Decadence (13 page)

“Maybe I'll leave my information at the front desk.”

“That would be nice. This is my first time here and I will definitely be back to play.”

“Tell me your locker number.”

“My locker number?”

“The locker number that you've been assigned is tied to your finger scan for the night. It's your identifier, of sorts. In case you didn't know, your locker number will be different each time you come. Some people here prefer to remain anonymous. We do, for now.”

“That's good to know.”

“They don't use the names or membership IDs here. Many prefer to remain anonymous. And I respect that. I'll give them our information to pass on to you at the end of the night. I hope to hear from you.”

“I'll call you.”

“But here's the rule. You've had my husband. And you can have him again. After we've become better acquainted. It can be you and me, or he can be included. But I want you first. That is all that I ask.”

“I'm indebted to you. I look forward to paying that debt.”

I walked with them a few steps. Not far. I was being kind, trying not to dismiss her as I would an overenthusiastic man at a club. I kept looking back at the Indian girl. The Indian girl studied me as if I were a goddess, breasts swollen, her eyes remained dilated as well. I moved past a woman engaged in double penetration. My lover's wife looked at the couple, then winked at me, a notification of a sensual debt.

She said, “Good fucking.”

I replied, “Great fucking.”

They laughed. He kissed me on the cheek. I kissed his wife on the cheek. Then she took her husband's hand and headed toward the other side of Decadence. His erection was still strong enough to please her, to help erase her heat. Our surreal and out-of-control moment had come and gone. Yet I felt him inside of me. He looked back at least twice. Each time he looked back, that sensation of love made my heart race, made my breathing curt. He was Caribbean. Caribbean recognized Caribbean. We felt the connection. It was in our blood.

Women who were near me touched me, told me how beautiful that was, complimented me on the way I moved my body, told me that they wanted to see me on top so they could study my gyrations. A woman slapped me on my ass as if I had scored the winning touchdown for our team. The German woman, the one with blond hair that was short and sassy and standing like spikes, she walked her golden seven-inch heels toward me, smiling. She and her international crew came and touched my dank back, touched my tousled hair. I had crossed the burning sands and was being welcomed into the Sisterhood of Doers. Then, as my body still felt electric tingles, smiling and confident women surrounded me. I wasn't their leader, but I was one of them. Part of me couldn't believe what I had just done and was ready to flee this building.

The Indian couple remained on the mattress, the man now watching others, self-absorbed now as he had been from the moment he brought his lover into this forum. Now he was all but invisible, all but in the way of the Doers. Despite the sexual congresses, the ongoing carnal knowledge around me, I looked at the Indian woman, concerned. Her lover watched others, but did nothing to give her satisfaction. He had emptied himself and turned away, as a dog does from a bitch. A moment later her lover stood and helped her to her feet. She stumbled. She could barely stand. I imagined that she was weighted down by embarrassment. Her fire was still blazing, her body suffering from coitus interruptus. In heels she was four inches taller than he was. Her body curvy, yet small, almost childlike. He was a tall, thin man. She was delicate. They stood holding hands. He kept her close to him.

She was a fetching woman, who scowled at her mate as if he were her nemesis, then gazed at me, adjusted her body language, and yielded a much softer, very respectful and evocative expression.

•   •   •

She said,
“Your moment was truly enviable. Your companion, outstanding. You sexed well together. He has a gift and so do you.”

“Too bad your session didn't last longer, at least as long as my session, with the same results.”

She read my body language. My disappointment wasn't concealed.

She said, “Please. Speak your mind.”

“You're gorgeous. Powerful. We accept the love that we think we deserve. You shouldn't calibrate your desires to the limitations of anyone else. Live the best life that you can live. Always.”

My eyes told her that she deserved better. Again her expression changed, as she was very expressive, and her unspoken language told me that she was grieving for something that she had never had, and that something, again, was more than lingam inside of yoni. My eyes told her to engage in succession from unhappiness. I had been miserable before. She paused, looked like she wanted to confess something.

Instead she nodded. Then she hugged me with one arm. She hugged me tight, breast to breast, her skin connecting with mine, flesh sticking because of our dankness, and she kissed my cheek before she let me go. Now I smelled of her. Her sweat, her perfume, her essence was now a part of me. I smelled of her lover as well. His sweat and cologne had permeated her skin. And now due to transference his aroma had stained mine.

She repeated, “I'm beautiful. Entitled to the love that I deserve.”

“And you should define what that means to you. Let no man define your needs. A man should accept you as you are, or watch you as you go on to a better and more satisfying life.”

•   •   •

No longer watching others make love,
with impatience her lover tugged at her small hand. The Indian woman clenched her teeth, made defiant veins rise in her neck, and resisted. Her attention had shifted to another session. Two men were taking a woman. Her lovers had her suspended. One took her from behind, had his hands on her hips, as another lover stood in front of her holding her by her biceps and triceps. The Indian girl looked at the woman being fucked. Her eyes said that magnificent sex was what she craved. Her lover pulled her hand again. She resisted. People noticed. He was angered. Tension rose. Again, eyes colored with envy, the Indian woman gazed at the orgasmic woman living in pure euphoria, in a heat that rose like her soft moans, existing in a high better than any drug, watched the beauty of what she saw and heard, saw how the muscles were being worked, flexing, releasing, the agility, maybe love addicts sharing severe pleasure, a race in which whoever finished last was the champion of this sport. Her lover, he blinked a thousand times, looked shocked, humiliated, overwhelmed. Because he knew that once her desires crossed the line, and abnormal desires became her norm, then there would be nothing that could satisfy her, definitely not him, and definitely not for long. Her lover pulled her hand, spoke to her in their native tongue, and this time she followed, the submissive wife. They moved through the crowd. They disappeared among the people, inside of the many moans.

Rosetta stared at me, her cerulean eyes wide as she whispered, “Cowabunga. That shit was hot. Especially when she was sucking him while you were jacking him off at the same time.”

“Yeah. Cowabunga. Wait. Did we do that? Jesus. I was in a zone.”

“Big-dicked bastard made me come so hard it scared me.”

“Really?”

“Yes. In under a minute. So I really had to get away from him.”

“Damn.”

Rosetta said, “The Indian woman got the short end of the stick.”

“And she got the short stick too. I think I'm suffering from some sort of orgasmic guilt. I felt so good and she was robbed.”

“Dude with the woman in red shoes, my lord. Never have I seen a penis like that. It was perfect.”

“Quince Pulgadas. His nickname means ‘fifteen inches.'”

“The dong was long, but it wasn't a foot long plus three. Maybe if you add girth to the length.”

“I bet if all of that was inside of you, it would feel like two feet.”

“It would go in my pussy and come out of my mouth.”

“Yoni. If you're going to hang with me you have to call your temple your yoni.”

“Temple? Yoni? Well, excuse me, Gandhi.”

I said, “Hope that I didn't make a fool of myself.”

“You looked so nervous then . . . like a little innocent girl . . . then you . . . damn . . . you rocked it. His wife used to be an Olympic swimmer. And you took her husband. It was so incredibly passionate.”

“She was in the Olympics?”

“Just a bronze medal. No one ever remembers who came in third. Latecomers thought that the random guy was your husband.”

“His profligacy . . . my own profligacy . . . my solecism . . .”

“You and your vocabulary.
Profligacy.
‘Reckless extravagance
.
' And
solecism
. ‘Breach of etiquette.' I bet you know twenty-thousand words in English that don't sound like they are in English.”

“I'm a word slut. Book slut too. A movie and theater slut as well.”

“Most of us are just plain old sluts in high heels and makeup.”

I said, “I really need to head to the showers and go freshen up.”

“Offer you a glass of wine after you get cleaned up?”

“Wine? You are really trying to be my new best friend.”

“My husband and I always leave a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée
at the bar. French red Burgundy.”

“I want to watch you get laid. I want to see sexy Rosetta in action. I want to see you on your back with your yoni filled with lingam.”

“Told you. You missed me earlier. I had fun and showered and came back out to watch. Quince licked me good. Damn. Now I need to go shower again. I'll bet my husband saw me on the monitor.”

“Uh-oh.”

“That's what we're here for. He's a cool guy. Love him to death.”

We eased by the erotic archipelagos that offered more than sixty-nine styles of physical gratification. Rosetta yanked my towel away from my flesh again, my skin scented by nameless lovers. She walked in front of me as fast as she could, hips moving side to side, twirling our pink and red towels. Naked and in high heels, as this microcosm that I inhabited moved from being incomprehensible to prehensile, as fantasy became reality, I laughed and held my exposed breasts and chased her toward the bar, imagined so many eyes on me, as my eyes had been on their bareness and sex. I felt liberated. I had stepped outside of myself. I had done wrong and what was wrong had felt like the breaking of chains. It was invigorating. But that victorious feeling was short-lived.

My past.

I saw him and my mouth fell open as my jovial pace came to an abrupt halt. His orphic sea-green eyes assaulted me and I changed from being confident to demure. Blind optimism abandoned me and it felt as if the floor were about to fall from under me. He had escaped the tattered box in the closet in my townhome and followed me here.

I cringed.

I had come to a halt in a crowded area. Some had seen me perform. Now that I had stopped my playful run, some were still trying to chat and befriend me. I was an instant celebrity. And as I stood in a herd of nude strangers, again my past announced my name, said my name, a name that I didn't want to share with this world. This compartment could never mix with the life I lived beyond these walls.

Chris Eidos Alleyne was here. The man who had been legendary on campus. The man who had been mythical. The man who had been a phoenix. Double take. Triple take. Blinked. Blinked again. As haunting music played, as sexual videos surrounded us, as couples near us exchanged soft sex and hard sex and a violent BDSM
Fifty Shades of Grey
inspired sexual fantasies for a crowd of curious beings, my smile collapsed. The lover that had abandoned me had had dreadlocks that hung like a cape. No more. Even with his magnificent mane gone, I knew his eyes. A powerful leopard with eyes of that hue was unforgettable. The color of his eyes made him unique, the tint made it almost impossible for women to look away without being affected by what stirred inside of him. I knew his circumcised lingam. Remembered how it curved to the left and upward. Knew that he suffered from cryptorchidism; his left testicle hung lower than the right. The right one had never descended properly. Intimate memories rushed at me, same as when I had opened the box filled with memories of him. He used to enter my sacred place and cause hallelujahs to rise inside of my body. I saw his face and was reminded of deep-seated nightmares that I wanted to forget. Memories latched on to a feral horse and dragged me back in time.

Then, like an idiot, my mouth creaked open and I said, “Chris?”

He nodded as if to confirm that it was indeed him.

Again I said, “Chris.”

Again he nodded.

I was frozen. As if Jesus had caught me shoplifting.

In a kind voice he asked, “How have you been?”

Without another word, I lowered my head as my hands became fists and I bumped into his rock-hard frame and moved by
him
, made my way by my admirers, moved by the talkative women and their words and smiles of praise, moved by men who applauded me like I had achieved some coveted status in this clandestine arena. My heels clacked across marble, then lost that powerful sound on the plush carpet. While dozens of women cheered, I seethed with rage and hurried past them at pace with the throbbing music. Jarred. My blood pressure dropped. I became weak, nauseous, and instantly my sweating increased as anxiety accosted me along with agitation and confusion.

Rosetta held my forearm. “Are you okay?”

“Fuck.”

“Nia?”

“That was my ex.”

“What? That was your ex-husband?”

“An ex-boyfriend. He's an ex of mine from college.”

“He was in the crowd when you performed.”

“That bastard stood in the crowd and
watched me
?”

“Better an ex than your parents. A girl had joined and she walked into Eros and the woman performing was her friggin' mother. The girl was twenty-one and her mother was thirty-nine. Watching your mother in the middle of triple penetration, that was what I would call traumatized. Well, at least one of the guys was her stepdad. He looked over and saw his stepdaughter naked and in super-high heels. So compared to that traumatizing event, running into an ex, don't sweat it.”