The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

“She has a large castle in the middle of the island.”

“And before?”

“Before what?”

“Before the Lady ruled here?”

“I do not know. The Lady’s older than me. The village has always depended on the island.”

There was a shadow behind my eyes. I had not known it to begin with, but suddenly I realized I was not seeing Emma anymore. Like a blind man I stretched my hand towards her face, then my tongue towards her tongue. The shadow persisted. At that time, towards her, I was no more than the fool of my own folly.

That night I left our stone house and the white bed to go down to the inn and talk to the fishermen. They greeted me, teasing:

“Emma is beautiful, isn’t she?”

“And what a pleasure, young man, by the look of you!”

I bought drinks and their friendliness expanded with every bottle they emptied of the dark wine. At last, when I thought the moment was right, I asked:

“What’s that island you can see from the top of the cliff?”

The lightheadedness disappeared abruptly. The mariners looked at me then at each other, before one of the oldest finally decided to answer:

“It’s Countess Mona’s island. You pleased her, since she picked you out the other night.”

“Is it always she who chooses?”

“Yes. She presides over our festivals. She started them again, after all. Old Bastien, the one in charge, defended the tradition well but without the countess it was probable that our virgins would keep their holes stoppered till marriage.”

“And Mona? Is she from here?”

“The island belonged to her father, and her father’s father. But the old man did not care much about us. Mona looks after us better, though we must not go near the island.”

“You have never been there?”

“No. It is forbidden. There are dogs and black men. Sometimes when the wind is strong you hear those beasts from hell howling… After all it’s her home!”

“Does no one ever go there?”

“Friends of hers who arrive in their yachts from the other side of the sea.”

“And what if I went there, to her island?”

“She said it is better not to go.”

“She has spoken of me?”

“She said it’s better not to go.”

“At any rate, your countess would not eat me!”

“Who knows?” shrugged the old man.

While calling for drink to put an end to my interrogation, he gave me the half-condescending, half-pitying smile that old people sometimes have.

From then on I had but one idea – to see Mona again, to visit her island, her castle. Although I took great care not to show this desire, my assiduity with Emma abated. I kept silent in order to imagine and thus envisage, but who has faith in his own visions?

Frequently, in the afternoon, I escaped to the terrace. I had been able to obtain a telescope easily, but though it drew the island nearer, it did not show me anything. I succeeded in spotting a large white yacht, the castle not at all. The island was hilly enough to conceal it. In any case, did they not call anything the least bit bigger than the poky village houses a castle?

The map told me nothing either. No doubt the island was off the main route, or else so tiny that reduction to scale made it invisible.

I secretly prepared for my expedition, making a habit of borrowing Emma’s father’s boat. It had a shallow draught and I quickly familiarized myself with its handling. The weather was calm, my hopes high: what have I to fear from Beauty?

LILLY’S LOULOU by Michele Larue Translated by Noel Burch

My mistress abandoned me over a Chinese restaurant. There are at least twelve on la calle Cuchillo, a busy street in Havana’s barrio chino. The Cuban Chinese chefs threw thick Mexican spaghetti in their soups instead of rice noodles, which always riled my Lilly. When I heard that eight chefs were due in from Canton to teach the locals how to make genuine sharks’ fin soup, I was frightened: I myself am pink – the color of flesh, in fact – and I look a bit like a sausage. When my mistress said melted condoms had been known to replace the mozzarella on Cuban pizzas, I thought to myself that the contents of a condom, i.e. yours truly, might make tasty meatballs in their soup.

I’m ten inches long and an inch and a half in diameter. I’m veined and flexible like a paupiette de veau. Two alkaline batteries set me to twitching, with a choice of three speeds. For years I was Lilly’s favorite dildo. Nestled in a red velvet zip-bag next to a round-tipped candle, I toured the world in her trunk. She always flew during the off-season so that she could negotiate a whole row just for the two of us. She took me out of my case when the movie began. In the darkness, she slipped me under her panties where I started buzzing in low gear like a fly caught in a lace curtain. Lilly began to pant as she slid me sidewise under her panties and pressed me to her flesh. My hum became muffled as I drilled into the zones she chose around her clitoris, then over the little bridge of flesh to the anus. There, I skated around in circles… After a while, my mistress would heave a little sigh and drop me under the seat. She rarely reached climax in the air. When the plane landed, she would pick me up with a fistful of crumpled newspapers.

On the infrequent evenings when Lily was at home alone, I played stand-in, alternating with a black, cone- shaped competitor called Plug. I never knew much about Plug’s capabilities, but they must have been far inferior to mine. One morning, as I emerged from the bag where Lilly had forsaken me all night long, I noticed him lying on the bed. Whenever she chose me for her evening bodyguard, she told all her boyfriends she would be getting her beauty sleep at home that night. I was delighted to count among the treatments meant to make her even more desirable. As she stepped out of her bath and slipped into a slinky Chinese negligee and mules trimmed with black swan feathers, my mistress would already be planning an orgasm. Pulling back the blankets, she would stretch out on the cool percale sheets. I could feel her finger applying a male-scented gel, then the touch of her clitoris as I swung into action. She would put me down and caress herself with her fingers. Pick me up again. Arch her back to see me standing between her thighs. Her pleasure came in moans that made me feel proud. The next morning her hand would come looking for me under the sheets. She’d give me a few licks with her tongue, spit on my tip, and back to work!

When Lilly had a man in her bed, she would let me watch the lovemaking that I had, in a way, initiated. She would bring the man into the bedroom and take me out of my case. I heard the usual “it sure is big” or “just like the real thing.” Wearing the string she never removed with any partner, and for which she was known as “Lilly- string,” she rubbed me against her pink lips to make them moist. When the man tired of my collaboration, she would throw me on the carpet. But sometimes she quietly picked me up again while the man was in the shower. To finish herself off. To drench me with her juices. The mechanism would stop just in time for me to feel her spasms, and it would be my turn to feel the throbbing of my mistress’s body. Her little squeals were more audible and attractive without the sound of my motor. When the man came out of the shower, kissed her cheek, and asked, “Was it good for you, too?” it was as if he were talking to me.

My role was usually restricted to surface-work. Except for that one time in Africa, when we ran out of batteries. I had a whale of a time! My mistress took me firmly in her hand and slowly drove me nearly halfway inside of her. Never before had she thrust me thus into the sheath of her flesh. It was in Zimbabwe that I realized what Plug was for. Actually, Lilly’s cavity wasn’t my size. Her eyes had been bigger than her stomach when she