She walked from the terminal building with a purposeful stride that spoke of self-confidence. I was first cab on the rank and because of the system in place at the airport, she had no option but to choose mine, some guys have all the luck. She looked vaguely familiar but I couldn't put my finger on it so, as I got out to load her black wheelie bag into the boot I took a closer look at her. She wore those huge sunglasses that Victoria Beckham made popular and that covered almost half of what appeared to be a face that I was sure that I had seen somewhere before. The collar of her jacket was turned up, I didn't know whether it was as protection from the icy blast that originated in the Antarctic or to hide her features even more.
"Where to Ma'am."
"I need to get to Melrose, is that okay?"
"Do you mean Melrose Park?" I assumed that she was unfamiliar with South Australia and had mistaken the country town for the suburb.
"No, I want to go to Melrose."
"Very Well. Because it's a long way I will have to ask you for the fare up front. It'll cost," I thought for a second or two, how much could I charge her before she thought it was too much and go elsewhere, "six seventy-five dollars."
She let out a frustrated sigh and opened her wallet and extracted seven green hundred dollar bills. "Is that enough?"
"Yeah, sure. Thank you, look I'm sorry I had to do that but I've been stiffed a few times in the past so I make it a pre-requisite before I undertake a long journey."
"That's all right, I would most likely do the same thing if I was you. Don't worry about it, you were protecting yourself."
I opened the back door for her but she declined and instead climbed in the front, wow!
"How long have you been driving cabs?" Through the dark lenses of her sunnies I could see that she had her eyes closed.
"For the last five years or so, I'm in the last year of my part-time degree at university and after I graduate I'll have a job in my chosen field."
"And what is your chosen field?"
"I'm studying to be an Electrical Engineer and I'm working with a group that is funded by a private company researching the next generation photovoltaic technology. After graduation I will be working with their manufacturing company."
"You sound as if you have your future planned, I just wish that I had your opportunities five years ago when I graduated high school."
"You can always apply for mature entry into university."
"I'm not that old."
"What I meant was that if you're over twenty-five, or if your high school grades were good enough, you can apply for courses at University that won't require you to go back to school to matriculate."
"I don't think that will be possible."
"Why not? You look capable of anything if you set your mind to it."
"I can't because I've burnt too many bridges, my looks are the problem."
I looked at her more closely and suddenly I remembered where I had recognized her from and I understood her concern. "Oh my God, you're a porn star aren't you? What was your name, Candy Rappa, that's it. I saw one of your videos, you were great but the story line, what there was of it, sucked."
She took off her sunglasses and looked at me. "You see, that's the problem, I'm scared that people will recognize me and make life intolerable for me."
"If you don't mind me asking, and I have to admit to a lack of extensive experience in the world of porn videos, I only saw the one, why? Why did you get into this industry?"
"As a form of revenge on the high school I went to, stuck-up bitches."
"What happened?"
"I was the victim of tokenism in its worst form, I was from an ethnic minority at a time when schools thought that by allowing students from differing backgrounds in as scholarship students their Alumni could pat themselves on the back and tell themselves that they were liberal people. Then my parents were killed in a motor vehicle accident just before I graduated and the school magnanimously allowed me to complete my course, the fact that my tuition fees had already been paid didn't enter into their thinking."
"So what was the problem? Why were you so angry at them?"
"It was the name that I was called. My real name is Candace Rappaport and this was shortened to 'Candy Wrapper'. I wouldn't have minded if it wasn't for the derision used. I was hurt and determined to rise above it while at school and seek revenge afterwards which is why I chose that name when I went into the porn industry. Would you believe me if I told you that what the stuck up bitches were doing was just as bad as the things I did on video, the stupid part about it was that I got paid for it, they didn't."
"What do you mean?"
"There seemed to be a party every weekend and they all seemed to be some sort of contest to see how many boys they could do over the course of the evening, and what they did, well what I allowed on video seemed tame by comparison. Before I started in the industry I made sure that there was no anal, no DP's and definitely no creampies, but these girls, they had it in every available hole, sometimes two at a time and they allowed vaginal and anal creampies and were happy to swallow any amount of it."
"Why Porn?"
"Money, pure and simple. My grandmother had to look after me until I left school and she has a small property at Melrose that doesn't earn enough to support us both so I looked for an industry where I could earn good money quickly and take care of her."
"Wait a minute, the video I saw, didn't the guy come inside you?"
"You don't know much about the industry do you? When you want it to look like you've had some stud cream inside you he shoves it as far as possible inside you and yells like his balls are being squeezed, then there's a cut away shot while some stage hand rushes in with a syringe full of rice starch or something like it and injects it into your pussy. Then back to a close-up while you push it out again, usually accompanied but some bullshit about him cumming inside you when you specifically told him not to and what you are going to do if you get pregnant. If you must know half the guys are using Viagra to keep it up, if they had to rely on being aroused they'd never get it up."
"It must be hard work, having some cock in your pussy for ages while it's being filmed."
"I don't know about hard work so much but my cunt gets sore after a while, we have to use literally bottles of lube."
"The one I saw you were at it for some thirty minutes, is that normal?"
"No. That scene took all day to shoot, what with the lighting and make up and the set up. The actual action took about half of the time and most of it ends up being edited out."
"How did you get into the industry, after all you are here and the video was shot in the US?"
"I was visiting my Grandmother during the school holidays and there was a film crew shooting a feature film in the area. They were looking for extras so I went along thinking that I'd be able to stay in the background and earn a few bucks. The director saw me and decided that he'd give me a walk-on part, and this went fine. He then approached me with the usual bullshit story about how I have the potential to be the next Nicole Kidman or whoever and if I were to sleep with him he'd make sure that doors were opened for me in Hollywood. I told him that when the doors opened I'd consider opening my legs for him. I thought no more about it until six months later when I got a package in the mail that contained an airline ticket to LA, a work permit and the keys to an apartment along with the phone number of a director that was interested in testing me for an upcoming role."
"And the role was in porn?"
"Yeah but it didn't happen right away. These guys are really sleazy, when I got to LA I called the number and was told that he was on location and wouldn't be back for a month. This month turned into three during which time I found that the rent on my apartment had only been paid for one month so I was behind and in danger of being kicked out. It was then that he returned my calls and I was directed to go to this warehouse building the next day."
This is her story pretty much as she told it to me:
When I arrived I was taken into a studio of sorts and told to put on these clothes, a skirt that short that it covered not much and a top that was cut that low that it just as well not be there and then there were the shoes, platform stilettos that were so hard to walk in that I thought that I was going to break my ankle.
I then had to come through a door into this room set up like a photographic studio with one extra bit of equipment, a video camera. There was a man and a woman seated on a sofa. They introduced themselves as Peter and Suzie, and that they were scouting for modelling talent. I had to say that I was there to test for a modelling assignment. Peter got up and walked around me looking at me from every angle, "What do you think?" Suzie asked him.
"She looks fine to me, although," he hesitated as if he was really reluctant to ask me to strip, "I will need to see her with her top off."
I was instructed to take my top off but I didn't. 'Why do you want me to take my top off, there's hardly any of it here?" I of course knew where this was heading and was going to make the most of it, after all I needed money in a hurry. "If you want the top off you will have to come up with some serious green."
"How much are you talking about?"
"I need a couple of hundred up front for rent and food."
"If we give you two hundred will you take off your top?"
"As they say in the classics, 'show me the money!'"
