No one’s talking now. Everyone’s fucking. Partnered off in twos or three and fours, or maybe going solo, just getting off on watching.
We’re standing at the top of the stairs and I’m taking this all in and, I have to say, it’s pretty overwhelming and I realize that this time there’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. It’s time to put up or shut up. I need to take a minute to gather myself, to take a breath and dive in.
‘Go down,’ I tell Anna, ‘I’ll join you in a minute. I just want to watch up here for a little bit.’
‘OK,’ she says, and bounds down the stairs like a lamb galloping in a field, eager to join the fray.
I’m leaning over the banister, looking down the well at people fucking in the main room, and I catch this guy across the way staring at me. And I really don’t know what it is with me and strange men at the moment. I must be giving off some kind of smell.
Something draws me to the mask he’s wearing, so much more elaborate than the others I’ve seen here. And then it hits me. He’s the man from my dream, the Renaissance man in the harlequin mask who unlocks me.
I figure all this out in the split-second from when I first see him to the moment he starts moving towards me. My heart starts pounding. I’m paralyzed with anticipation and he’s honing in on me like a predator drone. Time slows down. It feels like I’m watching him move towards me in slow motion. I’m taking him all in, lost in the details.
He carries himself with a swagger, so cocksure and certain of his appeal. His skin is tanned and leathery but his body is taut and muscular and toned. He looks like he takes care of himself, like he works out. His physique is speaking to me and it tells me that this man knows his power and how to use it. And he looks good for his age, whatever that is, but I’m guessing he must be in his forties, at least.
Now he’s so close I can smell him. He smells rich. By the time he’s in front of me, I’m hooked. There’s something about him, but I just can’t put my finger on it. Then it hits me. Something about him reminds me of Jack.
Not Jack now. Jack later. Jack sometime in the future.
I always told myself that I wanted to grow old with Jack. Sometimes I liked to imagine what we’d be like when we’re in our fifties or sixties, when we’d lived half a lifetime in each other’s company. I wondered how we’d look with all that living under our belt, how we’d relate to each other, how we’d fuck.
And this guy, I’ve decided right then and there, that he represents my fantasy of how Jack might turn out when we’re older, what he’ll look like, how he’ll carry himself.
And I know how that sounds. It sounds like an excuse, and in a way it is. It’s an excuse that my brain has come up with to explain the way my body is feeling. Because I feel an immense attraction to this man, whose identity I don’t know and never will. A man who’s a blank canvas to me, on whom I can project whatever fantasy I want. And live it and experience it. For real.
He offers me his hand. I take it without hesitation or reserve. When he leads me back downstairs into the main room, it feels like we’re like two dizzy young lovers out on the boardwalk for a Sunday afternoon stroll.
As we walk in, I see Dickie and Freddie, already double-teaming on Anna, and I can’t say I’m surprised. She’s on her hands and knees on this worn antique leather couch. Freddie is at her rear. And Dickie has his dick in Anna’s mouth and one leg up on the couch. He has his hands placed on his lower back, just above his hips, the way you sometimes see guys posed in porn when they’re getting a blow job. As if he’s got lumbago.
And, surprise, surprise, Dickie’s got his socks on. But they’re expensive-looking socks. Argyle dress socks. By Ralph Lauren.
Freddie’s clearly not so particular. He’s buck naked. I’ve got to give it to her, Anna’s really going for it. She’s showing those two fellows a real good time. Dickie has a grin on his face a mile wide, as you would if you had a cute young chick as filthy and willing as Anna slapping her cheeks with your penis, the way Anna’s doing, and slut-talking him at the same time.
‘You’re a dirty old man,’ she says to Dickie. ‘A dirty, dirty, dirty old man. Dickie, Dickie, Dickie. And his filthy old dickie.’
I’m not sure if she’s talking to Dickie or his penis but I’d say they’re both enjoying it equally.
Then she turns around to Freddie and tells him, ‘Oh yeah, daddy, ream with your rod. Do it, daddy Freddie, just the way I like it. Oh, fuck, yeah.’
My masked man leads me all the way to the end of the room, as if he’s parading me in front of everybody, showing me off. He motions me to sit in this oversized antique easy chair with red suede upholstery. I sit down with my legs closed together and my hands on my lap, as prim and proper as a Catholic schoolgirl. He looks at me, smiles, and taps the arm of the chair. And he doesn’t have to say anything, I already know what he wants, what he expects.