Fifty Shelves of Grey Read online

  He felt so wretched. Had he really exposed his secret, most innermost self to her like that? The perverted self that only fifteen carefully selected and legally silenced subs had ever known about? And of course Nurse, who had taught him everything he knew and whose well-worn paddle was still his most treasured possession. Damn Pierre and his Masonic exhortation to the virtue of courage! He was beginning to suspect that Pierre had feelings for Natasha himself and was deliberately sabotaging him.

  Natasha looked at him, red as a beetroot, and visibly trying to control her panicky breathing by biting down on her rosebud lips. She’d imagined many things that might be in store for her at her debut ball in those brightly lit halls, surrounded by all the brilliant people of Petersburg, but not this. Sonya and she had spent weeks in joyful anticipation discussing so many scenarios: what they would do and how they would feel. They’d even covered the vampire eventuality. How could they not have talked about this? Inwardly, She cursed Sonya and this most glaring of omissions. How best to respond? What did she feel? Andrey was the most devastatingly handsome man she had ever met, with his cavalry colonel uniform, white stockings and light shoes, and he was creating the most unexpected stirrings in her loins. The quivering that Andrey had felt at her waist was moving south, she felt her breathing quicken and shallow – what could it mean?

  Andrey saw Natasha’s bright eyes, her heaving chest and heightened colour, he sensed the flaming glow from some inner fire that had previously been doused and he hardly dared hope – could it be that she wasn’t going to run away? Could he dare to imagine that one day he might have access to her nubile young body, secure in the knowledge that she had signed the non-disclosure agreement and knew the safe words? He had barely felt more afraid in the fields of Austerlitz as he took her by the hand and said, ‘Come with me, my innocent Natasha, and let me give you a debut ball to remember.’ As they left the room to the fading strains of the Polonaise, Natasha felt herself to be on the brink of something true and important and was grateful that there was a further thousand pages for her to properly get her head around what it all meant.

  29

  Dead Cert

  by

  DICK FRANCIS

  He was found at the bottom of the Volga, hoof-cuffed, leather blinkers over his eyes and an orange stuffed in his mouth. It was a dirty end for a three-time Derby winner and it was going to be a hell of a job to keep it out of the papers. I wanted vengeance on the bastards who’d done this and, as I trotted away down an icy Moscow side street, I vowed to get it. I hadn’t eaten all day but I realized I wasn’t going to be able to get to the turnip in my nosebag until I’d put some distance between myself and Admiral’s drowned horse corpse.

  It wasn’t long before I heard the sound of hooves following me. I began to canter; so did they. I whinnied; so did they. I jumped a small child; so did they. The Kremlin was just ahead. If I could get to Red Square I’d have the chance to break into a gallop. As I rounded the corner and burst out into the open, I felt the wind tear through my mane. I could hear them gasping for air behind me. The ponies!

  As I streaked past a man in a fur hat playing a balalaika, I reflected back on my days in Newmarket. Before the hay addiction and the backhanders from Russian oligarchs, Admiral was by far and away the top performer in the stable, and not just on the racecourse. He was a Trojan of a horse, huge and as hard as wood. Eighteen hands high and built like a Chippendale sofa, he was a multiple winner on the steeplechase and in the straw. Race after race I’d gallop behind him, admiring his thundering back view. The sight of his jockey crouched forward over his neck, silk-clad buttocks bobbing up and down over Admiral’s sleek hindquarters, stirred a jealous passion in me that I struggled to control. I longed to feel those bunched, tense flanks move beneath mine, to see that neck arch before me in ecstasy. I remembered the day I had returned to the stables early after an unexpected tumble on an easy jump, and disturbed Admiral in a state of arousal. I wanted to make a move then, but he was far out of my league. I had to content myself with those times that the bumps and tremors of the horse box would allow me to jolt up against his firm chestnut rear.

  So the facts of his death added up worse than a jockey with a weight in his pocket. Everyone knows horses don’t eat oranges, and Admiral never wore blinkers. This was no unfortunate accident. Someone had looked this gift horse in the mouth and it was up to me to find out who.

  30

  Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

  by

  LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES

  How like a woman is a mandolin, how capricious, how fickle. In the golden dusk, when the sun is setting and the cicadas are chirruping, she lies there beckoning me, so seductive, so alluring, and yet when I pick her up and move my fingers over her silken strings, the sound that emerges is horrible: high-pitched and screechy. I say to her: ‘My ears, my ears! Antonia, why do you torture me so? Why can’t I please you? Am I so inexperienced? Is my fingerwork so poor? I have spent hours practising!’ I cast her aside in despair, and stalk out of the room, determined to make her suffer as I do. She treats me like an invading army sent to occupy her by force; it is as though she is hollow inside and made of wood, so unfeeling is her response.

  But despite her cruel behaviour I am always drawn back, lured by the sensuous curves of her rounded, pear-shaped bowl-back, her slender, swan-like neck and her oval hole, purfled in pearl and silvers, that orifice of delicious, unbearable promise . . . ‘Oh my sweet, sweet Antonia!’ I am caught for a second by the pain of the loins’ longings then, moistened by my own lust, I take her up again, more forcefully this time, determined to coax a harmonious moan of pleasure from her resistant fret board, to find my way to her sonorous centre. I strum her until she quivers, I reach across her octaves, finding the elusive chord that sounds a vibrating D of infinite yearning and then I stretch again harder, longer, aiming for a tricky B flat 9, I find it and strike it hard and again and faster and faster and as my dampened fingers move quickly across her strings they slip up to a G sharp of desperate anticipation until, with a shuddering suspended F, we finally come together, man and mandolin.

  31

  Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Cunnilingus

  by

  IMMANUEL KANT

  Intending to publish hereafter a Metaphysics of Cunnilingus, complete with diagrams, I issue in the first instance this Groundwork. This preliminary treatise is nothing more than the establishment of a guide and supreme canon for the pleasuring of woman through the dutiful use of one’s tongue.

  With regard to the ancients, not a lot of people know that I am a fan of Epicurus. True, I am not big on empirical experience as a way to inform our moral choices, but I must concede that Epicurus was correct in as far as the pleasure or hedone of a woman must be regarded as an end in itself, and good without qualification. Cunnilingus then must be highly esteemed for itself and not as, what is termed in vernacular, ‘foreplay’. Hence, it is our moral duty to descend upon our beloved. Thus it may be considered a law.

  In order that this action should be morally good, it is not enough that it conform to the law, but it must also be done for the sake of the law. Never regard the pussy as means to an end. That is, the action is not about bringing her to such heights of pleasure that her inclination should be to draw you inside her. It is to be done for the sake of her pleasure. The former is a selfish hypothetical imperative executed with the end of one’s own gratification in mind, the latter a universal duty or Categorical Imperative.

  Ergo we should engage our tongues (and I will later postulate, on the extreme boundary of practical philosophy, introduce our fingers) for duty’s sake, even though we may not be impelled to it by any inclination – indeed, we may even be repelled by an unconquerable aversion. We aspire to a practical rather than pathological love, seated in the will, and not in the propensities of feeling – in action, not in sympathy. [Darling, if you are reading this, I’m talking in general terms – you know I love the taste of your Schmetterling!] Now, as re
aders of my previous essays will be aware, the Categorical Imperative is that I should never act otherwise than so that my maxim should become a universal law. This means it is fine to think about other women as you are going down upon your own fair one. [Again, darling, this does not apply to yours devotedly!]

  Now, since a Universal Law must be capable of demonstration, let me say something of practicalities. It is true that not all jewels of the fairer sex are homogeneous in form, and indeed the varied geography of their erogenous zones can be perplexing. What is requisite and necessary is to begin with a subtle dialectic with one’s lips and tongue to discern the most sensitive areas. In spite of some of my colleagues’ theses, I would urge you not to restrict yourself to the clitoris, but to undertake a free, unboundaried investigation of the whole area, a priori and a posteriori, or as they are termed in common parlance, front bottom and back bottom. We must be willing to experiment with pressure and motion, and, as I say, dare to involve our fingers in this critical examination.

  You may recall in a previous tract, I asserted that Autonomy of the Will is the Supreme Principle of Morality while Heteronomy is the source of all Spurious Principles. This holds true for Cunnilingus – do not wait to be asked to go down, but dive straight in of your own free and pure Will.

  For those who may be disheartened in their inquiry by their dearest’s lack of response, the good news is that moral worth is not derived from the realization of the object of the action, but from the maxim by which it is determined. Only dive. It is the endeavour itself that has moral worth, not its result. Otherwise we stray into the questionable ethics of utilitarianism and orgies. Nevertheless, all arts and handiworks have gained by division of labour and specialization. Therefore if your neighbour is able to work a particular area with greater facility and perfection, invite him to join you, provided your sweetheart be not averse.

  Let me conclude by reiterating that, as with other universal laws, judgement is sharpened by experience, in concreto. And that is why at three o’clock every afternoon I vigorously partake of my wife’s amuse-bouche – you can set your watch by me! Only through daily practice of duty may we proceed from immaturity to enlightenment. Sapere audete!

  32

  The Alchemist

  by

  PAULO COELHO

  Santiago hesitated at the threshold of the tent of the Alchemist. Now after many years, it seemed the pursuit of his Personal Legend was at an end. His journey had begun in Torremolinos. He had led his flock of sheep down from the mountains of Andalusia to enquire as to the meaning of a recurring dream from a gypsy woman who was conversant in the language of dreams. And she was cheaper than the one in Marbella. He had told her how each time in the dream, a young, hot, Andalusian lovely with Moorish eyes had led him to the top of the Giralda tower in Seville. Each time she had pointed in the direction of the Pyramids of Egypt and when he turned to look, she had whipped her hand inside his simple shepherd trousers and begun to massage his manhood. As her hands explored and insisted, he felt she was massaging not his manhood but his Being. In the dream, as he climaxed, the tower of La Giralda fell away and he spun with the girl into infinite space, spraying his seed across the Oneness. That was when he woke up. The gypsy woman looked a bit nonplussed when he finished. ‘Um . . . well . . . it’s about hand jobs, isn’t it? I mean . . . what it’s saying is that you need to cross the desert to seek “the hand”. It is the “hand that wrote everything”. And it’s hanging out around the Pyramids of Egypt somewhere. It’s obvious. Ten pesos please, my lovely.’

  And so it was he had got an easy ferry across to Tangiers, worked in a glassware shop for a year, then crossed the Sahara, fell in love, joined a caravan and arrived here at the oasis. It had been hard to leave Fatima, a woman of the desert. But even as they had made love in a variety of positions, he knew he would never be satisfied until he had been touched by the ultimate hand of his dream. And he understood that if he did not follow his Personal Legend, his love for Fatima would sour. As he remembered her, naked, warm and wet, his resolve strengthened and he drew back the opening to the Alchemist’s tent.

  The air inside was sweet with incense. The Alchemist bade Santiago enter and offered him some wine to drink.

  ‘I thought Tradition forbade you wine?’

  ‘If you don’t tell, I won’t,’ answered the Alchemist and Santiago was astounded by his desert wisdom. ‘What is it you seek?’

  ‘I am seeking my personal treasure, that is the caress of the hand that wrote everything.’

  ‘Ah. Many have sought a gratification to cancel out their suffering. But that gratification is not to be found in others, only in yourself.’

  “What do you mean?” asked Santiago.

  The Alchemist made no answer. Instead he took a stick and, stepping outside into the moonlit desert, he drew a dirty picture in the sand.

  ‘Um, what’s your point?’ asked Santiago.

  ‘Onanism,’ answered the Alchemist simply.

  ‘Is that to do with the Oneness?’

  ‘No. They sound similar so many learned men have confused the two. Let’s go back inside the tent.’

  Once back inside, the Alchemist prepared a little corner for Santiago – he spread some cushions, draped a veil across the space and handed him a small bottle of precious oil.

  ‘What is this?’

  ‘It’s the Elixir of Life. A couple of drops of that will make the whole experience much more silky and enjoyable. Now make sure your hands don’t have any grains of sand on them – desert hazard. Lie back, relax, explore and enjoy yourself. I will return.’

  The Alchemist stepped into the desert to talk to the Wind and the Moon. Santiago lay back. His heart was shy, almost afraid, but he took up the Elixir, sprinkled a few drops on his hand and reached down into the folds of his desert robes. It was as the Alchemist said, he knew himself. He understood what he wanted, he anticipated his own desires and could choose to gratify or withhold to delay and intensify the pleasure. He caressed himself for what seemed like hours. As the point of climax drew near, his body seemed to dissolve and he was simply riding waves of purest pleasure, like the great waves he had seen crashing against the rocks of little old Torremolinos. He saw his whole journey with all its trials and delights pass before him and then, he saw Fatima, once more, naked, warm and wet. As he came, he cried out, “Fatima, I’m coming!’

  Santiago collapsed back into the cushions, understanding that he could return to Fatima and be happy with her. For he had the secret of his own hands. If sex became samey, he could return to this place of orgasmic bliss. He had crossed deserts and yet he had held the answer in the palm of his hand all along.

  33

  The Spy Who Came in from the Cold

  by

  JOHN LE CARRÉ

  East Berlin, January 1963

  His hand hovering over the bowl of keys, Leamas could feel the sweat gathering on his brow – he had no idea which set to pick although he was going to avoid the owner of the Volvo at all costs. Smiley had assured him it would be obvious, but it wasn’t obvious at all, and now Fiedler was fondling his left buttock and whispering in his ear: ‘Come on, Leamas, hurry up. If you pick mine out, he can watch.’ Fiedler nodded towards Mundt. ‘It’s time to choose your keys, Leamas,’ barked Mundt. Leamas plunged his hand into the bowl, closed his eyes and thought of Smiley, he was back in the muted anonymity of Cambridge Circus. Smiling to himself.

  London, 6 weeks previously

  ‘Let me run it by you one more time,’ said Smiley. ‘You pretend you’re coming home with us, but in fact you’re going home with them. Then, when you get home with them, you tell them that you saw one of theirs back at the Circus with us. Go to town on the details, make it as real as you can, cock and balls out, all the fun of the fair. Once the precept of exclusivity has been broken, the gloves are off, or rather the pants are down, and we can really get to work. They’ll send you back here to report on their defector, we’ll pretend to welcome you back into be
d so that you can feed misinformation about our dirty practices to them. Then you’ll claim that you miss them and their cute little East German tüsche and plead to be taken back into their fückentrüstencircle. Eventually Fiedler will relent because he finds you irresistible, you’ll be eyes down, mouth open, and we can really find out what’s going on with Mundt. Got it?’

  Back in East Berlin . . .

  Clutching the keys to Fiedler’s Skoda in his hand, Leamas allowed himself to be led over to the couch, while the rest of the Krauts gathered around. For Queen and country, he thought, For Queen and bleeding country. He closed his eyes. Pray God Fiedler didn’t find the deep dark place that Smiley had hidden the bug.

  34

  How to be a Domestic Goddess

  by

  NIGELLA LAWSON

  Afternoon Delight

  This is one of my absolute favourite recipes. Completely dependable, it hits the spot every time, and I find myself coming back to it again and again. It’s one I turn to both when I’m feeling stressed and when I just want to celebrate the joy of being alive. My husband is a huge fan too, and occasionally I like to have him around to take over if my arm gets tired, but to be perfectly honest I find the consistency better if I’m left to my own devices.

  Start the night before by ensuring that you’ll have a bit of quiet in the house. Make plans for everyone to be out, or failing that I tend to banish my husband to the garden and plant the children in front of their favourite DVD. I have even been known to issue bags of crisps in a bid to ensure total non-disturbance. Take a moment to revel in this special time for you. I like to think my recipes are as much about the enjoying the process as the end result, and that is particularly true for this one.