She sighed and sank back against the headboard. Her gaze rolled out to the middle distance. She seemed to curl into herself.
‘Donna’s Dominion,’ she muttered.
‘Sorry?’
‘Donna’s Dominion. That’s what it was called, that particular piece of classy erotic art. I was Donna Dread, gym training world dominatrix.’ She smiled without much mirth. ‘Pretty infantile stuff, huh?’
Chris gestured uncomfortably. He was pretty sure he was blushing. Liz Linshaw nodded.
‘Got you hard, though. Right?’
‘Uh.’ He looked away.
She sighed again. ‘Look, don’t worry about it. Stuff’s made to get you hard. As a male, you’d be practically dysfunctional if it didn’t. Youthful tits are supposed to turn you on, and there you’ve got four of them on screen, all rubbing up against each other, and all blown up to hyper-real proportions. You might as well get embarrassed about four lines of uncut NAME powder keeping you awake all night. It’s just another drug, Chris. Refined, maxed-up, bang-on-the-nail sex-chemistry trigger dust.’ Another weary smile. ‘So you liked me, huh?’
He cleared his throat. ‘You, uh, were you really into, you know?’
‘Girls?’ She shrugged. ‘Not really, no. I mean, get someone licking your clit for you, that’s not unpleasant, whatever sex the person doing it is. Once you get used to the six or seven people watching you off camera, that is. And you’d be surprised how quickly you do get used to that. But no, I was never a try-out lesbian, not even a try-out bi. It’s pure theatre, Chris. Just a job. Oh, yeah, and if you stick to girl-on-girl, your health insurance premiums go way down. Less risk, less general wear and tear on the works.’
‘Why did you, I mean, how did you get into it?’
This time her smile seemed genuine. Her posture unwound. She shook her head, reached over the edge of the bed for her bag, and started going through it. ‘Well I wasn’t kidnapped into it by white slavers, if that’s what you mean.’
She found a bent and crumpled ready-rolled spliff, a lighter. Sat back against the headboard again and lit up. She coughed and waved little eddies in the sudden cloud of smoke.
‘You want some of this? No? Sure?’ She pulled down a lungful of smoke, held it for a moment and let go. She looked critically at the embered end of the spliff. ‘Thing is, you listen to some twisted evangelical fuck like Simeon Sands, you’d believe we are all sex slaves by any other name, kidnapped, trapped by drugs, victims of our own unclean, incest-aroused lust - I think guys like Sands like that one especially, you hear the way they trot it out. One hand on the pulpit, one hand below, eh.’ She grinned crookedly. ‘But it just ain’t so, Chris. I mean, it isn’t this other thing the industry wants to sell you either. You know, we’re all dripping wet sluts, just can’t wait to get our orifices stuffed. Forget that. You want clinical and jaded, go watch a porno shoot. It’s work, Chris, pure and simple. More or less professional, depending on who you’re working for, better or worse paid ditto. But no one ever put me under pressure to do stuff I wasn’t happy with, and no one tried to stop me when I quit.’
‘Do you think you were typical?’
Liz held down more smoke. Frowned, then let it up. Shook her head. ‘Globally? No. I heard a lot of nasty stories coming out of Costa Rica and Thailand. Still do. But you don’t need me to tell you about that, Chris. This is what you do for a living. Enterprise zones, political instability. Market forces, weak governmental structure, the poor get fucked. Literally, in this case.’
‘Oh, right.’ The casual way she’d said it stung, made him snappish. ‘So everyone you worked with was smiling and happy were they?’
She plumed smoke, looked at him quizzically.
‘No. Even in Copenhagen, you’ve got some fucked-up girls working the trade. That blonde I was with in Donna’s Dominion? Renata something, I think she was Polish. She had some strange ideas, and those tits were just insane. She had to go to three different plastics guys before she found one who’d give her those implants and then she had on-and-off post-op trouble the whole time. So, yeah who knows? Maybe old Simeon was right in her case. Turned on to pornographic filth because her father abused her as a child. But, to be honest, I think she just wasn’t very bright. Yeah, Chris, there are going to be women doing porn who were fucked up by abuse when they were kids, it makes sense. But most of the ones I worked with were just like me — uninhibited, maybe overly exhibitionistic media wannabes, marking time while they looked for their big break. I went out to Copenhagen, looking for work with the pirate ‘casters out of Christiania. I got into Danish porn instead. It was easier, there was a lot more of it about than pirate work, and it was better paid. It was a couple of years, it felt weird and different and maybe taught me a few things about myself that I wouldn’t know otherwise. And I saved a lot of money. End of story. And. Happy ending, yeah.’
‘But you need to smoke that stuff to talk about it.’
The quizzical look again. ‘Chris, you need to get a grip. You’re telling me you’ve really got some kind of moral problem with my career as a porn doll a decade ago? For a man who works in international finance, you’ve got some fucking nerve.’
‘I don’t have a problem with it. And I didn’t think you had a problem with what I do either.’ Spite gleamed through. ‘In fact, I thought it got you off’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘What?’
‘Sure. You fucked Mike Bryant, now you’re fucking me. Spot the connection. Hey, I’m not complaining, Liz, but take a look at your own fucking motivations. This is textbook passenger-seat passion. Let’s be honest about it.’
She sat up abruptly, flicked ash off the spliff. ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea, Chris. Let’s be honest. If you had a problem with me, you could have left me well alone.’
‘Left you alone?’ The injustice of it staggered him. It was like fighting with Carla, all over again. An opening well of curdled hurt. ‘You came on pretty fucking strong to me, as I recall. At Troy’s party. After the party, at Regime Change. You called me for that one.’
‘Oh, yeah, well maybe you shouldn’t have sent me a copy of your wife’s flight times to Norway, then. Because you know Chris, as invitations go, that was pretty fucking blatant.’
Shock held him unstirring for a moment. She caught it, coiled back on the bed, face still tight with anger.
‘What?’
‘I. Liz, I didn’t send you anything.’
‘Right.’
‘No, fucking listen to me.’ He reached out for her with both hands. She gestured him away. Stared out of the window. ‘I didn’t send you that stuff. I didn’t even know Carla was going to Tromso until about an hour before you called me. I. Someone’s fucking with us, Liz.’
Her gaze tracked warily back to him. She didn’t turn her head. Her whole body was closed to him again, limbs folded defensively.
‘I’m not a drive-site groupie, Chris.’
‘Okay.’ He held up his hands, palms out. ‘Okay, you’re not a drive-site groupie. Whatever you say. But I’m telling you, I never sent you those flight details. And you’re telling me you didn’t send me Donna’s Dominion. So. Someone’s fucking with us, right? It’s got to be that.’
And he got her back. Limb by limb, line by line, the softening stole through her. The place in Carla he could no longer reach, the point of reconciliation abraded by years of impact along the same emotional front. She opened a little, turned to face him. Nodded.
A tiny shard of hope spiked him, unlooked for. A prickle across the underside of each eye and a sudden surge in the empty space he’d excavated in his own chest.
This time. He promised himself silently. This one, this time, this woman. I will not fuck this one up.
But the hyena was still out there, still prowling in silhouette on the sunset horizon of his thoughts. And would not shut up.