Seven

"Are you here?" were the first words I heard when I answered my cellphone as I pulled my carryon luggage behind me on my way to customs at Trudeau Airport in Montreal. It's Lover, and he's anxious, which is unusual.

"Yes, I'm going down the escalator to Immigration right now," I said. "But hello to you too, and yes, the flight was fine."

"Sorry, work's been terrible all day," he said sounding mostly apologetic. "I've been running around at full speed, but I'm looking forward to dinner tonight. If you don't mind, I promised a friend I'd stop by a cocktail party around 9 p.m."

I moved to the right of the escalator when I reached the bottom, since phone usage isn't allowed in line at Immigration. "After all these years you're taking me to meet one of your friends?"

"Um, well, kind of—"

"Okay, now you're freaking me out completely."

"I don't understand your meaning."

"First, you called me," I said matter-of-factly. "That never happens. Second, you made specific demands that I wear something semi formal this evening, which, for a guy who appreciates a beer, something on the grill and a naked girl next to the pool sets off all kinds of alarms. Last, someone in your world is going to know that I exist. Next thing you know you'll be wanting to visit me in my small town to see where I live and asking to meet my mother."

"Let's not make it that big of a leap," he retorted.

I started laughing a little too boisterously at the sound of fear in his voice. "Lover, I gotta go. Immigration guy is frowning at me. I guess I'll see you at 7 p.m. when you pick me up for dinner."

"Uh, yeah."

I hung up the phone, stood in line and behaved like a normal person.

"Next," the Immigration officer said. I always liked how in Montreal they knew if you were English just by looking at you.

"How long will you be here?" A bored, twenty-something patrol officer asked me when I approached the counter and handed him my passport and customs form.

"Just one night."

"That's a short vacation," the immigration officer said opening my passport with sudden interest. "But it looks like you've been here a lot: Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, Halifax."

"What can I say? It's a beautiful country and all my friends keep marrying Canadians and moving up."

"Well, enjoy your stay," he said handing my materials back to me.

I ran through Customs and into the arrival area. As usual, the area for waiting families behind the roped off paths were covered in people looking for their loved ones and business associates. Knowing no one was there for me, I careened through at top speed looking straight ahead, as if it didn't bother me that yet again, the first person I was going to see off the plane was "Mr. Taxi Driver."

A young woman crossed in front of me to leap into the arms of her mother. I stopped suddenly and straightened to watch the embrace. I knew that happiness. I felt it every time I picked up my child from school each day. I missed him so much that I wanted to hear everything about his day in his toddler speak. I smiled a half smile at them and then proceeded on my way. People suddenly parted from the left and the right, and I halted again in complete shock. There, standing next to a pillar, was Lover. He was looking right at me. My facial expression changed from awe to a warm glow. He smiled at me as he took in my pleasure at the surprise, and we walked toward each other.

"I thought you were too busy at work," I said.

"Preparing for a visit from you is work," he said bending over and kissing me quickly. He took my bag and I followed him out of the double doors, across the street and into the parking garage.

"You starting to slow down now that you're 50?" I asked as we walked at what I considered a snail's pace.

"50? Who's 50. I'm pretty sure I'm 17," he responded. "Besides, I move well enough to keep you on your toes when we're together."

I shook my head from side to side smiling as we approached his car.

He opened the trunk and put my small suitcase into it. I walked to the passenger door and pulled on the handle. It was still locked.

He came to my side of the car and clicked the button just before he put his hand on the handle and opened the car door while positioning his body so that it was in the way of me getting into the car.

"Yes?" I asked knowing he wanted something before we drove away.

He didn't say anything. He just leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. The moment it happened, I was like a girl who'd been stuck in the desert for days and had just found water. I could never have enough. I kissed him deeper and deeper as I pushed his body back against the car. I stepped onto the frame of the open car door, placed both hands on his shoulders and pulled myself up to standing so we were almost see eye to eye. He's a tall, tall man.

"Hi," I said breaking the kiss.

"Maybe I should have let you get the cab," he said.

I looked hurt. "Why?"

"Cause I'm not sure how we're going to get through the time before our dinner reservation and then to a party if I take you to the hotel and we're alone in a room for the first time in months," he said peeling back the collar of my shirt revealing my naked shoulder and kissing it.

"We could skip dinner and the party and just order in," I whispered into his ear.

"Tempting, ma biche," he responded while kissing me gently on the lips. "Very tempting, but you'll enjoy tonight. It's a bit of a surprise."

I sighed climbing down from the car and letting him go. "I love surprises."

"I know," he said. "I know."

I was staying at the W Hotel in Montreal for a night. It took all the Starwood points I could muster, and if Lover thought us being in a room was going to be rough, he wasn't counting on having to cope with a voyeuristic bathroom.

In a Mega Room, there's a huge king-sized bed with a faux fur cover in the main open part of the room. You can see it clearly the moment you walk into the room because there's a large hole in the wall of the hallway that is five inches tall and three feet wide. The hole allows you to look through the bathroom and into the bedroom. In addition, there's no door from the bedroom part of the room to the bathroom. It's just big open space that allows you to pull closed these funky blue curtains for "privacy" for those using the tub or the floor to ceiling glass rain shower. The only other door in the room goes to a 3 foot by 3 foot room for the toilet.

"Tabarnac," Lover said putting my suitcase and his duffle bag down on the desk before sitting down on the oversized chaise lounge chair in the corner and grabbing the remote.

"You're really going to watch television?" I asked.

He looked at his watch. "You only have an hour to get ready," he said.

"Um, yeah, I need 30 minutes."

"Go get in the shower, ma biche."

"Don't you want to come to?" I asked pulling off my shirt and unbuttoning my jeans.

He stared straight at the television. "Don't tempt me."

I sighed, turned around and pulled down my pants to the floor. In the middle of bending completely over, I looked through the open area of my calves at Lover. He was sitting in the chair with his eyes shut. I was pretty sure he'd gotten a good look at the freshly waxed goods I was showing and was deciding between his angels and his demons. I knew who'd win.

"Okay, 15 minutes of fun and then you're in the shower—alone."

I clapped my hands together enthusiastically, stripped off my bra and stood in front of him. He pulled back more funky blue curtains; this time they were covering the large picture window overlooking Victoria Square. There was a 15-inch wide ledge there.

"Up in the window you go," he commanded while shaking his head from side to side and pushing the bench with magazines at the end of the bed toward it to give me easier access. I climbed up into the window and looked out on the park. It was starting to wind down outside, and most of the business folks had gone home for the weekend. There were two couples sitting on benches in the park. One couple was making out. The other couple was holding hands.

I pushed my naked body up to the window knowing no one would probably look up that high.

"You do like it when people look at you like this don't you?" he asked sitting back in the chair again.

"It's not so much that I think they like what they see," I responded turning to face him. "I know it's not all that fabulous to look at. I'm not crazy, but there's something about being caught in the act that does it for me."

"Getting caught is a turn on?"

"The risk," I said.

"Turn around and let's give them something to catch you doing then."

I turned around and looked out the window. The glass pane felt cool on my hands. Lover stepped up onto the magazine table, so that his head was just at my breast level. "Touch your nipples to the glass," he requested.

I pushed my chest forward and got the shivers as the coolness touched me and made my nipples erect.

"Spread your legs," he said. He kissed me down my side, stepped off the table and straddled it kissing the inner part of my thighs. "Bend forward a bit."

As I bent forward, his tongue worked into the folds of my vaginal lips. His licked his fingers and rubbed them against my clit. "Look at someone on the ground. Tell me what you want them to do."

"There's a woman sitting on a bench with a coffee in her hand. She's watching the couple across from her kiss. The couple is in their early twenties and they don't notice her staring at them, or they don't care. The woman, however, is taken in by their passion. It makes her wet between the legs and hot under her conservative business collar. The young man is sliding his hand under his girlfriend's skirt wanting to play with her in the park. She keeps sliding his hand back down to her knee, not in protest, but because they're in public. She likes that he wants to touch her there."

Lover stops licking, steps back up onto the table and inserts two of his fingers into me while he pulls me away from the glass and starts to tug on my left nipple with his other hand.

"What if the woman were to join in?" he asks.

"I think she just likes watching for now," I answered. "She likes seeing them do something naughty. To participate would cross over a line that she's not ready to cross."

Lover stops playing and gets undressed. He tosses his clothes far from the windowsill and climbs up so he's sitting next to me. His penis is hard. "Come here," he commands. I step over his thighs and bend at the waist a little so that my pussy is in front of his face.

"I want to have sex," I said.

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because no means no."

I sigh.

He puts his face between my thighs and works my clit with his tongue while he goes back to inserting his fingers into my vagina.

"Lover, that feels too good. I'm going to come."

He goes at it with more zeal.

"I'm going to ejaculate all over you."

He gives my ass a light slap in response.

I look outside again. The couples have both moved on, but the woman is sitting in her bench looking up at me. I put my hands up on the window and lean hard as my orgasm makes my legs shake and I shout out in pleasure. When I'm finished, Lover is covered in my juices, and I feel like I could pass out.

After I've caught my breath, I step to the side and climb down out of the window. Lover wipes the wetness from his eyes and his hair.

"Well, I guess I'm getting in the shower first," he said. "You can come in after me, or we'll never get out of here."

So I rolled onto the bed on my belly and watched him get in the shower and wash his body and shampoo his hair in my voyeuristic bathroom. As soon as he was out, I scooted in and did the same. We went about getting dressed around each other as if was an every day occurrence.

When my little black dress was on and I was sliding into my heels, I finally got a chance to take in Lover. It was odd to see him in his black dress pants and gray button down shirt. He ran a comb through his hair a few times and added a fitted black sports jacket.

"I've never see you so dapper," I said kissing him sweetly as I ran my hands under the jacket and over the softness of his dress shirt.

"I'm glad you approve," he said. He took my hand and escorted me to the elevator, then outside into a cab and off to dinner.

I soon realized that dinner was really just the bait. The catch was that dinner was two blocks away from his friend's party.

We'd finished a bottle of wine with dinner. I could feel the redness in my cheeks, and I was giddy and excitable by 8:45 p.m. when we stood up from dinner and walked to the party.

We stopped at an old, uppercrust stone house with beautiful, fall flower gardens outside. We walked up the one car driveway to a set of stairs and rang the bell. Lover's hand tightened on mine a bit as the door opened.

We were greeted by a man around Lover's age with obviously dyed black hair. He was short, painfully thin and wearing pleated black pants, a white short-sleeved, button-down shirt and a bright purple tie. He looked more like a high school chemistry teacher chaperoning a prom than a party goer. He introduced himself quickly as Anton and inquired about our names. Lover greeted him and gave our first names. Anton checked us off of a list and handed us each a nametag and a rectangular-shaped pin.

The nametag had my name on it, but underneath it were little letters and symbols that I couldn't understand the meaning of. We were escorted into a living room where a bartender was serving cocktails. Lover got himself a beer and me a vodka and cranberry. We sat down on a loveseat near the window.

I looked at the other people in the room. They too were all dressed up, which made sense, I guess, for a fancy cocktail party. Their clothes were far more designer and hip than my plain black dress, but what was interesting was that they too were looking around the room. A few of them, including a tall, raven-haired woman around my age, made eye contact with me and nodded a hello from across the room but no one approached us.

"So is Anton your friend?" I asked casually, even though the atmosphere in the room was starting to feel filled with anxiety and anticipation.

"Not exactly," he answered.

A few more people entered the room until there were 27 people in all. Then Anton rang a bell and went to the front of the room. He stood next to an empty easel, until a tiny, mousy, brown-haired woman came out with a cardboard sign and put it up for him. At once, Anton began to speak very quickly in French. People laughed. They applauded him. They drank faster and got refills. And then when Anton was done, they all got up and spread out in separate directions. Some walked upstairs with their drinks; others went into another room. Three other couples looked suddenly sheepish, and stayed in their seats.

"Lover, what the hell is going on?" I asked waiting for my translation.

He put his empty beer down. "It's a party for swingers, voyeurs and exhibitionists."

"What?"

"People who swap partners."

"I know what a swinger is. I'm just wondering what we're doing here."

"I wanted to show you off," he joked.

"What?"

He took my drink from me and put it down on the coaster on the table next to me. "This party is pretty exclusive. You have to know someone to get here."

My eyebrows were still furrowed. "I'm not a god damn show pony. I do what I do -- for you."

"That's not true. You do what you do for yourself. You just happen to like the effect it has on me and what I do for you after you're all worked up."

I picked up my drink and sucked it back in one swallow.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to do," he said quietly. "There are rules here. You have that red and green pin. If you put the pin on your shirt with the red on top, no one will bother you. They may talk to you, but they won't touch you. If you don't mind a little attention, flirting, kissing or more, turn it over to the green. On your nametag, it has those letters and symbols. I had to fill out your info to come, so according to your nametag you're curious about bisexuality, voyeurism, exhibitionism and you came here with a partner. Mine says I'm interested in voyeurism, exhibitionism, control games and that I came here with a partner. Apparently there are key cards in each of the rooms, so if you don't understand the symbols on someone's name tag you can check there.

"There are several rooms available. One is a room of partner, one-on-one sex. You don't go in it unless you plan on having it. You'll be surrounded by other people also having sex with their partners. They won't touch you, but they may watch you. The other is a room of group sex. You go in that room, you consider yourself fair game to group play. The third room is a sofa room. They play porn on a large screen and have another bartender. You can meet and talk with other people. Some light foreplay and mutual or self masturbation is allowed there. The fourth room has a king-sized bed, where every 30 minutes a new couple performs sex acts on each other. People can watch them as they work or touch them as they go. If you go to any of the four rooms upstairs, you have to check your clothes in. They'll give you a robe to wear for comfort, but that's it.

There's a fifth room down here around the corner. It has a different theme every night. Tonight it's oral sex. You can go in and choose to give or receive or to watch. Each of the rooms also has glass windows outside with chairs. So, you can sit outside of the rooms and watch people, if you don't want to participate. You can say yes to one person and no to another, no matter what room you're in. You can tell people to go away. The last room is this room. In this room, it is completely non-sexual. You just sit here as you would in any other bar. You can be clothed or in a robe."

I crossed my legs in the chair feeling my recently waxed lips rub together in the snug dress. It suddenly crossed my mind that I was curious and a little turned on by his descriptions, but I was still turned off by his motives. "Have you done this before?" I asked.

"No."

"Is it illegal?"

"Used to be. But it isn't any more."

"STDs?"

"Condoms are required in this house, except between regular partners."

I kicked my toe into the chair in front of me thinking. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't think you'd come otherwise."

"What makes you think I'm not about to walk out the door?"

"Because you haven't yet."

I sighed. "I can't sleep with anyone who's not you."

"Understood."

"I don't want anyone else to sleep with you either."

"Understood."

"Nothing violent is going to go on, right?"

"Violence, drugs and smoking aren't allowed at all anywhere in the house."

"Any other house rules?"

"No, but I have a request."

I took a deep breath and looked him in the face. "Yes?"

"If you decide to turn that pin so it's green side up, you'll hold my hand or stay right next to me the whole time."

"I thought this place was supposed to be safe."

"Safe from violence, yes. But my friend told me he brought his wife of 20 years here two years ago. She was shocked and distraught," he said.

"I think I can understand her concerns."

"Then they went upstairs. He went into the lounge to get a drink and watch some porn. She went down the hall to the voyeur room. She turned her button to green and started talking to some folks and 30 minutes later he walked in the group room to see her on a table straddling a sybian with a woman pushing a dildo into her ass while my friend's wife sucked off the dildo woman's husband. Now they're here every Tuesday, and he watches her take part in all kinds of group sex activities. She can't get away."

I got up and smoothed out my dress. "You afraid I have an addictive personality?" I asked surprised.