Lace (52 page)

Sometimes they went out in the evening with Teresa’s man friend, who was in the scrap metal business, and when they did, Teresa adopted a childlike voice and spoke of herself in the third
person. “Teresa wants to go to Fouquet’s,” she pouted. “Albert is a
horrid
man if he doesn’t take Teresa somewhere pretty and Teresa won’t talk to
him.”

She always got her own way, then immediately stopped pouting and said, “Oh, Albert is so
good
to little Teresa; she’s going to sit on his knee and love him all
night.”

“Christ, not in Fouquet’s again,” groaned Serge. “Don’t you
ever
wear panties?”

When Teresa was working with Lili, the older girl was not petulant and childish, but friendly, shrewd and willing to pass on the wisdom of the hotel room. She gave Lili the benefit of her
experience—shrewd bits of advice and sad little ways of avoiding humiliation.

“Never meet a man in a bar, Lili, always the bar of a restaurant or in a café.” Obediently she sat for Serge with one leg up on a kitchen table and hitched her skirt up so
that her bare ass could be seen. “Always take enough money to pay for yourself in case he doesn’t turn up, then you simply order another drink or have your meal; no restaurant charges
much for an omelette.”

At Serge’s instruction, Teresa lay back on the wooden table while Lili unbuttoned her blouse and leaned over. “This okay, Serge? If he doesn’t turn up, you don’t feel
humiliated and if he’s late, well, you’re behaving as if you’re used to expensive places. Ouch, Lili, that fucking hurt, keep your teeth to yourself.”

Serge moved them over to a wooden kitchen chair. Teresa stood behind and Lili knelt on it, clutching adoringly at Teresa’s open kimono. She continued her advice. “Always try to go to
restaurants where you’ve been before, so they get to know you, and always tip well in the cloakroom.”

Serge didn’t like the pose so they dropped it. Back to the kitchen table. One leg up again, but this time frontal. “. . . And never go out in the evening with more money than you
need for one meal and your fare home, because then nobody can borrow from you.”

Both girls were directed to stand facing each other. . . . Closer. . . . Closer. . . . Touching.

Lili was told to drop her kimono. “When you’re in St. Tropez,” Teresa continued, “never pretend you’re staying at an expensive hotel, because they’ll quickly
find out that you aren’t. Always arrange to meet at Senequier, and if anyone asks where you’re staying, say it’s a little hotel that’s
peaceful
and cheap. Rich men
always respect that, and they’re not to know you’re sharing one room with four other girls.”

“Stop talking and let’s get down to work seriously, you two. I want Lili to brush your hair from behind as you lean backward over this wicker chair, Teresa, that’ll lift those
old tits of yours.”

When he was confident that no official search was being made for Lili, Serge briskly pursued his next stop, which was to lure her into his bed.

One evening, after working late with a series of nightgown shots on the studio bed, Serge leaned over to give Lili the light, fatherly kiss on her forehead that usually meant that work was
finished for the day. But this time he snuggled up beside her and muttered, “Serge wants a cuddle.”

Suddenly wary, Lili stiffened. But soon she heard his heavy breathing, and finally she also drifted to sleep. Then Serge raised his head, quickly stripped and got under the sheets. In the middle
of the night Lili woke up, drowsy, to feel a moist stroking of her clitoris in a slow, steady rhythm. Half asleep, she stretched languorously until her body quivered. Her narrow pelvis arched away
from the bed and she shuddered to her first climax.

She lay panting, astonished, guilty, fearful, bewildered, as Serge heaved himself up, started to lick her eyelids, took her little hand in his and guided it firmly down his heavy hairy
torso.

Docile and inexperienced, Lili had no idea how shrewdly she was being exploited.

Teresa and Serge seemed so sure of themselves, so sophisticated.

Teresa found Lili curiously appealing, she couldn’t help being touched by the younger girl’s awed admiration and teased her about it. “But I’ve never had a proper
girlfriend before,” said Lili seriously, “not someone who really likes me. When I was at school in Switzerland the other girls called me stuck-up because I had extra lessons and their
mamas wouldn’t let them play with me because I had no papa. When I was at school in Neuilly, there wasn’t much time to get to know girls in school, and I wasn’t allowed to see
anyone outside school because Madame Sardeau said it would interfere with my work. . . . No, she meant housework. . . . So you see, it’s wonderful to have a real, grownup
girlfriend.”

Teresa felt uneasy. “You’ll soon have plenty of men friends, judging by the looks you get on the street.”

“I know what you mean, but I can’t understand
why
they look at me like that.”

“It’s something in your eyes,” Teresa grudgingly said. That evening Lili spent two hours locked in the bathroom, earnestly looking at her eyes in the mirror and trying to see
something in them. But she just saw eyes. She was lucky about the lashes, but plenty of people had big dark eyes and long glossy lashes without inciting the extraordinary reaction that Lili got
from the average man in the street. No, she didn’t see
how
it could be the eyes. But she’d give it a try. So the next time she went for a walk, wearing a cherry-red velvet suit
with a nipped-in waist, she looked straight at the first man she met, straight into his eyes, then blinked in a misty way and slowly gave a little smile. Immediately she saw his everyday lust turn
into helpless fascination. It is the eyes, Lili thought exultantly. She didn’t know why, but they worked like magic.

Serge spoiled and mesmerised Lili; he was expansive and charming when Lili was obedient, sharp and threatening if she didn’t do as he said. “Do you want the police
to know where you are? Do you want them to know you had an illegal operation? Want to be in prison? Do you want to go back to the Sardeaus?” he growled one spring afternoon shortly after the
calendar had been completed.

“Oh no, Serge, please don’t. No more.”

“Then get on that bed with Teresa, dear, and let’s have no more whining.”

Lili no longer felt humiliated and shamed by posing naked. The other two were so matter-of-fact about it, as were the other girls who occasionally modelled for Serge. They thought no more of
stripping off their clothes than they did of kicking off their shoes. And the girls
all
slept with men. Teresa said it showed you were no longer a schoolgirl.

But this was different. This was a film. There was a movie camera and there were other men in the studio, men she didn’t know. Scowling, Lili shed her cherry-red cotton wrapper and jumped
on the double bed that had been pulled to the centre of the studio and was now banked by lights. Serge switched on beguiling music, climbed up to the overhead camera platform and started directing
Lili. She was stiff and awkward. Eventually, he said, “Okay, take a break,” and moved to the bed where Lili crouched, arms around her knees.

“You’re too tense, flower. Tell you what, put your wrapper on again and I’ll get you some warm milk with a shot of rum in it. That’ll relax you, bud.”

He slipped into the grubby kitchen, crushed three Mandrax sedative tablets, stirred them into hot milk and then poured rum and sugar in it. With an avuncular beam he carried it out and offered
it to Lili. “And if you don’t feel better after that, flower, we’ll stop,” he said.

After her drink, Lili felt drowsy and unresisting. “Pinch her, Teresa, don’t let her go to sleep. Now let’s have some action, you two. Okay, Teresa, start on her tits.”
Lili now sprawled limp on the bed; Teresa gently tugged at the red sash of her wrap and eased it away from her body. Then she started to stroke Lili’s breasts. Dimly aware, Lili wriggled and
tried to push her away, with arms that suddenly felt limp and boneless, but Teresa held Lili’s hands back against the bed and bent her mouth toward Lili’s left breast.

“That’s great. Now you get in there, Carl.” A husky man who’d been leaning against the wall took off his leather belt, then stripped off denim battle jacket and jeans and
walked toward the bed. “Easy, Carl, take it easy. I want it almost as if the film’s being slowed down. Just slither onto that bed behind Teresa, think dirty thoughts as fast as you can
and let’s see that hard-on. Okay, now you can stroke her ass.”

Serge was sweating, he’d never expected to find it so exciting. Shit, if it weren’t for the rest of the crew, which was costing Christ knows how much an hour, he’d be in there
getting his share. “Let’s have a little more action, get your mouth off Lili’s bush, Teresa, and let’s see Carl go down on her. No, don’t stop, Teresa, your turn will
come, we’ve got another twenty fucking minutes of film. Now you can slide around to Carl and give him head. Don’t you
dare
come, Carl, recite the alphabet backward or something.
Now sit up slowly. Let’s have your hands on Teresa’s head. That’s nice, very nice, stay with it. Now pull, Teresa, we want to see what he’s made of. Oh very nice, now Carl,
I want you to slowly turn around, then lam it into Lili for all you’re worth.”

Lili shrieked, her drugged face, panic-stricken, to camera. “Nice, very nice, that’ll have them creaming their jeans,” Serge purred.

After that, a weary quality was noticeable in Lili’s pictures, an awareness of evil, a tired acceptance of it.

After all, where else could she go? What else could she do? As Serge endlessly reminded her, she had no qualifications, she was only fit to be a hooker or a shop assistant, and she
couldn’t get a job because she had no previous experience. She gnawed her little finger, knowing that what Serge said was true. But when Serge wasn’t making her do these humiliating
things, he was kind, gave her anything she wanted—bonbons, film magazines, records, high-heeled shoes, new clothes. He took her to the cinema, to restaurants and to parties, although she
didn’t much care for the parties. She didn’t like the interested, slightly contemptuous, sidelong looks that the men gave her; she was glad Serge never left her alone. He saw that she
never left his side for a minute; he wasn’t bad to her and at least she didn’t have to get out of bed at five in the morning to sew someone else’s nightgowns.

Lili never thought about the past, as she enjoyed the new comforts of the present—and she tried never to think about the future. Now she was glad that
vraie maman
could never find
her; when she conjured up that particular daydream, or when she caught herself remembering Angelina or Felix, she had to face the fact that she was ashamed of her present life. But how else could
she live?

She started to develop a protective shell, to pretend she didn’t care, that she didn’t mind making these disgusting, shameful movies; only thus could she bear to lie naked on satin
sheets with calculating strange men and hard-faced women of assorted age and colour, in front of other strangers on the periphery of the set. She seemed wearily prepared to accept any degradation,
although she’d once—suddenly—become hysterical when Serge brought an Alsatian dog into the studio.

Once again, Lili remembered that cold, dim journey through the snow and the slush, those dreadful growls and the one thin scream that turned into a gurgle. So Lili clung to Serge, shrieking,
“No! No! Felix, Felix, help me!” Her body shook and her teeth chattered and she was no use for the rest of the day.

Regretfully, Serge decided that he couldn’t introduce animals into the act after all. He had to content himself with films of Lili chained to obviously papier-mache dungeon walls, Lili
being whipped by muscular bald boxers or manacled by monocled parodies of Englishmen, Lili kneeling to lick the cock of anyone Serge chose.

He felt not one twinge of jealousy or pity for the girl. He looked upon her as he would a clever pet monkey—she did her tricks and he saw to it that she had a comfortable life. He’d
got her to sign a five-year contract with Sergio Productions—not that it was legal, mind, because she was underage, but she’d never find that out. Sergio Productions charged a steep
price for slick, professionally made porn films, but Lili saw none of the money. On paper she was paid 400,000 francs a year by Sergio Productions, which was about as much as a secretary earned,
but Serge deducted fifteen percent as his agent’s fee, thirty percent for his fee as her manager, and thirty percent for providing food, clothes and accommodation, which didn’t leave
much for Lili.

In the deep, dark velvet depths of a club cinema off the Champs Elysées, one man whispered to another, “Who’s the dark girl? She’s new, isn’t
she? Serge’s girl? She’s too good for
this
crap. She deserves
better
crap. I’ll phone him tomorrow.”

The following week, Serge summoned Teresa to the big basement that he now used as a studio. More care than usual had gone into the arrangement of the simple set; the focal point
was a deep, old-fashioned, white enamel bathtub that stood on claw feet in the middle of a group of indoor palm trees. A hose filled the tub with warm water, which was then heavily squirted with
liquid detergent, until foam hung dripping over the side in frothy stalactites. Banks of lights were switched on. “Silence,” said Serge, then “Action.”

Lili did what she usually did. She had developed the trick of disassociating herself from her body. She
willed
herself to feel that her skin was as irrelevant to her real self as old
overalls, and therefore displaying it was no worse than displaying old overalls. The real Lili floated up and away from those grubby, alien hands that touched her flesh. She looked down on the
scene from above, distant and uninvolved in the distasteful proceedings; or she dealt with the humiliation and protected her wispy sense of self-esteem by simply imagining herself elsewhere.

After such sessions Lili would be remote and silent, she would hardly speak until she had returned to the apartment and had a long soak in a warm tub of water in a darkened bathroom where slowly
her body and soul were reunited. Lili always believed firmly in her future, sure of an eventual happy ending, because she had read so many of the romantic trash magazines that Madame Sardeau read
every week. She therefore knew the traditional ending to these tales. She was an orphan, wasn’t she? She was being exploited, wasn’t she? She was going through tough times, wasn’t
she, like all those heroines? That meant she was currently at about the middle of chapter four of her life, and about six chapters away from the man of her dreams and eternal happiness. In the
meantime, she had to put up with the standard soap opera plot.