Day 22

Martaro

*starflower*: Hey hey
GardenGnome: Hi
*starflower*: You've not been online for a bit. How's you
GardenGnome: Good. Just been busy with work.
*starflower*: Work eh? Shifty¦:P
GardenGnome: What?
*starflower*: Classic excuse. You up to something?
GardenGnome: No
*starflower*: You totally are
GardenGnome: Why do you say that?
*starflower*: Well because you just used a lame excuse and because your work is a porno den
GardenGnome: Adult film studio
*starflower*: Yeah yeah
GardenGnome: Well since you ask I am seeing someone from work
*starflower*: What
GardenGnome: Bout a week now
*starflower*: Wow I wasn't expecting that. So where's her guide dog?
GardenGnome: Ha ha very funny
*starflower*: Oh my god
GardenGnome: What?
*starflower*: She's a pornstar isn't she
GardenGnome: What
*starflower*: She's one of the porno actresses
GardenGnome: Well it wouldn't be out of the question, me working in an adult film studio
*starflower*: Porno den you mean
GardenGnome: OK, so she is one of the actors
*starflower*: That's a bit weird
GardenGnome: Why
*starflower*: It just is. I mean you've seen her
GardenGnome: What
*starflower*: You know. You've filmed her having sex with loads of other people and doing anal and all that
GardenGnome: Actually it was 1 on 1 vaginal only
*starflower*: No way who pays for straight up vaginal these days. If it doesn't have triple backdoor spit roasting it's practically a documentary
GardenGnome: You'd be surprised
*starflower*: Oh really
GardenGnome: She's very good at what she does
*starflower*: Oh I see. Well they have to be I guess. Not much else going for them
GardenGnome: What's that supposed to mean
*starflower*: Don't play so innocent
GardenGnome: I have no idea what you mean
*starflower*: Ever heard the term Intellectual Roughing It
GardenGnome: That's a bitchy thing to say
*starflower*: I'm just voicing an opinion
GardenGnome: I don't think I care much for your opinion
*starflower*: You're having some kind of mid-life crisis
GardenGnome: Thanks. Shall I bring her to dinner next Sunday then
*starflower*: I'm telling you it's a mid-life crisis. Starts with dating young women who aren't very fussy and next thing you know you're buying a Lostar convertible on credit, dying your hair and wearing soft rock t shirts to prove you still got it
GardenGnome: Screw you Saral
*starflower*: How old is she then? 16 or younger?
GardenGnome: Actually she's older
*starflower*: Older than 16 and doing 1 on 1 vaginal? Either you're not too worried about bankruptcy or she's older as in 85
GardenGnome: She's 38 and before you ask, no she's not an amputee or a shemale or an albino fire eater. She's just a girl
*starflower*: 38? Another past-it wannabe
GardenGnome: And who exactly are you to talk? Penny Velle? Mizz Bray Fairfax? How about you with your posters and your subscription to Flashbulb?
*starflower*: I give it a month
GardenGnome: Screw you Saral

I sign off without ceremony and suspect she has done the same, racing me to deal the snub. Since I see no pop-up bearing the legend "You wish, I presume that this time I have won.

It's too much to hope for, but she sounded maybe a microscopic bit jealous. Oh, what am I saying? In truth, I exaggerated a bit to test the water with her. Miffy and I slept together just once, and it was nice ' more than nice, it was freaking fantastic - but we decided that we drew greater comfort just from being in each other's company, as opposed to each other's orifices, and that our night together should stay as just that: a single nice sleepover. I also embroidered the truth with Miffy's age. But then Saral failed to specify chronological, biological or mental, so I consider that fair game.

We meet for coffee most days in the Prockling Café on West Mintef Street. We discuss freely the fragments of story she collected together and spilled, along with her tears, onto me that night. I don't tell her about Saral, or her comments. As thick-skinned as Miffy Renee is, bitchery is not one of the basic human needs, and like salt, everyone would feel better if their share were reduced.

Right now, I am searching her name online, trying desperately to find sites that don't feature her, big-eyed, getting rammed from behind by some guy in a schoolteacher's cape and mortar board. You have to be careful. Some of the sites that feature her work also shoot themselves in the foot, wasting their legal loophole regarding her age by being shitty enough to featuring real children, their eyes wider with genuine horror than even Miffy's honed acting skills can muster.

These sites are often the net equivalent of tourist traps. They lure you in with a detailed list promising images of every which way you can possibly abuse a child, and then you click and experience "Lock-In. This is when your screen goes black apart from a flashing message like "SCUM, "PAEDO or some such greeting, your hard drive is irretrievably locked, backed-up and circulated as evidence and a siren goes off down your local branch of Die Polizei, so they can collect both you and your computer like a legal courier service.

Sounds fabulous. Efficient and just, you say. Well, there are ways around it. Thee are millions of sites worldwide still peddling pictures of naked children. They make more money than most government officials if the rumours are to be believed, and with that kind of income, you can buy your way through a lot of gates. The technicians behind the sites can 'swerve' sites out of the line of vision of any undercover cops online, recognising this code, that code, the digital footprints of the law and their exact size to the half-mark. It's like a magical floating castle. When danger threatens, the wizard who owns the joint can snap his fingers and have the castle airborne and miles away in a moment. The worst thing is, the police know the names, the pictures. Hell, they are practically able to touch the collars and cuffs of those responsible, they are so close. But they cannot find any evidence, and there the trail goes cold. My point is that it's going to keep going on. I like to think that what we do by producing Miffy Renee films is preventative: a safe alternative to child abuse. Yeah, and I keep telling myself that too.

Miffy's acting skills, anyway. I can almost see you smaning into your mug of green tea. Porn + Acting = a unicorn in the supermarket. But dear lord, that girl ' woman? No, girl ' she can play an eight year old like she's never smoked or sucked dick a day in her little life. It's all about the expressions in the face: the quizzical and the tentative, the naïve and the playful. She is an exquisite copy, worth more to the right connoisseur than the real thing, but she can't be bought, except in wafer-thin slices of celluloid.

"Marty, I gots to get me some more work. I need to be working every day, twice a day. I will do anything. Anything, got that?

At least, it used to be the case, but right now she is running in the rain, blush dripping from her cheeks. Already patches of canvas are showing through. A canvas that is stretching, sleekening. She has grown two inches in two days.

"Anything Marty! She calls. "Tell them if they can draw a picture of it, I'll do it. Goddammit ' my shoes don't fit me!

I turn to the wall, run my eyes over mortar lines, rest my head in my hands, think of holes.