Chapter 1: A Pain in the Ass

Irina Berusova nervously sipped on the Coke Zero in front of her. Whenever the door to the diner opened her eyes came up, but the man she expected had not entered yet. Once more, the hinges squeaked and she looked up again. She exhaled with relief. There he was. He saw her too and came over.

“Hey, Iris!” he greeted her using her stage name.

“Hey, Sly,” she answered, her throaty accent more audible than usual. “Have you got something for me?”

“I just may,” he said cryptically while sitting down. The waitress showed and Sylvester ordered a Cognac. Then he looked at Irina.

Irina, a.k.a. Iris Angel, had come from St. Petersburg, Russia, to the US right after the fall of the iron curtain. She was young, she was gorgeous, and she was willing to do absolutely anything to be part of the American dream. She was an instant hit in the adult movie business, and she had done well. Then she contracted a bug that was lethal in that sort of business: she became pregnant. She gave birth to a boy, and her career went to shit. She never regained the coltish figure that had attracted the pervs, yet she had not the body for the mature themed flicks. A boob job to overcome that problem went terribly wrong, stalling her career for another year until the damage could be fixed, and by then there were hundreds of skinny, desperate — and younger — Russian and Ukrainian girls happy to fill her niche.

Sylvester knew that she had headlined as a hooker in Nevada cathouses, milking her name recognition for what it was worth. Then she moved to Philly joining an escort service under Di Rosa protection until Old Man Di Rosa divested himself of yet another illicit investment.

Now she was 34. She had filled out a little and she was actually good looking, in a woman sort-of way. Sylvester had a soft spot for her since the old days when he had “auditioned” her a few times. That was before her pregnancy. Unfortunately, the market being as it was he had no decent offers for her.

“Listen Iris, things are not easy these days, with the damn internet stealing our stuff. Mainstream doesn’t pay anymore. You need to diversify.”

Irina closed her eyes. “You mean kinky stuff?”

Sylvester nodded heavily. Truth be told, he did not like this one bit, but Iris had called him three days before, and she was desperate for money.

“Yeah. That stuff still has a market.”

“I do BDSM already,” Iris argued.

“Yeah, and the net is full of rope stuff. Even the amateurs do it for kicks. No, kiddo, what I mean is real kinky shit.”

She hugged herself and shivered. “Not needles?” she pleaded.

“God, no! It’s ... Oh, shit! You know, with that creamy skin of yours, they want to hire you for a caning scene.”

“Caning? I don’t understand.”

“Riding crop. Maybe a hazel switch. They’ll want to whip your ass, Kiddo, for kicks. It’s not that bad. You’ll take a gram or so of ibuprofen an hour before the scene and keep taking it for a few days, but it’ll pay real well.”

Iris closed her eyes for a moment. “How well?” she asked tonelessly.

“Five Gs. It’ll take an hour or so. Think about it! Five Grand for two hours max of shooting.”

He could see the effect of that offer. He knew that Iris was in dire straits, owing money left and right. He could see this as something with a promise. Iris was growing into a real MILF, and with a little luck, this could even jump start her into mainstream smut again.

“I know this isn’t easy. Look, I’ll only take five hundred as my commission. Four and a half Grand for you. How much do you owe for rent and utilities? Twenty-five hundred? You’ll have something left over. If this works out, I can easily get you a second gig, maybe with a bit of variation. Think of it! Four big ones!”

He could see that Iris was almost convinced.

“Hey, Kiddo! I like you. I looked hard for something for you. This is the best I can get. Hey, at least you won’t be catching something.”

“So I get 4,500?” Iris asked. “Cash?”

“Cash. I wouldn’t accept checks from those creeps. In fact, they have to pay up front, and if you do your job, I’ll pay you. Come on, Iris. If you can’t trust me, who can you trust?”

“When is this supposed to happen?”

“Week from now, Tuesday. They’re only in town for a week. If they like you, maybe I can get you a second gig with them.”

For the umpteenth time, Iris stared at her mirror image in the makeshift wardrobe. The producers, two middle aged twerps who actually jerked off during the shootings, really liked Iris. So much that they’d called her in a second time, again for 5 Gs. The second shooting had been a little more involved, if that was possible at all, with a bit of water sports mixed in. That was something that even Iris with fifteen years in the business had never done.

Today would go even farther. Larry and Ellis, the producers, had postponed their return to New York for yet another clip. Tonight Iris would have to take a huge black dildo into her anus while her barely healed ass would be paddled. Though not her favorite, she could do anal all right, but she’d been warned about the size of the prop. She had taken 1,600 milligrams of ibuprofen to numb herself.

“Ready, Iris? Let’s roll!” Ellis told her.

She had to bend over a padded table and a black hood was pulled over her head. The dildo was of the inflatable variety and it went in without too much troubles. Even inflating it did not hurt too badly. The whipping however was more severe than ever. Even through the massive dose of painkillers she felt the stinging pain of every single hit. This was exacerbated by the blindfold. She could not see anything and the crop hit her without warning. They would go through fifty strokes making Iris count them loudly and she could hear that both men were getting excited over the beating. Suddenly, at around Nº 40, two hands closed around her throat and choked her. She panicked. She was laid over a padded table with her hands tied to the legs, she was blindfolded, and the man was throttling her. With a violent twist of her head, she was able to break the hold briefly.

“Sly!” she screamed with what little air was left in her lungs before the hand closed around her throat again.

Thank God, Sylvester had not left! He was in the next room and now he burst through the door.

“What the fuck!” he roared.

Two steps brought him close to the two men and then the pressure around her throat went away. She could not see much, but she heard the scuffle, the grunting and even a male cry of pain. Then the hood was pulled off her head and she saw Sly standing in front of her. Blood was trickling from his mouth, but she could also see that his knuckles were raw.

“Let’s get you out of here, Kiddo,” he said hoarsely.

He untied the straps that fastened her hands to the table legs and let her stand. Pain lanced through her behind and he throat was hurting.

“Jesus God!” Sly hissed when he saw her ass. “You sick shits!”

Sly started kicking the two curled-up men on the concrete floor and she felt like helping him with it, but for the pain in her butt. She deflated the butt plug and pulled it out carefully. There was a little blood on it and she flinched.

“How bad is it, Iris?” Sly asked with concern.

“I don’t know. There’s blood on plug.”

“Probably from the cuts. Your skin broke and the cuts are bleeding. I’m going to kill those fucks!” Sly roared the last words, accompanying them with another series of vicious kicks. Slicking back his hair, he took a deep breath to control his fury. “Let’s get you to a doc.”

“I want my money!” Iris stated.

Sly grinned. “Sure you do. Hey, Ellis! Where’s the dough? Don’t make me look for it!”

“My satchel! Stop kicking me!” Ellis wheezed, obviously in severe pain.

Sly opened the bag and found a bankroll. He counted off five grand and then another.

“Throttling is another 5 G, you assholes,” he announced. “Let’s split, Kiddo!”

Sly drove her to the office of a discreet doctor who examined her wounds and closed two cuts before dressing them. On the drive back to her little apartment, Iris did a lot of thinking. She could not go on like this, yet she needed money. There was only one option — she had to contact her son’s father.

Almost seventeen years ago, at the height of her “fame”, she had accepted special “promotion events”. She had escorted a few wealthy friends to public functions, but she had also slept with men who wanted to live their dream of doing what they had seen in her videos. The money was always good, and the clients were carefully vetted by her then agent.

Tyler Westbrook had not hired her, but one of his friends did. She was the headliner for Tyler Westbrook’s bachelor farewell party. She took an Amtrak train to Philadelphia where she was stashed away at a decent hotel. Come the evening, she climbed into a huge, fake cream cake and upon a prearranged signal burst out of it in all her naked, nineteen-year-old glory. Then she had to sit on the bridegroom’s lap and sing I wanna be loved by you. She had practiced the song for two days, and the rowdy crowd of middle-aged rich guys was suitably impressed with her throaty rendition.

As was the bridegroom. Admittedly, Tyler Westbrook had imbibed heavily, but he knew what he did when he kept her on his lap and took her to her hotel after the shindig broke up. It was actually a very nice experience for her because Westbrook took his time to enjoy his bachelor’s gift. He let her wrap his dick in a condom without protest, something she insisted on because she’d had her IUD taken out in the week before, and her patch would not be effective yet. She fell asleep in his arms and woke up with a $1,000 tip on the nightstand and a friendly, handwritten note thanking her for the company. She returned to New York with a smile.

The good feeling about that evening went out of the window eight weeks later when Iris could no longer deny that her period was way overdue. A quick test from a drug store confirmed the catastrophe, and for a few days she did not know what to do. Her career had just taken off, and she was acutely aware of the numerous Russian and Ukrainian girls who were just as hungry for success as she. Strangely, she never contemplated an abortion, although her agent offered to front the money for one.

What she did was that she located Tyler Westbrook. He had returned from his honeymoon, as the Philadelphia papers dutifully recorded, with his beautiful new wife, a former runway model. Iris took the train to Philadelphia again and tried to contact him at his headquarters. Innocently, she told the receptionist her name and her wish to speak to the big boss of Westbrook Retail Inc. about a private matter.

They let her wait at the reception for almost thirty minutes before somebody showed. It was a man in a charcoal suit who identified himself as a member of the legal staff. She did not even get an opportunity to explain her reasons. She got a dressing down instead, threatening her with the police and the INS if she ever tried to shake down Mr. Westbrook again. A beefy security goon then escorted her out to the street, leaving her upper arm bruised and hurting.

She was scared to death. Her worst fear was to be sent back to St. Petersburg before her child was born as an American. She did not dare to make another attempt.

For the next months she took all the work she could get, even shooting pregnancy fetish clips. She was surprised at how good the pay was for those, and her spirits lifted for a while. All in all, she had put away almost thirty-thousand bucks. She moved out of her pricey Manhattan studio and took a larger and cheaper apartment in Queens. She found a Catholic Church-run hospital nearby with an emergency room. She planned everything, and everything went according to plan. On July 15, 1991, Daniel was born at the St. Peter and Paul Hospital. Iris had opted for the economy package and she settled for a payment plan that would leave her with some room to breathe.