Porno (33 page)

— It’s a good spot he’s got down there, I contend.

— Aye, but he’s just the frontman for it. The Business Bar is owned by the money men behind Billy Birrell, he rasps sourly. — He’s just a glorified barman. Ask Terry if you don’t believe me.

Simon may not be jealous of Billy but he’s certainly jealous of his bar. It has to be said that it is a bit more upmarket than the Port Sunshine.

— Listen, Nikki . . . Simon begins, — about the other night . . . I’d like to take you out properly sometime. I’m away to see my old pal Renton over in Amsterdam on Friday, to do with this fund-raising shit. We’re filming Thursday so that’ll be a piss-up afterwards. What are you doing tomorrow?

— Nothing, I say a bit too quickly, wanting to add ‘fucking you’ but refraining. I must stay cool. — Well . . . I was planning to go to the Commonwealth Pool? After I finish my shift at the sauna?

— Brilliant! I love it there, I use the fitness centre as well. We can meet there and I’ll take you for a meal after. Is that okay?

It’s more than okay. My heart’s racing because I’ve got him now. He’s mine, and that means, well, what does it mean? It means it’s my film, my gang, my money: it means everything.

He doesn’t stay long after that, and Lauren comes back in, heartily relieved at his departure. — What did he want? she asks.

— Oh, he was just giving me some details about the movie? I say, watching her face screw up.

— He really loves himself, that guy, doesn’t he?

— Oh for sure. When he wants to have a wank he books into a hotel first, I tell her.

We laugh loudly together for the first time in a long time.

Well, I still don’t know him
that
well, but I strongly suspect that self-esteem has never really been too much of a problem for Simon. But it’s him and me now; unavoidably, inexorably.

40

Scam # 18,745

I
t was a cracking meal at Sweet Melindas in Marchmont. We’d met up at the Commie Pool, Nikki so devastating in a red two-piece swimsuit I thought I was going to have some kind of a seizure. Fearing loss of self-control, I threw myself into the swimming and she enthusiastically matched my sixteen lengths, which is about thirty in a normal pool. Then it was a cab round to the restaurant. She looked beyond beautiful, almost ethereal as she glowed from the exercise, it was all I could do to keep my eye on the meter. I think Nikki was a bit miffed at being taken to a neighbourhood rather than city-centre restaurant, but that soon changed when she saw the ambience, service and above all the seafood on offer. I enjoyed a fried squid with Pernod and chive mayonnaise while Nikki was wowed by the fried king scallops with sweet chilli sauce and crème fraiche. I picked a nice Chablis to wash it down, with mouthfuls of that gorgeous home-made bread.

All I can think about is getting her to my place, the image of that perfectly toned body in that red two-piece searing into my brain to the extent that it was difficult to talk, or even think of scamming. And she’s not shy at coming forward. In the back seat of the taxi she has my ballot open and her hand slips inside and she eats my face with unnerving ferocity. At one stage the pain of her teeth chewing on my bottom lip is so severe that I almost squeak and push her away.

We stop and pay the cabbie and my flies are still open and as we get in the stair she’s unbuckling my belt. I pull her cardigan over her head and lift up her top, whipping her bra off. We’re tearing each other apart in the stair and the door opposite mine opens and this paedophile sort of guy who lives with his mother looks out from behind the door and slams it shut. I fish out my keys and open the flat door as Nikki pulls down her black brushed-velvet jeans and my strides fall to the floor as we’re in the gaff, kicking the door behind us shut. I remove her jeans and pull down her lacy white pants and I’m slurping on her fanny, which tastes faintly of pool chlorine, enjoying my tongue’s exploration, then sucking hard on her clit. I feel her nails digging into my neck, then the side of my face, and it’s hard to breathe, but she’s forcing me back and she’s moving round, me not giving up on that sweet minge but her twisting round to get at my cock. Her tongue hits it with sharp, electric flicks, then she’s enclosing it with her mouth. This impasse goes on for a while until we instinctively break, our eyes meet and things turn woozy and slow like a road calamity. We’ve got our hands all over each other’s bodies, mirroring each other’s patient, almost forensic, caresses. I’m feeling every muscle, tendon and sinew below her feather-soft skin and I feel her probing me sharply, like my flesh is being slowly taken off the bone.

It hots up and she pins me down with the tremendous power she has in those thighs, which appear so deceptively slight. She’s got the end of my cock and she’s rubbing it against her bush, then inching it into her. We fuck slowly for a bit until we both get there. Then we stagger to bed and lie on top of my duvet. I reach for the drawer and pull out a wrap of coke. She’s reluctant at first but I chop two up and, rolling her over, I dry out the wet hollow of her back at the base of her vertebral column with the corner of the duvet. Almost choking at that beautiful arse in front of me, I put a line on that nook at the bottom of her spine and snort. My finger goes down between her buttocks, over her inverted pout of an arsehole making her tense a bit, then shoots into her soaked vagina. Then, as the coke rush tears into me like the Norwich train through Hackney Downs, I’m in her again and she’s back up on her knees, thrashing, pushing against me. — Snort it . . . I gasp, pointing to the line on the bedside table.

— I don’t . . . do . . . that . . . shit . . . she heaves, as she twists back like a snake, skewing onto my cock with ferocious power and magnificent control.

— Get it fuckin up ye, I shout, and she looks round at me with a wrenched leer on her face and says: — Oh, Simon . . . and she’s reaching for the note and snorting as I’m fucking her, slowing down to let her hoover up the line, then I’m going as hard at her as I can and my hands are round her thin waist; that arching snake has gone rigid and we’re like two parts of a piston and we scream together as we come.

We shagged another couple of times in the night. When the alarm rang, I got up and made a Spanish omelette and put on some Italian coffee. After we had breakfast we fucked again. Nikki headed up town to the uni and I snorted a line, had another double espresso, put some clothes and toiletries into my bag for the Dam, slung it over my shoulder and went to work in hazy exultation.

There’s nothing like going into that fucking place to bring you back down. I’m having problems, and I’m trying to work out whether they are of a staffing or plumbing nature. A bit of both, as it seems like there’s an old boiler on the verge of exploding. — Amsterdam again? Yuv jist been! It’s no oan, Simon, it’s just no oan, Mo says, head birling tersely, refusing to meet my eye, as she polishes the bar.

— Morag, I appreciate that I’ve been a bit demanding of late, but you’ve got Alison in as extra help for you. It is a
très
crucial business meeting, I tell her, leaving the old battleaxe grumbling away to herself.

It’s freezing as I get out to the airport. My flight is predictably delayed and it’s early evening by the time I meet Renton round at his pad. There’s a bit of an atmosphere at Chez Rents, it’s very edgy between him and this Katrin bird, which I (fortunately) don’t help by presenting her with some duty-free Calvin Klein perfume. It’s okay for third-division fanny. — For you, Katrin, I grin, holding the gaze but meeting only Teutonic steel in her eye. That wee Kraut yin might be some fuck right enough. After a couple of beats the stare softens and she even looks a bit coy. — Why thaaaank yooo . . . she drawls.

Of course, this is all done to wind Renton up, but if he’s upset, he’s not giving me the satisfaction of showing it. We head out to the Café Thysen, the onanastic ging-ger clicking on his mobby to bell some pal of his whom he wants me to meet. The guy apparently works as a porn distributor across here. Yes, the bastard does have his uses. The idea we’ve hatched is that we’ll set up two bank accounts in Zurich, different banks, one for a general film-account fund, one for production. The instruction to the first bank is that when the general account goes over £5,000, any surplus monies are transferred to the production account in bank numero duo. — The Swiss banks ask no questions, Renton explains, — and using two of them means that the money’s practically untraceable. The porn punters here all use them, and some of the big club people.

— Excellent, Rents. Let’s sort it out, I tell him. We crack on, but after a while he seems a bit distracted, and I know why. — The lovely Katrin not going to come over and join us for a drink, Mark? I smile as we cross a sloped canal bridge to the pub on the corner.

He mumbles something by way of a reply as we hit the bar.

It’s such a beautiful bar as well, an old Dutch brown bar, with wooden floorboards and panelling and huge windows letting in the fading light. I stop to admire the view so that Renton has to get them in. Old habits die hard. —
Mak ik twee beer
, he says to the smiling barmaid.

After a bit, this friend of his turns up, a Dutch guy called Peter Muhren whom he refers to as ‘Miz’. Miz is apparently a distributor of what he prefers to call ‘adult erotica’. This chappie looks like the term ‘sleaze’ was invented with him in mind. He’s thin, with short, black hair, a wizened face, keen rodent eyes and a dirty, sparse beard. I’ll keep my eye on that snidey fucker. As he takes us over to the red-light district, he’s blethering twenty to the dozen. — I have a small office in Neuizuids Voorburgwall. From there I distribute videos; from my own production company, friends’ stuff, European and American imports to gonzo and even stag stuff if it’s well made. If the pussy is hot, the image is sharp and the sex is inventive or enthusiastic enough, then I’ll handle it, he says, pulling on a tab. Fucking loathsome greabo.

We head over to the red-light district, and go up a narrow staircase to his office. There’s a glass-partitioned room at the back of it with a huge video-editing suite, a couple of monitors and a console desk. A lot of Miz’s work seems to go on here. He explains to me that he imports loads of American DVDs and pirate-edits them, cutting and pasting the scenes to make new films. — It’s all in the editing, he says nonchalantly, — that and the packaging. I use my friend’s desktop-publishing facility.

Miz’s trying to pass himself off as a big shot, but I’ve seen all this kind of shit before in London. It’s impressive enough in the dosh it brings in, but it’s hardly challenging. After a while it bores me and I suggest we adjourn for another beer.

We head out, passing the red neon-bordered, glass-fronted hoors’ shop windows. I’m starting to recollect things about this place now. — Mind when we first came here when we were sixteen, Rents? I turn to Miz. — We had a shot each at this dirty big hoor. We flipped a coin and Rents went in first; I waited ootside. When it was my turn she goes, ‘I hope you are for lasting longer than your friend. He finished so quickly but then he asked me if he could sit here for a while, so I made him a coffee.’ So when I gets out, a couple ay hours later, leaving the lassie shagged like she’d had a Japanese bullet train up her . . . I laugh as ol’ ginger pubes snorts something about it being as quick as a Japanese bullet train. But I press on, over his pathetic aside. — I sais tae this wanker, ‘Did you enjoy your coffee?’

We go on to a club. Rents breezes in, nodding away to everyone like his cock’s at least four inches bigger than that skinny white thing which hung out of those ridiculous ginger pubes in the pictures we used to put down the back of bus shelters. Being with him again seems strange. It feels horrifically good, there’s no sad-case nostalgia about it, and still not trusting each other gives the enterprise a hell of a buzz.

I have a few bops and a couple of beers, but I’m taking it easy. After a bit Rents pulls me aside, and just like in days gone by, his weakness is, for all his stoical observation of things, when he gets to a critical mass of alcohol, he just can’t stop talking. He seems worse than ever, as he tells me he hardly drinks now and seldom does class As. Fortunately for him, you’re usually too pished yourself to remember what he said. But not this time, Rent Boy. — It’s no workin oot wi Katrin, he tells me. — I’m definitely gaunnae come back over for a bit. I like this scam, it might even work . . . he hesitates for a second. — Begbie’s still inside, right?

— For a good few years yet, they tell me.

— On a manslaughter charge? Fuck off, Renton scoffs.

I shake my head slowly. — Franco was hardly a model prisoner. The cunt did a few people over inside. And a couple of screws. The key has been flung away, I sweep the back of my hand through the air.

— Good. I’ll gie it a go then.

Good news for Simone de Bourgeois, or Simon the soon to be bourgeois here. The night picks up after that as Miz provides some coke which he’s procured from these Moroccan fags, one of whom is simpering at me as if I’m interested in his slimy arse. I hit the toilet with the gear and take a line up each hooter.

After a discussion about race and drugs in which Renton accuses
me
of making a racist point, we head through and sit down beside Miz. — Don’t do the anti-racist thing with me, Renton, cause I wrote the script. I huvnae got a racist bone in my body, I tell him. I note that Miz is in conversation with a girl who has an outsize nose. It seems to start in the middle of her forehead and end just on top of her chin where a pretty little mouth sits. She seems so fucking . . . I want to make love to her so
crucially
, not talk with Renton who’s now gibbering something about cocaine in my ear.

And that lassie with the lovely big conk has vanished and I turn to Miz and ask her who she is, and he says just a friend and I say: — Does she have a boyfriend? Find her. Tell her I fancy her. Tell her I want to fuck her.