Undone (3 page)

Emboldened by a couple of glasses of sangria, I approached, heels a touch wonky on the grass. ‘Hey, how’s the lip?’ I called.

He turned, giving me a quick up–down assessment, and smiled tentatively. ‘Yeah, good thanks.’ He took a last drag on his cigarette, tapped it against the trunk, and then dropped the butt to the ground, swivelling his heel where the end fell among tree roots.

His bottom lip, although less swollen and raw, was still marked by a ruby-purple lump, sagging and splitting like an overripe fruit. The wound had a lascivious quality, as if the man were melting from an excess of sensuality; as if the private hollow of his mouth were bursting out in a shameless display of wet, pouting obscenity. I wanted to suck him there, to carefully place my lips on the tenderness and taste the point where he was too much for himself. His broken flesh and blood would tingle on my tongue in a concoction tasting of velvet and copper, and I’d drink him down.

‘Did you win your match?’ I asked.

He tucked a thumb in his belt loop, and crooked his knee against the wide tree trunk, all cool and laid-back like a beat-up cowboy. Outdoors, he seemed older than he had done earlier, high on endorphins in the utility room. His hair was thick, as dark as bitter chocolate, and his brown eyes were set in warm, crinkled rays. He smiled as if he found me amusing, his mouth lopsided from the injury. It was a sexy smile, arrogant, jeering and playfully calculating; a smile which suggested nothing would stop him from taking his pleasures as he preferred them.

‘Certainly did,’ he replied, as if it were never in doubt because he always wins. I cast my eyes up and down his body, checking him out because two can play at that game. He wore jeans, a leather belt and a checked shirt unbuttoned over a tee.

‘You look as if you’re auditioning for the role of Marlboro Man,’ I said.

He laughed; then dabbed his lip. ‘Yeah? So do I get the gig?’ He checked his fingertips.

‘Well, I’d hire you.’ I smiled and stepped closer, offering him my hand. ‘Lana. Lana Greenwood.’

He wiped his fingertips on his jeans and shook my hand, his big, firm grip threatening to crush my fingers. ‘Sol Miller. Apologies. My lip bleeds when I smile.’

He held the greeting for a fraction too long, preventing me from withdrawing at the natural end-point of the handshake. I felt a tiny jolt in my shoulder, and my blood raced in nervous excitement. His palm was warm against mine and the bones in my hand felt as fragile as a bird’s. We locked eyes as the handshake extended into uncomfortable territory. A smile lifted on his lips, presumably in response to the sight of my discomposure. That smile made me weak in the knees.

Asshat, I thought, amused. He released my hand and I wondered if his blood were on my skin. ‘Nice to meet you, Sol.’

He smiled more broadly, watching me all the while from under heavy brows, his eyes as dark as old oak casks in a shadowy bodega. I held his gaze, determined to meet his flirtatious intimidation with a refusal to succumb.

I nailed him as the toppy type straight away. He had that playful superiority, that bad-boy swagger, and my Domdar’s pretty reliable these days. Admittedly, his Attitude (upper case) was a touch off-putting. My preference is for men with quiet confidence; the ones who can be straightforwardly decent, kind, and aren’t scared to convey their desire for you. Men who brandish their sexuality like a weapon aren’t to be trusted in the realm of BDSM. I ran into to a couple after I split from Jonathan. Their arrogance excited me, but I’ve learned not to mess with guys who have something to prove. They’re not dangerous, just disappointing. They peak too soon.

I figured that even if Sol weren’t au fait with reef knots and tawses, he’d have an instinct for raw, rough sex. That would suit me perfectly for a one-off at a party. Again, I was convinced I was in control at that point. Our exchange by the tree was scarcely more than a brief flirtation, an opening gambit that might have come to nothing.

Except it did come to something, because later that night, I found myself sprawled on a bed of cushions in the double tipi, disco lights swirling as I chatted to my new acquaintances, Sol and Misha. The wooden beams of the tipis were wrapped with fairy lights, so strings of stars appeared to be scrawled across the dark, pointed skies of the canvas. People danced, clustered around the makeshift bar, chatted at tables or, like us, lazed around on cushions and rugs.

Earlier in the evening I’d recognised Misha as a customer from The Blue Bar. We’d expressed small-world surprise at bumping into each other at a place like this. He looked different. I was used to seeing him in his steel-rimmed glasses, reserved and unsmiling, a smartly dressed, self-contained man who rarely engaged in small talk. He had sandy hair, cropped around the sides but topped with short, soft curls, and there was an unfortunate echo of the nineties about him.

He wasn’t wearing his glasses for the party, and I found the transparent vanity of that touching. Turned out he knew Rose, Zoe’s co-host at the party. I was privately intrigued because I was starting to realise Rose had a number of openly kinky friends. They weren’t strutting around in latex and leather but the clues were there if you knew what to look for: a few unusual piercings, interesting tattoos, a touch of geekishness, a polyamorous triple, a leather choker that could double for a collar.

Was Misha part of that scene? He always seemed kind of buttoned-up when he visited the bar, a creature of habit sitting there with his tablet and Long Island Iced Tea. He rarely stayed for more than an hour, only occasionally being joined by a companion. But then I wouldn’t be the first to observe that some of the most ostensibly straight-laced people turn out to be the wildest perverts.

I knew him as Mikhail Morozov, the name on his credit card. But here at the party he was Misha, the name his friends call him, he’d said, except the two friends he was supposed to be meeting had failed to arrive. Like me, he didn’t know many other people.

Talking to him and Sol on the cushions put me in an awkward position. Misha, with his smart blue jeans and crisp lilac shirt, made me feel I ought to behave nicely. I was the proprietor of The Blue Bar. I had professional responsibilities.

Sol, on the other hand, made me want to misbehave in ways I hardly dared contemplate. I kept imagining him naked in bed, energetic, hard and controlling. He’d be the sort who’d grab your hair or pin your arms to the pillow and whisper in your ear that you were his dirty little slut. And afterwards he’d come on your face without even asking, and he wouldn’t feel guilty because it never occurred to him his dominance was gendered and potentially problematic. And I figured I could cope with that blindness for one night if it meant I was then spared from having to assuage his liberal guilt for having treated me like a whore.

I was hoping we might slip away from Misha, or Misha might sense a spark between us and retreat. The problem was, Sol appeared far too interested in Misha. Had I misread his sexuality?

‘Man, I’m sure I know you from somewhere,’ Sol had said. But Sol’s face was new to Misha, and neither man could suggest how Sol might know him.

I was considering leaving the two guys to their blossoming bromance, or whatever it was, when a young couple canoodling nearby started to ramp up their action. The DJ stuck on some sleazy, trippy beats, the sort of music that makes you feel as if a nightclub’s melting into your veins and you could fuck until you died of bliss, intoxicated by a sly, dangerous eroticism. Misha was talking in that clipped way of his, and we all conspired in pretending not to notice the amorous couple. But our feigned unawareness soon became too embarrassing to sustain. The couple began grinding their hips together, squirming and caressing in an apparent attempt to have fully clothed sex in front of dozens of party-goers. Shifting light cast colours over their writhing bodies.

Sol raised his brows in wry acknowledgement. ‘Get a room already, people,’ he murmured.

Misha laughed, and so did I.

‘Hey, we’ve all been there.’ I tried to sound casual but the music was getting to me, making my hips syrupy, my body loose. I watched sidelong as the woman rubbed her partner’s crotch, his hand snaking beneath her halter-neck top. Jeez, she was bra-less. That was seriously hot. I imagined being in her place, feeling fingers land precisely where you wanted them, no clothes to disrupt their passage. And I imagined those grubby feelings of shame and excitement arising from being lewd in public, half wanting your audience to leer and urge you on; half wanting them to vanish and leave you be.

I’m reminded now that most of my fantasies centre on being both lusted after, and being scorned for ‘sluttish’ behaviour, even as I offer resistance. It’s fucked-up, I know. But then I was raised in a fucked-up culture.

My fucked-up hunger swelled as the couple groaned into each other’s mouths, smearing each other with drunken kisses. I wanted to look away but couldn’t, nor, apparently, could my two companions. What a thrillingly sexy car crash this was. A languid pulse thickened low in my body as the woman flopped onto her back, spine arching, tits thrusting, an arm flung out in a display of self-abandonment.

I was desperately turned on, but not because I wanted her. No, I wanted to
be
her. I wanted to relinquish my pride, dignity and control, and have a man explore my body while other men watched. Worse than that, I wanted drunk, randy men encouraging my lover to keep at it; wanted a rowdy crowd on the verge of joining in and filling me with more cock than I could possibly take. A perpetual fantasy of mine, no more than that. Not a secret desire I longed to have fulfilled.

‘It’s cute,’ said Misha. ‘Very sweet.’

Sweet enough, I noticed, for Misha to have a raging hard-on. And, oh boy, that got my interest because I was somewhat shocked to notice that my polite, squarely dressed Russian friend was evidently hung like a horse. He lay propped on his elbow, making no attempt to conceal his arousal. In his jeans, his cock was a visible bar, its erect angle fitting neatly into the creases of his crotch, as if having a boner were such a frequent occurrence the denim had faded and shaped itself to fit.

I couldn’t let the moment pass. I didn’t know where I was going with it but I nodded at Misha’s groin and said, ‘Well, someone’s enjoying the spectacle.’

He laughed crisply. ‘Actually, the most arousing part was watching you watching them.’

Guh. Busted. My face burned.

‘What do you like about it?’ Misha shifted on his hip. ‘Watching? Or the thought of being watched?’ His features hardened, and his grey eyes settled on me. His upper lip lifted in a tiny smirk, and his gaze dropped to my breasts before returning to my face. I thought I caught a flicker of nastiness there. I felt as if he’d just put me in a different category of woman, and so I put him in a different category of men, the one marked ‘potential misogynist; approach with caution’.

‘Being watched.’ My voice wavered, far less confident than intended.

Misha smiled as if he’d just won a private bet.

‘Well,’ said Sol, in a how-interesting tone. He tipped the beer bottle to his lips; then, hand around the base, rested the bottle on the kilim rug, looking from Misha to me and back.

Nothing happened. No one spoke or moved. Colours span around us, sliding over frozen faces. We were Manet’s painting,
Le déjeuner sur l’herbe
. I’d made myself metaphorically naked for them, but no one seemed willing to pick up the baton. I guess none of us knew what to do. If you don’t recognise the situation, how can you know the rules? I had no plan.

The prospect of a threesome was knocking around in my brain, sure, but it was a hazy, distant fantasy that had been lurking there for years. Me and two guys; two strong, muscular bodies working in harmony with my own dips and curves; me getting double of what I liked.

I used to discuss trying a ménage with Jonathan who declared he was willing to give it a whirl as a special treat for me. As I approached thirty-four, we went as far as emailing a guy on Craigslist who then sent a photo of himself wearing a white towelling bathrobe on a holiday balcony, an azure sea in the background. Jonathan got cold feet at that point, and offered to buy me a bottle of l’Heure Bleue for my birthday instead. I agreed, figuring perfume lasts longer than sex.

My only plan with Sol and Misha, if thinking two seconds ahead can constitute a plan, was to throw something out there and see what happened. Primarily, I wanted Sol – in me, on me, over me. But if he was going to play it cool, then the well-endowed Russian was worth investigating. I just had to hope I didn’t embarrass him and lose a regular customer. But then you wouldn’t call him a big spender, so no great loss.

Drawing a deep breath of courage, I said, ‘So, what’s a girl got to do to get laid around here?’

Sol looked at me steadily while drinking from the bottle. Misha smirked, glancing from me to Sol. Eyes still fixed on me, Sol set down his beer, smiling. A dusky purple light crossed his face, casting his eyes in deep shadow.

‘You just gotta say “please”,’ he drawled.

I laughed. Damn, he was a bastard, the kind of guy I’d have gone nuts for in my younger days.

‘Please,’ I said briskly, before adding, on a surge of reckless daring, ‘both of you.’

And it really was that simple. After a terrifying, uncertain pause when I feared I was about to be slut-shamed to high heaven, Sol addressed Misha and said, ‘Well, I’m game.’

Misha shrugged. ‘Sure, why not?’

They seemed so casual and at ease that I had to wonder if I hadn’t mistakenly invited them to a hand of bridge, rather than a three-way. I looked from one man to the other. ‘Heck,’ I said, ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Me neither but it’s all good.’ Sol pushed himself up from his relaxed sprawl, laced his fingers together and stretched out his arms as if warming up.

‘Isn’t it great to be modern?’ I said, wondering how we move forwards from here. ‘Um, I should maybe mention that …’ I leaned forwards, lowering my voice in an exaggerated play of secrecy, and beckoned them closer. They hunkered towards me, Sol grinning, Misha frowning. ‘I like things on the kinky side,’ I said. ‘Nothing heavy, and if it’s not your thing, that’s fine. I just thought …’