Amy loved her job, but she had no illusions about what her job really was. After all, you couldn’t expect success if you pretended it was anything else. She was a sex performer, and she was paid to have sex on stage several times a night whenever it was her shift. And sex, whether on stage, for film or in private, was still sex. It meant disrobing, it meant groping and above all it meant penetration. That was what the punters expected and what they were paying for. The art of it was in making the sex as watchable as possible. And this meant that it had to be entertaining, fully visible and as shocking as possible.

There was no sexual act she could think of that she wouldn’t do, as long as it left no marks which might appear in later performances in her shift. She would have sex with one man, two men, several men. Equally as much, she would have sex with an equal number of women. Her arse and cunt would take any object that would fit: animate or inanimate, fist, prick or tongue. Only the laws of the land prevented her from extending her range to include animals or children. The stage was her bed and her boudoir, and she would take on all comers, both from the paying audience and from her cast of co-stars.

She would stretch herself out naked on the stage, or dressed in latex or leather, her long golden brown hair flopping onto the stage, her freckled face and shoulders lashed with semen, while behind her a cock pounded into her arse and underneath the strapped-on dildo attached to one of her female colleagues pushed more awkwardly into her cunt. Her smiling, grimacing face, crumpled in ecstasy and excitement faced the audience, a face whose oriental eyes and features inherited from her Chinese mother belied the Celtic freckles and fair hair inherited from her Scottish father. Her body was all her own, spared the need for surgical enhancement by the full round apple contours of her breasts and the slim frame kept trim and taut in the gym. And her enthusiasm and ecstasy was all her own as well. The very thought of what she was doing, in front of so many panting, gasping punters, gave that extra erotic impetus which made her sexual acts the most popular and eagerly awaited in the club.

And her sex life was as integral to her character as her sparkling blue-grey eyes, and her small nose. She was surely obsessed. Every day she would have sex with one, two or more people, and she didn’t really count those on stage. That, after all, was her job. It was not necessarily at a time of her choosing and not necessarily with anyone of her choosing. Not that she was that choosy. Well, she might be insofar as any second or third time might be, but for first-time fucks, it was anyone and everyone. And she kept a diary, which she’d started from when she was oh! so young. And in this diary, she recorded every fuck, every sexual act, but not those on stage, and awarded each one a coded description and a mark out of ten.

She’d always done this. Some people’s diaries are a record of their innermost thoughts. An account of their feelings, their ambitions, their worries and their happiness. Others are a more objective account of events, perhaps noting people and places. Amy didn’t even bother with names. Even initials were suspect. After all, she couldn’t expect to know the name of everyone she’d had sex with. Her diary entries were brief and to the point. She would mention gender, number and any especially pertinent feature of the occasion. And then a mark out of ten. Occasionally, she might add a comment, like ‘Took too long’, ‘Tiny prick’ or ‘Smelly’. And that was it. To anyone reading her diary, it might as well be a shopping list.

She had her diary in front of her, cross-legged on her futon, while a naked woman lay on her front beside her. Amy was smoking a cigarette, while her fibre-tip pen hovered over the blank paper. It was a fresh page, and she always kept a diary on unlined, unheaded pages, so she could get several days’ entries on one page. In the bathroom, she could see a hairy, bare arse where a man was washing semen off his groin. She smiled, and entered the date in numbers, with a vertical slash between the day, month and year columns. And then in her neat, tiny handwriting: “ 1M 1F 4/10 ”. Then she paused for thought before adding “ Sloppy ”.

She turned back to the previous page which was dense with similar entries, and took a note of the numbers at the side, which showed her totals. It was proudly in four digits now. And she was even prouder of the fact that the total for ‘ F ’ was fast approaching that for ‘ M ’. So proud that she mouthed it to herself: “One Thousand Seven Hundred and Forty Three.” At this rate, the ‘ F ’s would overtake the ‘ M ’s. And before she’d reached the two thousand. And adding the ‘ F ’s to the ‘ M ’s. Why! That was already over three thousand. That meant that for the ten years she’d been sexually active, that had been on average, just under one a day. Of course, she was making up for it now. One a day! God! That would be a piss poor day. Normally she’d have three or four times that number. She grinned to herself. She loved statistics. She didn’t know why she did, but somehow all these numbers added meaning and shape to her life.

Often when she was alone, she’d take out her diary and pore over the days, looking at the progression on the total, smile at those days which had been particularly eventful where her tally had increased by the most, and perhaps frown at the relatively low scores that might be associated with it. She had very high standards. A seven was pretty good. And not given lightly. An eight was rare. A nine rarer still. And a ten. Well! Could that even exist?

Often she wondered about what would have happened if she’d included her on-stage sex in her total. What would that have done? And would that be cheating? Would that make her an entry into the Guinness Book of Records? But they didn’t really have that kind of thing in there. Or did they? She wasn’t sure. But she wasn’t sure she’d want her photograph or name in something like that. It was bad enough pretending to her Mum that all the money she was earning and the lovely down-town flat she’d bought cash down had somehow come as a result of exercising the skills she’d gained at secretarial college. And her divorced father. It was bad enough that he knew where she lived and still sent her cards at Christmas and on her Birthday. What would happen if he knew more about what his darling daughter did for a living, for whom he’d paid her mother an allowance for so many years?

Getting fresh sexual partners wasn’t as easy as all that. After all, Amy had soon exhausted all those at the night club. And not just the other performers, whether male or female. There was the janitor, the ticket clerks, the manager and that woman who did the fancy backdrops. There were the people in the audience for sure, but the management weren’t too keen on their paying customers getting too familiar with the goods. They might not want to continue paying for the pleasure of just seeing them.

Amy was a regular visitor at a number of cafés, bars and clubs where she could be sure of finding someone, male or female, or both, just the one, or several at the same time, with whom she could increment her tally of fresh conquests, whether at their place (preferred) or at hers (if necessary) or perhaps some other place (as long as she didn’t have to pay for it!).

Of course she had to be careful. Especially with the men. You heard such stories! She kept a handbag full of condoms. All different shapes and sizes and flavours. Ribbed and nobbled and smooth. And sometimes, especially when there were three or more men, you just couldn’t risk taking them back or letting them take you back. Then the back of the car, or a dark alley-way, or whatever. It just had to do. Not so good for the actual sex, but more than compensated by the extra notches it scored. Couples were fine. Two couples a little more risky, but not by too much. But women. No problem at all! If only more of them were willing!

Naturally, the more indiscriminate you were then the worse the sex. The number of ones and twos she’d had to award. And the zeros! When it was sex in only the most technical sense. But it still counted. That was the main thing. It might be crap, but it was clothes off, genitals in place, and a bit of sweat. But it counted.

Inevitably, the best sex came from her colleagues. They were after all professionals. They knew what to do and they knew how to give pleasure. And they were the lucky ones who got the chance to do it again, even though it didn’t count against the total. But then you had to have some pleasure in your life. And she recorded them, and awarded them the sevens or even eights that made it all worth while.

So whenever a new girl or a new man started working at the club, Amy took especial interest in them, even though she’d invariably had sex with them on stage before they were able to get entered properly as a proper fuck back her own flat or even at theirs. Those were the good ones. That’s when she was able to truly enjoy herself, the sweat streaming down the hard, muscular contours of her limbs, her mouth musky and sour from the taste of sexual fluids, her cunt stretched and sore from their thrusting, groping and stroking.

And so it was that Amy was particularly looking forward to a night of real passion when Lucinda started working at the club. And Lucinda was her real name as well. Not one of those made-up names like some of the girls adopted. And even some of the men. Not Savannah, Asia, Chesty or Satin. And such a pretty girl as well. She salivated at just the thought of her, as Lucinda nervously entered the changing room in her unusually drab clothes. A blouse, a skirt and woollen tights. Her shoes were flat and dull, and her dark brown shoulder-length hair was actually tied back with a dull green hair band. Fuck! Do people really dress like that. Amy usually wore clothes only just on the right side of decency, made from latex or satin or silk, to encourage lustful thoughts and proclaim her intentions. Amy couldn’t wait until this girl could strip off to be sure that her body matched the beauty of her well-scrubbed face, free of mascara, eye-liner or lipstick. You wouldn’t have imagined her as a sex performer.

However, Bob, the stage manager, assured the girls that this indeed was what Lucinda was. She’d previously been working as the Garotta A-Go-Go on the east side of town, but she’d fallen out with the management who kept on wanting her to do things she hadn’t wanted to do. But, as he reminded them, their loss was a gain for the Hardcore Heaven .

“And what won’t she do?” wondered Dirk Dongle, whose prick had a special place in Amy’s arse, as he never tired of reminding her.

“Well, men, basically,” Bob told them. “She won’t do men at all. So, that’s you out, Dirk. Otherwise, she’ll do everything. And I know. I’ve seen her. She’s fucking good. She’ll do anal and double penetration and fisting and even pissing. I’ve heard she’d even done on-stage shitting, but as you know we don’t do that until it’s really late. And she gets the crowd going. She’s a fucking draw. We expect to get a lot of the Garotta ’s crowd down here. And that can’t be bad!”

“She don’t look much,” sniffed Mandy, a tall India girl with a weird tattoo on her arse.

“She wears proper gear on stage,” Bob assured them. “She’s not like that naturist who wouldn’t even wear heels on stage.”

Amy liked the sound of this girl. And as top-ranking girl she knew that she’d be the one to get first taste of her. And then back to her place afterwards, she reckoned, maybe just the two of them, without inviting back one of the other girls, even Ebony, the Jamaican girl who she normally always had time for, even if extra sex with her didn’t officially count. And if she was that good, well, maybe she’d be an eight. Or even a nine! But that would be too much of a good thing.

And so it was to be. But not before Amy’s appetite had been whetted with a bit of double penetration from Dirk and Handy Andy, underneath the strobes, in front of the early evening audience. Amy blew kisses at some of the regulars and some new ones she’d never seen before, while Dirk’s prick thrust in and out of her arse, and she lowered and raised her crotch on Andy’s ever-reliable ten-inch prick. It was a good night. There was a good atmosphere. She grinned avariciously at the pile of notes that were scattered on the stage and were being added to as the punters tossed more towards her. She’d get her normal 50%, while the two men would have to split the other half between them. A good night’s haul, and the night was still oh! so very young.

Back in the dressing room, she watched as Lucinda exchanged her drab clothes for stocking, heels and a tight latex skirt which just about hid the splendid melons of her breast and obscured only the tiniest of thongs. She stood behind Lucinda, and placed her hands on the girl’s bare shoulders, and smiled at her reflection in the mirror with its newly applied bright red lipstick.

“It’s going to be so good, isn’t it?” she gushed enthusiastically.

Without comment, Lucinda raised her hands to her shoulders and firmly removed Amy’s hands, which rather startled her. She smiled sadly. “I’m sure it will be.” Then she turned her head round and looked into Amy’s face. “You will be gentle with me, won’t you? At least at first.”

Amy was too put back by Lucinda’s rejection of her very innocent advances to do anything but nod. “Yes, of course,” she replied, as an uncharacteristic warmth spread over her cheeks. How dare Lucinda! Was she going to be as much a cold fish on stage?

However, such fears were misplaced, when the lights went up on the two girls as they came on stage to the excited whoops of the audience. As soon as they were in action, Lucinda was as warm and intimate as a girl could be. An expert improviser, sensing Amy’s most sensual spots, and neither hurried nor too slow. Just right, in fact. The two stripped each other on stage. The stockings were pulled down, the dress was hauled up, hands groped over breast, back and even the precious shoulders. Their tongues waggled at a distance, and then with warmth and passion, their mouths interlocked while their hands felt around each other’s spine and bottom. And soon the fingers, tongues and teeth were on each other’s vagina and anus. Amy was suitably impressed. Although, unlike her, Lucinda clearly never shaved her pubic hairs or even trimmed them, they were perfectly shaped and not too long. And in amongst the hairs were the beautiful folds of a perfect vagina, which kept its glory inside rather than dropping it out like so many of the other girls. Especially Corrie’s. That girl couldn’t hold anything in, let alone her cunt. And that lovely puckered anus. And the flavour of it. Bittersweet to the taste and rich in odour. Just as she preferred.

But true to her word, Amy probed only with her fingers, and left it up to Lucinda to do the penetration, which she did efficiently and expertly with the clear purple dildo that was provided for the job. And Amy didn’t know where it came from, but even with the audience whooping at her, all she was really conscious of was Lucinda and her fingers and the way it made her vagina ache from pleasure. More so than Handy Andy or even Georgy Porgy had ever been able to do with the real thing.

As they left, the stage, Amy quickly kissed Lucinda full on the lips. “That was fucking great!” She said. “You’re a real fucking professional.”

Lucinda carefully wiped her lips with the back of her hand and made no comment.

Amy wasn’t that easily put off. “So, after we’ve finished, are you coming back with me? To my place. I’ve got a great flat, you know. And a really big comfortable bed. And then we can carry on where we’ve just left off.”

Lucinda frowned. “Are you asking me back to your flat to have sex with you?” she asked flatly.

Amy smiled broadly. “Of course. It’d be such good fun!”

Lucinda carefully sat down on her chair by the mirror, still with a frown on her face. She looked up at Amy. “I’m very flattered, er, Amy,” she said politely. “And, no offence. You are a very attractive girl. And I’m sure your feelings are genuine. But, er, Amy. I’m afraid, it’s out of the question.”

And then Lucinda turned her head to face her reflection, ignoring Amy while she tidied up the lipstick on her mouth.

Amy wasn’t that easily put off. “You can’t be meaning that! I mean, you were pretty much game on the stage. Why can’t we do the same thing more intimately and more privately? I know you’d enjoy it.”

“Amy.” Said Lucinda firmly and not facing Amy at all. “What I do on stage and do for a living is one thing. And what I do when I’m not on stage and not doing it for a living is another. Please accept that, and I’m sure we’ll get on fine.”

For the second time that evening, and for only the second time she could ever recall in her entire memory, Amy reddened from the humiliation of rejection. She attempted to say something, but her tongue, despite still tasting of Lucinda’s vulva, was somehow tied and she lost all ability for coherent response. Without a word, she wandered off to her own chair by the mirror and studied her own freckled face, damp strands of hair plastered to the forehead, with its oriental eyes and full red lips, and tried to reassure herself that in some way that she’d never before suspected she was not after all unattractive.

How could it be that anyone, male or female, would not succumb to her beauty? Especially a woman who only moments ago was clearly enjoying her body, and whose stated preference was indeed for women and not for men at all. What strange thing was this? And had she done anything to deserve this rebuff?

Amy wasn’t a girl who gave up easily, and she still had two more appearances with Lucinda that evening to look forward to; but in both cases, it was the same. On stage, Lucinda was passionate, sensual and sexy. In no way did she seem abashed or reluctant, expressing her joy unambiguously as Amy penetrated her with a dildo or licked her clitoris. Her passion didn’t seem to be at all feigned, and she still managed to synchronise her sexual activity to the slow, loud beating of the music in the night club, somehow unfazed by the pressure of all the male eyes on her.

And then, off stage, she showed no interest in Amy at all, who endeavoured to repeat her entreaties that Lucinda should come back with her, but meeting only with a polite refusal. Amy was disappointed. She’d been so looking forward to her new conquest, and it just wasn’t to be. And so, despite the lateness of the hour, when she finished work for the evening, she headed off to a night club she knew to pick someone up, anyone, it didn’t matter.

The two young and skinny girls she picked up weren’t that bad. In fact, she’d awarded them a six, despite the fact that there were so off their faces that they really made no objection to the indignities she put them through. Amy wasn’t even sure the girls had ever had sex with each other before, let alone any other woman. But they gamely took dildos into their cunts and arses, and showed a fair bit of enthusiasm, even though they did fall asleep rather too promptly after they had climaxed. As Amy noted ‘ 2F ’ in her diary, and incremented her total of women conquests accordingly, she still felt empty and unsatisfied. Neither of them were as good or as beautiful or as passionate as Lucinda, who she remembered so fondly. Neither of them could be rated as the nine that Amy was convinced that sex with Lucinda would have scored. But she set aside her diary, locked it in a drawer with a little key, and nestled on her bed between the two girls, and sighed. Tomorrow was another day, and Amy was used to getting her way.

However, Lucinda was more of a challenge than even Amy could crack. However much she pleaded and begged and cajoled, Lucinda was steadily adamant that sex on stage was one thing, but off-stage was another. “I mean, don’t you have any other girlfriends you can spend the night with?” Lucinda inquired ingenuously a few days later.

Amy sighed resignedly. She’d already resorted to having a night with the pesky Candy on an evening when her disappointment at not bedding Lucinda had most distressed her. Not that Candy was that bad. She had a lovely smooth crotch and was always very energetic, but sex with her in no way improved her total and was not really what she was looking for.

And at the same time, sex on stage was just as passionate and orgasmic as ever. Amy found herself particularly looking forward to these moments of ecstasy more than the sex she had in the evening in the comfort and luxury of her bed in her luxurious apartment with whoever it was that she’d picked up for the evening. But she found she was taking out her frustration in Lucinda’s rejection in harder and more aggressive sex. She pissed on Lucinda one evening, even though it wasn’t in the script. She forced her fist deep inside Lucinda’s vagina until the girl squirmed. She nibbled and bit her clitoris and nipples while Lucinda gasped as much from pain, if not more so, than for pleasure. She pushed larger and larger dildos into Lucinda’s orifices to the amazement and satisfaction of the audience who cheered loudly at the extent of the punishment that was being displayed.

Amy even tried to tempt Lucinda back with the promise of an evening out with no sex at all, but Lucinda wasn’t having any of it. “Much as I like you, Amy,” she said, wiping the mascara off her face,” I just don’t trust you. As soon as you can, you’ll find an excuse to go back to your apartment, and then you’ll slip off your clothes, lock the door and try seducing me. I’m afraid that’s a temptation, I’d rather not have to face.”

Amy blushed. That was precisely what she’d intended to do. She’d even rehearsed her lines.

“Please just accept that I don’t want to have sex with you anywhere but on the stage,” Lucinda continued severely. “My body and soul belongs elsewhere. Sex is not something for me that I intend to enjoy other than on the stage.”

But Amy was obsessed. And she’d never been obsessed before. Not since she was a schoolgirl and had a crush on her Chemistry teacher, who when they’d finally got together turned out to be such a horrible disappointment. But she was sure that Lucinda wouldn’t be a disappointment. And she found her thinking about the girl all the time, even when she was enjoying sex with other people. In fact, one day on stage, as Lucinda’s tongue probed her vagina and her fingers her breasts, she found herself saying out loud: “I love you! I love you!” And then hoping no one had heard. Sex on stage was one thing. Love was quite definitely another.

But she was in love. She even got to love Lucinda’s appalling taste in clothes. The very frumpishness and plainness of it was in itself a cause for celebration. She would look longingly at Lucinda, at her scrubbed face and tied-back hair, imagining the two of them on her mattress, while she confessed her love and divulged the truth of her diary-keeping. And then the two of them would entwine lengthwise on the bed, arms and legs interlocked, as she would confess all her secrets and her longings. And soon the sun would rise and shine on the two of them, lying in serene bliss, and Amy would never need to make love to anyone else. Well, not for a few days anyway.

And her diary would read ‘ 1F. 10/10.Heavenly! ’

And so it was, after an afternoon session, that Amy actually followed Lucinda out of the building, keeping her distance so that Lucinda wouldn’t see her trailing her, although a girl like her, in her thigh-length boots and skin-tight dress was not going to be the sort to merge unnoticed in any crowd. And Lucinda led her on such a long trail uptown. Several stops on the subway, past several dismal blocks of decrepit apartments, around the back of a depressing paint factory and then to a large Catholic church which Amy could see Lucinda enter.

Amy very rarely went into churches. In fact, never at all as a rule. And a Roman Catholic one. Well! What would her Calvinist father have thought? But Amy hurried in and found herself alone. It was forbidding and to Amy not at all welcoming. All around were paintings and sculptures and carved cricifixes and row upon row of pews, but no sign of Lucinda. She had vanished altogether. Amy cursed herself. Clearly, Lucinda had seen Amy behind her and had taken the opportunity to slip into a church just to get away from her.

Amy left the church, lit a cigarette and sat on a bench in the church grounds reflecting on the futility of her passion and making plans for the rest of the day. Perhaps she’d go to a bar. Pick up a couple of men. Have a good fuck somewhere. She noticed rather a few people around her, mostly men, dressed in very poor quality clothes. In fact, some of them were distinctly ragged. Couldn’t they afford anything better? But then she spotted a sign. ‘ Soup Kitchen ’ it read. What did that mean? Was it some kind of rock club or a strange kind of café.

But, no, it was actually a place for vagrants to gather to be fed soup and bread and whatever. Fuck! How sordid! Amy sat on the bench fascinated. Poverty was something she’d never really known, and she’d often been disgusted by the sight of beggars and the like on the subway. However, there was a bit of excitement amongst the vagrants who all gathered by a door at the side of the church. And then a rather elderly nun appeared carrying a large cauldron, which she placed on the ground. Like feeding animals at the zoo, thought Amy sourly, as a couple of other nuns emerged behind the first nun carrying cups and some clear plastic bags full of sandwiches.

The nuns weren’t so bad looking. Quite thin, and from what Amy could see, probably quite attractive underneath their gowns. And then one of them looked up in her direction, and with a start Amy now understood. That sweet face. That strange slightly beatific smile. Lucinda was a nun.

Amy glanced at a carved crucifix over the church sign, in the afternoon shadow of the church itself. Now she knew, and the sadness and waste of it hurt her. Now she knew to whom Lucinda’s body and soul belonged.