Susie Learns the Hard Way (19 page)

‘Harry gave me away as the prize in a boxing fight. To the ugliest boy...' her voice tailed away. She could still smell the musty wooden floor, the sweat and halitosis, the musk of her own sex and the man smell of him that was still on her body hours after he'd finished pounding into her.

The editor watched, patiently.

‘And – and then he sold me to a Japanese man in a hotel room.' Her panties were shamefully damp already; she dared not even begin thinking about what Yoshimura had done to her.

‘And you were raped by these men?'

‘No, not exactly... no. But it wasn't my idea,' she blurted, trying to justify herself. ‘I didn't expect to...'

‘We did talk about this sort of thing before.'

‘Yes, I know, but...'

‘Look, we're following a lead about a pill that enhances men's sexual performance. How do you expect we'll find out if it works?'

‘By taking it, I suppose.'

‘And if you can't take it, because you haven't got any?'

Susie considered this. ‘I suppose you can ask people who
have
taken it.'

‘But how will we know if they're telling the truth?' He rose from behind the desk and came closer, leaning his bottom on the front edge, just inches away, the front of his trousers pointing brazenly at her flushed face, making it difficult for her to avert her eyes. ‘Do you remember what we talked about the day you came for your interview?' he asked, almost patronisingly, but not quite.

The day you bent me across your desk, you dirty old man, Susie thought, but said nothing of the sort. ‘About what?' she asked, his close proximity making her take a deep breath to calm herself, battling to suppress the traitorous tingling within her panties.

He eyed the tantalising rise and fall of the crisp white cotton blouse stretched tightly across her mouth-watering breasts as she breathed. ‘About not writing a story unless you knew for yourself it was true. Knew for certain – at first hand.'

Suddenly it came to her in a flood of understanding. He, too, wanted her to have sex with someone who'd taken it! ‘You – you want me to...'

‘Exactly.'

‘And that's why you did what you did at my interview?'

‘More or less.'

‘Oh dear.'

‘And also because you are a very beautiful girl with an incredibly desirable young body.' His voice was almost hypnotic, and Susie looked up at him with doleful eyes and felt powerless to object as he reached out. ‘Your delicious breasts...' he cupped and caressed them through her blouse and lacy bra, making the nipples pucker against his palms. ‘Your shapely legs, your thighs, your bottom... I've a confession to make.' Susie held her breath. ‘I've wanted to spank your bottom from the moment I saw it walking down the corridor.' He saw the look of surprise on her face. ‘Oh yes, I followed you from reception that morning. I walked all the way along the corridor behind you, watching your delectable little bottom wiggle and sway. It was just begging to be spanked.' His hand drifted to the front of his trousers and moved in slow suggestive circles. ‘Now be a good girl and bend over my desk.'

Without a word she allowed him to guide her up from the chair and bend her forward, over the leather top. She didn't know what made her do it, but she reached down and raised her skirt for him, hearing him sigh with delight as he saw her firm young buttocks spread apart by the narrow band of white silk that cut between them and cupped her soaking mound.

‘I don't even have to pull them down,' he said quietly as he cupped her buttocks and massaged them reverently. And then Susie jerked forward as he slapped her suddenly. Her buttocks quivered and turned a blotchy red as spanked her rhythmically, a series of flat slaps that produced a liquid sensation between her legs at the same time as they stung and hurt – really hurt, making her whimper pitifully...

‘Anything wrong, miss?' The guard was shaking her shoulder. ‘Last stop, miss. If you're okay.'

‘Oh, um, no, I'm fine,' she stammered, blushing, her fringe feeling damp on her forehead. ‘I, um, must have been dreaming. I'm sorry.'

‘No problem. Bye, miss.'

Susie got off the train, knowing she could never tell the editor her suspicions now.

 

 

 

‘Why don't you come up with me?' Susie smiled sweetly, but Harry didn't rise to the bait, and continued to say nothing.

They'd driven across town in total silence, not speaking like lovers after a tiff. Which was what they'd had. Susie didn't want to go back to the agency, didn't want to mix with people like the American and Yoshimura, didn't want to find herself in that position again. ‘It's so grubby and tacky,' she'd said. But if she'd been honest with Harry, she'd have told him she was frightened. She couldn't, though, because she wasn't being honest with herself. She
was
frightened, mixing in a world she didn't know or understand, and if that had been all there was to it she might have admitted that to Harry. But the truth was that she was more frightened of herself, scared that she had not made her excuses and left when the moment arose, not because she was inexperienced or nervous, but because there was a force far greater than fear making her go on. She liked sex too much. She liked the things these people were doing to her, the sensations they made her feel, and the way her body responded to the excitement of strangers. She couldn't say no, and was afraid of being put in situations where she
ought
to say no.

All this Susie had understood from the start but tried to ignore. Last night in her silent flat, alone in the dark, knowing fingers busy recreating the sensations of ice-cubes and ugly boxers, the realisation had come to her at the exact moment her muscles had tensed and jerked her knees up and apart. She slid two straight fingers deeper and deeper into the honeyed darkness of that wet cavern, like pushing them into a bowl of warm syrup, and as the final spasms washed over her the understanding was total and clear. But this morning her brain had refused to acknowledge what her instincts knew, and forced her to find other reasons to protest about the way things were going.

So she'd had the blazing row with Harry, and it had been made worse because despite the denial of her conscious mind, her instincts refused to lie down and be silent. As the argument rose in pitch and tenor and they began shouting at each other, her anger played catalyst to the fear of confrontation and set her knickers aflame with warm liquid as her body swelled and flowered, an unwanted reminder of the truth.

Running out of cogent reasons for her standpoint, Susie accused Harry of being the last of a dying breed, called him a dinosaur. Harry said that if the future of journalism depended on snotty-nosed kids who ran home to mummy the minute things got difficult then he was glad it was the end of the world because he didn't want to be a part of it.

That hurt. She'd told the editor, and Harry, and most importantly herself, that she was tough enough to handle the toughest assignment the hardest-hitting Sunday tabloid in the country could dish up, and after only a couple of days she was complaining it was too difficult.

Though she half realised she'd let herself be manoeuvred into a position she didn't want to be in, she also realised the trap was shut, and there were only two ways out: go back home, or go back to the agency.

‘Hi, honey, how are ya?' It was the same woman on the reception desk. ‘Great work the other night, I hear.' She smiled a knowing smile from behind lowered black lashes.

Filling in a form that asked for little information beyond her name, age and mobile phone number, Susie gave her a brief smile and kept writing.

‘Yeah, everyone was really pleased.' She shifted gum from one side of her jaw to the other and leaned confidentially across the desk. ‘So we've got as much work as you can handle. And boy, can you handle it.' She sat up, pleased with her pun.

Susie managed the same small smile.

‘We still need pictures of you,' she rummaged in the drawer and produced a card, ‘and this is the photographer we always use. Leo's a great bloke. Old, but he's okay. He's expecting you this afternoon.'

‘Well...' Susie was thinking of how she could stall for time.

‘Sooner the better, really,' the woman continued brightly.

‘I, erm, I've got...'

‘And the good news is you don't have to pay him,' the woman gushed quickly. ‘Normally it's two hundred for a full sheet of contacts and some glossies, but we've told Leo you're extra special and he's done you a great deal.' She leaned forward again. ‘He's got a client who wants some pictures of an office secretary. A
blonde
secretary. He wants them urgently, like today. So if you go along to Leo's,' and she inclined her head towards the card, ‘he can use your pictures for his client
and
your sheet. So he won't have to charge you.' She sat up, beaming at the cleverness of the plan.

‘What sort of pictures do you mean?'

‘Oh, you know,' she said vaguely, flapping a dismissive hand. ‘Office pictures. Secretary stuff. You'll be great like that.' Susie had dressed for work that morning and as part of her row with Harry had refused to change from her neat blue skirt and jacket. Sitting demurely on the chair across the desk she must have looked like any one of a hundred girls on their way to work in offices and banks in the nearby streets.

‘Doing what?'

‘Oh, just sitting around looking pretty, showing a bit of leg. You know. Leaning over with your top button undone. As much as you want.' Susie's hand went instinctively to her throat and her smart round-neck blouse, without a button in sight. ‘Don't worry about clothes. Leo's a photographer. If he hasn't got what you need then he'll send his assistant to the shops.'

It sounded normal enough, and Susie was about to say okay when she remembered her role as an impoverished hooker-to-be, and gushed her thanks with a bit more enthusiasm than she felt. The woman shared her enthusiasm, and then made a phone call to Leo, saying Susie was on her way. ‘He's expecting you right away,' she said, replacing the handset. ‘Off you go.'

‘I've never done any modelling before,' said Susie. ‘Do you think I'll be all right?'

The woman looked at her strangely for a moment, as if puzzled by something. ‘You've got all the right equipment, dearie. Just lie back and use it. You're a natural.'

 

‘Natural blonde, she meant.' Harry snorted with laughter at his own joke.

‘What's so funny, Harry?'

‘You don't know?' Susie shook her head. ‘You really don't, do you?'

‘No, I don't. What is it?'

‘Well come on, Susie, what sort of pictures do you think these will be?'

‘I don't know. Some kind of brochure for office things, I suppose.'

Harry's head sank onto the steering wheel, which was a slightly foolish thing since they were heading through heavy traffic at the time. ‘Oh Susie, Susie, Susie,' he sighed despairingly.

‘What?'

‘They want you to show more than a bit of leg.'

She looked puzzled. ‘They won't have stocking-tops in a business brochure, though, will they?'

‘No dear, they won't, will they?' said Harry acidly. ‘But don't worry, because this isn't a business brochure. And stocking-tops is where they'll start. They'll be wanting to go a lot higher than that!'

‘You mean...'

‘Yes, I do mean.'

Susie wondered if she'd understood correctly the meaning of Harry's remarks, but the warmth between her thighs told her she knew exactly what he'd said, and his next words created a light fluttering in her panties as he confirmed it.

‘This, my dear, will be what's politely known as a girlie spread.'

The emphasis on the last word caught the breath in Susie's throat. The soft petals unfolded in her underwear and she looked out through the window with sparkling eyes.

 

The studio was in a converted warehouse, with a normal door next to a set of larger double doors, all professional looking and apparently above board. If this was a hotbed of sin and sleaze you couldn't tell from the outside, or at least, Susie couldn't. She rang the bell and the door immediately made a buzzing sound and swung open.

‘Hello.' She was greeted by bleached blonde hair, bright red cupid-bow and long red nails, UV tan, long legs and impossibly short skirt. The receptionist looked as if she filled in when they were short of models. ‘I'm Charlie,' Susie fibbed. ‘I've an appointment with Leo.'

The receptionist looked at her critically, as if she saw her as a challenge to her own glamour and sexual prowess. ‘I'll buzz him.' Susie was dismissed with the words, left to hang around aimlessly for several minutes until a gangly kid, who must have been sixteen to have a job but looked younger, appeared through a panelled door.

‘Hi,' he said apologetically, brushing strands of hair back from his face. ‘I'm Leo's assistant. Well, one of them,' he added hastily, and Susie felt sorry for him straight away. He looked so young she thought it was probably his first day. That might account for his nerves, she thought, and then she remembered it was her who should be feeling nervous; she was the one expected to take her clothes off in front of strangers.

‘This way,' the boy said, and turned back through the open door he'd appeared from, without looking back to see if she was following. She was, and as she walked down the dingy corridor she could feel the warm wetness that thinking about being entrapped again was evoking. Despite her best efforts at ignoring it, the feeling wouldn't go away, and if anything it was worse by the time they'd passed several doors and arrived at one marked
Dressing Room 1
.

It was small, warm and brightly lit. One whole wall was a mirror, with a worktop in front of it littered with make-up and tissues.

‘Hi, I'm Maureen,' welcomed a bubbly girl. ‘I'll be taking care of hair and make-up. When you're ready.' She smiled brightly.

It was all very businesslike and surprisingly professional. Susie thought that maybe Harry was wrong about the whole thing and this would turn out to be a waste of time, but then she remembered that Harry seemed to be never wrong about the doings of the agency.

The dressing room door swung open, pushed aside by a fiftysomething man with grey hair and grey eyes, already appraising her.

‘I'm Leo,' he said. ‘I'm the photographer. As soon as Maureen's sorted your hair and face we'll be ready for you on set. Did you bring clothes?'

It was all so brisk and efficient Susie was barely ready with an answer. ‘I, er, no, there wasn't time.'

‘Right. It's an office scene, I hope they told you that.' It wasn't a question, so Susie remained silent. ‘You look fine the way you are. Dark jacket and skirt, white blouse, stockings, high heels, and underwear... good.' He paused for a second of thought, then said, ‘Light, I think, not too fussy, but sexy... kind of repressed virgin with unspoken fantasies. Mo, what have we got?'

That was straightforward enough, thought Susie; at least she knew what kind of pictures they were planning to take, despite Maureen's homely welcome and Leo's harmless-old-bloke smile.

‘I'll show you,' replied Maureen. She lifted a holdall onto the table, unzipped it, and started to pull things out. It was a strange feeling, watching Maureen spreading underwear on the table so she and Leo could rummage through it, especially when Susie knew she would be wearing one of the many pairs of tiny panties Leo was lifting and examining with a critical eye. Eventually he found something he liked, and after holding them up to the light and then rubbing them between finger and thumb, he tossed them to Susie. She caught them, and tried to shut the memory of his fingers probing the silky yellow gusset and bra cups from her mind.

‘We'll do your hair and make-up first,' chirped Maureen. ‘Nothing you're going to wear goes over your head, so it won't spoil anything.'

‘Right,' said Leo, ‘see you in a minute,' and he was gone.

‘Take your jacket off and sit here.' Maureen patted the back of a chair in front of a section of the worktop that was lower than all the rest. ‘Oh, you'd better take your blouse off too,' she added, noticing it unfastened behind Susie's neck and came off over her head.

As soon as Susie did as she was asked Maureen got to work. She was quick, skilful and obviously professional, and while her small hands darted around Susie's face she hummed tunelessly along with the radio, not bothering to chat. That suited Susie well enough; she always found being fussed over like this gently arousing, and she was quite happy to enjoy the attention in silence.

But now Susie had time to consider that she was about to display herself to Leo and his camera, and the thought was creating a very noticeable and shameful response between her legs. Soon she would be asked to expose herself to the lights, the camera and the photographer, and because it was so deliberate and calculated, it was very arousing. She closed her eyes and saw herself on hands and knees, bottom turned up to the camera, lips parted and shining wet, exposed and vulnerable...

‘Right, that's it. Okay with you?' Maureen's cheerful question brought Susie's attention back to the real world and saved her from getting carried away in the chair. She looked in the mirror and got quite a shock. She was quite heavily made-up, making her look a little tarty, but no less gorgeous.