Anonymous Pornographer

"Search me."

That response diverted Margie for a moment.

At times, she and Irma had occasionally fooled around a bit, never fully doing the lesbian thing; just some kissing and stroking that seemed to make their friendship more complete.

They had not wiled away time so licentiously for more several months now. She shook her head to clear her mind.

"Perhaps we should not engage in discussion with him over his suspicion."

Irma shook her head, her brown wavy hair flying like opening wings.

"I don't agree, Margie. If it's not him there will be others trying to probe the mystery. You will need to manage such queries adroitly."

What a clever bitch, thought Margie, using that noun affectionately. She was right, of course.

Paddy arrived back with a filled glass for Margie and carrying a bottle of champagne handed across to him by his friend who managed the reception room.

The two women watched as he removed the wire restraint and then gripped the cork before turning the bottle slowly with his other hand.

There was a slight "pluuungh" of escaping gas as the cork came free, and all three of them, quite well lubricated by now sighed in gratitude, knowing that the evening was not over yet.

Forget that alcohol induced wrinkling!

An hour later, the two women kissed Paddy on a cheek simultaneously. The left breast of Margie pressed invitingly into his arm while Irma made no bodily contact at all.

They all drove off separately to their own homes.

Chapter 2

Margie drove very correctly, knowing that she had over-indulged somewhat in drinking.

She was behind the wheel of her beloved red Mercedes sports, now eleven years old.

She loved that story about Heston buying the car for her when he'd gone on a trip to Europe to visit suppliers at the invitation of a Spanish company, marking the tenth year of their association. The Spanish supplier paid half of his return airfare and provided accommodation.

The cheapest airfare at the time was to fly from New Zealand to Germany.

Heston had told her everything, and only he knew the story went like this.

The cabin attendant (he preferred their old title of hostess) on the Lufthansa flight had engaged him in conversation and was surprised that he would be flying from Germany to Spain.

"You should drive, there is so much wonderful country to see for someone who has not visited Germany, France and Spain," she said.

"You should buy a car and take it back home with you."

Heston thought they were good ideas, but said he was hesitant about buying a car in a foreign land from a foreign vehicle dealer who would not be able to communicate with him without an interpreter.

"Oh, silly boy," laughed the hostess, throwing her head back and exposing her long lovely neck to the passenger's gaze.

"Almost everyone in mainstream business in Germany speaks English, you will have no trouble. I have tomorrow off and could accompany you in car hunting if you wish."

That sounded like a great idea to Heston. It would give him more opportunity to glance at that classical neck. With the way that his wife was endowed, other men would have taken Heston to be a breast man, or a buns man or even a leg man.

But all would have been wrong, although only marginally. The truth was that Heston's secret fetish was slender swanlike necks, which was something his wife Margie did not possess.

The hostess and Heston arranged to meet the next morning at 10.00 outside his hotel.

Waiting to be processed through customs, he saw the hostess again, going through one of the aisles reserved for air crew. She waved and smiled beautifully. Heston was not an overly adulterous man, but at that instant he felt like vaulting the barriers and taking that woman into his arms.

He emerged from customs into the main area of the terminal to find the hostess standing directly in front of him.

"Listen," she said, looking at him without emotion. "You appear to be a very nice man. This is my suggestion: you come and stay at my apartment, I'll show you something of the city and in the morning, we'll got to look for a nice car for you."

"Well, I ..."

"I'll handle the cancellation of the hotel for you and you can call your host in Spain that you will be, what shall we say, three days late arriving as you will be driving from Germany as a tourist, looking at many places. What do you say?"

"Well, I don't wish to inconvenience yourself and your family."

"Oh, you won't inconvenience anyone, Heston. My young son is in England at boarding school and my husband won't be back until tomorrow evening; he's where we've just come from, in Rome."

A welling of excitement pressed against Heston's chest. He was staggered, always having believed that situations like this only happen in books.

He felt very tempted.

"Oh, you funny man. All I want is to help you. You don't have to do anything."

That head went back and she laughed, the long neck entrancing and entrapping Heston.

"I would very much like to do that," he said, solemnly.

She stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek.

"Come, let's go to my car," she announced, and set off ahead pulling her flight bag on its tiny built-in wheels.

In the carpark Heston saw the red Mercedes sports for the first time, and admired it.

"This type of car is no good for you as it's a car crafted for beautiful women," she said.

A wonderful idea entered Heston's mind.

If he were to have an adulterous affair, and that seemed inevitable, then he'd try to buy a car like Lorelei's and get it shipped home for Margie in penance. She would not be suspicious as their 10th wedding anniversary was coming up.

Lorelei's apartment was in a four-storey block above a string of cafes on the riverbank. It was very modern, but with too much white in the décor and furnishings to provide the more homely environment to which Heston was accustomed.

Margie showed him to his room, her son's room, and said she was going for a shower.

A few minutes later Heston heard her call him.

He entered the main bedroom and heard the shower running in the en-suite.

On the dressing table was a framed photograph, turned down and sitting on it was a wedding ring.

Heston lifted the photograph. It was Lorelei in her wedding dress, and beside her was her husband, a much older, thickset man with hard eyes and an aggressive chin. Not the type of male to worship a long slender neck.

"Are you joining me?" came the lively call.

"Err ..."

"Undress in here. I wish to watch."

Being a dutiful man, Heston did was he was told and a few minutes later had warm water cascading on to his head and shoulders and his arms were dropped down, gently stroking Lorelei's neck while she was on her knees, administering to him.

The next day they had a tearful parting, Heston surprising himself by shedding a couple of rogue tears. He couldn't remember doing that since he was in his early teens. He cried in tribute to a wonderful time that a wonderful woman had shared so much with him.

He drove off in a white rented Volvo under a deal allowing him to leave it at the airport from where he would be flying out of Spain to London.

Heston was happy, and knew that he'd have a memory of Lorelei that would take long to fade.

At a club late the previous evening, he'd told her that he would buy a Mercedes like hers for his wife Margie.

"Do you have a photo of Margie?" she asked.

Heston was unsure what to do. Humping somebody and then showing them a photo of one's wife didn't seem like something an adulterer should do, did it?

She laughed.

"Come on, you funny boy. I am really interested."

Nervously, Heston handed her the photograph and Lorelei looked at it intently.

"Oo-la-la, you lucky boy," she said. "She's beautiful and look at her figure!"

"But she doesn't have your neck," he offered.

"My neck, this ugly long neck," she responded. Then seeing the look of horror on his face she took his hand.

"Oh, I see. My attraction to you is my neck?"

She was quite overcome.

"Yes, but also your warm friendliness, your smile, your beautiful legs and ..."

"Shhh," she said, drawing a long finger across Heston's lips.

"You're making me all excited. I don't wish to irate the management by fucking you in their best booth.

"Would you like to buy my car for your Margie? It is a car made for her and I have the new model arriving soon."

So, they agreed on the sale and Lorelei called a shipping agency and made all the arrangements to have the car freighted to Auckland.

"I will courier to your address at Malaga in Spain the purchase and ownership documentation for you to sign and enclose a return courier bag to me here," she said.

"You are a trusting man, I could easily run away with your money."

"Had I not trusted you, I never would have walked out of the airport with you," said Heston, being earnest again.

"Oh Heston, first you admire for my neck and now that. You say the sweetest things. And you are also a gentle lover."

"I get nothing like that from my Carl, but that's life, I guess."

That was the last time they ever saw each other.

Chapter 3

When Irma arrived home in the inner-city area of Parnell, she felt light-headed and her fingers were twitchy. They were ready to be dancing on the keys of her baby grand, but being in an apartment building at almost 1.00 in the morning, it was not an acceptable hour neighbourly to be playing a piano.

It had been a most interesting evening. She adored the glasses of champagne and was excited by the provocation of that newspaper man, Paddy, insisting that he thought the winning eBook author was a woman.

That continued to intrigue Irma as he'd not explain himself to her satisfaction.

It also intrigued her that newspaper man Paddy Llewellyn, according to what she'd learned, had never bedded Margie. They had been friends for a great number of years so the opportunities would be been many to have his way with promiscuous Margie.

Irma went into her bedroom and returned wearing only pants and bra and carrying a tissue and a pot of her mother's great favourite, Ponds Vanishing Cream.

She brushed two fingers around the depression in the pot and began to gently apply the cream to her face and neck.

It was almost five years since she'd arrived in Auckland with her parents.

They had retired and wanted to shift from their farm in mid-Canterbury where they had lived all of their thirty-seven years of married life to a warmer part of the country. They left their older child, Bruce, behind to manage the farm.

They came to Auckland with a small fortune, and half of it was gobbled up buying a fairly uninspiring house on the northern slops of Remuera where they still lived.

A year later after completing her Master of Art at Auckland University Irma, aged twenty-two, decided to leave home. She intended to rent a flat but her parents insisted in buying her a small house equivalent to the money they had given to their son as the deposit he needed to buy the family farm from them with a fat mortgage he would qualify for once the property was registered in his name.

After spending three weeks looking for a suitable house, without success, Irma was invited to a university friend's engagement party held at the apartment she later purchased from the couple when they went off on a working holiday to Europe after they married.

It was an ideal location for Irma, close to the central business district of the city where she knew she would eventually find an appropriate position.

Her meeting with Margie by chancel.

Irma was working in a temporary position as a manuscript editor with a publishing house when the red-faced manager came stomping in and roaring, "Can anyone here drive a truck and is licensed to do so?"

No one else responded, so Irma put her hand up.

"The bloody old driver has just collapsed and being carted off to hospital. Let me see your licence."

The manager was satisfied, and jotted down some details.

"I'll phone the insurance company to get temporary cover on you, Irma."

"All you have to do is to take this load down to that new bookshop in Transit Street. I'll draw you a map and get the address for you."

"I know where it is, number 65, and it's called Just Books."

The manager looked at her with interest.

"You keep your eyes open, don't you? I'll have to consider taking you on to permanent staff."

Driving the truck was no problem for the former farm girl, who's grown up driving vehicles including trucks and even a bulldozer.

She stopped outside the bookshop in a No Parking zone.

A council parking attendant came up to her, looked at her watch and said, "Ten minutes, all right?"

"No way," exploded Irma. "I've got half a ton of books to unload here. Give me a break, will you."

The motherly official was sympathetic, realising this was a young woman trying to do a man's job.

She wrote out something at the back of her book of traffic offence notices.

"Here you are dearie," smiled the official.

"It's a temporary permit giving you parking exemption. It had no real validity but as I'm the only one giving out tickets on this street today, you'll be fine.

"Any cop on the beat stopping to check your vehicle out will read it and think it's legitimate as many of the young cops know next to nothing. Put it on your dashboard above the steering wheel."

That was at one o'clock, and the truck stayed there for four hours.

When Irma knocked on the door, she was confronted by the exhausted owner, Margie and introduced herself as Irma Taylor.

"Where the hell have you been?" Margie snarled. "I've been phoning your company and all they could tell me that the driver had collapsed and been taken to hospital."

"I'm sorry, madam, but I'm only a late-minute fill-in who works as an editor. You will have to make your complaint to management. Now, where do you want the boxes of books placed?"

"I want them opened and the books placed on the appropriate shelves," said Margie sarcastically.

"Very well, madam," responded Irma. Margie, who'd stomped off for two head-ache tablets to wash down with a glass of gin, didn't hear the delivery person.

When Margie returned much later there were 10 empty cartons on the floor.

"Where are the books?" she enquired, mystified.

"In the shelves where you requested."

"But ..."

Irma interrupted.

"Look, this is going to take us all day and into the night to get this lot shelved, and you open at 9.00 in the morning. We need help."

"But where will be get help at this time of day?" Margie cried, dealing with her agitation.

"Have you got cash on you?"

"Yes, and I can get more as my bank is nearby."

"Good, then help is on the way."

"Where are you going?"

"To the pub around the corner."

"But this is not the time to go drinking."

Irma disappeared and within ten minutes reappeared followed by four male and two female varsity students, all horribly dressed as if their clothing had come out of cast-off bins and smelling of beer.

"My God, they'll wreck the place," shrilled Margie in panic.

"No, they won't. This here is Fred, Jazz or so he says, Merv, Jason, Jill and Pru.

"Guys, this is Mrs Mason. owner of this bookshop. Now, if you want more drinking money get working and keep the pace up."

She assigned the two larger students, Merv and Jazz, to bring in the cartons of books from the truck, Fred to open and empty the books right way up on the table, and Jason, Jill and Pru to place them on the shelves according to her instructions.

"Do you have chalk, Margie?"

Margie nodded and went to a large box of odds and ends.

Number this column of shelves 'A' and then work through the alphabet around the room.

"I won't be a moment guys, I just have to memorise the layout of categories."

Irma had the students working like demons, taking the occasional break.

"How do you do it, Irna?" Margie asked in awe.

"It's halfway through the first term at Varsity when many students are still work-shy and broke or almost broke. These guys are working for ten bucks and hour each and that are racing to get back to their mates in the pub.

"That's brilliant, but how do you know as well as I do, perhaps even better, where the books go?"

"When I was a first-year student at Varsity in Canterbury when I lived down there, I went through the trauma of being broke but not wanting to take a job as I feared it might interfere with my studies.

"My first job was a night cleaner in offices, my second was at the Varsity library which I adored because I love books."

Maggie said, "Well, fortunately for me that poor truck driver collapsed, wasn't it? I must go and phone your company for his home address and I'll send flowers to his wife who must be frantic."

"The company won't give out personal details of staff, but I'll phone and get the information for you at the next break."

"My, is there anything you can't do?"

Irma grinned, then clapped her hands.

"Come on guys, you're losing valuable drinking time."

At the next break, Irma got the home address of the stricken regular driver and also spoke to the general manager, informing him what she was doing and would be late back with the vehicle.

"We close despatch at 6.00," he growled.

She paid off the students at five o'clock from the bundle of banknotes Margie had handed her and had the truck garaged back at the publishing house by 5.30.

Before leaving, she had to repel an advance by the grateful bookshop owner to accept the rest of the money which probably amounted to more than four hundred dollars.

The exhausted Margie kissed her, saying, "Come back and see me sometime, you're a lovely young lady."

Margie's earlier belligerence and washed-out appearance had almost repelled Irma, but working alongside her in that first thirty minutes she realised that the poor woman was over her head, trying to do everything herself and only having rudimentary knowledge of bookshop layout and display configuration.

Normally, she walked home through the park but on this occasion she chose to go via Transit Street to view her final contribution of doing the basic window displays, with Maggie saying she would add the 'frillies'.

Irma was amazed. The window lighting was on and there was now sand and a couple pieces of driftwood around the display of travel books, toys were scattered around the children's books, the fashion books nested on randomly inter-twined lengths of different coloured rolls of dress-length silk and rising from the centre of a circle of cooking books was a most magnificent towering glass container of olive oil.

The door opened and out popped Margie, who turned to lock the premises for the night.

Irma was even more amazed: a transformation had taken place.

She was looking at a new Margie who was now more vibrant, her hair was done, her make-up restored and she was humming a happy little tune that Irma did not recognised.

"Oh, hello, how nice to see you again so soon," chirped Margie.

"I'm just on my way home."

"To get dinner for your err, husband?"

"No, I live alone."

"Well then," announced Margie breezily and taking Irma by the arm, "Let me take you out to early dinner, you will come, won't you?"

Her dark green eyes looked so appealing and she actually waggled her eyelashes.

Irma giggled.

"If you don't mind me dressed like this."

"I'm paying so we're going nowhere fancy," grinned the older woman. "My husband is in Whangarei tonight on business, so I was going to eat out alone. This is decidedly very much better."

At the restaurant, with their first cocktails almost finished, Irma vented her curiosity.

"If you don't mind my saying so, when I left you two hours ago you looked a wreck. Now look at you. How did you manage that?"