Deep Inside

Paul Stevens, my editor at Tor, is the kind of editor every writer dreams of having: insightful, intuitive, imaginative, and a pure pleasure to work with. Paul's suggestions always made the book better than it would have been otherwise.

I'm grateful to Tom Doherty and Linda Quinton for making
Deep Inside
part of Tor's wonderful publishing program, Irene Gallo and Peter Lutjen for the beautiful cover of this book, and Leslie Henkel for her enthusiastic and resourceful publicity efforts.

I tried out many of these stories in front of live audiences in a regular reading series at the Cornelia Street Café in New York City's West Village. I owe a great deal to the generous and nurturing atmosphere that Robin Hirsch, Angelo Verga, and Bob Siegler create and sustain there. And many thanks to the invaluable Poul Weis, Dan McCarthy, and Steve Northeast.

I'd also like to thank Robert Elmes and Travis Chamberlain at Galapagos Art Space in Williamsburg, Frank Wood at Otto's Shrunken Head in the East Village, the amazing Rachel Kramer Bussel, who runs the In the Flesh reading series at Happy Ending Lounge—and who has immeasurably helped the erotica scene in NYC, the love-and-lust master Mo Beasley, who runs UrbanErotika, Peggy Hollitz at Anatomy Bar, Michele Fox and The Knitting Factory, and Charlie Anders, who runs Writers with Drinks.

While doing these live performances of
Deep Inside,
I was lucky to have some of NYC's best—and hottest!—performers read my stories. I'd like to offer special thanks to Sarah Kozinn and Alison Fraser, who worked with me from the beginning. The other talented performers who worked with me were Abiola Abrams, Matthew Beals, Lyndsay Becker, Andy Cambria, Elizabeth Constabile, Perry Daniel, Karen Grenke, Prudence Heyert, Sarah Dey Hirshan, Phyllis Johnson, Alex Kosene, Catherine Kung, Matt Lambert, Shannon Lower, Neal Medlyn, Francesco Paladino, Mason Pettit, the rocker known as Rew, Jake Thomas, and Stephanie Sellars.

I send love and eternal thanks to my hero and inspiration, Ron Jeremy.

For advice, encouragement, and help, I'm indebted to Nick Braccia, Ada Calhoun, Bernard Carragher, Barbara Carroll, Neil Feldman, Jess Fink, Susan Grebow, Andre Gregory, Lynn Harris, Tom Hart, Nan Hie In, Guy Jacobs, Maxim Jakubowski, Judy Joice, Glenn Magee, Joanna Ney, Judith Nelson, Shade Rupe, and Michele Madigan Somerville.

Many thanks to Lori Perkins for her wonderful work agenting this book.

When it comes to creative partners, I'm the luckiest of women: my husband and co-conspirator, Ray Sawhill, is always telling me to go further with my sex passages.

Finally, my immense gratitude to my family for their continuing love and support.

The Threshold

The Orifice

The Dominatrix Has a Career Crisis

The Pleasure Invaders

Viagra Babies

Imagine It

Playing Karen Devere

Test Drive

Visions of Ecstasy

Deep Inside

“Cameron, what's
wrong with you today?” Janine asked me.

We were walking down our high school corridor towards class.

“Yeah,” Tia said, narrowing her gorgeous black eyes at me. “You're so pissy today. What gives?”

“It's just this G-string I'm wearing,” I said. “I hate the thing.”

A group of senior guys strode towards us. Janine swirled her head around to see if there were any of St. Theresa's teachers or nuns around. The coast was clear. She pulled her skirt down so her bright pink G-string showed above the gray flannel.

I kept my own skirt where it was, but Tia wiggled hers down until it was lower than Janine's.

“Kill me with a G-string!” one of the boys said, as they passed by.

“I love you, Janine!” said another.

“I want you, Tia,” the cutest one said.

Janine gave them one of her come-on smiles accompanied by a “fuck you” sign. She saw one of St. Theresa's teachers ahead and hiked her skirt back up.

“Good morning, Ms. Sobowski,” Janine sweetly cooed.

We rounded a corner and marched down the main hallway among the hordes of other uniformed students.

“I don't know why I have to wear this thing up my butt crack,” I said.

“Resign yourself to it, Cameron. It's your fate as a woman,” Tia said, adding with a laugh, “or at least it's your fate as a friend of Janine's.”

“Besides, how many times do I have to explain that you're never going to get laid if you go around in baggy old undies?” Janine demanded.

“They were perfectly decent bikinis of mine that you threw out!” I said.

At Janine's insistence, halfway through sophomore year we three friends had sworn to always wear G-strings under our Catholic high school uniforms. When the moment was right—when no teachers or parents were around—Janine would signal for us to hike the straps up so they showed over the tops of our strict little uniform skirts.

“And lucky you are that we rescued you,” Janine said. “You were headed towards the sad, dull sexual life of everyone else in this town.”

Tia took over. “They don't know what a good fuck is. They marry practically the first person they sleep with and start having babies. And then it's all over. They sit around in front of their TVs and get disgustingly obese and never have any sex again.”

“I know, I know,” I said.

And boy, did I ever know! My own parents probably hadn't done it since they'd conceived my younger brother, Tim. My mother was still pretty but she wore shapeless beige pants and overblouses, or mid-calf skirts made of fabric that was wrinkly on purpose. As for my dad, he was always talking about trying to lose his belly, but he never did.

How yucky it was to think of my parents even kissing each other, let alone fucking! It seemed as though their lives were already over and they were dead but no one had thought to bury them. I would never be like them, I told myself. I would stay alive for a lot longer.

And maybe Janine was right. Maybe I did need to get on with my sex life if I didn't want to end up like my folks.

Still, even though Janine had been so persuasive, I wasn't sure she was right.

“Speaking of sex, as we always are,” Tia said, “how's Project-Lose-It going?”

“Well, Mike wants to do it with me,” I said. “So I guess Saturday night will be it.”

I flipped back my hair and tried to sound nonchalant. The truth is, I was anything but calm. I was feverish in the inexplicable way I always was when the subject of losing my virginity arose.

Janine turned and pushed up her white shirtsleeves. She did this when she was about to give me her standard pop-the-cherry lecture. “You're the only virgin left at this high school, you know,” she said, her voice dripping with disdain.

Tia nodded in energetic agreement. “Yeah. We've been so patient with you.”

“But I'm not sure Mike is the right guy to do it with the first time,” I said.

I'd gotten used to talking frankly with my friends about intimate body matters. How could I not? It was all that seemed to be on anyone's mind: it was on TV, in the magazines we bought, all over the Internet. I had certainly seen a lot of porn. Tia's father and her stepmom kept an ample stash in their bedroom drawer. I knew how people fucked from blow jobs to ass rimming. Yet when it came to thinking about my first time I couldn't keep my skin from flushing red.

I heard a click of fingers.

“Cammie!” Janine snapped. “Where are you?”

I brushed a strand of hair off my face and hoped the sweat I could feel wasn't visible to my friends.

“Sometimes I think you don't care about our friendship,” Tia said. “Because if you did, you wouldn't embarrass us by refusing to get laid.”

What would it take to get them to leave me alone?

“I'll do it with Mike. This weekend! Are you satisfied?”

My two friends raised their eyebrows at each other.

“We would be if your attitude was a little better,” Tia said.

“Cammie's trying, Tia,” Janine said. She turned to me. “Do us a favor,” she went on. “When he fucks you the first time, just do it in some boring position like on your back. Don't get fancy. Because you don't want to embarrass us by bleeding all over everything. We don't want to hear about that throughout these school halls.”

“Oh, God, yes. That's really excellent advice,” Tia nodded. “I'd almost forgotten what it was like. And you have to make sure you don't become the stuff of locker-room jokes.”

Tia had lost her virginity over a year ago, and to us three teens it was as if the event had occurred in prehistoric time. “You don't want your blood everywhere. And, you know, there is likely to be blood.”

Great, I thought, staring at the ground, hoping that my emotions on the subject weren't too apparent, though by now I was pretty well resigned to being made fun of for my virginity.

“Anyway,” Janine went on, “it'll be over before you know it. A little pop, a little pain, a little mess.”

“Ouch,” Tia chimed in. “Then: ooooh.”

I shuddered while my friends burst into giggles. Why did the whole thing seem like such a cosmic hurdle to me and to no one else?

“I just hope you're right that it's best to sleep with a guy you don't care about first time around. Like Mike.”

“Well, of course we're right!” Janine's brown eyes were wide with indignation. “Haven't you listened to anything I've said?”

I swung my blue backpack around and clutched it to my chest as though for protection.

“Sure,” I said, still keeping my eyes on the ground. “It's just that sometimes I wonder if it isn't more special than that.”

I tried to sound confident, but I felt humiliated by my emotions. Why was I so damn vulnerable on this subject? Why did talking this way—even thinking about this subject—make me feel as though I was on the threshold of something extraordinary?

“No, girl, you don't want it to be special,” Tia said. “Special is bad. Special is demeaning. That's like something our grandparents would think.”

The three of us turned the corner and headed down the long corridor to history class.

The truth is, I did worry about whether or not I was emotionally disturbed about the subject. It shouldn't be a big deal, going to bed with a guy for the first time. But talking—or even thinking—about the moment when I would lose my virginity made me start to tremble with an avalanche of emotions.

A familiar male voice startled me out of my emotions. “Hey, Cammie,” Mike said, catching up with me. “So we're on for Saturday?”

“Sure,” I replied. Tia and Janine stood back respectfully, exchanging little significant glances. Mike didn't seem to notice.

“Awesome,” he said.

He looked pretty awesome himself. Even in the boring school uniform Mike's looks made my body stir. Nothing like playing three sports to keep a guy in shape. He was really an okay guy, too.

But I couldn't help feeling there was nothing special between us as people. He ran his eyes up and down my body, licked his lips, and lowered his eyebrows at me.

“You know you're looking good, baby.”

I glared at him indignantly.

“Hold that expression—I like it when you get riled. Well, gotta get to math,” he said.

“What a hottie,” Tia said, looking after him as he ran down the hall.

“The way he moves,” said Janine.

The two girls exploded in laughter as I once again blushed furiously.

History class
turned out to be a video about the Christian conversion of pagan cultures.

As I sat in the dark and watched the images of chalices and robes, I thought about my upcoming date with Mike. He had a driver's license and would pick me up at my place. Then a restaurant. Maybe a movie.

Then afterwards…that was the big question. I was secretly hoping his parents would be out for the night, so we'd have his house to ourselves. Otherwise we'd be stuck in the car, and that seemed a little tacky. At his place, there were beds, sofas—towels, too, for easy cleanup.

But my mind was operating on two levels, and as I methodically and practically tried to anticipate what was to come on my date, another feeling entirely was moving through me, its origins not in my head but my body.

And then it took over my brain.

Everyday images of schoolbooks and desks and students were flushed out, and different images took their place. I was floating above myself, watching.

I saw myself in a lovely white gown, lying on my back. The sleeves were trimmed with antique lace. As I looked down at myself I saw that I was beautiful, with my hair flowing around my face and onto the black and gold marble slab on which I lay.

My eyes were open, stunned and terrified. For a moment I stared at this image of myself. Was it a dream me? A future apparition? But now I was inside whatever it was, looking out. The fear I thought I saw was, in fact, a feeling of awe. I was in the presence of a power greater than any I had ever known.

What was that around my ankles? My arms and legs were manacled. And even as I struggled to get free, I worshipped the strength of the steel and chains that bound me.

I could not escape whatever was in store for me. I heard the heavy steps of boots, followed by the staccato sound of high heels. I fought against my chains now, my body writhing in my elegant prison as much from excitement as from fear.

Then I felt the soft, sweet touch of a woman's hands on my head. She put a blindfold over my eyes, and kissed me on the lips. I greeted her tongue with my own. I could not see who she was, but I gave myself to her completely. Now where was she? Ah, I felt her hands running over my breasts. My dress must be made of a deliciously sheer material. I arched my body up to meet her touch.

But she pulled away from me. I wondered where she could be. Then I felt my blindfold being removed and I saw a man in a hood suddenly before me!

He loomed like a giant—naked, muscular. And the size of that thing! His dick was enormous. The woman was now pulling my legs apart, roughly, no longer soothing. The man was stroking his cock as he moved between my knees. And it seemed to grow even more.

A leather strap appeared in his hands, and he wrapped it around his balls and cock. I glanced at the man. And once again his member grew. It would hurt like a knife slicing through me and yet this was how it was supposed to happen….

I felt a
thwack!
on my arms and popped out of my fantasy. Janine was leaning towards me, rolling her eyes.

“Jesus, what's with you today?” she whispered. “You've been off in Cammie-land for the last fifteen minutes!”

The video was still running on the screen in front of the class, showing images of native children taking their first Communion.

I straightened myself, then saw Sarah Walker, the new girl at St. Theresa with the strange, English-sounding accent. She flashed me a knowing, private smile.

 

While my
two friends peeled off towards geometry class, I hurried to the bathroom.

Thank God no one was in there. I picked a stall, went in, and closed the door. I was still hot and flushed from the images that had possessed me.

There was no way I could get through another class while in this state. I hiked up my skirt, sat on the toilet, slid my hand into my crotch, and gasped at how wet I was.

My breathing grew shorter. I entered into the sensation, trying to stifle my moans. I moved my fingers in the wet tangle. I was growing sweaty, tense, excited, and confused.

In my mind, I struggled with the image of the large naked man and his leather strap and my legs forcibly parted. I needed the images to feed my excitement, yet they caused me such shame that I fought them back at the same time. As I remembered the thrusts he gave me in my vision, I slid my fingers into me. They couldn't begin to give me the rich and brutal pleasure the man had. I quickly searched through my purse and got out an elastic hair band and wrapped it around two of my fingers. I looked at it, imagining it to be the ring on the man's cock. Now I poised it at my needy hole.