Best Lesbian Erotica of the Year Read online

  We tease back and forth, moving with and then against each other, establishing and breaking rhythms—until I begin to bear down hard and circle, using my hips to pin them and grind. Their breath comes shorter, legs quivering beneath me, and as I lean in and devour their mouth with kisses, they come, buried deep inside my cunt. I brace myself on my forearms and keep kissing them, mouth and eyelids and forehead, tender and passionate, and lick the salt tears that trickle down their temples. I put my mouth close to their ear, and whisper again: “Sweet boy. Good boy. You’ve still got another boot to do…”

  TEARS FROM HEAVEN

  Jean Roberta

  Sheets of rain are pouring down the picture window through which I’m gazing at the emerald green of a well-kept lawn. If hail follows this rain, my flowers will probably be beaten to the ground, but I have no inclination to rush outdoors to cover them with plastic. I have already lost something infinitely more precious to me.

  I notice my reflection in my hall mirror just as lightning gives my skin an eerie blue-white glow. My cheekbones look carved from marble, and my lips look taut, although apparently fuller than ever. My brown eyes, looking at themselves, show more clarity than I remember seeing there, as though they had been washed by tears. I haven’t actually wept.

  I can see the curve of my breasts under a black cotton T-shirt. My Black Watch tartan shorts hug my small waist and my hips like mourning wear for the weekend. For an instant I see myself as the Widow Athena Chalkdust. Absurdity can be comforting.

  In my summer break from teaching, I have become unusually domestic. I’ve been avoiding the university for days at a time, and I hope that my colleagues in the English Department can accept my absence as well as I can survive without office gossip and rivalry. Until two weeks ago, I was content with my garden, my books and my pets, human and animal.

  Didrick, my able-bodied former student, was my gardener and maid-of-all-work. I watched her planting flowers and vegetables in receptive soil, and the symbolic implications of her work did not escape me. She washed the silk sheets of the bed where I took her, and where her diligence left me wet and fragrant. My poor protégée has never learned to write a solid sentence, but she poured her energy into becoming a one-dyke household staff. As when she was officially my student, I sometimes watched her try hard to meet my expectations, and fall short nonetheless.

  Didrick Bent. The very name arouses such conflicting passions in me that I can’t sit still. My house feels empty, but I feel as charged with electricity as the air beyond my walls.

  The telephone rings on schedule. She was forbidden to contact me for two weeks, and today is the fourteenth day. I let it ring once, twice, sensing her anxiety. On the sixth ring, I answer.

  “Dr. Chalkdust?” She sounds like a child. “You said I could see you today.”

  “Yes.” She will have to express herself without help.

  “I really want to come over.” The tears that I would not shed are as audible in her voice as gusts of rain on glass.

  “You may, Didrick,” I tell her, “but you have to come here by shank’s pony. Don’t bring an umbrella.”

  “Oh, thank you,” she blubbers. “I’m so—”

  “Don’t say it,” I warn her, keeping my voice level. “What’s done is done. Your apologies mean nothing, stupid girl. Be here in twenty minutes.” She has a long, wet walk ahead of her, but she also has long legs with perpetual wetness between them. Even now, I suspect. The thought makes me seethe.

  In due time, Didrick peers in through the glass in my oak door, her hair plastered slickly to her head like the fur of a swimming muskrat. I open the door for the tall penitent, who quickly ducks her head when she enters my hallway. I refuse to let her move past me in her dripping clothes. Her eyes drop to the floor.

  “Take your clothes off and leave them here on the tiles,” I tell her. I reach for a folded towel in the hall closet, and hold it as I watch her silently remove her T-shirt and denim cutoffs, then shrug out of her wet bra and pull down her underpants. Naked above the ankles, she awkwardly bends over to unlace her jogging shoes.

  “Turn around to do that,” I tell her.

  Her face turns redder under her clinging hair. “Yes, Dr. Chalkdust,” she squeaks quietly.

  Presenting her firm young bottom to me, she tries to untie her shoelaces as quickly as possible, but I pull out the well-lubed butt plug I’ve been keeping in a plastic baggie in my pocket, and slip it into her before she has finished loosening the first shoe.

  I can hear her breathing quicken, but she knows better than to protest or to pause. I twist the plug experimentally as she raises one foot to remove her shoe. I know that her movement unavoidably changes the angle of her anus in relation to the plug. I can’t help smiling as she repeats the action with her other foot. The plug, shaped almost like a baby’s soother, is secure by the time she must straighten up and turn to face me.

  My smile is gone when I wrap the towel around her head, bent to receive it, and rub briskly as though to strike some sparks of intelligence into her brain. I run the towel down her body until there are no more droplets glistening on her skin.

  Didrick’s lower lip trembles. “Ah,” I sigh, warning her not to lose control so soon. My warning has no effect.

  She throws her strong arms around me, almost lifting me from the floor. She is openly crying, and she buries her face in the chestnut hair that flows loose over my shoulders and down my back. “I’m so sorry, Dr. C,” she moans. “I never meant it to happen.”

  Anger flares in me. “Of course not,” I answer threateningly in her ear. “You weren’t prepared and you lost control. Are you going to live that way all your life, Didrick? What else do you think you might lose through sheer carelessness?”

  Her tears are wetting my skin like rain, and the teasing pressure of the toy in her ass seems to be stimulating the flow from her eyes. I gently push her away. I pick up one of her competent hands, now hanging limply. “Come here,” I order. “You need to see something.”

  I lead Didrick to the corner stand, open the glass door and pull out a white porcelain jar. “You know whose ashes are in here,” I tell her. “Two weeks ago he was alive and healthy.” Two photos in the stand show Pip, my blond wire-haired terrier puppy, romping in spring sunlight.

  Didrick is a soggy mess. “I miss him too,” she whimpers, holding the breakable jar in obvious terror of dropping it.

  “Have you learned anything from that?” I ask her. “You knew he might run into the street whenever he wasn’t on the leash. It was your job to protect him until he was trained.”

  “What can I do to make up for it?” she begs me, sniffing. I take the jar from her.

  “Nothing,” I explain. “But you still need to be punished for your own sake. Not for his or for mine.” Her silence shows a glimmer of understanding. “To the basement,” I tell her.

  We descend to the permanent twilight below ground level.

  I push Didrick beneath a pipe and tell her to reach up. She knows how hard this position is on the arms, even hers, if held for more than a few minutes. I find two wrist restraints on a shelf where I have left them. I climb two steps behind her, and secure her wrists to the pipe.

  Without a word, I return upstairs to my kitchen, where I keep a variety of useful things. I deliberately spend some time choosing a pair of black candles, a book of matches, six clothespins with tight springs, a safety pin, a roll of tensor bandage and a large wooden dildo, formerly used for educational purposes in a medical school. I drop my supplies into a canvas bag and carry it to the basement.

  Didrick turns as far as she can to watch my approach. I am able to slap the side of her face before I place the bandage around her eyes, cut one end and pin the ends together. Standing on a step, I reach around her to squeeze one of her small breasts, stroking the nipple until it is hard enough for my purpose. Then I snap a clothespin onto it and watch the victim flinch. I repeat the procedure with the other breast.

  “How long do
you think your patience will last?” I ask her. “How long do you think it took Pip to die after he had been struck by a car? He was damaged beyond repair. You aren’t.”

  I feel almost naked without a leather belt around my waist. I remember the black one, which is still threaded through the belt-loops of a skirt in a basket of dirty laundry atop my washing machine, and I go in search of it. Pawing through my own rumpled clothes reminds me of how far the order of my house has declined in the past two weeks. Threatened by impending chaos, I am relieved to find the belt and to feel its weight as I hold it by the buckle. I want to see the changes it can effect in smooth young skin.

  Didrick’s anxiety is palpable in the humid room as she tries to anticipate my next move. She expects to be struck. I decide not to give her what she expects. I wrap the belt around my waist and buckle it firmly.

  I return to my captive and casually run my fingernails down the damp skin stretched over her ribs. I press my head into the curve between her shoulder and her face, knowing that the scent of my hair will fill her nostrils. “You deserve punishment,” I remind her softly, “but you won’t get it yet. It will happen when you’re not prepared. Don’t you think that’s appropriate, my girl?”

  The bandage over her eyes is wet. “Yes, Ma’am,” she whimpers. I pull the clothespins on her nipples, and this makes her squirm.

  I part her legs and attach clothespins to her inner labia. I can see her thighs trembling, her solid flesh paradoxically shivering like water. I light the two candles and set them on shelves where they create brave, fragile circles of light in the dusk. I know that Didrick can see them faintly from behind her bandage.

  I run both my hands down her belly to her thighs, enjoying the white tracks my fingernails leave on her tanned skin. I know that I don’t have time for a leisurely exploration of her body. Quel dommage.

  I reach up to attach my remaining two clothespins to the inner flesh of her upper arms. This is to increase her tension, and I wonder if she realizes that it also increases mine.

  Didrick’s cunt is giving off a distinct aroma as she shifts from one foot to the other. I want to torment her, and I want to bring her relief. I slide down her body until I am gazing into her moist, curly brown bush. I part it to find glistening pink flesh that moves slightly when I breathe on it.

  She jumps when I enter her with my tongue, something I rarely do. I want the taste of her. I pull back when I can feel her hunger, and I switch to another medium. I quickly pull the clothespins off her labia, and then reach into her wet heat with two exploring fingers. I scratch her inner folds, feeling for the most sensitive spot that she can’t withhold from me. I hold her open so that I can push my man Woody into her, working up a compelling rhythm. A sudden spurt and surrender inside her enables me to bury my weapon to the hilt. She moans gratefully.

  I slide my fingers over her clit. She gasps loudly as the orgasm she has been trying to control seizes her in its jaws and shakes her. Her cunt clenches around its hard instructor, weeping with pleasure, as her asshole squeezes its smaller plastic bookmark. She is trembling from her stretched arms to her feet.

  I wait for Didrick’s last tremors to subside, and then I gently remove Woody, who looks coated in wet shellac. I climb up behind her and unfasten the wrist restraints with hands that bring her own smell closer to her nose. Her arms descend slowly, as though they had a life of their own. The movement wafts the perfume of her sweat through the air and sways the candle flames. I pull the clothespins off her arms. I release her nipples more carefully, but the rush of blood back into them makes her suck in a deep breath that shakes them.

  After I have unpinned and removed the bandage from her eyes, I am pleased to see their clear light reflecting the glow of the candles. She is completely covered in a sheen of sweat, and it makes her look more heroic than I remember seeing her before: my thoughtless but loyal Amazon.

  I wrap my arms around her. “One more thing, Didrick,” I remind her, squeezing one of her buttocks.

  “Please, Dr. Chalkdust,” she answers. Her voice sounds lower and more mature than I expected.

  “Please what?” I tease, reaching for the marker of my ownership still embedded in her anus.

  “Please don’t ever keep me away from you for this long, Ma’am.” Her voice reminds me of the blues riffs of several legendary dyke singers.

  I reach up to stroke her cheek. “The situation was unusual, baby,” I remind her. “I don’t expect it to be repeated.” I hope she hears the warning as well as the assurance in my words. When I pull the plug out of her behind, she jerks in a way that feels almost rebellious, as though she were unwilling to let it go. I let her see me smile just before I blow out the candles.

  In the purgatorial twilight, I reach for her hand. “Didrick,” I remind her. “I’m not through with you. Come upstairs for a glass of lemonade while I consider your just deserts.” The look on her face is clownish, as a grin and a look of fear struggle for dominance.

  We ascend to the ground floor where sunlight streams in through my windows. The storm clouds have passed, and no trace of rain remains except the moisture on my lawn and my garden. The weather in this part of the world is as fickle as a child. Consistency must be provided by minds that can think and hearts that can feel.

  I pour two glasses of lemonade and hand one to Didrick. I lead her to the sunroom. “Sit here,” I tell her, gesturing toward the floor beside my peacock chair. She sinks gratefully to the hardwood and stares into the moon-yellow fluid in her glass. I notice that her nipples are still hard and red.

  “I think you’ve grown more freckles while you’ve been away,” I muse, “if that’s possible.” Her cheeks flush, and she gains the courage to glance at the mane of dark hair touched with silver that weighs damply on my neck. I gather it in both hands, lifting it away from my face. “Didrick,” I order, “bring me a hair clip from the bathroom.” She seems grateful to have a reason to move, or perhaps she finds my presence too unnerving.

  She returns to stand beside me. “May I put it in, Dr. Chalk-dust?” she asks sweetly.

  “Yes,” I purr, amused. She boldly seizes my hair and her luck in both hands and deliberately lingers over her task, stroking. Her touch sends tingles through my scalp and down my spine to my neglected clit and my fasting cunt. Her strategy is as touching as it is futile. “Just fasten the clip, Didrick,” I tell her. “You can brush my hair later.” She reluctantly encloses my hair in its restraint as tightly as she has been taught, and withdraws from me.

  “You need enough work to keep your idle hands busy,” I observe. “As soon as you’ve finished drinking your lemonade, give all the plants a drink of water. The ones in here can’t rely on rain.” She hastens to obey. She must know how tempting she looks bending over the long table covered with succulents.

  “You can see how much still needs to be done in this house, honey.” I pet her with my gaze. Before she can guess what I require from her, I further direct her attention. “I need your eyes. Come upstairs and look down at the Persian carpet in the front room from the railing.” She follows me like a puppy. I can feel her watching my asscheeks as I climb the stairs. How easily she is lured.

  When I reach the second floor, I stop. “If you stand here,” I explain, “you can still see the stain Pip left. Doesn’t it look darker from here?”

  She bends over the railing, and I hold her in place with a fist in her hair. My lips are within kissing distance of her ear. “I won’t secure you, Didrick,” I warn her, “but you are not allowed to move. Do you understand me?” She nods silently. I hear her swallow.

  Didrick’s knuckles are already white as she clutches the wooden railing. I remove my belt, grasp both ends and place myself within striking distance of the two pink cheeks that have been spared for too long. “Count them,” I order just before my first stroke lands with a satisfying smack.

  The second leaves a trail so red that it will become a welt within minutes. The third broadens the trail. I am not aiming with a
ny precision because I am not aiming primarily for a visual effect. If this is careless love, it serves her well. “Five,” she gasps.

  “That was four,” I correct her. I pause for breath. “And you’re not getting the usual six this time. You’re getting twelve. With one added for your mistake.” My victim groans.

  After the first set, I run a hand down one of her burning lower cheeks. She flinches, but maintains her position. “Good girl,” I encourage her. I am tempted to test her endurance to its very limits, but that experiment can wait. I don’t want to deny myself for much longer. I leave her in suspense until I see her shift her weight slightly.

  I reward her with a crack of the belt that breaks the skin. The raised blood finally escapes, and I hope it releases her guilt as it cools my rage.

  After the eighth stroke, I pause just long enough to catch her off guard when I deliver the ninth. A suppressed scream, flattened to a groan, slips from between her clenched teeth. Her entire buttocks are so crimson that I can’t find a neglected spot. To spread my attention as fairly as possible, I aim the next at the underside of her cheeks.

  “I didn’t hear you,” I point out. “How many?” Before she can answer, I strike again.

  “Eleven,” she gasps. Sometimes she justifies my faith in her capacities. The next two strokes are slightly milder. She counts each one in a barely audible voice.

  I wrap my belt into a tight coil as the penitent begins to straighten up. She looks reluctant to withdraw from the railing because the muscles beneath her tender skin are reluctant to move. I catch sight of her wet face. “I’ll bring you a glass of water,” I promise, “and you have to drink it all.”

  When I return from the second-floor bathroom with a cool glass in hand, Didrick has barely moved. I can imagine her frozen in this moment for millennia, like Keats’s Grecian urn. I won’t allow it. “Straighten up,” I command, handing her the glass while pulling her around to face me. “Stand up and breathe, baby. It’s over.”