The Girl Behind the Mask (22 page)

Steven bought me another vodka tonic, heavy on the vodka. I sipped it slowly as I watched the comings and goings on beneath the glittering lights. There were many more people dancing now. Or perhaps strutting is a more accurate term. A statuesque redhead was leading a small, shaven-headed man around the dancefloor on a lead. Who were these people? What did they do in the daytime? What jobs did they hold down while they dreamed of spending their nights dressed in straps and chains? The shaven-headed man clambered up the redhead’s leg like an unruly puppy begging for attention. She kissed him on the top of the head. It was an affectionate kiss. I wondered if they were together outside the club. Would they share tea and toast at the breakfast table in the morning? Did they talk about their outfits over lunch?

Just then a woman strode by in a rubber suit that covered every part of her, with just holes for her eyes, her mouth and her ponytail, which bounced like the tail of a dressage horse. I felt very suburban and unsophisticated by comparison. I must have looked it. The rubber woman’s eyes slid over me, dismissive and disdainful.

However, I seemed to have caught the fancy of someone else.

Chapter 32

The girl was dressed in black leather shorts with a matching leather basque and a small red velvet cape. Her hair was short and spiky. Bottle blonde. Her felted mask, cut in the shape of a cat’s face, didn’t cover her full, glossy lips in their red glitter paint. She came up to stand beside me and Steven at the bar. She grinned as she stroked her hand across the side of my cheek. I started at the unexpected contact.

‘Hello, beautiful,’ she said.

I said hello in return. Steven nodded in her direction. He was playing it very cool.

‘You look a little uncomfortable,’ she continued. ‘Is this your first time in the club?’

‘Is it that obvious?’ I asked.

The girl laughed. ‘It’s OK. I remember my first time too. It’s quite a scene if you’re not used to it.’

I had to agree.

‘But everyone is very friendly. No one’s here to judge you. And no man can touch you without your say-so,’ she reminded me. She curled her way around my body like a real cat, so that suddenly she was standing between my man and me.

‘You could definitely have my say-so,’ she told Steven, as she thrust her breasts in his direction.

I felt myself grow hot with jealousy at the thought. But then she turned back to me.

‘Tonight, however, I’m looking for something a little bit different,’ she said. ‘A little softer.’

She held my gaze with her own.

‘Care to come and sit down?’ she asked me.

I looked to Steven. He nodded encouragingly.

‘You can come too,’ cat-girl said, tucking a finger into his belt.

‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Ah,’ said the girl. ‘We don’t deal in names here. At least not in real names. But if you want something to call me, you can call me Kitty.’

She indicated her cat mask and made a corresponding mewing sound.

‘OK, Kitty,’ I said. ‘You can call me Jane. Like Jane Doe.’

‘That works,’ she said. ‘It even suits you.’

Because it was so dull? I wondered. It didn’t occur to me until much later that she didn’t ask Steven what his name was.

Steven and I both followed Kitty into one of the velvet-curtained booths. It wasn’t empty. None of the rooms were empty now that the club was in full swing, crammed with Londoners in search of the exotic. But we found ourselves a corner and settled onto a deep, cushion-filled sofa with our drinks. Kitty somehow made her way in between us.

That said, her attention was all on me. While I talked a bit about how I was finding my first ever experience of a swingers’ club, she stroked my shin and tiptoed her fingers all the way up to my thigh. She caressed my face and twisted my hair into ringlets.

‘You have very pretty hair,’ she observed.

‘Thank you. I like your hair too.’

I ran my hand over her blonde spikes experimentally. They were stiff and brittle with some kind of gel.

‘Aren’t you hot in that dress?’ she asked me. ‘I can’t help thinking you’d be more comfortable if you just took it off.’

‘I – I don’t know.’

Once again I sought out Steven’s eyes, to take my cue from him. He nodded. It was almost imperceptible, but I could tell from the set of his mouth – a sly smile – that he was enjoying this, enjoying watching me being seduced. He wanted me to carry on. Still, I was nervous about taking the dress off, knowing what was underneath. But was it any more outrageous than Kitty’s outfit?

‘I’ll go first,’ she said.

She untied the ribbon holding her little cape in place and revealed that her leather basque did not have cups either. Without the cape, her generous breasts were fully on show. They were like a pair of perfect pink snowballs, tipped with impossibly rosy nipples. I wondered if she had rouged them. She pointed them in my direction.

‘You can touch them if you like.’

I was nervous as hell as I reached out and traced the curve of her right breast. Her skin there was soft and warm and dry. It felt like a young girl’s cheek. I did the same to the left breast. Steven sipped his drink, never taking his eyes off us but, thankfully, not trying to join in the touching. For now. Kitty moaned as I gently squeezed her nipples.

‘Let’s see yours,’ she said.

Kitty helped me out of my dress. She smiled broadly when she saw what I was wearing underneath. I felt incredibly exposed. I tried to preserve my modesty with the discarded dress. Kitty pulled it out of the way.

‘Beautiful,’ she murmured.

I started to protest. She put her finger to my lips to prevent me from throwing back her compliment. She had incredible confidence, though I guessed from her flawless figure that she must be very young.

Certainly, she was not in the least bit shy about touching me. She immediately reached out and cupped my naked breasts. She grabbed them. She circled my nipples with her thumbs, bringing them to hard peaks. A shiver ran through me. I looked down and saw that however hard my mind was trying to resist her, my body was giving in. She dipped her face towards me and replaced her fingers with her tongue, which flickered like a snake tasting the air. I couldn’t help moaning a little with pleasure. I looked at Steven. He nodded at me. He smiled.

‘Go ahead,’ he mouthed.

Meanwhile, Kitty’s hand moved down towards my beaded G-string. She placed her palm over my mons veneris, pressing the beads so that they were hard against my clitoris. She moved her hand backwards and forwards, increasing the friction. I found myself lifting my pelvis towards her, pushing back so that I could feel even more.

‘Is that good?’ she murmured.

I told her it was. I wasn’t lying. Despite myself, I was growing incredibly aroused. I felt a fluttering sensation deep inside me – a combination of nerves and excitement – and soon it was as though I had allowed another creature to take over my body. When Kitty went to kiss me again, I took her face in both my hands. I was no longer passive. I kissed her as hotly as she kissed me. She continued to press the beads against me all the time, moving them backwards and forwards over my clitoris in a tantalising rhythm. When she pushed a finger into me, I felt myself tighten around her, pulling her in. While the sensations intensified, I scratched at Kitty’s back, drawing a groan of pleasure from her that made me proud to hear it.

‘Is this good?’ she asked again.

This time I couldn’t form the words. I just pressed harder against her while an unmistakable orgasm grew inside me. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to. Steven stood above us now with his penis in his hand. My eyes drifted towards him. He stared at me as his hand moved rhythmically.

‘I’m coming,’ I cried out.

Then Steven came too. His penis jerked wildly as his sperm traced an ecstatic arc in the air, landing with an artistic splatter all over Kitty’s magnificent bosom. When he had finished, Steven collapsed onto the sofa beside us, laughing. Kitty laughed too. I stayed still and caught my breath. I had not experienced such a strong climax in a long time.

‘Tissue?’ Kitty passed me the box. ‘You were magnificent. You really let go. I can’t believe you’re a first-timer.’

‘Believe it,’ I said.

‘In that case, I can only imagine how good you’d be with a bit of practice. Any time you want another go . . .’ she winked.

I looked at Steven. He was still panting from his exertions but he was looking at Kitty with something approaching adoration. He caught me staring at him. He kissed me on the forehead, as a sort of peace offering, I suppose.

‘I think I’d like to go home now,’ I whispered.

‘OK,’ he agreed.

I was flooded with relief. We were leaving. I found my dress and pulled it on over my head. The beaded G-string I left where it had fallen. It wasn’t any use to me now. I didn’t care if I never saw it again.

Steven pulled up his trousers and buckled his belt. He hadn’t taken anything else off.

Kitty did not have much to do to rearrange her outfit either. She was almost completely unruffled by our tangle. Just like a real cat. I half expected her to lick her hand and use it to paw down a single unruly curl. I did not expect what she
did
do next. Having kissed me one more time, she turned to Steven.

‘I’ll see you on Monday,’ she said.

Chapter 33

‘Monday?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said Kitty. ‘In the seminar room.’ She said it as though I should know.

I realised then that Kitty was not a stranger to Steven after all. When he spoke about having overheard his students talking about the club, what he actually meant was that he had heard about the club from this girl. This one girl who was grinning at us now from behind her stupid cat mask. I also realised with a flash of anger that this was almost certainly not the first time Steven had seen this girl without her clothes on. As she sashayed away and Steven and I headed for the exit, I tackled him with my suspicions.

‘I’ve seen her before, yes. Outside college, I mean.’

‘You’ve had sex with her.’

Steven didn’t answer me. I tugged on his arm. ‘Tell me. Please.’

‘I haven’t. Not yet. But you have.’

Steven pulled me close to him. He tried to kiss me. I pushed him away.

‘You said “not yet”. You want to, don’t you?’

‘Come on, Sarah. I thought you wanted to experiment. I thought we were coming to a new understanding. What does it matter whether I’ve seen her before?’

‘I didn’t know she was your potential
lover
.’

‘Sarah, please,’ Steven pleaded. ‘She’s not. Don’t ruin this. You had a good time. We’ve had a good night. Haven’t we?’

It was way, way too much for me. I had opened myself up to the new and exotic in an attempt to prove to Steven that I was still worthy of his interest. He had used my eagerness to hold on to his love against me. I thought that night would be a one-off. He’d had me make out with a girl he already knew. Was he interested in a long-term share?

‘Seriously, what does it matter?’ he asked. ‘It’s just sex.’

He made it sound so tacky. And in my heart I felt I was tacky too. It was worse than I had feared.

‘It was your idea to go to the club in the first place,’ he pressed on.

‘Not that specific club. Not where your
friend
goes. You set me up. I would never have agreed to getting naked with one of your students.’

‘And that’s precisely why I didn’t ask you. But you expressed an interest in doing this thing. And right up until Kitty let on she already knew me, you seemed pretty happy with the way things were going.’

‘It’s different. It was meant to be just sex. Now I know there’s a connection. You’ve been having an affair.’

I ran down the road.

‘I have not been having an affair,’ Steven called after me.

Semantics. Though we slept in the same bed that night and though Steven made an effort to talk me round, I could not be consoled. He reminded me that the club visit was all my idea. He said that even if he had fucked Kitty – which he swore he hadn’t – physical infidelity was not the same as falling in love with someone new. It was just about satisfying an appetite. Not in my view.

We argued all weekend. I could not get past my anger that Steven had let me get involved with a woman he knew, with the intention of making our relationship a threesome. On Monday morning I knew what I had to do. The trip to Venice was already organised. I would spend the time left until my departure date sleeping on the sofa at a friend’s house. I wouldn’t tell her anything other than that Steven and I were taking a break.

Of course, I couldn’t resist finding out more about the mysterious Kitty when I was next in the office. I trawled through the university’s student profiles online until I found someone who fitted what I remembered about her. Though I had not seen her whole face, I would have recognised her smile anywhere. Her slightly crooked teeth. Her glittering red lipstick. I bet she thought of that as her ‘signature’ look. Her passionate pout.