The Sexopaths (2 page)

‘Hello my darlings!’ 
Preceded by the slightest of Gallic accents, Monique breezes in, wrestling a
slippery bouquet of cellophane-wrapped lilies.  Adam can’t help appraising
her looks, comparing: she’s not so classically French looking, he always thinks
more Bardot than Tautou, blonde… thus attractive; medium height, quite slim yet
perfectly curved… seriously attractive, in fact.

‘Ca va, ma petite?’ 

He watches Camille gather
herself, pleased that Monique is speaking French.

‘Ca va bien, Maman!’

‘Tres bien!’

‘Jolies fleurs.’  Adam makes
the observation as if for Camille’s benefit, but Monique seems to detect a note
of inquiry in his tone.

‘Today,’ she shrugs, as if the
flowers are unimportant,  ‘we averted a crisis.’

Adam doesn’t comment, and instead
– as if in some child’s game of opposites – rises exactly as
Monique sinks beside him to plant a kiss upon Camille’s glossy crown and admire
her efforts with the beads.  ‘Here – let me stick them in some
water.’

He lifts the spray from her and
carries it gingerly through the hall into the kitchen.  While he runs the
cold tap to fill the plastic basin he checks for a tag or a message, but
there’s nothing.  He supposes if there had been a card or similar she
probably would have opened it in the office and then discarded it.  He
berates himself for his unwanted suspicion.  Yet, still feeling under
surveillance himself, has he detected subconsciously some tiny aberration in
her explanation?  Do crises merit flowers?  Maybe they do.  Yet
he’d sensed a hint of evasiveness – perhaps her abridged
explanation.  Before he can speculate further Monique joins him, and he
feels again the awkwardness of her proximity.  He remains leaning over the
splashing sink, balancing the blooms while the water rises.

‘Had an okay day?’  She threads
an arm round him from one side and puts pressure on his waist to turn him to
face her.

He tries to think how to act
normally and realises it’s impossible – when you’re acting normally
you’re
not
thinking about it.  On her arrival home the bouquet was
a convenient barrier and an excuse not to indulge in their customary
embrace.  Now he knows he has to grasp the nettle, to make that first
reluctant contact and risk whatever inflamed reaction results.  He kisses
her, conscious his lips are more puckered than usual, maintaining a
ridiculously inadequate sanitary distance.  He holds his breath and any
clues it might reveal.

‘I was pretty tied up.’

‘You smell good.’

‘I just had a bit of a wash when
I got home – this heat, you know?’

‘Some like it hot.’  She giggles,
and wriggles against him.  Far from detecting anything untoward about him,
she seems driven by a superior force.

‘Whoops - the tap.’  He
breaks away, and winds it methodically, taking longer than absolutely
necessary.  ‘I think there’s some wine left from last night.’  He
reaches down to the dishwasher and fishes out two chiming glasses and passes
them to her, sidetracking her hands; then he crosses to the fridge.  ‘Sit
on the veranda?’

‘Lovely.’  She drifts out
into the resonant birdsong that filters through the already-open double doors,
then calls back: ‘You must be stressed if you need a drink now.’

He tries to think of something
pass-remarkable that had happened during the time he spent at the office, but
his mind is obstinately blank.  He assumes she hadn’t tried to contact him
while he was out, as there was nothing on his mobile.  He replies after a
moment:

‘Maybe the humidity.’

‘Remember we agreed we would not
complain if it ever becomes tropical in this country.’

‘True.’  He joins her and splashes
a generous gurgling measure from the bottle into each glass.

‘Cheers.’  She smiles
broadly, her even white teeth flashing between full lips.

‘Salut.  To global warming.’

Adam realises he’s not yet asked
about
her
day – the flowers got in the way of that, too –
but he still feels a niggling inclination to have one more shot at confirming
their origin.  While he wrestles with the words that might phrase the
question, she pre-empts him with a new subject:

‘Anyway, that reminds me –
talking of hot places.  I have some good news.’

‘Oh?’

‘Would you like to go to
Mykonos?’

‘What do you mean – for a
holiday?’

‘No – I have to go for
work.’

‘How come?’

‘You know I was proposed for the
AMIE
Board – for the European agencies’ committee, based in Brussels?’

‘Er… I think so.’  He’s
economical with his recall: the idea has been nagging at him since she first
mentioned it.  He wants to feel supportive, but small waves of discomfort
ripple outwards from his midriff.

‘Well, I got my election
confirmed today and they sent me all the information, with the calendar for the
meetings – the first is in Brussels next week, but after that it’s the
Greeks’ turn to be hosts and they’ve booked a small hotel in Mykonos –
it’s timed so people can stay over for a long weekend.’

‘Wouldn’t I be rather like a
spare you-know-what at a wedding?’  A distant voice points out to Adam he
should be saying congratulations..

‘No – I emailed Simone
– she is the AMIE Secretary – and she replied that it is quite
usual for partners to go with Board members.  It is part of the attraction
of the job.  She says the Irish representative always takes his
sister!  Usually it is in Brussels, but every few months they rotate and
hold it in one of the member countries.  It is a good chance to travel.’

‘What about Camille?  She
seemed a bit upset today.  She was talking about not being left on her own
– when we go to heaven, I mean.  I think the death of the snail’s
been preying on her mind.’  He doesn’t mention his lateness in collecting
her.

‘We can take her… if you don’t
mind looking after her while I am in meetings.  There is a family-friendly
pool and a spa and a beach nearby.  And the best restaurant on the island
is in the hotel.  It is just three weeks’ time, mid-September – the
weather will be perfect.’

He finds himself a little
disconcerted by how much detail she already knows.  He asks: ‘But how
about Brussels?’

‘Oh, it is just a half-day Board
meeting.  The Greece trip is a special meeting to judge the European
awards – that is why it is longer, the Board meeting starts on the
Thursday evening, then we do the judging next day.  Adam, we can go out on
the Thursday and transfer via Athens – it is just a thirty-minute hop to
the island… or we can take a hydrofoil.’

‘What’ll you do for Brussels
– just catch same-day flights?’

‘I suppose so – I need to
check all the timings.’

He notices she’s vague about
this, when a moment before she was able to be specific.  Absently,
distracted by the thought, he holds his glass up to the angled sunlight and
swirls the pale liquid.  To his alarm, he observes through the film of
condensation that his wedding band is on the ring finger of his right
hand.  The glinting movement is attracting Monique’s gaze.  He
quickly takes a sip, places his glass on the aluminium patio-table, and then
drops his hands self-consciously out of sight.  Now his disquiet over
Brussels will have to wait.

‘Do you fancy Chinese
tonight?’ 

‘Oh – well, I put out some
steaks this morning to defrost… but they will do for tomorrow if you would
prefer a takeaway.’

‘Save you the hassle of cooking?’

‘I love cooking –
especially for you my darling.’

‘I know, I know – that’s
really sweet… but…’

‘You prefer Chinese to my
cooking.’  She says it teasingly, like she’s offended.

‘No – you’re a brilliant
cook.  Look, it’s a lovely evening – we should enjoy the extra time
out here.  I’ll put Camille to bed and you can take it easy.’

‘We can have a nice night?’

It’s their private
euphemism.  He forces a smile but senses only a simper manifests itself.

‘Ah – my hard-working
darling.  It can be all your turn for a massage.’

‘My lucky day.  I’ll get the
menu.’

He rises and ducks his right
shoulder away from her. Once out of her line of sight, he wrenches at the slim
gold band, but it won’t budge over what must be the thicker knuckle of his
dominant side.  Passing through the kitchen a headily fragrant waft
strikes him with the notion that the lilies would be a fitting congratulatory
gift on the day Monique had been elevated to the European Board.  (And he
still hasn’t said well done.)  He continues along the hall to the
downstairs cloakroom.  Leaving the door ajar he waits a few moments before
flushing the toilet.  Then he turns to the wash-basin and squeezes a dash
of Monique’s hand-cream onto the recalcitrant ring.  To his relief it
yields and he’s able to slip it back in its customary place.  Now he
crosses the wide hall, strides swiftly through the utility room and opens a
further door giving on to the double garage, where they keep a wine-fridge from
which he hooks out a bottle of champagne, retraces his steps, picks up the
raffle-ticket-pink Chinese takeaway menu from the telephone table, plus the
cordless handset, and finally creeps into the playroom.  In extravagant
mime he beckons Camille to follow him.  Recognising the prospect of some
apparent surprise, she obediently hops to her feet and tiptoes with him into
the kitchen, Adam reaches down a pair of flutes from a cabinet, and arranges
the items softly on a tray.  He whispers a brief to Camille, wondering if
she can be reliably entrusted with Monique’s best crystal.  She performs
her task with gusto, predictably in her enthusiasm nearly tipping the whole lot
into her mother’s lap.

           
‘
Felicitations
, Maman!’

***

Ten a.m. at his desk and it’s the
first chance Adam has had to get online.  He swivels his laptop such that
anyone who comes up directly to talk with him can’t easily see the screen; as
an extra precaution he opens his inbox so he can switch windows at will. 
His pulse rate is rising and it’s hurting his head.  Right now he’s
questioning his strategy of the previous night: at his insistence they’d
uncorked successive – three… no, was it four? – bottles of
champagne, the last of which (almost empty) had subsequently booby-trapped his
drunken route to the ensuite.  Revisiting the memory he rubs his bruised
coccyx.  At the time it had seemed the lesser of two evils – that
is, to get Monique so paralytic that she passed out before they could make
love.  It had worked; she’d even slept through his nocturnal floorshow,
crash bang cursing and all.  But with hindsight perhaps he should have
yielded to her offer of a massage: prior to her abrupt descent into
rag-dollesque oblivion she’d enfolded him like a warm tide, irresistibly
invasive, his caution, his self-imposed arms-length exile seemingly
superfluous.  The additional cost had been the requirement to match her
glass for glass, its corollary an obstinate hangover that extra-strong aspirin
has thus far abjectly failed to shift.  Maybe she’d been higher on the
news of her election than he’d allowed for – certainly she hadn’t needed
any persuading when it came to the bubbly.  Then, she’s always had a soft
spot for champagne.  He recalls discovering some years ago this reliable
short cut to her invariably skimpy undergarments (presumably with a degree of
discrimination over who gained access still exercised on her part).  
In the fashion of Pavlov’s bell, the ring of a champagne glass steals her
attention; its fizzy rush a skeleton key that opens the door labelled
‘inhibitions’.  He remembers the first time they had sex – inside a
tiny toilet cubicle in a trendy restaurant, gone bust now – that was in
Leith.  Their brakes had failed riding a runaway lunchtime binge and he’d
trailed her to the door of the ladies’ and pushed her inside.  As he’d
wrestled clumsily with the clasp of her bra, she’d been far more efficient with
his belt and zip.  She’d manhandled him down onto the seat, wrenched aside
her sheer panties, straddled him, slid smoothly onto him, and with her free
hand made herself come with an urgency that was breathtaking.  He’d been
impressed by that; her innocent Gallic façade belying some recessive Viking
ruthlessness.  A blonde, of course – nothing recessive there.

Angels365.com  – like
him, sluggish this morning – opens at last and his thoughts jerk back to
yesterday.  To Ms X.  And to Ms Y.   The former he knows
well enough, albeit by her trading name of ‘Xara’ – a
brand
name,
even, if the slavishly drooling punters’ reviews linked to her web pages are
anything to go by.  Ms Y however remains anonymous.  As pre-warned,
he was permitted no introduction beyond the carnal.

On screen now is ‘Xara’. 
‘Elite Latina’ – apparently her webmaster’s grading.  Adam wonders
if she pays a higher site-rent for the privilege.  Others go under more
baldly vulgar bylines, ‘Hot busty’, ‘Naughty adventurous’, ‘Pin-up babe’. 
He scrolls through her semi-naked portfolio, face blurred, toned assets in
sharp relief, their contours accentuated by minimalist, sheer and lacy
lingerie.  He clicks on ‘reviews’ and begins to work his way through the
extensive litany of confessions, cruising for clues.  Most of these
so-called ‘field reports’ he’s read before.  Some reflect his own
experience, disconcertingly accurate in their detail; others drip with
transparent hyperbole and abysmal English (“… she lied back and came out loud”)
(‘lied’ – yes, dickhead) and self-deluded sign-offs, love-letter-like
personal notes to Xara herself (“… until we make music again babe lol”). 
There are acronyms and abbreviations for those in the know – BBBJ, CIM,
GFE, MISH, OWO – and clearly some girls faking it, their self-submitted
reports sporting unimaginatively repetitive pen-names and eulogies, crude
congratulations that rise hydra-like from one exaggerated episode to the next.