Carrion: A Story of Passion (6 page)

I laugh. The thought of anybody wanting to pay thousands of pounds to watch me screw is quite ludicrous.

"And if they buy the rights, won't it mean we'll be up on YouTube next week?"

He shakes his head. "The scene doesn't work like that, it relies on exclusivity for it to be economically sustainable. There's a huge amount of politic involved. If the film 'leaks' the buyer is cut from the circle."

"You know a lot about this," I say.

Alexander shrugs. I've done it a couple of times before.

I lower my already lowered voice out of the hearing of the cabbie. "Are you telling me that you have a habit of making porn-films?"

He shakes his head. Not really, it’s not quite like that. I don’t set out to make them; they can't be staged or planned – it doesn't work. It all wrong, it looks cheap: manufactured. You can't go about making a film like a production - it just happens in the moment. Like a collection of beautiful moments – like a collection of butterflies."

I snort-laugh, "Maybe in your world, Alexander, but that kind of thing doesn't just kind of happen in mine."

He looks at me intensely, "But it did,” he says.

And he has a point.

“And didn’t you find it sublime, Charlotte? A thing of beauty.”

"How many thousands are we talking here," I ask, thinking about the moment in the taxidermy lesson when I visualised slashing my boss' smile open with a scalpel.

"I'm not sure exactly, it all depends on the individual film. All I know is that the one from the other night is better than the other couple I've sold and they made over forty thousand."

I cough and clear my throat. "Sorry did you say four or forty?"

"Forty. It might have been better to sell for a lower price and work out a royalty deal, but that just felt a little..." He squirms his face up and sighs. "I prefer the idea of a single exchange in return for a piece of art."

"And what about Celia? You can't go and pass on a film she knows nothing about."

Alexander shook his head with surprise. "Sorry, I thought you knew."

"Knew what?"

"Celia knew she was being filmed. It was part of the deal."

"What deal?"

"The deal of how much I paid her."

I rock forward and let out a low whistle before taking in a deep breath. "Are you saying that Celia was a prostitute?"

"I always think that the term prostitute is so ugly," he says.

"Sorry, would you prefer I use the term, 'whore'?"

"I don't see what your problem is. You had a good time. What's the difference between paying for Molly and paying for Celia? They both serviced your needs. They both gave you pleasure."

I stare at him for a long time, looking for a single trace of conscience. But there isn’t one. I fall back into the seat and look out of the window. The most infuriating thing about what he has just said is that although he isn't right, he isn't wrong either.

The cab pulls up outside and I pay the driver, which involves quite a precarious balancing act as I juggle my workbag and stuffed ballerina mouse. 

"I want to watch it again before I decide," I say to him. I can't believe that I'm even considering it, but I've argued with myself that I'm masked and the lighting makes much of it soft focus. I'm surprised to discover that I appear to have a greater issue with my vanity than my dissolute morality. 

I go to the fridge and recover a bottle of wine. Sod getting holiday leave from work, I feel 'a terrible bout of food poisoning' coming on. The figure of forty thousand pound refuses to leave my thoughts. Two thirds of that is my year's salary.

"How much did you pay Celia?" I ask.

"Three thousand in cash."

He must register some communication in my face that invites him to justify himself. "Trust me, she doesn't need the money. Celia is an heiress; she plays at being a whore because," he shrugs, "I guess it's the thing that turns her on. It's her form of foreplay. She loved the idea of being filmed."

"You seem to know a lot about her all of a sudden," I say suspiciously. "And there was me thinking we just picked her up on the night."

"We did. I met her down in the Love Dungeon and we got talking."

"The Love Dungeon?" I ask, laughing, although I'm really not sure I'm amused.

"Don't you remember?"

I shake my head.

"Oh," he shrugs, "maybe you were partying elsewhere."

I can't remember being alone that night. I certainly can't remember visiting an S&M sex dungeon.

He nods his head, recalling the details of the evening, "I remember now, you were dancing with that crowd that had come up from Brighton; you remember the guy with the rabbit onesie and that girl with the full Goth thing going on.

I think back and vaguely remember dancing with a giant rabbit. I drink down most of the glass of wine in one go.

I watch the film from beginning to end. Alexander has edited it, splicing it with other filmed images such as

spring cherry blossom,

starlings whirling in flight,

a spinning bicycle wheel

the slow motion track of a single tear.

Our bodies and our fucking are deconstructed, broken down into dismembered parts. We are not whole people; we are not whole identities. We are layered with beauty and poetry. It is like nothing I understand of pornography. The film ends with the close-up of my sleeping eye. The eyeliner smudged. I can tell from the rapid fluttering of my eyelids that I am dreaming.

I breathe in deeply. "Okay, what cut will I get?" I ask, selling myself.

"That depends on whether this is a business transaction or a partnership?" he says enigmatically.

"I'm not entirely sure I understand the difference," I say.

"Yes, you do, Charlotte." He stands up and runs his hands through his hair before turning towards the bedroom door. "Yes you do."

But I don't. Not really. And maybe if I had then it wouldn't have ended how it did.

Chapter Five: Metamorphosis

My intensive course of lessons with Arabella continues for several weeks until I have learned the art of basic submission and dominance. I have discovered that despite my casual feminist principles, which dictate I should relish being dominant, I am a natural submissive – but I have also learned that submissive doesn’t mean weak; to be a submissive takes a great deal of personal control. In all my lessons, apart from Arabella’s cold, detached applications of touch, there has been no other – it has been Alexander’s insistence that it be this way, which it is why, blindfolded and tied to a whipping post, I am startled to feel male hands cradling my slick sex, and pressing an eager, hungry cock against by buttocks. I gasp, unsure how I should be responding. After Arabella’s deliciously playful lesson, I am desperate to be satisfied; my body craving fulfilment. I flinch away, twisting into the hard wooden post. I am determined not to betray Alexander, but my hips are behaving as if they are hexed, and draw back towards that large, throbbing rod and the promise of release.

I feel hot breath on my neck and I shudder under the sensation.

“You are so beautiful, Charlotte,” Alexander whispers.

Immediately my body responds to the familiarity of his voice. Relief mixes a potent cocktail with desire and I push my hips out as far as I can from within the confines of leather cuffs.

Alexander enters me hard, pulling at my chin and neck to shower me in kisses. The thought flits through my mind that it is the most affectionately he has ever kissed me. As he thrusts into me, my hips crash into the post, creating a delicious hardness both in front and behind me.

As we come together in a shuddering, moaning, knitting of flesh and soul, I bathe in the achievement of a secret knowledge – a knowledge that transforms mortals into angels.

*

Alexander has spoken with Quentin and he has already found a buyer for the film. Alexander has titled it
Bohemia
and the buyer is very impressed, praising Alexander’s understanding and subtlety of form. He is willing to pay over sixty thousand pounds for it, with the hope that it will be the beginning of a long-term business relationship.

I still can't get my head around why someone would pay so much for the film but Alexander explains that there is a whole network of private members’ clubs and societies who will pay the man to ‘loan’ it to them. He tells me that it isn't an act of charity; that the buyer is a broker of erotica who has a good nose for business. People will pay a lot to feel something.

Alexander and I spend Friday on a date. We go to the National Gallery to look at the medieval icons and then have lunch up in China Town, where we stuff ourselves on Dim Sum and drink cheap Saki. Mildly intoxicated, we head through Soho, revelling in our youthful beauty and sense of reckless freedom. I wonder how long this feeling of youthful invincibility will last. I think about my mother and wonder if she ever felt
this
too. I can’t accept that she did, because then I have to acknowledge the fear that I too will one day end up in chintz worrying about the cost of meat in Tescos.

The phone call from Quentin comes mid-afternoon and before the close of the banking day, Alexander checks his bank account to see that we are both considerably richer; although I still don't know how much of it actually belongs to me. We stop at a wine shop and buy several bottles of champagne and a bottle of Absinth, then grab a cab to Fortnum and Mason, buying lobster, Caviar and Fois-gras, artisan breads and anything else that promises to delight.

The weekend is lost in alcohol and fucking and feasting. I am Alexander’s muse ‘to shape and mould for his pleasure’. The camera is no longer and invisible spy. Every aspect of my existence is filmed. All I do, all I am. He dresses me, poses me, binds me. We don't leave the flat for three days; it's a lot of time to play. Games escalate. Rules are invented and trashed. We are children with momentary tempers and selfish needs. The further we go, the more I learn how far there is to go. But there are things I won't do - not even for Alexander and so he asks me,

"How do you feel about us getting a pet?"

My first thought is a kitten. It's not the kind of kitten he is thinking of. I don't like the idea of inviting a stranger into our bed. He offers a list of options but I hold firm and say that it is not the way it's going to happen; I want the challenge of enticing someone in. I want my own muse. Some pleasures aren't to be bought. I can see by the way he twists his mouth that he is frustrated by my unwillingness to offer him instant gratification, but another part of him is intrigued by the idea of delayed pleasure.

By Sunday night, we are both beginning to suffer the mild effects of cabin fever; we head out to the cinema and watch a horror film. We look on the surface like any other pretty young couple on a date.

When it comes to Monday morning, I refuse to get out of our bed. Alexander is already showered and putting the finishing touches to his office costume.

"No work today?" he asks, raising an eyebrow.

I lay back against the headboard and pout. "No work today. No work tomorrow. No work ever again!"

He laughs and throws my silk dressing gown across the bed.

"In that case, you can go flat hunting. I think we've outgrown this place."

He leaves for work and I pad around the tiny little flat. I ring my landlord and give him notice on my flat. I search Google for the contact numbers of a house clearance company. I make the decision that I will go back to my flat tomorrow, pack a bag of things, clean out the fridge, bury the spider-plant and then leave the key with a neighbour ready for the clearance guys.

None of what I'm doing makes any sense. It is less than two months since my first date with Alexander. In that time I've thrown away my career and now it would seem I'm throwing away my life. I've never been one for risks; whatever it is that Alexander has done to me, the transformation is almost complete.

I dress and head out to scour the letting agents. I have no real idea what rental budget I have but I guess that with Alexander’s salary and the money from
Bohemia
I can go relatively high. There's no shortage of flats, but decisions have to be made quickly. I compromise a little on location in order to secure the lease on a large two bedroom Victorian first floor flat. At just over two and half thousand a month it seems a reasonable compromise. There's a tube station nearby for Alexander. I ring him whilst I'm viewing and he asks to speak directly to the agent. Before we leave, the agent puts the keys into my hand and wishes me luck. I have no idea what Alexander said to the agent, but in my limited experience, this is not the usual way of renting flats; usually there are several weeks of papers and signings and references. It would seem we can move in immediately. I spend an hour walking through the flat, imagining what we could do to the place. With all the original features and slight sense of decaying elegance, the flat makes a good backdrop for us to act out our life.

I walk into the master bedroom and smile at the roll-top bath someone has rakishly put in the bedroom. The flat has a history of whimsy. I dare to imagine that this might be a home Alexander and me; a place where we can become a couple. I think about Quentin and Emeline, young, married and beautiful. Simple bands of gold that inform the world that they are not alone – that to take them on, means taking them both on.

I lay down on the floor and watch the dust motes dance in the sunlight, fantasising about Alexander and me getting married, committing to a lifetime of what we have now. It wouldn’t be easy getting Alexander to think such a thing – he isn’t really the marrying type, and I know this. Most twenty three year old men aren’t. It didn’t mean that they didn’t do it – in the end. There was time to make him love me. Years.

We spend the next six months constructing a beautiful world. In a hedonistic lust for life and feeling, we host dinner parties to which we invite complete strangers, we go dancing and learn the Argentinian Tango, we attend Lost Soul lectures on, The History of Fleas, on Voodoo, on The Theory of Relativity, How to distil your own gin - nothing is off limits. We go to art gallery openings, music gigs and film festivals.