From Scylla, author of Short Tales of Exhibitionism, comes nine brand new tales of lovers – unlikely encounters, amateur prostitution, sex snatched in secret moments and fear of heights. From slut wives to sleeping with your friends, Love Bombs explores the edgy thrill of infidelity. These explicit and perceptive stories are a must for anyone who has ever dreamed of breaking a promise. Get ready to be blown apart.
Review: Explosive stuff --It is hard to say exactly why Scylla’s stories are so good. Somehow she always manages to hit a chord. I think it is because her tales are always infected with a wicked psychological excitement that is often hard to find in mainstream erotica. For Scylla sex is never normal - it is always a transgression, a catastrophe, a compulsion - something extraordinary that happens to ordinary (and not so ordinary) people. Scylla has the knack of getting inside the experience of desire. She doesn’t shy away from emotion or pathos and knows that what happens in the head is just as important as what happens in bed (or in a garden shed, an alley or a London taxi). The stories here are gritty in their themes - they deal with adultery, with promiscuity, with physical and emotional jealousy, with sexual indecision and even (in Executive Decision) with a kind of loveless sex that borders upon rape. (As one of her characters says, ‘everybody should think the unthinkable from time to time.’) Her preoccupation in several of the stories (particularly in Milo, Vertigo and A Friend in Need) is with the frightening frisson that arises when a person dares, with or without their partner’s consent, to risk sex outside their relationship. The potentially explosive consequences of such an act are the love bomb of the title. This is honest writing of a very high quality – confident, poetic and perfectly pitched. I came to this collection from reading her excellent Late Night Confessions series, but Love Bombs shows she is a master of the short story too. Scylla’s descriptions of sexual encounters are sensual and highly erotic, they are never sugary or cloying but are rather bitter sweet and utterly compelling. In my opinion she is one of the best writers of erotica around.
EXTRACT
A Friend in Need
I stare at him as I dress. He is beautiful – his breathing slow,
his skin brown against the white hotel linen, his arms around the
bundled quilt, embracing it as though it was a woman. I bend over him
and kiss his cheek. Above his jaw-line, his skin is downy and smooth.
Standing at the foot of the bed, I wave goodbye. Then I tuck my
knickers into his sports bag, pick up my heels, tiptoe across the room
and step out into the corridor. I hang the `do not disturb` sign on
the brushed aluminum doorknob. I want him to sleep until morning.
Turning into the corridor, I see a figure ahead of me. It is a male
figure. A tall man, hunched forward, trying to pull shut a bedroom
door without making a sound. His shirt is untucked and his jacket is
slung over one arm. We head toward each other, converging on the
lift, both of us with the tentative gait of conspirators, both of us
with our shoes in our hands. In front of the lift doors, we bend
together to slip on our footwear like a pair of farmers pulling on our
Wellington's before going out to milk the cows. The potential for
farce is not lost on either of us. When we straighten up, I catch his
eye. He grins back at me. He is bright and perky, blue-eyed and
clean-shaven with an appealingly mischievous curl to the corner of his
mouth. He takes in my pillow-ruffled hair, my skewed skirt and
misaligned blouse.
`Making an early exit?` I ask.
He raises his eyebrows in mock exasperation.
`Fetish,` he says. `She was getting weird.`
The lift doors pull open in front of us. He steps back to let me in
first. We stand facing each other on either side of the
claustrophobic box. We are multiplied in the mirrored walls. It
feels crowded in here.
`What about you?` he asks as the doors hiss shut.
`Married,` I say. `I've got to get home.`
`Me too,` he says.
He glances down towards his feet and checks his watch, then keeping
his jacket folded over his right arm, he starts to tuck his shirt back
into his trousers.
`How weird?` I ask.
He turns to the mirrored wall and starts to adjust his collar. I
notice the tip of his tie peeking out from the pocket of his
trousers.
`Too weird for me. Too weird for a one-night stand. In my book, you
have to know someone before you let them tie you up.`
He hesitates and slings a wary glance towards me.
`That's not your thing, is it?` he says.
`No. I'm just a straightforward adulterer,` I reply.
He laughs. It is a generous, deep-throated laugh.
`But I have got a tattoo,` I add.
`Yeah?`
He peers carefully at my shoulders and then down at my legs.
`Where?` he asks.
I smile. His curiosity pleases me. After all, when I tell a man I
have a tattoo, I am inviting a degree of speculation.
`Here,` I say.
I touch my fingers low down on my stomach, on the right hand side
just above my groin. He raises his eyebrows.
`She had a snake,` he says, `a snake with big venomous fangs, it
wound all the way around her left arm.`
`Who did?`
`Brunhilde.`
He nods his head upwards towards the upper stories of the hotel.
`Not her real name, I suppose?`
`No, I shouldn't think so.`
He shifts his weight from foot to foot and grips his jacket tighter
around his wrist.
`You know, I never thought to ask what she had in her backpack. It
just didn't occur to me, not until we got upstairs.`
The lift groans to a stop and the doors wheeze open onto the over-lit
foyer. Neither of us moves immediately. We both feel the anticlimax
of being back on ground level. Outside, an elderly man is waiting for
the lift; he's very dapper; he is dressed in a suit and has a
carnation in his button hole.
`What?` I say. `What was in the backpack?`
The elderly gentleman moves towards us; he is only a foot or two away
and looking impatient. The man raises his eyebrows again.
`You know, you might be just the person I'm looking for. If I asked
you very nicely, would you let me buy you a drink?`
We step out of the lift into the harsh, unforgiving light.
`Sure,` I say, `but it will have to be a quick one. Is the bar still
open?`
The man shakes his head.
`Not here. Brunhilde will be looking for me. But I know a little
place round the corner.`
`Pierre's?`
I am on familiar territory here.
He grins at me.
`Yeah, you've got it,` he says.
***
We take a booth towards the rear of Pierre's, far enough from the
door not to be seen from outside, but not so near the back as to be
bothered by the three heavy-bellied men who are jostling each other
around the pool table. He orders coffee. I order an Irish whiskey,
straight up. He takes his coffee with milk, no sugar, and stirs it
with his left hand.
`Whips,` he says.
`I'm sorry?`
`Whips, manacles, handcuffs, harnesses, assorted dildos, cock
restraints, four types of gag, hoods, heels, nipple clamps, a leather
body suit and a butt-plug. That's what was in her backpack.`
I laugh and so does he.
`Can you believe it? She carries all that stuff around with her.`
I peer across at him and take a sip of my whiskey. I like the look
of his eyes when he laughs. I like the little crows feet that fan
towards his temples. Under the table, I cross my legs. My thighs
feel sticky. My young man's sperm, my liquid souvenir, is growing
thin and gummy inside me – a poignant postscript to the hurried,
urgent love we made. By the time I am home, it will have leaked onto
my thighs and dried.
`Forgive me for asking, but were you paying for this?` I say.
His amusement stalls in mid-flow. His eyes widen.
`Jesus, no,` he says. `I met her through a contact ad. I…`
He stops and looks down at the table, suddenly aware that he might be
revealing too much.
`I do that sometimes,` he continues in a lower voice. `Actually, I
do it quite often. I'm helplessly promiscuous, I'm afraid.`
He sucks momentarily at his lower lip.
`Do you keep count?` I ask.
He shakes his head.
`Why? Do you?`
`Sure, each one is a notch on my bedpost. This one was number
sixty-three. I was going to give up at fifty. I was going to become
an honest woman. But then I thought, what the hell, I may as well go
for the century.`
He nods his silent understanding. I can't tell whether he is
impressed. Him and me, I think, we're both members of a kind of club.
We're people with loose screws and looser morals. We're compulsives
with a short attention span. We're tragic, in a way – we'll never be
happy. But then, on the other hand, we'll never be bored. Wherever
we go and whatever we do, we will always gravitate towards some
kindred spirit. Sex, after all, is an international language, a kind
of pidgin, and both of us are clearly fluent.
`Do you ever get a weird one?` he says.
I look at him and shrug.
`If you ask me, everyone is weird one way or the other.`
`I mean specifically weird.`
`Like Brunhilde? Sure, I've had a couple. But these days I prefer
to go for youth.`
`I think she might have warned me. I think she might have said
something. All her ad said was that she required an adventurous man.
I suppose 'adventurous' is a term open to interpretation. I thought I
was adventurous. I guess I got the wrong end of the stick.`
I begin to laugh again.
`Not a good choice of words in the circumstances,` I say.
`It isn't funny. I've got a welt across my left buttock.`
I raise my eyebrows. I know the problem. Physical marks, scratches
and love-bites are the bane of the adulterer's life.
`That is going to need some explaining,` I say.
`I know. I've got it covered. I'm going to say it happened playing
squash.`
`Not bad,` I say. The best lies are always the ones that are too
silly to have been made up.
`But I've got another little predicament.`
`Another one?`
`Yeah.`
He leans towards me across the table.
`Can I trust you?`
`As much as you can trust anybody, I suppose.`
`Do you promise not to laugh?`
`No. That is too much to ask. But I'll help if I can.`
`OK, that will have to do.`
He glances quickly around the bar and then slips his right hand out
of his folded jacket and holds it up. A pair of handcuffs swing loose
above the table, one end locked around his wrist, the other open.
`I don't suppose you've got any skeleton keys on you?` he says.
I bite my lower lip to stop myself smiling. I can see the same
dilemma working the muscles in his own face. He doesn't quite know
whether to laugh or cry. He lowers his hand back onto his lap and
slides it under his jacket. He looks at me with an appealing
helplessness.
`Any ideas?` he asks.
I frown and do my best to keep a straight face.
`Well, you could say that you were arrested and escaped from
custody.`
`Was that before or after I was playing squash?`
`We could call a locksmith.`
`It is after midnight.`
`An office prank that went awry?`
`I'm self-employed.`
`Well then, I don't see that you have much option. You've got to go
back to Brunhilde and beg.`
He rolls his eyes.
`No way! You didn't see her portable torture chamber. I wouldn't
get out of that room till morning and no freak squash accident would
be able to explain the welts on my arse. Not to mention her
butt-plug. You should have seen the size of it.`
I look at him. There is a genuine anxiety fluttering beneath his
good humor.
`You know what my mother would say? She'd say you've got yourself
into a pretty pickle.`
`Well, she'd be right. I don't suppose she's got any bolt-cutters?`
`Bolt-cutters,` I say, `now maybe I might be able to help you. Let
me see.`
He lifts his arm and slides his hand across the table. I lift the
jacket. It is a nice jacket, I notice – Paul Smith. I touch his
fingers and turn over his hand so it is resting palm upwards. I peer
down at the handcuffs.
`They're good quality. Police issue.`
I try to get my finger between the cold steel and his skin, but there
is very little space.
`She's done them up tight. Soap and water won't do the trick. We'll
have to cut through the bracelet itself. Come on. I think I've got
an idea. But we have to go now. I've got to be back by one or I'll
turn into a pumpkin.`
`You lead the way,` he says.
***
We're lucky with the taxi. We get one almost straight away. It's
only a ten-minute ride and I have the driver drop us at the end of my
street. We walk up together, keeping close to the houses and avoiding
the orange pools of light cast by the street-lamps.
`You live here?` says the man.
I nod. He raises his eyebrows. He's impressed by the big houses.
`If you're going to be a slut, you may as well be a wealthy slut,` I
say. `My husband's a banker.`
`Oh shit,` says the man, `your husband.`
`Don't worry. It's not my house we're going to.`
I raise my hand and touch his arm. We stop on the corner of a short
driveway outside a handsome, Victorian semi-detached with a privet
hedged front garden.
`Mr. Peters,` I say. `I live next door. Mr. Peters has a well
stocked toolbox. My husband borrowed some bolt-cutters from him when
we dismantled the greenhouse.`
`We're not going to break in?`
`Not into the house. Into the shed. Follow me.`
I pull him after me. Up the drive and through the narrow gate into
the back garden. We walk on tiptoe, trying to be as quiet as
possible. He is reluctant. In the dim light, I can see his eyes
skipping warily from shrub to shrub as though expecting an ambush. I
peer back at the house. Only the light in the upper hallway is on.
We cross the lawn, creeping like thieves, and come up against the
boarded side of the garden shed. I pull at the door. It is
padlocked. But the window isn't fastened on the inside. I get my
fingers under the edge of the frame and pull it open.
`Go on, climb in,` I say.
`You're not serious?`
`Do you want to get out of those handcuffs or not?`
`OK. OK. What's inside? He hasn't got a dog has he?`
`No. No dog. Go on.`
I stand beside the window with my back pressed to the wall and let
him grip my shoulder to steady himself. He gets a knee up onto the
sill and swings his other leg over. He drops down on the inside with
a thump. I twist round and peer in through the window. It is dark
inside.
`Are you OK?`
`Yeah. But I can't see a thing.`
`Help me up.`
`What.`
`Help me climb up. I know my way around.`
`All right, all right.`
He reaches out of the window and I reach in and grab his shoulders.
I hook up my skirt to get my foot up onto the sill. He gets his arm
around my waist. I lean into the room, letting him take my weight and
lift me inside. We're caught in an intimate clench, my arms around
his neck, his face pressed into my cleavage. His hand supports my
buttocks, his fingers are splayed on bare skin.
`Jesus,` he whispers as he lowers me gently to the floor.
`Yeah, yeah,` I say, `full marks for observation. If I'd been
planning on breaking and entering I'd have dressed more
appropriately.`
He releases me, steps back and bumps into the workbench; something
small rolls and drops to the floor with a metallic clatter.
`Were you like that all the time? In the hotel, in the bar, in the
taxi?`
`Sure I was. Everybody is allowed a few little foibles, even
Brunhilde. Mine's the misplacement of underwear. It's my calling
card. I always leave my knickers behind. Not anywhere obvious. I
hide them. I tuck them into the guy's briefcase, or into his pocket,
somewhere where he won't find them till later. My best one was when I
put them in this guy's umbrella. I was rather proud of that. The
next rainy day he was in for a surprise.`
I can't tell whether he is smiling or not. I suspect he probably
isn't.
`You might have told me,` he says.
`Why should I have told you? I barely know you. Now somewhere here,
on the workbench, there should be a candle. Feel behind you.`
In the darkness I can only just make out his shape. But I can hear
him turning and fumbling through the flowerpots on the bench.
`I hope you've got some matches.`
`Yeah. I have. Is this it?`
I hear a rasp and smell sulfur. A bright little orange flame jumps
into existence in front of me. It turns to white when he holds it to
the candlewick.
`Is this OK?` he says, `I mean, won't somebody see?`
He sets the candle down on the workbench and looks anxiously at the
window.
`They won't be looking. And anyhow, we've got to have some light.
It's just a risk we'll have to take. Now, somewhere in here there
should be an orange tool-box.`
We both look around. The inside of Mr. Peters' shed is neat and
orderly. There are garden implements, a lawnmower, a pair of old
garden chairs and a couple of folding sun-beds resting up against the
wall. Underneath the workbench is the toolbox. I squat down and lift
the lid.
`You're in luck,` I say.
I raise my arm. The bolt-cutters are long handled and snub nosed.
They look brutish enough to cut through stainless steel. I point to
one of the garden chairs.
`Sit down,` I say, `I'm going to operate.`
He lowers himself into the chair with a little grin and holds out his
hand. The free cuff dangles from his wrist. I step forward and stand
astride his knees. He watches with a wry smile as I place the beak of
the cutters onto the steel bracelet.
`Keep still,` I say.
I gently squeeze the handles, closing the jaws.
`When you stand like that, I can see your pussy,` he says.
`Yeah. I know you can.`
`So you're doing it deliberately.`
`Yep.`
`Why? I thought you had to be home by one.`
I shrug.
`I guess it is just the candle light. What do you think?`
`I think it is very pretty. You've got lovely muscular hollows in
your thighs.`
`No, I mean the bolt-cutters. Are the jaws in the right position? I
don't want to nip you.`
`Brunhilde had a very different pussy from you. She was blonde. She
was blonde and little and neat. You've got an altogether more
predatory looking cunt.`
`I didn't think you fucked her.`
`I didn't. But I couldn't help looking. Not with her standing there
over me in her leather basque and thigh-length boots.`
`And now I'm standing over you.`
`Yeah. I prefer you.`
`Thank you. I'm flattered. But hold on, I'm going to give this a
try.`
I push hard on the handles. I feel the jaws bite at steel. I
strain. But I can tell the pressure is not enough. The cuffs hold
firm.
`Do you know you thrust your hips forward when you do that?`
`Nope. It is quite unconscious.`
`You look gorgeous with your muscles tensed.`
I step back away from him. He looks up at me with doggy eyes. There
is a foolish grin pasted across his face.
`Give me your hand, I need more leverage,` I say.
I step around beside him and squat down behind the chair. I pull his
hand down so that it is close to the floor. There are some old bricks
stacked up by the wall. I get one of them and put it on the floor
below his wrist. I nip the jaws of the bolt-cutters onto the cuff and
rest the lower lever on the brick. This way I can bear down on the
cutters with both arms. But before I do, I wait. I look up at the
flickering candle, at the big shadows it is casting on the wall, at
the back of the man's neck.
`Have I given you an erection?` I ask.
I lift myself slightly so I can peer over his shoulder and down into
his lap.
`That's a silly question. A woman like you knows exactly when she is
turning a guy on.`
`She didn't let you come, did she?`
`God no, I don't think my orgasm was high upon Brunhilde's agenda.`
`Can you give me your other hand?`
`What?`
`Your other hand, I need you to hold this.`
He reaches around the back of his chair. I let the bolt-cutters drop
from my hand, grab the loose unfastened cuff, loop the chain under the
rear cross bar of the chair and then snap it about his other wrist.
`What the hell!` he exclaims.
`Shhh,` I say, `you'll wake Mr. Peters.`
***
It is not often in my particular line of promiscuity that I get to
take my time with a man. The young bucks I go for are energetic souls
with something to prove. And generally, that is the way I like it. I
like it robust and fast – so I don't have to think. But tonight, I
find I like the change of pace. I sit astride him, inching down,
pressing him deeper and deeper inside me.
It is good to do this slowly; it heightens my perceptions. It makes
me acutely conscious of the displacement that occurs when I take a man
into my body. It makes me think about exactly what I am doing. It
stops the intimacy of the act being subsumed into that one short,
brutish word, because when I do it slowly like this, it is better than
just a fuck. It feels fresh. It feels like a new discovery. It
feels as though I am the first person on the planet to discover this.
When I have him all the way in, I begin very slowly to rock, bearing
down and backwards, then pressing my hips forward. This moves him
inside; it lets me roll around his size and bulk. Down behind the
back of the chair he is pulling at the handcuffs.
`Don't struggle,` I say, `you'll get splinters.`
He peers up at me, eyes wide in the candlelight. I reach up and
unbutton my blouse. I let my breasts hang free. Then I place my
hands on his shoulders and increase the motion of my hips; I begin to
lift and circle.
`How long,` I say, `do you think you are going to last?`
He stares at me. I like the look of tension in his face. He is
already holding back.
`Not as long as I want to,` he says.
`Good answer,` I say.
I lift more. I lift dangerously. I cock my hips so he is pressing
forward inside me and is wedged against the inside of my pubic bone.
He's a quarter of an inch away from popping out when I relent and
lower myself onto him again. I flatten my buttocks against his
thighs. In front of me, out of the widow of the shed, I can see my
own house looming in the darkness.
I stare at the familiar roofline, the mossy tiles, the bulky chimney
with its spiky TV antenna. As I watch, I see the light go on in the
master bedroom. My husband steps across the room and stands in the
window, looking out into the night. He is still dressed for work. I
see him begin to undo his tie. The sight is curious and
disconcerting. I'm looking at my own house, at my own home, at my own
bedroom from the outside. I'm looking at the place I should be.
My husband stares out of the window, a black shape silhouetted
against the light. Can he see me, I wonder? The very thought of this
tightens me. I ride up, rising around the man's cock, sliding along
him and pressing him forward as before. But this time, I am too
reckless. He catapults out of my cunt.
`Jesus, I'm sorry,` I say.
I reach beneath me, take him by the root and slide him back inside.
Up in the window, my husband still faces out into the night. I start
to move more urgently. Up and down, up and down. My breasts rock and
rise on my chest, falling in with their own inertia. But I am looking
at my husband. I am willing him. Don't turn away, I am thinking,
don't turn away!
`Slow down!` says the man beneath me.
`Never!` I hiss.
`Faster, faster, faster,` whispers a voice inside my head.
Way beneath me, down on ground level, I watch his climax. The
handcuffs rattle against the crossbar of the chair. His face screws
into a wide-mouthed gargoyle. The pulse in his penis beats and thumps
and starts pumping more than merely blood. It is delicious and
involuntary and hugely wet. I torture him. I keep on sliding up and
down long past the point where he can bear no more. He shivers and
whimpers beneath me and begs me to stop, but I only relent when I can
feel him softening. Up in the bedroom, my husband cracks open the
window, reaches to the side and pulls the curtains.
***
We part, without kisses, in the shadow of Mr. Peters' privet hedge.
The lateness of the hour gives us no time for post-coital niceties and
the proximity of climax has rendered my companion taciturn and a
little clumsy on his feet. I watch him walk away. From the pocket of
his jacket, I can hear the faint chink of metal. I hope he remembers
to jettison the severed handcuffs before he gets home.
I look at my watch; it is ten past one. My cheap adulterer's mind is
already whirling with excuses as I walk the ten yards to my own front
door. I push my key into lock and wonder whether this will be it.
Will my husband be pacing the sitting room? Will he say, `Sit down.
We have to talk.` Will there be raised voices and recriminations?
Will fists be banged against doorframes? Will I make promises and
pacify him with kisses? Is tonight the night that the
self-destructive time bomb in my gut explodes?
But my husband isn't in the sitting room. He isn't in the kitchen
either, nor in his study. I kick off my shoes and walk through the
darkened house like a ghost. I can feel its weight above me, pressing
down on the foundations. Slowly I start to mount the stairs. Each
step towards the bedroom is one nearer to detonation.
`Hi Honey,` he says, when I push open the door.
He is already in bed, propped up on a pillow with a book raised on
his knees. He looks up at me over the top of his glasses. I search
his face for a flicker of recognition. I respond with the weakest of
smiles and walk into the bathroom. I throw my clothes into the
washing basket and perform my adulterer's ablutions. He is still
reading when I emerge, scented and sterilized, and take my place
beside him in the bed. He lets his book fall onto his knees.
`Did you noticed the sky?` he says.
`The sky?` I say.
`Yes, its clear – a clear night. You can see everything, the Big
Dipper, Orion's Belt. It is beautiful.`
The sky, I think. So that is what he was looking at. Is that the
problem with me? Do adulterers spend too much time looking at their
feet? I never look as far as the stars. Is that the difference
between us? My husband looks out of the window and sees the universe.
I look in through the window and see a bed. Does that make us
perfectly compatible? Or are we ill matched? I curse my wretched,
prosaic, unfaithful heart. I curse my greedy, self-seeking cunt. How
could I have not noticed the stars?
I turn towards him. I press my thigh against his, put my hand on his
chest and rest my head against his shoulder. He feels solid, hot,
immobile
`You know, don't you?` I whisper into his neck.
`I know what?`
`You know about me?`
I feel him move. I feel him reaching out to put his book upon the
bedside table.
`I know that compared to the stars, we are just specks in eternity
and that none of this really matters,` he says.
I swallow. I reach out my hand and lace my fingers through his. I
can feel myself shrinking. I can feel myself growing smaller and
smaller. Me, my lips, my breasts, my legs, my cunt, the young man in
the hotel room, the handcuffs, the bolt-cutters, the shed, the garden
chair, Mr. Peters and his privet hedges, my knickers in a stranger's
sports bag, Brunhilde and her bag of tricks, the man in the lift, the
old guy in the foyer, the taxi driver – we're all the size of ants
and still growing smaller. We're atoms, we're electrons, and still we
keep on shrinking.
I listen to the rustle of sheets as he reaches out to switch off the
light. The bedroom plunges into darkness. My heart freezes in my
chest.
`Sweet dreams,` says my husband.
He squeezes my hand. I squeeze him back.
I am so small now; I have practically disappeared.
