I’m uncomfortably aware that Sandro is looking at me and I turn to meet his gaze, seeing a slight frown on his face.
‘Are you okay?’ he asks.
I can’t even shake my head because my neck is too tense.
My expression must have alerted him to my discomfort because gently he draws me back behind the curtain with him, the security of his embrace helping to unfreeze my limbs. Cupping my face, he looks into my eyes, then frowns and sighs.
‘I shouldn’t have taken you in there.’
Now I’m behind the curtain with the sex show safely hidden on the other side, I’m finally able to speak. ‘It kind of blew my mind,’ I mutter.
He rubs his hand over his eyes, then shoots me a look of concern. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to join in with it, you know. I just thought you might find it interesting after the conversation we had on the plane about not needing to be in love to have sex. You said you wanted to understand and experience everything, so I thought it’d be a good opportunity to see other people being totally uninhibited in the pursuit of pleasure. I thought you’d be able to handle it, but clearly, I read the situation wrong.’
‘That’s the understatement of the year,’ I mutter, my humiliation turning to frustration with myself.
He lets out a low, exasperated sigh. ‘Yeah, okay. We should go home.’
‘Home?’ I panic for second that he means he’s going to dump me back in London and my time with him will be over before it’s even begun. That I’ve blown it by pretending I’m okay with our deal, only to prove tonight that I’m really not.
Am I a lost cause?
I want to cry.
‘Back to the apartment,’ he says gruffly.
I relax a little, but only a little. I can’t look at him now, though. I’m so dispirited.
‘Yes. Okay. Let’s go back,’ I mutter, pretty sure this signals the end of our deal. How can he possibly hope to help me when I freak out so badly at the sight of other people having sex?
I’m so convinced I’ve ruined everything I fully expect him to ask me to pack my things and leave as soon as we get back to the apartment.
Shame and disappointment take turns to sink through me.
So much for my sexual liberation.
4
SANDRO
She doesn’t say a word on the short walk home.
I feel like such an asshole, I can’t even bring myself to make any throwaway conversation.
How could I have thought it would be a good idea to take her into that playroom? I guess I assumed it’d be okay because she’s been acting pretty offhand about what we’ve come here to do. In the bedroom earlier I sensed she was keen to get on with it, but I held back because I wanted to take things slowly, to have some build-up – to show her I wasn’t the easy lay she thought I was. I imagined going to that club might create some anticipation. That she’d get all hot and bothered at the things she’d see there. In my mind, it had been just an extension of foreplay.
It’s crystal fucking clear now, though, that all that confidence she’s been projecting about having sex has been a front and I’ve been too distracted by my determination to control the situation to notice.
She’s so subdued as I let us into the apartment, that I’m afraid she’s beating herself up now for not being more gutsy.
My chest aches at the anxiety I’ve caused her.
I need to make it up to her,pronto.
‘Let me run you a bath,’ I suggest as we kick off our shoes in the hallway.
‘A bath?’
From the look on her face, you’d think I just suggested she goes skinny dipping in the Arno.