As it happened, I did not need to move. They did that for me. Jake and Lloyd seemed to reach a tacit agreement, a rhythmic alliance, one thrusting while the other pulled back. Streams of painful pleasure poured up and down both recesses, up, down, back, forth until I thought I would soon be nothing but pulpy mush inside. Throughout, Lloyd kept up his sin-soaked commentary, making me mutter yes and no answers amidst the blinding sensation. Did I know that my arse was his now? Had I ever been taken so hard or so well? Did I realise I'd met my match? Did I realise my arse was so very, very tight and so very hot and so very sweet? Did I realise that I would be bending over for him many more times? Did I have any idea what I did to him? Jake kept up a yowling counterpoint of 'Oh God, yes, oh God, oh that feels good' until he came, digging his fingers into my hips, and I came too, wildly and violently, banging my knees on the floor, sinking my fingers into Jake's scalp, even screaming, while Lloyd reamed me through it, finally releasing his load when the tears started leaking out of me and on to Jake's chest.
'Shhh.' Lloyd, still inside me, pulled me up against his chest and kissed my tears. 'Wasn't that bad, was it?' He chuckled, but there was a nervous catch to it.
'No . . . it was . . . intense,' I sobbed. W
hat the hell was all this about? Crying after sex?
'I thought you were an old hand at all this,' he murmured.
'I thought so,' I said. I looked around. At some point during our bout, Jade and Maria had entered the pool and were swimming and smooching at the far end. Lincoln stood on the side, glowering down at us.
'Hey!' he said. 'I thought Sophie was going for three cocks. I thought she was going to suck me while you two fucked her.'
'Might have to . . . rain check,' I said faintly.
'Haven't you had it all sucked out of you yet?' asked Lloyd drily. 'Maria and Jade seemed to be doing a good job of it.'
'Sophie gives the best head,' said a querulous Lincoln.
'That's experience,' said Lloyd. 'Maria is keen though, isn't she? And she looks as if she could take a bit more. Go on. Show her how it's done.' He waved Lincoln away and laughed as his godlike physique descended into the depths, seeking yet another willing mouth.
My limbs regained a semblance of functionality and I began to unwind myself from Jake's softened cock, climbing over his thighs, still in Lloyd's tight embrace.
'Why don't you join them?' Lloyd suggested to his rival, pointing an elbow in the direction of the frolicking trio. 'I'll take care of Sophie. She's a bit shell-shocked but she'll be OK.'
'I . . . don't know.' Jake frowned between the two of us. 'Sophie?'
'Yeah, you go and play. I'll be fine.'
Lloyd picked me up, carried me to the jacuzzi and plonked me down on his lap. We sat like that for a while, letting the insistent bubbles cleanse and heal us, watching the riot in the pool. Jake had got some inflatables out and the foursome were demonstrating the impossibility of having sex on a lilo.
Lloyd laughed when Jake and Maria were plunged sideways into the water for a fourth time. He kissed the top of my head. 'Do you still hate me?' he asked.
I could not answer for a while. I felt skinless, endangered, laid bare. And I wanted Lloyd to kiss me again. For a long time.
'Of course I hate you,' I answered dreamily. 'Hate is not hate which alters when it alteration finds.'
'So I'm not what you thought? Better or worse?'
'Both.' I gave him a weak smile, feeling those treacherous tears at the back of my eyes.
He kissed me again. For a long time.
Maids on Call
If you called Maria a starfucker she wouldn't be offended; she takes pride in this little sideline of hers. She would never stoop so low as to sell to a tabloid, but I've heard some juicy titbits or two. Did you know that that long-haired international footballer loves nothing more than to wear your stilettos during sex? Or that a certain well-known balladeer hits notes higher than he ever can on stage if you offer to massage his prostate with a dildo?
I thought of it as harmless enough – nobody was hurt, and I had no interest in the celeb guests, finding their vanity tiresome. Any man whose ego is bigger than his cock can get them both stroked elsewhere; Hotel Sophie has no vacancies for him.
But Maria derives a spine- tingling thrill from watching the latest famous man or men as they stride up the steps with eyes shaded to deflect the popping flashbulbs, and storm through the lobby with a backwash of publicists and stylists and documentary film-makers in their wake, and thinking You're next. It is a personal challenge that she rarely fails to meet. She turns up with a chocolate for the pillow or fresh flowers for the vases, does a lot of unnecessary bending over in her short, tight skirt and before you can say Room Service she is on her back on the Egyptian cotton with her knickers around her ankles.
Of course, there is the odd failure. The ones who have spent their careers crouched beneath the media gaydar. The ones who are too drugged or drunk to want an honest-to-goodness no-strings shag. The ones who are faithful to their wives or girlfriends. Maria shrugs and moves on to the next, like a contented bee who knows that the pollen is never going to run out.
She had joy, she had fun, she had seasons in the sun, but the sex and the snogs, like the seasons, are all gone. Or so it seems today, at least.
In the no man's land between Christmas and New Year, the hotel is usually low on celebrities, but this year a very famous and fancied rocker had flown to town to appear on a New Year's Eve music special and was living it up in the penthouse suite. So far so good. No televisions on the pavement. No orgiastic coke-snorting. No demands for hedgehog and spacedust sandwiches.
So I was optimistic as I breezed into the lobby on the last day of the year, expecting a quiet day and an early escape to toast the chimes of Big Ben alone in my flat. If I didn't decide to watch a dodgy horror movie, that is. I could do whatever I defiantly jolly-well chose. And no man was going to change that. No man at all, whatsoever, not even Chase and especially not some jumped-up ice-shaker.