My head hurt. Damn, too much wine last night. Lying in bed, I opened my bleary eyes and suddenly I remembered... I was in Mr Darcy's apartment. In his bed. Oh dear.
I was alone, Mr Darcy was nowhere to be seen. But I hadn't been alone during the night. Oh my God. Mr Darcy had fucked me last night! I had had sex with an eighty year old!
I felt my heart palpitate. God, what had I done? And now I'm going to have to face him – how embarrassing! I lay there, almost forgetting about my headache, wishing somehow I could just disappear out of here. But then, trying to settle my nerves, I thought, well, I had been pretending to be asleep – I had sort of been asleep at the time, in fact. I could just pretend nothing happened, as if I had no idea that anything had happened last night, and then get the hell out of here. Yes, that's it.
I quickly dressed. I could hear Mr Darcy moving about in the living room. I would have to face him; there was no way round it. I steeled myself and opened the door.
"Ah, good morning my dear," he beamed as I made my entrance. He was dressed and fussing about in the kitchen.
"I hope you slept well. Here, I've made a jug of coffee."
I sat at the table and poured a coffee, as if on auto pilot. I glanced up at the ancient clock on the wall. It was 7.30. I was due in the office for a meeting at 9.30, so I had plenty of time. But looking at the clock gave me an idea.
"Gosh, is that the time?" I said. "I've got to go, I'm going to be late for work."
"Yes of course, my dear," he said. "But here," he continued, "I've made you a nice salad lunch to take with you. There's a lovely piece of cake for morning tea, too. I baked it only this morning."
He handed me the plastic lunch box.
"Thanks Mr Darcy," I said. "But I'd better get going."
"You have a lovely day, my dear," he said, as he leaned over to kiss me on the cheek.
With that I was off. That wasn't so bad, I thought. He wasn't making a big deal of it. He seemed to be pretending that nothing happened either – well, he could hardly do otherwise, really: then I could accuse him of rape. Raped by an 80 year old? Yeah right... Yet I almost felt guilty at having walked out so quickly, mainly because of having told a lie. It felt kind of like lying to your parents, or your grandparents, and the fact that he had made me up a lunch box only made it feel more that way. Even so, I shouldn't feel too guilty: the old guy had had his way with me without, as far as he knew, my knowing about it. Wasn't that rape? Oh, what the hell, I thought, as I remembered what had happened, how it had felt, the memory of his tender moans as he penetrated me, felt my body. I was probably the first woman he had been with in years, maybe 10 or 20 years. And it would have been many decades since he had been with a woman in her 20s. You could feel all that in his voice, his caress last night. Yes, it was palpable, God, so touching! That wondrous rapture, almost like a young man experiencing a woman for the first time. There had been nothing aggressive in it; he just took advantage of a situation as a man. Who cares? And anyway, face it: you enjoyed it. An old man – your neighbor, actually – fucked you last night and you could have stopped it but you didn't. It happened, you enjoyed, end of story. Get over it.
The 9.30 meeting had been cancelled. I didn't mind; I hate meetings, and I had quite a few other projects on my plate. I worked on through the morning, occasionally pausing to reflect on what was one of the strangest sexual experiences I had ever had. It hardly seemed real, and certainly at the time, half awake, half asleep, it actually was a bit surreal.
I took a call. It was my friend, Wendy. She was in the area and wanted to drop in and have lunch with me.
"Sounds lovely," I said. "I'll meet you downstairs in 20 minutes."
It would be good to catch up, chat. It would take my mind off the sordid Mr Darcy affair.
I met Wendy in the lobby and we headed for the office cafeteria. She ordered a glass of wine with her meal, but I had a juice. I don't like to drink on the job.
"So, how's tricks?" I asked.
"Yeah, pretty good," she said. We made some small talk for a while as we waited for our meals, but she seemed a little nervous and agitated to me.
"Wen, are you OK?"
"Yeah," she said. "Anne, can I ask you something? It's a bit personal."
"Go ahead. What is it?"
She paused for a moment.
"Have you, um..." She was looking down at her plate, not at me. "Anne, have you ever had a threesome?"
God, what a question! Now it was I that felt nervous, put on the spot. I felt my cheeks flush. Why is she asking me this? I paused for a moment before answering. What a thing to be asking me? Wendy! I wasn't going to lie, but nor did I really want to go into sordid details of my episode with Ron and Darren from Wallgrove-Fordham. God, just imagine it – 'oh yeah, Wendy, I've had a threesome, it was with two of my clients, in fact. I was at a meeting with them and somehow I ended up sucking their cocks and fucking them in their boardroom'. No, I didn't want to talk about that at all, didn't even want to think about it. But I wasn't going to lie to her.
"Yes, I have."
"Was it with a couple?"
"No, two men."
I studied her reaction. There was something wrong. Normally, with the Wendy I knew, she'd be whooping and hollering if told news like that, having a great old time. Instead she sat there, almost impassive.
"So, what was it like?"
"Oh Wendy, why are you asking me these things? I feel a bit uncomfortable talking about this."
