Best Lesbian Erotica 2010

THE PURPLE GLOVES Gala Fur Translated by Noël Burch

A cold April wind blew in from the north and through the streets of Paris, whipping the coats of passersby and the pleated skirt that Elvira was hugging to her thighs. She heard soles slapping the pavement in her wake. Elvira was a long-legged woman in her early thirties and the sensuality of her rolling gait drew men like flies. Intrigued by this new admirer’s perseverance, she turned to have a look. A pair of violet ballerina slippers with matching quilted pocketbook and gloves tapped along behind her. Today, it was a woman pursuing her along the empty sidewalk on avenue Mozart. Only a few minutes before, Elvira had caught a glimpse of the tweed-suited woman’s pallid face as she strolled arm-in-arm with their dermatologist across his waiting room. Her fellow patient had the face of a porcelain doll. The unhealthy pallor emphasized her thick black hair, which was held in place by two barrettes over the temples and swept up in a high bun.

Elvira pointed her magnetic key as if she were switching TV channels. The orange headlights on her Mercedes winked at her. She scrambled into the car and was reaching for the dashboard button that would lock the car when the passenger-side door swung out and a face appeared in the opening.

“We were together in Doctor Goult’s office. Are you heading for the Left Bank?”

There was the touch of an American accent in the stranger’s question. Instead of “Sorry, I have things to do,” Elvira heard herself replying: “I can leave you at a cabstand near l’Étoile, if you like.”

It was those sudden bursts of generosity that endeared her to her own “patients.” Elvira was a professional dominatrix. She had the gift of empathizing with the needs of her masochistic clientele. As her psychoanalyst put it, performing services for others was a vocation with her. The pushy American woman sat down beside her, those doll’s eyes staring straight ahead, holding that violet pocketbook on her lap with gloved hands. There was something unreal about her mother-of-pearl complexion. Had the dermatologist rejuvenated her? Embalmed her? Elvira had a passion for vampire stories. Driven by a morbid bulimia, she would spend her sleepless nights watching one horror movie after the other.

The Arc de Triomphe was coming into view when the woman spoke again:

“Where do you live?”

“Saint-Germain-des-Près.”

“You’re on your way home?”

“Yes.”

“I have an errand to run in your neighborhood. Saint-Germain-des-Près is a lot like the Village in New York. I live on Bleecker.”

“Oh?”

“I come to Paris regularly to see Doctor Goult.”

Elvira had known Pascal Goult for years. Tall and athletic as he was, he liked having his face slapped. In exchange, he took care of her skin. Elvira enjoyed slapping. When she was expecting a client for a slapping session, she grew terribly excited. She had to change her panties afterward because they were so wet. If she had been a hard-line dominatrix, she’d have slapped this importunate woman. Only a New Yorker is capable of acting like this, she said to herself. Instead of pulling over to the curb and ordering her out of the car, she said nothing: she was consumed with curiosity. Chance meetings always affected her this way.

At place Saint-Germain-des-Près, she called out, “End of the line!” The woman ran gloved fingers over the dashboard. Elvira reached out to open the door for her and her arm brushed against the woman’s breasts. Both were wearing the same perfume, L’Instant Magic by Guerlain.

“Be seeing you soon,” said the woman, peering through the window with a little wave of her hand.

Elvira bought fresh bread, rice, artichokes and fruit at the supermarket. As she turned her key in the lock of her apartment door, she saw the unknown woman again, ensconced in her hallway. Her smile looked as if it were painted on sticking plaster.

“I left my gloves in your car.”

The witch has probably bribed the garage attendant to get my address. Elvira suddenly had the feeling she’d seen her somewhere before. In New York, probably… A shiver ran down her spine. Was her stormy past pursuing her to her very door? She was overcome by a burst of paranoia, like one of those attacks recovered junkies sometimes experience. What if this woman’s been paid to investigate me, do me an injury, kill me? If she was merely prying into Elvira’s present means of subsistence, an expertly applied arm lock should be dissuasive enough: she would escort her out of the building by force. The woman patted her shoulder.

“Doctor Goult’s treatment has made me thirsty. Can I have a glass of water?”

Already the clever little vixen had slipped into the kitchen. Elvira turned on the tap and filled two glasses to the brim. She handed one to the woman who took a few sips, pasted on another artificial smile and began questioning her again.

“Did you have our friend the dermatologist touch up your face?”

“A shot of Botox in the bunny lines. And you?”

The woman stood looking around the room and seemed not to have heard the question. Elvira took a sip of water, drew a deep breath and took another sip, gripping the glass, ready to pounce. A Saint Andrew’s cross was propped against the living room wall. The woman gazed at it with empty eyes. Two perforated leather straps with metal buckles hung from the cross-ends. The woman balanced her glass on the edge of the sink and undid one of the mother-of-pearl buttons on her blouse. She fanned her throat with her hand. The trembling silk clung to her full, round breasts. Is Doctor Goult responsible for that perfect pair of tits? Like Elvira, she wore no bra. Her face took on a touch of humanity, a tint of old-fashioned pink, like Japanese greasepaint. The woman came up to Elvira, took her hands and pressed them to her own breasts. Elvira finished unbuttoning the light blue silk blouse and tugged at the cloth, freeing the last button from a fold in the skirt.

She bunched the woman’s breasts together and pressed them to the sternum. The woman moaned. Elvira stroked her cheek. Next, she pulled off her own sweater and dropped it on the rug. The woman gazed at Elvira’s bare bosom and murmured:

“I took a long time choosing between New York and Paris.”

“I’m happy to hear you say it. So did I. And I’m glad I made the choice I did. New Yorkers are impossible people, especially the women.”

Elvira’s voice was no longer the same. It had become sharp, authoritarian. She dug her nails into the porcelain skin leaving pink streaks on the woman’s arm, then between the two breasts which were back in place now, tips slanting toward the armpits. Throwing her weight against the other woman’s pelvis, she backed her toward the wall. Step by step, the American retreated toward the cross, quite unruffled. To make it easier for the dominatrix, she raised one arm, hand hanging limp. Elvira attached her wrist to the cross, passing the prong of the buckle through the third and last hole in the strap. The woman held up her other arm. Her head was bowed. In her rolled-up eyes, the white of the iris had supplanted the bright brown of the pupils. Their faces were almost touching. The woman looked straight at her. In her eyes, there was no trace of fear, she did not so much as blink. Arrogant bitch! They locked gazes, with the American squinting. Words fell from her lips without a twitch of her facial muscles: “I’ve just come back from a trip to Peru. Machu Picchu… Have you ever been there?”

Elvira twisted her ear with wiry fingers.

“No, I’ve never been up to Machu Picchu.”

She gripped both the woman’s nipples and twisted them clockwise. Then she dug her nails into them. The woman’s gaze began to waver. A shudder ran though her shoulders. There were creases on either side of her mouth. Her lower lip hung loose and moist. Elvira bit hard into the limp bit of flesh, meanwhile pinching her again and again, at regular intervals. Then she relaxed the pressure but left her nails where they were. The woman rose on tiptoes as if to recoil from another pinch. Elvira rubbed her hands together and without a word, slapped her twice. That did it, I’m wet as any slut! A lock of dark hair danced in front of the foreigner’s pale face. The bun was slowly coming apart, the locks of hair like snakes coming to life. Elvira seized one of the barrettes that slipped over the ear and brandished it threateningly before the woman’s eyes.

“How long have you been spying on me?”

“I don’t understand,” the woman said, exaggerating her American accent, and then sucked her lower lip

What an actress, she’s doing all she can to excite me! Elvira cheeks were burning. She dropped the barrette and pressed her sex against the American’s thigh; the other woman’s body was jutting forward like a ship’s figurehead. As she rubbed her cunt up and down on her visitor’s firm flesh, cum flowed in little spurts down her own thighs. She ran her hands over the woman’s hips, feeling for the skirt zipper. She jerked it open and pulled the skirt down around the knees. The woman wriggled.

“A skirt around the knees isn’t very stylish.”

Elvira laughed sadistically. She caught hold of lips that still bore traces of purplish lipstick in spite of all the sucking and nibbled on them. They had the sickly sweet taste of tinned litchi nuts. Now and then, she would stand back and chortle with glee. The American looked her straight in the eye. I’m going to teach this one a lesson.

Elvira seized her panties with two fingers, seamless Lycra panties, cut low over the flat hips, violet like the shoes and bag. Her own panties were twisted up inside her vulva and each of her moves deepened her excitement. She pulled the Lycra away from the woman’s white skin and slipped her hand inside. Her fingers moved downward one after the other, the way one imitates the footsteps of an imaginary character in a story told to a child. For the first time, the woman’s eyelids fluttered. She tried to fend off Elvira with her tongue, gluttonously licking her cheeks and nose. Elvira’s index finger entered the plucked slit, followed by the middle finger. Her left hand pulled the skirt down farther, leaving it crumpled around the woman’s calves. She inserted three crooked fingers and pushed upward. With each to and fro, her wrist rubbed against the woman’s bare belly. Another finger entered the gaping vagina, then the thumb and finally the whole hand. Elvira’s torso was pressed against the woman’s bosom. The woman gave a cough, not a real cough but an imitation meant to contract the belly and eject the churning fist inside her, but it was no use.

Elvira leaned forward, took one of the breasts in her mouth and began sucking on it vigorously. She moved her head back and forth, mouth wider and wider till it touched the rib cage, engulfing the whole apple of flesh. The woman’s closed eyelids quivered. Drops of saliva dribbled from her mouth. She moaned in time to Elvira’s fist and mouth and came with a long scream, neck stretched, eyes suddenly open and staring at the ceiling beams. Elvira sighed.

“In my study, there is a plane ticket to Lima. I just purchased a week’s excursion up to Machu Picchu. How could you know about that?”

Lips pursed as if to keep from replying, the woman rattled her wrists in their straps. Elvira released her and closed the light blue silk blouse. The woman pulled up her panties and skirt, picked up the jacket and pocketbook she had laid on a kitchen stool and left. Elvira snatched up the phone and called Dr. Goult.

“What was the name of the American woman I saw in your waiting room as I left your office?”

“I don’t know whom you mean. What did she look like?”

“About my age, dark brown hair, with violet shoes and matching handbag.”

But the dermatologist had seen no American patient that day. Elvira put her hand over her pounding heart, took a deep breath, jumped up and hurried down to the third level of the garage beneath her building. She opened the door of the Mercedes and searched the passenger’s seat and the dashboard compartment. No gloves. Yet she distinctly remembered the woman wearing them when she got into the car. The attendant had given out no information about the person renting space #353. Nor had he seen a brunette in a tweed suit.

The next day, when Elvira described the incident to her analyst, he told her to stop being so hard on herself.