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| Illustration by T.A. |
After Fifty Shades: five authors offer their ripostes
Friday 6 July 2012 22.55 BST
AL Kennedy
He breathed along the inside of her thigh,
rising, taking it slow. She could, in fact, feel him smiling – there was that warmth in the occasional brush of his lips. He wouldn't kiss her, she knew, until the ache for it was almost unbearable.
She answered him by stroking his neck, his head, the pale skin of his shoulders, each place so much more delicate and electric than anything her husband could offer, so much stronger.
"Do you read?" he murmured, the words running hotly up to catch where she wanted his kisses, where she was ready, open for his open mouth.
"Do I read?" Her voice sounded younger, more confident – as if she were the woman she'd intended to become, someone not married to Kevin, someone with no kids, someone beautiful. "Yes, when I have time." She was someone sensual, her skin being finally woken and properly explored. She was a woman rocking at the start of an afternoon's love, already impatient.
He licked her, teasing. "I bet you read. I bet you read smut." He licked again, his tongue clever, amused, tender. Then he withdrew. "They say women respond more to written pornography." His hands now, stroking, playing in from the rise of her hips, while he eased back a touch to study her. She'd told him she liked it when he looked, really looked. "Men like pictures, but you want a story and characters and emotions with your sex – then fit it in your Kindle and read it on the bus. Naughty. I bet you don't even blush. Think of all those publishers, baby – sitting back happy, knowing they can give you what you want. Like me." He grinned, lowered his head again, began in earnest.
He wasn't wrong.
Jenny Colgan
'I can't," I said.
Every sinew in me was straining hard; I could barely keep kneeling. I could feel the sweat bursting on my forehead and coursing down my back. My mouth wouldn't close.
"You must," he said. His voice sounded gruff, his eyes still fixed on my breasts as he continued the fierce stroking and caressing. They were so tight; straining over the top of the corset as if they wanted to burst. The nipples were utterly rigid. I could hardly believe my huge breasts – the bane of my life, the subject of catcalls and fumbles since I was fourteen years old, until I had wanted to hide away in shame, swathed in huge jumpers that made me look like a walking tent – had become so responsive.
But here they were; fierce and proud, high and so, so tight and full. They were being teased and tormented until I couldn't bear it, as if they had been made for this; and here was I on all fours, my entire body raging in a fever, although he hadn't yet even touched me anywhere else.
"You're not leaving," he had said, casually, earlier, and my head had whipped round, half in fear, half still slightly hysterical at the height of the heels he wanted me to wear; seven inches of black, shiny patent leather, ending in a point that could core an apple, with an impossible arch that left me practically en pointe.
"How am I supposed to walk in those?"
"You're not," he said, as if surprised by the question. "You're meant to fuck in them. And you're not leaving until I've taught you how to come properly."
He paused and flashed that wolfish grin I'd seen before. I looked at the immaculate black leather men's gloves he had brought with some trepidation.
"I'd cancel any other plans you had for the weekend."
Alastair Campbell
I felt like an adolescent boyfriend
being taken back to a new girlfriend's house as we went up in the lift. I didn't want to stand too close to her as it carried us to our floor, even after the intimacy of our walk. She was clearly feeling the same sense of excitement tinged with unease. She even said "Here we are then" as she fished her swipe card from her bag.
"Is this the moment when I ask if you want to come in for a coffee?" she said, smiling.
She was standing about four feet away from me. I looked long and hard, trying to read those eyes. Was she still pulling me in, or pushing me away? Then, before I knew it, I was kissing her.
"Are you crazy!" she said, drawing away. "Not here!" She unlocked the door to her room and pulled me in.
It was dark inside. The change of atmosphere froze us momentarily, as if we suddenly realised the enormity of what we were doing. Maya walked across the room to turn on a lamp. Then she sat down on the side of the bed and kicked off her shoes.
I walked over and stood by her. I held my hand towards her. She took it, and I sat down beside her. Then I bent my head towards her ear.
"You said I was the best friend you've ever had," I whispered. "Can I be the best lover too?"
Jeanette Winterson
Subway: 8am.
June rain outside and heat underground steam the tunnels like a sauna. The doors open into a carriage of vertical bodies. Smell of too little washing and too much cologne. Like Paris in the nineteenth century.
The guy next to me is young and skinny. He's jammed forward against a black woman with an enviable rump. No Photoshop, no collagen implants. The real thing. Big.
My eyes are idling, shoes, bags, haircuts, clothes. Then I focus.
The guy is moving himself against the woman, using the push and sway of the train. She's talking full speed to her friend and fanning her face with a magazine. She doesn't seem to notice what he's doing. He's holding on to the overhead rail, long white arm, clean shirt. But the little thrusts are unmistakable.
The train jerks into the next stop and the doors crash open. He pulls away. She gets out. He catches my eye. He blushes like a Shakespearean boy actor playing a girl. Cute. And his penis is hard through his jeans.
The doors close again. I could have moved away. Instead I turned my back to him and leaned against him, inching my hips so that he could push his cock against the soft crack of my ass. He put his arm round me – stronger than I expected from a skinny guy – he pulled me as tight in as he could get. Too much material, but who cares? I love the feel of him like an electric torch. I feel lit up. I haven't had sex for about 3 months. I'm not having sex now, but I'm having something better; feeling sexy is better than sex. My mouth is full of saliva and my ordinary everyday office knickers are wet.
He comes.
The doors judder open. I have already missed my stop. He gets out. He says "Same time tomorrow morning. Carriage 4."
At work I go straight to the loo and touch myself till I orgasm, standing up, the picture of us in my mind. It's the best come I've had for a long time – alone or with anyone.
Tomorrow I won't wear knickers.
by Will Self
He was angry with me – I could tell
And his normally smooth face became contorted and red, with deep creases suggesting that he had been lying face down on the world for some time, inhaling its earthy dours. He was my boss – and I associated this with all the authority that was missing from my life, all the firm, masculine, commanding authority that I needed to both subdue my restless spirit and rouse my deepest passions. He was my boss – and when, in his anger at my failure to adequately collate the minutes from last week's interdepartmental steering meeting, he stamped his beautifully shod foot (Church's or possibly even Lobb's) on mine … I orgasmed at once, a nerve-shattering orgasm that curled my hair and curdled the low-fat yoghurt drink that was sitting on a nearby desk.
• Written, in order, by AL Kennedy, Jenny Colgan, Alastair Campbell, Jeanette Winterson and Will Self