The Sexopaths (17 page)

‘They probably tell all their
clients that.’

‘Except she is correct.’
 She links through his arm and squeezes his hand.  ‘It was amazing,
yes?  That girl – she is crazy!’

‘That’s probably because she’s a
junkie.’

‘My darling, not a
junkie
.’

‘Monique, face it – she’s
hooked – you heard what she said.  I bet you she did a line of coke
before she even got out of her taxi.  That’s probably why she’s blown all
her cash and lives with her mum.’

‘You don’t know that, my
darling.  I think she’s sweet.’

He’s touched a nerve; there’s
more than just sympathy in her defence of the girl.  Right now Monique is
still on her cloud, Jasmin-Sharon for company, and she’s not ready to be
separated.  He says:

‘That’s because she’s got the
hots for you.’

Monique giggles, shaking her
head.  ‘My darling, you were the one who
screwed
her. 
Twice!
’

‘Monique… we agreed what would
happen… I was trying to do what I thought you wanted.’

‘But you liked it.  You were
a super-stud.’

‘Well then you were off the
scale.  I think I’ve married a lesbian.’

Monique’s throaty laugh
escapes.  ‘I was just doing the things I thought
you’d
like to
see.’

‘It came pretty naturally to
you.’

‘Didn’t you like it, my darling?’

‘No.  Well… yes.  It
was erotic – obviously – you two looked pretty amazing.  It
was hard to believe it was real.’

‘It was our films brought to
life, just like I said it would be.’

‘Except you won’t convince me
that the pair of you were acting.’

She smiles, fixes him with a
stare, sidesteps his charge.  ‘Did you like the coke?’

Adam winces, puts a finger to his
lips.  ‘Camille…’

‘My darling, I doubt she is
listening, but I think it is okay to use that word in her presence.’

He guesses she’s right, within
reason.  With exaggerated enunciation he says: ‘Coke – okay, so I
prefer it to Pepsi.’

‘See – I said you would
like it!’  There’s a purr of triumph in her voice.

Recalling the sensation he
desires it again.  Not the drug for its own sake (or is he already
cheating on himself there?), but the bucking ride they took in reproductive
union.  But coke and the girl… where does that journey lead?

‘It was pretty mental.’

Monique lifts his hand and places
it between her thighs.  His fingers meet the warm wetness and he feels
himself respond accordingly.  He leans and kisses her on the lips.

‘I love you.’

‘I love you, my darling.’

‘That stuff must have knocked me
out.  I didn’t think it was supposed to do that.  What time did she
leave?’

‘About one-thirty.’

‘So we got two hours extra, plus
complimentary coke.  How come you always get the best deal?’

She laughs and pulls him
close.  ‘You’re my best deal, my darling.’

Blog by Anonymous – 4

OMG!  I
think I’m in lust.  The trouble is she’s happily married – at least
it seems that way.  I’ve just come off the phone from her and my pants are
soaked.  Last night I saw them – this new couple.  The wife had
arranged it as usual, but she sounded cute and she looked good in her photo
– and was she fucking gorgeous?  OMG!!!  FUCK!!! (Sorry, Mr
Webmaster!)  What the husband’s doing messing around God only knows
– but I’ll tell you about that in a minute.  This girl – I
have to see again – and she wants to see me – we’ve agreed to meet
for a drink.  I think she’s blown over by sex with a woman.  I think
she likes me.  I think she likes Charlie.  She did her duty and tried
her best to keep her husband involved, but when he crashed she went absolutely
mental.  Possessed is the word.  It’s not often I come on a
job!  It’s not often I come more than once!  She just wouldn’t let
up.  I wished I’d taken my double dildo – but I shall next
time.  The guy – I knew from Sarah’s.  He didn’t seem to
recognise me – except I could tell when I mentioned Sarah’s name he was
praying the ground would swallow him up!  More fool him – he can
screw Sarah and I’ll screw his missus!  Actually he’s good looking and
pretty much okay – the sort of safe easy punter you wished they were all
like.  I phoned them back last night – I was stoned and pissed and
God knows what – but I don’t think I said anything I shouldn’t have –
at least, the lady in question sounded pleased to hear from me this
morning.  I liked the way she was whispering.  (I’d better not
mention their names – you can easily find them on Google – and then
my blog might get a super injunction!)  Her house is like it’s from one of
those tv home-designers’ programmes, and she’s got these amazing clothes
– she’s got it all really – some great job or other, beautiful
little girl, the perfect couple (?).  I look around where I’m lying right
now…  where did it all go wrong?  I could have been there.  I
was
there.  Now, Sarah – she’s got it made.  Truth is I know where
it all went wrong.  And what can I do about it?  Well… maybe I’ll do
it soon.  Meanwhile?  Live for the present?  That’s what they
say.  Life is too short.  See what the day brings?  I can’t wait
for that drink.  I can’t wait to be with that girl.  I wonder if I
should book an apartment?  Oops! – punter phoning – must go…

‘All is ok?  Am not
hearing from you.  XXX.’

Adam stares at the short
message.  He’s perplexed – he’s thinking it’s from Jasmin-Sharon:
she was top of mind, and the timing is characteristically unsociable.  It
has lured him at half-past midnight to Monique’s unlit study, across the
hallway from his own.  This morning he received an invitation to address
an audience in Shanghai.  He’d finally settled down after dinner
determined to draft before dawn a skeleton for approval by his publisher. 
The requisite online research took him on a journey that led – as all
branches of the digital superhighway seem inexorably to do right now – to
Angels365.  Thus Jasmin-Sharon’s web page graces his laptop.

He holds his breath and
listens.  Has the tiny but potent electronic alert penetrated Monique’s
dreams?  With an early flight to Paris for the AMIE Board meeting, she
left him with a kiss and yawning apologies at ten-fifteen.  But nothing
stirs in the darkened house. 
Not again
, he’d thought, guessing it
to be yet another loop in the thread that, with a spider’s persistence,
Jasmin-Sharon has been spinning around Monique.  To his mild annoyance
– though tempered by his curiosity – Monique has done little to
discourage her.  On Sunday the pair chatted through the entire
fifteen-minute drive to Camille’s swimming lesson, and indeterminately
afterwards, whilst he was delegated the solitary role of poolside supporter.

His eavesdropping has led him to
conclude that much of their dialogue comprises innocuous girly gossip, for
which Monique appears to have an insatiable appetite.  He wonders if this
is a currency she forfeited some years ago, when she shattered work’s
glass-ceiling to land Superwoman-like in a lofty room full of pleasantly
startled senior male advertising executives.  So, while it’s apparent that
Jasmin-Sharon makes the running as far as initiating these contacts is
concerned, Monique seems only too happy to receive them.

Of more practical interest to him
are tales of Jasmin-Sharon’s latest trysts with her clients.  Monique
– equally fascinated, no doubt – is richly rewarded in this regard,
in return for her service as newly found confidante.  The most salient of
revelations, however, is not so much lurid as disquieting: Jasmin-Sharon has
offered to discontinue her ‘other threesome’.  She has told Monique that
she would feel guilty sleeping with this couple.  (Adam wonders if she
really used the word
couple
; he suspects
woman
is more
likely.)  It was not the news he was hoping to hear.

Monique, on the other hand, was
elated – perhaps confirming his suspicions about the accuracy of her
report.  That the girl has become fixated upon her is plain.  As to
why – it could be any combination of love or lust or loneliness, or none
of these.  Lucre, perhaps?  Whichever, it matters little to
him.  What does concern him is the ominous degree to which Monique appears
captivated.

But should he be surprised? 
Fast-tracked overnight into the dark sorority, it’s small wonder she’s
bewitched.  She purrs entranced as she listens to Jasmin-Sharon’s erotic
exploits – vicariously inhabiting her world with a capacity that he finds
both unsettling and arousing.

Since Sunday morning they’ve
skirted around the subject of arranging a repeat performance with
Jasmin-Sharon.  That it’s going to happen seems not to be at issue, much
as he would wish the matter to slip quietly off the billing.  But he
senses that Monique is reluctant to raise the question.  The first time,
she was able to position it as his treat.  That she became the star
attraction perhaps now demands his explicit permission for the encore. 
Even so, surreptitious reading of her text messages has revealed a more
developed agenda than she admits.  Jasmin-Sharon has proposed she bring
along a ‘girlfriend’ – so they can have ‘one each’.  He has to
admit, his pulse raced.  A raft of tempting images floated by –
until the prospect of his wife and Jasmin-Sharon ‘fucking each other silly’
behind
his
closed bedroom door came to mind.

So far as he could see Monique
had not responded – at least not by text.  Perhaps that is what this
new message refers to:

‘All is ok?  Am not
hearing from you.  XXX.’

Slowly at first, then in tandem
with a dawning realisation, unpleasant sensations seem to reach from the
darkness progressively to attack Adam’s vital organs.  A feeling of
sickness grips him, and he’s forced to sink into Monique’s easy-chair. 
The idiosyncratic grammar is not of Jasmin-Sharon’s making, after all. 
There’s no ‘J’ (there’s no name at all) and the texter’s number begins with
+33… the international dialling code for France.

For a few moments he sits, wrestling
with the information.  What kind of dialogue does this fragment
represent?  And from whom?  A European Board member?  Surely not
a guy?  Three kisses?  Of course, it must be Simone?  But in
France it’s past one-thirty a.m.  Why send a business-related text at this
hour?

While his mind procrastinates,
instinct kicks in.  He taps the ‘call’ option.  There’s a delay, then
the ponderous continental monotone sounds from afar.

‘Allo?’

‘Who’s speaking?’

In response to his demand, the
recipient hangs up.  Adam tiptoes about the twilit ground floor, then
calls the number again.  This time the phone has been switched off. He
replays the echo of the French-accented voice: male, thick with wine or tobacco
or sleep, it sounded.  Was it someone, like him, working late?  Just
home from a night out?  Or lying in bed?  Whichever or none of these…
whoever it is is thinking about
his
wife.

The
‘Allo?’
was
questioning, loaded with caution rather than greeting; someone on their
guard?  Yet surely he’d have expected Monique – he’d just sent her a
text, after all.  And then why hang up?  Doesn’t that indicate
something to hide?  Why not simply say ‘Who’s that?’ – if the
exchange were inappropriately timed, but innocently made, then that fact would
quickly have been established and apologies traded.  Instead he switched
of the phone.

Quietly, Adam mounts the stairs
and enters the master bedroom.  Monique’s choice of curtains exceeds
wartime blackout specifications, and he’s obliged to inch his way round the
wall to her side of the bed.  He can hear steady breathing, and tries to
locate its source amidst the flotsam of pillows and crumpled duvet.  But
now what?  She expressly requested not to be disturbed.  Her alarm is
set for five a.m. and there’s a taxi booked for the airport at a quarter past.

‘Monique.’

She moves, but does not respond.

‘Monique.’  He reaches and
shakes her gently.  ‘Monique.’

‘Aha.’  Her subdued response
lacks any note of inquiry.  It sounds more like an acknowledgement from
within a dream, believing it’s just him coming to bed.

‘You’ve had a text.  From
some foreign guy.’

Does he feel an infinitesimal
stiffening beneath his palm?  He says:

‘Monique, what’s going on?’

Now she replies, in barely a
whisper.  ‘Come to bed, my darling.  I need to sleep.’

‘Why is someone texting you in
the middle of the night?’

Her breathing slows, as if her
consciousness ebbs.

Adam persists: ‘Monique?’

She inhales, as if summoning up
the last vestiges of her strength to haul an answer from sleep’s deep
well.  ‘I had to send some data before the Board meeting.  It never
came through in time.  They are probably chasing it.  Come to
bed.  You are waking me.’

He relaxes his grip of her
shoulder.  The explanation seems too specific to have been fashioned in
her drowsy state.  Despite the obvious facts – the timing of the
text and the throaty male voice of its sender – his misgivings are
allayed, for the moment at least.  He rises and tidies the coverlet in an
act of partial contrition.  He whispers:

‘Sorry.  I thought it might
have been important.’

She doesn’t respond, but burrows
deeper into the duvet.  Then there’s a sleepy
‘Mmm,’
perhaps a
delayed agreement.  He undresses and slips in beside her.  Already
her breathing has recovered its slow rhythm.  He edges closer.  She’s
facing away from him, a smooth concoction of cool silk and hot flesh.  He
curls himself against her body and snakes a tentative arm around her
waist.  She doesn’t stir.