The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica. Volume 3

Truly Scrumptious by Mark Ramsden

It is not that socially acceptable, yet, to talk about male domination of submissive females. It still looks a bit nasty to the uninitiated – because many educated people are still in thrall to the 1970s idea that men are all secretly Jack the Ripper. They seem to think, because of some bad-tempered college girls, that the hand-spanking of a willing female leads inexorably to torture and murder. And I’ve just breathed further life into what should be a rotting corpse by now. Never mind. I was a lettuce-eating liberal myself once, before reality reasserted itself. Even I need to have a disclaimer before I can tell you about gently warming Truly Scrumptious’s tight little bottom cheeks with the palm of my right hand. While slowly insinuating the fingers of my left hand into her moistening cleft until… but that would rob the moment of why it was so interesting in the first place. If we don’t know who Truly Scrumptious is, none of the other stuff would matter particularly. And it’s not the same if you’re not just a little bit in love, now is it?

Her real name is Holly but I wanted to give her a new name; Truly – as in Truly Scrumptious. My son had recently forced me to watch Chitty Chitty Bang Bang far more often than was good for me. The name of the attractive nanny seemed to fit her very well – as she was and is gorgeous – although I didn’t learn the “true” significance of “Truly” until later. Her habit of telling the truth, always, no exceptions, was refreshing but sometimes made you long for the traditional system of saying whatever caused the least grief.

I lost my heart to Truly on our second meeting.

I was already smitten the first time I saw her, when she walked on stage during a slave auction at an S/M club. She had short black hair cut any old how. Her smile was wide and salacious, full-lipped with a cute little gap in her front teeth. Some of the others were arranged in the traditionally haphazard British manner. I found this honest and endearing, like her charity shop clothes. I might have a shaven head and some serious tattoos but I’m an old hippy at heart – like my wife, Katrin. And like Truly. Although they are younger and considerably easier on the eye.

Even in a night club Truly wore almost no make-up and her only accessory was a school prefect’s badge on her jacket lapel. The lettering read “Perfect” instead of “Prefect”. I couldn’t argue with that.

Her blue eyes seemed to be saucers full of nourishing liquid. Or were they shot glasses full of some ferociously strong hooch? I had been off the hard stuff for some time, being married. But you never really get over the craving, you just decide life’s smoother without it. Or you keep telling yourself that till you believe it…

After my wife and I had bought her company for the price of a few pints of foul British beer we had the option of some lewd chastisement – to which she had already assented as part of the auction. But instead we talked about what it felt like to offer yourself to strangers. Even in the safe confines of a fetish club it was still an edgy thing to do.

Then we talked of her recent romantic entanglements. She preferred sex with other women’s men. It seemed to me that this bizarre preference was in order to shield her from commitment, although she dressed it up in a lot of nonsense about breaking the shackles of conventional morality and no one being anyone else’s property. Fine. But not everyone believes in what used to be called free love. In fact, very few people do. Not only is there no such thing as a free lunch there may not be free love either. Although you probably have to be over a certain age to find that out.

Later that evening I dipped my head between her legs and licked and nuzzled her for what seemed an eternity – time having melted due to some pure MDMA powder, a substance that had yet to drive me mad with overuse. That would come later… or was it the loss of Truly Scrumptious that pushed me over the edge? This was long before the blizzards of e-mail, the endless phone calls, the hopes, the wishes, the dreams.

The day after the auction Truly Scrumptious turned up at our flat. She looked different in daylight, but still warm and cuddly and smart and cute and lovely in a manner that was hers alone. There can sometimes be nasty surprises when you meet people who have bewitched you in the flattering light of night clubs. Especially with the aid of Ecstasy. Luckily she was still beautiful. Her features were still fine enough to stand being foregrounded by the scruffy student haircut. I was already very fond of her by the time she had sat her bejeaned bottom down opposite me.

Over freshly ground coffee we discussed, briefly, bands I had never heard of, politics I had long since abandoned and why consumerism meant the end of the planet. I had lived long enough to prefer central heating to squats with broken windows so I let her talk. And I had thought the same at her age so I couldn’t really complain.

She might have disdained consumerism but seemed to like trying out whatever new therapy had just been invented – the more the merrier. Although they didn’t seem to fix whatever it was that was wrong with her. She worked for a charity but played very hard indeed – sex, drugs, fags, booze. Truly had a light Northern accent but appeared to have a vaguely genteel background. Just like me. And she was actually scanning her way through our many bookshelves.

“You’re a writer!” she said, eyes shining.

“Not any more,” I said. But not so retired that I don’t want people to read what I have already produced. My books are left where our visitors can see them. No one ever picks them up. But Truly had found one of the novels and was flicking through it avidly.

“What are you writing now?” she said. She actually wanted to know. I was already lost – not yet “in love” – but afflicted with something or other. Something heart-shaped anyway.

“I packed it in,” I said. “But you write.” She raised her eyebrows.

“How did you know?”

Probably because anyone other than an aspiring writer would have ignored the book. She was looking a little awestruck. I was obviously psychic. It is amazing what you can do with a bald head and a bit of enigmatic silence.

“You keep a journal,” I said. It seemed a safe bet.

“Wow!” she said. I had passed the audition. I would be able to sort out her life.

“Where’s Katrin?” she asked. “I really like her.”

“She’s whipping an old tart called Ernest,” I told her. Although I didn’t mention that this was an entirely financial arrangement. Or that Ernest still wore fishnet stockings at the age of 72.

“You have an open marriage?” asked Truly, surmising correctly.

“For S/M play, yes. And we discuss everything. No secrets. Playing is fine. I don’t do intercourse. You have to keep something for your primary partner. But playing lasts much longer anyway. So it’s not so much of a sacrifice, anyway.”

A wicked little smile slowly spread as she sees the logic of this.

“She’s out?”

“Yes. Till tonight.”

“And she won’t mind, then?”

“No,” I said. For this is what Katrin had said that very morning. Although she may not have actually meant it, of course.

“I can be a slut, then?” she asked. She was easing into her minx persona. The bad girl who was about to use her body in ways that would have broken her mother’s heart. I blame Roman Catholicism myself. Although, as it produces a regular supply of especially wicked women, perhaps we shouldn’t complain too much.

Her eyes widened. Her lips were moist. After a flirtatious shake of head sideways she gave me the full moon eyes back again. They were big and blue, although the whites were strewn with red wreckage. This was a reminder that she had a plentiful supply of her own demons. Perhaps she didn’t always like what we were about to do. But was driven to do it anyway.

She stood up and kicked her red Converse sneakers off. Then eased her jeans and knickers down. She laughed as she threw her T-shirt in a corner and unhooked a bra that was never going to feature in a lingerie catalogue. But with firm, full breasts like hers she did not need to spend money to look stunning.

Naked, she stepped into my space. The warm scent of her breath sent the blood racing around my body. Something bigger than the two of us was setting this in motion. The force that impels sperm to impregnate a fertile womb. Well, not on this occasion, Grandma. Mother Nature was just going to have to wait. But the Devil himself was coming out to play.

“I’ve been bad,” she said, taking her voice back some decades. And jutting her lower lip out.

“You’ve been wicked, my dear,” I told her. “You need firm handling. Someone to take care of you.”

I don’t always feel comfortable mouthing these shop-worn lines. But it was what she needed to hear. Besides, I can credibly personify authority in short, sharp bursts. Particularly when there is a flawlessly pert bottom to be unveiled. With a rapidly moistening, slitted pouch peeking out from between her long, lean legs.

“Do I need a spanking, sir?” she asked, her eyes twinkling, though her voice seemed anxious.

“You certainly do,” I said. “It’s the only language you understand.”

She laid herself over my lap and sighed gently as she made herself comfortable. Some think you should start a spanking with outstretched fingers, gauging the required force of the slaps by the sighs of gratitude or the squeals of pain. I prefer a multi-disciplinary approach myself, a little of everything. A cupped palm here, a little pull and prod there. Tweaking the springy bottom flesh between finger and thumb made us both sigh. With so much moisture coagulating in her pussy cleft it seemed a shame not to put a thumb inside her. Soft sighs of satisfaction mingled with my own less than graceful groaning. We both needed this. Badly. A few more taps with my fingers and it was time to cup my hand. And strike where the curves were at their roundest.

Part of me was thinking it would be always be like this: the lover’s fallacy that strikes when the blood first drains from the head to more erogenous zones. Perhaps that’s why the rational part of the brain ceases to function. We never did get to repeat this peak moment often enough for me, but the memories still remain.

Sometimes, when lost in lust, she would turn around and pull the cheeks of her bottom apart. Do me. Do me now. I found this sort of thing passed the time quite adequately. It was an absorbing hobby. One I never got tired of. Although Truly was infuriatingly unreliable when it came to arranging our diary. Understandably enough, she was looking for a life partner and not someone to do sex with occasionally. And then there was the new age tripe. “I am choosing to experience life on a higher plane,” she would tell me, when cancelling dates to which she had only just enthusiastically assented. Still, there’s nothing like spirituality, is there? “Choosing to experience life on a higher plane”, indeed!

Even on the first day she offered herself to me I was irritated by her recommendation of some new age twaddle called “Conversations with God”, which had, needless to say, sold several million copies.

My own “Conversations with My Lord Lucifer” was unlikely to sell a similar amount, even if I ever got around to writing it. Thinking of this particular idiocy I smacked her squirming bottom three times in quick succession, hard enough to hurt the palm of my hand. I’ll give her “choosing to experience life on a higher plane”, I thought, starting to warm to my task. An indignant “hey” soon disabused me of the notion that this was acceptable behaviour.

Well, sometimes you have to do what is good for the person over your lap rather than what they think is good for them. And the warm glow spreading from her chastised cheeks appeared to be bucking her up no end. But I slowed down anyway, as the customer is always right, once they have placed their trust in you. In any case, just watching her get lost in the moment was exciting enough to make my heart pound.

“Yes! Yes! Yes! Oh, thank you! Thank you!” she said, giving sincere thanks for something for which she had waited too long. I was beginning to feel a little blessed myself. Fortunate to have found her. I stroked her slowly, front and back, until a note of desperation entered her voice.

She flirted and squirmed, finding postures that would encourage me to penetrate her. Or slap that impudent little rump of hers just a little bit harder. I was in no hurry. Although Truly appeared to disagree, urging me on by performing some frankly indecent contortions.

This may be one of the reasons Truly preferred father figures. Most young men would have come by now and be halfway out the door to boast about it in the nearest pub. Whereas, being forty-something, I don’t have the energy to scamper anywhere except here, where everything is set up just the way I like it.

While Truly got deeper into her trance I patted the reddened flesh for a while, still hardly able to believe my luck. Then a scratch of a fingernail here and there reminded her that into each life a little rain must fall. And that a little vinegar mixed with oil makes a fine combination. The sour-sweet tang of her scent was heavier now and her posture inelegant to say the least – thrusting her rump up in the air and kneading the bed-sheet with her outstretched fingers. Well, we all have needs and I’ve often done what she was doing. Tarting around on all fours demanding to be serviced. Fill me up. Fuck me. But it’s best not to answer these prayers too quickly. Stroking up and down the divide of her bottom with my left hand while keeping the soft slaps coming with my right seemed to be doing her a lot of good.

The soup was simmering nicely now. I thought boiling would spoil it. Truly seemed to disagree. She straddled my body, face down towards my feet, legs wrapped around my stomach, backing herself up towards my face as I continued to pat her with cupped hands. Harder smacks seem to be finally answering the question she posed some time ago. Her skin was rosy red, the heat spreading where it was needed most. The scent of her twin openings was a mingling of the sacred and the profane; heavenly, yet grounded on earth.

“Go on! Do it!” She was getting impatient. Coming to the boil. I kissed and licked her as she urged me on. Now the surface of her hot red bottom was moist with saliva the slaps had more effect. A mewl of distress told me to tone it down. Which I was happy to do. It was just as nice stroking and kissing the warm velvet flesh for a while before a different sort of urgent moan and upward thrust of her hips was telling me to pile on the pressure again. As I resumed the gentle but firm pitter-patter of slaps and smacks, the sounds she was making were closer to those of a hungry beast. Once she unzipped me I was no longer so aloof, not so much in control as I perhaps should have been. But, as my old Zen master used to say to me, when you are hungry you should eat. And with a hot dish in front of me, and with the chef urging me on, it was time to tuck in.

I buried my face in the cleft in her beautiful bottom while Truly took my hardness in her mouth. The sounds of guzzling and slurping competed with our grunts and groans. Once her teeth had caught my piercings once too often – which was once, actually – I yelped and withdrew. She took me in hand, rubbing me slowly up and down. Meanwhile it seemed appropriate to form the fingers of both hands into wedges to press gently inside each of her openings. Once I had done that her eyes screwed up and her mouth opened to its fullest extent. One thing that was bothering me was my wedding ring slipping off inside Truly’s warm, wet pussy. But it was too late for that now. And it would have been nice if that astral image of a disapproving Katrin could have disappeared but you can’t have everything.

Now my right hand was inside her pussy it was easy enough to wiggle my first two fingers down onto the spongy tissue which some chap claimed to be the G-spot – naming it after himself, as if Grafenberg was ever going to be a sound you would want to associate with pleasure zones.

And then there was no more time for talk. The storm enveloped us. We came. Then came to our senses, both starting to feel guilty in different ways.

Should young ladies really behave like that? And what about married men? Who were old enough to know better?

My phone alerted me to a voice message withdrawing permission for what had just happened. Although my wife had been keen enough – or apparently apathetic enough – to agree to it that very morning.

“What’s the matter?” asked Truly.

“Katrin,” I said. “She’s gone off the idea.”

I didn’t have to explain. Truly was used to the anger of wives and significant others. Was it even part of the thrill for her? Kicking Mummy out of Daddy’s bed?

I breathed in her Body Shop soap and hints of her innermost secrets still on my fingertips as she dressed, looking for ways to remember her. Just before she left she put both hands on her still glowing bottom and pushed her lower lip out. She stood with her feet turned inwards, regressing back to some time she must have felt cared for, secure.

“You’re very… thorough,” she said.

“Any time,” I said, making detailed plans for a number of futures that never happened. At least I still have her cheeky smile. Even though I had thought it was the start of something. The start of everything perhaps. Instead of a few years of near-misses and misunderstandings and trying to ignore primal urges while dealing with tearful goodbyes and endless arguing about relationships. We did have our wild moments together. Now and then. But less times than you could count on the fingers of one hand.

She’s driving someone else mad now. There isn’t a cure in sight, just yet. She rang to say she was pregnant the other day. But she couldn’t quite get her head round the concept of marrying the father just because society expected her to. So she had assented to a marriage then decided not to go ahead. After all the arrangements had been made.

When I stopped laughing at that I wondered if her parents sometimes regretted that she was now too old to spank. Or whether her new bloke took care of her in that way. Someone should, anyway. It’s the only language she really understands…