The Sexopaths

  He enters the café and spies a free table at the rear. En route he accosts the good-looking waitress clearing plates and orders tea and a brace of bacon rolls. He sits, studies the text message: certainly she’s taken more of a liberty this time; it’s no longer the kind of note you could comfortably show your spouse. But neither is it exactly divorce material. Its four-letter crux: ‘soon’ – the operative word; a catch-all au revoir which might mean anything ranging from this evening to Goodnight Vienna. His tea arrives, scalding hot, undrinkable, as is the greasy-spoon custom; he watches the girl’s skin-tight jeans snake their way back to the counter. Smooth stretch-denim reveals no trace of underwear, just firm globes gently and alternately caressing one another, framed by apron strings. His thoughts – thus prompted – drift…

  ***

  He arrives at the flat on time – at first he sees all, it’s quite routine – Ms X, Xara, conducts him in a businesslike fashion along the hall, through a familiar bedroom and into its adjoining shower room. She indicates a tumbler of what she describes as ‘energy drink’ and his ‘outfit’ (a silky black thong); a parting giggle. A few minutes elapse and she knocks and re-enters while he still towels his hair. She’s clutching a wide roll of glossy ebony tape.

  ‘It’s okay – it sticks to itself, not you,’ she assures him. ‘Now please keep still. Bend down.’ He complies. With a little laugh she takes a few turns around his head to create a taut blindfold, then fastens his hands behind his back, biting the tape each time to break it.

  ‘Is there anything you don’t do?’

  He shakes his head, the string of the thong tightening unexpectedly but not unpleasantly against his perineum. He wonders if there is anything he doesn’t do.

  She leads him into the bedroom, now filled by the compelling pulse of trance, loud as if designed to suppress all but tactile communication. Although he can see nothing, he has a sense of darkness and candlelight. She guides him down onto the nearest side of what he knows as an extra-large, low-profile divan. The heady, honeysuckle-scented air is warm, though he feels a regular cooling flutter as a fan rakes to and fro across his naked skin. Then she tapes his ankles.

  ‘Won’t be long.’ Her breath is hissed hot in his ear.

  She – or they – or in fact it could have been anybody as far as he at that moment could tell – return maybe two or three minutes later. They don’t speak, and initially he just feels movements of the mattress, as though they’re cavorting beside him. Gradually, however, these activities transfer themselves across to him, and he jerks in reflex as heated oil is poured upon his chest, rogue rivulets running down his stomach and sides, chased and caught and caressed by more than two hands. There doesn’t seem much he can do, other than respond by arching his body in whatever direction pressure is applied. He assumes the role is not to play a cadaver. Then there are giggles; what must be a moist pair of briefs is pressed over his nose and lips, restricting his breathing, the musk dizzying, then fingers thrust the tiny garment into his mouth before slowly extracting it. A palm cups, squeezes, explores and then carefully empties the contents of his thong. Oil is applied – it seeps hot between his buttocks. Lips close around him. Now things happen with more urgency, and – as he strains to remember – the chronological sequence is confused. One, sometimes both, girls on top of him. Changing positions, wrestling almost competitively. One occupying his tongue, shaven, rasping bristles, pressing down hard and rhythmically in time with the music, facing the other, who mounts him conventionally, riding fast and furious. They use vibrators on one another, and him, and the scented oil flows copiously. As their gay abandon approaches its frenetic climax, more elaborate accessories join the fray. A ball-gag. A cock-ring. A strap-on. He’s viewed them all online, wide-eyed, contemplated buying; now he feels their unyielding efficacy. One girl at least – Xara, presumably – is adept in their application. While pre-orgasmic moans increase in frequency and volume, still he hears no conversation – Xara’s the only voice towards the very end when she whispers an urgent instruction, her lips close and tongue indecently exploring his ear: ‘Don’t come yet.’ He succeeds, but only for so long – finally the persistent actions of the female ‘in situ’ make it impossible for him to hold back, he explodes beneath a tangle of limbs and crescendo of cries. On cue the girls tumble off into what he guesses is an exhausted embrace. Soon after, they silently leave the room. One of them approvingly (he assumes) bends to plant a careful kiss on his cheek as she passes. After a short while someone returns. Although he’s stolen random slit-like glimpses from chinks in the occasionally flexed blindfold, right now it gives no quarter. All is darkness. Without a word the girl methodically administers firm smooth hand and mouth relief to which he considers resistance would be impossible. Then she untapes his wrists and ankles, turns down the music, and leaves him, still blindfolded, to recover. He’s buzzing like a swarm of bees in a suit of armour, and wonders if there was something in that drink. Or is it just sheer sexual aftershock? After a while he sits up, unwinds the self-cling tape, showers distractedly, and slowly dresses. When he emerges from the bathroom he finds Xara waiting, elfin, posed demurely on the edge of the bed, black tresses combed, make-up as new, a laundry-fresh kimono resting its hem high on her olive thighs.

  ‘Thank you for coming.’ The trademark giggle.

  She rises and heads out of the room; dazed, he follows her unprotesting to the exit…

  ***

  He’s starting on his second bacon roll before he properly registers that they’ve been placed before him. Vaguely, he reproves himself for daydreaming through their delivery. (Was it the same waitress? Did he even say thank you? He must hand her the tip when he leaves.) But he can’t shake off the tenacious preoccupation for long. The rekindled episode has leaked adrenaline and fired his pulse: he discovers his sore head is not yet cured; a reggae-beat probes the tender inflammation. He wonders, exactly who did what to him? To whom did he do what? (No, the former is more accurate.) He was a life-sized real live sex toy, little more than that. Like a male stripper he was temptation and risk and reward all wrapped up – literally and safely so. They both – but presumably for ‘the client’ Ms Y’s benefit – could use and abuse him without fear of him subverting their agenda, of cajoling them towards his own ends, overpowering, raping. Such tables had been turned. And what else? He’d assumed that ‘meeting all the important requirements’ referred to physical attributes (optimistically, even, that Xara considered him to be well-endowed, an ego-boosting accolade indeed from someone in her line of work). But maybe it’s because he’s a safe bet? If Ms Y requires complete anonymity, was he chosen because he’s judged unlikely to break the bonds of confidence? Does Xara know his identity – after all, it’s something he’s never taken any particular steps to hide? He’d not seen the need for a pseudonym, and any caller will hear his full name on his voicemail greeting. From there Google’s spiders would snare him in a pica-second: publishers and conference organisers inadvertently have him plastered him all over the internet. And she’d know that he’d know this. Discretion is thus ensured.

  But on this score he senses a mutual trust, a pact of silence. From the very first there’s been something in their exchanges, unspoken, an understanding that tells each their respective confidences are secure. Never once has she asked him a single remotely intrusive question; instead with ballerina-like aplomb she tiptoes along the rippling shoreline of their conversation, teasingly inviting him to flood her with whatever information he wishes to impart, yet never chasing down into his private waters each time he retreats to inviolable depths. The same decorum she implicitly expects from him, and has seemingly felt no need to remind him of such demands since she first explained yesterday’s ‘assignment’.

  This thought however reminds him of the ostensibly contractual, though contradictory, nature of yesterday’s events: her purring eulogy offset by his somewhat abrupt ejection from her premises. Should he just take matters at face value, or ought he be thinking laterall
y? Is he silly to worry that his identity might be part of the explanation? What if she’d randomly tried a number of guys and he was the first one to respond in the affirmative? (But would anyone on her ‘books’ decline such an offer?) Yet… Ms Y – why did she not make the least intelligible utterance? Could it be that he would have recognised her voice? Was it she that chose him, via Xara? The zany thought that it might have been Monique lap-dances tantalisingly across his mind. Would he really have known her, if it were? Actually… he’s not sure. But it’s impossible. She’d surely kill him on the spot for his compliance. So what, then? Was it some kind of deception? What if they were filming? Could ‘the client’ have been a story cooked up to lure him along, the whole thing choreographed? It had felt choreographed. Would he have noticed a video camera – a cameraman, even? What if it’s blackmail? What if a guy had performed the encore!

  This last notion jolts him from his erratic deliberations. He chokes back an ejaculation expressing his horror. He shakes his head. Takes stock. So what should he do? Text her? Phone her? Email her? – according to the Angels365 website she has an online diary. Make a ‘normal’ appointment? Or just do nothing? Forget about the whole thing? He looks again at Xara’s acknowledgement; as he does so, another message arrives. It’s Monique.

  ‘R U OK? NN TONITE ;) X’

  He translates… NN for nice night.

  He texts:

  ‘Look forward to it. A. X.’

  Blog by Anonymous - 1

  OMG!!! Just had to give the night security guy at the Caley Club a freebie blow-job. I did a runner from a punter’s room and the guard stopped me when I came out of the lift into the foyer. He said I was caught on CCTV half-naked in the corridor, but that he’d scrub the tape if I did him a favour. He took me into the left-luggage room and started feeling me up. He asked if I’d got any gear and wanted to search my handbag. But I said I’d scream the place down and unzipped him and started rubbing his dick. He smelt of piss but I just wanted to get out of there so I did it quick without a condom. OMG I even swallowed it. I nearly puked. I couldn’t get a mouthful of mints fast enough once I was outside. I’d got his pants and trousers round his ankles so he couldn’t follow me, but he was half-collapsed against a pile of suitcases, anyway. The main doors were locked but I pushed out through a fire door and the alarm went mental! Still, I shan’t be doing any more outcalls there. I ran barefoot at least 3 blocks before I saw a taxi – and he was a slimy mini-cab who wanted it too. Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire and then back into the frying pan! I got straight on the phone to Sarah and thankfully she answered and that put him off. She wasn’t happy – though I could tell she kind of understood since it was a matter of safety. Right now it says 3.23am on my laptop and I’m sober as a judge! A bit shaky, though. I might get a voddy before I go to bed. I’m at mum’s. She hasn’t suspected anything. But she asked me why do I have to work in a nightclub – why can’t I just get a job in a normal bar where they finish at eleven? Or even a supermarket like her? It crossed my mind today (yesterday, I mean) when I went over to get some Durex and baby-wipes in the Co-op. I saw a punter, shopping. He didn’t recognise me – but sooner or later it’s bound to happen. And then what? If mum found out she’d throw me down all 10 floors and I’d have to go crawling back to Sarah as some kind of slave. She’d probably like that. As if she hasn’t already got me where she wants. But… stacking shelves… working on the till? I doubt I’d resist the cash – what with things being the way they are. And I bet I can make in one job what those shelf-stackers earn in a fortnight. Imagine that. How do you ever go back? I did okay tonight – only one punter but he paid for 4 hours and some Charlie, and I’ve just counted another 250 I got from his wallet when he was asleep. He won’t report it. If he even notices. Anyway, he got his money’s worth (O and A and every other letter of the alphabet – OMG!!!). I made sure I found out he was married before he passed out. And I took all his business cards, so he’ll know I’ve got them and that I know for certain who he is. I doubt he’d want his wife to find out he snorts coke while he fucks tarts in the ass. Damn near used up all the stuff Sarah gave me. I’ll have to ring her again in the morning (I mean this morning) – never know what the day or night might bring. Maybe she’ll even want to see me. Go out for a coffee? Stay in for something? I tried to remind her yesterday what she was missing. And she seemed alright about it. About something, anyway. Like the cat had got the cream, I could see it in her eyes. Was that I? She wasn’t letting on – it wouldn’t be her style. Anyway, she still cut me a good deal, and I made money on it. Maybe I’ll just try a tiny touch of what’s left.

  CHAPTER 2

  Mid-September – Mykonos, Greek Cyclades

  Adam stares at his mobile, blinks, stares. It’s real, sure enough: the text he’s both desired and dreaded in roughly equal measure has touched down through two thousand miles of azure cyberspace, just as he contemplates a complementary (and indeed complimentary) electric-blue cocktail. In fact, almost everything he can see is blue: the pool, rippling in the cooling breeze, telltale spindrift where its false infinity merges into the shimmering sapphire of the sea; the sunbeds with their neatly laid cobalt mats and matching towels; the sky, a great indigo crystal dome that preserves the Aegean’s fragile beauty. Anything which isn’t blue is white: small stretched clouds tracking east, low above the distant horizon, and beneath, scattered white horses, migrating herd-like, relentlessly, in the same wind-driven direction; nearby, encircling him, the uneven whitewashed walls; billowing arabesque shades around the hotel bar; a freshly painted white pole topped by a fluttering Greek flag, its lines and colours brought to life in abstract all about, a nation’s essence captured upon a few square feet of proudly beating canvas. Camille, in contrast, frolics, a splash of fluorescent pink, in the shallows with a couple of brown-skinned Greek kids she’s befriended from among the other guests. Adam puts down his phone, too hurriedly, and instinctively glances across at where Monique and her new colleagues are having their meeting. Incongruously, it seems, they’re locked away in stifling conspiracy behind mirrored screens of glass; all that is visible is more blue and white in reflection, such vital surroundings not admitted.

  Despite her group’s proximity, a mere twenty yards away, he feels excluded by this one-way barrier. A little earlier they’d broken out for coffee and cigarettes and spilled chattering onto the terrace outside the meeting room. Monique had made eye-contact with him, listening attentively as she was to Simone, the Secretary, and had then stayed conversing brightly amidst the group. After maybe ten minutes, she’d broken away and floated gracefully over, balancing a filled cup of coffee for him and a glass of iced orange for Camille. He’d noticed she attracted some trailing glances: her flimsy white silky dress moulded against her breasts and thighs by playful zephyrs, caressing her curves with customary Greek cheek (apparently she’d been propositioned by the taxi driver when they arrived, while she was settling the bill and he shepherding Camille and their cases into the hotel foyer). As she’d bent to place the drinks on his little table he’d reached a hand behind her neck and drawn her to him for a light but ostentatious kiss. She hadn’t resisted but he wondered if she would have initiated the act in sight of the others, or even if she had been a little irked by his proprietorial gesture. Though she hadn’t indicated any dissent, she’d slipped his embrace and headed for where Camille was playing at the far end of the pool, and had knelt down to speak with her. One of the guys from the meeting – Ignacio the Spanish representative, with whom he’d briefly exchanged small-talk the previous evening – was already making animated conversation with Camille. Adam heard Monique introduce him and tell Camille that he also had a little girl her age. After a couple of minutes more it was time for the meeting to resume; the main corpus had snaked its way into the narrow entrance created by one of the sliding windows; Monique and the Spaniard made their apologies and detached themselves from a protesting Camille, promising to swim with her later. From across the
pool Monique called to Adam that she’d see them at lunchtime, that they could join the group for a buffet with all the other partners. She’d mouthed ‘Love you’. Adam had forced a smile and signed a laterally inverted ‘L’ with his right thumb and index finger.

  Ordinarily he would soak up half-speed poolside days, when time is marked only by the sun’s seemingly unwilling and imperceptible progress towards mañana; but thus far this morning he’d rather wished Helios would materialise and whip his charge westwards. The remaining hours now stretch unappealingly ahead, a parched path littered with unaccountable anxieties. He’d woken with a feeling of uneasiness; the lack of distractions and the unaccustomed role of WAG had done little to mitigate this faint but persistent sickness in the pit of his stomach. Then came the realisation that he’d rarely if ever seen Monique from such a fly-on-the-wall perspective: at work, independent, in company of others – males; now listening with a wide-eyed devotion, now holding court, charming, joking, endearingly the new girl, unwittingly yet unashamedly flirting. He’d felt like a prisoner, peering between bars, helpless to intervene and assert ownership, the manacle of managing Camille emphasising his confinement. Under normal circumstances he’d enjoy her company, but today her presence frustrates him – a snooze in the sun would pass the time, but since she has not yet fully mastered swimming, he is required to be on permanent if relatively relaxed lifeguard duty.

  ‘Daddy!’ He watches as she clambers out of the pool and pitter-patters towards him on dripping tiptoes, her brows knitted thoughtfully. He resists the urge to open the text, knowing he needs uninterrupted privacy of thought; he hopes she’s not going to ask him to come into the water.