Читать книгу My Boyfriend’s Boyfriends - Lisette Ashton - Страница 5

‘Stay in the car for the moment,’ says Dane, opening the driver’s door.

I obey, watching as he walks out around the front and greets the others. Ours isn’t the only Land Rover parked here in the trees and, like Dane, the other men are all dressed in camouflage greens. It’s momentarily hard to tell everyone apart. I squint through the windscreen, trying to identify faces I’ve only really seen in photos. There’s Lewis – I remember him from his daughter’s wedding. That was almost my first weekend away with Dane, over a year ago now. And that blond guy – he looks familiar. I think he was the one who sang karaoke to Nickelback’s ‘Rockstar’ at the reception. But it was all a bit of a blur then, and I’d only had eyes for Dane at the time. If the others were at the wedding, I don’t remember.

They’re grasping hands, and thumping each other on the back, and sharing cigarettes. There’s none of the awkward social fumbling I’ve seen when other male friends meet up. These guys are close. They’re supremely relaxed in each other’s company, I think, hearing the bark of their mingled laughter. Seven men. All ex-members of the same special forces troop. Dane went to a funeral back last February. He didn’t talk much about it, but that was one of theirs. Drove, drunk, into a motorway bridge, I gather.

My mouth is dry, but I can feel myself sweating a little. My heart’s running fast. I thrust my hands down between my thighs and feel the warmth there. I clench my thigh muscles rhythmically, because there’s nothing else I can do for my nerves.

I’m not sure which scares me more: the thought of them saying yes or the possibility they might reject me.

Then Dane half-turns, and beckons me out.

I step from the car and the smell of the summer woodland, overlaid with diesel fumes and cigarette smoke, hits me, along with the sound of birdsong. I feel ungainly as I walk forwards, into what has become a semi-circle of men turning to watch. I should slink seductively, but I’m too tense. I lick my lips, wrecking the scarlet lipstick I’ve painted on so carefully.

They’re all remarkably similar-looking, in their military get-up. Big, tough-looking men. They haven’t let themselves go, though most have been retired from active duty for ten years or so, like Dane. He runs a military fitness business now, honing soft managerial types and skinny wannabe-tough-guy youths. He works hard and makes lots of money. And every six months he drives up to the Lake District to meet up with his old comrades in a bit of private woodland, and they shoot the crap out of each other with paintballs, and piss lager into bonfires, and smoke themselves cross-eyed.

So to some extent they all look like him: weathered, fortyish, high foreheads, lined about the eyes, deep notches forming like bookends around their mouths. I don’t mind that. I’ve always liked older men. Dane’s got fifteen years on me and a lifetime of experiences he won’t discuss, but that just makes him more interesting as far as I’m concerned. He’s like a puzzle box of nested secrets.

I see all those open, smiling faces close up, becoming guarded.

‘Zadie,’ grunts Lewis, with a tiny nod of his head. I’m surprised he remembers me, but at least it’s an acknowledgement, albeit a reluctant one.

‘Meet the boys, Zadie.’ Dane drops an arm around my shoulders and rattles off a list of names, but I’m not able to take them in. Or meet the guys’ eyes.

‘Hey,’ I mutter.

The ginger one isn’t as polite. ‘Come on, Dane,’ he complains, grinding out his cigarette end. ‘No wives, no girlfriends – you know the rules.’

‘Fuck off, Dec,’ says Dane amiably. ‘It’s my turn to set the Game. Well, this is it. We’re going on a Pussy Hunt.’

There’s absolute silence for a moment. I feel six pairs of eyes locked on me like sniper scopes.

‘Huh,’ says someone.

‘What sort …?’

‘A Pussy Hunt,’ he repeats. ‘A proper one. I reckon we give her twenty minutes’ head start. She’s pretty good across rough country. The first man to catch her – or the last man standing – gets her pussy.’

Someone snorts. Slow grins break across those hard faces.

‘Shit …’

‘You dirty bastard, Dane.’

‘Whose idea was that?’ asks Lewis, mildly incredulous.

He lifts an open hand to me. ‘Hers.’

That’s not exactly true. But he’d made very sure of his ground before he suggested the scheme to me. He’d known about my porn stash since the early days of our relationship: Three and More! The Gang’s All Here! Greedy Bitches! – all that stuff. I like the idea of one girl, several guys. That’s my thing; it’s the notion of being the centre of attention, the star of the show. It took Dane to suggest bringing it to reality, though.

I think I shocked him at first, with my use of porn and my sexual enthusiasm. His ex-wife had barely believed in sex, the way he tells it. He was like a kid in a sweetshop with me, and we pushed each other to extremes. I’ve never come so close to getting arrested as that night in his car – getting it on in the service-station car park, astride his lap, steamy and sweating and giggling like crazy; then pinned by police headlights.

He drew all my deepest dirtiest fantasies out of me. I’d tell him wild stories as he licked my pussy: the rugby-club changing room, the van full of policemen taking me into custody, the ship full of pirates with me a captive damsel. Silly fluff, really. But he’d never laughed at me. Grinned, yes: that considering, narrow-eyed grin of his. Taken thorough advantage of my arousal, yes. Suggested other scenarios, yes. Driven me to the brink and over with whispered suggestions about fucking me in the public bar of our local, or on the bus … or, yes, at Lewis’s wedding reception.

Then he’d introduced the fantasy of the hunt through the woods.

Then, one day, he’d remarked, ‘We could do that, you know. For real. If you wanted.’

I’ve never even had a threesome, until now.

‘You sure about this?’ asks a guy with a scarred lip, almost accusingly.

I swallow. Am I sure? It doesn’t seem real yet. Here I am, standing in front of seven fit, hard men, and they’re all looking at me and picturing what it would mean to chase me down and fuck me. ‘Yeah,’ I say, my voice all hoarse and strained. ‘Yeah, I’m sure.’

‘That’s my girl,’ says Dane, giving me a hug. Then he flips a small rucksack off his shoulder and presses it into my arms. ‘Go get changed into this lot,’ he tells me, jerking his chin to indicate the stone hut we’ve all parked in front of.

They watch me go. I can feel their eyes on my back and my ass and my legs. I slip into the dark interior of the bothy. It’s pretty rough and basic – stone floor, plank bunk-beds, sleeping bags and six-packs of beer dumped for later use. I drop the rucksack on the rough table and explore the contents.

The change of clothes has taken me by surprise. I had intended to run in the sports gear I’m wearing now, the same kit I wore when I met Dane. Yes, I’m one of the soft managerial types. A local government officer. My Saturday workouts were what led to us starting our private one-to-one exercise regime.

Now he’s presented me with costume, and I struggle to make sense of it. A narrow black skirt, almost knee-length, in some nasty shiny fabric. A white button-fronted blouse, but over a cami-top of red lace. Knee-high black suede boots – with no heels, thank goodness. I couldn’t run in heels. A short scarlet jacket, very 80s style. It all looks a bit like formal office-wear, but also a bit cheap. And quite dated.

It doesn’t convey anything to me, but older men always have baggage.

Military men have shit-loads of baggage. I know that. I’m from an officer’s family.

I can hear them talking outside, their voices deep. Each rumbling syllable sinks to the pit of my stomach. When I squint out through the half-open door, I see one of them shake his head dubiously.

Dane can handle the discussion. I get changed, deciding not to bother with bra or panties. What would be the point? I touch myself between the legs, exploring the pussy Dane lovingly shaved this morning. I’m as soft as a plush toy, but there’s a secret slipperiness hidden there. My body is eager for this.

The clothes fit snugly, but well. My fingers tremble as I do up the buttons on my blouse. That’s when Dane comes in to check on me. I hear the deep intake of his breath, and he blocks the light from the door as he enters. ‘Hey, Zadie.’

‘Hey.’

He’s got a paintball gun like a rifle hanging from his shoulder.

‘You OK with this?’ His knuckles graze my cheek softly, and he cups the back of my head. I look up into his face, like it’s going to tell me something I need to know. But his expression is closed, as always, his eyes watchful but betraying nothing. Everything about him is reserved. Except when we fuck. It’s one of the few times he opens up.

No, he’s not going to be my forever guy. But he’s a good man, I think. And good to me.

‘I reckon so,’ I say, my voice a little weak. I’m scared, but I want to try this. I want to take the leap. I want to do something that isn’t just fantasy. These guys … they’ve done stuff for real. Here in their woodland hideout they’re playing a game, but it hasn’t always been a game to them. They’ve killed people, I suppose, and that freaks me out a bit. They’ve hunted people down. They’ve been places I can’t imagine, and don’t want to. When they run round with their paintball guns, they are just pretending – but these are men who don’t have to pretend.

I don’t want to just pretend either, any more.

‘I’ve told them the rules,’ he says, one hand on my waist. I can sense the tension crackling off him, and as our bodies brush together I feel the push of his erection. ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about.’

‘They’re all up for it?’ Even the married ones? I might have added.

‘Oh, yes.’

I nod, and decide to ask. ‘What’s this clothing about then?’

His gaze flicks to my breasts. For a long moment I think he’s going to blank me, but then he speaks. ‘That’s how Lelia was dressed. In the hotel.’

Oh. Lelia.

That makes sense.

Lelia is a framed photo on his desk. She’s standing in the courtyard of a nice-looking house, with a bright-pink bougainvillea vine sprawled over one tiled wall. She’s got her hands on the shoulders of a boy in front of her, and both face the camera with grave, formal smiles. Wearing a long-sleeved, embroidered blouse, she looks Southern European or maybe Arabic. The kid looks about ten years old in that picture – though I think it’s an old photo – and he’s fair-skinned, but with dark curls and eyes like hers.

‘Who’s this?’ I’d asked, picking up the frame.

Dane came up behind me, and looked long and hard at the picture before replying. ‘Lelia,’ he said quietly. ‘The boy’s Yusef.’

‘Who is she?’

‘She was a lobby girl. She worked out of the lobbies of the tourist hotels.’ He suddenly spoke with the contempt of the military for civilian parasites: ‘Journalists, businessmen, diplomats … pond-scum like that.’

I recognised that tone of voice. I had a sinking feeling that I’d stepped into deep waters. ‘Where?’

‘Somewhere we weren’t supposed to be.’

When he said ‘we’ I knew he meant his troop. I didn’t know what to say to that, and didn’t feel keen to ask. But he carried on.

‘We were pinned down for two days. They dropped all sorts of shit on us – the roof shaking, great chunks of concrete falling down. We thought we were all going to fucking die. Three of us did.’ His voice dried up and he swallowed. ‘She stepped up and kept us sane. This … girl. She was … like a light in the dark. The only light. You can’t imagine. You won’t understand.’

I couldn’t imagine, but I think I understood. A bit. That was the only time he’s ever really talked to me about Lelia, but I know he sends her money regularly, and she writes to him. I wonder if Yusef is Dane’s son – but there’s no obvious resemblance.

I’m not jealous of Lelia. If I was going to be jealous of anyone, it’d be the ex-wife with the two kids. Like I say, older men come with baggage. I’m not escaping it now, on this sunny evening in this beautiful woodland. Whatever this is, it’s not escapism.

‘Oh. I see,’ I say now, and lay my hand on his breastbone, as if I might feel his heart. ‘That’s … heavy stuff. Are you OK?’

He pulls his mouth – only his mouth – into a smile. ‘It’s been tough since February. The funeral. For all of us. But you’re going to be fine, babes.’

I nod, letting him know I trust him. He responds by kissing me – gently at first, then more warmly.

‘Ready?’ he breathes.

‘Yes.’

He leads me outside.

‘Where’s everyone gone?’ The cars are still there, but the men have vanished.

‘They’re out there in the woods. Waiting for you.’

‘Oh.’ I stare into the green shadows, wondering. My legs feel wobbly.

‘You’ve got twenty minutes’ grace. The boundaries are the road that way, the river over there.’ He sweeps his arm in broad gestures. ‘And the deer fence up where the open fell begins, but you won’t get that far.’

Now I’m nervous. Now I feel like I’m being hunted. ‘What about you?’

Dane checks his watch. ‘I’ll be following. Run.’

Somehow it takes me by surprise. I want to protest that I’m not ready yet, but I know it’s too late. I start off at a jog, following the timber trail into the trees.

At first my legs don’t want to work properly, but soon my body grasps what’s required of it. I’ve been running cross-country most days, to get into training for this. My breath comes shallow and easy as I follow the path. It’s not so easy when I pick a random point at which to leave the trail, and plunge off downhill through the bracken. This is the Lake District and the ground is damp, and soft with moss underfoot, and almost never flat. I don’t have any plan except to keep moving. I slither down into a little valley, follow the stream a ways, then realise I’m leaving obvious footprints in the mud so jump the water and head up the bank opposite. The sunlight is yellow and low, shining in my eyes whenever I turn west. I wade through the undergrowth from one twisted, lichen-tufted oak to the next, my hands green where I’ve touched their bark. I’m soon lost in a broken landscape of hills and rocks and trees.

Twenty minutes later I’ve stopped to rest and catch my breath, out of obvious sight – or so I think – behind a big ferny boulder, when a brawny arm goes round me and a hand like a slab clamps over my mouth. I squeal in genuine shock – I really had no idea that anyone was close – but that palm muffles my voice. So I struggle. I’m allowed to struggle: that’s one of things I told Dane I wanted from this. But it does me no good, as the grip tightens until I can hardly breathe. I catch a glimpse of camo, but I’ve no idea who’s caught me. I thrash vainly, trying to wriggle free, but he pushes me into an almost doubled-over posture, my head locked under his arm, and hauls me at his side as he heads downhill again. My feet nearly skid from under me. My heart is banging against my breastbone.

He finds a spot he likes, under an overhang of rock, pulls me up against his chest and turns me to face him.

‘Now … suck my cock, Pussy,’ he orders, his words a little muffled through his mask. I manage a glimpse of his head, or what’s visible of it around the paintball goggles; it’s the blond guy. Karaoke star.

‘That’s not what you’re supposed to …’ I sputter.

He’s not looking down at me; his gaze constantly ranges the landscape behind me. He’s got his paint-gun braced in his right arm and facing out. ‘Don’t argue,’ he grunts, shoving me to my knees and rubbing my face against his crotch. ‘You can get me ready.’

The rough disdain makes my sex gush hot. I focus on what’s right in front of me, but I actually don’t think he needs much starting up. His erection is already apparent despite the broken camouflage pattern, mounding the fabric of his trousers. I pull at his fly, and when the buttons give his length jumps out in my face, already three-quarters hard. He smells hot and musky and alien, but I’ve no time to decide whether I want it before he pushes my mouth to his flesh, and I open to the thick smooth press of him.

‘Haaah …’ he exhales. He’s nudging at the back of my throat in seconds, filling my mouth. I make myself wet for him, sucking that big cock, suddenly unambiguously eager for it. But when I squint upwards I can see him watching out over my head, the gun muzzle swinging in a slow arc.

You know what? That irks me – that he can focus on standing guard against attackers, even while I’m mouthing his dick. I take it as a challenge. So I put it all out for him. I suck, I lick, I swirl my tongue over his glans in classic ice-cream style. I take him deep. I make hungry umh-umh porno noises as I bounce his thick rod to the back of my throat. And when I come up for air I make sure my hand is there, powering up and down his shaft instead. Dane says I give great oral, and I’m determined to prove him right.

Slowly, heartbeat by heartbeat, I win Karaoke’s attention. I feel it in the quiver of his thighs and the sudden seep of salt into my mouth. The gun quivers in the corner of my vision. His cock is like steel and his hips are jerking in time to my rhythm.

‘Haaaah,’ he groans, laying a hand on my hair to scoop me closer, deeper, tighter. A split second later I hear a huge crack just above my head and he recoils so hard that that his cock jerks from my lips.

I look up. There’s a great blue paint stain right in the centre of his chest.

‘Ahh – fuck!’ he cries, slamming his hand into the blue, his mouth twisting.

I lurch to my feet. He’s still got a hard-on like a flagpole, but he’s a dead man by the rules of paintball. I laugh like a hunted fox does: one harsh breath past bared teeth. And I run, like the fox.

As I barrel down the slope I hear someone come up on my right, feet pounding. He snatches at my sleeve and I spin, wrench myself out of my jacket and tumble away down the hillside, under the outflung arms of a bush and then out the other side into clear ground. I feel twigs scratching my legs and catching at my blouse buttons, popping them. I don’t care. I don’t miss the jacket, which was too hot anyway. I wish I could shed the skirt too; it’s so tight that it slows me down. So I claw it up my thighs and lengthen my stride.

But he catches me. He’s fast. He grabs my shoulder and our momentum whirls us in a circle before I fall into the moss, my breath crashing in my chest. I feel the seams of that cheap skirt give at last, splitting right up the back, just as his weight thumps into me from behind. His breath is harsh in my ear.

‘Not fast enough, Pussy!’ Then he sits back and hooks a hand in the waistband of my wrecked skirt to drag me onto hands and knees. I guess my ass is bared to him through the split, in all its tanned and rounded charm, because he adds, ‘Oh, yeah!’ before dropping his gun –

Idiot, I think.

– and slapping his open palm straight between my thighs, against my splayed pussy. It stings beautifully. I squeal. But I stop struggling. The shock is just too much, too luscious. It seems to set my core on fire, and it feels like I’m dripping burning petrol. I make a groaning noise as he lays claim to that wet and slides a couple of fingers deep into my cunt.

‘Oh, hell, yes, yes, yes,’ he mutters, scrabbling at his own clothes. I close my eyes to stop the world whirling around me. And the better to feel it, as he locates his stiff cock and feeds it to my sex, pushing it deep into me. Luckily, I’m so juicy that he encounters no resistance as he shoves his way into my depths, reshaping my insides about his hard length. Then he grabs my hips with his hands and thrusts into me like he’s firing a machine gun.

Two shots take him almost simultaneously while he’s trying so desperately to claim his prize. That hurts, I’d say, given the way he arches and stabs me. I wriggle out from his grasp as he falls away, yanks off his mask and throws it down as he curses in frustration. I glance round once out of sheer curiosity. It’s the guy with the thick sandy buzz-cut and the Sheriff-of-Nottingham beard. I don’t know his name. I don’t care.

I crawl away over the grass. My bare, upraised bottom must present one amazing target for sharpshooters and I’m frankly amazed that no one succumbs to temptation. But maybe everyone’s too busy – there are men running about between the trees, and paint pellets splatting off trunks, all around me now. I can hear the cries as they taunt each other. So I figure it’s time to make a break for it. After all, I’m not a legitimate target, not for the paint anyway.

I stand and start to run again, my legs protesting. I’ve made it almost over to the edge of the clearing when from behind a trunk a man in combats swings out, levelling his gun. I realise I’m going to slap straight into him, just as he reaches out with one hand and thrusts me aside. There’s a double crack as I trip over my feet and roll in the moss.

‘Shit!’

‘Trev, you bastard!’

Laughter, lots of laughter. I look up, bemused by the sudden change of mood. Six men are advancing across the clearing towards me and the guy at whose feet I sprawl. It’s Lewis, I realised belatedly, as he pulls off his mask. A palm-sized splat of blue paint covers the centre of his visor. I look round at the others. They’ve all slung their guns on their shoulders or carry them loosely at their sides. They’re all daubed in paint.

Total wipeout, I realise. Including Dane. I’m still trying to catch my breath as they gather round me.

‘What do we do?’ asks Nottingham, who has put his cock away but still sports a leering open fly. ‘Run again, until we have a winner?’

‘We already have one,’ Dane says, stooping to pull me to my feet. ‘The Pussy won.’

‘Huh’ is the general response. I catch Dane’s eye and shake my head: I didn’t want to win – that wasn’t my plan at all!

‘So,’ he adds, pulling the last remnants of my costume off to display my naked body, and patting my ass as he turns me to face them. ‘She gets the prize. Whether she wants it or not.’

There’s such tense expectation in that small circle. I might be spattered with mud and the stains of the forest, but that doesn’t make my body any less female. They want that. Nor has training for the hunt destroyed my curves; if anything it’s enhanced them, and my breasts feel almost like they’re glowing under their collective scrutiny.

‘Which is?’ asks ginger Dec.

‘Lift her up, everyone.’

They take hold, their hands hot and calloused, and I’m swept off my feet. Seven men can support me easily, and I’m pinned and spread-eagled, lying in mid-air. Seven men – ohgod ohgod ohgod. This is insane. The guys on my legs pull my boots off. There are even hands free to squeeze my breasts and stroke my ass.

‘You can start, Trev,’ Dane instructs. ‘Lick her pussy. Don’t stop until she’s come.’

Trev is the one who looks like a grizzled Thierry Henry. He obeys with a grin of pure wickedness, slipping between my legs as the others pull my thighs apart. I squeal and try to twist in their grasp, but there’s no escape. I can fight all I like – that’s part of my fantasy – but I’m no match for them at all. And when Trev’s fingers part my sex-lips and his mouth settles over my open snatch, I soon stop fighting. One lick across my swollen clit is all it takes to convince me to surrender. My protesting shrieks change to more plaintive cries.

Dane, holding my head, stoops to bring his lips to my ear. ‘Can you take it, babes?’ he whispers. ‘Seven men? You sure?’

‘Oh, God, yes!’ I moan, though it’s not certain even to me if I’m answering his question or just overwhelmed by the dance of Trev’s tongue on my clit. I feel like I’m on the verge of coming to pieces in their hands. I feel like they’re going to pull me into brilliant, glittering shreds. My eyes are open and I see the circle of faces above me – staring, grinning, intent faces – and beyond those branches, and beyond those, the evening sky. I will explode, I think, and turn to birds that will erupt from their clutching hands and rocket into the heavens.

But Dane’s doing something. Directing people. Urging Dec to stand at my head, getting them to drop my shoulders even as my open pussy is held tight by Trev and the others at that side of the circle. I’m hanging upside down at about 45 degrees, and the blood is rushing to my head. Dec is pulling out his cock, and I’ll never disparage ginger men again because it looks fucking huge: a great ruddy beam haloed in red-gold hair, sticking out from his combat trousers like a weapon. They tilt me so that my mouth aligns with that shaft and then he urges it between my lips. At that angle it goes right up into my throat. Suddenly I’m getting licked at one end and fucked at the other, Dec driving his cock into me with long, slow strokes that fill me up and empty me out. Someone has my nipples and is pulling them hard in opposite directions. Suddenly all my nervousness and discomfort and self-consciousness – all the crap I carry in my head – is irrelevant. I’m being fucked. By seven men. And I do what I had feared: I disintegrate into a great explosive orgasm, howling around the cock-shaft filling my mouth.

But there’s no escape into the evening sky. They have me pinned.

‘Next,’ says Dane’s voice, somewhere far away. They shift me over to the next pair of men around the circle. I know the one muscling up eagerly between my thighs and draping my legs over his shoulder is Nottingham, because I can feel his beard on my bare labia. He gobbles into me like a man at a watermelon-eating contest, making my scratched, bruised, sweat-glazed flesh bounce and shake as I jerk beneath the onslaught. The lean, scarred man is the next to fill my mouth with his cock. I still have no idea what his name is. What does it matter? It’s a cock. He’s a man, and he’s fucking me.

Seven men, and they take it in turns to eat me out and to rod my throat. I come every single time – in fact each guy refuses to stop eating my pussy until the moment I’ve tensed and twisted and spasmed. Dane makes sure of that; he knows exactly what I’m capable of. He takes his own turn last, just when I’m thinking I’m too exhausted to wring out another climax. But he’s too familiar with my body to be denied, and I come again.

It’s not quite like I imagined in my sanitised fantasies. This thing is sharper, more uncomfortable, earthier. Better. There are … tastes. Twinges of pain. Moments of near-panic. I’m so much less in control, of them or of myself. Despite all my wild dreams, I couldn’t have imagined how this feels. Or how extraordinarily, indescribably good it is.

After that they lay me down on the woodland floor. Dane squats between my open knees and lays his hand on my throbbing sex. I’m gasping and quivering and trying to get control over my body again. He watches my face carefully. He pulls a tube of lube out of his pocket and squirts it copiously over my undercarriage. Then he strips off his heavy camo-jacket and the vest underneath and bundles them up to make a cushion that he slips under my hips, lifting my pelvis.

The others stand around, wiping the perspiration off their foreheads and stroking their erect cocks. Watching to see what happens next.

‘Pin her arms,’ he orders. Two of them press my wrists into the grass.

Dale pushes my knees up towards my chest to stretch my pussy wide, mounts me and starts to fuck. After all that sucking, penetration feels alien and frightening and wonderful. His chest glistens with sweat. He’s so hard, so charged up, that it doesn’t take that long before the flush rises in his chest and face, and I know he’s going to unload. But he surprises me. He pulls out abruptly just before climax, grips his cock hard and gives it a couple more pulls, the muscles in his forearm sliding like machinery. A jet of semen spurts out from his engorged bell-end, right up my torso. In five or six splashes he’s managed to hit my tits and belly and pubic mound. Then he rolls away.

‘Who wants to fuck her next?’ he asks, clearing his throat.

‘Me,’ says Karaoke quickly, shucking his too-hot jacket. ‘My balls are fuckin’ blue.’

Karaoke, then Lewis. Then Scar. Then Nottingham. Then Dec. Then Trev. It’s not dignified, but it is incredibly intense. While one guy’s shafting me, the others hold me down. They straddle my face and make me lick their cocks and balls, they play with my nipples and jiggle my tits. I’m so grateful that Dane went first and showed them just how hard I can take it. I stop thinking. I stop being Zadie. I’m just Pussy. And that’s perfect.

They all pull out and ejaculate on me, in turn, just the way they’ve been shown. Military types like their rituals. By the time I’m painted up with seven loads of jizz, I’ve come again three more times, and the light has faded to dusk.

Everything goes quiet then, except for my loud breathing and the warble of a twilight blackbird. I can feel my pulse hammering in my groin and belly and breast, a deep thunder. I’m so limp I feel like part of the earth beneath me. Overhead, their faces are very dark, silhouetted against the lambent sky.

Dane, kneeling by my side, touches me on the lips, and then runs his fingers down my body – right through the creamy spill of his mates’ semen, stirring it, mixing it together. He lifts his hand to his bare chest, rubs the slick into his breastbone and crosses his heart.

They all follow suit. In absolute silence.

My eyes are already welling with exhausted tears. I blink hard. They’d rather die, these men, than tell each other how much they love each other. How close they are. It’s so much easier when they’ve got a woman to do it through.

I’m moved in a way I’d never anticipated this day. I wipe at my trickling tears with a dirty hand, feeling the grit smeared across my cheek.

‘You OK, babes?’ Dane asks. ‘You done in now? You want to go home?’

‘No,’ I whisper. ‘I need a pint of water and a bit of a rest … but I’m good.’

‘D’you want a bit more?’

‘Might do,’ I admit.

There’s laughter, but it’s gentle. ‘She’s fucking game, your girl,’ says Nottingham.

Dane pulls on his jacket. ‘Let’s get back to the hut before the mosquitoes eat us alive,’ he says, and crouches to pull me up onto his back in a piggyback. He’s a big strong guy and it seems effortless. ‘We can fuck you in a bit more comfort there,’ he adds. ‘Bring the kit, lads.’

As he starts back up the hill, hands under my butt and slapping a tattoo on my ass, I twist my head to see the others fall in behind us, grinning.

Like good huntsmen, they’re bringing the body of their quarry back with them, to share it out.