Monogamy Book One. Lover: This is one love for life and beyond time

by Victoria Sobolev

  When he finally does lose, he pulls off a sock, exposing one sexy foot –my lover’s feet are just as beautiful as all the other parts of his body. The French women look at it and I can see from their faces that there is a hidden agenda behind this little get-together and their plan is starting to gain momentum.

  It is the first time I feel jealousy stirring within me, but I instinctively beat it down and it continues to slumber.

  I’m the next to lose and I could also take off a sock or my belt, but I chose to remove the thick jumper I’m wearing because I actually feel really hot in it. Underneath I’m wearing a black top with thin straps that could be either underwear or a summer top. It is low enough to reveal a small mole on one of my breasts that Alex always pays particular attention to. Tonight, however, this mole is being shamelessly caressed by Mark’s carnivorous gaze. I can feel Alex’s fury, but he doesn’t let on and I actually start to enjoy the game.

  Vanessa loses next and, ignoring the thin, red belt holding up her grey trousers, takes off her t-shirt, leaving her in a crisp white bra.

  Mark’s hungry eyes immediately switch to her and I hear a quiet sigh of relief from Alex. I turn my head to look at him and his sizzling brown eyes meet mine.

  *** ‘Close’ by Nick Jonas ft. Tove Lo ***

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course!’ I smile, and Alex answers the same, but, right this second, he seems to be grinding his teeth nervously.

  The next game is tense and there is some kind of situation developing between Alex and Amber, who is sitting next to him. She actually has amber eyes – they’re a beautiful honey caramel colour – and she can’t keep them off Alex.

  I can feel a whirlwind of excitement spinning faster and faster around the five of us with every fibre of my being and decide to ramp things up even more by making a move that leaves Alex at a hopeless disadvantage since he wasn’t expecting me to attack.

  He slowly removes his second sock to reveal his other foot and, lying on top of each other, I think they’re much, much sexier than Mark’s huge, pumped-up body sitting next to me. I’m surprised to discover that I’m not the only one who finds these feet sexy, because Amber asks me in French, which, of the three foreigners here, only I know, ‘Shall we get him to take off his jumper?’

  To which I reply, ‘He plays too well; it won’t be easy!’

  ‘If we join forces, then no amount of skill will help him!’ she says with a sly laugh.

  Alex doesn’t move and shows little interest in our conversation, although he could have asked me to translate it for him.

  Suddenly, he says to me quietly, ‘Are you trying to undress me?’

  ‘No, it’s just that you’re losing the least.’

  ‘Well, bear in mind for next time that I’m only wearing a jumper and jeans.’

  And then I remember that, with all this Taoist training of his, he has got used to not wearing any underwear at all and he doesn’t have a belt on either, because it constricts some of his chakras when he’s sitting down. It slowly dawns on me that he’s the only one with just two items of clothing remaining and the French women are greedily drinking him in with their eyes, which is not just obvious, but is like a knife blade in my heart.

  Noticing this change, Mark’s flames of enthusiasm die out a little. All that’s left of the fire are his underpants, but they still need to be got to because he’s also wearing a belt, a pair of jeans and two socks! And I know what will happen if Alex removes his sweater – Mark won’t stand a chance.

  I’m the next to lose and shed a sock. Despite having a good hand, Alex was unable to help me.

  Then Vanessa loses and pulls off her trousers along with the belt, leaving just her underwear. Mark can’t sit still. It’s like his jeans are begging him to lose and ignore the pleas of his socks and belt that they’re next.

  After Vanessa is Amber, who removes her t-shirt to reveal a simply spectacular pair of breasts squeezed into a pale lilac bra, their size in sharp contrast to her tiny body and super-skinny waist.

  I notice Alex’s gaze slide imperceptibly from Amber’s face to her amazing chest and then down to his cards. My jealousy has drawn itself up and is now standing at full height, even though I have been frantically trying to beat it back down.

  The excitement has gone, and I don’t want to ramp things up anymore. Feeling miserable, I lose again and take off my second sock, then suddenly notice that Mark’s eyes are savouring my ivory feet with their scarlet toenails. I guess he finds my white feet and red toenails more attractive than Amber’s chest, just like I find Alex’s feet more appealing than Mark’s fabulous body. If I’m being honest, I don’t find Mark attractive at all. But Alex notices nothing this time – his eyes are busy with Amber...

  Yes, Amber is certainly delicate and beautiful, with an enticingly fragile appearance silently asking for protection. She is a short girl with thin arms and a skinny waist, enormous amber eyes and slightly full lips that are innocently pink, as if they have never been tasted before. I know that Alex has noticed those lips. How could he not when, for him, they are the most important part of a woman’s body?

  *** ‘Closer’ by Kings of Leon ***

  Immersed in thoughts, I start to feel really depressed. I can see that my lover finds Amber seriously attractive and tonight’s little game will have its consequences. Once I’ve left Paris, he won’t have to worry about his Taoist abstinence anymore. And I don’t have any right to be upset because I’m the one who is stubbornly rejecting him.

  And this is exactly why I am. If I ever became his wife, he’d get bored of having sex with the same fairly average body every day and, after a couple of months, he’d have his head turned by Amber, or Vanessa, or Katrina, or Melissa, or Tatiana... The list of women’s names is as endless as the selection of women’s bodies – sophisticated, beautiful, slim, exciting... And so many enticing lips – they’re everywhere! Wherever you look, there is a unique pair to be found.

  Alex notices my drop in mood, and drop in spirits too, and quickly rushes to my aid.

  ‘You look like you’re bored of this game. Shall we go?’

  ‘No, I’m okay,’ I reply automatically and immediately regret it because it was an excellent suggestion.

  There isn’t a lot of point staying. Mark and the French women are already very tipsy and there seems to be no stopping them. We’re clearly the odd ones out because I drank almost nothing, and Alex didn’t drink at all.

  But their inebriated minds are now controlling their actions. Mark is taking off a sock and his belt, Amber is removing her trousers, and Vanessa is missing a hair clip and her bra. Her breasts are like mine – modest, nothing special, a boring B cup. The men’s greedy eyes are waiting for the moment when Amber takes off her bra.

  And, finally, it happens.

  What can I say? It must be great having full, beautiful breasts like Amber’s. I mean, with a treasure like that you could undress in front of a man without worrying whether he finds you attractive or not. Mark is burning with sexual desire. He is sitting half a metre away from me and I can actually feel the heat coming off him. I involuntarily move away, touching Alex’s leg with mine as I do so, which he regards as an invite and immediately puts his free arm around me. I feel relieved, especially as he hasn’t shown any kind of reaction to Amber’s chest. Or he’s deliberately not looking at it.

  We start another game and Mark can’t wait to lose. He unzips his jeans, getting ready to take them off, and the French women giggle flirtatiously. Mark also laughs and Alex looks on with a smirk.

  Quietly, Vanessa says to Amber, ‘It looks like he’s ready! I’m feeling pretty psyched up too!’

  Without lifting her eyes from her cards, Amber answers just as quietly, ‘I’m not interested in him. I like Alex. I want to touch his hair, his lips, and I just want to drown in those eyes.’ Her words are a little slurred, the alcohol continuing to increase the intensity of its effect.

  ‘I also want him, I want
them both, but we agreed that we’d swap!’ Vanessa replies.

  Needless to say, my eyes have been fixed on Alex. Immediately after Amber’s confession, I see him blink slowly and glance in her direction, and I somehow get the feeling that he understands what they’re talking about. There are only two options: either it is a simple coincidence and he looked at her because she said something, or he knows French and understands it perfectly. I immediately start analysing the details: Mark’s face is uncomprehending when the French women are nattering away to each other, but Alex’s isn’t. He is always intently doing something. Alex has never said that he doesn’t know French, but he has also never acknowledged that he does. I remember how he once refused to sing karaoke, saying that he didn’t want to embarrass himself, but then, when he did sing, he sang better than anyone and his voice was incredible.

  After Vanessa’s comment about swapping partners, I can no longer interpret Alex’s looks. As far I was concerned, we were just playing a game.

  I look at him questioningly and see that he’s staring straight at me with a look that is difficult to understand. It is a mix of deception, desire, lust, a yearning to examine my reactions, my mood, my attitude to what is going on. There is no doubt that he is studying me like a schoolboy studies a test tube in a chemistry lesson. But there is also a look on his face that I have never seen before. It is more like a mask that can be taken on and off than a real facial expression. His face looks fake.

  My eyes widen in confusion and I finally manage to squeeze out, ‘Alex...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Why are we here?’

  ‘I don’t know, you tell me. You’re the one who accepted his invitation.’

  ‘Because... your friend invited... us...’

  ‘So ask him!’

  And he continues looking at me.

  At this precise moment, the game ends. Mark throws his cards on the floor and stands up to remove his jeans. You’d have to be blind not to see that he already has an erection and that it’s rock hard.

  Suddenly, Alex stops him.

  ‘We’re going, Mark. Give you some privacy to show the girls what you’ve got hidden in there.’

  And, with these words, he abruptly gets to his feet, pulls me up by my hand, then quickly pushes me out of the apartment.

  The door to our grey sanctuary has barely had time to close before he immediately pulls off his jumper and throws it to the floor. His skin is red and damp with sweat. He’d been boiling in it the whole time and no wonder – it’s a thick knit wool jumper with a high neck.

  Alex kisses me hard, holding my head with both hands. His mouth caresses and torments mine in a way I don’t recognise: forcefully, greedily, roughly, demandingly.

  His lips work their way down to my neck and I’m in ecstasy, only just making out the sound of his jeans falling to the floor. With his own clothes off, he starts on mine, getting them off skilfully and with lightning speed. So skilfully, in fact, that an annoying thought starts hammering at the back of my mind: how many times has he done this before? This is immediately followed by the jackhammering of another: why? Why do I need someone like him?

  Spending my whole life catching women glancing at him, feeling jealous, uneasy, and waiting, waiting feverishly for the moment when he no longer finds me new and appealing, just as Tim doesn’t, who hasn’t slept with me for months. But Tim is my husband and he isn’t going anywhere, while Alex is a beautiful butterfly flitting from flower to flower, collecting sweet nectar.

  We are in the shower, our wet bodies rubbing against each other sensually, Alex’s lips passionately caressing my skin, covering me in kisses, and I come to a decision: ‘We are nothing to each other. He is an exciting, passionate, hot-blooded stallion that I’m using for pleasure and, while he’s happy giving it, I’m going to enjoy it – then what will be, will be...’

  Only now am I finally able to release all the stress of the card game and relax enough to enjoy what I came here for – and what I’ve spent more than a year meeting up with him for – sex. And my jealousy, my unruly, capricious jealousy, curls itself up and gently falls asleep because it is no longer needed: you cannot be jealous of someone who means nothing. My heart is locked in a cage, a large, rusty iron cage, and there is no key. The key simply doesn’t exist.

  CHAPTER 12. AMBER

  *** ‘Looking For You Again’ by Matthew Perryman Jones ***

  The next day, we leave the car at home and take the metro to the Seine, where we walk along the embankment, then simply wander the Parisian streets, never letting go of each other’s hands. With no particular agenda, it turns out to be the best day of the five and the only sunny one. It is even quite warm for February.

  Alex remains in high spirits for the whole day, because we made love three times the night before and, this morning, we took our time caressing each other in the shower, washing each other’s bodies, splashing around, covering ourselves in shampoo. For the very first time, I felt confident touching his skin, studying every one of his male curves.

  It is the most I’ve heard him laugh since his confession in that Spanish church a year ago. His excellent mood spilled over into hilarious jokes and I laughed until my stomach hurt. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard or so childishly... Or maybe I can. It was at the park where Alex first kissed me.

  After the morning shower, he pleasures me with such tenderness, his breath brushing against my skin as he covers me in kisses, that, just for a moment, it doesn’t feel like I am making love to a sexy man, but to an unbelievably beautiful and weightless angel. It feels exquisite and I am terrified that it’s all a dream, that I am going to wake up and the dream will be replaced by my miserable reality where there is no angel and never was.

  But my angel exists and he’s made of flesh and blood – hot blood and insatiable flesh. He makes passionate love to me, filling my body with energy, giving me strength, resilience, femininity.

  This morning, Alex stops himself from climaxing immediately after me; he wants to do it differently. Pausing for a moment, he gently lifts up my arms and wraps them around his neck. I open my eyes, trying to figure out what he is planning, and his beauty once again hits me where I’m most vulnerable – my sensuality: full of love and desire, his brown eyes glow amber in the sun-flooded bedroom, and his sexy, well-defined chest sets my heart racing. As if in a dream, I run the tips of my fingers through his perspiration-soaked chest hairs, and they move out of position for a moment then slowly straighten up again, making my head spin. I raise my eyes to see Alex drinking in each of my emotions. His gaze is an ocean of feelings, so fluid that it is difficult to isolate the main one, but I know it’s love. It is dissolved in physical attraction, despair, the desire to get what he wants and not let go, but, most of all, his brown eyes reflect kindness. I can neither tear my eyes away nor close them, so we stare at each other and watch as we plunge into the same space we were in at the airport.

  Alex takes my arm from around his neck and gently holds my hand in his before putting it on his head and slowly running it through his hair, pushing my fingers in and getting them tangled in it. My guess is answered by a sweet wave of excitement in my lower abdomen – I know what he wants: both of my hands are gently wallowing in his curls, separating them into strands, tousling it up.

  I watch the face of the most experienced man I have ever known and can’t believe my eyes: that simplest of caresses gives him an unexpected amount of pleasure – his eyelids droop heavily, his lips part slightly, and his ragged breathing, like soundless moans, is making his chest rise. His beautiful body starts to relax, dissolving in the intimacy of my single caress, and I can almost see the pleasure flowing through him in streams, pushing him to the edge. This is what he wanted – to finally show me what, exactly, drives him to ecstasy.

  Overwhelmed by this revelation and already seduced by it, I finally allow myself to fully enjoy the miracle of Alex’s hair: exquisite, enticing, and alluring with its silky softness, its spicy hone
y aroma and its wavy unruliness. Nothing turns me on more than his black locks curled into large, unmanageable semicircles. The movements of my hands and fingers are now completely different: the caresses aren’t just for him, but for my own tactile pleasure.

  Getting lost in it, I surprise myself by grabbing a few strands and pulling them gently, not in a desire to give him something new, but more as a release of my own passion, my need for him and his body.

  And he likes it... I mean really likes it! So much so that my moment of spontaneity makes Alex, who is hot-blooded but always in control, reach climax almost immediately. And today, on a sunny morning full of happiness, it seems he has no intention of hiding it: his eyebrows come together on a forehead wrinkled with pleasure; his head moves with my hand, dropping back slightly; his back arches deliciously; his chest muscles tighten, making them even more defined; and his lips open wider to let out the most sensual, most exquisite male groan I have ever heard.

  I am completely dazed. Alex rarely shows his emotions in bed and never used to show them at all. I even thought the guy was so practised at sex, he no longer responded to many of its pleasures. But now he has a different tactic: he obviously wants me to know what he’s feeling and how good I would be for him.

  This knowledge, unique in its sweetness, unexpectedly lifts me to the height of bliss: I experience the ultimate pleasure from revelling in the enjoyment of another person. It is something special and amazing at the same time because it is only possible when two people, sharing something secret and intimate in bed just for the two of them, are joined together by something unique. And this ‘something unique’ is probably called Love...

  *** ‘I Know You Care’ by Ellie Goulding ***

  This whole morning love story with the most beautiful man in the world replays in my head over and over while we stroll along the pavements of wintry Paris looking at the elegant buildings, charmingly decorated with every possible stucco style and theme. It replays while we rest in the bitingly cold, yet somehow still green, public squares, and while Alex, laughing, pushes me on a swing and I get the same tingly feeling inside as when I touch the hair on his chest. It is there while we hug, sitting on a bench like teenagers in love, and while we drink hot aromatic coffee in a typical Parisian café painted blood red with five tables inside and three out. I can see it while walking along the stone wall of the Seine embankment holding his warm, strong hand, and while eating three scoops of delicious French ice-cream specially chosen for me by Alex. And it is even there while I stroke a huge fluffy white cat that I managed to catch as it escaped from its mistress, a smiley lady wearing burgundy red butterfly sunglasses.