Maria Teresa

Out for dinner in Canareggio with my wife, a friend and an old friend of hers, Maria Teresa. Maria Teresa was waiting for us at the restaurant* when we arrived; this being Venice, a fish restaurant.

At the time she was eighty, alert with an unbending desire to live that I could only admire. Vigorous both in speech and gesture, she was living her life right up to the very last day. Other details have faded from view, but I recall her in a red skirt cut at the knee, black tights and black pumps. A woman, sure of her looks, seeing no reason in her age to conceal her assets, yet dressed with a precise diginity: she looked terrific. She was ageing very, very well indeed. She had a talent for life itself.

We started with calamari, sarde in saor and scampi. If I remember correctly, we drank prosecco and the four of us chatted pleasurably. Maria Teresa lit up however, the moment I laid my fork on my scampi.

’No, no, use your fingers’

Maria Teresa being Neapolitan, this injunction was accompanied by a battery of hand gestures - the Italians are famously unconvinced of the merits of purely verbal communcation - and multiple repetitions of the instruction ’Your fingers, your fingers...’ What could I do? I laid down the cutlery and set to work with my mouth.

Of course, on a purely practical level, cutlery is unsuited to shellfish and it is just easier to work your mouth over shell and meat, sucking off juices and olive oil as you go. Without the distraction of having to handle the cutlery, you can just concentrate on the simple sensual pleasure of the food, we all know how rich and subtle the mouth can be when we use it well. In comparison knife and fork offer very poor sport.

As I ate, Maria Teresa offered encouragements, evidently pleased that I had taken her advice and she expressed her satisfaction by expounding on her theory of sex and food: that you fuck (her word) like you eat, that you can tell if someone’s any good in bed by watching them at table.

She started talking about when she was younger and that when she was attracted to a man, the first thing she would do would be to take him out to eat. To see how he performed at table, to observe what relationship he had with his sensual nature, to understand what kind of animal he was. Only having passed this audition would she consider taking him to bed. In fact on one occasion she had her eye on a man but called it off after having seen his poor performance in the restaurant. As she told this story, her voice shaded with irritation and contempt at the memory of the man who had disappointed her: no amount of physical beauty could ever compensate a man if he didn’t have the goods in this department.

Of course, she was perfectly right. To be able love someone with your body is not remotely connected to appearance and it begins with your own relationship to yourself; to turn a head is only a start. I admired her unwillingness to waste a night with an inadequate lover and her acumen in knowing how to discern the good ones from the bad ones. I had to admire too the style of the lecture itself. Driven by the need to impart this essential information she cared not who heard her. The couple next to our table with their nine year old daughter kept giving us nervous glances, though I am sure that that young woman would have a much better chance of a fulfilling life by listening to Maria Teresa’s advice than by torturing her body to make it resemble Paris Hilton.

We finished our meal and stood up to go home. Maria Teresa helped me with my overcoat and as her hand glided down to the small of my back, I did wonder how things might have turned out had we met a while before.

*Paradiso Perduto, Canareggio 2540, 30121 Venezia. Tel. 041.720581

Pavement, glances and Initiatory Audacity

It’s impossible to know in advance how she would have reacted when I was just a couple of seconds with her. Well, not with her, really. In proximity: what we shared was something purely technical, something you’d only need a ruler to understand, absolutely nothing else. Certainly, the fantasy of the zipless fuck remains very attractive, much less so the twisting of a face into irritation. So how do you dare to search for an emotional dimension in a simple case of being-nearness like this? Perhaps my biggest fear would not be that of being to told to go to hell but rather having to accept that for someone I had become Just Another Invasive Creep.

Pavement and glances

Have you ever had the sensation that by looking at someone, you’ve made them turn to look at you or felt yourself drawn to glance at someone who is staring right at you?

Stepping out of the shop a few paces ahead of me. Tall, graceful in a khaki dress swirling around her that’s too summery to hide her thong (did she wear a black one deliberately?) and a suggested strokableness, a bottom-for-cerebration-celebration, no less. She had my attention and my gaze I kept on her as I closed the distance between us, pacing fast up to her heat-savvy lope: our coincidental proximity. Not coincidentally watching her bottom and the thong curving over it, though. We were alone together on the pavement, no-one else near us and any sound my plimsolls made was easily concealed by the traffic. How could she have known when to turn her head as she did, what did her turning slowness mean? Turn fast is check-for-thief, right? Her turn-slow, holding her face in my direction; could she feel my attention sweeping over her, did she cue a smile from me? Why did she hold her head turned like that as I passed by her?

For an instant, I imagined a bubble of intimacy flow up around us as I gathered in her beauty. An opening of a new branch to my life, as her lover? as her husband? I paced ahead anyway.

Summer, with delight

A consciousness pulled out of shape as its attention skitters from pussy to teat and back. Her body had turned the sex organ she always hoped for...

Raising my head, with difficulty. Will my presumption in watching Master spoil the moment? My field of vision grasps in a teat, my teat. My own suckable parts, clamped with Master's metal. Clutch at His gaze, follow it down to His fingertips. Tugtug, teatpinkpurple pulling white and red, sucky bit reddy bit. Teeth grip. GRIP. GRIP AND PULL. Oh my darling Master, you're pulling me out of shape, discovering me in the shapes you want me to take.

Sweet liberation. And a smile flows out of her face as teat trips free of Master's metal, slut's delight in the moment inching her closer to her prize. Her nipple, proud of its hardness, reaching up to the ice, patiently eyeing the cool stickiness that her Master is so careful to lay onto His slave.

Drip-pinkywhite froth, Master's cool collation tipping her closer and closer to where HIs slut wants to go. Slut flexes, slit juices. Master artist, painting His slave with the colours of her self, painting her with melt, releasing clamps to juice her up, then on again. Ice-clamp-ice-clamp. Teat free, teat unfree. Tight pain, smooth release. Flat slithering froth, commanding strokes of ice colouring in her by numbers; pushing ice down, sticky nipple, drawn off centre. Slut smiles, pleads to be told to disobey her clinging come wish.

A cool stare, sweeping in the beautiful abundance of her, but quietly:

‘No, slut. Not yet’

A cool, slow, glance is sufficient for her to control herself? Yes. Smooth belly shivering shadows of muscle, iced navel overflowing with colours, a warm pee-dribble rolling round off her belly and onto the pvc. She’s so meek, so disciplined, so worshipping, so worthy of worship herself. Slapbelly, sticky cunty hairs stand up. Mound smooth trimmed, smooth foam flavoured and teased to attention. Cunt smell too, for Master to scent attention-seeking pussy. Slap hard, stick close, marble cool hood tasty flavours. Of cunt lolly? Yes, now.

My rolling thighs, my widening legs, feeling me open for Him, knowing where next He’ll be. All of me between me to wait for Him. My teats calling me away from my cunt, I don’t know where to think next. My pussy perfume to meet the flavour of the ice? My adored darling Master, fuck me.

Hotlycooling cuntly me. Twitch and buck, juice to fuck. Colours of my day, colours drooling over me. Colours in my head and heart, twist me inside out as I scrabble my soul towards my Master’s joy.

Calm. Draw breath, drawing her in, icepussy perfume in my nose as I spread her over her treat, lips splayed wide and stuck open in their glossy sugar bloatedness. Fucking plump and fucking gorgeous. Such a delicious mess, I think I'll have to insist on cleaning her up myself.

‘Slut, why don't you taste yourself, you’re scenting well today.’

The blunted tip of the ice just in contact, I pull it over her nose, across her mouth. Slut’s tongue flips out to savour it.

‘No, take more. You’re especially good today, believe me.’

Oh, but I do so love to force things into her. Clamp her tight and go down into her mouth. Sweeping the ice round her face: sweat, fruit and juices. What kind of flavour is that? The sorry remains of the ice break off around the stick, flaccid with their efforts - how I sympathise! - falling onto her face, rolling onto the bed as she wipes her cheeks over them. Slut’s so special, a woman who thinks with her skin. Remarkable. She deserves all the pleasure I can bring her. For that though, we need to change gear. Smiling at her, I reach for my spare.

Scherzo. Allegro molto

Franz Schubert String Quartet n. 14 D.810 Death and the Maiden
Third movement: Scherzo. Allegro molto

So different from Bach’s algorithmic complexity. Here, the music surges and plunges: the guiding principle appears not to be mathematic but hormonal. The movement starts with a compelling sense of dramatic impatience which, alternating with a weightless free-falling drama, suggests two lovers meeting after long separation and who begin to breathlessly hunt down their climax together. Close your eyes and you really can imagine them in front of you, fucking the daylights out of each other. The middle section of the movement is quieter, slower: a pause, our protagonists caressing each other, quietly sharing their happiness in being together again, but their appetites are not yet satisfied and they return to their duties with an orgasmic plunge over the edge of the cliff, falling through the air, all judgement and reason blown away by the gorgeous animal force of their desire.

The erotic potential of office supplies

Suggested by events Elsewhere.

Fine, I don't suppose the subject is revolutionary either. So there. But giving it some thought, certain ideas emerge. Consider: two people attracted to one another, accompanied by a box of Post-It notes and a Mont Blanc.*

The Post-It belongs to that bleary milieu of the office: disturbance, disatisfaction, the smell and noise of the photocopier, the smell and noise of the boss. Whatever, the key thing here is to remember where the Post-It comes from. Now consider where it might go. Are you with me?

What's always interested me about fetish is the way in which we voluntarily delegate to an object an unmatched power to arouse us. There's nothing in the article itself, save its ability to compel us to obssess over it. We hand ourselves over to its power and achieve delight as we celebrate our weakness. I'm not criticising the idea; regular readers will have already noticed how often shoes appear in the blog. I don’t think anyone’s worth taking to bed who doesn’t have at least one fetish; what’s the human imagination for, otherwise?

In erotica, of course, there are the standard fetish items: BDSM, leather, rubber, stockings, shoes (yes, please), food, pee etc, etc.† I'm sure you already know pretty much what they are. What's fascinating is how one might expand the arena of fetish, so to speak, to find new articles with which one and one's intended may achieve new pleasures: what could be more amusing than to take such a sexless article as a Post-It note and invest it with new life?

So here goes: following shortly on the blog will be a series of observations about how our lovers might amuse themselves, both privately and in the company of friends. With the creative assistance of office supplies. Yet it may sound unlikely, but consider it possible to get an orgy off to a cracking start with a box of Post-It notes and a fountain pen.

* Sorry Lamy, your brand of Heidelberg enema clinic modernism just won't do here.

† Be sure to let me know if I've left out your favourite, I don't want anyone to feel neglected. But no, I don't write about scat.

Red. Cockshoe. Shoecunt.

Dropping her foot down, amused to see his erection finally so hard as to be self-supporting. He does indeed look good. But should she fuck him afterwards? She still can’t quite decide.

Then turning her foot onto him, steadily pressing him back against the wall, flattening him out underneath as she goes. Shoving him harder and harder back and relaxing the pressure to course him up on a cock-gathering shoe ride. Examining his pain threshold, checking also to see if he has the required degree of self control. To come only now would only spoil all the good work he’s put in so far. And he’s doing well: hard enough to use as a hat stand and yet so cool with it. Very good; a worthy guest in her house.

Then dipping the toe under his balls (they’re so teabaggable, really!) to massage him underneath. Shame she can’t feel all the shapes he has down there; for the moment she has to content herself with the knowledge that he’s feeling all the welt she has to give.

Rubbing him slowly, feeling the crevice his ass and tucking the shoe in tight to drag it forward. Balls sweat-dragging against her toes. Hairs reaching out to her footwear. Balls splaying outwards as he’s pleased to show off his discomfort.

“The next time I’ll have a pair of shoes so pointed I’ll be able to massage your prostate”
“You’re on, can I choose the colour?”
“Of course not”

Twisting to the side: welt now on rim. Picking up his flesh, scrotum folding over the edge of the shoe. Balls on leather feeling so good the wrinkles stretch out and collapse. Ripple, flip, tuck and squash.

He’s completely still. She watches him. Is he passive now? Has he run out of ideas? Does he really want her to take control? She’s starting to enjoy the power she has over him. Smooth perfect red reflection of the leather perfectly bastes him in her power. Strange, she just bought the shoes on impulse, not really giving any thought to it. When the sales assistant asked her what she was planning to wear with them, she didn’t really have an answer. Oh yes, please let me have the courage to go back and tell them that’s I’ve discovered the reason why I got them...

Pulling the shoes over his rim and ridges, the leathered edge rubbing him glossy. He’s so inspired for colour and texture: fat red gloss. Out here in the open; no disguise, no excuse sought by either of them as the propel each other on. Rubbingrim redglossyfuck-ridges of his cock, of her shoe, of their shared wildness.

Cockshoe, shoecunt. Footwear, fuck-where. Come where?

Window shopping, and then some

Not far from where I live in Milan is a shoeshop. Well, that’s hardly unique but what is is the range of the footwear they have. They don't sell fetish footwear, but they do have a windowful of sex objects that you can take out into the light of day. Really, erotica for your feet. For the variety of material, finish, idiosyncrasy, curvature, poise and sheer obssessive delight, there’s nothing like it in the city. Perhaps one might write some stories around what they have in the window?

Adagio

JS Bach, Brandenburg Concerto No.1 in F major, BWV 1046
Second movement: adagio

In Italian, adagio means ‘slowly’ or ‘with care’, words which bring to mind an image.

Of two new lovers, out walking after a day's lovemaking. They seem not have been together for long, perhaps only hours, the sweet delicacy of their love is apparent in the attention they pay each other, in the way they hold hands. We see them in the English countryside in midwinter, perhaps around three in the afternoon as the light begins to fade. The fertility of the landscape will remain hidden until the spring but for now we can see two people together, strangers this time yesterday but now adored lovers, sharing a secret no-one else can guess. They walk slowly together in the cold, surprised to have found each other and warm in the knowledge that they will be together again as the approaching evening casts it mantle of desire upon them.