Cal stares intently at his beer bottle while he scratches at the corner of the label with a fingernail.
The cool beginnings of dread skim over the surface of my skin.
‘Okay,’ I say slowly.
‘I’m thinking you’ve got some way to go before you’re ready to, you know.’ He glances up at me. ‘Get back on the horse.’
Ah. So that’s where this is going.
‘Correct,’ I say in a clipped, let’s-shut-this-down tone.
‘Which is totally understandable.’ He returns his focus to the label. ‘And, obviously, if most people were to get back on the horse at some point they’d, you know, presumably dip their toe in the shallow end. As it were.’
‘Your mixed metaphors are offending me,’ I tell him.
‘Fuck off. You know what I mean. They wouldn’t go to a sex club.’
‘Agreed.’ I narrow my eyes. I don’t like where this is going.
‘But, while I can’t begin to know what you’ve been through, it must be pretty excruciating going out on dates for the first time after what you’ve been through.’
He’s right, of course. I can’t think of anything worse. And I can’t imagine ever being ready to take a step like that. The idea of sitting across a dinner table from some random woman who is not Claire makes me want to dry heave right here.
‘And your point is?’ I ask.
‘My point is maybe you’ve got an advantage. Next door’—he gestures at the double doors which fill me with such foreboding—‘is, like, sexual Disneyland. Right?’
‘Right.’ I couldn’t agree more. I fucking hate Disneyland.
‘Well, you’ve got a much more gradual way of getting back into the swing of things,’ he says.
I wrinkle my nose in distaste, but he plows on with admirable tenacity.
‘Tonight, for example, you could just put your head around the door. Just take a peek. Or step inside for, like, one minute. Thirty seconds, even. Just get acclimatised to that side of things again. You know?’
‘I don’t know,’ I insist, just to be perverse. Because it’s not an awful idea, but it’s a daunting one. Understatement.
‘It’d be like gradual immersion. Maybe tonight you just look. If you like what you see, have a stroll around. No one’ll notice. And then maybe you come back another night and go watch one hookup. Or head down the corridor and look in some of the rooms—it’s fucking amazing watching that shit.’ He shakes his head.
It’s time to shut this down. ‘Look, mate,’ I say. ‘I appreciate what you’re doing. But it feels…’ Icky as fuck. ‘Disloyal. To Claire.’
He swivels around so he’s facing me and puts down the bottle. ‘You can punch me in the face for saying this, but that’s bullshit. That’s not the widower talking. That’s Father Mark talking. Fuck, you can take the boy out of Loyola, but you cannot take those priests’ bullshit teachings out of the boy.
‘You can do what you like. Nobody’s holding you accountable. Not down here, not up there. You think Claire would want to see her husband moping around? She’d want you to live a little.’ He nudges my knee gently with his. ‘I’m not saying go fuck everything that moves. Unless you want to. But putting your head around that door and looking is not a lack of loyalty. It’s not wrong, mate. So stop beating yourself up about everything. Your life is shitty enough as it is.’
I should hit him. God knows, I want to. But I also know everything Rafe and Cal do is for me. They are permanently, unequivocally Team Zach. And Cal’s hit squarely on one of my most lethal self-saboteurs, according to my therapist. That’s my insistence on beating myself up, as he puts it, for missing standards to which no one else holds me accountable.
His practical advice is also not awful, even if it is uncomfortably akin to that boiling-a-frog analogy. Or a lobster. Whatever it is.
One little peek.
I could do that right this moment. I could take, probably, twenty steps and open the doors I’ve mentally equated to the gates of hell and which are really oversized, overpriced slabs of painted oak on hinges. And I could poke my wholly unconvinced head around them and get the briefest glimpse of what all the fuss is about.
If Callum’s theory is correct, I’ll be boiling away merrily in Alchemy’s lethal lobster pot of sin before I know it.
That’s not happening.
Still, demystifying the entire concept of having any sort of life, let alone a sex life, after Claire is not the worst idea in the world. It’s reducing the prospect of climbing a mountain to twenty steps.
Twenty steps and a look.
I can do that.
I down the rest of my wine and slap Cal manfully on the thigh. ‘You’re on.’
He splutters. ‘I’m—what?’
‘Come on.’ I jerk my head in the direction of The Playroom, a giddying sense of fatalism running through my veins. ‘I hate to admit it, but you’re right. A look won’t kill me. I need to get over myself. You going to hold my hand?’
I may have called his bluff, but he comes to his senses quickly and jumps up. ‘No fucking way. I’m not holding your hand, you fucking cockblocker.’
I spit out a genuine laugh.
‘Come on, dickhead,’ I repeat. ‘Show me what all the fuss is about.’
His face lights up, and he slaps a hand on my shoulder. ‘Fucking yes. That’s my man. Let’s go.’
Bodies.
Dim light.
A sensual, pulsing beat.
A little laughter. A little chatter.
But mainly those kinds of noises. The noises people make when they’re giving and receiving pleasure. Moans. Groans. Whimpers. Grunts. Skin slapping on skin.
Holy fucking hell.
It’s so… in your face. Behind the heavy doors and the grim giant guarding them lies a carnal parallel universe. And, as my eyes acclimatise from their viewpoint of approximately a foot inside the room, the sights of naked, grinding, writhing bodies come into sharp relief.
‘Fuck,’ I say.
‘I know, right?’ Cal grins. ‘It’s something.’
I’ve been here before, a couple of times, with Claire in the early days. But it’s so much fuller now, and what was previously a backdrop to our own adventures in some of the more private rooms is now the main show. It was easy to drift past the merrymakers, giggling with my wife as we pointed out some of the less conventional groupings and positions while getting low level aroused by the goings-on around us.
Now, as a lone guy (my chaperone notwithstanding), the entire place feels all too full of potential. My perception of the threat level rises accordingly, though I’m not sure to which perceived threat I’m responding. Still, my pulse hammers in my neck, and a sheen of sweat slicks my forehead.
‘Come and take a look at this,’ Cal says conversationally, as if he’s attempting to steer a nervous stray to safety. He cuts through the crowd and I tag along behind him, trying to look around while not looking at anything too closely. I get that no one who’s getting dirty out in the open has any problems with being watched, but still.
It feels forbidden.
Voyeuristic.
Sinful.
Grubby.
‘This’ turns out to be a St Andrew’s cross. I may be a vanilla guy by Alchemy’s standards, but I know what it is (mainly because we had a row of bespoke ones built in the fit-out).
The one Cal stops in front of has a woman making use of it. She’s naked, blindfolded and gorgeous, with tumbling red curls and milky curves. I fight my well-bred urge to avert my gaze and instead give in to the sight before me. Her feet are planted on the footrests, she’s cuffed to the cross at the ankles and wrists, and she has three—no, four—men around her. In front of her. Behind her. Tending to her. From the sounds she’s making, the way her head is rolling backwards, and the helpless writhing of her lush body, they’re having a lot of success.
I watch raptly the relentless pinching action of two hands on her nipples. One guy is behind her, supporting her lolling head against his shoulder, while his hands wrap around her and play with her breasts. She’s so exposed for him, so completely at his mercy and the mercy of his friends that my cock thickens. It’s completely porno, yeah, but that’s the point. Nobody here is judging or feeling judged.
They’re all just getting the fuck on with it.
There’s a man on his knees in front of her, licking and sucking at her pussy like she’s his last supper, his hands hidden between her legs, and I can just make out the shadowy outline of someone squatting behind her, too, in front of tit guy. He’s—what’s he doing?
Oh. He must be taking care of her arse.
Jesus fuck.
The fourth guy is brandishing a wand vibrator fucking everywhere. He keeps moving around, touching it to her nipples, shoving it down by where oral guy’s mouth is, sliding it over the woman’s body. He’s getting in the way, but no one seems to mind.
Cal and I stand and watch the show. I for one am transfixed. I’m so fucking hard already I feel lightheaded. The man on his knees at the front gets to his feet, shoving his trousers down and grabbing a condom from the poser table next to the cross. Next thing I know, he’s thrusting up into her, hard, and her moans turn to screams, and all of them seem to quicken their pace. The guy with the wand gets his cock out and starts pumping away at himself. They’re having the time of their lives, the woman on the cross is fucking loving it, and as we stand there and watch her come, loudly and dramatically and very intensely, a sudden and unwelcome thought hits me.
I bet Maddy would love this.
I can see her on one of these things, clear as day. Trussed up and helpless, legs spread and ready for anything. A flush on those smooth cheeks, long, long legs cuffed and the prettiest pussy open and there for the taking. Jealousy flares hot and bright inside me, my already-hard cock twinges, and I despise the image as much as I adore it.
Cal leans in, breaking my shameful train of thought. ‘That was fucking hot. But, mate, these things are free-for-alls. That’s what I mean by taking it slow. When you’re ready, you can just lean in and have a quick touch. Literally, just grab her arse. Or slide a hand up her leg. Or pinch a nipple. You can get stuck in and have a little taste, even. Whatever—’
I hold up a hand and stop him right there. ‘Got it. Thanks.’
‘I’ve seen Maddy on those a lot,’ he offers conversationally, and I swear my vision narrows to pin-pricks.
‘God,’ I manage. I aim for sounding huffy, when really my blasphemy is an attempt not to shoot my load where I’m standing. For all my grief and repression and moral superiority, I’m no more immune to the cheap thrills of the flesh than anyone else in here.
‘Yeah. God indeed. She loves them. Speaking of which, come and see the banquette.’
I follow him, wondering whether he just said banquette or bonk-ette, because, in this place, nothing surprises me.
And then I stop so suddenly I bump into him.
Because there she is.
