Anonymous Pornographer

Chapter 1

The slightly erotic sound of popping corks from bottles of sparkling wine opened by inexperienced bar staff, was more or less ignored by the crowd, with one notable exception.

The disrespectful attack on the wine-makers' craft made Paddy Llewellyn wince.

He was aware that while New Zealand methode traditionnelle could not carry the exotic name of champagne because of legalities over naming protectionism, this wine from Marlborough did not deserve to have the tops of the bottles removed so dispassionately.

Nor should the pale golden fluid be slopped into flutes and then be voraciously dispatched by guests to wash down sausage rolls or salmon-topped triangles of wholemeal bread that had the crust removed, presumably out of respect for people with dentures or a mouthful of aged 'ivories'.

Bloody infidels, he mused.

They wouldn't have any idea that it took the juice of approximately 600 grapes to make a bottle of wine, although he modestly grinned at that thought. He'd only gained that little gem of knowledge when attending a Wine Society dinner some five years ago.

"What are you grinning at, standing here all by yourself?" cooed the Booksellers' Association president, Margie Mason, arriving in a swirl of French perfume and jutting breasts that dropped anchor, so to speak, less than two centimetres from Paddy's torso.

He liked Margie, real name Margaret Elizabeth Mason.

She was the lonely wife of Heston, who devoted himself to making money by running a sweat-shop, where mainly new immigrant workers filled, packed and dispatched bottles of oils taken from big casks he'd imported from Spain, Portugal and Italy.

Eventually bored with tennis, bridge and swimming pool maintenance men, Margie had inveigled Heston to finance her into a small business. He refused to have anything to do with her choice, lingerie.

Margie was unaware (and remains unaware) that wealthy men at his gentlemen's club, finance their mistresses into lingerie shops.

"Then I'll sell books," said Margie, not having an interest in plumbing supplies, toys, coffee, liquor or confectionary.

"Right, I'll find you a bookshop."

"No, don't do that. Just lease me premises anywhere in Transit Street where all the coffee shops are grouped. I wish to start from scratch."

Heston thought cynically that Transit Street was an appropriate location for a transient novice bookseller. Within six months Margie would be back to playing bridge and romping in the conservatory with the latest hired pool cleaner.

With natural frugality, he tried to secure premises on a six-month lease, but was laughed out of the offices of several landlords in a gale of garlic and cigarette-fouled breath.

Every evening Margie would ask, "Have you found me something yet?" And the 'No luck as yet' reply would mean another night of celibacy which defeated the purpose of Heston marrying the woman he adored.

Eventually Heston's luck changed.

Morose, he was stirring his cup of coffee on Transit Street when Sol Moses sat down beside him.

"You'll grind that spoon through the bottom of the cup if you keep that up; I've been watching you," said blue-jawed and tubby Sol, a member of the same gentlemen's club.

"What's up?"

That night was like a second honeymoon for Heston. He finally wound down in exhaustion.

Invigorated by much-needed sex, Maggie said dreamily, "My own shop in Transit Street, a two-year lease with right of renewal and vacancy at the end of the month."

Wearily turning to her wonderful man to offer yet another encore, she found him soundly asleep.

Margie was addicted to books.

As an only child, she'd gone through preadolescence years in a wonderful make-believe world where she talked to Cinderella and the Ice Princess and was the unseen sixth person of the Famous Five and tin her early teens she went to the stake as Joan of Arc and felt the coldness of unrequited love as the heroine in Wuthering Heights.

Margie called on a business consultant, now a respected father of three, a Rotarian and leading light in his profession. At university, Maggie and he used to hump with the abandonment of rabbits in the spring in the back of his VW van, wolfing down cold pizza between sessions of extreme passion.

Despite the tag of solid citizen, Ian Faulkner couldn't keep his limpid brown eyes off the twin swells still all these years later enhancing her chest and Margie's perfume intoxicated him, mixed as it was with her natural body scents.

He willingly helped the aspiring book store proprietor to create a business plan. In announcing that no fees would be payable, as he was simply helping out an old friend. Ian was rewarded with Margie locking the door of his office and giving him thirty-five minutes of exquisite sexual union that he'd only fantasized about in recent years.

"God, where have you been?" he gasped, as Margie took him over the top for the fourth time. "This is unbelievable."

"You wouldn't dream what hidden talents swimming pool maintenance men have," she purred, leaving Ian wondering what she was on about.

Eventually the shop opened, along the lines that she and Ian had envisaged in drafting the business plan. Just Books, as the shop was called, sold only books: no cards, party trivia, magazines or calendars were stocked.

Two-thirds of the shelves were stacked with reading that would particularly appeal to women, simply because Ian found a website that gave such a research finding, that two-thirds of books and general magazines were purchased by women.

Six months after the opening, Sol had leased to Heston the premises next door, and called contractors at his own expense to open up the dividing wall simply on the basis of his own wife declaring that Just Books was the best bookshop in the city.

Maggie installed her new friend, Irma Taylor, as manager and they employed female university students as sales staff, using a pool of them to allow staff to be rostered according to lecture schedules.

The business plan required the university recruits to have a literary bias but the real prerequisite was trim figures, long hair and perky or full breasts. As a result, the shop was frequented by men who'd buy books for the opportunity to chat up the attractive salesperson.

Margie kissed Paddy warmly, her breasts making electrifying contact with his chest, her perfumes drifting up into his nasal passages with breath-taking force. It was four seconds of contact that Paddy had come to cherish, although they had never gone beyond that intimacy.

They were just good friends.

For reasons unknown, there are people who come together socially quite often and despite being promiscuous to a degree, don't generate lust, or its lesser category of wild emotions, to encourage them to feel compelled to fornicate. Yet in this instance, Paddy and Margie both knew that one of them only had to make the slightest advance and they would readily succumb.

Margie stepped back, almost reluctantly, smiled and grasped her companion by the arm.

"Paddy, please meet my friend and business associate Irma Taylor.

"Irma, this is Paddy Llewellyn, literary editor of the 'Southern Star', who is neither married nor homosexual and so he may be of interest to you. He's also a fellow author."

That 'of interest to you' comment started Irma, and she glanced disapprovingly at Margie.

Irma was no stand-out. She was slim, with no obvious curves, her hair was mousy in colour and her face was peeling from over-exposure to the sun. Her make-up was minimal, she did not appear to be wear perfume and usually her clothing was of the mail-order kind.

Yet she was tall, matching Paddy's five-eleven and her blue eyes seem to dance.

"Why hello, Mr Llewellyn, I read your articles frequently and enjoy them. You have an easy style and don't tend to over-tax your readers with your literary knowledge."

"I like this lady already," smiled Paddy, talking to Margie as he shook Irma's extended hand.

Her hand was cool, her grip neutral so he refrained from pressing too hard in an egotistical demonstration of masculinity.

"I've seen you in the book shop," he said to Irma. "But I rarely enter because it is oriented heavily toward women readers. I just wait outside for my daughter occasionally when she takes her lunch break."

Irma looked mystified.

"But we don't have an assistant by the name of Llewellyn."

"Danielle Cox is his daughter; she's taken her mother's maiden name," informed Margie.

"Oh, Danielle, I'm sorry. My mistake. I can see where she gets her good looks from."

Paddy grinned, his wide white teeth contrasting against his bronze suntan. He had thinning curly brown hair, the same colour but much less hair than his daughter's. They had the same green eyes, square chins and a mouthful of even and very white teeth.

"No need to be sorry. It's an easy mistake to make. She's been a Cox for the past seven years after her mother and I divorced. Her reason at the time was that people found it easier to spell Cox than Llewellyn but now she's thinking of changing back, But I told her not to bother and someone else will come on to the scene soon and want to give her another surname."

Margie touched Irma on the arm, as if signalling to be careful. Irma took the hint and did not announce that Danielle was their "in demand" date with men calling at the book shop.

"So, you are an author too?" inquired Paddy, signalling an approaching waiter carrying a tray of glasses.

He put his empty glass on to the tray followed by the glasses he took from the two women. He then handed them each a glass of sparkling wine and asked the waiter to bring him a glass of larger.

"I'm sorry, sir but we are only serving wine," said the waiter.

"That's a beer glass I've just put on your tray and there was larger in it when I was drinking it. Just ask Marion, the manager as she knows me and keeps beer on hand just for me."

"Very good sir."

"Preferential treatment, how do you rate that?" asked Margie, wrinkling her nose while wondering whether to ask Paddy if his influence was enough to get for her a glass of French champagne.

"She thinks I'm sexy but perhaps it's because her partner Bob is one of our newspaper's photographers."

"Are you sexy?" asked Irma, looking straight at Paddy, expressionless.

"God yes, you ought to hear the stories about him," said Margie, with a sly look. Actually, she was lying because of the lack of information or even hot gossip. Paddy was very discreet about his nocturnal adventures and liaisons at weekends usually out at sea on his yacht.

"I would say I'm about average, although I have no idea what average is in respect of what you are asking about. But you haven't answered my question, are you an author?

Irma took a sip of wine, looking at Paddy coolly.

"I write about this and that but I really don't talk about it," Irma said airily.

"Just like me and any love life that I might happen to have?"

"Exactly."

Margie excused herself, explaining that the managing director of the company sponsoring the event had beckoned her over, as he was about to commence formal proceedings.

The presentation of the annual Buxton Book Awards followed, with Margie as the regional booksellers' president handing across the cash prizes and plaques.

Only two authors were not presented with their awards, the winner of the best book with an historic New Zealand background was on a writer's fellowship in Britain and other was the top earner of author whose works was sold under a non-de-plume via the Internet.

There was a murmur as some of the guests wondered if that author was in their midst. Several looked around inquisitively.

"This writer, Chancery Lane, places his submissions on the Web via a publishing house that has provided audit sales of his writings," said the managing director of Buxton Papers Ltd.

"Visitors to the website can either buy the whole story or simply select chapters on demand. The returns to this writer who posted eighteen electronic books for the past year amounted to almost $95,000 in New Zealand currency, with chapter sales heavily out-performing sales of the author's books.

"His publications are pornographic in content to some extent, hence the writer's determination to remain anonymous".

The presentations continued.

"This anonymous author wins our new category, Buxton's eBook Author of the Year."

"I now ask Booksellers' Association president Mrs Margaret Mason to read you an extract from this author's published work as some of you probably do not browse websites of a pornographic nature. Rest assured, this is a reasonably acceptable extract to be read at this kind of literary gathering of mature adults."

Pulling in her stomach, conscious that all eyes were on her, and pouting her freshly re-applied red coated lips, Margie read the extract in her beautifully modulated voice:

Jenni watched the young man approach her, clad only in shorts and a dirty T-shirt that she knew would be lying in a heap of clothes, including her own, within two or three minutes.

She licked her lips and felt a warm stirring in her nether regions, her eyes fixed in the vicinity of the bottom of the zip on his shorts.

Approvingly, she noted a tenting as his eyes relayed to his pulsating brain that under the sundress, revealed by her very high dress hem, there would be only flesh and a patch of hair to be seen.

"Hello, Nick," she croaked, astonished that her supposedly sexy voice had grated out that low-decibel greeting.

She moved her right-hand, watching Nick's eyes follow the movement.

Nick was her 18-year-old son's best friend. Drunk on apple cider, he'd recently confessed to her that he was lacking a real sexual encounter with a mature woman.

"Come and see me sometime Nick, alone!" she'd responded, locking eyes with him.

That time had come.

She pulled down the top of her sundress, and felt her right nipple spring free as the material slid down over the rounded alabaster flesh upon which Nick's widening eyes were focused.

She was proud of her breasts. Although only 34C's, they were firm and beautifully shaped with the erect nipples tilting slightly back towards her chin.

"It's good to see you, almost all of you," said Nick, beads of sweat appearing on his brow.

His breathing rate was accelerating and a thin trail of saliva leaked from his mouth, across the left side of his chin and down on to his chest.

"Come to mamma, baby," urged Jenni, pulling her dress back over her hips.

Unrestrained passion began to cover young Nick's face like a mask.

Squirming in anticipation, Jenni held out her arms to him.

Margie smiled, folded the A4 printed page which she'd read that extract.

There was a moment's silence.

"My God!" cried a woman, and that unleashed a babble that gradually turned into a chant, "More, more!"

The managing director of Buxton took the vacated rostrum.

"Sorry, that's all folk. You'll find the website address for that author's articles in our complimentary package of some of our company's products as you leave here later.

"We now invite you to nibble on crayfish and other seafood delicacies served with champagne."

Smiling, Paddy said to Irma, "That's a first for book awards. I've been to many and no author has ever had an extract read out to the gathering."

"What did you think of it? Irma asked.

"I guess the teenager and the best friend's mother being the seductress, establishes a social connection allows it to be classified as porn although that extract indicates only soft porn. There was nothing nasty or even revolting about it, just an account of a youngster moving up a notch or two in his real-world education."

"And the writing style?"

Paddy said thoughtfully, "Too small an extract to really made an informed judgement, but it certainly kept everyone's attention. The scene was verbalised in absolute clarity.

"What did you think?"

Irma said with little expression, "Well, I'm troubled that readers may think it is socially acceptable for people to indulge in cross-generational sexual activity and whether the writer thinks that social mores count for nothing. He ..."

"Hold it! Who said that this mysterious pornographer is male?"

"It's males who mainly write and read pornography, according to research."

"Oh yes, research," Paddy said. "Male respondents probably boast and lie that they write and/or read pornography because it seems a male thing to do, while women probably lie and deny writing or reading pornography because it may alienate them with the Mother and Child Movement or the PC brigade."

"You have evidence to support that contention?"

"No, and in the same vein do you have evidence that our mysterious pornographer must be male?"

"No," said Irma, flushing. "But how can you be so suspicious that it's a woman?"

"I think a male writer would have written the seduction from the boy's point of view because a male would feel it would be the more exciting angle, you know, the 18-year-old having his first sexual encounter with an experienced older person instead of a little quickie behind the bike shed at senior school if schools still have bike sheds these days."

"Pardon me for saying, but isn't that a rather facile supposition?

"One could produce a similar argument and counter-argument against any scene ever written in trying to interpret author's intention in instances where the author was being purposely or unintentionally vague."

It had been quite some time since Paddy had engaged in a full-on discussion with a female and was enjoying the refreshing encounter.

He looked at Irma, who had an eyebrow arched, waiting for his reply. Was that a hint of a smirk around her lips?

A rather facile supposition? His mind lifted up a couple of notches as he prepared to re-engaged with verbal punch.

But the moment was lost.

Margie arrived, smiling at people as she came across, her shoulders pulled back to draw attention to herself.

She still quite something, thought Paddy a little sadly. when in the next thought acknowledged that she had peaked and was now skiing the slope towards the era of creaky joints, saggy breasts and deficient digestion.

Don't ever lose your spirit, Margie, was his unvoiced appeal.

"Hello you two, you look as if you are into something deep."

"He thinks the mysterious pornography is a woman," responded Irma. She sipped her champagne, watching for Margie's reaction but was disappointed.

"Oh really?" said Margie. "Now where did I leave my glass?"

Her smile was sweet as she looked directly at Paddy.

One of his pet hates was having women trying to press his buttons. It irritated him that women who mentally joined the feminine fortress with the ultimate goal of ruling the world, could brazenly slip back into 19th Century helpless lady mode whenever it suited him.

Men were rarely like that, because males were generally staunch, weren't they?

Margie's eye lashes fluttered, so he put his glass on the window ledge and went to get Milady a drink.

Actually, he had no other choice. He owed her plenty for her years of friendship. It was she, for example, that had provided, very subtly of course, his last two temporary playmates.

"He's gorgeous for an aging fellow; what's he like to hump?"

"Yes, he is a charmer when he wants to be and no, we've never had sex. Don't ask me why, I suppose our friendship commenced on a higher plane and has never descended into lust or whatever."

"Whatever?" commented Irma, with considerable interest. "You Margaret Mason with the most awesome sex drive of any woman that I can image, knows there are alternatives to lust?"

"That's enough of that smart talk," snapped her friend and employer. "Where did he get the notion that the writer is a woman?"