No, she is Erika Fire. She can kneel on this bed, naked before this man who she does not know. Before the black eye of his camera and his cooing language. The fear is not hers, it is not Erika's, she has put it aside. The room is dim and, through the window, she can see the city, its roofs, its dome.
He keeps talking, saying things in English, a language that she understands but a little. Erika will respond coolly, even if it comes out as a hesitant shake of the head. She doesn't understand so she will say nothing then, as he approaches, the camera covering half of his bearded face, the red light that says that it is taking all this in, winding her into its coiling black inwards. Even his hand with its rough fingertips and bitten nails as it touches first her breast and then her cunt, its fingers spreading to explore her, still unyielding. Rudely squeezing the cleft of her, shaven that morning with care and a plastic razor. Though the skin is tender, Erika does not flinch, any more than a statue.
No, the girl that met him this afternoon- the girl who had coffee- is elsewhere. That girl with sparks in her stomach, she has been shed with her blue uniform that a chair now wears, one of its shoulders lopped forward over the armrest. The jacket has a rip by the pocket that needs fixing.
He comes closer, muttering and blowing, his nostrils quiver. He touches her again, his hand cups and weighs her small breasts. The goosebumps are because it is cold in the room.
Not the kind of woman to get scared Erika, excited, Erika awaits the other man, who she has seen in a Polaroid shown to her when they had coffee. He had bought her a bun too, which she had eaten in small, dry mouthfuls although she did not want it, and spoken with that same cooing fall to his voice that he uses now, tracking back across the room, his camera level. Because her English was not good, and because the caf? was crowded, he had pointed beneath the table and she had nodded, and then, leaning forward in his chair, he had put his hands behind his back as someone might if they had a thing in one hand, and wanted you to guess which hand it was in, and she had nodded. He had looked pleased. That was when he had given her the number, and the name of this hotel, written it on the paper napkin which was crumpled in the pocket of the jacket of her uniform, hung over the armrest of the chair.
His phone rings, and putting his camera on the chair carefully, he takes it out and points at it, nodding and smiling at her, so she understands that this is the man. The sparks come again, she shivers a little, because it is cold in the room.
She had first done it with Imre, sitting astride him (for she had done it) and he had looked up at her, with fear in his eyes, come, and left her open, seeping him. And although afterwards he had cried almost, and complained of guilt, touching her self she had felt quite different. She had realised that there was nothing she could not do and that there was nowhere she could not go. How wrong then? Although he had been crying she had made him hard again, come twice before he came this time.
This man, and the one who is on his way, they are not like Imre. Imre is quiet, with his quiet hands holding her, pensive after sex. Sometimes he seemed to go into himself so that she wanted just to shake him by the shoulders, to show him that she was out here.
Out here Erika waits. Erika Fire, the name that he had given her when they were having coffee. While she was eating her dry bun, pulling off small pieces to put into her mouth and chew. Erika Fire because her hair, and he had touched her hair persuasively, with hands that weren't like Imre's, was like fire he said. Erika Fire, pale-skinned and fine-featured, and she kneels on the bed looking out over her city and it occurs to her that they might see her up here. Perhaps if they were in one of the towers on the outskirts, that rise grey against the sky in the distance, and they had a telescope, and they were looking, they might see her.
Imagine that. If it were Imre, crying at the end of the telescope. Seeing her as she was now, crying, but knowing he could not reach her. That if he were to leave his lookout he would not get there in time, he would miss the act itself. Well then, let him see, if he is too scared to come for fear of missing it, let him watch.
Let all of them watch. For he had wanted to marry her so that they could keep her here. But she had known, once she had seen his tears that she could not. For here was something that she had not known, and if imagined had imagined only as bad or wrong and yet she could not see it as bad or wrong since it had given her such pleasure. How could that be wrong then? If God had made her beauty and pleasure was her beauty's delight how could that be wrong? So she had known after that that she could go anywhere, and that Imre could not give her what she wanted and that would never change.
No, let them look then, and all the drivers at the station. The things that they had said to her, that they had asked her to do with them. Even Stepan who had pressed her against his wheel and made her put her hand on his trousers so that she would feel his hard dick. That Imre would have wanted to kill and even would have come to the station with his father's gun if she had told him, as he had said he would about anyone that touched her. She shivers. The room is cold and her nipples are hard and dark.
He's gone to the door and she can hear the other man's voice too. They're talking another language now, not English (she knows that much). She wonders, as she kneels on the bed still afraid to look around to steal a glance at him, but also, not wanting to ruin the surprise, whether he has seen the picture of her. The Polaroid taken in the caf?. Perhaps he has and is in love with her, with Erika already.
He comes to the bed, still she does not turn, but her body tenses involuntarily, her buttocks clench. The other is laughing, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. She is introduced by her new name. This is the first time. And the man comes round in front of her. He's tall, with black hair. He doesn't look like the boys that she has known before, for they have been boys until now, and he's smiling. He's good-looking, she thinks, takes her hand and shakes it with a weird formality, then laughs again. He draws her off the bed by her hand and up to him. She has the sparks again, because it is a new thing to meet a stranger like this and to be naked. She can feel a blush spreading down from her face to her chest. But the man takes her into his arms and says something to her, something quiet, and fond, that she does not understand and then starts to kiss her. She runs her finger through the gelled hair on the back of his head and returns the kiss.
No, she is not a prostitute but a performer. Why is her body thus, if only for herself and for one other. Erika Fire in her generosity gives herself to this man, kissing and spreading the fingers of her other hand over his cock which she can feel growing hard in his jeans. She sees herself reflected, a picture glimpsed in the mirror at the end of the bed. The man with the camera pads about the room, the dark eye through which she gives herself, that convex, reflects her performance, glints.
She helps him with his belt, larger than Imre she sees and uncircumcised, his cock's head hooded and she goes down to suck like a lover. The perfection of her lips and mouth like this, his cock tastes clean not salty. The man with the camera says something and she stops to watch her lover reply, looking down into her face, to whistle and shake his head, running his hand down her back.
At the other end off the telescope Imre, silent with the distance, weeps and waves frantically. She had been known as a quiet girl, and it had seemed right because he was shy too. But to stay here and eat black bread, to lose her beauty to his children and never to see the world. With Louis Vitton luggage Erika Fire is comfortable in international airports.
Laughing he hops uneasily to take off his trousers. The man with the camera is talking to her now. He wants her to say something. He is asking her if she likes it, she thinks. Erika Fire, at eighteen, knows what she likes, what she wants.
Thank you...it's...just what I
She mimics, but stumbles. The two men laugh at this, which feels cruel to her, since she is naked. His cock is one of those that are straight.
Thank you...
He repeats more slowly this time.
...it's just what I wanted.
She has done it.
Imre could not have heard, but might have seen the words. And others who have joined him there perhaps to comfort him or to edge him out of the way to peer through the eye-piece may interpret the movement of her lips for him. He does not speak English like Erika Fire, who is, and will be, bilingual.
Who is that with him? Her father? Her mother? Well let them watch. All of them that would keep her here to wear her out, as they have worn themselves out. It is jealousy that makes them cleave to her, not love, whatever they say. To be a child, then a wife and to live in the city, to work in the station watching those that leave, but never to leave. Never to stay in a grand hotel like this one. It is, after all, her first day, Erika's first day, and she knows, she hopes that there will be many others like this one. And as she kisses this stranger and then stoops to suck she think about the car that she will drive, with lights that will pop up to surprise with their brightness, their hi-beam.
The man is pleased, hardening she feels, in her mouth. She thinks of how she had taught herself to do this, in the face of Imre's shame and fear. That time which he had thought was love she had known for training. A career woman, Erika Fire, wears a suit with broad shoulder pads, like in the films. Her lovers call her on mobile phones and can only hope that she will be free.
For her looks have made her hard. She can see in the mirror, fixed at the end of the bed, how she looks and there is no doubt. The appendix scar on her white belly is the only blemish. Her beauty for all its softness is harder and more real than anything they have to offer her here. Their money is worth nothing, their lives are worth nothing. Through this man's lens she coins herself, her hard beauty rings true on counters across the world.
He gets down upon his knees beside her and guides her down on to her side. She knows without being told what to do, although the man with the camera is saying something. Behind she hears the crinkle of a condom wrapper.
The black eye of the camera is a tunnel that leads out into the world, or one thousand, or one million worlds.
Erika Fire sighs, enters, and is dispersed.
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