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Desdmona's Erotic Story Contests
2004 Erotic Short Story Contest
Second Prize

Riding Death

Jockeying for position in New Orleans rush hour traffic, Tom Sweeney glanced at his rear view mirror and saw someone begin to die. In the black Cadillac behind him, a man clawed for breath, his face a bulging, mottled mask. Tom looked around hopefully, but no one else seemed to notice the commotion in the dark car. He felt more resentful than heroic as he moved to the Cadillac.

He dragged the heavy man to the pavement and began the rhythmic ritual of cardiopulmonary resuscitation. At St. Theresa’s Hospital, where Tom was an accountant, every hospital employee took CPR training.

Laboring over the corpulent bearded man was nothing like practice on a rubber doll during training sessions. A foul mucous oozed from the old man’s lips, and each time Tom shifted to the mouth to mouth part of the cycle, he fought a terrible nausea.

A physician, caught in the traffic like Tom, pushed him aside minutes before a wailing ambulance found them, but as paramedics rolled the old timer onto a stretcher, the doctor admitted the man had died. “Siren’s just for show,” he told Tom as the ambulance pulled away. “Gets them out of this traffic jam.”

For a few moments Tom stood in a daze. It was hard to believe the fat man was dead. In the seconds before the doctor arrived, his eyes had opened. Smiling, he lifted an arm, let it fall heavily across Tom’s shoulder. The man’s eyes were a deep, hypnotic green and expressed some private amusement, as though the dying knew very funny secrets.

“Hey buddy.” A policeman who was impatiently trying to clear the mess on the bridge touched Tom’s arm. “Wanna move your car?”

Tom continued his drive home.

After dinner, while Alice loaded the dishwasher, Tom took out the trash, feeling an inexplicable longing. He wanted to be in the French Quarter, drinking Dixie beer where Bourbon Street pulsated with loud music.

Though he and Alice had lived in New Orleans eight years, Tom had visited the Quarter only once. Repelled by the press of intoxicated strangers stumbling through narrow streets, embarrassed by bawdy “greeters” who opened saloon doors to permit brief glimpses of nearly naked dancers, Tom never went back. Now, even though he remembered it as an awful place, a part of him wanted to be there.

Later, as he and Alice watched the usual television programs, Tom’s foot tapped the tempo of Ike Terry’s jazz quartet belting out the “Decatur Street Blues.” Tom didn’t know anyone named Ike Terry, didn’t think he’d ever heard “Decatur Street Blues.” But surely as he knew Alice would be ready for bed five minutes into the ten o’clock news, the song rang in Tom’s mind, the way someone named Ike played it.

“Coming?” Alice asked, stretching and yawning on schedule.

In the bathroom Tom brushed his teeth longer than usual, wondering why his face seemed thinner, and when he stood on Alice’s scales, it was odd to see his feet as he looked down. Tom had never been overweight, but it seemed to him his toes ought to be hidden by the swell of a beer belly.

“Do I look sick?” he asked Alice when he had donned pajamas and come to the bedroom.

Alice felt his forehead, had him stick out his tongue as she peered down his throat. “You don’t have a fever,” she reported. “Maybe you should stay home tomorrow anyway.”

Tom settled deeper into the pillow’s comfort. “Can’t. There are some figures management is howling for.”

Tom lay very still after he switched off the light, telling himself over and over that he felt fine, until the rhythm of Alice’s regular breathing lulled him to sleep.

When he woke later, Tom was certain he was dreaming. Alice was pinned on her back as his hands forced her legs up and back so her knees almost touched her ears. Tom parted her thighs forcefully, making the juncture of her legs open and vulnerable. He dipped his face toward a dark shadow and tasted, for the first time in their married life, his wife’s musky essence.

Tom pushed his tongue deep into Alice’s wet pussy, where twitching muscles wrapped themselves tightly around his tongue. The earthy scent of cunt was almost intoxicating, and he sighed happily.

“Stop it, Thomas,” Alice hissed. “What are you doing?” Tom only held her tighter and moved the tip of his tongue over the hard little bump at the top of her slit. He felt Alice shiver as he ground a priapic erection against the sheets.

Unable to resist the rigid pressure at his middle, Tom rose to his knees, dropping Alice’s legs to his shoulders as he lunged into the slick heat between her legs. “My God, what’s gotten into you?” Alice whispered when Tom began to move. He rode her roughly, vaguely aware, at the end, of gasps and encouraging mutterings that didn’t sound at all like his Alice.

His erection only half subsided when he collapsed beside her, breathing raggedly. Tom ached for a cigarette, and he never, ever smoked. I’m not dreaming, he thought, and something is very wrong.

Alice rolled quickly away and rushed toward the shower. When she came cautiously back to bed, she kept well to her side of the mattress, not so much as a toe touching Tom. Hours passed before Tom found sleep again.

Next morning, at breakfast, Tom felt Alice watching him carefully, though she never looked him in the eye. “Are you sure you shouldn’t stay home?” she asked.

“No.” He raised his newspaper, hoping she wouldn’t talk about the longest night he could remember.

“When you woke me up,” she said from behind him, voice tense and wary. “Did you like doing that? The business with your mouth?” Tom lowered the paper and laughed coarsely.

“Of course I liked it, and so did you,” he roared, immensely pleased by the flaming blush across her face. “You were noisy as an ambitious whore looking for a big tip.” Tom couldn’t stop giggling as Alice rushed from the table, her departure punctuated by a loud slamming of the bedroom door. “And you soaked the sheets!” Tom yelled, scratching under his pajamas, raising a finger to smell what was left of their passion.

His finger was still at his nose as he entered the bathroom, and the strange pose, reflected in the mirror, snatched him back from wherever his mind had gone. “Alice!” he cried. “Alice!” he called again when he discovered she’d locked him out of the bedroom.

“Go away!” she sobbed. “Go away, leave me alone!”

“I’m sorry,” he pleaded. “Open the door. Talk to me.”

“No!” she insisted. “You laughed at me!”

Tom looked at his watch. He’d be late if he didn’t hurry, and Tom was never late. “I need my clothes.” The bedroom door opened a few inches and he dodged his shoes, then a shirt, suit and tie. Alice wouldn’t come out, even after he was dressed. Before leaving he called hopefully, “We’ll talk when I get home.” Alice didn’t answer.

Driving to the hospital, Tom couldn’t recall ever wanting to do anything so perverse as what happened in the middle of the night, to Alice or anyone else. He had a vague sense it was illegal. Or used to be.

All his life, Tom had followed rules. While others made “Remember the night we all got crazy and ...” kinds of memories, Tom seldom took risks. He liked feeling safe, and married Alice because she felt the same way. Tom’s own mother, champagne tipsy at their wedding, called them “the most boring couple I know.”

Tom laughed with everyone else, but he never stopped following rules. Until he found himself pushing his face into Alice’s private parts. He shuddered at the image of himself doing such a thing.

Crossing the bridge, Tom slowed the car where he had knelt on concrete over a dying man, remembering the strange smile before the doctor arrived. He wondered if the events on the bridge had traumatized him, pushed him to the edge of a nervous breakdown.

Making the left turn into the hospital parking lot, Tom caught himself leering at a nurse, admiring the clinging fit of her tight white skirt across her bottom. He found a parking place and wondered if he shouldn’t talk to someone. He dropped the thought at once; to whom could he describe what he had done to poor Alice?

Once in his office Tom settled quickly at his computer. He felt safe staring at the monitor: whatever weird tangents his thoughts might take, there was nothing sexual in a cathode ray tube. He felt wonderfully secure, safely hidden, until his secretary put her hand on his shoulder. There was an electric jolt in her touch.

Jarred, Tom stared at Miss Hogencamp ... And knew ... What he could do to her ... If he chose to ... He’d never noticed she was a lovely, healthy specimen of womanhood, never mind she was fifty years old and a grandmother. An obscene image formed in his mind: Miss Hogencamp bent over his desk, conservative blue skirt tossed over her waist, the woman’s hands spreading flesh as Tom stood behind her. He saw himself spit on the end of his rigid cock and then press it against a tight brown bud of flesh, heard his secretay grunt as the muscle dilated enough to let him in ...

“Mr. Sweeney!” Miss Hogencamp stared at him, her mouth curling in the tiniest of smiles.

During his fantasy Tom had left the computer terminal and moved closer to her, and as he took a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe his dripping forehead, he stared at his surroundings, confused. “I’m dizzy,” he whispered.

Miss Hogencamp helped him to his chair, and as they walked to his desk, Tom’s mind careened crazily. Was his secretary leaning into him suggestively? Did her hand really squeeze his behind before he sat, and what was that strange gleam in her eye as she waited expectantly? “Do you feel better?” she asked, as he settled into the familiar comfort of the chair behind his desk.

Tom nodded. “I’m all right now. Really, I’m fine.”

“Can I get you something?” The woman’s touch felt blistering. “Anything at all? Anything?”

“I just need to catch my breath.” Tom hoped he only imagined a double meaning in her words. “I’m fine.”

Miss Hogencamp moved slowly to the door. “How about a back rub?” she offered brightly.

“No!” Tom nearly shouted, startling himself. “Perhaps I’ll go home a bit early,” he said more calmly, mopping his face again. “I’m not myself today.”

“Before you leave, there’s a Miss DuBois to see you. She says it’s very important.” Miss Hogencamp positively leered as she left the office.

A far younger figure filled the doorway, wavy dark hair hanging to the curve of a lush bottom, nipples rigidly obvious under a thin cotton blouse. Gold hoop earrings winked from within loose black curls, and the longest lashes Tom had ever seen blinked above wide green eyes. “I can help you,” Miss DuBois said, closing the door.

“What?” Tom was imagining how this stranger’s eyes would naturally close as she took him into her mouth, burying her face in scratchy pubic hair.

She smiled. “You have a problem. I can help you.”

Tom shook his head to escape the picture of the woman on her knees. “Say again?” he asked weakly.

“Yesterday, on the bridge. The man who was sick.” Tom nodded, tasting the foul death mucous all over again. “He didn’t really die.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Edward was a warlock. A male witch.” Miss DuBois crossed the office, short skirt riding very high as she settled into a chair near Tom’s desk and crossed her legs. “A leader of a coven.”

“Coven?”

“A group of witches. Boston has Episcopalians, New Orleans has covens.” She laughed and lit a cigarette. “You might say old Edward was our vicar.” Miss DuBois looked around the office. “You need some ashtrays,” she said, tapping residue from the cigarette into a small hand. “Anyway,” she said, brightening, “I can help you.”

“Really?” Too much, Tom thought. Absolutely too much for one day. He stood to pull his jacket over his shoulders. “How curious,” he said, hoping he sounded politely interested as he judged distance to the closed door, wondering how long it would take hospital security to show this person out.

“It’s true,” the woman said. “Edward is riding you.”

“Is that a fact?” Tom edged away from the desk.

“Like a houman.”

“A what?” Tom made his move, lunged for the door, but as he slipped by, Miss DuBois caught his arm, spun him so he faced her.

“A houman is a spirit that can take over a human being. That’s how Edward has you. Haitians call it being ridden.” Without releasing his arm, she rubbed Tom’s middle with her free hand, artfully cupping and squeezing. “I can help you get rid of him.”

She smiled, white teeth and green eyes mesmerizing. “It won’t hurt, I promise.” She licked her lips, making them shinier. “I know how to deal with him. I always knew how to handle Edward.”

Tom came close to letting her do it. His cock had only half subsided from the raging erection created by the fantasy about his secretary. Even if the young woman was crazy, her teasing grip had him growing again, and his cock felt horribly crowded inside his pants. She tugged at his zipper, ignoring a metallic click from behind. Tom turned toward the sound and Miss Dubois moved with him, her hand slipping expertly into his fly. Eileen Hogencamp stood at the half open door, jaws agape, though her eyes seemed dreamily approving.

Jerking away, Tom looked down at the hand struggling in the confines of his trousers. “I’m going home now,” he said, backing up until the hand slipped free. “I really am going home.”

He hobbled to the car, adjusting the seat to accommodate the swollen consequence of Miss DuBois’ touch. The trip was a nightmare of sexual imagery. Clouds curved into shapes like enormous tits hanging in the sky, and he was distracted by the female swell of a hill in a park, by the vee crotch of a tree. By the time he steered the car into his driveway, Tom’s shirt was clammy with perspiration, hoping for her own sake Alice was out. He had to do something very quickly, and Alice had been frightened enough.

The moment he closed the back door, Tom pushed trousers and boxer shorts below his knees, held himself tightly and began a slow stroking. Closing his eyes, he thought of Miss DuBois, how her earrings would sway if she were with him now. Imagining a hungry and demanding suction, he moved his hand faster and spilled onto the tile floor at the same time he heard footsteps.

“Tom? I’m glad you came home early so I could apologize,” Alice called from the living room. “I’ve been thinking about last night and I’m afraid I... Really. Over. Reacted.” Entering the kitchen she fixed her eyes where Tom’s hand still squeezed.

Swallowing, Alice took tentative steps toward him. “If you need.” Her eyes grew wider. “To do.” She breathed through her mouth. “Some of those things.” Close now, she softly touched the swelling above Tom’s fisted grip with a single, curious finger. “It’s okay.” Opening her dressing gown, she slid onto a Formica counter, spread her legs, pulled him close and inside. “With me.”

Only half a dozen strokes into her, Tom felt his cock explode in another orgasm, but he didn’t stop pumping and his cock stayed rigid as a hammer handle and felt almost as big. Alice leaned against the wall behind her, lifting her feet until her ankles were by her ass. Tom looked down at the exposed upper slit of her cunt and ran a finger roughly over her love button. “Come with me,” Tom ordered. “Now. Squeeze me with your pussy and come.”

He felt the contractions that pushed Alice into a body quivering orgasm of her own, and he began to spurt again, Alice moaning as if the hot sperm erupting inside her scalded her cunt.

They made love twice in the kitchen, Tom recalled later. He lay in the dark bedroom, listening to Alice shower. And once in the living room, at least twice in the hall ... He lost count.

Tom felt almost sated. He probably wouldn’t bother Alice anymore. Probably. Or perhaps he’d strangle her the next time. Feeling the nagging need of a cigarette, he wondered if smoking had been the death of the man on the bridge. And tried to convince himself he couldn’t really strangle Alice.

Closing his eyes, he listened to the water run, gradually becoming aware of another sound, a soft tapping at the bedroom window. When the sound continued he got up and opened the blinds.

A cat crouched on the outside window sill, pawing at the screen, a cat with lovely green eyes. Tom knew he was looking at Miss DuBois, albeit in evening dress. The feline head jerked in an unmistakable “Meet me outside” gesture.

“I’m going outside,” he called to Alice as he slipped his bathrobe on. “Get some fresh air.”

Under the live oak in the front yard Miss DuBois appeared as she had at the hospital, earrings and all. “You really ought to let me help you,” she whispered. “Edward could be dangerous.”

Tom nodded, remembering how part of him idly considered choking Alice. “He hurt people, didn’t he? Women, I mean.”

Miss DuBois shrugged. “There was talk.”

“Then help me.”

She knelt at once, smiling, opening his bathrobe. The earrings swayed, exactly as he’d imagined, long lashes lay dark against pale skin, and her mouth was feverishly hot. Before taking hold of her head to press in and out, Tom thought of the neighbors, perversely sorry he had not turned on the porch light.

As he fucked her mouth Miss DuBois began a low throaty moaning, almost a growl, and just before he began to come Tom saw the young woman’s hand disappear inside the folds of her long skirt. What happened next took him beyond orgasm. Something more than come was pulled from him, and its loss made him weak as an infant.

Miss DuBois stayed with Tom’s cock until it was limp, then rose to stand close to him, green eyes smugly satisfied. “There,” she said. “All better.” She kissed him lightly and slipped quickly into the shadows. When his legs stopped trembling, Tom went back to the bedroom to an Alice who smiled languidly and opened her arms for him.

They slept curled tightly together, the first time they’d done so in years. In the morning Alice was an adoring bride, wetly kissing him goodbye at the door. “Hurry home,” she said, eyes shining. Tom hoped she wouldn’t be too disappointed. Edward, riding someone else now, wouldn’t be a factor in their bed any longer.

At the hospital Miss Hogencamp seemed to smirk at him all day. He avoided being alone with her, but the woman found a dozen reasons to come into his office. “Do you like my perfume?” she asked once.

“It’s nice,” Tom said, not looking at her.

“Love me,” she said.

“What?”

“The perfume. It’s called ‘Love Me.’”

“Oh.” Tom was sure the invitation in her voice was not imagination.

Late in the afternoon it occurred to him he could delay facing Alice’s disappointment if he didn’t rush home, perhaps running a few errands on the way. He phoned before he left the office. “Need anything from the market?” he asked, hoping his voice didn’t echo the tension he felt.

“I’m glad you called,” Alice said. “Be a dear and pick up another pork chop or two, will you? We have company.”

Relief swept over Tom. Alice sometimes invited a widowed or divorced friend for dinner, exhausting herself with preparing for such occasions. After an afternoon of cleaning and cooking, making love would not be a high priority.

Tom whistled contentedly at the market, whistled as he parked his car in the driveway, whistled through the front door and into his living room. Then his mouth was too dry for whistling.

Alice sipped tea from one of her best cups, taken from the cupboard in honor of her guest. “This is Miss DuBois,” she said. “She’s been telling me some fascinating things.” Porcelain ivy twined around the cup’s handle, exactly matching the new green color of his wife’s eyes. “Did you know you can make an actual aphrodisiac from rose hips?”

Alice smiled, and so did Miss DuBois.


“John Enex” is the pen name of a writer whose work has appeared in a number of literary quarterlies, and in a collection of stories published by a small literary press. He’s a commentator on National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” news program, and he’s a contributing columnist for a major newspaper in his home state. His “erotica” has appeared in men’s magazines like Hustler, Cavalier, Swank and others.


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Desdmona's Erotic Story Contests
2004 Erotic Short Story Contest
Second Prize