XXIII
Near Emma’s and Charlotte’s flat was a news agent where the girls and their friends often went to buy newspapers, milk, magazines, sweets and food, as it was one of these news agents that stayed open long after the supermarkets closed. It was a fairly modest shop, with a standard selection of alcoholic products and the full range of magazines, cigarettes and sweets that one would expect. The owners were an Asian family who invested all their time and money into the enterprise and in which all members of the family were meant to contribute some effort. Amna was the eldest girl in the family and now she had finished her schooling with fairly mediocre qualifications, she had no excuse for not helping out in the shop in the evenings or other times for the not particularly handsome remuneration she received for the effort.
Amna’s families were Muslims, but not especially strict ones. She wasn’t require to cover her long thick black hair, and her parents didn’t object too strongly to the blue jeans she wore which always seemed rather too tight on the hips constrained inside. Her fondness for tight jeans often caused her grief as Amna was especially hirsute, not just in the form of the black hairs along her arms and legs which were nearly hidden against the darkness of her Bengali skin, but in the thick pubic hair which spread from the end of her anus to nearly her navel. Her white knickers were almost swamped by the thick luxuriance of it. Fortunately, her full round breasts didn’t share in her general hairiness, but it was they that attracted most comment from her parents as she continued to grow out of her previous bras and blouses. Her clothes struggled to contain them. Frequently she was advised to put on a loose sweater or pullover to obscure them.
The young girl was fascinated by Emma’s friends’ visits to the shop. Emma herself didn’t visit so often herself, but her presence was always the most memorable as she wore so little in the way of clothes: usually nothing at all to hide her breasts and sometimes nothing to hide anything else. And whatever she wore always seemed like it had been thrown on in a hurry and often fit her extremely poorly. Although Amna looked forward to Emma’s visits with particular interest (as she was the one who promised most in terms of potential thrills), it was Emma’s flatmates that Amna enjoyed most. Emma was never very chatty and always seemed to have her mind somewhere else.
Charlotte and Josephine were always very civil, and often exchanged opinions on the weather. The two girls paid her more attention than most visitors, and Josephine was especially tactile. She’d often be holding Charlotte’s hand and on one memorable occasion Amna watched the two of them lost in a passionate embrace. Their tongues were deep in each other’s mouth and they only stopped when another customer entered the shop. There was also a young girl, Maisie, who wore almost as few clothes as Emma and smiled at Amna in a cheeky direct manner which often disturbed her. She would often be holding the hands of whoever was accompanying her to the shop (she never came by herself) and often gave her companion a kiss on whichever part of the body or face that was most easily available. Maisie was most often accompanied by Emma who on these occasions had all her attention focused on the girl and showed no ability in preventing her consort spoil herself on whatever comics, magazines or sweets she demanded.
The customer who Amna looked forward to the most, however, was Susan who, right from the first time she came in to the shop, established her presence in an easy relaxed way. She chatted with Amna with great familiarity as she discussed what wine to buy, and with no embarrassment whatsoever spoke of her work in sex cinema and the parts she had to play.
“Are all your friends in sex cinema too?” wondered Amna, who felt somewhat both shocked and titillated by the idea. Her image of sex cinema had been taken from the magazines on the top shelf of the magazine rack which showed men and women having sex with each other in great explicit detail, or the listings she’d read of sex television or sex movies.
“My friends?” Susan queried.
“The other girls you come into the shop with,” Amna explained, feeling a bit embarrassed at revealing her interest in her customers’ affairs.
“Goodness no!” Susan said. “I’m the only one in sex cinema. Although all of us except Charlotte work in the sex industry to a certain extent.”
“It must be a strange kind of job,” Amna commented visibly envious of the more exciting life led away from the counter where she would swivel around on her chair near the till seeing nothing more of life than customers and their money. The most exciting aspect of her life was that she was able to unzip her jeans and pull them down her thighs to ease the pressure her hips and stomach exerted on her waist aware that none of the customers would notice a thing.
“Is it something that you’re interested in doing yourself?” Susan wondered sympathetically.