Usually by 8:30, which my pocketwatch told me it had just struck, I’d be making coffee, but since my employer was “with guest” and the various grinding of beans and screaming of espresso making apparati would, I’m sure, be a less than ideal wake up call, I was out running the errands which I usually saved for later in the day.

The mornings when my employer had an overnight guest (or guests, as sometimes happens) were some of the most challenging in my professional life, I assure you. Still, in their own way, they were some of the most rewarding.

Most mornings my employer, Mr Leinhardt, and I would share some light banter on topics both political and scandalous while I gave him a shave, dressed him and attend to his breakfast. On mornings where Mr Leinhardt was entertaining I instead had to focus on the detailed movements and well thought out strategies of readying food, newspapers, clothing, and other essentials whilst not disturbing he nor his scantily clad (if that) visitor. I assure you this is no small feat and it takes all of my not unconsiderable skills.

After procuring the provisions for the day I made my way through the servants entrance and through the house, cleaning up a spilled cocktail and a pair of stockings in the hallway. I then entered the master bedroom silently and attempted to take the least amount of time possible picking up the scattered clothes and various detritus of my employer’s nocturnal activities, which by the look of things were both violent and sordid. It’s hard, I admit, not to steal glances at his guests. That morning specifically it was impossible not to notice the shapely legs of my employer’s acquaintance. The curve of her bottom, which seemed to my keen eyes to have earned a bruise or two, though one never knows if those bruises were collected in the scuffle and decadence of the evening before or, like so many objet d’art one picks up in one’s travels, she simply came that way.

There was a single breast exposed by the tangled limbs and wrinkled sheets of their morning tableau. It was pert, economic even, not the full hand heavy bosom I am fond of, but a perfect example of a flavor that is not my favorite, yet so lovely it gave me cause to question my preference.

I only paused a moment to take in the sight, feeling a bit foolish standing there holding a handful of her silk under things and a feather duster.

It was half past nine and by my employer’s orders he was to be up by ten even in the most extreme of cases. I started some bacon, I washed fruit. I did it all quietly, but banged and bumped around just enough to let them know someone was in the kitchen.

I had already steamed the young lady’s fetching silk dress (last season’s Givenchy?) and laid out her shoes (thankfully not Louboutin) and undergarments when I heard shower start. Mr Leinhardt did not like to dine until he was clean and fresh. As well, when having company, he often enjoyed entertaining his guest in his large, almost cavernous, shower. That, I’m sure, was a sight.

Since they were up I could grind the coffee beans, prep steamed milk and warm the cups. I had soy milk on hand in case his guest was vegan. One never knows these days. The table was laid out with plates and silverware, cloth napkins quickly twisted and folded into the shapes of roses, croissants, fruit, a variety of jams, all of the various the accoutrements.

Oranges and grapefruits were squeezed and the table looked opulent, laden with food and shining settings. This was all at Mr Leinhardt’s request. Most of it would not be eaten, in fact Mr Leinhardt usually only had a latte, an egg white omelet, a small shot of grapefruit juice, and was off to work. His female acquaintances usually had a half a croissant, a non-fat latte and picked at grapes. At eleven, when the two maid arrived, I usually made a long brunch of the leftovers with the small staff.

As I brought a crystal pitcher of juice to the table I saw my employer’s lady friend at the door of his boudoir. She was dressed in a pair of his fine high gray dress socks, which came almost to the knees of her skinny legs, and one of his dress shirts. It was one of the custom shirts from his London tailor. Split collar, a cool white, sadly she had buttoned three unmerciful buttons. I hardly looked though, just a millisecond but my eyes were greedy and my memory is photographic.

She was curious, as they often were. She padded around the large apartment marveling at the paintings, the grand piano, the statues. When she made her way over to the kitchen she leaned on the marble island and smiled at me.

“A tuxedo?” she asked. Her voice was high, feminine, girlish.

“Mr Leinhardt enjoys a traditional look for his staff, but to answer your question, no, this is not a tuxedo,” I say, trying not to make her feel foolish for thinking that my suit was a tuxedo, but all the same correcting her.

“So you’re an actual butler?” she asked with a wide and beautiful smile.

She was one of those women who exuded a warm, exhilaratingly sensual energy. Her face, which I had not seen during my brief foray into the bedroom, was gorgeous. Her skin was flawless, eyes bright and curious, hair, though mussed, was thick and chocolate brown.

“Really more of a valet, this apartment isn’t large enough to need a butler, per se. As well, at the moment I am also an ersatz fry cook. Is there anything in particular I can get for you this morning?”

She turned, looked at the food on the table, then around at the apartment and laughed.

“And I thought his car was something. Amazing. Hm, I suppose when in Rome. I want, Eggs Benedict!” she said with gusto, adding “and a waffle, and a cappuccino and champaign!”

Admittedly, it had been a while since I’d made a Hollandaise sauce. Mr Leinhardt had two regular cooks on staff, but he preferred as few people as possible in the morning and one of the reasons he hired me was my training as a chef and my work in the kitchen of a four star restaurant in Switzerland in my youth. Still the muscle memory was there and in moments the sauce was well on its way.

She watched me like a hawk. No, not a hawk, more like a bird of paradise. My back was straight and my eyes were forward and I did not look down the draping open collar of the shirt as she leaned across the island to snatch a handful of cherries. Not noticeably, at least.

Her eggs were plated as Mr Leindhart came into the kitchen in his fine blue robe.

“Eggs Benedict? I warn you Howards, this one is very picky and quite demanding,” he said to me while his eyes were on her.

I smiled and nodded at his words.

“Give her anything she wants,” he said in a tone that told me undeniably that he was taken with her and that I was to do just that.

He kissed her neck chastely, but she would have none of that. She looked up at him with a hunger that made my heart ache and she kissed him fully and deeply on the lips. She kissed him so that for a moment his jovial morning self disappeared and I turned my back to them so as not to see that wild side of my dear employer.

“You are decidedly bent on making me late,” he chided her half heartedly, then to me “give me the good omelet. You know the one.”

Working morning he had loose egg whites, avocado, goat cheese. The “good omelet” was my mother’s recipe. The eggs were mixed with a dash of cognac, heavy cream, cooked in goose fat and topped with caramelized onions and black truffles.

I nearly scorched the eggs when I turned and saw her shirt open. Mr Leinhardt’s hungry hands kneading her breasts. A glimpse of the bare smoothness between her legs, a preference of both my employer and mine, and I almost gasped.

As I plated his omelet I coughed a bit to give them a moment, but when I turned to serve I saw that he was not at all through.

“Howards, is this not the most lovely pussy you’ve ever seen?” he said, pushing her legs open and swatting at her hands as she went to cover herself.

I closed that door in my head. I turned off the circuit between body and mind and standing still, towel over my arm, holding the plate steady I look briefly down at the pink between her legs.

“I can truly say I’ve never seen its equal, sir,” and though I prefer not to rate works of art against each other, at that moment it was the complete truth.

Her eyes met mine as her fair white cheeks turned a deep red. Her eyes were glassy with want and she very obviously enjoyed the little humiliation of being shown off. His fingers toyed and teased her as his other hand pawed at her breasts.

“Shall I put of your breakfast until after you are finished entertaining, sir?” this sentence was edging towards our well defined line between dry humor and contempt.

Mr Leinhardt had made it clear that a certain amount of pushing was expected to get him off to work at a reasonable time, even when engaged with particularly interesting diversions.

“No-” he sighed and I placed his plate down on the table.

“Her name is Alma,” he said, balancing her on his knee, still exposed, as he folded his napkin on his other knee and started on his eggs.

“Alma, isn’t that lovely Howards?” he asked as I pour him his juice and brought him his coffee.

“Indeed, sir.”

She was drunk with lust, watching him eat, watching me serve. Ruddy cheeked, swollen nippled and her sex slpayed on the naked skin of his thigh, she looked so ready to be fucked I had to exile myself to dishwashing or else expose my desire in the breaking of the well ironed lines of my trousers.

“Say hello, Alma,” he said, very amused with himself as he continued to play with her body between bites of his breakfast.

“Hello, Alma,” she said flatly and then her breath caught and she let out a high perfect moan.

It went on like that, but eventually Alma was left to eat her Eggs Benedict (which thankfully somehow stayed intact after having sat there for a good ten minutes) and her waffle and her cappuccino (with two dashes of cinnamon) and a glass of ‘96 Clos d’Ambonnay Krud, while I shaved and dressed Mr Leinhardt.

Then he was off, after one long kiss from her. He was off and I was alone with her. It was a quarter past ten.

She sat at the table watching me clean up. She studied me and studied the apartment.

“Your boss is an interesting guy,” she said. I could see her debating whether she should close her shirt. I watched her decide not to. She leaned forward and bit her lip.

“Indeed, miss,” I said, taking a few plates to the skink.

“Alma,” she corrected.

“Miss,” I corrected.

She looked over the uneaten fruit and pastries and sighed.

“A man like that certainly does leave a lot of leftovers,” she said, a little sadly, pouring herself some more champagne and considered her place.

“No need to worry, miss, nothing will go to waste,” I said pouring the orange juice into a plastic jug for later.

She laughed at this, her charm was visceral.

“He doesn’t mind you taking the leftovers?” she asked, the question lingering in the air whether she meant the food or other things.

“I assure you, he often insists, miss” I said, gathering her glass and her coffee cup, not close enough to touch, but close enough to feel the heat of her body.

“Does he ever let you finish what he’s started?” she said, her voice lower.

I straightened.

“You’ll have to ask Mr Leinhardt about that, miss, I’m not really at liberty to talk about the goings on of the house,” and there was nothing in my voice. I squashed all feeling and simply busied myself with the cleaning up of breakfast and memorizing every blushing inch of her body.

“What if he told you to fuck me, Howard?”

I coughed a bit, mostly for her benefit. It’s unfair to have such a ravishing woman think she has no effect on a man. Even a man who is adept at swallowing his own desires.

“I’m afraid, as I said, you’ll have to take that up with Mr Leinhardt, miss. The particulars of my responsibilities are indeed up to him. And if I might, miss, my name is Howards.”

She was pouting now, downing her glass of champagne and standing up. She walked to her clothes, suddenly smiling at her dress, wrinkle free and beautiful, just like her.

She was unsatisfied, all worked up by Mr Leinhardt’s morning games.

“You can get me a taxi, Howards?” she said without looking up from examining her dress.

“If you’d like, miss, though we do have a car and driver who will be happy to take you anywhere you’d like,” I said, putting the last of the food away.

“I should have guessed that,” she said dreamily.

“And someone who can go pick up fresh undergarments for me?” she said testing me.

“Certainly, if you’d like. We could have someone pick up something less formal if you’d like as well. I believe I know a personal shopper at Bergdorf who could have something here in a half an hour,” I stood at attention, ready to attend to her needs.

She took off the shirt and stood in the middle of the living room in nothing but egyptian cotton socks, from a private label in Milan. The fine argyle stitch pattern barely visible.

“Come here, Howard,” she said putting her hands on her hips.

I walked over to her, averting my eyes.

“Howards, miss,” I corrected.

“What kind of name is Howards?” she said moving closer.

“It’s my last name, miss. Reginald Howards, the third,” I straightened my jacket and brushed a bit of lint off her dress.

She was perhaps five feet, four inches. Twenty four at the most. From her accent and clothes, an Upper East Side debutant who had seen money, but not the kind of money Mr Leinhardt had.

“Lay down on the floor,” she said with a steady voice.

“Miss?”

“The floor, Jeeves,”

“I’m not sure I understand-”

“‘This one is very picky and quite demanding,’ is what your boss said, ‘give her anything she wants.’ So I want you to lay down on the floor, on your back right now,” she was ordering, but her voice was girlish and she sounded more like a young girl complaining about the size of her birthday cake.

Still, what was one to do? I knelt, I looked up at her questioningly, then I settled down on the elaborately embroidered rug. I remembered the bazaar in Marrakesh where’d I purchased the rug for Mr Leinhardt a few years before while I followed in the wanderlust of his twenties.

Miss Alma stepped over me and stood, with one foot on either side of my head, looking down at me. The perspective was both lovely and jarring. The peeks of her nipples just obscured by the light of the chandelier above us. The pink of her sex, slightly open, wet from Mr Leinhardt’s teasing, her hair falling a bit in her face as she peered down.

She lowered herself until she was sitting on my chest, looking right into my eyes.

“Anything I want, right?” she was beautiful and demanding and correct.

“Indeed, miss,” I said trying hard to maintain my detachment, knowing what would follow might test the control I’d honed for most of my life.

She smacked me. In my opinion it was a bit too hard and bit too close to my ear. The world swam out of focus for a moment and my ear rang.

She was breathing hard. I guessed this game wasn’t wholly new, but it had been a while since she played it. It was a very different game than the one she played the night before but it seemed like a suitable sublimation.

She slapped me again and then pulled at my hair. She messed up my hair, which was combed neatly and parted precisely.

“You’re used to cleaning up his messes, aren’t you?” she said still girlish, but now heated.

“Indeed,” I said swallowing feeling my ears hot and red.

“Miss! ‘Indeed, miss.’ Do you always forgot your fucking manners when you’re under a pretty woman?” she said slapping me four more times and then grabbing my throat.

“I do apologize, miss. You are absolutely correct.”

My composure seemed to anger her and amuse her at the same time. She pushed herself back until she was straddling my hips. I tensed and she pressed herself down on my hardness. She rubbed against it purring.

“Don’t move,” said whispered and my body froze.

“Are you going to go wash these pants after I rub my pussy all over them? Are you good enough not to come?”

“I always keep a spare suit here, miss, and I wouldn’t think of doing anything you did not explicitly request.”

She laughed loud and grabbed me by my bow tie.

“He made a mess of me this morning and you’re going to clean it up, Jeeves,” she whispered into my face.

Then she pulled herself over me and kneeled so that her legs pinned my arms down and pushed her pussy into my face, covering my mouth and my nose and making a wave of fear and pleasure wash over me.

“Lick it, make me come, that’s what I want. You’d better do it, Reginald Howards the third. You’d better lick my pussy until I come.”

Her hand was in my hair, pulling it so tightly my scalp prickled and burned, but I was only aware of this as if it was in the distance. All I knew was her pussy. All I knew was the smoothness against my tongue and the taste of her and the wetness and the orders to make her come. Pain wasn’t an option. Breathing was secondary to the need to service her.

I licked at her clit and dipped my tongue into her, letting her move herself and position the bits she wanted me to focus on. She squirmed and moaned and rode my face. After a few minutes she lifted one leg and pulled at my arm.

“Fingers, use your fucking fingers too,” she ordered and I complied as fast as my muscles would move.

I put two fingers into my mouth, then when they were wet slipped them into her as I continued to lick, finding the rhythm she wanted. I turned and pushed my fingers into her, finding the spot that made her back arch and her moans burst into little yelps.

“Oh, fuck, you’re-you’re good at this–keep–keep going–don’t stop,” she said her legs tensing and her clit being pushed down against my tongue as I fingered her.

Her smooth pubis covering my nose again and her legs closing around my head so that I couldn’t hear anymore. All of my senses replaced by her body and its building need. All there was was her pussy and my fingers slipping slick into it and my tongue burning with fatigue but still going, still servicing her demands until finally she screamed and screamed and then pushed herself off me.

She sat on the floor panting, shaking, holding herself, glaring at me.

“Holy fuck,” she gasped between breaths.

I swallowed. I tried to slow my own breathing. I tried to slow my heart.

“Get up,” she said, her voice softer.

I stood, shaken. I straightened myself the best I could. I walked quickly to the bathroom. I found two soft small wash cloths. I wet one with lukewarm water. I brought them to her.

“May I, miss?” I asked softly.

She laid back on the floor with her knees up and let her legs fall open. I marveled at her wet vulva, pink and neat. I softly dabbed at it with the warm, wet cotton. She closed her eyes and let me pamper her and clean her. I ended with the dry cloth, patting her wet thighs until she was fresh and clean.

“Now dress me,” she said, sounding dreamy.

I slipped her panties on, her brassiere, her garter belt, her stockings. I held out my hand and she stood and I lifted her slip and she lifted her arms. She looked like a sleepy princess. Finally her lovely dress in its royal purple.

“Thank you, Howards,” she said, spinning in her dress and closing her eyes as the silk rose in the air.

“I love this dress,” she said to herself.

“You look magnificent in it, miss. If you don’t mind me saying,” I said, gathering her shoes and helping her into them.

When I stood up she leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

“I’m glad you exist, Howards,” she said with a strange sparkle in her eye.

“Is there anything else, miss, or shall I have the car brought around?”

She took out a compact from her pocketbook and patted powder on her nose.

“That will be all, Howard, I actually think a walk might be nice,” she said, turning and making her way to the front door before I could rush to open it for her.

She turned and looked me in the eye, suddenly looking and sounding much older than she did earlier.

“Tell him to call me. Tell him I told you to tell him to call me,” she said before turning and slamming the door.

I breathed out the deep long breath I’d been holding in for hours.

A minute later the back door of the apartment opened and one of the maids came in. Clare was red headed, huge eyed, thick hipped and we were well acquainted. My face was still red and my lips were still wet and I turned on her with a fury that made her drop her bags.

“You’re going to get the fuck into the guest bedroom, pull up your skirt and pull of your fucking knickers right now, do you understand?”

“What?” she said, surprised, but not that surprised.

“Into the guest bedroom and make sure there is nothing between my cock and your cunt or it’s going to get cut off. Am I making myself clear?” my voice was steadily rising into a shout.

She put her hand to her chest, her eyes wide, but then a wicked grin crept over her lips.

“Yes, sir, right, right away, sir,”

I pulled off my jacket and threw it on the floor. Then I went into the guestroom and took off my belt and got to work.

The accordion player came to the park every day as well and played songs of love and longing. When Violet listened to the sound and the way it echoed in the nearby stone underpass she felt like she was by the Seine.

When the autumn came Violet would bring hot chocolate to keep her hands warm. She only drank it once her hands had sucked up the heat and it was merely warm, smooth, rich sweetness.

She was twenty. She went to school, but only took a handful of classes. She was drifting through life in between a teenagehood that seemed to last forever and the adulthood that loomed ahead of her.

Sometimes it was only the accordion player and Violet in the park and he would stop playing, sit back, and smoke cigarettes for hours. She watched him and marveled at how much he seemed to enjoy smoking. He would take long pulls and hold them for a minute, then blow the smoke out in slow bluish gray clouds while looking intently into the glowing red tips of his Gauloises.

He was probably fifty, with longish wavy hair that was once brown but now mostly gray and even some white. He seemed perpetually unshaven and his clothes were layers of what looked like 20-year-old garments. He always wore fingerless gloves and a long black scarf.

When people were around he would only play standards. The only one she really liked was Le Vie en Rose. When there were only a few people or tourists from France he would play old French songs Violet had never heard and the tourists would sing along and Violet would be transported.

Violet found herself wondering about the man. He had occasionally said hello in his thick Parisian accent. She wondered why anyone would leave France. She imagined he left because of a woman. Some passionate affair that was so intense that when it ended he couldn’t stomach even being in the same country as her.

She imagined him as a passionate romantic man who was broken by love.

One day she came to the park and the man seemed a bit more dour than usual. Violet usually dropped a dollar or two into his hat and gave him a smile. That day she dropped five.

“Merci. Pardon, you are always here and so am I. We should introduce. What is your name?” he asked in English that was far more broken then she had imagined it being.

“Violet,” she said, trying not to be meek but still sounding like a whisper.

He repeated it and it sounded prettier from his cracked lips. Vie-oh-let.

He held out a hand in a worn gray fingerless glove. His fingers were dirty and yellow from cigarettes and playing. She took his hand and he pulled hers to his mouth and kissed it, his lips warm and his stubble rough on the back of her hand. Violet pulled her hand back and then wondered if she had done it a little too quickly. She didn’t want to be rude to the man.

When he had said her name he had given her a very particular look. It wasn’t exactly a nice look. It wasn’t the look musicians in a park usually gave Violet. She remembered many times walking through Central Park with her parents and passing the saxophone player and his kind smile. The little jazz trio and their warm thanks when she flipped a quarter into their trumpet case. This was a very different smile and Violet realized it was because she wasn’t a little girl skipping through the park anymore, as much as she felt like one.

She smiled back weakly and went back to her bench to read her book, suddenly uncomfortable being the focus of his attention.

The next time she saw him in the park he waved to her. “Vie-oh-let!” he said in his deep hoarse voice.

He played something different; it sounded more raucous. There were whirling melodies and harsh notes. It sounded like a gypsy song and then Violet recognized parts of it. It was an old burlesque song– the kind women would strip to.

Violet watched him play and his eyes were closed and he was laughing. There was a story behind that laugh.

When he opened his eyes a few people had come into their little section of the park and so he went right into “Speak Softly Love”, a crowd favorite, though he watched Violet the whole time.

After the tourists left he waved for Violet to come over to him. He’d never done that before and she was dubious. She thought about ignoring him, but that seemed rude. She walked over and sat on his bench, but far from him.

“My name is Henri.”

“Hello, Henri.”

He laughed and took out a cigarette.

“Do you smoke?”

Violet shook her head, no.

“Why do you come here every day?” he asked as he lit his cigarette and inhaled the blue smoke deeply.

Violet shrugged, but he eyed her, still waiting for a response.

“Are you a writer? I see you write things.” He pointed at her notebook with his somewhat dirty hand.

She looked down at her notebook and thought about the question.

“I am a writer,” she said simply, though it took courage to say the sentence aloud.

He smiled and gave her that hungry look again that made her uncomfortable.

“I have a roommate. Philip. He is an ass sometimes, but also a good friend to me. He is a writer. We live in a piece of shit apartment, but it is in the city. It is up in Harlem. His is everyday with the writing. Tap tap on his computer.”

Violet smelled the smoke and it was both repulsive and intriguing. There was something dangerous about Henri.

“What kinds of things does he write?”

Henri smiled and laughed a little, smoke coming out of his mouth in little bursts.

“He writes… how do you say it… eh… I forget the English. He writes about fucking.”

Violet’s eyes went wide. Henri swallowed every ounce of her shock with his smile and gaze.

“Forgive me, that came out… more crude than I meant.”

Violet tried to laugh it off, tried to give him a look like, “Oh, I’ve heard worse.” Somehow she doubted it worked very well.

“What do you write, Violet?” he asked as he looked around and then took a little dented flask from his jacket and took a long pull from it.

“Poetry, mostly,” she said with eyes wide, looking down at her notebook again.

He laughed again, slow and gravelly, and then in an almost different voice altogether–one that was strong and noble–he said, “Mainte fleur épanche à regret. Son parfum doux comme un secret. Dans les solitudes profondes.”

She met his eyes and he seemed handsome then. Old and rough and strong.

“I took some French, but I don’t know most of what that means. Something about a flower?” she asked.

Again, his laugh.

“I don’t know the English words, but yes, a flower. The sadness of a flower that comes to bloom and no one is there to smell its sweetness.”

Her cheeks felt warm and she stood and smiled and wished him a good day.

The next week he called her to sit with him every day. He read some of her poems. He asked her what songs she liked and played them for her. The gaze of desire sometimes flashed, but more than anything he seemed happy to have company.

One day she said she wanted to learn to play the accordion. He laughed loud and thought it was a brilliant idea.

“This is a very old and very complicated accordion. I have another though. It is smaller, it would fit you. I tell you what. Maybe you give me a few dollars and you can borrow it and I will show you the basics, no?”

She wasn’t completely serious, but now the image of her sitting in the park with a barret playing a little squeeze box seemed both charming and hysterical. It seems so completely unlike her. She nodded her head and smiled.

His laugh boomed and he clapped his hands.

“Excellent! I will give you my address and you can come and get it tomorrow before we come to the park, no? Maybe if you learn well you can accompany me!”

She was unsure that she wanted to go up to his apartment. She hardly knew him and he was an old man and he lived in Harlem. She’d never been above 110th Street except once when she visited the Cloisters with her aunt.

Still, as he wrote down the details every logical argument seemed to die at her lips. He seemed so very excited and so very happy and he probably needed the money badly. She took the card he wrote the address on and slipped into her notebook and promised she would come the next day at ten in the morning.

And so it was that she held her purse close to her chest as she rode the A train higher and higher until she got to a place that hardly looked like Manhattan anymore. With wide eyes she examined the large low building and the multicolored bodegas and a man riding a bicycle covered christmas lights and speakers blaring salsa music.

The building was old–the year 1922 was carved in the cornerstone–but seemed to be in good shape. When she got to the door she wondered if it was too late to forget the whole thing and leave. She didn’t know what was waiting for her in the apartment, but it could be bad or even dangerous. She was thinking about how she would have to find a new park when Henri opened the door.

“Vie-oh-let! Come in, come in,” he said, taking her arm and ushering her into the apartment.

The place was neither as dingy and disgusting as she feared nor as interesting and full of character as she hoped. A somewhat different Henri than the one she knew in the park showed her around. He was scrubbed and groomed and gone were the layers of old clothes. He wore a pair of somewhat frayed brown slacks, a worn blue dress shirt and a charmingly oversized cardigan.

He pointed out the molding on the wall that he’d recently painted and the chandelier he’d found in the garbage and rebuilt and polished. All the while his eyes were hungry and he hands kept finding reasons to touch her arm, her back, her hair.

Lust was a fickle thing for Violet. There was something handsome and knowing about Henri. His accent, his demanding eyes. More than anything his desire for her was the most attractive thing. Perhaps there was also the fact that he was even older than her father. He was a street performer. He was so many kinds of wrong and very much not the sort of person she should be alone with in a house above 110th Street. The danger was a bit intoxicating.

“This is Philip’s room,” he said, opening the door to a dark room of cracked white paint and a mattress on the floor. Books were piled two or three feet high all along the walls and balanced on them were bottles of whiskey, sheaves of paper, notebooks, and various other detritus.

There were a few hundred books, and she could see one closet filled to the brim with magazines. It was the sort of room she could dive into.

“Can we go in?” she asked, her body pressing softly against his.

“Sure, he doesn’t care. He’s in New Jersey until Sunday anyhow.”

The sheets on the bed were dark blue and there were ashtrays and half full glasses of brown liquid scattered around the head and foot. The sun came in four thick cubes of light from the paned window and each fat beam sparkled with floating particles of dust.

Violet walked in and leaned over, then got on her hands and knees on the bed, and looked at the books that lined the walls and dotted the floor.

One pile was French–Flaubert, Zola, Guy de Maupassant, Sartre, and every book the Marquis de Sade ever wrote. Then there were Russians, Spaniards, a pile of glossy fetish books from Germany, a small neat pile of pornographic Japanese graphic novels. She found an huge old version of the Kama Sutra and opened it to vivid and complex diagrams of various types of coupling.

She felt Henri kneel on the bed next to her as she read, then his hand on her back. She looked at the book, or at least kept her eyes pointed at the pictures, as his hand slid down to her bottom. He sighed, and she stiffened. His hand moved to her leg, then back up to her ass.

She imagined what she looked like, bent over on her knees, leaning on her elbows, looking at a book about ancient sex acts. Turning her head a bit she realized she didn’t have to imagine because there was a dirty mirror propped up against the wall to her side and it showed her whole body, as well as Henri, from the neck down, groping her.

She imagined turning to face him, to kiss him, to seduce him, but the seduction was already done. She imagined doing so many things, but her body didn’t seem able to do anything but stay put. She thought it would be lovely just to stay there in the room full of books and let the old Frenchman touch her, and so that’s exactly what happened.

As she watched in the mirror he pulled up her summer dress and then pulled down her tights and underwear. It was pretty, the blue tights, the light blue cotton panties and then the cool cream of her thighs and bottom and then the cerulean of her dress.

“Are- are you a virgin, Violet?” he asked, his hands trembling as he stroked her thighs with his rough fingers.

She wanted to answer, but only a croak came out. She shook her head bit her lip.

“Quel dommage,” he said to himself before his fingers slipped across the softness of her pubic hair.

Getting up on her hands and knees she wondered why she was wet. Was it the wrongness of this whole situation? Was it just her body’s natural reaction to being touched?

When one of his fingers left her and came back slick with what she assumed was spit she tried and failed to stifle a small high pitched whine of pleasure. Then his thick, slightly rough, middle finger was pushing slowly into her and her eyes closed as she gave in to him.

“Oui,” he said and then, mumbling in French, he pulled at her clothes until she helped him strip her down.

Looking back at the mirror she saw her own frightened eyes, her petite body, her slight hips and bottom, her breasts no more than thick brown nipples atop inconsequential bumps.

She saw the old man worship her body. His hands trembling as he ran them over every inch of her skin. She thought she looked beautiful like this, with this fully dressed man bent over her form, his stubbly cheeks pressed against the small of her back and now two of his fingers trying to push their way into her tightness.

His hands were greedy and that made things easier for her. She let him pull at her nipples, drag his hard fingernails over her stomach and back, kiss her neck, and groan into her skin. She didn’t have to be a part of it; she only had to be the object. Only when his hand reached for his own belt did she tense again. He had asked her nothing, but waited for her to give him some semblance of consent–submission, desire, something.

“You-you have to use a condom,” she pushed the words out.

“Oui!” he almost shouted, then he fumbled around his roommates room and found a box of the things.

She was hypnotized by her body in the mirror. She liked her eyes, with her eyeliner dark and thick, with her lithe nude body and her hair making a black curve across her cheek. She liked the way her ass looked when she arched her back and stuck it in the air.

Then she saw Henri enter the cinema of the mirror-scape. She watched it like a movie. She saw his pantsless form. Gray hair on his legs and crotch. His penis was thick, ridged, daunting. He looked almost comical slipping the condom on it, but when he grabbed her hips there was nothing funny about the feeling of pressure against her sex and the fear that gripped her.

She wasn’t a virgin, but many of her little adventures had been so much like this. Older men, dangerous situations, the overwhelming silence and stillness that came over her.

He spit on his hand again and smoothed the wetness over her. His fingers absently found spots that made her wince with pleasure. He watched her and rubbed, laughing crudely when she mewed and pushed back at his hand.

“Ah,” he marveled, “le chat… elle veut, no?”

Then once more his hardness pressed against her sex, splitting her, but this time he would not be satisfied with rubbing. He pressed and his hands clenched on her hips and millimeter by millimeter he was inside of her. And when he was inside of her it was a white fire that made the fear bubble over with the pain and get all mixed up with the want.

When he fucked her, it didn’t matter what she wanted and as she turned and looked into her own eyes in the mirror she marveled at him. He pulled off his shirt and his chest was surprisingly muscular. He gritted his teeth and looked like a machine as he pistoned in and out of her.

The image seemed so far away from the bright burning of it. Still, looking was making her hotter. The wrongness suddenly washed over her in waves and she writhed against him, feeling like a dirty young slut. She wanted that feeling suddenly. It made her slicker and that made everything better and before she knew it she was pushing back at him.

His cries built quickly and his little moans almost choked him. Then suddenly his pounding became frenzies and she knew he was coming.

She watched him gasp and shudder and thought how she did that. Her body and her beauty did that and that was something.

After he slipped away and she heard him washing up in the bathroom. She dressed; looked around some more. She very much liked the little room full of books and she wondered about the man who lived there.

When she found Henri in the livingroom he was back in his layers of old suit jackets and pants and his long scarf.

“I’m sorry, I am very late, come, you leave with me?” he asked, suddenly seeming both more familiar, like an old friend, and more formal, like someone who didn’t just fuck her.

She left with him. He awkwardly embraced her and then walked towards the subway. The accordion he talked about, if it ever existed, was forgotten. She felt like a silly girl. She felt sad, but in some real way she felt adventurous.

A random cab pulled up, the driver seeming to know she didn’t belong on that street. She jumped in and headed to her favorite cafe. She drank tea inside of a warm sweet-smelling place and wrote it all down. She pieced together the whole thing– the clumsy seduction, if that’s what one could call it.

She thought of the park and how, like Eve, she couldn’t never return to her little Eden. Still, there were other Edens and other Adams and, in the end, far more apples.

I saw him go from a clean cut college kid in a cardigan and jeans into a scruffy looking anarchist, red faced from screaming and garbed in the mishmash of sweaters and coats we’d all gotten from donations.

It took four days for me to work up talking to him. His sign was complicated rhetoric and I had to look up some of the terms on my phone. It turned out he was a film student, like me. I’d come from Boston and he was from NY.

There was something about his intensity. There was something about way he pushed back when the cops moved the barricades in. He dared the world to fuck with him. He was ready to fight, ready to be hurt, ready to do what it took to make his point; our point.

We talked about queer theory and socialist themes in cowboy movies. We talked about The French Connection for hours.

I said he was respectful because that one night when it was so cold even the best of us were contemplating going home at least until morning, I pushed myself into his arms and he smiled and just held me.

I looked up at him and bit my lip. He looked into my eyes. Then we were kissing and kissing and I didn’t care that it had been a while since we brushed our teeth. All those hours next to him had made me acutely sensitive to his body.

“I can’t stand being so close to you and not touching you,” I whispered in his ear.

He grunted, looking around. I grabbed his chin.

His stubble was dirty blond and his lips were ruddy pink and there was this healthy glow to him. We kissed and kissed until it felt like I was trapped in my clothes. My body was sticky and insatiable even though my head and ears were freezing.

An hour later someone tapped me and with a sideways smile pointed to a tent on the far side of the camp.

“I have to do my turn at the medicine booth. You two should sleep for a while. I’ll be back in four hours,”

Then there was just my hand in his and the blur of colors as we rushed to the tent before anyone else could call it.

Then the zip of the flap of the tent and a world that was suddenly absent of wind the hundreds of eyes that were on us.

We didn’t speak, we just attacked each other. All those hours boiling down the need into this thick potent lust. His hands were under my shirt, then down the backs of my jeans grabbing my ass. His mouth was hungry and he bit and sucked at my lips. I fell into his growling aggression. I let him take me.

I turned from him and fell down on the sleeping bags and blankets. I pulled my jeans down and pushed my ass up in the air. I arched my back and hoped he understood. We didn’t have time enough for love or seduction. We only had time enough to use each other’s bodies.

He fumbled with his knapsack. Condoms and lube, just like I knew he would have. The cold wetness smoothed over me, making me jump, then his firm hand on the base of my neck, pushing me down.

“Is this okay?” he whispered.

“Yes,” I hissed.

“I mean, can I hold you down?”

“Yes,” my mouth was a snake, only capable of hissing.

“I couldn’t stand being near you without touching you anymore,” he said, his fingers inside of me, owning me.

“Just fuck me. Hurt me, please. Just use me,” and I meant every word of it.

His hand was on the back of my neck when I felt him press against me with his cock. He held me down by the neck like an animal. I was an animal. I was wild and only his hand was keeping me down, keeping me held down to be fucked.

Then all the thoughts, even the minimal instinctual growls in my head were gone and there was only the push and pull of him. There was only the pressure of him inside of my body and then the longing when he was briefly outside of it.

I pushed back against him and he matched my rhythm. I squeezed him when he was inside of me and I could feel his body groan as he came closer to the edge.

When he came his body went wild, he grabbed my hips and his body weight pressed against me and then I felt him pulse with the convulsions of an orgasm pent up for hours, for days.

Later, in the crowd I felt the unsated need in my belly like a prize. He was smiling and he took my hand and we shouted and sang into the night like the rebels we were.

I supposed it had been months before that the idea had taken root in my head. My college Watson had made some offhanded remark about his upcoming nuptials and how I would most certainly not be needing a “plus one” on my invitation. He had often noted my lack of romantic partners during our friendship. For a brilliant man, the dear doctor could be quiet daft.

Piecing together Watson’s various comments over our history, I started to see that there was an interesting theory in his mind about me. He was almost certainly under the impression that, either through my admittedly obsessive work ethic and insatiable curiosity about both the psychologically disturbing and the physically macabre, I had almost no understanding of sexuality. It may have even gone to the point where he believed that I was a virgin!

In deed it was a fact that in love, there were few people in my life whom I let strike those chords in my heartstrings. Fewer still were those who were ever made aware of my affections, if I did have them. My work, of course, came first. The matters of the heart often cause nothing but pain, as I’ve certainly experienced, and nothing will put lives in jeopardy and waste more time than ninny poems and moon-eyed longing.

Still there were times I have let myself slip into that heady world. The Elysian Fields of desire and romance were not unknown to me, nor the darkness of failed love. But we are not talking about love, dear reader, we are talking about sex.

The body has undeniable needs. Through meditation, the ingestion of herbs and rigorous mental acrobatics one can stave off the needs of the flesh for a time, surely, but as I attempt to thwart the even more nefarious temptation of a certain powdered extract of a member of the Erythroxylaceae family I have few diversions other than the violin and witnessing the inept failings of Scotland Yard to entertain my baser hungers.

And, to be frank, few things involve all my senses the way sexual congress does. Be it man or woman or any of the motley combinations I’ve found myself invited into, the number of reactions to account for; eyes dilating, tumescence, various wetnesses and swelling, the bevy of meaning in wordless moans and half held back whispers are too delectable for me not to catalog in my mind. Never is man more interesting than in that moment of ejaculatory inevitability. Never is the wonder of the female form more desperate and beautiful than when the sex blush blossoms between her breasts and those secret contractions reveal the priceless machinations of her enigmatic orgasm.

But I digress; let us get back to the tart.

Watson had, in his time, walked in on all variety of experiment and research in our abode. Often I was well aware of his schedule and set in motion things that would bring him into the cross fire of my tests for either comic relief or to push his curiosities into pace for my desired motivation in a case. As I said, a brilliant man who is at times daft.

On one Sunday I brought the tart, whose name was unironically Lily, though she held none of the pristine and innocent whiteness often metaphorically associated with said flower, into my chambers an hour before the dear doctor was bound to return.

I questioned her, as I often do, about the gossip and words on the street. Keeping abreast of the underbelly of these London streets. I seduced the sweet girl and in turn let her warm lips and plunging neck line carry the worries of my current case load away for a time.

I let her know in advance some of my plans, but not all. And even, though she almost refused, promised her a few pounds sterling to carry out my plan. Usually our affair was out of the clutches of her somewhat frowned upon profession and at times we played a game where she would even gift me with a tip of a few shillings for my heated ministrations.

After tasting the sweet lips of the temptress I involved myself in some of the more complicated ropework of the orient I had learned during my time with the Nipponese mystic Hiryuu. Intricate coils and webs of thin hemp line opened the girl’s legs to my full attention and made sure no impatient fingers got in my way. As well I bound her chest tightly so that her lush maidenly mounds were thrust out and nearly purple with pressure.

These secret sciences of bondage were perfected to not only secure the body of the subject, but to heighten blood-flow to more delicate regions and render them even more susceptible to the lurid acts I was inclined to participate in.

Having her very much at my mercy and having a bit of time to spare before my dear Watson was assuredly to barge in I procured a bowl of hot and soapy water and went about shaving the girl’s most lovely nether regions. This was a particular of mine as well as a wonderful safeguard from the various pestilences that can be found in the crotches of urchins and whores.

As I made sure the trollop shorn and tidy she was at once hypnotized by the ropes that held her and enraptured by my stimulation of her most tender bits. I made sure to be generous in my petting and rubbing as the blade made her as smooth as in birth.

Watson, as sharp as the pocket watch he wound every morning, barged in just as I washed her off and went to work making sure my shave was precise with the aid of my tongue.

“Good lord man!” was the familiar salutation of the doctor.

“Excellent,” I said, not even turning around.

“I’m completely fascinated by this one, Watson. As a doctor I wonder if you can find reference to the phenomena this young girl experiences. It will only take a moment.”

I said this all without comment on the absurdity of my best friend crimson faced and trying to form words as I manually stimulated a completely nude and thoroughly bound nineteen year old street walker who was perhaps the most attractive women either of us had seen to date.

“Holmes… you… she’s…”

“Yes, yes, she’s remarkable, isn’t she? Look at the blush pattern as she gets more aroused. Around the neck, down into a long ‘v’ between her breasts. Almost to her navel! Fascinating.”

“Holmes!”

“Yes, Watson, I assure you, I can hear you. Now look at the labia majora and how they have swelled. I wish you were here an hour ago and saw their flaccid state. I assure you, they’ve almost doubled in size! As well her nipples are fully erect and even her aureola have started to swell.”

The doctor was so flummoxed he sat down in a chair, eyes locked on the beauty and proceeded to drop his hat and cane, mute with confusion.

Lily, on the other hand, was making quiet a racket.

“Oh god! Oh dear Mary and Jesus above!” she cried.

“Yes, yes, let’s save the hymns for church, right now there is a trick we have to show my dear friend.”

I maneuvered two digits into her vaginal opening and, palm up, began stimulating the upper wall of the vaginal barrel, hunting for a ridged area I had noted a few weeks back as well as a small protuberance therein.

I explained the details of this to Watson, who was still trying to form words to express his shock, but was visibly both aroused and curious from a medical standing.

“As well as the manual stimulation, the subject is also obviously aroused by being held down. See her muscles tensing under the rope and how her eyes roll back when she is reminded again at her predicament. As well, her humiliation at being shown off to an audience, to a man she doesn’t even know is affecting her. Even as a well practiced street walker she is still overcome by the perceived dirtiness of this act.”

I then faced the girl and as I continued manipulating her genitals I grabbed her face to make her look at me.

“You’re ashamed of how aroused you are, aren’t you? At how your hips are trying to push against me as you writhe around a naked little whore in front of my well dressed companion. Aren’t you?”

Her green eyes opened wide and watered a little as she tried to shake her head in the negative.

“Holmes, please, the poor girl-” but I cut him off.

“Watson, save your chivalry. What I am doing has been agreed upon and I assure you it is consequential as well as much enjoyed. Lily here has proclivities I have explored and documented over the past few months and although her libido is high and her experiences varied, the apex of her desires can only be reached by these more elaborate and violent encounters. Only by the aggressive penetration with four fingers pressing hard against the base of her cervix combined with verbal debasement and humiliation will the desired effect I wished you to notice be achieved.”

At that point the girl started screaming, moaning, thrashing about as much as she could in her bonds.

“Holmes! You’re killing her!” he said attempting to stop my now fervently pistoning hand.

I pushed him away easily, filled with the adrenaline rush of amorous power and held him by the collar with one hand while fitting my other hand fully into the girl’s body.

With that, the awaited response began. Watson and I watched as the girl’s body tensed violently and two, then three arcs of clear fluid shot from her vulva as she screamed with pleasure.

I continued for some time, until she begged me to stop, speaking nearly in tongues.

When I finished I went about untying the girl as Watson once again sank into his chair.

“What a fool I’ve been,” he whispered.

I smiled, washing my hands in a basin as the girl, still shaking, curled around my feel like a deliciously pink cat. Her mind unable to think as a human as her body was still possessed by the orgasms I had invoked.

I smiled at the new blush that went over my old friend.

“What? With all of my knowledge you really though I had ignored one of the most driving forces in people’s minds? Do you really think I would be unaware or inexperienced with one of the most important desires of myself and all those around me?”

Watson’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly.

I laughed, still high on my activities with Lily and aroused by the sway I now held over my friend. I helped Lily up and sat her on a chair, then held my hand out to Watson.

“Come on, Old Hen, I have another experiment you may be interested in, as a doctor,” I pulled him up and led him to my table.

“You see, in exploring Lily’s particular ability I found most men have a somewhat similar spot that one can manipulate to most interesting ends.”

Watson let out half a laugh before realizing I was serious.

“Surely you-”

“Come now Watson, surely you wouldn’t hamper such important work,” I said, procuring a glove from my cabinat.

Lily sat, still nude and blushing, with rapt attention as I pushed my partner around and roughly pulled at his belt.

“Just relax Watson, I’ll show you exactly how much I know about these things.”

And with that, Watson learned exactly what my considerable experience could do.

Fin.