CHAPTER ONE. Hell-hole

After hovering over the yellowing seat without touching it for at least twenty seconds, Lucy is relieved to stand, as her quads had begun to ache. With no paper in sight, Lucy wipes the final drip of pee from her pussy with her fingers. She rubs them together, then bends down to pull up the tiny white panties that are stretched across her ankles. She tugs them up, past her smooth knees and tanned thighs, twisting her hips to encourage the thin material to stretch and to cover her hairless mound. Running both index fingers inside the gusset of her panties, she allows the elastic to snap back into place. She then gently cups and squeezes her pussy with her hand and smiles to herself.

“You’ve still got it, honey.”

She tugs down the short red skirt bunched up around her waist, and reaches for the flush lever - and noticing it’s equally unhygienic condition - she decides to leave the contents of the bowl just as it is.

“Eww, what a shit hole,” she whispers to herself.

Continuing to breath through her mouth in an attempt to avoid inhaling he fetid stench of the unisex toilet through her nostrils, Lucile digs around in her bag for the baby wipes that she always carries, usually to wipe up residual cum that might leak from her orifices after a scene, but also for when the toilet facilities are as disgusting as these. Familiar problems in both the low-cost adult film industry as well as low-cost airports, clearly.

She opens the inwardly swinging door with a baby wipe-covered hand and re-enters the airless cacophony of the ‘departure lounge’. The wall of heat combined with the sweet smell of sweat, duty-free perfume, and fast food is almost overwhelming. The large salmon-pink single-story space, with windows directly onto the cracked tarmac of the airport, is crammed full with the frenzied commotion of trapped holidaymakers facing cancelled flights. And all this in an overcrowded, dilapidated budget airport with broken air-conditioning.

Across from the crying babies and raised voices of stressed passengers in static queues, she can just about see Jacques remonstrating with a white-shirted airline official sitting behind a desk, complete with overhead signage with orange and brown graphics, ‘Inter-island Airlines’. As she makes her way toward Jacques, dodging limbs, luggage, and the detritus of delay that litters the floor, she can hear him pleading above the noise in his thick Parisian accent…

“Okay, okay, okay, I’ll take all responsibility, I promise, and I will pay the extra fee in cash, just get us there…please?” Then he sees Lucy coming and whispers, “Merde” under his breath. “Hey Lucy, come on, I’ve found someone with the couilles to take us… Quick, allez…” he shouts to her, beckoning with his hand.

“But what about the storm warnings, Jacques? No one is flying, look around you for fucks sake,” Lucy snarls, annoyed at what seemed like the false promise of actually getting out of this fetid oven of humanity.

“I’m telling you, I fixed it, so can you please get the fuck over there with the rest of them and sit tight for just ten minutes?” Jacques retorts, exasperated. “I’ve sorted it!”

With that, Jacques disappears with the white-shirt guy behind a door marked ‘Crew Only’. Lucy looks across the carnage of the departure lounge at her crew, sitting forlornly on the floor in a rough circle, sharing a large plastic bottle of Paradiso spring water. She returns to her group, the heat causing sweat to run down her back and to trickle between her buttocks. Lucy tries to hide her anger and forces a smile onto her forty-year-old lips.

“Lucy, hello, how are the loos?”  Eliza says elegantly, smiling knowingly as Lucy approaches, “Come and sit down,” and she places the lukewarm bottle of water in Lucy’s hand.

Eliza is English by birth and is Lucy’s favourite person on this crew. Although both the cast and crew have multiple jobs on this project—such is the vanishingly small budget for this movie—Eliza manages all her many roles with a big, beaming smile. She’s kind, motherly, around forty-five, and she does incredible make-up as well as being a producer for King Movies, the company behind this project.

With all the seats in the airport taken, Lucy sits on the floor next to Neil, who shuffles along to make space for her. Neil is the ‘actor’ bought in for his cock size more than any acting skills, and he is well known in the industry for being almost childish in his approach to porn. Enthusiasm and immaturity are rare in the cynical, hardened world of adult film. Neil’s cock precedes him, literally. Although Lucy has not worked with Neil before, she has seen his enormous appendage, the size of a baby’s arm, at PornXXXpo24, where he won a ‘supporting actor’ award in some crappy forgettable movie. His penis was the star, though. In its proximity, Lucy feels a twinge of arousal from her pussy at the thought of a scene with Neil’s famously huge, glistening penis driving into her, stretching her, her legs as wide apart as possible whilst she takes another cock in her mouth, pumping into her, squirting cum into her, and…

“I can see right up your skirt,” says Raoul, smiling, interrupting Lucy’s reverie, and sitting opposite her across the floor.

Raoul (or real name Ralph, as Lucy knows full well) is the charismatic, confident lead actor in this shitty production. Lucy still quite fancies Raoul in an ageing rock-star kind of way, but although he is still athletic, toned and handsome, the crepey skin around his mouth and the deep lines on his forehead betray his advancing age in this industry. But even today, he has legions of online fans from the early 2000's, which was his heyday; in those days, he could fuck around LA making a movie a week, and he made serious money. Lucy and Raoul had appeared in three projects together, and she had really liked fucking him. He was both professional and considerate, not to mention skillful. And somehow, he could still cum like a fountain, almost on request, an essential quality of a successful male porn star.

They even had a conventional date once, which is rare in this industry, whilst they were shooting ‘Chitty Chitty Gang Bang’ sometime in 2007. They hadn’t worked on the same movie since, and Lucy was in two minds about working with Raoul again, especially after all this time, but for another very special reason too.

“Hey, Lucy, show us your money maker,” says Raoul playfully.

Lucy smiles at Raoul, her red skirt rides up her thighs as she raises her legs and opens them wide, flashing her barely covered, moistened pussy with a defiant smile. She places an index and middle finger in a downward ‘V’ over her panties.

“Take a good look, big boy,” she says lewdly. Lucy doesn't care that the people in the seats opposite get the same view as Raoul.

“Looking good, baby,” says Raoul equally lewdly, smiling broadly.

Percy and Daltry, sitting in a row next to Raoul, all catch the sight of Lucy’s white panties and tanned, wide-open legs, and smirk and nod approvingly in unison, like schoolboys, or as Lucy remarks, “You two are like a shit Beavis and Butthead, d’ya know that,” in a playfully serious way.

Percy is the lighting guy and sound recordist; in fact, he has responsibility for all technical aspects of making a movie. He’s as smart as anyone Lucy has ever met, but he is also significantly overweight, suffers from asthma, wears glasses, and sweats profusely. He probably hasn’t been with a woman for a decade, if ever. But he loves his work. Not so much the shooting of people fucking and sucking, but for the pretension that he is actually a filmmaker. He’s sensitive, artistic, and so knowledgeable about movies. For him, the porn film industry is more like a hobby; he’d rather be shooting ‘proper movies’.

Daltry, on the other hand, is a shit. He’s the cameraman on this movie. He’s skinny, around thirty-five, has a pockmarked face from teenage acne, a ridiculously tall bleached haircut, and habitually wears ‘ironic’ T-shirts. He wears a ‘Boogie Nights’ T-shirt today. Lucy would admit to herself that although Daltry is a fucking awful person- sexually aggressive, rude, and crude - he knows his stuff behind the camera. Lucy wonders if years of shooting porn for a living have rotted his brain, resulting in him being the bastard that he is.

Lucy’s eyes move to the final member of the crew. Sitting slightly apart from the group, on the floor with her legs folded up together in front of her face, wearing huge headphones and staring intently at her iPhone, is Shelly. The skimpiest purple T-shirt is pulled tight over her young breasts, her smooth, tanned thighs perfectly exaggerate the gentle form of her waist, and the soft bulge of her crotch, just covered by the frayed edges of her cut-off jeans. In fact, the gusset is so narrow that if you look carefully, you can clearly see the very outer edges of her pubic mound. She looks the part of a bored 19-year-old, which is exactly what she is.

Shelly is the newest recruit to King Movies and is learning the ropes of the business side of the adult film industry. For such a young age, Shelly is adept at budgets, timings, as well as handling and directing the social media for the company. She is here to observe a film in production, to study ways of ‘improving productivity’ as the job was described, although the current situation is much more stressful than normal.

Lucy is extremely protective of Shelly, and although Eliza is motherly towards Shelly too, Lucy only knows full well the pitfalls of a pretty teenager in this business, so she looks out for Shelly at all times. Earlier, she had noticed Raoul eyeing her beautiful breasts and chatting intimately to Shelly while they waited. Lucy had sidled up to Raoul and growled, ‘Don’t you fucking dare, I fucking warn you now, Raoul, go near her and you’ll be so fucking sorry.’ Raoul mocked being hurt by the reprimand, but to his credit, he did stop flirting. Lucy received a glare from Shelly, as if to say, ‘WTF? I’m 19 now, it’s none of your business who I flirt with.'

“Come on, come on!” Jacques has suddenly appeared again, sweat pouring down the sides of his face, “Get your stuff and equipment, come on, we only have five minutes.”

“Five minutes, for what?” exclaims Raoul, his hands held out flat questioningly.

“Listen!” shouts Jacques, exasperated, “I’ve found someone who will fly us to the island in a chopper, below the weather, but only if we hurry up. It’s costing us a shit-load but we have to move, MOVE!, or we miss the window in the weather.”

Despite exchanging looks of unease, the group swiftly collects all their belongings: flight cases, film equipment, and bottles of rum clanking in plastic duty-free bags, and speedily follows Jacques through a double door and straight onto the tarmac.  The wall of heat outside is almost physical, and the wind is literally blowing a gale.

About fifty yards away, and standing apart from other aircraft, with its engine running, is a large, blue, ex-military helicopter. It’s almost the same hue of lead-blue as the brooding, bruised sky overhead. Jacques is pointing toward it, jabbing his finger repeatedly, his mouth shouting something intelligible above the noise of the howling wind and the heavy bass of the blades of the helicopter. With no choice, the group runs towards it. They soon realize how searing the wind is and that it’s now blowing harder than ever across the airfield. The sky is darkening like a bruise on a thigh. The storm is approaching fast.

As they get closer to the helicopter, it’s evident that this craft was made some time ago and has led a hard life. The paint is matte blue, streaks of oil and rust line the bodywork, and the Perspex windows are yellowing and crazed with sun damage. The belly door is wide open, and the sweaty, portly man from the departure lounge, in the same white Inter-island Airlines shirt, stands inside the door. With huge headphones on his head, he is beckoning the group with one hand while holding himself inside the craft with the other. No one can hear what he’s saying; each word is drowned out by the noise of the rotors overhead. The downdraft from the blades creates a vortex of sand, dust, and litter into the air. The ‘Thutt, Thutt, Thutt’ of the blades above the group makes them bend over, and in a line they run blindly toward the cacophony. ‘THUTT, THUTT, THUTT! gets louder and louder as they approach. There are screams of apprehension as hair, caps, and debris become airborne. But finally, everyone scrambles aboard.

The interior of the helicopter is a jungley mess of cables, boxes, and unidentified equipment. All the fading and peeling labels, signage, and instructions on the fuselage of the craft are in Cyrillic. Could this be a former Russian helicopter? The seating is basic, essentially metal tube framing with canvas webbing. The dank, stale military smell of sweat, engine oil, and burnt metal fills the air. The group fumbles around, getting in each other's way, but each finds a seat along the sides facing into the throbbing, shaking helicopter. The portly man beckons to them, pointing at the huge headphones he is wearing. On each seat is an ancient-looking set, and all eight place a set of greasy, uncomfortable headphones on their heads too. The door slams shut behind them, incarcerating them inside the belly of this big, blue beast.

The noise and vibrations inside the helicopter are terrifying. Seconds later, the barely audible shouting from the cockpit is replaced by the indecipherable crackle of a radio. The whole machine lurches and then tilts forward, the engine pitch rises even further, followed by a physical sensation of weightlessness, which means they are going up. Suddenly, they are fully airborne and tilting forward. Through the opaque windows, the bare, scrubby landscape at the end of the airfield is quickly replaced by the grey surf on a rocky beach below.

And so, they are finally on their way to Nacker Island.

CHAPTER TWO. Wham-bang

Glancing around the mess of the cabin, Lucy tries to control the sheer fright from the last few minutes as she looks around all eight of the group. Almost without exception, all are wide-eyed with anxiety and discomfort, except for Daltry, who is grinning and seems to be excited by the experience.

Lucy spies Shelly sitting right up close to Raoul, her arms loosely around his neck, her eyes wet with tears of fright. Raoul has his hand resting on her thigh, the other arm around her shoulder. He is gently kissing the top of her head repeatedly, and then Shelly starts sobbing into his chest. Raoul realizes Lucy is glaring at him, and he smiles at her and quickly removes his hand from Shelly’s thigh. He looks out of the window opposite, smirking to himself.

Eliza has her head in her hands, sobbing. Neil is comforting her in the seat next to her, his arm around her shoulders. Lucy can imagine these two actually dating; they seem to get along so well. Percy seems totally wired, his eyes bulging and his hands digging into the top of his thighs. Lucy then glances at Jacques, who is visibly regretting what he has gotten everyone into. He is a ghostly pale, staring straight ahead, and looks like he is about to vomit.

She glances forward through the faded blue, woven curtain of the cockpit, dangling open at the entrance. Ahead is the lone pilot, a bulky, out-of-shape guy in his fifties, in a short-sleeved off-white shirt.  The tatty epaulets on his shoulder are slightly pulling themselves down the front of his shirt. He looks very stressed. Sweat is pouring down his temples, his left hand on a lever by his side, the other on a stick control. He is concerned, tense.

Glancing outside, Lucy is shocked to see that the helicopter has not gained much height. Despite being over water where it's hard to get a sense of scale, she can clearly see the white horses on the sea below, kicked up by the wind. “Why are we so low”? Lucy whispers to herself, the anxiety instantly returning to her stomach. The sea is the only feature outside the windows for a further five minutes, then Lucy looks ahead as far as she can see toward the horizon through the crazed yellow Perspex of the window, and in the distance she can see that the grey water is about to be replaced by the white of the surf again, and then the tops of green of trees. But at a very low height…

Suddenly, the helicopter begins shaking violently, and a deafening rattle joins the bass thud of the rotor blades and engine. The whole fuselage of the craft seems to be shaking. The pilot seems to tense up and momentarily turns to the cabin, catching Lucy’s eye, he shouts…

“HOLD ON!” he then flicks a switch on his headset, and shouts again…

“MAYDAY, MAYDAY, MAYDAY, THIS IS BLUE44, ENGINE OUT, RETUR—”

In an instant, the helicopter pitches forward and begins to rotate, and buzzers and alarms start filling the air with urgency. “PULL UP, PULL UP” bellows the automated instruction from the helicopter. The pilot is leaning back in his seat, both hands on the stick, trying to control the bucking, out-of-control craft. Land appears fleetingly, filling the cockpit windows with the bright green of vegetation, so low that the tops of trees are level with the craft. Shouts and screams fill the fetid air. Suddenly, there is a sickening lurch and an almighty crash, a deafening cacophony, a sensation of blurred reality, and a slow-motion scene of people and objects flying through the air. Time stops. And just as suddenly, silence.

CHAPTER THREE. Faceplant

Lucy is the first in the group to come to. She’s lying on the floor of the helicopter, tangled in the detritus that has now been thrown to the front from the back of the craft. Choking on the dust of decades, Lucy looks around the scene of devastation. The acrid smell of overheated machinery fills the claustrophobic space. Luggage, a broken bottle of rum, and what seems like a tangle of limbs are piled up near the cockpit. Groans of shock, pain, and disorientation are all Lucy can hear.

Trying to find her breath, Lucy shouts, “Listen up, is everyone okay?”

She sits up and scans the carnage in the cabin. People are moving, and Raoul has already opened the side door of the now-crashed helicopter. A dull daylight replaces the greyness of the interior, and the deafening wind whistles into the space. Dazed people begin to move toward the dim light. Soon, everyone is crawling from the wreckage onto the beach on hands and knees, the nose of the helicopter buried deep into the sand. Eventually, everyone climbs out, on all fours, staggering to stand. Stunned. Rain and wind sweep the beach.

Lucy looks around the group; miraculously, everyone seems okay, the pilot the only absentee. Everyone else is either cuddling each other or sitting alone with their heads in their hands. But all alive, safe and, as far as she can make out, uninjured. Lucy has to shout to make herself heard above the cacophony of the storm…

“Okay, everyone, come on, we need to find help. Is anyone’s phone still working, any signal?” shouts Lucy above the noise of the wind.

“No, nothing,” shouts Neil. “Nope,” shouts Daltry.

Although still sobbing with shock, Eliza shouts, “My phone is lost anyway.”

“Where’s the pilot?” shouts Jacques.

Lucy looks around at the huddle and then back at the wreckage.

“Fuck,” shouts Jacques. “Raoul, Lucy, come with me,” and they stagger back, through the soft sand, towards the front of the helicopter.

The front is buried deep into the sandy beach, and the cockpit has taken the brunt of the impact. The helicopter rotors are bent and broken. Through the smashed and cracked windows of the canopy, the pilot is still in his seat, his head pitched forward against the controls.

“Hey, man, can you hear me? Are you okay? Hey, are…” shouts Jacques.

He struggles to pull the heavy weight of the pilot, and he slumps back into his seat. His face is a shocking and bloodied tangle of flesh, skull, and teeth. A bloodied eye has popped out of its socket and is resting on his cheek. Lucy jumps back in shock.

“Oh my God, oh my God, is he dead?”

Raoul tentatively leans forward into the cockpit, his face contorted with disgust at the carnage of what is left of the pilot's face. He feels for a pulse on the twisted neck of the pilot.

“Fuck yeah, he’s toast!” he shouts.

Looking up, Lucy sees Shelly staggering around to the front of the wreckage, looking for Raoul and to see what’s going on. Before Shelly can see the body of the pilot, Raoul intercepts her. “No, don't look, Shelly,” he shouts above the noise of the wind and guides her away from the scene, his hand on Shelly’s shoulder. Lucy, still in shock, decides she won’t intervene with Raoul this time, and they all return to the rest of the party on the other side of the wreckage.

CHAPTER FOUR. Houseparty

“Ok, listen up, listen up, everyone!” shouts Jacques, but the wind howling over the beach makes it difficult to hear him.

The sky is now almost totally darkened by the storm clouds. The whole group stops what they are doing, sitting huddled next to the wreckage, desperate to orient themselves after the traumatic past half an hour.

“We have to get to the house, on the other side of the island, we have to get out of this weather before the rain really starts, so pick up all your stuff and let’s go. There’s only one house on this fucking island. I think it must be this way,” shouts Jacques. He collects his rucksack and silver Rimowa carry-on case from the pile, which comically bogs down in the sand. Jacques has to pick it up awkwardly by the handle and carry it.

The party begins its bedraggled trudge up the beach toward the alarmingly swaying green mass of palm trees. The howling wind is blowing debris across the sand, and a white plastic chair tumbles past. After around 500 yards of staggering, with their luggage, the flight cases having to be dragged through the sand, they finally see the house, all by itself, in the distance.

The house is a sprawling single-story building with a pitched roof, lawns, outhouses, a barbecue area, and a huge oval swimming pool with a fake flamingo in the middle. As they approach, they can see the wind has created carnage of anything in the gardens that is not tied down. The pool is full of detritus: leaves, another white plastic chair, massive insects, and a large black bird, floating dead in the middle. The house itself is dark, no lights or any sign of life whatsoever in the gloom of the storm.

“This is it, it must be!” shouts Jacques.

Approaching the double front door, Jacques takes a small piece of paper from his shirt pocket. It flaps in the wind, he unfolds it and reads out to Lucy the security code, “266754.” The door clicks, and into the house the party tumbles. With the door open, debris from outside begins flying around the entrance hall until finally, the group and luggage are inside. The door is slammed shut, and for the first time, for what seems like an eternity, there is relative quiet and calm.

Inside the house, the first sensorial assault is the smell of mustiness: a mixture of damp, dust, and decay. Percy searches around the hall to find the fuse box and then the light switches. The open-plan living room is straight ahead with huge glass doors opening onto the lawn, the pool, and the beach. In front of the doors are vertical blinds, most of which have stains of damp on them, and some are missing entirely. The kitchen, next door, is huge too. The house is overwhelmingly beige. The couches, flooring, shutters, and bathrooms are all shades of brown. The lighting is yellow, the ceiling fans are a brown wicker pattern, and the glass sculpture over the stone fireplace is bright orange. Everything looks and feels like it’s in a time warp from 1970.

“Fuck, what IS this place?” mutters Raoul.

“This place, Raoul, is what we have rented,” says Jacques, “this is where we will be shooting, living, and everything else for the next two days. And can someone work out the fucking aircon?”

“But it’s awful, Jacques,” mutters Neil.

Daltry, who’d been wandering around in the background, smirking, suddenly pipes up, “I thought I recognized this place when we got here, but I couldn't remember from where. But now I know. It’s just clicked. This is Brad Richardson’s old place, isn’t it? Fucking hell! Haha !”

“What?” says Eliza, “Brad Richardson? That pornographer guy from the 1970s, the guy who went to jail for all that weird occult stuff?”

“Yeah, that guy,” Daltry sneers, “this is where all that shit happened, no wonder this house was cheap. He was thrown in jail for fucking animals or some shit like that, wasn't he?”

Eliza looks aghast.

“Oh, Jacques, what the fuck have you done, bringing us here?“ shouts Lucy. “What a fucking shit-show the whole thing has been!”

“Listen, listen, we are here to make a movie, it’s not a five-star hotel, but it’s perfect for what we want it for, just remember the theme of the movie we are making here,” exclaims Jacques, defensively.

“It’s actually brilliant,” sneers Daltry. “Perfect.” He begins pacing around, smiling broadly, peering at the peeling hessian on the walls, the wall art, and laughing to himself. “Absolutely, fucking perfect.”

"See, that's the spirit,” smiles Jacques, his arm extended toward Daltry.

The group, too exhausted to object, comment, or crack jokes about the house style or its previous owner, leaves their luggage scattered in the hallway. Raoul and the others make a beeline for the brown semi-circular couches in the middle of the vast main room. All eight, exhausted, sit together looking at the ceiling and each other or at the floor, trying to make sense of the past hour. The bottles of rum, those miraculously unbroken in the crash, are opened and consumed. Snacks from the airport departure lounge are found in the luggage and shared out.

Later, in a corner, Lucy spies Raoul and Shelly discussing something out of earshot, but their body language suggests they are talking about something very intimate. Raoul has his hand on Shelly’s shoulder, and her hand is on his hip. Lucy glares across the room at Raoul, and he catches her eye. But this time, Raoul ignores Lucy, finishes the conversation with Shelly, and then walks away to the kitchen. Shelly catches Lucy’s eye and smiles, defiantly, pedantically. Lucy makes a mental note to mention her concerns to Eliza so they can both keep an eye on the pair.

By nightfall, the storm has the house fully in its fearsome grasp, and torrential rain beats at the roof and windows of the house. One by one, the men in the group fall asleep on the couches where they sit, the women disperse to the undiscovered bedrooms, wandering from one to the other, unsuccessfully looking for evidence of bedsheets, pillows, and towels. There are several bathrooms, all en-suite, and all are beige or brown.

CHAPTER FIVE. Reckoning.

By morning, the storm has subsided, but the torrential rain persists, preventing anyone from venturing outside to discover if they can get a phone signal. The ancient creaking air-conditioner is grinding away in the background; the power from noisy generators in one of the out-houses. The devastation outside is evident by the amount of debris littering the lawns, and the pool now has a wooden storage shed semi-submerged in it.

The house is a very tired rental, but when it was built in the late 1960's, it was clearly luxurious and well-appointed for its time. The rooms are huge and the land around it manicured with the huge oval pool. Now, it has the appearance and smell of an aging freeway motel, and one that has had very little maintenance or updates. The vast kitchen is made up of yellowing oak cabinets, a period range oven, smoked glass cabinets, and two very old fridge-freezers. Tan-colored, patterned tiles cover the floor with matching tiles on the worktops. The bathrooms are a curious mix of smoked glass, chocolate-colored sanitary wear with ‘gold’ fittings.

With the whiff of old stale coffee, found at the back of a cupboard, boiling on the stove, and a general sense of tiredness and dismay amongst the party, Jacques calls everyone together.

“Okay, bonjour everyone, we are shooting today, okay?” he shouts while clapping his hands twice to get the attention of the group. Looking around, he can see the concern on the faces of the rest of the party. Ignoring this, he pushes on.

“Good, Merci. Now, here are the Skinflick scripts,” he hands out creased A4 paper printouts to Lucy, Raoul, and Neil.

“As you can see, there’s not much dialogue, but lots of fucking action, please.”

“And you guys…” he looks across at Percy and Daltry sprawled on the couches. “Set things up, guys, allez, allez, come on!” he says, his frustration clear. “Actors, get your make-up done.” While looking at Eliza. “Come on, we have to forget about what happened yesterday.”

“What the fuck, Jacques?” shouts Raoul, “We just survived a helicopter crash, a storm from hell, we are staying in a pervert pornographer's house, and there’s a fucking dead body down there on the beach. You expect us to just ignore all that?”

“Fucking right I do,” snarls Jacques. “You are not dead, are you? Yes, he’s dead, but we can’t let anyone know about it as we don't have fucking signal out here, do we? And he doesn't fucking care, does he? He’s flying for Heavenly Airlines now. And whoever owns that heap-of-shit helicopter will be sending out a rescue if this fucking storm ever ends. Let them sort it out. So, let's fucking get on with it!”

Exasperated at the lack of movement, he adds, “If we don't make a movie, we don’t get paid,” he adds, looking around the group for a reaction.

Uneasy looks are exchanged around the group. Daltry shrugs, “He was obviously a shit pilot anyway,” he sneers.

By mid-morning, Daltry and Percy have set up the lighting they have brought with them, they have a mini-boom with the microphone sound-checked, and the cameras are on tripods. Percy has his laptop connected. Eliza is applying 1960's period-style make-up with Lucy. Raoul and Jacques are discussing the script. Neil is already strutting around in his swimming trunks, his enormous appendage clearly visible through the blue nylon. Shelly is busy flicking through her notes on an iPad, glancing occasionally at Raoul. For the first time, the team is working together toward a shared direction.

“Okay, team, in your places,” bellows Jacques unnecessarily, as everyone can hear him just by talking. “In case you haven’t read the script,” he glances at Neil, “these are the scenes.”

“Lucy, as Wanda, you are the frustrated wife of a wealthy landowner; your husband is out of town on business. Neil, you are Dick the pool guy. Raoul, you are Dr. Rimmer, the doctor that Wanda has contacted to make a house call. The rest is in the script, please read it”.

Lucy looks up from her copy. “Jacques, who wrote this? It’s the cheesiest pastiche of a seventies low-budget porn movie. A 1970's low-budget porn movie, made by 2025’s lowest-budget porn studio. That’s a parody by itself. And the title, Skinflick? It’s either really shit, or it’s genius.”

“I’m glad you appreciate the irony, Lucy,” says Jacques, smiling.

~~~~~~~~

to be continued...

Please see Part 2 of Skinflick to find out the dramatic denouement.

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