The Sexopaths (29 page)

‘In what way?’

‘Well… I’d have thought… isn’t
what guys want… more of a
Bad Girl
Experience?’

Her eyes sparkle and her smile
takes on devilish curves.  ‘I think we know who we’re talking about, here
– my dear
Adam
.’

A thrill – or is it a
chill? (it’s hard to tell) – delineates his spine from the rest of his
whole.  She must have used his name before (although suddenly he’s not
even sure of that), but something in her tone has reached deep into the viscera
of his subconscious and awoken a dormant urge, a profound desire to embrace and
hold her, protect her, thank her, repay her on behalf of his gender for her
unasked ministrations beyond the call of duty.  For a moment or two he is
unable to speak, while for her part she gazes patiently, tilting her head
questioningly.  He summons up a reply:

‘But… isn’t it true?  I mean
– take the websites for your…
profession
.  I don’t see
girlfriends.  I see alluring females, scantily clad, who promise wild sex
and anonymity.  Surely that’s bad-girl not girl-friend?’

Xara nods gently, still watching
him.  She takes another sip, more modest this time.  She says,
quietly:

‘People look into an estate
agent’s window… they buy what they see on the outside, but spend all their time
on the inside, where it’s… comfy, reliable.  Sometimes they never look at
the outside again.  The paintwork can peel and nobody will notice.’

It’s an insightful analogy, Adam
has to admit.  ‘So – for most guys – you think they really
want the comfy interior?’

‘Comfy need not equal boring.’

‘Something tells me you don’t do
boring.’

She inclines her head a fraction
to acknowledge the compliment.  She says:

‘It’s horses for courses.’

‘This feels a bit like a mad
gallop.’

‘Well, at least you’re built for
it.’

‘I can’t think what you
mean.’  He’d love to ask her to elaborate.

‘It must be the champagne.’ 
She slides her glass towards him for a refill.  ‘I shouldn’t have too
much.’

He responds to her action rather
than her words and obliges with the bottle, then fills his own glass.  He
wonders how far she’ll allow him to pry – it’s a tantalising prospect, a
tour of her private gated community, a window upon a little world where
time-shared residences are populated by the intriguingly pseudonymous authors
of field reports penned about this enigmatic woman – and how much light
it will cast upon his own predicament.  He says:

‘You do seem to have some very
loyal customers.’

‘Every business needs its
regulars.’

‘I think yours are more of a fan
club.’

‘Maybe I should start making
movies.’  There’s a knowing smile.

Adam feels a tremor of
apprehension at this particular suggestion.  He hopes it’s not a hint of
what is to come.  He says:

‘Reading your reviews on the
website – it’s like some of the guys, two or three of them in particular,
are in competition.  Almost… for you to belong to them – if you
don’t mind me putting it like that.’  (She shakes her head.)  ‘Who’s
seen you the most.  Who saw you last.  Who had a better time with
you.  As soon as one’s submitted a report, another can’t get his in fast
enough.’

‘I can’t do much about that.’

He senses he’s pushing towards
the limits of her permission.  ‘Do you read them?  Do you know who
writes them?’

‘Of course.  Both.’

‘And how do you feel?’

‘I don’t mind.  So long as
they’re not offensive or untrue.  I prefer them not to be graphic in their
detail.’

Adam thinks she probably gets her
way in this regard, and no doubt expresses her displeasure in the event a
punter transgresses her unwritten rules.  Of all the girls on the
Angels365 website, she has by far the most reviews – more than two
hundred dating back over eight years, certain authors having time-travelled in
tandem – and rarely do any of the entries describe bedroom scenes in
anything other than a narrow range of tacitly approved platitudes. 
“
I'm not really going to say what else happened that night but what I
will say is that I left the next morning with a huge smile on my face.”

Yet more striking to Adam is the
subtle competition he has described, with one of the suitors even freely
admitting – in a tone of happy naivety – to over fifty proposals of
marriage, as if through this schoolboy technique there will begin to be some
diminution in her resistance.  Adam finds it extraordinary that her
followers can confess their fawning ardour in so public a forum, when they so
patently pursue her as a posse.  Moreover, these self-styled caballeros
seem not to recognise that they ride a merry-go-round, their steeds fixed and
undeviating, never seriously threatening to close upon their quarry.  She
stands by, holding to ransom their emotions, plundering their pockets, as they
labour under their revolving misapprehensions of favouritism.  He wonders,
would he sign up to such a circle – if he were single or in search of the
comfort she describes – apply the blinkers, convince himself he were the
only jockey?  He asks:

‘It’s quite touching how people
feel about you – and I can completely understand why – but how do
you reconcile having a bunch of guys, all pretty much besotted, and each
thinking they’re the special one?’

For a second now he thinks he’s
stepped out of bounds: her eyes darken and he senses an unwelcome shadow has
crossed her thoughts.  But it’s a transient cloud – she brightens
and, as if aware she might have disconcerted him, she smiles and reaches to
touch his hand.  In an almost girly conspiratorial fashion she says:

‘It’s not so difficult. 
It’s a job, after all.  I can only be so much for somebody – after
that it’s up to them what they want to believe.  I don’t pretend to a
relationship that doesn’t exist.  I think they know that, really. 
Don’t you?’

He’s unsure whether she’s asking
for corroboration or confirmation.  But before he can oblige with either a
question has escaped his own lips:

‘Do you have a boyfriend… a
partner?’

He can’t believe he has
asked.  He’s certain the last thing
he
wants to discuss is his own
personal circumstances – and anyway if they reached that topic, surely
she would just expect him to lie – so he doesn’t imagine for a moment she
will reciprocate.  Yet his inquiry, taboo or otherwise, suddenly feels so
pertinent, and not to feed his curiosity, but to sate a need to strike an
understanding of her being.  If what Jasmin-Sharon has told him is
correct, then he can expect the answer is no.  He
wants
the answer
no.  And he wants to ask its corollary – does she
want
a boyfriend? 
Does she want someone to love her?  To
make love
to her?

‘It’s not possible.’  She
seems unfazed.

‘But, you…’

‘… would if I could?’

‘Well… you’re… you strike me as
a…
an
affectionate kind of person.’  He’s not sure if either of
them believe this.

‘I was married once – very
young.  Too young.  It drew me to the conclusion that I was probably
better on my own.  It made me very resilient.’

‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out.’

‘I think things have worked out
okay.’

‘Sorry – I didn’t mean…’

‘It’s okay.  I’m a tough
nut.’

Adam’s fingers are brushing the
soft flesh of her arm, feeling the invisible nap of fine hairs.  He says:

‘No.  You’re more like a
peach.’

She seems to like the simile, and
smiles approvingly.  ‘Don’t bite me too deeply then.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘There’s also something you’re
forgetting.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Well – you obviously read
the reviews on the website.’

Abashed Adam nods, although it’s
a statement, uncomfortable with the impression that he’s perpetually online,
patrolling the labyrinth.  She continues:

‘The chaps you’re talking about,’
(he realises that, unlike other working girls, she’s never used the word punter
in conversation with him) ‘they visit and review other girls, too… so it’s not
as if the responsibility for their happiness rests on my shoulders alone.’

‘But… you do seem to offer
something extra… these guys, they all come across as – kind of…
tortured
… 
captives… if you don’t mind me saying so.’

‘It’s certainty.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘
Certainty
– not
imprisonment.  A little world, a safe-room of your own – you can
enter it when you decide, you know I’ll be here, dedicated to you, faithful to
you… until next time.  You have certainty in your life.  Guaranteed.’

He notes her sudden switch into
the second person, as though she’s selling the idea to him… or describing his
drive, unearthing from the deep mine of his psyche the gemstone that is the
cause of his presence, shining upon it a beam of insightfulness.  He shies
away from this notion and says, in an admiring tone:

‘Well… whatever it is, you
certainly are the
uber-girlfriend
.’

Again she demures, sips to
deflect the compliment.  She places her glass down, almost empty. 
Adam tops it up obediently.  Still he has the feeling that they’re dodging
thunderheads, flitting hand in hand from one patch of sunshine to another,
keeping alive their mainly bright and breezy free and easy conversation. 
Still he awaits a soaking, a lightning strike, a thunderous revelation. 
And still he dares invite a cloudburst:

‘Why do you think that is –
apart from your being pretty gorgeous, I mean?’

Her reply is both elementary and
profound:

‘Kissing on the mouth.  Oral
without a condom.  Anal.  That kind of thing.’

‘Right.’  It’s like she’s let
go of pretence and decorum, and turned to face him with a truth, Bo Peep
pointing out to Boy Blue that they are alone in the corn and she wears no
knickers.  He grins inanely, forced to concede his universal male
frailties.  ‘There is that, of course.’

Xara pushes back her stool and
slips to the ground with a soft click of her heels.  She says:

‘I was going to take a
shower.  Would you like to help?’

***

Should we do that?’  Adam
half-rises, pushing himself up from the bed on one elbow.

‘Relax – it’s fine.’

She places a warm hand on his
shoulder, exerting a gentle pressure that succeeds in repelling his protest,
physically at least.

‘But…’

‘Shh… you can’t make me pregnant
today.’

It isn’t the specific concern he
has in mind, but he yields nevertheless.  So urgently has she made the
running, so breathlessly has she driven their approach to congress,
uninterrupted by formalities, that he feels ill-mannered even in raising the
question.  His next words are expletives and – he notes with a
curiously detached awareness – so too are hers, melded into a furious
coupling of spinning weightlessness, hyperventilation, near blackout (perhaps
actual), then rapid descent into stillness, part-consciousness punctuated only
by the girl’s breathing, gasps only slowly receding, then cognisance again,
disclosure: such need for oxygen, she really must have come.  Fingers
touch his lips, trigger inhalation, release lungs paralysed since climax, a
timely release from imminent yet delicious suffocation.  Seconds tick and
his respiration falls into time with hers, off beat and accommodating, moist
bellies sharing in turn the available space between them.  He won’t open
his eyes.  He could have killed her, the delicate throat smooth, his grip
invited, the delicious pressure encouraged, the arousal mutual, his predicament
solved, yet renewed.

‘Turn over, please.’

She slips away so he can comply,
then she reaches to tug open a drawer and extract a bottle of orange-tinted
massage oil, naturally knowing its position in the half-light.  The
familiar aroma reaches him as she begins to smooth it up along the ridges of
his shoulder blades, her own grip now lingering as if tempted to choke him in
his helplessness.  Lower, her weight is warm, a slippery suction each time
she lifts.  Heavy with sexual aftershock he wants to surrender all but a
trace of wakefulness to her touch, especially now as she flattens herself
against him with a sinuous sliding contact that has neither beginning nor
end.  But the certain knowledge of unprotected penetration worms
insidiously amidst the roots of his consciousness, a larval anxiety that feeds
upon his propriety, gorging, fattening for pupation.  And it’s not for the
first time: the threesome where he was bound and used (did they employ a
condom? – he’s not sure); the staged rape – there was no doubt (and
no condom); even Jasmin-Sharon’s initial probity was later surrendered when
things went a little crazy.

There is one saving grace –
this he has already calculated – if some unwelcome rash or worse were to
erupt, then Jasmin-Sharon will be his
Typhoid Mary
.  He shared the
girl – and thus potentially her flora – with Monique’s consent, so
he is immune from censure, at least.  Many escorts write on their websites
about best practice, as if it’s a positive selling feature for most potential
buyers.  When transient soreness has visited him for a day or two, he has
sought solace in such knowledge, friction to date proving the probable
explanation.   Yet now he has experienced a deliberate flouting of
these rules, and by more than one practitioner.  In Jasmin-Sharon’s case
it perhaps should come as no great surprise, her will malleable, vulnerable to
outside influence, chemical, emotional,
financial
– indeed don’t
some men gladly pay extra to spill their seed unhindered, for which some girls
gladly oblige?  But from Xara, terrible Queen of Hearts, for such largesse
to be among her repertoire of alms, dispensed to a minion like he, it’s an act
that surely requires explanation?  Can he be alone in this regard –
what of her longstanding suitors?  Might they all be linked by an
invisible chain of viral heredity blissfully imparted upon them through acts of
illusory love?  Vengeance wreaked upon mankind.  She wouldn’t do
that, would she?