Free Porno by Irvine Welsh Page B

something that inordinately irritates McClymont and will probably negate the gains made by the sychophantic comments. If this is a pass, then it’s a bare one.
    I hand it in to the departmental secretary’s office at 11.47 a.m. and after a coffee and a sandwich I head for the library where I spend the afternoon reading film texts before getting down to the sauna round teatime.
    The sauna is on a dirty, narrow, gloomy main road which serves traffic coming into town. The smell of the hops from the nearby brewery is seedy if you’ve been drinking, like the dregs of last night thrown back in your face. The grime from the buses and lorries blackens most of the shopfronts permanently and the ‘Miss Argentina Latin Sauna and Massage Parlour’ is no exception. Inside, however, everything is pristine. — Mind n wipe up, Bobby Keats, the proprietor, always tells us with great urgency. There are more cleaning fluids than massage oils and we’re all urged to use them as liberally. The laundry bill for the fresh towels alone must be astronomical.
    There’s a permanent, synthetic scent in the air. Yet the soaps, mouthwashes, lotions, oils, talcs and fragrances, unsparingly applied to cover the trail of stale cum and sweat, oddly just seem to complement the rank atmosphere outside.
    We have to look and act like air hostesses. In keeping with the theme of the sauna, Bobby employs girls he considers have Latin looks. Professionalism is the name of the game. My first client is a small, grey-haired man called Alfred. After I give him a deep aromatherapy massage using copious amounts of lavender oil on his tight, knotted back, he nervously asks for ‘extras’ and I offer him a ‘special massage’.
    I get a hold of his penis under the towel and begin to stroke him slowly, conscious of my poor wanking skills. I only hold down this job because Bobby fancies me. I’m thinking back to de Sade’s writings where the young kidnapped girls are trained in the art of male masturbation by old men. But I think about my own experiences, and I’ve only ever wanked off my first two boyfriends, Jon and Richard, whom I didn’t fuck. Since then I associated wanking a boy with not fucking him, and it sort of slipped off my sexual menu before it properly went on.
    Sometimes clients do complain and I get the odd threat of dismissal. After a while though, I discovered Bobby was all mouth and no trousers on this issue. He regularly invites me out to various events: parties, casinos, big football games, cinema premieres, boxing matches, the races, the dog track or simply ‘a drink’ or ‘a bite to eat’ at a ‘smart restaurant run by a good friend’. I always make an excuse or politely decline.
    Fortunately, Alfred is too ecstatic to even notice, let alone complain. Any sexual contact is enough to send him off and he spurts his load in no time, paying me with gratitude. Many of the other girls, who do blow jobs and full sex, they don’t make as much as me, a bad wanker, I know that for a fact. My pal Jayne, who’s been here a lot longer than I have, smugly says that I’ll go all the way before long. I rap back ‘no chance’ but there’s some days when I feel that she’s right, that it’s inevitable, just a matter of time.
    When I finish my shift, I check the message service on my mobile. Lauren tells me that they’re out drinking so I bell her back and meet them in a Cowgate pub. Along with Lauren is Dianne and also Lynda and Coral, two girls from the uni. The Bacardi Breezers flow and pretty soon we’re all quite pissed again. At closing time Dianne, Lauren and I head back to our Tollcross flat. — Are you seeing anybody, Dianne? I ask as we walk up towards Chambers Street.
    — No, I’m finishing my dissertation before I get into that, she says quite primly, and Lauren’s nodding in approbation only to be cut to the quick when Dianne adds, — then I’ll be shagging anything that’s got a cock, because celibacy’s fuckin well