Sex in Black & White - Story 04

Story 4

Deceiving

**

Each friend represents a world in us, a world not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born. -- Anais Nin -

***

"Anya!" Taryn gasped. "How did you - what are you doing here? How did you know I was on this train?"

Obviously puzzled by seemingly unrelated questions, the girl, a vision in white, responded with cautious surprise. "Taryn...you texted me. I came as soon as I got it. And Taryn, why are you here? It's Saturday night. You hate going out on Saturday nights. What's happened? What's wrong? You're upset."

Without waiting for explanations, she placed her arms around her friend's shoulders, hugging her tightly as the train's jarring movement rocked the women, even as they pulled apart. Taryn saw consternation ranging Anya's usually composed features.

Speaking in hurried agitation, Taryn undertook to explain the enigma. "It wasn't me. I didn't send that text, but...Anya, I've done this thing." She looked at her friend imploringly, as if hoping she would understand without her having to say any more.

Anya's eyes narrowed and shaking her head slightly she glanced down in bewilderment at her phone. "What, sweetheart? What did you do?"

"It's something - I'm not sure now - whether I should have done it, and I didn't tell you about it and I know we tell each other everything and I'm sorry I didn't, I truly am. But I thought you might worry - all right - no, I'm not being completely honest and I'm stopping that right this minute." She raised her eyes briefly to meet Anya's baffled gaze, before dropping them again.

Taryn's unabated rant was flooding their space, as the astonished women almost gently fell backward into a seat. With each word, Anya grew more confounded, glancing now and then at her open cell phone, wordlessly referencing the baffling text.

"I didn't say anything because I knew you would tell me not to do it, or to at least be more careful and it all happened so quickly and by the time I did it, I was afraid to even call you and anyway, I thought to myself - even at the last minute -- I might still back out and wouldn't see him, and then I'd never have to trouble you with it at all, or at least I wouldn't go home with him, but then I did anyway...Anya, how did you say you knew I would be here?"

"You wouldn't go home with whom?" she asked, eyeing Taryn warily.

"With him, with this guy I found. But you said you got a text from me. I don't understand. What text?"

"This one. Look," the puzzled woman snapped, holding the tiny screen of her phone before Taryn's wide eyes. She read the text out loud:

Anya - am on the Gravesend Line to London. Meet me. Hither Green @ the 6:35 stop. Need you - to tell you something...Important! -- Tar.

"What do you mean, you didn't send the text?" Anya asked, resuming their discordant conversation.

"Oh that", Taryn commented offhandedly. "Well, like I said, it wasn't me...not exactly. It was her, Mira. That much I'm sure of. But it's not important - the only thing that's important is that you're here and I'm glad you're here and..."

"Who's Mira?"

"Mira, well yes...well, she's just this girl I know, but like I said, I'm so happy you're here." A look of relief came to rest on Taryn's face.

Her puzzled friend, leveling an auditing gaze, continued in vain to ascertain exactly what was happening, as Taryn's words still made little sense. In frustration, Anya paused the unruly chatterer and holding her arms firmly, said, "I'm not interested in texts sent by mystery girls, Taryn, but plainly something happened today and you needed me, so here I am and well...tell me! And please stop talking in riddles!"

The few moments since Anya's unexpected appearance disguised the fact that far more passed between the two than one might have expected based on their mixed-up conversation. Anya was certain of one thing; for some reason, her friend's emotions were fragmented, leaving her a strange mixture of satisfaction, relief, sadness and regret.

"Look at you! You're exhausted. And what happened to your hair?" She asked, raising her wide eyes.

Taryn glanced at her reflection in the opposite and now vacant window and feebly leaned back in the seat, her head bumping the glass with a thud. With the train once again underway, her features turned chillingly sober. As she continued to stare into the night, her friend had to lean closer to catch her whisper. "I had sex today, Anya. With a man I'd never met before. Do you hate me?"

***

The two had met one busy day a year earlier when, tired and in search of a place to escape from the crowded streets, Anya Vyrubova had retreated into Northanger Abbey, a secluded coffee shop in Kensington. Scanning the tables, she spotted a single empty chair over the back of which rested a black suede jacket and matching purse.

Sitting opposite was a strikingly beautiful but studious-looking girl whose creamy skin and auburn hair instantly drew her attention. She was immersed in a heavy book as if the world wasn't swirling around her.

The tastefully-dressed occupant sat by herself, somehow managing to maintain focus amid the café's organized pandemonium. Anya couldn't help smiling, admiring the girl's powers of concentration and taking a deep breath, she brazenly worked her way to the half-vacant chair.

Catching a glimpse of the book's cover as she drew closer, Anya commented, "That's a great story."

Looking up, the reader motioned to the tired shopper with her index finger. "Will you join me?" Flashing a cautious but friendly smile she then asked, "So, you like Flaubert?"

***

From that moment, their conversation darted with a surprising natural harmony from here to there and before their long walk by the Thames drifted into evening, they had both revealed their love of reading, the subtle variations on how their mothers had taught them to make whipping cream, and had swapped email addresses.

Within a month, the term "girlfriends" had taken on new meaning as they began doing everything together, in the process developing a closeness which had the effect of synchronizing two independent and complicated intellects.

Each, they soon learned, was enthralled by the professional life of the other. Taryn Asher had never known an escort and couldn't get enough of her secrets. Anya, the daughter of Russian expatriates and escapees of Soviet cruelty, had once worked the world of legitimate enterprise and was mildly amused to discover someone of Taryn's stirring ability and deep learning amidst a business world rooted in deception.

She had seen so little of it during her brief employment in London's Square Mile before becoming a working girl two years earlier when, opting to make more money and tired of being groped for free, she changed careers and due to her stupefying physical beauty, drew in high-end clients.

Anya brought strange experiences to the relationship and rapidly grew to care deeply for her exquisite companion, even half-jokingly suggesting that Taryn might slip into "the business" of doing outcall on weekends.

"You'd have men crawling all over you, darling," she had once remarked. "It's that virginal innocence you project without knowing it...powerful men will pay a lot of money for it. And you're smart; you can talk about anything. Remember, ninety percent of an escort's time is spent in conversation, not sex."

Smiling, the professional woman entertained the thought for an instant, admitting wittily, "Tell you what Anya. If I lose my job, I'll give it a go."

But by then her presence in the auditing department had prompted a boost in productivity and the firm's management had taken notice. That's when she half-reluctantly gave up the idea, instead accepting a promotion at the esteemed accounting firm of Ernst & Young. It was a near-run thing, though, as the idea of working with Anya intrigued her.

Their relationship became a wedding of peculiarities, with the dissimilarity of their lives feeding rather than dampening brushfires of interest. Call girls lived in shadows and dark corners, places which simultaneously attracted and repelled Taryn.

Principally, the sheer multiplicity of Anya's sexual encounters affected her, and she began to see her new friend as someone to whom she might reveal her hidden things, things she kept shrouded in what she euphemized as her "real life."

It started with popcorn. Staying up late together one Saturday night, they watched "The Story of O". Before viewing the cult classic, the girls agreed to three rules: each would wear her rattiest flannel pajamas, each would reveal something sexual and together they would make authentic, not microwave popcorn.

"You go first," Taryn insisted meekly and with more than a hint of embarrassment.

Anya, who moved about her sexuality with almost frightening ease, described the "Pisser", a Brazilian coffee executive who breezed into town now and then.

Taryn's eyes narrowed and crossing her arms over her chest, she asked incredulously, "You mean...you let him...pee on you?!"

"Sure," Anya said crisply, stopping mid-bite to look over at her. "Why?"

Holding her hands tightly to her face to mask a blush, Taryn exhaled heavily. "Why do you think we call him the Pisser?" Anya asked smirkingly. "He makes a mess, okay? But he's basically harmless. Besides, he's a good tipper. All the girls like him."

Taryn's screwed up her nose in dissent. "Oh don't be so judgmental," Anya snapped. "You'll have to get used to some fetishes, darling; either that or avoid sex all together because every man has... well, some!"

An interminable stillness settled upon the two, as Taryn grappled with her preconceptions. Then the inevitable happened. "So? I told you about the Pisser," Anya warned. "Now it's your turn. What? Tell me. And don't give me any namby-pamby bullshit. It has to be something hot."

This was the moment when Taryn genuinely wanted to reveal what clawed at her insides, to tell her friend she had been internet shopping, actively seeking a sex partner online, all to be accomplished without a hint of commitment.

But she wavered, knowing Anya would instantly blame herself, that is, her own "bad example" for any folly Taryn was on the verge of plunging into. She would argue perpetually that her own lifestyle was evil, in hopes Taryn would change course. She'd be overly insistent that Taryn not get laid, something that was no longer an option, as the willful girl had already made up her mind and that was that.

Taryn understood herself well enough to know that when she got like this, she would defy risks and would lunge forward despite having her own personal sex trainer to whom she could be listening.

She didn't want to hear any arguments which might pit her plans against her greatest fear: Anya's impeccable logic backed by unimaginable experience.

"You're the most bullheaded woman I've ever met," Anya hissed at her one day. "Once you've made up your mind, forget it! You won't listen to anyone!" She was right, and it weighed heavily on Taryn since she knew she'd be hard-pressed to offset the call girl's inevitably contrasting views, on this subject especially.

And there was another, more urgent problem. The girls showed a natural curiosity about each other's sexuality. Carried out in fragmentary conversation, and not due to any particular need to know, they constantly probed, for the most part answering each other's questions frankly.

But like everyone, each girl hid things. Indeed, Taryn had wordlessly carried the burden of her online antics for weeks, all the while desperately wanting to reveal them to her friend, and now, complete with real buttered popcorn, she suddenly found herself facing the ideal opportunity.

The revelation, regardless of the alarm it might set off, would seal the friendship in immeasurable ways, making a potent statement of trust and love. But at that moment and standing under Anya's patient but scrutinizing gaze, her resolve hedged, panicked and fled. She simply didn't dare allow herself the "out", but instead tendered a stealthy diversion. She would offer her most secret fetish in exchange.

"Anya, I... I need to be tied up during sex," she admitted. "I won't feel anything from it, unless I'm bound...um...with my legs forced, you know, wide apart." Thinking Anya might cringe, she quickly added, "It's okay though, because there are safe words so if I don't like something I can stop things." Her words seemed tentatively offered.

Any other woman might have been taken aback by the disclosure but Anya knew too much; she'd seen it all and merely nodded. Running delicate fingers across Taryn's brow, and curling the soft hair behind her ear, she soberly imparted a precaution. "Don't be naïve, green eyes," the working girl said. "Once you're tied, there are no safe words. A man can do anything to you."

The rasp in her voice brought a shiver to Taryn's spine, not because she felt any danger - the thought of it rarely crossed her mind - but it contained a veiled hint that Anya had lived through something terrifying and her first thought was to question what it was, but she hesitated a second time, thinking maybe it was better left for another day.

Besides, Anya didn't react when she glanced over at her, but rather turned to stare at the television screen, her eyes filled with emptiness, as if she'd said nothing.

A strange silence settled over the exchange, interrupted by the intermittent and almost slow-motion crunch of popcorn, tossed less frequently now into the girls' mouths. Otherwise, each allowed the moment pass by.

Taryn's more immediate secret was safe. She would find that sex partner.

End - Story 4 -- Deceiving

Note: To be continued...