Page 12 of Untether

And it’s even less helpful when she cocks her head, glossy bob swinging as she does so, and holds the cocktail stick aloft.

‘Sex club owner, huh?’ she asks.

I grin. ‘Yep.’

She rolls the stick and its last remaining olive between her fingers, assessing me, and I find myself tensing as I await the killer blow.

‘So, tell me. What’s the largest number of people you’ve ever banged in a single evening?’

8

AIDA

He shrugs. Grins. ‘I couldn’t say.’

‘Seriously?’ I get ahold of my inner judgemental bitch and rein her the hell in. ‘How can that be?’

‘You really want to know?’

I lick my lips. ‘I can take it.’ Of course I can. I’ve interviewed people about genocide. Mass graves. Paedophilia. I can handle a few tales from a sex club.

Besides, it seems a good way to break the ice. You know, talking about the elephant in the room.

Sex.

Because we’ve got to get to it somehow. At some point we’ve got to circle back to the fact that I’m supposed to get naked with this god and have him do fuck knows what kind of things to me. And while I get casual sex, theoretically speaking, and while he’s one of the hottest guys I’ve ever seen in the flesh, the idea of it is sofreakingbizarre. So improbable.

‘Orgies,’ he says now. ‘You know, dim room, pulsing music, maybe a smoke machine or two. Naked bodieseverywhere. Writhing, bent over, lying down. You put your dick wherever you want, basically. So, I dunno. Ten, twenty women at one party?’

I suspect, judging from his amused expression, that my eyes are widening, even though I’m trying my damnedest to keep my shit together. To act cool, when really I want to giggle like a schoolgirl.

‘You’re shocked.’ He brings his tumbler of scotch to his mouth, watching me.

I narrow my eyes as I try to articulate how I’m feeling. ‘Not shocked. More like I can’t even imagine that scenario. But it feels like there’s a law of diminishing returns. Like, you describing that is less shocking than you describing a threesome. Probably because it’s harder to visualise.’ I hold up a hand. ‘I should be clear. I am absolutely not trying to visualise either of those things.’

He laughs. ‘You tell yourself that.’

‘I’m mainly impressed and horrified that you can come twenty times in one night,’ is what I choose to follow up with, and he nearly spits out the drink he’s just sipped.

‘Nope—definitely not. I’ve had no complaints, but I don’t want to mis-sell anything here. I don’t finish inside each person. I try them out for size, pull out, change my condom, then try someone else.’ He smirks. ‘That said, my refractory period is pretty short.’

‘Would you like a gold star for that?’

He shakes his head. ‘Tough customer.’

‘Believe it.’

‘Kinkiest thing you’ve ever done.’

He’s silent.

‘You okay?’ I ask, nervous that I’ve overstepped.

‘Yeah, I’m fine. Just thinking. I wanked a husband and wife off at the same time in the back seat of their RangeRover while pretending to be a policeman who’d pulled them over for speeding. That was interesting—and cramped.

‘I’ve tried a bit of blood play—this summer in France. Not a huge fan. I’ve put my dick in every orifice, in every way—I’ve rubbed up against other dicks while I’ve done it. I’ve fucked a nurse over the nurse’s station while she was on duty on the geriatric ward when I went to visit my grandpa. I mean, I’ve done it absolutely everywhere. And, it’s not particularly kinky, but this one was boundary-pushing for me. I let a very scary Domme put a gimp mask on me and stick a gigantic butt-plug up my arse and spank me.’

The casual nature with which he’s reeling off this endless fuck-list is terrifying in itself. And that last one sounded pretty kinky to me. I press my lips together. ‘And you liked that?’ I ask when I’ve recovered.

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