The Not So Invisible Woman (3 page)

The only other man I'd ever been with who thrived on eleventh-hour sex was Frank, a long-distance boyfriend I dated around the time my marriage was coming to an end. A French-Irish guy from New York City, he had never been outside the US, so when he came to visit me one week, I took him to Woodstock, a traditional old English village near Oxford, for a few days of sex and sightseeing. Just before checkout, while packing my bag, I announced that we had to be out of the room in ten minutes. The bed was covered with suitcases and clothing and guidebooks, but that didn't prevent him from pushing me down on the mattress and climbing on top of me. He lifted up my skirt and entered me without any foreplay, and came three minutes later. I didn't come, but that hardly mattered; he had made me come numerous times during his visit. We were at the front desk by deadline.

Ordinarily he was a guy who really liked to take his time, and it was not unusual that a session with Frank lasted four hours – thus my willingness to carry on with the relationship despite the three thousand miles between us. But that ten-minute window in Woodstock had pushed a button I'd never known existed. I should have caught on earlier. He told me once that he'd gone through a period during his thirties of being with hookers. That's a habit that comes with expensive time constraints, and I think Frank liked the idea of having to get off to the clock.

I didn't think Sam was into prostitutes, but he certainly liked his 45-minute quickie, and so did I. It was the only chance I got to get laid outside of my designated two kids-free weekends a month. Following the end of my disastrous relationship with Karume, my last serious boyfriend, I'd made a pact with myself never to invite another man over during the week when my kids were around, unless I felt there was a chance of a serious relationship. Sam was not serious – just serious fun – so I didn't feel I was breaking my rule, especially as my kids never met him.

I was still feeling the woozie post-sex glow as I walked through my office door.

'Good morning,' I said to my receptionist, a busty blonde cutie in her late twenties.

She smiled as she greeted me, as she always did. It seemed just another day at work for her, but as I walked towards my office, I laughed to myself, remembering my horny breakfast.

Sam was my secret, and it was a turn-on going into the office, having been royally fucked, and being the only person who knew.

I realised that day I wasn't the only one with a secret.

'I have something to tell you that I haven't told anyone else,' said the voice at the end of my phone. 'Can we have lunch?' It was James, a colleague who worked in television advertising.

I wondered what could be so important. He'd never really talked about his personal life before, although he enjoyed hearing, from time to time, about mine. I had met him a couple of years earlier when we worked on a project together professionally, and we grew close enough that eventually we got around to talking about sex. Or rather, I did. He was always evasive and fell into the role of eager listener.

James was in his late forties, married to a woman he had met at university, and the father of a couple of kids. He was bald, had glasses, and was of average height and weight and build – in fact, pretty much average in every way. Not unattractive, but not standout, either. Instead of 'sexy', he was the kind of guy who seemed safe and would be referred to as 'nice'. And he was.

We arranged to meet at a gastro pub near my office at one.

A family of six were sitting a few seats away from us, the children climbing on and off the chairs and making noise whilst the parents tried, unsuccessfully, to contain them. Two women and a man were quietly conducting business on our other side. We ordered roast pork sandwiches with crackling, a hearty meal that suited the crisp, wintry weather outside.

I took my cue from James, and played along as we caught up on business. Eventually he got around to the real reason for lunch.

'I haven't had sex in six years,' he said.

'Wow,' I said. 'That beats my four. Well, not four years since I've had sex, but you know what I mean.' He knew about the long spell without sex I endured towards the end of my marriage to David. Since then I'd been making up for lost time.

I suddenly wondered if James was one of those guys who wanked on cam – solitary, feverish, and eager for any sexual connection, going cyber when there was nothing real on offer. Not that I hadn't been online myself. But it was always as an adjunct to a busy, and varied, sex life. Yet I often suspected that many of the men jerking on cam were in front of their computer because they weren't getting any in bed and it was their only form of relief.

'I haven't told anybody else,' continued James. 'You're the only person I can talk to.'

I felt sad. We hardly knew each other, and it was heartbreaking knowing he couldn't confide in his mates. His whole forties were a desert. No wonder he hangs out with me, I thought. It hadn't occurred to me that James had probably lived vicariously through my sex stories. Or that they might have pained him. Over my six years of singledom I'd met at least a dozen men just like James who wouldn't leave home to find a satisfying life for fear of having their kids taken from them.

'Have you and your wife talked about this?' I asked.

'Well, that's the thing,' he said. 'I had a chat with her a while back and told her that I really missed having sex. She told me it's not that she doesn't love me, but she's not interested. She just doesn't feel any sexual desire.'

'That's not uncommon,' I said. 'I felt that way, too, when I was married.' I explained that it wasn't my husband's fault, but rather the stress of bringing up kids and being tired all the time and just not feeling sexy. 'It's hard to feel sexy when there's baby spittle all over your clothes.'

'I can understand that,' said James, 'but our kids aren't babies any more. And I really want to get laid.'

Suddenly, I began to wonder if he had invited me to lunch to help him out. I had encountered other men who'd assumed that, because I was sexually active, they could have me. That had always pissed me off – the presumption that I wasn't choosy just because I liked getting laid.

I soon realised that wasn't the case with James. He just wanted to vent. He told me that he didn't want to move out on his wife and that he'd never cheated on her, but that he couldn't stand being celibate for much longer.

'Last week, I had drinks with one of my clients, a married woman,' he continued. 'One thing led to another, and she ended up giving me a blowjob in the car park.'

'I thought you said you never cheated.'

'Well,' he said, 'I'm still trying to work out the boundaries. I mean, we didn't sleep together. So it's not really cheating, is it?' It wasn't that he was looking for absolution; he really wasn't sure if he'd crossed the line.

'Oh,' I said, 'I think you'll find most people would say that getting sucked off in a car park is cheating. I think we can pretty much universally agree on that one. Sorry to disappoint you.'

James laughed.

'It must have been one amazing blowjob after a six-year hiatus.' I thought he'd laugh, but instead he suddenly looked glum.

'I tell you, I almost cried,' he said. 'I mean it. I was that close to crying.'

I didn't know what to say. How do you tell a man who hasn't had sex for six years that his marriage is dead? According to most of the men I've met over the years, a car park blowjob soon leads to a hotel room, and then to a pay-as-you-go mobile that allows you to schedule the next liaison. A year or two later, you've handed the house keys over to your wife and are sitting in a tiny apartment, the only thing you can afford after the alimony payments. But at least you're getting laid. I'd been there myself and had grown used to the financial insecurity. Still, it was a small price to pay for happiness.

I said the only thing I could. 'Maybe you should talk to your wife again. See if she's open to your having an arrangement whereby every once in a while you spend a night in London. It's not unheard of. You might be surprised at her reaction.'

'You're right,' he said. 'Maybe I should just be upfront with her.'

'And if that doesn't work,' I continued, 'you can always do what I do.' I told him about my virtual wanking. 'It's not really cheating if you're not in the same room.'

Thinking about James describing his car-park blowjob as a non-cheating event made me chuckle to myself. I felt bad that he was in a bind in his marriage, but I wasn't too worried about him. He had reconciled himself to the idea of getting sucked off in car parks and hotel rooms and God knows where else, either with the woman he'd just met or with the others who were sure to follow. Once you're back on the sex train, you don't make any stops.

I knew. I was celibate during the last four years of my marriage before meeting Frank from New York. He turned me on to swinging, fetish clubs, exhibitionism, anal, blowjobs, and good old-fashioned fucking again. After my affair with Frank, I realised all the fun I'd been missing during my relatively sex-free marriage, and I haven't stopped having fun since. I was confident that, on James's express route to future orgasms, now that he'd broken six years of celibacy, he'd be OK, all the while making excuses to his wife and justifying his behaviour, telling himself his affairs were inconsequential.

I'd figured out a long time ago that men have a gift for concocting excuses for their indiscretions and creating boundaries that suit their desires. My first boyfriend, Tim, from university, taught me this lesson one term after disappearing for three days. Eventually I tracked him down – in the apartment of a close girlfriend of mine. He wasn't wearing any trousers when I found him, but he assured me that he and Marsha were only friends. They moved in together within a couple of months and I cried my eyes out for a year after that. They remained together for a decade, and I got wise.

By the time I came across Mark, during one of my Friday evening sessions at Rio's, men and their twisted boundaries were water off this duck's back. For several years Rio's has been my home away from home, my refuge from Medialand and all its artifice. A naturist 'health club' in Kentish Town, it serves as a hook-up spot for men and women looking for a quickie, a threesome, or sometimes, on a lucky day, even a gang bang in one of the club's private rooms. It is frequented by all sorts, from government workers, property developers and video producers to lawyers, builders and security guards.

Even so, it is the one place I know where one's occupation is immaterial. Being naked means being free of dinner-party chat. I've often thought that the liberation from small talk is one of the reasons why I enjoy sex so much – when the clothes come off, so too does the bullshit that most guys carry around with them.

That Friday evening Rio's session began with me lying face down and naked in the steam room. I was pretending to be asleep, whilst half-hoping someone attractive might offer me a real massage, not just the cursory back rub as a prelude to fingering my pussy or bum, as was usually the case.

When I felt a damp towel spill onto my toes, I took exception to the clueless approach, so I ignored the towel and the person who came with it, and carried on lying immobile with my eyes closed. If I'm lucky, I thought, whoever dropped that towel on my toes will leave soon.

Next, I felt drops of warm water, like raindrops, on my back. Moisture from the ceiling, I hoped. I peeked from the corner of my eye and realised the damp towel had been dropped by the hairy Middle Eastern man I'd clocked on my way in, a quarter of an hour earlier. I ignored him – I don't do big hairy guys – but he persisted in trying to get my attention, finally addressing me after his effort failed to engage.

'I am professional masseur,' he said. 'You want back rub?'

I did not respond.

'Yes, professional masseur. I make you happy. Yes?'

I gave up. 'Where do you work, then?' I asked, keeping my eyes closed and my head turned towards the wall. I hoped I'd get a one-word answer and then be left alone.

'Yes, I'm professional masseur,' he repeated, as if that were his only line. Most men in Rio's had a whole inventory of them.

Either he hadn't heard my question or he didn't want to address it. It hardly mattered. He was about 45 and overweight and had a moustache. But it was the hair springing out of every pore, particularly on his back and shoulders, that killed it for me. I was not averse to a massage from a stranger, but I wasn't desperate. Besides, I'd set aside the time for relaxation and had only just arrived. A massage could wait. For now, I wanted to lie in the steam room and bide my time, waiting for a more perfect male specimen to show up. Or maybe I'd just fall asleep. I continued to lie on the bench, content to ignore the masseur and everyone else in the room.

The drops splashing on my back continued, then suddenly became more frequent. Ten minutes later, I opened my eyes and sat up, wrapping the towel I'd been lying on around my waist. The room was filled with steam, but I could just make out three figures standing in front of me, having sex. A Latin-looking transvestite was sandwiched between two men: the Middle Eastern masseur and another figure, indistinct in the steam. I realised that the raindrops I'd assumed were coming off the steam-room ceiling were in fact a spray of sweat dripping off the threesome's bodies.

It wasn't the first time I'd witnessed a threesome in the steam room, but in the past it had always involved me. A few years earlier I'd been the centre of one particularly steamy session. It hadn't lasted long because the room was so hot; the sweat caused one man's condom to keep slipping off, and the other couldn't stay hard. I liked the idea of our sweaty threesome, and the way our wet bodies fell all over each other, but I came to the conclusion that steam-room sex works best in the movies.

I left the steam room and moved to the Jacuzzi. Here, the view was better. I spotted a handsome Irishman I'd met once before. He was in his late thirties, about six-feet tall and very slim. He had fair hair, blue eyes, wide cheekbones and big white teeth – typically Irish, right down to the tattoos: a Celtic band that wrapped around one upper arm and a Celtic cross that decorated his lower back.

I hadn't seen him for two years, when I'd had to break up a near fight between him and another guy. I was in the shower, the Irish guy was in the shower next to me, and a stranger with a hard-on hovered between us, ogling. Mr Ireland had taken offence, thinking the erection was for his benefit.

He hadn't aged since that day; he'd just changed his hair a bit – it was now shorter and spiked on top.

Mr Ireland was alone in one of the Jacuzzi. I removed my towel, hung it on a peg, and stepped into the warm water. 'Haven't seen you here for a while,' I said.

'And you,' he said with a faint accent. He was grinning.

'Last time I saw you, I broke up a fight between you and some guy with a hard-on.'

'Yes, I remember that day,' he said. 'He's here today, actually. I've seen him here quite a few times since then. He even says hello to me from time to time.'

I felt his hand touch my breast under the water. I pretended not to notice. It was more fun that way. We'd not had sex before, but I remembered seeing him in the shower that previous time, and now I wanted it.

'That's what I like about Rio's,' I said. 'You make the strangest kinds of friendships'.

He explored my nipples as we carried on talking. 'I'm enjoying playing with your nipples,' he said, finally.

'Yes, I noticed.'

'I hope you don't mind.'

'I don't mind,' I said playfully.

We sat in the Jacuzzi for a few minutes more, talking. He played with my tits. I reached for his cock. It was hard. It was long.

'You wouldn't like to go upstairs, would you?' he asked.

'Sure,' I said.

'I'll meet you in the lounge in a minute. I have to wait to get out of the Jacuzzi, if you know what I mean.'

I knew what he meant. I laughed and wondered how long his hard-on would take to subside and why he'd want to bother, as he was going to have to get it up again. I felt energised knowing that he wanted to be with me.

I stepped out of the Jacuzzi, grabbed my towel, and walked into the lounge. I stood at the edge of the room, so as not to attract anyone's attention, and looked at the TV fixed to the wall. It was showing the horse races at Sandown.

Five minutes later, my Irishman came up to me and together we walked towards the door that led upstairs.

He led me to the room at the end of the hall. 'This is the biggest room,' he said. 'Door open or closed? I don't mind, either way.'

'Door closed,' I said. 'I don't feel like putting on a show today.' I wanted him all to myself. Since seeing him that first time two years earlier, I'd wanted him. I'd even looked for him after that, and now he was mine. At least for the next thirty minutes.

'Door closed it is, then,' he said.

I sat down on the edge of the platform. It was low enough that, while sitting, my head was at cock height. He removed his towel as I took his cock in my mouth. He had a semi, already about five inches long.

Bending over, he reached for my nipples and rubbed circles around them with his index fingers as he grew harder. My mouth took him further in. But with this guy, it wasn't about size, I just found him really sexy. There was a natural chemistry between us. I liked his voice, his chilled attitude, the way he touched me.

I continued sucking his cock for another minute or so, and then he said, 'I can't have full sex.'

I looked up.

'I hope you don't mind,' he added.

I did mind. I had assumed we were in a couple's room for a bit more coupling. I could have blown him in the Jacuzzi or the steam room. But I wasn't about to argue with a cock in my mouth. Even though I was disappointed, I continued sucking.

'May I come in your mouth?' he asked a few minutes later.

I nodded.

Within seconds I felt the warm liquid in my mouth and I swallowed. I continued to suck gently, until I felt his cock go soft.

I sat up, reached my arms around his shoulders and drew him to me. I kissed him on the lips.

'I was so horny,' he said. 'I really needed that.'

'Always happy to oblige,' I said. 'I only came here for a bloody back rub, but that was almost as good.'

'I'll rub your back, if you'd like,' he offered.

'Would you? That would be great. My shoulders are a mess.' Hunching over a computer all week left me feeling tense and stiff. That's why Rio's, which tries to sell itself as a health club, though its members all knew better, really does serve as one for me from time to time.

Ten minutes later my Irishman had pummelled out my knots, even cracked my upper spine with a couple of quick twists of my neck.

'That was great,' I said. 'Are you a chiropractor?'

'I'm a builder,' he said. That explained the tone of his muscles.

'And a hunk. What's your name, anyway?'

'Mark.'

'Suzanne. Nice to meet you, officially.'

He smiled as we walked downstairs together. I showered, then looked for Mark in the changing room to wave goodbye. I mounted my bicycle, which was chained to a lamppost outside, and rode home, smiling.

I walked into my loft, turned on the PC, and signed on to Messenger. Scott was online.

I'd first contacted Scott through Nerve.com. I hadn't been on the site for over a year, but had been a regular on and off since 2000. It was a sentimental favourite, as that's where I'd met Frank, the New Yorker with whom I had the affair that both recharged my sex batteries and led to my divorce. The site had been free in its early days, so it had been easy to make contact with guys. After Nerve started charging, I moved on to cheaper pastures. Then I received an email telling me I'd been allocated 2,000 points – the equivalent of a cash balance, with deductions made for every wink and message – after Nerve settled a lawsuit with another website. I had no idea what their legal mess was about, but I was happy to have a subsidised look around again. That's when I found Scott.

He was a tall, slim, blue-eyed divorced American guy based in the UK. My type.

'I just got 2,000 points and have decided to use them on you,' I wrote him.

'Gee, I'm flattered,' he wrote back. 'I'm travelling at the mo. Back end month.' He gave me his personal email address and suggested we meet up when he returned.

That had been twelve months earlier. I'd given up on Scott, although every month or so we'd have an online chat. I quickly discovered that Scott's job with a global news syndicator required that he spend more time in the air than on the ground. So, despite a few emails back and forth and some chats over MSN, we never found a date when we could get together.

'So, where are you this time?' I wrote one day, checking in.

'In London.'

'How long?'

'Quick stop. Leaving on Sunday.'

It seemed too good to be true and, suddenly realising that my dance card was empty, I made a snap decision. 'Want to meet up tomorrow?'

'Sure,' he said. 'Just make sure it's a rooftop.'

I didn't ask why, but the only rooftop I knew was at my other home away from home, after Rio's – Soho House. We arranged to meet on the roof terrace the next day.

Over dinner he told me about his job, pointedly noting that although it involved nearly nonstop travel around the globe, it brought in piles of money. He was a braggart, but I liked him anyway. His travelling stories were funny and he had a wry sense of humour. And he was cute, especially after a few bottles of Sancerre, which he kept ordering at
£55
a bottle.

He had a lived-in face and big sexy eyes and the kind of runner's build I'd always found attractive. As I looked across the table at him, I hoped he found me as sexy as I found him.

'Let's go back to mine and sit in my hot tub.'

He agreed, and a few minutes later we were out the door.

As we stepped out of the club, Scott pulled me close.

'Stop. I have to kiss you.' Pinning me against the wall of the building, he stooped over me, his six-foot-four frame practically bent over double to reach my lips.

He slipped his tongue in my mouth and then breathed down my throat.

So much for being friends, 1 thought.

We walked hand in hand down the street.

'We'll pick up a bottle of wine on the way back,' he said.