Plastic Love

A gust of fresh air swept the dining room as Alex mused on his defeat.

'Your coffee...'

Offering an apologetic little smile, she leaned over Alex's shoulder to place the espresso on the table in front of him and returned to the kitchen with quick, anxious little steps.

Alex, in autopilot, tore the sugar sachet, poured it into the coffee, stirred and bestirred it, put the spoon down on the saucer, raised the dark brown liquid to his lips.

'Hot!'

He abruptly let go of the cup, and it fell on its porcelain base with a crash. Miraculously, it didn't spill a drop.

'Oh! Are you all right, sir? Did you burn yourself?'

Before he could have even realised it, the waitress was again at his side, displaying enormous concern.

'Well... Yes, I suppose. It was a bit hot...'

'I can bring you another one, sir.'

'No, it's fine. I'm fine, thank you.'

'Zoé.'

'Hmm... Excuse me?'

'My name. It's Zoé.'

'Ah...' Alex looked up, bewildered, to the anxious, brown-eyed girl. 'Well... I'm fine, Zoé. Thank you.'

'Are you sure?' she asked in a soft, tremulous voice.

'Yes, nothing to worry about. It's no big deal. Really.'

'If there's anything I can do for you...'

'Thank you.'

The girl hesitated, hesitated again, and slowly walked to the kitchen. Reaching the threshold, she turned back to Alex once more, and gave him yet another careful, inspecting gaze.

He looked away. The whole situation was beginning to embarrass him. He could feel his cheeks flush. Look busy. Concentrate on something else.

The burning sensation on his lips was fading, so Alex gave his espresso a second chance.

A nice, strong blend, he thought. Caribbean Arabica beans for sure, maybe some Sumatra for extra flavour. The water pressure was off, though. Not enough foam, or the sugar would have floated for a few seconds as it slowly absorbed the...

Zoé's face appeared again at the kitchen door, her eyes sparkling with uncontained excitement.

Uh...

He glanced at the two young women at the table to his left.

He glanced right into their huge, beautiful, celestial blue eyes. And their smiles, their devastatingly wide, cheerful smiles, unquestionably directed at him, filled with recognition, admiration, and a feeling of never-ending sweetness.

His heart skipped a beat.

They were flirting with him, their expressions shifting every second, until finally unable to hide their ever-mounting sexual desire.

The revelation was overwhelming. The formula worked. It was working! His labour had not been in vain. In his hands lay the key to any woman he wanted. Models, actresses, any of the countless anonymous stunners that passed him on the street, they were all within his grasp. They would all be no more than slaves to his hyperactive libido, and he would be the absolute master of their fate, sanity, will, and decency – or lack thereof. The bitter exile that female gender had confined him to would be avenged with refinements before which partisans of de Sade would grow pale and Nietzsche's theories considered puerile. The human race was under his yoke, dependent of his whim–

Slow down, you need to focus. Breathe.

The shock of finding himself holder of such an absolute power broke the harness of his imagination and, for a second, led Alex into a frenetic race for misogynous vindication.

He was starting to scare himself.

Breathe.

He opened his eyes, calmness washing over him, and jumped when he found the blonde girl sitting next to him.

She asked for a light in a language that sounded like Swedish. The intensity of her gaze stunned Alex. She chewed on her luscious bottom lip as he dug the white plastic lighter out of his pocket, more frightened than pleased, unable to enjoy this long awaited moment. He hurried lighting the king-sized cigarette that she held between trembling fingers, trying to quickly steal her excuse for being so near.

Slowly, she returned to her table, but was soon engaged, along with her friend and the waitress, in a crossfire attack of devastatingly flirtatious looks.

Alex was starting to feel a completely unforeseen sense of embarrassment. He was burning, and tiny droplets of sweat forming on his forehead moved him to open the top button of his shirt.

No sooner had he done it, than he realised the thought never should have even crossed his mind. His gesture caused an instant commotion amongst the assault troops, who blushed so rapidly and intensely that he feared a cerebral embolism would be eminent.

The teenaged waitress had left the safety of the kitchen doorsill and sauntered timidly in his direction. The headwaiter, a tall Maghrebi man with dark skin and dry efficient manners, could tell something strange was going on, but he was busy waiting on the patrons who were calling, to no avail, his bewitched colleague.

Was there no way to control the effects of the potion? Could he have made a mistake in calculating the dosage? Alex could feel panic rising. He needed to retreat and rethink his strategy. He needed to get the hell out of there before the whole thing spun out of control.

'The bill,' he started to say, but ended up whispering, 'please.'

The slightest motion of his right hand to call the attention of the waitress was enough to set the girl running across the room. By the time he opened his mouth to speak, she was already in front of him, ready to drink his every word.

'You're leaving already?' she asked with a mix of terror and anxiety.

'Yes.'

'Why?'

'I want the bill,' he said bluntly. 'I want to leave. I ate, and now I'm leaving.'

She looked at him with huge brown eyes that instantly grew tearful. Her bottom lip quivered as she sorrowfully murmured something unintelligible and walked slowly away.

The two foreign girls appeared to realise what was happening and looked at each other with unspeakable horror. They shared an absolute desire for the same man, a numbing pain for the eminent loss, and a decision to fight to the death for him, against each other, if that was what it took.

Suddenly, their eyes sparkled with a new urgency, and before Alex had time to move a muscle, they were surrounding him, no longer shielding their intentions. The fear of losing him shook off any remnants of modesty they had, and made them launch a full-blown attack while he was still within range.

One sat on his left; the other kneeled on his right. They whispered words he couldn't translate, but there was no doubting their meaning. Their hands swarmed up his arms and chest, teasingly unbuttoned his shirt, the rugged skin of his face softened by the touch of more and more confident fingers.

The young waitress, seeing this, dropped all her fears and inhibitions, and ran back to Alex. She threw her arms around him; her hands glided across his shoulders, her lips brushed his neck.

Alex struggled to maintain awareness and control over his own body, but his decision mechanisms seemed blocked, his heart rate kept increasing, and the growing bulge of his cock was starting to strain the fabric of his pants.

The women were out of control, and he realised he didn't have much time left before they ripped all his clothes off him. Buttons on his shirt had been opened, and firmly intended hands already traced labyrinthine trajectories across his chest and down his stomach.

He looked up and, from where he was sitting, he met the stunned stares of the headwaiter and the two couples in the room.

Impious hands tore the last button off his shirt and deftly unbuckled his belt.

It was too much.

In a display of determination, Alex pushed himself up on his feet and attempted a few uneasy steps, hampered by the weight of the three women on his shoulders.

Stammering excuses to whoever wanted to hear them, he pushed chairs out of his way, moved with weightlifter steps in the opposite direction, and stumbled against the young couple's table with a crash. The collision threw an emerald earring that was on the table to the carpeted floor, and the young brunette moved to catch it with an exasperated look on her face.

Alex was faster, though. Still apologising, he bent down on his knee and grabbed the earring. With an enormous effort, the three women still clinging to him, he managed to stand up straight, and hand it to the girl who stared at him, completely transfixed. It took him only one look into those huge green eyes to realise that the pack of ravagers had won another element.

Desperation took over him. As she grabbed the earring, the young girl let her touch linger, holding his hand. Under the astonished look of her companion, her face visibly blushed, and she struggled with the impulse to join the other three women.

Alex felt hands pulling his shirt open, clawing at his bare chest, squeezing his buttocks, tousling his hair, grabbing his shoulders. He strained to resist, to set himself free from a scene that could have been born of the warped mind of a neorealist director whose idea of a masterpiece was the blending of "9 ½ Weeks" with "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly". Alex did little more than follow his survival instincts, but soon he woke up to the pressing need to escape the restaurant.

The green-eyed brunette's boyfriend, his bewilderment morphing into anger, seemed suddenly ready to land a right hook to Alex's face.

The headwaiter indubitably saw the entire episode as a severe assault on the establishment's good name, and in his eyes could be read the resolve to put a quick stop to it, by whatever means necessary.

The other couple, a few tables away, was paralysed by shock. The man had turned the camcorder to the group of women brazenly attacking Alex, and it was guaranteed that, to them, Cannes would forever be a synonym of sexual freedom and liberation, a place where anything could and would happen.

When Alex felt a hand slide into his trousers, he saw himself on the verge of public exposure and, judging by the licentious behaviour of the ravenous women, on the threshold of a spectacle that would make any incubi of Sodom and Gomorrah blush.

'No!' his shout echoed through the room.

In a fit of panic, fearing for the little control he still had over the situation, Alex violently shook off his assailers. The blood-riddled nail marks across his arms and torso bore witness to the women's determination in not letting go.

Another attempt to drive back the crazed nymphos, desperately twist- and turning, and the scientist managed to get enough distance between himself and them to turn and run to the exit door.

And he ran.

He broke out the door, and as the cool Mediterranean night air hit him, it gave him a burst of unknown strength. He rushed around corners and across streets, cars swirled in front of him. He ran along the old harbour, avoided the crowds outside the Palais, and sought refuge in the shadows of side streets, between la Croisette and rue d'Antibes.

His heart raced, and he felt as if his chest was ready to burst open. Again, the sensation of vertigo.

He stumbled, leaned against a red brick wall, clutching his chest, panting, and fell on his knees.

He closed his eyes, feeling himself faint.

The effects of his elixir, he thought, were nothing short of spectacular: fast, potent, and uncontrollable. A true lethal weapon that in the wrong hands would be worse than a nuclear warhead.

The discovery of the true extent of the formidable power he now held with absolute impunity made him tremble.

Suddenly, his eyes shot open in realisation.

The buzz-crackle-buzzing and the flickering pink neon glow told him exactly where he was. Told him, even thought he had escaped the possessed women from the restaurant, that he needed to get out of that alley immediately and back to the safety of his hotel room, where he could reinvigorate his body, and set his mind in order.

'Get up,' he said, as if he needed external encouragement.

He grabbed the jagged brick wall with his left hand, searching for support, and was halfway up on his feet and ready for that final ascending thrust, when the weight of the world fell upon his shoulders and projected him crashing against a steel dumpster.

'What the...'

He turned around as he fell.

For a fraction of a second, the scene flashed in front of his stunned eyes: blood-red fleshy lips, the curl of a well-shaped hip, the toned skin of a thigh, smooth slender hands, legs, ravenous eyes.

The four girls dove toward him, blazing, without any reminiscence of hesitation or inner conflict.

Alex screamed in terror.

They had caught up with him, driven by pure animal lust.

He scrambled hurriedly on his hands and knees, but it was too late. The full weight of one of the girls landed on his back and he crashed face first onto the bed of red and black confetti that made up the ground of the alley.

They grabbed his legs, flipped him over, and tore his shirt off. One of them straddled his chest and held him down, kissing his lips hungrily, driving her tongue into his mouth. She breathed him in, like a panther, her long nails grazing the skin of his neck. Suffocating.

The other women held his arms, ripped his trousers down, tore his boxers to his ankles. They scratched, grabbed, slapped, and squeezed every piece of flesh in his body.

Hands scraped, nails scratched, tongues swam across his skin. One of the women wrapped her fingers around his cock, another's teeth sunk in his neck.

He arched his back in pain, and with it felt a surge of blood to his growing erection, which was promptly met with the lash of a tongue and the warmth of a mouth.

Alex gasped for air. The woman on his chest immediately shifted her position and lowered herself onto his mouth. Her smooth thighs tightened around Alex's face and she rode him and smeared her juices across his mouth and chin. He struggled to breathe, and each time he took another mouthful of her.

He fought, yanked his arms out of the restraining grip, and pushed the girl off him. He tried to sit up, but only managed to see the young brunette waitress, kneeling between his legs and with her parted lips hovering over the head of his cock. Before he could feel her mouth engulfing him, another girl rammed him down and kissed him.

Alex felt paralysed by the turn of events he had knowingly precipitated. He was the one responsible. He was the one in control. And still he struggled, unable to control even his own overstimulated body.

The delicate curve of a firm breast, the soft cushion of a buttock, the arch of a damp perineum, shoulder blades, legs, navels, calves, nipples.

He looked up to see the Nordic blonde straddle him.

His eyes glazed, his breath was ragged.

The saline scents of sea and sex overloaded his senses.

He felt his cock gliding into her wet folds, armouring within her tight cunt. His body tensed. He felt his arms and legs trembling.

His fists closed around handfuls of confetti. His heart violently drummed in his chest.

The sweat, thick and musky, soaked the five bodies, gliding, slithering across each other, undulating, in an animalistic, frenzied dance. A maelstrom of carnal pleasure, submerging, trapping him inside a vortex of lust.

Alex felt himself drown, powerless to express the universal horror of his fate, and summoned the last of his strength to release the primeval cry that incinerated his vocal cords at the moment of climax, until all he could hear was the beating of his own heart, faster and faster, louder. Louder. Thump. Thump. Thump