The Sexopaths

  ‘My boyfriend and I booked a call girl one night.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘No – silly!’ Jasmin laughs and nearly topples over, pressing down upon Monique’s thigh with her free hand. She slides it momentarily higher before she recovers her pose. ‘I was a dancer – you know, lap dancing. Girls I knew were talking about it. I was twenty-one. I went along and got the job. It was as simple as that. There was good money back then, before clubs sprang up everywhere. You could make a grand a night. You had to pay two hundred in commission.’

  ‘And did you… have sex with customers?’

  ‘Not inside the club you didn’t. Punters would ask you to leave with them. It was seven-fifty for an overnight. I’d done it about five times. It was cool. Just like going with someone you’ve met in a bar – only no complications and well paid. Then this oil guy – the last one – he offered me five grand a month just to keep me for himself. So I left the club. He’d phone me when he was going to fly in – maybe every fortnight, for the weekend. I didn’t have to buy anything, furs, designer watches, Chanel. It wasn’t really like being on the game – and he was okay. But I was twenty-one and he was nearly sixty. That was for about two years. But it had to end – you know?’

  ‘He probably wanted you to fall in love with him.’ Adam finds both girls looking at him. Monique seems intrigued by his flash of intuition.

  ‘That’s exactly right.’ Jasmin nods slowly.

  Adam again tops up the glasses. He’s pretty drunk now and guesses both of the girls must be feeling likewise. Re-admitted to the conversation, he says:

  ‘So you branched out on your own?’

  ‘Yeah. I did really well. I owned three flats at one time. Then about two years ago I just cleared out to live in Spain. I went loco – crazy. I blew about a hundred-and-fifty grand in a year. Lost thirty on a car I wrote off. Parties. Clothes. Booze. Some bad stuff.’

  ‘When did you come home?’ asks Monique.

  ‘About… a few months ago.’

  Adam, already doubting her account, is almost certain she’s been on the Angels365 website for longer than ‘a few months’. Though she makes no bones about her fallen status, he wonders how much of this fantastic tale is really hers.

  ‘And how long have you been doing it, altogether?’

  ‘About ten years, on and off. I go through phases when I don’t feel like it.’

  Adam guesses that, like him, Monique will be computing her probable age – at least thirty-one if it’s true she was initiated at twenty-one. It would fit – her powdered façade has the look of a stony mask, the freshness of youth weathered by hard times.

  ‘What about boyfriends?’

  Monique is covering all angles, but Jasmin seems happy enough to oblige. Adam inwardly shrugs – why wouldn’t she? – after all, she’s getting paid to give the interview.

  ‘You can’t do this and have a real partner. No guy can take it. The last relationship I had was with a woman.’

  So she’d said.

  ‘Why did you break up?’ Monique touches her hand.

  ‘She got jealous, or something like that.’

  ‘Because you were seeing clients?’

  Like the mother of all déjà vu’s, Adam hears the next sentence bounce around inside his skull for what feels like an eternity before it seems Jasmin delivers it.

  ‘No – she’s an escort too. You can see her on ’365. Xara. We were fucking each other silly for weeks on end.’

  It’s all Adam can do to cling to the bar-top, like a kid hanging on for grim death to a playground roundabout over-spun by a stronger sibling. Miraculously, it seems to him, Monique has eyes only for the girl, her lips parted in wonderment. Jasmin flashes him a quick glance, but he detects no hidden meaning.

  ‘I was sleeping at her place – but she wouldn’t give me a key. She’s so controlling. She hated it if I did an outcall and never came back that night. The thing is, you never know how a job will go. Sometimes a punter might decide he wants you for an extra couple of hours, or an overnight – that’s good money. Sometimes you both pass out and next thing it’s nine in the morning and the cleaners are tapping on the door. Then when I’d rock up she’d go crazy at me, threaten to throw me out, start beating me up.’ She sniffs and absently wipes away a memory from the undersides of her nose with her forefinger.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just move out?’

  ‘I suppose… half the time it was okay. Even when she’d go off on one, and we’d end up fighting, wrestling… the next thing we’re screwing with strap-ons and doing mental stuff… and it was back to normal. And it was a good base when I came home from Spain. She’s got this huge apartment, more like being in a hotel, on two floors with separate entrances – you can work there and live there and keep the two things apart. She owns loads of real estate – abroad, so they say. She makes out she’s twenty-eight, and maybe she looks it, but she’s more like thirty-eight. One of the other girls told me she’s been on the game for twenty years. Imagine that, for someone who’s got a problem with men.’

  ‘So many men!’ Monique can’t help sounding a little awed, while Adam hasn’t got the spare wit to respond. He tries to stand upright, thinking he’ll escape to the toilet, but he’s badly unbalanced by the revelation and the alcohol. He slips off the swivel-stool and staggers back against a cupboard. The two girls look his way expectantly, and both straighten in their seats, as though they’ve been waiting for such a signal. Maybe Jasmin’s graphic references have reminded them why they are together tonight. Suddenly the right words come to him:

  ‘Maybe it’s time for another one, then?’

  The suggestion is enough. The girls offer rueful smiles, as if, on emerging from a fashion-store changing room, they’ve remembered that their male chaperone has been patiently twiddling his thumbs for the past half-hour. Jasmin reaches down for her bag. Then Monique draws her by the arm and says:

  ‘Come and see… we’ll peek at Camille.’

  Adam wants to object – it’s a level of intimacy that doesn’t feel right. This girl’s a paid hand not a family friend; he doesn’t want her cooing over his daughter. Monique is granting her a level of access into their life that he could never entertain – but as a means of escaping the topic of Xara… he acquiesces. He says:

  ‘I’ll bring fresh drinks.’

  The girls clip-clop out into the hall. He listens as they inelegantly scale the stairs. Their liquid voices, shaken and stirred with tipsy giggles, fade to silence as they enter Camille’s bedroom. He takes his time, temporarily deserting his post as waiter and instead opening one of the doors leading out onto the veranda. He inhales the cool night air like a smoker overdue his next cigarette.

  His thoughts are jumping about like a disoriented bat in the darkness, its senses overloaded with rogue signals. He’s seconds from a threesome, and Monique’s really up for it. But the shock of the near-miss has gazumped his excitement. Was Jasmin really unaware of the whites of his eyes, the impending head-on collision as she careered towards him, carelessly conversing with her passenger Monique?

  There’s the bizarre possibility that he and Xara and Jasmin have overlapped. What are the implications of that? Or what if Jasmin is just making it up as she goes along? On the phone yesterday she couldn’t even remember who he and Monique were. Why should he rely on her fantastic account of sugar daddies, money, properties and a surely improbable lesbian affair with a fellow prostitute? She might easily know Xara, and hear things about her on the call girls’ grapevine – but the impenetrable world they inhabit prevents outsiders like him from challenging her claims. Then again, is he an outsider? He could phone Xara right now.

  He could, but he won’t. He has to get Jasmin out of his life – their lives – but to win on that front, careful diplomacy is required this evening. Not only is she a ticking time-bomb, she has an alien quality he can’t quite fathom, rendering her doubly hard to handle. So far she has painted a confused portrait of herself: the pathetic a
nd the spirited, the indifferent and the seducer.

  But Monique shares none of his fears – she’s at once entranced and at ease. Where he sees a minefield, she blithely glides ahead. He tells himself he should do likewise. It’s one night only and the danger will surely pass. He returns to the kitchen and assembles a fresh bottle of champagne and a tinkling trio of clean glasses upon a tray.

  The scenario he’d discussed with Monique was that they’d show the girl into one of their guest rooms. She could prepare as she wished, then join them in the massage that they would by then have commenced. This seemed a good way to break the ice. Now Adam wonders if Monique has despatched Jasmin according to their initial plan. Their broad landing is empty and Camille’s door – normally left ajar – is closed. He backs into the master bedroom, carefully balancing his cargo, to be enveloped by the heavy pulse of a base beat. It’s dark; there’s just the pale flicker of a candle on Monique’s dresser. Beside it a bottle of oil lies on its side, dripping rhythmically onto the carpet. Behind him, reflected in the arrangement of angled mirrors, a kaleidoscopic tangle of naked limbs writhes in the scented gloom. Spellbound, Adam carefully deposits his cargo and, still watching through the looking glass, slowly unbuttons his shirt.

  ***

  Showering, in the still eye of the storm, Adam flushes oily debris from his body. They’d turned to him only after their private tryst and its twinned oblivion, but it had still felt good. How different, he thinks, Monique’s tightness to Jasmin’s… so many men. And he’d been discomfited when, despite her apparent abandon to them both, he’d felt her hard lacquered nails check for a condom. He’s glad it’s over. He dries, deodorises, half-dresses and slopes downstairs in search of the two girls, draining what drops of champagne survive in the bottle salvaged from the floor.

  The kitchen is empty, but the French doors are open and he hears low voices. He leans into the darkness and for a few seconds only a tiny orange firefly betrays their presence. Then his eyes begin to adjust and he sees them, like schoolgirls skulking in a bus-shelter, huddled together sharing a cigarette. To the best of his knowledge Monique has never been a smoker, but now the firefly travels to her lips and burns brightly, then she holds it out to him, exhaling slowly before she speaks.

  ‘Here, my darling – take it.’

  Jasmin’s allotted two hours must almost be over, yet he notices neither of the two are dressed: they are wrapped in his and Monique’s matching towelling gowns, pulled close against the chill. He plays for time – though barefoot and topless his shivers are genuine – and says:

  ‘Wait – I’ll a get a sweat-top. Aren’t you guys frozen?’

  Their response is merely to giggle and snuggle closer together. Monique now presses the cigarette to Jasmin’s lips.

  Adam turns indoors and seeks out the ironing basket in the utility room, where he sifts for something he might recognise. As he encounters Monique’s underwear he thinks how she surrendered unashamedly to her desires, directed from deep inside, oblivious to his presence. Their furious climax went un-faked. They have bonded. Now he wants Jasmin to leave.

  A minute later, suitably attired, he returns to the girls and scrapes a metal chair across to face them. He notices champagne flutes placed audaciously close to their intertwining toes. Jasmin lights a cigarette and offers it to him. He takes it but holds it at arm’s length.

  ‘It’s nice,’ soothes Monique.

  ‘But I don’t smoke.’

  ‘You don’t screw two girls at once.’

  But I do.

  ‘They’re really mild.’ It’s Jasmin’s encouraging tone. Outvoted, he yields, inhales, duly coughs, and then slides back in the chair as the nicotine rush hijacks unsuspecting pleasure cells. Eyes closed, he holds out the cigarette, palm first, and feels it plucked by soft lips from between his fingers, a sensuous moment, enhanced by the narcotic. Suddenly he wants it to be Jasmin – but when he looks Monique is drawing on the cigarette, the hint of a smile creasing the corners of her mouth; she seems to perceive his plight, trapped within the transient high. Through smoke and narrowed lids she watches him closely as she announces calmly:

  ‘Sharon and I are just going to do a line of coke. Will you join us?’

  ‘What?’

  Is she crazy or is the cigarette causing him to hallucinate?

  ‘It’s fine. It’s cool.’

  ‘What do you mean, coke? You mean cocaine?’

  His unintentionally naïve-sounding words make the girls giggle. Monique composes herself and says:

  ‘My darling, Sharon has kindly offered to share some with us.’

  The girl hastily confirms: ‘It’s on me – you’re such a lovely couple, it’s been really nice being with you.’

  Adam finds himself thinking that she must normally charge for this unadvertised little extra. He struggles to fashion a phrase to express his instinctive opposition. Then he stammers:

  ‘We’ve got… a baby in the house. We can’t go taking… Class A drugs. It’s irresponsible.’

  Even as he speaks, in his mind’s eye the paradox threatens to pull rank: what he’s just done with his wife and a call girl, in his home; to object is bizarre. Then you turned down the coke!

  ‘Look – I’m sorry – I don’t want to cause trouble.’ Jasmin sounds surprisingly lucid in her sudden retreat. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it. You’re right – with your little girl being here… I’d better call Liz…’

  Monique interrupts. ‘It is fine.’ She places a quietening hand on Jasmin’s bare knee, slides her palm higher. ‘My darling – Sharon and I will do it. You don’t have to – it is no problem. Everything will be okay. Camille is sound, and you know she will sleep all night.’ Her voice, silky as always, is now underscored by a steel that tells Adam this thing is going to happen. He’s reminded he lost control the moment the two girls embraced – if indeed he’d possessed any control in the first place.

  She rises and, taking Jasmin by the hand, tugs her to her feet and they pass Adam – still seated – to enter the kitchen. She pauses to bend and whisper into his ear:

  ‘Come on. You’ll like it, my darling.’ She straightens, takes a final drag on the cigarette, and then tosses it rebelliously over the balcony.

  Adam lingers, torn. He knows it’s not propriety that feeds the rising shoots of his resistance. The blind heads swaying this way and that sense only an indeterminate, irrational threat, a spectral presence. Can Jasmin be laying a trail for Monique, drawing her into some maze of her own design? Or are they just blundering together, arm in arm, delighting in their company, taking blind turnings as they find them? The latter seems more likely – the impression he’s formed of the girl so far suggests such scheming is beyond her wit or application. But as nature takes its course, as they at once fuel and satisfy their respective desires, each step seems to bind them closer.

  Still, he can choose: look on from his vantage point or rejoin them in the game. Cocaine. How does Monique know he’ll like it? He searches his memory and finds no such admissions on her part. Then again, she’s refuted ever smoking, yet she handled the cigarettes with practised aplomb. Tonight she’s like a hitherto unmet racier twin, a hedonistic doppelganger dedicated to pleasure. Should he resist this woman, or capitulate? A small sensible voice is telling him he should go down and collect the cigarette butt, in case Camille finds it while playing on the patio. Then siren calls turn his head.

  Monique and Jasmin might be conspiring over a book of spells, matching heads touching. He joins the silent pair, peering over their shoulders as they sit. They each surrender a few degrees to admit him to their coven. Lips forming silent incantations, Jasmin wields a gold credit card, and hypnotically sweeps spilled white crystals back and forth, deftly shaping the precious commodity. Before his eyes on the black marble three contrasting stripes materialise. So this is it – the roller coaster reaches its point of no return, its zenith behind him, freefall ahead. Now she reaches for the over-sized handbag that dogs her ankles and ru
mmages in its depths. Adam is mesmerised, though her search produces the most mundane of items: a short length of plastic straw. She leans forward and the first line disappears. Monique follows suit; she makes it look easy. It’s his turn. The girls lean sideways to give him room. He sniffs hard; when he looks the powder is gone. He takes half a step backwards. He notices a slight tingle beside the bridge of his nose, but that’s all. Then he touches Jasmin’s sleeve, and says:

  ‘Outside – a minute ago. Monique just called you Sharon.’

  ‘It’s my real name.’

  ‘Oh.’ Is that deeper into the maze?

  ‘You’re such a lovely couple.’ Suddenly she sounds intoxicated. But she continues, ‘I’d normally just do the job and get away – but what is it now?’ She peers at their chrome-rimmed wall-clock. ‘I’m nearly an hour over and I don’t want to go.’

  ‘Stay as long as you like, Sharon.’ Monique’s voice is calm, supportive.

  ‘You know – I keep this stuff in my bag. On a job I usually have to go to the bathroom – go to the bag. Tonight – not once. I’ve not needed to go to the bag. You’ve seen me – not once. That’s because you’re such a lovely couple and it’s been really cool. Like we’re friends as well as lovers.’

  Adam realises something is happening. The embryonic reservations this exchange threatened to hatch are suddenly and powerfully engulfed by a warm, expanding current: the urge for sex. In the space of a few seconds nothing matters except that he must take one of the girls: he wants the prostitute. Vaguely conscious of protocol, he’s reaching out equally, finding their waists, drawing them close. They need no encouragement, they’re both standing, facing one another, ripping into the hot nakedness beneath their gowns, sucking the breath from one another’s bodies. Then Monique is hoisting herself onto the bar-top, spreading the gown and her legs and leaning back, inviting Jasmin’s willing tongue. She stares at Adam; he’s momentarily transfixed; she hisses, commands him: ‘Fuck her!’

  ***