Read Online Club Himeros by G Doucette - Free Book Online

just yet.  Their behavior would have been wildly inappropriate in any other public setting, but after everything Lindy had seen so far, what they were doing seemed the equivalent of a handshake. 
    “Those two,” Mocha said.  “I’m pretty sure they met like ten minutes ago, and look at them.”  He returned his attention to Lindy.  “Have you…?”
    “Only a little.  Enough to conclude I’m not a lesbian.”
    “That happened to me earlier!”
    “You aren’t a lesbian either?”
    “There was a Mr. Lemon who seemed convinced given the right stimulus and the appropriate degree of anonymity, I would enjoy the experience of homosexual sex.”
    She laughed.  “Why Mr. Mocha, I do believe that was the most roundabout way you could have possibly uttered that sentence.”
    “Thank you, I practiced.”
    “And was Mr. Lemon correct?”
    “Mr. Lemon was not correct, but I can now say I know without reservation that it was not the thing for me.”
    “That was very open-minded of you,” she said. 
    She was trying to imagine Michael trying something like that, and decided it never would have happened.  Then she tried imagining Michael wearing one of these masks and decided that too never would have happened.   But on this she could have been wrong.  If the people running club Himeros knew Lindy was no longer in a relationship they knew he was also no longer in one.  Possibly, he’d received his own hand-delivered mask and was now wandering around the club. 
    “I guess it was.  But it happened a couple of hours ago; I was younger then.  That’s what I mean, though.  It’s not enough to be young and pretty. This scene isn’t for everyone.  Finding the kind of person who meets the apparent demographic requirement who can also turn up having followed the mandated clothing and secrecy orders and who will also not utterly freak out at what’s going on in this club… that is an extremely specific type.”
    “Except,” Lindy said, “that I am not at all the type that fits this party.”
    “That depends on what you mean.  Do you mean, the type that spends the evening humping masked strangers?”
    “I suppose I do, but I’d prefer a rephrasing.”
    “The type that engages in public intercourse with new people.”
    “Better.”
    “I don’t think I am either.  But there are a number of people here who are just enjoying the conversation.  They’re all talking about sex, but talking about it and performing it are two very different things.  And you and I, we can talk about sex without doing it as well.”
    As they were speaking that they were getting closer to one another.  There were minor changes in positioning, so where his knee was touching her thigh, her hand was on his knee, and then his arm was closer, and nearly touching her across the back of the couch.  They were still pretending they had to be this close so as to speak without disturbing anyone around them, but just wasn’t really anyone in earshot one way or another.
    “Is that the next subject?” she asked. 
    She wondered what he looked like under the mask.  His hair was brown and the kind of short that one used to only see on military people.  Then she wondered if he actually was in the military.  His eyes were mostly black spots because of the mask and the lighting, but she imagined they were blue.
    He said, “Sex?  Once we’ve run out of observations regarding our surroundings, I expect we will find ourselves talking about sex, yes.”
    “You don’t think you’re the type?”
    “The public sex type?  I don’t know if I am or not.  Same answer I gave to Mr. Lemon.  I can guess I’m not, but until I’ve tried it…”
    “And what you did with Mr. Lemon didn’t qualify?”
    “We never got that far.”
    “Let me offer an alternative to your right kind of person theory,” she said, patting his knee.
    “Go on.”
    “If you put together a bunch of attractive people, all of whom are between relationships, insist