Sexile

by Lisa Lawrence

  Oh, well.

  The face was bright with amusement, all large brown eyes and white teeth, a merry expression at how ridiculous the situation was. The high cheekbones seemed to go with the high mahogany forehead, the nose wide but not too wide, the lips full, still curling with this amused expression that had a bit of charm and a lot of nerve.

  I should have dropped the act, because neither of us had the time, but it irked me how sure he was that I didn’t belong here.

  “I think I’ll call the cops anyway. And then I’ll call my boss to tell him you broke in here—’

  “Go ahead,’ he dared me. “I’ve figured out everyone who works in this place, and that doesn’t include you. Oh, and I don’t think your ‘boss’ has an amicable relationship with the policía.’

  I folded my arms, tapped my sneaker against the lino leum. “So we’ve both been naughty. How did you get in?’

  He smiled. “You first.’

  There was no reason to hold back. “I came in through the basement window. It’s small, but I managed to squeeze through. You?’

  He fished a digital camera out of his pocket and began playing a movie. It looked like he’d shot it from across the street on a balcony somewhere, zooming in right at the proper moment when one of Marinho’s men tapped the keypad combination for the door. I rolled my eyes. I should have thought of that.

  “Clever. What are you doing here?’

  He grimaced in embarrassment, hand running over his bald head, but as he struggled to find the delicate words to explain, there were suddenly grunts and keening moans that did it for him. I took a step to the side. He stepped with me to block my view. I took another step, and he moved with me, until I did a basketball maneuver around him to see the computer monitor.

  He had found the right DVD all right. There was a dark brown ass in the foreground (very nice and tight, by the way) while a mixed-race girl looked up at her anonymous lover with clear admiration at his prowess, his head out of shot and, fortunately, his willy too, for the moment, the girl’s full breasts jiggling with his thrusts.

  “Okay, I was very drunk and we smoked a lot of weed that night,’ he explained, “and she had the idea. I thought I was with friends. I don’t even know this Marinho who runs this sleaze operation. His people could have put me on a dozen DVDs—’

  “I get the picture,’ I said, raising a hand for him to stop. “Is there only one session they filmed?’

  “You mean have I done this kind of fool thing before?’ he asked defensively. “No, thank you very much! And that’s not very nice. Are you saying you’ve never done any stupid compromising thing of a sexual nature?’

  “Me? I give nuns an inferiority complex.’

  He gave me a crooked smile that said aren’t you cheeky and turned back to the computer. He tapped away at the keys, doing a file search. “Fortunately, they seem pretty good at organizing and naming the files, so yes, thank God, I seem to be on just one of them.’

  “Well, you might want to erase the hard drive just in case.’

  He nodded. “I was about to.’

  “How could you even know where this footage was going or where they would keep it?’

  He looked at me hard and raised his eyebrows. “When I rang up the girl again just to see her, she told me she did this and started trying to recruit me for their films, saying they could pay me big money. She gave me the name of the company, how their films were supposed to be good quality, all this other rubbish. Then when I got pissed off, she said fine, if you don’t want to get paid, they could use the film anyway, tough luck, and they’d make plenty off just the one. Wasn’t hard to track their office down.’

  I watched him erase the hard drive, and then he turned to me and asked, “Shall we look for your video now?’

  “Sorry to disappoint. Never been a star.’

  “Then what are you here for?’

  Hmmm…Hadn’t expected to meet and greet tonight so no time to prepare a cover story. Things had gone really pear-shaped with him turning up—I couldn’t go digging around with an audience. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for anyway. Time to improvise, and I was fairly good at it. Whenever Isaac and I got into trouble together as kids, he left it to me to spin a plausible excuse or fanciful story for our parents. You’re just so much more credible, Tig.

  Finally, inspiration.

  “Henrique Marinho’s people ripped me off. I did some video editing for them, even directed a couple of their features. I was supposed to get paid. I didn’t.’

  “Bet you don’t tell the nuns that.’

  “I’m not the one who had his boom mic in the shot.’

  “Touché,’ he laughed. “At least you didn’t get to see my boom mic.’

  “Well, your girlfriend looked like she died and went to heaven.’

  “She’s a wonderful actress.’

  “Such modesty,’ I said. “Come on, let’s get out of here. You do know there are cameras watching the halls?’

  “Better they have me taped in a hall with my clothes on than naked in a hotel room.’ He put a hand gently on my arm. “Wait a minute. You said why you’re here, but what did you come for? I doubt they keep a safe with any petty cash. Were you going to trash the joint?’

  “No, I was looking to rob the place, but I think you’re right. Doesn’t look like they’re stupid enough to keep any cash here.’

  “I wouldn’t try it anyway,’ he warned. “It’s one thing to sneak in and reclaim an amateur porn session. But I’ve heard this Marinho is involved with some deadly customers. He’d probably take it as a personal affront if you swiped his money.’

  “I’ll think it over,’ I said. “I can always come back. Let me see your camera again?’ I wanted the keypad code.

  “Oh, no, you don’t. I just told you I’ve heard this guy is mixed up with dangerous—’

  “I already have an older brother, thanks,’ I cut in. “And all right, I’ll just break in my own way.’

  We heard a voice in rapid Portuguese. The security guard. Break time with the taxi driver was over.

  My partner in crime muttered shit and yanked out the computer’s power cord, the quickest way to silence the audio and picture. But it was too late. We could hear the guard walking down the hall. Must have heard something.

  “I don’t see any closets,’ I said, frantically looking for a hiding place.

  “Follow my lead.’

  He switched on one of the big white lamps, and we were suddenly awash in light, his hand hitting the record button on a hi-def camera. Before I could protest, he yanked down one cup of my bikini top and pulled me into a clinch, one hand massaging my bare right breast, his mouth coming down to suck in my nipple. I felt shock, then the sudden sharp tingle of pleasure. Just to get him back, I tugged on his pants button, had them open and down in seconds. I’d be damned if I were the only one exposed as the guard walked in.

  Which he did. “Opa! Merda!’

  My accomplice barked in outraged Portuguese at him, and the guard meekly backed out, our little act working, and as he yanked up his trousers, I saw he was already at full attention. The red head of his cock poked over the hem before he fixed himself. Certainly well equipped for our ruse.

  “Best we go out the front door,’ he whispered to me.

  “You could have warned me.’

  “I thought you caught on when I switched on the lights!’

  I went over to the camera to make sure the hi-def hadn’t been recording us. It caught maybe five seconds, and I deleted its memory.

  “You can forget about coming back here through the window.’

  “Why?’

  “That guard is sure to tell this story to his mates tomorrow—or maybe even the receptionist,’ he said. “As word gets around, someone will know there was nothing scheduled for after hours. We’d better get out of here.’

  We strolled out hand in hand, the brazen couple.

  8

  After a couple of minutes, we were safe and dry,
away from the Silky Pictures building, but he still held my hand. I let him.

  “Now that we’ve survived, mind if I ask your name?’

  “Jeez, you were already copping a feel and having a taste!’ I laughed. “I wondered if you’d bother!’

  “Oh, come on, that’s not fair. You’ve got the wrong impression of me—and you weren’t so meek and shy in there either. So what is it? Your name.’

  I began to stammer, then thought to hell with it. “Teresa.’ I didn’t want to give him the cover name. I was using that one at the hotel, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know him past this evening. “And you are…?’

  “Thirsty. Why don’t we get a drink at the Scenarium?’

  “You move right along, don’t you?’

  “Look,’ he said, sounding sincere. “I want to celebrate my little victory, and I can at least buy you a drink for not achieving yours. And I owe you, don’t I? The guard could have walked in on me alone. I don’t think I’d convince him just sitting there and playing with myself.’

  “You’re right, you do owe me.’

  “Graham. It’s Graham.’

  “Okay. You owe me, Graham.’

  “From the south, eh?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing.

  “Very good. Grew up in Oxford. London these days. What about you?’

  “I hardly know what London looks like anymore. I only go back once in a while. Can’t say I miss it too much. Business keeps me here, and it’s so beautiful. I have a boat, and I take tourists out for a sail, a bit of diving. I do all right for myself.’

  “I can see,’ I teased him.

  I was poking fun at his car, which turned out to be a pale blue Volkswagen Beetle convertible. Not the new yuppie model but the old-fashioned classic, with one door covered in livid red rust. It even had the antique dashboard, which he told me was the kind they used for the models manufactured in Mexico. He had arranged for it to be driven all the way down from Mexico City.

  “It’s indestructible, this car!’ he boasted. “It’s perfect. I buy a Beamer or some flash thing, it’ll be gone in a day. Paid next to nothing for this wreck. Nobody ever wants to steal it.’ Graham stood six foot two, so he was not your usual candidate for a vintage Bug. Funny to see him with his knees close to his elbows.

  “The people’s car!’ He made a point of going down an alley and sideswiping a row of rubbish cans and then a phone pole on the driver’s side. As I yelped, he laughed. “See? Indestructible! And if we do smash a wing, who cares?’

  “Can we not smash one tonight?’

  “I found our escape a little too anticlimactic, so I thought I’d give you your money’s worth.’

  “Let’s get that drink, and we’ll be fine,’ I urged him.

  I thought I heard him faintly humming “The Self Preservation Society’ just to wind me up.

  “If you want to do that,’ I said, “you need a Mini.’

  Why is it every British male knows The Italian Job? The original, not the Mark Wahlberg version, which guys like Fitz and my brother Isaac deemed sacrilege.

  We were in the Lapa district soon enough. I had walked its streets when I first came here, checking out the Belle Époque colonial buildings renovated for antique dealers and clubs. I had sat in a café and watched a lazy afternoon turn to night, the gathering swarm of party enthusiasts taking over. But in those visits I was detached, apart and alone. Getting constant sleazy come-ons can be annoying whether you speak the language or not. Tonight, however, I had a guide from back home, a man who obviously relished getting into occasional trouble as much as I did.

  I felt a crackle of sensual energy ripple through the crowds and srneak up my spine, teasing me with vague yet beguiling promises. Graham smiled at me as if he perfectly understood. We could be in the spectacle but not of it, take from it what we pleased. Boy, I liked that smile.

  Rio Scenarium, I learned, is something of a landmark in the Lapa’s Rua do Lavradio. People hang out, leaning on the balconies of the three floors that look down on the stage, and it’s usually jazz-edged samba playing. It was packed this evening, and Graham fetched us a couple of caipirosca— vodka with crushed lime, sugar and ice. At Scenarium, there are countless rooms with antiques and small paintings, little nooks you can meander into and keep yourself visually amused. And we did. Later we squeezed in to share a table with a Brazilian couple, and Graham kept a running dialogue with the cheerful boy who, like his girlfriend, looked only nineteen. Then Graham was pulling me to the dance floor.

  “Don’t worry about the acrobatics,’ he said, big mischievous grin of white teeth. He must have guessed I was more or less a samba virgin. “All that fancy stuff is just for competitions on TV.’

  “Couldn’t pull that stuff off if I tried,’ I said.

  “Oh, I think you’re being modest,’ he said, swinging me around. “What does the girl say? Hips don’t lie …’

  “This is Brazil. She’s Colombian.’

  He twirled me, laughing. “I don’t care!’

  My hips said move. For me, there’s a perfect density to the dance floor, when it’s full enough that you can still turn and strut your stuff but you feel the encroaching heat of strangers. Your eyes take in the panorama of faces and sweaty limbs, of skirts fanning with a breeze of body twirls, hips shaking, and faces glistening with sweat. The energy drives the band, and the band reciprocates. And something both primeval and sophisticated takes over, a sensuality that’s lush and quickens the heart, gets the brain racing with anticipation. I saw open joy on Graham’s face, the joy of being alive and the two of us shaking it. Our ordeal, no matter how dangerous or ludicrous, was over and dispensed with, and he was right, it was good to celebrate.

  Our hips flowed through the haze of the dance floor to almost collide, then parted, then approached again, his fingertips briefly, tantalizingly on my bare waist, my back, and I turned and danced into him, hearing him laugh with delight over the noise. He was a good dancer. Not conceited and needing to impress with peacock moves. Confident, assured, his fingers gently steering me, always knowing where I’d go and where I’d be. The crowd hemmed us in a little closer. I leaned in and kissed him.

  His mouth let my tongue duck in, and his was soft, allowing me to explore.

  As our mouths parted, he sent me in a fresh twirl. Minutes passed, and I felt drenched in perspiration, the crowd around us too thick now, the heat of moving limbs almost perceptible in fantasy steam currents, but it was only a haze of smoke. We were pushed together, making me bold and outrageous, and my palm cupped against his crotch. His lips brushed close to my ear. Dancing, dancing … He tugged my hand for us to escape the floor, the same way we had confidently walked out of the film building. I knew exactly what we were going to do, both of us hungry but not wanting to break the spell and say it as we ran upstairs.

  We only needed a hidden spot.

  Up to the third floor, in one of the little side rooms of paintings, he took a handkerchief and unscrewed the bulb so we were in the dark. Then he pounced on me, a half embrace, a half-lifting maneuver to sit me on a table. I heard the band start a fast number, the rapid drums a perfect accompaniment for lust. I was undoing his trousers, and he was pushing up the cups of my top, sucking my tits again in greedy mouthfuls. I thought fuck this and didn’t care anymore, tearing his shirt open, and then he was on display for me, mahogany washboard leading down to tight black curls, and his long brown cock with its angry red dome was already pointing north, insistent. I caught sight of two brown buttocks in a mirror on the opposite wall, and he hardly needed to yank down my shorts, taking my underwear with them—I was helping him.

  We heard packs of men and women circulate through the nearby halls and rooms. Something from these shadows warned them to peek but not enter. I grew aroused beyond all self-control, my mind playing back images of strangers’ apartments in London, my fantasy of stripping naked in front of an audience at home, but here would do, and I undid my top and let it fall, now completely nude for him, my juices flo
wing over the perverse desire to be intruded on, watched. But no one dared come and interrupt, not yet. I had been too caught up in my escape to feel this way with Todd in HMV, but I wanted to live out the fantasy of exposure now. I hadn’t let myself go like this since…Well, since the case in New York. Graham and I kissed in raw urgency, our mouths slurping, tongues playing, our personalities almost gone with basic body hunger, and two meaty hands pulled my legs to slide my ass along the table. We stared into each other’s eyes as he shoved his way into me up to the hilt.

  I made a whimper with the sudden pleasurable fullness of him, so thick, and my hands grabbed his ass to keep him in as his own braced on the table. No, don’t start pumping, not yet, not yet, not yet, teeth sinking into his bottom lip, stay in. Let me savor this. Sucking in his lip as his eyelashes fluttered on my cheek like tiny butterfly wings, and the music, the darkness all conspired to unravel me.

  His cock seemed to ooze out of me in a languorous retreat and then uhh, abruptly, rudely pushed back in. Fingers against his cheek, feeling the tiny hairs on his shaved head as he kissed my neck, my shoulder, one hand still on his ass, squeezing his buttock like a melon. His right hand came up to cup my tit, my nipple between two fingers as he started his rhythm, out so slowly and mmm, yes, back in…Two girls wandered in and stood spellbound for an instant, watching. Yes, go ahead and watch. Graham didn’t notice, and I didn’t look at them, afraid my stare would drive them away. Watch us. Watch us now. My mind flashed an image of Todd and Charlene screwing for a scene back in London, and I knew the secret no one had expressed from the ranks of the crew and staff. How editors, cameramen, script girls all wanted to be that free, how they all secretly wanted to exhibit themselves, and I was even wetter with the girls watching at a distance, I was that free now, here. I played voyeur to myself, too, looking beyond his shoulder to the mirror, delighting in the quiver of his buttocks as he kept thrusting. Graham was pumping me hard, his engine of ass and hips rushing like a locomotive towards an inevitable conclusion, and as he groaned and I heard my own squealing cries of pleasure, the two girls fled as if this was too truthful for them.