Best Women's Erotica of the Year, Volume 1 Read online

  “You loud as hell, girl,” Troy said. He was smirking now. Angela hit him with a pillow.

  “I can be loud again. What you gonna do about it?” They giggled softly.

  “Just let me know when you need me to be a canvas again,” Angela said.

  DEMIMONDE

  by Valerie Alexander

  On the night of the séance, my cousin Ora lays on my bedroom chaise and tells me that we are about to be visited from beyond the grave. “They say Celeste Clair saw her dead mother appear right there in the dark—and Miss Greenbow was told she’d marry by summer.”

  I wind my long black hair into a rope and pin it up. “You’ll be told of your future husband too. These traveling mediums deal in flim-flam, Ora. Pure nonsense.”

  Ora sits up, indignant. “Elizabeth! Why are we going to the spirit parlor tonight if you’re going to be gloomy?”

  I check my reflection in the looking glass. The séance will be held at Lady Wentworth’s, and all of her Fifth Avenue friends will be there; it’s important my deep-blue evening dress with the open neckline is respectable for a widow of thirty-one. “How else am I to amuse myself?”

  Down the oak staircase we go, electric lights burning dimly from hallway sconces. The house is quiet, my infirm mother-in-law asleep upstairs for the night. The butler opens the heavy front door to a snowy 72nd Street.

  “Mother says these table-tappers are a wicked blasphemy,” Ora says happily as we climb into the hansom. “She will be so livid that we’ve gone.”

  My cousin is quivering with excitement; at twenty-four, she rarely goes out unescorted at night. Despite it being 1899 and New York perched on the edge of a new century, my aunt is terribly strict about Ora’s freedoms. A member of the temperance movement, she is scandalized when we ride bicycles in Riverside Park and frowns on my uncle’s cognac and cigars. She is desperate for Ora to marry soon, and considers me a bad example for refusing to remarry in the six years since my husband’s death.

  Like everyone else, she thinks I’m waiting for a wealthy railroad magnate, maybe, or a banker from an old family. Or, possibly, that I’m waiting for my sweet bedridden mother-in-law to pass on before I choose a new husband to replace her son. It never occurs to anyone that I’m waiting for passion. But I know I could meet someone; I could meet the devil himself, handsome and tall, with a beautiful mouth like the doorway to the doom where all fallen women go.

  Fallen women. It’s the worst fate that can happen to women like Ora and me, but the idea of the falling itself sounds like a swoon in a dream.

  I could meet someone like that. I could meet him tonight.

  Off we go in the hansom. Snow is falling past the gas lamps. Ora reminds me that tonight’s medium, Madame Morgana, is known throughout Europe. “She is not like those soothsayers in the Bowery. Real spirits will appear to us!”

  The carriage stops in front of the Wentworths’ Fifth Avenue mansion. Upon entering I see the Wentworths’ drawing room has been transformed into a proper spirit parlor with long, plum-colored drapes hanging from the walls, and creamy tapers flickering in the candelabras. Eight women and three bewhiskered older gentlemen surround a circular table. The hearth is unlit, I notice. How odd on a January night.

  “Ladies, gentlemen.”

  He enters. Twenty-five years or so, with longish brown hair and a smile that is like the sun rising over the trees. So handsome yet so innocent he looks, as if unaware of his charm. Which is how I know he’s a rake.

  “I am Theobald Moore,” he says. “Your master of ceremonies tonight while we await Madame Morgana.”

  Clearly he is the lure to bring in the ladies. His beautiful smile, his animal vitality, are the only sparks of life in this sepulchral room.

  Ora is fairly wriggling in her seat. Theo kisses her hand. He asks who she would like to hear from and she mentions a former teacher from her finishing school. Then his hazel eyes connect with mine. I forbid myself to smile but I can’t help it, and he laughs.

  “I had a feeling you and I would meet,” he says, taking my hand. A true dandy, he smells faintly of bergamot and lavender. “I had a vision of a young raven-haired beauty who would grace our séance.”

  Some of the women look quite impressed with this. But Lady Wentworth sniffs; she’s disliked me since I spurned the hand of her nephew several years ago.

  “And who have you lost, Miss…?”

  “Mrs. Pond. I am here only for my cousin.”

  “Elizabeth has lost her husband,” Ora says, for she can never be quiet. “Six years now.”

  “A widow,” he says. “Six years. Such a long time.” And though he looks suitably sympathetic, his eyes hold mine in a way that says he understands just how long I’ve been waiting—and what I’ve been waiting for.

  Madame Morgana sweeps into the room. She’s dressed primly in black calico and a lace collar fasted by an ivory brooch, but her pale eyes regard us disdainfully.

  “My dear friends,” she begins. “Tonight is a celebration of the gifts of the sages of the ages. Clairvoyance, crystal-gazing, mesmerism, chiromancy and above all, spiritualism. I was born with the ability to communicate with departed souls. Today, trained by the masters of alchemy, divination and magic, I will humbly serve as your conduit to your loved ones in the beyond.”

  I glance at Theobald. He smiles winsomely.

  “Now I must ask you to place both hands on the table,” Madame Morgana says.

  An array of hands circle the velvet-covered table—veined, smooth, puffy, jeweled—just before Theo extinguishes the flames. The drawing room is plunged into blackness.

  Ora’s hand gropes for mine in the eerie atmosphere. “Something brushed the back of my neck!” gasps Mrs. Rutledge. A moment later another woman cries, “It touched my hand!” There does seem to be a chill in the drawing room, but is it a ghostly presence or simply a cold room with no fire?

  Something trails across my shoulder. But these aren’t the ephemeral hands of a spirit. These fingers are hot and dry and purposeful as they stroke my neck.

  A shivery thrill shoots through me.

  Theo’s fingers gently circle my ears. An odd thing, but it awakens my nerves and reminds me that I have not been touched by a man in years. Next his hands slide down my throat and over my collarbone. There they hesitate, perhaps waiting for my protest, but at my silence, his fingertips continue their descent into my décolletage.

  My face flames, yet I arch my back, signaling him to continue. Inside the velvet bodice of my dress his fingers go. Into my corset and chemise until he cups my breasts. My skin prickles with heat. I can’t be allowing this, a stranger touching me in a dark room even as I’m surrounded by matrons who could ruin me.

  His mouth brushes my neck. He rolls my nipples back and forth until they’re stiff, then pulls on them lightly. I begin to shake.

  “Spirit, if you are here, speak to us!” Madame Morgana cries.

  My petticoats rustle as his hands move lower.

  Madame Morgana says again, warningly, “Spirit, are you here?”

  The hands withdraw. An odd moan fills the other end of the room, followed by a rustle, and a small, veiled white form moves into the room. Ora squeezes my hand as the spectral figure moves closer, almost glowing in the dark.

  “Spirit” speaks in a feminine, childlike voice, with predictions for us all. Various loved ones send wishes from the beyond. Ora will marry a rich gentleman from Chicago. And me, well, I am going to go on a great adventure in a world that is both nearby and faraway.

  The drawing room lights come on to reveal tear-streaked faces. One of the older women looks disgruntled and mentions pointedly that the medium she saw in London emitted real ectoplasm. But Ora is thrilled. “I told you it was real!” she whispers.

  As we bid Lady Wentworth good-bye, my cheeks burn at the thought of the liberties I just allowed Theo. But he meets us at the door and reminds me that he is available for private ghostly sessions should I care to call on him.

  “I adm
ire your talent,” I manage to say, avoiding his eyes, “but I am very occupied with my charity work.”

  “I have more talents than you saw tonight.”

  How brash. But in the carriage going home, I can’t forget his hands sliding into my bodice, his mouth on my throat. I would have permitted him anything. How close I came to disgrace.

  In my salon the next day, I stare at the flames in the fireplace. I’ve cranked the phonograph to play a Brahms concerto, and a novel is abandoned on my lap. It’s my usual life of books and music here in this room of forest-green wallpaper and somber oil paintings. But I can’t help ruminating over Theo: a penniless youngest son, maybe, getting through the world on his wits and his smile.

  The clatter of hooves just outside. My body tenses. But it couldn’t be him, unless Lady Wentworth has provided my address.

  The butler announces him. “Theobald Moore.”

  That beautiful grin ignites my salon. “Mrs. Pond.”

  I cannot repress my smile. How impudent. How bold. I shouldn’t be charmed, but I am.

  “You seemed distressed last night,” he begins. “I felt I must come here today to offer my services—should you require them.”

  In this quiet cocoon, he seems to crackle with life, brighter than the fire.

  “How generous. What services would those be?”

  He brings out a velvet pouch. “I will read your fortune,” he says, handing me a large deck of hand-painted tarot cards. “Shuffle the cards and we will see what destiny has in store for you.”

  I choose three cards: the Knight of Wands, the Two of Cups and the Star. “An intoxicating union,” he says. “Not a lasting love, but a fleeting and exciting adventure.”

  At least he’s honest.

  “Perhaps yours will happen tonight,” he says. “I am attending a masked party.”

  A strange heat creeps up my spine. He is not speaking of a respectable event, I know it. “Lady Wentworth again?”

  “No. This is near Madison Square, at the home of a woman you may not know.” My trepidation must show on my face for he adds, “Everyone will be masked—no one will know who you are. So, you see, it will be an adventure.”

  I feel faint with dread and excitement as I agree to go.

  That night the hansom arrives at nine o’clock. I take a shot of sweet apricot brandy to settle my nerves, then tell my butler I must check on a friend who’s taken ill. He doesn’t believe me, of course. It is too unusual, a beautiful young man calling on me in the afternoon and an outing late that night. But as soon as the carriage door closes, I see the dark-blue mask on the opposite seat and I smile.

  The driver takes me to Madison Square. Shadows move under the gas lamps, through the pools of golden light on the snowy walks. This is the New York night world I so rarely see.

  The carriage stops in front of a brownstone. A man is waiting outside; his brilliant smile identifies Theo immediately under his black mask. “You did come. I love a woman of courage.”

  We enter the house. Last year Ora had gotten hold of a New York guidebook which described saloons in thrilling detail, even ones with rouged and powdered male performers; several saloons were reputed to have basement brothels. Yet as Theo takes me into a foyer of stuffed wild animals and high ceilings, I know this night will be far more exotic and disgraceful. Two masked women lead us into a room of damask and gilt couches, while a masked man serves us red wine. Several musicians play the violin and cello in the corner.

  I feel as if I am in an opium dream. This is the demimonde, disreputable people drinking and playing games in states of undress. My rose-colored dress seems mortifyingly modest.

  At the front of the massive room a shirtless man with black, curly hair claps his hands. “It’s time for the game,” he announces. “All players must assemble here by the fire.”

  I look questioningly at Theo. “A game of yes and no,” he says. “You will see.”

  He joins eight other men and women by an enormous piano. The black-haired man says, “Begin. Who am I thinking of?”

  “Myself and Gertie!” calls out one of the white-robed women.

  “No.”

  The woman removes her robe. She is wearing only cotton pantaloons underneath, no chemise. I almost choke, shocked by the sight of a bare-breasted woman standing so confidently before so many men.

  “Charlotte and Douglas,” suggests Theo.

  “No.”

  Theo removes his shirt, exposing a broad, smooth chest. Another woman guesses incorrectly and undresses down to her lace shimmy; she is quite small, and her familiar voice tells me that she played the role of “Spirit” last night at the séance. At last someone guesses correctly by naming Gertie and Bridget, which forces the black-haired man to remove his trousers. The participants then begin guessing physical acts, some of which I have never heard. “Doing the dog.” “Quim on quim.” At last a woman cries out, “Bridget fucking Gertie with a candle!” and the man concedes her victory.

  “Strip!” she commands. I watch with a shocked and thumping heart as the black-haired man steps out of his undergarments, revealing his hard, thick cock to the room.

  My face burns with heat. I will never survive the scandal if I am unmasked. But a flame of lust is flickering inside me, and my head swims with the delirious awareness of my evaporating control.

  “I’m bored,” the man announces. He leans one elbow on the piano as he sips his wine, still naked. “Theo, entertain us with your mind-reading game.”

  They dim the electric lights so there’s just the firelight. Theo closes his eyes. “One mind burns brighter than the rest,” he says after a moment. “A woman’s mind. A woman who dreams every night of her unlived life.”

  My skin prickles. But of course whatever he says will be a trick.

  “You think of when you were nineteen, when you let a young man feel under your dress in your aunt’s summer house in the country. And sometimes you pretend another gentleman has taken you over his lap to spank you like a maid who’s spilled the tea.”

  All the masked faces are watching me, not Theo. They know it’s me he’s speaking of.

  “Sometimes you dream of a man tied to your bed, naked and blindfolded for you to use as you please. Other times you want to be dressed in trousers and a waistcoat while a man buggers you like a boy.”

  My cunt is tingling, the tops of my thighs wet.

  “…And last night, after you let me touch you, you wished all the way home in the carriage that I was fucking you.”

  I swiftly exit the room, the brownstone, startling the hansom driver who’s fixing the horse’s bridle and blanket. Theo follows.

  “Elizabeth, please wait.”

  He gives the driver some money and a brief instruction, then climbs into the carriage after me. Off we go. The hansom is cold and snowflakes cling to the windows, but my skin is hot and flushed.

  “I always tell the truth,” he says.

  “You are a lewd, immodest, improper man.” I’m shaking and it’s not from rage, though I want to be angry.

  “You were masked. No one in that room knew you.” He leans forward. “Whatever you say, whatever you do with me, no one else will know that either.”

  His hazel eyes meet mine. The drumbeat of lust pulsing in my cunt grows to a stronger, throbbing demand. I cover my face. I can’t do this. But as if with a will of their own, my legs spread beneath my skirts.

  Theo pulls the curtains on both sides. Oh no. Then he transfers himself to my seat. He’s so close now in the dark carriage, I can barely look at him.

  His lips brush my cheek. A gentleman’s kiss but he is no gentleman. He’s a devil and will use a devil’s tricks. I look away.

  And then he’s suddenly on top of me, all six feet of him, heavy with that masculine weight that feels so deliciously imprisoning. His fingers curl around my wrists and pin them back against the carriage seat, and he kisses me, his mouth warm in the cold hansom. Against all of my training, I kiss him back, feeling something in me loo
sen and melt.

  “The driver isn’t going to stop until I signal,” he says, reaching behind me to unhook my dress. “We have all the time in the world.”

  He pushes the bodice of my dress down. I close my eyes to pretend I’m not shivering in my corset here in a public hansom. But he leans against me again, so warm and beautifully hard, and kisses me a second time, his mouth so sweet that I scarcely feel him loosening the corset. His hands pull down my chemise, fill with my breasts. And then his dark head lowers and he’s sucking my nipples, a new sensation that sends stars through my blood. I arch my back against the seat.

  One firm hand slides under my dress, under the petticoats. I stare in delirious awe as Theo sinks to his knees on the carriage floor and pulls down my drawers, opening my thighs wide.

  His hot mouth is on my cunt a moment later, greedy and demanding, licking me so skillfully that I don’t know if it’s his tongue or his fingers turning my swollen flesh into melting bliss. An incoherent whimper escapes me. His talented fingers push inside me, moving in circles until they press in just the right spot. I sit up straight as sheer euphoric electricity jolts me. It sweeps through me again and again in fiery waves of glory.

  He sits back on his heels, his hair rumpled. “Turn over.”

  “What?” I’m still dazed.

  He positions me, my hands and one knee on the seat, the other foot balanced on the hansom floor. Then he throws my dress and petticoats up over my waist, and pushes his cock inside me in one slow, relentless thrust. I feel ready to split open from the massive shaft inside me. He withdraws, plunges in again. I am so wet that vulgar noises fill the carriage. But he’s breathing fast, and he begins to fuck me in a savage rhythm, driving in and out until we’re both panting and wet, the carriage windows steamed. My long black hair has tumbled out of its twist and my nipples are still exposed and hard as he drives me forward with every thrust. He grips my hips with a growl, spearing in and out of me so hard that I feel as if my entire body is a burning, hungry ember.