The Red Collection Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Author

  Also by Portia Da Costa

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Screen Dream

  The Best of Hands

  This Very Boutique

  Duet for Three

  Public Domain

  Are We There Yet?

  Fireworks Inside

  Sometimes They Come Back

  Watching the Detective

  The Distraction

  A Lavish Affair

  It’s Got to Be Perfect

  A Stroll Down Adultery Alley

  Red Haze

  Strawberry Shortcake

  A Study in Scarlet

  Ill Met By Moonlight

  Buddies Don’t Bite

  Also available from Black Lace

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Portia Da Costa is one of the most internationally renowned authors of erotica.

  She is the author of Continuum, Entertaining Mr Stone, Gemini Heat, Gothic Blue, Gothic Heat, Hotbed, In Too Deep, Kiss it Better, Shadowplay, Suite Seventeen, The Devil Inside, The Stranger and The Tutor; as well as being a contributing author to a number of Black Lace short-story collections.

  Also by Portia Da Costa

  Continuum

  Entertaining Mr Stone

  Gemini Heat

  Gothic Blue

  Gothic Heat

  Hotbed

  In Too Deep

  Kiss it Better

  Shadowplay

  Suite Seventeen

  The Devil Inside

  The Stranger

  The Tutor

  Introduction

  When I first decided I’d like to try to be a writer, my earliest efforts were short stories. The very first thing I ever committed to paper was a fan-fiction short about a handsome, sexy zombie, inspired by Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ video which I was dotty about at the time. It was a terrible story, of course, but I loved it and I was so pleased with myself – and amazed that I’d actually managed to string a plot, of sorts, together.

  One zombie story led to five zombie stories, culminating in a tragic – in many senses of the word – effort called ‘Love Death’, but eventually, I got the undead out of my system and began writing erotic stories with different themes and characters. I was writing romantic novels at the same time, and while my novels consistently came whizzing back to me with rejection slips, I was lucky with only my second short-story submission and I was published for the very first time in 1991 in the well-known British erotic magazine, Forum. The story, ‘The Man in Black’, was about a handsome, sexy ghost.

  Since then, I’ve written short stories as well as novels, and now in 2013 I think I’ve probably had about 150 published altogether, although I can’t put a precise figure on it as I’m a significantly better fiction writer than I am a record keeper.

  This collection contains the stories I’ve written for Black Lace anthologies over the years as well as a couple of longer paranormal erotic romances that were published in Black Lace novella collections. No zombies in this lot, but there are a couple of vampires (‘Buddies Don’t Bite’ and ‘Sometimes They Come Back’), a very macho fairy (‘Ill Met by Moonlight’) and a phantom detective who manifests himself through the medium of a haunted television (‘Watching the Detective’). The remaining stories are fairly kinky contemporary tales, predominantly BDSM themed and some of them are even linked to novels that I’ve written. ‘Are We There Yet’, ‘Duet for Three’ and ‘This Very Boutique’ feature two of my all-time favourite characters: Maria Lewis and Robert Stone from Entertaining Mr Stone and Suite Seventeen; and ‘A Study in Scarlet’ is a further adventure for Joanna Darrell and Kevin Steel from Continuum. In other linkage, ‘A Lavish Affair’ and ‘The Distraction’ are about the same pair of lovers, and ‘Fireworks Inside’ takes place at the same wedding reception as ‘A Lavish Affair’.

  That’s it then, and in case you’re wondering why it’s called The Red Collection … well, several of the stories have red-themed titles (‘A Study in Scarlet’, ‘Red Haze’ and ‘Strawberry Shortcake’), the vampire stories naturally involve a certain crimson beverage, and quite a few of my heroines end up with rather rosy bottoms after being spanked by their dominant heroes! I do hope that you find all the offerings to be red-hot entertainment and enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them!

  Portia Da Costa

  Screen Dream

  THE FIRST THING he saw when he entered the room was the Coromandel screen.

  It wasn’t the best one he’d ever seen, but he could have sold it at a nice profit, no problem. It was the sort of thing the Goths liked and they were always prepared to splash out on something black and symbolic-looking.

  But he wasn’t here to think about flogging cheap antiques, was he? He wiped his hand across his brow and found he was already sweating. When he looked back at the screen, he seemed to see something else entirely.

  There was a woman sitting behind that lacquer-covered surface, and in his mind’s eye she was also black and shiny and desirable. She was wearing a vinyl catsuit that gleamed like varnish, and clung to every curve and indentation. She was like the screen in another way too: not young, but well preserved. She had large breasts, a narrow waist, and her thighs looked like ebony in their vinyl carapace – hard enough to crush a man’s skull if he put his face between them.

  ‘Take off your clothes.’

  Oh God! Oh yes! That voice …

  It was low, rich and earthy, yet somehow also quite posh. The cut-glass diction seemed to dance along the length of his cock and make his balls vibrate. He felt as if he knew her somehow. Really. He’d heard that incredible voice somewhere else and now he wanted to hear it say the filthiest of things to him. He’d do anything to hear it purring obscenities. Inside his trousers, he was rigid with thwarted longing.

  He felt as if he were a boy again. On the day he’d got his first car; the night he’d fucked his first willing girl; at his first big auction and scoring a bargain worth ten times what he’d paid for it. As he slid off his coat, his heart thumped and his cock got harder.

  Weirdly enough, she always enjoyed this much more when she couldn’t see the man. Concealed behind her beloved black screen, she could make the punter into a much hotter property than he really was. In her mind’s eye, he was a gorgeous movie star, a wild, hard rocker, or even somebody she fancied from an advert. Anonymity gave her total control over him. Not seeing his face or his probably deeply inadequate body, she could just remodel him into any man she wanted.

  So the little CCTV monitor stayed blank as she listened to the sounds of him taking his clothes off.

  ‘Are you done yet?’ She kept her voice light, but with backbone. She knew he hadn’t had time to be anywhere near ready yet, but this way he’d have to speed up, get in a panic, and be anxious. She was turning the screw, but that was the whole point of the exercise, wasn’t it? She imagined him fighting with his zipper – sweating and shaking – and she immediately wanted to touch herself.

  ‘N-no!’ he stammered, ‘not yet.’ She heard the jingle of a belt, then a bump and a muffled curse. He’d probably stumbled and knocked himself on the heavy mahogany side table where the props lay. She put her hand over her mouth to stop herself laughing, and pictured him rubbing a bruised hip or thigh, bronzed muscles flexing in his shoulder as he did so. That made her less inclined to giggle, and more inclined to do other things. It was a delicious image, and she fixed it in her mind.

  ‘You may call me “mistress”,’ she said after another long pause. In her experience the cool, measured approach was far more undermining than snarling and shouting at them. He would be thrown even more
off balance now, not knowing quite what to expect, and certainly not getting precisely what he’d specified.

  Strict dominatrix demands you follow her orders.

  It was corny, but always a winner. The punters loved it. It was amazing how much power a cliché had, and how much money desperate men would shell out in pursuit of it. But even so, she couldn’t find it in herself to despise them. The tried and true kinks paid for nice things like antique screens and Georgian side tables. Her other employment paid for the basics, not the frills, as celebrity faces earned much more than unknown voices …

  ‘I’m ready, mistress.’ His quiet voice surprised her. It wasn’t usual for ‘slaves’ to speak up. They were supposed to be tongue-tied and to wait for instructions. This man sounded respectful, yet stoic – which appealed to her.

  ‘Indeed?’ She kept the smile out of her voice. ‘Well, I’m not. So just keep quiet and stand still until I’m ready.’

  Did he sigh? She wasn’t sure. If he had sighed, he’d have to pay for it. Unseen by him, she grinned and ran through a few particularly fiendish humiliations. She fancied something out of the usual run. Something a bit ‘extra’ – which he’d enjoy, if he’d got the bottle for it, just as much as she would. The beauty of it all was that she didn’t have to do a thing herself, not really. All she had to do was talk, use her vocal training and her imagination, and let the man do things to himself. There was no surer way to demean a punter than that!

  Was he already erect? Unable to resist prising open her own clothes, she reached in to touch her quim. Tonight was just getting better and better. She couldn’t work out why it was so much more fun than usual … but it was.

  ‘What’s your name?’ She looked down at her own body as she pictured his again.

  Would he be as aroused as she was? Would the tip of his cock be as wet and sticky as her slit was? She imagined a pearl of juice hanging suspended from the end of his penis, and saw it slowly descending towards the polished floorboards beneath his feet.

  Should she order him to touch himself yet? Or even taste his own juice? Ooh, that was cruel! Perhaps he was already masturbating? If he was, he was keeping it quiet.

  ‘My name’s John.’ The words were tight and staccato with controlled tension. He was nervous, but he still had some control over himself, and she liked that. She’d been right; things were really getting better.

  ‘Well, John, I shall call you “slave”,’ she said, touching her fingertip to her clitoris. The tiny little bead felt moist and polished, and the jolt of pleasure was astonishing. She couldn’t believe how much this feeling always managed to surprise her, no matter how much and how often she played with herself.

  Circling, she rolled her clit like a ball bearing, and bit her lip to stop herself moaning and panting. It was as hard to master her own urges as it was those of the man she was supposed to be mastering.

  ‘Not very imaginative, I know,’ she went on when the surge had crested and retreated, ‘but it’ll have to do.’

  ‘Yes, mistress,’ replied John from beyond the black lacquer that divided them.

  ‘Don’t speak yet, slave,’ she admonished gently, reaching into her clothing again, with her other hand, and adjusting her bottom cheeks so they were spread against the upholstered surface of the chaise longue. There were two layers of fabric between her anus and the moquette, but even so, it felt grubby and perversely voluptuous as she wriggled. ‘Not until I tell you to,’ she added, pressing her bottom downwards.

  ‘Caress your body, slave,’ she said after a moment or two. It was amazing how just a few heartbeats could ramp up the tension. ‘Rub your palms and your fingers over your naked skin … but whatever you do, don’t touch your cock yet. Do you understand me?’

  ‘Yes, mistress,’ he said, and near silence followed. Straining her ears, she could just about hear the faint swish of skin against skin.

  The picture in her mind was irresistible now. She saw him squatting slightly, long bronzed thighs flexed as he ran loving hands over his chest, his belly and his bottom. His hips swayed, and his erection – huge and angry pink with hyper-stimulation – bobbed and jiggled to the rhythm. His eyes were closed and his strong, handsome face was taut with the effort of not touching himself, and the stress of not coming.

  She breathed heavily but silently. Part of her wanted to say ‘sod it!’ and then crawl out from behind her shield to kneel before him and take that juicy shaft into her mouth and suck on it hungrily. Either that, or lie on the panelled floor, legs akimbo, inviting him to push his swollen rod inside her …

  But that wasn’t what he wanted of her, was it? And if she broke the spell by revealing herself, and seeing him in turn, it would be cheating them both.

  So instead, she swivelled her wrist and thrust two fingers slowly into her vagina. This was a better way, she thought, beginning to thumb her clitoris.

  Touching himself was a test of his self-control. Rarely in his life had John felt as aroused as he did now, staring at the black screen and focusing hard so he wouldn’t come.

  With his hands on his thighs, fingers itching to stray to his cock, he took a silent step closer and peered at the four lacquered panels. The even number meant that it was of oriental origin. European repros tended to have an odd number. He’d had lacquered screens like this in the shop many a time – and some a lot better than this – but never one with this strange, almost living quality. It was like a third person in the room with them, and now he was closer, he could see more wear and tear …

  ‘Are you still stroking yourself?’ Her diction was still exquisite, but also huskier now.

  Was she as affected by all this as he was? John licked his dry lips and prepared to reply. Behind her screen was she turned on too, her body hot and horny inside its slinky suit of clinging black plastic?

  ‘Yes! Yes, I am,’ he managed to murmur at last, stroking the pads of his fingertips up over the hollows of his groin, brushing his wiry pubic hair. Going close, so very close to his rigid penis.

  ‘But not touching your dick, I hope.’ Her voice was as clear and golden as honey, yet dark as blasphemy. ‘Not fondling your stiff, red, aching dick … Your hard-on. Your rod. Your erection.’ She seemed to roll the words around on her tongue as if she were swirling the tip of it around the very organ she named. He looked down, saw the head of his cock jerk and weep thick silver goo. His rod looked as hard as a bar of mahogany and it ached as if she had it in a vice. He clenched his hands against his hips so he couldn’t grab himself and wank to oblivion.

  ‘Aren’t you going to answer me?’ she asked, and across the crazed black lacquer, a vivid picture grew sharper.

  She was lying on a Victorian, scroll-ended chaise longue, her sleek body upholstered in firm flesh and gleaming black vinyl. Her slim legs were splayed, and between them an ingenious zip lay open. Her gorgeous slit was open too, the pink folds swollen ripe like segments of red fruit.

  ‘No! No, I’m not touching myself, mistress,’ he said, as in his mind’s eye she did the thing he wasn’t allowed to.

  A single long slender finger, the nail painted with a polish as black as her suit, slid into the peachy channel and sought out the very heart of her desire. There was no sound, because it was a silent movie, and any noise from within might make him miss any real sounds, but his mistress’s mouth formed a rosy, perfect ‘O’. The finger flexed, and the ‘O’ grew rounder than ever.

  ‘Do you want to?’ The fantasy fractured and John saw himself reflected in the screen’s blackness again.

  The surface of the lacquer had seen better days, and the image was fuzzed, but he saw the faint outline of a white-skinned man, of medium height, with lightish, curly hair. At his groin, there was a shadowy smudge – his dark brown pubic tuft – but no clear detail of his pointing, rampant penis.

  When he looked downwards, it was a different story.

  He was huge. Bigger than he’d ever been. Bigger than it was possible for him to be. His flesh was red, the skin stretch
ed and shiny with an angry inflamed sheen. His swollen glans seemed to yearn towards the screen and for a moment he had the mad thought that if he struck it against the nearest panel it might shatter the ageing lacquer.

  Without thinking, he laughed.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ There was humour in her voice too, but the fact that she didn’t shout frightened him more than anger.

  ‘Me, mistress,’ he said quietly. ‘My hard-on … It’s sticking up. It’s ridiculous.’

  ‘So ridiculous that you don’t want to touch it … to caress it?’

  There was a smile in the beautiful tones. She was toying with him, playing with him subtly, lightly, almost with kindness.

  ‘No, mistress … I mean, yes, mistress.’ He felt confused, angry with himself for getting confused; yet more and more excited because of it. ‘I do want to touch myself … I’m aching. It’s driving me mad. I’ve never felt this hard before.’

  ‘Oh, surely you’re exaggerating,’ she said. ‘That’s what all men say … They’re always the hardest or the biggest. The soonest ready, the longest lasting … You men are always the best and most of everything.’

  She was mocking him. Putting him down. She didn’t care about him at all, and why should she? He was just a client to her, a source of revenue.

  And yet …

  He couldn’t hear anything. She’d given nothing away. No rustle of clothing, no uneven breathing, nothing. Yet still he sensed she was enjoying herself. And that made his own pleasure greater. His cock felt as if it had grown another inch, and he didn’t care what she said; it was the hardest ever!

  ‘But it’s true, mistress,’ he said boldly. ‘I’ve never been harder. Honestly!’

  It was her turn to laugh now.

  ‘All right. I believe you. Now describe it to me.’ She chuckled softly. ‘Tell me all about your prick and why you think it’s so wonderful.’

  Oh, he’d been good, she thought afterwards, rubbing her blonde hair dry as she sat on the chaise longue wearing men’s pyjamas and dressing gown. She’d just had to shower again and that didn’t usually happen.