that there are people who’d think badly of me for sitting around in nothing but my boxers.”
 
Mary’s mouth felt dry, but she’d drunk all her sherry. “God has given you a beautiful body,” she said. “It seems a shame to hide it all the time.”
 
Michael nodded. “The sin of nakedness only exists in the minds of those who dislike it. Adam and Eve were naked in the Garden of Eden, and all of us are naked under our clothes.”
 
The sun seemed suddenly very warm. Mary tilted her empty sherry glass towards Michael. “I’m sorry. I don’t suppose I could have a glass of water, could I?”
 
“Of course. I’ll just go and get it.”
 
While he was gone, Mary wondered about taking her dress and her petticoat off. Her bra and pants would be like a bikini on the beach, she thought, although she’d never actually sat on a beach, or worn a bikini. When he returned with the water, she asked him about it. “Do you think I should take my dress off, too? The sun’s so lovely, I’d like to feel it on my skin.”
 
He handed her the glass of water. “You can if you like. I shan’t mind. It’s up to you.” The sip of the water was cool in her mouth, slaking her thirst and reminding her even more how hot she felt in her dress. “In that case, I think I shall take it off. Could you hold this for me?” She held out the glass.
 
“Of course. Do you need a hand?”
 
It made her smile. “Thank you. I live alone. I’m used to dressing and undressing on my own.” Kicking off her shoes, she unbuttoned the front of her dress, stepped out of it, and took off her petticoat, draping them over the back of the deckchair before taking her glass back from Michael. She’d thought she might be embarrassed, undressing in front of him, but he inspired her with such confidence that she felt she could do anything. She wasn’t naked, but she couldn’t recall the last time either a man or the sun had seen so much of her skin.
 
The two of them sat in their deckchairs, and Mary wiggled her toes like a child. Her underwear was supposed to be white, but too many trips through the wash had left it looking a greyish cream colour, closer to the colour of Jesus’s loincloth in the church than the brilliant white of Michael’s boxer shorts, and not even as white as her skin. It didn’t matter. She was so comfortable she could have taken it off and it still wouldn’t have mattered. She wondered if Jesus had seen Mary Magdalene naked.
 
“What are you thinking about?” Michael asked, when neither of them had said anything for a minute or two.
 
“Only how comfortable I feel.” It wasn’t just the pleasant caress of the air and the touch of the sun that she meant, it included Michael. “I don’t normally take my clothes off outside.” She drank some more of her water. “I was thinking about Mary Magdalene, too.”
 
“Mary Magdalene?”
 
“Yes. We’re both called Mary.”
 
“Do you have seven demons needing to be cast out?” he asked, smiling.
 
“I hope not.” Her bra dug into the side of her ribs again.
 
“Are you all right?”
 
“Yes. Why?”
 
“You squirmed when I asked about the demons.”
 
Mary laughed. “It’s just this bra. It digs in sometimes. I don’t think I’ve put on any weight, and it probably has nothing to do with demons. Maybe it’s shrunk.”
 
“Do you want to take it off? I won’t mind.”
 
“Can you hold this?” She sat up straight and held out her glass even before she’d thought about it. “I’ll need both hands.” Michael took the glass from her, and she reached behind her back to undo the hooks, slipping the straps off her arms. She felt more comfortable without it, but she noticed that Michael stared at her bare breasts as he handed her glass of water back to her. “Is something the matter?” she asked. She didn’t think her breasts were much to look at, but at least they were too small to have sagged.
 
“No. Sorry. I was thinking of something else.” Michael fidgeted in his seat, and it seemed to Mary that the bulge in his boxer shorts was bigger than it had been before. She’d read about erections in books from the library, and seen pictures, ranging from anatomical illustrations to the grotesquely massive phalluses of the ambassadors in the Aubrey Beardsley drawing, but she tried to dismiss the connection from her mind. She sipped her water, and a few drops of condensation fell from the bottom of the glass onto her chest, the cold a shock on her warm skin.
 
Michael smiled. “More demons?”
 
Laughing again, she wiped herself with her free hand. “No. Just cold water. Condensation on the outside of the glass. I’m happy. No demons at all.” The touch of her hand on her breasts made them tingle a little, as if they were changing shape.
 
The bulge in Michael’s boxer shorts had definitely changed shape, and was unmistakably an erect penis, some of its details clearly outlined by the tight fabric. He stood up, the sun behind his head like a halo. Extending his hand, he said, “Shall we go indoors? I shouldn’t want you to catch the sun.”
 
As if in a dream, Mary allowed him to help her to her feet, and she continued to hold his hand as they went indoors, leaving most of her clothes behind. As they walked barefoot across the grass, wearing only their pants, Mary thought of the Garden of Eden, though she didn’t think that Mary Magdalene had been there. “Are we going to make love?” she asked.
 
“Do you want to?”
 
“I am a virgin. I don’t know. What is it like?”
 
“It’s like going to heaven.”
 
Michael led her upstairs to a room bathed in white light, with a large bed in the centre, and they both took their pants off. Mary admired Michael’s erect penis, the first she’d seen outside of a book, and thought how beautiful it was, and how it suited him. He guided her to the bed, and helped her to lie down, on her back, with her legs apart.
 
Kneeling beside her, as if in prayer, he spat on his fingers, and touched them to the outside of her vagina, carefully spreading the dry lips, like Jesus healing the blind man in the Gospels.
 
In her early teens, Mary had touched herself, once, and although it had been pleasurable, the shame she’d felt confessing it to Father Doyle dwarfed the pleasure into insignificance. He’d have known it was her, even though she’d tried to disguise her voice, because she was the last one at confession, and he’d given her twenty Hail Marys and an Our Father, so she was still kneeling down saying her penance when he emerged from the confessional.
 
Since then, the only time she had allowed anything foreign inside her vagina had been when her doctor had sent her for a smear test. She’d even avoided tampons, preferring towels that looped over a cumbersome belt. However, the doctor had been insistent about the smear test, so Mary had agreed to see the nurse. The experience had been horrible. She had to take her pants and her skirt off, and lie back in a chair that had footrests in the air, her legs apart like a chicken about to be stuffed. The nurse had lifted her petticoat out of the way, and forced a horrible cold metal thing inside her, chatting all the time as if they were in a supermarket queue with the same special offer in their baskets, when it felt as if Satan himself were defiling her with his cold hard penis.
 
The gentle touch of Michael’s fingers cast out that pain, and the bliss she experienced banished forever the shame of confessing to Father Doyle. “Dear sweet Jesus,” she whispered, meaning every word, as healing warmth spread outwards to the rest of her body and her vagina opened like a lily filled with nectar.
 
Michael bowed his head, and kissed her breasts and her belly, his erect penis nudging her hip. Unlike the nurse’s metal implement, it was stiff and firm, but not hard or cold, and she wanted it inside her.
 
As though he’d read her mind, he knelt between her thighs and brought her knees up, steering the tip of his penis towards her waiting and welcoming vagina. The first touch sent a bolt of ecstasy through her body, like the taste of the host as it touched her tongue when she’d taken her first communion, the body of Christ inside her mouth. Michael pushed gently, and his penis began to enter her.
 
Mary moaned, wanting to push against him, to take him deeper inside her body, but her muscles had turned to jelly. “Please,” she whimpered. “Please take me.”
 
Michael clasped his hands around the small of her back, lifting and drawing her towards him, and the shaft of his penis slid the whole way into her, sending waves of delight through the rest of her body, like ripples on a still pool. Her vagina had taken on a life of its own, grasping his penis, which seemed to swell inside her, filling her far beyond her pelvis. Pleasure more intense than anything she’d ever imagined exploded through her, blasting her body to shreds, blinding her with its light, and leaving her twitching and quivering helplessly.
 
“Jesus.” She didn’t think her mouth had moved, the words came from her heart as she settled into a wonderful warm stillness. “My dear sweet Jesus.”
 
Michael’s voice seemed to speak to her from far away. “Mary? Can you hear me?”
 
She opened her eyes. It felt as if she were lying on her back on a hard floor, with the smell of incense in her nose. She could see Michael bending over her, but she could neither move nor speak. He took off his jacket, folded it, and placed it behind her head, like a small pillow, so that she was able to see the face of Jesus smiling down on her from above the altar.
 
Michael stood up, pressing buttons on his mobile phone. “Hello? Yes. Ambulance, please.” He told them where to come, and crouched down beside Mary, holding her hand. “There’s an ambulance on its way,” he said.
 
She tried to tell him how much she loved him, but her voice no longer worked. All she could do was close her eyes, waiting for an ambulance she didn’t want, and pray that her beloved Jesus would take her to him before it arrived.
 

A test post

This is just a test post, to see what happens. Over the coming weeks and months, I shall be posting snippets from my writings. Meanwhile, here is a taster, the opening two paragraphs of my erotic short story, Post Mortem.

Em worked as a pathologist, which meant she knew exactly what was happening, from the time she found the lump in her left breast, right up to the end. At first, she was upbeat, submitting to the mastectomy almost gleefully. “For God’s sake, Peter. It’s only a tit. It isn’t as though I haven’t got another one for you to kiss.”

The day before the operation, we made love in the morning, and she insisted I pay particular attention to the breast that she was about to lose. “Say goodbye to it nicely. It’ll miss you.” She rode on top, too, in what she described as ‘cowgirl’. “I know you like it, and I won’t be able to do it for a while after the op.” Because she wasn’t supposed to eat anything after five o’clock, we lay around in bed and went out for a late lunch together. I had lasagne, but with her typical sense of humour, Em chose a dish of chicken breasts with mozzarella and pesto, saying, “I need all the breasts I can get.” While she was eating, a splash of oil landed on her blouse, not quite where the lump was, but close enough to make me think it was like a mark on a map. She rubbed at it with the edge of her napkin, but it had soaked into the pale fabric, and all she did was smear it a bit.