by Donna Alam
There’s nothing like bringing a child into the world to set your priorities straight, I think as I close the front door with a quiet click. And nothing more compelling than being the sole person responsible for that life. As a parent, you’d chop off your right arm for your little one if that was the only path. Forfeit your life for the sake of theirs.
I walk through the darkened house until I reach the kitchen where I pour myself a generous couple of fingers of whisky, before taking the stairs to the first floor at a swift pace.
I’m tired; the bone-aching kind. But it’s another kind of bone I’m concentrating on now. After I’d closed my office door this afternoon, I went straight to my computer to Google the names of women-centric porn companies with bases in the London area . . . because I couldn’t remember the hot girl’s name or who she worked for. I remember it had something to do with bad girls, but of course, I’d remember that. Because bad girls used to be a favourite of mine, B.D. that is. Before divorce.
I remember her face as clear as day. Deep blue eyes and discomforted pink cheeks. The way she twisted the strands of her long, dark hair between her pale fingers. And that soft, American accent. But as I was pondering some of her very obvious charms . . . her name came back to me in a blinding flash.
Paisley.
Who calls their kid that? May as well have called her herringbone, or polka dot, or something equally as ridiculous.
And then I found it—Fast Girl Media. Funny, I used to be fond of fast girls, too.
So I did what any man shielded by a closed door and a PA would do. I watched a few highly curated cinematographic images in search of the lovely Paisley. Or, to put it another way, I spent more time than I had available on my calendar watching high-end women-centric porn.
And what a glorious afternoon it was.
Unfortunately, though—or maybe fortunately—Paisley wasn’t in any of the shots. And I paid good attention. She definitely wasn’t featured having her pussy licked or licking pussy. Like I said, women-centric. And fucking fine with me.
But I digress because my me time is calling.
I push open the door to my darkened bedroom, toeing off my shoes as I take a mouthful of my drink, relishing the smooth slide of it down my throat. Tomorrow morning, Sorcha has a ballet class, then we have a million other things planned. Sunday, I’ll play rugby with the lads, then we’ll all go to lunch. So I’d better make this next hour count.
I put down my drink and pull off my tie, flipping the light low before making quick work of the rest of my clothing.
I work bloody hard. Take care of my family. Look after my body. I eat right and drink plenty of water. Go to the gym when I can. Self-care, they call it. I read that in one of those glossy women’s magazines in a dentist’s waiting room.
But it’s the other kind of self-care I have in mind tonight. The kind that has my hand sinking into my boxer briefs as soon as my slacks hit the deck.
I let out a groan, long and low, as I take my cock into my hand, my body relaxing with a distinct bone-melting kind of relief.
Today has been a long day.
Fucking Joe, I think, tightening my grip on my dick. Did he really think bringing his daughter was going to make the difference? And did she really think, as she slid her shiny red fingernails up my thigh, that I’d give in—to either of her suggestions?
Mutually beneficial relationships, my left bollock.
Because I never mix business and pleasure. And Joe is a cock of the first fucking order. And Amelia, his daughter, reminds me too much of my ex-wife. Hard-on killer right there. But I persevere, bringing my semi back with a swift squeeze even though I feel like a deviant.
Joe’s daughter isn’t the reason I feel conflicted. Nor is it because I have my cock in my hand because come on, I’m a bloke—and a single one at that. A red-blooded, sex-starved, heterosexual fucker.
Self-inflicted sex starved, but still.
Celibate, I almost hear my mate Will spit from behind. But it’s not Will I’m thinking about. My deviancy doesn’t swing that way. I’m not even thinking about the women I’ve watched on screen today. Because I’m thinking about Paisley. Or rather, thinking about fucking Paisley. And I have been since she’d jumped up from her chair when I’d sprayed coffee over her and she’d flashed me more than just her shocked expression.
Shiny black stocking tops. A flash of frilly garter belt.
‘Eungh.’
I slide my hand over the head of my cock, gripping it a little tighter on the backslide as I imagine flipping that flirty little dress up and over her round arse to find out what kind of knickers she was wearing.
Lacy, I’ll bet.
At the thought of my fingertips trailing the peachy crack of her backside, my body bows. One hand falls to the mattress to support myself while the other begins to slowly jack.
Fuck, she looked like she could’ve been a handful. Enough tits and arse for my hands. As she’d reached for her electronic tablet, her dress had pulled just a little too tight over her breasts, the space between the buttons gaping and flashing a little black bra and a delicious swell of soft flesh.
But fuck, she was too young for me. She only looked about twenty-three.
I’m not usually interested in younger women. Well, not especially.
Okay, so no more than the next straight, celibate bloke with a cock in his hand.
‘Jesus, fuck!’
My grip is firm as I slide my hand along my length, twisting just the right amount at the head. Lube would help, but I’m too close. Yes, already. Besides, I doubt my knees would operate if I took a step towards the nightstand. Instead, I slide the precum from my tip to work against the drag as I imagine her sitting in front of me on the bed. Imagine her there in her dark, gossamer underwear, her hair curled around her shoulders, looking so innocent and pristine.
Innocent. The girl who works for an adult entertainment company.
Fuck, fancy that.
I work myself harder, my hand sliding from root to tip, my knees connecting with the mattress as the point of no return hits me, liquid heat shooting from spine to tip. I close my eyes as Paisley pants, opening her mouth as I prepare to defile her with strands of milky—
‘Daddy?’
The door handle rattles, and I almost give myself whiplash as my head snaps in response to the sound.
Big head, little head. Who’ll win the battle now?
‘Daddy,’ Sorcha’s voice calls a little louder. ‘Why is the door locked?’
‘B . . . because I need a moment,’ I call back, my voice a touch hoarse.
‘What? I mean, pardon?’ she asks, correcting herself.
The handle rattles again, and this time, I really do feel like a deviant as, up against the clock, I begin to wank furiously.
‘Come on, you fucker,’ I mutter.
‘Daddy, I can’t hear you,’ she calls, frustrated. And she’s not the only one.
‘Go back to bed, darlin’. I’ll be out in a minute,’ I say louder before going back to muttering again. ‘What the fuck happened to the sleepover? Oh, fuck!’
My knees do buckle now as the fire turns white hot, building at the base of my spine this time.
‘The handle won’t turn,’ she whines, ‘it’s too hard.’
Hard and aching and almost ready to blow.
‘Go back to bed,’ I grate out harshly.
‘I can’t. Agnes is in my room, and she’s snoring. And I have a tummy ache.’
‘And I’ve got fucking ball ache,’ I mumble, past the point of rationality—too far past the point of no return.
Or so I’d thought. The image of my scantily clad Paisley evaporates like the dream as reality comes crashing back in.
‘Dad-deee-bleurgggh.’
Yep, that is the sound of my daughter vomiting.
And the sound of my cock retracting and my balls crawling away from my hand.
‘Daddy,’ comes her pitiful wail.
Me time, I think, dropping my hea
d. Being a parent is so hard sometimes.
Chapter 3
PAISLEY
‘Paisley!’
‘Oh, somebody’s in trou-ble!’ Max trills from beside me.
‘Not again,’ I grumble, pulling myself up from the sofa and wrapping my robe tighter, following Chastity’s voice to her gleaming commercial-grade kitchen.
Her golden hair in large rollers, she stands by the open door of the dishwasher as steam billows out.
‘Why is my dishwasher full of dildos?’ she asks.
‘Because you told me to load them in the dishwasher,’ I reply, gesturing with an open palm to a job well done even as the realisation dawns that this is somehow mistake number 221 for the week. And I’m suddenly pleased I didn’t tell her about the interview yesterday . . .
‘I asked you, not told,’ she corrects with the patience of a teacher dealing with an underachieving child. ‘But I didn’t think for one minute you’d bring them home.’
‘What was I supposed to do with them?’ I ask perplexed. ‘Is that what the rubber gloves were for?’ My face scrunches with distaste because eww! Hand washing other people’s fun from silicone? ‘Please don’t say yes because that would be a new low—at a time that already feels like rock bottom.’
‘I meant in the studio dishwasher not the dishwasher at home, for fuck’s sake.’
I will never get used to the way she sounds when she swears. She looks like she’s just tumbled from heaven, all cherubic cheeks, blond ringlets, and doe eyes, and she’s just so goddamned posh, both how she looks and sounds, and is at complete odds with what sometimes comes out of her mouth. Especially when we’re on set and she’s giving out directions.
Milos, darling, if you could pull out of her before you come, we’ll get the money shot . . . yes, all over her bottom, if you will. Deena, can you try to deep throat him this time?
Welcome to my life because while Chastity is the owner, director, and producer for Fast Girl Media, I’m her new right-hand girl. That is, if right-hand girls fit like a left-hand glove with the fingers glued into a fist. But I also do on-set makeup, which is what I did in my previous professional life. Only then, I applied it mainly from the neck up . . .
That aside, we’re an odd pairing, Chastity and me. Her with her blue blood and me with the Upstate New York hay still stuck in my hair. But I don’t know where I’d be without her. Or her spare room. Not after the shit my fiancé pulled.
‘For the record,’ she begins patiently again. ‘Toy washing isn’t your responsibility. Ever. But these toys? They’re new. I’m thinking of stocking them on the website and thought I’d ask the professionals for their opinions. But I say again; they’re new—unused. I would never . . . ’ Her expression twists indelicately. ‘But I appreciate your help, anyway.’
‘Even when I get it wrong?’
‘Yes, even then.’ She pushes the dishwasher door closed with her foot as though it’s contaminated.
‘For someone who spends her day watching people stick their bits into other people’s bits, you’re awfully squeamish,’ Max, her brother, suddenly gloats from the doorway.
‘Leave her alone,’ Chas warns.
‘I was talking about you,’ he responds.
‘I’m not talking about this with you.’
‘No, you won’t talk business with me at all,’ he complains mulishly.
‘I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; go play porn star somewhere else. I have no issues with you being in the business, but I’m not watching or paying you to fuck.’
‘Backing away slowly,’ I say, doing just that.
‘Good,’ Chas retorts. ‘Go put on your pretty dress. We’ve a wedding to attend.’
Dammit. ‘But I don’t want to go,’ I reply on a whine, stamping my slipper-shod foot against the tile. ‘It’s just plain cruel to make me.’
‘But there’s a kindness in my cruelty. And I think you know that well.’
‘Why don’t I just fuck her?’ Max pipes up. ‘It’d save you a wedding gift. Look, she’s already in her dressing gown. And I bet she’s wearing a little Agent Provocateur under there.’
‘Have you been peeking!’ I squeak, grasping the neck of my robe tighter. Neither of us take his suggestion seriously. Max is Chas’s little brother, though he towers over us both. He’s twenty-two, fresh out of university, and has no idea what to do with his life. While he might be interested in the business, he’s joking about being in front of the camera. I think.
‘We all know a suitcase full of Louboutins and fancy underwear was all you brought with you when you walked out,’ Max replies. And though his delivery is light-hearted, it still burns because what he’s referring to is when I left my fiancé after finding he’d somehow tripped and accidentally inserted his dick into someone else.
I open my mouth to protest, but nothing comes out. My chest feels tight, panicked by a lack of air suddenly.
‘And possibly a case of only left feet shoes at that,’ he then adds.
‘Stay out of her room, pervert,’ Chas warns on my behalf, patting his cheek as she passes. ‘It’s probably him hiding your shoes, darling,’ she says, turning back to me.
But it’s not Max. My shoes have an awful habit of hiding themselves, and they have done so for most of my life. It’s like they can sense when I want to wear a particular pair, then make only one of that pair available to me. It’s a curse, I’m sure.
Chas pauses dramatically at the door. ‘And while I’m sure Paisley is, no doubt, touched by your generosity, brother mine, go near her, and I’ll sell you into sex slavery.’
‘Don’t look too excited,’ I add, following her out of the room. ‘She means the gay kind.’
In the first-floor bedroom of her swanky Chelsea pad, I find Chastity slipping on her pale green dress, the silk chiffon floating down her slim frame like a cloud of seafoam.
‘I really don’t see what difference it’ll make,’ I say, dropping my oversized makeup bag on her bed. ‘I’m not in the mood.’
‘I’m aware,’ she says, catching my gaze through her dresser mirror as she unfastens the large rollers from her hair. ‘But trust me.’
‘But I really don’t want to go,’ I say, throwing myself on her soft, downy bed. ‘They were never my friends. Not really. Unless you’re counting them by proxy.’
‘I hope you’re not including me in that assumption.’
‘Of course I’m not,’ I reply, plucking at the hem of a decorative pillow sham. ‘If it wasn’t for you, I’d be on a plane for bumfuck nowhere by now.’ Or, bumfuck Lamberston in Upstate New York. Population: 3,012. And I’d be the girl who snagged a British singer—someone famous—only to lose him again. Of course, no one would mention how I’d moved out of Lamberston to follow my career to Albany for WTEN, making sure the faces for the Wake up with 10 show didn’t go on air looking like zombies. Or how I’d moved to NYC to de-zombie-ize the stars and guests of Good Morning America. Nope. Because like lots of small town folk, the gossip would focus on how I couldn’t keep my man and how my fabulous London life was just a bubble that was bound to burst.
I suppress a shiver at the thought of going back. I might not be feeling exactly fabulous right now, but at least I’m not in Lamberston.
‘Those kinds of friends you don’t need, sweets.’ Chas is referring to my supposed London friends who dropped me like a pair of dirty panties when Robin and I split. Though her assumption could equally relate to my thoughts.
‘It’s a good thing you chose me over him is all I can say.’ Chastity is one of the many people I met through Robin, my ex-fiancé. She was one of his friends originally. She also happens to be the only one who hung around after we split. Hung around. Offered moral support, a kind ear. Then later, a job and a place to live.
‘Like there was even a choice to be made.’ Sitting next to me, she takes my hand in hers. ‘I, for one, am so very pleased you’re still in London. And while I would’ve preferred you not to have suffered the indignities o
f finding out your fiancé was cheating on you, it’s better you found out now rather than later.’
‘Yeah, like after the wedding.’ I chuckle, though it sounds as forced as it feels. I’m no longer heartbroken, but I’m still sad. I’m also grateful for Chas, and squeeze her hand as though this could somehow convey just how thankful I am. Without her, I wouldn’t be functioning, never mind making a living while I look for something new. Without her, I wouldn’t even have a roof over my head.
‘And he won’t be there today, not that it matters. It’s time, darling. Time to move on and show those around you that you’ve moved on. That they and their fair-weather friendship means nothing to you.’
‘But if I’m no longer part of their world, I don’t need to go.’
‘Good try,’ she answers with a sad smile, glancing down at my stained robe. ‘But it’s time to try harder now.’
‘But it’s still hard,’ I whisper.
‘I know it is. But it’s the other kind of hard you need. We just need to get you out of that grubby thing and into your dress because that look isn’t doing it for anybody.’
‘Except for Max.’
‘Darling, he’d do my dog. If I had one.’
‘Thanks,’ I respond, laughing a little.
‘For God’s sake, put a little of this on,’ she says, hefting my makeup bag between us. A bag with a slogan that reads, contouring is my cardio.
Makeup is my world. At least, it’s what brought me to London in the first place. I met Robin at work. He had a short interview as part of his tour, though, at that point, he was still largely unknown. There I was, working and making faces look a little less I get out of bed at 4 a.m. for this shit, when he’d sat in my chair. I’d tucked the tissues into the collar of his shirt, our eyes had met, and the rest, as they say, was history.
The ancient kind of history now. Long dead and crumbling to dust.
‘Chas, promise me you’ll never fall in love with a rock star.’
