Scandalous (6 page)

My bra, cotton knickers and stockings are now the
only things hiding my anatomy. I stand in front of him
with my hands behind my back, offering him all this
intimacy. I'm the child-woman, Nabokov's Lolita, and
he loves it. I'm completely disconnected from reality.
This is like torture for me but I dispel it with a giggle.
I've got so many complexes about my body, even though
it's so slim now, and I'm genuinely finding this situation
confusing. He doesn't move and hasn't said anything for
quarter of an hour.

He takes a deep breath and begins to open his lips. Go
on, say something.

'Wow!' he manages to exclaim quickly.

And that's it. One exclamation. No one could understand
how I suddenly feel. All at once my body is filled
with hope and a sort of happiness. With just one word
and in a fraction of a second, this man I've never met
before has succeeded where dozens of others have failed:
making me realise my body's attractive. Why did it have
to be him? I can't answer that, it's just inexplicable. All
I know is that it's the first time I've heard and accepted
a compliment. That's when I start thinking of him as a
man and not some great creep who wants to put his mitts
all over me. He must have seen strings and strings of girls
but he can still be impressed.

We give each other a knowing smile and something
oddly like trust is reached between us.

'This is exactly the sort of reason I don't like "professionals".
They can't have that innocent look you've got.'

I don't really know how to take this comment. Does
he already think of me as a prostitute? Does it just take
a couple of tricks to warrant that label?

He's tilted his chin towards the letter again for me to
carry on reading. I do as I'm told.

Now I want you to go and have a shower. I'll have
one after you. I'm very happy you're here and we're
spending this time together.

I skim through to the end of the letter. I mean, the rest
is obvious: once I'm naked and have had my shower it's
not like we're going to launch into a fiendish game of
Scrabble.

Thank you, Laura, for coming here today. I'm so
happy to have met you and I do hope we'll see each
other again soon. You seem like a nice person.

A nice person? How can he know? Am I a nice person
because I've agreed to stand in front of him in my
underwear to get the money I need? The letter ends
with a whole blah blah blah of boring stuff he must
have felt he had to write to ease his conscience and
make me trust him. Still, his words betray a kindness
I would never have imagined. This meeting isn't going
as I thought it would. There I was thinking it would
be an hour of blanking out my mind, putting my
thoughts to one side, but now I can't help thinking about
this man.

I take off the few scraps of fabric left on me and head
meekly for the bathroom.

When I've closed the door I confront the mirror in that
tiny room. Despite my best efforts, I can't avoid my
reflection. Standing there naked in front of that mirror,
I'm very tempted to succumb to self-pity. Once again I
feel disconnected from this 'session' because I've come
face to face with myself, with what I'm doing. I've never
really looked at myself so closely and so carefully. I'm
oddly proud of my body since Joe's exclamation and I
start to scrutinise myself. I've never much liked my
tummy but I look at it differently now. Somewhere deep
inside me there's a voice trying to bring me back to my
senses. Shit, I'm completely losing the plot, torn between
two different feelings.

The fact that I have to shower creates a break in the
proceedings, a break that forces me to think long and
hard. I turn on the water and adjust the pressure to try
to stop the whirring in my head.

It may seem incongruous but I'm smiling. Yes, smiling
because I suddenly think I look good. I've gone back to
childhood and that compliment from this man who's
older than my own father has made me happy as a child
being praised by her grandfather.

The water flows gently over my body and I lather it
frenetically with the cheap soap graciously provided by
the hotel. There isn't any need to scrub so hard, he hasn't
touched me yet. But I carry on rubbing even harder, as
if wanting to tear my skin. Perhaps I'm washing away
this situation, the man himself, the room, his compliments,
the green curtains.

Once I'm clean I grab a towel to dry myself and secure
it expertly between my breasts, panicking at the thought
of him coming into the bathroom. I hesitate for a
moment. I don't know whether I'm supposed to go out
naked or not. While I'm wondering about this I realise
that, sooner or later, I'll be naked in front of him. It
might just as well be me who decides. I grasp the knot
between my breasts and undo it. The towel falls limply
to the floor with a muffled sound.

When I open the door Joe is on the bed in his boxer
shorts. I can see his torso for the first time. No surprises
there. He certainly is fifty-seven, with white hairs and a
slight paunch.

'You really turn me on, you know,' he says with a sigh.

Yes, I'm sure I do.

'Right, this is what's going to happen,' he says, then
pauses before adding calmly, 'I love role playing. I have
a lot of fantasies about it.'

Noticing my slightly disconcerted expression, he's
quick to explain what he means.

'Now I want you to leave the room and wait in the
corridor for a moment, then knock on the door twice.
When I tell you to come in, you'll come in and do as I
tell you.'

'What, you mean like this? Completely naked?'

'Yes, like that, completely naked.'

You wouldn't like a hundred euros into the bargain,
by any chance! The way things are going I'm going to
end up paying him. The fantasy of the naked girl
knocking at the door is too much. What would happen
if someone saw me? I'm feeling lost now.

'No.'

'What do you mean no? Why not?'

'No.'

'Am I allowed to know why?'

His expression's changed suddenly. I can tell from the
tone of his voice that my refusal has just shattered the
titillating image he was putting together. He knows I can
put the dampers on his lewd inventions and, even though
I am trapped and perfectly polite, he's not prepared to
accept that.

I'm frightened now: I've broken his rules. I realise he
won't give up on the goal he's set if I don't follow the
instructions.

'Because this is difficult for me. Getting undressed in
front of you was already a huge step. I don't know, I'm
not sure now I can go any further. You're rushing
things.'

Before coming I didn't think I'd have to talk to him so
much. I'm prepared to give him my body so he can do
what he wants with it while I close my eyes to get
through the hour, but I don't want to have to act so
much. Dead dog for an hour, maybe, but not an actress.

My response was genuine and after a while his
expression softens. But deep in his eyes I can tell he
won't give up.

'Listen, I do understand, but –' bingo, there's the 'but'
'– don't be frightened, trust me, everything'll be fine. All
you have to go is go out of the room for a moment and
knock on the door . . .'

I obey him as quickly as possible yet again; the sooner
I do this the sooner I'll get my hands on his money. My
money. I already think of it as mine, otherwise I
wouldn't be able to carry on.

So I go over to the door and, naked as I am, step
outside – not without a quick glance round first. What a
ridiculous situation! Humiliating even. If Manu or my
parents could see me now . . . After barely a second I
knock, which means I don't have time to think what the
hell am I doing in this fucking corridor. I rush back into
the room. He doesn't make me do it again.

He's still sitting on the bed and I position myself
opposite it.

'Now stroke yourself for me. Stroke yourself as if you
were discovering your body for the first time.'

Having understood the previous lesson, my hands
come to rest on my body and work their way up towards
my face. Without faltering, I run them over the back of
my neck and slowly lift up my hair, closing my eyes as if
trying to make him believe I really am enjoying what I'm
doing.

I open them for a moment just to check how aroused
Joe is and prepare myself for a potential onslaught of
hands on me. I've got this all wrong. He's watching me
the way he would a common porn film, with empty
expressionless eyes. I carry on with my little performance,
running my hands blandly over the tops of my
breasts. I glance furtively at my watch which is still on
my wrist. It's twenty-nine minutes past two. Only half an
hour to go.

This all feels so unreal to me. I can't get into the
character of the seductress – with or without the money.
I'm too straightforward to pretend. I want to go home.
What am I doing here? I can't bring myself to move my
hands lower, they're stuck just above my groin. I'm not
that good at acting.

'Touch yourself more, you've got to carry on arousing
me.'

Obviously this isn't good enough for him. I'm completely
lost again, feeling so hopeless I drop my arms by
my sides. I don't know how to do this, where to put my
hands. I feel clumsy and useless here in front of him but
at the same time I feel I really couldn't care less any
more. Two thirty-four.

'This isn't working. I can't do it.'

'I can see. You're more the type who likes to be
dominated,' he says with an absurd teasing note in his
voice.

I'm so nervous I feel like laughing at this pathetic
attempt at flirtation, but I control myself. If you think
about it, it's quite true: who wants to dominate someone
if they feel no desire for them? Who even wants to
participate? Well, only one sort of person: those who
need money.

One simple answer, spoken in a childish voice, would
have kept him happy: 'Oh yes, I want you to be my
master.' Of course, I'm completely incapable of saying it.
None of this is happening anything like I'd imagined it.
I thought I'd be fucked quickly and that would be it. Just
my luck to get a perv . . .

'Here, come and sit down on the bed,' he manages
after twisting his lips in thought for a minute. 'I'll take
matters into my own hands.'

He sounds firm, the serious bit's starting now. His
fantasies are taking over.

I do as I'm told and find myself sitting beside him on
the shabby bedspread which must have been here since
the hotel first opened judging by its nondescript colour,
struggling somewhere between blue and green.

Once again, I'm doing what he expects without batting
an eyelid: one last effort, Laura. Two thirty-six. So I'm
sitting on the bed with my breasts bare. His eyes, his
whole face and his penis can't get enough of them.
Go
on, have a good look, don't be shy
. If he goes on ogling
them like this I might not even have to give him my
whole body.

'Lie down on your back.'

Oops. He's not that stupid then. Two forty-one.

He puts his hand on the base of my neck and pushes
gently downwards. I can feel his palm on my body for
the first time, feel him touching me for the first time.

Lying on my back, I admire the flaking ceiling as I wait
to feel his skin against mine. Just when I stop thinking
about it his hand touches me, making me jump slightly,
though I'm not really surprised. First, he starts with my
stomach and moves up towards my neck. He probably
means it to be sensual but it can't possibly have any
effect on me. His other hand joins in too. The toing and
froing on my upper body gets rougher, more intense,
accelerating as his erection grows. I haven't opened my
eyes once, trying to think of it all as a bad dream.

I can't work out whether feeling his old paws on me
makes me want to be sick or to cry. I'm a dead body laid
out on the bed. Well, he asked for a body and that's what
he's got. If he asked me to do more right now I'd slap
him.

Instead, the physical dance comes to a stop and he sits
back up. I expect him to make some new bizarre request.

'Sit down, we're going to talk,' he says quickly.

I can't tell if this is a joke. Is talking to him in the
contract? I imagine he can do whatever he likes – he is
paying me.

'Why are you here today?'

The million-dollar question or how to get a student to
own up.

'Have you got a boyfriend? What do you do in V?'

The questions are getting very personal. There's no
danger of my giving him the real version of my life: it
would be completely unbearable to give him even a hint
of the life I lead. And, anyway, I'm not paid to tell the
truth.

'No, I haven't got a boyfriend.'

Two forty-nine. Ten little minutes, but they could
prove terrible.

'Is this money for you?'

I shake my head.

After pausing a moment, he says, 'What you're doing
is a good thing.'

Really?

'I've got people who depend on me too, you know. I'm
divorced and I've got a daughter. A bit older than you.
I've remarried, a very beautiful woman, a while ago now.
Sex with her isn't really happening. Anyway, I gave up
on trying to share my fantasies with her long ago. You
know, it's not easy having to face up to someone who
doesn't want you any more.'

What's not easy for me at this precise moment is
listening to his life story. I don't understand why he's
decided to confide in me, when he's only just met me.
If I go on listening to him I won't be able to help
imagining his world, putting together images of who he
is outside this hotel room. V isn't a huge place, and it
would be perfectly possible to bump into Joe out for a
family walk.

To think that when he leaves here he's bound to be
going home to her. It sends a shiver right through me. I
feel sorry for his wife and wonder what she would think
if she knew her husband was regularly paying young girls
and, on top of that, talking to them about her during his
sessions.