Porno (51 page)

And now it’s me, getting this same edited treatment. A close-up of my face, then a cut to Curtis’s cock which looks like it’s going in and out of my arsehole, but it’s another take of Mel’s arsehole. — Nobody fucked me up the arse! What the fuck is this, Simon!

— Aye, Curtis says supportively, — you didnae want tae dae that but, eh no.

— It’s just the way it’s edited, Sick Boy says. — Creativity. We used out-takes of Mel getting fucked up the arse and we were able in the editing suite to colour Mel’s buttock flesh to match yours.

I repeat myself, hearing my voice rising in a horrible panic. — I said nobody fucked me up the arse! Why did the scenes need to be put in that sequence? That’s not me! It’s Mel!

Sick Boy’s shaking his head. — Look, it was an editorial decision, a creative decision. You didn’t want to get fucked up the arse as an actor, and neither you did. Do you think that Ving Rhames actually got fucked up the arse by the guy that played Zed in
Pulp Fiction
?

— No, but this is a porn movie . . .

— It’s a movie, Simon says. — We faked it. We did what Tarantino did with Ving Rhames, cause Ving faked it too. Did he turn round to Tarantino and go, ‘Oooh, I don’t want to do that scene because people might think I’m a buftie-boy’? Did he fuck!

— No, I’m screaming, — because this is different! It’s a porn movie and in porn the expectation is that the performers don’t fake it, they
perform
the sex acts!

— Well, Nikki, we took advice from some experienced pornographers in Holland and down in the Smoke. Mark and myself thought . . . well, you know . . .

I turn to Mark who raises his palms. — Leave me oot ay this, he says at Simon, — you’re the big supremo. It says so on the cover, he picks up and brandishes a video box. Now Rab’s intervening angrily on our behalf, pointing at Simon and saying: — It’s no fair, Simon. We hud an agreement. You’ve stitched up the lassies thaire.

Mel’s ready to implode, sitting there, gripping the armrests on the chair. — It makes us look like fuckin slappers. Ah dinnae ken any lassie who’d suck a boy’s cock eftir jist huvin it up her erse!

Terry looks coolly at her. — There are birds that dae it, take ma word, he contends.

She seems unnerved by this. — Aye, but no oan video, Terry, no fir the world tae see!

Simon sinks his hands into the pockets of his black leather trousers, in order to stop them windmilling. — Look, people know that it doesnae work like that in the sequence ay the film. They ken that once you’ve fucked somebody up the arse you wash your knob before you put it in her mooth, or her fanny.

— But that wisnae they wey it wis written in the fuckin script, Mel says, standing up and shouting. — You fuckin tricked us!

Sick Boy withdraws his hands from his pockets. — Naebody tricked anybody! he shouts, slapping his forehead with the palm of his hand. — Editing’s a creative process, it’s a craft, an art, designed to maximise the erotic experience. I was at that editing suite for four days and nights, my eyes fucking stinging, and this is the shite I get! I need creative freedom to edit the material! Youse are fascists!

Now the pair of them are screaming at each other. — Ya fuckin slimy cunt! Mel roars. Gina says: — Calm doon, but she’s dripping
schadenfreude
.

— Shut it, ya fuckin prima donna, Simon’s saying back at Mel and now he’s looking ugly, in a way I never thought he would. Not the cool, entrepreneurial type I see him as, but a nasty, boorish ten-a-penny thug.

But Mel’s not intimidated because she’s become somebody else as well as she takes a step forward and screams at him: — YA SNIDEY CUNT!

They stand a few feet away from each other bawling and I can’t take this, the sheer screeching volume of them both and how they are so comfortable operating at this level. It’s like childhood nightmares where your parents would turn into demonic caricatures of themselves.

Gina’s got a hold of Mel and Rab’s placating Sick Boy, who’s slapping his own head or rather headbutting the palm of his hand. Terry looks wearily at Mark. Mikey Forrester says some dumb things in support of Simon, then something to Mark about him being a beggar or going to see beggars. Mark snaps back in anger: — That’s eywis been your style, ya sneaky fuckin grassin cunt . . . Mikey shouts out something to Mark about stealing from his own, and I shudder in case he means something about our 1690 fiddle. Now they’re all shouting and pointing and jostling at each other. I can’t handle this. I head out, and go downstairs to the bar and out into the street. I’m taking gulps of the fetid, exhaust-fume-filled spring air as I storm up Leith Walk, wanting to put as much distance between myself and them as I can. I don’t even think anybody saw me leave.

I’m heading up into town, trudging through a strong, bitingly cold wind, thinking that we live in such boring times. That’s our tragedy: nobody, except destructive exploiters like Sick Boy, or bland opportunists like Carolyn, has any real passion. Everybody else is just so beaten down by the crap and mediocrity around them. If the word in the eighties was ‘me’, and in the nineties ‘it’, in the millennium it’s ‘ish’. Everything has to be vague and qualified. Substance used to be important, then style was everything. Now it’s all just faking it. I thought they were real, Simon and the rest of them.

It hits me like an iron fist in the chest that in this global communications village somehow, in some way, my father’s going to see me getting a butt-fuck I didn’t actually get. I hate the idea of having anal sex; as a woman it’s a negation of your femininity. Most of all, I loathe being a fake. My family. The boys at the uni, some of the bitter, immature little nothings I’ve knocked back, all wanking off at the image in their bedsits. Others, thinking they know all about me, all about my sexuality from that image. McClymont, once his wife goes up to bed, will sit with the handset and a Scotch pulling his wire at the image of me getting it up the arse. ‘Take a seat, Miss Fuller-Smith. Or perhaps you may prefer to remain standing . . . ha ha ha.’ Colin will see it, maybe even come up to the flat. ‘Nikki, I saw the video. I understand everything now, about you finishing with me. It was a cry for attention, which I didn’t see . . . you’re obviously hurt and confused . . .’

A car races past and a volley of slush batters my side; trickling, ice-cold, down my boots. When I get home I’m miserable and Lauren’s in, in fact she’s just getting up, still in her dressing gown. I’m carrying a copy of the video and I sit down on the couch next to her. — Give us a fag, I almost plead.

She turns, sees the tears in my eyes. — What’s wrong, sweetheart?

I throw the video into her lap. The racking sobs start and I fall into her and she’s hugging me. I’m crying heavily now, but it’s like somebody else’s doing it, all I’m doing is feeling her warmth and her fresh smells through my bubbling, snot-filled nasal cavities. — Don’t, worry, Nikki, it’ll be alright, she coos.

I want to be closer to the heat of her, I want to be in that heat, in the centre of that flame, protected by it, away from everything that might hurt me. I grip tighter on her, so strongly I hear a slight squawking noise involuntarily come from her. I want her to be . . . I raise my head to kiss her. She returns my kiss, a tentative fear in her eyes. I want her to be free, not the stiff way she always is, I want her to stretch and bend . . . but when my hand goes down to her flat belly and starts caressing it she stiffens and pushes me away. — Don’t, Nikki, please, don’t do that.

My body stiffens as much as hers. It’s like we’ve both just done a line of strong coke. — I’m sorry, I thought it was what you wanted, I thought it was what you always wanted.

Lauren shakes her head in a look of uncomprehending shock. — You really thought that I was a dyke? That I fancied you? Why? Why can’t you accept that people can really like you, even love you, without wanting to fuck you? Is your self-esteem that low?

Is it? I don’t know, but I do know that I’m not taking this from her. Who does she think she is? Who the fuck do they think they are: Carolyn Pavitt on
A Question of Sport
, Sick Boy Simon, poncing around like he’s a movie mogul. Now it’s Lauren, moralising little Lauren, all tease until she gets what she thinks she wants then runs a fucking mile. — Lauren, you’re nineteen. You’ve just read the wrong books and talked to the wrong people. Be nineteen. Don’t be your mum. It’s not appropriate.

— Don’t talk to me about appropriate, not when you try to do that to me, she bats back an unbowed retort, all arrogant in her chastity.

In weak response, I can only think of a dippy thing to say. — So sex between women isn’t appropriate, is that what you’re saying?

— Don’t be fuckin stupid. You’re not a lesbian, and neither am I. Don’t play stupid games, she says.

— I fancy you a bit though, I say meekly, now feeling like it’s Lauren who’s the big sister and me who’s the silly little virgin.

— Well, I don’t fancy you. Behave yourself and fuck somebody who wants to fuck you, and preferably not because there’s money changing hands on either side, she scoffs, standing up and heading to the window.

Now I feel a deadening thud in my chest. — You need shagged! I tell her, getting up and charging through towards the bedroom just as Dianne comes in the front door. She’s had her hair cut: page-boy style. It suits her.

— Hello, Nikki, she smiles, struggling with the keys, her purse and some folders, her lips puckering in impish delight at what she’s just obviously heard.

At that point Lauren’s voice screams out after me: — Yeah, it’s really done you a power of good, all those cocks!

Dianne raises her eyebrows. — Oh! Did I just miss something interesting?

I manage a weak smile in her direction as I head for my room where I collapse onto my bed. I’m not doing porn again; I’m never going to that fucking sauna again either.

61

Rejection

A
h’m beyond pain, ah’m like ma whole boady’s goat the toothache. Cause it was Chizzie, the boy that goat done. It said so in the paper. N ah ken whae done um n aw. N worse thin that, ah ken whae set the whole thing up: nae-mates, nae-burd, nae-nothing Murphy here. Cause ah cannae git away fae it. Mr Murphy, with Mrs Murphy and child Murphy, pure disnae exist any mair, man. It’s now back tae Spud, the solitary cat, the loser.

Ali disnae want tae talk tae ays now, man, willnae even lit me see Andy. Things have gone, man, fae bad tae sortay worse. Ah went doon tae the Port Sunshine the other night tae explain things again, this time dead straight. Ah thoat she’d be pleased tae hear aboot the cash n aw ma plans fir it but aw she said wis: — Ah don’t want tae go anywhaire wi you right now, Danny, n ah don’t want ma son taken anywhere oan drugs money.

— It isnae drugs money . . . it’s . . . n ah sees Sick Boy n Juice Terry come oot fae the back door wi a pile ay videos n head oot, — . . . it’s fae work.

— Aw aye? What sort ay work?
This
is work, Danny, she sais, lookin aroond as a guy comes in at openin time n she serves him. — N ah’d appreciate it if ye didnae come in here when ah wis tryin tae git oan wi it.

So that wis me, back hame tae this lonely auld gaff again. Ah’m thinkin aboot this cat in a suit ah overheard in Bernard Street the day: ‘My computer’s crashed. I’ve lost everything.’

Ah feel like the gadge and like ehs computer, man. N the hoose is a bit ay a tip likesay, it must be said. Ye git pure depressed oan yir ain. Ah need tae git Zappa back, man, ah pure thoat ah’d jist neglect the boy, but now ah need company n ah phone Rents again but it’s like ehs mobile’s switched oaf.

The Port Sunshine’s aboot as far as uv been since ah heard the news aboot Chizzie. Ah mean, ah thoat thir might be bother, but ah nivir kent thit nowt like that wid happen. Ah want tae git the story, but no fae Begbie, ah pure dinnae want tae see that cat again, ah want tae try n find Second Prize. But naw, man, naw, ah’m no hingin aboot Leith wi Franco aroond. Chizzie . . . what huv ah done tae Chizzie?

Bleak man, bleak as.

Then suddenly thir’s a wee ray ay light n ah rush right intae it. The post comes n it’s a letter, no a bill, ye kin tell right away.

It wis fae the publisher cause it hud a wee stamp wi ‘Scotvar Publishing’ oan it. So ah’m thinkin thit this must mean thit thir gaun tae dae it, thir gaunnae publish the History ay Leith! Whae-hey-hey! Ah cannae wait tae show Ali! That’ll get her thinkin aboot Disneyland! Ah’ll jist walk intae the pub n flash that letter aroond, especially whin Sick Boy’s in. Oh yeah, man, oh yeah! Ah’ll soon be oan the telly, talkin aboot it, likes. Ah might even git a cash advance, whoa, man, ah’m thinkin thit ah’d better open this envelope dead carefully in case thir’s a cheque in thair. Ah hud it up tae the light, but it’s too thick tae see anything. So ah open it up. Thir’s nae cheque, but they widnae send thum thegither anywey. That fee stuff needs tae be negotiated later on but, ken?

Scotvar Publishing Ltd

13 Kailyard Grove, Edinburgh EH3 6NH

It’s a bad one, man. Ah sit thaire jist likes, stunned; feeling aw raw n hollowed oot fae the inside. It’s like whin you’ve been knocked back by a bird ye fancy, no thit that’s happened tae me for a long time bein wi Ali likes but, like ye’ve been intae a lassie for ages, n ye sort go, eh, awright, what aboot, likesay, you n me, likes, eh . . . n she goes: naw. No way. Fuck off.