The Sexopaths

  ‘Imagine she had put herself to bed in here – what should we have done?’

  ‘Like Goldilocks?’

  ‘Before… I thought you were maybe a long time with her – did you kiss her?’

  ‘Steady on.’ Adam is ready for this. ‘You’ve just snogged everyone round the dinner table.’

  ‘That was saying goodnight – we’re on the continent, remember… that’s what we do.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah – but I had to stand and watch. It’s not my favourite thing. I want to punch people who lay a finger on you.’

  ‘Aah… my darling. But not the girls?’

  ‘You have my permission to snog them as much as you like... you almost did with Simone.’

  Monique giggles. ‘So… you think she’s nice?’

  ‘Simone?’

  ‘Sleepy Elena. Should we wake her?’

  ‘You’re crazy.’

  ‘When we walked up, I was imagining I came into the room and she was giving you a blow-job.’

  ‘And what did you do?’

  ‘You were both killed.’

  ‘A good way to go.’

  ‘Or maybe I joined in – I haven’t decided.’

  ‘You’re really pissed.’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe crazy.’ She yawns and stretches and turns over half onto him, burying her head down into the pillow. ‘We shall see.’

  ‘Anyway – it was that Irish woman who was trying to get off with me – I caught her looking at my swimming trunks earlier.’

  ‘Mmm.’ She’s dozing off, but she slides her hand across his stomach, squeezes and holds. ‘I don’t blame her, my darling. Apparently she is a famous writer… love you…’

  ‘Love you, too.’

  Blog by Anonymous – 2

  OMG! I have to dash to the shops – but I’ll finish this ciggie first. My rabbit’s batteries are flat and I’ve run out of pants. I promised Sarah six pairs by today and I’ve only done three. Some punters just like them worn round the house, but Sarah wants ones that I’ve been wet in – she makes twice as much money out of them – I’ve looked up the prices on her ‘Wet Panties’ website. She passes them off as her own. As if she could get through that many herself! Can you believe it says “You’ll be cumming back for more!” And some weirdos obviously are! You should read the reviews – they wear them and jerk off on them and stuff like that. She sells sweaty ones too – ones that have been worn in a work-out. I don’t know who she gets them from – she’s not the gym type. She says in The States you can buy lollipops that have been inserted you know where, with the wrappers put back on. Which reminds me, I must remember to buy some sandwich bags – so my ‘work’ stays damp. I suppose I could try to forge them, but she’d go loopy if she found out. And I can’t think how I’d do it, anyway. She doesn’t allow perfume. I guess she sprays them with her own scent so they all smell like they’re from her. The other night I was with this couple – when I was getting dressed I noticed her pants on the floor by the bed – I could have taken them but the guy was watching me – he just wanted to fuck me again, I could tell. But I was already over time and he wasn’t offering me a tip to stay longer. I don’t like it when it’s the husband that’s made the wife set it all up, like it’s something she wants to do and he’s just going along with it to please her – do they think I’m stupid, or something? Mind you, I think these two were having an affair. It was in a suite in The Immoral (geddit?) and they had separate luggage and loads of sex toys and massage oil and candles. She was trying to please him too hard, I reckon. When I arrived – she met me downstairs in the bar for a drink so she could ‘get to know me’ – he was already in his ‘sexy’ underpants blindfolded and tied to the bed where she’d left him. You should have seen her expression when I started giving him a blow-job straight off! I turned round and sat on his face and made him do some work. She joined in then and started to get into it – but she made sure she was first to shove him inside her. I could tell he was disappointed about that. I let her make me come – may as well get my money’s worth! She knew what she was doing. Then she brought out this giant electric massager – I’ve seen them advertised like they’re for your muscles not for sex (!) – I thought they wanted to put it up me – OMG! But she just used it on herself – maybe he didn’t know how to make her come – so I took over and she seemed to like it – she wouldn’t let me take my head away at the end, her nails were like cat’s claws digging into my scalp. I’ll maybe give her a call.

  CHAPTER 3

  Late September – Jurmala, Latvia

  ‘Oh my God!’

  As Adam admits her into their room an uneasy giggle escapes from Monique’s puckered lips. She stretches to plant a passing kiss on his cheek. He moves neither towards her, nor away, but the impression he gives is of a reluctance to accept the greeting. She’s clad in an oversized white towelling robe and matching hotel flip-flops. She slips past him and turns into the bathroom, leaving the door open. She leans across the basin, blinking at her reflection, as though to check she’s still herself after some peculiar dream. The ‘v’ of her chest and her throat are revealingly flushed, as if she bears the scars of a steaming bath.

  ‘What happened?’ Adam stands behind her, feeling it would be normal to put his hands upon her shoulders, but somehow hesitant to do so.

  She shakes her head, making tentative eye contact via the mirror. ‘Nothing – nothing. I mean – that was just crazy!’

  ‘Monique – you were naked with a guy. I saw your bikini bottoms lying there. Never mind the top. I had to sit and wait next to them!’

  ‘I know – I am sorry – he insisted. But they had told us that. You were naked, anyway.’

  ‘Yeah – but with a fucking bloke!’

  ‘It was okay – there is nothing to worry about. I had the same as you.’

  ‘I’m not sure that’s any consolation. And you were twice as long as I was in that massage room.’

  ‘I don’t think so?’

  ‘You were – I heard you go in there after me. I was getting that bloody honey malarkey in the same corridor – then I finished and went to the waiting area. When you came out to see me you still had the honey treatment left.’

  ‘Maybe – I don’t know. Look – sure – it was a bit weird. I think it is what they are like here – they are not hung up on nakedness. I mean – we saw the film of it on the hotel channel – it was a male masseur and a woman… naked.’

  ‘I thought that was just to make it look good. And where were the female masseuses? The guy I got was not my idea of a good time. To distract myself I had to think about those awful Tory politicians who had an affair.’

  Monique lets out a burst of nervous laughter and uses this break in his interrogation as an excuse to turn and embrace him. They hold one another, standing stock still, her raised chin resting on his shoulder, his lips brushing her hair. Adam watches the scene in the mirror. He too is still wearing his robe – they’d gone down to the health club with their swimwear beneath their bathrobes.

  ‘Nothing happened, my darling. I love you – I would not let anything happen.’

  ‘I blame that bloody Vladimir.’ He imitates the Russo-Latvian’s accent: ‘“Before you leave zis place, you must experience ze legendary Russian sauna.” Wait till I see him.’

  ‘What will you say?’

  ‘That they must be a bunch of fucking perverts.’

  ‘Did you not like your treatments?’

  ‘How could I – I mean… a guy doing it? And to you.’

  ‘But we’ve been to plenty of places where you’ve had a girl masseuse and I’ve not minded.’

  ‘I can’t help it – it’s how I feel.’ He unwraps his arms from her form; she’s bulkier than usual through their double layers of towelling. ‘Come on – let’s go through.’ They file into the bedroom and settle side by side on the expansive bed, fingertips touching, just bridging the rift that jags between them. Adam continues:

  ‘I didn’t like the way that guy came to g
et you when you were talking to me.’

  The Russian, a fairly fit-looking dark-skinned short-bearded fellow of forty-something had appeared in the doorway behind her, and proprietorially placed his hands either side of her waist (she had a towel around her at this point), glanced at him where he sat in the relaxation area, smiled understandingly (although what sort of understanding it was meant to be – it was the look of a seasoned tutor drawing one of his charges away from an unimportant distraction), and prompted her to return with him into the labyrinthine back-rooms for the last stage of the round-robin course of treatments to which they’d been subjected. Neither of the Russian masseurs apparently spoke any English, nor any of the presumably Latvian staff at the reception desk of the spa area. Monique had asked on his behalf if it would be female masseuses, to which they’d received the incorrect reply ‘yes’. Maybe they thought she was asking if women could go inside. And – true – someone, maybe Vladimir the local conference organiser, had mentioned the night before you have to be naked, but they couldn’t really believe this was some essential rule, more of a preferred option for the aficionado. Consequently, they’d both arrived in swimming gear – he sporting shorts, she a bikini – and had soaked for a while in a spa bath with a couple of other (male) guests, both of whom wore trunks, but whom with hindsight had probably finished their treatments.

  Monique replies in a sympathetic tone to Adam’s complaint:

  ‘I know. I felt that, my darling. And I was lying there all the time knowing you’d be going mad because you’d had it done first and so you’d know what he’d be doing to me.’

  ‘I don’t know if I like the sound of that. My massage wasn’t that… concerning – it was only when I was face down on the wet slab that I was worried – he was pressing me onto it and I was terrified I’d get an erection – but my guy never touched me… sexually, obviously.’

  Monique doesn’t answer.

  ‘Yours did?’

  ‘No – well – no. I mean, it came a little close. When you are naked… everything is so… near. There were a few things – but I never responded.’

  ‘Christ – I can’t believe this. You mean he was trying to get off with you?’

  ‘No – no – oh, I don’t know. Look – it was meant to be a nice thing and now it is going all wrong.’

  Adam stands up and pads to the windows – sliding glass doors that give onto a balcony, below which are some bare treetops and just beyond these a deserted sandy beach sloping down to the flat grey Baltic sea. Beyond, there’s already a hint of autumn dusk as the sun begins to dip for the horizon. Adam realises they don’t have so much daylight left.

  ‘We said we’d go for a walk. Shall we go? I feel kind of cooped up right now.’

  ‘Ok.’

  A few minutes later they’ve pulled on tracksuits and overclothes, gloves, hats and mufflers and are pressing thoughtful footprints into the narrow strip of firm wet sand at the edge of the gently lapping water. Much of the beach looks to Adam as if it’s rarely troubled by a high tide, a broad swathe of well-trodden micro-dunes, evenly punctuated at one hundred metre intervals by dark-green tardis-like toilet cubicles, matching changing shelters, benches and neat blue waste bins, the sort of targets that within their first week in the UK would have found themselves overturned, stamped to death, or sailed out to sea and pelted with rocks. Also incongruous is a pair of heavy-billed Hooded Crows dipping in the shallows, turning over small piles of washed-up seaweed, seemingly perfectly at home scrumping in seagull territory.

  ‘You have been saying how you fancy all these Latvian girls. I thought it would be ok for me to feel – I don’t know… attractive, have a nice time.’

  ‘But not screw the masseur!’

  ‘I didn’t screw the masseur!’

  ‘I feel like you’re trying to tell me something like that.’

  ‘I promise. Look – I shall tell you what happened – probably nearly the same as for you.’

  ‘But when you came back to the room – the way you looked. Like you were really turned on.’

  ‘Well… I was. I am. But I want you. I was hoping you’d waited – I’d thought that we could go down to the steam room in the relaxation area and make love. I was disappointed you had gone.’

  Adam squeezes her hand.

  ‘I couldn’t stand it, being there. Just sitting staring at your bikini thinking about you in one of those rooms with that guy.’

  ‘I know – I am sorry.’

  ‘What did he say when he asked you to take it off?’

  ‘Nothing – he just pointed and gestured. He couldn’t speak English or French – or German. After that I gave up trying to talk to him and it was just sign language.’

  ‘Maybe conveniently for him.’

  ‘No – I think really.’

  ‘Anyway – what do you mean about me saying I fancy all the girls?’

  ‘You point out how nice they are. Dark and tall and good looking. It was the same last time we came to the Baltics.’

  ‘Yes – but I only mean in an observational sense. I can’t believe how most of the girls here are almost the same height as the guys – it’s really noticeable.’

  Monique shrugs a little, declining to argue this particular point further. She says:

  ‘And then they flock round you after your talks. And that one from the university who interviewed you yesterday.’

  ‘I know – but… I mean, it’s my job to be nice to them. We’ve had some great trips out of this stuff I do. Until now.’

  ‘Don’t say that, my darling. Nothing has happened. We have had a nice time. We shall have a nice time when we get back to our room, I promise.’ She leans across and kisses him. ‘But you do keep joking about the massage parlours – on Monday in Vilnius you were pretending to leave me and go into that one near the hotel.’ She nudges him. ‘Oh – I know you were joking – but I think what if you were out here alone, what would happen. All these girls around you – I can see it makes you a little high, the attention – it is natural.’

  Two thoughts compete for Adam’s processing power. One, should he question how come she empathises so well and, two, whether he has brought this sauna episode upon himself. The latter prevails: on reflection he probably has overtly admired some of the more stunning conference attendees while in Monique’s company, perhaps poorly disguising his interest by highlighting an outrageous outfit here, or an unusually wild hairstyle there. But these are minor battles to be fought another day; right now his frontline defences face an invasion, perhaps already are overrun. He says:

  ‘So tell me what happened after we got split up.’

  They’d begun the process, initially directed together by one of the short squat muscular female attendants, recalling a pre-fall Soviet Olympian, into a scaldingly hot sauna, having each been given a ridiculous-looking tall brown conical fur hat to wear. The erstwhile shot-putter had muttered something in Latvian or Russian and indicated towards their swimwear, and Adam had suspected this was a further instruction to take it off. As there was no one else in the darkened sauna cabin, Monique had been happy to remove her bikini top. He, however, had decided to keep on his shorts – he felt humiliated enough as it was, wearing the ludicrous hat; being naked too was too much to bear. Then a guy had appeared – until then they’d assumed it would be females carrying out the treatments. This turned out to be the younger of the two, tall and muscular, with a shaven head, wearing a caveman-style skirt that seemed to be made of the same fur-like material as the sauna hats. He’d indicated for them both to come outside, had pointed for Monique to sit in the waiting zone, and had led Adam to an adjoining wet area where he indicated to a low bench. Evidently Adam was to lie down. But first of all it was made clear he had to remove his shorts. He did so, then lay face first, and within seconds found himself screaming out ‘You must be KGB!’ as a barrel of ice was poured on top of him, and smeared – if ice can be smeared – over his back and legs. Next he was invited to rise and enter a shower cubicl
e. The guy came half in with him, reached up, pulled a rope, and released a powerful deluge of freezing-cold water upon him, unsuspecting and still in shock from the ice torture. Next it was back into the sauna – en route passing the waiting Monique, who pulled a face of trepidation, having overheard Adam’s protests. Once inside, Adam was made to lie on his stomach, and undergo some kind of thrashing treatment with a large handful of leafy switches, which the guy apparently kept dipping into a tub of menthol-infused liquid. This wasn’t entirely unpleasant, though at times it crossed the boundary between pleasing tickles and stinging whips. After five or ten minutes Adam was led back through the inner atrium – now no sign or sound of Monique – and into a corridor with a number of unmarked doors. Inside one of these was a dimly lit, marble floored wet-room, in the centre of which stood a dining-table-sized stone slab reminiscent of a mortuary. Now – face down initially – Adam was subjected to a warm soapy bubble-massage (he had no idea where the bubbles came from), the firm hands of the guy covering most of his body with well-practised strokes. It was at this point that he’d said his only English words: ‘It is heaven, yes?’ to which Adam had replied ‘Maybe if you were a girl.’ The guy hadn’t answered, but continued with gusto, in particular pressing upon Adam’s buttocks in a way that unavoidably stimulated his penis against the slippery surface below, and required all of Adam’s concentration upon the aforementioned politicians to preserve his modesty. And there was an urge somewhere within him that invited him to yield to the undoubted physical pleasure to which he was being subjected. A female masseuse in this situation might have provided him with something of a challenge. And now as well he began to think about Monique – about this being done to her – would it be by a girl? – or a male as he suspected, having glimpsed another, older man moving about the sauna environs, attired in the same Neanderthal garb as his own therapist. Would he be the one in charge, the one who decided who took which client? The face-up part of the bubbles session couldn’t finish quickly enough for Adam, after which he was invited to rise and be sprayed by a warm hand-held shower, and then given a large towel in which to wrap himself. The final leg of the bizarre pentathlon took place in a naturally lit room, frosted windows along its back wall, where he was directed to lie naked upon a plastic-covered massage table, and was smeared back and front with what smelt and felt like a mixture of runny honey and aromatic spices. After this he was covered with polythene and left to his own devices, the guy indicating something on the wall-clock as he left the room. Evidently the process was to end here; when no one came to release him from his plastic cocoon he kicked himself free and found his way into the empty and echoing central atrium, where he showered, and then hung around feeling like he’d missed the last train and had nowhere else to go. His shorts had been placed on the back of one of the slatted loungers, and this was where he noticed Monique’s bikini, a small scarlet bundle cast upon the tiled floor as if in passing. He’d checked to confirm it comprised of both pieces. Her voice had reached him only once – a brief giggle and something like ‘Oh – I see, okay,’ followed by the slamming of a door – he’d guessed the ‘bubbles’ room. This was while he was in the ‘honey’ room. By his calculations, while he’d had to endure the bubbles for no more than ten minutes, by the time Monique had appeared leaning in from the corridor to speak with him, her ‘bubbles’ session must have lasted at least twenty – and then she was drawn back for the final ‘honey’ application by the smirking Russian, the latter clad now in only a dark thong, having at some stage dispensed with his hairy girdle.