The Not So Invisible Woman

by Suzanne Portnoy

  When I felt a damp towel spill onto my toes, I took exception to the clueless approach, so I ignored the towel and the person who came with it, and carried on lying immobile with my eyes closed. If I'm lucky, I thought, whoever dropped that towel on my toes will leave soon.

  Next, I felt drops of warm water, like raindrops, on my back. Moisture from the ceiling, I hoped. I peeked from the corner of my eye and realised the damp towel had been dropped by the hairy Middle Eastern man I'd clocked on my way in, a quarter of an hour earlier. I ignored him – I don't do big hairy guys – but he persisted in trying to get my attention, finally addressing me after his effort failed to engage.

  'I am professional masseur,' he said. 'You want back rub?'

  I did not respond.

  'Yes, professional masseur. I make you happy. Yes?'

  I gave up. 'Where do you work, then?' I asked, keeping my eyes closed and my head turned towards the wall. I hoped I'd get a one-word answer and then be left alone.

  'Yes, I'm professional masseur,' he repeated, as if that were his only line. Most men in Rio's had a whole inventory of them.

  Either he hadn't heard my question or he didn't want to address it. It hardly mattered. He was about 45 and overweight and had a moustache. But it was the hair springing out of every pore, particularly on his back and shoulders, that killed it for me. I was not averse to a massage from a stranger, but I wasn't desperate. Besides, I'd set aside the time for relaxation and had only just arrived. A massage could wait. For now, I wanted to lie in the steam room and bide my time, waiting for a more perfect male specimen to show up. Or maybe I'd just fall asleep. I continued to lie on the bench, content to ignore the masseur and everyone else in the room.

  The drops splashing on my back continued, then suddenly became more frequent. Ten minutes later, I opened my eyes and sat up, wrapping the towel I'd been lying on around my waist. The room was filled with steam, but I could just make out three figures standing in front of me, having sex. A Latin-looking transvestite was sandwiched between two men: the Middle Eastern masseur and another figure, indistinct in the steam. I realised that the raindrops I'd assumed were coming off the steam-room ceiling were in fact a spray of sweat dripping off the threesome's bodies.

  It wasn't the first time I'd witnessed a threesome in the steam room, but in the past it had always involved me. A few years earlier I'd been the centre of one particularly steamy session. It hadn't lasted long because the room was so hot; the sweat caused one man's condom to keep slipping off, and the other couldn't stay hard. I liked the idea of our sweaty threesome, and the way our wet bodies fell all over each other, but I came to the conclusion that steam-room sex works best in the movies.

  I left the steam room and moved to the Jacuzzi. Here, the view was better. I spotted a handsome Irishman I'd met once before. He was in his late thirties, about six-feet tall and very slim. He had fair hair, blue eyes, wide cheekbones and big white teeth – typically Irish, right down to the tattoos: a Celtic band that wrapped around one upper arm and a Celtic cross that decorated his lower back.

  I hadn't seen him for two years, when I'd had to break up a near fight between him and another guy. I was in the shower, the Irish guy was in the shower next to me, and a stranger with a hard-on hovered between us, ogling. Mr Ireland had taken offence, thinking the erection was for his benefit.

  He hadn't aged since that day; he'd just changed his hair a bit – it was now shorter and spiked on top.

  Mr Ireland was alone in one of the Jacuzzi. I removed my towel, hung it on a peg, and stepped into the warm water. 'Haven't seen you here for a while,' I said.

  'And you,' he said with a faint accent. He was grinning.

  'Last time I saw you, I broke up a fight between you and some guy with a hard-on.'

  'Yes, I remember that day,' he said. 'He's here today, actually. I've seen him here quite a few times since then. He even says hello to me from time to time.'

  I felt his hand touch my breast under the water. I pretended not to notice. It was more fun that way. We'd not had sex before, but I remembered seeing him in the shower that previous time, and now I wanted it.

  'That's what I like about Rio's,' I said. 'You make the strangest kinds of friendships'.

  He explored my nipples as we carried on talking. 'I'm enjoying playing with your nipples,' he said, finally.

  'Yes, I noticed.'

  'I hope you don't mind.'

  'I don't mind,' I said playfully.

  We sat in the Jacuzzi for a few minutes more, talking. He played with my tits. I reached for his cock. It was hard. It was long.

  'You wouldn't like to go upstairs, would you?' he asked.

  'Sure,' I said.

  'I'll meet you in the lounge in a minute. I have to wait to get out of the Jacuzzi, if you know what I mean.'

  I knew what he meant. I laughed and wondered how long his hard-on would take to subside and why he'd want to bother, as he was going to have to get it up again. I felt energised knowing that he wanted to be with me.

  I stepped out of the Jacuzzi, grabbed my towel, and walked into the lounge. I stood at the edge of the room, so as not to attract anyone's attention, and looked at the TV fixed to the wall. It was showing the horse races at Sandown.

  Five minutes later, my Irishman came up to me and together we walked towards the door that led upstairs.

  He led me to the room at the end of the hall. 'This is the biggest room,' he said. 'Door open or closed? I don't mind, either way.'

  'Door closed,' I said. 'I don't feel like putting on a show today.' I wanted him all to myself. Since seeing him that first time two years earlier, I'd wanted him. I'd even looked for him after that, and now he was mine. At least for the next thirty minutes.

  'Door closed it is, then,' he said.

  I sat down on the edge of the platform. It was low enough that, while sitting, my head was at cock height. He removed his towel as I took his cock in my mouth. He had a semi, already about five inches long.

  Bending over, he reached for my nipples and rubbed circles around them with his index fingers as he grew harder. My mouth took him further in. But with this guy, it wasn't about size, I just found him really sexy. There was a natural chemistry between us. I liked his voice, his chilled attitude, the way he touched me.

  I continued sucking his cock for another minute or so, and then he said, 'I can't have full sex.'

  I looked up.

  'I hope you don't mind,' he added.

  I did mind. I had assumed we were in a couple's room for a bit more coupling. I could have blown him in the Jacuzzi or the steam room. But I wasn't about to argue with a cock in my mouth. Even though I was disappointed, I continued sucking.

  'May I come in your mouth?' he asked a few minutes later.

  I nodded.

  Within seconds I felt the warm liquid in my mouth and I swallowed. I continued to suck gently, until I felt his cock go soft.

  I sat up, reached my arms around his shoulders and drew him to me. I kissed him on the lips.

  'I was so horny,' he said. 'I really needed that.'

  'Always happy to oblige,' I said. 'I only came here for a bloody back rub, but that was almost as good.'

  'I'll rub your back, if you'd like,' he offered.

  'Would you? That would be great. My shoulders are a mess.' Hunching over a computer all week left me feeling tense and stiff. That's why Rio's, which tries to sell itself as a health club, though its members all knew better, really does serve as one for me from time to time.

  Ten minutes later my Irishman had pummelled out my knots, even cracked my upper spine with a couple of quick twists of my neck.

  'That was great,' I said. 'Are you a chiropractor?'

  'I'm a builder,' he said. That explained the tone of his muscles.

  'And a hunk. What's your name, anyway?'

  'Mark.'

  'Suzanne. Nice to meet you, officially.'

  He smiled as we walked downstairs together. I showered, then looked for M
ark in the changing room to wave goodbye. I mounted my bicycle, which was chained to a lamppost outside, and rode home, smiling.

  I walked into my loft, turned on the PC, and signed on to Messenger. Scott was online.

  I'd first contacted Scott through Nerve.com. I hadn't been on the site for over a year, but had been a regular on and off since 2000. It was a sentimental favourite, as that's where I'd met Frank, the New Yorker with whom I had the affair that both recharged my sex batteries and led to my divorce. The site had been free in its early days, so it had been easy to make contact with guys. After Nerve started charging, I moved on to cheaper pastures. Then I received an email telling me I'd been allocated 2,000 points – the equivalent of a cash balance, with deductions made for every wink and message – after Nerve settled a lawsuit with another website. I had no idea what their legal mess was about, but I was happy to have a subsidised look around again. That's when I found Scott.

  He was a tall, slim, blue-eyed divorced American guy based in the UK. My type.

  'I just got 2,000 points and have decided to use them on you,' I wrote him.

  'Gee, I'm flattered,' he wrote back. 'I'm travelling at the mo. Back end month.' He gave me his personal email address and suggested we meet up when he returned.

  That had been twelve months earlier. I'd given up on Scott, although every month or so we'd have an online chat. I quickly discovered that Scott's job with a global news syndicator required that he spend more time in the air than on the ground. So, despite a few emails back and forth and some chats over MSN, we never found a date when we could get together.

  'So, where are you this time?' I wrote one day, checking in.

  'In London.'

  'How long?'

  'Quick stop. Leaving on Sunday.'

  It seemed too good to be true and, suddenly realising that my dance card was empty, I made a snap decision. 'Want to meet up tomorrow?'

  'Sure,' he said. 'Just make sure it's a rooftop.'

  I didn't ask why, but the only rooftop I knew was at my other home away from home, after Rio's – Soho House. We arranged to meet on the roof terrace the next day.

  Over dinner he told me about his job, pointedly noting that although it involved nearly nonstop travel around the globe, it brought in piles of money. He was a braggart, but I liked him anyway. His travelling stories were funny and he had a wry sense of humour. And he was cute, especially after a few bottles of Sancerre, which he kept ordering at £55 a bottle.

  He had a lived-in face and big sexy eyes and the kind of runner's build I'd always found attractive. As I looked across the table at him, I hoped he found me as sexy as I found him.

  'Let's go back to mine and sit in my hot tub.'

  He agreed, and a few minutes later we were out the door.

  As we stepped out of the club, Scott pulled me close.

  'Stop. I have to kiss you.' Pinning me against the wall of the building, he stooped over me, his six-foot-four frame practically bent over double to reach my lips.

  He slipped his tongue in my mouth and then breathed down my throat.

  So much for being friends, 1 thought.

  We walked hand in hand down the street.

  'We'll pick up a bottle of wine on the way back,' he said.

  'I've got wine at home. We're fine.'

  'I'm an alpha male, Suzanne. I'll buy the wine. That's the way it is.'

  I laughed. It sounded like a line out of a movie. An alpha male. Who did he think he was, Rambo? Yet, there were some benefits to the machismo. I thought about my overdraft and was glad Rambo had picked up the bill.

  'I just want us to be friends,' he'd said over the first bottle of Sancerre. Now he was beginning to sound like Mark, the sexy Irishman from Rios who'd massage but not fuck me. I wondered whether this was going to turn into a weekend of abstinence, something I hadn't counted on with either guy.

  That disappointed me, but that's the way it goes sometimes. OK, I thought, I'll run with that one ... for now.

  I hoped, as I stared into his blue eyes and shared bottle after bottle, that Scott might come around. And the drunker I got, the more I liked the idea of our being friends, particularly if it were on my terms – friends with benefits. Most of the men I met were short dates or quick fucks; good lays, not buddies. We didn't ring each other to chat; we rang to make a date. Scott, however, was a guy I could envision having a chinwag with.

  Even if fucking wasn't on the menu, I expected it would be good if it happened. In my experience, it's almost impossible to find a guy who is smart and funny and not good in bed. But sex wasn't Scott's main attraction; it was the laughter and the shared background that got me. And I could tell Scott needed a pal, too. If I got a friend who occasionally climbed into my bed after a night of big laughs and good food and fun times, it was a win-win.

  I fancied some real intimacy for a change, not just a few hours straight out of a porn flick. Despite the fact that he was well travelled, I got the impression Scott didn't sleep around. 'Lots of women come on to me,' he said. 'But I'm not really a one-nighter kind of guy. I'd really just like having friends. I'm actually quite lonely. Aren't you?'

  'Not really, no.' That was true. I had plenty of pals. Even so, I thought it would be fun to have one who was a fellow American.

  Then Scott said something that I hadn't heard for a while. 'The thing is, I'm really feeling a connection here. Aren't you?'

  Just as I like variety in my sex partners, I like variety in my relationships with guys. I want good ol' vanilla mixed up with a bit of domination, followed by cuddling – a bit o' this 'n' a bit o' that. Now I was thinking no-sex/yes-sex/lonely-horny Scott might want a bit of a mix himself.

  It was nice spending time with a fellow American. We shared the same cultural history, knew the same stupid TV shows. Talking with Scott was like having a reunion with a hometown acquaintance. I began to think he had the makings of a fun, regular playmate, a trade-up from a one-night shag. Somehow, his masculine arrogance was more turn-on than off-putting.

  'I have hundreds of people who want to do exactly what I tell them to do, who have to do exactly what I tell them to do,' he said when the subject of Scott came round as it often did. 'I mean, there are people who think my word is the gospel. They call it Scott's World.' He laughed. I wasn't sure if I should. 'In India, where I do a lot of business,' he continued, 'people say that you're all right if you're in Scott's World.'

  I understood being a boss with her own desk, her own office. I'd never met a person who thought he ruled the world and then named it after himself.

  'How much money do you make?' he asked, somewhat to my surprise even though the question seemed true to his brash character.

  I told him.

  'Is that all?'

  'Yes, that's all,' I said, surprised again, given that it was many times the average UK salary.

  'I make a lot more than that,' he said.

  'But does it make you happy?'

  'It's who I am.'

  'That wasn't what I asked.'

  He looked at me, confused. 'It's who I am.'

  Then he took out his wallet and showed me a picture of his daughter. Although just seven, she looked like him, with sandy-blonde hair, high cheekbones and a wide smile.

  'She's gorgeous,' I said.

  'She's more important to me than anyone else in the world,' Scott said. Unfortunately, he only got to see her every couple of weeks and then only for a day or two, until he was back on a jet. I tried to fit together what he had told me over our dinner date: that money drove him, that he was the master of his domain, that he adored his little girl but rarely found the time to see her. It seemed kind of sad.

  I looked across the table at him. I noticed the wrinkles at the corner of his eyes, the dark circles underneath, the tight dry skin that seemed starved of moisture and oxygen. He looked exhausted. The message on his face said, 'I need to sleep for a week.'

  Scott chain-smoked through dinner, taking three or four puffs on a cigarette, t
hen putting it out and lighting another. He was kind of a mess. Yet, I kept thinking there was something attractive about him that I couldn't put my finger on.

  I don't like smokers, won't even date one after having lived with one for two years and almost gone mad. But then, I rationalised, I wasn't looking for a live-in. I could put up with the cigarettes for the occasional overnight.

  Despite all his bravado, I got the sense Scott needed someone. I saw myself becoming his confidante, maybe even his friend. It was so rare that I met an American in London, and I liked the idea of having a fellow ex-pat buddy. Especially since his irreverent monologues made me laugh.

  'The other day,' he told me, 'I was giving a lecture to three hundred people in New Delhi. The Indians wouldn't stop bobbing their heads. So, I told them, "If you don't mind, can you stop bobbing your heads up and down, because I'm finding it very distracting." '

  I'd been to India a couple of times myself and could picture the head-bobbing to which he referred. It was as much a part of being Indian as rubbing noses was for Eskimos. I tried to imagine Scott telling people to stop a habit that was so culturally ingrained.

  'But that's the way Indians are,' I said.

  'Yes, I know. But it was really putting me off my speech.'

  Arrogant and self-centred and culturally insensitive he was indeed, but I wanted to take him home anyway. I wanted to sit this manic man in my hot tub and help him relax. I wanted him to escape from Scott's world and take a break in my world.

  After Mark and the one-sided oral, the other thing I wanted was some action of my own.

  We jumped in a cab and were back at my house within the hour. We immediately undressed and got in the hot tub. Straight away, Scott's lips found mine. I moved closer and straddled him. I felt his hard-on pressing against my pussy. I kissed him again, rubbing my pussy against him, teasing his shaft with my labia, sliding myself up and down it.

  'You know, I'm pretty toasted,' Scott said as he reached for the bottle of wine he'd insisted on buying and which I'd put on a shelf by the tub. 'And I have to be up early. I should go.'

  'Why don't you stay,' I said. 'It's silly to get a cab back now. I promise I'll wake you up in the morning with a cup of hot coffee.'