Chapter 7 #2
‘We also don’t want to patronise anyone who comes through the programme,’ I continue.
‘They may not have had much real life experience, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a vibrant inner life of sexual fantasy.
It’s kind of like saying the intern at a company is the stupidest person in the room.
They may be the most ignorant right now, but they may have more future potential than the CEO.
‘We take a similar approach. We want to help people find their potential, unlock their latent desires, rather than focusing on what they haven’t done to date.’
‘Makes sense,’ she whispers. A glance tells me she’s staring fixedly at the path.
‘Good.’
‘But what does it… entail? I mean, who does the stuff to—with—the participant, or whatever you call her? Is it professionals?’
I pause to select my words carefully. ‘They aren’t professionals, no, but they’re long-standing members who have a lot of experience, and our team handpicks the members who’ll assist each participant in the programme.
That said, everyone on our team gets automatic membership to the club, and let’s say most of them play that dual role enthusiastically. ’
She hums nervously and keeps walking, and I allow myself to trail a step or two behind her, just to have the unearthly pleasure of checking out that glorious figure in its second skin. That peachy arse. The slick ponytail that sways with each step.
I wish I knew what she was thinking right now.
‘So, I’m right in thinking it’s… hands on?’ she says. ‘Like, these sessions are about actual sex. They’re not just theory.’
Our eyes meet. She looks away first.
‘They’re definitely not just theory,’ I affirm. They’re pretty much the farthest thing from theory I can imagine. They’re intense. Carnal. Sweaty. And sweat isn’t the only bodily fluid spilt. Not by a long shot.
‘So… people come out of the programme having had sex.’
‘Yes,’ I say carefully, ‘if that’s their end objective.
We also have participants who’ve had penetrative sex before but want to grow in confidence, or broaden their horizons, without jumping head first into the orgy that is Friday night at Alchemy.
The best way to think about it is that the programme is completely tailored to you. ’
I wonder what she’d go for.
The thought crystallises before I’m fully conscious of it.
I get a vivid image of Belle curled up on a sofa in her parents’ flat with our questionnaire on an iPad, her tiger eyes widening in disbelief or arousal, that plump lower lip cushioning the stylus as she reads the option upon option of pure filth that awaits her.
It’s less a menu than a dirty, decadent smorgasbord for her to feast on.
This was not what Ben and Lauren intended when they asked me to keep an eye on their precious princess during their absence.
‘Could you… give me a run-down of, you know? The basic structure?’ she asks me, and it’s a real effort not to make my smile wolfish.
‘I could,’ I tell her, ‘but it really is different for everyone, and I’m so desensitised to talking about sex that I’m not sure I’ll be… euphemistic enough for you. I don’t want to scare you off.’
I don’t want you clutching that pearl necklace Daddy probably gave you for your sixteenth birthday and crying into your pillow because the bad man got too graphic and told you about how much more fun you’d have if you agreed to a blindfold.
To silk ties against that soft skin. To upping your instructors from one to two. Four. Six, even.
Fuck. Shouldn’t have thought about Belle with a pearl necklace. Jesus. Shouldn’t have thought about her spread out on a bed, men lapping at her most sensitive parts.
‘Oh,’ she says quietly.
‘Look. If you’d feel more comfortable, I can set you up a chat with my co-founder, Genevieve. She can answer the questions I suspect you don’t feel right asking me. And if you want to proceed, the questionnaire she’ll give you is very comprehensive, and it’s confidential.’
I don’t mention that I’ll get to read it. I can’t imagine how many times I’ll have to get myself off, or have someone else get me off, when I read the innermost fantasies of sweet, golden Belina, named after a virgin martyr, for fuck’s sake.
‘That sounds good.’
‘Great.’ I nod.
That’s all sorted, then, and I can take myself home and let rip. Too bad the club doesn’t open for another—ooh—ten hours.
‘I have one question, though.’
I look up from my coffee. ‘Shoot.’
‘On the website it suggested…’ she hesitates. ‘Multiple people? With me? That sounds—I dunno—a bit full-on, considering why I’m interested in the programme in the first place. And a bit… immoral, I suppose.’
I stop walking and, putting a hand on the bare skin of her arm to halt her, I turn to face her. This is important.
‘Answer me one question,’ I say. ‘Two, actually.’
She chews her lip, but she doesn’t drop her gaze.
‘First. Do you think part of the reason you’ve held off this long on being sexually active is because of some guilt? I know your parents are pretty religious.’
She nods. ‘Definitely.’
‘And do you think that’s something you can get over, or at least work around enough to get out of your own way, going forward?’
She nods again. ‘I think so. I’m hoping so. I’ve over-thought this way too much, but—ugh. It’s hard. I don’t believe that the things they taught me at school were right, but I still—it’s difficult to let go of all that shame around sex, you know?’
She’s looking at me, clear-eyed and trusting, and it hits me in the gut.
I nod softly. ‘Yeah. Believe me, I know. I went to Loyola, which I think your mum mentioned to you, so I know how powerful that brainwashing can be. I went the other way—became a total deviant.’ I grin to show her I’m kind of joking, even though I’m not, really.
‘Look,’ I continue. ‘I can’t tell you what’s right or wrong.
You have to do that for yourself. But the fact that you’re here talking to me about this stuff tells me you have the courage to claim your own sexuality.
Right? You’re an adult, Belle. The nuns and the priests and your parents can’t tell you what to think anymore.
‘I also know that former Catholics are some of the kinkiest people I know. Just an observation. There’s something about all that shame and guilt they teach us, all that repression they practice, that has us enjoying the pleasure of letting go more than most other people.’
She’s nodding like I’m onto something, so I push on with my final point.
‘And if you’re serious about this, then I have a suggestion.
Take it or leave it. If you take away any preconceptions about romance, or morals, or societal expectations, and you just make it about you and your body and seeing what it’s capable of, then the maths is pretty clear.
Four mouths on your body are better than one. Eight hands are better than two.’
I shrug as she gapes at me. There’s mortification on her face, but something else is there, too.
‘It’s just basic arithmetic. So the more you open your mind up to less vanilla ways of maximising your pleasure, the more fun you’ll have.
And by fun, I mean the more you’ll lose your fucking mind in ecstasy. ’
I have no idea how I just delivered that statement without getting a boner.
Zero.
What I don’t say, because apparently I have herculean amounts of self-control, is that she should forget the programme and just come home with me.
Because I swear to God, I could teach her more than she’s ever dreamed about the capabilities of her body with just my hands and my mouth and my cock.
We walk back home in relative silence.
I think I’ve broken her brain.
I bid her a calm farewell, promise to hook her up with Gen, and bolt my door behind me. The second I’m alone, I tug my t-shirt off over my head, shove down my jogging bottoms and fist my cock, hard as I can.
And as I proceed to empty myself violently into the soft cotton of my t-shirt, pretending it’s Belina Scott’s fine-boned hand around my cock and not my own, I repeat these words to myself.
She’s a virgin.
She’s a virgin.
She’s a goddamn fucking wholesome, intact, sweet-as-sin virgin.
Leave her alone.
I let my head fall back against the door. The words in my head are so engrained they come easily.
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.
I have already sinned against this girl in so many ways I can’t even begin to list them.