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.

She is on her side, turned away. The world is just the high flare of her hungry hips, her bottom, taught skin, pale skin, then the deep cutting black of a tattoo. Unrecognizable symbols, covered by the sheets, dark shapes barely seen through gauzy cotton obfuscation.

She is on her knees. Her body is facing me, but her eyes are turned down. Her hair, the jet black bob coming down to cover her face. The line of that hair coming to two points right above the bow of her lips. Bowed lips, arrow tongue, sword sharp eyes steel blue. She is weaponized sex.

Her body is facing away, but her head is turned half way towards me. She is expectant. She is waiting. Her profile, nose, small and slightly upturned; lips, huge and pouting; eyes, too large, too demanding. She is a cartoon. She is a little girl in a woman’s body. She is a physical overdose.

It’s all too much. It’s an odd kind of beauty. Not beauty, but something that demands attention. Her looks create addiction. She puts you into heat.

She is on all fours. Her back is supple and flowing feline into her neck where my lust always creeps like longing fingers. She is thin in her waist, thick in her thighs. She is wanton. She is built to fuck.

It’s the end. She is sitting on the bed, legs drawn up against her chest. Hair down in her eyes again. Every inch of her is human need. There it is, between up drawn legs. Just a glimpse. Gray speaking volumes of pink.

She is mine, dancing there in the breeze twenty times, still dripping and bound to the line. A decadent row of her across the studio expanse. Twenty scenes captured. Twenty times exposed to me. Exposed to film. Exposed.

I love the quite calm of my dark room. I love the smells of the chemicals. The sticky sweet fixer, like dead things and morgues. The thin smells of alcohols. The piss stench of ammonia. The soapy washes and oily developers. I love all of them. My beautiful factory of potions and elixirs. I am an alchemist, transmuting dull white paper into vivid life.

Most of all I love all this control. To bend everything to my will; even the sun obeys me in my dark room. The way I can compensate for the temperature and the humidity and every conceivable condition. It is so unlike life. It is so unlike the world.

After I got out of college, I got work quickly. I was an artist but not an Artist. I didn’t feel the need to be edgy and I certainly did have any kind of ego, so I got catalog work right away, then magazine stuff, food, architecture. I could do almost anything, though my agent though I was better at photographing “things” as opposed to “people”. The fact of the matter was I saw little difference in them.

All in all I liked New York a lot, even in the beginning. It agreed with me. In New York no one ever touches you unless you want them too. It’s a place where a person’s personal space is a constant concern. It might shock people, but it’s infinitely easier to be alone in a crowded place like this then out there where people want to belong and yearn to connect.

Here the connections are fleeting, though ever present. Our connections are sterile and carefully measured, like the chemistry of my life. We filter who we let in and how much of ourselves we let them see and take. We shuffle off, underground, into separate apartments, numbered cubicles. To some it might seem cold, but I couldn’t imagine a better way. This measured madness is the only way a city this huge could exist without collapsing on its own chaos.

In its own way New York was one big dark room. Perfect it its ability to create vivid images from pristine darkness and only able to be navigated by those who possessed the occult knowledge and experience of its secret sciences.

And so it was with my little studio apartment. A white walled womb. The ever-present post-collegiate futon. Book shelves and a folding tables. It was easy since every New York artist’s most important piece of furniture is simply the lack of a television.

It was perfect for me. On the wall a Brassaï, a Rodchenko a few shots I took around the city.

It was quiet, my little apartment. I call it a studio only because the one bedroom it had was converted into a darkroom. There were no two-bedroom apartments in the building. It wasn’t a family place. No noisy kids. There were occasionally parties on the weekend, but nothing huge. During the week we were all just trying to sleep. We all had to work in the morning.

My old neighbor could have been a stockbroker or a hooker or the ambassador of Brunei. I think I saw him twice and both times he was wearing a gray suit and carrying Indian take out. I never heard a sound come from his apartment. I didn’t even smell the Indian food. I didn’t see him move in and I didn’t see him move out. I was isolated. My apartment was a sensory deprivation tank, just the way I liked it.

Until she moved in.

The first time I heard the bass come through the wall I didn’t think much of it. I was curious more than anything. The rumbling was intense; it shook the water in the rinse bath I had an 8 by 10 in. It was a long bass line that seemed to echo a sultry walk. It sounded familiar, reminiscent of some old jazz tune but different, contemporary.

When the song ended I was staring at the white wall. I wanted to hear what came next. That’s when the first moan came through the wall.

It was laughable, at first. To think I never heard anything noise from my neighbors and now this.

The sound came again, a gasp, a little yelp of pleasure. Words came too, but they were muted, filtered through a foot of drywall and insulation. I didn’t know why, but I was on my feet. Cleaning lenses and drying prints be damned.

A cry, a moan, an indiscernible dirty word. Ambiguous sounds of fucking.

Then the banging. Right against the wall. They were on the other side. Thumping. The bed hitting a spot a foot away from where my hand touched the smooth eggshell paint.

That wicked Wednesday was the start. Every wicked Wednesday that followed was the same. Starting around 8 PM or 10 or sometimes not till midnight. Going on for hours. Sometimes it sounded like an argument. Sometimes it was just low moans building to an apex of shouted climaxes.

It wasn’t till the third time I realized that it was going to be a weekly event. It wasn’t until the fifth time that I realized I that I was scheduling these listening sessions. It wasn’t until the eight time that I realized I was addicted to the sounds. The rumbles of the bass. The chance of catching a syllable. The piggyback perversion of it all.

The first time I saw her, she’d already moved in. I don’t know how people move in here in the city, but one day I came home from a shoot and the door next to mine was open.

It is an odd thing to see a open door in an apartment in the city. There is something inherently wrong with it.

I walked slowly to my door. Just a peek.

“Get your ass- oh! Sorry. I thought you were somebody else.”

The first time I saw her, she was in a skin tight white tank top, loose blue painter’s pants with various shades of white spattered over them and her short ink black hair in two tiny pigtails.

I smiled awkwardly, the way an introverted photographer smiles when a beautiful exotic woman tells him to do something with his ass.

She smiled and apologized. I nodded and opened my door.

“See you around neighbor!” she giggled, closing her door.

There is was. I was intrigued. She wasn’t wearing a bra. I didn’t really think about it.

It wasn’t until a week later that the bass started.

The first time you handle a real camera is very much like picking up a gun; the weight, I mean. It’s surprisingly heavy. I am talking about a real camera, not the little things they make today for tourists and amateur shutterbugs. I mean a professional camera. The steel is cold and calculated, like a physical manifestation of surgery or solidified mathematics. To handle something like thing brings about images of clockworks, or still sterile rooms, chemicals and apertures and the machinations of long dead mathematicians.

My stomach felt cold and hollow. Sick and dead. I tasted iron, bile, palpable guilt. The taste of insomnia. My hands shook and the only thing that could still them was the camera. I dried my hands on my shirt before I picked it up and instantly I felt the coolness sooth me and the perfect mechanical faultlessness align my soul.

I distinctly remember the first time I looked at a camera as more then a tool. More then an object. It was in college, before I knew what I was and before anyone knew who I was.

My first good professor, the one who didn’t try to sell us the textbook he wrote, because he spent his summers actually working. He was tall and lanky, with a small pot belly that stuck out comically when he wore his tattered dress shirt open in the summer.

He was chocolate colored, but aged. Like Easter chocolate gone bad. Light patches on his balding head. Spots and marks all over from a life really lived. He was handsome in a way that was foreign to me. I respected him a lot.

Edwin Sherman. PhD, but he would be the last to tell you about it. He spoke like a character in a Walter Mosley novel. Jazz slang and a lyrical Brooklyn accent. He made me want to earn being called a “cat”.

I remember on the first day of class, he picked up his old rangefinder Leica with one huge hand. Long fingers slipping into every nook of the frame. He took a minute to look at it and smile in his ironic way, with that huge sensual mouth. He cradled it like a baby. No, something more delicate. A baby will grow up and leave you. That camera will be with him for ever.

I tried to cradle my camera like that. I tried to mimic his careful loving stance, just like the way I tried to match my father’s stride and the way he stood at a urinal with determined masculinity.

I succeeded as much as I could, but frankly I wasn’t much of a man.

He showed me those basics. Find lines, follow patterns, understanding shadows, controlling light and adjusting what you can’t control.

“They say you can fix it all in the darkroom, but that’s all a bunch of bullshit. If it ain’t there, you ain’t gunna find it in the darkroom.”

There I was, in the darkroom trying to find it. Trying to find something.

The safety light above makes everything calm and controllable. I can handle things in this kind of light.

I need photography because unlike my own natural chemistry, photography’s could actually be measured and counted on. Perhaps my mother was the same, only her body needed poisons as my father needed bile and grief.

I could never control my body. I was skinny and awkward. I was weak and always tired. Nothing I ate agreed with me. I couldn’t break things down like other people. Everyday was just waiting for the next pain to come. From my stomach to my head to those nameless murky parts inside that always seemed to writhe and hiss with pain.

In my makeshift dark room I measured my chemicals perfectly. I timed everything. I set up my faucet with thermometers and pH guards and filters to keep the amount of air bubbles to a constant.

Color or black and white. The two worlds in which I lived. Two wildly different worlds. Black and white always held my heart, but color demanded every ounce of my mind.

The hall on the ground floor of the apartment was dark, only lit by the florescent light above the mailboxes. Everything else was thrown into shadow, almost making it more mysterious and frightening then being totally dark.

It was dirty the way all old apartments were dirty in New York. Dirty from ware, from use, from a million fingers touching it and a million feet treading over it. They were walls that had been painted a million times. Painted quickly and without care. You could see little holes that transported you through decades with each shade of dull gray and institutional green.

The old metal mailboxes were covered with scratches. Missed keys and nosy neighbors. Angry boyfriends and careless children.

The little slot where you inserted a nameplate had been used so many times that the owners had just given up. So many names, so many lives.

I wondered how many people had used my mailbox before me. How many bills and postcards from far away places and love letters and goodbye letters and TV Guides had filled it.

I didn’t get much mail. Checks and bills that could really just be sent to each other for all I cared. One magazine shoot paid for electric and gas, one good ad paid the rent for that month. I lived on the leftovers. When a bunch of people I would never meet were done exchanging money through me, I made a good living. I had enough. I saved for some future I couldn’t fathom.

Then I saw that Her mailbox had a new sticker on it. A label. A name.

M. Mansfield.

M.

Mary, Marie, Maria, Margaret, Matilda, Melanie, Melinda, Monique?

I looked around. My heart started racing suddenly and my hands felt cold.

M.

I stepped back, into the shadow and under the stairs. I fumbled with my pocket and pulled out my camera.

My old Lieca, with a very small 30 MM lens, can fit right in the pocket of my p-coat. Snug. I can pop off the cover while it is still in my pocket and set the aperture before it even gets to my eye and there, I can snap off three shots and have it back in my pocket before I blink.

Her name in my rangefinder is sweet. It makes my belly tighten.

Gray gray gray and white and black black of the tiny print. M. If I could I would blow it up to poster size.

I want to read her mail. I want to peruse her life. I want to be in her head. I want to read her diary. I want to know everything.

I was fixated on her mailbox. So much so I didn’t hear the jingle of keys. I just barely heard the click of heels on the tile floor and then she was right in front of me.

She was wearing fishnet stocking and a black skirt. The seam of the fishnets was not straight, making me wonder if she had already been fooling around today.

Her ass was a bit bigger then I had thought. Plump for her frame. I liked it so much I almost let out an involuntary growl.

She had her short cut biker jacket on, with the word “hellcat” embossed on the back in red and orange.

I could see the fine cut of her black hair and her bare neck as she bent over to open her mailbox.

It was just then that I remembered that I was hiding in the shadows behind her and how creepy that would be. I swallowed hard, but quietly, and tried to push myself back against the shadows under the stairs.

She heard me move and froze.

I can tell, as she continued collecting her mail with tight muscles and a ready stance, that she was a practiced denizen of the city. No signs of fear, no signs of weakness.

She closed her mailbox and spun around to meet my eyes.

Relief passed over her.

“Hi.” She said with sigh.

“Hi.” I replied awkwardly. I couldn’t move.

Her forehead wrinkled a bit as she gave me a curious smile.

“What are you doing over there?”

“Just waiting… um… for my friend.”

“Oh, well I’m Mona by the way.”

“David.”

She smiled again and waved. Then took off for the elevator.

“Have fun waiting for your friend.”

Her name was Mona.

Mona Mansfield.

Through the walls again, I let myself ride her pleasure. I closed my eyes and breathed the way she does. I shut the world out except for her moans and caught breath and dirty whispers. She was even louder this time. Rough words I couldn’t make out. Rhythmic thumping and grunting and those begging cries.

What was he doing to her? Was he that good or was she just very receptive.

I could picture her there. I could extrapolate what she looked like from the bits and pieces I saw. That flash of leg when she came home in a short skirt. That cleavage I glimpsed at once when she bent down to get a sock that fell from her laundry basket.

I saw the room in black in white in my mind’s eye. Bare white walls, curtainless windows, dirty hardwood floor, lightly sprinkled with undergarments and abandoned shoes.

Her tattooed skin naked on white sheets. Thick black lines on her cream skin, stretching out around her arms, up her legs, between her breasts.

Sheets wrinkled, straining, lines swirl around her pretty fists as they pulled at the fabric, anchoring her from being totally swept away by the firm fast fucking she is getting.

Her partner was a faceless man. Muscular, masculine, everything I’m not. That’s what she wants. That’s the only thing that could make her scream that way.

Their sex is primal, violent, and explosive. They claw at each other, bite each other, mark each other’s flesh. They bargain for control with practiced give and take. He holds her down, she tightenes her legs, she makes him wait, he makes her come.

When they are done I open my eyes and the room is swimming with fuzzy electricity because I closed them too tightly. My hands are white knuckled fists in my shirt and I almost bit through my lip.

I taste coppery blood and the smells of the chemicals from the darkroom and my own thin clean sweat makes me dizzy for a minute. I am hyper, my brain vibrates. Everything is in perfect focus.

Hard and hot and crystallizing in my obsession.

The word is worrisome and exciting on my tongue. Obsession. Passion. Need. Hunger.

Obsession.

The first time we had anything like a normal conversation was right before her tenth Wicked Wednesday.

I was carrying about 100 pounds of equipment up to the apartment after a downtown shoot. The guys at the shoot got everything into a taxi trunk and the cab driver got everything into my apartment building, but I had to get it to the elevator and then into my apartment.

The problem was I could only carry a little at a time and I couldn’t leave any downstairs alone because someone would take it. So I had to flip the emergency stop on the elevator and fill it, then go up and hit the emergency stop again to unload it.

As I got up to the sixth floor, she was waiting.

“So you’re the one holding up the elevator.” mock annoyance on her face and a hand on her hip.

I just smiled awkwardly. Again.

“I’m just kidding. I heard the elevator alarm. Oh…” she looked at my equipment. “Do you need help?”

“No, no. I’m good. I got this stuff. Really.” I said, hoisting my strobe stands and Hasselblad case with the sudden adrenaline rush of meeting her in the hall.

“Come on, it’s cool. I’ll get this stuff.” She picked up my 35mm case and the duffle bag with odds and ends, the heaviest thing I had, and followed me out.

I fumbled with the keys. I tried to think what my apartment looked like. I wondered if she knew I could hear her at night. I started to feel those sensations. My hands went cold. My heart was racing. I felt like I was going to die. Panic attack. Stay calm. Stay calm.

She is in my apartment.

I flick on the lights and she sees my life. The futon and the bookshelf with a million oversized photography books. The table with portfolios and the long line across it all with drying prints. My life is 20 things and 5 gallons of chemicals.

The door closes behind her and she drops my stuff on the floor a little harder then I’d have liked.

“Wow. I’m going to take a wild guess and say you’re a photographer.”

I just melt a little. I lean against the wall, trying to pretend I’m tired or something. I try to get my heart under control.

“Yeah. Good guess.”

She walks in. She looks around. She walks up to the line and touches an 8 by 10 of an anorexic looking girl in lingerie.

“This your girlfriend?” She smiles.

I make a sound somewhere between a laugh and a punch in the stomach.

“No. Just some girl selling underwear.” I am moving now, putting things away. Do I ask her to leave? Do I make her a drink? I don’t even know how to make a drink.

“She is too thin. She needs a cheeseburger.”

I am a deer in headlights.

She is wearing a low cut black t-shirt and loose satiny pants. She looks ready for bed.

“I’ve been thinking about getting some pictures taken. I am an actress.”

I nod. I smile. I am calming down.

“Maybe you know somebody cheap.”

I just stare at her.

She is looking at me like I am a child or mentally handicapped outpatient.

“Cheap like inexpensive. Not cheap like… nevermind.”

I nod.

“Yeah.”

She walks to my darkroom door.

“This where you keep the dead bodies?”

“That’s the darkroom.”

“Oh. Cool. Chemicals are fun.”

“Do you want something to drink?”

She shakes her head.

“I could do your headshots. If you want.”

She smiles.

“You don’t seem cheap.”

She is batting her lashes. The words form in my head. Batting her lashes. I never realized how kinky that term is.

“You’re my neighbor. I mean. I don’t have to move anything. I mean. It’s ok. You can just pay for the prints.”

“Don’t you print them here?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“So how much do you charge for prints?”

“I get free paper from the company I work for.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means… I’ll just do it.”

She is smiling.

“Cool.”

And then we are silent.

“Ok, well. When do you want to do it?”

Right now. Get on the floor.

“Wednesday.”

The word just comes out of my mouth, like speaking tongues.

She frowns.

“Wednesdays aren’t really good for me.”

“Any day then.”

She is still frowning.

“Is Wednesday good for you? Maybe I can do it if it is early.”

“Early is good.”

“Like noon early?”

“Yeah.”

“Great.”

Her smile is back. Wicked smile.

“You should bring someone.”

She wrinkles her eyebrows.

“What do you mean?

“Someone to do your hair. I mean, if you do your own hair and makeup it will take a long time and I doubt you’ll be happy.”

I walk over to my portfolios. I pick out the headshot/actor one. I open it to a picture of a shy blond in a summerdress. I wave for her to come over.

“You see her. She is all summery here, then she is dressed elegant and cosmopolitan, then business, then ready to tango. That is what people usually want. So you should get some different outfits and bring somebody to do your makeup and hair.”

She looked confused and impressed.

“Wow. That seems elaborate.”

I nodded, flipping through the book.

“When I said I was an actress I meant ‘aspiring’ actress.”

I nodded again.

“This girl was on CSI last night! Hah!”

I looked at the details on her heart tattoo.

“I’ve never acted. I was thinking of trying it out. I am a bartender and I am going for my BA in Psychology at Hunter.”

“So you don’t think you want to do the headshot right now? Maybe when you need it for a audition or something.”

She half smiled, fingering the edge of the portfolio. Thinking about what-ifs.

“Maybe. Maybe you can just take my picture sometime.”

I nod.

“I…”

“What?”

“I actually need some pictures. I need some pictures of… tattoos.”

“Tattoos?”

“Yeah. Like your heart. Things like that. I have been looking for some tattooed… people.”

“For what?”

“It is an art piece.”

She thought about this.

“So you might want to shoot my ink for an art piece?”

“Maybe.”

“That would be cool.”

Just then a phone rang. Her phone. We both turned to the wall.

“Is that my phone?”

I just stared.

“Thin walls, huh?” She smiled nonchalantly.

“Ok, so tattoo shoot. Cool. I’ll let you know sometime. I got to get that. We will plan something.”

“Yeah. That’ll be good…”

And she was gone. Out the door.

The darkroom, again. The still silence and the quite little sounds. The snap of a shot from the enlarger. The dripping as I lift paper out of the stopper. The hum and occasional crackle of the air purifier. These were the only sounds I needed. The dull amber light, when I can use it, makes everything warm and soft and sort of visually controllable. This was my womb and I could control it all.

The bass line comes again. It is early this time. It is the same song. Long deep bass. The chemicals ripple.

I don’t have to listen. I am working. I don’t have to imagine.

How she got naked, I’m still not really sure.

Sometimes when you work in a field you don’t stop to realize the idiosyncrasies of your occupation. You don’t realize you are using jargon. You don’t see how mechanical everything you do would look to an outsider.

Take a model for example. Normally I work with professional models. This is not to say that I work with the beautiful waif thin people you see on magazines, but I work with the wide array of part time actors or what have you that do catalog modeling and the sort. These are people with agent and agendas and people who have been indoctrinated into the idiosyncratic routine.

The air of distance, the awareness of the fact that we are doing a job, the vigilant psychological sterilization of it all is impressive. It’s too bad we train ourselves never to notice.

When Mona walked in I realized it all. I realized it because it was all gone.

She was dressed in what she was always dressed in. A ribbed white tank top, a red and black bra showing from under it. Faded blue jeans, a black belt and chunky black shoes.

I had met her in the hall again, my mind occupied with a thousand other things. I saw her in the hallway bending over in front of my door slipping a note under it. I dropped my lens bag. Luckily modern padding saved them. She looked surprised. She pulled the note back out.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Is that for me?”

“Just a note.”

“What does it say?”

She looked somewhat shy. She didn’t look like herself. She looked sad. Her eyes were more gray then blue. Her lips were pinker then I remembered.

“Just that I wanted to get some pictures done, if you still didn’t mind.”

“I don’t mind.”

“And you could take the tattoo pictures. I’d like that. I mean, being in an art project.”

I cradled my bag. I couldn’t look directly at her. My eyes kept going to her pink lips and her blue eyes and her red bra.

“Art piece.”

“What?” Her eyebrows furled.

“Art piece. An art project is something you would do for school.”

“I thought that is what you meant, something for school.”

“No, I finished school.”

“Then what is it for?”

“It’s just… art. It’s for me.” I quickly corrected myself, “It is art. It is for a gallery or something. I am trying to put together something to show at a gallery one day.”

“A gallery?”

“Yeah.”

“One of those things in SoHo where people walk around in a big room with white walls and sip white wine and look at weird pretentious paintings?”

“Something like that.”

“But I need some pictures too.”

“Right. For acting.”

“No, for my… boyfriend.”

Silence. Slight pain in my eye, shooting into my head. Autopilot comes on.

“It doesn’t matter what you want them for. I’ll take some pictures for you and you can have them. I’ll keep some of your tattoos.”

“Now?”

“What?”

“Can you do it now?”

For her boyfriend? The one who comes on those wicked Wednesdays? Now? I have a million things to do. I have to get to sleep. I have to be up at five in the morning. I have to take pictures of fruit tomorrow.

“Yes.”

Eyes bright she grabs my arms and smiles at me.

“I’ll be over in 15 minutes.”

Then I am in the hallway alone.

The entire idea of doing something for arts sake was foreign to me. I tried to remember fashion pieces I had done. I tried to remember art school. I tried to think edgy, wild, new.

All I could think of is her. I couldn’t jeopardize this chance. I had to just shoot. I had to just get as much of her as I possibly could on film.

I pushed my futon out of the way. I took sheets from the closet and laid them out over the hardwood floor. White wall and now white floor. I set up lights and filters over them. I wanted clean clean images of her. I wanted to eliminate all shadows. I wanted to see every line of every tattoo. I wanted perfection.

I took out the big guns. The Lieca, the Hasselblad. I stared at the bag of Black and White and the Color. That was the choice. I knew I should do Black and White, but the idea of capturing those pinks was too much.

Half and half. Color with the medium format black and white with the 35 mm. Maybe the other way around.

Then she was knocking on the door.

She brought a bag full of wrinkled clothes. She brought a makeup bag. I took them from her and without speaking pulled her over to the sheet on the floor.

She just stood there, self-conscious, acutely aware of all the things we train ourselves to ignore in this business. Looking at the lights and flinching. Looking at the sheet and frowning.

I had the big Hasselblad on a tripod and I started metering light and moving the lights. She watched with curiosity.

Fear and nervousness were gone once I had her in my crosshairs.

The first shot was of her wrists, together. Two stars in thick black. Black and white. Her veins exposed, her fists clenched. Chipped paint on her nails.

“I have the same stars on my ankles.”

We both looked down at her jeans and shoes.

“Maybe I should change.”

I nodded.

I did what I always do when a model has to change; I turned around and fiddled with my equipment.

She takes the cue, though it takes a few minutes. I think she was waiting for me to show her to the bathroom. She coughed a little when ready. I turned around to see her in an almost transparent old wife beater and a pair of what looked like men’s boxers. The top of her bra peaks out. It is red satin lined in black lace.

“Better?”

If I just nod I will not say something stupid.

The next shot is of the heart on her chest, framed by the cotton top of she shift and under that the silhouette black lace of her bra.

She looks down, following my lens. Letting out a little sigh of contemplation, she pulls off her shirt.

With a snap I have her heart, the red and black of the ink the red and black of her lace and satin and the pale perfection of her skin.

As I shoot her, she grows more and more comfortable with me. I grow passive; I melt into the camera and the background. She is in the spotlight as she looks around my home, naked feet treading off the sheet onto the blond wood floor.

I wait, poised to capture another pose.

She goes to my bookshelf and touches a few spines. She looks out my little window.

A shot of her profile against the light of the window. I adjust the shutter speed now that we are away from the big light. I feel the weight of film in my pocket. Everything is perfect. She is mine.

She is facing away from me when she reaches back and unsnaps her bra.

I drop the camera. The thick weight hits my chest as the strap tugs at my neck.

I pick up the big Hasselblad. I zoom in and I catch the red lines that cut into her back and shoulders from the bra. She turns and I am zoomed into a world of thick pink nipples. One is pierced by a single silver ring.

She closed in on me. I had to move back and zoom out. Then I was against the wall. The wall. The wall that she fucks against.

She stops on the sheet again. She turns, then turns her head so that her eyes and back are both facing me.

On her back are two huge tattoos, thick and black. They are the f-stops you would find on a masterpiece cello. The classic curve of them makes her seem more… refined.

One shot of her back. Thick black against soft white.

She bent forward, slipping thumbs under the boxers. Pulling them down down until they puddle around her star marked ankles.

A shot. The bookshelves blurry in the distance. Red satin and black lace boycut panties. Her head ad torso invisible as she bends over. Only the curve of her ass and her legs crossed at the ankles.

Then the panties joined her boxers. Then she gathered up the sheet and it dragged and followed her to the bed.

Laying in my little futon, wrapped up in my blanket.

The pictures clicked away. Change cameras, change film, move the lights.

Her face is flushed now. Mine should be, but I am cold. My hands, my feet, my face, all ice. My blood flowed only into my camera.

She sat up facing me, knees up, looking at me. The pink of her sex visible. Bubblegum pink.

“Do you have enough?”

Her voice was husky. Her breath was short.

I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t answer. I shook my head. No. Not enough.

She looked down. She contemplated something. She bit her lip.

“I think it’s enough.”

Just look away. Put your camera away. Her eyes were sad.

I moved in. I snapped more. One camera at my eye and one hanging around my neck. I kneeled in front of the bed and snapped. Each time my finger pressed down on the little button, I felt that moment of resistance before it moves the shutter and I feel it in my chest and lower.

She moved back, legs falling open, sheet falling away. My camera was over the lip of the bed, between her open legs.

A shot of her eyes. Slightly drugged. Lips wet. Cheeks now bright red, like too much wine.

Her breasts, too large for her frame. Nipples pink against white. Larger then I imagined. Hard. Different then the kind I have seen on my girlfriends. Somehow, more intimate.

Her sex was shaved clean. It looks ludicrously naked. Somehow more then just nude.

She laid back and I knelt on the bed in front of her.

The shot is of the horizon of her body. The curve of her pelvis bone, the rise of her breast, she bites her lip right next to the silver ring that pierces it.

She rolled her hips, displaying every part of herself, putting on a show. Somewhere in my head I thought I could smell her sex. Her leg brushed my shoulder, I was so close and I felt the heat of her skin thorough my shirt. I backed up because it was too much and I went to get the other camera. When I turned back around she was getting up. She was getting dressed. I was trying to figure out what happened. I walked to my table and put away the film.

When I turned around and saw her pull her boots on.

“When will the prints be ready?”

I calculated. I shouldn’t seem rushed.

“A few days, I-”

She opened her eyes wide and moved in on me.

“No! I need them today, like later today, but today.”

She looked wild, angry. She grabbed my arm.

“I can’t get them today- it’s not like going to a one hour photo lab, I have to develop them and enlarge them and touch them up a little.”

She calmed. She let go. My logic was reasonable, even if it wasn’t what she wanted.

“Ok, ok. I need some by next Wednesday. I just need some… you know… some ones of my tits and stuff. For my boyfriend.”

I didn’t look at her. I just twisted the lens of my camera and nodded.

“Yeah. A couple of days. I’ll bring them over.”

She sighed.

“Just slip them under my door.”

When she was there, in my studio, I didn’t even really see her. I was so conscious of myself; my own body, my own fumbling, my own ineptness. It was only when I had her in the bath, in the enlarger, in my clean and perfect dark room that I got to see her.

She was somewhat thinner then she seemed when clothed. Her hips and breasts flared out hungrily and made her seem bigger then she was. This illusion like many of her others were lost when she was naked. After all, one can learn a lot by watching someone when they’re nude. How they look, how they carry themselves, how comfortable they are in their own skin.

Some women I’ve been with (and there have been a few, going to art school and all) had constantly seemed to be covering themselves. They never stretched and lingered like she did. They hid under the covers or under their nervous hands or between their nervous words. Not Mona. Mona was fearless when naked. Charming when unclothed. A wide smile, living innuendo, a perfect subject. I was the only one blushing and squirming when she was naked in my studio. I was the only one uncomfortable and we were both quite aware of that fact.

When dressed, she wore wild things. Layers upon layers of color or black. Dangling bracelets, big clunky boots, skirts and fishnets, shirts and vests. A collage of masks to make sure everyone knew the person she wanted to be. To constantly show people she was a rebel and a bohemian and a sexual object.

She had taken measures to take control of her nude form, too. She had spent years perfecting this work of art. The most obvious of these modifications were the two long black tattoos on her back, the curved f-holes you would find in a cello or violin. They were dark matte black and contrasted perfectly with the white of her skin.

Then there were the stars. Thick black stars, one on the back of each ankle, on each side of her chest where the collarbone met the shoulder and one on the tender flesh of on inside of each wrist. In the center of her collar bone there was a heart, deep blood red, outlined in black with a golden crown on top of it and flames all around.

I found it odd that her ears were not pierced at all, but she did have a silver barbell through the tender pink of her left nipple. The piercing which most interested me was the silver ring through her lip. Off center with a small silver ball.

I don’t know why, but I always cringed a little when I looked at that last piercing. Maybe because her lips were so very full and that metal cut so very deep. I can bite my lip and imagine the pinprick of the needle, the taste of copper, the sting. I don’t know why, but it drives me wild. It makes me want to suck on her bottom lip and do wild things to her lush body. Things I would never really do. Things that hover in my head like forbidden delicacies. That was what she was after all, a delicacy. A jeweled, glistening sinful treasure, with candied pink nipples and sugared lips and she bled wine and came honey.

How far I had come in my quest to capture her? You can’t even imagine what it took for me to get her here, to take these pictures. What kind of courage I had to muster.

But, could I be sated with pictures? Was it possible to be satisfied with her exposed across my livingroom? It’s how I quenched most of my desires. Sublimation through chemistry. Little pills, occasional shots, fixer and stopper and alcohol.

But she was twenty times mine across the expanse of the studio and I had to be content.

Until the noise started again. The noise started again through the wall, and I knew I had to have her.

That same Pavlovian pain. All at once, desire and guilt and shame. Always shame. The parasite that clings to everything that eats away at every other emotion.

Do you know what madness is? Don’t they say a sign of madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different reaction? I remembered that every time I put my hands on the wall. I did it hoping I would appear on the other side. I listened hoping I would become the one. The one who made her bed clank and bang. The one who made her breath catch and her moans drift across the world like some fabulously exquisite songbird. Palms to the cool white paint. Ear pressed against the thin barrier, like a pervert. And I was most certainly a pervert.

Madness was listening to her fuck through the wall, unable to stop it or start it or touch it or even see it. Unable to stop myself from listening, from wanting, from imaging.

How did I get there? How did I get to that point? How did I become that person?

On Friday I was going out of town for a shoot in Miami. Sun and lights and all the things I wouldn’t enjoy. I stayed up for 38 hours straight making two sets of the shots I picked from the contact sheets I’d mulled over for far too long.

Before I left I knocked on the door. Nothing. I traced the flaking paint around the molding.

I promised myself that next week I would go out on Wednesday. My heart felt tight. My eyes burned a little. I felt like a fool.

I slipped the envelope under the door. Only 12 shots. What she wanted; the most explicit of the shoot.

I thought of knocking again, but I heard the horn of my cab. I gathered my suitcases and said goodbye to Mona Mansfield.

On Monday I returned to find three older Polish men with thick hairy arms moving ladders and buckets into the apartment next to mine.

The apartment, Mona’s apartment, was empty. White walls like mine, though dingier and less maintained. Scraps of paper on the floor and an empty bottle of Jack Daniels. Through the crooked doorway beyond I saw a naked mattress. I wondered if that was her darkroom.

“You know her?” one of the men asked.

I shook my head.

“She no pay rent, four month. She leave in the middle of the night. You know where she is you tell her I sue her ass.”

I nodded.

The building had a roof. Not much, just a wooden deck with a couple of chairs. On one side there was the building next door, which was three stories taller. On the other side there was a chain link fence with barbed wire separating our roof from the building next door. To the North was the dark of Harlem. To the South were the lights of the city, which swallowed the stars and made constellations of their own.

It was far enough uptown that the buildings were mostly low and mostly poor. You could see clotheslines out windows just like the old pictures and the skeletal remains of antennas poking from between water towers and the occasional garden. You could see the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings in the distance. You could smell the river. You could smell Autumn; wet leaves and cool air. You could smell chemicals on my hands and clothes.

I burned the pictures up there because I had to. They would become the new Wednesday night voyeurism. It would all keep haunting me. I burned the prints and the negatives in a bucket and the silver smoke curled up into the sky.

It took all the strength I had to do it and frankly I shocked myself when I struck the match. The minute they were gone I felt better.

That Wednesday I went out on the town.

END

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.