Vegas Key Party

"...and after that first time with Kevin, getting off for the first time, after I found out what sex was like, how great it was, well... I just always wanted more."

There was a long period of silence between us. I looked at her and saw in her eyes that, finally, she knew that she had a problem.

"And that's what it's always been," she said with sadness, "about getting more. Always."

We were silent for a long time.

"We're going to get through this? We need to... it needs to... balance out," she said.

"But I can't keep up to you," I said, feeling weak, unmanly, my own kind of capitulation.

"I know...I know... But we won't be over this until... we can only start again if you... if you..." She meant I had to even the score.

"So have you ever?" she blurted out and raised her glass so that all I could see was her eyes.

I knew she wanted me to say that I had. It would tie the score, one indiscretion each. Fair's fair.

Ten years ago, when I was still single and on the hunt, it was about scoring and keeping score, the more the better for me, different girls, nothing serious, trying them on for size. One time, down in the Caribbean on holiday, it was five different women in three days, something to boast to my buddies about.

But I grew up and I found Beth, The One, or at least I thought she was.

I looked at Beth and shook my head slowly. No. Never. Not since we got together. I mean, like any man, I looked. I admired. I fantasized. But no, I never did.

She paused, knowing it was dangerous territory. She set her glass down, took my hand and stared into my eyes.

"Well maybe you should."

"A freebie. License to fuck," I said and she laughed sadly.

And that's how this whole thing got momentum, her suggesting that I hook up, get it out of the way between us, level the field. And that conversation progressed, fuelled by wine and bourbon and Beth's obsession, to the idea of swinging, a vacation for the two of us, this Las Vegas key party.

A drunken fool, I agreed to the Las Vegas idea, and now here I am staring out at the neon lights, miserable.

~

Sitting by the window as time winds down I'm hearing every little sound and wondering if one of the women is at the door. Once, certain that it's the key in the lock, I leap to my feet and turn to face the door. But no. I stay standing, turn away and move right up against the window, staring out at the neon explosion from The Strip below.

A minute later there it is, unmistakable, the faint click at the door, and then, louder, the latch. The room's ventilation whooshes slightly as the door is pushed open.

But this time I wait. I remain at the window staring out, letting her get inside, letting the door close on the two of us.

"Oh. It's you," she says and I turn to see which of the women has taken my key, which has come to my room to spend the night fucking me, a stranger.

It is Galina. She carries her small overnight bag. Staying the night.

"It's you," she says again evenly, calmly. "I was hoping it would be you. John, right?" And I realized that I had been hoping it would be her. The puzzlement that crossed her face down in the lounge, maybe she saw something in my expression, maybe she saw my questions, my reluctance. With her, maybe I could explain.

I'm supposed to say, "Me, too," but I can't. It's too much.

"Why me?" I ask.

She's standing by the door where the light is dim. She looks away from me, taking her time. She scans the suite, strides slowly into the better light and sets her bag on the bed. There's something in her movement, confidence, grace, sensuality.

"Why you?... Because downstairs you were the only one that wasn't mentally undressing me,... had his testosterone in check... because... all the others?... you're different."

Does she know?

"Different?"

She hasn't moved from the side of the bed. She smiles slyly, as if she knows things that I don't.

"You know, this is not my first rodeo. But it might be yours?" Again, how could she know? There's no use in denying it. I nod.

"You're excited? Nervous?"

"Not exactly." More like angry, not at Galina, at myself for being here at all, but also at Beth.

"Then what?" she asks. I've been alone with her all of thirty seconds and already I have an almost irresistible urge to unburden myself, to tell her everything. I can't do that. I try to calm myself.

"Let me put it this way: You're there by the bed and I'm here at the window. Something's going to happen tonight, but I don't know what and what's worse is that I'm imagining that every other... 'couple' already has their clothes off."

She frowns. "Is that what you want?" she asks.

"Definitely not," I say.

"Then what do you want?" she asks and begins to walk slowly toward me.

I can't keep the exasperation out of my voice.

"I really don't know, but right now it feels like we're playing twenty questions."

She walks slowly around the bed to stand beside me at the window. She smiles and takes her time.

"Not twenty questions. It's cat and mouse."

"And you're the cat?"

"I am the cat. Remember, not my first time."

She's got me there. I nod and give a wan smile.

"So they're all naked. Your wife, too?" she says, "Beth, is it? Wondering who she's with?" And I picture it, Beth and Herb, lips locked, tearing at each others' clothes, falling onto the bed and beginning to fuck as if it's combat. Beth will win. I already lost and Herb is next.

Galina has seen this in my expression.

"Oh... I'm sorry," she says, her smile gone. "I forgot you are the mouse."

I say nothing and continue to stare out at the lights on The Strip.

"The view. The lights," she says, "Thrilling. Beautiful."

She turns to look at me and when I return her gaze, in the darkness of the room I see the lights from The Strip play across the skin of her face, her bare shoulders and her arms. It is as if she is bathing in the dancing light. Beautiful indeed. Both of us turn again to the view.

"Beautiful in a way, but still awful."

She laughs at this.

"Yes! Awful. Dreadful! American decadence at its worst! No wonder the world hates us!"

"Canadians don't hate you. We tolerate you like loud neighbours."

And the conversation begins, a sharing of Canadian places that she has been, including Toronto. Restaurants and tourist sites, the subway, the Red Rocket, shopping. The Blue Jays, Raptors, Maple Leafs. She's the one who sums it up.

"Toronto is just like New York, but without all the... stuff." A nice little joke. I smile.

A minute passes in silence and, with every ticking second, the awkwardness grows.

Galina turns to face me and she places her hand on my arm. "So, Mouse, what is it to be? Am I going to have to seduce you?"

"Is that what you want?" I ask, not moving, trying to turn the tables.

"Aha!" she says. Her smile is of acknowledgement and it changes her, lights her up. She is radiant. "Perhaps we should negotiate."

"That might be unfair," I say, "It's what I do for a living."

"Alright. Then let me change the negotiating game a little. Instead of starting by exchanging our goals, why don't I tell you what I don't want?"

I'm terrified that it will get suddenly explicit, that she will begin to list the things she won't do with a stranger, no kissing, no oral, no swallowing, no anal, no pain... my mind is reeling things off.

She has seen my expression. Some negotiator I am. Some poker face.

"Don't worry. I won't shock you," she says. She is so damned self-assured. She waits a moment, as if searching for words, and in that instant a change comes over her, as if her confidence has momentarily deserted her and she has recalled something difficult, something painful.

"I do not want... to be a notch on the bedpost," she says. Then what is she doing here, I wonder. Do we have something in common? I look into her eyes and again it is as if she is reading off my skull. I nod in agreement.

"Then we have a solid basis to work from," I say. "I think we should go back down to the lounge and have another drink."

Is that relief I see in her eyes?

~

We have found a booth, private enough for quiet conversation but looking out onto the rest of the Chandelier Lounge. It is a Saturday night on The Strip. The youngsters, every one of them dressed in their finest, are on the hunt. Has any of them spent less than an hour in front of a mirror? The boys in their suits, standing in clusters much as they would have in high school, survey the girls, scanning, imagining, planning their moves. The girls, in dresses that are too tight and too short, nervously tug up on their necklines and tug down on their hems.

"They should get dresses that fit," I say. Like yours, I think.

"Like the lions and gazelles on the savannah," says Galina. I smile and nod.

A bottle of white wine and two glasses arrives. The server hands me the cork, I thank her, no, and she pours.

Sitting with Galina, sipping the wine and talking idly, we begin to get to know each other. To start it's an easy give and take, our jobs, what we like to do in our spare time, our favourite things. We laugh a little and I begin to relax. She has seemed relaxed from the start.

Eventually we get around to our partners, everything quite innocuous at first. Then, as the conversation continues, we begin to float small, safe disclosures, each of us in turn making admissions of minor dissatisfactions, annoyances, most of them mildly humourous, trading them back and forth, keeping it equal.

Galina takes a sip of wine and says, "And then there's the bedroom," and her body language says it all, that things are not good. It isn't something a woman, a woman I've only met for the first time about an hour ago, would say to a relative stranger.

And with her words I am suddenly thunderstruck by a new realization, that this is not a normal conversation with just another stranger.

Because we aren't really strangers. For Galina, if not for me, there is an unspoken contract between us and it was there even before we set eyes on each other. She believes that the two of us are here in Las Vegas to be part of a key party, a party designed to throw two strangers together for the sole purpose of having sex. To be here is to not care, to not care about who I am because I might have been any one of the others. There is no past nor future, no baggage at all, with me. Being here means she is prepared to fuck me, and if she is prepared to be naked, to touch and be touched, to be penetrated and, perhaps, to have an orgasm with me, surely she can tell me anything about her sex life.

But as this thought settles in my mind, I'm jolted by a contradiction. I was hoping it would be you, she had said. I take a sip of my wine.

"Problems in the bedroom," I say, not asking, reflecting it back.

She nods her head but says nothing more. It's my play.

"Yeah. Same thing. It's what got me here."

And with these simple words, hers and mine, it all becomes safe, safe to be vulnerable, safe to be completely and utterly truthful.

"This thing," she says, "these parties? They're his idea."

I smile with resignation and toss my head as if referring to upstairs. "Same here. Hers."

"But you agreed?"

"A big mistake. You too?"

"Two mistakes. The first one and this one."

"Right. You're The Cat. But why do two?"

Galina stares down at her glass, turning it slowly, thinking.

"Well not for the sex," she says, "I mean, the first one? The guy was good enough I suppose, but it just seemed it was more for him than for me. That notch on the bedpost thing."

Suddenly she laughs out loud, covering her mouth, her eyes wide.

"What?"

"Not much different from fucking my husband," and now she's doubled over laughing. I smile along with her.

"What do you mean?"

She doesn't hesitate, as if she's thought about this a lot. The words pour out.

"You see, with him it's about how many. How many women, how many positions, how many ways, places, scenarios... Like he has a sex checklist." She pauses, frowns. "He's made me to do some things..." Her voice has trailed off. She raises her glass again, hiding behind it. Her eyes are fierce. Anger.

"Forced you? That's rape."

"No, no force. But manipulated," she says and takes another sip before continuing. "He always needs to... try things."

"A sexual bully," I say.

She practically launches herself at me, grabbing my arm.

"Yes! Exactly!" she says, and then I see her mind working. "I never thought of it like that, but yes."

She takes another sip of wine, considering her words.

"I mean... we fuck... a lot... It's just that it doesn't seem to matter if I'm the one he's fucking."

I struggle to find the words. "You and I have more in common than you might think." I can see that she's connecting the dots.

"So," says Galina, trying to probe, "Our negotiations. I've told you what I don't want. What don't you want?"

Thoughts rush into my mind. I don't want Beth to be fucking another man. I don't want her to fuck me the way she does, as if it's nothing more than a bodily function, like scratching an itch, like a thing that gives her relief. I don't want to be just an instrument of her orgasm. I don't want random, anonymous sex with a stranger. I want more than that.

"I don't want it to be anonymous, not intimate, just fucking," I say, but I realize that Galina will think I'm being sarcastic. "The same as you. Really. Honestly." And slowly, calmly, I begin to tell her the whole story of how I came to be here, Beth's appetites, my inability to satisfy her, catching her infidelity, trying to understand and cope with her nymphomania, her solution to our problem, her suggestion to come here for the key party, my failure to say no, all of it.

When I finish, I think again about how this is different, something totally new to me, deep intimacy and vulnerability with a stranger who I will never see again after tonight.

I notice that we have come face to face, close enough to kiss. Her hand is over mine on my thigh. I look down at it, surprised, and when I look back up, the expression on Galina's face is softer, kinder, connected.

She takes a slow sip of her wine, looking at me over the rim of her glass, thinking, assessing. She sets down her glass and places her hand to the side of my face.

"You are a nice man," she says, "and you deserve better."

"We are fellow travellers. Thank you... for listening," I say sadly. Her eyes glisten. I take her hand from my face, bring it to my lips and kiss it.

"But why come to something like this? And twice," I ask.

She shrugs and says that for the first one she hadn't the courage to say no.

"...so even though after the first time I knew it wouldn't work, he wanted to try another one. I should have said no, but then, I knew he'd just find another woman to fuck anyway. So here I am," she says.

I shake my head sadly.

"So you're not really the Cat," I say.

"No, Mouse, not really."

~

We sit in the lounge quietly sipping our wine, not really talking very much any more. Galina has slid beside me so that our bodies touch. I can feel her warmth.

The jungle scene continues to play out. We watch as bodies press together, hands begin to roam and whispers are made. We see a few couples head for the door trying to look cool but striding a little too quickly.

The server comes, empties the bottle into our glasses and asks if we would like another. It's not a simple question. If we say no, I don't know what will come next. If we say yes, we may end up drunk and we still won't know what comes next.

I look at Galina questioningly.

"No, thank you," we both say. Our eyes are locked. It is the moment of truth. What will we do next? The server leaves.

"Galina, I know what you don't want. But what do you want?"

She takes a long moment to answer, and before she speaks she gathers both my hands in hers.

"I already have what I wanted." She sees the puzzlement on my face. "To be intimate with a kind man who understands."

"Thank you," I say, and I come closer to kiss her, not on the lips, but on her cheek, and when my lips touch her, I discover that I am somehow compelled to linger there. I feel her deep intake of breath.

~

Beth is in the window seat asleep beside me. I lean over to see out the window as we fly over the Grand Canyon. The colours in the afternoon light are magnificent, more varied that can be imagined. I lean back into my seat and look once more at my wife. There is a dreamy look on her face, as if she is happy, as if, finally, she is satisfied.

I had not looked forward to meeting up with her again at the restaurant in the morning for brunch, because I knew that she would make me hear her play-by-play report of her night with Herb or whoever. What's more, I dreaded seeing any of the other couples from the night, especially seeing a knowing leer sent her way by one of the men.

But mostly I knew I would struggle to keep secret what Galina had done.

"So who was it?" Beth had asked even before the server came to the table.

"Not telling," I said.

"Do you want to know who I was with?"

"No."

I could see she was pissed.

"I'm telling you anyway," she said, glaring at me.

I had stared angrily at her for long seconds, making my silent appeal. It was to be the moment, the moment to define who we were, what we were about and where we were going.

Minutes later, having wordlessly endured the whole story of her night, I felt a strange combination of sadness and certainty about my future. I could see in her face only triumph, getting her way once again, the ultimate in dismissiveness toward me.

Now, sitting in the airplane's middle seat, my sadness is gone. I had decided even as we sat not speaking to each other in the restaurant, but I will wait until Toronto to tell her. She doesn't know, has not even considered the possibility of what awaits her when we get back to the apartment. And that, I think to myself, says it all.

I look again at her face, the half smile as she sleeps beside me.

I close my eyes, relax into my seat and at long last I begin to immerse myself in the memory of last night. Tiny images, little moments, sounds and sensations of the night with Galina drift in and out through my mind like dreamy scenes from a movie...

... standing with her outside the Chandelier Lounge, facing each other, confronting the reality that there is nowhere else to go, that our night together must somehow continue...

... standing close to her there, not moving, holding her hands, she looks up into my face and I am stricken once more by her simple, classic beauty...

... seeing her silently thinking, weighing, imagining, deciding... and then, when finally she is sure, feeling her take my arm to guide us together to the elevator...

...the moment of closing the hotel door on the two of us, locking away the mendacity of the world below...

... watching as she approaches the window and holds her arms out from her sides as the dancing neon light play again across her skin, how she watches her own skin as if the lights are painting her, filling her with erotic energy...

... her movement across the room to stand in front of the desk, my eyes following her as she leans back against it...

... the fabric of her dress, the way it stretches across her breasts as she arches her back...

... her eyes beckoning me, challenging me to come to her...

... the way she turns to face the mirror on the wall, imprisoning my eyes in its reflection...

... her assuredness when she looks at me as I stand behind her and she raises her arms to remove the clip from her blonde hair, shaking it loose, letting it fall over her shoulders...

... the erotic charge that strikes me in that tiny moment, as her hair cascades down, revealing her desire, her intention...