The Sexopaths (22 page)

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 qualify.’

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: