Pussy Hunt

       Janine Ashbless

      ‘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,