American Blue (19 page)

I didn’t doubt her for an instant and shut up, waiting in silence as she negotiated another junction, heading west on a major road. Her driving was a lot better than I’d expected; I had no idea where she’d learnt to handle such a big vehicle. I was still terrified, and desperate to get loose, but there was nothing to be done and after a while she began to talk again.

‘You have to understand, Penny, people just don’t think like you and Mum any more. It’s no big deal getting paid for sex.’

‘That’s not true, Jemima. No respectable profession will take you if you’ve been a sex worker. You can’t
get
into mainstream entertainment either, or anything else worthwhile. I wish it wasn’t true, but it is. Why do you think I’m so careful about my sex life?’

‘Because you’re old-fashioned. Anyway, even if all that stuff is true, it shouldn’t be, and somebody has to stand up and fight. Look at gay men. Gay sex used to be illegal, and now it’s illegal to discriminate against gay people. I want it to be the same for everybody, no matter what they’re into, as long as it’s consensual.’

‘I … I suppose you’re right, but why does it have to be you?’

‘I want to stand up and be counted.’

I could almost hear Hudson’s voice speaking through her, and I knew that nothing I said would sway her while she was obsessed with him. She was right, too, but that didn’t stop me wanting to protect her.

‘What are you doing in Austin then?’ I asked after a long silence.

‘Like I said, nothing much,’ she answered. ‘It’s for a website called Virgin Whores, run by some guy called Dan Fishbaugh.’

‘What? That sounds horrible! And anyway, how can you have a whore who’s still a virgin?’

‘It means you get paid for losing your virginity, silly.’

‘But you’re not even a virgin.’

‘So? He doesn’t know that, does he, and his customers don’t either. I just need to look sweet and innocent, do a little striptease, pretending to be shy, and then he gets to fuck me.’

‘And that doesn’t bother you?’

‘Why should it?’

I didn’t answer. For all my promiscuity, I’d never been able to simply accept the idea of sex with a stranger, let alone for money, and when it did happen it was the shame of the situation I found arousing.
Jemima
seemed to accept the idea as casually as if we’d been discussing her going to see the man for music lessons. He was going to fuck her, on camera, and post the film on the internet, a thought that set my stomach fluttering even when it wasn’t going to be me, but she continued quite casually.

‘He’s quite an old guy, apparently, but he’s got a thing about virgins. On his site he says he’ll only fuck a girl once, when it’s her first time, but I reckon that’s bollocks.’

‘I’ve met men like that,’ I told her. ‘He feels that once you’ve had sex you’re soiled. You realise that, don’t you?’

‘Sure. So he’s a prat, who cares? And like you say, he won’t be my first.’

‘Surely he knows about you and Hudson?’

‘He thinks Hudson’s my uncle.’

Again I didn’t answer, this time because I was speechless. At her age I’d been far more innocent, and far less cynical. I’d craved spanking, and attention to my bottom in general, sometimes with a pain that used to become physical, but I’d had difficulty even acknowledging that need, let alone acting on it. If it had been suggested to me that I should prostitute myself with some old goat who considered girls used up once they’d had sex a single time I’d have been utterly horrified.

Yet possibly she was right, not only about accepting the realities of life, but in that those of us whose sexualities are unacceptable should fight rather than hide. On an intellectual level I could only agree, but my instinct is to hide, while I also knew that if the shame of what I like were to be removed I would lose most of the pleasure.

Maybe I was being selfish, inflicting my own moral code and emotional needs on Jemima? Maybe I should
let
her do as she pleased and fight, for my rights and those of all the others who live at constant risk of being condemned for their sexualities? Maybe I should support her, as Hudson and others were doing, and let her know that she would always have my support if things went wrong?

I lay on the bed, mulling over the questions, but for all their apparent logic there was a doubt deep inside me, telling me that I was right, that Jemima needed protecting, and that Hudson would say whatever it took to keep her sexually compliant. There were no easy answers, nor could I decide what to do about my immediate predicament, but as we drove west a new and very basic requirement began to push all such questions out of my mind. I needed to pee.

‘Could we stop soon?’ I asked, once I’d decided I wasn’t going to be able to wait. ‘I need to use the loo.’

‘Yeah, right!’ she laughed. ‘You must think I’m stupid, Penny.’

‘I do,’ I assured her.

She just laughed.

‘It’s not a trick,’ I insisted. ‘I haven’t been since last night, have I?’

She didn’t even bother to respond and I was left to try and push my thoughts away from the growing pressure in my bladder. That proved impossible, and before long the pressure had turned to pain. I began to squeeze my thighs together and wiggle my toes, but the feeling wouldn’t go down.

‘Please, Jemima, I’m serious,’ I said. ‘Look, there’s a service station coming up. Surely you need to go too, or have a coffee or something? Have you eaten?’

‘I’m fine, thanks.’

‘Please, Jemima?’

We were approaching the slip road to the service station, but she drove on, provoking a new surge of
pressure
in my tummy. I bit my lip against the pain, now with a sense of panic welling up, and anger too.

‘What am I supposed to do, Jemima?’ I demanded. ‘I need to go.’

She gave a single, supple shrug.

‘You don’t even need to unfasten me,’ I urged. ‘I … I can go in a bucket or something, but I do need to go.’

‘Go in a bucket then.’

‘I can’t get a bloody bucket, can I! I can barely get off the bed.’

This time she giggled, and I realised she was thoroughly enjoying my predicament. Again I bit my lip as a fresh wave of pain began to grow, so strong that it left me a little dizzy, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold on much longer.

‘Please, Jemima?’ I repeated, now in desperation.

‘Go in your knickers,’ she advised, and there was laughter in her voice.

‘I’ll wet the bed!’

‘So? Stick your bum over the edge.’

‘You little …’

I bit the words back, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of my anger.

‘Anyway, I can’t stop now,’ she said casually, ‘so you’re going to have to go in your knickers, aren’t you?’

There was an evil relish in her voice as she spoke, and I knew I was helpless in the power of a true sadist. She was going to make me do it, and the more I tortured myself the more she’d enjoy it. Still I clung on, gritting my teeth and clutching my tummy as I struggled to overcome yet another wave of pain, which left me trembling and prickly with sweat. The next time it would happen, and there was nothing I could do about it. I was close to tears as I swung my legs off the bed, boiling with anger and frustration and shame,
an
irrepressible sense of shame that was having its inevitable effect on me.

Hauling my lower body off the bed, I managed to get into a kneeling position, with my handcuffed wrist stretched out in front of me. I pulled my nightie up, provoking a ripple of laughter from Jemima as she saw that I was getting in position to wet myself. It would have been easy to push my knickers down at the back with my free hand, but I knew she’d laugh all the harder for the sight of my bare bum, while I’d probably go in them anyway unless I could get them right off. I’d go all over the floor too, so it was better to keep them on and hope they’d contain at least some of my pee.

‘You do look silly!’ she chuckled. ‘Go on then, do it, Auntie Penny, do it in your knickers.’

I buried my face in the bedclothes, too ashamed of myself to respond and not wanting to give her the satisfaction of hearing me beg, but as the next wave of pain hit me the words came tumbling from my mouth despite myself.

‘Please, Jemima. I’m going to do it if you don’t stop, I really am. Please!’

I was gasping, the strain in my bladder so bad I felt I would burst, but her only response was a giggle and a little, excited purr.

‘Please!’ I begged, and I began to sob, clutching at the bedclothes and drumming my feet on the floor in my desperation.

Again the pain rose up, and this time there was no stopping it, but still I fought, babbling stupidly at her as I clenched my muscles in one last, frantic effort.

‘Jemima, please. It’s not funny! I’m going to wet myself, I really am … I’m going to wet myself! Oh, God, please, Jemima, please …’

I finished with a cry of despair as it started to come out, a trickle at first, soaking into my panties as I tried
desperately
to hold on, then a great heavy gush, erupting into the cotton stretched tight over my pussy and through it, all over the floor and all down my legs, soaking in over my cunt mound and up into my crease and across my panty seat. Jemima gave a peal of laughter as she heard the hiss and splash and saw that I’d done it.

‘Yes!’ she crowed. ‘In your knickers, Auntie, go on, piss yourself, let it all out! That’ll teach you, won’t it?’

I was sobbing brokenly as the pee continued to come, spraying from the gusset of my panties and trickling down my thighs to form a soggy puddle on the carpet around my knees. It was no good trying to hold it in any more. I’d wet myself and that was that, so I let it all out, and for all the agony of having to go in my panties there was no denying the relief it brought, nor my helpless arousal at what I’d done, and at Jemima’s cruelty.

Eventually Jemima stopped, but she wasn’t about to take any risks and made me clean up, holding her nose in mock disgust and giggling as she watched. We were in a rest area somewhere on the interstate between Atlanta and Birmingham, Alabama, but that was all I knew.

She had parked well away from other vehicles, but I was still terrified that somebody would peer into the Winnebago and find me mopping up my own pee puddle in nothing but an abbreviated nightie while handcuffed to a rail. Fortunately nobody took any notice of us, but I knew it could only be a matter of time.

‘At least let me get dressed?’ I pleaded once I’d finished.

‘I’d have to undo the handcuffs,’ she pointed out, ‘and I don’t trust you.’

‘Well, you can’t keep me like this all the way to Texas!’

‘Why not? I don’t have much choice, really, do I?’

‘Jemima, look—’

‘If you don’t like it, you shouldn’t have kidnapped me, should you?’ she said.

‘I didn’t kidnap you, I just—’

‘Yes, you did, but now I’m in charge. You don’t like that, do you?’

‘I didn’t handcuff you to the rail!’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she said, and turned away.

I crawled back on to the bed, wondering what I ought to do as she started the Winnebago up once more. She’d bought some food while I was mopping up, just snacks, but better than nothing. After a while I ate a cereal bar and washed it down with Coca-Cola, a revolting combination but one she seemed perfectly happy with.

Once again I began to contemplate the situation, and once again I couldn’t decide who was right or wrong. Jemima’s arguments seemed ever more persuasive, so much so that after a while I began to wonder if I was beginning to suffer from Stockholm Syndrome at the hands of my own niece. It was a humiliating thought, and all the more so because I knew that nobody would take me seriously. Pippa, AJ, Morris and Melody, just about everybody I knew would find the whole thing hilarious.

‘I give in,’ I told her. ‘Let me go, and I’ll tell you where the keys to the locker with our passports in it are. You can keep it, and I promise I’ll take you to Austin, but in return you’re to use a fake name and wear a wig during the filming. That way you can deny it’s you if it’s ever necessary, OK?’

‘I’ll think about it,’ she answered, but she pulled off at the next rest area.

I was having trouble biting down my anger as she released me from the handcuffs, and she was wary too, and made sure she had our passports secure first. She was obviously expecting me to try something, but very gradually relaxed as I washed and dressed. I also managed to persuade her to let me drive, although she threatened to throw our passports and my cards out of the window if I tried to get her to an airport, and to judge from the way she’d behaved so far I knew she would do it.

We spent the night at a campsite near Vicksburg in Mississippi, and crossed the great river itself the following morning. It’s simply not in my nature to stay angry for long, while underneath all her bravado, and in spite of her capacity for wanton cruelty, I could tell that Jemima wanted my approval. I wasn’t surprised, because for all her self-confidence I was sure her wild sexual needs made her feel lonely and in need of support from others with the same tastes, just as mine had done all my life.

She was map reading for me, which forced us to talk anyway, and by the time we’d crossed into Texas and struck south towards Austin she was telling me how difficult she’d found it growing up in Pippa’s shadow, which I could well understand. Like Pippa herself, I had always assumed that a lot of Jemima’s desire for kinky sex came from a need to imitate her older sister, but, to hear her talk, that was plainly only a small part of the story.

For one thing Pippa was firmly into other women, while for Jemima that was simply a playful thing and her desire was focused on men – older, powerful men in particular, hence her choice of Hudson Staebler. Nor was she as concerned about her body as Pippa, let alone myself. Whereas I have always regarded the act of taking a man inside me as inherently submissive, she
had
no such feeling. Despite that, she understood the erotic power of embarrassment well enough, particularly when it was somebody else’s.

As I had suspected, the idea had been to leave me kicking my heels in New York while they went first to North Carolina, then to Texas before coming back. I’d have been unable to do anything about it, and they had assumed, correctly, that I wouldn’t dare tell her parents. She even apologised, while making it absolutely clear that she still felt she was in the right.