The Sexopaths (23 page)

‘I guess it is normal for men to
see escorts for things that their wives won’t do?’

‘Aha.’

‘Or maybe they just fight –
don’t like each another?’

‘That also.’

‘Or maybe they are alone. 
So… not enough sex.’

‘For you, honey… when was the
last time?’

Adam realises he doesn’t want to
answer this question. The day had begun with exquisite lovemaking, unprompted
and undemanding of reciprocation.  Then came Monique’s call to say she’d
remembered the client night-out.  Like an unwelcome wind-devil it had
seized upon his brain’s out-tray of painstakingly filed misgivings and strewn
the pile to all corners.  At the centre of this storm, he’d instinctively
sought refuge: and while Xara of course did not answer her phone, there were
Angels aplenty waiting in the wings.  It had taken just a few clicks to
tread the corridors of the labyrinthine website, its honeycomb of chambers home
to receptive queens, some resident, some ‘on tour’.

Then there was the phone
call.  The sweat dripping from his armpits.  The burr of the ring
tone.  Adrenaline pumping.  Pulse rising.  Fight or flight in an
uneasy truce.  Hold on?  Hang up?  Then a girl’s voice. 
Too late.  It’s done.

A fresh wave of combative
hormones had unbalanced him as he reconnoitred the tenement.  Glancing
upwards, the sloping pavement seemed to shift beneath his soles – he
wasn’t sure if it were sudden vertigo or the realisation that Monique’s office
window was within easy bowing range, should a vengeful Cupid be perched
watchfully on the sill.  He’d registered the possibility when he noted the
address, but responsibility was diminished by dopamine.

Now there was the real
possibility of being spotted.  Or what if she happened to slip out for a
latte and cross in his direction?  The girl had taken an age to answer the
intercom.  He’d yanked the hood of his sweatshirt out of his jacket and
covered his head, hating the whole thing and holding the light fabric in place
against the belligerent October easterly.  Finally a disembodied
‘Top
floor, number eight’
had penetrated the growl of the traffic, admitting him
with a prolonged buzz of the electromagnetic lock-release that followed him up
to the first landing, announcing his guilt like the giant’s Jack-napped golden
harp.

As he turned the corner he’d
almost crashed into a young cleaning woman restraining an unruly vacuum. 
Attractively proportioned, and smartly kitted out in the kind of one-piece
tunic that promised only underwear beneath, she’d mumbled a foreign-sounding
‘Hello’
. 
He’d offered to carry the offending device but she’d explained
‘I clean
here,’
quickly averting her eyes beneath his speculative gaze.  She’d
stooped to gather the cable, a hungry little gape in her uniform revealing a
well-proportioned cleavage.  Momentarily he’d been spurred on, but as he
exchanged her perfumed space for the darkening musty stair, he felt a
suffocating urge to halt, to turn, to escape.  Not exactly cold feet, he
reflects, more like early-onset cold turkey.

Indeed, he’d known full well what
crushing anticlimax lay ahead; what little hope there was of satisfying needs
he barely understood.  It was a juncture at which he’d happily slide the
cash under the door and silently depart.  But he was duly contracted by an
irrational obligation to complete the deal, to play his part in the depressing
and familiar scenario.  The uncomfortable initial hiatus, the hairdresser
chat, ideally a shower if the girl offers or requires it – a godsend
despite the often tawdry facilities, a means of both running down the clock and
of providing smooth passage from dressed to undressed, otherwise a degrading
sixty seconds of clumsiness, critically observed.

On Victoria’s part, Adam is
forced to admit that at least she’s showing some initiative.  Her
persistent tongue, rasping like a cat’s, is making small but persuasive inroads
into his resistance.  She seems, by dint of his silence, to be treating
her last question as rhetorical.  He picks up the loose end:

‘Does the cleaner count?’

‘Mmm?’

‘The cleaning lady. 
Sex.  On the way up in the stair.’

‘I do not believe you.’  She
breaks off to make this statement.

‘It crossed my mind.  A
fantasy.’  He tries to lace the comment with irony, but it seems to go
undetected.

‘Some men jerk off outside the
door before they knock – it settles them down.’

‘Right.’

‘Others – they can come only
one time.’

He wonders if there’s an inquiry
buried beneath this observation, but he doesn’t respond with an indication of
his own predilection.  As if his silence has given her licence to
investigate further, she lifts off him and says:

‘Please to turn over, honey.’

Adam complies.  She’d been
robed when he lay face down, and now the sight of her in all her glory demands
that instinct kicks in.  The near-perfect appearance, the long jet-black
hair, the oiled breasts glistening in the candlelight of the heavily curtained
bedroom, the tiny shiny briefs barely covering what presses from beneath, the
matching ebony wet-look hold-ups and stilettos.  She says:

‘Do you want anal?  Is all
in the price.  With condom – I only do oral without.’

It’s such a matter-of-fact shot
from the hip that Adam can’t answer.  A ricochet of indignity catches him
unawares and impairs his capacity to know his true feelings.  He says:

‘I’m quite impressed by your
tongue right now.’

She smiles faintly and bends to
adopt the implied procedure, ensuring a temporary break in the dialogue. 
After a couple of minutes she breaks off and draws herself up beside him,
working him steadily with one hand.  She leans across and presses her lips
upon his.  There’s a taste that can only be his own and he has to fight
the impulse to recoil.  She seems to sense his reluctance and breaks off,
though keeping very close she whispers, now throatily:

‘So… what you enjoy to do with
your wife?’

Adam isn’t sure he wants to tell
her, but feels a duty to answer.  He says:

‘You know – massage, that
kind of thing.’

‘What like?’

‘Well – I use massage oil…
slowly… all over… and eventually make her come.’

The girl starts kissing his neck
and face, lower down her grip tightening.  She says:

‘She like you to tie her?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘And blindfold?’

‘Yes.’

‘Who you think she imagine?’

‘I daren’t ask.’

‘And you – what you like?’

‘I like… the same.’

‘Done to you?  Tied?’

‘Aha.’

‘And who do you imagine?’

He can’t answer this immediately,
and before he can offer the diplomatic suggestion
‘From now on –
Victoria’
she fastens onto his mouth again.  Her slippery body squirms
against his and she increases the tempo of her hand-speed.  He realises
he’s being carried with her will and yields, opening his mouth to the urgency
of her hard, flicking tongue, swallowing her surely affected moans of pleasure
as if they were gulps of warm liquid.  Indeed, he drowns, passing into an
unmeasured period of suspension.  When the
petit-mort
subsides and
he bobs back to the surface of proper consciousness, the girl is mopping his
salty torso with tissues.

She returns from the bathroom
seemingly unfazed by her toplessness; to his effectively post-coital eye her
breasts have lost their allure, assuming asexual proportions like those
belonging to tribal women in tv documentaries.  Seeing him in the act of
dressing she raises an eyebrow, then casts about for the gown she’d discarded
not many minutes earlier.  Once is enough?

But he’s impatient to
leave.  The predicted claustrophobic discomfort is setting in like cramp
in his muscles.  His phone is sure to ring any second, and he has no
legitimate reason to be unobtainable.

Meanwhile she takes a cigarette
from a packet on the dresser and, lighting it, settles upon the bed. 
After the first deep draught she offers it to him.

‘No thanks, I… oh… okay, thanks.’

He wonders what he’s doing and
why he relents, but the nicotine works its speedy magic.  Nevertheless he
sits tentatively beside her.  Moments earlier she’d toyed with his naked
body, and hers was freely available to him; now he feels like he’s checked out,
no longer a guest who can access all areas.

As though reading his mind, she
edges closer so they are touching. ‘Your time not finish.’

He chokes a little on the cigarette.

‘You no smoke?’

Adam shakes his head, squinting
through the dizziness and acrid smoke.

‘Sometimes.’

‘Is no harm.  Relax.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You come back?  Now you
have my number.’

‘Of course – you were very
good.’  He wonders if the promise conveys a hollow ring – but he
guesses she’ll be hardened to that.

‘Some guys they like to see
different girl every time.  Is more exciting.’

Adam can’t tell if she’s just
making an observation for conversation’s sake, or if the statement is really a
question, an obtuse attempt to get at his – and therefore others’ –
motives for perhaps not returning.

‘Well – maybe.  But
with different girl it may not be nice.  Is risk.’

He wonders why he’s lapsed into
her idiom; she can probably understand him perfectly well if he just speaks
normally.  He reverts:

‘I thought most girls’ business
comes from regulars?’

‘Regulars – they come and
go.’  She sends an expanding cone of smoke skywards.

‘How long have you been…
working?’

This time she’s happier to
elaborate.  She says:

‘Few year.  I was in bad
relationship.  He cheat on me many times.  I decide to leave him.’

Adam nods thoughtfully, though
wondering why she would admit any credence to his sympathy.  He says:

‘That was here – in the
UK?’

‘No – I from Zagreb.’

‘Did you…
work
… in Zagreb?’

She inhales and shakes her
head.  ‘All family live there.’

Adam nods again.  He says:

‘Croatia.’

She gives him a look of surprise,
as if it’s rare for punters to know this.  He says:

‘I have been there.  To
speak at a conference – at the Esplanade.  It is a beautiful
city.  Brave people.’

‘Thank you.’

‘And you have not met anyone
since?’

She shakes her head a little
sadly.  ‘I always hope.  We do not know what waits for us.  I
want one day to settle down – have children like my sister – with
good man – like you.’

He ponders for a moment,
intrigued by her shelving of their double-standards.  While he’s thinking,
she says, as if by way of explanation:

‘Some girls – they do this
to find man.  I know girls – they have marry client.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes – sure.  They say
they like man – but first they like money.  Is good way to find man
with money and man who want girl.’

Adam can’t help musing that it
would liven up a dinner party:
‘And how did you two meet?’
  Or
maybe shock it into silence.  He wonders if this particular strategy
applies primarily to escorts from abroad.  He says:

‘How did you come to the UK?’

‘My friend – you know Nina?
– she already here.’

She’s another of the girls on the
Angels website.  He says:

‘I recognise the name.’

‘You see her?’

‘No.’

‘She live with guy – she
only do outcalls.  Is more difficult, yes?’

This seems to be Victoria’s
reasoning for why he hasn’t had the pleasure.

‘I guess so.’

Feeling invited, he takes a
little step further into her world.  ‘How about you – do you do many
outcalls?’

‘Not many – I like to work
in day.  Outcalls mainly night – middle of night, two… three in
morning.’

‘Do you have problems –
getting into hotels… past the porter?’

‘Me – no.  I dress
like hotel guest not like hooker.’

Her use of the informal noun
causes him to turn and meet her gaze.  As if to explain, she says:

‘Some people say hooker, some say
escort… call girl – it does not bother me.’

Adam senses a little quickening
of his pulse.  He says:

‘You do a good job – the name’s
not important.  It’s a proper job.’

‘You are nice man.’

‘Thanks.’

How can she mean it,
though?  It’s a funny old world.  He says:

‘Do you know many of the other
girls from Angels365?’

She nods, inhaling as she does
so.  ‘Of course.  You ask me.’

To one side of the cigarette a
corner of her mouth turns up with the hint of a smile.  It’s as if she
understands what drives his curiosity – that she thinks he’s looking for
a recommendation.  He hesitates, unsure about homing in directly upon a
name.  After a moment he says, casually:

‘Well, there’s a girl called
Jasmin…’

‘She is good.  She is
crazy.  I have work with her – you know – a
two-girl
? 
The man he like her okay.  I like her.  You like her.’

Her final sentence seems to be a
statement, though she watches him with a studied look.  The resumé is
evidently complete.  It tells him a smattering of what he already knows,
but he gets the feeling that Victoria will be thrifty when it comes to
dispensing details of her co-workers’ clandestine practices.  Now he asks,
somewhat ingenuously:

‘There’s one called, er…
Xara
,
I think?’

At the mention of this name,
Victoria inhales again and rolls her eyes.

‘All the guys, they speak about
Xara.’

‘Really?’

‘Why you all want Xara?  She
look like Asian girl.’

Adam is caught off guard by both
the question and the observation.  Is that true?  And so what? 
These are comparisons that haven’t previously occurred to him.  And racial
stereotyping and apparent prejudice among the Angels is not something he’s
tuned into.  Of course, they are technically in competition with one
another, despite the need to team up when money talks.  Victoria seems to
detect his disquiet over her indictments.  She says: