The Sexopaths (4 page)

‘Thank you for coming.’  The
trademark giggle.

She rises and heads out of the
room; dazed, he follows her unprotesting to the exit…

***

He’s starting on his second bacon
roll before he properly registers that they’ve been placed before him. 
Vaguely, he reproves himself for daydreaming through their delivery.  (Was
it the same waitress?  Did he even say thank you?  He must hand her
the tip when he leaves.)  But he can’t shake off the tenacious
preoccupation for long.  The rekindled episode has leaked adrenaline and
fired his pulse: he discovers his sore head is not yet cured; a reggae-beat
probes the tender inflammation.  He wonders, exactly who did what to
him?  To whom did he do what?  (No, the former is more
accurate.)  He was a life-sized real live sex toy, little more than
that.  Like a male stripper he was temptation and risk and reward all
wrapped up – literally and safely so.  They both – but
presumably for ‘the client’ Ms Y’s benefit – could use and abuse him
without fear of him subverting their agenda, of cajoling them towards his own
ends, overpowering, raping.  Such tables had been turned.  And what
else?  He’d assumed that ‘meeting all the important requirements’ referred
to physical attributes (optimistically, even, that Xara considered him to be
well-endowed, an ego-boosting accolade indeed from someone in her line of
work).  But maybe it’s because he’s a safe bet?  If Ms Y requires
complete anonymity, was he chosen because he’s judged unlikely to break the
bonds of confidence?  Does Xara
know
his identity – after
all, it’s something he’s never taken any particular steps to hide?  He’d
not seen the need for a pseudonym, and any caller will hear his full name on
his voicemail greeting.  From there Google’s spiders would snare him in a
pica-second: publishers and conference organisers inadvertently have him
plastered him all over the internet.  And she’d know that he’d know
this.  Discretion is thus ensured.

But on this score he senses a
mutual trust, a pact of silence.  From the very first there’s been
something in their exchanges, unspoken, an understanding that tells each their
respective confidences are secure.  Never once has she asked him a single
remotely intrusive question; instead with ballerina-like aplomb she tiptoes
along the rippling shoreline of their conversation, teasingly inviting him to
flood her with whatever information he wishes to impart, yet never chasing down
into his private waters each time he retreats to inviolable depths.  The
same decorum she implicitly expects from him, and has seemingly felt no need to
remind him of such demands since she first explained yesterday’s ‘assignment’.

This thought however reminds him
of the ostensibly contractual, though contradictory, nature of yesterday’s
events: her purring eulogy offset by his somewhat abrupt ejection from her
premises.  Should he just take matters at face value, or ought he be
thinking laterally?  Is he silly to worry that his identity might be part
of the explanation?  What if she’d randomly tried a number of guys and he
was the first one to respond in the affirmative?  (But would
anyone
on her ‘books’ decline such an offer?)  Yet… Ms Y – why did she not
make the least intelligible utterance?  Could it be that he would have
recognised her voice?  Was it she that chose him, via Xara?  The zany
thought that it might have been Monique lap-dances tantalisingly across his
mind. 
Would he really have known her, if it were?
 Actually…
he’s not sure.  But it’s impossible.  She’d surely kill him on the
spot for his compliance.  So what, then?  Was it some kind of
deception?  What if they were filming?  Could ‘the client’ have been
a story cooked up to lure him along, the whole thing choreographed?  It
had
felt
choreographed.  Would he have noticed a video camera
– a cameraman, even?
  What if it’s blackmail?  What if a
guy had performed the encore!

This last notion jolts him from
his erratic deliberations.  He chokes back an ejaculation expressing his
horror.  He shakes his head.  Takes stock.  So what should he
do?  Text her?  Phone her?  Email her? – according to the
Angels365 website she has an online diary.  Make a ‘normal’
appointment?  Or just do nothing?  Forget about the whole
thing?  He looks again at Xara’s acknowledgement; as he does so, another
message arrives.  It’s Monique.

‘R U OK?  NN TONITE
;) X
’

He translates… NN for nice night.

He texts:

‘Look forward to it. A. X.’

Blog by Anonymous - 1

OMG!!!  Just had to give the night
security guy at the Caley Club a freebie blow-job.  I did a runner from a
punter’s room and the guard stopped me when I came out of the lift into the
foyer.  He said I was caught on CCTV half-naked in the corridor, but that
he’d scrub the tape if I did him a favour.  He took me into the
left-luggage room and started feeling me up.  He asked if I’d got any gear
and wanted to search my handbag.  But I said I’d scream the place down and
unzipped him and started rubbing his dick.  He smelt of piss but I just
wanted to get out of there so I did it quick without a condom.  OMG I even
swallowed it.  I nearly puked.
  I
couldn’t get a mouthful of mints fast enough once I was outside.  I’d got
his pants and trousers round his ankles so he couldn’t follow me, but he was
half-collapsed against a pile of suitcases, anyway.  The main doors were
locked but I pushed out through a fire door and the alarm went mental! 
Still, I shan’t be doing any more outcalls there.  I ran barefoot at least
3 blocks before I saw a taxi – and he was a slimy mini-cab who wanted it
too.  Talk about out of the frying pan and into the fire and then back
into the frying pan!  I got straight on the phone to Sarah and thankfully
she answered and that put him off.  She wasn’t happy – though I
could tell she kind of understood since it was a matter of safety.  Right
now it says 3.23am on my laptop and I’m sober as a judge!  A bit shaky,
though.  I might get a voddy before I go to bed.  I’m at mum’s. 
She hasn’t suspected anything.  But she asked me why do I have to work in
a nightclub – why can’t I just get a job in a normal bar where they
finish at eleven?  Or even a supermarket like her?  It crossed my
mind today (yesterday, I mean) when I went over to get some Durex and
baby-wipes in the Co-op.  I saw a punter, shopping.  He didn’t
recognise me – but sooner or later it’s bound to happen.  And then
what?  If mum found out she’d throw me down all 10 floors and I’d have to
go crawling back to Sarah as some kind of slave.  She’d probably like
that.  As if she hasn’t already got me where she wants.  But…
stacking shelves… working on the till?  I doubt I’d resist the cash
– what with things being the way they are.  And I bet I can make in
one job what those shelf-stackers earn in a fortnight.  Imagine
that.  How do you ever go back?  I did okay tonight – only one
punter but he paid for 4 hours and some Charlie, and I’ve just counted another
250 I got from his wallet when he was asleep.  He won’t report it. 
If he even notices.  Anyway, he got his money’s worth (O and A and every
other letter of the alphabet – OMG!!!).  I made sure I found out he
was married before he passed out.  And I took all his business cards, so
he’ll know I’ve got them and that I know for certain who he is.  I doubt
he’d want his wife to find out he snorts coke while he fucks tarts in the
ass.  Damn near used up all the stuff Sarah gave me.  I’ll have to
ring her again in the morning (I mean
this
morning) – never know
what the day or night might bring.  Maybe she’ll even
want
to see
me.  Go out for a coffee?  Stay in for something?  I tried to
remind her yesterday what she was missing.  And she seemed alright about
it.  About something, anyway.  Like the cat had got the cream, I
could see it in her eyes.  Was that I?  She wasn’t letting on –
it wouldn’t be her style.  Anyway, she still cut me a good deal, and I
made money on it.  Maybe I’ll just try a tiny touch of what’s left.

Adam stares at his mobile,
blinks, stares.  It’s real, sure enough: the text he’s both desired and
dreaded in roughly equal measure
has touched down
through two thousand miles of azure cyberspace, just as he contemplates a
complementary (and indeed complimentary) electric-blue cocktail.  In fact,
almost everything he can see is blue: the pool, rippling in the cooling breeze,
telltale spindrift where its false infinity merges into the shimmering sapphire
of the sea; the sunbeds with their neatly laid cobalt mats and matching towels;
the sky, a great indigo crystal dome that preserves the Aegean’s fragile
beauty.  Anything which isn’t blue is white: small stretched clouds
tracking east, low above the distant horizon, and beneath, scattered white
horses, migrating herd-like, relentlessly, in the same wind-driven direction;
nearby, encircling him, the uneven whitewashed walls; billowing arabesque shades
around the hotel bar; a freshly painted white pole topped by a fluttering Greek
flag, its lines and colours brought to life in abstract all about, a nation’s
essence captured upon a few square feet of proudly beating canvas. 
Camille, in contrast, frolics, a splash of fluorescent pink, in the shallows
with a couple of brown-skinned Greek kids she’s befriended from among the other
guests.  Adam puts down his phone, too hurriedly, and instinctively
glances across at where Monique and her new colleagues are having their
meeting.  Incongruously, it seems, they’re locked away in stifling
conspiracy behind mirrored screens of glass; all that is visible is more blue
and white in reflection, such vital surroundings not admitted.

Despite her group’s proximity, a
mere twenty yards away, he feels excluded by this one-way barrier.  A
little earlier they’d broken out for coffee and cigarettes and spilled
chattering onto the terrace outside the meeting room.  Monique had made
eye-contact with him, listening attentively as she was to Simone, the
Secretary, and had then stayed conversing brightly amidst the group. 
After maybe ten minutes, she’d broken away and floated gracefully over,
balancing a filled cup of coffee for him and a glass of iced orange for
Camille.  He’d noticed she attracted some trailing glances: her flimsy
white silky dress moulded against her breasts and thighs by playful zephyrs,
caressing her curves with customary Greek cheek (apparently she’d been
propositioned by the taxi driver when they arrived, while she was settling the
bill and he shepherding Camille and their cases into the hotel foyer).  As
she’d bent to place the drinks on his little table he’d reached a hand behind
her neck and drawn her to him for a light but ostentatious kiss.  She
hadn’t resisted but he wondered if she would have initiated the act in sight of
the others, or even if she had been a little irked by his proprietorial
gesture.  Though she hadn’t indicated any dissent, she’d slipped his
embrace and headed for where Camille was playing at the far end of the pool,
and had knelt down to speak with her.  One of the guys from the meeting
– Ignacio the Spanish representative, with whom he’d briefly exchanged
small-talk the previous evening – was already making animated
conversation with Camille.  Adam heard Monique introduce him and tell
Camille that he also had a little girl her age.  After a couple of minutes
more it was time for the meeting to resume; the main corpus had snaked its way
into the narrow entrance created by one of the sliding windows; Monique and the
Spaniard made their apologies and detached themselves from a protesting
Camille, promising to swim with her later.  From across the pool Monique
called to Adam that she’d see them at lunchtime, that they could join the group
for a buffet with all the other partners.  She’d mouthed ‘Love you’. 
Adam had forced a smile and signed a laterally inverted ‘L’ with his right
thumb and index finger.

Ordinarily he would soak up
half-speed poolside days, when time is marked only by the sun’s seemingly
unwilling and imperceptible progress towards mañana; but thus far this morning
he’d rather wished Helios would materialise and whip his charge
westwards.  The remaining hours now stretch unappealingly ahead, a parched
path littered with unaccountable anxieties.  He’d woken with a feeling of
uneasiness; the lack of distractions and the unaccustomed role of WAG had done
little to mitigate this faint but persistent sickness in the pit of his
stomach.  Then came the realisation that he’d rarely if ever seen Monique
from such a fly-on-the-wall perspective: at work, independent, in company of
others – males; now listening with a wide-eyed devotion, now holding
court, charming, joking, endearingly the new girl, unwittingly yet unashamedly
flirting.  He’d felt like a prisoner, peering between bars, helpless to
intervene and assert ownership, the manacle of managing Camille emphasising his
confinement.  Under normal circumstances he’d enjoy her company, but today
her presence frustrates him – a snooze in the sun would pass the time,
but since she has not yet fully mastered swimming, he is required to be on
permanent if relatively relaxed lifeguard duty.

‘Daddy!’  He watches as she
clambers out of the pool and pitter-patters towards him on dripping tiptoes,
her brows knitted thoughtfully.  He resists the urge to open the text,
knowing he needs uninterrupted privacy of thought; he hopes she’s not going to
ask him to come into the water.

‘Daddy, is that lady a gypsy?’

‘Which lady?

‘There, that fat one.’  She points
extravagantly at an apparently (and thankfully) slumbering female of uncertain
origins, beached disconcertingly close by, swimsuit stretched seal-like, still
gorged on a breakfast shoal of oily sprats, pale skin slick with suncream.