Лорен Хендерсон - The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New Erotica

He receives an ovation when he arrives at the bar. His friends clear a stool for him.

“Have a beer!” Dean cries. “You must be exhausted!”

“Drink up!” Doug says. “Replenish those fluids!”

“Do a shot, man,” Dave advises. “You can’t spare the time for a pint! Gotta get back to the little wife!”

They check their watches. “How long you need to regenerate, man? We’ll let you know when time’s up.”

His cell phone rings. “It’s my wife. I better pick up.”

“Time for dessert!” they all jeer. “Second helpings!”

“Mind picking up some buttermilk on your way home?” his wife asks. “I’m making bread tomorrow.”

“Sure, hon.” He wishes she would knead something other than flour. The only thing rising in his house is dough. They could milk his meat instead. Beat his eggs. Eat her jelly roll. Toss his nuts. Warm her bread basket. Hot cross his buns. Maybe make baby batter and put a bun in the oven.

“So, what’d she want? Come on, you can tell us.”

“Lovin’ in her oven.”

They whoop and slap him on the back. His Hefeweizen splashes his shirt.

“Come on, spill the beans, man. You never tell us anything.”

He swipes at his soggy shirt, imagining:

He bangs the front door open and stomps inside, adjusting his wide load. His wife pauses with her lipstick-stained teacup halfway to her lips. “You’re home early, honey,” she says tremulously from her jasmine steam cloud.

“ Jig’s up,” he growls. “Be my whore, or I’ll divulge your pen name to the neighbours. ”

Her hand goes up to the red-rimmed “O” of her lips. She sets down the cup in its saucer with a small clink and drops to her knees. “Of course, whatever you want, honey.” She lifts her Save the Manatees sweatshirt to reveal a red lace teddy with nipple cutouts.

“Hello?” Dean snaps in his ear. “Yo, dick brain?”

“Earth to Stud Man,” Doug says. “You gonna give us some dirt, or what?”

“Yeah, your mind’s definitely in the gutter.” Dave orders another round. “Should’ve seen the look on your face.”

“Well, you know, it’s private. Husband and wife.”

“Yeah, and the thirty thousand people who read her stories!”

He can’t blame his wife for his current status as a begrudging icon of virility. She would have kept her kinky stories a secret, but he blurted out the news to the world when the Penthouse check arrived. He hadn’t considered the ramifications. Well, maybe he had, just a little. He was not without pride at his own magnanimity in allowing her to be who she was. That he didn’t hold his wife’s rampant public perversions in check, but allowed them to march unfettered across magazine racks far and wide, was a testament to his part in Steinem’s new race of unthreatened Man. What other husband would be so secure in his manhood that he would be permissive – nay, encouraging – of his wife’s transgressive acts, particularly when they did not involve his own penis? Involved a whole parade of phantom penises, in point of fact.

Ironically, from what he’s heard, his neighbourhood has an above average times-per-week compared to most suburban outposts, owing to the fervour of imagination the erotica writer and her husband inspire.

Does he want them to know the truth, or does he want to continue to stand tall among them as the man who is getting the most nookie? The rare beast who has to keep up with his wife’s ravenous appetite? The stallion who snagged a nymphomaniac? The man who has the pleasure of acting out every filthy scenario she devises? He has more sexual intrigue than the guys on covers of romance novels. He’s not mowing the lawn like the rest of these poor schmucks; he’s munching her bush.

“It’s fiction,” he finally ventures to his bar mates in response. “You don’t have to commit murder to write a mystery.”

They snort and pump their hips suggestively. A woman down the bar looks at them in disgust and carries her Pinot Grigio to a distant table.

Dean notes his scratched wrists. “Whoa! She got a little carried away, huh?”

“So what is the little lady up to tonight?” Doug asks.

“She’s got a friend coming over.”

“You dog!” Dave wipes his beer moustache. “A threesome!”

He bangs the front door open and stomps inside. His wife and her friend pause with their lipstick-stained teacups halfway to their lips. “Jig’s up,” he growls. “Be my sluts, or I’ll delete your American Idol s off the TiVo.”

Her hand goes up to the red-rimmed “O” of her lips. She sets down the cup in its saucer with a small clink and drops to her knees. “Of course, whatever you want, honey. You, too, right, Becky?” His wife lifts her orange knit poncho to reveal a black leather teddy with nipple cutouts. But Becky, being small, quick, and lithe, has already crawled halfway across the floor, on a mission to get his cock into her mouth before his wife can. Her breasts fall out of her cardigan as she makes like a Slinky towards him. “I’ve been hungry for you to ask me! All of my sinful stories are just flimsy cover-ups for the real fantasies I’m having about you! Come to Mama, my divine sausage, and gimme the works.”

“It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta do it.”

When he leaves a while later, whistles and catcalls follow him out the door into the rainy night.

He pulls into the driveway of 613 Cedar Lane and surveys the dark house. He takes his shoes off on the front porch and carries them inside, careful in his socked feet to make no noise on the wood floor. She’s a light sleeper, and the smallest creak that jars her from REM will disrupt her circadian rhythm for weeks.

He hears a small voice calling to him, and he cracks open the bedroom door. His wife sits propped up in the bed, in a dim circle of light from her bed lamp, sudoku book and pencil in hand. A teacup and saucer perch on the comforter beside her.

“Glad you’re home.” She yawns. “You saved me from myself. I was about to cheat. How pathetic.”

“What’re you doing still up? Thought you had to get back to work at the crack of dawn.”

“Couldn’t sleep. Missed you.” She pats the bed beside her.

“Hold on a sec.” He holds up the buttermilk. “Lemme put this away first.”

“Nuke this for me while you’re up?” She holds out the teacup.

He punches in twenty-two seconds on the microwave. There’s not a lot he feels he can do for her, other than the occasional oil change or too-tight jar lid. But if she’s comfy on the couch and in the middle of a book, she can, without a word, hold out her half-finished tea to him on his way past. He’s got it down to a science and punches in numbers on the timer depending on how empty the cup is. She likes her tea hot, but not too hot.

He hands her the warmed cup and stretches out beside her. She wrinkles her nose while she sips.

“Too hot?” Impossible.

“No. It’s just that it’s chamomile.”

“I thought you hated chamomile.”

“I do. It’s so horsy-smelling. I feel like I’m chewing cud. In a barn. In Kentucky. But it’s supposed to be good for you. Helps with dewy skin or better eyesight or memory or something. I’m old and fat. I need all the help I can get. Can’t hurt. Think I should cover my grey?”

Uh-oh, bad writing day, he can tell. “What grey?”

“I don’t believe you, but thanks, hon. What’d you and the boys talk about tonight?”

“That crabbing show. They filmed the last episode at the same bar we were at.”

“That Deadliest Crabs one?”

“No, I had those once, and it’s nothing you’d care to film.”