The Mammoth Book of International Erotica

THE GIFT by Stella Duffy

HE HAD GONE to work. Finally gone to work after the morning ritual – pulling, dragging, wrenching him from sleep, I had parcelled him off, pressed him into his work clothes, packaging him into Anyman for another day. I stayed in the small weatherboard house, stuck in the small thin house, close and hot in early morning humidity.

Summer lingers into late damp March.

The kids – breakfasted, shouted at, washed, cried, dressed, tears dried, lunch packed, cuddled, kissed – finally at school. And outside grey drizzle fell steaming on a morning of screaming children and red angry women hidden in identical versions of the same day. All rubber gloved. All staring out of kitchen windows. Through dusty glass there never was time to wash, out on to the same grey green back gardens as the same thick rain beat on the same rusting tricycle.

But for me there is a knock at the door.

I opened the door. It was a woman. Six foot, covered in leather. Skin-tight worn leather legs, rising from heavy black boots buckles gleaming, muscled calves and smooth thighs – sinews marking the line of touch to her waist. A silver belt, two inches wide and detailed, symbols circling her torso. Cropped jacket, topped with black helmet and shiny mirror glasses. I see myself in the covers of her eyes.

I stare at the vision, the mouth the only exposure, big soft lips parted, saying something unclear, and then -

“So I wondered if I could come in? Until it stops raining… it’s not really safe out here, slipping… and sliding.”

She is Maori and takes off her boots, leaving them at the door and walks barefoot into the hall, padding into the hall. It seemed larger, as if growing to accommodate this woman. This Woman. She went through the kitchen door, removed her gloves and, with the light behind her lifted off her helmet, shaking out an elbow’s length of hair.

The Woman sat. Brown eyes deep and heavy lashed grinning at me, wide set above a broad soft nose. Her lips maroon red and wide and full like a welcome stain. There is a faint moko on her chin. Like it is just growing in. Like it comes from inside out.

I ask where from. I ask why. The Woman begins to answer me, her voice coming low and soft as a half smile.

“… and Sarah, is there coffee? It wasn’t far, but I am wet…”

I made coffee.

(She knows me. She named me.)

The kettle on, I watched as the Woman lifted off her jacket – muscled arms hanging the heavy article on the back of the chair – and straightened her dark red shirt.

She stretches forward, flings back her hair like an unwanted bedsheet.

She, swinging on her chair so I can’t help but follow my thoughts to her breasts, smiles at me. Smiles, rising and falling in thin silk.

We drank coffee in silence.

The coffee cups drained, sat side by side on the kitchen table. I picked them up, added more hot water and watched the cups sink beneath a blanket of soap suds and scattered sodden cornflakes.

Yellow gloved I slid my hands beneath the water.

The Woman slid her hand along my arm.

The water through the glove is warm. Its pressure holds the glove against my hand.

The Woman’s hand is warm. The pressure of her lips on my neck holds my breath inside my lungs.

The Woman is warm outside. I am warm inside.

But my skin shivered in expectation and surprise and unsurprise, in awareness and willing ignorance.

The cups sit side by side on the draining board.

A fingernail-full of soap bubbles slides down the side of the cup.

The Woman slides down the side of me.

My leg is smooth. So is the Woman’s touch.

So is her mouth.

I fumbled with my gloved hands, stripped myself of kitchen yellow.

Ungloved, my hands were naked.

I will be soon.

One glove falls, thumb filling with water.

Turns. Sinks.

As does She.

As do I.

And now hands which have been soft become sharp and lithe and everywhere, all over me, strong hands writhing and seething, and pulling at my hair, pinching my nipples, in my eyes, my ears, mouth, cunt, deep for me. Softest-in-the-world lips to breasts, mean teeth clawing their way through my thin skin. I am hip bone impaled. Ten long fingers everyplace at once, entangling my hair, toes clawing, not caressing but harassing hard and sharp and constant and overwhelming and she is touching me she is making me and she is wanting me and I am wanting too until wanting becomes hard and solid, wanting is made woman, is made flesh in our joining and into the exquisite agony of persistent touch I am teased taunted bullied goaded, into orgasm, into bloody bitter piercing coming and I cry out and I arch and I am the same shudder and am those long hands on which my body centres itself pivoting and am those dark eyes and am and am no more and I am.

In bed, I studied the Woman. Long and wide and full. Colour glancing off her body like shaded sunlight. Heavy as warm oil. The Woman had brought food – avocados from the Philippines and melon from Fiji, strawberries and fat grapes. Summer fruits and autumn night closing outside.

Sated, we turned to the window as the first sky rocket touched its zenith.

Someone else was putting on a firework show, unwittingly and intentionally for the sole pleasure of the Woman and me. A single silver light climbed, disappeared for a second and became seven white stars. Points of green exploded into solid, starred orbs. It went on.

It goes on. She and I sit spellbound. There is no “as if”. The display is for us. The last rocket falls.

The Woman falls to me. Falls in my lap. Lapping. Lapped. I stretch my hand through the Woman’s hair and find they are not tresses or curls, but locks. I am locked in. Single strands of long black hair twist and bind me to the Woman. Lock me to the Woman.

I don’t want to look for the key.

The room is bigger and the bed softer than it was before.

Before the Woman.

I lie in the Woman’s arms.

The Woman lies in my arms.

But this is the Truth.

We sleep with the Southern Cross carved into our eyelids and in the morning are rainlight wakened.

And he never came back.

And they never came back.

And the Woman stayed forever.

And it was real.

It is real.

Because I say it is.

She and I are the word made flesh. Make the word flesh.

Because I say so.