Lace

by Shirley Conran

  “Never meet a man in a bar, Lili, always the bar of a restaurant or in a café.” Obediently she sat for Serge with one leg up on a kitchen table and hitched her skirt up so that her bare ass could be seen. “Always take enough money to pay for yourself in case he doesn’t turn up, then you simply order another drink or have your meal; no restaurant charges much for an omelette.”

  At Serge’s instruction, Teresa lay back on the wooden table while Lili unbuttoned her blouse and leaned over. “This okay, Serge? If he doesn’t turn up, you don’t feel humiliated and if he’s late, well, you’re behaving as if you’re used to expensive places. Ouch, Lili, that fucking hurt, keep your teeth to yourself.”

  Serge moved them over to a wooden kitchen chair. Teresa stood behind and Lili knelt on it, clutching adoringly at Teresa’s open kimono. She continued her advice. “Always try to go to restaurants where you’ve been before, so they get to know you, and always tip well in the cloakroom.”

  Serge didn’t like the pose so they dropped it. Back to the kitchen table. One leg up again, but this time frontal. “. . . And never go out in the evening with more money than you need for one meal and your fare home, because then nobody can borrow from you.”

  Both girls were directed to stand facing each other. . . . Closer. . . . Closer. . . . Touching.

  Lili was told to drop her kimono. “When you’re in St. Tropez,” Teresa continued, “never pretend you’re staying at an expensive hotel, because they’ll quickly find out that you aren’t. Always arrange to meet at Senequier, and if anyone asks where you’re staying, say it’s a little hotel that’s peaceful and cheap. Rich men always respect that, and they’re not to know you’re sharing one room with four other girls.”

  “Stop talking and let’s get down to work seriously, you two. I want Lili to brush your hair from behind as you lean backward over this wicker chair, Teresa, that’ll lift those old tits of yours.”

  When he was confident that no official search was being made for Lili, Serge briskly pursued his next stop, which was to lure her into his bed.

  One evening, after working late with a series of nightgown shots on the studio bed, Serge leaned over to give Lili the light, fatherly kiss on her forehead that usually meant that work was finished for the day. But this time he snuggled up beside her and muttered, “Serge wants a cuddle.”

  Suddenly wary, Lili stiffened. But soon she heard his heavy breathing, and finally she also drifted to sleep. Then Serge raised his head, quickly stripped and got under the sheets. In the middle of the night Lili woke up, drowsy, to feel a moist stroking of her clitoris in a slow, steady rhythm. Half asleep, she stretched languorously until her body quivered. Her narrow pelvis arched away from the bed and she shuddered to her first climax.

  She lay panting, astonished, guilty, fearful, bewildered, as Serge heaved himself up, started to lick her eyelids, took her little hand in his and guided it firmly down his heavy hairy torso.

  Docile and inexperienced, Lili had no idea how shrewdly she was being exploited.

  Teresa and Serge seemed so sure of themselves, so sophisticated.

  Teresa found Lili curiously appealing, she couldn’t help being touched by the younger girl’s awed admiration and teased her about it. “But I’ve never had a proper girlfriend before,” said Lili seriously, “not someone who really likes me. When I was at school in Switzerland the other girls called me stuck-up because I had extra lessons and their mamas wouldn’t let them play with me because I had no papa. When I was at school in Neuilly, there wasn’t much time to get to know girls in school, and I wasn’t allowed to see anyone outside school because Madame Sardeau said it would interfere with my work. . . . No, she meant housework. . . . So you see, it’s wonderful to have a real, grownup girlfriend.”

  Teresa felt uneasy. “You’ll soon have plenty of men friends, judging by the looks you get on the street.”

  “I know what you mean, but I can’t understand why they look at me like that.”

  “It’s something in your eyes,” Teresa grudgingly said. That evening Lili spent two hours locked in the bathroom, earnestly looking at her eyes in the mirror and trying to see something in them. But she just saw eyes. She was lucky about the lashes, but plenty of people had big dark eyes and long glossy lashes without inciting the extraordinary reaction that Lili got from the average man in the street. No, she didn’t see how it could be the eyes. But she’d give it a try. So the next time she went for a walk, wearing a cherry-red velvet suit with a nipped-in waist, she looked straight at the first man she met, straight into his eyes, then blinked in a misty way and slowly gave a little smile. Immediately she saw his everyday lust turn into helpless fascination. It is the eyes, Lili thought exultantly. She didn’t know why, but they worked like magic.

  Serge spoiled and mesmerised Lili; he was expansive and charming when Lili was obedient, sharp and threatening if she didn’t do as he said. “Do you want the police to know where you are? Do you want them to know you had an illegal operation? Want to be in prison? Do you want to go back to the Sardeaus?” he growled one spring afternoon shortly after the calendar had been completed.

  “Oh no, Serge, please don’t. No more.”

  “Then get on that bed with Teresa, dear, and let’s have no more whining.”

  Lili no longer felt humiliated and shamed by posing naked. The other two were so matter-of-fact about it, as were the other girls who occasionally modelled for Serge. They thought no more of stripping off their clothes than they did of kicking off their shoes. And the girls all slept with men. Teresa said it showed you were no longer a schoolgirl.

  But this was different. This was a film. There was a movie camera and there were other men in the studio, men she didn’t know. Scowling, Lili shed her cherry-red cotton wrapper and jumped on the double bed that had been pulled to the centre of the studio and was now banked by lights. Serge switched on beguiling music, climbed up to the overhead camera platform and started directing Lili. She was stiff and awkward. Eventually, he said, “Okay, take a break,” and moved to the bed where Lili crouched, arms around her knees.

  “You’re too tense, flower. Tell you what, put your wrapper on again and I’ll get you some warm milk with a shot of rum in it. That’ll relax you, bud.”

  He slipped into the grubby kitchen, crushed three Mandrax sedative tablets, stirred them into hot milk and then poured rum and sugar in it. With an avuncular beam he carried it out and offered it to Lili. “And if you don’t feel better after that, flower, we’ll stop,” he said.

  After her drink, Lili felt drowsy and unresisting. “Pinch her, Teresa, don’t let her go to sleep. Now let’s have some action, you two. Okay, Teresa, start on her tits.” Lili now sprawled limp on the bed; Teresa gently tugged at the red sash of her wrap and eased it away from her body. Then she started to stroke Lili’s breasts. Dimly aware, Lili wriggled and tried to push her away, with arms that suddenly felt limp and boneless, but Teresa held Lili’s hands back against the bed and bent her mouth toward Lili’s left breast.

  “That’s great. Now you get in there, Carl.” A husky man who’d been leaning against the wall took off his leather belt, then stripped off denim battle jacket and jeans and walked toward the bed. “Easy, Carl, take it easy. I want it almost as if the film’s being slowed down. Just slither onto that bed behind Teresa, think dirty thoughts as fast as you can and let’s see that hard-on. Okay, now you can stroke her ass.”

  Serge was sweating, he’d never expected to find it so exciting. Shit, if it weren’t for the rest of the crew, which was costing Christ knows how much an hour, he’d be in there getting his share. “Let’s have a little more action, get your mouth off Lili’s bush, Teresa, and let’s see Carl go down on her. No, don’t stop, Teresa, your turn will come, we’ve got another twenty fucking minutes of film. Now you can slide around to Carl and give him head. Don’t you dare come, Carl, recite the alphabet backward or something. Now sit up slowly. Let’s have your hands on Teresa’s head. That’s nice, very ni
ce, stay with it. Now pull, Teresa, we want to see what he’s made of. Oh very nice, now Carl, I want you to slowly turn around, then lam it into Lili for all you’re worth.”

  Lili shrieked, her drugged face, panic-stricken, to camera. “Nice, very nice, that’ll have them creaming their jeans,” Serge purred.

  After that, a weary quality was noticeable in Lili’s pictures, an awareness of evil, a tired acceptance of it.

  After all, where else could she go? What else could she do? As Serge endlessly reminded her, she had no qualifications, she was only fit to be a hooker or a shop assistant, and she couldn’t get a job because she had no previous experience. She gnawed her little finger, knowing that what Serge said was true. But when Serge wasn’t making her do these humiliating things, he was kind, gave her anything she wanted—bonbons, film magazines, records, high-heeled shoes, new clothes. He took her to the cinema, to restaurants and to parties, although she didn’t much care for the parties. She didn’t like the interested, slightly contemptuous, sidelong looks that the men gave her; she was glad Serge never left her alone. He saw that she never left his side for a minute; he wasn’t bad to her and at least she didn’t have to get out of bed at five in the morning to sew someone else’s nightgowns.

  Lili never thought about the past, as she enjoyed the new comforts of the present—and she tried never to think about the future. Now she was glad that vraie maman could never find her; when she conjured up that particular daydream, or when she caught herself remembering Angelina or Felix, she had to face the fact that she was ashamed of her present life. But how else could she live?

  She started to develop a protective shell, to pretend she didn’t care, that she didn’t mind making these disgusting, shameful movies; only thus could she bear to lie naked on satin sheets with calculating strange men and hard-faced women of assorted age and colour, in front of other strangers on the periphery of the set. She seemed wearily prepared to accept any degradation, although she’d once—suddenly—become hysterical when Serge brought an Alsatian dog into the studio.

  Once again, Lili remembered that cold, dim journey through the snow and the slush, those dreadful growls and the one thin scream that turned into a gurgle. So Lili clung to Serge, shrieking, “No! No! Felix, Felix, help me!” Her body shook and her teeth chattered and she was no use for the rest of the day.

  Regretfully, Serge decided that he couldn’t introduce animals into the act after all. He had to content himself with films of Lili chained to obviously papier-mache dungeon walls, Lili being whipped by muscular bald boxers or manacled by monocled parodies of Englishmen, Lili kneeling to lick the cock of anyone Serge chose.

  He felt not one twinge of jealousy or pity for the girl. He looked upon her as he would a clever pet monkey—she did her tricks and he saw to it that she had a comfortable life. He’d got her to sign a five-year contract with Sergio Productions—not that it was legal, mind, because she was underage, but she’d never find that out. Sergio Productions charged a steep price for slick, professionally made porn films, but Lili saw none of the money. On paper she was paid 400,000 francs a year by Sergio Productions, which was about as much as a secretary earned, but Serge deducted fifteen percent as his agent’s fee, thirty percent for his fee as her manager, and thirty percent for providing food, clothes and accommodation, which didn’t leave much for Lili.

  In the deep, dark velvet depths of a club cinema off the Champs Elysées, one man whispered to another, “Who’s the dark girl? She’s new, isn’t she? Serge’s girl? She’s too good for this crap. She deserves better crap. I’ll phone him tomorrow.”

  The following week, Serge summoned Teresa to the big basement that he now used as a studio. More care than usual had gone into the arrangement of the simple set; the focal point was a deep, old-fashioned, white enamel bathtub that stood on claw feet in the middle of a group of indoor palm trees. A hose filled the tub with warm water, which was then heavily squirted with liquid detergent, until foam hung dripping over the side in frothy stalactites. Banks of lights were switched on. “Silence,” said Serge, then “Action.”

  Lili did what she usually did. She had developed the trick of disassociating herself from her body. She willed herself to feel that her skin was as irrelevant to her real self as old overalls, and therefore displaying it was no worse than displaying old overalls. The real Lili floated up and away from those grubby, alien hands that touched her flesh. She looked down on the scene from above, distant and uninvolved in the distasteful proceedings; or she dealt with the humiliation and protected her wispy sense of self-esteem by simply imagining herself elsewhere.

  After such sessions Lili would be remote and silent, she would hardly speak until she had returned to the apartment and had a long soak in a warm tub of water in a darkened bathroom where slowly her body and soul were reunited. Lili always believed firmly in her future, sure of an eventual happy ending, because she had read so many of the romantic trash magazines that Madame Sardeau read every week. She therefore knew the traditional ending to these tales. She was an orphan, wasn’t she? She was being exploited, wasn’t she? She was going through tough times, wasn’t she, like all those heroines? That meant she was currently at about the middle of chapter four of her life, and about six chapters away from the man of her dreams and eternal happiness. In the meantime, she had to put up with the standard soap opera plot.

  “Action!” said Serge again, impatiently.

  Slowly Lili slipped off her white rabbit fur coat, then stepped naked into the foam. Carefully she soaped her breasts, running her fingers slowly over her slippery flesh. Then Teresa stepped forward, wearing a man’s shirt unbuttoned to the waist. She leaned over the back of the bath and started to soap Lili’s body with long, sensuous strokes. “Right, Teresa, now sit behind her on the edge of the bath, one leg on either side of her, more in the water Lili, now splash, I want Teresa’s shirt soaked, I want to see those nipples press against it. Now slither in behind her, Teresa. Christ, there’s water all over the fucking floor. Now, you little darlings, I want the normal action, yeah, that’s nice, oh, very nice. For Christ’s sake, Lili, look as if you’re enjoying it, you know we’ll just go on shooting until you do, that’s better, now move in very slowly, Ben, I want you sitting on the back of the bath, legs in the water, cock standing at attention.”

  Blue-black muscles shining, Ben appeared through the palms. “Get out of the bath, Teresa, I want you standing behind him. Now, Ben, lean over and grab Lili under the armpits, slowly, slowly, you’re relishing the thoughts of what you’re about to do, now turn her around. I want a close-up of your hands running over her ass and in the crack. Lili, could you please show a bit more interest. Let’s have some sinuous writhing or you’ll be fucking sorry. That’s nice, very nice. . . . Now, Lili, kneel down in the water as Ben stands up. We’re tracking into this shot. Now purse those rosebud lips, Lili, and in it goes, smoothly. For Christ’s sake, you little bitch, try and look as if it’s your favourite flavour lollipop, that’s better. Now slowly pull her up, Ben, settle your ass on the back of the bath and use that prick with imagination, slower, you black bastard.”

  He shot the scene three times before Ben’s penis went on strike. It wasn’t as juicy as their usual stuff, but that was for a carefully calculated reason. Serge wanted the attention focused on Lili, rather than the action. He didn’t want it too dirty, he wanted a pretty fuck. It was going exactly as he had hoped it would, like a routine whiskey or bath-salts commercial, but with nothing left to the imagination or subliminal interpretation.

  He knew he couldn’t shoot a proper film test, but he’d be willing to bet his new Mercedes this would get the big boys interested—especially after that call from Zimmer. He was after bigger game than blue movies. He wanted to make Lili a star. Vadim had done it with Bardot, so Serge was doing his fucking best to get Lili discovered. He’d already arranged for her to have a walk-on part in the Christopher Lee sci-fi that Trianon was shooting at Versailles; she’d only be an extra, a
spaceship soldierette, but she’d get the feeling of a proper set, ready for the big chance if it came.

  Not if, he told himself, when.

  Shortly before her fifteenth birthday, Lili made her first legitimate appearance on celluloid under a green, greasy film of Leichner, with her hair hidden by a silver, cardboard helmet.

  The bus picked her up at five A.M. It was filled with sleepy, silent figures huddled in overcoats. They drove out of Paris, through Versailles and into the forest beyond; the bus pulled off the road, jerked down a rutted track and stopped in a large clearing where several trucks and trailers were parked. The passengers climbed out of the bus and stumped off in silence toward the nearest truck. As Lili hesitated on the steps of the bus, a thin young fellow in a white yachting cap said, “Better grab your coffee while you can.”

  “Where does one find coffee?”

  “This your first day? Come with me.” He dug his hands into the pockets of his navy pea jacket, and they walked through damp grass toward the truck. Just before they reached it, the rear door flew open and a caterer started handing out coffee and croissants. “This should wake you up.” He handed her a paper cup. “For some unknown reason, the coffee’s always good. You an extra? One of the spaceship crew? I’m one of the gypsies that see it crash into the clearing. Got any lines?”

  “No.”

  “I’ve got three. A part! My first, which is why I’m so cheerful.” He beamed. “Also, I like being awake when everyone’s half asleep and huddled around the coffee truck, sun barely up, birds singing, nobody around.”

  “I hate getting up early. Why did we have to get up so early when shooting doesn’t start until eight-thirty?”

  “All motion picture people get up early; everyone has to be ready for eight-thirty and, believe it or not, it can take three hours to get them all ready.”

  “You don’t sound French.”

  “I’m not. My mother was from Los Angeles, but both my parents were killed in a car crash when I was five. I was brought up by my French grandmother. I’m called Simon Pont.”