The Mammoth Book of Erotica presents The Best of Marilyn Jaye Lewis Read Online Free PDF

man with a rather wanton libido. Far from satiating his appetites, however, good food and good wine only made his carnal cravings more pronounced. He didn’t have to say a word. When an item from the blind tasting menu was brought to our table and laid before him, I could tell by the merry gleam in his eye of which delicate or yielding, straining or supple quality of a woman’s body he was most reminded. Five years we had been together, and in that brief time, I had come to learn his lascivious thoughts well. I knew he could say the same about me.
    As luck would have it, we were both fond of women as sexual playmates; of servicing them, of testing their limits, their capacities, delighting in their raptures. Bertrand’s easy glide between the sights, smells and tastes of food, and the idea of devouring women (metaphorically, of course), was not lost on me. His appetites filled my eager mind with irresistible pictures – a fleshy rear end, a succulent thigh; a hole stretched to accommodate my lover’s unflagging lust. I often drank my wine a little too freely at Petrograd; the atmosphere there crackled with barely concealed promiscuity. The wine going to my head, the heady mix of Bertrand’s pronounced tastes and the spectre of the dinner crowd’s insatiability – set off so flatteringly by candlelight; all of it served to glut that river of longing in me until the waters threatened to overflow all over the seat of my chair.
    Paulina would flirt shamelessly with us when we left the restaurant in our inebriated state. I believe I was the one who slid to her our address, scribbled on the inside of a Petrograd matchbook cover. “Do they ever give you a night off around here?” I said.
    She half smiled and replied, “Sure. We’re closed on Sundays.”
    “Ah,” Bertrand chimed in, content in the afterglow of a Petite Sirah Port. “The Lord’s day. What could be more fortuitous?”
    Paulina and I regarded each other quizzically, neither of us entirely sure what Bertrand meant. Still I said, “Well, by all means, join us some Sunday evening. Come for dinner. We’re excellent cooks.”
    “We’re modest, too.” Bertrand helped me into my winter coat.
    Paulina laughed politely. “No reason to be modest, you know. No one would fault you for crowing a bit. Most of your attributes are readily discernible.”
    Bertrand slipped her a handsome tip. “You shovel it all so seamlessly,” he said sweetly.
    She winked at him and stuffed the tip in her pocket.
    It had been two weeks since we’d last been to Petrograd, so Paulina was not uppermost in our minds when our downstairs buzzer bleated loudly early one Sunday evening just prior to Christmas. The noise startled us from our mindless gazing at the oversized television screen.
    Bertrand stretched and said, “Who could that be?”
    “Shall we buzz it up and see?”
    He said, “Why not?”
    We got up from the comfy couch and then buzzed up our visitor.
    We couldn’t have been more pleased when we saw Paulina – dressed in her Sunday best – step off the old freight elevator out in the hallway.
    “It’s Paulina,” I said happily.
    “So it is. Well, come in, Paulina. Make yourself at home.”
    She came inside. “You neglected to give me your phone number, so I took it as a sign.”
    “Of what?” I asked curiously, helping her out of her lovely coat in our entryway.
    “That I was welcome anytime. That calling ahead would have only been a formality.”
    Bertrand and I smiled at each other. He said to her, “How right you were, love. You know, you have quite a good grasp on the English language.”
    “I know,” she said pertly. “Now, what are we drinking? Are we going to get festive with it being so close to Christmas?”
    “Around here,” Bertrand said, “we even get festive on Arbor Day. Why don’t you ladies relax in there by the fire and I’ll whip up something wonderful in the kitchen.”
    “Like what?” I asked.
    “I’ll think of something.