One of my passions is perfume, an art and science that has become sadly homogenised in recent years, with iconic houses like Chanel and Guerlain bowing to influences that are steadily replacing natural ingredients with synthetic alternatives. There is nothing as evocative as scent, as the French author Proust famously described. And, of course, perfume can be powerfully erotic, not just pleasing the nose but eliciting a complex and subtle cascade of responses, of mind, body and soul.
As a child, I enjoyed sitting quietly in a corner of the living room, carefully examining the wonderfully lurid cover art of the books on the shelves. Certain imagery drew me back again and again. A black and white plate illustration in The Hunchback of Notre Dame depicted a cowed Esmeralda dressed in a long white shift, a rope about her neck, holding a candle. Agatha Christie's Appointment with Death, a typically lurid 1960s paperback, with a sinister looking Arab brandishing a hypodermic syringe and a helpless blonde in a tight red dress stifling a terrified scream. Did these pictures flip some switch in my impressionable young mind or was I simply drawn to them because of an existing predilection? Ritualistic submission and humiliation. Depersonalisation - a fondness for mannequins and masks. The objectification of the damsel in distress. All food for my psyche and, much later, for my erotic prose.
Somehow I missed this Swedish kitsch pop ensemble when they were active in the late 80s/90s but recently discovered them while browsing electronic music. The video for Crucified never fails to make me smile. An anarchic blend of pansexual kink and high camp French revolutionary chic - who could resist? The perfect blueprint for gracious living...
I frequently gain inspiration for a short story or novella from chance sensory encounters; serendipitous connections made from snippets of conversation overheard, an illustration or a scene from a film. For example, my most recent novella, Making Her Pay, grew out of a liking for Ken Russell's deliciously camp horror movie, The Lair of the White Worm. Based on a novel by Irish author, Bram Stoker, best known for Dracula, the film includes a banquet of phallic symbolism and a cautionary tale of what happens to young men who accept rides from seductive older women in sports cars…
I knew it was a mistake to utter the words the moment they had escaped my lips. I stood in the drawing room doorway, frozen, entirely transfixed by the scene unfolding before my eyes. My husband was seated on the green leather sofa – the one the exact shade of the car in Tamara de Lempicka’s “Autoportrait”. His right hand was raised. And Sonia, our maid, lay across his knees, her skirt flipped right up to reveal a rather plump and exceedingly well-reddened behind.
“I thought that was rather obvious, my dear.”
As if it was the most natural and commonplace event in the world, he returned to spanking Sonia who rewarded his efforts by squealing lustily and wriggling her ample hips against his crotch. Idly I wondered if his cock was hard. But wasn’t it my cock? Wasn’t he supposed to be keeping it for me? My heart beat sturdily, making the fine cream silk of my blouse quiver in time with the young girl’s blancmange-like derriere.
“Really, Quentin…”
This time he didn’t even bother to look up but continued relentlessly applying force majeure to a pair of buttocks that had begun to look rather sore and as crimson as a bad case of scarlet fever.
“The girl needs correction and correction she will have. Be quiet, Constance. It’s time you learned your place.”
I gasped and leaned against the doorframe. Here was my dear husband of six months wrestling with the buxom nubile form of our new domestic help. Sonia was big and blonde with a rosy complexion and reminded me of a dairy maid. Her bosoms were large and I imagined that her nipples would be hard as she received her bare bottom spanking. I thought of them rubbing against her brassiere, chafing as her entire body surged against his lap. He paused and I noted that Sonia wore frilly panties, rather little girlish, layer upon layer of frothing lace. His left hand tugged at the waistband of the chi-chi undergarment, pulling it up tight. I thought of how that would feel to Sonia, all that fabric bunched up in a wad between her smooth silky thighs. With a shock I realized that I was very wet between my own legs.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
The palm of his spanking hand came down sharply and firmly against the poor girl’s writhing bottom. Some peculiar side of me began to feel jealous – no, not because my dearest had wrestled a pretty girl into an uncompromising position – but because he was meting out discipline upon her squirming, luscious posterior. I leaned against the doorframe and watched intently, mesmerized like a mongoose by a cobra.
Slap! Slap! Slap!
His hand must be made of leather. I saw poor Sonia’s face turn as scarlet as her nether cheeks. Her well-padded rear bucked and wobbled as she began to sob.
“Oh, please, sir! Oh, please! I promise I won’t do it again, sir!”
I wondered what the servant girl did to incur such stringent correction. Was there any point in requesting clemency on her behalf?
Slap! Slap! Slap!
“Mercy! Oh sir! Oh sir, it hurts so!”
“Good. It’s intended to, my girl.”
My plain satin drawers were soaking with a fragrant musky juice that seeped in time to his spanking hand. My, what a lovely bottom Sonia had, how round, how soft, how lush, how terribly sore…
“Please, Quentin! Oh please, do spank me! I can’t bear to watch this any more.”
Aghast, he ceased his punishment of the girl. They both raised their heads and I could see that her bodice was somehow undone, her enormous magnificent breasts spilled out, the nipples large and the pink of strawberry ice cream. Had he seduced her? Was her spanking a warning that she should not rebuff her master’s advances? Horrified, I took a step back, knocking over a drinks tray as I did so. A bottle of gin and two martini glasses dropped to the floor where they promptly smashed.
“Connie, you clumsy foolish girl!”
My cheeks were as rosy as the maid’s. Like a naughty child I clutched at my skirt and wished the ground would open up and swallow me. Memories of being at boarding school and receiving a slippering from Miss McKay addled my mind to a feverish degree. The aromatic smell of the gin wafted up from the parquet flooring and I swallowed hard. Quentin did so enjoy his pre-dinner cocktail.
“Fetch the dustpan and brush and clean that mess up.”
At first I assumed my husband was instructing the maid and I waited for the blushing girl to extricate herself from her position across his knees. Then I realized he was looking at me. Expectantly. With more than a hint of challenge in his steely gray eyes. Heavens.
“Dustpan? Brush? I have no idea where they are kept…”
My voice sounded squeaky, pale pink in the large and airy room where everything was in the very height of fashion. Except, it seemed, for dowdy old me.
“May I say something, sir?”
It was Sonia who spoke, her own voice a little tremulous yet somehow vaguely amused. My husband nodded.
“Go ahead.”
“If you please – madam will find the dustpan and brush in the cupboard under the stairs. Hanging on a hook at the back of the door.”
“Excellent! Run along, Connie, like a good girl. Sweep up that nasty mess.”
I blushed even harder. The humiliation of it! Surely it had to be some wicked joke. Two pairs of eyes gazed at me from the sofa. I noted how my husband’s fingers continued to stroke the warm red patches on the girl’s behind. And how she shivered every time he did so.
Stifling a sob I turned and ran into the hallway. There, in front of me, was the dreaded cupboard under the stairs, equipped, it would seem, with the means to clean up a mess. Behind me, in the drawing room, I overheard a giggle, shortly joined by a deeper laugh. They found it amusing! Hanging my head I opened the cupboard door. The dustpan and brush were there, just as the maid described. I felt a powerful urge to whip them out and throw them at my tormentors. Instead, for some reason I cannot explain, I took them down and returned to the drawing room, meekly compliant to my husband’s will. When I entered the room I almost dropped the pan and brush – for there, on my beautiful, elegant green sofa, sat my husband, fully dressed, with a half-naked servant girl dandled on his knee. He smiled, an odd predatory expression I’d never noticed before, and casually played with the girl’s full white breasts.
“Carry on, Connie. Or perhaps we should call you Cunny tonight. What say you, dear Sonia?”
The maid giggled openly, making no attempt whatsoever to either suppress her mirth or preserve her modesty. She sat, thighs spread wide, on my husband’s neatly trousered lap. It almost seemed that she reveled in my humiliation, a very similar sensation to the one I felt when bare bottom slippered by draconian Miss McKay.
“Yes, sir! I do think madam should be Lady Cunny. And she should sweep up that naughty mess she made on her hands and knees.”
My heart pounded in shame as I recalled scolding Sonia for a poor black-leading job on the dining room fireplace – how I told her that she must get down on all fours and rub like mad. My sharp words returned to haunt me as I slowly sank to my knees, clutching the dustpan and brush.
“And she should do it naked too!”
There was no stopping the girl. My husband’s eyes lit up like a beacon.
“Sonia, my dear girl, what a brilliant plan! That’s settled – Lady Cunny, take off your dress. It makes you look like a stick, anyway. Take it off and let’s see your little titties. Time they took the air.”
I knew it was a dreadful thing they wanted me to do – the devil’s work indeed – but a strange voice in my head urged me to do as they told me. The thought of being called an obscene word and baring my bosoms for my husband and a servant girl seemed (I am ashamed to admit it) to contain a peculiar allure. I unfastened my frock and felt it slip to the floor – too late! – falling into the puddle of gin.
“Clumsy Cunny!”
Sonia was crowing like a rooster on a fine June day. My husband cupped and jiggled her breasts, obviously savoring their size and weight. They looked like a brace of cantaloupe melons. I thrust my chin up, aware of my petite proportions, my resemblance to a stick. I stood before them in my best chemise and drawers, their humble servant.
“Take it all off!”
They spoke as one and then giggled together like conspiring schoolchildren. I slipped the fine lace-trimmed undergarments from my quivering body and stood before them, naked, on the rug.
“Quentin – where are her tits?”
The maid spoke in an imperious, mocking tone and my heart sank to learn that it was a parody of my own voice in a tiresome particular feminine mood. I looked down at my modest bust. The nipples were very hard. I thought, with some satisfaction, that at least they would not sag.
Submissively, I knelt before them and picked up the dustpan and brush. I would clean up the wicked mess I’d made, every last shard of broken glass. And I hoped – yes, I truly did – that Quentin would turn me over his knees and spank my bare bottom until tears filled my eyes. This thought was a revelation to me and helped immensely as I completed my task, carefully sweeping up then depositing the mess into the kitchen dustbin.
When I returned from replacing my tools upon their hook my husband had turned the maid around so she sat with her plump legs encircling his waist. His dark head dipped to suckle her fat nipples and they both ignored my reappearance in the room. I stood on the rug, quite naked, and invisible as a ghost. I cleared my throat. My husband glanced up, one eyebrow raised.
“Yes, Cunny? Did you want something?”
I kept my eyes fixed on the rug, the pattern of which had suddenly become rather fascinating.
“If you please…”
“Yes?”
“If you please, dear Quentin…”
My husband glared at me.
“Out with it! Can’t you see I’ve got far more important things to do here than listening to your incoherent mumblings?”
I flushed. Sonia wriggled and sighed contentedly. And so she should with my husband’s hands rhythmically squeezing her ample behind.
“If you please, Quentin – I would like a spanking too!”
I'm delighted to announce that my short story, The Perfect Girl, will appear in Carnal Machines, an anthology of steampunk themed erotica. To be published by Cleis Press in the spring.
I walk out into the night, wearing black, a shadow in the shadows. You’re waiting for me, not far away, lingering in the murky hinterland of the dreamscape. I seek you out, calling some veiled greeting into the darkness. Your shadow joins mine, merges like indigo ink. The moon is rising and I take your hand.
“Come with me.”
I feel like a wicked temptress; Circe luring Odysseus. My house is like an island in the gloom.
In my bedroom, a candle burns, reflected by a mirror. I kiss you and the falling sensation begins, a soft inward spiral. Your mouth tastes faintly of fruit and I suck your tongue. Your mouth mesmerizes me. Your lips are like the wings of a moth flirting with a flame; they brush my flesh with an adept delicacy that makes me arch my spine.
Never before like this…
We undress and you tell me I have lovely skin. I lie, like a white fox, snared by desire. Already I am wet, a sweet viscous pool between my thighs. Your mouth on my neck makes me writhe, an exquisite torture. I push my fingers through your hair and it slides, thick, dark and silky, sensuous.
