The Athlete

by Elin Peer

  I lowered my brow. I’d seen Emanuela naked and she was mouthwateringly gorgeous with her perky tits and round ass.

  “I can see that surprises you, but you’ve got to understand that it’s only recently that we men with muscles aren’t frowned upon. I think all of you Nmen have changed things. I’m getting more offers than usually, and I’m starting to think it’s because I’m so buff.”

  I looked at Cole. “You’re not that buff.”

  “Maybe not compared to you, but my favorite place to work in the park is in the shop of the blacksmith and after eight years it shows.” He walked down a hallway and entered another room with subdued lighting. “This is the changing room. We’ll undress here and if you need a shower between your sex partners, it’s right in there.” He pointed to another door saying “shower room.”

  It sounded crazy to hear sex partners in plural but I went with the flow and undressed down to my boxers.

  “Look at this.” Cole flexed his muscles. “Pretty buff, wouldn’t you say? And I’m not even ashamed of it anymore.”

  As we stood in our boxer shorts, three women came in. They were in their late thirties and zoomed in on me right away.

  “May peace surround you.” Cole nodded to them and signaled for me to follow him.

  “This is the bar. They serve all sort of exotic drinks. My favorite is buttery nipple.”

  “Any chance they serve beer in the bar?”

  “Afraid not.”

  “No alcohol at all?”

  “Nope. It’s where people just hang out and get to know each other. If you like to play games, there are all sorts of machines in that area. They all require at least two players and the purpose of course is to bring people together.”

  My eyes were trying to take all of this in. There were at least thirty people in the room, only five of them males including me and Cole. Everyone was wearing something to cover their crotch but only a few women had covered their breasts. It was like Internet porn, but in real life.

  “Now if we go down this way, you’ll find the more interesting rooms. On your right, you’ll see the private rooms and if the sign says ‘in use,’ you can’t go in there. We have robots to clean the rooms after they’ve been used, so you never have to worry about hygiene.

  “Then on your left, you can see the more-is-better- room, which as the name implies is for people who enjoy orgies.”

  I looked in and saw around seven people tangled up in sexual positions.

  “It can get pretty crazy in there. I would say the max I’ve seen was around fifteen people going at it.” Cole picked up a spray that stood by the entrance to the room. “We encourage all males to spray their penis before intercourse. It’s just a precaution and part of the hygiene program.”

  “But I thought you didn’t have any sexually transmitted diseases anymore.”

  “We don’t. But these sprays protect against pregnancies.”

  “Aren’t you all infertile?”

  “No.” He looked offended. “If you must know, Jonah and I both donate sperm to the clinics.”

  “Sorry, I just heard that men here have poor sperm quality.”

  “True, but that’s a general problem all over the world.”

  “Right.” I dropped the subject since it was clearly making him uncomfortable.

  “This room is the voyeur room. It’s not in use right now, but as you can see the three beds in here are elevated on the stage and with the setup of chairs it invites an audience.”

  I raised a brow but didn’t say anything. To me the thought of people watching me have sex was disturbing.

  “This next one is just a normal playroom. What’s funny about that is that it comes with a lot of equipment such as different toys and that sex swing over there.”

  A rather corpulent woman was sitting in a black swing with her legs raised up and her head leaned back. She was clearly enjoying the oral sex provided by another female sitting between her legs. Seeing someone in an intimate situation like that felt intrusive to me, so I turned my back and walked to the next room. “Let me guess, this must be the sensory deprivation room.”

  “Yes.” Cole pointed. “It can get completely dark in here, and all the equipment needed for blindfolding, bondage, and that sort of thing is all here.” He lowered his voice. “We also have a room for people who enjoy BDSM. You want to see it?”

  “I don’t even know what BDSM stands for.”

  “BDSM is a variety of all sorts of fun things. Think about role-playing but with elements of bondage, discipline, dominance, submission, and sadomasochism.”

  I stared at him. “That’s a real thing?”

  “Of course it is.” Cole placed his hand on my shoulder and pulled me in to whisper in my ear, “I’ve had a few women ask me to role-play with them. Guess what they want me to pretend I am.”

  “How would I know?”

  He chuckled low. “They want me to pretend I’m an Nman.”

  I jerked my head back and asked with skepticism in my tone of voice, “They do?”

  He nodded with amusement in his eyes. “Uh-huh. The rougher the better. I’ve even spanked a few in that room. The women love it.”

  “Why? Because they think we’re all violent monsters who would rape them?”

  “Son of a sea lion, you don’t have to get so upset about it. It’s just sexual fantasies. They’re harmless.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “I’m not hitting any women.”

  “Why not? It’s kind of liberating, really, and as long as they want you to who cares?”

  “This was a mistake,” I muttered.

  Cole smiled. “Take it easy. You don’t have to do anything. How about we just go back to the bar and have a drink? Maybe you’ll meet someone fun and learn something new about the Motherlands. If you feel like having sex later, you can. If not, that’s okay too.”

  My tongue ran over my teeth as I tried to calm my nerves. “Okay. We’ll stick to the bar for now.”

  “I agree.”

  We went back and I saw that one of the men who had been in the bar before was now walking into the playroom with two women. “You men wanna join us?” one of the women cooed.

  Cole gave her a smile. “Not right now. Maybe later.” When we were out of ears’ reach, he muttered to me. “Always be kind in your rejections. You’re going to be giving a lot of them tonight.”

  He was right. I experienced what we Nmen fantasized about but like most fantasies the reality of it wasn’t as glamorous. Being surrounded by women who all wanted to have sex with me was stressful. Their interest in me was flattering, but in the back of my mind, I kept reminding myself that they wanted nothing but my body.

  At least five didn’t even ask my name before they invited me to have sex with them. Three years ago, I would’ve stormed off to a private room with the first beautiful woman who showed an interest in me. In fact, that’s exactly what I had done with Alice, but now I was more careful.

  While the others spoke around me, I thought about that night when I had sex for the first time.

  Alice was a dancer like my sister. I had been naïve enough to think she wanted all of me when we had made love one night in my sister’s apartment. My pride still suffered every time I thought about the way she’d laughed in my face when I asked her to marry me.

  Maybe what I needed was to have sex with someone else and wash her out of my system for good.

  Cole and I were surrounded by women. As always, I could find flaws with every one of them, but then that was the curse of Alice’s humiliation. Willow had told me a million times that I did it on purpose to protect my heart and even though I knew she was right, I didn’t know how to stop.

  “How about it?” Cole whispered to me. “If you point out two or three of the women, I can have one of them come to you while you’re blindfolded. You would never know which one you slept with.”

  I sucked in air before releasing it in a low deep exhalation. “All right.”

  “Which ones
do you want me to pick from?”

  “Cynthia, Melissa, or Frances,” I whispered back. All three women were my age and beautiful, and if I was blindfolded, I could ignore the flaws I had found in each of them.

  “What are you two whispering about?” Melissa asked. I almost regretted mentioning her name because her voice was pretty high-pitched and now I worried that she might be an annoying screamer in bed.

  “Hunter just agreed to have sex with one of you.”

  The six women around us lit up. “Why only one?” one of them asked. “I would’ve thought you could handle at least two or three of us.”

  “It’s not my style.”

  “Give the man a chance.” Cole grinned. “They have one woman for every hundred thousand men. Hunter will have to get used to the abundance of women we have here.

  “So who do you want to have sex with?”

  “Since he doesn’t want to disappoint any of you, Hunter is going to go to the sensory deprivation room and whomever I choose can follow. However, Hunter wants to be blindfolded, so you can’t say your name. He wants the sexual experience to be anonymous.”

  “Oooh, kinky.” Melissa grinned. “Why do you want to be blindfolded? I thought you Nmen liked to be in control.”

  I frowned at her. “Trust me. I’ll still be in control.”

  “But if you’re blindfolded, we could do whatever we want to you.”

  “No, you couldn’t. It would take me about one second to tear off that blindfold.”

  “Still, you have to admit that you’re making yourself vulnerable.”

  I laughed and got up from my seat. “Vulnerable? I don’t think so, honey. I’m a fucking Nman – none of you people can do anything to me, unless I allow it.”

  One of the females purred like a cat. “That is so hot. You want to play in the BDSM room?”

  I didn’t answer her, but gave Cole a nod. “I’m taking a quick shower. Give me ten minutes before you send someone to me.”

  “Understood. I’ll just go and reserve the sensory room for you.”

  “Yeah, you do that.”

  CHAPTER 13

  The Sensory Room

  Emanuela

  It had been over an hour since Cole and Hunter had left for the club. I knew because I’d checked the clock in the living room every two minutes.

  My nails were tapping on the table, and by now my mom had given up pretending to have a conversation with me, since I couldn’t focus and kept asking her to repeat.

  “Why don’t you just go over and see what’s going on?”

  “Why would I? They are adults, they can do whatever they want to.”

  “True. But you’re sitting playing cards with me in the kitchen instead of hanging out with the rest of the family and the dogs in the living room. You haven’t touched the cake and it’s your favorite. You sit on that chair like you have ants crawling up and down your legs. I’m your mother, and I can tell that you are suffering.”

  With an exaggerated movement, I let my forehead fall down on the table. “I hate it. I hate that Hunter is having sex with some random woman right now.”

  My mother and I had always been close. She was a strong woman and a major contributor to the success of the family business. It would be pointless to lie to her since she was too smart to be fooled. “Why does it bother you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do know.”

  I groaned in response.

  “If you don’t want to admit what this is, then let me do it for you. You’re jealous.”

  “I knooow,” I whined. “It’s so embarrassing.” I lifted my head and looked at her with pleading eyes. “Mom, it’s like I can’t control it. It hurts so bad.”

  “Personal mastery, darling, that’s all it takes.”

  “I’ve tried, but this is different. I feel like I want to smash something.”

  My mom jerked her head back. “That would be extreme, even for you.”

  I shook my head. “Promise that you won’t ever tell anyone about this. I’m so embarrassed.”

  “You know what they say: the truth will set you free.”

  I pointed a warning finger at her. “No one can know. Least of all Hunter.”

  My mom had the same piercing eyes as Jonah and I, and when we were children she had always joked that they came with the gift of seeing right through us. “You need to take back control, honey. There’s only one thing for you to do and I’ll bet you know what it is.”

  Hiding my face behind my hands, I groaned.

  “Emanuela, go and tell Hunter how you feel.”

  “It would just make everything awkward between us. He already told me that he prefers women younger than himself and that he wouldn’t consider being with a colleague. I would just embarrass myself and besides, it’s already too late.” The last sentence came out in deep breath followed by a sigh.

  My mom looked at the clock. “Yeah, probably.”

  I stiffened. “You think he’s having sex right now?”

  She shrugged. “He could be on his second round by now.”

  That got me up from the table so fast that my chair fell back. “That’s not funny!”

  “Oh honey, just do us all a favor, go see what’s going on.”

  “Maybe I will.” For seconds we just looked at each other, my mother with a small smile of understanding on her face.

  “Well, go on then.”

  Ten minutes later, I hurried into the bar of Experi and found Cole surrounded by a large group of women.

  “Where’s Hunter?”

  “Whoa, whoa, you can’t come in here fully dressed.” Cole got up from his seat and was quick to guide me in to the office located behind the bar. “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to Hunter.”

  “You can’t. He’s busy.”

  The devastated expression on my face must’ve told the story of how I felt, because my brother stepped closer and pulled me into his arms. “Oh, my sunshine, I had no idea.”

  I pushed away from him a little. “Where is he?”

  “In the sensory deprivation room. If you had been here five minutes earlier…” He trailed off. “I literally just sent a woman to him five minutes ago.”

  “Then bring her back here.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?” My voice broke.

  “Come on, sis. You know I would do anything for you, but Hunter is an adult. I can’t go into the rooms and pull people apart.”

  I swung my arms with frustration and spun in a circle. “Then I’ll do it.”

  A sympathetic laugh escaped Cole. “You seriously like Hunter that much?”

  My answer was a whisper. “It’s not funny. And Hunter can’t know that I’m here.”

  “But you were the one who asked me to bring him here.”

  “I know, but that was before…”

  “Before what?”

  I pointed to my belly button. “Before I felt sick to my stomach from the thought of him having sex with someone else.”

  Cole stared at me. “Did something happen between you two?”

  “No. He made it clear that he doesn’t want a relationship with a colleague.”

  “Yet, you still want to interrupt him while having sex? He’s not going to be happy about that.”

  I folded my lower lip between my teeth. “He wants the experience to be anonymous sooo...” I looked down.

  “Ema, you can’t.”

  When I looked back up, Cole’s eyebrows were high up and he was shaking his head. “If it’s the only way I can prevent him from having sex with someone else, then I’ll do it.”

  Cole shook his head and ran both hands through his short hair. “You’ve done a lot of crazy things, but this is by far…” he trailed off and just stared at me.

  “Will you help me, please?”

  He drew in a big gulp of air and spoke on his exhale. “Sure, I can’t remember a time I’ve been able to talk you out of anything, so w
hy not?”

  “I thought about triggering the fire alarm to evacuate everyone, but that wouldn’t be fair to the others. This is the only other plan I can come up with.”

  “What you have is not a plan. It’s an act of desperation.”

  He was right, but I ignored his words. “I’m going to tell the woman that someone is trying to get in contact with her. What’s her name?”

  “Frances. Tell her I sent you. I’ll figure out some kind of excuse when she comes to find me.” He gave another long sigh. “Actually, no, that won’t work. Hunter doesn’t want to know her name so you can’t just open the door and call for her. I’ll have to do it or he will recognize your voice for sure.”

  “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” I moved over and kissed Cole on the cheek.

  “You owe me big time for this.”

  “I know.”

  “Okay, then let’s do it.” He pointed to my clothes. “You know the dress code. You can’t go in like that.”

  I undressed in the office, right down to my panties. That part didn’t bother me since nudity was so natural for us. The part that made me nervous was walking down the hallway and stopping in front of the sensory room. What if Hunter was already inside her? What if she protested and refused to leave? What if Hunter asked me questions and recognized my voice?

  With my heart beating faster than in a fast-paced soccer game, I watched Cole as he opened the door a tiny bit and called out to them. “Hunter, would you please send out the lady. There has been a… ehh… development.”

  “Is something wrong?” Hunter didn’t sound out of breath, and that was a good sign.

  It only took a few seconds before a woman stepped out and Cole called back to Hunter. “Someone will be right in with you.”

  “What’s wrong?” Frances was pretty and looked from me to Cole and back again. “Who is she?”

  Cole waved Frances along with him and as he walked away I could hear him tell her how pretty he thought she was and how he wanted her for himself.

  Frances was chuckling when he placed an arm around her and gave her a warm smile. “I’m flattered that you feel that way. I’ve never had two men interested in me in one night.”