Game

by Justine Elyot

  Lloyd can’t seriously expect me to …

  Rachael kneels down in front of us and skims perfectly manicured nails along the insides of my thighs.

  ‘Oh.’ I can’t help the little exhalation of helpless, fearful desire.

  When her tongue curls inside my lips, her feminine touch and knowledge is so acute that I gush into her. O, holding on to me for dear life, begins to nip at my neck. Rachael really knows how this is done. She might lack Lloyd’s muscularity and firmness of purpose, but every lick hits home, deadly accurate, while my clit grows and my juices run ever thicker.

  My body trembles, moving out of my control.

  Lloyd’s face is almost too hard to look at. The expression of utter intensity frightens me. I shut my eyes, feel O’s rings snag at my nipples, Rachael’s nails dig into my skin. I try to take myself away from physical reality, find a place where I am not aroused, not exposed, not being eaten out by a beautiful woman while my lover watches. But the place can’t be found, the reality can’t be denied.

  I begin to squirm and surge on O’s lap, trying to escape Rachael’s tyrannical attentions.

  ‘It’s no use, darling,’ whispers O. ‘If Rachael doesn’t make you come, we’re going to swap places. And believe me, I have never left a woman unsatisfied.’

  ‘It … isn’t … fair,’ I pant, and then I have to give in.

  The orgasm is huge and tears me into pieces. I kick and wail until I fear for the women’s safety, my eyes tight shut, my hands flapping, my bare body undulating all over O.

  When I come to, I find Lloyd standing over us, smiling down, his eyes all shiny.

  ‘That wasn’t fair,’ I say, my voice coming out as a harsh whisper.

  ‘No, but it was amazing.’

  He holds out his hands. I swing my legs off O’s lap and let him hold me, too weak and shivery to knee him in the groin as I rightly should.

  ‘Failure never looked better.’ He kisses the words into my ear, then addresses our guests. ‘Wonderful work. Truly wonderful. You are artists of erotica.’

  They go back to sipping cocktails, still as immaculate as they were when they entered the room. It’s just me that’s a big old sex mess.

  ‘Can I get dressed now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But …’

  ‘The night is young. And the fish is cooked. I’ll go and sort it out while you do the wine, yeah?’

  He leaves me, naked and streaked with sweat and come, to entertain our guests and set the table.

  ‘Thanks,’ I say to them. It seems polite.

  ‘Pleasure,’ they chorus, not inaccurately.

  I don’t spill any hot sauce on my naked flesh, but I am extremely careful to make sure each mouthful is securely pronged on my fork first. As we eat, we chatter about the club, about Mal and Dr Lassiter, about the hotel, about things I could discuss with perfect unselfconsciousness if only I was clothed.

  Then Lloyd clears away the plates and orders me onto the table.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. Get on the table.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why do you think?’

  He doesn’t wait for my answer, elbowing his way into the kitchen, and I presume he doesn’t hear my yell of ‘I don’t know!’ because he is too busy clattering about with the dishwasher.

  ‘I think you’re dessert.’ O enlightens me with a sly smile.

  ‘But we bought fruit and cream … oh …’

  ‘Fruity,’ giggles Rachael. ‘Very fruity. If you ever get bored with Lloyd, can I have him?’

  Bored with Lloyd. Could that happen? I ponder this as I climb aboard the table with its snowy-for-now cloth. I move the candles in the centre to the end, blowing them out. I don’t know if Lloyd was planning on a spot of wax play, but on the other hand, I’ve no plans to burn the hotel down.

  ‘What do you think, girls? On my back?’

  ‘I guess so,’ says Rachael. O merely shrugs.

  They sip their wine and watch me lay myself on the smooth linen, legs together, hands crossed over my breasts like a statue atop a medieval tomb.

  ‘I did something a bit like this,’ O remarks. ‘At one of His Lordship’s house parties. Were you there, Rachael? The Roman orgy?’

  ‘Oh yes, I was. I was a slave girl. Not as much fun as I thought it would be, actually – I spent most of the evening refilling wine glasses.’

  ‘At least you weren’t the vomitorium attendant,’ I remark.

  While we are contemplating this fate, Lloyd returns to the room, bearing a vast platter of soft fruits and a pitcher of double cream.

  Without stopping for any kind of explanation, he tips the fruit in a chilly avalanche all over my body then pours the cream on top.

  I yelp and shiver and try to elude the thick stream, but all that happens is I crush a number of berries into the tablecloth, which will probably never recover.

  ‘Dig in,’ says Lloyd, discarding the jug with a flourish.

  Giggling, Rachael kneels up on her chair and snags a strawberry from my stomach. I watch her eat, her nose dotted with cream. She looks luscious and sexy. O, ever decorous, uses her fingers to pick up a raspberry, which she then places delicately on one nipple and licks off with her tongue.

  Lloyd joins in, looming over me, elbows on the table, burying his face deep into the delta of my thighs, forcing them apart. Fruits tumble in, cream drips down between my lips and coats my clit. Lloyd feeds avidly and greedily while the female diners are more delicate, hovering around my breasts and belly, careful not to smear cream on their lovely dresses.

  He pushes fruits up inside me with his fingers then retrieves them with his tongue. Melon and mango combine with my own taste of honey, giving Lloyd the ultimate in dining experiences.

  Daintier lips and teeth tackle my nipples, licking puréed passion fruit and cream off them. For a long time, I can hear nothing but laboured breathing, low ‘mmm’s of orgiastic delight, the smacking of lips while the three of them partake of me.

  Lloyd drizzles my cunt with a raspberry coulis, licks it off but doesn’t stop when it’s all gone, his tongue continuing to work my clit with long, slow strokes.

  O and Rachael stand back, all the fruit having gone now.

  ‘If I come …’ I manage to blurt.

  ‘Hmm?’ Lloyd speaks into my spread split lips.

  ‘Would that be …?’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ he mutters. ‘We’ll call tonight one fail.’

  I let go of my tension, forget about incurring the third and final fail, and hook my ankles around his neck. In a welter of mess and cream and fruit stains, I allow a ragged orgasm to take hold of me.

  It turns out to be only the second of many.

  Over the course of the evening, O and Rachael fuck me with candles and vibrators while Lloyd watches, cock in hand, mixing his seed with the remnants of dessert that cover my breasts.

  When they finally leave and we stagger to bed, leaving the clearing up until morning, I can barely keep my eyes open or my legs upright.

  ‘So, Sophie,’ he whispers, cradling me in the darkness while the kitchen staff haul barrels and crates about in the yard below. ‘Two fails now.’

  ‘That wasn’t fair. Nobody could have succeeded with that one.’

  ‘It was perfectly fair. And I was very kind to only count the first orgasm. If I’d decided to carry on, you’d be packing your bags tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Why do you want that so much?’

  ‘Oh, Sophie, why do you think?’

  But I’m too tired to formulate thoughts and I slide into dreamland, sideways, away from the questions that won’t stop asking themselves.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘So, let’s talk about this,’ says Lloyd over breakfast the next morning. ‘Let’s get some things straight.’

  I don’t like the sound of this. I gnaw on my croissant, suddenly finding its texture too bulky for actual mastication.

  ‘That tablecloth is beyond hope,’
I say, looking at the orgy of different purple shades. ‘Unless you want to recycle it as a masterwork of abstract art.’

  ‘Never mind the tablecloth. I’ll take it down to the laundry later. I want you to tell me what’s the worst that could happen.’

  ‘Nuclear war,’ I decide, swallowing my croissant crumb and returning the rest to the plate. ‘I think that’d be worse than alien invasion, somehow. The knowledge that we’d done it to ourselves.’

  ‘Shut up.’ He looks quite rattled, not the laid-back Lloyd I’m used to. ‘Sorry. Sorry, didn’t mean to snap at you. But just stop it, OK? Just for once, take something seriously.’

  ‘What do you mean, just for once? I take lots of things seriously. The hotel, for one.’

  ‘I’m talking about us. If you move in here, if you commit to a future with me, what’s the worst that could happen?’

  I could lose you. That’s why I haven’t ever properly claimed you. Because if you’re never mine to lose, then … The logic is too faulty. I can’t say it. And besides, I don’t want him to know how much he means to me. Knowledge is power, and I want the power on my side.

  ‘You might change.’

  ‘So you like me as I am?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I can’t promise I’ll never change. People do. But I’ll be open with you, always. You’ll always know what I’m thinking. If I’m going to change, you’ll be the first to know.’

  ‘I might change, and then you might not like me any more.’

  ‘That would matter to you?’

  ‘God, Lloyd, of course it would. You seem to think that there’s no other expression of love or loyalty or commitment than the traditional sharing of worldly goods and finances. That’s not the definition of it, you know.’

  ‘I do know that, Sophie. I think you love me, though you’ve never said so. I think that scares you, and that’s why you’re so reluctant to do something that would be positive for us both, and fun, and practical and … just the right thing to do. I want to know why it scares you. I want to know you.’

  ‘That’s the thing. I don’t want you to know me. If you really knew me, you probably wouldn’t like me.’

  ‘You’re so … Oh God.’ He rests his head on the table, pantomiming epic frustration. ‘Sophie. Listen. I like you. I love you, in fact. I don’t care if you have secret plans to assassinate the Cabinet. I don’t care if you poisoned a guinea pig in nineteen ninety-four. I don’t care if you have sex with other men. I love you. Do you understand that? Can you comprehend it?’

  ‘I don’t think I can.’ I twist the tablecloth in my hand, looking at a particularly gorgeous effusion of indigo. ‘Sorry.’

  He pauses to drink some coffee, watching me all the while. ‘When your father left,’ he says, ‘how did that affect you?’

  ‘I was gutted. I was only five. I didn’t understand.’

  ‘But you came to understand?’

  ‘No, not really. I never did.’

  ‘You’ve always said that life carried on as normal and it was fine and you were fine and you all coped really well.’

  ‘We did! I went to school and did well and had friends and all that.’

  ‘What friends?’

  ‘School friends. Girl friends.’

  ‘You aren’t in touch with any of them.’

  ‘Well, no. I moved away.’

  ‘Email? Facebook? Phones?’

  ‘What’s your point, Lloyd?’

  ‘You won’t let anyone get beyond your inner wall, will you? They can get so close and no closer. I’m no psychiatrist but …’

  ‘You think it’s because my dad left? Abandonment issues? How trite.’

  ‘Well, it might be a cliché, but things become clichés for a reason. Usually there’s some truth in them.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘And there was the whole Chase thing, before we got together. What was that about? A remote, unavailable man, twenty-odd years older than you … hmmm … let me think …’

  ‘Fuck off. You are way, way off beam.’

  He curls his lip, rolls his eyes. ‘Have it your way,’ he says wearily, then he seems to disagree with his own words, leaning forwards to speak with intense urgency.

  ‘Actually, no. Don’t have it your way. Have it my way. Move in with me, Sophie. Just break through your fears and take a risk. I’ll make it worth your while. I’ll make you happy, I promise.’

  His face seems to swim in front of me, only his eyes retaining pure sharpness. I feel a heat and a constriction. I’m on a tower, and everyone’s shouting at me to jump.

  I could do it. I could do it.

  I break our gaze.

  ‘I’m not ready.’

  ‘Shit,’ he says under his breath. He swigs from the coffee cup again. ‘Look, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this challenge. But I’m going to. I need to know how it ends. But you’ll stick to the deal, won’t you? No matter whether you pass or fail, you’ll stick to the deal.’

  ‘I always stick to a deal.’

  ‘Good. Right. I know that. Just needed to hear it.’

  ‘What’s the challenge?’

  ‘I’m not going to say yet. I need to make a few arrangements first.’ He drains his cup. ‘See ya.’

  He leaves without the usual kiss, or slap to my thigh, or growly bear hug.

  I feel like I’m losing him already.

  ***

  ‘Dress for sex.

  Take a taxi to Brace Street and go into the Peep Show at number 5. Tell whoever’s behind the counter that you’re here for Mr Bulgarov. He’ll direct you up some stairs. We’ll be waiting for you on the top floor.

  You should be there for eleven.

  L.’

  Lloyd is out for the afternoon on a procurement job, so this message arrives by email with the heading, ‘Challenge’.

  I read it through three times before I realise that the Peep Show on Brace Street is the same one I once performed at, the one below the illegal gambling club where Lloyd used to run the bar.

  This gives me an immediate and consuming sense of unease.

  If I emailed him back, ‘Yes, I’ll move in with you’ … no. I have the feeling this challenge will be about confronting something. Something I don’t want to confront, but perhaps should.

  Dressing for sex involves squeezing into a beribboned black satin basque straight out of the Moulin Rouge, together with G-string and matching teeny ruffled skirt. Lace-topped thigh-high stockings are next, then I pull on an expensive tuxedo-style jacket, which covers more than the skirt even bothers to attempt.

  In the mirror, I look template-sexy, but I can see the vulnerability behind the lipstick and the false lashes. All the same, the basque and other fixings are like a uniform, pulling me out of self-doubt and into a professional frame of mind.

  Lloyd sometimes accuses me of approaching sex as if it were a job, and I can see his point. I am my own harshest Performance Reviewer. My objective is always to provide an unforgettable fuck, the best of whoever’s life. If I don’t achieve this, then I mark myself down, consider myself unfit for promotion.

  Eliciting an emotional response has never been on my job description, but now it’s happened, I don’t know what to do about it.

  Lloyd loves me. He’s said so. He wants me in his life for the duration.

  I’m sure he means it.

  I’m sure he thinks he means it.

  Don’t we always think we mean stuff, at the time? And then …

  The buzzer heralds the arrival of my taxi. I slip my feet into stiletto heels and leave my mirror reflection to introspect alone.

  It’s strange to stand outside the Peep Show frontage again. It’s even seedier-looking than I remember, several of the neon letters having malfunctioned so instead of being called KittyKat, it looks like K tt K t. The shiny reflective fabric in the window is torn in a few places. I wonder if passers-by could look directly in at the figure of a naked dancer. I’m almost tempted to put my eye to a
crack, but I don’t want to attract negative attention, or spend too much time on this cigarette-butt-strewn pavement, so I enter the building with as much purpose as I can muster.

  The guy behind the counter doesn’t recognise me, but I remember him.

  ‘No jobs going,’ he says without looking up from his newspaper. ‘We got more girls than we can handle and not enough punters. It’s the recession, love. Sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m here for Mr Bulgarov.’

  He looks at me properly. Is that a flicker of recognition? I hope not and look away.

  ‘Ah.’ He lets the word hang portentously in the air, giving me an insolent up-and-down inspection. He doesn’t say, ‘the whore’ but he’s thinking it. ‘In that case …’ He opens a door to the side of the counter and waves me up. ‘Top floor, love. Knock three times.’

  I climb the rickety stairs, tripping over a couple of girls smoking on a landing, exchanging comfortless anecdotes about their last places of employment.

  The top floor is a long way up. By the time I reach it, my ankles are about to give way and I have to take a moment so as not to make my entrance puffing like a steam train.

  I can’t hear anything behind the thick reinforced metal of the door. I put my hand against it and try to push but it’s impenetrable, probably triple-locked, bolted and barred.

  I put back my shoulders, lift my chin and knock three times.

  There is silence, then rattles and clicks from the other side. A spyhole in the centre of the door is suddenly occupied by a big fish eye. I smooth my hands over the satin tux jacket and pout.

  Eventually, the door is half opened. A kind of human cliff face stands in the space revealed, broad and vast and slablike.

  ‘Your name?’ he asks in a heavy accent of some kind.

  ‘Sophie.’

  ‘OK. Come in.’

  The room is small and low lit. In one corner, there’s a bar area. Lloyd stands there, wiping tumblers with a tea towel. I don’t try to catch his eye. It’s much more important just now to get my bearings.

  In the centre of the room, four men sit around a table, playing cards. Three of them are middle-aged while one is younger. He has a mean, sleek look about him. All of them project an aura of serious wealth, their wrists weighed down with chunky watches, their suits perfectly cut, fat Cuban cigars wedged between the lips of two of them. None of them looks at me. They are all too busy surveying their hands of cards or pushing piles of tokens around the table. A bottle of Grey Goose stands at the centre of play, ready to refill any empty glasses.