Change Partners

by Cathryn Cooper

  But before he did it, Mariana slid a towelling bag over it as a groom would slide a nosebag over the head of a horse. This bag was one-third full of ice.

  Jamie cried out as the tip of his penis became embedded in the nest of crushed ice. Every muscle of his body strained to keep still despite this new cruelty. Every vein stood proud of his flesh.

  With one hand, his wife squeezed and released his scrotal sac in a constant rhythm as though he were a cow and she were milking him. The fingernails of her other hand scraped down the divide between his buttocks.

  There was no time left to do anything else, for the sharpness of her fingernail to dig into his anal portal, for her fingers to scrape the inside of his thighs. An orgasm had come and had taken him. Jamie bucked as his semen rose along his stem then discharged into the ice.

  Jamie glowed with satisfaction. It didn’t matter that he now had to scrub the kitchen floor before he ate dinner. That he had to load his clothes into the washing machine without getting up off his knees.

  After that, he became her footstool, naked and curled up beneath her feet as she watched television, a glass of wine in one hand, and the dog lead attached to his collar in the other.

  Jamie was content to do this for his wife who was also his mistress and confidante. There were no secrets between them - which was how Mariana came to know about Michael encouraging the telling of tales in the changing room.

  ‘How very interesting,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘Tell me more, my little slave.’ To add encouragement, she tugged sharply on the dog lead. Jamie told her everything.

  ‘There’s a good boy,’ she cooed once he had finished. ‘I will reward you for this later, but for now I think you should feel some chastisement for being such a naughty little boy.’

  Jamie knew exactly what her words meant. Later Mariana would want him to bring her to orgasm, and he would be pleased to do that too. But for now he was happy to do just as he was told.

  Chapter 7

  Thomas’s Story

  It was Friday in the changing room, and Thomas was running his towel across his back in a diagonal movement designed to mop up the last damp patches of water.

  As usual, another towel was tightly bound around his waist. It was white and its tightness around his behind and hips seemed to exaggerate the broadness of his back. His hair was still damp, clinging to his head and gathering in crinkled curls over the nape of his neck.

  ‘Well, Tommy old boy. Your turn next.’ Michael slapped the broad back, but retrieved his hand smartly as he felt Thomas’s muscles bunch beneath his touch. Sudden tension worried him. Not for the world did he want his friend to imagine he might have ‘left-hand’ designs on him. Not him. Not Michael. Didn’t he go out of his way to flout his masculinity, to boast of his sexual prowess?

  Thomas turned to face him. ‘Don’t call me Tommy. I’m Thomas. Let’s keep it at that. It’s my preference, okay?’ Michael winced and coloured up slightly. ‘Sorry, Thomas. I forgot.’ He held up one hand, palm outwards. ‘Pax?’ Thomas nodded. ‘Pax - Mickey.’

  ‘Alright, alright. Sorry again.’ Michael waited a few minutes to let the tension in the atmosphere and in Thomas’s muscles dissipate. ‘Now what about your tale of woe. How did you first get your end away, Thomas?’

  Thomas smiled that secret little smile of his - the one that infuriated his wife because he usually did it when she was angry and trying to provoke some response from him.

  He sat down on the bench, stretched his legs out in front of him, and lay his back against the locker. There was a certain translucence to the gleaming brown torso, the chiselled muscles of his chest and legs. His smile persisted. There was something secretive about it - almost as if he knew something they didn’t, but which they should.

  ‘I remember it well. We were sweethearts. Had been since we were children.

  ‘I remember her being six and wearing pretty angel tops in lacy materials, and one of the colours in her top matching her trousers.

  ‘I remember her being ten and wearing jeans that matched mine and shirts that she stole from her brother’s bedroom. She liked being one of the boys and used to climb up with us and play in our tree house. We used to tell stories, sing songs, play dares and even ran to doctors and nurses. That was the best game of all - especially if her brother wasn’t around.

  ‘She was fourteen before I realised I loved her. She was sixteen before we kissed and fell in love’.

  Jamie interrupted. ‘Love? I thought we were talking about sex.’

  Thomas crossed his arms and continued to talk without bothering to acknowledge Jamie’s comment.

  ‘It was a warm Sunday afternoon. Her brother was out doing good deeds with the church and the boy scouts.

  ‘It was hot, but the top branches of the trees were swaying in a reasonable breeze. She suggested we climb up our favourite tree and sit in the shade of the leaves up in the tree house. So that’s what we did.

  ‘Signs of neglect were all over the place once we were inside it. After all, we hadn’t been up there for ages. We’d got older.

  ‘There was an old mattress up there and, once we’d given it a good shake, it looked decent enough to sit on. As we shook it a whole load of leaves fell from the branches above and floated in. The mattress was covered in them, but we didn’t care. We lay among them, our heads resting on our hands, our eyes gazing up through the leaves to the sky.

  ‘It was then that I became aware of her as a girl; as a woman. Somehow her body seemed more warm than I remembered it and, even though she was lying still, shadows from the moving tree dappled her body. Her smell seemed more tantalising and the feel of her hair against my bare arm made my breath catch in my throat. Instinctively, I knew she felt it too, knew that the sky, the leaves, and the birds singing around us, were all part of what we were feeling. It was as though we were blending, mixing together like ingredients in some sort of natural recipe.

  ‘She asked me if I loved her. I said I did.

  ‘She asked me if I’d ever kissed a girl.

  ‘I said I had.

  ‘What about making love to them?

  ‘I didn’t know how to answer that. One half of me wanted to lie, to tell her I had gone to bed with loads of girls. It irked me to think I was still a virgin, you see. But I couldn’t lie. Not to her. To her I had to tell the truth.

  ‘‘‘No,’’ I said. “I haven’t.” I couldn’t tell her that I’d tried on several occasions. I couldn’t tell her that some girls had condescended to let me finger them, to suck me off, to jerk me off. Somehow, I couldn’t tell her any of those things. So I said no.

  ‘She turned to me and looked me straight in the eye. She told me she was glad. Told me that many boys had asked her, but she’d held out. There was only one boy she wanted. That’s what she told me. So there, beneath a canopy of green leaves, we kissed, softly, gently. Then we took off our clothes.

  ‘I couldn’t seem to move once I saw her naked. I stared as if she was something strange, not something beautiful. As the breeze rustled the leaves overhead, the dappled shadows caressed her body, the sweet curve of her breasts, the pink teats of her nipples.

  ‘She broke my silence when she asked me to kiss her again. So I did. Her lips tasted sweet. Once she was close to me I could smell her femininity, her freshness and her willingness. I poked my tongue into her mouth and tasted her. I reached for her, ran my hands down her shoulders and cupped her breasts moaning as I traced my thumbs across her nipples and felt my penis hardening against my thigh. I smelt the perfume of her hair, the slight, girlish sweatiness that rose from under her arms and between her legs.

  ‘I ran my hands down her back and felt the roundness of her behind, her buttocks placed neatly together like two halves of a meringue.

  ‘I was fired up with the urge to fuck her, to take her virginity and to give her mi
ne. But I was scared. Like any other technology, it’s all very well reading the theory, but there’s nothing like doing the practical. Inexperienced as I was, I did my best.

  ‘I lay her among the thickest part of the leaves, kissed her lips, her breasts, her belly and the thicket of soft fur between her legs.

  ‘Very, very lightly, I trailed my fingers over her breasts, down over her belly, and down the inside of her thighs. I saw her shiver.

  ‘‘‘This is so good,” she said in a sweet, trembling voice.

  “So good that I feel I could let you go on doing it forever and ever.”

  ‘Her words were like music to my ears. I was doing it right and I wanted her to want me always. There was no one else in the world for me except her, and no one else should be around for her except me. I told her this and she smiled sadly. “Perhaps,” she said.

  ‘It was all I gave her the time to say. Gently, I played with her breasts and the soft wetness between her thighs. I knew she needed that wetness, needed as much of it as possible before I attempted to enter her body. In an effort to make things as easy as possible, I eased my finger into her. She cried out at first, then mewed like a kitten and rolled her hips from side to side. Soon, she was begging me to enter her. I did as she asked.

  ‘Being careful not to hurt her, I pushed myself into her vagina. The tip of my penis nudged against a natural barrier. She gasped as I hit against it. It wasn’t easy, but I held myself back. I felt my cock pulsating inside of her, surging with a need to push forward, to ram against the barrier that stretched before it. It was almost painful. I asked her if she was ready for that final thrust. She said she was, so I pushed myself into her.

  ‘Like two people rehearsing the first steps of a very famous dance, we moved tentatively against each other until natural forces took over.

  ‘No matter the coolness of the breeze, the sky, the leaves and everything else, we were lost to it all, dizzy with our desire for each other and this new thing we had just discovered.

  ‘I remember coming into her, how I felt that we were no longer two people but one, and would be forever. I remember her breath rushing against my ear as she climaxed and said that she loved me.’ He paused. There was a faraway look in his eyes. ‘She meant it, and I meant it too. I never forgot her, and she never forgot me.’

  Encompassed by a strange silence, the three men began to dress and get themselves ready to go home to their wives, their wide drives, and their up-market houses.

  Somehow the story recently told was endemic of their lost youth and the open door through which they had passed to become men.

  Michael was the first to recover. ‘See you on Wednesday, Thomas, Jamie.’ He grinned and patted both his companions on the back. ‘I’ll tell you something more when I see you next. I’ll tell you about the first woman I fell in love with. That’ll get your blood going!’

  Crystal was not at home when Thomas got there. He hadn’t expected her to be. Although they had arrived at the country club at the same time, she always arrived straight from work in her own car, and he in his. And she always stayed later than him, giving him the excuse that she had either talked too long, or that she had a business meeting to rush off to.

  He knew none of it was true, but it no longer mattered to him whether she told him the truth or not.

  Tonight it mattered even less. Tonight he layout in the suspect comfort of the garden swing, his body half comfortable, and his mind full of the memory of a red-haired girl with dark green eyes, creamy flesh, and a beguiling smile. His only companion was his mobile phone.

  He wished, as he had so many times before, that he had never got that place at Plymouth University, that she had never got hers at Reading. Never in all these years had she left his mind, and never in those early days had he ever expected her to leave his side. But she had.

  She had married first, and in time he had married too. Wasted years, he thought to himself. Too many wasted years. But they did say it was never too late.

  With that thought in mind, he closed his eyes and smiled into the night. He hoped with all his heart that it was true - just as his story had been.

  His phone rang before he could drift off into dreams and memories.

  ‘Thomas?’

  Her voice was as soft as the rustling of those leaves that first time.

  ‘I was just thinking about you.’

  ‘Were they loving thoughts?’

  ‘They’re never anything else.’

  Chapter 8

  Mariana’s Story

  Crystal, Mariana thought, might be very beautiful, but she also had a large behind. When she stood up straight it wasn’t so noticeable and matched her generous breasts, but when she bent over it seemed to spread. Or smile, thought Mariana smugly; her crack is smiling above a bushy black beard. As if it were made to complement a very large behind, Crystal had a lot of pubic hair.

  They were in the women’s changing room at the country club and Crystal was pushing her towel in and out of her toes.

  Learning that the men had been talking about losing their virginity had rekindled old memories in Mariana, so naturally she was the one who set things going for the women. She did not, of course, tell them that the men had been discussing their sexual exploits in the changing room. Such information was sacrosanct. They would want to know how she had found out, and that was something she could not divulge. Her relationship with her husband was a private matter, so she steered the conversation in the right direction.

  ‘Sex,’ she stated firmly, ‘is a very funny thing. You can give it away, and yet you still keep it. Except of course as regards virginity. Once that’s gone, it’s gone forever.’ Crystal straightened and laughed that loud, bell-like laugh that drew people to look and, once they had looked, admire. Crystal had tumbling black hair and bright blue eyes. Some Caribbean forebear had also blessed her with a skin colour that resembled dark honey but gleamed like satin.

  She eyed Mariana over her shoulder. ‘Where there’s demand there’s always supply. Market forces, you could say.’

  ‘Not everyone gives it away. Aren’t you forgetting that some women charge for it?’ Josie was drying her hair, running her fingers through it with one hand and holding the hairdryer with the other.

  ‘True.’ Mariana looked at Josie and did her utmost not to appear entranced by her friend’s body.

  Josie was standing naked, arms slightly raised, red hair tumbling before the warm breeze of the dryer. She was slim - almost boyish. And white, very white. Like the marble she sometimes worked with. In fact she could almost have been a statue herself stood there like that.

  Josie did not appear to notice her interest. Behind the veil of red hair, she went right on talking. ‘But most people - even those “in the trade” give it away the very first time. Didn’t you?’

  ‘Didn’t we all!’ Crystal straightened, threw her towel to one side and began doing stretching exercises. Her breasts quivered and rose as she did them. Her buttocks clenched tightly together as though they were kissing each other.

  It’s still big, thought Mariana before resuming. ‘Well I most certainly did. I remember it well.’ Mariana wrapped herself in towels, sat down on a bench and drew her legs up under her. ‘He was older than me but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, is it? At least he knew the ropes.’

  ‘How much older?’ asked Josie who had finished drying her hair and was getting her clothes out of her locker. She was still naked and Mariana noticed, as she had many times before, that Josie’s pubic hair was as red as that on her head. Josie, she thought, is as much like some of her paintings as she is her statues. Dramatically romantic - other worldly.

  ‘He was about thirty-five and I was sixteen. I remember his eyes being very dark - darker than yours Crystal. But then he would be. He was Turkish and he made me think of harems and the Arabian Nights. A
ll those sort of things.’

  ‘Was he a sheik?’ It was Crystal who asked. She was lounging naked on a bench, one breast nestling in one hand, one nipple between forefinger and thumb. She was frowning at it. As though, thought Mariana, she is checking it for flaws.

  It was Josie who answered. ‘Turks don’t have sheiks.

  They used to have caliphs, but now they only have tour guides who show you around for a minimal fee and tell you they’re only doing it to improve their English. Then they tell you that they’ve fallen in love with you and what chance is there of sleeping with you tonight.’

  ‘True,’ laughed Crystal and her hair floated around her shoulders as she nodded her head.

  Aware that she could lose control of this conversation, Mariana stepped quickly back into her story. ‘He was a banker. My father was sent to Turkey on a three-year contract by the bank he worked for. Ahmed was his Turkish counterpart. The first time I saw him was at my parents’ home. They were having a dinner party for about twenty or so people. I stayed in my room and tried to study, but it was difficult. I could hear them all talking downstairs - but only indistinctly of course. I remember hearing a door close and footsteps, very stealthy footsteps, outside.

  ‘My room had a balcony that was absolutely stuffed with terracotta pots full of an amazing assortment of flowers. I remember the smell of it all. Down below was a garden. Full of roses, if I remember rightly.’

  She took a deep sniff and half closed her eyes. ‘Wow!’ she exclaimed. ‘I can still smell it now.

  ‘I heard voices, protests, then moans. I turned off the light and quietly made my way out onto the balcony.

  ‘The moon was full. Its light sprinkled the garden with a shower of silver rain.

  ‘Immediately below the overhang of my balcony was a small circle of dark red tiles. It was completely surrounded by bushes, flowers and small, sweetly scented trees. It was the area where my mother read in the afternoons. By day, thanks to my balcony, it was very shady. By night each detail seemed more stark, more precise in the light of the low-hanging moon.