When I first discovered what Kaylene did for a living, I was a little surprised. No, that's not true. When I
first
discovered what Kaylene did for a living, I was
very
surprised.
I knew that Kaylene was a model of some sort, but I thought that she probably modelled for retailers' websites and catalogues and stuff like that. It never occurred to me that ... well .... But then, after thinking about it for a moment or two, I thought: Why not? Everyone needs to find a way to pay for the groceries. And if Kaylene was happy to pay for her groceries by exposing parts of her that weren't normally exposed, then why shouldn't she?
If you ran into Kaylene in the grocers (while she was shopping for said groceries) you probably wouldn't pick her for a model. But then I suppose that's true of many, if not most, models, isn't it? Not that I've known that many models, I hasten to add.
Kaylene is my upstairs neighbour. For a couple of years, we passed each other in the entrance hall and said hello to each other when we met at the bus stop or the Tube station. But that was about it. At least that was about it until the day that she returned from a photo shoot and discovered that she didn't have her door keys with her. Fortunately, I was working at home that day, and I was able to buzz her in the front door. But after that, I wasn't a lot of use. She still needed a key to get into her flat.
'Can you think where you might have left them?' I said.
She shook her head. 'I went outside, got a cab straight away, went straight to the studio, and then, afterwards, I came straight back here.'
'And you didn't leave them at the ... umm ... studio?'
'I phoned the studio. That was the first thing that I did. And Hannah looked. But, no, they didn't seem to be there.'
'When did you last see them?' I asked. 'The keys.'
'Yes, well, that's the thing,' she said. 'The only thing that I can think of is that I left them in the flat. I don't know why I would have done that. But it's the only thing that I can think of. I guess I was just in a hurry. I don't like to keep Dora waiting if I can help it. Well, I don't like to keep anyone waiting. Even though it's a bit of a challenge in London, I pride myself on being where I say I will be, when I say I will be there. I think I'll just have to phone for a locksmith.'
Kaylene phoned a locksmith and, yes, they could send someone, but not for another hour or so. 'Well, I don't suppose I have a lot of choice, do I?' Kaylene told whoever answered the locksmith's phone.
'Right,' I said, 'it's probably time that I took a coffee break anyway. How do you take it?'
Over coffee, I asked Kaylene what today's shoot had been about.
She looked at me for a moment, and then she smiled. 'Today? Oh, just cunt shots,' she said.
I had clearly mis-heard her. Or perhaps not. Perhaps 'cunt shots' was some sort of trade lingo for difficult shots. One of my colleagues, an Australian, often refers to a difficult day as 'a cunt of a day'. 'Oh? So difficult,' I said, to clarify the situation.
'Difficult?' she said. 'No, not really. Pretty straight forward really. It's just a matter of giving yourself a bit of a rub, a bit of a warm-up, and then applying a dab of personal lube. Not
too
much though. You want to keep everything looking
almost
real. But no one much wants to look at a
dry
cunt, do they?'
'Are you serious?' I said.
'Oh yes. Why? Do you prefer a dry cunt?'
'No. That wasn't what I meant,' I said. 'I meant ....' But what did I mean?
And then Kaylene laughed. 'Oh. Sorry. You didn't realise, do you? You don't know what sort of modelling I do.'
'Umm ... well ... I don't know why, but I thought that you probably modelled for retailers' websites or catalogues and stuff like that.'
'I used to,' Kaylene said. 'Bras and knickers, mainly. And swimwear. Bikinis. Stuff like that. You get paid a slightly better rate for underwear and swimwear. But then I got too old. Retailers -- or perhaps their art directors -- like their models really young these days.'
I nodded.
'And then, one day, one of the photographers asked if I would be interested in being in a little video that he was putting together. He said that he needed a slightly older girl. I think that I was 27 or 28 at the time. I remember thinking: If I'm old at 28, what will I be at 38? But I said that I'd give it a go. In some ways, I didn't have a lot of choice. I had applied for a regular job with an insurance company, and they said that they were only hiring people with a university degree.'
'Right,' I said. 'And how did it go? The little video.'
'That first one was sort of fun,' Kaylene said. And she smiled and nodded. 'There was a bit of a story. Not much of a story. But a bit of a story. And the guy was quite nice. After a couple of sherbets, I probably would have fucked him even if I hadn't been getting paid for it.'
It was my turn to smile. Kaylene was certainly a girl to 'tell it like it is'.
'But after that, it all went a bit downhill. Donald got it into his head that it didn't make much difference whether there was a story or not. "Most people just want to watch the sex." Or so he said. And he started hiring the blokes based on the size of their cocks. Some of them were real slime balls. The blokes. Also, don't let anyone tell you that bigger is always better. It's knowing how to use it that matters.'
'And so ...?'
'I'd pretty much decided to give it all up. But then Dora -- who started out as one of Donald's lackeys -- got approached by a chap who had this idea for a high class erotic website. Subscription only. I had my doubts. But Dora's chap had money. And he was prepared to spend it.
'The way that he saw it, there had been a serious decline in the production values of porn -- well, porn, erotica, whatever you want to call it. The amateur stuff -- Delia and Darren getting it on in the back bedroom of their council flat -- had always tended to be a bit ropey, a bit rough around the edges. But that was OK. It was supposed to be. It was part of the naughtiness. But, in an effort to meet the market, the professional stuff was also getting pretty shonky.'
'Shonky?'
'Slap-dash. Sub-standard. Not really fit for purpose.'
'Right,' I said.
'Gerald also had this idea that there was a market that would pay to watch solo women. He wanted to make solo women the centre of his website. And he wanted everything beautifully lit and beautifully photographed. He wanted the site to be a celebration of female sexuality. "And I want
real
women," he told Dora, "not skinny little schoolgirls. And I want the punters to be able to count the individual pubic hairs." I think Gerald has a bit of a thing about pubic hair. Well ... I
know
he has a bit of a thing about pubic hair.'
I nodded.
'Anyway, Dora thought of me. I met with her and Gerald, and I was off in a new direction. And I didn't have to pretend with those over-endowed slime balls anymore. On most shoots, it's just me, Dora, her lighting assistant, sometimes a make-up girl, and an endless supply of classy lingerie. And sometimes, of course, no lingerie. Today was a no-lingerie day. As I said: today was a cunt day.'
I laughed. 'And how is the site going?'
'I don't think it's making Gerald rich,' Kaylene said. 'At least, not off subscriptions. But the online lingerie store seems to do quite well -- especially in the run-up to Christmas and Valentine's Day and such. And the mail order toy shop, of course. That seems to do OK. It seems there are still a lot of people who are not comfortable shopping at a High Street sex shop.'