Best S&M, Volume 3 Read online

  The person was crouched on a row of shoes on the floor of Hachi’s closet, in what had to be a fantastically uncomfortable position: head down, ass up. Its wrists were bound at the small of its back with what appeared to be black rubber tubing. More tubing—and strips of black cloth—secured its ankles. It appeared to be trying to make itself as compact and as immobile as possible. Various outfits of Hachi’s—suits, raincoats, negligee—swung just above it, brilliant colors in stark contrast with the latex.

  “Did Hachi...this is something you were doing with Hachi, right? Do you want me to untie you, or...?” Again, no answer but that creepy breathing. Molly retreated slowly, gnawing her thumb. Eventually she ran downstairs and fixed herself a large glass of iced vodka.

  The situation was extremely uncomfortable. There was, of course, nothing preventing her from simply calling Hachi in London and demanding to know who this strange person in the closet was. It would have been extremely satisfying at that moment to inform Hachi—with suitable indignation, needless to say—that house-sitting, undertaken as a favor to a friend, did not normally include babysitting said friend’s sex-slaves.

  The problem was that Molly had found Latex (as she found herself thinking of the bound person) while snooping in Hachi’s bedroom. There was no other way to put it. Though she loved to brag about her “friendship” with Hachiko Ozu, Molly was all too aware that the designer regarded her less as a friend than an amusing kind of puppy, to be petted and laughed at or ignored as the situation demanded. They had met at a club through mutual acquaintances (considerably higher-placed socially than Molly) and most of their encounters since had been at other clubs, totally at random, though Hachi did generally reply—dependably if rather dryly—to Molly’s emails.

  Hachi was an androgynous Eurasian beauty, as well-known in the SM demimonde as she was in the fashion world. Hachi had a career and several houses in different cities in different countries. Molly was a twenty-three-year-old club-rat with a loft, a trust fund, and little else to recommend her beyond a certain bratty cuteness.

  So when the chance to house-sit for Hachi had emerged, she’d jumped at it, figuring it would give her a nearly endless fund of bragging-currency. And the moment she knew Hachi’s plane was off the ground, Molly had begun a methodical exploration of her house, beginning in the kitchen. So far it had been incredibly disappointing. There had been no secret caches of bizarre/possibly illegal pornography, no diaries detailing orgies with the rich and famous, and no drugs beyond the overflowing liquor cabinet and half a pack of Gauloises she had found in one of the guest bathrooms. There was Hachi’s basement dungeon, of course, but everyone knew about that.

  By the time she had gotten to the bedroom, Molly had resigned herself to rifling through Hachi’s wardrobe. That, at least, was sure to be kind of fabulous. Instead, she had found Latex.

  It had been agreed that Molly would sleep in a small but comfortable room on the first floor. On entering the house, Molly had found Hachi’s own bedroom door pointedly closed, though not actually locked. Molly was not sure what would happen if she phoned her about Latex. She had never seen the designer angry. On the other hand, she had witnessed her sarcasm, many times. She felt little interest in being on the receiving end again.

  Down in the kitchen, Molly lit a cigarette to help her vodka down, and gave some thought to next steps. Obviously Latex was there of his (after several sips, she had decided the person in the closet was male) own free will. In the unlikely event he were some kind of prisoner, he would certainly have taken the opportunity to kick up a fuss when Molly opened the closet door. She had read about experiments in “sensory deprivation.” Obviously this was one of them. It was exactly the kind of edgy play that Hachi was famous for.

  More troublesome was the fact that even if Molly simply ignored Latex for the rest of her stay, she had no idea what Hachi would hear from him upon her return. Perhaps he would be discreet about the house-sitter’s indiscretion. On the other hand, perhaps he would be angry. Perhaps he would be furious. Molly had visions of a furious Latex, cuddled in the arms of an equally indignant Hachi, delivering a hissing diatribe against the little bitch who had disturbed his “meditation.”

  Hachi had left her kitchen well-stocked and told Molly to help herself to anything she liked. She had also left instructions at a local, very good French restaurant that the young lady staying at Miss Ozu’s house should be sent over anything she cared to call and ask for, on Miss Ozu’s tab. But Molly was not especially hungry, and after she finished draining her glass she was still less inclined to eat. Instead, she poured another and put on a CD of club mixes that had been burned for Hachi by a rather notorious Manhattan DJ, a man rumored to be insanely in love with her feet.

  As Molly danced with herself, improvising clumsy steps she would never have had the nerve to try in the clubs, she found herself thinking of Latex. Of his strange sad eyes. The more she thought, the more certain she became that Hachi’s slave (or whatever he was) bore her no ill will. In fact, she began feeling that, in that odd moment when she had looked into his eyes, they had on some level bonded. She was aware that there wasn’t much more to this feeling than to her pretense that she and Hachi were friends, but it persisted. It was, certainly, a very appealing feeling.

  The conviction grew in her that she needed to check on Latex, that perhaps he was regretting passing up the opportunity to be freed. Imagining herself in Latex’s place even for a moment made Molly squirmingly uncomfortable. She feared pain of any kind, though images of suffering were attractive to her. The thought of Latex lying crouched and twisted on a lumpy, pungent bed of Hachi’s old shoes fascinated and appalled her. It also made her run a hand over her breast, stiffening the nipple in a quick, perfunctory caress, and pulling away, as though she was afraid of being caught.

  She went to her room and, on an obscure impulse, changed into a short black dress she had for no good reason brought along. By now she had passed beyond a comfortable tipsiness into true inebriation. When she made up her face, her hand was unsteady, as were her steps when she began making her way back to Hachi’s room. She was aware that she had not put panties on under her little dress, but was not entirely sure if the omission had been deliberate.

  The warm excitement she had felt was now tinged with apprehension, almost fear. She felt like she was going to a lover, but a lover who might turn out to be a ghost or a monster. She had, after all, no real idea what Latex was really like. Horrible possibilities occurred to her, and then wonderful ones. All of this gradually turned her feelings more and more towards the erotic. When she stepped into Hachi’s room and heard the ragged hiss of Latex’s breathing, it made a little jolt of arousal in her belly.

  “Hey,” she said. “It’s me, I’m back. Are you okay?” By now she knew better than to expect an answer. She stepped lightly towards the open door of the closet. The room was now dark but she felt oddly disinclined to turn on a light.

  “I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you or anything. Am I? If you want me to go...?” It surprised her a little how coy her voice sounded. She slid down to her knees and touched Latex’s cheek—gingerly at first. Then, uncurling her fingers, she laid her whole palm on the top of his head. The black rubber felt warm—not really feverish, more as though Latex were some life-form whose body temperature was naturally higher than that of humans.

  When he made no response, Molly began running her palms over his back and legs. She did this mindlessly, enjoying the smooth feel of the rubber. The suit was nearly skin-tight and smelled pungently, like nothing human. Hesitating a moment, Molly leaned forward and pressed her lips against his shoulder in a silent kiss. She opened her mouth and bit gently. Briefly she imagined herself eating Latex like a giant black jujube, taking greedy bites that left nothing but smoothly scalloped indentations in his onyx flesh. She licked the spot she had bitten, and then kissed the slick place her saliva had made.

  Soon she was curling over Latex in a fervent embrace, stroking and kneading shamel
essly, kissing and mouthing the irregularities and protrusions of his/her body. In a very little time she had thrown a leg over him and was—there could be no other word for it—humping him. Rubbing her bare, now very wet, pussy first against a spot on his ass, and then—once a small but very satisfactory orgasm had been reached—moving greedily over to the smooth bunch of his fingers.

  What Latex thought of this Molly couldn’t imagine, and preferred not to try. She was lost in a hazy, very pleasurable rush of tenderness mingled with desire. More, she felt permitted to do this, that somehow it was alright for her to take advantage of Latex’s body in this way. It was not unlike, in an odd way, the first time she had been fucked.

  This feeling was vindicated when the rubbery fingers curled themselves around her crotch. A little of the horror-movie feeling came back and Molly almost tumbled off; then Latex’s fingers, clumsily at first, but with a certain knowing efficiency, began playing with her pussy. Molly was breathlessly delighted at this, the first time that Latex actually responded to her in any meaningful way.

  The second orgasm made her sleepy. She curled herself up next to Latex, holding him with both arms and pillowing her head on his shoulder. In moments, whispering little endearments, she fell asleep.

  Her dream was strange. She was in a kind of high-tech, Blade Runner-esque fetish nightclub, the kind she had always imagined that certain Asian cities—Tokyo, say—were rife with. There were people everywhere, dark people everywhere she looked, all dressed in intricate outfits of leather and plastic with breastplates of shining chrome. Molly had no idea what she herself was wearing. She might have been wearing a leather costume of her own, or she could as easily have been naked.

  There was a definite sense of expectation in the air. The dark people were waiting for her to do something. At first she had no idea what this might be. Then she noticed the hanging person.

  At first the shape seemed very much like Latex, swaddled all over in strips of some kind of black material—rubber or PVC. More strips connected the shape’s weight to the ceiling, like an umbilicus. At other moments the shape’s covering changed, sprouting wide holes that revealed pale flesh—large-nippled breasts and a plump bulge of shaved, very wet pussy peeking between the thighs. It was very evidently a woman, hanging in a fetal position, its knees drawn up to its chest.

  Molly became certain the woman was Hachi. Hachi’s eyes were shut, her mouth hanging open in a way that suggested both sexual ecstasy and brain damage. Molly stood looking up at her friend’s slowly revolving form. It was unnerving seeing Hachi in such a helpless position—even in a place like this, where imprisonment would surely be voluntary. Hachi wasn’t like that. Molly found herself sobbing.

  The dark people in the club seemed to share her misery. Molly was hugged and kissed and caressed, in what she took to be a ritual of preparation. Then she was clinging to Hachi, a massive knife in her hand. She had no idea who had given her the knife or how she had gotten up to Hachi. She had the vague notion that she had somehow risen on her own power; she imagined a graceful, slow-motion leap.

  Music was now playing, something harsh and techno. Molly sawed with the curved blade at the fleshy black strips that held Hachi to the ceiling. As she did this, she kissed her friend’s face—however clumsily, this was something she had always wanted to do. The fact that she was kissing Hachi seemed enormous, momentous, and filled her with a tearful pride. She whispered, “It’s okay, baby. Okay? It’s all good. I love you, okay? You’re alright.”

  Then the strips parted, and she and Hachi fell an enormous distance, plummeting together to the floor.

  Latex’s moan woke her. Molly jerked awake, crying out with a dry mouth. She was not immediately sure where she was, only that she was in a little cramped space, lying on top of something warm and smooth and somewhat human-shaped. There was sunlight through the windows, but it was from a dim, just-risen sun.

  Latex moaned again—loudly and emphatically, and twitched. There was no doubt he was in pain—or at least severe discomfort. He wanted out of his rubber suit, there wasn’t much doubt of that either.

  “Oh my God.” Molly staggered to her feet, finding a moment to agonize over how badly wrinkled her little dress had gotten. “Are you okay?”

  “Mmmmnnnnnnggghhh...”

  “Oh shit, oh shit. Okay, okay, hold on...”

  Molly couldn’t seem to walk or think properly. Her first impulse was to run out of the house screaming for help, but Latex’s moaning had her convinced that he was in terrible pain, that every minute wasted cost him agonies.

  Untie him. She had to untie him first. She fell to her knees and began plucking hopelessly at the rubber tubing at his wrists. It was no good; the knots were from hell, as big as her thumbs.

  Knife. Something sharp. Molly scrambled out of the bedroom, making for the stairs. There were knives in a wooden block on the kitchen counter, their image glowed in her mind like the grail, but she had to hurry. Latex was moaning furiously now, shaking all over. Halfway down the stairs Molly could hear him thrusting himself around in the closet.

  At the foot of the stairs, she remembered the knives on Hachi’s living room wall. There was a large selection of them, hung in display along with antique swords and shields. Molly snatched at one, and then nearly screamed in frustration; the hilt was wired securely to the wall.

  The kitchen, then. But it was too far away, and Latex was still crying. Molly picked up a heavy ashtray and bludgeoned the knife from the side. The pegs it was wired to gave way with a satisfying rain of dust and broken plaster, and a moment later she was running back to Hachi’s room, dagger in hand. Unlike the knife in her dream, it was straight, double-edged. But she had no doubt it would do the job, and it did; applied to the knots holding Latex’s wrists, they parted like butter.

  Latex’s hands fell to his sides and twisted feebly on the floor. He had stopped moaning, but was breathing explosively in and out of the mask-holes. Molly cut the tubing at his ankles and pushed him, one-handed, onto his side, and then rolled him onto his back.

  As carefully as she could, she pierced the rubber with the dagger’s point, keeping the blade flat against Latex’s side. He shook his head and fumbled at her shoulder, puffing through the mask. But Molly was convinced the suit had to come off. He was suffocating or something. Hadn’t she heard somewhere that you had to be careful with these rubber bondage-suits, that they didn’t let the skin breathe, or something?

  “It’s okay, she’ll understand. I’ll buy you a new one, Jesus Christ.” Worried as she was about Latex, she found it deeply satisfying to curl her fingers into the gap she had made in the rubber and pull. It parted silently, revealing a flat belly, its darkish-complected skin gleaming with sweat.

  Another tug showed that Latex had small but firm breasts, with tiny, erect nipples. He wasn’t a he at all.

  Molly didn’t have time to be astonished. By now Latex had given up struggling and had joined her in peeling away the remains of the suit. She loosened something at the nape of her neck and laboriously tugged the mask off.

  Latex was small and thin, with large teeth and very short dark hair and the same large, beautiful eyes Molly remembered. “Christ,” she breathed, in an unidentifiable accent. “Christ, Hachi’s going to kill me.”

  “No, it’s okay.” Molly found it necessary to say this. She felt terribly angry at Hachi. She put her arms around the small woman, who a moment later, a little uncertainly, returned the embrace.

  Latex’s body stank of sweat and rubber, but Molly couldn’t stop herself from kissing it, moving her lips up to those tiny nipples. Latex murmured and slid her nails over Molly’s shoulders.

  “I got a cramp,” she explained. “Hurt like fuck. I should have known it would happen.” She was short of breath, but sounded perfectly reasonable, as though she were not, in fact, having her nipples sucked. “Hachi tried to warn me, actually. I wanted to go through with it, like an idiot. God, she’ll laugh at me.”

  The phone began r
inging suddenly, a strident, harsh sound that made Molly start. She ground her teeth when it didn’t stop.

  “That’ll be Hachi. Babe, let me go?”

  Latex tried to pull away and get the phone, but Molly wouldn’t let her; she held her tightly, pressed her closed eyes against the bony chest. If she struggled, Molly intended to push backward with all her strength, bite her if necessary. She had been through too much. She wasn’t going to let her go now. There were limits.

  Blade, Ink, Steel

  By

  Sharon Wachsler

  To the Skin

  Too early, no sleep, on Ella’s arm, all’s black. Buzzed on java shots, skittering heels stick in cracked linoleum, I stumble, catch a wheezing laugh far left. Ella shoves me onto a chair, quick unlocks one cuff, yanks my wrist to the armrest. Click, click, click it closes, and swift she does the other. Seat clanks up like a dentist chair. Ankle shackles ratcheted to a bar below.

  Ella jerks off my blindfold. In sudden flickering fluorescence, dented metal mirror exposes my waxy skin, red-lined eyes. Ella drops into a rocker, nods to coughing tough crushing out her cig in the dim. Tar-fingered stranger slouches over, scissors in one hand, clippers in the other, fists the chestnut hank hanging from my nape to ass. “Nuh!” I toss my head, sick rises at the snick, snick, snick of quick blades.

  “Good we’ve got that ball gag in, eh, Sweet Pea?” Ella smirks. “I’d be so disappointed if you didn’t appreciate Gen’s work.”