The Devil's Playground Read Online Free PDF Page B

the
    tights and carefully took off her blindfold.
    ‘It was kinda fun,’ he replied in that quasi-American accent that she found so sexy in Dutch men, as if they’d all learned how to speak English from movies, giving them a brusquer,
    more commanding tone than they would have ever learned
    in pronunciation class.
    He lit her a cigarette and then one for himself. She wiped the blood that had begun to dry and crack on his chin. ‘Did
    you enjoy it?’ she asked him, placing her hand on his shoulder,
    feeling the still hot flesh of his urgency.
    ‘I guess so.’ He took a drag of the cigarette and lightly
    placed it in the ashtray. ‘Not that I’ve done this kind of thing
    before but it’s good to try something different.’
    And it was, he had to admit to himself, more fun than
    he’d expected it to be. When he tied her up, he felt as he had
    with the twins, lost in a world of his own imagining, able to
    leap whatever barriers.
    ‘But I want to know if you enjoyed it. If you really enjoyed
    it.’ She looked at him, suddenly serious.
    ‘No, not really. Not of itself.’ He lied, ashamed of the lust
    that had stirred within him. ‘Being with you, yes but this,
    no.’
    She moved away from him. ‘I thought all you Dutch boys
    were into kinky sex.’
    ‘Why do you think that?’ he replied. He liked the way
    Americans managed to generalize and place everything in a
    box from which understanding could then be gleaned. It
    made life so much simpler.
    ‘I don’t know, it’s just the common impression,’ she
    replied, not having really thought about it; but, now that she
    did, it seemed to make a whole lot of sense. ‘You have this
    legalized sex and drugs industry — I mean hell, Wouter, you
    yourself run three sex shops.’ She smiled, sensing that he
    didn’t find the paradox quite as entertaining as she did. ‘And
    you know, to us foreigners, you Dutch seem so straight and — forgive me — boring, that we twisted Americans have got it into our heads that you must all be perverts of some kind.
    C’mon Wouter, underneath that prim Protestant exterior
    something darker must lurk.’
    ‘I don’t think that’s quite the case.’
    ‘I was just joking.’ She grabbed him and squeezed his
    hand, thinking God, I wish he had a sense of humour, but then
    he’d be pretty much perfect and Suze knew there was no
    such thing, not for her anyway. She got up, took off the
    Fibbers and put on Waits, Foreign Affairs, sensing the moment
    required something mellow. They sat and smoked silently
    for the length of the album.
     
    ‘I used to go to prostitutes.’
    It was later, they were drinking coffee and Suze almost
    spilled her cup, it was just so sweet the way he’d said it.
    ‘Is there any adolescent boy here who doesn’t?’ she replied,
    looking at him, wondering why he’d chosen this moment to tell her.
    ‘Not many, I think. We don’t really attach the same kind
    of stigma to it as you do in your more enlightened land.’
    So, he can be sarcastic, she thought — well, that was
    progress at least, most of the Dutch men she’d met so far
    had seemed to be severely lacking in any kind of charisma
    or passion, but damn, did they look good.
    ‘I used to go see these twins, every fortnight or so for
    about seven years.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘Hilda and
    Helena, though of course those weren’t their real names. I
    never knew their real names. They came from Belgium and
    always worked together. I was about sixteen when I met
    them.’
    She took the cigarette from his hand and pulled two quick
    drags before giving it back.
    ‘I had gone to whores before, yes, and while it was always
    fun to fuck someone new, I never really got much pleasure
    from it after that initial thrill. And then I met the twins
    and, of course, sex suddenly had many new possibilities.
    Permutations I had not conceived of, but which they took
    me through methodically and diligently as if my fortnightly
    visits were some kind of