She thought he would change. She was warned, of course. All her friends warned her. He had a reputation. He was a ladies’ man (a phrase that always seemed wrong to Liz – surely ladies do not approve of the kind of thing ladies’ men get up to, so how can they be ladies’ men?). He was unreliable. He had a roving eye. If Liz had been dating Ethan in the 1920s he would have been labelled a cad, a bounder and a scoundrel.
He was, in short, a cheat.
A philanderer.
A pussy hound. Yes, indeed. A pussy hound.
But, like many women before her (many, many women), she thought she could change him. And, to a certain extent, she succeeded.
Liz met Ethan at a north London dinner party in 2007. Single at the time, she had attended alone. Without a date! She didn’t care about things like that, plus, her friend, Maxine, had insisted that there would be no chance of that gooseberry feeling because there would be lots of lovely people to chat to.
When Liz arrived she counted the seats at the table. Seven. Six of them claimed by three couples. Perfect.
At the time, Liz was 26. She was strong, independent, carefree and believed dinner parties should be limited to people over 40 who no longer enjoy doing things that are actually, you know, fun. But Maxine, who had always been like an older sister to her, was very persuasive, so she had agreed, just this once, to join one of her semi-regular soirees. “Darling, you’ll love it!” cooed Maxine. “Honestly, Jack cooks something divine, we eat it all, we get drunk and we flirt a lot. What’s not to like?”
“Look, it’s not one of those… car key parties is it? You’re not growing pampas grass in your front garden, are you? Because, I’m not… I’m not into all that shit,” replied Liz, smiling. She wasn’t completely joking. Maxine and Jack did have something of a reputation amongst their friends. Their marriage, while not exactly open, was certainly, well, ajar.
“Lizzie, we only went to one of those things once.”
“Once?!”
“Okay, maybe twice. Three times, max. Ha! Three Times Max! That was my nickname the first time we went to one of those things.”
“Oh Christ, Maxine!”
“Only joking darling. That would have been far too crude. Look, I promise this is all properly innocent. No orgies. Just food, laughing, candles, champers and witty conversation. Absolutely no nudity. Although Jack and I will probably fuck on the dining room table once you’ve all left. It’s sort of our tradition.”
Maxine was a vamp: long, jet black hair, dark mauve eye shadow, full lips, black nail polish, beautiful, almost luminescent white skin and a voluptuous figure always accentuated by deliberately alluring clothing. She had a mischievous smile. Not the mischievous smile you might find on a cheeky young scamp; the kind of mischievous smile that could spark filthy thoughts in just about any man. Or any woman, come to that. Even Liz had, very occasionally, after a couple too many tequila shots, found herself peering wistfully into the inviting valley of Max’s wondrous cleavage or gazing thoughtfully at her fishnet tights. Virtually everything Max said seemed to have a hint of sex about it so, all in all, her reassurances about a chaste evening were difficult to take at face value.
Still, Liz had nothing else planned for that Saturday night. It would be good to meet one or two new people. She had no qualms about going alone, but once she was there, despite her best efforts, she had to admit she felt a little awkward. When you’re the only singleton in a roomful of couples, at some point someone is going to ask if you have another half (as if singles are not fully rounded people in their own right). When you say no, the couples, who can never bear to see singles be singles, will inevitably start trying to pair you up with their single friends in an effort to ensure everyone else is as trapped and as miserable as they are. It’s always the same.
Liz endured just such a conversation that evening. It was made worse by the fact that she was, by several years, the youngest at the table. Maxine and her husband Jack were both 33. Olly, a teacher, was 35 and his wife, Carly, a lovely TV producer, was 32. And then there was Ethan, a tall, buff, loud, over-confident American who had been working in London for a number of years as a personal trainer to the wealthy and semi-famous. He was 34 and had brought along his latest casual girlfriend, Ella, an interior designer who had also enjoyed a successful career as a model. She was older than him, likely around 39 or 40, and absolutely stunning. Without a partner, born in a different decade to the rest of the table, Liz couldn’t help but feel a little uncomfortable. She was the baby of the group, patronised for most of the evening about how she was ‘bound to find someone soon’. Ella in particular talked down to her, perhaps intimidated by her youth.
Maxine, though, was the saving grace, and at about 10.30 she admonished her guests for their obsession with poor Lizzie’s sex life, or lack thereof, and managed to steer the conversation onto something else.
Booze helped of course, as did the wonderful food. Jack was a gourmet and had even appeared in the second series of TV’s dinner party cook-off show, Come Dine With Me, which he won with something to spare thanks to his outrageously tasty pork belly. The hosts did not stint, providing three bottles of carefully selected wine for each of the four courses. By 11pm everyone was chattering all at once and Liz finally relaxed and began to enjoy the evening.
It was probably around this time that she first felt Ethan’s hand brush hers under the table. She thought at first that it was a mistake, but then he did it again and soon he linked his little finger with hers. When she didn’t move her hand, out of shock but also because she had to admit she was a little flattered, he ran his fingers across her hand and onto her thigh.
He wasn’t even talking to her. They were sitting next to each other, but he was talking across the table to Jack, while Liz conversed with Carly to her left. The fact that she and Ethan weren’t talking or looking at each other excited Liz, even while she felt distaste at his arrogance, at his assumption that she would allow him to mess about like this, right in front of his girlfriend. The excitement overrode the annoyance, though, and she didn’t put up a fight when his fingers moved to her inner thigh. She thought about reaching across to touch him too, but decided that wouldn’t be right. He was still sitting next to Ella, after all. In her wine-addled mind she decided that if he wanted to touch her and she did nothing, that was fine, but encouraging him by reciprocating was crossing the line.
Her immediate impression of Ethan had not been good. He was too loud, too sure of himself, too aware, she believed, of how good-looking he was. She didn’t think much of his taste in women either – his date presented a manner that suggested she thought she was above this kind of gathering. Perhaps he was a bit of a modeliser, because Liz couldn’t see much else in Ella that anyone would go for other than her striking looks.
Yet as the evening wore on she grew to like Ethan. Unsurprisingly for a New Yorker, he wasn’t shy and loved to talk, but he was genuinely funny and a great raconteur. At one stage he held the entire table spellbound (except for Ella, who disappeared to the bathroom in the middle of the story – possibly, decided Liz, for a bit of nose candy, because she came back looking considerably more awake than when she left) with a story about how his female ‘math’ teacher had come on to him when he was just 15. He claimed she wasn’t even his first conquest. “Hey, it’s nothing I ever did, it all just came natural. I guess I just have that kinda face.”
“What kind of face?” asked Ella.
“I dunno, the kind of face that women want between their legs! Gimme a break, will ya?” Even Ella broke down laughing at that.
The truth was that he seemed to be a warm person, clearly loved by Maxine and Jack. For years people had been telling him he needed to get on the radio or get on TV with his personality and ease in front of a crowd, but he always insisted he was happy in his job, which, after all, provided generous pay and flexible hours. He never lacked for enquiries from potential new clients because he had built up a fine reputation as a trainer. Ethan led a pretty co
ntented life.
Well, contented apart from where women were concerned. In that area, he was never content and, if he were to be believed, he had happily bounced from one woman to the next for a couple of decades or more. Often the women were slightly older, but they were always glamorous, usually wealthy and without exception extremely fashion conscious. He didn’t care much for labels himself, but with his gloriously toned body, smart mouth and sparkling eyes, he didn’t really need to be. Barely a woman he trained didn’t fantasise about getting him into bed at some stage – and he wasn’t above taking advantage of those feelings of attraction.
He was honest, though. He always tried to let women know that he wasn’t to be tied down and that he enjoyed his freedom. For the most part, that worked out pretty well overall, although on a couple of occasions he had lost big clients after their relationship went pleasantly south and then unpleasantly further south.
Of course, that evening, Liz knew none of this. All she knew was that despite having a sexy, ageless (perhaps with the aid of Botox, admittedly) woman on one the one hand, he was interested in exploring the twenty-something enigma on the other. At around midnight, his hand, under the tablecloth, risked moving an inch higher, brushing very definitely against her crotch. She jumped a little, apologised and then announced she was going to the bathroom.
That served as a sort of signal for the rest of the table to begin clearing the remaining plates and for the coffee to make an appearance. People briefly mentioned taxis, mobile phones were checked and plans were made to call it a night soon. Upstairs, Liz washed her hands, checked her make-up, saw with a frown that her tongue had a blue tinge from too much red wine, tried to rinse it off with some water and then left the bathroom. As she reached the stairs she heard footsteps coming the other way. She hesitated. She had a superstition about passing others on the stairs. Around the corner came Ethan. He smiled. She blushed. “I hope I wasn’t too… forward, back there,” he said.
“Well, it was a bit odd, you know, with, er, with Ella…” Ethan had reached the top of the stairs and was now standing very, very close.
“You are absolutely gorgeous,” he whispered.
“Thanks,” she murmured. Suddenly he kissed her elegantly on the lips. Involuntarily, she leaned forward, wanting more, but he withdrew and glanced back down the stairs.
“You best get back,” he said. He took her hand for a moment and she felt something pointy. She looked down. His card. On the back he had written: ‘Call soon.’ She wasn’t sure whether she thought he was a slimy creep or incredibly sexy. Or an incredibly sexy creep.
A couple of days later, Liz had coffee in town with Maxine and told her everything that had happened. That was when she first started to learn about Ethan and his lifestyle. It turned out Maxine had never met Ella before. She had been expecting an actress called Louise, but he had ditched her a couple of days earlier and had brought Ella instead. He had texted Max afterwards to apologise for her standoffish personality, but insisted that he ‘just needed to fuck her once’. That was Ethan, she explained. Never with anyone longer than a month.
Maxine was unsurprised by Ethan’s behaviour at the meal. “It’s not like he hasn’t done it before, darling. Two of my friends – both married – have fucked him in the last couple of years. The man’s a machine.”
“Have you ever…?”
“Oh God no. He’s like a brother to me. Ew. No way. You don’t know where he’s been. Well, I do know where he’s been – that’s the problem. Plus, he knows I’d eat him alive. He wouldn’t dare try it.”
“So you’d advise against it, then?”
“Against what?”
“You know,” Liz twisted his card between her fingers. “Calling him.”
Maxine took Liz’s hand and looked intently into her eyes. Liz was uncomfortable when she did this. She was sexual without even meaning to be. “Listen Lizzie, if you go into it with your eyes wide open and you see it as a bit of fun for a couple of weeks, a chance to get properly laid, then you will be absolutely fine. But if you think it can somehow be something else… if you’re looking for something serious, then steer clear, because you’ll only get hurt.”
“I’m not stupid, Max.”
“I know you’re not, sweetie. All I’m saying is: don’t take him seriously for a second. Don’t trust him. Don’t try and tame him. It won’t work. But, if you fancy him and you want a bit of fun, go for it. He’s a good guy really. And dynamite in bed, so my friends tell me, the little sluts!” and she laughed her wondrous, dirty laugh so hard that most of the coffee shop instinctively looked at their table.
Liz had not been on a date for two or three months and her last major relationship had ended a year or so before, so she thought it was time for a bit of no-strings-attached fun. She was curious about Ethan’s reputation. Her previous boyfriends had all been roughly her own age with roughly the same amount of relationship experience as her own. He was different. Older. More experienced. Desirable. A bit dangerous. A little… wrong. Her attraction was all wrapped up in the feeling that it was a bad idea, but surely it couldn’t hurt, just for a week or two?
She didn’t want to appear too keen, though. She waited until the Thursday before calling him, but got his voicemail and ended up leaving a faintly flustered message: “Hi, Ethan. It’s, er, it’s Liz, here. We met last Saturday night at Maxine’s dinner… thingy. You gave me your card. Anyway, just seeing if you fancied going for a drink… or something. Give me a call back, whenever.” She just about remembered to leave her number.
Ethan called back within ten minutes. “Sorry, Liz, I was with a client. Little rule of mine never to take calls when I’m training. You may think that’s very polite of me, but actually it comes from fear. Years ago, back in the States, I was training this one guy and, okay, he was a bit of ‘roid monkey, and I took a call in front of him. He stopped the weights, walked up to me, grabbed my cell, dropped it on the floor and then stamped on it, with his heel, without ever taking his eyes off mine. And he was right, y’know, I shouldn’t have been taking calls, but perhaps one word of warning woulda been nice. Anyway, yes, drinks, let’s do it. Tomorrow? No, not tomorrow. Next Tuesday. Tuesday okay?” Liz, happy to finally get a word in, agreed.
Here is how Liz expected the date to go: a couple of drinks, some dinner with a lot more drinks, he would tell her a lot of stories, she would sit and listen, and then, if she was too drunk to be able to resist, probably they’d go back to her place for a drunk fuck. She even warned her housemate of the possibility. In Liz’s mind, this was a chance to get back on the horse and have some fun, so there was no real point in being too demure or playing hard to get. If he got bored quickly she might not even get a shag out of him.
The actual date, though, went nothing like that. They had a gin and tonic at a smart bar near Piccadilly. They had a delicious meal at a Japanese restaurant Liz never knew existed. They talked, they laughed. It was a beautiful, romantic evening.
Away from an audience, Ethan was calmer. He was charming, debonair and a perfect gentleman. He asked her lots of questions about herself and seemed genuinely interested in the answers. Whenever she asked about him, he gave apparently honest responses, before steering the conversation back to her. Knowing how many women he’d been with and how often he’d been with them, Liz was pleasantly surprised that he wasn’t just interested in her body.
In her mind, he could (and probably had) have had pretty much any woman he wanted. If she proved too difficult or too prudish or too dull, he could move onto the next one the next night if he wanted to. She had expected someone brash, like the show-off she first met, but he was like a completely different person.
At the end of the evening he flagged her a cab, gave the driver far too much for the journey, telling him to keep the change, kissed her, as he had done at the top of Maxine’s stairs, very delicately on the lips, maybe for a second longer this time, and then said goodnight. As the cab rattled through the London streets to her flat, she
reflected on a wonderful date. The only tinge of regret was that she was not sitting next to him in the cab at that moment, on the way to his or hers for a nightcap.
Liz worked as a web assistant at a women’s magazine, which meant supporting the editors and writers as well as updating the website and writing a few simple articles herself. Working in this sort of environment, where conversation often seemed to be about fashion, celebrity, men and relationships, it was not easy to keep a secret. Consequently, no one really bothered trying. Everyone’s private lives were laid bare most days in the office and everyone knew that Liz had a date with Ethan, who she had described at work as ‘desirable but unreliable’.
As each colleague arrived the next day, they headed straight to her desk hoping for some juicy gossip. Liz had to disappoint them. “I don’t understand it,” she told them. “It was a lovely evening. A perfect first date. Almost too good to be true.”
“If something’s too good to be true, it’s generally too good to be true,” advised Susan, the editor.
“Don’t be so cynical, Susan,” said Arlene, one of the writers. “Maybe he just really likes Liz. Who wouldn’t? She’s smart, gorgeous, funny, young, sexy…”
“I’m remembering now why I hate her so much,” laughed Susan.
“Maybe I just didn’t look sexy. Maybe he just didn’t fancy me. I mean, he shags everything else…”
“Did you wear that black dress? The short one?”
“Yes.”
“In that case, dear, your sexiness was not a problem, trust me on that. Even I want to rip your fucking clothes off when you wear that thing,” said Arlene – an Aussie, never afraid to be a little crude when she needed to make a point. “You gonna go out with him again?”
“If he asks, yeah, definitely. I had a great time.”
“Poor Andy.” Andy worked in a neighbouring office for one of the other magazines in the stable.
Sex with a Sting: Six Erotic Fantasies with a Kink in the Tail Page 11