The Paradise Ghetto

by Fergus O'Connell

  As he does so, he says to Julia, ‘Let her back in.’

  ‘Let the bitch stay out there,’ says Julia, even though she goes to do as Bert asks.

  The next set-up is in the bedroom.

  As soon as Bert calls action, Julia walks in front of the camera carrying the package. The effect is that she has just entered the bedroom from some other part of the house. Chantal waits out of shot. She has taken her coat off and stands there in the underwear, stockings and boots. Beneath the arc light it is very hot.

  While Bert might like to think of himself as DeMille, there is never a written script. As a result the girls have to make up most of the dialogue themselves. Julia doesn’t mind this. She loves books and reading and making up the script is something that she is quite fond of. The dialogue comes easily to her – though it’s hardly Anna Karenina.

  She reads the address on the package.

  ‘For Emily. Hmm – I wonder what this could be. Maybe I’ll just take a look.’

  ‘Emily’ is Chantal’s name in the movie. Julia doesn’t have a name. She unwraps the package and takes something out. She holds it up and lets it fall out. It is a red silk dress in a Chinese style.

  ‘That is just – gorgeous,’ Julia says. ‘I’ll bet it would look fabulous on me.’

  She holds the dress to herself. ‘I don’t think she’ll mind if I try it on and see. What’s the harm?’

  Julia puts the dress on the arm of a couch and begins to undress. She takes off her blouse. Then she turns her back to the camera, unzips her skirt, and pushes it down, wiggling her ass as she does so. She steps out of the skirt, picking it up and throwing it onto the couch with the blouse. The movement of the skirt has caused her knickers to slip down a fraction. She tucks her thumbs into the waistband and pulls them back up so that they cling to her, outlining the shape of her buttocks.

  She holds the red dress to herself again, puts a dreamy look on her face and sighs. Again she turns her buttocks to the camera, then steps into the dress, wiggling her ass as she pulls it up. She reaches behind her for the zip and manages to get it about halfway up. But then there’s a problem. She can’t pull it the rest of the way. She struggles, tries by putting her hands over her shoulders instead of round by her shoulder blades but the effect is the same. Bert calls ‘cut’ in an exasperated voice.

  He asks Chantal to do the zip but she refuses so Bert has to come out from behind the camera and do it himself. Bert is being smart – he’ll give Chantal the odd little victory so that she’ll stay in the game. He doesn’t want her storming off when they’re halfway through so that he’d have to re-shoot with a new actress. Julia saw this happen once and Bert’s anger really was a Biblical epic.

  Julia has never stormed off. She has never missed a shoot, is always on time, and has always been able to do the things that Bert wanted. Even when she has felt terrible, she has done what needed to be done. But she has also set limits for herself. For example, she won’t do more than one male/female scene in a week. Everything is too intense and usually with a much-larger-than-average man. Her body needs a few days to recover after that.

  ‘Cow,’ Bert mutters under his breath as he pulls up the zip. With that sorted out and the dress buttoned at the top, filming can resume. There is a cheval glass near the bed and Julia admires herself in it, turning this way and that. She pouts and smooths the silk down over her hips.

  ‘Very nice,’ she says. ‘It fits me like a glove. I think I’ll keep it.’

  She holds up her hair.

  ‘I think I should do something different with my hair – so it doesn’t distract from this beautiful dress.’

  Julia ties up her hair in a ponytail, looks in the mirror again and says, ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Where have you been?’ Chantal snaps, walking on. ‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’ Then as she sees the dress, she says, ‘Hey, isn’t that the dress that I ordered from the catalogue?’

  ‘It is,’ says Julia, ‘and doesn’t it look fabulous on me?’

  ‘Why are you wearing my dress? Opening my mail? I can’t believe you’re doing this.’

  ‘Well, believe it. I’m sick of you flaunting everything you have. Constantly ordering gifts for yourself. You’re very inconsiderate. You never buy me anything.’

  ‘I don’t like your attitude,’ Chantal spits.

  ‘I think at this stage in our relationship,’ says Julia, ‘I’m just going to reward myself.’

  At this point she puts two fingers under Chantal’s chin and tilts it up slightly. As she does, she says, ‘For all the things I do for you.’

  Chantal’s eyes blaze and she is not acting.

  Julia points a finger at her and adds, ‘And you know what I mean.’

  ‘I’ll give you a little reward,’ says Chantal. ‘And you probably wanted me to do this.’

  Julia had expected this build-up to take longer but it seems Chantal has jumped a page or two of the non-existent script. She grabs Julia’s ponytail hard and says, ‘Get down on your knees.’

  The look in Chantal’s eyes is vicious.

  ‘Facing me,’ Chantal commands.

  It feels like Julia’s hair is going to be torn out of her head.

  With Julia kneeling, Chantal kneels opposite her. She takes a riding crop which Bert has placed conveniently on the couch and lifting up the hem of the red dress, she begins to spank Julia’s buttocks.

  Because of their relative positions, Chantal cannot swing the crop very much and the smacks do little more than sting. Julia can smell Chantal’s perfume – it’s something expensive – and the cigarette she smoked is still on her breath. Julia utters little whimpers every time the crop strikes.

  ‘But I just love this dress,’ Julia appeals.

  Chantal continues to slap Julia with the crop.

  ‘You’re certainly in a bitchy mood today, mistress,’ Julia says, trying to maintain the role that Bert had outlined to her when he booked her.

  ‘I’m going to a party,’ says Chantal. ‘Without you, of course. And you’re wearing my dress.’

  Now Chantal moves on her knees behind Julia, hoists up the dress some more, pulls down Julia’s knickers and begins to hit her hard with the crop. These strokes are really painful, strong enough that Julia is sure they’re going to leave red marks. But she is reluctant to cry out. For one thing, she wants this all to be over with as quickly as possible. She wants to get her money and get out of here. If she complains, Bert will have to call cut, there will probably be an argument, and will things be any better when filming starts again? And the other thing is that she is a professional. She is good at what she does. This is why Bert gives her so much work. And anyway, next time she will get Bert to make sure that she is the mistress and Chantal the servant. Or slave. Or whatever the fuck it is. That thought comforts her.

  But it appears as if Bert has seen her predicament. He looks out from behind the camera and begins to make pouting expressions at Chantal. This means that he wants kissing. Chantal stops with the riding crop – but she doesn’t seem to be finished yet.

  ‘Do you know what bad girls get?’ she says. ‘They get spanked. You’ve been acting like a spoilt child so you need to be punished.’

  She slaps Julia’s buttocks with the palm of her hand. She reaches round to Julia’s front, catches her groin between her fingers and the heel of her hand and squeezes hard. Then she slaps Julia a few times right in the groin. Each time she does so, Julia cries in pain or gasps. She’s not acting now – the blows really hurt.

  Bert is pouting manically, indicating, by stabbing his forefinger downwards, that he wants kissing right now. Still on her knees, Chantal goes round to Julia’s front. She looks into Julia’s eyes. Chantal’s eyes are blue and alight with hatred.

  ‘You know – you are going to have to work hard to earn my trust again. Give me a kiss and make it a good one.’

  Chantal pulls Julia’s head to her and Julia does indeed make it a good one. She slips in her tongue and groans
with fake desire. It doesn’t bother Julia for an instant that Chantal is a woman – but it is a strange feeling indeed to be kissing someone as passionately as this when you loathe them and they you.

  Chantal pulls away from the kiss and says, ‘Now I’m going to give you a proper spanking.’ She sits back on the couch.

  ‘Over my knee,’ she says. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  Julia stands up. With the waistband of her knickers just above her knees, it is difficult for her to walk. She lays herself across Chantal’s knees. Chantal yanks on Julia’s ponytail, jerking her head back, and spanks her hard. Julia makes the little whimpers and moans all the while. Chantal orders her to count the slaps and Julia does as she is told. Then Chantal tells her she must apologise and Julia does that too. Chantal makes her say ‘I’m sorry’ several times.

  ‘I know you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?’ says Chantal.

  Julia says that she is.

  ‘I don’t think this is punishment enough for you,’ says Chantal. ‘And you know I can do what I want to you. So first of all – take the dress off, because it really doesn’t suit you.’

  Julia stands up and begins to take off the dress.

  ‘Do a little strip show for me,’ Chantal says.

  Julia removes the dress while Chantal pushes Julia’s knickers down to her ankles. Julia steps out of them and kicks them away. Now Julia is only wearing a bra. Chantal indicates that she should take that off too. When she does, Chantal kisses her breasts. Julia almost recoils when Chantal puts her mouth on her nipple and sure enough, Chantal nips her with her teeth. Julia makes a little yelp, repeated when Chantal does the same on the other side.

  ‘Fucking bitch,’ Julia hisses, soft enough so that Chantal will hear but the mic won’t pick it up.

  Chantal grins at her. Julia has infused her moans and whimpers with weariness as though all of this punishment is wearing her out. She doesn’t really have to act it.

  ‘What am I going to do with you, you naughty girl?’ asks Chantal rhetorically. As she says this she strokes Julia’s breasts with the top of the riding crop. ‘What do you think you can do to earn my trust again? Any ideas?’

  Julia is not expected to reply to any of this so eventually Chantal says, ‘Then it looks like I’ll have to come up with something. Well that shouldn’t be a problem.’

  Chantal makes Julia kneel at the couch, with her elbows on its seat. Chantal disappears off camera and reappears a few moments later carrying a strap-on dildo. First she takes off her knickers and Julia is made to lick her. She tastes piss. Then Chantal puts the dildo on and begins to fuck Julia very hard, very painfully with it.

  While this is going on Julia puts together her shopping list. She will have to go to three different shops – the grocer’s, the baker’s, and a third place to get wine. That’s three queues. She could manage with just one but fresh bread and wine are her two big treats. The bread will probably be shit but at least it will be fresh out of an oven. And the wine – well, there’s nothing but good to be said about that.

  Chantal has been moaning while this was going on, but now her moans start to increase in volume. Her stroking in and out of Julia becomes deeper and more painful. Sometimes the people Julia works with get carried away, forgetting that they are meant to be acting. Julia can’t see Chantal’s face but it sounds very like that has happened to her now. Chantal announces that she is going to come and she commands Julia to come too. Julia fakes the orgasm. The movie ends with Julia still kneeling at the couch whimpering and Chantal trying on the dress. The last line is ‘Hey, bitch, this dress fits me a lot better than it fits you.’

  It has all taken little over an hour; the movie itself will run for about twenty minutes. Once Bert announces – as he likes to do – that it’s a wrap, Chantal begins to change back into her street clothes while Bert packs up the equipment. Julia stays in her underwear, pulling her coat back on to keep warm. She takes one of Bert’s cigarettes, lights it and goes into the living room. She is very sore.

  Once Julia is out of the bedroom, Chantal slams the door, voices are raised and there is an argument. Chantal wants her money and there are going to be no extras today. It was bad enough that she had to fuck a Jew. After a few minutes, the door flies open and Chantal storms out, past Julia as though she doesn’t exist and out the front door, slamming it so hard that the whole house shakes.

  ‘Cunt,’ says Julia.

  Bert comes out of the bedroom. He is seething.

  ‘No threesome then, Bert?’ Julia says, delighted that this has probably ruined the rest of the morning for him.

  ‘I’d drop the cow altogether except she does things that you aren’t prepared to do.’

  Julia remembers the first time she met Bert. He went through a whole list of things asking whether or not she would do them. Jesus – her innocence back then. Some of them she didn’t even know what they meant.

  ‘Did you tell her I was Jewish?’ Julia demands.

  ‘No, I didn’t. It’s just that, you know ... in a certain kind of light ... from a particular angle ... your face...’

  He leaves the sentence unfinished.

  Always with the fucking Cecil B. DeMille.

  There’s one last thing to be done. Julia doesn’t even ask. She just looks at him, waiting to be told. He has to be the most unattractive man in the world. Fat, sweaty face. Grey and white stubble. Thin, greasy hair. Shirt hanging out of his trousers revealing a triangular patch of bulging, hairy belly. Smell of old sweat. A smile slowly breaks out on his face.

  ‘No holes barred,’ he says to himself, thoughtfully.

  He thinks for a little while, obviously enjoying his moment of power. Eventually, he indicates with his forefinger that she should turn round. She does so, shrugging off the coat and then bending over.

  When he is finished, he pays her.

  ‘Don’t spend it all at once,’ he says. ‘Though I may have something more for you before the end of the month. Depends on these Nazis. Some of them are starting to get a sense that they may not be around here for much longer. It’s distracting them.’

  Julia wouldn’t have spent it all anyway. She’ll put some away in case of emergency and spread the rest out equally over the seventeen remaining days of the month. She will treat herself today but do that by reducing the amount she can spend for the rest of the week. Ever since she left home and started supporting herself she has done this. She wonders if it’s the Jew in her.

  When Julia leaves the apartment, she finds it uncomfortable to walk but as the afternoon wears on, the discomfort eases.

  With money in her purse, she spends the time until it gets dark queuing. As the long lines move slowly, she fantasizes about after the war. Then, she will try – again – to become an actress. A proper one. Maybe go to England and find Sheila – if she’s still alive and hasn’t been killed in the bombing. Or even America. Hollywood. Now that would be wonderful. It makes Julia angry to think of all the years of her life that she has wasted here.

  Fucking war. Fucking Germans.

  She manages to buy some bread, a little ham and cheese, a couple of potatoes, two eggs for breakfast and a bottle of very cheap wine. She looks forward to the evening, a full belly for once and the pleasant numbness that the alcohol will bring.

  She is exhausted by the time she gets home. It has been a long day – first at work and then all of the standing in line. She is cold. Being indoors seems to make little difference. She wonders if the temperature inside and outside are the same. And she is hungry, having eaten nothing since the two slices of sawdusty bread she had for breakfast with the coffee. Terrible bread that sucks all the moisture from your mouth. Slowly she climbs the stairs to the top floor, carrying the bag of food and wine. Before the war she would not have regarded it as heavy but now it seems like a dead weight and she has to stop halfway up and change it into her other hand. Her heart is beating fast and she is breathing heavily.

  The food is delicious and everything she an
ticipated it would be. She finishes the wine so that she is slightly tipsy when she goes to bed and falls into an almost drugged sleep. But later that night, she catapults into waking, in a lather of sweat. Her heart is pounding, her face on fire, despite the frigid air of the apartment.

  Chantal!

  What if she goes to the authorities and says something? All it takes these days is a suspicion.

  Julia checks her watch, the one her father gave her that last Christmas. She would throw it in a canal except she has come to depend on it. She feels that she has been asleep for hours but in fact, it is only just after midnight. She went to bed barely two hours ago.

  She lies wide awake, staring at the ceiling. Or rather, where the ceiling is. She can’t see it in the almost solid darkness caused by the blackout curtain. She tries to put the thoughts of Chantal out of her head. When that doesn’t work, she tries not so much not to worry about it – going round in the same circles like a mule powering a grindstone – but to treat it as a problem to be solved.

  What would she do if they came knocking on her door right now? She could climb out of the window and onto the roof but the tiles would be slippery with frost or ice. And it’s a long way down. But if she was careful she could make it along to the next house, which is a direct copy of this one, and then break in the top floor window. She’s already dressed – it’s too cold to undress. If they came now, all she would need to do would be to put her shoes on. How long would that take? Should she try now and time it? But it is so cold beyond the bedcovers. Maybe in the morning, in daylight, she should check how doable it would be.

  Julia ponders this and a dozen other details and scenarios until exhaustion eventually causes her to fall back asleep.

  It is some time later when they kick in the door.

  2

  The first Julia knows of any of this is when the light blazes on and a face appears, centimetres above hers. It is the face of a big man, a bull face. His breath smells of cigarettes and mints.