ContentsIntroduction.. 5In the Dark.. 6Gang Rave. 31Fog.. 52The Garden.. 58My Turn.. 67The Cliff. 72Introduction This collection of short stories was written over ten or so years. The older stories include In the Dark, Gang Rave, and The Garden, and the newer are Fog, My Turn, and The Cliff. Fog was selected for online publication by Clean Sheets Magazine in December 2009. In the Dark remains one of my personal favorite stories, but this collection covers a number of themes where limits are pushed and new sensual and sexual territory explored. I hope you like them. My sincere thanks to Emma and Aaron at Republica Press, and the many readers who have sent me feedback over the years.-Monocle In the Dark Sandra closed and locked the bathroom door, sighed, and went to the mirror to touch up her makeup, grateful for the brief privacy of the small 'extra' bathroom next to the standard, multi-stalled ladies' room. She was having an OK time, but was getting discouraged, losing the heart and purpose she had come with. Damn Phillip anyway. Her two-year-long relationship with him had been going through a 'rough spot', as her married friends would call it. She snorted. She wasn't sure which turbulence was worse—the fact that he had cheated on her or the almost dismissive way he apologized for it when he was caught. Sandra had thought she loved Phillip, and that he loved her. Now nothing was certain. She had left the apartment without telling Phillip where she was going; though she made sure he saw how she was dressed. She was in her black dancing dress. Its low, collar-less V neckline showed just a little more than proper for formal occasions. The elastic, satiny fabric hugged the swells of her breasts and hips, the seamless body flaring into a slightly frilly skirt, also too short for the most polite of company. She had no bra on tonight—something else she made sure Phillip had seen. Delicate looking black three-inch heels barely covered her feet and matched her tiny purse—just big enough for a compact, a lipstick, a key, a few bills, and a rolled up diaphragm. She slammed the apartment door behind her, shoes clicking, long fiery red hair streaming behind her as she strode purposefully down the hall. She rode the taxi alone, across town. Sandra had come to this club to even the score—find someone, show Phillip how it felt to be betrayed. It was stupid, she knew, but she didn't care for the moment. She knew Phillip had at least some jealousy in him, and wanted to hurt him, as she was hurt. And she'd had no trouble finding guys who wanted to dance with her, buy her drinks, and, she was sure, take her home. Most of them she'd never look at twice. Others were so full of themselves there could never be room for anyone else. There were the oppressive, the desperate, the sleazes, the operators, the actors, the too-innocent, the not-innocent-enough. Sandra managed to find an excuse to reject all of them as the evening wore on. One more round, and then I'll go home, she thought, looking at her reflection, but deep down she already knew she wouldn't find what she thought she was looking for here. She'd already begun thinking about if and how things could or should be patched up with Phillip, if that's what they both wanted. In flash of motion behind her, the door to the bathroom suddenly opened and closed, letting in a loud blast of music. At the same time the lights went out, and an instant later, just as Sandra startled from the noise, one hand grabbed her arm as another clamped over her mouth. Her eyes opened wide in the sudden darkness and she let out a smothered squeal of surprise and fright. Her own hands dropped the lipstick she had been taking out and grabbed at the arm in front of her. On the edge of panic, she fought to free her mouth so she could scream. In the darkness and her enforced quiet, the lipstick clattering in the sink sounded unnaturally loud.The hand was strong and didn't move easily. From just behind her ear she heard a soft, deeply masculine voice. "No, this is not what you think. I've only covered your mouth so that you would not instantly cry out and run the moment I came in. I am going to remove my hand in just a moment, and you will be free to scream then, or simply tell me to go away. I will. You'll never hear from me again. I promise it. I know. You have no reason to believe my promise, but there it is. All I ask is that you hear me out for just a minute. You see, I know you. I know why you are here. I can give you what you want." After a brief pause, as if to let the words register, the hand disappeared from her mouth. Sandra breathed in deep and almost screamed. But instead, to her surprise, she let out the breath, trembling slightly. The question of what his last words meant teased her. After a moment, the hand encircled her other bicep, as the first. She stiffened at the touch, but again amazed herself by saying nothing. She was being either very brave, or very stupid. Probably the latter, she told herself. The hands held her gently but firmly. She might be able to break their grip if she really fought, but she might not. "You… you know me?" she asked, able to keep the quiver she felt out of her voice. "After a fashion," the voice replied, this time in her other ear—the change causing her to jump again. "I've seen you around here before—women like you. I know what brought you here and what you are looking for. You carry yourself too confidently to be a virgin tired of her status and looking for a white knight to deflower her. You're too discriminating to be a vixen on the make, and too sad to be here because you want to have a simple fling. You've been spurned, no— betrayed—by a lover, and are looking to return the favor." He said these things as statements, not questions. Sandra started again. He did know! "But you've not been able to convince yourself to go through with it with anyone you've seen." "No..." Did she say that out loud, or just think it? "You were going to go home soon, and try to make up with—who now? "Philli—" She cut herself off. Why would she tell this invisible person anything? She could barely make out a backlit silhouette now, behind her in the mirror, illuminated only by the flickering light sneaking in from under the door. He was tall and wide of chest. The outline of his head suggested short straight hair. He was close behind her; she could feel the warmth of his body. He carried a scent with him, a spicy smoke that spoke of distant, older places. "Phillip, then." There was something slightly accented to his speech, but Sandra had no clue where to place it. "You were going to go back to Phillip and see if you could accept again someone who had broken your trust...even your love?" Sandra nodded, forgetting that he likely could not see that. "Tell me, is Phillip a good lover?" "Wh- what do you mean?" "I mean, does he treat you like a beautiful woman should be treated?" Sandra gasped as the end of the sentence was accompanied by an electric sensation running from her ear down her spine. An unseen tongue had just licked her on and just behind the earlobe. "Can he awaken your passion with a touch?" Now, one hand released her arm, drawing its fingers lightly along her collarbone and downward, delicately caressing the outside of her breast, down her side to wrap around her hip. The fingers gently pressed into the side of her lower belly. In the darkness, Sandra felt acutely every inch of the motion. Sandra's hand quickly reached out and covered the stranger's, half-holding, half gripping it as if to remove it from her. Everything that had been touched tingled, and the sensation spread out to warm her body. She inhaled and exhaled deeply again, whispering "No..." as she did. She trembled slightly as a pair of warm lips touched her neck, just above her shoulder line. They pressed a long kiss there, then two more progressing upward to her ear. She shivered. How could this invisible intruder have such a strong and immediate effect on her? Was she crazy to just stand here? Was this what she had been looking for all evening? "Does he please the needs and desires of your flesh before his own? Instead of his own? Has he ever explored the depths and heights of ecstasy he could give to you?" The other hand released the arm it had been holding. Its fingers first touched her through her skirt on her outer thigh, just above the hem. They trailed upward, dragging the fabric with them until it fell free. The fingers slid lightly across to her belly just above her pubis, then over her stomach, between her ribs, until the heel of the hand pressed against her breast and the fingers slowly rose to curl up and under, cradling it gently. Sandra had been mouthing "No" quietly in answer to the questions drifting at her from the darkness, her skin goose-pimpling in reaction to the touches it received. But when the hand cupped her breast she gasped again, grabbing at it. "Hey! Stop!" She pulled at the hand, which held strong, the motion shaking and jiggling her breast in the cupping fingers. "I've told you how you can get me to stop. Tell me to go away and I will. I promise. You don't have to believe me, but there it is." Silence. Sandra still pulled at the hand, but she said nothing, her mind full of conflicting thoughts. The other hand then slowly slid flat from her hip to her belly, and began slow circles around and around over the smooth fabric of the dress. At her ear, between little nibbling kisses, he spoke. "Phillip has squandered and abused his treasures. You are a beautiful, sexy woman. You have a perfectly curved body, a sensuous walk. Your arms and legs are obviously strong, but toned and delicate looking—wondrously elegant and feminine. Your breasts," he rubbed the underside of her breast gently back and forth, "are firm, resilient, neither too big to hold nor too small to escape notice. You have a smooth, perfect belly that makes men long to take you and fill you with themselves." Sandra's breathing quickened. She felt herself melting into the touch of this unseen man. Her back was now pressed against his hard chest, her buttocks just brushing against his upper thigh. Her heart pounded. She could hear it louder than the muted dance music filtering through the door. The lips now pressed up and down the very back of her neck, tongue trailing wetly over the first vertebrae of her spine before meeting the neckline of her dress. The tongue then moved in slow circles around her neck, mimicking the hand circling her belly. The other hand also started circling around her breast, never quite touching the nipple, but stroking the sides, top, and bottom through the sheer dress. It occasionally broke to travel the length of her side down to her hip and back before resuming its tantalizing circuit. Filaments of sensation radiated from the caresses, hardening her nipples, and tingling between her legs. Sandra realized that her hands still held the thick wrists as they moved around her body. Not knowing what else to do with them, she kept them there. "Women like you need to be made love to, to have your bodies, and the rest of you, treated properly. You are beings of passion. You need to be allowed the wanton expression of your inner-most self." The words breathed in her ears. The hands switched, one taking her belly over without break, the other moving to cradle then circle her other breast. Sandra let out a small sigh or moan. It was so quiet she couldn't tell. Her knees began to feel weak. "Tell me your name, my beauty." Before she could even think about it, she did. The hand circling her belly made her skin feel hot. The motions arced lower. Now below her belly button, now just above her pubis, now gliding over the top of her covered thatch. Her grip on the wrist tightened, as if to slow or stop it. "Wait... no...." she said, but the hand did not stop. Lower still until the fingers began dipping between her legs, causing the fabric of her skirt to tickle her thighs as the fingers and palm began to pass over her mound. "Of course not," The voice said in reassuring tone, "You still don't want to betray the trust of your lover—Phillip. What would he think knowing that another man was stirring these feelings in you? What would he think if he knew another could awaken parts of you he never dreamed existed."