I confessed all. Everything from the sorry night it started, when April had hit the town in the hope of getting her face in the papers with the other Cherry Electric girls, and I’d found myself home alone with gape porn on the TV; my cock in one hand, phone in the other. I told him how I’d been just another desperate caller, and she’d been just a voice, another girl pretending to finger her snatch until I shot my load. But there was something different about her. She listened to all the filthy things I wanted, all the filthy ways I’d watch other men fuck her up, and then she’d played for real. I could hear it in her breath, in the low little moans she made as she came for me. There were no dramatics; no wailing, shrieking, porno-style orgasms, only a confession of her own. Lucy wants to be taken by men she doesn’t know, men who’ll fuck her until she’s an aching wreck, until she can’t take any more, until they’ve used every hole and left her wide and gaping and stretched fucking raw. Lucy told me her dirty little secret, and she became mine. Every. Fucking. Night.
Steve nodded all the while I spoke, no judgement, no surprise.
“So, where’s this going? You gonna fuck this chick, or what?”
I leaned back against the workbench. “Hope so.”
“Dangerous game you’re playing, mate. If the papers get a sniff...”
“She’ll be blindfolded, won’t even see me.”
“Even so,” he said. “Hope you remember the last time. Weren’t pretty.”
“Like I could forget.” My insides crawled at the thought, the weeks holed up at home, phone off the hook while the media bayed for blood. The humiliating meetings with the PR execs and the big-arsed cheques leaving my bank account for the pleasure. “Lucy isn’t like that bitch, Steve. Lucy thinks I’m a guy with a haulage company or some shit, just some regular guy who wants to fuck. It’s all about the fantasy, but she’s real.”
“Yeah, for now. See how real it gets if she catches sight of who you are. You’ll be front page in a lickety split, and then what? Sponsors gonna ditch you like dogshit off a shoe, won’t even give it chance to blow over, and let’s not even start on what April would do to you.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Future’s fucking bright.”
“You wanted advice, mate, I’m just saying it like it is. You wanna fuck the chick, go fuck the chick. Just make sure she’s worth it.”
Oh, she’d be worth it. I looked at the guy I’d known most my life. His dirty blonde hair was a mess, eyes sunken. He looked as fucking battered as I felt.
“How you doing, Steve?”
He pulled out a packet of cigarettes, shot me a sad smile as he lit one up. “I’ll live.”
“You need to get out there, get your life back.”
“This is my life, mate. Gotta work my way out of this financial cesspit. Got Kim to thank for that.”
“If it’s about money...”
He was shaking his head before I’d even finished. “Nah, mate. I’m alright. You’ll need yours soon enough when this shit hits the fan. It’ll be you coming to me for a loan.” He slapped my arm in good humour. “I wouldn’t even know where to start, dating and all that shit. Maybe I should get me a chatline chick.”
“Funny you should say that...”
“Oh yeah?” Steve raised his eyebrows.
“I need guys I can trust... guys who’ll fuck Lucy for me, with me.”
“Christ, mate, I thought you’d turned your back on all that shit.”
I stared him out. “It used to be fun, remember?”
“A long time ago...”
“You forgotten what your dick’s for?” I smirked. “Kim may have dealt you the purity card, but I know you, Steve. It’s still in you.”
“Anyway, that chick’s probably gonna be a moose, you wait and see.”
“And if she’s not?”
He looked past me, to the stacks of tools on the wall. “Gotta keep my head down, Jase. Ain’t got no time for crazy fucking about.”
I shrugged, let it go. “I need to get hold of the Carlisle brothers, you got a number for them?”
“Shit, man. You’re really serious.”
“Deadly.”
“On your head be it. Ain’t got a number for them, but last I heard they’d opened a repair shop over Epsom way.”
“Heard much else on the grapevine? Vince? Sam?”
“Pretty much out of it, but I heard Vince has been up to his usual tricks. Was dating this posh chick, Cynthia something, but she ditched him a few months back when she found some dodgy pictures on his phone. No idea about Sam.”