To begin with, Sophie’s decision not to see Justin again gave her a warm sense of vengeful satisfaction. After all, if she was such an embarrassment to him and his prissy girlfriend, why should she waste her time? She didn’t return Justin’s calls and the one time he spoke to her on the phone she made a feeble excuse as to why they couldn’t meet.

Despite herself, however, it was with increasing fondness that she remembered Justin and their innocent nights out at the cinema and the pub. She rather missed his friendship.

It wasn’t as if she had no active social life without him. A girl like her could fill every minute of every day with some kind of fun. She somehow missed those innocent goodbye kisses where there was no expectation that her vagina or anus should take more punishment in addition to what it had already received as part of her normal working day. It didn’t matter if she was socialising with a man, a woman, several men or mixed company, the evenings always ended the same way. A few lines, a few spliffs, perhaps something stronger, and, when sufficiently relaxed, on the bed, on the fireside rug, in the kitchen, penis, dildo, fist or fingers thrusting in her orifices. And then the familiar scent of semen, vaginal juice or urine, dripping down her thighs, her face or her breasts. In many ways so rewarding, but also curiously empty and predictable. Here was the love and affection she craved, but where was the companionship and friendship she also needed?

It was during a shoot for Bang Busters Volume Four that she exhausted the final crumb of satisfaction she’d got from terminating her friendship with Justin. She’d already spent an hour or so on the film set, in which time she’d fellated two men and had both of them ejaculate onto her face, along with a third man who’d previously been fucking Lara. Perhaps it was the sour taste of semen. Perhaps it was the slightly fetid taste of raw genitalia. Perhaps it was the soreness in her anus that was much more pronounced after being fucked face-on while sitting on her co-star’s lap. It couldn’t have helped that at the same time her mouth was gobbling an erect penis and her hand was pumping a third penis.

Then suddenly she lost all heart for it.

She wasn’t sure whether the film director noticed this sudden collapse of enthusiasm, but it was obvious Doug did, as he thrust into her from below. And Michael hastened his ejaculation as he also detected Sophie’s waning excitement.

But when Sophie unexpectedly burst into tears and awkwardly disengaged herself from the amorous company with whom she shared the film set, it was clear to everyone that something had snapped.

Sophie staggered over to the sofa where, only moments ago, Julia had been fucked by Doug and Angelo. The camera trailed her, perhaps uncertain whether Sophie’s tears were worth recording, but the director was more sensitive and bade the filming stop.

“What’s wrong, Sophie?” he asked her, putting a comforting arm around Sophie’s bare shoulders, which heaved with her sobs.

“I don’t know!” she wailed. “I don’t know! I just sorta lost it!”

“You’re not the only one who’s lost it!” moaned Doug, as he stroked his shrivelling, but still glistening, penis.

“Come on, Sophie,” cajoled the director. “We’ve got everyone in place. It’d be a shame not to finish the scene.”

Sophie looked over at her three male co-stars who were tugging and pulling at their semi-erect penises in the hope of them retaining something of their past glory. They smiled at her, clearly eager to resume their amatory activity from where it had been interrupted. Michael, with whom Sophie had spent the previous night, waved at her with the fingers of his right hand.

“I’m not sure I can,” Sophie moaned. “It’s not like me! I’ve lost it! I’m just not enjoying it!”

“Well, you don’t have to enjoy it to finish the scene, love,” the director continued. “I won’t be able to pay you full whack otherwise.”

“I know. I know,” Sophie moaned. “Can’t you edit it a bit? Use more of Lara and Julia and less of me?”

“Yes, of course we can, love. But that means we’ll pay more to Lara and Julia and less to you. Do you want that?”

Sophie hesitated. She’d always told herself that she only ever did it for the money. Each filmed action, often identical ones to those she’d do for free with the same co-stars away from the camera, was worth money. It was foolish not to perform when just a little bit of anal or urine made such dramatic differences to her pay packet, and took such little time to film. But the very thought of putting Michael’s penis back into her mouth, where the taste on her tongue was still so vivid, was enough to make Sophie retch. Her chest heaved involuntarily, shaking her well-proportioned breasts, while a dribble of creamy sperm regurgitated into the back of her throat.

Sophie coughed.

“Are you feeling OK?” the director asked. “Are you well?”

“I had my check-up last week,” said Sophie automatically, before recognizing that the query was occasioned by her current discomfort. “Yeah. Yeah. I’m fine. I guess I’ll just have to forget the bonus, won’t I?”

“’Fraid so, love,” said the director sadly. “If we paid it you whatever happened, it wouldn’t be worth anything, would it? ’Course we could make it up for you if you join Lara with the woodmen in the afternoon shoot. What do you think?”

Sophie considered this with a frown. She shook her head. “No. Can’t do it. I’m just not in the mood. The idea’s making me feel a bit sick, actually. It’s really weird. Maybe it’s something I ate.”

“I didn’t know my spunk was as bad as that!” joked Michael rather sweetly.

Sophie smiled. Michael and Doug were good sorts. It wasn’t them that was the problem. It was something else. It was something to do with the aching hollowness that was opening up in her like a void. Something like how the previous night she couldn’t be bothered when George suggested he join Michael and she to make an amorous threesome. Instead of agreeing like she normally would, she simply said that Michael was all the man she needed, which wasn’t strictly true but certainly added extra passion to his lovemaking.

After leaving the film set, Sophie wandered aimlessly to the grounds of a nearby church, where she sat on a bench with a cigarette and her thoughts. What was wrong with her? Now she was so distant from the sight of cock and camera, her earlier aversion seemed ridiculous.

She picked up her mobile phone. She needed someone to speak to. And the person whose saved number she chose was Justin.

The same Justin, of course, who was now returning from the bar of the Black Swan carrying three glasses of wine for Ashley, Sophie and himself. Justin laid out the drinks and sat down with a grin.

“Isn’t it wonderful,” said Ashley to Justin, “Sophie getting into accountancy and everything?”

“It’s really quite unexpected,” agreed Justin. “We had no idea what had happened to you. I thought you’d gone to California where they make most of those porno movies. You know, where you can be filmed outdoors in the nude all year long.”

Sophie shook her head. “No chance. The weather’s tempting. And the money, too! But I just didn’t have the spirit. And you? What’re you doing these days? Still systems admin?”

“Well, more admin than systems, really,” Justin chuckled. “Promotion to management makes all jobs seem just the same. But I’m still working for the same firm.”

The same firm, in fact, where Justin was working when Sophie phoned him up on her mobile phone outside the church.

“Sophie!” he said with surprise on recognising her voice. “I didn’t think I’d ever hear from you again. After that time with Ash, I thought, well, I don’t know what I thought, but anyway… How are you?”

“Fine. Fine,” said Sophie automatically. And then remembering herself. “Well, actually not fine at all. D’you wanna meet up this evening?”

“This evening?” Justin wondered. “Well, I told Ash…”

“I’d really like to see you, Justin.”

“Oh. All right! But you won’t mind, will you, if I don’t tell Ashley. She got real upset that last time. In fact, she often mentions you. And not in a nice way either, I’m afraid. And I don’t think it’s just ’cause you’re a porn star and everything.”

“Whatever!” said Sophie. “I just want to talk.”

And what Sophie most wanted to talk about, and this wasn’t what she’d expected before she met Justin, was Ashley.

Justin sat opposite Sophie in the Queen’s Head and nursed his pint in his hands. Sophie was dressed modestly in sweater and jeans and looked rather less like a porn star than the barmaid who served them. She puffed away at her cigarette and drank her vodka and lime rather too quickly.

“Why all these questions about Ash, Sophie?” Justin asked. “You only met her the one time. And you didn’t get on that well, either, if you remember. What’s the reason for this?”

Sophie looked down at her manicured nails sadly. “I dunno. I don’t know at all.”

“If you’re so keen on finding out about Ash, why don’t you speak to her yourself?”

“Do you think she’d want me to?”

“No,” said Justin thoughtfully. “I don’t think she would at all. But it might be better than asking me all these questions.”

Sophie nodded. “Yeah, I guess you’re right there.”

And so it was the following evening that Sophie pressed the buzzer for Ashley’s flat in the huge Victorian house in Fulham. It was obvious even through the crackle of the intercom speaker that Ashley neither expected nor welcomed the sound of Sophie’s voice.

“What do you want?” Ashley asked, not unreasonably, when she’d established for sure who it was that was visiting her.

Sophie wasn’t sure what to say. She just somehow wanted to make it up with Ashley so that she and Justin could return to the same status of friendship they’d known before, but that would sound feeble.

“Just to visit, you know. Chat and that. Can I come up?”

“Well, since you’re here…” Ashley conceded with a sigh.

Sophie heard the low whine of the door’s catch as it was released. She pushed the heavy door open and headed for the staircase and Ashley’s flat on the second floor. She knew she was on the right floor, sure enough, as Ashley was standing outside the door to her flat in a tee-shirt and shorts, with espadrilles on her bare feet.

“So, this is where you live?” asked Sophie as she followed Ashley through the open door.

It was a smaller flat than hers. Only one bedroom. The furniture was more modest and well-worn. The television and stereo were functional at best and certainly not the best money could buy. And although the flat had the homely untidiness of a place where visitors were not anticipated, it had none of the sheer recklessness with which Sophie abandoned ashtrays, clothes and bed sheets in her more luxurious and select apartment.

“It mightn’t be much, but the mortgage is crippling!” Ashley remarked sadly.

She wandered over to an armchair that faced the television and gestured to Sophie to sit on either the sofa or the other armchair. Sophie sprawled onto the sofa, pulling her sandaled feet off the ground. Like Ashley, she was dressed rather plainly in a tee-shirt and shorts, but her clothing was designer label and conspicuously expensive.

“Now you’re here, would you like some tea or coffee?” Ashley asked.

“Coffee. White. Two sugars,” said Sophie, as Ashley retreated into the kitchenette that made up one third of her living room.

The two women chatted amiably for a few minutes, with Ashley directing the conversation and Sophie colluding with her in keeping the topics innocent and unthreatening. It was just the sort of chat two work colleagues or two neighbours might have. However, it served its function of helping the two women relax in each other’s company. Sophie could see that Ashley was slowly revising her opinion of her as she plied the charm that had served so well in furthering her career in adult entertainment. Sophie was more than just a woman who fucked for her pay cheques.

“I’ve seen that film with Kevin Spacey, too. I thought it was crap, though,” said Ashley. “I suppose you saw it with Justin, did you?”

“Yes,” Sophie admitted, aware that conversation was beginning to steer away from more trivial matters.

“Was that before or after I started seeing Justin?” Ashley asked.

“Before,” said Sophie. “I’ve only seen Justin the once since I met you that time. And that was to find out where you live.”

“And is it true what Justin said that you and he haven’t ever…?”

“Not once.”

“You know, I just don’t understand that. I mean, him and me, well, we do it… you know… we do it all the time. How can someone like you who, you know, who does it with everyone…how…?”

“What don’t you understand?”

“I just don’t think it’s possible.”

“What?”

“For you and he to be just friends. It doesn’t make sense.”

“Why not?”

Ashley sipped at her coffee and crossed and uncrossed her long bare legs.

“Before I met you,” she said, “when Justin mentioned you, I kind of suspected you were his ex or something. I mean, it’s not unknown for people to be just friends, but it doesn’t usually last for long if they’re both, you know, the opposite sex or sexually compatible or whatever.

It’s quite nice for people to be friends and everything, but you kind of expect that…. But, anyway, I was quite touched by it. Justin’s a fairly straight kind of guy, in both senses. If anyone could have women friends who were just that, you know, just friends, well, he’d be the one most likely…”

“Yes?” Sophie asked, as she glanced at her handbag where she stored her cigarettes and wondered whether it would be too rude to light one up.

“So, I thought maybe you’d be a bit like Justin, you know. Perhaps you were someone not interested in sex with men. Maybe you were a bit, you know, sexually reserved. But I didn’t expect you to be some kind of sex film actress. I knew such women existed, but I never expected to meet one in real life. And it just doesn’t make sense. How can someone whose career is having sex with men be just friends with my Justin? It’s not as if he’s not interested in women or anything.”

Ashley looked towards Sophie expectantly, as if expecting her to have an answer. Sophie was struggling between her need for the consolation of nicotine and her uncertainty as to why she was even here. What was she expecting to achieve? Did she even know why she’d come all this way to Fulham?

“I guess it’s because we were just friends that I’ve come all this way to see him,” said Sophie. “It’s not something I’ve got a lot of, you know, friends who’re just friends. In my line of work, there’s not a clear dividing line between sex and friendship. Or between sex for love and sex for money. It all gets a bit mixed up and screwy. And I guess what I liked about my friendship with Justin, and I don’t think I really appreciated it as much as I should, is that is exactly what it was. Friendship. And the fact that he’s a bloke and I’m a woman is sort of not the issue in my circles. It’d be almost the same if he’d been a woman, you know. After a while, you get so used to having sex with different people you sort of don’t think about people in any other way.”

Ashley frowned. She looked compassionately at Sophie’s shaking hands. “Is there anything wrong?”

“Nothing a ciggie wouldn’t help,” Sophie said.

“I’ve got an ashtray. I don’t smoke myself. Well, not cigarettes, but sometimes, Justin and me, we share a spliff.”

Ashley got up, opened the window even wider than it already was and placed an ashtray on the glass-topped table in front of the sofa. Sophie felt much calmer with the first infusion of nicotine and blew out a cloud of blue-grey smoke while flicking the end of the cigarette in the ashtray.

Ashley sat on the sofa next to Sophie and leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees.

“I’m not a prude, Sophie,” said Ashley. “At least I hope I’m not. People have to make a living and some people make a living from the sex industry. It’s a livelihood and I guess people choose the career they’re best suited to. You’ve made your career by starring in sex films. I guess you must be very good at it, you know, having sex with different men…”

“…and women,” Sophie reminded her.

“…and women,” Ashley conceded. “But I still don’t really understand this thing about just being friends with someone. I mean, I’m friends with Justin as well as being his… as well, you know… It’s not like it’s incompatible, friendship and sex, you know.”

“Not incompatible so much,” admitted Sophie, “but it’s different for you. All your friends are just friends and nothing else except for Justin, whereas for me only one of my friends was just a friend…”

“And you miss that?” asked Ashley.

Sophie puffed at her cigarette again. She didn’t actually want to say yes, (that would sound soft), but she nodded her head.

“And is that why you were so, you know, so rude when we met in the pub?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Were you kind of jealous of me for taking Justin away from you, was that it?”

“Well, I’m not sure I’d say ‘jealous’ exactly.”

“Whatever,” Ashley said conciliatorily.

The two women sat silently on the sofa, Sophie puffing away at the last inch of her cigarette and Ashley massaging her forehead agitatedly.

At last, Ashley lifted her head up.

“So, Sophie, is the only reason you came to see me because you want to make it up with Justin and be just friends again? That doesn’t really make much sense. Why d’you bother seeing me, alone, like this? Is something else bothering you?”

Sophie stubbed out her cigarette in the ashtray and pushed it forward an inch or so. She turned her head round and looked Ashley in the face. What should she say? What was bothering her? She decided to mention the time she’d lost her enthusiasm for sex at work and just couldn’t carry on, when suddenly the whole exercise seemed repulsive to her, and how it still remained repulsive. She spoke to Ashley, because she knew no one else, no one anywhere, who she could talk to about how she had somehow lost the stomach and inclination to have sex under the gaze of a film camera.

“Well, there is something else…” she began, thinking that she’d somehow be able to say all she wanted to in a few sentences.

But she was wrong. She was still talking an hour later, Ashley only interjecting occasionally, as Sophie described her life in the adult industry. She described the film shoots where she’d drunk urine. The occasions she’d fellated more than a dozen men who then proceeded, one by one, to ejaculate over her face. The dildos that had penetrated her anus. The strap-ons she’d used to inflict similar punishment on both female and male co-stars. The often wilder group sex she’d had with her co-stars off camera and the pot pourri of drugs she enjoyed in their company. And as she described and enumerated these occasions, she wasn’t sure whether she was boasting, to say to Ashley, look what I’ve done, wouldn’t you like to have the same problems as me?

Sophie looked up, her eyes streaming with a thin trickle of tears just as a similarly thin sliver of snot trailed out of her nose. Ashley had a confused expression on her face, as she supported Sophie with an arm around the shoulders and held ready a paper tissue in her free hand. Her eyes burned with a strange excitement, while her face also expressed compassion and something that was neither envy nor pity, but an unsettled mixture of the two.

Ashley was quite pretty really. Not porno-pretty, but pretty in a kind of normal, non-porno way. She had bright brown eyes, which sparkled quite endearingly now she’d taken off her glasses. She had a broad face that filled out like hamster-cheeks when she smiled. She had lips that were naturally thick, with no collagen enhancement, and her tongue licked across the top of her teeth seductively as she moistened her lips.

So, it was quite natural for Sophie to return Ashley’s friendly supportive arm with a friendly cuddle of her own. Just as it was natural for Sophie to place a hand on Ashley’s bare knee and to pull her face towards hers. And just as it was in the normal and expected course of things for Sophie’s open mouth to lock against Ashley’s and for the two of them to join tongues and lips in passionate kissing. And, as the rhythm of Sophie’s sobs were replaced by a rhythm of a different kind as her passion built up, there was nothing unnatural at all as both she and Ashley divested one another of their clothes and gave each other much more vigorous and erotic comfort.

Sophie had made love to women many times in her life, and for her Ashley wasn’t very special. She was clearly uncertain and gauche with regards to making love with another woman, although it also excited her much more than it upset her. But Ashley wasn’t the first woman Sophie had introduced to Sapphic love. She’d even done so on a film set, which must surely be the least romantic place imaginable for this to happen. Nor was Ashley especially accomplished as a lover. Practice in sex, especially with those who were themselves well-practiced, could never be matched by enthusiasm, however great. And Ashley’s enthusiasm was certainly considerable, although more was expressed through her excited eyes than by anything she said.

“I didn’t believe that making love with a woman could be as rough and physical as this!” exclaimed Ashley at last, as she lay on her back with Sophie’s teeth still nibbling her clitoris.

Sophie could only nod.

There was much that Ashley could learn about sex with women, and it was obvious that she wanted to find out more, but Sophie decided that whoever it was who would be her future teacher and guide in the ways of lesbian love, it wasn’t going to be her.

As they lay on Ashley’s double bed, the moonlight shining through the thin cotton curtains, Sophie swore softly to herself. Shit! Whatever it was that she’d intended to achieve when she decided to meet Ashley it hadn’t been this. Again, just as she always did, she’d let sex determine how she behaved. She was incorrigible and there was no hope for her.

She looked at Ashley’s naked body nestled against her, the lips curled in contented sleep and a slight bruise just coming up on the inside of her left thigh. Ashley was a dear, and in the normal course of events Sophie could imagine seeing her again. But Sophie had no need for more lovers in her life.

That wasn’t what she wanted.

So it was then that she decided to change her career. At the time she had no idea that this meant enrolling for a course in accountancy. In fact, her thoughts focused no further than moving to a smaller cheaper flat so she could survive for a while before she found a new direction for her life. She knew she’d have to break loose from her friends and acquaintances otherwise she’d just be dragged back into making sex films, and this was what she decided she didn’t want to do.

And now, several years later, here she was, every link with her previous life severed. She’d successfully made the change. At first, she still saw some of her old friends in the porn industry for the companionship they offered, both sexual and otherwise. She even occasionally relented and let herself be filmed in a porno, but she did so reluctantly and only for the money that was so easily earned. And she did see more of Ashley and Justin. She even agreed to collude in Ashley’s game of deceit, which was to never tell Justin just how affectionate the two women had been that evening. But the deceit wearied her, so when she rented the flat in Wood Green she used that as an excuse never to make the trek across to South West London. In any case, it troubled her that on the one hand the couple was talking about marriage, whilst on the other Ashley expressed in the odd thoughtful smile or overlong stare that she still hoped for a reprise of their evening together.

“It’s so weird seeing you again!” exclaimed Justin, shaking his head as if this might throw off his incredulity.

“Yeah, it is,” said Sophie. “And did you get married in the end? Are you married now?”

“Yes!” said Ashley, holding up her ring finger, which Sophie had, of course, already noticed was properly adorned. “We sent you an invite to your old address, but it must have not got to you.”

“And you’re getting married too?” Justin asked.

“Yes, I think so,” said Sophie. “Malcolm. He works in the City. It’ll be strange committing to someone like this. It sort of puts a line under everything else.”

“It needn’t, of course,” said Justin.

“It needn’t what?”

“Things don’t have to stop just because you’re married,” Ashley agreed. “You can be committed to your partner and still have a fuller sex life than with just one person.”

Sophie blinked. What was Ashley saying exactly? “I’m sorry. I don’t quite understand.”

Justin smiled. “Of course you do, Sophie. You understand better than anyone. Ash and you. Ash and me. The only thing missing was the three of us together. I don’t know what I was thinking about in those days, but since you and Ash got it together, she always talked about being a bit more adventurous…”

“Yes,” agreed Ashley. “It took a bit of courage at first, but it’s easy for couples to meet other like-minded couples on the internet. Justin didn’t want to at first.”

“Yeah,” Justin continued, squeezing Ashley’s hand. “It’s one thing you and Ash doing it together. I sort of half-expected it anyway, so I wasn’t that surprised when she told me. It’s another to do it regularly. You know, have a polyamorous lifestyle.”

“Polyamorous?” Sophie asked.

“Yeah,” said Justin. “You know what it means?”

“Of course,” said Sophie. “But you and Ashley, I just never thought.”

“We’ve been doing it for years now,” Ashley said with an enthusiastic smile. “There are a lot of us. And there’s always space for more!”

“I had no idea you led a lifestyle like that. It’s a total surprise to me!” said Sophie truthfully.

“So,” Justin said, leaning forward over the bench, clasping Ashley’s hand tightly in his own, “when we saw you, we were so excited. Now, we have a much more open lifestyle, a bit like yours used to be when you made all those porn videos, it seems a perfect opportunity for us all to get to know each other again, only this time a lot better and more intimately.”

Sophie looked across the table at Ashley and Justin, whose faces were expressing hope and anticipation. Sophie could see behind them the other people in the patio, people who’d been working in the office all day and enjoying the evening sun. There came a sudden rush and thunder of wings as a swan launched itself into the air along the flowing River Thames.

Sophie smiled. “So, you’d like me to come back with you so we can have sex together, only the three of us?”

“Yes!” said Ashley. “Please say yes! I’ve so wanted to make love to you again after all these years.”

“Is this what you want, Justin?” Sophie asked.

“Of course,” he said, not a hint of doubt in his voice. “That’s what I should have done all those years ago. I just don’t know what was wrong with me.”

“So, what do you say, Sophie?” asked Ashley. “It’s only a short distance to our flat…”

Sophie coughed. She looked at Justin. She looked back at Ashley. She smiled at them, warmly and affectionately. Her mind was made up.

“I don’t think so,” she said at last. “I think I’d much prefer it if we stayed just friends.”