Sex in Black & White - Story 04

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?"

Puzzled, the girl, a vision in white, responded with cautious surprise. "Taryn—you texted me. I came as soon as I could. And Taryn, it's Saturday night. You hate going out on Saturday nights. What's happened? You're upset; what's wrong?"

Anya placed her arms around Taryn's shoulders, hugging her tightly as the train jarred its way into the night.

Stammering, Taryn explained her enigmatic behavior. "It wasn't me, Anya; I didn't text you. But, forget about that because there's something else; I did this thing." She looked imploringly into her friend's eyes, her hope that Anya would miraculously grasp CravingYou.com and her sordid behavior with the stranger.

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

"It's something—I don't think I should have done it, and I didn't tell you in advance—I know we tell each other everything, and I'm sorry I didn't, I am. But I thought you might worry—all right, no, that's a lie." She raised her eyes to meet Anya's baffled gaze. Anya, confounded by Taryn's confusing explanation, glanced at the mysterious text message.

"I didn't tell you," Taryn continued, "because I knew you would say don't, and everything happened so quickly, and by the time I did it, I was afraid to call you, and anyway, I thought to myself, I might, at the last minute, back out and wouldn't let him fuck me, and I would never have to trouble you with any of this, but then I did it anyway and—Anya, how did you say you knew I would be here?"

"You wouldn't fuck whom?" Anya asked.

"This guy I met on the internet," Taryn explained. "But you said you got a text from me. What text?"

"This one, look!" Anya held the tiny screen up to Taryn's widening eyes and read the text out loud: "'Anya—am on the Gravesend Line to Brighton. Meet me at Hither Green @ the 8:35 stop. I need to confess something important—Taryn.'"

"What do you mean, you didn't send the text?" Anya asked, confused.

"Oh that, well, no, I didn't send it—it was Mira. Anyway, it's not important; you're here, and I'm glad you're here and..."

"...who's Mira?" Anya asked.

"Mira, well, she's this girl I know, but like I said, I'm just happy you're here."

Her baffled friend, with an auditing gaze, continued searching Taryn's face for answers. "You're making no sense, girlfriend," she finally said.

Anya's statement interrupted the unruly chatterer, and she quickly added, "I'm not interested in texts sent by mystery girls, Taryn, but something happened to you today, and you felt you needed me, so I'm here and well—tell me! And for God's sake, stop speaking in riddles!"

Far more passed between the two women than their mixed-up conversation suggested. Anya sensed her friend's emotions were a frayed mix of self-satisfaction, relief, and regret.

"Look at you!" Anya insisted. "You're exhausted. And what happened to your hair?"

Taryn glanced at her reflection in the opposite and now vacant train car window, then feebly, she leaned back in the seat, her head thudding against the rest. With the train again underway, the troubled woman turned away, looked out the window, and in a chillingly sober tone, said, "I had sex today, Anya, with a man I didn't know. Do you hate me?"

***

The women had met a year earlier when, tired and searching for a place to escape from the crowded streets, Anya Vyrubova retreated into Northanger Abbey, a secluded coffee shop in Kensington. Scanning the tables, she spotted the café's only empty chair over the back of which rested a black suede jacket and matching purse.

Sitting opposite was a stunning, studious-looking woman with creamy white skin and auburn hair. Immersed in a slender, hardcover book, she acted as if the world around her did not matter.

The tastefully dressed occupant sat alone, somehow focusing amid the café's pandemonium. Anya could not help smiling. Admiring the girl's powers of concentration, she brazenly worked her way over to the half-vacant chair.

Catching a glimpse of the book's cover, Anya commented, "That's a hot story."

Looking up, the reader motioned to the tired shopper and said, "You should join me." She flashed a cautious smile, and added, "So, you have read, The Au Pair Girl?"

***

From that moment, their conversation darted with surprising harmony from here to there. As afternoon drifted to evening, they knew one another's love of reading, the subtle variations on how their mothers taught them to make whipping cream and had swapped email addresses.

Within a month, the word 'girlfriend' took on new meaning as their closeness matured and their complicated intellects synchronized.

Each was enthralled with the professional life of the other. Taryn Asher had never known a prostitute and could not get enough of her secrets. Anya, the daughter of Russian expatriates, had fled that country's cruelty, worked for a time in legitimate business and was mildly amused to discover someone of Taryn's stirring intelligence and learning amidst bank statements and balance sheets.

Taryn, however, was comfortable in that world. Anya, on the other hand, fed up with being groped for free, moved on from London's cutthroat 'Square Mile' business district, opting instead for sex work—and more money, her stupefying physical beauty handily drawing high-end clients.

The pair grew to care deeply for one another, with Anya, detecting Taryn's keen interest in sex, her exquisite companion, half-jokingly suggesting Taryn might work part-time by servicing clients on weekends.

"There's a market for studious girls," Anya said. "In no time, you'll have men interested; it's that virginal innocence you project—powerful men pay a lot of money for girls like you. You're smart; you can talk about anything and everything, and ninety percent of an escort's time is spent in conversation, not sex."

Smiling, the accountant entertained the thought, finding it titillating. "Tell you what, Anya, if I ever get fired, I'll give it a go."

Taryn's efforts in the auditing department boosted productivity. The firm's management took notice—and gave her a raise. That's when she half-reluctantly passed up Anya's shadowy world. Though a close-run thing, the thought of working side-by-side with Anya intrigued her.

Their relationship was a wedding of peculiarities, with the dissimilarity of their lives feeding rather than dampening their relationship. Call girls worked society's dark corners. It simultaneously attracted and repelled Taryn, provoking her to reveal a hidden part of herself.

The bold step started with popcorn. Late one Saturday night, the women sat together and watched "The Story of O." Before viewing it, they agreed to three things: they would wear ratty pajamas, each would divulge something sexual about herself, something the other did not know, and together they would make authentic, not microwave popcorn.

"You go first," Taryn insisted, hinting more than a measure of embarrassment over the required sexual exposé.

Anya, who moved about her sexuality with frightening comfort, instantly described the 'Pisser,' a Brazilian coffee executive who breezed into town from time to time. During the telling, Taryn's eyes widened, and crossing her arms over her chest, she asked incredulously, "You mean, he pees on you?!"

"Sure," Anya crisply admitted. Stopping mid-bite, she looked straight at her friend, who, with her hands clapped tightly to her face, barely masked a blush. "It's why we call him the Pisser! He makes a mess, but he's basically harmless. Besides, he's a good tipper. All the girls like him."

"All the girls?" Taryn's blush deepened, and she screwed up her nose in silent dissent.

"Don't be so judgmental," Anya snapped. "You'll need to get used to some fetishes; either that or avoid sex altogether because every man has, well—some!" Stillness settled upon the two as Taryn grappled with her Victorian preconceptions.

The inevitable happened, and suddenly, it was Taryn's turn to tell. "So?" Anya, said. "You know about the Brazilian pisser, now tell me your secret. And don't give me wishy-washy bullshit. It has to be something hot."

Taryn was tempted to disclose the truth, to expose her clandestine internet shopping, that she sought zero-commitment sex. She wavered, however. Anya would see the danger, would blame her own bad example for whatever folly might befall Taryn in her quest for internet sex. She would argue that her occupation as an escort was evil, that Taryn should abandon her dreams, something about which she had already made up her mind.

That die was cast; the skilled accountant wanted risk. She would lunge and did not want to hear cautionary arguments that might pit her plans against her greatest fear: Anya's flawless logic backed by real-life experience.

Munching popcorn, the bashful girl found herself facing the ideal opportunity to open, to reveal her plans to her best friend, a statement of trust and love that would seal their friendship forever. Rather than out herself, she freaked, instead offering Anya a secret fetish. "Anya," she began, "I...I think to orgasm, I need to be tied up—beaten. Sex has little meaning unless I'm restrained and...um...humiliated. It's okay though because there are safe words, so if I don't like something, I can stop a man from...well, from going too far."

Anya knew better, and quietly nodding, she ran the backs of her delicate fingers across Taryn's cheek, then soberly imparted a precaution. "Don't be naïve, girlfriend. Once you're tied—there are no safe words. A man can do to you, whatever he wants."

The low rasp in Anya's voice brought Taryn a shiver, not because she felt danger, the thought rarely occurred to her. Instead, she sensed something else, a veiled hint that Anya had lived through something terrifying, her first thought, to ask what it was. But she hesitated again, thinking maybe it was best to leave it for another time.

By then, Anya had turned away and staring at the television screen, her eyes filled with an eerie emptiness.

A strange stillness followed, disturbed only by the slow-motion crunch of popcorn. Each let the moment pass. Taryn would find her sex partner; she would not tell Anya.

End - Story 4 -- Deceiving