The Sexopaths

  ‘Well – I had the same as you – that ice, and then the cold shower.’ She hesitates, as if on the brink of an irreversible decision, apparently makes it, and then continues: ‘That was when one of the funny things happened.’

  ‘What do you mean, funny?’

  ‘Well – just before he tipped the iced water on me he tried to pull me towards him – I think to get me under the stream – but I stepped away from him – it seemed too close.’

  Adam is silent for a moment.

  ‘What else – I mean the strange things?’

  ‘Probably just in the bubbles massage. I mean – nothing really – and he made it very nice, spending lots of time on my face. But there were a couple of times – once he pressed himself against my hand – leaning over me, and I could feel his… his pouch.’ She adds, hastily: ‘My hands were just lying at my sides the whole time.’

  ‘Did he have an erection?’

  ‘I don’t know – I didn’t try to find out.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I just froze. I didn’t move a muscle – I didn’t want to respond in case he took it as a sign – anyway it could just have been the way he needed to reach over at that time.’

  ‘Why didn’t you move your hand away?’

  ‘Well I thought about it – but it felt like that would be acknowledging that I knew something. It felt easier just to ignore it – obviously he had to move after a few seconds?’

  ‘What about him touching you – did he touch your breasts?’

  ‘Well – only around them – not my nipples.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake.’

  ‘It was ok. If it was back at home, I would have expected a girl masseuse to touch me more than that.’

  ‘What about your legs and so on? I got all that done.’

  ‘Well – when I was face down I lay with my legs together – he moved them apart – only a little – but obviously he wanted to get at my muscles properly.’

  ‘Did he touch between your buttocks?’

  ‘Adam!’

  ‘Well… did he?’

  ‘No – I don’t think so – he did a long massage on my bottom in three places – it was hard to tell.’

  Adam shakes his head, affecting disbelief. ‘But you partly liked it – you were turned on?’

  ‘Well – of course, in a way. I was half liking it and half worrying about what you would think – I knew you’d already had the bubbles and would be imagining it happening to me. I didn’t let anything happen.’

  ‘Do you think it could have? I mean do you think he was after that?’

  ‘I don’t know – everything was very subtle – you couldn’t go and accuse him of doing anything untoward. The last thing was a bit queer – when the bubbles had finished and I had put a towel around me, we went to the door and first he turned off the light – it was pitch dark and I was standing right next to him – my natural reaction was to grab at him, and I had to resist doing that. Then he said something I didn’t understand and tried to open the door and the handle fell off – then he was scrabbling round on the floor, and when he found it he couldn’t fit it back on. I don’t know why he didn’t just switch the light back on to do that.’

  ‘And what happened?’

  ‘Well – eventually he got it fixed and opened the door. That was when I came to see you.’

  ‘Sounds to me like they’ve got a scam going here – let’s take it in turns with the nice girl and see if we can have sex with her. Or maybe your guy gets all the girls and mine gets all the boys.’

  ‘No – it can’t be – this is a respectable hotel. They could not have that kind of thing going on.’

  ‘I’ve got a good mind to complain. Right now I want to go down and smash that guy.’

  ‘No – no, you couldn’t – there was nothing – it was just the slightest things – it might just be the way I interpreted it.’

  They trudge in silence for a few moments. A tiny scaled Sanderling scoots ahead of them, darting in short bursts like a clockwork mouse, re-energised each time they near it. Adam stops and turns, as if someone has hailed him. His inner compass has registered their progress. Maybe, too, his inner self is satisfied by her explanation. He says:

  ‘We ought to head back – look how far our hotel is. There – see?’ He indicates a distant row of flags, clearly stretched out in the biting Baltic breeze.

  ‘We could go via the shops?’ Monique’s statement is a suggestion posed with just enough hint of a question.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘While you were speaking yesterday – I went out – I saw massage oil like we have at home. And candles.’

  ‘You were turned on.’

  ‘I said I was. But it is just a physical thing. It didn’t mean I wanted to have sex with the guy. How would you have been in that situation with a girl?’

  ‘Hypothetical.’ Adam is forced to accept this line of reasoning. He gives her hand a squeeze. ‘Look – I kind of like it that you liked it – it’s exciting. Feel.’ He positions her palm.

  ‘Bad boy.’

  ‘It’s just that I know I wouldn’t like you to… you know.’

  ‘I know, my darling.’

  ‘So it was nice?’

  ‘Yes – it was nice. There were a few times I was a bit scared – well, not scared exactly… a little worried. But more because it was such a crazy situation. I kept thinking I’m lying here naked and this guy can see me completely and is rubbing bubbles all over me.’

  ‘And could he have made you come?’

  ‘No – no – I wouldn’t have let him do anything like that.’

  ‘But… I mean – did you feel as if… there was a part of you that would have liked to have continued – for you to have been made to come?’

  ‘Well – yes – it would have been a nice physical experience. That was just fantasy though. A fantasy can be exciting and it doesn’t have to happen to feel good.’

  ‘What about that honey stuff. Did he rub it on your breasts? I had it completely all over me – I mean he even put it over my cock.’

  Monique bursts out laughing at the tone of frustrated anger in Adam’s blunt statement. ‘My darling – maybe he brushed over my nipples – but it was all quickly done – just a coating of the honey mixture and then I was wrapped up and left alone.’

  ‘And did anyone come to tell you when time was up?’

  ‘No – I just unwrapped myself after a while and looked for you. Then I had a shower in the changing room and came back.’

  Adam’s thoughts swing pendulum-like from approval of Monique’s guarded though patent admission of arousal – providing him with a snapshot of her prone, exposed, compliant, torn… reluctant to pass by the sensual delight – to the unbearable idea of her having sex. He pictures the grinning caveman mounting the slab, ostensibly to stroke from the small of her back up to her shoulders, while she lies unsuspecting yet prepared for what is to come, thus responding when his naked erection slides assertively between her well-soaped thighs, lifting her buttocks to admit him, abandoning herself to the act: the animalistic taking of his wife, the sly withdrawal, the pouch deftly refilled, the massage resuming as if nothing had happened. Disconcertingly, the scenario fitted all too comfortably with the self-satisfied expression on the guy’s face when he drew Monique back towards the honey room. Was this the Russians’ strategy? The selected ‘victim’ is reduced to her most vulnerable, inhibitions stripped away, disoriented by the naked hot-and-cold treatments, massaged to the point of ecstasy, pleasured… then fucked. But… no – that didn’t happen. He believes Monique. She liked it, but not that much.

  ‘Up here I think.’

  He guides her away from the shoreline, across the soft trampled sand and up a ribbed concrete slipway that appears to lead towards the road that runs parallel to the beach, about a hundred metres back, and behind a line of trees and orchard-like gardens. They soon have their bearings and trace their way homewards, meeting a cluster of shops around a small
square. In a compact brightly illuminated supermarket they find the scented oil and perfumed candles. Self consciously, Adam pays – the items and his intent combining to make him feel like a pimply teenager buying his first condoms. He proffers a preposterously over-denominated note with a look of apology. The shop assistant, yet another tall and attractive Latvian female, returns his change with a lingering smile and wishes him goodbye in English.

  ‘Do you reckon there is some kind of racket going on?’

  Monique, walking beside him, tightens her grip on his hand. ‘You mean a sex racket?’

  ‘No a squash racquet.’

  She laughs, in a way that sounds pleased he’s lightening up. She ponders for a few moments, pursing her lips.

  ‘I don’t see how there can be. As I said – it is a respectable hotel – imagine if somebody made a complaint about a sexual advance. Surely they must have to be very careful.’

  ‘It doesn’t sound as if the guy was exactly careful with you.’

  ‘But he was. Everything I have told you could either be completely normal – the way they do it in these Russian saunas – or just put down to freak events, coincidence… my imagination running wild.’

  ‘Well I hated the atmosphere from the start. There was something predatory about the whole thing. Being separated. The way they make you strip. Kind of soften you up with those shocking treatments. Then the massage in half-darkness. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve got a thing going between them – take it in turns to try out the women they fancy. Or men, maybe.’

  ‘Well, you did get the hunky man.’

  ‘Monique!’

  ‘Now it is your imagination running wild, my darling.’

  ‘Would you go back?’

  ‘Adam… I couldn’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘If you had been already, if you knew what to expect… you would have to… want it.’

  ‘Christ – I think you’re proving my point here.’

  ‘Oh – I don’t know. I did not mean to go for sex… just that…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well – the whole thing of being naked and massaged by a stranger – a man. Why might a woman choose that?’

  Again Adam is troubled by the conflicting signals. She liked it – that’s plain. She felt guilty when she returned to the cold reality of their marital suite. But also she’s told him a lot of small details that would have been difficult to invent. It sounds like a complete account, and she’d apparently ignored the subtle invitations to engage further.

  ‘Could you do it? The other way around.’

  ‘You mean be a masseuse?’

  ‘Well – kind of. I was thinking bad stuff.’

  ‘How can you ask me that?’

  ‘It doesn’t mean I want you to do it. I’m just curious about how you feel right now. I feel a bit strange about this whole thing. I think you do.’

  ‘I could do it maybe if I got to decide things.’

  ‘Like what happens?’

  ‘Yes – and who.’

  ‘I don’t think you get those luxuries.’

  Monique shrugs. ‘Maybe not the girls on the street, nor in massage parlours. But I would be a high-class call girl. Wealthy gentlemen only.’

  ‘Bad girl.’ Adam pulls her to him, arm around her neck, in a friendly headlock. ‘But I’m not sure I want to imagine you being bedded by rich strangers.’

  She giggles. ‘I am only joking you, my darling. I could not do that. Blow jobs only!’

  He gives her a second reprimanding tug. Then he says:

  ‘Seriously though – if you had to – imagine for some reason – you’re a prisoner or whatever – to save your life – you’d rather give a blow job than be screwed?’

  ‘What would you rather I did?’

  Adam can’t answer this immediately. He pictures her in each act. On the face of it, someone having intercourse with his wife is more of an invasion – but if she were passive, maybe not so? Oral sex requires a complicity that to him feels worse. But then he sees her soft form, soaped, fucked by the Russian… no, that wouldn’t be passive. At length he answers:

  ‘Fucking… but with a girl.’

  ‘That’s cheating!’

  ‘But you’ve not answered.’

  ‘A flavoured condom.’

  ‘I must get some, then.’

  ‘You don’t need them – you know that, my darling.’

  ‘Like to remind me?’

  ‘Mais oui.’

  By now they’ve reached the turning circle in front of the hotel. Their pace has been quickening, and by the time they reach the foot of the dozen broad steps they’re breaking into a run.

  ***

  ‘That was very nice earlier, my darling. I love you very much.’

  ‘I love you very much.’

  They’re at dinner, on coffee and mellow conversation, stretched fingertips threaded through spilled candlewax and scattered condiments, facing one another in the window seats of a table overlooking the now-invisible Baltic sea; outside is total blackness, the embers of the short but spectacular burning orange sunset long extinguished.

  ‘I am glad you care about me.’ Her tone hints of an appeal for leniency.

  ‘I think you don’t appreciate the effect you have on people. You’re… too nice… too… oh, I don’t know how to phrase it – it’s not flirty but it’s sometimes… you give people the impression they’ve got a chance.’

  ‘There is no chance. I only want you.’

  ‘I know… but… in Mykonos, you were being… warmer towards people than I think they would expect. I mean – that Austrian woman, the one who was always wearing the sunglasses, she’s …striking, isn’t she? But she was always quite aloof, and businesslike… towards me, certainly – and I’m not even a colleague likely to hit on her once a month.’

  ‘My poor darling.’ Monique squeezes his hand with mock sympathy. ‘Do not be offended – I think she is like that with everyone.’

  Adam declines this little olive twig. He holds some high ground, and he’s not quite ready to sue for peace. He says:

  ‘Well – that’s kind of my point. It’s usual to behave like that, isn’t it?’

  ‘But she is not very popular among the Board.’

  ‘Is it a popularity contest?’

  ‘In a way, it is. For me – I have had to take over from some pompous English man that represented the UK before me. Nobody liked him. He was really blocking the UK’s progress. We won no awards during his term. This year we got six golds and came second overall. I think they like me and it has begun to make a difference – and the UK committee is very happy.’

  ‘That’s great. Well done. But I hate feeling like I’m in Indecent Proposal.’

  ‘My darling – don’t be silly.’

  ‘I’m trying not to be. I can’t help how I feel. It’s not easy watching you in the middle of what looks like a mating ritual, even if you are oblivious to it.’

  Monique laughs, as if she thinks this statement can’t be meant seriously. ‘They are half of them gay, anyway.’

  ‘That’s a poor excuse. Who’s gay?’

  ‘You mean you can’t tell?’

  ‘It’s not something I go round looking for.’

  ‘Well T-J, for a start.’

  ‘What – the Dutch guy? The tall one?’

  ‘Aha.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Oh, my darling – you can tell from a mile off – look at the way he dresses, and speaks, and acts.’

  ‘Well he seemed to be getting friendly enough with you at the dinner.’

  ‘Like a girlfriend? Yes. It’s not T-J you should worry about.’

  ‘So whom do I have to worry about?’

  ‘Personne – don’t be so silly.’

  Too late – Adam’s radar has homed in on the implied alternative offered in her defence of the effeminate Dutchman. The effect is amplified by her lapse into stressed French. So another blip joins the squadron of sp
iky alien contacts that populate his mind’s screen. First there was the bouquet coinciding with her election to the AMIE Board. Then the first Brussels meeting soon after – she hadn’t stayed away overnight, but nevertheless had chosen flights at extremes of the clock, for a meeting that evidently lasts only a couple of hours; she’d returned in a strange mood, ebullient yet somehow detached – she’d said she was drained by the long day, but he could tell she’d been drinking, albeit that might have been on the plane home… he hadn’t felt he could interrogate her. A week or two afterwards she’d bought the latest new mobile and, for the first time he could recall, had recorded her own personal greeting on her voicemail service; while he told himself he was imagining things, surely there was the hint of exaggerated coyness in her voice, and a measured precision in her enunciation… the extra care with which one speaks to a foreigner, perhaps? More generally he had a feeling that there was an ongoing communication – in practice no doubt an online mini-community, that Monique was now part of – that went unshared with him. When the subject of the AMIE Board arose between them it was apparent she now knew much of the workings, of events past and future, and was becoming familiar with the personalities more speedily than the limited exposure in person would have allowed.