Chapter 2

She stared at the TV, transfixed by the images, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a real stereotypical expression of shock.

She looked at me, then back at the screen, then at me again, and said quietly, “Where...? How...? Where did you get this?”

“I ... er ... From a guy at work.” Then I added, almost conversationally, “He said it was really hot. That the star was the best he’d seen in ages.”

“What?”

“He didn’t say it was you though. Mind you, he’s never met you, so I guess he wouldn’t know it was you.”

“What?” Her expression now one of utter confusion.

“What I mean is ... Well ... I didn’t know it was you when I started watching it.”

“What? But ... You know it’s me now!”

“Can’t have not noticed to be fair.”

“But you’re still watching it!”

“Well ... I didn’t know there was anyone in the house.” I winced almost as soon as I said it, realising just how bad that sounded.

“And you’re wanking over it!”

I looked down at my stiffy, which I was gently stroking. To be honest, I hadn’t even realised that at some point I’d unzipped my trousers, taken out my cock and started wanking. But I mean, seriously, isn’t that just what you do when watching porn? Does anyone sit and watch porn with their dick neatly tucked away? Do they watch it for the artistic value?

And this was seriously hot porn regardless of any artistic value.

“You’re nothing but a filthy pervert! I hate you!” She turned and stormed out of the room.

“What? Wait! Hang on a sec, I’m not the one getting royally fuck—” I stood up to go after her and my trousers fell to my ankles. I quickly stuffed my cock away, pulled them up and hurried after my stepdaughter.

She was halfway up the stairs as I got to the foot.

“What the hell are you doing making porn films anyway?”

“None of your damn business,” she said without looking back.

“Does your mother know about this?” Really? Of all the stupid questions to ask.

Dom stopped and turned back to face me. “Of course not! Does she know you watch porn when she’s not around?”

“Well ... yes. I check the films out to make sure she’ll like them before we watch them together.” Why was I telling Dom this? “Good job too, don’t you think?”

“What? You mean the two of you...? That’s disgusting!” She stomped up the stairs again.

“Says the woman who I’ve just watched getting fucked by three blokes!”

“Fuck you!”

“Nope, it was definitely you that they were fucking!”

She grunted in frustration, charged across the landing, into her room and slammed the door shut behind her.

“Shit,” I said under my breath.

This was a fucked up situation. Seriously fucked up. How the hell had this happened? How long ago had she made that video? My pal at work had said it was a new release, but how far in advance did they shoot these things? And where had she shot it? I guess I’d always assumed this sort of thing was made in London, but I didn’t remember Dom visiting London recently. Or, at least, I didn’t remember her telling us she’d been to London. But then, why would she? She never told us anything any more.

I climbed the rest of the staircase, walked across the landing to Dom’s room and knocked quietly on the door. “Dom?”

“Fuck off! Leave me alone!”

“Look, Pumpkin—” It’d been a couple of years since I’d called her that. I used to call it her all the time when I first started seeing Emma. “—I think we need to both take a breath and talk about this.”

The door swung open violently and she spat, “Talk about how you watch porn when Mom’s not around? Or about how you watch it together? Or about how you found a video of me and couldn’t help wanking to it?”

She slammed the door in my face and I heard her stomping footsteps retreat to the bed on the other side of the room. Tentatively I pushed the door open and said, “Dom?”

She was lying on her bed, facing away from me. But she didn’t tell me to get lost, so I guess that was progress.

“Look, Pumpkin, I’m going to have to tell your mum, you do know that, right?”

She rolled over to look at me and said, “Why?” There were tears in her eyes but they hadn’t yet started running down her cheeks. That was inevitable though.

I shrugged. “Because. That’s the right thing to do. She deserves to know.”

“You going to tell her how you found out too?”

I nodded. “Like I said, we watch this sort of stuff together and she knows I ... er... filter it... beforehand.”

She huffed and turned away from me again. “Fine. Tell her. See if I care.”

“Dom, don’t be like—”

She rolled back to face me again and said, “She’ll throw me out. You know that, don’t you? She’ll throw me out and I’ll have to live on the streets and it’ll be your fault!”

“Honey, I’m not the one in the video.”

“So? You don’t have to tell her!”

“Yes. I do.”

She rolled away again but didn’t say anything.

“Don’t you think it will be better coming from me rather than someone else? Someone she works with, perhaps? Shit, one of the kids even? I mean, teenage boys watch porn all the time, don’t they? What if one of them recognised you and said something ... Shit, Dom, you were at that school not long ago.”

She shrugged but didn’t turn to face me.

“Why did you do it anyway? Is this just another rebellious thing or something?”

“No!” she spat, spinning around. “What? Do you think I planned this? Do you think this is what I wanted to do growing up? That I asked the careers advisor how to get into porn? I wanted to be a lawyer for God’s sake! But I blew that when I failed my exams, didn’t I?”

“So, why then?”

“Because it was the only choice I had left!” She sighed. “You really want to know what happened? How I got started?”

I nodded. “It’d help explain things to your mum.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.” She sat up, leaning back against the headboard, pulled her legs up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. She put her chin in her knees and took a deep breath, held it in for a second then pushed it out slowly and said, “Okay. Well, it’s partly your fault.”

“My fault? How is it my fault?”

“Only partly. It was mostly Dad.”

Why was I not surprised that good-for-nothing son-of-a-bitch had something to do with it. The bastard fucked up everything he touched. I swear if I ever got my hands on him...

“I think you’d better explain,” I said through gritted teeth. Dom knew how I felt about her father. Or should that be her sperm-donor? That man was no father.

She took another deep breath. I think she was still trying to get control of herself. Her emotions must have been all over the place. I know mine were.

“The last time he came back, when I was getting ready for my exams, he was in a lot of trouble.”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“Maybe. But I don’t think you know how much trouble. He owed a lot of money to some very bad people. Very bad. And he came back to ask Mom to help him out. She always has in the past, so I guess he thought this time would be just the same.

“Only you wouldn’t let her give him the money. I suppose, really, that all you did was make her see sense, but that’s not how it seemed at the time.

“He asked me if I could help. He knew I had savings but I couldn’t withdraw them without Mom’s signature because I wasn’t eighteen. So he suggested another way I could help. He said that the people he owed money to knew someone who helped girls my age get into modelling. He said I could make a fortune modelling and that the guys he owed money to would make money off me modelling too, so I figured, why not? They would make money, I could make enough money to help Dad pay them back and maybe a bit extra on top.”

“I don’t like where this is going,” I said.

“Yeah, well ... It wasn’t too bad at first. It was all fashion stuff, you know? Cute little dresses, shorts and tops, that sort of thing. I didn’t even think it was odd they dressed me to look younger than I was. You know, pigtails and stuff. Sucking a lollipop. Whatever. I just never thought anything of it. I should have known better but...”

“But everyone was telling you how great you looked and how you were going to be famous and all that kind of thing.”

“Well ... Yeah. And it sounded really good. Then they asked me to do stuff in a bikini, or in this cutesy underwear. But I still didn’t twig. I should have, but I didn’t. Even when the poses they asked me to do were more ... You know. Even then I didn’t get it. I had no idea where they were selling all the photos and videos to. Yeah, videos. They would video every session I did. I just didn’t think it was weird at all.”

“Dom ... Were you still in contact with your father while all this was going on? After he stopped coming around here, I mean?”

She shook her head. “He abandoned me as soon as I’d earned enough money to pay his gambling debts. But I kept going back because they were still paying me. I had my own money and whenever I went to the warehouse I was the centre of attention. They treated me like a princess or something. I loved it, so why wouldn’t I keep doing it?”

She shifted her position, turning to face me properly and dangling her legs off the edge of the bed. “Really, it didn’t feel as if I was doing anything wrong. I know I made things difficult for you and Mom here. I know that I should have tried harder in my exams. I know that I should have stayed in college and retaken them when I failed, but at the time I was all like, why? You know? At least once a week, sometimes twice, I’d go to this warehouse in Brackfields and people would fuss over me, do my hair, my make-up, tell me how beautiful I was, take pictures and then hand me a wad of cash. It was brilliant! Even when—”