This is the snippet of a VERY rough first draft for RED 2: Mirrors.

Warning: this is an orgy. I’ve been itching to write it, so it’s finally out of my system. 🙂  This is a one-timer in the book, so the prudish can sigh in relief and the wicked can punch the pillow in frustration…

 

***

Show me what the girl does to the boy
If you can get around to it
What it’s like when I am
Your new toy?

     (Tracey Thorn + one mean saxophone)

***

They advanced to the back of the room. At that point, the hot tub lodged a couple that had already got rid of the inconvenience of clothes. Marisa observed when the woman held the erect penis of her partner and manipulated it under the water, her fair arm emerging and disappearing amid bluish bubbles. Noticing Marisa’s gaze, Marco squeezed her hand reassuringly.

The four approached the security guard who, without a word, opened the door to the adjoining lounge. Once again, Robert and Anabel went in first, followed by Marco and Marisa. The ambiance here evoked a trip to the East, with hypnotic music, the fragrance of musk and the faint light of Moroccan lanterns distributed on the floor in the corners. The lowered ceiling irradiated waves of red and purple fabric that converged to the center, with the ends hovering like a frozen stream of color over a round plush sofa, where two half-naked couples entangled. Further ahead, an erotic chair waited for the acrobatics of the next visitors.

Persian rugs lined the floors with their labyrinths of vines, flowers and desert sands. Along the walls, smoky gauze curtains formed a succession of transparent alcoves, with low beds covered in pillows and circular-patterned spreads. The niches accommodated up to four people and provided double curtains: one translucid for watching and being watched; and the other solid black for those who preferred privacy. At the moment, a few alcoves were completely blacked out. The attention of Marco and Marisa, Robert and Anabel darted across the room gathering and processing the details.

Light-music-growl-vagina-clitoris-penis-anus-finger-ball-skin-hair-thigh-groin-belly-torax-breast-mouth-tongue-saliva-semen-sweat-musk-mask.

Gaze.

The impressions were dutifully registered and instantly multiplied, since everything there was plural.

Webs of golden light across the tapestry licking anonymous feet. Contours entangled in the dimness of alcoves, white skin on dark skin, furious hips, moans and glistening saliva rolling out the mouth. All secrets revealed behind that curtain ajar. Back, forth, back, forth. Now softly, now hard. Breasts sucked, scratched chest. A lone couple over here, two couples over there in a trembling conjunction of bodies with no owner. Oh, good job. Spectators cheering and an invisible mesh of scents in the air.

And now a trio enters the room. A woman: white mini dress with fine straps over a sinuous body, high-heeled sandals with strips scaling her legs, waves of blonde strands on the back, blue eyes. A tall and lean man: black shirt and slacks, short blond hair just like his beard. Another man, younger, shorter and more muscular: a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, straight brown hair over the shoulders, green eyes. Escorted by both, the woman advances to the erotic chair, which no longer needs to wait. Acrobatics has arrived.

The woman is totally carefree: the mask preserves her identity and she can be whatever she wants. A sex goddess, a porn actress, the protagonist of an erotic novel, a frustrated housewife back to the thrills of life. She parades before the audience and the chair is her stage. This chair that features a flat, reclining surface with side handles and two frontal pads for the partner. This chair with red upholstery.

Lights, camera, action.

She lies down there and spreads her legs. The blond man positions himself at her feet. He unbuttons her dress down to the waist and fondles her naked breasts underneath. The brown-haired guy stands behind her. He cups her face with his hands and gives her an upside-down kiss in the mouth. Then he licks her ear and descends to the nipples while the other man lifts her dress and removes her white thong. The men recline the chair, and the woman has her hips projected upward on the edge of the seat. She flexes her legs to hook the heels of her sandals in the handles of the chair, offering a view of her sex behind a thin veil of shadows. The blond man kneels on a pad and covers her with his mouth and hands. His tongue surrounds and penetrates her, his fingers concentrate on the darker undulations of the clitoris and labia. The brown-haired man unzips his pants, takes his best friend out and places it in the woman’s mouth. She holds his penis with both hands so the fingers aid her mouth, following its motions, going down with a twist on the base, playing with the testicles. The penis grows larger in her hands, increasingly larger as it pulls in and out her mouth. Sticky sounds of suction. The brown-haired man grips her hair. The other partner is excited too; the spits on his palm and lubricates his own organ, which he rubs up and down on her. He enters with shallow and quick thrusts and keeps deepening until he deepens it all in a long push. He retreats slowly and advances once more. Again, again, again. And the woman. The woman rocks her hips to his rhythm, and her moans vibrate to the music. She lets the other man slip out from her mouth. A necklace of salty sweat beads across her chest, which he sweeps one by one onto the shell of his tongue. She rolls her eyes, upper body arched and head tossed back against the upholstery, dancing in a circle from side to side, hair strands sprawled like sunrays. Then the arch of her body inverts and the head jolts forward. The face contorts behind the mask, the minute crystals glimmer. Her eyes are closing. She digs her nails onto the chair, collapsing amid spasms and an acute heave.

She screams and gasps and laughs.

Her orgasm hit the two couples with the eloquence of a startle, making skin bristle and flesh throb. Suddenly uncomfortable, Marco and Marisa, Robert and Anabel averted their eyes. There was applause and someone whistled. The four of them barely registered it though, for what persisted in their ears was the strident release of the woman. Inarticulate, primal, reverberating in each fiber of them. Now they stared at one another without knowing how to proceed. They weren’t intimate enough to share an experience like that.

And yet there they stood.

“Do you guys want to be on your own?” Marco asked the other couple. He circled Marisa’s waist with one arm and pressed her closer to him with a protective attitude.

“No, please… Let’s wait just a little longer,” Anabel blurted out. In a nervous gesture, she smoothed her blonde hair with perfectly manicured hands. Her bracelets tinkled merrily.

“Chill out.” Robert gave an encouraging smile. “It’s gonna be fun.”

Meanwhile, other guests had arrived and now the vacant alcoves were waning. They found two side by side and rushed to take them. The black curtains were pulled out, and between the niches the folds of gauze raised a fragile barrier.

“Let’s have our private session after Robert and Anabel hook up with someone… or someones,” Marisa whispered in Marco’s ear when the two were alone. Her eyes were fixed on the trio, which now had changed its configuration: the blonde laying on her stomach and the men in inverted positions. “I was inspired by that girl’s enthusiasm.”

“Me too. And you know I always keep my promises. In a minute I’ll take care of you…”

He slid his index on Marisa’s lips. She retained his finger between her teeth for a moment before releasing it.

“And I’ll take care of you.”

In the other alcove, Robert and Anabel observed the couples on the opposite end and the guests circulating there, in and out the room, watching the action in the niches and sometimes sneaking past closed curtains. They leaned on the pillows, him with one arm around his wife’s shoulders, her coiling with folded legs.

“Do you think something is gonna happen over there? Anabel looks terrified,” Marisa said to Marco.

“Now that’s up to them. What about you? Do you feel like giving it a try?”

Marco scrutinized her with intensity. She reflected, her eyes rambling over the room. That was in a way exciting because it instigated the animal side and the appeal of transgression. Nothing else. With so many partners, the deepest mystery of intimacy was discarded along with the clothes. And rested forgotten on the floor.

“I don’t know. In principle, I don’t think so. Only if later I get really excited or crazy. You?”

“I wouldn’t like to see you with another man. No way.” It was Marco’s turn to pause. “A woman would be different.”

Marisa smiled but felt insecure. She poked his arm.

“Very convenient. It so happens that I wouldn’t like to see you with another woman either.”

“No one said I would be the one with her.”

They stared at each other. His eyes with a velvety suggestion. Hers with a flash.

“Oh, you want to watch me getting hot and heavy with a woman, is that what it is?”

“It’s not my place to want anything, you’re the one who should want it.”

Marco’s expression displayed that wickedness Marisa had already learned to recognize. And that always kindled her, making her legs weak. He sifted one hand through her hair in a caress that elicited that very familiar shiver in her.

“I’m just saying I wouldn’t mind to watch,” he clarified.

“It’s the first time you tell me that.”

“I thought about it now.”

“Hmmm… Who knows, maybe later I’ll get really excited or crazy…” She ran the tip of her tongue along Marco’s neck and went on around his ear. She breathed: “An early birthday present for you…”

Their conversation was interrupted when Robert called them:

“You guys like to have some champagne with us? I asked the security guard to call the waiter and the bottle just arrived.”

Marco and Marisa exchanged a look and nodded. He waved for them to come closer.

“Are you sure we’re not bothering you?” Marco looked at him indecisive, and Robert shrugged.

“Ana needs to unwind a bit and we’re not drinking it all. We’re among friends.”

The two then joined the other couple. Anabel moved to the edge of the bed, Robert and Marisa sat against the pillows and Marco on the other end.

“What are your impressions?” Anabel inquired as Robert filled the crystal tulips and passed them on.

“It’s more stimulating than an explicit sex show because people are not acting. The energy is raw, with no fluff,” said Marco.

“Maybe men are more uninhibited. I’m jealous of Bob’s calm.” She shook her head, silently reproaching herself.

“I also find it interesting, but I’m sort of embarrassed to participate,” Marisa offered. Then she frowned. “Speaking of which, what’s with that ‘love potion’? It didn’t do anything to me. Anyone feeling any different?”

All of them denied.

“What if it has expired? Or maybe it’s just weak,” she conjectured.

Robert checked his watch.

“It’s been an hour since we took it. If its active principle is MDMA, it takes thirty to sixty minutes to work in the body. The perception of the effect is sudden and alcohol potentizes symptoms such as a feeling of well-being and connection. Tact and hearing become quite enhanced.”

“In that case, the effect should be already manifesting,” Marco concluded. “And no one here is feeling any weird tingles or hearing celestial trumpets.”

“Maybe the substance will kick in soon? We’re still marginally within that period.” Anabel said, hopeful.

“We’d better not count on that and enjoy the champagne,” replied Marco.

They made a toast to the love potion and, once again, drank fast. The golden bubbles coursed in tickling their noses, throats and veins. They relaxed.

“Tell me more about Haiti, Robert,” asked Marisa. “You got me curious about life over there.”

He told her and, little by little, a crossed conversation was established. Anabel, who already knew the whole story, lost interest and made a comment about California to Marco on the other end. Port-au-Prince, San Francisco, Pétionville, South of Market, Cité Soleil, Alcatraz… The different locations collided in a cacophony, until Marco went to the other edge to sit next to Anabel. Marisa and Robert shifted to the side to make room for them.

They chatted as if they were in a bar, not in a room peopled with naked bodies in plain copulation. The atmosphere, however, grew increasingly charged as the evening progressed. It was impossible to ignore the silhouettes behind the transparence of the curtains. They could hear the hips bumping, sighs, whispers. Sometimes giggles.

“Would you like more champagne, Marisa?” Robert offered, picking up the bottle from the ice bucket. He raised it in the direction of Anabel and Marco, who made a negative sign. “Well, it’s almost finished anyway, so there’s more left for the two of us.

He winked and emptied the bottle in the tulips. Then he took the glass to his lips without averting eyes from Marisa. She stared him back, admiring the limpid irises that reminded her of crystal drops.

“Do you know I’ve noticed you since that day at the pool? I saw you descending from the bridge with your friend. Then I felt like dancing with you.” He laughed. “I confess later you scared me a bit.”

“I was furious. Mad at you.”

“That doesn’t come as a surprise given the circumstances.” Robert brushed the back of his hand on Marisa’s arm. “But I liked you.”

“Really? You were drunk.”

“Still. I thought you were pretty.”

His palm turned down when it arrived at the slope of Marisa’s shoulder and ascended to cup her face. In the half light, Robert’s blue eyes gleamed. He traced her features with his fingers.

“Your skin is so soft,” Robert murmured, and now he investigated the tattoo on the nape of her neck.

Marisa copied him smiling. She trailed his face and was surprised at the smooth texture her hand found.

“Your skin is soft too. Amazing, isn’t it? So soft it gives me chill bumps.” He assented, and she added: “I have a confession…”

He leaned forward with obvious curiosity.

“What is it?”

She vacillated.

“Oh, it’s silly…”

“Tell me.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s something. Tell me.”

“Do you know what they say about the first impression being the one that lasts?”

He acquiesced with a nod.

“With you it was the opposite. After I met you, that remained behind. It became the inside out of the first impression.” Marisa held his hand, drawing it close to her lips. She licked his palm slowly and reflected for an instant. “Your skin tastes like my truth.” She shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense, does it?”

Again that blue gaze suggesting the adventure of the sea and the sky. The traits lightened by Robert’s hair, blond like the sun. So different from Marco.

Marisa released his hand and lowered her face, perturbed. The attraction she felt for Robert, the attraction she had denied until that moment, broke free. She had a twinge of guilt, thinking of Marco, his smile, the first days they’ve had together and the turbulence encountered later. Robert represented the adventure of the unknown. A mirage of perfection in acute contrast with everything she knew. In contrast with Marco. Because knowing was equivalent to knowing flaws.

Robert held her chin and forced her to stare at him. He no longer smiled.

“You are beautiful.”

As he spoke, Robert touched her face with his lips. Marisa wanted to protest. The protest, however, died away at the gentleness of his touch. It was pleasant. Quite pleasant. Robert moved his lips softly against her skin, from side to side, parting them to draw a circle and allow his warm breath to complete the caress. Marisa closed her eyes. When Robert reached her lips, it triggered a delicious tingling in her. Stroking his hair, she felt the locks that were like silk in her fingers. She inhaled Robert’s aftershave lotion—a smell of forest, of iridescent dew, damp wood, flowers. She soared. Flying on a magic carpet from the Arabian nights. The lantern light turned into a brighter gold, and an amphora with musical notes cascaded harps, flutes and cymbals into her ears.

Marisa thought vaguely of Marco. She’d better stop. He would be furious… Which made her think that he should be already furious by now, yanking Robert off her to demand an explanation. Marco possessed remarkable self-control, but when he lost it… Why wasn’t he furious? Where was he? Marisa fluttered her eyelids open and looked for him from the corner of her eye. She was shocked when she saw Marco. Or rather when she saw him with Anabel. Their white clothes now composed one single form across the patterned spread. Both faces also together. Both mouths. Marisa was about to protest—and never uttered a single word, for in that moment Robert glided his tongue between her lips. With a quiver, she closed her eyes and abandoned herself. It was strange to feel the intimate contact of another man. She was no longer used to that. His advance was slow, as if he tried to guess what she liked. And, without Marisa realizing, the unknown became familiar. Their mouths moved now in synchrony, tongues meeting in no hurry, tasting each sensation—sparkling wine, satin, honey, and a tang of cinnamon…

Marisa’s sharpened hearing captured a muffled sound. She looked in its direction and saw that Marco and Anabel weren’t there anymore. Her gaze stretched to the neighboring niche where she had previously been with Marco. The black curtains were being shut.

Robert whispered something in her ear.

“What?” She forced her gaze away from the other alcove.

“I want to learn what gives you pleasure. I want you to touch yourself.”

Marisa stared once more at the alcove with its impenetrable black curtains. She wanted to open them, cause a stir, slap faces. She feared what she would find in there. With a mix of pain and anger, Marisa turned back to Robert. For a moment that whole scene, all those drifting bodies made her sick. And then it returned, a serpent of hot blood scorching and slithering in her body: desire. Sparkling wine, satin, honey. And again anger. Marisa pulled away from Robert and stood up. She bowed to grope under her dress and brought the small lacey piece down to her ankles. With a fierce motion, she got rid of and ran the heel of her sandal across Robert’s thigh. He watched with a smile that was also a serpent. She knelt on the bed, parting her legs, and touched herself.

Soon Robert’s fingers replaced her hand.

Robert’s fingers, mouth and body.