‘Come on in,’ said Henry B. ‘Good for a game?’
‘Don’t look so serious,’ soothed Maguire, ‘this is just merchandise.’
A kind of numb horror drew Ronnie to approach one of the stacks of magazines, and open the top copy.
Climax Erotica, the cover read, Full Colour Pornography for the Discriminating Adult. Text in English, German and French. Unable to prevent himself he began to look through the magazine, his face stinging with embarrassment, only half-hearing the barrage of jokes and threats that Maguire was shooting off.
Swarms of obscene images flew out of the pages, horribly abundant. He’d never seen anything like it in his life. Every sexual act possible between consenting adults (and a few only doped acrobats would consent to) were chronicled in glorious detail. The performers of these unspeakable acts smiled, glassy-eyed, at Ronnie as they swarmed up out of a grease of sex, neither shame nor apology on their lust-puffed faces. Every slit, every slot, every pucker and pimple of their bodies was exposed, naked beyond nakedness. The pouting, panting excess of it turned Ronnie’s stomach to ash.
He closed the magazine and glanced at another pile beside it. Different faces, same furious coupling. Every depravity was catered for somewhere. The titles alone testified to the delights to be found inside. Bizarre Women in Chains, one read. Enslaved by Rubber, another promised. Labrador Lover, a third portrayed, in perfect focus down to the last wet whisker.
Slowly Michael Maguire’s cigarette-worn voice filtered through into Ronnie’s reeling brain. It cajoled, or tried to; and worse it mocked him, in its subtle way, for his naiveté.
‘You had to find out sooner or later,’ he said. ‘I suppose it may as well be sooner, eh? No harm in it. All a bit of fun.’
Ronnie shook his head violently, trying to dislodge the images that had taken root behind his eyes. They were multiplying already, invading a territory that had been so innocent of such possibilities. In his imagination, Labradors scampered around in leather, drinking from the bodies of bound whores. It was frightening the way these pictures flowed out into his eyes, each page a new abomination. He felt he’d choke on them unless he acted.
‘Horrible,’ was all he could say. ‘Horrible. Horrible. Horrible.’
He kicked a pile of Bizarre Women in Chains, and they toppled over, the repeated images of the cover sprawling across the dirty floor.
‘Don’t do that,’ said Maguire, very quietly.
‘Horrible,’ said Ronnie. They’re all horrible.’
‘There’s a big market for them.’
‘Not me!’ he said, as though Maguire was suggesting he had some personal interest in them.
‘All right, so you don’t like them. He doesn’t like them, Dork.’
Dork was wiping cream off his short fingers with a dainty handkerchief.
‘Why not?’
Too dirty for him.’
‘Horrible,’ said Ronnie again.
‘Well you’re in this up to your neck, my son,’ said Maguire. His voice was the Devil’s voice, wasn’t it? Surely the Devil’s voice, ‘You may as well grin and bear it.’
Dork guffawed, ‘Grin and bare it; I like it Mick, I like it.’
Ronnie looked up at Maguire. The man was forty-five, maybe fifty; but his face had a fretted, cracked look, old before its years. The charm was gone; it was scarcely human, the face he locked eyes with. Its sweat, its bristles, its puckered mouth made it resemble, in Ronnie’s mind, the proffered backside of one of the red-raw sluts in the magazines.
‘We’re all known villains here,’ the organ was saying, ‘and we’ve got nothing to lose if we’re caught again.’
‘Nothing,’ said Dork.
‘Whereas you, my son, you’re a spit-clean professional. Way I see it, if you want to go gabbing about this dirty business, you’re going to lose your reputation as a nice, honest accountant. In fact I’d venture to suggest you’ll never work again. Do you take my meaning?’
Ronnie wanted to hit Maguire, so he did; hard too. There was a satisfying snap as Maguire’s teeth met at speed, and blood came quickly from between his lips. It was the first time Ronnie had fought since his schooldays, and he was slow to avoid the inevitable retaliation. The blow that Maguire returned sent him sprawling, bloodied, amongst the Bizarre Women. Before he could clamber to his feet Dork had slammed his heel into Ronnie’s face, grinding the gristle in his nose. While Ronnie bunked back the blood Dork hoisted him to his feet, and held him up as a captive target for Maguire. The ringed hand became a fist, and for the next five minutes Maguire used Ronnie as a punch bag, starting below the belt and working up.