The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

I Brian

I’D ALWAYS WONDERED if my wife ever masturbated when she was alone. Since Lois worked at home, she had plenty of opportunity, but we had never discussed it.

I was almost certain she knew that I did. I subscribed to the most respectable of the so-called men’s magazines. My collection of erotic videotapes, begun during my bachelor days, now residing on the top shelf in the den, was an open secret. And she sometimes made half-joking allusions to the practice of masturbation, when she wasn’t in the mood for sex and declined my advances.

She played with herself sometimes when we made love, and I found that extremely exciting, but that was different, because I was there, because she knew that I was watching, because I was inside her as she did it.

But did she do it when she was alone? I had no idea.

That day at lunch I started to feel like I was coming down with something. Although by the time I got back from lunch, I felt all right again, I decided to go home early. It was a Friday in July and things were slow. I put a few things in my brief case and told my secretary that I was taking some work home.

Thinking it would be fun to surprise her, I unlocked the door and came into the apartment as quietly as I could. We’re lucky enough to have one of those apartments that go on forever in a pre-War building facing Prospect Park. The room she uses as her office is separated from the rest of the apartment, in what was once the maid’s quarters. When I went down the hall to her room, I found that she wasn’t there. She hadn’t mentioned that she was going out when I’d spoken to her just before lunch. Puzzled, I returned to the entrance foyer and saw that her keys were sitting on the side table, so I knew that she was home.

I realized that I was hearing the television, so I began to walk toward the den. I had only taken a step or two when I noticed that the voices seemed familiar. I stopped walking as I tried to place them. It took me a moment to recognize it as the soundtrack of one of the adult videotapes in my collection, and when I did I felt a sudden lurch in my stomach, of embarrassment and surprise and fear and anger and confusion and excitement – most of all excitement. I was very, very aroused.

The fact is, I was consumed with the desire to see what she was doing – to watch her watching that video without her knowing that I was watching her.

My heart pounding, I held my breath and looked down the hallway. From where I was standing, it appeared that the door to the den was open. The way the furniture in the room was arranged, if she was on the couch facing the television, I would be able to see her without her seeing me.

Ashamed of myself, but knowing I intended to ignore that feeling, I slipped out of my shoes and walked down the hall in my socks as quietly as I could.

I stopped just at the door to the den, as soon as I could see in. She was, as I had supposed, sitting on the couch with her back to me. I could see most of her body, but only the back and one side of her head. She would not be able to see me, even in her peripheral vision. She was wearing a loose skirt and a sleeveless blouse that buttoned up the front.

As I had thought, she was watching a videotape from my collection. The cardboard box I kept them in was on the floor next to the television. The cover of the one she was watching lay on the top of the box. She had selected one that had three or four relatively short episodes, unconnected by narrative or plot, all of one man and two women – as it happened, my favorite situation to watch. I looked at the screen, the performers were still dressed. I wasn’t sure, but I thought that it was the first episode on the tape. They – and apparently she – had just begun.

I realized that I was holding my breath, and let it out as silently as I could. I gripped the doorframe with my left hand.

Lois was watching without moving. Her left hand held the remote control for the video player. Her right hand lay on the couch beside her.

On the television, the man and the two women – one blonde, one redhead – were standing in a bedroom, embracing and kissing. The redhead, in front of the man, had unbuttoned his shirt. The blonde, standing behind him, helped him take it off, as he helped the redhead off with her blouse, her large breasts tumbling out as she unfastened her brassiere. She rubbed her breasts against his muscular chest while, behind him, the blonde took off her blouse and pressed her breasts – much smaller than the redhead’s but still very beautiful – against his back.

I ached with arousal and I longed to touch myself, but I did nothing. Lois still sat unmoving, apparently unaffected by what she was seeing.

The man was stepping out of his shoes as the redhead knelt in front of him. She unfastened his belt and loosened his pants. I thought I heard Lois sigh as the man’s penis was briefly visible, just before it largely disappeared again into the redhead’s mouth. Considering how long it was, it was amazing that she could accommodate it as well as she could. Behind the man, the blonde went onto her knees and licked the man’s buttocks. There was a close-up of the woman’s tongue running up and down the cleavage.

I heard a sigh that did not come from the television, and now, finally, I saw movement on the couch. Lois had brought her right hand under her skirt between her legs. Her left hand abandoned the remote control and was cupping her right breast through her blouse. Inside my underwear, my penis was agonizingly erect. I could not remember ever being so aroused. Still, I did not touch myself.

On the video, the man had reluctantly pulled the redhead to her feet, and was now himself kneeling in front of her. He and the blonde removed her skirt, under which she was wearing stockings and a garterbelt but no panties. Her pubic hair was trimmed into a neat line, only about an inch wide. The man and the blonde both licked her at the same time, their tongues meeting between the redhead’s labia, which she held open with both hands.

Lois shifted position on the couch and stood up. She unfastened her skirt and let it drop onto the rug in front of the couch. She sat down again and put her fingers into her panties. The sight of my wife playing with herself as she watched the same erotic video I had so often enjoyed was unbearably exciting. The skin of my face felt hot and taut.

On the screen, the blonde had taken off her skirt, and now all three performers were completely naked. They climbed onto the bed and arranged themselves into one of the many familiar configurations of such a grouping: the man was on his back; facing toward his head, the blonde straddled his mouth, and the redhead crouched between his legs with his penis in her mouth.

Ordinarily, the activity on screen would have held all my interest, but now I was even more fascinated by what my wife was doing than by the activities on the video. Lois was unbuttoning her blouse. Although I’d seen her breasts countless times, I now waited with almost maniacal anticipation. With one hand, she unfastened the front clasp of her brassiere and pushed the cups aside. I sighed silently to see her milky breasts, the nipples puffy and dark. She pinched them, one at a time, and made them hard. I exhaled silently and squeezed the doorframe harder.

On the video the trio had rearranged themselves. Now the blonde had turned around and straddled the man in the opposite direction. Curled over him, she joined the redhead in licking and mouthing his penis.

Lifting her hips, Lois used both hands to slip her panties off. I caught a brief glimpse of her beautiful bottom before she sat down again. Now I could see her finger move up and down along one side of her clitoris, as she sometimes did while I was inside her.

I was paralyzed with arousal and indecision. I wanted to continue watching, and I was ashamed of my voyeurism. I wanted to reach for myself, timing my orgasm to coincide with hers, and I wanted to end the agony of desire and make love with her. And what would happen if she noticed my presence? Would she be angry? Embarrassed? Ashamed? Excited? Amused? What would happen, especially, if I announced my presence by reaching orgasm, as might happen now at any moment?

Of course, I could try to steal away as quietly as I had come, and then return to the apartment at my normal time. I glanced down at the crotch of my pants, comically distorted by my erection, and decided that that was not a sensible idea. I could, perhaps, retreat to another part of the apartment, wait until I heard her turn off the television and put everything away, and then pretend to arrive home.

I was kidding myself: I wasn’t going anywhere. As to what would happen when she realized I’d been watching her, I’d take my chances.

Between her legs, her fingers were moving faster. She lifted her feet to the edge of the couch and let her knees fall apart. It looked like she had inserted her fingers into her vagina and was using her thumb on her clitoris. I had never seen her do anything like that, and my groin tightened, my testicles feeling charged and ready to burst.

On the screen, the performers had changed positions again. Now, the two women were side by side on the bed, both on their knees and shoulders. Awkwardly, they kissed and caressed each other as the man, behind them, moved back and forth, stroking his long penis a few times in the one before quickly moving to the other. The soundtrack was filled with women’s sighs.

Lois was sighing along with them. I ducked back into the hallway as she changed position again, and then cautiously peeked in to see that she was now standing on her knees on the couch, her left hand reaching between her legs from behind, her right from in front, both moving frenziedly.

I could no longer resist, and almost without thought I took a step forward into the room. At that moment, the sighs and the groans from the television reached their peak. There was a close-up of the man withdrawing his penis and ejaculating, moving his penis back and forth so that his semen would fall on both women’s buttocks. The two women, each with one hand in the other’s labia, reached or pretended to reach their climaxes, too.

As I walked toward her, Lois’ hands stopped for a moment, and then moved even more quickly, and her entire body shuddered powerfully. Her orgasm was a beautiful sight, familiar yet suddenly completely new, and more arousing than ever.

Suddenly I was coming, too, and I was sorry I wasn’t inside her. I reached her just as the last spasm coursed through me. I took her in my arms as I felt the thick wetness spreading against my groin. I kissed her deeply, running my hands over her wonderful naked body.

If she was surprised or embarrassed, she didn’t indicate it. Still kissing her, I struggled out of my pants. We lay down on the couch without speaking and I entered her, still hard, more aroused than ever, my fluids mixing with her fluids. We let the videotape continue to play, now on the next episode, as we made love.

II Lois

For all the usual reasons that seem to come up after five years of marriage, Brian and I hadn’t had sex in a few days, and after he’d left for work, I went back to bed and quickly made myself come. It left me feeling unsatisfied, and I was thinking about Brian all morning.

Brian called me just before lunch, as he usually did, and we had a brief, routine conversation. I wanted to ask him if he still loved me, but I didn’t. Did he know that I made myself come when I was home alone? Did he wonder? Would it make him upset to know that I did, or would it excite him? I wished we could talk about things like that.

I called him in the early afternoon, telling myself I wanted his opinion about some work that I was doing, but really just because I wanted to hear his voice again. I was surprised when his secretary told me that he’d just left for home. He hadn’t said anything about leaving early when I’d spoken to him in the morning. I asked his secretary if he was feeling sick, and she told me he’d seemed fine. I wondered if he was having an affair.

I doubted it, but the idea had made me angry and afraid and excited at the same time. I’d really done no work at all in the hour since I’d hung up the phone. I wanted to make myself come again. I thought about Brian discovering me in the middle of making myself come, and the thought only made me hotter.

If he’d really left from home when he’d told his secretary he was leaving, he’d be home at any minute. If not – if not, it didn’t matter.

I wandered through our ridiculously large apartment, on my way back to our bedroom.

Of course, I knew Brian jerked off regularly. Ninety per cent of men admit it, another nine per cent lie about it, and there’s something wrong with the other one per cent. Brian was a reluctant member of the ninety per cent. Whenever I teased him about it, he seemed embarrassed. Sometimes when I walked in on him in the bathroom without knocking, I found him suddenly careful to keep the towel around his waist, which he normally never was. He subscribed to a high-class girlie magazine, although he claimed to be interested in the articles. But he had never gotten rid of the collection of porno videos he’d accumulated before I met him, and from time to time I’d notice that the carton he kept them in had changed position on the shelf in the closet in the den. Sometimes I’d wake up in the middle of the night to find his side of the bed empty and the sound of the television coming from the den. I might have assumed that he was just watching late-night TV or a real movie, but you don’t watch a real movie going back and forth between fast forward and normal speed.

I had reached the doorway to the den. I suddenly realized that I wanted to let him find me watching one of his porno tapes – that is, if he was really coming home. If he was off having an affair, then the hell with him. I’d just watch without him.

As I went to the closet, I felt frightened and excited. It reminded me of once when I was a child and I entered a toystore to shoplift a doll my mother wouldn’t get for me. I’d been too afraid to do it, and I rushed out to the street sure that everyone in the store knew what I’d been planning to do.

Now I had the courage to carry my plans through, at least as far as taking the cardboard carton down from the shelf and opening it up. There seemed to be a lot more tapes than when I’d first seen it, two years before we got married. Was I misremembering? I picked up the one on top and looked for the copyright notice. The tape was from the previous year: he’d gotten it recently. So he’s still buying these things, I thought, unsure what to feel. At least, I supposed, it was better than him having an affair. As if, I contradicted myself, he couldn’t do both.

I looked at the pictures on the box. There were two pictures each of four different threesomes, each consisting of a man and two women. Almost every man’s favorite fantasy, for reasons I’ve never really understood, and apparently Brian was no exception.

The setting was the same in each of the pictures: a bedroom. The decor was modern American motel.

The men all looked more or less alike: in their late twenties or early thirties; reasonably slim and fit; not particularly handsome; and endowed with a large cock. I wondered why the men in porno videos always had enormous cocks. I’d thought men were always worried about the size of their cocks. Wouldn’t the sight of such large ones make them worry more? I realized that the men watching were supposed to identify with the performers in the videos, rather than compare themselves with them, but it seemed unlikely. Whenever I saw a beautiful woman in a movie, it sure didn’t make me feel more beautiful. How, I wondered, did Brian feel about seeing such large cocks? And how would he feel if he saw me making myself come as I watched these men with cocks so much larger than his own?

The women were a lot more varied: the first threesome included a redhead with enormous breasts and a blonde with breasts I considered normal – no larger than my own; the second threesome, two brunettes, one large-breasted, one small-breasted; the third, two blondes, one large-breasted, one with average breasts, both without hair on their pussies; and the fourth, a blonde and a brunette, both large-breasted.

The pictures showed the threesomes having sex, and they were completely explicit. I had never found pictures like that exciting. I’d rather look at a photograph of a beautifully prepared meal than a close-up of someone’s open mouth while they’re chewing. Like most women, I suppose, I don’t usually find pictures of cocks and pussies very exciting. But the thought that Brian watched these things made the pictures enticing.

Still feeling somewhat like the child who’d resolved to shoplift a doll, I turned on the TV and the VCR and put the cassette in the machine. Taking the VCR remote control with me, I sat down on the couch and started the tape rolling.

After I fast-forwarded through the credits, the first episode began. It starred the threesome featuring the redhead and the blonde.

As the sequence began, the three of them were still dressed, and I used the remote control to pause the tape. I felt a little ridiculous. Why did I want to make myself come watching Brian’s porno video? What if he did walk in on me while I was doing it? I sat and wondered whether I really wanted to go through with this, or whether I should just put everything away and wait to see if Brian was coming home or not.

I stared at the threesome on the screen, caught in the middle of an uncomfortable-looking embrace, and could not decide what to do.

Just then, I heard a faint sound from the front of the apartment. It was Brian unlocking the door. I sighed in relief, realizing that my fears of his having an affair had been ridiculous.

He closed the door. It seemed he was being unusually quiet, as if he was trying to surprise me. I smiled to myself. One way or another, he was the one who was going to be surprised.

The situation I’d put myself in was even more ridiculous. I had no time to put everything away. I listened to Brian’s footsteps grow softer as he seemed to walk down the hall to my office, and then grow louder again as, I guessed, he returned to the front hall. Not finding me in my office, he’d explore the rest of the apartment. Without question, he’d find me within a few seconds.

I looked at the screen again. The performers were still frozen, and so was I.

But I’d be damned if I’d be caught in the middle of putting the tapes away – it would look like I’d just finished watching, rather than just begun, and if I was to be found guilty of the crime, so to speak – and what else would he possibly think? – I might as well enjoy the fruit of it.

So I pressed the play button. The performers continued their insipid conversation. It seemed that they were improvising the dialogue. They were terrible actors, but I wasn’t paying too much attention to them because I was trying to figure out what Brian was doing.

His footsteps grew a little louder. He seemed to have reached the main hallway, which leads toward the bedroom and the room we use as our den. His footsteps stopped, and then, after a moment, resumed, but much more quietly. He had taken off his shoes! He really was trying to sneak up on me!

I felt indignant, although this situation was what had made me so hot to imagine. I still didn’t know what to do. I had the dangerous sense that I was no longer in control. I was watching myself as if watching someone else, and I had no idea what I would do next.

The tape played on. The three performers had, mercifully, stopped talking, and bad music was playing as they kissed and fondled each other with all their clothes still on.

Keeping as still as I could, I listened to Brian sneak up the hall in his stockinged feet. It made me furious, and it made me hot.

I could no longer hear any movement from the hall. In the television screen, I could see a small reflection of part of the doorway. I could only see a little of one leg. I couldn’t see his face, but I knew that he was watching me. He wasn’t trying to subtly let me know he was there, and he wasn’t boldly walking into the room, either. He wanted to watch me. He wanted to watch me watch his porno tape. He wanted to see what would happen. He wanted to watch me make myself come.

In an instant, the entire scene unfolded in my mind. I saw myself already naked on the couch, using both hands on my pussy, watching the porno, as Brian stood in the doorway, his pants at his knees, his fist around his hard cock. Imagining all that, I think I was unable to suppress a sigh.

If that’s what he wants, I thought, that’s what he’ll get. But I was still frozen, unable to move.

I had always thought of making myself come as something very private and special, my little secret. When, at the age of thirteen, playing in the bathtub with one of the shower sprayers on the end of a flexible hose, I had first discovered how to do it, I had actually thought I had invented it, and that I was the only one in the entire world who did it. When I learned that it was completely normal, at first I just didn’t believe it, and then I was disappointed. I still liked to pretend I was a young teenager discovering how to do it for the first time. I liked to tease myself, as if I didn’t know exactly how to make myself come.

Sometimes when I needed the extra stimulation, I’d touch myself a little while Brian and I were having sex, but I didn’t like to do that – I was afraid he’d feel that he wasn’t adequate to satisfy me. And somehow that didn’t count – it didn’t have anything to do with the private act I kept for myself.

Now I wanted to show that act to him, but hot as I was, I was still doing nothing. Why couldn’t I take even the first step? What was I afraid of?

The performers in the video were making a lot more progress than I was. I had never seen anything like what was happening on the screen. Both women were naked to the waist. The redhead, her large breasts waving to and fro, knelt in front of the man and took his cock out of his pants. It looked even larger on the television than in the pictures on the box. Incredibly, the redhead put most of it in her mouth. Even more incredibly, rather than gagging and choking, she seemed to be enjoying it.

The blonde was kneeling behind the man and kissing and licking his butt. In case anyone might have missed the point, the camera cut to a close shot of the woman’s tongue moving up and down between his cheeks.

Where do they come up with these ideas? I asked myself. In seven years with Brian, I had never thought of doing something like that – and I had never gotten the idea that he was hoping I would. But maybe he was. Maybe he was secretly longing for me to stick my tongue up his butt. I thought I should be outraged at the very idea, but I wasn’t. In fact, I couldn’t believe how hot I was.

Almost without being aware of it, I reached under my skirt. My panties, soaking wet, had ridden up into my pussy, and they were tickling me. I just need, I told myself, to adjust them.

But as soon as my hand was at my pussy, I realized I was fooling myself. I’m really going to go through with this, I admitted to myself with a sigh. In fact, I was afraid it would all be over too quickly: I was already ready to come. Through my panties, my pussy felt hot and soft and full, like your eyes just before you start to cry. My breasts ached, and with my other hand I began to touch them.

I was so hot that I didn’t know what I wanted. I wanted to close my eyes and I wanted to keep watching the porno tape. I wanted to make myself come as fast as I could, and I wanted to make it last forever. I wanted Brian to come into the room and make love to me, and I wanted him to stand there and watch me as I drove him completely crazy.

Was Brian as hot as I was? How could he just stand there? I wanted to turn and look at him, but I just kept staring at the television, where the man and the blonde were both kneeling in front of the redhead and licking her pussy.

Was Brian looking at the television, or looking at me? The thought that he might be watching the tape instead of me got me angry again. I’ll give him something to watch! I thought.

Careful not to look in Brian’s direction, I stood up and unfastened my skirt. It dropped to the floor, and I sat down again. Imagining Brian’s face as he watched me, I slipped my fingers under the elastic of my panties and onto my pussy. It was all I could do not to come.

In the porno tape, the threesome were busy arranging and rearranging themselves, like skaters going through their required figures. I couldn’t believe all the positions they found. I couldn’t believe that people actually allowed themselves to be filmed doing what they were doing. The screen was filled with mouths and hands and breasts and pussies and cocks and butts.

I couldn’t believe how hot it was making me. I got out of my top and opened my bra. It felt good finally to have my hands on my bare breasts. Watch this! I thought, and pinched the nipples, rolling them between my thumb and let my forefinger, as I’d just seen the redhead do on the tape. Each time I did it, a jolt of electricity ran down my body into my pussy.

Suddenly I didn’t care that much about what Brian was seeing or feeling or doing. I just knew that I had to come. I stood up and took off my panties. My juices were all over my pussy lips. I couldn’t believe how wet I was. I sat down again and rubbed myself in just the right place.

Usually, I didn’t put my fingers inside myself. But on the screen, the two women were up on their knees, kissing each other and playing with each other. Behind them, the man was taking turns, going back and forth between them. There were close-ups of his big cock going from one pussy to the other. It made me feel empty inside, and I brought my feet up and let my legs fall apart and stuck two fingers inside and put my thumb on my clit.

It felt great, and I was almost there, but I wanted to feel it from behind, like the women. I got up onto my knees and reached behind myself and used both hands at once.

On the tape, everybody was coming. The man pulled out of the redhead and his cock began to spurt. He used his hand to make his come land all over the women’s butts. The women were groaning and shaking and heaving.

Just at that moment, I heard a footstep, and suddenly I was filled with embarrassment, as if it was my mother who’d caught me, rather than my husband. Ridiculously, my hands stopped moving, as if I could deny what I was doing.

But it was too late. I was already starting to come. If I didn’t keep stroking myself right then, it would be a fizzle instead of an explosion, but I would still come. After all that, I had to save it. I moved both hands as quickly as I could. I came so hard I think I passed out for a moment. The next thing I knew, Brian had his arms around me, kissing me, running his hands over me. I couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so passionate. He lay me down on the couch, and he got out of his clothes like a magician. I glanced down at his cock and saw the semen smeared all over its head: he’d come in his pants, just from watching me. The thought made me hot all over again. And he was already hard again, or he’d never gotten soft. Either way, he entered me easily. He felt huge, as big as the man in the video. We didn’t even bother to turn off the porno tape.