7 Years Bad Sex (9 page)

‘I found the catalogue in his bed.’

Casey shook her head, now completely befuddled. ‘What were you doing in his bed?’

Alex sighed and waved his hand in an impatient gesture. ‘Does it really matter? He fell asleep on the sofa and ended up snoring really badly. So I went to sleep in his bed. That’s where I found the catalogue. And then the idea hit me.’

‘What idea?’

‘That we could have some fun with—with some toys.’

Casey examined the objects before her in light of this new information. Pieces clicked into place rapidly, and she erupted in laughter.

‘You bought a truck load of vibrators?’

‘Not just vibrators. There’s all sorts here.’

Casey picked up a pink rubber ball and examined it carefully. It had some kind of rim on one side, and she squeezed it experimentally. ‘What’s this?’

Alex consulted a piece of paper. ‘It’s a nipple sucker.’

‘A nipple sucker?’

‘Yup. You use it to have your nipples sucked.’ Alex took the ball out of her hands and held it against his fully-clothed chest, squeezing it hard all the while. ‘Like so. Only naked, of course.’

Casey laughed so hard that she thought she would pee herself. Alex looked slightly hurt.

‘What’s so funny?’

Casey hiccupped. ‘Do people really use these?’

‘I assure you they do,’ Alex replied. Casey could see him bite his bottom lip, and suddenly his face lit up with mirth. At last, he, too, saw the funny side.

‘This is a bestseller, I’ll have you know,’ he went on. ‘As is this one here.’

He set down the pink nipple sucker and picked up a pair of jingly silver balls.

‘What are they? Earrings?’ Casey giggled.

‘No!’ Alex wiped a tear from his eye. ‘They’re pleasure balls.’

‘They are?’

‘Uh-huh. For those hard-to-reach places.’

‘Ah.
Those!
I see.’ Casey didn’t ‘see’ at all, so she rolled the silver balls experimentally around the palm of her hands. Then insight struck.

‘Oh my
gosh!
’ She had a mental image of how to use the balls, and she began to hyperventilate.

Alex nudged her affectionately. ‘See, you’re already breathing heavily, and you haven’t even tried them yet.’

Casey shook her head. She wasn’t a prude, not by a long shot, and she wasn’t above trying things, but this was too bizarre.

‘I feel incredibly dumb,’ she confessed. ‘I must have led a very sheltered life up to now.’

‘Ah, see, this is only the beginning,’ Alex teased. ‘What do you make of this baby?’ He waved a purple double wand at her.

‘It’s a vibrator, Jim, but not as we know it,’ Casey intoned.

‘You’re right! It’s a rabbit vibrator.’

Casey took a closer look. Sure enough, the smaller wand-like protuberance was shaped like a rabbit, complete with face and standy-uppy ears. Then she caught sight of another unusual-sized pleasure wand. ‘If this one’s a rabbit, is that one a candelabra?’

Alex picked up the three-pronged vibrator, which, bizarrely, was a faint shade of teal. He scrutinised the packaging and read out loud to Casey, adopting a sleazy salesman’s voice: ‘This fine piece of equipment is for double penetration with simultaneous clit stimulation.’

‘You—are—kidding me!’ Casey wasn’t sure whether to feel intrigued or horrified.

Alex held the candelabra wand right side up and made suggestive pushing motions. ‘I kid you not.’

‘I—I don’t know what to say. It looks like an implement for a gynaecological procedure. A torturous one. Of Victorian times.’ Casey snorted with amusement and shook her head at the same time. ‘Honestly, the things people come up with. But what about for you? Did you buy some toys for yourself?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Alex burbled. ‘Take a look at these vibrating nipple massagers…’

He picked up a small lozenge-shaped plastic object and pressed a concealed button. Instantly the toy lit up and started vibrating, jumping up and down on the palm of his hand like a possessed bean.

Casey laughed out loud. ‘Does it… You know, attach?’

‘So I’m told. And look, I’ve got some rings, like this one…’ Alex set down the vibrating massager and picked up a black, diamond-studded rubber ring.

‘That looks painful,’ Casey observed.

‘Oh, but it prolongs the experience. It stops Mr Happy from taking a snooze at an inopportune moment. That’s the theory, at least.’

‘Wow. It looks painful, and it
sounds
painful. Would you really give that a try?’

‘Sure.’

‘Really, truly?’ Casey couldn’t keep the doubt out of her voice. ‘I know we’re a bit desperate, but are we
this
desperate?’

Alex sat up straighter, grasped her hands, and looked deeply into her eyes. ‘This isn’t about making love,’ he said seriously. ‘I only wanted us to have some fun. Whether or not it leads anywhere, I don’t care. I wish we could be at ease with each other again.’

‘Oh. Right. Of course.’ Casey felt inadequate. Kinky though it was, he had obviously put a lot of thought into this. Trouble was, she didn’t know whether she could go along with it. She had actually owned a vibrator in the days before Alex, but it had been a harmless smooth, pink affair that looked more like a hand-held blender than a sex toy. All of this extreme stuff—it wasn’t her. Or maybe it wasn’t
for
her. That thought made her feel even more deficient in the sexiness department. She bit down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying.

Alex’s eyes clouded over with concern. ‘Casey, love, what’s the matter?’

‘I—I’m—I feel so inadequate,’ Casey stuttered. ‘It’s all my fault.’

 

~Alex~

 

Inadequate.
The word registered in his brain and ricocheted around like a loose bullet. So he wasn’t the only one who felt inadequate. Alas, his plan wasn’t exactly going as envisaged. He had obviously overwhelmed Casey. In truth, he was a bit dubious about some of these implements himself. They probably gave a lot of pleasure, but were they really the answer to his and Casey’s problems?

Suddenly his great idea didn’t seem so great anymore. Alex cast around for an escape route, a way out. He didn’t want this evening to turn into a disaster.
Damn him and his stupid thoughts.
He looked with dismay at the assorted wands, balls, eggs, rings, and other accoutrements of joy. And then he had it.

‘When I said, let’s have some fun, I meant
fun
. Not fun-fun. Just real honest fun. A laugh.’ He jumped up with alacrity. ‘First up, we need more booze. Bear with.’

He raced out to the kitchen and returned as quickly as he could with another bottle of red and two fresh glasses. He poured two generous helpings and held his glass up for Casey to clink.

‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’ Casey followed his lead, but she looked confused. Alex didn’t give her time to ask. He put down his glass and swept up all the wands he could carry: single-pronged, two-pronged, three-pronged, and otherwise. With great care, he set up his motley collection of vibrators in a triangle pattern on the floor on the other side of the lounge.

‘What on earth are you doing?’

Alex returned to the table and picked up one of the eggs. He yanked hard to detach its control unit until he had only the egg in his hand. He threw it in the air and caught it again.

‘Bowling,’ he said. ‘You like bowling, right?’

‘Yeah, and?’

‘Let’s roll.’ He threw the egg in the air once more, caught it, and motioned towards his arrangement of upstanding pleasure wands. When Casey still didn’t get it, he lined himself up, took aim, and hurled the egg across the floor such that it hit the target.

‘Score!’

Casey erupted into explosive laughter. ‘You want to play dildo bowling?’

‘You got it.’

Casey laughed harder still. ‘Now
that
I can do. Move over, champ, and prepare to get beaten.’

‘Fighting talk at last,’ Alex chuckled. ‘Come on, show me what you’ve got!’

And he watched as Casey repositioned the wands and executed a confident strike.

‘Ha! Told you! That’s a ten,’ Casey shouted with glee and punched the air. There was a sparkle in her eyes and some colour in her cheeks.

Alex heaved a silent sigh of relief. At least he had managed to turn the evening around. So they weren’t pleasuring each other, but they were having fun. And he intended to string that out as long as he could, even if he had to play the clown. He would do anything to see Casey happy and carefree.

Chapter Seven:

 

Desperate Measures

 

~Casey~

 

Casey leaned back and closed her eyes. She was utterly exhausted after the marathon of the preceding weeks. The kinky toy evening with the dildo bowling seemed to have happened in a different lifetime. Since then, all they had known was work, work, and more work. Blue Heart’s new album was nearly done. Today was the last day of their scheduled block of recording sessions for the new album. After this, they would have to attend ad-hoc sessions when necessary, but notionally, the album was done. Which was just as well as the band members had spent eighteen hours in the studio almost every day.

Somewhere along the line, the record label had set up a promotional gig at the Apollo, and everything needed to be shipshape in a week. A week!

She sighed. She loved fronting a rock band. It was her life’s dream. Really and truly. But right now, she would have given her right arm for a nice, predictable nine-to-five desk job with regular amounts of downtime.

Over the past weeks, some nights they had camped out in the studio in sleeping bags on the sofas. Other nights they had all dragged themselves to their respective homes, stuffed themselves full of convenience food, and fallen into a restless sleep. Recording was always intense, but this album was proving a killer.

The only upside was that she and Alex were too busy to worry about sex. Or they had been, at least. From tomorrow, things would be different again. The band would disperse for a few days to give each other breathing space. Liza couldn’t wait to hole up with her boyfriend, and Myles was planning a boozer in Brighton.

All Casey wanted to do was sleep and rest. She suspected that Alex would want to get romantic, and she wondered how she might get herself off the hook.

Horrified at her own thoughts, Casey shook herself. She sounded like a bored housewife, not like a young and funky married woman. But her confidence had taken such a battering that she couldn’t summon any enthusiasm for amorous activities. She would have to remind herself to be excited if Alex wanted to go there.

In actual fact, perhaps her detachment wasn’t a bad thing. If she could focus on keeping Alex up, coaxing him in, and seeing him through, then they might achieve the breakthrough they needed. And
then
everything might go back to normal.

Casey sat up a little straighter, her heart beating fast. That was it! She didn’t care about her own pleasure or lack thereof, but if she put her energies into satisfying Alex—fully satisfying him in the traditional way—perhaps they could end their cycle of sexual misery.

Next time, I’ll be the total sex goddess,
she promised herself.
I’ll attend to his every need. I’ll move exactly at his speed. I
will
make it happen, even if it kills me.
I’ll writhe and buck; tweak, tease, and suck; ride, shake, and shiver; I’ll kiss, bite, and quiver. Anything and everything, I’ll do it, for however long or short it takes.

She caught Alex staring at her like he was reading her mind, and she winked at him. He winked right back and smiled.

All right, so perhaps he had been reading her mind. Maybe he had plans. Maybe tonight would be the night for action. She would be ready.

 

~Alex~

 

Tonight was the night. He was positive. It had been weeks since they tried, and the break had done them both the world of good. Casey had just winked at him, twice. She hadn’t winked at him in forever.

He noticed Myles nudging Liza, and they sniggered, but he didn’t care. He knew exactly what Myles would be up to this evening, and ditto for Liza, so why should they not think the same about him and Casey? Everybody was demob happy. Only a couple more hours before they would all have a well-deserved break.

Alex put his hand in his trouser pocket and fingered a little sachet of ground ginseng. It had arrived in the post the previous day, and he had barely managed to intercept it before Casey could open the package.

He had ordered it on the Internet after many a sneaky search for solutions to stop himself from laying down on the job. Eventually he had stumbled over testimonials that this particular powder guaranteed miracle strength in the erectile department. Ginseng was supposed to improve blood flow to
down there
. It had better live up to its promise, Alex thought, because the powder had been wildly expensive.

Yet it was harmless stuff, herbal and natural. He figured a little help wouldn’t go amiss, and he was excited that it had arrived with perfect timing for their recording break. ‘Rise and Shine’, the powder was called. It sounded like a wake-up drink, but he didn’t care as long as it made him rise and helped him shine.

He wouldn’t tell Casey, of course. She would go ballistic. He would simply wait for the right moment, down the powder, and hooray!

It looked like his luck might just be in that night. There, Casey was smiling at him
again
with that little suggestive twinkle of hers.

 

~Casey~

 

Her instincts had been spot on. He was definitely going for it tonight, and she was wearing her best seductress head—figuratively speaking—and nothing else. Things were going well. She was attending to his every need, anticipating his desires, pre-empting them even. They were kissing deeply, lying skin against skin, and she was stroking, caressing, probing, tingling, tweaking, bumping, and grinding every which way she knew how. At the same time, she was letting him have free reign over her body, and she was making all the right noises at all the right times.

It wasn’t that she was faking it, exactly. Her own needs weren’t important to her at that moment, but if it heightened Alex’s pleasure to hear her excitement, then noise she would make. Casey was cautiously optimistic.

She was debating the logistics of the actual act in her mind—should she remain on top, perhaps?—when Alex excused himself to go to the bathroom. Casey noted that fact absent-mindedly as somewhat unusual, but of course she didn’t say anything. She reclined and assumed a provocative pose, hoping that Alex would still be on fire when he returned.

And oh gosh, was he on fire. He was more hyped up than she had seen him in a long time. He was hot and ready for action, and his entire body was flushed as with a fever. The soft sheen of perspiration on his forehead suited him somehow. Casey was reminded of a Roman gladiator fresh from the arena, and that thought turned her on even though she hadn’t planned to get involved at that level.

Alex lay down on her, gently but with great determination. He cupped her face in both his hands and kissed her deeply.

‘Ready?’ he whispered into her ear when they came up for air. There wasn’t a hint of doubt or hesitation in his voice, and Casey shivered.

‘Go for it,’ she encouraged.

So Alex lowered himself onto her and into her, hot and delicious inch by hot and delicious inch. Casey couldn’t believe it. She was near ecstatic with joy. He was in! They were doing it. It was working! At last!

 

~Alex~

 

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. Wahey! We have lift off. I can do this… oh, this is so good! So good! Come on, boy, dance, dance!

~Casey~

 

‘Are—you—all—right?’ Casey’s breathless voice jumped with the movements of her body.

Alex muttered something unintelligible. He was enthusiastic, quite possibly a little too enthusiastic, but she wasn’t about to stop him. He was bucking and writhing as if his life depended on it, and Casey tried her best to match him. Only she had the feeling that something wasn’t right. Alex seemed erratic. There was no longer any rhythm to his actions, like he had been thrown off stride by something.

He was pouring with sweat now. Some of it was dripping right on her face, and Casey surreptitiously ran a hand over her forehead to stop the droplets from running into her eyes.

And still he bucked and thrust. Casey breathed deeply and tried to be as floppy as possible to accommodate his movements. He was grunting heavily, and his whole body seemed to tremble.

Suddenly Casey became aware that Alex had gone the most extraordinary shade of red. In fact, his face was puce, bordering on purple. Surely that wasn’t normal?

‘Alex?’ she ventured again, softly still in case it was simply exertion on his part. She really didn’t want to kill his pleasure at this stage.

No reply.

‘Alex, are you all right?’

Stupid question. Almost as useful as ‘are you asleep?’ But what else could she ask? And still no answer.

Alex had his eyes screwed firmly shut, and he didn’t seem to be hearing her. His breathing was ragged and irregular, and his face had assumed an even darker shade of purple-red. He yelled out, and his whole body shuddered with release. Casey could feel it inside her, but she no longer felt triumphant that they had ‘done it’. She was worried, desperately worried. Something was wrong.

A spent Alex collapsed onto her and nearly knocked the breath out of her. She tried to roll him off her body and noticed that despite being flushed and sweaty, his skin was cold and clammy. His eyes remained closed, and his breathing was all over the place.

‘Alex, say something,’ Casey pleaded, but Alex didn’t reply.

For a moment, Casey lay still, trying to gather her thoughts. She listened to Alex’s shallow breathing, and then she panicked. With considerable effort, she began to roll his inert body over to one side. His arousal stood up stark and proud and very red. Casey shuddered. What was going on? Alex had achieved a climax, but by what means?

She tried to take his pulse, but it was so thready and irregular that she soon gave up. Once more, she tried to talk to her husband.

‘Alex? Alex, wake up!’

No reply.

‘Okay, I’m calling 999. Don’t hate me for it, but I’m freaked out.’

Casey wrapped herself into the duvet while she spoke with the emergency operator. She gave all the detail she could and was told to wait for an ambulance. The operator said something else, but Casey was too shocked to listen. She disconnected the call even while the lady was still talking and then flapped around the bedroom in great haste. She needed to get dressed. And what about Alex? Should she try to make him decent? Maybe she could wriggle him into his pyjamas?

She attempted to lift Alex’s upper body to slide on his T-shirt, but she couldn’t budge him. Not knowing what else to do, she covered him with the duvet instead.

Time was running out. The ambulance would be there any second, and now Casey desperately needed a pee. Feeling callous for leaving her husband alone, she nonetheless rushed to the bathroom to do what she must. And there she stopped right in her tracks while she washed her hands. By the side of the sink, a sachet filled with a pale golden powder leaned against the rinse-and-spit cup. The label proclaimed it to be something called ‘Rise and Shine.’ And in smaller lettering it promised: ‘You’ll be hard for hours.’

Casey’s heart flew to her mouth.
The fool! What had he gone and done?
She picked up the sachet and sniffed at the powder. It smelled vaguely of plant, of roots and earth, with a strong acrid undertone. She had no idea what it was, but she didn’t doubt for a second that it had caused Alex’s distress.

The doorbell rang. Still clutching the suspicious sachet in her hand, Casey rushed downstairs to let in the ambulance crew.

‘I’m so glad you’re here,’ she heard herself saying as the paramedics entered the house. ‘I think he took something to stimulate himself—’ She flushed red with embarrassment both for herself and for Alex, who was passed out in the bedroom with a critical part of his anatomy still standing to attention like a dutiful soldier. Casey shook her head to rid her mind of unbidden and wholly inappropriate associations. She had to rally, embarrassment or not. Alex needed help, and he needed it fast

‘He must have taken this stuff.’ She proffered the sachet. ‘He went red and purple, and he started to sweat heavily, but he was really cold to the touch, and now he’s passed out, and I’m frightened.’