Linda Alvarez - The Mammoth Book of Threesomes and Moresomes

I’d gotten to know Silvia well over the years through my reporting on the Spanish literary circuit. She was a been-here-done-that kind of woman in her late fifties, who I suspected was still up to lots of that. She came from a good Catalan family and got into the literary business because she liked highbrow books, cocktail parties and sleeping with struggling writers. She was asking me why the hell had I left my high-profile editorial position to come to Barcelona when I finally spotted Sergi. He stood five heads away from us, laughing big and showing fangs. He turned his head towards me as I eyed him up and down. I told Silvia I’d just gotten sick of New York.

It was impossible not to notice him. He was taller and blonder than most in the room. He turned his entire body to face me, even as he was still chatting up an austere, balding man, probably another veteran of Spanish letters making nice to the new lion. Silvia moved on to a woman she knew standing next to us, and Sergi kept on looking. Noticing he had lost Sergi’s attention, the gentleman of letters spotted me, gave me the once-over, and continued his monologue anyway.

Despite his refined looks, Sergi’s smile was vulgar. He raked his eyes over me as if I were standing there naked. I blushed like a nun and soaked myself at the same time. It reminded me of why I knew I’d hate him. Did he know who I was? How did he know who I was? He mouthed a hello. I nodded in camaraderie and gave him a frigid politician’s smile. Then he turned away to continue his conversation with the gentleman.

Silvia had seen our unspoken exchange. She turned back to me. “Oh darling, watch out for him. Don’t tell me you two have already. .?” She paused.

“Nooo,” I said loudly. I made a hissing sound to punctuate my negation, for both of our ears. “I’m here with David Canetti, not Sergi Canetti.”

“Uuff,” she said. “A little better, but still, the Canettis are quite the dogs around town you know.” She looked at me sympathetically, reading it all so clearly on my face. She continued. “But David has always struck me as the Abel to his Cain in that strange brotherhood. It seems they never get too far from each other, like Frack and Frick,” she said in English, pumping extra gasoline into her rrr s.

“Yes, they’re tight,” I added with an upturn in my voice. I tried to steer the conversation away from the sewage she was ready to spill.

I scanned the room, desperately looking for David. I spotted him. He was talking with Sergi and a group of Spanish literati. He was doing a lot of double-cheeked air-kissing and man-to-man back-rub bing. I thought about how much more people touched in Europe.

Despite my distraction, Silvia pressed on. “Don’t worry. They’ll treat you well. You’re with Publisher’s Forum, and they’re dying for some recognition in New York.” She placed her hand on my shoulder in pity. Though I hated the gesture, I appreciated her brutal honesty, as always. In exchange, she tolerated my bad reviews of her navel-gazing authors.

I excused myself. I looked for David, who had managed to slip into the crowd again. I was hoping we could do a little public fondling. That’s when I saw Sergi cutting through the crowd, quickly moving in my direction.

The bar was packed. I managed to hide myself in a group of huddled men, waiting for my chance to order a drink. Sergi slid between the men and grabbed the top of my arm. I wasn’t going anywhere; his grip was too tight. He towered over me, and I was forced to look up at him.

“Anna, I’m Sergi, David’s brother.” He leaned in to kiss me twice, speaking to me in English, not in Spanish like everyone else did. His English was perfect, far better than David’s. His voice was deep, a smoker’s raspy.

“I know,” I said coldly in Spanish, not wanting to look like a foreigner. As we brushed faces, I could smell the Figuer cologne on him. “When’s your little talk?” I asked.

And he continued in English as if he hadn’t heard my question. “What are you drinking? Let me get it for you.”

He raised a long finger and one of his thick and wickedly arched brows and instantly got the busy barmen’s attention. I assumed he was a man who never had to wait for much.

“ Quiero un whiskey ,” I said, insisting on speaking in Spanish.

Sergi faced the bar looking away from me, staring stone-faced into the mirror in front of us. In the mirror, I saw people around us recognize him, subtly pointing as they whispered to each other. They must have recognized him from all the pre-Sant Jordi media blitz he had done. He ran his hand through his long and wavy hair with hints of grey in it and looked down at the floor momentarily before turning back to me. He was a man used to having eyes on him. And I was stunned by how good it felt to be the woman standing next to him.

“You are an absolutely stunning creature when you’re naked. Has any man ever told you that, Anna?” He was still speaking to me in English, our drinks in hand, when he turned to face me.

I felt my sex draw back into itself, tight and tense. I just stared at him.

“I watched you and David fucking this afternoon,” he said. “I want you to know I really got off on it. I’m surprised you didn’t sense me there on the balcony,” he said, incredulously.

“No, I didn’t,” I said back in English, in an icy, even tone. “David didn’t tell me his brother was a stalker.” Sergi registered my comment by looking away. I tried to remain cool, wondering whether David had known he was watching. Our lovemaking was especially acrobatic, David taking me, turning me every which way he could on to him.

We were silent, as partygoers pushed and bumped up to us like small pesky waves out in deep water. We just stood there, feet an chored to the ground, enveloped in a sticky net of paralysing hate for each other.

Then a young woman with a dark tan and a tight white sleeveless dress stepped between us, leaning into Sergi seductively to say some thing in his ear. He said OK. It was time for his speech. Before I could say a word, she pulled him away from me.

Sergi’s speech was predictably stagey.

I looked for David as Sergi started his talk, his devoted listeners hanging on every word. And no one was more attentive than David, his most loyal fan, who I found standing at the corner of the stage.

“Look sweetie, it’s Sergi.” He giggled like a proud mother at a first dance recital. He was so proud of his conceited brother that I decided not to tell him about our conversation. He did not see him as I did, he never would. David and I had exchanged fluids. As had they. But they were flesh and blood. This was a battle between Sergi and me.

So I just stood there, next to David, and imagined Sergi naked, jerking off, coming pathetically into his hand, watching us. I imagined me sucking his oversexed sanguine cock with bravado. I couldn’t deny the fact I found him attractive. I imagined David walking in on us fucking secretly in the marbled men’s toilet of the Ritz, staring at us with repugnance and utter joy.

When the open bar at the Ritz closed, the three of us left with a large pack of horny literary alcoholics trailing behind us. They were middle-aged and preppy, sputtering vulgarities at the end of every sentence.

On the way out, Sergi swiped two long-stemmed roses from the Ritz’s vases and presented them to David and me. “To my favourite lovers on Sant Jordi,” was all he said before doing a disappearing act into the crowd behind us. I caught his sleazy double meaning. We flooded the streets with a group of about fifteen, half of whom, it seemed, had slept with either David or Sergi (or both) at one point or another. The babbling women were eager to share their nights of as phyxiating surrender to the Canettis’ charm with me. The men were more reserved, but they eyed me like a woman would her ex’s new conquest.