Asking For Trouble (19 page)

But I knew I’d never get a setup as good as The Hog. It cost me nothing; it was central; I was established there; and everyone knew how to find it. I didn’t want another venue.

And, anyway, maybe Shaun had a point; maybe it would be good if I broadened my base. But it was a pain in the arse, especially since the pressure was on for me to get it all going quickly. I usually have gigs lined up months in advance, not weeks.

Reluctantly, I started to bounce some ideas around in my head.

It was tricky at first. I couldn’t get past thinking about the gay and fetish scenes, and I started to get jealous of both. Wouldn’t it be great, I thought, if there was a straight scene? Not straight-straight. Kinky-straight. Something for people who wanted a good sexy time, but weren’t necessarily into playing at dungeons or whatever people did in fetish clubs.

And while I know the whole world is basically one great big straight scene, there still isn’t enough for women. And I don’t mean muscle-men with bad haircuts and toothpaste smiles, prancing around in bow ties and jockstraps. I mean sexy, sleazy, dirty, good – with just a zing of furtiveness to add to the thrill.

But the guys have colonised all that stuff.

I began to imagine a sort of slut scene, where you could be proud of your taste for filth. Perhaps with specialist cafés and bookshops where you could hang out, buy some smut, and nobody’d bat an eyelid. And there’d be clubs, bars and saunas, and you could go there in search of cheap easy sex. You wouldn’t have to be single. You could go with the love of your life and pick up a third person, a fourth, an orgiastic truckload. Whatever. It wouldn’t be a problem. Purely recreational. And everyone’d be friends afterwards.

Bi people would be part of it too. And I wouldn’t be against queers, dykes, trannies and fetish-heads joining in either. But they’ve got their own parties and it might get confusing.

Dream on, Beth.

You’ve a gig to sort out, not your ideal world.

I reckoned a cabaret-style mish-mash of dancers, strippers, maybe someone doing some readings, would be good. Nothing too heavy or debauched. Just something slightly risqué and fun. Something to test the waters.

Maybe I’d add a glam-kitsch element to it. And maybe I could get one of Brighton’s fetish shops to man a stall in the foyer.

The more I thought about it, the more enthusiastic I became.

And I always know someone who knows someone. So a few days and several phone calls later, it was starting to shape up.

Then Ilya returned.

He phoned me one afternoon when I’d just got in from meeting a couple of performers. I was buzzing about the gig and so I told him about it.

‘Sounds great,’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise your work was quite so interesting. What are you doing tonight? Are you free? Because I’ve got plans to use and abuse you.’

Now the thing was, I’d arranged to meet Jenny and Clare that evening. They were going to help me out. We were going to have a brainstorming session over a few beers to see if we could add to my ideas.

But Ilya was back. I hadn’t seen him for days. He wanted to use and abuse me.

So I said, ‘Yeah, free as a bird.’ I wasn’t proud of myself, but how could I resist?

‘Great,’ replied Ilya. ‘Have you ever watched a porn film?’

‘No,’ I laughed. ‘Never.’

‘Well, you’re going to see a scorcher tonight,’ he said. ‘A real scorcher.’

‘Oh yeah?’ I said. ‘I thought you were going to use and abuse me.’

‘Oh, I am, babe,’ he said smoothly. ‘Trust me. And when you wake up tomorrow, the word “humiliation” will have a whole new meaning for you.’

I climbed the stairs to Ilya’s flat, full of trepidation and nervous lust.

I had no idea what was in store for me, but I was keen to pop my porn-film cherry.

Maybe we were going to act out some scene from it. Maybe it was to make me so horny that I would succumb to whatever badness Ilya had planned. But then I didn’t need a video to do that.

Ilya, grinning mischievously, ushered me into his flat. I wanted to embrace him, squeeze his juicy little arse and kiss him long and hard. It seemed like an age since we’d last been together, presumably because I’d been so caught up in work. Or maybe it was a case of absence makes the heart grow fonder – and the cunt grow warmer.

He’d rejigged the living room a bit so the TV was at an angle in one corner with the sofa and armchair forming an L-shape several feet away. Plenty of carpet space for us to play in, I thought.

‘Show me,’ said Ilya, nodding at my leopard-print mac, which I was hugging to my body.

I smiled, opening up my coat to reveal the latest addition to my slut-underwear collection: fuchsia-pink PVC bra and knickers worn with black sturdy-soled boots. The bra was a peephole thing, with slits to expose my nipples. Ilya looked me up and down, smiling faintly.

His gaze was like a touch, and a flush of sexiness spread over my skin as I let him drink his fill. My nipples
tingled excitedly and began crunching up until they were hard cones, spiking from the lurid pink apertures.

‘And . . .’ I said, slipping off the mac, ‘I reckon the back view’s pretty good too.’

I slung my coat on to the sofa. From the front, the knickers looked ordinary enough – a high triangle of bright-pink gloss. But when I turned, they were something else: they left my arse completely bare. A strap lay across the top of my buttocks and two more ran either side of my cheeks, forming a half-gusset between my legs. So instead of more fabric, Ilya got to see my naked rear.

I’d quickly learnt that Ilya was an arse man, rather than a tit man or a leg man, which I always find slightly unnerving because I prefer my tits to my arse. I mean, my arse is fine, but I think my tits are great. Ilya thought my tits were great and my arse was fucking lovely. So the knickers were chosen with him in mind.

Like my peephole bra, they were deliciously obscene. I’d bought them mail order – sex-catalogue stuff. I’d bought lots of things mail order. I was turning into a sleazy mail-order junkie.

‘Ve-ery nice,’ drawled Ilya, picking up the remote control. ‘But get the boots off, Beth. You look like some whiplash wannabe.’

I had to silently concede that I’d been worried about that aspect too. So I unzipped and stood barefoot.

‘Now come here,’ he said, ‘and get on your hands and knees.’

He gestured to the floor space near the end of the sofa. I always seemed to be going down on all fours for him. But I didn’t mind. The very instruction was enough to make lust ripple up my thighs and spiral heat around my groin.

‘Facing the TV,’ he said as I knelt. ‘That’s better. Good.’

‘What are you going to do to me?’ I asked.

‘Wait and see,’ replied Ilya, aiming the remote control at the video.

Slinky, synthesized music started up and, on screen, the title appeared in bold blue letters:
Sleaze
.

‘Oh God,’ I murmured.

Ilya turned off all the lights, making the TV colours our only source of illumination.

‘Have I got to stay like this?’ I frowned as Ilya moved around in the gloom. ‘I’m not exactly comfortable.’

‘You’ll be wanting popcorn next,’ he said, returning with a glass of whisky. He perched himself close to me on the sofa edge. On TV a blonde was strolling along a deserted beach, being soulful. ‘Get your back nice and flat, Beth,’ said Ilya, pausing the video with the remote. ‘Your spine’s dipping. Tuck your arse in more.’

I obeyed and, though it felt as if I was arching my spine upward, Ilya seemed satisfied. He ran his hand over the level plane of my back. My skin leapt to his warm touch and arousal melted into my sex. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Now don’t move.’

From the corner of my eye, I saw him reach an ashtray from the floor. Then he placed it on my back. I giggled to feel the cool disc of weight resting on my heated skin.

‘Keep still,’ he cautioned, then he stood his glass of whisky near the ashtray.

It was cooler than the ashtray and it didn’t feel as secure. That glass made me nervous: it was fragile and full of liquid. The need to be absolutely motionless dominated my thoughts. I felt giddy and silly, and I suddenly seemed to have a hundred and one itches that wanted scratching. Imaginary ants tiptoed over the soles of my feet and things with wings fluttered around my midriff.

‘What are you doing?’ I asked, trying my best not to disturb Ilya’s balancing act with laughter. If only I could have taken one deep breath, I would’ve felt steadier and calmer.

‘You’re a table,’ answered Ilya, and he swung his legs
up on to the sofa. In my peripheral vision I saw him lie back, propping his elbow on the sofa arm close to my arse.

‘What?’ I said, confusion tempering my giddiness.

‘You’re a table,’ he repeated. ‘That’s how I’m using you. So shut up. Tables don’t speak.’

I fought the urge to turn round. It seemed so important not to spill the whisky. ‘But –’

‘Shut up,’ he said, and his words were mumbled as if there were something between his lips.

Every muscle in my body was tense with playing at statues. I heard the rasping click of a lighter then caught a glimpse of Ilya pointing the remote. As the video started playing, I heard him drawing on a cigarette.

Disappointment swamped me. I wanted to be teased and pleased. I wanted to be used and abused – as a slut, not as a table. I didn’t want to be ignored.

But it didn’t look as if I had much choice. Damn Ilya, the smart-arse.

The pale marble fireplace took on an orange hue as a sunbed-tanned rear filled the screen. Then a blonde with too much make-up began pulling faces while rising up and down, presumably impaled on some guy’s dick. Her balloon-round tits didn’t move once.

‘Silicone,’ I complained.

‘Shut up,’ said Ilya again, and I felt him tap his cigarette into the ashtray on my back.

I repressed a sigh, hoping that maybe later he would use me in the manner I was accustomed to. After all, we were watching porn. Surely he’d want to get his rocks off at some point.

I tried to concentrate on the video. The blonde was doing a dreamy, thinking-aloud scene, but I couldn’t understand a word. The sound quality was rotten. It didn’t look very sleazy either. Then I got confused because suddenly there were two silicone blondes doing
some slurpy stuff on a kitchen table and I couldn’t tell which was which.

Ilya lifted the glass from my back, drank and replaced it, pressing a different cool patch on to my skin.

I wondered if he found the video arousing. Surely not.

When the blondes had finished messing around with each other, a scene popped up of three guys in an office. From what I could make out, they were planning a storyline for a film, arguing about what was too corny and deciding they had to make it sexy.

‘Oh, I see,’ I said, unable to curb my sarcasm. ‘It’s postmodern. How clever.’

‘Shut up and watch,’ said Ilya.

‘I can’t,’ I protested as yet another load of characters was introduced. ‘I can’t follow the plot and it’s crap. I haven’t even seen a cock yet or a –’

‘You want something harder?’ he demanded, getting up from the sofa.

‘Yes,’ I replied as Ilya ejected the cassette. The room was plunged into momentary darkness, then the screen lit up with a fast-forward frenzy of credits and flesh.

Ilya settled back on to the sofa, while images of a fully dressed, ordinary-looking woman doing a piece to camera shuddered on high-speed.

‘What’s she saying?’ I asked.

‘Just some bollocks about how she’s never done this before,’ said Ilya, lighting another cigarette. ‘Now will you shut up or I’ll gag you?’

So I kept quiet, doing my best table impression, as the fast-forward woman was joined by a fast-forward black man, who twiddled with her curly perm and stroked at her clothes. While Ilya tapped his cigarette into the ashtray and took an occasional slug of whisky, the porn stars, jerky, smiley and comically fast, shed their clothes and rolled around on a big white bed.

The black guy had a enormous, slightly curved dick. And there were lots of close-ups of it, along with
close-ups of tits, mouths and pussy. It looked seriously dirty and I ached to see it on normal speed.

When the guy went down on the woman, Ilya relented. My sex began to throb as I gazed at the blown-up image of a wet, dark-haired vulva, its flushed lips being sucked and gently stretched by the guy’s mouth.

The woman was groaning – proper horny-sounding groans, not like the pseudo-ecstasy of the earlier video. And when we got to see her contorted face, it was sweat-glistening and make-up smudged. She looked like she was having one helluva good time, oblivious to the off-screen voices encouraging and complimenting her. The thought of this woman, giving vent to her pleasure, while surrounded by a lewd eager film crew, made my juices really flow.

‘Mmm, she’s hot,’ said Ilya, and I imagined his cock imprisoned in his trousers and pulsing with vigour.

I wanted him so badly. I caught a breath when I felt his hand brush my arse. His fingers nudged into my barely-there gusset and I struggled to remain motionless and silent as they trawled through the wet cleft of my labia.

‘Just checking,’ said Ilya, withdrawing the touch.

I trapped a squeaky protest in my throat, barely able to watch the TV as that lucky woman splayed her legs and squirmed, ready for that huge black prick. When the guy penetrated her, we saw the lot: his shiny length disappearing into the gaping flesh-lips of her pussy.

‘Oh God,’ she was crying. ‘It’s so big. So big.’

I was creaming with lust, my cunt drumming incessantly. I needed Ilya more than anything I’d ever needed. Seeing that guy’s arse, humping and flexing between the woman’s open thighs, was sheer agony.

Then a sudden loud noise in our room made me jump almost clean out of my skin. In my shock, I registered the thud of glass and ashtray tumbling from my back before I registered the first noise: buzzz.

It was the entryphone. There was someone at the street door, someone buzzing Ilya’s flat. And we were watching a dirty video, with me half-naked and churned up with arousal.

‘Shit,’ I said, twisting round to share my alarm with Ilya. Instinctively, I grabbed a cushion from the sofa and clutched it to my pink, peephole bra.