Page 6 of Watch Me

Time moved faster here than it did over there. Over in Shanghai and Rio de Janeiro and Istanbul, time was suspended. Every day was new and exciting, and because of that, it always felt like the beginning of something—like I’d only just arrived. But back home, Tate was growing up. Twelve years designing hotels all around the world, and before I knew it, my son was an adult, and I’d missed everything.

I came back ready to settle down, bought this big house with tons of space for him to live in, and now I’m still no closer to him than I ever was before.

I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.

I wonder if I’ll ever meet her.

* * *

“You need to get laid,” says David the next day over brunch.

I arch an eyebrow at him as the waiter places drinks in front of us. “Oh?”

At least he waits for the waiter to leave before continuing. “I can tell. There’s a certain pinched bitchiness you get when you’re full of cum.”

My best friend since grade school, David is the only person who can speak to me this way. I feign irritation, but it’s just part of the banter, the roles we’ve been playing for almost forty years.

“Lovely.”

“I mean P in V, to be clear,” he continues. “Not jerking it outside some girl’s window. How long’s it been since you were actually inside a woman?”

“None of your business.”

“Oh shit.” He whistles and leans back in his chair with a grin. “It’s been a minute.”

I roll my eyes at him and take a sip of my mimosa. It’s fresh, sweet, and bubbly—an absurd drink, especially at one o’clock in the afternoon.

“Clearly, I do need to get laid,” I concede, “so I have better things to do than get day-drunk with you.” I frown at my drink. “This tastes like orange juice that’s gone off.”

He smirks, allowing me the deflection. Although he can be a nuisance, David is a guy for whom every kind of sexual expression is unique and beautiful. He judges no one. Maybe because he’s the most perverted of us all.

He always marched to the beat of his own drum. When our group of friends graduated high school and most of us went to college, David traveled Europe for three years with his moderately successful band. Later, when everyone was marrying and settling down, David moved to India to live in an ashram. But four years ago, he found his true calling when he opened an exclusive sex club called the Ball & Chain.

The Ball & Chain allowed David to capitalize on all of his strengths. He used his charm and charisma to win over investors, and his open-mindedness and kink-positivity to create the quintessential sex playground: a place with something for everybody in an environment completely free of judgment or discrimination. I’ve been many times, which is part of why David, more than anybody, knows the true depths of my depravity.

“You should come to the club,” he says on cue. His blue eyes crinkle into a smile as he lifts the champagne flute to his mouth, a mischievous glint in them that always somehow manages to be charming. David has a way of getting away with murder that I think largely comes down to this look—there’s something devilish but joyful about him. “We’re hoping to start live sex shows soon.”

For all that he doesn’t judge my tastes, David doesn’t entirely get them, either. My brand of voyeurism isn’t just about watching people have sex. It’s about having skin in the game and being a part of things from a distance. It’s about domination, submission, and control. But I smile politely anyway.

“Thanks—maybe,” I say, my thoughts wandering.

They’re already going back to the stripper with the incredible body and terrible name. The feel of her pussy under my fingers. The sound of her breath as she came. Trying to stay present in my conversation with David is like trying to pay attention to someone talking during a movie—in this case, a 3D, IMAX, pornographic movie.

I take a sip of my drink and try to refocus, ignoring the semi that’s swelling in my pants.

Certain scenes and certain girls just get under my skin. A girl half my age turning a lap dance into an opportunity to satisfy her own needs has all the elements of fantasy for me. But however genuine the experience may have felt, I have to remember that all strippers are performers. The lush and vivacious Mata Hari will never play a role in my real life; nothing more will come from the experience. This consuming interest can’t turn into an obsession.

“You should come. It will be good for you,” says David, as if he’s continuing the train of my thoughts. “You need to get off, I can tell. Release the valve a little.”

I roll my eyes but smile, all the while hearing the stripper’s breath in my ear, remembering the way she bounced and rubbed and moved, my cock thickening under the table.

ZOË

“DON’T GO TO work,” whines Tate, rolling onto his side and trying to pull me back down into the bed.

“You’ve got to be kidding.”

It’s nine o’clock at night, and I’m cranky after spending the entire day in bed with him, doing nothing but napping off and on—no sex, no affection, no talking.

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