18 comments/ 98134 views/ 21 favorites The Price of Fame By: Denham_Forrest A story by The Wanderer writing as Denham Forrest. My thanks go to Techsan for his kind assistance in the editing of this story and to SH for the encouragement she gives me to continue to write my demented ravings. Copyright© 2008 Denham Forrest, The Wanderer The Price of Fame Chapter 01 I suppose it was funny how it all started up again really. Stella, actually Rhoda Steel my literary agent. Just about everyone called her Stella — read Stealer - because she was so hard when it came to negotiating spin-offs, film contracts and the like, from her stable of writers' successful novels. Although some of us authors suggested (in jest) that she'd got the nickname for ripping off as much of our money as she could in her commissions. Anyway Stella had insisted that I go along with her to a party on some friend of hers - Norman Stanley's - yacht. This guy Norman, I do believe, must have had a soft spot for Stella, and perhaps she was trying to cultivate him as her fifth - or maybe it was her sixth husband. Shit, Stealer had been married so many times; I'd bet that even she has trouble remembering them all. Whatever the prune had money spilling out of his ears and I'm pretty sure that Stella was hoping to take a great chunk of it off of him in the divorce settlement. Yeah, you get the idea of what kind of a woman Rhoda Steel is. Anyway Stella had persuaded me to attend this damned party, so that her current mark could show me off to all his friends. As the author of four successful novels — two extremely lucrative, one being made into a film; the other still being at the centre of a bidding war between TV and film companies at the time — I was considered hot stuff in the "look who I have as a friend" game. To be honest, I didn't consider myself a celebrity or enjoy being in the public eye very much. I'm just someone who enjoys writing for the fun of writing and — if I'm being honest - how much cash it put in the bank, so I can live the life I've always wanted to. Not for the fame, but for fortune. But sometimes - no matter how much you dislike it - you have to become involved in the marketing side of things just a little and these being seen in the right places things are all part of that pantomime. Norman - the millionaire's - yacht was anchored off in the bay, so Stella and I were ferried out to the thing in a swish launch. Damn it, if that bloody tender wasn't bigger than the boat that my father and I used to sail around the Isle-of-Wight most summer weekends when I was a kid. Climbing the gangway stairs we were met by an immaculately dressed crew-member who led us - very formally - up a companionway to an upper lounge area that opened out onto a large awning covered deck. Liberally sprinkled around were sun-loungers, tables and chairs etc; where a nefarious collection of posers, Hooray Henries, rich businessmen and minor celebrities - like myself - were milling around drinking Champagne and the like. The most important people there — to my mind at least and if I'm being totally honest, probably the main reason I'd agreed to attend the bloody party in the first place — were the collection of eye candy that this particular host was famous for having at these parties on his yacht. In the gossip columns they were reputed to run around serving the drinks in the skimpiest bikinis ever made. It was also routinely insinuated that once the boat was out of sight of land, most of them - if not all - discarded the upper portions of their apparel. The magazines and papers had even hinted that some of these beauties had been known to finish up sans bikinis altogether on occasion. And there had been veiled suggestions of the odd orgy or two; not that I was into that kind of thing. Of course it shouldn't be necessary for me to point out that it should be taken into account that reporters will write just about anything that they can get away with, to get their by-line into a newspaper. And some folks who crave notoriety will acquiesce to almost any twisting of the true facts, to gain some publicity. Me? Well, like most men I just loved to look at beautiful nubile forms. I said look, and that should not be implied to mean anything else; I'm extremely choosy about who I take into my bed with me. In this day and age you can't be careful enough, what with all that there is to catch out there. And of course there are those young women — and men I'll add — who are only too happy to gain notoriety — not counting copious amounts of cash - by selling their "kiss and tell" stories to the gutter press. Norman our host — a short, not very handsome tubby man in his early fifties - rushed over to meet us as we gained the deck, greeting Stella with an enthusiastic kiss, before welcoming me aboard and then beginning to introduce us to a whole collection of wankers who held little or no interest for me whatsoever. However I believe that at the time I made a pretty good job of feigning some passing interest in them. Even if my eyes were looking at them, my mind was straying — using my peripheral vision - around some of the other people on the deck. So whilst these introductions were going on, I have to admit that I was struggling to keep my eyes on the person that I was being introduced to; there did appear to be copious amounts of much more interesting and nubile flesh around to look at. A small group, who almost immediately caught my eye, were several females - nominally dressed in tiny triangles of cloth and bits of string that I suppose were meant to be bikinis — who appeared to be together in a little clique. Oh, there were several other small groups of people dotted about the deck, but this group caught my eye because two of them had their backs turned towards us, or should I say me; because that was the distinct feeling that I had. Maybe my unconscious mind had seen the two rapidly turn around as Stella and I had stepped from the companionway. The other point was that almost everyone else on the deck — probably because we were the new arrivals - appeared to be looking in our general direction. As our host introduced the next little group of boring people to Stella and myself, I moved slightly so that I could look between a couple and watch the little clique more directly. I said boring because for the most part I had taken it as read that I was going to find almost the whole day boring, except of course for the time I could devote to perving the eye candy. There were five of them altogether. The most obvious point to make about them is that the two blonds with their backs to us were a lot paler skinned than the others, who had obviously been enjoying the Mediterranean sun on their nubile bodies for a considerably longer period of time. I very much suspected that the two paler girls were newcomers to the local scene. Look, all five women had fashionable suntans, but for some reason I suspected that the odd two's tans most likely came from a bottle, or artificial sun bed, somewhere a lot less sunny than the south of France. Anyway the other thing that caught my eye was that the two with their backs to me could easily have been mistaken for being naked. I noted that from the rear those particular bikinis looked like nothing more than pieces of very thin string or tape tied in a bow on each hip just bellow waist level, with another length of string disappearing between the cheeks of their rather perfectly shaped arses. Another piece of string or tape appeared to be tied around their upper back obviously supporting the small triangles of skin coloured material — plainly visible on the three girls who were facing me - that were only just managing to cover their nipples. There were also supports for those triangles that were around the back of the girls' necks, but they all had flowing locks of blond hair so they couldn't be seen from the rear. All five girls appeared to be talking at once with the three facing my way glancing at me several times. I got the impression that they were arguing — or at least having a disagreement - about something. As I watched, one of the two pale skinned blonds took a quick look in my direction and for an instant our eyes locked; then she quickly turned back to her friend and said something to her. The second girl vigorously shook her head, before she let out at a run towards a doorway at the other side of the lounge area and disappeared from sight. She was promptly followed by the other paler skinned blond. The other three were still standing there like dummies, looking at the doorway that their friends had just exited through, when a sleazy looking guy in shorts and a tee shirt who I hadn't noticed before approached them. There followed a short but very animated conversation, before he took a quick glance in Stella's and my direction. Seeing me watching him, he gave me a tentative smile and a little nod on his head, then turned back to talk to the three girls again; I got the feeling he was giving some kind of a lecture to them. Suddenly the three girls switched from "concerned about friends" into "eye candy" mode. The expression on their faces turning into those kind of false smiles that tells you that they are being paid to be there. After that, the little group broke up, the girls strutting their stuff and pushing out their implants for everyone to admire. The sleaze took another quick look in my direction before exiting by the same door that the two pale skinned blonds had gone through. "Cute arse!" Stella said to me quietly, "You fancy some of that, I'm sure you can have some later if you like?" "Sorry?" I replied, feigning ignorance of what Stella was referring to and pretending that I hadn't been staring at the scantily clad young women. "That sexy little blond you were watching. I'll get Norm to introduce you if you like. I hear that some of them are willing to earn a few bob on the side, if you know what I mean. But then again, you might be able to sweep her off her feet with your charm," Stella gave a kind of muffled giggle. "And with those rugged looks of yours, with any luck you might get her for nothing." I did have a bit of a reputation of being a loner and appearing rather aloof most of the time. I'll admit that it was a persona I'd created on purpose, and for personal reasons. For some years by then, I'd preferred my own company. "Damn it, Stella, what are you blabbering on about?" "Duncan, it wouldn't hurt your reputation any to be seen around with a floozy on your arm now and again. And a good shagging might make you a little more personable as well. You can be a real killjoy on occasion, you know." Duncan - yeah, you noticed the bloody name, did you? It was Stella's idea for me to use the name of my main detective character, Duncan King, as my pen name. I must admit that it did help me keep a low profile for a few years around where I lived. The trouble was that, now I had become famous, every bugger in the world knew me as Duncan fucking King. "Stella, I'm not a miserable arsehole. I just enjoy my privacy. I like to keep my private life out of the bleeding newspapers." "Yeah, I know, but you don't have to appear as if you're bloody celibate. For Christ's sake, some bleeding muckraker is bound to suggest that you're a bleeding doughnut shitter or something before very much longer. You know what the Sunday papers are like." "Do you have to be so bloody crude, Stella? Anyway everyone knows that I'm not a bleeding poof." "Makes no difference to a reporter, Duncan, you should know that by now. If they can sell a story by insinuating that you're gay, they will. They'll say that just because your private detective Duncan King fucks any bit of skirt he can get his dick near. That doesn't prove that you swing the same way. If anything they'll claim it's a bleeding smoke screen." "Besides I can't understand you anyway! Why, you can't take your eyes off of those little tarts' tits, but you never bother to take up what's on offer. Most likely half of those little sluts who drool over you at those book signings, would jump into your bed with you, if you gave them half a chance; but to my knowledge, you haven't shagged a one of them." "Can I help it if I'm cautious, Stella? I have no intention of doing a Beckham and then having some tart make a mint out of selling the story of our tryst to the Sunday rags. Besides that, there's all sorts of nasties out there that you can pick up from casual sex nowadays." I thought Stella suddenly looked a little embarrassed as she replied, "Yeah, I suppose you do have a point there." Then she went uncommonly quiet for Stella for a couple of minutes. The thought crossed my mind that maybe wonder-woman had possibly come unstuck with one of her many liaisons in the past. Stella soon wondered off to find Norm again, no doubt trying to snag the old sod. But with Norman's penchant for young and scantily dressed women, I personally thought that good old Norm was one guy who wouldn't end up paying Stella an exorbitant divorce settlement. It could only have been five minutes or so later that I spotted the sleaze reappearing on the deck, followed by the blond who'd locked eyes with me. I was talking to some young would-be actor guy and his agent at the time, so I don't think the sleaze or the young blond realised that I had noticed that they had both taken a good look in my direction as they'd come back out onto the deck. The fact that Stella was no longer in close proximity to myself was the final piece of evidence that I needed to convince me that the blonde's hurried departure from the gathering had been prompted by my arrival. My problem was, I couldn't figure out who she was or why she would run away on sight of me as she had. For the next hour or so I circulated. Making short but courteous conversation with some of the other guests and watching several of the dolly birds cavorting with a couple of guests in the yacht's small pool. I counted getting-on-for a dozen of the young women altogether; some were serving drinks, the others either sunbathing, or cavorting in the pool. All of them had very 'fit' bodies and were clad in those identical flesh coloured and very minuscule bikinis; the odd thing was that they all had long blonde hair. "Wigs!" A woman called Helen Carpenter - who bore a somewhat striking resemblance to the actress Diana Rigg when she'd played Emma Peel — informed me when I commented on the fact to her and her husband John. "Haven't you noticed that it's only those four, who I suspect are natural blondes who are going into the pool. All the others' hairstyles are so similar that they must be wigs." "Oh, I never thought of that. What made you notice?" Helen smiled at me. "I'd have thought that the great detective Duncan King would have spotted that as well; after all John and I are in the same line of work." "Oh, you're writers?" "No, Duncan, John and I are recovery agents. Although some people tend to class us as private detectives, like the great Duncan King." "Ah, now, there you have it; what's in a name? Duncan King might be a smart-arsed detective. But I'm afraid that Warren Price is just a humble author who has to do a hell of a lot of research before Duncan gets his man. My agent over there, Rhoda Steel, thought it was a good idea that my first book should bear the by-line of its main character and I've been stuck with the bloody name ever since. Well, for all the Duncan King novels, at least." "Oh, my, which do you prefer, Warren or Duncan?" "Everyone knows me as Duncan King now. It just causes unnecessary confusion when anybody uses my real name." "Well, in that case, Duncan, would you care to explain why that young lady did a runner the moment you stepped on board? Is she an old flame or something?" "Honestly, Helen, I have no idea; I didn't even get a look at her face. I've only dated a couple of blondes in my life and I'm sure that she's neither of them; they were both gold diggers and I'm bloody sure they would have run in the opposite direction." I smiled back at her. "She's probably not a blonde, Duncan, otherwise why the wig?" John Carpenter pointed out. "That's a point that I hadn't considered; but there's no other women that I know intimately who would run around dressed like that in public." "Well, whoever she is, I would suggest that it's quite possible that you wouldn't have expected to see her running around dressed as those girls are, Duncan," Helen said, "And what's more likely, she didn't expect to see you here today either, and she was embarrassed about the way that she was dressed. She definitely did not want you to see her dressed that way in public." At that point Stella arrived at our side and apologised to John and Helen for interrupting us, then dragged me off to talk to some producer who was in the bidding war for the film rights to my latest book. To be honest, except for saying hello to the wanker, I said very little to him; Stella did most of the talking, dropping the names of other producers and TV companies into the conversation whenever she could, and vague hints on how much other people were offering for the cinematic rights. Whilst the conversation was going on I spent most of my time watching the coast of France disappear over the horizon. Then the thought struck me that it was when the yacht was out of sight of the coast that the rumours claimed the dolly birds went sans bikinis. I was to learn later that like most rumours, although based on a little fact, most of the rumour was untrue. Yeah, during the day there were a couple of instances where the girls cavorting around in the pool had the odd accident with those tiny bikini bras; but no more than would be expected around any pool if the females were wearing such tiny bikinis. Jesus, I'd seen more nipples than I saw that day on Southsea beach on an August Bank Holiday Monday as a kid. Anyway as I'd turned my attention back from the horizon to the pool area, I'd noted that John and Helen Carpenter were talking to two of the bikini clad dolly birds. Helen looked up at me, gave me a smile and raised her eyebrows. I gathered this was a signal, and it was supposed to tell me something, but I had no idea what. What kind of facial expression I gave Helen in return, I have no idea; I believe that I was trying to express confusion. Whatever Helen smiled again and winked at me then returned to talking to the two girls, one of whom also took a quick glance in my direction. "Christabelle, ring any bells?" Helen said with a giggle, when she joined me at the yacht's rail a few minutes later. "Pardon." "The runner. She's calling herself Christabelle. She and her friend arrived out here a couple of days ago. They're part of a dance troop or something and they came along today to make up the numbers; apparently some of the usual girls Norman has along on these shindigs are sick - food poisoning or something. Anyway I doubt that Christabelle is her real name. The same as yours isn't Duncan King." "Stands to reason, but I still have no idea who she is or why she did a runner." "Oh, well, apparently she knows you extremely well, and she referred to you as Warren; almost had a heart attack when you appeared on deck." I'm not sure whether Helen read something in my facial expression or not, but she went on. "It was all the other girls could do to stop her trying to swim ashore. Anyway she's hiding in one of the cabins now and refuses to come out. Norman and that Prat agent who supplies the girls are furious. He's the dance troop agent locally as well and, from what the other girls say, he's planning on firing Christabelle toot sweet." "Do we know what cabin?" The penny had finally dropped; there was only one person that I could think of who would unconsciously refer to me as Warren. The Price of Fame I'm Milton Pearl, a sixty-two year old father and widower, and I'm too old for confessions. My daughter, Nicki, is the one you ought to ask for a confession. She's still at Carvel High, just turned nineteen, and she's doing porn videos. I only recently found out about it, and it's making me crazy. Sometimes I can't help but feel as if I've let the poor girl down. I was the one who encouraged her to try modeling. I wanted her to do something with her life. Be somebody. She's an attractive girl. Small, thin. Big brown eyes like a baby doe. She has hair just like her mother—silky, chestnut hair that falls to the middle of her back. Nicki's mother is how all this started. She died last year in a motorcycle accident. Her name was Becky, and we met in her final year of high school. I was twice her age and had just returned from a tour in the Gulf. She worked the counter at Howard Johnson's down on the Boulevard. She kept the hem of her uniform skirt a few fingers higher than all the other girls, but she had the legs to pull it off—slender, tan legs. Cheerleader legs. I had my Harley back then and Becky liked to feel its huge engine roar. We'd go for long rides, and after a few hours of weaving along the wooded back roads, she'd lower her hands from my waist, reach between my legs, and I'd know it was time to pull off to the side. She wasn't my first woman, but she's the only one I ever wanted to make a child with. After the accident, Nicki started acting out with boys. I found nude video of her on one of my laptop computers. She was texting with someone on a software program I use for making video calls. I don't think she intended for me to find the recording, but I think I know the exact night it happened. I was upstairs watching a football game and she had herself holed up in the dining room with the door locked. The video shows her sitting at the table with her top completely unbuttoned. She slips off her shirt, opens her bra, and then hides her breasts with both her hands. You can tell by the expression on her face that she's building up her courage, and then she takes a deep breath and lowers her hands. Nicki has breasts just like her mom—teacup size. Nipples big as gumdrops, areolas the color of chocolate milk. You can tell she enjoys showing off her body by the sly way she's grinning when she drops her hands. After a few minutes of typing, she stands up. She's in her underwear, and her slim hips and tummy fill the frame. She turns around, lowers her panties, and flashes her bottom. When she sits back down, her face is flush. After a few more bursts of furious typing, she stands again, only this time to show her front—a thick patch of untrimmed pubic hair, all wispy and wild. She only shows herself for a minute, and then she pulls her panties back up and sits, her face glowing bright red. I know that's not appropriate behavior for a little girl, but I didn't want to come down too hard on her. The video reminded me of Polaroids her mother and I had made when we first started dating. I'd get us a room at the motel where she worked, and Becky would hold her uniform skirt up and grin that devilish good girl smile at me. She'd lower her panties and hose, and then sit in a chair with her knees up high while I photographed her. Becky loved to show off her body. She once told me that the thrill of performing for a crowd in a skimpy outfit was the main reason she was a cheerleader all through high school. I looked all over for those old Polaroids but couldn't find them. I lost them. They're gone, just like Becky's gone. Just like my youth's gone. And now it looks as if my little baby Nicki's gone, too. It's all so unfair. *** If Nicki acted out with boys to deal with the loss, I didn't do much better. I was a mess. I married Rebecca three months after we put Becky in the ground. I don't know how I would have gotten through those first few weeks without Rebecca. She's a godsend, but nothing like Becky. For one thing, she couldn't look more different. Rebecca is a ginger. Red hair that hangs to the middle of her back. Tall, milky white skin, and an athletic, formidable body. A real Viking. She's a makeup artist at the company Becky and I started. I'm a stunt coordinator and a damn good stuntman myself. I've been a double for Cruise, Eastwood, Ford, and Willis. I've been blessed with a rugged face, but I keep my body in good shape. I've even doubled for Schwarzenegger. Rebecca is half my age with an insatiable appetite for sex. Right after the accident, this was perfect. We'd slip into one of the trailers, lock the door, and fall into one another's arms. I always had a thing for her, but we never did anything about it. When we finally became physical, we didn't do touchy-feely sex. I'd just cup her shoulders into my palms and pound my cock into her. Sometimes she'd lick her finger, reach around and slip it in my ass. Ordinarily I wouldn't let a woman do that to me, but Rebecca could get away with it. She's such a brazen, intimidating woman. It's one of the reasons we hired her. She's the perfect woman to deal with all the hotshot Hollywood people. Once Rebecca and I started having sex, we met two or three times each day, but always on the set, in a car, or at some motel. I didn't want to bring her home right away, so soon after losing Becky. Didn't seem right. I wanted Nicki to like Rebecca. I figured that since the two of them were so close in age—about ten years apart—they might bond. Didn't happen. At our wedding, Nicki got hammered and tossed a drink in Rebecca's face. I won't repeat here all the ugly things Nicki said that night. Rebecca took it in stride. The next day Nicki apologized, but the two of them started out with a low-level, brooding relationship, like a tooth gone bad. Meanwhile, I didn't know what to do about that video I found. I felt like I needed to address it—I'm Nicki's father, after all—but I knew better than to bring Rebecca into it. I kept watching the video, trying to figure out what to do. I couldn't get over how much Nicki looked like her mother. It went beyond mere physical appearance. In my line of work, you have to capture the attitude of the actor you're doubling. The best stuntmen are surrogates, stand-ins. Somehow Nicki managed to capture her mother this way. It was in the way she kept returning her hands to her breasts even after she had already exposed herself, or the expression she wore as she marshaled the courage to push down her panties and reveal even more of her body. That sort of push-pull—equal parts eager, equal parts shy—was exactly how her mother behaved in high school. I sure do miss my Becky. *** I finally mustered the courage to tell Nicki about the video I found. We were alone in the house and Nicki's face fell. I watched her throat work as she swallowed hard. I put my hand over hers, and she hung her head, her silky hair hiding her face. I didn't want to shame her or make her feel bad—I wanted to keep things light—but I didn't know exactly what to say. This is the sort of thing that Becky would have known how to deal with. I made a joke about the size of Nicki's breasts, but—Good Lord!—that was a mistake. Nicki drew her lips together in a tight line. She looked me right in the eye, a storm brewing in her big brown eyes. She left for her job at the restaurant. She was mad. To make up with her, I decided to loan her six thousand dollars. She'd been lobbying Becky and me for the money to buy a car, but we weren't sure about loaning her so much cash. Rebecca was against it. At the dinner table Rebecca said right in front of Nicki that six thousand dollars was "too much responsibility for a girl Nicki's age—too much pressure." Almost as if to prove Rebecca right, Nicki lost her job as soon as she got the car. *** When Becky had been gone six months, I found myself in a completely new life without her. Rebecca and I stopped having sex at work. After we had so many of the crew out to the ranch for the wedding, it just seemed wrong to keep acting like kids at work. We had our sex in the morning and then again later at night. I felt more pressure to satisfy her needs than I did for any of my deadlines at work. I started taking Viagra. And, of course, I knew I needed to do something for my little Nicki. I wasn't that worried about the money, but Rebecca wouldn't let it go. Always hinting that Nicki ought to get a job, grow up. Be more responsible. I wanted peace in my house. I wanted Nicki to be happy. I wished for a pill I could swallow that would solve all of Nicki's problems. Jack Price seemed like the answer. He was a freelance photographer I had taken on to capture some promotional video. A veteran himself, Jack had done his tour in the second Iraq war. Good looking guy. Curly hair, dark eyes. A lot younger than me—and ex-Army, but I didn't want to hold that against him. I told him about my problems with Nicki. The stuff I didn't feel comfortable sharing with Rebecca. We had a few drinks, and I showed him Nicki's school pictures. Told him she was experimenting with boys. Pretty soon I was telling him everything. We talked about the video I found. We watched it together. It was satisfying to talk with someone who listened. He didn't have any answers, but he asked a lot of questions. How old was Nicki? Who was the boy she spoke with in the video? Did I think she was sexually active? Jack was the one who first suggested getting Nicki a job as a model. He said she's cute. He said a girl like Nicki would get a lot of work. He said he had some friends who could use her. Friends who would love to get their hands on her. He said his friends could make her a household name. I'll say this much—in the certain circles, Nicki is pretty popular now. *** I floated the modeling idea to Nicki over dinner. She was just starting her senior year and had a lot of homework, but you could tell the idea pleased her. I had to build up her confidence about her looks. I didn't say anything about her breasts this time, but I told her that Jack was a professional photographer, and he'd seen her high school pictures and thought she was cute. She groaned and hung her head, but I could tell she was pleased that an older man found her attractive. It felt good to give her some news she wanted to hear. Rebecca seemed quiet. Restrained. Later that night, alone in our bed, Rebecca propped herself on her elbow. She said she thought modeling might be a poor choice for Nicki. We had just finished making love and there was a slick sheen of sweat on her breasts. I lost my patience with her. I didn't want to yell, but I hissed. I told her I needed her support, her help. I said that if we didn't get Nicki squared away, our marriage would surely fail. I was upset and went into the computer room, leaving Rebecca alone in the bed. When I came back later, she'd fallen asleep. The next morning, Rebecca seemed contrite. I got on top of her and slipped myself between her legs. She was already wet. Looking at me with wide, eager eyes, she whispered, "My daddy said you'll make me a star, mister." The other big difference about Rebecca is her dirty mind. Becky always relied on me to rattle off all our fantasies, to push our limits. But Rebecca naturally leans toward taking the lead. She can take the most mundane situation and find its sexual edge. I grinned, immediately warming to her game. "That's my little girl," I said. As I thrust my hips, she wrapped her arms around my neck. "I'll do whatever you say, mister." She bit her lower lip and rolled her hips. I could feel my penis lodged inside her. "I want to be a star," she moaned, her voice lowering into a throaty whisper. "I want to be famous." I fucked her and when I was ready to finish, I told her to scoot down between my legs and put my cock in her mouth. She took my erection in her hand and started sliding under the sheets. But then she stopped, cast her eyes downward, and gently nudged her breasts against my chest. My cock throbbed in her hand. "Mister?" she asked. I could feel her warm breath against my ear. "Please don't tell my boyfriend I let you come in my mouth." I love that girl. *** Nicki took to modeling right away. Jack seemed pleased. He said she was a natural in front of the camera. She soon began appearing in advertisements for local businesses. That chichi gym downtown still has half a dozen banner signs featuring Nicki in workout tights. She took a few bites from a hamburger on TV. Modeled some print dresses for a local department store. And then Rebecca began reaching for the mantle of motherhood in a way I hadn't expected. She helped Nicki with her hair and makeup for shoots. They started to do more together. Sometimes they would disappear on the weekend together, driving out to a location shoot or some studio in the valley. Rebecca would take her big makeup case, fat as a suitcase. At work, I'd sometimes find her chatting with Jack at the water cooler. After Jack finished his original assignment, I had to find more work for him. He was a good freelancer, a popular photographer. I had to stick my neck out with the partners, but I moved some promotional work to a higher priority. I had no illusions about Nicki becoming a runway model, but I saw the way she was applying herself and bonding with Rebecca. I got Jack on the company calendar all through the holidays and well into the spring. I wanted him to continue grooming Nicki. I just didn't realize what he was grooming her for. I never wanted my little baby girl to be a porn star. *** Not long after I squared Nicki and Rebecca away, I became infatuated with a gorgeous teen model that reminded me of Becky. Her name was Jenny. I'd felt so relieved to find her. It had always felt wrong to look at the video of Nicki stripping. I resolved to delete it many times, but could never bring myself to actually do it. I didn't want it to disappear like those Polaroids. Couldn't stand to have it vanish like Becky. So instead of deleting it, I saved it. I hid it away on my secure backup drive. I didn't want Rebecca to find it. She wouldn't understand. Jenny was brand new to modeling. I found her on one of those glamour sites that feature teenage models in skimpy outfits. When I first looked into modeling opportunities for Nicki, I found dozens of these sites. There isn't any nudity, but it's all very titillating. The glamour sites didn't seem right for Nicki, but I didn't see any harm in visiting myself. Jenny took my breath away. Despite the most amazing blue eyes and long blonde hair, something about her always reminded me of Becky. In her first set, she appeared as a waitress flirting with a good-looking customer, a guy maybe ten years older than her. The pictures were carefully orchestrated to tell a little story. In one shot, he reached across the counter to touch the back of her hand and the look on her face was priceless: the perfect illustration of girl about to be swallowed up by her own innocent desires. She bent low to refill his coffee and the camera peered down into her shirt. You could see the soft swell of her breasts, the lacy edge of her bra. She wore a jellybean necklace that she toyed with as she leaned over, her customer raking her in. In another shot, she dropped her pen and then bent from the waist to retrieve it. The guy held his coffee mug halfway to his lips as he gazed at her legs, her hem perilously close to her panty-clad bottom. When she gave him his check, he touched her hand again, and she looked back over her shoulder and then discreetly lifted her skirt. The hem only rose a tiny bit, just enough to show her panties—it wasn't clear if she was absentmindedly toying with her clothes, the way that teenagers sometimes do, or if she was inviting her customer to seduce her. My cock was swollen and wet. Jenny turned her back to the other customers and the rest of the wait staff. Now she carefully showed off what was under her skirt. The camera zoomed in to show her cotton underwear, a pillow of pubic hair hidden behind the fabric of her panties. You could see the occasional little corkscrew of hair peeking past the seams. By far, the most intoxicating of these pictures were the ones that included her face as she exposed herself. She looked both powerful and terrified, alive and a little trapped, just like Becky in those Polaroids. The photographer was talented. Top notch. I saved Jenny's waitress set to the encrypted drive. The way these sites work is that you pay a little fee and then sign up for updates. I immediately signed up for more sets of Jenny. *** Around Christmastime, I was at the office late and it was deserted. I got an update about a new Jenny set and immediately went to check it out. I didn't recognize her at first. She'd cut her hair into a short blonde wedge with a thin stripe of tangerine and purple down the front. She wore a little girl's button up cotton pajamas and sat before a Christmas tree, her legs tucked under herself. A thin boy with a hooknose dressed as Santa stood gazing at her, a fake white beard hanging from his chin. I heard a tapping on the glass. Jack stood in the hall, his brows raised. I waved him inside, shut my laptop, and leaned back in the chair. He wanted advice on how to motivate Nicki. I laughed, but Jack was serious. He said she was at a turning point in her career and he wanted to inspire her. I told him all I know about inspiring Nicki. Never put her down. Always be positive. If all else fails, appeal to her sense of professionalism. The key to motivating Nicki is her desire to compete well with her peers in the workplace. Nicki is like her mother that way. Becky pinned the hem of her waitress uniform to make sure she always got the best tips. Jack listened attentively. He seemed pleased with my answers. After he left, I went back to Jenny. Santa took a seat on the couch and Jenny dutifully stripped down to her bra and panties. Her slim hips and unblemished tummy looked delicious, but she seemed disinterested. Maybe even a little bored. I copied the set to storage, then closed my laptop, disappointed. At first I thought it was because the boy was so young, dressed so ridiculously. But then I realized it had little to do with him, and everything to do with Jenny. I wanted to see her push herself, shed her innocence. For a girl her age, it's the most natural thing in the world. I wanted to watch her embrace the adult world of sexual desires. I'd watched Becky do the same thing once. I'd even given her a few gentle little nudges of my own along the way. *** The whole family had to pull together to give Nicki her shot with modeling. We each had to make our own little sacrifices. I came downstairs New Year's Day and found both Rebecca and Nicki already awake. The kitchen smelled of fresh coffee. Nicki sat at the counter, staring intently into her phone. Rebecca stood behind Nicki, working methodically on her hair. "Morning," I mumbled, surprised to find everyone up. Rebecca nodded her head, lips pursed around a mouthful of bobby pins. "He says we have to be there by two," Nicki said. I poured coffee for myself. "Who says?" I asked. "Morning, Daddy," Nicki said, acknowledging me. She winced and then spilled her coffee as Rebecca pushed a hairpin into her scalp. Rebecca cooed an apology, taking the last of the pins from her mouth. "We can make two," she said to Nicki, who began thumbing a message into her phone. "You're on your own for dinner," Rebecca said to me, filling her mouth with more hairpins. I made breakfast and thought about how I'd spend my day. By the time Rebecca finished with Nicki's hair, she looked like someone else, a completely different person. Each strand of her long silky hair had been twisted up and pinned tight to the side of her head. The Price of Fame She carefully tugged what looked like a nylon stocking over her head, then pulled on a baseball cap. Grinning at me, she held her hands wide as if to present herself. With her hair up, I couldn't help but notice how much her cheekbones and facial structure reminded me of her mother. *** Jenny tucked herself against the headboard, knees on the bed, flipping through a pornographic magazine. In this set, her hair was jet black, shoulder-length. She wore cutoff denim shorts and a cotton tube top that fell to just above her navel. The email that announced these pictures sounded promising: a babysitter discovers a stash of pornographic magazines under a bed, then a desire to pose for some pictures of her own. A box full of nude pictures and magazines laid open at the foot of the bed. Jenny strummed her small breasts through the fabric of her top. An imposing black man appeared at the bedroom door. Jenny was stretched out on her tummy, one hand under her hips, the magazine spread before her. The guy looked annoyed to find the girl on his bed, in his personal belongings. Jenny was the picture of terror: her back against the headboard, legs askew. Dark hair stuck to her sweaty forehead and cheeks. But the picture also worked as a metaphor for the terror any young girl feels upon discovering the stark power of her own sexual desires. Despite the panic in her eyes, Jenny's nipples were poking through her top, her cheeks deeply flushed. The parent softened his face and reached for her knee. I felt my dick begin to swell. The magazine laid open between them, a silent reminder of her wishes. Soon the man was behind her, his hands on her bare shoulders, gazing down into her tube top. Jenny bit her lip and looked a little concerned, as well she probably should have. If sex was forbidden, then sex with a black man was surely taboo, which of course only made the pictures all the more powerful. Her nipples remained taut, advertising a need the black man seemed eager to fulfill. He produced a camera and made his intentions clear. I could feel my cock pushing against my pants. Jenny shyly tucked her hair behind her ear. You could see she felt conflicted. Maybe a little humiliated, but also hungry. She was the perfect illustration of the quiet desperation, the dreadful longing that comes with being an eighteen year old. She climbed onto the bed and began to mime all the standard poses. She dutifully got on all fours. She nuzzled her head into the mattress, then arched her back and put her jean clad bottom high in the air. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to revel in her own blossoming sex powers. The parent seemed to smirk. Perhaps he did it to scorn her, this cute little whore no longer able to play the virgin. Whatever his expression meant, Jenny didn't even seem to notice it. She eagerly allowed herself to be exploited. Soon she got more daring. She opened the fly of her shorts and revealed her white panties. Lifting her top, she showed off her tummy, the shallow dip of her bellybutton. She titled her head back, opened her mouth and extended her tongue. She let him take pictures of her cleavage, leaning forward, tugging her neckline to reveal a hint of her areolas. Shoving her shorts down to her knees, she yanked her panties tight against her pussy. The camera zoomed in close and you could see the fat lips of her labia, the little split between her legs. She shaved her pussy bare for the shoot! I grinned, knowing it wouldn't be long before I'd have pictures of this little tart riding some stallion's fat cock. Putting a finger to her lips, she asked for secrecy. Then she began twisting her panties, showing as much of her shaved vulva as she could without actually taking off her underwear. The set ended with a shot from behind: her shorts remained at her knees, her panties at her hips. Jenny knelt on the bed holding up her top. She threw her shoulders back, presenting her little titties. The parent lowered his camera. Staring at his little prize, he had a look of unrestrained lust on his face. I couldn't have been more delighted. My hot little Jenny seemed inspired. *** Later that week, I found Rebecca in the prop trailer, looking for something. The prop trailer is a small cramped space, filled with boxes of junk. We were alone in there. I reached over her to get at something on a shelf and she caught me glancing down into her cleavage. Rebecca smirked. She sidled up close to me. "Daddy," she whispered, reaching between my legs and cupping my package. "My best customer at the soda shop gives me better tips if I let him peek down my shirt." I grinned. Ignoring the prop I had come looking for, I started to massage her breasts and nibble her pink earlobe. "You have to make your customers happy," I cooed. I unsnapped Rebecca's jeans and pushed her tight pants past her hips. Reaching for her panties, I found her crotch sopping wet. "Daddy," she whispered. "Sometimes I show my customers my panties." I laughed, unzipped my fly, and pulled out my stiff cock. The trailer door was unlocked but I didn't bother to lock it. Becky was gone and I could act like a fool if I wanted. Turning Rebecca around, I pulled down her panties, and slipped myself inside her. "I get better tips if I show my panties," Rebecca hummed. I felt so much love for her, for the crazy sexual energy she brought to our relationship. "Even good girls," I said, "get to be a little naughty sometimes." I had my cock buried inside her, and Rebecca craned her neck to look at me. She had the neediest expression on her face. It was like she had something to tell me, but she couldn't find the right words to express herself. I wanted to give her something, but I didn't know what. "You can show off your panties," I said. "Go ahead, give your customers what they want." Rebecca liked hearing that—her needy expression disappeared. She turned back to the front and rocked her hips until she came. She moaned and coated my cock with some creamy goo, the milky color of half-cooked egg white. I was still working toward my own orgasm when she gushed that she didn't do it just for the money. "Don't be mad, Daddy," she warned. "Don't be mad at me—" The sound of my ragged breathing filled the trailer as I waited for her to deliver her next line. "I do it because," she said. "—I like it." I filled her with my juice, then ground my cock into her. "I like it, Daddy," she said over and over. "I like it." *** On Valentine's Day, Jack came into my office all in a huff. I only had a few minutes before my next meeting to order some flowers for Rebecca, but I could see Jack was upset, so I made some time for him. "What do you know about Nicki's boyfriend?" he asked. I shrugged my shoulders. Her boyfriend was just a kid. He always seemed to wear a big grin and had a face like an elf. I couldn't remember his name. Alan? Alex? Something. He took Nicki to basketball games. Dances. He doted on her, she on him. Jack reminded me that this boy was probably the same person Nicki had stripped for. I conceded that she might be experimenting with sex. We made plans to get a drink. Jack said he had more to discuss with me, but he didn't want to talk at the office. At the bar, he brought up Nicki again. He wanted me to get her to break it off with her boyfriend. He said her relationship with him was having a negative impact on her modeling. Then he painted a picture of her sex life—the boy's hand down her panties, blow jobs in the woods, fucking in the backseats of parked cars. Jack said he didn't know about the marines, but a soldier would never allow such things to happen. That hurt my pride. He slammed his drink down on the bar and sidled up next to me. Grabbing my arm, he hissed, "Nicki swallows." I didn't get what he meant at first and chuckled. Swallows what? And then I saw where he was going and winced. I didn't want to hear this shit, but it was too late to stop him. He dropped my arm and looked across the room. "Your daughter's mouth," he hissed, "is a bucket." He looked me right in the eye. "For that boy's cum." That was what Jack wanted to tell me. That's why he wanted to get drinks. Message delivered, he strode from the bar. I was angry and went home. When I gave Rebecca her Valentine's gifts, I told her what Jack had told me in the bar, and how he'd said it. She reminded me that he was an artist, given to all manner of craziness. "It's what makes his creative work so good," she said. "Deep down, Jack really cares for Nicki. He's just driven." Rebecca was sitting on my lap on the couch. We had to be discreet because Nicki was still home. She was in her cheerleader uniform and running late for a basketball game. Her boyfriend sounded his horn in the drive. Nicki grabbed her pompoms, rolled her eyes at Rebecca and me, and then raced out the door. Straddling my legs, Rebecca put her arms around my neck and told me about a coach who once scolded her for not raising the hem of her cheerleader skirt high enough. It wasn't clear to me if Rebecca was role playing, or if she was relating an experience she'd actually had as a teen. Jenny had recently done a photo set where she modeled different cheerleader outfits for a coach, changing behind a screen. The male talent who played the coach wore the most severe look on his face, which really worked for the shoot. Rubbing his chin, he made poor Jenny work hard for his approval. "I wanted him to like me Daddy," Rebecca said. I put my hands on her hips and gently rocked her body, using her groin to rub the growing bulge in my pants. "I tugged my shorts up real high," Rebecca whispered. "Let the seam rub against my pussy." She rubbed her boobs against my chest and rolled her hips. She wanted me to fuck her, but I was enthralled by the story. In the shoot, Jenny had raised her skirt for coach. She bit her lip and tugged her shorts tight up against her cunt. You could see the fat lips of her labia, pressed hard against the crotch of each uniform she modeled. I loved that set because it reminded me of all the times I'd withheld my approval to get Becky to try some new sexual challenge with me. Sex in public. With friends. Sex with girls. An older, driven man can always get what he wants from an impressionable teenager, especially if he is determined to have it. "Don't be mad Daddy," Rebecca pleaded. "I didn't let coach fuck me. I promise, Daddy. I promise." I started to move my hips. Before I rolled Rebecca onto her back, I remember coming to the conclusion that Jack was trying to protect Nicki. He was using his position as her agent and mentor to get her to stop letting men come in her mouth. As I drove myself into Rebecca, that's what I thought. Of course, I couldn't have been more wrong. Jack was actually trying to get Nicki to let more men come in her mouth. And without realizing it, I helped him. Without me, Jack would never have been able to make the video of a dozen men ejaculating into Nicki's mouth. *** I didn't see Jack at the office the next day or even the next week. He kept up with his work so I didn't think much of it. I figured he was embarrassed about his behavior in the bar and was avoiding me. Rebecca and I were back to fucking like teenagers. Or, should I say, one of us was a teenager and the other was a dirty old man, a daddy who had to deal with all his little girl's naughty shenanigans. Rebecca told me about the night she babysat for a man who caught her looking at his pornography. On the drive home, she let this parent do a little impromptu photo shoot of her in a wooded area. Rebecca begged me for my forgiveness, confessing how much she enjoyed showing off her panties. After we finished, Rebecca lit a cigarette and leaned over me to get the ashtray. I felt her soft breasts on my chest. "We should do a different story," I murmured. I was in that dreamy place right after sex and just before going to sleep. I started to wonder if maybe Rebecca had found my stash of pictures on the encrypted drive. She seemed to know each of the shoots Jenny had done. "What story do you want?" Rebecca asked. "How about a Santa. . ." She reached between my legs. "Who comes down the chimney and gives me a little present." I stared at her—she had found my stash of pictures. Rebecca blew smoke over my head, then flopped back into the bed. "You pick something," she said. I had a meeting in the morning and didn't want to think about Rebecca going through my private files on the computer. I mumbled that I would come up with something in the morning and then rolled over. Rebecca nuzzled up against me. Her hand was between my legs again. "Pick something," she said. "Make it up." She waited a few minutes, then sidled closer. I could feel her breasts and thighs. "Pick," she hissed. "An innocent cheerleader and the team mascot," I whispered, "are kidnapped. By a group of boys from a rival team—" Rebecca snorted. She reached for my cock and it started to rise, but that was just the Viagra talking. I didn't want to have sex, I wanted to sleep. Taking her hand from my cock, I said: "—the boys rape the mascot, and then piss on the girl." Rebecca pulled her hand from mine and laughed. She swatted me. *** I was dressed as Santa and my cock was hard, a wet spot growing on the inside of my pants. The little girl sat under the Christmas tree in her jammies. I felt a great wedge of regret in my throat and wanted to hide. She pulled her pajama top over her head. I swallowed hard. I saw her frilly little bra. Turning to race away, I found my feet anchored to the floor. I felt the weight of my cock, pressing against my pants. I started to panic. Looking back, I saw the little girl was gone and now Becky sat in her place. She was wearing her uniform from Howard Johnsons. We were in a motel room. Relief washed over me. I sighed. She beckoned to me, opening her legs. I could see her slender thighs, the dark shadows under her skirt. She gave me that devilish good girl smile and shifted her hips in the chair. I saw her panties peeking out from under the hem of her skirt. I dropped my pants. Felt them pool at my ankles. My cock felt hard and thick. I saw a tiny Christmas tree sitting on top of the television set. I could hear holiday music playing softly somewhere, but it was a sad tune. And then her warm mouth was on my cock, scooping me in. I closed my eyes, tensed the muscles in my groin. I reached for her head, sank my fingers into her soft hair. Held her head tightly. And then her hair seemed to come loose from her scalp, it shifted in my hand as if it were a hat. A sudden, electric pulse of fear in my core—what have I done? I looked down. Nicki was on her knees before me, my fingers tangled in her silky hair. My muscles contracted and there was a brief moment were I could have pulled myself from her mouth. That's what I wanted to do. That's what my mind screamed for me to do. Instead I gasped. I found myself holding onto her even more tightly, pulling her to me. I wasn't ready to let go. My body convulsed, and semen gushed from my penis—into my little daughter's mouth! I sat bolt upright in bed. Shame washed over me. My heart thudded in my ears, my mouth was dry. The sheets were wet and tangled around my legs. Rebecca slept soundly. I heard a car drive slowly past the house, its headlights sweeping across the bedroom window. The clock glowed: 3:45 A.M. *** At breakfast I told Nicki she had to break it off with her boyfriend. She turned her head from the toast she was buttering. Her mouth hung open. I told her it was time for her to focus on her studies, her modeling career. The things that were important. Her lips were pressed together in a tight line. I knew she was mad, but I didn't care. Rebecca stared at me, a disapproving look on her face. Somehow I felt like an outcast in my own home. But I was serious about the break up. I didn't appreciate the image Jack had created for me of my daughter's sexuality. Something was wrong in my house—something was dreadfully wrong—and I wanted it to stop. It was a long time coming, but I finally put my foot down. A few days later, the boyfriend showed up in the driveway. He tooted his horn. I raced from the garage and found Nicki about to get in on the passenger side. I opened up the driver's door and pulled that boy from behind the wheel. He was terrified. I felt bad because his lower lip started to tremble. But I knew I needed to humiliate him, if I wanted him to stay away from Nicki. She tugged on my arm and wailed, but I held onto the boy's shirt with both my fists. I looked him right in the eye, told him exactly what my expectations were. When he finally drove off, Nicki ran to Rebecca. The two of them holed up in the dining room. They kept the door locked. *** With late spring, I grew depressed. Business had fallen off. We had staffed up, and I intended to do more promotional work, but then Jack had flaked out. I hadn't seen him in weeks. I asked Nicki about him, but she and I weren't on the best of terms by then. Rebecca didn't know anything. She had long since stopped going with Nicki on shoots. Nicki spent most of her days away, working. When she wasn't working, she was on sleepovers with her friends. I had some business travel that couldn't wait. When I did see her, I asked her what she was working on, but she wouldn't say much. She gave me vague answers, shrugs of her shoulders. I started to have my own doubts about what I had done with her boyfriend. To make everything worse, Jenny hadn't done a new shoot in months. I kept scanning the forums to see if anyone knew what had happened. She was one of the most popular models and there were lots of discussions, but little information. The last photo shoot she'd made had been a strange one. She'd seem to have abandoned her innocent good girl role. She wore a long, flowing, sheer cotton fabric, somewhere out in the desert. The wind whipped her frock between her legs and around her slender body. It was all very dramatic, everything backlit by the setting sun, her hair flying back from her face. The entire cast of male talent appeared in this one—the black amateur photographer, the demanding coach, the good-looking customer, even the kid—but in this shoot they were all just guys. Guys with hoses, of all things. Each of them held a garden hose, gently burbling water. Jenny knelt before them and they hosed her down. The fabric of her dress soon clung to the contours of her body. You could see her areolas, the nubs of her nipples, and even her shaved pussy. One by one, she let each of those men put his hand on her forehead, tilt her head back, and fill her mouth to overflowing, the water bubbling down her neck. Sure, it was a little degrading. I didn't mind. I had plenty of sets of innocent Jenny. I thought it might be time to get a look at a wicked Jenny. As if to draw a stark difference between these pictures and the others, Jenny wore tinted contact lenses in this set. Her eyes were brown. Big brown doe eyes. I created an account on the forums. I took the name Big Daddy. I posted about how much I enjoyed seeing Jenny's little tits, her slim hips. It was an anonymous forum, so I felt comfortable saying how often I found myself thinking about Jenny while I fucked my wife. The guys that posted on these forums were great. We talked about Jenny's past sets, and I noticed they paid as much attention to detail as me. Everyone seemed to have noticed when she shaved her pubic hair. We all agreed how much she seemed to enjoy showing herself off. Someone pointed out that she may have gotten a tattoo in the small of her back. You can just barely see something in the shoot she did with the parent in the bedroom. If that was a tattoo, it's a tramp stamp, the kind of tattoo that a lot of these girls get. The Price of Fame With her hair wet and sticking to her head, her make up all but gone, I saw how closely Jenny resembled Becky. I realized how much I'd been relying on Jenny for comfort, as well as for entertainment. Perhaps that's why I'd grown depressed with the spring, the lack of updates. I longed for my little Jenny to do another shoot. *** I came home early one afternoon and found Nicki and Rebecca sitting at the dining room table. Rebecca's eyes were red-ringed, wet. Nicki looked happier than I'd seen her in a long while. She slid a fat envelope across the table toward me. "This is for you, Daddy," Nicki said. Rebecca left the room. I opened the flap. Six thousand dollars. I was surprised, but I didn't really care much one way or the other. I missed Nicki and wanted to hear more about what she was doing. I took her hand in mine and turned it over. She had a tattoo on the inside of her wrist. It was a single line of text. I had to screw my head around to read it: Price of fame. I grinned at her. "I didn't know you got a tattoo," I said. She shrugged her shoulders. Tilted her pretty head. Smiled. "There's a lot you don't know about me." Rebecca returned. She was drying her eyes and looked like she had something to say. Nicki got up, rubbed Rebecca's shoulders. I saw some unspoken communication pass between them. Turning to me, Nicki said she just wanted to drop off the money. We both glanced to the thick envelope on the table. And then she was gone. I pressed Rebecca to tell me what Nicki had told her. Rebecca said it would be better if I waited for Nicki to tell me. She said we'd all be much happier if I heard it from Nicki. Rebecca was right, of course. I just wished I wouldn't have found out the way I did. *** On the forums, I found a thread titled, "Jenny Returns." I was thrilled. Ecstatic. Jenny was back! Finally some good news, I thought. But then as I started to read the messages, I realized there were problems. It wasn't really Jenny. It was a girl that looked like Jenny. A girl named Star had appeared on another site and some people swore that Jenny and Star were the same person, that Jenny had merely changed names and graduated to video. I followed the link and discovered the location of Jack Price. Jack was the host of the new site. He introduced himself, explaining that he was a talent agent that helped girls get jobs in the porn industry. He called his next girl a "Valentine's Day Special." He said she was really cute, still in high school, and that he was looking forward to auditioning her. I got a bad feeling in my gut. When Star knocked and then came grinning through his office door, my blood went cold— Star was Nicki. She brushed her long silky hair from her eyes, tucking it behind her ear. Nicki was Star. Jack pretended to have just met her. My mind was racing—Jack intended to fuck my little Nicki, at her request. He was going to help her make a pornographic video, and then put it on the Internet for millions of people to see. I wanted to shut the movie off, close my browser, pretend none of this was happening. But I knew I couldn't do any of that—I'm Nicki's father, after all. Jack made her hold her driver's license and school ID near her face and state her age. Eighteen. They made small talk for a few minutes. Nicki didn't look nervous. He asked her why she wanted to make porn videos and she said to repay some money she had borrowed from her parents. I sighed out loud. Jack told her she would have her six thousand dollars in a few weeks, maybe a month or two. I looked at the envelope of cash on my desk. I still hadn't deposited it. He had her strip. She removed her jacket. Her boots, socks. He was adjusting his cameras. She stopped at her pants and t-shirt, waiting for his direction. She stood in her bare feet. "Whenever you're ready," he said. Nicki pulled her t-shirt over her head. She shook out her hair, then unsnapped her bra and took it off. Jack called her over to him. "Can I touch?" he asked. Nicki grinned. She put her hands on her waist and thrust her shoulders back. He fondled her little breasts. He used both his hands. "What size?" "32," Nicki said. "A." He lowered his head and suckled her. "Perfect," he whispered. Nicki flushed. He used his thumbs to work her breasts and then blew. Her nipples stiffened. "Soon I'm going to buy—" Thick with excitement, her voice caught. She stopped, swallowed. "—bigger ones," she finished, laughing. Jack chuckled and went back to his cameras. I wished I'd told Nicki that her breasts were perfect, just like her mothers. She took off her pants. He had her slowly lower her panties while he used a handheld camera to capture close ups of her bottom. She had a tattoo in the small of her back. When she turned, her pussy was clean shaven. Bare. He had her sit on the couch and then hold the camera on her own face as he went down on her. I watched her orgasm. When Jack asked if she'd come, she sheepishly nodded. He stood. Asked her if she was ready to earn the big money. Nicki smiled. Jack said, "Suck my dick." Nicki averted her eyes. Her cheeks reddened. She grinned. Without looking back to Jack, she rolled her body off couch the same way I'd seen her do hundreds of times before, just as if I'd asked her to go brush her teeth, start her homework, or answer the phone. Only this time, she didn't do any of those things. This time she slipped from the couch, to the floor, and then got on her knees at Jack's feet. He pointed the handheld down at her. Unbuckling his belt, she opened his pants. She looked up at him and grinned. She reached into his fly, fished out his fat penis, and then popped it into her mouth. He had three cameras going and the video had been edited to show a little footage from each, just like a TV show. The handheld offered shots of Nicki looking up at him with his cock in her mouth. A camera closer in offered a midrange view while another further back featured a wide angle shot. Nicki put her hands on his thighs and let him fuck her in the mouth. He fucked her on a couch. He fucked her against the wall. He fucked her on a desk. She laid back on the desk and he stood at the edge, holding her thighs in his hands. You could hear the rhythmic slap of his belly against the backs of her thighs. In the comments, someone pointed out how her tits were so small and firm, they hardly even jiggled as he fucked her, despite him having a forty or fifty pound weight advantage. At one point, he had her bend over the desk. He stood behind her and asked if she'd ever done anal. When Nicki balked, he told her that the girls who did anal made the most money. He said to compete well she would really have to consider it. Nicki dropped her head, her shoulders sagged. I got the impression Jack had used this same strategy to motivate her many, many times. She told him she worried she'd make an ugly face on camera. He laughed and said that was exactly what he wanted. He pointed to a camera in front of her and said that people wanted to see the expression on her face as he put his cock in her ass. The view switched to the camera he indicated. She looked into it just as he'd asked her to do. Pursing her lips, she waited. He fussed around behind her. Eventually she bit her lip. He took her hips in his hands. She grunted, she winced. Eventually he began bucking his hips. Soon she lowered her face to the desk. Finally he reached between her legs, and she gasped. She held onto the edges of the desk with both hands. Her eyes were twisted shut, her teeth clenched. And then she opened her mouth wide and wailed. After it was over, he asked her if she'd come, but she wouldn't answer this time. She just lowered her head, let her hair hang into her face. He chuckled. He had her kneel on the floor. Holding his cock in his hand, Jack asked her if she would swallow, if she could swallow. Nicki tucked her long hair behind her ear. Pursed her lips. She looked right into his eyes. "Only my boyfriend," she said, "gets to come in my mouth." *** I sat on the bed in the dark for a long time. My cock throbbed in my pants—God damned Viagra. I didn't want to risk touching myself. I wanted my erection to go away, but there were certain images I just couldn't get out of my mind. Jack had come on Nicki's face. She'd opened her mouth, and when he ejaculated she turned her head slightly to the right. A big gob of cum landed on her cheek. He leaned in over her, kept jacking his dick with one hand, holding the camera with the other. He sprayed her chin. Her cheeks. Her chest. He had taken the footage of his cum shot from all three cameras, spliced it all together, and then ran it back-to-back. When he stopped coming the first time, it wasn't over: the view just changed. Nicki's face was suddenly clear again and she looked up at him with her mouth open. He started to come and she turned her head slightly to the right, that same big gob of cum landing on her cheek. Three times I watched it. Three different angles. Each time exactly as before: she opened her mouth, and then turned her head slightly to the right. When all the footage was exhausted, Jack laughed. You could hear him breathing heavily into the mic. Nicki grinned, her hands held wide. Her face held a sloppy mess of semen. He pointed the camera at her and twisted the viewfinder around so she could see herself. She snorted. Used her fingertip to clear some of the semen from the corner of her mouth. He said he'd get her a towel and left the camera running. She remained on her knees. Waited patiently. She gazed into the camera, his cum cooling on her cheeks and chin. I got out my credit card and signed up for the site. I didn't want to. And I probably shouldn't have. But I didn't feel like I had a choice. I am Nicki's father, after all. If the audition was her first video, then Nicki had made a dozen more since. I watched them all. In one video, she and a boy (playing her boyfriend) were short for rent, and he convinced her to sleep with one of the neighbors, a muscular black man. Nicki hesitantly agreed, but asked her boyfriend not to leave her. Before Nicki could even take off her jeans, the neighbor paid the boy, and then slipped his hand between her legs. Nicki and the neighbor ended up naked on the bed, the boyfriend looking on. She soon squirmed with delight as the big neighbor took his pleasure with her. The more Nicki warmed to her task, the more distraught her boyfriend looked. At the end of the video, she eagerly got down on her knees and let the neighbor man finish in her mouth. I could feel my heart racing in my chest. She seemed to be working with the same men from Jenny's photos. The boy who played Nicki's boyfriend had a hook nose, the neighbor looked a lot like the amateur photographer. In another video, Nicki was dressed like a young professional, buying shoes. She sat down and put her foot on the stool between the legs of a clerk. He took her shoe off and started to caress her foot. Another customer sat next to her. She smiled at the clerk who worked his hand up her calf. She let her head fall back, her hair hang down. The customer sitting next to her began to stroke her arm, unbutton her blouse. Another customer approached. Soon she was surrounded by a roomful of men, at least half a dozen. They removed her clothes, moved the chairs away, and laid her down on the floor. She had her head in one man's lap and another man mounted her. Two guys knelt on either side of her head, and she took their cocks in her hands. The men took turns fucking her. More men came into the store, saw what was happening, and decided to take part. Each man took a few strokes, then surrendered his spot to someone else. There was a lot of jockeying for position. Shouting. Soon the boy with the hook nose knelt by Nicki's head. He gingerly held his cock. Nicki was grinning at him. All the men seemed to have reached some unspoken consensus. The boy stroked himself, groaned, and then he came. Nicki deftly moved her head to catch his semen in her mouth. When the boy finished, another man took his place, cock in hand. Nicki discreetly pushed the semen from her mouth, letting it slide down her chin. She shook her hair from her face, then opened her mouth, and waited for this next man to fill it with cum. All the men crowded around her head, holding their cocks in their hands. It was boisterous. Loud. It did not proceed in an orderly fashion. The men shouted at one another. Shouted direction at Nicki. She would open her mouth for one man, but then another man would be ready, and she would have to quickly move her open mouth to him. The coach came in her mouth and then before she could expel his semen, the black neighbor was ready for her. He leaned over her face. Nicki offered her mouth, still filled with coach's semen. The neighbor groaned. He came. It was such a copious amount of semen, the others all started to laugh. His big black dick just kept spraying cum. Nicki kept her mouth open, a panicked look in her eye. When he finally finished, she quickly turned to another man, grabbed his dick, and shoved it into her mouth, a ruse to clear the abundance of cum without spitting. Semen poured from her mouth, rolling down her cheeks and chin. After that, Nicki struggled. She dutifully plodded on until the crowd diminished. But she was no longer smiling, her eyes had lost their sparkle. The last man took a long time to come. Her eyes looked vacant as she waited for him to finish. He finally emptied in her mouth and she immediately pushed it out. She offered no pretense at disguise this time. She blew little puffs of air from her mouth, bursting sticky semen bubbles on her lips. He petted her head once, then left to join the others. As she lay on the floor, she rolled to her side and pulled her knees to her chest. The camera lingered on her. The men had all moved to another part of the room. You could hear them laughing and joking. Soon Jack came into the frame. He knelt at her head. Toweled her face and chest. Petted her hair. You could hear him whispering to her, but you couldn't make out what he was saying. Jack stood. He was wearing shorts and no shoes. The camera framed Nicki's face and his hairy legs. She rolled onto her back and looked up at him. His shorts fell in a pool at his ankles. The camera slowly panned back. He mounted her. Took her head in his hands. He rode her for a bit, his shirt tails covering his ass. And then he got off her, knelt at her face. The camera zoomed in. "Swallow this one," he said. "Swallow it." And she did. *** That's how Rebecca found me. I told her all that I'd seen and she comforted me. She rubbed my shoulders. Kissed my neck. I kept telling her what I had witnessed. All those men. My little Nicki. She looked so distraught, especially at the end of the gangbang. Rebecca shushed me. She said I ought to think about the gangbang like it was a stunt. She said it wasn't much different from getting set on fire or falling off a roof. Just another stunt. I looked at Rebecca. She was serious. She said it sounded like Nicki had held her own. Had carried the show. That's what we say when a stunt goes bad, but the stuntman finds a way to save the shot. We say the stuntman held it together. I shushed Rebecca. She worked her fingers into the muscles along my shoulders and neck. We sat in silence in the bedroom for a long time. Finally she told me she wanted to show me something. She got off the bed and asked me to follow her. I stood up and my erection tented my pants. Rebecca looked at it. I glared at her. She went into the computer room and I followed. She brought up a website on her laptop and then turned it toward me. I sat in the chair. It was a porn site: NickiPrice.com. Nicki appeared on the site. Not only did she appear, it was her site. Pictures. Videos. The tag line for the site read: Price of fame. I soon realized that Nicki was the Price in Price of fame. The tag line was a play on her new name. Nicki was now Nicki Price. "Nicki Price?" I asked. "They got married in Vegas," Rebecca said. "Nicki has been waiting for the right time to tell you. She didn't want you to freak out. Threaten anybody." Rebecca got down on her knees at my feet. "Don't be mad, Milton," she said. She rubbed my thighs. "Don't be mad." I am Milton Pearl, and I have nothing to confess. I deleted that video of Nicki that I found on my laptop computer. I finally found those Polaroids of Becky, but I burned them. I deleted all the pictures I ever saved of Jenny, too. A man that lives in the past is a man that will miss the present. I don't want to miss out on any more of the present. Becky is gone, and I have to accept it. Rebecca is my wife. As I sat there looking at my daughter's new entertainment industry business, Rebecca slipped my cock out of my pants. By that time, I had had my erection for almost four hours straight. She warmed lotion in her hands and then applied it to my cock. It took me a long time to come. I amused myself by watching videos of Nicki's wedding. A whole crowd of them went to Vegas. Jack. The black man. The kid with the nose. The good looking customer. Coach. A few others who I don't have names for yet. They all went to an amusement park. The black guy carried Nicki around piggyback. She had a raft of cotton candy in her hands and held tight to his back, her face near his ear. The boy with the hooknose fed her bites from his soft pretzel. Gave her a balloon. They had the wedding ceremony in a cupcake shop called Dinosaur Treats. There was a video of Nicki smashing a cupcake into Jack's face. An Elvis impersonator officiated their marriage. I found a picture of Jack, the black guy, and the Elvis impersonator. Jack stood grinning in the middle with his arms around each man. The black guy had a smug smile. Elvis stared at his shoes. I wondered where Nicki was, and then I scrolled down the page and found her—in another picture, underneath the one of Jack and his friends: She was on her knees with Jack's cock in her mouth, both the black man and Elvis's cocks in her hands. She looked . . . happy. Better off than I'd seen her since Becky died. My family is growing. I have a son. I'll soon have grandkids, I'm told. As Rebecca gave me the relief I needed, I read a comment under one of the videos. It was from some anonymous guy, a nameless customer who had been inspired to leave a little note, a testament to his visit: "Nicki Price is the best thing to happen to adult video in a long, long time." Milton P. Malibu, CA The Price of Fame "No, not yet. We thought you'd be interested to know though so John's trying to discover that now. You have any idea as to who she is?" "To be honest with you, Helen, there's only one person that I can think of that it could be. But her name isn't Christabelle, and when I knew her, she wasn't a dancer. She left me to become a model." "Left you?" "Yeah, it's all a bit complicated really." My mind began to drift back into places I'd have preferred it not to go. ------------------------------------------------- Chapter 02 When I met Duncan, he had been just one of the other guys on the creative writing course I'd taken. At the time I didn't plan to be an author. It was just a course that was going; it was free and it took up a couple of evenings during the week. Back in those days most folks would have considered me a geek. I was nothing to write home about in the looks department and I'd never had much luck with girls. Consequently I'd gotten into the habit of spending too much time sitting in pubs drinking alone. One evening I'd sat and watched some geezer drink himself into oblivion and realised that if I didn't pull my socks up, I could be watching myself in a few years time. I decided I needed to find something to do other than pour alcohol down my throat every night. So from the perspective of someone looking for something other to do than sitting in a pub drinking myself silly, the writing course had looked like a good idea. There'd obviously be plenty of homework that would take up even more of my free time and would be a good excuse not to drink. Duncan and I hit it off together right away. Although already a pretty accomplished writer he was another geek, and he didn't fit in that well with the rest of the class either; so we kind-a teamed up. We got on so well in fact that before very long we were hanging around together quite a lot of the time outside of the writing class. I soon learnt that he had a twin sister; he talked about her quite a lot really, although I wasn't to meet her until the funeral. Actually sometimes I thought that Duncan's only knowledge of girls came from his life with Aileen. Truthfully Duncan appeared to be even shyer around females than I was at the time. Over the next year or so, Duncan and I became great friends. I went back to his hometown with him and met his parents, and he got to know my family as well. I'd always been a bit of a loner and as time went by I gathered that so had Duncan. About the only real difference between the two of us was that Duncan rode around on a little motorbike, whereas I'd always driven a car. I'll explain. My elder brother had been killed in a motorcycle accident when I was very young, and my parents — especially my mother — were paranoid that the same thing would happen to me. So I only rode a motorcycle long enough to get a full licence. Then at eighteen and with my father's help, I'd bought my first car. Duncan and I had been friends for maybe two years when it happened. I went round to his digs one evening to pick him up and discovered that he hadn't arrived home from work that evening. I'm not sure if it was a premonition or not, but I knew that something disastrous had happened. Backtracking the route Duncan would have taken home from work, I came across the policemen measuring up the scene of the accident. Duncan had not stood a chance, when some prat had pulled out of a side road without seeing him coming on his motorcycle. It fell to me to read the eulogy at Duncan's funeral. I think I said all the right things and I tried to explain how much I was going to miss his company, probably for the rest of my life. By the time of his death, Duncan had become the closest friend that I have ever had, except maybe for Aileen. The first time Aileen and I spoke to each other was at the wake that was held at her and Duncan's parents' house. I'd never met Aileen before because she had been away studying at Edinburgh University. She missed her twin brother very much and we spent most of the wake sitting together talking about him. For weeks afterwards we'd call each other on the telephone regularly, ostensibly just to talk about Duncan and console each other on our mutual loss. But as time went by we began to talk less about Duncan and how we missed him, and more about ourselves. For almost a year that was our relationship. Having actually met just once, we talked on the telephone several times a week. During that year an uncle of mine passed away without issue and he left me his dilapidated little cottage in his will. The place needed some updating, so I spent a lot of my free time working on the place. Latterly Aileen even came down to help me during some of her holidays. Funny how things just kind of happen sometimes, isn't it? On one of Aileen's visits she made some comment about how she'd have liked the kitchen to be laid out and before I realised what was happening that's the way that I eventually remodelled the kitchen. I know this might sound strange to most people but somehow it had become a done deal that Aileen was going to move into the cottage with me after she'd finished her education. You must remember that was before we'd even kissed each other for the first time, or expressed any emotional commitment to each other openly at all. Somehow we both knew that it was all a done deal, without discussion. That first kiss was to come during the next Easter holiday. Aileen had popped down for a few days before she took her finals. She really should have spent that holiday studying, not that the time she did take out damaged her exam results any. Aileen graduated with honours. We were out in the garden trying to persuade an old millstone that I found buried in the yard, to stand up where we wanted it. As we struggled with the monstrous lump of stone, our heads came close together and the next thing you know we were kissing. I think we spent the most of the rest of Aileen's stay kissing and cuddling. But that was about as far as it went. Although I will add, that from that time on the master bedroom — what there was of it, at the time it was only a small cottage - became known as our bedroom. But I'll also explain that we weren't to share it or the double bed that was squeezed into it until after the following Christmas, when we became formally engaged. The next two years that we spent together were the best years of my life. Aileen found a job in some government research establishment. God alone knows what she did there. Outwardly the place was steeped in secrecy. Consequently I was discouraged from enquiring too deeply what she did. But I gathered that after the first few months Aileen got on quite well with some of the other girls in her office. I - well, we really - learnt all about sex together, and it was a lot of fun experimenting. I think neither of us had much experience with the opposite sex and ... well, let's put it this way: I can tell you that we did a hell of a lot of reading in those two years in the form of sexual research. And what's more I think that reading helped me a lot in my writing. By the time we had got together I had sent some of my short stories off to various magazines and a couple had actually been accepted and published. From the day I'd met her, Aileen had always shown enthusiasm for my writing. She encouraged me much as - I suspect - she'd encouraged her brother Duncan in his writing efforts. She loved to read the drafts of my tales of woe and would often offer suggestions on how to improve them, usually by adding more romance to please the female readers. I suppose I should describe Aileen to the reader or they might not understand what was to happen later. Aileen was - much like her brother and myself - rather shy by nature; as I said earlier most folks would have described us all as geeks. At that time, Aileen was not what most folks would refer to as a looker either. Not that that bothered me, because beauty is always in the eye of the beholder, isn't it? About five six tall, I think most folks would describe Aileen's body as being slight, or maybe even fashionably slim. But I can't in all honesty say that her choice of dress and hairstyle back then was the best in the world or that they did her any favours. Her choice in clothes, I'm sure most folks would agree with me, could only be described as dowdy. And she tended to wear her long auburn hair tied back some how; not in a ponytail or anything, but it was pulled back from her face and made her face look quite severe. Aileen always did have what I considered a beautiful face — even more beautiful when she smiled - and she had the most gorgeous green eyes that I've ever seen in my life; even if they were hidden from most people's view behind her slightly tinted spectacles most of the time. There was one part of Aileen's anatomy that I was to quickly learn that she wasn't happy with, and that was her breasts. Personally by the time I got to know them intimately I was very happy with the buggers; I thought that they were just about perfect and exactly the right size for my liking, with almost perfect little nipples that I loved to see standing proud after I'd been slobbering away on them. But for some inexplicable reason I soon learnt that Aileen was extremely conscious of their size and she was totally convinced that nature short-changed her in the breast department. Her slim legs and pert bottom were absolutely perfect to my way of thinking. And when I eventually persuaded her to pour herself into a pair of tight Levis that I bought her - well, as the song goes, my "baby made those blue jeans talk" when she walked around the house and garden in them. I could never persuade her to wear them when we went out though; well, not until after the change anyway and that was a long time away. Looking back now, the day that I did persuade Aileen to wear those tight jeans for the first time could possibly have been the beginning of things going wrong for us. Maybe I'm being selfish there and should say going wrong for me. I suppose I should say that what was to happen over the next couple of years, worked out as advantageous for Aileen. Anyway I didn't realise it at the time, but those tight jeans were the first step in the change that was eventually to see Aileen metamorphose into a different person completely. When I told her how sexy she looked in those jeans, I'm damn sure that she didn't believe me at first. But the more I enthused over the way she looked in them, the more she appeared to enjoy the praise I'd heaped upon her. Slowly her reaction went from sort of embarrassment to satisfaction when I told her how sexy and attractive she looked. It could well be that I inadvertently hoisted the sword of Damocles over our relationship myself. Although she refused to wear them in public, over the following weeks Aileen did buy a couple more pairs of those jeans and for some time afterwards she would habitually change into them the moment she got home from work in the evenings. Those tight jeans were the first sign of the change that was to come over the love of my life. Change number two we both made to our appearances at almost the same time. Well, it was at my optician's suggestion that I make the change to contact lenses and Aileen, once she saw that I was managing to get along with them, followed suite almost immediately. Change number three was made at the suggestion of Christina, a girl Aileen had teamed up with at her place of employment. They'd got into the habit of having lunch together almost everyday and sometimes met up for shopping trips on the weekends. Under Christina's influence Aileen had bought some quite risqué clothing - well, risqué from Aileen's narrow point of view anyway. Probably quite chaste when viewed from most people's perspective. For a long time Aileen would only wear those clothes around the house. I really thought that she was trying to please me, so I made a point of always telling her how good — and sexy - she looked when she did her dressing up thing. However she would always look down at her breasts and say how disappointed she was that they weren't larger. Maybe because Aileen would always let her hair down when she changed into whatever she'd chosen to wear in the evenings, I didn't take too much notice of how she normally wore her hair when she went to work or out shopping. Maybe I thought that the Aileen away from me was someone different to the beautiful woman that I then found myself living with. Whatever it was Christina's wedding that was to change a lot of things. Chris had asked Aileen to be one of her bridesmaids, even if it did call for the bridesmaid dresses to be redesigned. As I understood it at the time, the original bridesmaids dresses were cut to show a generous amount of cleavage and Aileen insisted that she didn't have the right attributes to wear one of them successfully. I was well aware that when we went out and Aileen went to work everyday, she wore a padded bra, although at my insistence she never wore one at home. I thought that Aileen had an almost perfect body and that it didn't need any false enhancements. A week or two before Christina's wedding, all three bridesmaids and the bride met up to make final plans for the wedding. I suppose it was at that meeting that between them they decided the three bridesmaids would all have matching hairstyles. By chance, they all had long hair of roughly the same colour and the hairstylist in question, with the help of a little colouring, made a very good job of making all three girls look almost identical. I suppose I should have pointed out earlier that when I first met Aileen, she wasn't a drinker. As a matter of fact, I doubted that she'd been inside a public house more than once or twice in her whole life when we'd started going together. We'd first started frequenting our local pub for a quick meal, on her visits to help me at the cottage. Over time Aileen had started with the odd glass of wine and eventually progressed to drinking beer or the odd short or two; whatever you could never call her a drinker and I'd never seen her drunk or even slightly merry for the drink. Relaxed was about how Aileen reacted to alcohol. So I was totally unprepared for a completely inebriated Aileen who literally fell out of the taxi that brought her home around ten-thirty on the night of Christina's hen party. I had to carry her indoors and put her to bed. Although shortly after I did so, she got herself out of it again and spent most of the rest of the night praying to that infamous porcelain god. The following morning Aileen swore that alcohol would never cross her lips again. It did, mind you, but she had returned to her extremely conservative drinking habits. At Christina's wedding - in my humble opinion - my Aileen outshone the bride. But later as the reception went on and some of the guests got tanked up, there were several cryptic comments made by a few of the girls who'd been on that hen night. From what I ascertained — reading between the lines — Christina had got totally pissed and things got way out of line. I'm pretty sure that her new husband or some the other girls' significant others would not have liked to witness what went on. A few days later those innuendo type comments that had been bandied about and snippets of overheard conversation at the wedding reception were to lead to Aileen's and my first proper argument. It was to turn out to be a real big one that almost destroyed our relationship on the spot, and led to a completely unexpected — by me - revelation on Aileen's part. Whatever it was to prove to be the real beginning of the end in the long term. I'm not sure how the subject actually came up for discussion between Aileen and me. Possibly I'd been churning what I'd overheard around in my mind, eventually lost my temper and challenged Aileen about the evening of the hen party. "As I heard it, Christina was running around the Fisherman's Arms with her tits out, and the rest of you were dancing and getting felt up by every guy in the place. There was some kind of a competition and some geezer who was on his stag night was feeling up all of your crowds' tits and trying to guess what cup size your bras were." Or something like that, I shouted at Aileen. "How could you think that I would allow anyone to do such a thing?" Aileen had shouted back at me, then she burst into tears and she ran up to our bedroom. I had slammed out of the house and took myself off down the local pub. God only knows how long I stayed there stewing and getting suitably pissed. But anyway when I eventually returned home, Aileen had locked herself in the spare room and she didn't come out again until the Monday morning. Well, not when I was compos mentis anyway; I tied on another good one on the Sunday as well. Monday I was having trouble getting anything of any consequence done in the office and I had a bugger of a hangover, so I'd come home from work early to find Aileen and one of her friends from her office packing her gear into Aileen's and the friend's cars. "You bastard! How could you accuse Aileen of doing something like that? You know how self-conscious she is of her breasts." The friend raved at me even before I'd climbed from my car; Aileen was upstairs, I assume packing some more of her gear. "Do you really think that she'd let an absolute stranger feel her up in a crowded pub? Not that she'd let anyone but you play with her tits anyway, she loves you far too much to allow that to happen. And besides even if she were that kind of a slut, she'd have died from embarrassment if it became public knowledge that she wears falsies. Christ, Warren, you know that she's almost paranoid about her tits, or what she sees as the lack of them." I suppose that should have been obvious to me in the first place, if I'd ever bothered to think about it properly. I did know that Aileen was conscious of her small breasts, but I'd personally always been quite happy with them. How the hell was I to know that her concerns about their size had grown into a bleeding complex? It took a lot of apologising and I was forced to eat great chunks of humble pie but eventually Aileen forgave me for my unfounded accusations. However, I don't really think anything was exactly the same after that row. Aileen thought that I didn't trust her and that was all that there was to it. Over time I was to discover that Aileen had drunk so much that evening because she had been nervous and embarrassed at Christina's and a couple of the other girl's behaviour. Two of the married girls — one of whom had been the woman at my house that day — had spotted that Aileen was drinking too heavily and they had shipped her home in a taxi well before things got totally out of hand. I would like to say that life went on much as it had before Christina's wedding, but I can't. In the following months Aileen began to show signs of depression. I know all about depression because I grew up with it as a fact of life. My dear departed mother suffered from depression for many years after my brother had been killed; consequently I picked up on Aileen's symptoms much earlier than most folk possibly would have. I had a quiet chat with our doctor first and then as subtly as I could, talked Aileen into going to see him. Eventually she acquiesced and he took the surprising step of sending her to see a shrink. "Antidepressants are the simplest and easiest route, Warren, but they can have their side effects and, as you know, they are addictive. This woman is good and if she can find the root cause of Aileen's problem, then with any luck we might be able to do without using drugs, completely," the doc had informed me. "I'm afraid that your wife has developed a genuine inferiority complex, Mr Price," the shrink said on my second interview with her. Aileen had had about five sessions with her by then. The Price of Fame "Aileen and I aren't married, doctor; not yet anyway. She is however my soul mate and we are engaged. It's really just a matter of when our finances are right. I believe Aileen would like a big wedding with all the trimmings." "Oh, I see, I'm sorry. I didn't realise. Aileen talks of you as if you two are married. I have to ask myself, technically should I be discussing her case with you." The doctor consulted Aileen's notes. "Well, she has listed you as her next of kin, so I can't see any particular reason not to. And you do appear to be the most important person in her life just now." "As I understand Aileen's problems, she has always been a little disappointed with the attributes that nature has taken it upon itself to bestow on her. And regretfully, lately she's been mixing with some rather well endowed and unfortunately outspoken women at her office." "What are you telling me? That Aileen's depressed because she doesn't think her breasts are big enough?" "Yes and no, Mr Price. The size of her breasts is just part of her problem. She lost her twin brother a couple of years ago, and she has taken that quite badly. I don't know if you or even Aileen come to that, realises it, but you, besides being her soul mate, had taken over her brother's role in her life." "You said had!" "Yes, something happened that has made Aileen feel that you no longer trust her. She feels that the close connection that she felt the pair of you had has been ... damaged somehow. "What you mean is, that she doesn't love me anymore?" "No, no, quite the reverse, Mr Price. Aileen loves you just as much as she ever did. But she thinks that you don't love her as much as she first thought you did; she's got it into her mind that you can't love her because of her flawed body ... or to be precise, the size of her breasts. I know it might sound completely illogical from your prospective, but didn't you get angry with Aileen when you thought that there had been some kind of competition she took part in, where the size of the women participants attributes were being compared." "Hey, shit, no ... well, yes, I did get annoyed, but we soon straightened that out. Christ, anyone would get angry if they thought that the woman they loved was letting all and sundry feel her up in public, or anywhere else come to that." "Ah, well, there you have Aileen's problem ... well, one of them. She's got it into her head that you were embarrassed that other people would find out how small her breasts really are." "That's ridiculous! I was angry because I thought she'd let some stranger feel her up." "Ridiculous to you maybe, Mr Price, but you haven't got Aileen's phobia about the size of her breasts. That's the trouble with phobias of this kind; all logical thought goes out of the window. She's disappointed with her breasts and so she naturally assumes that you are as well. When you got annoyed with her, her unconscious mind changed the root cause of that anger, not to what you mistakenly thought she'd allowed to happen, but the size of her breasts becoming common knowledge and causing you embarrassment." "Oh, this is stupid, when we ... you know ... I'm always telling her how much I love her breasts just the way they are. I'm not daft, I know she'd like them to be a little bigger, but I'm perfectly happy with them. Jesus, they'll probably get bigger anyway when she has children. Don't they always?" "You tell Aileen that often, that you're happy with the size of her breasts?" "Yeah, every time we make love, and any other opportunity I get as well. I know she'd like them to be bigger, but I think they are great and try to reassure her of the fact at almost every opportunity that presents itself." "Well, regretfully, Aileen has taken your frequent assurances as proof that you would like them to be bigger. She's taken those comments of yours as you trying to be kind and trying to reassure her." "Let me get this straight. Are you trying to tell me that the more I tell Aileen that I think her figure is perfect; the more she believes that I'm lying to her?" "That's about it, Mr Price. It's not logical, I know, but Aileen has got a complex which, as you know, are by their very nature illogical; most phobias are to everyone but that actual sufferer." "Whatever you say will only convince Aileen more that her breasts aren't large enough for your liking. She's ashamed of that part of her body, so no matter how illogical it sounds to you, she's convinced that everyone else must feel the same way as she does." "It's not really an unusual kind off phobia. It falls within a group that includes anorexics and some males who get it into their heads that their penis is, er, to be found wanting. No matter how much an anorectic is told by others that they are under weight they are convinced that they are overweight and therefore ugly. And you would not believe the lengths some men will go to because they believe that they are under-endowed, no matter how much their wives and girlfriends tell them that they aren't. I'm afraid the porn industry and a few real freaks who should have a complex have lot to answer for." "Jesus, Aileen's got a figure that most women I know would kill for. Not that I'm in the habit of discussing other women's figures with them." "You don't have to tell me, Mr Price. When I was Aileen's age, I'd have given anything to have a figure like hers. But you must remember she lived a very sheltered life and from what I understand she was also a late developer. From our little chats I've learned that she had some very vicious and cruel comments made to her when she was a young girl. I believe she drew solace from her brother, who if I understand things correctly was also what you so eloquently describe as, a bit of a geek." "Yeah, well, so was I, until I met Aileen and I was always shy around girls. We were both quite geeky when we met and didn't mix with other people very well at all. Maybe that's why we gravitated to each other in the first place. Aileen used to dress like an old maid most of the time; she's loosened up a bit now, but she still tends to dress a little on the conservative side, if you understand me." "Oh, I understand you perfectly, Mr Price, but you must understand the old maid that you remember isn't the real Aileen. It was a sort of camouflage so that people wouldn't notice her; or rather she thought that they didn't see her. If I understand it correctly, Aileen didn't start to come out of her shell until after you two got together. She's changed herself as much as she dares to please you, not because she thought she'd ever be able to fit in with other people's ideas of what a twenty-three year old should look and act like. Inside Aileen is still very introverted and unsure of herself." "So what can you do about it?" "Me, very little, Mr Price. I can try to reassure her and you must do the same. As far as her phobia about her body goes, well, there's only one answer for that, although I'd hesitate to suggest it." "If it's a cure, why can't you?" "Mr Price, the obvious answer to Aileen's phobia concerning her breast size is implants. But the problem there is, will she ever be happy once she starts down the surgical road? What will be next, her nose or maybe her ears? Or it could be that she'll get the idea that the implants aren't big enough or maybe even too big. Do you understand where I'm going here? Aileen feels that her body isn't what she would like it to be and once she starts to have it surgically enhanced, when will she want to stop? Look at what Michael Jackson has finished up doing to himself and there's plenty more people like him out there, I can assure you." "And, there is the distinct possibility that there could be another underlying cause for Aileen's feelings of inadequacy. Although I'm tempted to believe most of her problems come from her disappointment in her figure and the teasing and bullying she obviously underwent as a child because of her late puberty." -------------------------------------------------- Chapter 03 I'm not sure, but I believe that it must have been our own doctor who suggested to Aileen that she have breast augmentation surgery - implants to the likes of us mere mortals. I suppose he and the shrink discussed Aileen's case together, but if they did, I was left out of those discussions. Had Aileen and I been married at the time, I suspect that I would have been included. However Aileen was delighted by the suggestion and couldn't wait to have the surgery done. Oh, on the NHS by the way, so it took a good few months to organise. We didn't have that kind of cash available at the time. I was saving to have a large extension built onto the cottage; well, we both loved the cottage and we'd need more room when it was time for Aileen to have children. I can't say that I was overly enthusiastic about the operation at all. Especially baring in mind some of the comments the shrink had made to me on the subject. Looking back now, I only wish I'd been a little more ... er, forceful in expressing my views that the surgery was not really necessary. But that might be my selfish side coming to the fore, because ultimately I was to turn out to be the only loser in the whole escapade. Aileen had the operation done in a London hospital. They kept her in for over two weeks because she developed an infection after the op, although the infection — an abscess under one of her wisdom teeth - took everyone somewhat by surprise and wasn't medically connected to the implants in anyway. Unless Aileen's anxiety about having the operation had set the thing off. Anyway once the infection had subsided and the tooth removed, Aileen was fine. The problem was that I was very busy at work at the time and I couldn't get up to visit her as much as I'd like to have done. Aileen was overjoyed about her new breasts and couldn't wait to show them off to everyone, within reason obviously, although I gathered that most of her girlfriends saw them in a little more detail than any other guys except me did. Low cut blouses and tight jumpers were added to her wardrobe remarkably quickly; Aileen had some cleavage to show off and she really seemed to enjoy the comments that were frequently made. I was soon to notice that her hemline rose more than a little as well. It was about this time that someone - I can't remember who it was exactly - pointed out Aileen's uncommon similarity or likeness to Jennifer Love Hewitt. Not that I had any idea who the guy was talking about at the time, but some curious research on the Internet soon told me that she was an American actress and singer. And that she did hold a truly remarkable resemblance to my Aileen; who you think looks like whom depends on your perspective. Whatever from looking at the pictures of Love Hewitt that I found on the net, she liked to display a fair bit of cleavage just as Aileen had begun to favour. Although in Aileen's case, I thought that she liked the reassurance of looking down at that cleavage to make sure that they were still there. Just a few months after Aileen's op, all traces of her depression had disappeared completely. And I began to think that Aileen should have had the operation years before, because her whole personality had changed so much. She seemed to be permanently on a high and all of her funny moods had disappeared, even at that particular time of the month. About this time, things had begun to change in my life as well. Some months before Aileen's op, I'd sent a manuscript of a novel I'd written to Rhoda Steel. She liked it and signed me up on an interim contract whilst she tried to sell it to a publisher. Eventually she'd sold it to some little known magazine for them to publish in serial form. At first I was a little disappointed. But then just after the third instalment had been published, Stella had come back again to inform me that she'd sold an option on my second novel to a completely different publisher, on the strength of the synopsis and the drafts of the first two chapters that I'd sent her. They were also keen on buying options on my next two novels should the first prove successful. Mind they had only purchased an option on my second novel; they'd have to accept the finished version. Aileen was on top of the world when I told her the news. It seemed that with the unexpected boost the option money was going to make to my bank account we could afford to get rolling on having the extension to the cottage built and start planning our wedding. We went out that evening for a pukka slap-up meal. I think everyone in both our families was pleased to hear that we'd finally set a date. It was that second novel that was to be the root cause of me using a different name in my by-line. Stella and the new publisher suggested that it would be a good idea to distance myself as much as possible from the story published in the magazine for the time being at least. It was Aileen who suggested that I use her brother's Christian name, Duncan, for my main character; we both thought it would be a nice tribute to him. King, his surname, was my mother's maiden name. Stella came up with the idea of using the same name in my by-line; the story was written in the first person anyway so, at the time, I thought it was a good idea. Little did I realise that Warren Price was going to vanish and be replaced by Duncan King. It was several weeks later before what I consider to be step number two in the actual break-up of our relationship happened. I was away that weekend, actually doing some location research for my novel and Aileen had gone down to the shopping precinct in town that Saturday morning with a couple of her friends from work. They were approached by some woman who claimed that she was working for some photographic model agency and she invited the three of them to some kind of an audition. One of her friends refused, but Aileen and her other friend attended the audition just for the kick. To both girls' utter consternation they were invited to go onto the company's books as models. When I heard the news, I was pretty sceptical at first. I heard plenty of stories about these dodgy modelling agencies that invited gullible people onto their books and then charged them the earth to have a portfolio taken; then they never heard from the agency again. To my utter surprise this agency didn't charge the girls anything, though they did recoup the cost from the first few photo shoots both girls did. What surprised me were both Aileen and her friend getting bookings so quickly. As it turned out the woman who'd approached them was quite respected in the business and had been in the process of setting up on her own after a fall out with the partnership she had been running for sometime. She'd apparently taken some of the partnerships pretty big clients along with her; although most of the models were tied to the partnership by their contracts. Aileen and her friend had apparently stepped into the lift on the ground floor. Both girls got so much work that they soon had to throw up their full time jobs. The modelling work wasn't exactly constant, but it paid surprisingly well, although I was to learn that the models who were in most demand would be paid far more than some of the others. Aileen and her friend turned out to be very popular with the clients and photographers. It wasn't all photographic or fashion show work that Aileen was booked for; actually most of it was mundane promotional work. One day early on for instance, Aileen had to stand by a racing car holding a lollipop sign with a racing driver's name on it. That was the first time that I saw Aileen on the television; she was in the background holding that sign whilst the TV presenter interviewed another driver. But I actually thought that the TV cameraman's attention was more on Aileen's cleavage and long legs than the driver being interviewed. The first time that I had any reservations about what Aileen was doing was when she modelled for a fashion company's sales catalogue. A few days after the shoot an envelope arrived with copies of the prints that had been chosen for use in the catalogue and I was somewhat taken aback to see that some of them were of Aileen in some very sexy and extremely revealing underwear. I'd seen most of the underwear and dresses, of course, because Aileen had been given some of the clothes they'd modelled gratis. Either the company or the photographer hoped to ensure that she'd accept the booking with them again in the future. But I found it quite disconcerting to see pictures of my soon to be wife dressed in skimpy underwear that were going to be given away for every pervert and little shit in the world to drool over. Oh, come on, every young kid grabs his mummy's or elder sister's fashion catalogue when no one's around and turns straight to the underwear section. Still it was a done deal and it was far too late for me to object. A few weeks or maybe a month or so went by and Aileen was working maybe six days a week. I can't be too sure because at that time I was flogging myself to death. I had my normal job during the day and most of the rest of the time I was battling to meet the deadline on my second novel. And it could be that I was getting a little cranky through loss of sleep. I know that Aileen's and my sex life had taken one hell of a dive and that was all of my doing. I was too bleeding tired most of the time. Regretfully Aileen's sex drive had taken an up turn, possibly because she felt so good about herself. We did have sex fairly often, but I'll admit that that was virtually all it was: sex. Aileen would invite me to join her in bed by wearing one of her sexy outfits and I would be only too happy to follow her to the bedroom. But I couldn't afford to spend as much time as I would like over the act of making love and had to get back to my novel. Alternatively, I'd fall asleep almost as soon as the deed was done. So you see things weren't quite as harmonious as they could be when Aileen told me that she'd been asked to go out to the Caribbean somewhere to pose for the calendar. The particular calendar and its usual photographer in question had become quite famous by then. The models - many quite famous ones had appeared on the calendar over the years — were nearly always pictured nude. But I might add the poses were very artistic and very tastefully done. Now I don't want anyone to get the idea that that particular calendar could be considered pornographic in anyway. The pictures in it were almost considered works of art, and anyone could display one just about anywhere. Actually the things were very popular and in great demand. Appearing as a month girl on that calendar could make Aileen's career. However the model did have to be naked and I knew that there wouldn't be just the photographer on the set. I expressed my concern to Aileen that those lighting guys, hairdressers, runners and the like, would see her in the nude. "Jesus, Warren, what's new? Do you think they don't see us changing when we do those underwear ads? It would take all day if we had to keep running back to a dressing room for every change and those people are back stage when we are doing those quick changes at the fashion shows, didn't you realise?" Aileen replied. Okay, now you must remember that it was getting near to the deadline for my novel and I was mentally exhausted. I'm afraid that I lost the plot - and my temper - and went loopy when Aileen gave me that bit of information. I have no idea of the actual words I used. Suffice to say I told her she'd go on that calendar photo-shoot over my dead body or we were through. I know I was speaking in anger, but that was how I felt at the time: angry, that is. The trouble was that anger stayed with me for many days following that evening. The Price of Fame I think I might have also called Aileen a tart for allowing other guys to see her naked body during those photo sessions, but to be honest I can't remember what else I said for sure. I felt terribly hurt that Aileen hadn't been frank with me about those photo shoots and I was damned sure that no woman of mine was going to bandy her tits about in front of all and sundry on a Caribbean island. After standing there staring at the stairs for a little while, I stormed out of the cottage. I'd got pretty good at that stupid trick by that time. The following day I was supposed to meet up with some retired MI6 guy as part of the research for my third novel. Yeah, I was planning that far ahead; if the publisher took up the option on my second novel when I submitted it they'd want to see the synopsis of the third. Anyway instead of going down to the pub to get drunk that night, I drove up to Staffordshire through the night. And, no, I didn't have even a toothbrush with me. I dozed in the car for a few hours before turning up at the guy's house rather earlier than I'd arranged. He made little comment on my unexpected arrival before he'd had his breakfast, and I spent most of the day recording odd episodes about his life with MI6 and as a security consultant — read expensive private detective. I'd nearly gotten home that evening before I realised that I was still extremely angry with Aileen. I'm not sure why I stopped and called the cottage from a telephone box, but I did. Not that it achieved much because Aileen wasn't home; well, she didn't answer the telephone anyway. Bugger it; I wasn't going to be sitting there like a bleeding dummy when she decided to come home, so I booked myself into a local hotel for the night. When I arrived home the following day Aileen had already gone off to an early booking that I had known she had. On the kitchen table was a note from her explaining where she was and also telling me that she had discussed the calendar shoot with her agent and several other models. They had all assured her that it was just about the best break that could be offered to a newcomer to the world of modelling and advised her to take the job. After thinking about it all of the Sunday, she decided to accept the booking and asked me not to object. I added a few words to the effect that I'd told her my position on the Saturday and my decision was final. When I arrived home from work that Monday evening, Aileen had moved out and I hadn't seen or heard from her since. The odd thing was the following year when that calendar was published Aileen was not in it. I did see the odd picture of Aileen around over the next year or so and she did appear in a couple of adverts. Someone said that she was the eye candy on some German TV quiz show for a while as well, but if she was I never saw her, although Aileen did speak German quite fluently. I'd settled into a lonely existence writing my novels. The first to be published as a proper book sold quite well. The second stormed off the shelves as quickly as they were printed; the fourth performing the same trick. I was in the middle of my seventh novel, the other two awaiting the right moment to be dropped onto the book-store shelves. -------------------------------------------------- Chapter 04 "Do we know what cabin?" "No, not yet. We thought you'd be interested to know though, so John's trying to discover that now. You have an idea as to who she is?" "To be honest with you, Helen, there's only one person that I can think of that it could be. But her name isn't Christabelle and when I knew her, she wasn't a dancer. She left me to become a model." "Left you?" "Yeah, it's all a bit complicated really." "Life's complicated, Duncan, whether we like it or not. But I'm surprised to hear you say that she dumped you. Doesn't make much sense that she's embarrassed to see you then. That's of course assuming that she doesn't think she made a mistake." Helen looked deep in thought for a few seconds. "That's unless she ripped you off all your cash or something." "No, Helen, if anything Aileen contributed a good few thousand of her own money in our joint account that's still sitting there. She had other accounts though and plenty of modelling work; I can't understand what's she's doing running around this bleeding yacht almost naked, acting as eye candy for these bleeding perverts." "Well, that girl did say that she's a dancer now and only filling in for some girls who are sick." "Yeah, Aileen could dance alright. She was an accomplished ballerina when she was a kid. Her mother had hopes she'd go on to one of the top ballet schools; but it wasn't her thing she was too shy at the time. But, Christ, she did know how to shake that thing to get my juices flowing in private, if you understand me," I said smiling, actually picturing Aileen gyrating around in those tight blue jeans in my mind. "I think I do, Duncan, but I'm not sure that we should go there." Helen grinned back at me. "Ah, here comes my loving husband. I wonder what he's discovered. I'm sorry if you think that we are nosy, but the pair of us love a bit of intrigue." "Christ, there's a bleeding row going on back there," John whispered when he arrived beside us. "I saw that fat bugger in the shorts and one of the other girls going into a cabin, so I listened at the door. He was yelling at the girl telling her that if she wasn't on deck in the next five minutes she'd be out of a job and would have to find her own way back to London. I couldn't hear what she said in reply, then he stormed out of the cabin almost knocking me over on the way. Anyway once he'd gone I sneaked back to the door and I heard the other girl persuading her to come out; I think she's coming. Do you know who she is, Duncan?" "Duncan is pretty sure it's an old girlfriend of his and her name is really Aileen," Helen said before I had a chance to speak. "Oh, shit, of course. No wonder her face was familiar. Aileen Price! One of the guys was keen on her. Had pictures of her up all over his cell. Hey, she was going places in the model game. I wonder what she's doing here." "We were wondering the same thing, John," Helen commented, but she didn't say anymore because Aileen and the other girl had suddenly put in an appearance on deck. Aileen was apparently still wearing that tiny flesh coloured bikini. But over it on her upper body she wore a white blouse tied just below her breasts and the lower portion of her anatomy was covered by a sarong. Without a further word Helen set off in Aileen's direction. But before she got to Aileen the sleaze was giving her another lecture. I couldn't see Aileen's eyes or where they were looking because of the sunglasses she had on, but she was vigorously shaking her head. From his gestures it was apparent that the sleaze was not happy about the blouse or the sarong. However at that instant Helen arrived and the words, "Fuck off, arsehole," if nothing else, were plainly audible to everyone on that deck. "Looks like my wife is angry," John quietly commented to me. "It'll be interesting if that wanker argues with her. Helen's into all that marshal arts stuff; I wonder if that fat arsehole floats?" Then John Carpenter started laughing out loud. The Sleaze looked like someone had smacked him around the face when Helen launched her tirade at him. For a moment he stood there staring back at Helen, then turned beetroot red and he walked away through the door that Aileen had come onto the deck by without saying another word. Helen took Aileen's arm and steered her in our direction. Actually I should say dragged, because Aileen looked pretty reticent about coming with her. They were by then the centre of attention for everyone on that deck, but I think Helen gave everyone watching a look that should have struck fear into the devil's heart and most folks found something else to show interest in. "Christabelle - or should I say, Aileen, I'd like you to meet Duncan King, or as you probably know him, Warren Price. I think that you two have a lot that you need to talk about," Helen said, then leaning close so that only I could hear she whispered. "It's written all over your face, Duncan, so please don't mess things up this time?" I'm not sure what expression I had on my face, but Helen added. "She loves you, Duncan. Why do you think she was so embarrassed, when you came on board?" "There's an upper deck up those stairs. It's a little more private. Why don't the pair of you nip up there and have a little chat?" John added pointing at a nearby companionway. I held out my hand and surprisingly for me Aileen took it immediately, then I led her in the direction John had indicated. "It's been a long time, Aileen," I said, trying to break the ice and after we'd both been sat on a bench on the upper deck for some considerable time, in silence. "I'm sorry, you were right," she replied. "About what?" "About everything. About these things," Aileen gestured towards her breasts, "about that calendar shoot. About everything, Warren." "I don't understand, Aileen." She took her sunglasses off to wipe her eyes with the back of her hand; it was only then that I could see that she was crying. I fished a clean hanky from my pocket and handed it to her. "I didn't need these bloody implants, Warren. You told me so many times, but I thought they'd make you love me more. What they did was to make me think that I was something special." "You were always something special to me, Aileen. You had been from the moment I met you." "I realise that now, Warren. I realised it whilst I was on that shoot in Jamaica. You were right; there were all kinds of bloody perverts climbing trees hoping to catch a glimpse of the girls in the nude. I refused to strip off and they threw me off the set." "I got a reputation as being awkward after that, because I demanded private changing rooms and would only allow the photographer to be in the studio if I was naked. I still got work for a while but it became obvious that I wasn't going anywhere. So when my room-mate Heather said they wanted another dancer for her troop I joined them. It's mostly disco stuff and backing dancers for pop groups, but I was short of cash and it pays the rent." "Aileen, you have at least six thousand in our joint bank account. If you needed cash why didn't you take that?" Aileen gave me a strange look. "That was your money for the cottage, Duncan. It was all theoretically spent before I left." "At the moment, Aileen, I'm a very successful author, thanks to you. I haven't had to touch that account since you..." "I'm sorry, it all went to my head. Everyone seemed to think that I was the greatest thing to hit the modelling world since I don't know when. I'm sorry, I didn't think that I needed you holding me back; I thought I knew it all. But why thank me for being a successful author?" "Because you taught my how to put heart and soul into my stories. I had no idea what love was all about until I met you, Aileen." Aileen looked me in the eyes. "I've had a few men since we broke up, Warren. Not many, I promise you, but I've never found what we had with any of them." "There's been a few women in my life as well, Aileen. Oh, I keep it low profile, but I'm not as celibate as the newspapers like to suggest. It just surrounds Duncan King with a bit of mystery." She smiled again. "So where do we go from here?" "I don't know, Aileen. If you're interested, we could see if there's anything left..." "Oh, for Christ's sake, man, kiss her and then let's get off of this bleeding tub. You and Aileen can be our guests for dinner this evening. John and I have this lovely little château along the coast and the children will love meeting two famous people." Exactly when Helen had joined us on the upper deck, I don't know. But I was to learn as I got to know her better that she has the habit of taking the bull by the horns and not mincing her words. I did kiss Aileen briefly; I think we were both a little self-conscious of Helen's presence. But Aileen smiled at me afterwards then she gave Helen a big grin. God only knows what women can communicate to each other with those looks of theirs. "I'm afraid that..." Aileen began to say. "I'm Helen and my husband is John Carpenter. I'm afraid that we don't go in for formal introductions." Helen grinned back at Aileen. I was looking at Helen when she spoke, so I didn't see what expression came on Aileen's face, but Helen suddenly added, "Yes, he is that John Carpenter." And then to me, "John found himself in the media spotlight for a while a few years back, Duncan. You were probably lost in one of your novels at the time." Aileen giggled then stood up and hugged Helen, then she gave me a hug and disappeared down the companionway. I must have had a confused expression on my face. "She's going to get changed, Duncan. You don't think she came on board dressed in those clothes, do you?" When she reappeared Aileen was dressed a lot more conservatively than she had been, although she was still dressed in a two-piece outfit that showed a lot of midriff, leg and cleavage. She looked beautiful and a feeling of pride that I hadn't felt for years came over me when she took hold of my arm. I'm not at all sure that Stella was happy that I was leaving the party, although Norman didn't seem to mind. He very quickly organised a launch to take us back to the French coast that was completely out of sight. "She's a real beauty, my friend; I have no idea what has gone on today, but I suspect that I can guess. Now don't you dare let her get away again, young man!" Norman said to me with a smile on his face when he shook my hand as we departed. Stella gave me a quick kiss and simply said, "Go for it, stud." Then she added, "I'll see you back at the hotel in the morning. Don't forget this is supposed to be a working holiday." Stella and I were due to attend some function or the other the following morning. "Looks like your agent has been earning her keep," John said, pulling the hat he had mysteriously developed down over his eyes as the launch neared the key side. I was surprised to see that Helen's head was also suddenly adorned with a wide brimmed hat as well, and that she was in the process of obscuring her face with a chiffon scarf. "It's all right for you celebrities, but in our line of work, we prefer not to have our faces plastered all over the newspapers, Duncan," Helen informed me. I looked back at the quay and noticed the three paparazzi photographers waiting, their cameras at the ready, that John and Helen had obviously spotted. Knowing my publicity mad literary agent, I figured that John was correct in his assumption that Stella had been on the telephone to someone. Actually I thought it quite funny. Aileen's face had been famous well before mine had, but these guys seemed to have no idea who she was and kept asking. All four of us kept our mouths firmly shut on the short walk to John's hire car. When we arrived at John and Helen's holiday home, Aileen and I were introduced to their herd of children and an older couple, Jenny and Albert, who apparently had been minding the children. Then all of us fooled about in the swimming pool with them for quite a while. Eventually Bert and Jenny took the children into the chateau to dry off and change whilst we four sat on the terrace, drinking Martinis. I'm not sure how John and Helen did it, but quite suddenly I found that they had disappeared, leaving Aileen and me alone together on a swing seat. "Is this really happening?" Aileen asked after I'd kissed her. "I don't know. Would you like to pinch me to see if I wake up?" "No, I'd be too frightened that you'd wake me up. I don't think that I could live with the disappointment." "Wake up then, girl. I'm here, I can promise you. The problem we've got to face is where are we going?" Aileen giggled, "I know where I'd like to go, but it's a little early and there's children in the house." "No, I don't think that's a good idea, Aileen," I said and a disappointed and somewhat childlike expression came over her face. "I think that we have to get things all talked out first this time. If you agree, I think we should just date for a while until we both understand each other's feelings." "I know what my feelings are now, Warren. Look, I'm sorry, I was all mixed up and suddenly everyone was fawning over me and telling me how beautiful I was. I'm sorry I just wasn't used to it and it all went to my head for a while. It was only when you weren't there anymore, that I realised what was important in my life." "Then why didn't you come back?" "I wanted to, Warren. God, you'll never know how much I wanted to, but you were so adamant that if I went on that shoot it was the end for us. I was too frightened that you'd reject me. You did say some really hateful and hurtful things that day, you know." "Yes, I do remember that I was very angry. It must have been the shock, I think. If I'd had any sense I'd have realised that ... oh, you know what I mean. Let's not go back over it now. So some bloody gofer dogsbody saw your tits now and again, what did I expect was going to happen behind the scenes? That you were going to take part in an orgy or something? I was just being a conservative prune and I got jealous, that's all. You must remember that I was pushing my luck on that book deadline as well." "Aileen, I can be a complete arsehole sometimes, you know. I was way out of line. Can you forgive me?" "There's nothing to forgive. I should have been a little more communicative on what happened on those shoots. I knew that you weren't keen on those lingerie shoots from your reaction to that first fashion catalogue I was in. Damn it, why didn't I drag you along to some of those bookings?" "Because we were both dashing around like blue arsed flies trying to get our own careers off the ground. Silly, we both took our eyes of the ball for a while." "Well, are we going to win the second half?" "I hope so. I intend to give it my best shot." "Then let's share a room later tonight?" "Hold on, Aileen. I love the idea but the tables have been turned somewhat. Five years ago you were the famous model, but those guys on the dock were waiting to see who I was with this evening. How is your psyche going to handle that?" "Been there, done that, I had my fifteen minutes of fame, Warren. I've stood in the sunshine and discovered that it wasn't to my liking. I'm completely happy to stand in Duncan King's shadow from now on. I'm sure that I can be just as photogenic as that starlet bit of fluff you had on your arm at the film premier." "Oh, you saw the pictures in the papers, did you? Christ, talk about dumb; she definitely gets all of her work via the casting couch. You know she was asking me if I could get her a part in the next one of mine that they film. And she not only offered, she expected..." "Never?" "Yeah, no kidding, she even had a room booked at the Hilton." "You didn't, did you?" "Aileen." "No, you wouldn't, would you? Jesus, you are even procrastinating about taking me to bed and you've made my bells ring a thousand times. God, I've missed you, Warren." Then she lent forward and kissed me, her hand gently grabbing my crotch at the same time. Later that night we did get to bed together back at my hotel. I think it was the best sex that we had ever had with each other. Aileen was enthusiastic to try everything we'd learnt together in the past. All in one session was unusual for us. -------------------------------------------------- Chapter 05 The following morning a waiter entering the other room of my suite with breakfast awakened Aileen and me. Shortly after that there was a knock at the bedroom and, after asking if we were decent, Stella's head appeared around it. She announced that we had less than two hours to get sorted before we were due at the function that she and I were supposed to attend. The Price of Fame Aileen and I showered together, with Stella calling out the time at regular intervals. "Lay off, Stella, we'll make it on time," I called out to her after about her fifth time check. "I just want to make sure that you two love birds don't get carried away again. You realise that you kept the people in the next suite awake all night, don't you?" "Stella, you're in the next suite," I replied. "Yeah, but Norman doesn't have your stamina, Duncan. He poor bugger needs to get some rest now and again." She laughed back at me. "You've caught the bugger then?" "Of course, we're in love!" Stella gave a false cough, and I felt sorry for poor old Norman. Well, for the future of his bank account anyway. When Aileen and I came out of the shower we discovered that Aileen's luggage was lying on the bed. Stella explained that she'd arranged for Aileen's room-mate to bring it over. "We can't have the press spotting Aileen in your hotel dressed in the same clothes she was wearing yesterday can we." "But how did you know she'd be here this morning?" "Well, it stood to reason really to anyone who saw you two together yesterday anyway. You'd either be here, at the Carpenters' or at Aileen's digs. As she's sharing a room I didn't think that was likely. And the Carpenters keep their place locked up like Fort Knox so the press couldn't get anything from there, so if you'd slept there it wouldn't matter. It's called watching your reputation, Duncan; it's what I charge all that money for. Now can we eat and get going?" Aileen couldn't go with us because she had to rehearse for the show she and the rest of her troop was doing. Although it had been decided that she was quitting the troop she didn't feel that she could let her friends down at such short notice. So Stella and I went off to the function on our own. "Where's Aileen Price this morning, Duncan?" A faceless reporter shouted as Stella and I exited the car at the end of yet another red carpet. God, I'd seen too many red carpets that week and would be glad when the damn film festival was over. Neither Stella nor I replied to the reporter's question anyway. I think Stella and I were both surprised that the press had discovered who'd left Norman's party with me. Stella swore blind that she hadn't let out Aileen's identity to them, although she admitted tipping the press off that we were on our way to the shore the day before. Later that afternoon after Stella and I had returned to the hotel, she burst into my suite carrying several British newspapers. "Well, someone recognised Aileen pretty quickly. Listen to this?" Stella said then began reading snippets from one of the showbiz gossip columns. "Author Duncan King has found his princess at last." She looked up at me and smiled. "Last evening author Duncan King was seen leaving a party aboard millionaire Norman Stanley's luxury yacht, with Aileen Price, the beautiful model who famously fell from grace because of her backstage tantrums. Aileen has apparently been at the festival all week, but for some inexplicable reason has been travelling incognito. Yesterday Price and the handsome author King tried to slip off of Stanley's yacht unseen early in the evening. They were hustled away to an unknown destination by their private security people." Stella looked at me and grinned. "Got that all arse about face, haven't they?" "Yeah, I'm not sure how Helen and John will like that idea of being described as our bodyguards." "I think providing they can't be recognised in these pictures they won't give a damn. I've met those two before and they like to remain incognito when they can. Nearly all of the papers say roughly the same thing. I wonder how they will explain away Aileen cavorting around on that stage this evening. Are you going to watch her, by the way?" "I'd like to, yes, that's if I can get in without the press climbing all over me." "We'll sort something out, but we'd better watch out for the paparazzi if you intend to bring her back here again tonight." "I have no intention of bringing Aileen anywhere, Stella. Aileen goes where she wants to." "Sorry, I didn't mean it to sound quite like that. But you know what I mean." I was spotted in the audience that evening, and when Aileen and I left by the stage door, I think we got more attention from the press than the pop singer her little troop of four dancers had been supporting. I also got the feeling that the singer wasn't too enamoured that all four dancers were leaving with me and not going to the little party he had planned for later. We all went to a different party at John and Helen's château again. The following day Stella and I flew back to the UK because I had pre-planned book signings to attend. Aileen and the girls had numerous more bookings in southern Europe so she couldn't come with me. The little sensation of Aileen and me being seen together in the south of France had unexpectedly resulted in a sudden rush of modelling bookings for Aileen as well. She called me almost the moment they started coming in and asked me what she should do about them. "What do you mean, what should you do?" I asked. "Well, should I take the jobs on or not?" "Darling, you're a model, aren't you? I have no intention of buggering up your career again. I'm happy with whatever you decide, but I should imagine that if you blow the buggers off now, then they might decide to forget about you again." "So ... so you're telling me that you don't mind if I take them?" "Aileen, if you don't take them, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Of course you should take anything that comes along. You can afford to be choosy when you're back on top again." "Thanks, sweetheart, but I've turned down the offer from Hugh Hefner anyway." "What!" "Just kidding, I'll see you soon. Love you!" I think I sat there for about ten minutes staring at the handset in my hand. Those two words "love you" - how I had missed hearing them for so long. Aileen suddenly had modelling work coming at her from all directions and it was to be almost eight weeks before we were together again. I didn't even hear her arrive at the cottage and I was even more surprised that she still had her key to the place. Lucky I hadn't had the locks changed, or it would have spoilt her surprise for me. There I was, lost in my own little world, bashing away at my keyboard when Aileen snuck up behind me. I didn't even see her reflection in the monitor. The first I knew of her presence was when she began chewing on and breathing into my left ear. "Carry on like that and I'll never get this chapter finished," I said without looking up. "How many more words?" "I dunno, a thousand or so maybe." "Bugger that, I can't wait that long!" she said, spinning my chair around so that I was facing her. I found myself confronted by a very naked Aileen, and those augmented breasts of hers were right at my eye level when she straddled my legs and sat on them. "Oh, my, how I've missed you!" she said as I sucked her left nipple into my mouth. "Oh, boy, you are good, you know." She moaned "But don't forget the other one." I moved my attention to her right nipple. "Christ, I was mad to walk away from you like I did." "Don't start all that again, Aileen. We did all the bleeding-heart bit down in France." "You're right, I'm sorry. Anyway my turn now." Aileen slid backwards off of my knees and settled herself on the floor. With deft efficiency she unfastened my belt and undid my trouser fly. "Hi, mate, how ya' been keeping?" she said as her little friend came into view. Then she set about giving the best blowjob that I'd had in years. I think it's only fair to point out that I've only had four different women give me blowjobs in my whole life. The first and undoubtedly the best and most experienced at the art was a thirty-odd-year-old and rather kinky neighbour of my parents. I was fifteen the first time she sucked my little dick dry; I won't go into further details here, but she seemed to have a fetish for sucking cocks. I never did get the chance to fuck her, or even get more than a cursory feel of her tits. But she sucked my cock to completion every chance she got for about four years, until she got married again. I'd used my experience with her to teach Aileen how to give a good blowjob and that day Aileen showed me that she hadn't forgotten a thing. The other two occasions were one-night-stands whilst on my book signing tours. Neither of which were memorable nor worth writing home about or describing here. Actually the disappointment of those two nights kind-a rubbed in what I'd lost when I'd let Aileen slip away from me. I was lying back in my chair enjoying the exquisite feelings Aileen was subjecting me to when I suddenly realised I was just about there. Now one thing that I knew Aileen didn't like was me ejaculating into her mouth. I'd done it a couple of times when I'd gotten lost in the pleasure she was giving me. But Aileen had coughed and spluttered on both occasions and thrown up all over the bedroom carpet one time. "Woe there, calm down baby, I'm just about there," I told her. She stopped her ministrations, looked up and smiled at me. Then reached out, grabbed the waste bin from beside my desk and pulled it closer to her. "Just in case, but I'm going to crack getting this right even if it kills me," she said and returned to her ministrations. "You don't have to..." I started saying. "Of course I don't have to, Warren, otherwise you wouldn't have warned me," she said breaking from her efforts again. "The fact is, I want to. You never stop when I reach a climax. You just keep on driving me wild. Anything you can do for me I want to do for you. Especially now!" "What's so special about now?" I asked, but Aileen just continued bobbing her head and waved a hand at me. She did cough and she did splutter. Then she sat back and smiled at me, before opening her mouth to show me what I'd deposited in there. Then with a slight grimace, she swallowed it all and then sat there grinning at me. "I don't know what I was so worried about, I think I'll get used to the taste quite quickly." "Why should you want to?" I asked. Not really knowing why I had asked the stupid question. "Well, I should imagine that in a few months, it's about all your going to get." "It is? Why?" "I'll have to speak with the doctor to see what month we have to stop in," she replied. I'm not sure what expression came over on my face. But Aileen went on, "I'm late, Warren, very late and you know that I'm never late. The test I did the other week came up positive." "Jesus, why didn't you tell me?" "Because I knew you'd panic. Now calm down and take a few deep breaths before you start to hyperventilate." Aileen was right; I was hyperventilating. I did again a few weeks later when the doctor told us Aileen was expecting twins and yet a third time when the ultrasound nurse corrected the count to triplets. A panic telephone conversation with Stella the following morning put her into top gear wedding planner mode. She'd been through the routine so many times by then that she had the planning and organisation side of things down to a fine art. I suppose we got some discounts from a few of the suppliers as well, because Stella was planning her own wedding to Norman at the same time. Although their wedding was a lot bigger and more expensive than ours. Aileen gave birth to our three beautiful girls the following February. Our first son followed two years later and the second a year after that. Life was sweet and most of my books have sold well and keep selling. I've also written quite a few outline plots for a TV series that's in the negotiation stage now. Aileen ... well, she was still modelling when she was eight months pregnant with the girls. Pregnant or not she's still in regular demand but she cut down on working quite a bit, preferring to spend her time with the children or reading through my efforts and finding things she thinks I can do better. We're happy with each other and that's the most important thing. Oh, Stella and Norman. Well, funny thing that, they are still married; unusual for Stella to keep a man that long. I have to wonder if it's got anything to do with Norman's children. Stella seems to dote on them. Oh, Norman was a widower, but I have no idea how his first wife passed away. I'll bet you're all wondering, much the same as I did, why Aileen was not on the pill and got pregnant so quickly when we were in France. Well, the truth be told, Aileen's explanation - and I have no cause to doubt it — is that she wasn't on the pill because she wasn't planning to have sex with anyone. "But you said that you had a couple of guys," I replied in a thoughtless moment. "When I told you that I had a couple of guys, Warren, I meant that I had a couple of boyfriends but I didn't sleep with any of them. I had no intention of sleeping or having sex with anyone, so there was no need for me to take any precautions, was there? And, well, you never did stop to ask, did you?" "Point taken," I replied. Life Goes On This Denham Forrest, The Wanderer story, is posted on this site with the authors knowledge and consent. RG