Susie Learns the Hard Way (9 page)

Her stomach looped the loop again and tied itself into another, tighter knot. She desperately wanted to go to the loo, but didn't dare ask. She had to sit there and wait, racked with trepidation. She'd been at least half a dozen times on the train, and she'd even tried to relax herself with her fingers – a natural enough reaction for Susie in times of stress, when her body was already wet and ready as the fear wormed its way into her groin as a burning glow that trickled insistently into her knickers. But today that hadn't worked at all, and though she'd climaxed with a muffled squeal, there hadn't been the relaxing afterglow which normally brought relaxation to her limbs and then her brain, making her feel sleepy with contentment.

‘This way, miss,' a uniformed security man interrupted her thoughts and beckoned towards a door. This was it! No turning back. She composed herself, trying to look calm and suave, certain that she was wild-eyed with terror, that everyone could see she wanted the floor to open up and swallow her. Perhaps the lift would get stuck and she'd be trapped for hours, or it would crash and they'd give her a job out of sympathy. But it didn't, and somehow she kept walking steadily beside the security man, heels sinking into carpet that grew deeper and more expensive with every turn in the long corridor.

Each time they came to an office door her heart gave a leap and her tummy tied another knot, but each time the guard kept on going and Susie followed, the carpet so deep now that the loudest noise was her stocking-tops swishing together. When it came, there was no door; the corridor just opened into a spacious office, full of pot plants and light. A middle-aged woman who looked as if she should be shocked by the content of the newspaper she worked for rose from behind a desk.

‘Good morning, Miss Wills,' she began, and Susie managed a tight smile of acknowledgement. Miss something-or-other was the editor's secretary, but by now Susie was so frightened she could hardly speak, still less remember the woman's name.

But she was able to follow her through a door that was between desk and filing cabinet, masked by a huge green fern. Not hidden or concealed, it was simply unobtrusive. The office into which it opened was large, but not unreasonably so. Miss what's-her-name was saying something to the man behind the wide, leather-topped desk, but Susie couldn't distinguish words. Her breathing had stopped but her heart was hammering and blood was roaring though her ears. This was him! This man, this slight, silver-haired man with piercing blue eyes and a pleasant smile was
the
editor! This was Mr Skase. He could change her life on the spot. And yet he mixed with pop stars and politicians, rubbed shoulders with princes and prostitutes, commanded a media empire that could wreck lives and ruin careers, and she was just a student from a provincial town with a half-baked story about a small-time prostitute and her pimp. It seemed a pathetically small hook on which to hang her future – her career.

The door clicked solidly shut and she was alone with him. She imagined he would hear her heartbeat and her racing pulse.

‘Sit down, Miss Wills.' His voice was deep and melodic, and his manners impeccable. He guided her to a chair in front of his desk. ‘May I call you Susie? Thank you, thank you.' He didn't retreat behind the intimidating vastness of his desk, but pulled up a chair next to her, just a foot or two away, and regarded her with a pleasant but curious stare. He wasn't what she'd expected; not the loud roistering macho-man she thought you would have to be in his job.

‘So you want to be a journalist?' The question interrupted her train of thought and caught her off-guard.

‘No. I mean yes, but that is – I mean, well, I want... you see it's... oh.' She flustered to a halt, cursing herself.

‘There's no need to be frightened of me,' he soothed. ‘I promise I won't bite. You have to work for me before I can be angry with you.'

He smiled, but she was frightened, hands trembling, butterflies on high-speed fly-past, warm treacle dampening her panties. He was still watching her, silent, waiting. She swallowed, and tried again.

‘I want to work
here
. And I do want to be a journalist. But here, not just anywhere.'

‘That's good, that's very flattering.' He was still smiling encouragement. ‘You've obviously read the paper and know our subject matter?'

‘Oh yes, of course. Every week. I always get it. And the others, of course.'

‘Of course.' He acknowledged the point with a slight inclination of his head. ‘And the fact that we carry detailed stories of a sexual nature – that doesn't bother you at all?'

‘Oh, no. I like it – I mean I'm interested in it... the people, what makes them, oh, I'm not doing very well, am I?'

‘Don't worry about it. I expect you're nervous. It's only natural.' He patted her leg. ‘And anyway, in this office we care more about the way you write than the way you talk. I know you've brought some of your work with you. I was very interested in the letter you wrote. May I see?' He glanced at her leather briefcase.

Susie's heart lurched, her stomach knotted and her groin tightened. It was the worst possible scenario, even worse than she had imagined when she'd been conjuring up the possibilities for disaster in her mind. Everything now depended on the story – and the story was rubbish. Susie's rehearsed explanation, word-perfect and plausible on the train, fled from her memory. In silence she handed Mr Skase the slim sheaf of paper, her story, now just about middle-class prostitution. But she'd come prepared and it was hidden beneath another story, unannounced and unexpected by the editor, a perceptive feature about group sex at university parties which she'd penned in desperation the night before.

‘Thank you.' Instead of reading it at once, he prolonged her agony, pouring coffee, making all the pleasantries about milk and sugar, dragging out her ordeal so that all the while he smiled and chatted Susie writhed in hidden fear. When he finally settled down to read, it was worse, not better, and she sat in misery, coffee untouched, hands together in her lap, pressed against the heat rising from under her skirt.

 

‘Very nice, very good.' He let the papers rest on his knee and smiled benignly.

‘You like them?' She tried not to sound incredulous or too hopeful, but it wasn't easy to keep her voice calm when the rest of her was seething.

‘Yes, I do. Well written, well observed, and with just the right amount of sexual content. Very good.'

Susie breathed a deep sigh of relief and her pulse steadied for the first time in forty minutes. Then he said, ‘The one you mentioned in your letter – about white slaving – it didn't quite turn out the way you hoped?'

Her heart sank into her shoes faster than a stone dropping from the top of the Eiffel Tower.

‘No,' she said quietly. ‘Not quite.'

‘That happens. But you got a story from it anyway, and quite a nice one – well observed as I say. But not so well written as this one.' He divided the sheaf of papers in two and waved one of them slightly. ‘This is lovely writing – facts and fucking, that's what we like. Very realistic. Based on hearsay, was it? Or observation?'

Susie blushed.

‘It's an important point. We sometimes have to get close to the subject. Very close. In order to be certain we print the truth. We have to see things for ourselves, not trust the descriptions given to us by other people. Sometimes we have to do things we're not always very keen on. You're okay with that, are you?'

‘Oh yes, fine.' She thought she was a bit too hasty, and sounded a trifle too eager.

‘So this is first-hand reporting, factually accurate and correct?'

‘Oh yes, I wouldn't dream of writing about something I hadn't researched fully.'

‘Good girl,' he murmured, looking over the papers at her. ‘Good girl.'

He knew.

Watching his face he gave no sign, nor was there the slightest change in his tone of voice. But something – maybe in his eyes – something was different for a second, and Susie knew he understood, that the girl being – fucked, that was
his
word for it – the girl in the story in bed with four men was her. She'd taken a few liberties with the truth, overlooking the way she'd been fooled, and telescoped the timing a little so they were all there together, and naturally made up some bits. But they were accurate enough, she knew. They described what
would
have happened if all four of them had been there with her at the same time, and what she would have done with four stiff erections. The memory of what she'd written aroused and embarrassed her all at once. Especially since Mr Skase knew she'd been in the same bed with four men, even if he didn't quite know the exact details. Even if he understood that she'd enhanced parts of the story, he knew there was enough truth in it to make it real. Susie felt as if he'd peeked inside her mind, as if he'd been standing there in the same room, watching.

‘And the other one isn't a complete waste, you know.' He interrupted her train of thought again. ‘It's not really a strong enough story for publication as it is, but it's an excellent calling-card for your CV, a good indicator of your ability – especially because you did it all alone. Tell me how you went about it, how you got the confirmation.'

‘I broke into the flat where they lived,' she said simply.

The editor raised his eyebrows, but there was no doubt from his expression that he was pleased, not disapproving, and his words confirmed it. ‘Well done,' he murmured. ‘I imagine that took a great deal of courage? Were you frightened, at all?'

‘Terrified,' said Susie. ‘Absolutely terrified. I thought I was going to die of fright.'

‘But you went on with it, even though you were scared?'

She remembered how frightened she'd been... but not as scared as right now, she concluded. Breaking and entering wasn't as scary as this interview. But she didn't say so. ‘Oh yes. I wanted to know the truth, and I thought it was worth the risk.'

‘Well, I'm glad to hear it. Sometimes it is necessary, perhaps even essential in this line of work, to know how to do it and have the courage to go through with it. And have the moral courage to deal with the rights and wrongs of it, too.' He studied her for a moment or two. Then said, ‘No scruples about whether it was invasion of privacy, or whatever?'

‘No. None at all. I thought I was helping someone.'

‘But not now. You may have gone there with good intentions, but now you're quite happy to see these two suffer for what they're doing.'

‘Well, it is illegal.'

He nodded. ‘And when you got into their flat? What did you do?'

For the first time there was a brief hesitation before she replied. ‘Oh, I just looked around a bit. You know.'

‘But what did you see, what did you find? How did you know it was prostitution and not just entertainment?'

‘I think the conclusive bit was when a man offered me money for sex.'

‘You? A man offered you money? What man? How did he get in?'

Susie explained about the two men who caught her unawares.

‘I see. He mistook you for her then, and offered you money. Did you take it?'

‘Well, yes and no. He sort of left it behind when he went.'

‘Left it behind?' One silver eyebrow raised inquisitively.

‘On the bed.'

There was a long pause. A very long pause. Part of her wondered how he was able to keep one eyebrow up like that for so long. The rest of her knew she would have to tell him – and that he already knew. He just wanted to make her say it. She cleared her throat. ‘As a journalist, I couldn't write anything I didn't know for certain was true. Could I?'

‘Quite.' He dropped his eyebrow and his gaze, flicking through the sheets of paper in his hand. Susie looked at the floor while the editor read on, his face impassive. After a moment longer he asked, ‘How far do you think a journalist should be prepared to go in pursuit of a story?' And once again he levelled those ice-blue eyes in her direction, making her conscious of herself and her body, so she could feel the straps of her bra on her shoulders, the light rasp of her nipples, rock-hard inside the cups, the curve of one leg against the other and the silky caress of her black stockings, the pull of her suspenders and the damp clutch of her knickers.

‘As far as is necessary,' she replied, as firmly as she could. ‘The bigger the story and the stakes, the further you should go.'

He nodded, as if satisfied with the answer. ‘How far can you go? I mean, you personally. It's not easy to follow something through to its conclusion, as I'm sure you already know.' Was there a faint twitch around the mouth, or did she imagine it? ‘That kind of dedication, which we do expect from our journalistic staff, takes a good deal of personal strength and integrity. You need to be very sure of who you are, what you are, and where you're going.'

‘I understand that. And I still think it depends on how important something is.'

‘Well, let me see. How important is this job, for example?'