E Is for Exotic Read online

  I bit back a groan. It wasn’t so easy to be still or quiet with that magic tongue sending sizzling jolts of pleasure up my spine. In fact, I suspected I was about to be doing some serious moaning and thrashing very soon.

  “Is it okay if I come?” I bleated out.

  Ito looked up at me, his lips and chin glistening. “That was a mistake."

  I thought I’d used the right words—in Japanese you say “go" instead of “come"—but I wasn’t exactly focused on proper grammar. “Did I say it wrong?"

  “The problem is you shouldn’t have asked at all," Ito said with a tight smile. He sat up and lit another cigarette.

  I knew we weren’t talking Japanese Culture, because my married lover always liked a warning so he could slip inside in time for the grand finale. Ito was making up his own rules, but I was too horny to submit so easily this time. Besides, he owed me something for that shirt.

  I crawled over to him and rested my hand on the obvious tent pole in his jeans. “If I promise to be good now, will you fuck me?"

  He stared down at me with narrowed eyes.

  “I’ll do anything you want," I added.

  Ito took a long drag on his cigarette. “All right. Get me the belt of your bathrobe. I’ll need those stockings you’re wearing and something else—a scarf or another pair of stockings will do."

  With my wrists bound over my head and my thighs and ankles lashed together with the panty hose, I was more at his mercy than ever, but I did get a front row seat for a strip show that didn’t disappoint. Ito was even tastier naked, with sculpted shoulders; a smooth, golden chest; and an uncut cock jutting out, all hard and ready If I hadn’t been tied up, I couldn’t have resisted wrapping my hand around him, licking the swollen head, and taking him deep into my mouth. As I lay there, drooling, it occurred to me oral sex might be all we could manage anyway. How could he fuck me with my legs tied so tightly together?

  Ito, on the other hand, had no doubts. He fished a condom from his pocket, straddled me, and pushed his cock down between my thighs. Shifting his hips a bit to get the right position, he slid right inside.

  The constriction was definitely a plus. His shaft pressed up against my clit and my cunt was so compressed and swollen, I could feel the knob of his cock stretching me as he thrust in and out through my tingling hole. Ito was a real Mr. Octopus, bending to suckle one breast, twisting the other nipple between his fingers. In no time at all, the orgasm he’d chased away came creeping back, a coil of heat glowing and growing in my belly. I wasn’t going to ask permission this time. I squeezed my eyes shut and swallowed down my cries as my pleasure exploded, making me strain against the bonds, shooting up through my chest to blow my skull open as wide and black as the midnight sky.

  Afterward we lay twined together, the discarded panty hose, belt, and my ripped blouse piled around us.

  “I thought you’d forgotten me,” I confessed, an easy thing to do now that he was curled around me, his smile much sweeter in his post-come gratitude.

  “That’s another mistake,” he said lazily, stroking my hair. “I think about you all the time. It was hard for me to wait, but I know surprises excite you. And that excites me.”

  I couldn’t help smiling, secretly, into his shoulder.

  He was as caught up in this as I was.

  Two days later Ito showed up at my door with a gift tied up in a traditional wrapping cloth.

  I smiled until I saw what was inside: a coil of golden rope, with the sweet fragrance of new-mown hay. “Thanks, but what do I do with it?"

  “Do you know shibari?” he asked with the familiar gleam in his eye.

  “Is that like those porn pictures where they tie women up so they look like they’re caught in a spider’s web?" I replied, hoping my saucy tone would hide the fact my pulse was racing.

  “I forgot that you’re scared of spiders. You shouldn’t be. They bring good luck.”

  “That thing wasn’t a spider, it was a tarantula.” Since our first meeting, I’d looked up the Japanese name—jorôgumo—the prostitute spider, a word that suddenly seemed prophetic.

  “Big spiders bring more luck.”

  I laughed uncomfortably. “I’m not so sure about that.”

  He lifted his eyebrows. “Let me teach you.”

  I hesitated. If I really meant to get away from kinky sex, now was the time to draw the line. I couldn’t deny, however, that Ito was a good teacher. My Japanese had already improved a lot, and I was curious what else he could teach me about ropes, and worlds where the rules were different, and maybe even big, scary spiders.

  Besides, I was so turned on by the idea of him tying me up, I was already creaming in my pants.

  And so, just as he commanded, I peeled my clothes off and sat on the futon, my back straight, my legs folded under me in proper Japanese style. With a nod of approval, Ito wrapped the doubled rope around my waist and then pulled the loose ends through the loop to make a belt.

  “Lie back and bring your knees to your chest.”

  As if in a dream, I watched him wrap the rope around my bent leg several times, binding my thigh to my shin. Next he tied it crosswise underneath my bent knee. The bonds were softer than I expected and made a surprisingly pretty picture, too, layers of golden rope crisscrossing over my pale skin.

  “Give me your hand.”

  I reached toward him, my arm trembling faintly in anticipation. He circled more rope around my wrist and secured it to my knee. My right leg and wrist received the same careful treatment, so that in the end I was lying flat on my back, legs spread wide in a fuck-me position. Ito was obviously enjoying this view. Under the heat of his steady gaze, I felt my pussy lips swelling and blushing deep red, and then, to my embarrassment, came a gush of hot juices, trickling down my slit, pooling under my ass.

  Ito brushed a finger gently along the slick cleft. “It’s better if you close your eyes. Spiders might look ugly, but they feel nice.”

  I swallowed hard. What had I gotten myself into? But at this point I was literally in no position to refuse. I closed my eyes.

  For a moment, there was nothing, just the cool air on my exposed flesh, but then I felt a feathery sensation creeping slowly from the edge of the rope down my thigh. Of course it was just his fingers—a joke— but then the image of the spider’s thick brown legs flashed against my eyelids. My stomach tightened. I realized I’d been holding my breath.

  The fingers moved lower, teasing the crack of my ass. I’d let lovers touch me there before, but they’d always been quick to put something inside—a finger, a cock. Ito’s hand hovered, soft and achingly slow, his fingers tapping and dancing over the moist, exquisitely sensitive skin.

  I squirmed instinctively, like a little dog happy to please her master, begging for more.

  “Have you changed your mind about spiders yet?”

  I moaned, the best answer my lips could manage.

  As before, the punishment was swift. In the next moment the spider—and the delicious sensation—was gone.

  “I do like it. Oh, please, do it again.” If he wanted me to beg, I’d do it. I’d do anything to have those fingers back.

  “No, I think the spider’s hungry now.”

  I tensed, imagining a bite, but instead I felt a pillowy softness pressing against my asshole. Not fingers this time, it was lips, kissing me gently in that forbidden place. I almost giggled—did spiders kiss ass?—but then came the hot tongue, rolling over my crack like molten silk, darting French-style into the small, lipless mouth. The laugh faded into a sigh. I could feel that tingling heat in my toes, my teeth, my clit. My whole body was dissolving into syrup. In that tiny corner of my brain still capable of thought, I remembered that this is exactly what spiders do—reduce their prey’s body to a soup then suck up the sweet juices, leaving only the shell behind.

  Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad way to go after all.

  It got even better. The spider fingers returned, crawling lightly across my belly, over the mossy hill o
f my mons to my clit.

  “That’s really good. Spiders feel nice,” I babbled, my limbs twitching helplessly in Ito’s golden web. Caught between the tickling fingers and the lapping tongue, I had nowhere to go but up, leaping, twirling, spinning as I climaxed in quivering spasms. My moans were so loud, I’m sure I disturbed a few neighbors this time around, too.

  When I opened my eyes, Ito was smiling down at me, just like he had the first day I saw him. He leaned over and touched his lips to mine. Now it was my turn to feast on him, his saliva mixed with a new, faintly earthy flavor.

  Yes, I moved to Kyoto to get away from crazy sex. This meant, I imagined, a life of celibacy or at best a tepid rebound relationship: lights out, missionary position only. Fortunately, Ito was waiting here to remind me that if you’re open to new things, life in a foreign land can be full of surprises. And some of those surprises are very nice indeed.

  Besides, thanks to him, I did see spiders differently after that night. They still got my pulse racing—especially the big ones—but I never tried to harm them again. I’d smile and watch them scuttle to safety, remembering how luck comes in the strangest guises.

  SHANNA GERMAIN

  NATIVE TONGUE

  EVERYTHING ON THE MENU is foreign to me. The waiter, who’s wearing a blue T-shirt with a bunch of words on it that I don’t know or want to know, waits for me to order. The menu has a few words I know, too many for my liking—ceviche and coca light and burrito—but I skip those, pretend I haven’t seen them, and point only to the ones I don’t know.

  When the waiter leaves, I look out over the ocean and listen to the other diners talking in a language I don’t know. Their conversation washes past my ears, no different than ocean waves. There’s only one other white person in the place, and his Spanish carries the same musical roll and lilt as the words of those sitting at the table with him.

  I love being in a place where I have no language. Sitting here at this open-air restaurant, waiting for Margret and not understanding a damn word, it’s heaven. There was a time when I thought I wanted to know every language in the world. That’s why I started working as a translator eight years ago. But now, I wish I could take that desire back. That’s the funny thing about languages: like learning to read, you can’t take it back. Once you know a word it can never become a mystery again.

  Believe it or not, with all the languages I know, I don’t know Spanish. When you translate for a living Spanish is the least requested, because everyone knows it, so I never bothered to learn. And that’s allegedly why I’ve come to the least tourist-ridden beach in Costa Rica, to immerse myself in the Spanish language for three weeks.

  But in truth, I have come to meet my lover. Margret’s plane landed at noon, and barring unexpected delays or bad roads, she should arrive just in time to join me in the feast of whatever it is I just ordered. I’m dressed in a bikini—black, to match my hair that I’m wearing in one long braid down my back—and a black and red sarong that’s wrapped around me like a strapless dress. It’s a sarong that Margret bought me last time I saw her, and I could tell from the light in her eyes that she liked the way I looked in it.

  The waiter sets down the beers I asked for—that was one thing I knew how to say. Brand names are surprisingly and sadly universal.

  He gestures to the empty seat with a flat palm. I don’t know if he’s questioning where the other half of my party is or if he’s asking if he can join me.

  “Soon,” I say, and I’m struck by my own desire to communicate even as I’m trying to leave all communication behind.

  When he leaves, I sip my beer and lean back in my chair with a sigh. I’m jet-lagged, but only a little, and the peace that the beer and the breeze and the lack of conscious understanding bring is amazing. I watch the ocean break across the sand. Out near the water, a woman in a swimsuit races the waves. She is the color of dark honey, tanned and toned against her off-white bikini. I am lost in pictures. I will my brain to shut off, to stop finding words for every color and movement and object.

  My bottle of beer is nearly gone before I feel hands tugging at my braid. The hands climb up the back of my head, and then down over my eyes. I bring my own hand up to feel Margret’s thin wrist, layered over with tiny metal bracelets. They jangle when she tugs on my ear. And then she is slipping her arms around me, nearly choking me, to hug me from behind. She doesn’t care who sees, and wrapped in her car-cooled arms and her turpentine and lavender scent, I don’t either.

  Margret lets me out of her backward bear hug and sits across from me. She is long-limbed and reedy, with big blue eyes and shoulderlength curls the ruddy tint of cedar shavings. She grins at me, showing the little space between her front teeth that I love, and then tips the top of her beer bottle toward me. We clink bottles, and then drink.

  “Margret,” I say.

  It is the only word, other than my own name, that can pass between us. Margret speaks only her native Dutch. Nothing else. That’s how we met earlier this year. She needed an interpreter in the States when her artwork was showing around town. Because she lived in Italy, I assumed she spoke Italian or French or even a bit of English. But no. As it turned out, she’d lived all over the world, but only spoke Dutch. A dying language, and one I didn’t speak a word of.

  Still, she was gorgeous. And her paintings were the same—landscapes so infused with emotion and light that you forgot they were just paintings of trees and clouds. She didn’t seem to think in words, only images.

  I found her another translator from our company, but not before I’d fallen for her. Hard. It wasn’t just her curls or that gap-toothed smile. It was the language, or lack of it.

  My partner, Helen, is a dictionary writer. Woman of all words, always the right word. In our house, every word has meaning; every word has weight, has to be picked over and examined, dead or alive, until it can be stored and measured and accounted for. “Good night,” is never just good night. It might be “Good night, I hate you,” or “Good night, why won’t you feed the cat?” or “Good night, let’s fuck.” But it is never, ever just good night.

  Helen will say things like, “Did you know there is no word in the English language that is commonly used to describe a woman’s private parts?” even as I have my tongue or fingers in her private parts. Even as I bring those private parts to places that have words: wet and shudder and moan and orgasm.

  With Margret, there is no good night. There are no private parts. Well, there are private parts, but there is no worry over what to call them. There is just the way she puts her fingers to her nether lips and parts them for me. The way I dip my fingers in her as though she is the ocean. And there is the way she’s looking at me right now, blue eyes narrowed, her soft bare foot beneath the table, wrapped around the back of my calf.

  The waiter brings us plates of food: some kind of fish with crackers, little crab legs and calamari-like rings in a red sauce. When he has filled our table and pointed at our beers and we nod yes, Margret lets her hand rest on his arm for a brief second before he turns away. She says something in Dutch.

  I shake my head, but I can’t hide my smile, or the way her words made my insides feel. Only Margret would say something to a Costa Rican waiter in Dutch and expect him to understand.

  After we stuff ourselves silly, feeding each other bits of seafood and slices of fruit, we go down to the beach. Margret shimmies out of her sundress, and for a few seconds, I open my mouth to tell her it’s not a nude beach. Which is a silly instinct, considering. And it doesn’t matter anyway, because she’s wearing a tiny bikini under the dress. Dark blue, only slightly darker than the ocean and the same color as her eyes. It covers her small round breasts in two triangles. Her nipples point in the triangles’ direct centers. I want to drag my tongue across the fabric like a cat.

  She takes my hand and tugs me toward the ocean. I drop my sarong to the ground on the way. We walk through the waves to the point where the water evens out. It is nearly up to our chins, but so calm that we ca
n touch the sand at the bottom on our tiptoes and don’t get knocked over.

  Her sigh as she leans back into the warm water is one I recognize. It’s a sigh of pleasure. I join her as we lean back and float, our faces to the sky. There is no sound but the surf and, far off, the chatter of birds or people. It is hard to tell which is which, and so I tell myself they are birds.

  Floating like this, I wonder at how this can be, so many ways to love, and I’m thankful there are no words to describe this kind of love or that one. It isn’t as though I don’t love Helen. I do. It’s just that there are too many words now. In the beginning, the words were stones we dropped into the water to walk on, to go to the same places together.

  Now the words are stones that we carry in our fists, our arms always drawn back, ready to fling.

  Margret’s hand finds mine beneath the water, and I curl my fingers over hers. Already our skin is salt-sucked and wrinkled. Even so, I swear she’s the softest thing I’ve ever felt. I slide my hand up her arm, pull her closer to me. She laughs, and grabs my belly. The water pushes us closer, pulls us apart, and still, her lips find mine. Her silent tongue enters my mouth, touches all the places where we make words and soothes them as easily as the sea.

  When we are sandy and salty and wet as we can handle, we stand under the simple outdoor shower until the cold water makes us shiver. Then I lead Margret on the path up from the beach. Soon, we’re at the edge of the rainforest. They’re that close to each other, forest and beach and ocean, as though they’re siblings, sisters that couldn’t bear to live together, but couldn’t bear to be too far apart.

  Beneath the canopy of trees, we follow the path up and up. The sunlight makes stained-glass patterns as it passes through the leaves and vines and lands at our feet. Small brown and white monkeys swing from tree to tree above our heads, making oo-oo noises as they go. Margret reaches back and takes my hand and we walk like that, our footsteps crackling twigs, our breath puffing without sound.