THE SWAP
Explicit Stories from the World of Swinging
A Mischief Collection of Erotica

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Playdar Lisette Ashton

Four for the Seesaw Charlotte Stein

Dirty Reunion Scarlet Rush

Club Night Monica Belle

Sauce for the Gander Terri Pray

Risk Reduction Madeline Moore

A Trip to the Woodshed A Lucy Salisbury Story by Penny Birch

Careful What You Wish For Willow Sears

Loser Takes All Amber Leigh

More from Mischief

About Mischief

Copyright

About the Publisher

Playdar
Lisette Ashton

These two aren’t players. You’re wasting your time with them.

Sophie read Rob’s text message, struggling not to reveal any telltale sign in her facial expression. The effort of maintaining a poker face, she knew, made her features appear haughty and long. It was not an attractive look and she tried to lose it as quickly as possible. But the expression was clearly there long enough for Philip and Angela to notice.

‘Is there a problem?’

She glanced up from her mobile towards Philip as he raised the concerned question. He had a shaved head and a smile that suggested mischief and danger. His muscular physique was squeezed into a pale casual suit. His whole image was the stylish and exciting persona of a relaxed Englishman abroad.

Beside him, his Barbie-blonde wife, Angela, tilted her head. ‘Is everything OK?’ she asked. ‘You were frowning.’

‘Everything’s fine,’ Sophie assured them both. ‘I was just trying to think of the right way to respond to this idiot I’m dealing with.’ She waggled the phone to indicate the idiot she was referring to, and then comforted them with a reassuring grin before typing and sending her text message response.

These two swing like a shithouse door in a thunderstorm. I’ll put money on it.

‘You must be quite the businesswoman back in the UK,’ Angela observed.

Sophie shrugged. ‘I do all right. What about you two?’

Her phone gave two beeps. An incoming text message. She held up an apologetic finger to silence Philip and Angela while she read Rob’s response.

£500 says you don’t get to screw Philip before the end of the day. These two don’t swing. They’re too straitlaced.

As usual, it was a perfectly punctuated text from her husband. It included apostrophes of omission and a postgraduate vocabulary. Sophie felt confident the word ‘straitlaced’ was not included in the predictive text package on his Nokia. She thought most men who weren’t Rob would try to put a hyphen in the word. His correctness with language was an essential part of his character.

She typed her reply with the practised ease of a veteran texter.

Call it £1K if I can get you with Angela. I say these two swing.

Rob’s response came back in seconds.

It’s a bet.

‘I’m sorry,’ Philip said. ‘We’re distracting you from your business.’ He made as though he was about to get up and leave.

Sophie put out a reassuring hand. ‘No. Please. That’s the last text I’m sending this evening. I’m all yours now.’ She was delighted to see Angela flush on hearing the comment. Sophie flashed her most disarming smile for the couple, as though the statement had been made in all innocence.

Her playdar, she knew, was 99.9% accurate. Maybe higher. It had never failed her so far and taking the money on this bet with Rob was almost guaranteed. Angela and Philip, she felt certain, both lived the lifestyle. They were both players.

‘Rob should be back with our drinks in a moment and I promise you I won’t be talking business for the rest of the night.’ She met Philip’s eye and said, ‘If I go back on my word, you can take me over your knee and spank my bare backside as punishment.’

Angela stiffened.

Sophie could see the woman’s hand fall to Philip’s thigh and squeeze. Philip’s smile widened. Angela’s nails were painted a wanton scarlet. Her hand was so close to Philip’s groin that Sophie could almost feel his excitement.

‘With that sort of assurance,’ Philip told Sophie, ‘I’d be a fool to leave.’

Rob returned with a tray of drinks. He didn’t bother making eye contact with Sophie. The bet was on and there was no point in either of them labouring the point or running the risk of spoiling the evening’s fun. And, it was clear to Sophie, Rob was desperate to have Angela.

He complimented Philip’s wife on her necklace: a series of princess-cut diamonds on white gold. His fingers lingered dangerously close to her cleavage as he boldly examined the piece. He leaned closer and Sophie saw his fingertips brush against the blonde’s décolletage. She could imagine the heat of his breath was warming the blush of Angela’s cleavage.

Sophie smiled.

She had always enjoyed watching Rob interact with other women. There was something satisfying about the way he was able to tease, please and excite them. It was particularly thrilling for her to know that he had the ability to excite and arouse so many women. And yet he always chose to return to her at the end of an evening. It reminded her that the openness of their relationship was something special and not to be taken for granted.

Used to watching such casual adult play, and barely listening as Angela told Rob the necklace was a gift from Philip to commemorate their fifth wedding anniversary, she saw the woman’s nipples stiffening. Angela was wearing a thin cotton dress. In the balmy heat of this African summer evening it was probably the most sensible fabric to wear, Sophie thought practically. Even though it was now early evening, and the sun’s most ferocious hours had long since passed, the humidity remained cloying and interminable.

The white cotton fitted tight against Angela’s chest. It was so tight Sophie had already noticed the woman wasn’t wearing a bra. And, as Rob continued to examine the diamond necklace, Sophie could see that Angela’s nipples were growing hard and swelling against the fabric. Her chest had been rising and falling regularly before. Now it looked like each inward breath was laboured by swelling passion. The pulse beneath Angela’s ear seemed to throb with heightened expectation.

‘You’ll have to forgive my husband,’ Sophie told Philip. ‘He works as a jeweller and he never seems to take a break from his occupation.’

‘I’ve got nothing against a man admiring my wife’s jewels,’ Philip admitted.

He gave Sophie his easy smile. It was a smile that she longed to kiss. She could picture Philip wearing that smile, and nothing else, while he lay back on a bed and allowed her to suck on his length. The idea made the crotch of her panties warm and damp.

She wondered if, when Philip said he had nothing against a man admiring his wife’s jewels, he was talking about the diamonds. Or if he had used the word ‘jewels’ as a euphemism for her breasts.

Had Philip just admitted that he and Angela were players?

She tried to think how she could surreptitiously raise the question so that Philip or Angela would answer honestly.

‘I do like well-made jewellery,’ Rob admitted. He spoke in a low voice, as though he was sharing a secret with Angela. ‘I was thinking of giving Sophie a pearl necklace this morning. But that’s got nothing to do with our talk about jewellery, has it?’

Angela choked back a lewd chuckle.

Philip’s indulgent smile broadened, although Sophie suspected he hadn’t heard the comment. And, while Philip’s attention was distracted, Sophie knew Rob’s finger would be dropping to ‘accidentally’ graze against Angela’s stiff nipple.

It was a move he often made: surprisingly subtle but devastatingly effective.

Sophie was holding Philip’s gaze when it happened but she knew the moment when the contact occurred because she saw Angela stiffen. Her ears, attuned to the moment and waiting for the sound, heard Angela catch her breath. The sigh was rich with excitement and it sounded as though Angela was desperate to experience more.

‘I’d love to see this outside in the sunlight,’ Rob told Angela. ‘Would you indulge me?’ He glanced at Philip and asked, ‘Would you mind if I took your wife? Outside I mean.’

Angela looked momentarily flustered. She gave her husband an apologetic smile and then turned to Sophie. ‘You two don’t mind, do you?’

Philip and Sophie were shaking their heads.

Angela placed a hand over her breast. Sophie couldn’t work out if the woman was pointing to her necklace, or covering up the embarrassment of her pert, stiff nipples. She supposed the gesture could have been a combination of the two.

‘I love these,’ Angela said, gesturing at the diamonds. ‘And it’s so nice to show them off to someone who obviously appreciates them.’

‘I’m sure Rob appreciates them,’ Sophie said drily.

Philip nodded indulgently. He didn’t seem perturbed when Rob gallantly took Angela by the elbow and escorted her out to the balcony. If anything, and Sophie felt sure the message was coming again from her playdar, it seemed that he was relieved that they were finally alone.

‘Your husband has a good eye.’

‘His other parts are OK, too,’ Sophie quipped.

‘Why are you out here?’ he asked. ‘Is it a holiday?’

‘We needed to recharge our batteries. Rob and I both work hard and play hard.’ She took a deep breath and said, ‘We’d been putting in extra hours at the office and we’d been playing extra hard at the club.’

Philip nodded as though he knew what she meant.

Sophie allowed the words to linger between them, silently hoping that Philip would ask her about playing extra hard at the club. If he asked what she meant, she could tell him it was a swingers’ club. She would explain that she and Rob spent their weekends there, usually sweltering in the heat of a group room, often sweating and writhing with a horde of eager, attractive strangers, all horny and each one desperate to fuck.

In her mind’s eye she could picture the group room at her favourite club. It was always illuminated by red bulbs and looked as bloody and as dangerous as a horror movie. She couldn’t count the number of times she had become lost in there, pressed between naked strangers, submitting to their inquisitive caresses and giving herself over to the pleasure they wanted to bestow. Every time she allowed her imagination to transport her there for a moment, the experience was sufficiently intense to leave her aroused and desperately craving satisfaction.

Philip didn’t ask the question.

He didn’t ask about her playing extra hard at the club and he didn’t ask about her work. Instead, he seemed content to sit back in his seat, smiling easily for her, and relaxing with his drink.

‘What is it you do when you’re not holidaying in Africa?’ she asked.

‘I work in a prison.’

‘You’re a screw?’

She couldn’t stop the cheeky grin from spreading across her lips. If there was one thing she enjoyed with the light-hearted banter of a potential new conquest it was the opportunity for double entendre. She loved to play with words and make the mundane sound lewd and suggestive. Using the word screw in a variety of suggestive ways promised to give her the chance to properly flirt with Philip.

‘Are you a good screw?’ she asked quickly. ‘Or are you a hard screw? If you work shifts does that mean you can be an early-morning screw or a late-night screw? If you get a lot of pleasure from your work does that mean you’re a passionate, satisfying screw …?’

‘Actually,’ he began apologetically, ‘I work in the prison’s admin.’

She scowled. This wasn’t going as she had hoped.

Over Philip’s shoulder, Sophie saw Rob and Angela on the balcony outside. The African sunlight turned Angela’s blonde hair white. Rob had made his trademark move, brushing Angela’s hair over her ear, allowing his fingertips to trail against her cheek, then caress the sensitive flesh of her neck.

And then he was leaning in for the kiss.

Angela melted against him.

Sophie could sympathise with the woman. When Rob was turning on the charm it was impossible to resist him. Even watching the exchange, Sophie felt an echo of the thrill that Angela was clearly enjoying.

Rob’s hand fell to Angela’s breast. He caressed her through the fabric of her thin cotton top. Angela made no objection to his hand being there. Instead she leaned into him. One hand dropped below the level of the window and Sophie guessed that Angela was exploring the shape of Rob’s erection.

She envied her husband taking advantage of Angela and the isolation of the hotel’s balcony. She only wished Philip was as responsive.

‘Have you and Angela been together long?’ Sophie asked.

It crossed her mind that perhaps her playdar had misled her.

Certainly Angela was enjoying herself with Rob. Sophie figured, if she closed her eyes and listened intently, she would have heard Angela’s stifled cries as she muffled her sighs of pleasure beneath Rob’s touch.

But what Rob had with Angela was very different from what Sophie found she had with Philip.

Conversation with Philip was like pulling teeth.

She supposed it could be that he and Angela lived the lifestyle, but that Philip didn’t find her attractive and had no interest in trying to have her. Sophie tried to quickly dismiss that thought, sure it was impossible for any man to resist her innate desirability. But it was enough to wound her self-confidence.

She glanced over Philip’s shoulder and saw that Rob and Angela were still taking advantage of the balcony’s solitude. Their passionate kiss had turned into a ferociously intimate interlude. The top of Angela’s dress was pulled down exposing a bare, pert breast. Rob clutched at her with one hand, his fingers buried punishingly hard into her soft flesh. Sophie could tell, from the way he was bucking and thrusting against her, that her husband’s erection was buried deep inside Angela.

A quickie.

A knee-trembler up against the wall of the hotel balcony.

Angela threw back her head. She released a sigh of obvious satisfaction. In the same moment Rob held himself rigid. Spasms seemed to ripple through his body. Sophie caught a glimpse of her husband’s face and saw he was grinning tightly through a bitter and powerful elation. The expression made her want to kiss him and enjoy the aftermath of his pleasure.

‘We’ve been together now for seven years.’ Philip answered her question, diverting her attention away from the scene on the balcony and back to him. ‘If I believed in the legend I suppose I’d be ready to have an affair by now.’

‘Really?’ Sophie guessed it was time to make a provocative move. ‘I expect there’s a waiting list of candidates desperate to fill that role for you. Where would I have to sign up?’

‘Perhaps I could give you a probing interview later this evening?’

She grinned at him. She had been right. Her worries that her playdar had missed the mark were completely unfounded. Philip was assailing her with the James Bond-esque banter she always associated with making new friends from the lifestyle.

‘It sounds like it could be quite a rigorous selection process.’

‘It would be quite a demanding position.’

‘But I suspect it would be a satisfying role.’

They were chuckling together at the jokes when Rob and Angela returned. If Philip noticed that his wife’s hair was awry, or that the lipstick had been kissed from her lips, he was too gentlemanly to mention it. Sophie took the opportunity to brush invisible flecks of dust from the lapels of Rob’s jacket, trying not to make the action look proprietorial. Rob was perspiring heavily, probably because of the cloying heat and the exertion of satisfying Angela, Sophie thought. And she wanted to kiss him and ask him how Angela had felt wrapped around his cock.

‘Isn’t it a lovely necklace?’ Philip asked.

‘I could have spent the whole evening admiring it,’ Rob admitted.

‘Why don’t you take another look?’ Sophie suggested. ‘Philip and I can go and get fresh drinks for us all from the bar.’ She turned to Philip and said, ‘You don’t mind giving me a helping hand, do you, Philip? We can discuss that job vacancy you mentioned.’

He was standing and beside her in a moment. She was pleased to see that he stood awkwardly, clumsily disguising his erection as he hurried to keep up with her. She walked briskly towards the bar, confident he would be close behind her. And she had no hesitation in stepping into the Gents toilets before they reached the bar.

Philip followed her.

She dragged him into a cubicle. Slamming the door closed behind them, she pushed herself into his embrace. His body was as lean and hard and as muscular as she had imagined it would be. When his mouth met hers she realised she was being kissed by that lazy, dangerous smile that had already turned her insides into fluttering, horny butterflies.

There was no need for words.

It was easier to simply let their actions do the talking.

She pushed her hands beneath his jacket, taking in the contours of the muscles beneath his shirt. He had a broad chest. His biceps were huge and bulging. As she moved her hands to his back, then down to his buttocks, she thought the muscles felt like steel beneath the skin.

The idea made her yearn for him with renewed force.

At the same time as she explored his body, Philip was pawing at her breasts through the thin cotton of her blouse.

She pressed into him, desperate to feel more.

Unconsciously, she bucked her hips forward and rubbed the mound of her sex against his leg. The friction was deliciously satisfying. She wanted to rub harder and more vigorously but the confines of the cubicle didn’t allow for much movement.

Her hand snaked to his groin. She unzipped his trousers with a practised flick of her wrist and then her fingers were closer to freeing his erection. He wore no pants and she immediately touched the bare skin of his cock. The length seemed satisfyingly thick and pleasantly long. She stroked her hand back and forth along him, enjoying the way her caresses made his kisses more ferocious.

‘I came prepared,’ she murmured.

She held up the emergency rubber from her purse.

He grinned and nodded. ‘Is that my size?’

‘Shall we try it on and find out?’

As she ripped the condom from the packet, Philip’s fingers disappeared between her thighs. She shivered as he caressed upwards with determined urgency. And then she held herself still as he pressed his touch against the crotch of her panties. There was a thin layer of cotton separating her sex from the skin-on-skin touch of his fingers against her wetness.

The nearness of that intimacy was enough to make her shiver.

She had been excited before but now she was so close to climax that teasing was almost painful. Her breath came out in ragged sighs. Her chest heaved and fell in soft, agonised shards. She met the steel of his gaze and tried not to be thrilled by the cruelness of his cool smile.

He rubbed a finger against the centre of her cotton-covered crotch.

She bristled.

Gently, he stroked another finger against the side of her panties, stroking the bare skin at the top of her thighs. Although Sophie had no way of seeing what he was doing, she could mentally envision the movement of his finger sliding against the soft flesh. She suspected his touch was lubricated by her perspiration and the moisture from the centre of her crotch.

Then he was peeling the panties aside.

She moaned.

It felt as though her damp gusset was kissing goodbye to her moist labia. The movement of the fabric caressed her sex with a cooling balm of fresh air.

Urgently, Sophie rolled the rubber over Philip’s erection. As soon as it was in place she tugged him between her thighs and guided the tip of his thick length to her sex. Trembling, she nestled her lips over him and then met his gaze again.

Philip was still smiling.

Bracing herself for the pleasurable thrill of his penetration, Sophie slowly lowered herself on to his cock.

They both groaned. She rode swiftly up and down on him, wanting to make the moment stretch out for an age, but knowing that this would only be a rushed and delightfully satisfying quickie. The lack of glamour in their surroundings, and the lack of comfort in having to have sex while standing, was working against her. But, rather than complain about the conditions, Sophie figured she would take as much from the experience as she could.

She squeezed her inner muscles tight around him and savoured the climactic thrill of the pleasure flooding through her body. In the same moment, as the orgasm shattered through her body, Sophie felt Philip’s erection pulse deep inside her sex.

She pushed him away as soon as his cock had stopped throbbing. ‘You go and get the drinks from the bar,’ she told him. Reaching down to his diminishing erection, she snatched the condom from him and said, ‘I’ll dispose of this and freshen up before I come back.’

He nodded. And then he was gone.

Sophie waited until she’d heard the door of the Gents close before she left the cubicle and went to the bathroom mirror. She dropped the used condom into a convenient waste bin and then checked her reflection.

Her heartbeat was pounding furiously.

The encounter had been sufficiently brief so that it hadn’t upset her clothes or her make-up. A veneer of perspiration covered her brow and her cleavage but that could have been dismissed as effects of the stifling African heat.

Deliberately, she unfastened her blouse and then refastened it with one button in the wrong place. It was a sign she had often used with Rob to surreptitiously tell him that she had been playing with someone else. Satisfied with the way she looked, Sophie rushed out to join Philip and maintain the pretence of normalcy.

‘The barman was a little slow,’ she explained as she and Philip rejoined Rob and Angela at the table.

‘As long as he got the order right this time,’ Angela said. ‘I ordered a dirty martini before and it wasn’t very dirty.’

‘And you like it dirty?’ Rob asked with feigned innocence.

Angela flashed a sour smile at him. ‘I love my martinis to be dirty. Yes.’ She looked set to say something more and then noticed the misaligned buttons on Sophie’s blouse.

‘Look at these,’ she said, encouraging Sophie to step closer. ‘Let me sort them out for you.’

Sophie swallowed and did as Angela asked.

The blonde worked with deft speed, teasing the buttons through their holes and then refastening them. Her fingers rested against Sophie’s tingling skin with a lightness of touch that was like the most intimate of lover’s caresses. As she was adjusting the clothes, Sophie realised it would be great to spend the night with Philip and Angela because she believed either member of the couple would be equally satisfying as a playmate.

‘There you go,’ said Angela, patting Sophie’s chest. ‘You’re properly dressed now and looking lovely again.’

Sophie glanced at Rob and nodded tersely. They didn’t usually do much in the way of silent communication and this was as close as it came to them trying to communicate psychically. She wanted him to invite Philip and Angela to spend the night in their suite. She wanted them to stop pretending that none of them knew swinging existed and she wanted them all to go upstairs, get naked and fuck.

Rob seemed to understand what she was saying.

He cleared his throat and then glanced from Angela to Philip. ‘You’ll have to forgive me for being so straightforward,’ he began. ‘But I’m curious to know. Do you two play?’

‘Play?’ asked Philip uncertainly.

‘Swing,’ Sophie interjected. ‘Do you two swap? Do you two share?’

Her voice trailed off as she realised she was running out of synonyms and neither Angela nor Philip was making any move to show they knew what she was talking about.

‘Rob and I have an open relationship and we were wondering if you two had a similar understanding?’

Philip and Angela exchanged a glance. Angela looked momentarily panicked. Philip soothed her with a comforting pat on her wrist.

‘No,’ Philip told Rob. ‘We don’t swing or play. We’re totally monogamous in our relationship.’

He shot a warning glance at Sophie. At the same moment Sophie noticed that Angela was flashing a similar warning glance at Rob.

‘Although,’ Philip continued, ‘I’m sure I speak for Angie as well as myself when I say we’re both very flattered by your interest.’

‘But …’ Rob started.

Sophie clutched his leg. ‘Isn’t that sweet, Rob?’ she said, speaking over her husband. ‘Perhaps we should practise monogamy like Phil and Angela and see how that works out for us?’

He nodded and placed his hand over the one she had on his leg. In a soft voice, too soft for either Philip or Angela to hear, he said, ‘We already do practise monogamy like Phil and Angie. I owe you a grand.’

Four For The Seesaw
Charlotte Stein

‘Go on, Tia,’ he says, and I want to say no. But he’s rubbing and teasing my nipples – which are tight and swollen anyway – and it’s real muggy and close in here, and I don’t know. Why would I want to say no, again?

He knows that I like what he’s doing. He sticks out his tongue and wets the material of my T-shirt, pushing that slickness down and down through the material until it’s all over my stiff nipple. And then he licks and sucks the tip until I’m squirming on the airbed, glancing across at the sleeping forms of Sean and Kay.

They’re going to wake up. It’s obvious they’re going to. I’m not a quiet fucker and we’re only in this tiny little tent.

I spread my legs open for him anyway. He gives me this cheeky grin when I do, before getting his hand right down there to rub and worry my clit. I’m already really wet, so his fingers just slide around in all my juice, easing down to my grasping hole before coming back up to rub me some more.

Any second I’m going to come. I’m going to come in a tent with our friends right there next to us, and I’ll be really loud and probably say dirty stuff like fuck my cunt.

When he slides down, down into the tight heat of our shared sleeping bag – that smirky smile still on his cheeky lips – I hiss at him no. No, God no. I fight against him in the strict confines of the sleeping bag, but he’s between my legs before I know it. He just tugs my knickers aside and runs his tongue along the length of my slit, all over the plump outer lips, and then worms inside to find my stiff bud.

I know why he’s doing this. I do. It’s all because I confessed that I think Sean’s a real cutie, and he confessed that he thinks Kay’s a babe, and everything is now going downhill from there. At the top of the hill are normal people, who get jealous when their other halves talk about how hot someone else is. At the bottom there’s us, trying to get off with our objects of desire right next to us.

I bite my lip hard and glance across at them. Both of them are still sleeping, but that doesn’t help me all that much. They’re so pretty to look at and this is such a filthy thing, that it only gets me closer to coming. Sean’s got this sexy mouth, real soft and sensual with lips that hardly seem to have any outline. And his eyelashes are like a girl’s, fanning out soft and charcoal black against his milky skin.

Ryan thinks he’s too feminine, but that’s not true. He’s got a real masculine air about him, what with the strong jaw and his jutting chin. His blue eyes go right through you, and it almost makes me wish they were open, now.

Almost.

And, oh God, Kay’s lovely, too. I can see what Ryan likes about her. That great big thick swatch of red hair, that cupid’s bow mouth. I bet a mouth like that looks amazing sliding down Sean’s cock, while he arches up on the bed for her. I bet he arches. I bet they look so good together, what with her being so small and slight and him so big.

And then Ryan catches the underside of my clit with just a flick of his tongue, and I forget whatever it was I’d been thinking. The trembles my body is going through spiral suddenly out of control, and a tense, tight orgasm grabs holds of me – one that makes me jerk and groan and cream all over his face, picturing Sean’s mouth pressing against Kay’s sex. His tongue in her pussy, circling her clit.

God, that’s good.

It’s so good that I don’t stop Ryan when he climbs back over me, and notches the head of his cock against my slippery hole.

‘My turn now,’ he says as he shoves in, and I notice that he can’t stop his eyes straying over to Sean and Kay, either. Ah, the grass is always greener. Though I suspect the grass is meant to stay green and over there. Not right in our faces as we fuck an inch away from it.

‘I love you,’ I tell him, as he drives into me. ‘I love you.’

But I’m staring at Sean’s sleeping face as I say it.

We’re being far too loud, and I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised when Sean opens his eyes. Though I am just the same, and even more so because I’m looking right at him when he does it. He seems startled to see me so close and intent on him, but then that’s how he is. A little nervous, a little uptight.

I’m sure he’s going to get tighter still when he realises what we’re doing.

I don’t shy away, and so I see him studying me close up. His eyes inch over the rutting shapes we make slowly, in sections: first flicking to the place where our joined hips will be, beneath the sleeping bag. Then to Ryan’s hand over mine, on the pillow. Then back to my face, still turned towards his.

I’ve always loved the way Sean shows interest in things. By careful, studious increments, as though his eyes are better able to explore something than his hands. There’s an aloofness about him, too, as though even something as base as sex is a thing you can detach yourself from and examine.

He isn’t like Ryan at all. Ryan is quick witted and open, he’s bold. Sean hangs back, assessing, first. His assessing makes me flutter the muscles of my pussy around Ryan’s cock, and he grunts when I do.

I want to ask Sean, Do you ever grunt? But just the idea of asking him something like that makes me twist beneath my thrusting boyfriend, clit sparking, nipples tense, the tight coils of another orgasm winding up low down deep in my belly.

I close my eyes tight against it, but when I open them again Sean is still watching with those strange curious eyes.

‘Kiss him,’ Ryan says, and I almost jump at the rude intrusion of his voice into something that had momentarily seemed so private. As though he’s just a machine, over me, servicing me, while I gaze at something pretty.

But Sean just gives him an incredulous look. I think he believes Ryan is kind of a jerk. But then so am I, because I’m doing this too. Right? And if he wants to think that, well he can go ahead, and have something for his trouble, too –

I lean forward as quick as anything, and plant one on him.

His eyes stay open when I do it, but he doesn’t try to push me away. He just lets me press my lips to his, and, when he stays that passive while I slide my tongue into his mouth, I moan. Thick pleasure gushes through me and I come just like that, Ryan’s cock working in me and my wet mouth on Sean’s, Ryan groaning like a loon as he follows me.

I make my sounds right into Sean. I come in his mouth, so to speak.

He doesn’t seem to mind all that much. I think I make rather a nice specimen for him to examine and assess. I’m an interesting experiment, one that leaves a pleasing flush on his cheeks.

And when he asks me: ‘Was that good, Tia?’ I almost come all over again.

***

I suspect Kay knows. She’s not exactly angry with me for coming in her boyfriend’s mouth, but she keeps looking at me sly. As we’re hiking through the woods, as we’re looking out over the lake and taking pictures, as we’re buying tourist crap from Ye Olde Gift Shop.

When Sean stands next to me and gives his opinion on the snow globe I’m thinking of buying, she looks at me even slyer. He puts his hand on my shoulder. She puts her hand on Ryan’s arm.

It’s all very car keys in the big bowl.

I look up at Sean, but his face is as unreadable as always. He could be thinking about fly faeces, for all I know. That’s what Ryan whispers in my ear as we leave the shop – that all day and all night Sean’s head is filled with thoughts of bugs and the things that bugs do and giant bug orgies. I can’t argue with him, because Ryan sat in on Sean’s seminar on the secret lives of bees or whatever, and I didn’t.

But what I can’t tell is this: is my wicked tongue-forever-in-his-cheek boyfriend trying to make me want Sean more, or less? He knows I love all that Professor Kinsey stuff, all that rigorous scientist researching bedroom habits nonsense. After he came back from the lecture I had said to him: Tell me. Tell me all about it. Tell me what Sean said and how he said it.

And then he told me, on the bed and on the floor and in the shower.

‘Knock it off,’ I snap at him, and give him a shove.

But he won’t knock it off. When we’re all in the lake together, mostly just in our underwear and sliding around each other beneath the veil of the water, he pulls me close and kisses me, and kisses me. Our legs tangle together and I can feel he’s stiff as anything, right up against my belly and begging for attention.

And then he murmurs in my ear: I bet he’s hard too, just thinking about your face when you come.

Mostly all I can hear and feel is the water lapping up against me, cold against the places the sun is trying to warm, and then the hot brand of Ry’s erection, and then the hot push of his breath against my ear and my throat. I glance across at Kay and Sean as they splash near the shore, and he keeps right on whispering.

‘I imagine fucking her,’ he tells me. ‘While thinking about you.’

He’s always so honest, so honest that I can hardly stand it. I free his hard-on from his shorts even as they get closer, fondling the swollen shaft just a little, just enough to get him to hide his face in my shoulder. And then I wrap my legs around his waist and slide my own underwear aside, so that I can ease down on him while I watch them frolic.

Kay, in her little red boy shorts and Sean all lean and strong. We hide it well, I think, but when he looks our way I know he knows. He knows well before Ryan grabs the side of my face and presses his mouth hard into the curve of my throat, his cock ploughing a possessive furrow through my ever-molten pussy.

Though I’m not sure how possessive it really is, all of this crazy, frantic sex. It seems so much more like we’ve all crossed our arms over each other’s, and no one knows who’s hand they’re really holding any more.

***

It’s like a puzzle game. A sort of jigsaw. Tonight Kay is sleeping on the inside and Sean is at the tent wall, as though she’s trying to protect him from something. And yet another piece has shifted into a different position too, so maybe she’s not so protective after all. She just wants to lie next to Ryan, while I lie like a bookend to Sean – against my tent wall, too.

I suppose I should feel shut out and bereft, but I don’t. I want to go to sleep as quickly as possible, so that he can secretly kiss her in the night. Then we’ll be even; then the puzzle will be complete. One of each, car keys in the bowl.

Though I know that I don’t want to stop at one of each.

I glance across at Ryan’s face, beside me on the pillow. He looks boyish when he’s asleep, and in the dim golden glow of the battery-powered lamp we’ve kept on, even more so. Innocent, I guess you could say – though he’s anything but. He’s my cheeky imp, my sweetest thing, my giver of many gifts. Some of them sexual, some of them not.

I touch his face and he makes a little snuffling noise – a silly noise, that tells me he’s only half-asleep. Then he sneaks his hand up from inside the sleeping bag, and clasps his fingers around mine. Just right there against his cheek.

I’m almost afraid to go to sleep, in case I wake up to him making love to another woman. But then again, what if I stay awake and he doesn’t? What if later on down the line we hate each other for never letting us be the people we didn’t know we wanted to be? Tia with a scientist, Ryan with an actress.

You’ve got to swap and change and explore and find out about your body with another completely different sort of body, while you still can. I remember saying to him: What sort of person would I be if I had never met you?

Better, he had said. But I don’t think that’s true.

I go to sleep, with my hand still in his.

***

I wake up to sighs, and moans. Soft and faint, as though knowing they have to hide. Automatically I think of Ryan and Kay going at it, and for a moment I’m afraid to open my eyes. Even though I maybe possibly wanted this, I’m afraid, I’m afraid. All those conventional feelings that he’d probably mock well up in me: what if he likes her better, what if I don’t want him to like her better, what if I don’t really want Sean at all so it’s not OK for him to like Kay?

But when I open them, Ryan has his head in the pillow. Utterly asleep and oblivious.

It’s Kay and Sean who have the reins of whatever sleigh ride we’re on. Or rather, Kay does. She’s the one calling the shots, and her shots are these:

‘They did,’ she’s whispering. ‘Why can’t we?’

And then she gives out a faint little moan, because I guess whatever she’s doing to herself feels nice. It’s certainly not anything that Sean’s doing to her, because he looks tense and tight and is lying ever so slightly off to one side, and when he speaks it’s in a straining sort of voice.

‘Because we’re not like them,’ he says, and I wonder what he means. Not like the sort of person who screws in a lake, or while lying next to other people? Because I wasn’t either, before I met Ryan. And I suspect Kay isn’t much either, while she’s with Sean.

Though I gather she’d kind of like to be.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Just shove it in me.’

Yeah. I kind of think she might.

‘I know you’re hard.’

‘That’s irrelevant,’ he says, but then she reaches down to the place where said hardness will be, and he flinches as though struck.

‘No-oo-oo,’ he whines, and then in a sterner sort of voice: ‘I can’t in front of other people.’

Though I really don’t think that matters so much, when she’s already got her eyes closed and is definitely playing with herself. She doesn’t say it, but the meaning’s clear: if you won’t, I will.

It’s just as she gets her hand underneath the clingy vest she’s wearing to play with one of her spiky little nipples as she squirms and sighs, that he looks away exasperated and catches me looking back. Only then does his face flush. Though I don’t think he’s embarrassed because his girlfriend is masturbating while I watch. I don’t think he’s embarrassed that he’s probably got an erection, either.

I actually think it might be because he’s the one hanging back. He’s the one with a lack of daring. His girlfriend is willing to get herself off in front of other people, and I’m the girl who fucked her boyfriend and kissed his pretty mouth while I did it.

Sean, on the other hand, is capable of nothing. Just a boring scientist set in his boring conventional ways.

He glances down at Kay, her eyes scrunched tight shut and her mouth a cute round O as her fingers work on whatever they were working on, and then his eyes seem to darken. He doesn’t look cross exactly, but he doesn’t look pleased either, and, though it’s a surprise to Kay to find him suddenly on top of her, it doesn’t surprise me.

He kisses her hard and she squeals into his mouth – I guess he’s not usually the sort to be rough. Usually I bet he’s restrained, tender, not quite letting himself go. But he certainly seems to be letting something go now.

He yanks her hands out from inside the sleeping bag and pins them above her head, and a strange sort of echo floods over me. I remember the first time Ryan and I screwed – when we’d fallen asleep together one too many times, and I couldn’t help looking at his face while I touched myself. He had woken up just as I got too excited to hold back, and then he’d taken me in much the same fashion as Sean is about to take Kay: on my back, hands suddenly and startlingly pinned above my head.

His voice in my ear: Yeah, I think I’ll just finish you off.

There’s something about the scene before me that’s the reverse of that, however. It’s Kay who pants at him to do it, do it, yes, fuck me. Sean seems aggressive with her, but resistant somehow at the same time. His expression only relaxes when he’s clearly between her legs and feeling her spread for him – her soft pouting cunt probably slippery with arousal, just aching for the thick push of his cock.

It isn’t hard to imagine at all. I’m aching for it too, and it only gets worse when he starts rocking over her and she starts wailing – and, dear God, does she ever. She cries and pants and moans and claws at him while he keeps up this steady solid rhythm – almost as though he’s insensible to her reaction. The only clue that he’s enjoying himself is the spreading flush on his cheeks and the way he’s biting at his lower lip, but somehow that just makes him more alluring.

I wonder what it would take to crack through that façade. Certainly not all the groaning and squealing that Kay’s doing. She looks a picture: cheeks hot pink, eyes closed, lips gleaming and open. And the words she babbles – yes, right there oh yes, baby, you’re doing it, oh fuck my little pussy – are arousing even to me. But I guess that’s not enough for the man of science.

She comes long before he does. I know she does, because she pants kiss me now, now, and I take my eyes off Sean long enough to realise that Ryan is awake, and she’s talking to him. She must have known what I did with her boyfriend, and now she wants some of the same – she wants Ryan to kiss her as she comes.

Which he does. And not to my consternation, but certainly to Sean’s.

He moves back a little to let it happen – not that he has much of a choice – but I can see the dazed hurt clear on his face. He swipes a hank of hair off his forehead and pulls completely away from her when she doesn’t end the kiss with her orgasm, and then he just sits back on his heels, sleeping bag swaddled around all the parts I want to see, watching his girlfriend make out with my boyfriend.

He doesn’t see it as a free pass, the way I do. He just looks hurt and confused.

Or, at least, he does until he turns his gaze back to me.

I pull away from Ryan and sit up, gazing right back at Sean with steady eyes. Even in the low light I can see there’s a faint gleam of sweat on his upper lip and at his temples, and that he’s trembling just a little. With tension, I think – the tension of whatever it is we’re doing, and the tension of not getting that orgasm he clearly needs.

I know he hasn’t come without seeing a lick of evidence. It’s obvious. And yet he still goes rigid when I clamber over my boyfriend’s body to get at him.

For a second I’m sure he’s not going to take whatever I’m about to offer. Or at least I think so before he lays that assessing look on me, as I crawl across the tent towards him. The light in his eyes flickers and dances, and he leans down, breathless, when I move up to kiss him.

I don’t let our lips touch, however. I ghost them over his until he’s clearly caving and then I back away, just a little. Ryan used to do the same to me, all the time – just be such a fucking tease until I ran river-wet and greedy for him.

And it has the desired effect on Sean. He doesn’t make a peep when I curl my fingers under the hem of his sweatshirt, and tug it upwards. He just lifts his arms and lets me pull it off, as though it’s a relief to be free of the thing.

Which I guess it must be, with the heat in here reaching apocalyptic proportions, and his cock pointing up the way it is doing. It stands stiff and straight and still glistening with Kay’s juices, resentfully red and swollen at the tip. A bead of pre-come wells in the slit, begging for me to lick it up.

In fact, his whole posture begs for me to lick it, in truth. He seems to be holding his breath, and his lips are parted as though suggesting what he wants me to do.

And thankfully for him, I’m not one to say no. In fact, in this case I don’t even have to say anything at all. I just part my lips and poke my tongue out, then wait to see if he can be as weak as most people are when they’re hot and aching and about ready to pop.

Ryan bet me he would be. Turns out he was right.

Sean bumps his hips forward just a little bit – barely enough to be noticeable, but noticeable enough when you’re burning for it. And I reward him with a swipe of my tongue all the way around the head of his cock, following that neat and very pronounced little ridge from start to finish.

He appreciates my wet tongue enough to grasp for more of it, when I back away. His hips rock forward just a tiny bit, and then he’s in my mouth – not quite fucking it but clearly wanting to.

It doesn’t take long to get him to give in, however. I just tease him a little, barely sucking and only letting him feel the flicker of my tongue occasionally. Never giving him more than I have to, until he’s shaking and clenching his fists at his sides.

But even better comes when I palm his tight, swollen balls and he can’t seem to stop himself lurching forward. Cock suddenly shoved deep in my mouth. Something like a gag welling up inside me.

I have to lay my hands on his taut and trembling thighs to calm him, but it seems like he doesn’t want to be calmed now. He’s definitely making little gasping sounds and his cock is leaking steadily. Every time I swirl my tongue around the swollen tip I can taste the tang of his pre-come.

But he still doesn’t go over. He doesn’t go over when I get my hand around the base of his shaft and rub in time with my working mouth, or when I suck hard while wriggling my tongue against that sensitive spot on the underside, the one that always makes Ryan shoot.

Though the sounds he’s making definitely get louder. Little desperate groans and sighs that get shakier and shakier – oh, I could live for those sounds. Ryan’s got a delicious potty mouth but Sean, God. I’ve never heard anyone seem so desperate to come, or seen someone so urgent and shaky with it.

It makes my clit swell and my pussy cream. Something which becomes clearer when someone runs a hand over my ass, before pulling the strip of my knickers to one side in order to get a finger in my pussy.

I don’t even look back to see who’s doing it. I’m just grateful that they are, and more so when they add a second finger alongside the first.

Feels amazing. Feels like something huge against my tender swollen flesh, exciting beyond belief in a way I can’t describe. For a brief delirious moment I think of those words I said to Ryan, of what I would have been if I’d never met him, and then I think of nothing else as I recognise his big hands on my hips.

He doesn’t ask or say a word. He just drags my knickers down my thighs until they make a chain around my knees, and then while I’ve got another man’s cock in my mouth he pushes his own into my cunt.

I groan loudly around Sean’s flesh, and he answers me in kind. In fact, we all echo each other, one after the other, like some sort of unholy round of verse singing. Even Kay joins in, as she watches with big fascinated eyes.

After all, I’m sure she won’t be only watching by the end of the night. She’ll have my boyfriend panting over her, his cock slick and sliding in and out of her the way it’s doing inside me, right now.

Though it won’t be the last time for her, even if it’s definitely going to be for me. I know it. I can feel it, over and around this thing we’re doing.

This is the last time he’s going to hook his hands into the curves of my hips, and tug me back on his eager prick; the last time he’s going to put one big hand on my back to steady me; the last time I’m going to hear him tell me harder. Fuck back on me harder.

Because I don’t obey him. I’m not greedy for his cock – I’m greedy for Sean’s. I’m impatient for Sean’s orgasm, sucking and licking and pawing him in places he’s embarrassed about me going. When I dig my nails into his firm round ass cheeks, he sways like someone drugged. He stutters out a no, don’t, when I do what Ryan taught me to – slide my hand back around and worm a finger to that soft smooth stretch of skin behind his balls, and press and rub until he’s quaking.

Oh, there are so many things I’m going to teach Sean. He’s ripe for my tutorials: pressing against his perineum just as he’s struggling to come, a slick finger in his ass to make him squirm and blush, stopping and starting and teasing and starting again to make his orgasm extra lush.

My orgasm is going to be extra lush too. Especially when Sean groans that he thinks he’s going to come, and Ryan tells him no, wait.

Ladies first.

And then he fucks into me hard until all I can hear is the firm wet slap of his thighs against my ass, the thick head of his cock butting against just the right place over and over. One long finger pressing firm to my clit, until I cry around this mouthful of flesh.

‘God, you made her come just like that,’ Kay says, in the breathy voice of someone newly infatuated.

But she’s not wrong. My clit swells against his rubbing finger and the tingles already threading through me grow until they’re fit to burst. And then he says that’s it, baby, come on, and I obey like always. I suck hard and eager on Sean’s prick and shudder from head to toe.

Of course the moment I do, Sean cries out. His hand goes to the back of my head and he urges his cock as deep as it will go, spurting over my tongue warm and thick. I remember the first time I ever went down on Ryan and he babbled on through the whole thing – how good and hot my mouth was and how – oh Jesus – he was going to do it in my mouth.

But I think, for Sean, even the sound he made and all that grasping of the back of my head was a lot. Coming in front of people he’s not dating is a lot. Everything’s a lot. And I’m pretty sure Ryan knows that too, because his next words are like he’s read my mind.

‘See,’ he says, as he strokes my back. ‘She likes it when you talk to her.’

And there’s such a strange fondness in his voice, a warmth that’s unlike anything I’ve ever heard from him. I suppose I should be offended that he’s talking over me, that I’m she, and yet I’m not. I want to say to Kay the same thing: be good to him. He likes it when you spoon up against his back.

He likes it when you suck him long after he’s spent, and he likes taking baths together. He likes fingers in his mouth when he’s having sex, and blindfolds are his kink of choice.

Though, in truth, I don’t know if I want to say. I know so well that he likes all of those things, but maybe I won’t tell you, Kay. Find out your own things. Could be that they’re different. I certainly intend to find out what’s different about Sean, all on my own.

Already there’s something different. He doesn’t want to kiss me with a mouth full of his come. But he does want to spoon against my back, and bury his face in my hair, and so it is that I get to lie there and watch, as Kay finishes off my once-was-boyfriend.

It’s been a year and a day since I last saw Ryan. I know it has, because Sean tells me as we’re driving up to the campsite. Number three thousand and eighty-five on the list of things I’ve learned about Sean in a year: he’s very good at timekeeping. Ryan was always awful at remembering days – he’d throw me three birthday parties a year to make up for the one he forgot.

‘Is your mind somewhere else?’ he asks, as we come to the turn-off.

‘Not really,’ I reply, but I’m lying. It is. Currently my mind happens to be on why I still compare Sean to Ryan, even after all this time. It’s something I think about a lot lately.

‘Nervous about seeing your ex?’ he asks, and he does it in that faux-jovial way he has when he’s nervous or trying to be someone he’s not. He thinks people want humour, lightness, not his crazy intensity.

And maybe they do. Maybe they do. Some people do, some of the time.

‘No,’ I say, even though I can feel my heart fluttering against its cage.

I don’t know why it’s doing that. There weren’t any heartbroken arguments, no awkward goodbyes. We jiggled the puzzle around – all four of us, even Sean.

In the morning, Ryan had just said to me: You going with him, then?

And I had replied: Sure.

And then all of our things in swapped-around cars, Kay giggling: This is crazy! This is crazy! I love it!

What’s in all of that to make me nervous? I’ve always wondered if Sean felt odd about leaving Kay just like that, but even the thought of him secretly continuing to love her all this time doesn’t make me nervous. I don’t think he did, anyhow. He told me once that he had never felt the need to say it to her, and if you don’t say it …

Ryan used to say it all the time. It never lost its meaning, either, which I guess is pretty odd.

When I see him at our usual camping spot on the hill, I think about him saying: You really like Sean, huh? You like that whole weird repressed scientist schtick he’s got going on. Yeah, I can see it in your eyes. I can see it when you look at me.

And I had said: no, no. No, never when I look at you.

Just as we pulled into the campsite, where Sean and Kay were waiting.

***

He’s almost the same. Wearing the same clothes – goofy T-shirt, smart trousers, hair at odd angles, unshaven.

Kay’s not the same. She’s all creased up and pissed as hell, and the first words he says to me are: I cracked wise. And then he shrugs – yeah, that’s Ryan. He’ll say something and offend the shit out of someone and then shrug.

Only later, I think at her. Later, he’ll come to you with hot chocolate or a Kinder egg or something else suitably ridiculous, and tell you how much he didn’t mean it.

It’s just the way he is. It’s a defence mechanism, a shield for his tender insides. A test, to see if you honestly and really do love him and can put up with his craziness.

But she doesn’t stop being pissed all through putting up the tent and all through dinner, and he doesn’t bring her a present. Maybe that was just for me. Something completely different to how he acts with any other person, just for me.

I bet with other people he never said sorry.

***

I wake up in the middle of the night with Sean’s mouth pressed to the turn of my throat. I guess he’s come a long way since we started this whole thing, because that may just be his erection rutting against my thigh.

I smile at him through the darkness, and he looks at me all sweet and eager – so much more open now. Cheeky, even. A little more sure of himself, too. He even talks to me when we fuck, halting words that don’t quite reach sexy.

But they’re good just the same.

I let him tug my pyjama bottoms down, and climb over me. I’m already wet, of course, though he doesn’t seem surprised to find me so. Sometimes he is, as though he can’t imagine why I’ve been thinking about sex.

But I think he knows why I’ve been thinking about it now.

He gets on over me, even so. He slides into me, slow and easy. And I try to only watch him, I really do. I press my hands against his ass and work my hips up at his, chasing the syrupy pleasure until my tight nipples are fizzing with it and I’m so slippery that it trails down between my ass cheeks.

Though I know it’s not enough.

‘Talk to me,’ I say to him, but the words he manages are not enough either.

It’s a good thing, really, that Ryan’s there to provide them for him.

‘All this time,’ he says. ‘And you never told him how hard you like it?’

I glance across at him and he’s just lying there, head on his pillow, expression soft and innocent. He’s a little amused, I think, though not cruelly so.

‘Go on,’ he says to Sean. ‘Give it to her hard. Really fuck her – she loves getting fucked.’

I bite my lip and try to turn away from him. I try to pretend that Sean jolts hard against me because he wants to, and not because Ryan has put something in the suggestion box. But he has, and oh there’s plenty more where that came from.

‘You know what else she likes? When you gasp for her, nice and high. As though her pussy is the sweetest, hottest, wettest bliss you’ve ever felt around your cock. As though she caught you j-u-ust right, and now you’re thinking of every boring thing you can to hold off that almighty orgasm.’

I can’t stop looking at him. I don’t think Sean can stop himself, either.

‘And you’re the authority,’ he says, in his best man-of-science voice, but Ryan seems unfazed. He doesn’t even look away from me to meet what I’m sure is Sean’s accusatory stare.

‘No, not the authority. It’d take years and years to puzzle someone like Tia out. But I’ll give you one more free tip.’ He leans in close, so close that he almost puts Sean off his stride. ‘If you get her as she’s about to come, and she’s shaking in just that way she is now, and you cover her mouth with yours – she’ll give it up, just like that. Right … into … your mouth.’

And then he kisses me, he kisses me, he kisses me.

Of course, he’s right. I come so hard that my body arches up off the bed, and he has to hold me down. Not Sean – Ryan. Ryan puts his big hands over my shoulders and I buck against them, long waves of sensation rolling up my body and out of my mouth, to pour into him.

Always into him.

And I think: you knew. You always knew. You let me fly away to far and different distant shores, just so that I could turn around again, and fly right back to you.

Dirty Reunion
Scarlet Rush

You asked me if I remembered that night at Tabitha’s party. The one where I caught Michael kissing and groping our flirty hostess. Where I ran off to the toilet for a cry, but instead somehow ended up with your stiff cock in my hand. I replied that I could barely remember twenty minutes ago, let alone twenty years, but that was a lie. Actually, I do still clearly remember the illicit exhilaration of holding your erection for the first time, even though the episode is now half my life away. It was the sheer size of you that sent the cold tingle pouring from my belly and into my veins. It was only the second one I had ever seen in the flesh, and I had never considered Michael small in that department. I couldn’t tell you but it felt huge in my palm, like a thick slab of warm fillet steak. I tried to imagine it inside me and the thought almost made my legs give way.

You sat me on the side of the bath because I was trembling so much. You had me hold it and stroke it for you, slowly up and down. You had to place your hand on mine to guide me, such was my silent awe for your thickness. Of course, you had pressed it against me many times back when we were girlfriend and boyfriend, but I had never once let it out. It was always safely behind your zip. I had no clue such a monster was concealed. To suddenly grip its full dimensions, with my fingers not even able to meet around it at the middle, was to grasp a reality surely impossible to have ever been unaware of. It was like suddenly discovering that your ex-lover had all the while been a Mafia boss, or a Bourne-style secret agent!