“No one should be alone for New Years,” he said. “We could meet up, if you wanted.”
So I’ve agreed to meet Bryn in a railway station. A neutral public place with plenty of people around, just like they tell you. I’m not stupid. I’ve traveled all over the world, including countries where women are presumed fair game if they don’t have their hair covered or if they wear trousers. But in actuality this warrants more caution, here in my own country—where the rules are slack and the men more likely to break them.
I’m on a train, going to meet a man I’ve only known through the Internet. For a date, sort of. “Nothing heavy,” he promised. “No expectations. We might hate each other on sight, after all.”
I’ve known Bryn online for eight months now, while I’ve been working in all sorts of countries and he’s been sitting at his desk back in England. He’s an IT geek and he works from home. His life is lived in the virtual world, and that’s where we met. That’s where I go to find familiar friends for a couple of hours a night, after pitching up in yet another strange town and another wireless hotel.
Me? I’m more boring than you’d think from looking at my passport. I’m an auditor. I work for the Charity Commission, checking up that the money charities get is really being spent in the field on what they say it is. I enjoy the job and the traveling, but I like to have somewhere I can go to get away from it all. My haven is a virtual one.
I met Bryn in Second Life. He was busy building a functioning orrery when I saw him first—he’s that sort of a guy—and he looked like a pitch-black hermaphrodite with a starscape mapped all over his body and spiral galaxies for eyes. His avatar name is Pelagic Walker. His real name, he eventually revealed, was Bryn Evans. I wonder if he’ll have a Welsh accent.
He says he’s single. He says a thousand things about himself which may or may not be true. It’s far too easy to lie online, to want your real life to live up to the flawless virtual version. But I have been careful. I haven’t told him my surname, and he doesn’t know where I live when I’m in the UK. I did send him a photo—me sitting on a sun-bleached hillside, grinning into the distance—but I’m wearing opaque shades and a hat, and all you can really work out is that I’m blonde and tanned and rangy. I want to be able to walk anonymously away if I don’t like what I see. He did send me some photos of himself and he’s pretty good-looking in those. I’ve looked him up on Facebook and Googled him too. So far there haven’t been any warning signs.
Well, except the time I suggested we talk using Voicechat, or Skype. He said he stuck to IMing. No further discussion. That was a little weird.
We’ve spent hours swapping messages and we’re firm friends, in the virtual world. He’s funny and acerbic and a bit cynical. His messages are almost always spelled out in full English, so I figure him for a bit anal. He takes my complaints about work in his stride, he asks smart questions about the places I’ve been to, and he doesn’t pry into my personal life. Although he knows some stuff, of course. He knows I’m good at being on my own, he knows I love limes and the smell of rain on dust and having my back rubbed, that I hate cotton-wool and can’t eat fish.
He knows I’m single and not looking for a serious relationship. I‘m not interested. I’ve had too many boyfriends flake under the pressure of having me away for weeks at a time. They all end up getting hysterically jealous or just so bored that they screw someone more attainable behind my back. Bollocks to the lot of them. A long-distance relationship is more trouble than it’s worth. Which makes it ironic that I’m standing in the aisle of a train carriage, watching a city railway station slide into place around us. His train should have got into town this morning, according to his last message. We’re supposed to meet under the big Victorian clock.
This is where, I think, I find out whether he’s the guy in his picture or a fat balding bloke in his fifties with corduroy trousers and clammy hands. Which’ll be bloody awkward, frankly, because we’ve had sex already. Cybering, you know. Avatars bumping pixels. Me and him in our own rooms, each with one hand down the pants, typing frantically with the other and getting increasingly more incoherent as self-control breaks down:
I’m wriggling on your lap Bryn, rubbing up against your cock.
I’m so hard, Ellie, hard like rock.
Big too.
Huge. And getting bigger every second. You’re going to need to be wet for what I’ve got to give you.
then it’s a good thing my panties are soaked thru already. i’m so wet it’s running out of me.
I pull your panties down. They’re tight around your thighs and I’m so impatient I have to rip them.
OMG yes!
I want you, Ellie. I want your tight wet pussy around my big cock. It’s so hard now it’s throbbing.
i want you too. i need you inside me, bryn. i need your cock in my pussy.
I’m sticking it deep into you now. Now.
oh god I’m nearly ready to come already. it feels so good!
Slowly to start with...
fuck me!!
Yes I’m fucking you. Fucking you hard.
Yeah, not exactly Shakespeare, but fun. We do it quite a lot. It certainly helps pass the time in a hotel room with nothing but foreign pop channels to watch.
Oh hell, I hope he’s not lied to me.
It’s not a date, not really. But there is a possibility, all our protests notwithstanding. A question hanging over us: Will we? I brought condoms just in case. The online sex has been so good and I can’t help the anticipation that makes my heart thump as I step down onto the platform. I can’t help the clench and flutter of my pussy, or the way my awareness keeps being drawn to the rub of my nipples against my clothes. I heft my little knapsack and wet my lips, pushing my shoulders back as I walk slowly toward the clock tower.
And there he is. Holy shit. Just like his photos—but tall. I wasn’t expecting tall. Dark hair on his scalp and jaw cropped to a uniform fuzz, like on an Action Man doll. Big, dark, warm eyes looking a bit anxious. Oh, yes—it’s the eyes that draw you to that face. He’s hot, no argument. I catch his gaze and the word pops out of my mouth before I have time to consider any further, my mind made up without bothering to tell me, it seems. “Bryn?”
His expression lights up and he comes forward and takes both my hands, stooping to kiss my cheek. The prickle of his stubble seems to wake me from an inner dream.
“Wow—it’s so strange to see you for real,” I gush. We’re both grinning at each other. Gently he takes my arm and leads me toward the clock, and I’m still in the first shock of wondering what I should be saying and just starting to wonder why he hasn’t said anything himself, when I see there’s a second man. A man who’s been waiting there with Bryn. He’s shorter and slighter with sandy hair that stands up in tufts, and sharp twinkly eyes. He makes me think of hobbits.
“Ellie?” he says. “Hi. I’m Hugh.”
“Uh. Hi.” My eyes cut to Bryn. What’s going on?
Bryn has let go of my arm, now his hands lift and move, dancing through a series of gestures. Hugh watches before speaking to me.
“I’m his interpreter,” he says, “I’m sorry, I hope it’s not too much of a surprise.”
Some hope. My jaw drops. “Oh,” I manage to mew.
“How was your journey?”
“Fine. Just fine. No problem. Um.” My brain is freewheeling, the gears slack no matter how hard I pedal.
“Our train was packed. People coming in for the Sales, I guess.”
“Why didn’t he tell me?” I blurt.
Hugh frowns slightly. “You should look at Bryn if you’re talking to him. Keep eye contact. It helps him lip-read.”
The realization of just how rude my last utterance was crashes in on me and I go scarlet as I turn back to Bryn. “Oh. Oh. Right. I’m sorry! But—why didn’t you tell me?”
He shrugs ruefully, then signs. He has long, dark hands I notice, remembering some of the places the virtual versions of those fingers have been, and the things they’ve done to me.
“He says that he would have, but he thought you might not come. Some people say they aren’t bothered, but then they lose their nerve and don’t turn up.”
“Oh…” I’m not sure whether I’m ashamed for him or for me. “Of course I’d have come, Bryn.”
He smiles.
“Great,” says Hugh, fishing a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and adding, “I can’t light up in here, can I?” Signing one-handed, he asks us both, “So, what’s the plan? Where are we going?”
“You’re coming with us?” This time I am talking to him. Hugh looks nonplussed.
“D’you know British Sign Language?”
“No.”
“Then you probably need me.”
“On a date?”
He looks slightly startled. “He didn’t say it was a date.” Then he flashes me a look of approval that’s not the least bit platonic. “The lucky bugger.”
As he turns to Bryn and they exchange a flurry of gestures I mumble, “No, well, it’s not really, not a proper date.” But there’s no way of telling if either man has noticed.
“I’m happy playing gooseberry,” is Hugh’s verdict, “but he asks if it’s okay with you. I mean, I’ll bugger off anytime you guys want me to.”
“Uh...it’s okay.” God knows I need an interpreter. The alternative is the two of us finding an internet cafe and IMing each until we’ve broken the ice. Which seems a little too cowardly, really. I catch Bryn’s eye and ask, “Where shall we go first?”
Bryn takes us to a restaurant—Italian, nice but not fancy—for an early dinner. By the time we’re onto our coffees I’ve got the hang of the three-way conversation. I feel self-conscious, it’s horribly easy for me to look away or cover my mouth or to interrupt without thinking. What’s most difficult is reconciling the Bryn in my head, the one I know online, with the man sitting in front of me. Online Bryn is quick and confident and cerebral, his personality defined by words. This Bryn is wholly physical, and distractingly so. There’s a fuzz of dark hair on his forearms and I find myself wondering, in the pauses, whether he’ll have a mat of hair on his chest too, whether his thighs and belly will be furred. He’s good-looking enough for my curiosity to be more than idle, but my horniness embarrasses me and makes me more awkward. Conversation through our intermediary is so much slower and Bryn comes across as almost shy, not the man I know at all. I wonder if I’m missing nuances and details because I can’t sign. In fact I’m sure I am. There are expressive gestures that come out sounding flat as Hugh interprets, jokes that Hugh laughs at but doesn’t pass on to me. I ache to communicate with Bryn as we do online. We can’t even really discuss Second Life because Hugh isn’t a participant, and I feel bad about excluding him because it turns out that he and Bryn are old friends. The two of them met at their local Deaf Club. Hugh’s family all sign because his younger sister is deaf.
It’s only when we go out into the dark evening, and it turns out that my date has booked tickets for the ice-skating rink that’s been set up in the park, that I learn to let go of my mental Bryn and enjoy the company of the one here. It’s been years since I’ve worn skates and I’m all over the place, wobbling and falling. It’s a good job I’ve got both men there to catch me. There’s no particular need for conversation as we laugh and yelp and collide with each other, and all my concentration goes on keeping my feet under me. By the time our hour is up I’m really enjoying myself. Enjoying the company of both men, in fact. Hugh, except for his habit of disappearing off for a smoke at intervals, is entertaining and easy going. He tells terrible jokes that make both of us shake our heads and he definitely gets the best of both worlds because he can talk to us both simultaneously. The two men sign casually and constantly and at one point go into a mock fight for no reason I’m privy to, tussling as we walk under the floodlit trees.
I wonder if they’re talking about me.
While the rest of the world is cramming into restaurants we settle into a bar in the canal quarter and relax, first over mugs of hot chocolate and then over more serious drinks. Alcohol takes the last tension out of me. Quite suddenly I find I’m really, really enjoying this, in a way that is not at all innocent—having two men all to myself, both of them cute and both of them clearly into me, even if only in a light-hearted way. It makes me feel giddy. Hugh wears a tight T-shirt over wiry muscles and by now I’m wondering what he’d look like undressed, too. The hours melt away unnoticed like the ice in my drinks.
Let’s go to a club, Bryn suggests as the last day of the year approaches its end. He knows the route, he’s researched everything meticulously online. I’m privately surprised that he’s able to appreciate the music, but it turns out he can feel the beat bodily and we dance the new year in together, crammed onto the floor with a hundred others, arms aloft, showered with streamers and shaving foam, before we collapse onto a couch in a corner. And I note with envy how even under the loudest of music the two guys can carry on talking, whereas I have to touch my lips to Hugh’s ear just to tell him what I want to drink.
While Hugh is at the bar I try to get Bryn to teach me signs for random objects around me, and he shows me how to finger-spell my name. He doesn’t finger-spell to indicate Hugh, the two of them have special name-signs, like signatures. It’s around this point that I notice a button on my blouse is undone, but I don’t bother to refasten it. I think Bryn notices too, as I flash my hands around in front of my breasts. When I put my fingers delicately on the inside of his thigh and ask for the sign for leg, he jolts like I’ve given him an electric shock and shifts his hips. I laugh and slide my fingers up the fabric toward the juncture of his crotch a little nervously. That’s when he cups my neck and leans in to kiss me and I feel the electric charge flow from him to me.
Online this man has fucked me, sodomized me, come in my mouth and all over my tits, tied me up and spanked my ass and made me beg for his cock. But none of it seems as intimate as that warm, exploratory kiss. Inside me, barriers crumble and dissolve into a hot surge of arousal.
Then I feel the clunk of the glasses being set on the table at my thigh, and I look up to see that Hugh has returned triumphantly from his mission. He settles back into his chair, eyebrows raised, with a smirking, pointed stare at us. That’s when I suddenly get my hearing back. The noise level in the club drops as the DJ switches to a slow ballad—what we used to call a smooching song back at school. The crowd on the dance floor breaks up into couples clasping each other.
Bryn sees the change. He points toward the dancers, his brows lifting in an invitation. When I nod, he leads the way. Of course, I could follow round his side of the table, but I choose to go via Hugh’s side, almost having to straddle his spread knees. It’s not the alcohol at work in me, I swear. I’ve been very careful. It’s the flattery of their double attention that’s buoying me up, making me reckless. Bending from the waist, I brush my lips against his cheek. Even I can’t tell if it’s a tease or an apology.
Then I follow Bryn out onto the dance floor and slip into his embrace. Oh god, it’s been far too long since a bloke last held me. His warmth and his physicality—the pressure of his arms about my waist and back, the toasty aroma of his skin, the press of his hard torso against my soft breasts—they make me lightheaded. As I relax against him the room seems to spin away. I don’t register the music anymore, just the throb of the slow beat through his body and mine. I nestle my face against his shirt and rub my cheek on the cotton. His arms tighten a little, drawing me closer and I don’t resist. I love the feel of his long firm body and the way my own yields against it. I love the gentle nudge of his pelvis and his thighs against mine and the way my hips tip in instinctive response. He lifts a hand to the small of my back and begins to rub the muscles up my spine. I can feel locks opening inside me, doors being thrown wide, heat running from chamber to chamber like sunlight flooding into hidden rooms. It’s the turn of the year and my body is eagerly welcoming the new.
He was right, what he told me. I don’t want to be alone tonight.
The music track doesn’t last nearly long enough. I’m still familiarizing myself with the contours of his torso when the beat changes and I lift my head. But I’m pleased to find that the new song is just as slow and sensual. I’m happy to settle in for another few minutes in his arms.
At that moment a hand falls lightly on my shoulder. “Excuse me.”
It’s Hugh of course, teasingly formal as he draws me away to take his turn with me, like we’re participants at some old-time tea dance. I don’t need BSL to interpret the gesture that Bryn makes in response, but there’s no actual antagonism in his exasperation, thank god. He can see the humorous side even as his hands protest.
“Hey,” I say, chiding them both. I take Hugh’s arms and wrap myself in them with my back to his chest, reaching out for Bryn again. There are grins of surprise and amusement, and I suppose we’re all a little self-conscious for a moment, but nobody else nearby seems to take any notice of me being clasped by both men. Swaying gently, I shut my eyes and let their twin embrace float me away into a warm, dark dream. The brush of two bodies, the pressure of their hands, the touch of Hugh’s lips in my hair as he inhales my scent…I feel like I’m melting softly between them, like chocolate. Oh, I think…I could do this all night.
Memory, like a dropped bottle, shatters inside me. My eyes flash open as the song ends, and with an apologetic squeak I extricate myself from both their arms and hurry back to our table. Necking my orange juice I gather up my knapsack and coat from under the couch.
“What’s wrong?” Hugh demands. They’re both hovering behind me, staring.
“I’m really sorry! I’ve got to head back to the station or I’m going to miss the last train tonight. I’m really sorry—I just forgot.” I squeeze both their arms in turn. “I was having such a great time!”
“We’ll walk you there,” Hugh says. He and Bryn are signalling frantically at each other as we leave the club, and I get the impression that there’s a heated discussion going on, but it’s all over my head and I shrug it off. Outside the air is crisp and smells faintly of gunpowder from the midnight fireworks. The streets are full of underdressed people making their way from club to club. The chill air bites at my legs too. I shed my patterned winter tights when we reached the bar and now there’s nothing but bare skin between the tops of my boots and the bottom of my short shirt. I figure I’ll manage.
As I get myself sorted I realize I’ve got a few more minutes than I was counting on. My printout with the train time says ten past, not ten to. We all relax a bit then. Bryn holds his arm out and I link mine in his, pleased. We walk through the streets, taking turns down quieter roads to avoid the crushes outside more popular venues, and when we get to a pedestrian bridge over a canal I pause to look down into the water, charmed by the glints of reflected light.
Hugh instantly takes the opportunity to light a fresh cigarette.
Turning to put my back to the handrail, I look at Bryn with a faint smile. Wordlessly, like a man in a dream, he moves in to kiss me again, shielding me from the night air with his body. One hand slips under my open coat to clasp the small of my back and I arch into the lean of his torso, flowing against him. My thighs feel liquid, without resistance, and he feels more solid by the second. His mouth explores mine with a growing hunger. I’d like him to eat me up. He’s half hard already. When I moan into his mouth I know he feels the vibration by the immediate flex of his erection and the tensing shift of his muscles.
A hand moves up to cup my breast and a thumb drifts over my right nipple, already stiff from the chill, flicking it softly and reveling in its fullness. Oh god, that touch sends electric messages chasing through every part of my body, lighting up my clit. I feel the tracks of my nerves flaring like strings of LEDs under my skin. I can’t help squirming against him and I don’t want to help it. I’m wildly turned on. I have been all evening. My pussy aches, wanting him to fill it, and the cold outside is more than balanced by the heat burning inside me.
We part, gasping a little, and experiment with smaller, biting kisses. I wrap my arms about his neck and ruffle that mown turf at the back of his scalp, wondering how soft that velvet would feel between my thighs. Bryn stoops to nibble at my ear and kiss my neck and through his careful gentleness, I can feel his breath coming hard and shallow. The hand on my breast deserts its station to clasp my bum-cheek, squeezing me through my skirt.
Stretching my throat for him, I tilt my head and let my gaze fall on Hugh. He’s leaning forward on the railing a few feet away, smoking his roll-up idly and watching us, his expression inscrutable. Lifting my right thigh around Bryn’s in an unambiguous invitation for him to nestle closer, I feel my skirt ride up, gifting Hugh with a new view. His attention zeroes in and his lips tighten. My eyelids droop and flutter as Bryn shifts his grip on my bottom, reaching round and down for the hem of my skirt, sliding it up to explore the full swell. My skin thrills to his big warm hand. He’s looking for the edge of my panties I realize, but it takes him a while to find that because I’m wearing a thong, a wispy, lacy little thing picked deliberately for our meeting, might-get-lucky knickers. When he tucks a thumb under the elasticized lace at my hip I gasp involuntarily, knowing he’s crossing a boundary.
That’s when Bryn’s hand makes its irrevocable move to the front, under my rucked-up skirt, his fingertips delicate on the hidden fabric, tickling my pussy, teasing the barely-concealed nub of my clit, tugging the silky gusset aside. Hugh has forgotten to inhale and his cigarette trembles in his fingers. I’m past resistance now, if I ever was capable of it. I don’t care that we’re on a public footbridge and that there are people walking past every few minutes. I don’t care what a slut I must look. I just want Bryn to touch me more. I just want to welcome his fingers into my wet and I’m so grateful for their slick caress on my swollen clit that when it finally happens I whimper out loud.
Bryn lifts his head from my throat and looks at me searchingly. Withdrawing his hands, he lifts them to sign. I grab his hips in frustration and pull his pelvis harder in to me, grinding my bereft mound against him.
“He wants to know if you mind me watching,” Hugh asks, his voice all woolly and hoarse.
I kiss Bryn softly, eagerly, and shake my head. “Not in the least.”
Hands dance again. I want them to dance on my breasts, in my wet slot.
“He wants to know if you’d like me to touch you too.”
I swallow, my throat suddenly dry, my heart pounding. “I’d like that very much,” I whisper.
Quietly, Hugh flicks his cigarette into the canal and moves in. Two bodies shield me from the casual glances of pedestrians—and that’s a good job, because what they’re doing to me could get us all arrested. Two bodies press against mine, warm and slightly clumsy in their eagerness. Two mouths, hot and hungry. I kiss them both in turn, tasting beer on Bryn and smoke on Hugh. I am wrapped around by their masculine scent and focus and strength. I’ve never done this before and it’s breathtaking. Hands glide over me and I’m so dizzy I can’t think whose are going where. Two on my breasts, unbuttoning my blouse, pulling down the stretchy cotton, stroking my exposed tits, pinching my nipples, kneading the swells of flesh. One between my thighs, fingers sliding inside me, thumb strumming my clit. One—ah, that’s Hugh,—reaching round behind my ass, competing with the other hand for access to my cunt, lubing itself in my juices and teasing a wicked digit into the tight pucker of my anus. God, those hands, irresistible and overwhelming. They hold me inside and out. My mind breaks into fragments only capable of sensation. I’m lifted, soaring, though my feet never leave the ground it’s like those hands are lofting me up into the sky. I’m their kite and their hand puppet and their toy.
Fuck. Hugh’s going in my ass. In my ass, in public.
It’s terrifying.
It’s wonderful.
In moments I’m coming all over their hands, writhing and clenching and gasping, my nails gouging their shoulders. I nearly collapse. They hold me safe as they draw me down from the skies, back into their arms. I’m giggling helplessly, I realize. God, how undignified. Both men nuzzle into me for a kiss. I snake my hands down to their groins and find two solid erections imprisoned there, straining against the cloth.
“Outside pocket,” I gasp, finally capable of stringing words together. “My knapsack.”
Hugh reaches over my shoulder and gropes about until he retrieves what I’m talking about, a box of condoms. He shows it to Bryn, who nods. I rub the twin ridges of their cocks, bruising my hands on the denim.
I’m running wet, and not yet sated.
So, like gentlemen, they offer me their arms and walk me, tucked between them, from the exposed bridge into the network of streets on the other side of the canal. In a few minutes they find a shadowed industrial doorway. Zips purr. My knapsack is flung on the floor. Hugh embraces me from behind and sets his back to the door. Bryn faces me. It’s just like when we danced together, except this time Hugh has his hands full of my tits and this time Bryn is pressing me back up against his friend’s torso and lifting me and holding my legs. And this time they’ve both got their cocks out and Bryn is sliding his into me, filling all my need. Hugh’s is rubbing up the crack of my ass, slapping hot against my cold cheeks, and I’m sandwiched between them and sobbing encouragement as Bryn fucks me and Hugh mauls my nipples. It’s incredibly uncomfortable and I come like a string of exploding firecrackers in celebration of the New Year.
There’s nothing in the world like having two guys at once, no words to describe the sensation of being possessed, of being both more and less than myself, of being pure sex for them.
The moment Bryn lets me down, Hugh pushes me forward against his friend, bending me from the hips and lifting my skirt to plant his cock deep in my hole. I crush my face against Bryn’s chest as I get shafted quick and hard, and when Hugh comes he swears like a Catholic. He clears his throat as we straighten ourselves up and Bryn wraps me in a hug.
Hugh says, “I think you’ve missed your train, Ellie.”
“Oh well,” I sigh beatifically, “worth it.”
“Well...”
I’m aware that he’s signing and that Bryn is nodding.
“We’ve got a twin room at the hotel, if you like. We’ll have to smuggle you into the breakfast sitting, mind.”
I grin at them both. “But if I go to your room you guys might take advantage of me. Over and over again.”
Hugh twines his hand in my hair and kisses me roughly. “Oh yes,” he promises. “All fucking night.”
Actually, none of us make it to breakfast. We’re so busy screwing that we don’t even leave the hotel room until sunset the next day.
Back home and online again, I find Bryn is already there and waiting for me.
Hello Ellie.
Hi there. I add a smiley. “What are you up to?
Just some scripting. How are you doing? Are you OK?
Oh, more than OK.
I want to tell you I had just the greatest time. What about you?
It was wild, I type, unable to stop grinning. Unreal.