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dropped her voice. 'Don't tell him, right? But sometimes, right, doing the
porn? I just pretend I'm faking it.'
She giggled, winking at me.
I looked at her, frowning. 'You mean you fake faking an orgasm?' I said,
confused.
'Yeah,' she said, nudging me. 'Don't want to hurt his feelings, do I?' She
glanced round. 'See you at the bottom.'
*
Terror, again. But this time I kept my legs crossed and hence avoided any
orificial invasions. I was starting to appreciate how, for Morag, fluming
might present a refreshing contrast with her day job.
*
'How did you become a porn star?'
'I was giving a concert-'
'The baryton?'
'Yeah; of course. I was doing all right with that, too, though it wasn't like
you could get many people to come along; very small scale and select it was&
but I was on the tube train going there, kind of dolled up, I suppose, when
this guy came up and gave me his card and asked would I like to have some
photos taken for a magazine? And I said, What sort of magazine? And he said
a men's magazine, but one of the class ones, like. Well, I wasn't bothered
one way or the other, but then he mentioned the money and I said, well, I'd
have to think about it. Thought about it, called him next day, said okay,
went to this stately home a week later where they were doing the shoot, took
off me togs, the photographer recommended Frank as
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all a manager and he got me into the films. Simple as that, really. I know I
should have said something, written or something, but the communal letters
kept telling me how proud everybody was of me playing the baryton and I felt
I'd be letting people down, and I mean after all I had started off doing what
I'd said
I'd do, and I still do the occasional concert, every few months, like, and so
I reckoned it was sort of all right and maybe even kind of ordained, anyway,
because if it hadn't been for the baryton and me going to that concert and
meeting the guy on the tube train then I wouldn't have got into porn in the
first place, would I?'
'Hmm,' I said. Obviously, formulating elaborate justifications for deceit was
not an area in which I held a monopoly. 'Do you enjoy it?' I asked, frowning.
'What, the porn?'
'Yes.'
She looked thoughtful. 'You know what?' she said, nodding at me. 'I love it.'
She shrugged. 'I like lots of sex, I like being admired and I like the money.
Sure beats working for a living.' She laughed. 'I'll give it another few
years, then I think I might open my own chain of exotic lingerie shops.' She
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looked thoughtful, her gaze directed far away. 'Or go into flume design or
something.' She shrugged again and went on filing her fingernails. 'I mean,
it's kind of technical and cluttered, right enough, but it's very pure,
really.'
We sat wet-haired in the cafe, watching the pool and the swimmers. I am sure
I looked bedraggled. Morag looked like some fresh, glowing, blue-jeaned
mermaid. Ricky was at the counter, queuing to fetch us our drinks.
We had each tried the other three flumes, though Morag and Ricky both kept
going back to the Black
Hole. I didn't, preferring the two convoluted medium tubes because they gave
you time to appreciate the ride rather than just be terrified by it. I even
liked the broad, shallow white tunnel, the slowest of the lot, which Morag and
Ricky tried because they felt they had to for completeness' sake but declared
was really there for wimps and sportive old-age pensioners, but which had the
additional attraction of having a view for the first, half-transparent
section, and a damn fine view at that, of Salisbury Crags and Arthur's Seat
rearing up all green and brown against the blues and whites of the sky.
After a couple of hours of intense fluming, producing raw heels, shoulders and
other pointy bits, we did a few lengths of the pool for exercise, and then
decided to call it a day. Once we'd changed we'd headed for the café.
Morag put away her nail file in her little shoulder bag and sat back in her
seat, stretching with lithe magnificence, her hands at the back of her neck
pulling her damp hair away from her blouse. Lifting her arms like that had a [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]