At that moment the doorbell rang. They both jumped guiltily, which amused Miranda, because Sam’s proposition was doubtless the most respectable interaction she’d have with a man tonight.
“I guess they couldn’t wait to see you.” Sam pulled his hand away. But he seemed to be waiting for her reply.
“Don’t be rude to our guests,” she murmured.
The bed creaked in disappointment as he rose. “It’s a standing offer,” he added and pulled the door closed behind him.
She was alone again, relieved but oddly restless. Yet before long she’d have plenty of company.
Miranda stretched out on the bed, wriggling to get in a comfortable position. The scritch-scratch of the plastic sheet beneath the satin made her own skin prickle.
Already the room was palpably warmer.
Blindness sharpened her other senses, too. She heard Sam greet the new visitors. One voice was familiar, a cheery, joking baritone. The other offered a rumbling introduction and his name, a fake one perhaps? Miranda herself had no name now. In this room, she was only “she” or “her.” She had no idea what they called her out there, to each other, or in their minds as they blocked out a few hours on Thursday evening for a happy hour “client meeting.”
There’d be five more, if they all came.
They always did.
Miranda had Facebook to thank for her new secret life. Searching for the names of old friends and lovers was the perfect way to spend a sleepless night. Eventually she worked back through the years to Sam, who wore his age well in his profile picture, his “single” status as alluring as the fact he lived in the same city. Miranda sent off a mildly provocative message. He responded. Two weeks later—and eighteen years after the last time he trussed her up to his bunk bed—they were chatting over cocktails at the Bourbon & Branch.
Coincidentally, Sam was going through a divorce, too. They’d both suffered the same indignity: spouses running off with colleagues at the office. But Sam at least had the comfort of a cliché, Miranda had complained to him as the second brandied apple took effect. His wife had gone off with her rich boss. Her rival was older and positively dowdy. Tom said she had a “warm heart,” but that was clearly code for big tits that had lost the battle with gravity. And he was taking on two young stepkids in the bargain, which was no kind of trade-up at all.
“He doesn’t deserve you,” Sam declared, a twinkle in his eye.
“Obviously not. But I’m the one left alone in that cold, empty house. I don’t want love now. Maybe never again. But I want—I crave—warmth.”
She felt her tipsy glow deepen into a blush. How could she be so naked with a virtual stranger?
“We all want warmth, Mandy,” Sam soothed. “You just have to figure out how to get what you need.”
“Have you figured that out?”
“As a matter of fact I have.” His smile took on a wolfish air. “But I’m not sure a card-carrying feminist like you wants to hear the details.”
“I can take anything you dish out. Don’t you remember?”
Sam’s grin widened and his fingers brushed hers casually, sending a jolt of lust straight to her pussy.
“All right, then, I’ll be blunt. I’m not interested in a traditional relationship right now myself, but I always enjoy the company of lovely ladies. So I host sex parties at my house a few times a week. Not on weekends when I have the kids, of course, but my friends are flexible. Sometimes it turns into what you might call an orgy. Tuesdays are lady’s night. That’s the singular. One lady, several men.”
“A gang bang?” Miranda leaned back in her chair and tried to look cool, belying the hot, fluttery feeling between her legs.
Sam wrinkled his nose. “Nothing so vulgar. It’s called a bukkake party. The custom’s imported from Japan, although in our version, the lady always calls the shots, so to speak. It’s much more interesting that way.”
“What’s ‘boo-kah-kay’?” Miranda’s numb lips struggled to pronounce the strange word.
With a mischievous glint in his eye, Sam proceeded to explain exactly what transpired at his house on Tuesday nights. Apparently, there was a bed with a plastic sheet and something softer to cover it, and the woman knelt or lay down on it. Usually she was naked, but she didn’t have to be, and the men lined up around the bed and…
Here Miranda instinctively raised her hand to stop the troubling and oddly arousing image taking shape in her mind. “No woman would ever consent to that.”
Sam laughed. “Actually, they volunteer. I have a waiting list for months. But I’d be happy to arrange a special session for you.”