A November evening.
The train thunders through the dark. Heading for London. First class compartment, busy with suits and open notepads; L-shapes on tables littered with frothy Costa cups. Overnight bags with handles extended, jagged shapes in straight aisles. Opposite me a couple, comfortable in their own skin - skin as dry as parchment - their conversation running on tram tracks laid down by years of marriage. In the windows, black as your eyes, I see images of you. You bound. You spread. You in pain. You in pleasure. You licking the tab on a roll-up cigarette. Your arm on my knee. The flinch in your face when I yank your hair. Adorable you. Whoreable you.
I feel like I'm crossing a border. Caching you secretly in my memory where no customs man will ever find you. Like a Christian with a crucifix in a Muslim land, I sleep with the memory of you under my pillow.
There's a space on my shelf which wasn't there before.
*
Standing outside the pub, in the street, tucked under a lighted window, you sipping on a rollup. You look good. Mine has gone out again. I'm such an amateur smoker. The lighter flickers flames around your cupped hands as you relight me. Again.
'I've tried so hard to be gay,' you muse. 'But the truth is I'm straight. I love men.'
'You said men scare you.'
'Every girl is afraid of men.'
I tell you a position I fantasised about. Fucking your throat. A smile plays across your lips. The ragged tobacco strands glow red then die. The taxi pulls up and, with a fierce kiss and a tug of your black hair, you are gone.
There's a space on my shelf which wasn't there before.
*
It's a ridiculous name for a pub: The Old Monkey. An impoverished couple sit at the next table without speaking, stupefied by indifference. There's a man who looks like he's waiting. Another couple over there in another corner. I'm at the bar looking back at you. I think you look amazing. So pretty. So interesting.
There's no tabasco or Worcestershire sauce. What's the point of a Bloody Mary without spice? I order gin, for clarity.
There's a running joke we're sharing loudly enough to be overheard.
Raven Lord Sith stands over you, his vast cloak billowing in the Divine Winds which sweep in relentlessly from the Blue Mountains of Goran. He deploys The Voice, the one that makes you hungry and horny at the same time. Or that's the idea at any rate.
'On your knees, slut,' he commands.
You look up at him. You're rolling a cigarette. Deft fingers. 'No thanks,' you say, politely, like you're turning away a man selling teacloths in the street.
'Oh,' he says. Nonplussed. The Divine winds from the Blue Mountains of Goran don't seem to be blowing anymore. His eyes squirm and he suddenly looks awkward, like a little schoolboy caught wearing the headteacher's gown. 'What? Really?' he ventures, thinks about adding the slut word but it won't come out. You shake your head. More firmly this time.
Nobody is listening in. They're too stupefied by their ordinary lives. I shrug my shoulders and give you your gin. For clarity.
You look amazing.
*
Your fingers are clawing the leather of the sofa. I'm holding the leash and fucking you with the floppy, thick dildo. You've lost control of your breath and that's turning me on. Your legs are wide, so fucking wide.
'Do you want to come?' I say.
You're groaning. You do want to come. Your body is tense with it. It's beautiful. You want to come. Your fingers are clawing at the leather. I'm fucking you with the dildo. I'm being rough.
I should have made you beg more. I got lost in your pleasure and conceded too soon. I let you come. I won't make that mistake next time.
*
Everything physical about you turns me on. Your size: petite. Your shape: boyish, gamine. Your cute, punishable backside. The width of your thighs. The way your pants look tight and smooth over your sex. Your breasts like sea-washed flat pebbles. The pigmentation of your cunt. Your wide, vulnerable collared neck. The line of your collar bone, like the blades of ice skates. Your wide mouth and soft lips, which I painted with red wine. Like blood I explained. I wish, you said.
'When were you last fucked?' I asked.
