The Sexopaths

‘Well – I received the message after the meeting – but my phone was switched off during it. I didn’t check the time.’

  It doesn’t escape his notice that her battery managed to go flat even though her mobile must have been off for much of the day. But he’s none the wiser as to whether Jasmin-Sharon sent the proposal before or after their own meeting. Either way, though, he can’t believe that Jasmin-Sharon so brazenly touts for business as a matter of course – it would be a breach of the protocol to which she claims strictly to adhere. This special treatment, he’s certain, is reserved for Monique. He sighs. But what can he do? While she holds a candle for his wife, he must awhile uphold the unyoked humours of her capriciousness.

  He asks: ‘Have you replied?’

  ‘I just… well, I said it would probably be okay but that I would check with you.’

  Adam suspects it’s already a fait accompli.

  ‘I can tell her no, my darling.’

  ‘Well… like I say… obviously it was pretty mental… pretty amazing… to see you… and everything that happened…’

  Monique doesn’t embarrass him by highlighting his volte-face. Instead she gets straight down to business.

  ‘And you want her to bring the… you know?’

  He understands perfectly, but feels committed to understatement. ‘Do I?’

  ‘Cocaine.’ Monique’s voice drops to a melodramatic whisper. ‘She has ecstasy, too.’

  Instead of responding directly, Adam glances at the clock. Monique has followed his train of thought. She nods even before he says:

  ‘We’ll need to wake her in a minute – it’s nearly half-past.’

  ‘So what shall I tell Sharon?’

  He inserts a diplomatic pause. ‘Go for it, I guess.’

  ***

  “Oooooh, lucky me! Tuesday is usually Tesco and housework day but fortunately the wife announced last night that she was going shopping with her friends. Obviously I couldn't miss such a golden opportunity to see Jasmin and after a quick call all the necessary arrangements were made. Jasmin arrived on time and rang to tell me that she was parked up next to the car park, she asked if I would meet her there so she could hold on to me once she'd parked. She told me that she was wearing new high-heeled shoes and was a little unsteady on uneven ground making it difficult for her to keep her balance. I was duly given the job of supporting her and holding her large handbag. God only knows what the concierge must have thought when we entered the apartment building. Once inside the shoes were discarded and we arrived at the apartment without incident. We sat and chatted for quite some time, Jasmin is extremely well educated and is comfortable, and more than capable, of discussing a multitude of subjects with considerable command. The conversation flowed effortlessly without any embarrassingly long pregnant pauses, she is self confident and bubbly. We inevitably reached the stage where it was necessary to discuss our mutual likes and dislikes as well as what was allowed and not allowed. It seemed clear from the outset that we liked the same things and as she had no interest in doing anything untoward with my botty the ground rules were very quickly agreed. We eventually adjourned to bed. I'm no expert in such matters but I'd guess she's late twenties. She has a flawless body with no tattoos or piercings and nothing has been artificially enhanced with so called improvements. All in all, I think she has a perfect body which needs no improvement at all. We played happily together and I felt both relaxed and at ease in her company. Although this was our first meeting, she also seemed relaxed and I got the distinct impression that she enjoyed herself. Our first meeting was regrettably short, and I wish I could have persuaded the wife to stay out all day rather than for a few hours, but there is always next time. Thanks for a wonderful few hours, see you again soon. Lots of Love. Donald xxxx”

  As field reports go, Adam reflects, this is definitely one of the more entertaining variety. Unlike many commentators, ‘Donald’ is overly generous on the preamble and positively miserly on the main event. There are those for whom the sexual act is all: how many times they (think they) made the girl climax, the exotic positions and the energetic breaking of rules of hygiene, supported by a litany of acronyms. Others seem to feel it is their role to provide quasi-biological reviews for the benefit of potential future patrons. Donald falls into neither of these categories, prince or pedant, and despite his outrageously blatant double-life, comes across as the sort of loveable rogue whom even ‘the wife’ might find hard to reproach. (Well, maybe not ‘the wife’.)

  Adam carefully re-reads the account. He’s intrigued by the view through this little window onto Jasmin-Sharon’s world – one of many, he supposes, from a great tower-block of perspectives. It’s a recent entry that he has not previously seen. The description sounds enough like her – albeit he has not personally experienced her intellectual capacity to anything like the same degree as Donald. He wonders where the described encounter took place. Perhaps Jasmin-Sharon takes a day-rental on an apartment when a punter wants an incall and her mum’s at home? He’s seen the ads along the waterfront at Granton and Newhaven, where a transient community of asylum-seekers and immigrants is rumoured to haunt the mini ghost-town of boom-busted developments.

  He glances at the time in the corner of his screen. It’s after ten and he realises he hasn’t done a great deal, despite declaiming to Monique when she departed in a flurry of coats and scarves and bags and a protesting Camille that he’d got a mire of admin to wade through, and needed the peace of his study at home in order to tackle it. The dreary sludge still awaits his first reluctant steps. He clicks back to Jasmin-Sharon’s chronological list of reviews. Above Donald’s entry there is the most recent, submitted by the contrastingly anonymous ‘Qwerty’, a novice critic with just one review to their credit.

  “When Jasmin came to meet my boyfriend and I, we thought wow she is beautiful. We had a FFM threesome and it was fantastic. She really is great with everything. She made me cum twice just watching her f**k my boyfriend. She brought some interesting accessories. Her a**e was to die for. Thanks for a great night. XXX”

  Adam feels a rush as he scans the sparse yet graphic prose, so confident in its brushstrokes. It takes a second for him to realise it’s written by a woman. He tries to read it again, but a kind of panic grips him and the words seem to float and dance to foil comprehension, like that heady moment of opening an exam paper. Slowly they settle, and the notion that Monique could be their author is allowed crystallise in his mind.

  Monique? No way. But the post is dated yesterday – when she might have been tempted to scribe a eulogy, to fill a few moments of in-transit boredom with a daring naked deed, while fellow travellers saw only a smart young businesswoman attending to her emails? Of course, the ‘boyfriend’ bit doesn’t stack up – but what’s to prevent a little poetic licence? The point is, he figures, Jasmin-Sharon would know who placed the post. There’s a startling symmetry about the events, and – too – of an image he holds of an entranced Monique smoothing massage oil meticulously upon Jasmin-Sharon’s taut buttocks. Yes, an ‘a**e’ to die for. And those ‘interesting accessories’? A carefully constructed euphemism for public consumption?

  Parking these rather glaring coincidences, he considers who else may have penned the review. There’s the female of the couple to whom Jasmin-Sharon has referred – perhaps a likely candidate? On reflection, though, he thinks probably not. If they were ‘regulars’ would she have made the wide-eyed observation about how their visitor looked? This has the ring of a first-time encounter. Might the enterprising Jasmin-Sharon have accommodated another couple since her visit to them on Saturday? Statistically that seems unlikely. Of course, the ‘FFM threesome’ could have taken place months ago, while ‘Qwerty’ only just got round to making the post. Except that it reads like the sort of thank-you note that’s been trotted off a day or two after a dinner party.

  He ponders whether he would know Monique’s writing style. There’s a common grammatical error that she – being French – might easily make, though
it’s contrasted with an impressive command of slang and profanity. Still, she must swim daily in such a sea of words, a professional ocean dominated by language – should he be surprised if she’s more adept than the odd text to him suggests? Curiously, the idea of writing an anonymous review had semi-seriously entered his own head – did she unwittingly read his mind and steal his thunder?

  He rises pensively from his desk and strolls to the kitchen. He selects a can of diet cola from the refrigerator, and crosses to the French doors. A low autumn sun loiters in the south-east quarter, traversing the browning Pentlands. A pale shadow of itself, it recalls for him Mykonos, where it dazzled the eye and warmed the blood. Just like Monique. Narrowed eyes trailed her every move, hungry pack-dogs panting with deceptive languor in the shade, ready to dart from cover at the slightest invitation to feed. She must have seemed tempting prey. She draws admirers with such effortless ease: one day a jet-setting European chief executive, the next a call girl from the Banana Flats.

  It’s a phenomenon he thought he’d grown used to, the price of an attractive wife, a cost worth the benefit. He’d soon discovered that galling fact: even when he walks hand in hand with her, staring down onlookers, she turns heads. He might as well be invisible, the protection he affords. And it’s not just skin deep; when she mixes with people – instantly they take to her. Guys fancy her. (And now girls too, it seems.) Disarmingly she charms; alarmingly she radiates encouragement.

  He wishes he could be more phlegmatic. After all, their affair with Jasmin-Sharon is crazy and exhilarating, and doesn’t seem to have diminished Monique’s affection for him – the reverse, if anything, witness this morning. Should he simply succumb, leave her to fly free and return enriched to their loft when the adrenaline is spent? And if her European adventure leads to une petite liaison amourese… turn a blind eye, let it run its course? What’s the worst that can happen? Even now – even this morning – she tells him she loves only him and wants only him.

  But once before, at least, he knows (because it was he) she has made the switch to a more desirable partner.

  There’s the jangle of a text echoing through the empty house. He pads through to his study to investigate. Monique? He hopes so.

  ‘Meeting pls next Tues 11am Xx’

  Xara.

  And now a kiss. Maybe two.

  And ‘please’.

  As if she’s there to execute the manoeuvre, a frisson of fear-tinged excitement runs down his spine like a sharpened fingernail. Has Jasmin-Sharon scurried back across enemy lines to reveal all to her spymistress? It doesn’t read that way. Surely he could expect a backlash if Xara found her scheme laid bare by a couple of incompetent minions? Of course, she might have such a smarting welcome waiting for him, once he’s trussed for interrogation. But the prospect arouses him. Suddenly he wants to ring her – to hear that husky voice, the seductive laugh, to feel her musky presence soak his soul, to corrupt, invigorate… reassure.

  Yet he hesitates. In this pause the mobile rings as he’s holding it. The caller’s number is withheld.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Oh, hi – it said blocked.’

  ‘Oh, right. Are you okay?’

  ‘I love you, too.’

  ‘It was, very.’

  ‘Oh?’

  A longer pause, while he listens.

  ‘Yeah… right. Shall I collect Camille?’

  ‘Yeah – that’s fine.’

  ‘No… it’s okay.’

  ‘Look – we’ll manage. She likes the way I serve beans on toast.’

  ‘I said – it’s okay. You go if it’s important. We’ve got millions of nights.’

  ‘Yeah, sure. We’ll be fine. I’ll see you for a glass of wine when you get in.’

  ‘Okay – speak to you later.’

  ‘You, too.’

  Adam sinks into his revolving chair, rocks to and fro. Is this too convenient? Another coincidence? Monique has forgotten there’s a work night-out, to mark the launch of a new campaign created by the agency. Pretty informal – a few drinks straight from the office and a casual meal at a nearby trendy Italian. But the senior client personnel will all be there – so she ought to put in an appearance. She doesn’t want to let the team down. She offered not to go if he violently objected – but what objection could there possibly be? They both have this kind of thing from time to time, and this week he’s free to look after Camille – she knew that because they’d cross-referenced diaries on Sunday. Was that a coincidence, too?

  He doesn’t want to take this line of thought… but it’s the path of least resistance, a slippery slope down which his apprehensions slide at the slightest nudge. He tries to reconcile himself with the logic that if she were up to no good she wouldn’t concoct a story he could check out with a single phone call to her office. But, so what? If the work ‘do’ is genuine, she could join it late, leave early, and even disappear for an hour with some no-doubt plausible excuse. He closes his eyes and tries to picture her this morning – how was she dressed? Was she already prepared for an after-work assignation? He can’t properly recall, though his mind harbours an echo that he’d noted how gorgeous she’d seemed, steering Camille before her, turning to kiss him a little peremptorily before stepping gingerly across the gravel of the driveway – yes, she wore big heels, at least, and a tight skirt. Of course, she could easily have secreted a change of clothes in her bag, or simply shop.

  So, what’s the story? His mind is in freefall now, and improbable ideas visit him like peregrine falcon spirits curious about this visitor to their realm, eyeing him then peeling off unblinking. Has Lucien landed in town? (Come to think of it, he could have been here last night.) Has Jasmin-Sharon called her up with a proposition? A little taster for Saturday. Or maybe a client, too – the ultimate trip for Monique; the vicarious becomes reality. Just how far would she go?

  He really isn’t sure any more: about the girl who gave herself an orgasm in the shower after the Russian massage; about the girl who booked a threesome with an escort; about the girl who (perhaps) wrote that Jasmin-Sharon made her ‘cum twice’ by fucking her ‘boyfriend’. How can he be sure? Her actions belie her words. And the next act? Lucien? Jasmin-Sharon and a client? Lucien the client?

  ***

  ‘So… you do this often?’ The girl speaks good English, but she’s clearly no local. Adam thinks Ukrainian, though she doesn’t really knock him out. He says:

  ‘I’m not sure… what’s often?’

  ‘You ask me.’

  ‘Every three years. Three times a week. Who knows.’

  The girl is silent for a moment, he can feel the breeze of her breath on his bare back, her processing perhaps jammed by the overloaded ambiguity in his reply. She takes another tack:

  ‘You been with other girls from Angels365?’

  He supposes it’s a kind of security question, though a weak one posed at this relatively advanced stage in the proceedings, when the contract is somewhat irrevocably committed.

  ‘Anya. Bella. Caprice.’ He wonders if the alphabetical rendition, with its implication of A to Z coverage, is sufficient to satisfy her requirement.

  ‘They are nice girls. Why you take so long to see me, honey?’

  The over-familiarity of the honey jars with the first-time anonymity. Taking a lesson from Jasmin-Sharon’s book he says:

  ‘I don’t know – maybe because you are near the end of the alphabet. I realise my mistake.’

  The girl chuckles and for a moment slides her firm globular false breasts over his shoulder blades. ‘Welcome to Victoria,’ she hisses into his ear. She brings her hands inwards to encircle his neck, her nails gently poised to puncture the skin of his throat. Then she relents, sits upright, and transfers her body weight to his thighs. She says:

  ‘So why you do it, then?’

  ‘Do you ask all your clients these questions?’

  ‘Only when they are good looking and I wonder why they come to me.’

  ‘I’m flattered to qualif
y.’

  The girl doesn’t reply immediately, but responds in a fashion, through the intimate movements of her fingertips. Adam releases an involuntary moan of pleasure. She murmurs contentedly at the success of her manoeuvre. Adam, in a rather drugged-sounding voice, says:

  ‘I don’t suppose you have heard of John Betjemen?’

  ‘A footballer?’

  ‘Maybe… but this one is a poet. Was. Dead poet. Bloody brilliant. English. Kind of upper-class, you know? I think I saw him on tv, a documentary – he was old – there was a bench… some cliffs… the sea churning a long way below – the interviewer asked him if he had any regrets – and he said he wished he’d had more sex – just came right out with it – and you know, I think his wife or partner was there, too – I was shocked that he said it.’

  ‘So is that why you came – not enough sex with your wife?’

  Adam shakes his head slowly. ‘I couldn’t say that.’

  He detects a faint shrug, a near-involuntary movement that could be one of mild objection to his unlikely answer. He feels a small nagging obligation not to kill the conversation, so he offers an alternative:

  ‘I guess it is normal for men to see escorts for things that their wives won’t do?’

  ‘Aha.’

  ‘Or maybe they just fight – don’t like each another?’

  ‘That also.’

  ‘Or maybe they are alone. So… not enough sex.’

  ‘For you, honey… when was the last time?’

  Adam realises he doesn’t want to answer this question. The day had begun with exquisite lovemaking, unprompted and undemanding of reciprocation. Then came Monique’s call to say she’d remembered the client night-out. Like an unwelcome wind-devil it had seized upon his brain’s out-tray of painstakingly filed misgivings and strewn the pile to all corners. At the centre of this storm, he’d instinctively sought refuge: and while Xara of course did not answer her phone, there were Angels aplenty waiting in the wings. It had taken just a few clicks to tread the corridors of the labyrinthine website, its honeycomb of chambers home to receptive queens, some resident, some ‘on tour’.