Chapter 1

"I'm sorry. I just don't believe you. And if I can't believe you, why should I trust you? How can I commit to you in a relationship?"

Sophie had to admit that Malcolm had a point, but one far too dangerous to concede. She sipped from her glass of Argentinean white and placed it on the bench in front of her just inside the shadow cast by the sunshade. She pursed her lips and glanced around at the other couples enjoying the late evening sun on the patio of the Black Swan. Were their conversations as tense as those between Malcolm and she?

"It was only the once, Malcolm," Sophie pleaded. "I needed the money. It was very tempting."

"You see, I don't think it was just the once," Malcolm continued.

"Why do you say that? Surely once would be enough? I told you about Cum Babes International. Why should there be any more?"

"I just don't believe you. It just doesn't hang together. All those years between when you dropped out of college and when you did your Accountancy course at Kingston, it sounds like there was more than just odd-jobs and dingy bedsits."

"What do you mean?" Sophie asked, knowing full well from previous conversations exactly what he meant.

"There's the lifestyle you managed to afford. The drugs and clothes and nights out. There's the fact that I don't believe you'd necessarily have done just the one video. And then," and here Malcolm lowered his voice, so that no eavesdropper could hear him, "there's what you're like in bed."

"In bed? I thought you loved me there best of all. You said I was the best."

Malcolm sipped his glass of wine. He was clearly flustered. "You are so much better than any of my other girlfriends, and admittedly there were not that many before you, that you're in a league of your own. Some of the things you do!" Malcolm lowered his voice still further "Your skill at, you know, fellatio and anal and fisting and all that. The orgasms you get. And how loud you shriek when you come! It's just not natural."

"It's because I like sex that I was tempted into making that video," Sophie protested.

"I don't believe that your boyfriends at the time, or the ones you've told me about, were likely to give you the aptitude you've got."

"I'm a natural. I don't need training."

"I'm not stupid, Sophie," Malcolm said with a frown. "I've seen a few pornos. I'm not totally ignorant. I can see what you could have got up to. And when we're together in bed, it's not like I'm with someone who once, from innocence and greed, was tempted to give the odd blowjob in front of the camera. It's like I'm with someone who's done it all and knows all that she ever needs to know."

Sophie gripped Malcolm's hand tightly in her own. "It was only the once. You have to believe me."

Malcolm frowned again. He was breathing quite heavily. The tension from this conversation was upsetting him. "We're not living together. Yet. We're not committed to getting married. Yet. But if we do make the next step..."

"I do so want us to, Malcolm," said Sophie with urgency in her voice and eyes.

"... if we do, we need more trust. We need to be honest with one another. And I'm not sure we have that."

"Oh, Malcolm. It just takes time!"

"We've been seeing each other for nearly six months now. I've never ever had such an intense relationship with anyone as I've had with you. Yet I feel I scarcely know you at all. You only begrudgingly tell me anything about your life before I met you. If I hadn't seen the cover of the video in that second-hand store, would you ever have told me about Cum Babes International Number 12? How am I to know you weren't in all previous eleven titles?"

Malcolm was shaking. His wine was mostly untouched and his gaze was wholly unfocused.

"Why does it upset you so much?" Sophie asked, squeezing his hand.

Malcolm shook his head. "It just does. It's the trust thing. I so want it to work for us. You're the best thing in my life. You mean more than the accountancy firm, the house in Richmond and everything else. I don't want to lose you, but I sometimes think there's no choice."

"Don't upset yourself so much. Finish your drink. We can go for a meal at that Italian restaurant. Or the Thai one. Come on, love!"

"It's no good!" said Malcolm standing up. He slipped his jacket back on. "I'm too upset. It's not working this evening. It's best I leave you. I'll phone you tomorrow."

"You sure?" asked Sophie anxiously, gazing up at Malcolm as he straightened his tie and slung the bag holding his laptop over his shoulder.

"I will. Don't worry. It's just, I don't know, anxiety and everything. I'll ring tomorrow morning."

Almost distractedly, Malcolm pecked Sophie on the cheek, avoiding the attractions of her slightly opened mouth, her tongue twitching between the deep red lips and her perfect white teeth. He then strode off, not even turning his head back, out of the patio towards the pub car park where his BMW company car was parked.

Sophie watched him go with a sigh. She decided against running after him. He needed to calm down and her previous attempts at comforting him in these situations had not always been successful. Anyway, she rather relished the opportunity of sitting alone with her own thoughts and reflections.

Malcolm would phone back tomorrow. There was no doubt about it. Sophie understood Malcolm too well after all these months to have any doubts.

Sophie picked up her glass of wine, regretting at that moment she'd given up smoking and therefore had no cigarette to light up to calm her nerves. She sipped her wine while scanning the other drinkers in the pub patio. She was glad that her eyes were hidden under the sunshade. Most of the people here were like Malcolm and her: couples or groups of men and women, mostly in their late twenties or early thirties, still in their work clothes after having finished a day in the office. Ties were pulled down, sleeves rolled up and jackets laid to one side in concession to the English summer. Just ahead was a bend of the River Thames, too narrow in this part of London to carry more than a few barges and tourist boats. A few swans paddled by under the shelter of the decorative shrubs planted at the river's edge.

Then, ambling into the patio, and not seen for so many years, was Justin, still with Ashley, around whose bare waist he wrapped a protective arm. The couple was recognisably the same, despite the intervening years. Justin was rather less the rake-like figure she once knew. Clearly, he was eating better than he used to. Perhaps this was Ashley's influence. She had also filled out a bit. Rounder shoulders, a fuller waist, but still nothing to be ashamed of, and a dimple on each elbow.

The first time Sophie met Justin, all those years ago, his cheeks were much more accentuated and his eyes betrayed a kind of naked vulnerability. It was in a coffee shop, one of the countless coffee shops in Wimbledon where she lived at the time, one where the coffees had Italian names and the service was painfully slow. She had just been in the loo as a result of a false alarm. She washed her hands but, despite all the fruitless straining and struggling, she still felt the nagging need for a shit.

She looked at her eyes in the loo mirror. The pupils were still quite tiny and her face had a fatigued expression, as well it ought since she'd not slept for such a long time. The drugs were taking ages to wear off. Even though she was no longer feeling high as such, they hadn't yet subsided enough for her to need sleep.

It wasn't as if she hadn't been in bed though. It hadn't taken long for the informal post-shoot party at Lance's flat to disintegrate into an unplanned orgy. After all, Heinrich, Natasha, Juanita and the others were all fully acquainted with each other on the set. After a few drinks, lines, snorts, spliffs and, in Natasha's case, a surgically-clean hypo, it seemed the natural way to end the day. So. Plenty of bed but not a lot of sleep. And didn't she know it! And her arse knew it most of all.

Sophie knew that when she did finally recover, she'd sleep for well over her apportioned eight hours. Anyway, there wasn't another shoot for several days and that would be a cinch compared to the rim and ring epic in which she'd been performing the last few days. It would be nothing but facials. It might leave a nasty taste in the mouth and the possibility of a stomach ache, but at least her anus would have time to recover.

When she emerged from the loo, she saw that someone else was sitting at the table where her mocha was waiting. She tottered over unsteadily on the impossibly high heels she still wore and lowered herself into her seat. The heels added several significant inches to her height, but didn't disguise the fact that Sophie, like most women in her line of work, was actually rather short. In her case, only just over five foot tall. Shortness had the advantage of enhancing her apparent breast-size. It also made the attributes of any male co-star seem that much more splendid than they already were.

Sophie composed herself opposite the man at her table. He was, of course, the same Justin now looking for a place to sit in the Black Swan. She reflected that she was rather overdressed for a coffee shop on a Thursday morning. She'd dressed for the shoot in a leather jacket, a tight micro-skirt, and a revealing blouse that was designed to accentuate her already prominent bosom. Her long blonde-streaked hair was tied back in an untidy mess of clips and bows. Huge hoop-like earrings brushed her shoulders whenever she turned her head.

"Who're you?" she asked Justin in a voice as unsteady as her posture. "What d'you do?"

Justin nervously introduced himself and explained that he worked in a technical capacity at a City-based financial company. He worked shifts, including weekends, which was why he happened to be off work on a Thursday.

"I'm new to London," he said apologetically, with a diffident smile that stretched the tight skin of his thin face. "I don't know that many people."

Sophie nodded her head. She'd not really listened to Justin with that much attention while scooping yet more sugar into her already very sweet mocha.

"I bet you can't guess what I do?" she slurred.

"Er... prostitute?" Justin asked, with an apologetic smile.

"Prostitute?" echoed Sophie with alarm.

Fuck! Is that what she looked like? Of course, she'd never stoop as low as that, although she'd been tempted before she was sure how much she could make in the porno business. In those early days, she'd not quite judged how low she needed to go to subsidise her studies at the University. That was when she was still a student, of course.

"No fucking way am I a pro!" Sophie said when she'd recovered her composure. "I don't know how pissed off I should be at you for making that suggestion."

"I'm sorry," said Justin, his face reddening from embarrassment but a warm smile still on his face. "Not that I'd think any the less of you if you were."

"Really? What do you mean?"

"Well, it's just a job, isn't it? Prostitution. It's nothing to be ashamed of, is it?"

"Yeah, well," said Sophie, sipping her mocha. "I'm in films, I am. I'm a fucking film star."

Justin was impressed. "Wow! What films have you been in?"

"You probably haven't heard of them," said Sophie.

"I don't know. Films are one of my biggest interests. I go to the cinema two, three times a week. There's not much I don't know about the movies."

"Oh yeah," sneered Sophie, with a wicked grin. "I bet you don't go to the cinema to watch Fellowship of the Rimming, Cunts & Quims Volume Three or The Sex Fiends."

"Er... No. Are they the sort of films you appear in?"

"Straight to video. No general release. Never likely to make either the National Film Theatre or the Odeon. You know the kind of stuff?"

Justin nodded. "Yeah. I do."

"You seen much of it?"

"Not that much. Some. Not a lot. And never in a cinema."

"So, what d'you think, Film Buff Barry? Are they the kind of movie you'd rate? What d'you think Jonathan Ross would make of them, eh?"

"Not very high production standards," Justin mused. "At least, not the ones I've seen. Not very complex plots. Acting's not up to much. But that's all shit, isn't it? That's not what the films are about. You can't talk about porno in the same way as other films, can you? It'd be as stupid as having a go at Teletubbies for being repetitive. Or complaining about the special effects in South Park."

Despite herself, Sophie was actually rather enjoying her chat with Justin. He was trying so hard to be non-judgmental about what she did for a living. It was quite sweet, really. And he was a change from the people she usually hung around with, who were sometimes not really that bright. It was also good to talk about sex films with someone who wasn't in the industry. However, her interest increased when the conversation strayed away from films to the challenges of living in London and finding an affordable place to stay.

"Well, money ain't a problem for me," sniffed Sophie, pulling a cigarette out of its packet. Although this wasn't the first cigarette she'd had since meeting Justin, she only now remembered her manners. "Here, you want one?"

Justin hesitated, but then nodded and took the proffered cigarette.

"You smoke?" Sophie asked as she lit the cigarettes.

"Not really," Justin replied. "Well, not tobacco."

"Dope?"

"Well, yeah. A bit. Not a lot. Sometimes."

"Got any on you now?"

Justin looked around the place with slightly frightened eyes. He looked down at his now empty cup of Grande Americano and nodded his head. "Some hash. Only a couple of grams."

"Well, that's enough, isn't it?" Sophie said with a smile. "Hey, let's go to the park and roll up. A spliff would set me up well."

"Would it?" wondered Justin.

And indeed it did.

After an hour chatting on a park bench where the conversation became mysteriously more amusing as the influence of the morning spliff took affect, Sophie's whole day became preoccupied in entertaining her innocent companion. Sophie was actually rather enjoying the fact that Justin was someone who didn't work in the industry and with whom she could talk about other things than drugs, porno and money. She imagined that if she had a brother then this would be what it'd be like to spend a day with him in South West London.