Wicked Ambition. Victoria Fox

then Grace again until he spurted all over her, and afterwards Cookie hugged her and told her to forget, not to worry, because it was just a job and you had to leave it at the door.

      They were a popular duo. Denny was raking it in. He’d started giving Grace a percentage of her earnings, enough to buy food. Grace preferred doing things with Cookie because she was gentle, and sometimes when Cookie kissed her down there she got a tingle that made her lift her back and forget for a second that there was anyone else in the room.

       ‘Call this number,’ Cookie instructed her the day she turned seventeen. ‘They specialise in girls your age. Get shot of Denny, he’s a bad lot.’

      Grace did as she was told. She spoke to Madam Babydoll on Cookie’s phone, sent her photograph and a week later was packing her scant belongings and catching an overnight bus to Los Angeles. She felt nothing about leaving Denny. She hated him.

       Madam Babydoll ran a different ship. She employed sixteen carefully selected girls and housed each in her mansion in the hills. Grace couldn’t take in the world she had entered. It was dazzling with sunshine and promise. This was where people went to make their dreams come true. Was she leaving her nightmare at last?

      Not quite. Madam Babydoll provided under-eighteen girls to a moderate rank of Hollywood star. Lily Rose, a sugary-pretty Californian with a deep golden tan, explained to Grace how important it was to make a good impression, because you never knew who was going to strike it big one day. Grace couldn’t work out why Lily Rose was here because she had a family in LA and she dressed smart and spoke nice.

      ‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked her once. Lily Rose shrugged. She’d just returned from an encounter with an up-and-coming producer. ‘I could go home if I wanted,’ she mused, ‘but this is way more fun. Some day I’m gonna be an actress, just you watch. The way I see it, it’s an opportunity to get noticed. My clients never forget who I am.’

      The clients were cleaner and richer than Denny’s, but they didn’t treat her with any more respect. She came to learn that actors were the worst. They were preoccupied with seeing themselves, whether it was having her against a mirror or recording an encounter to watch afterwards—Madam Babydoll permitted this only if her girl could verify its deletion—while Grace sucked and licked till they came. They wanted her to worship their bodies, and, while it was preferable to having her own attacked, the younger and more virile could take hours and she often left sore and stiff, forced to wait days before she could work again.

      Others had perversions. The older ones, mostly, who were married or had kids and wanted her to dress as a schoolgirl; or who wanted to dress up themselves and be held. Some brought wives and she’d play with them both. But Madam Babydoll paid out sixty per cent of every cheque, and soon Grace Turquoise had several thousand in the bank—enough to quit, if she’d wanted, but she didn’t know what else she’d do. Over four years she had seen it all. She’d had sex with countless men and women and had learned to view the ordeal as simply her trade, her talent, the thing she had been trained to do. She hadn’t sung a note in years.

       It was a Friday in June when Madam Babydoll told her she had a ‘very special’ client to visit. The girls were envious. Was it someone important, someone famous?

      She was instructed to wear a black coat with nothing underneath except a lace thong. As Grace Turquoise headed to the rendezvous, hair immaculate and lips perfectly glossed, the professional that Denny Malone had groomed and Ivan Garrick before him, she could never have imagined who would be waiting for her, or what he would ask her to do.

       10

      Robin’s Beginnings tour was to be her first foray into America. She hadn’t realised the extent of what her team had planned until she sat in on a meeting at Barney’s Kensington office.

      ‘This is the stage set.’ A Perspex model was deposited on the table in front of her, over which the show’s art director peered for her reaction over steel-rimmed glasses.

      ‘Wow.’ It was the only word that sprang to mind. The stage backdrop was ink-black save for a white imprint of Robin’s face, just the silhouetted contours, the line of her brow, nose and lips—and of course the hallmark fringe. A glass birdcage hovered over winding silver steps. Metallic moving platforms extended to the audience. It was stylish to the max.

      ‘You like?’

      ‘I love.’

      ‘We open with “Told You So”,’ explained the director. ‘Spotlight, then bam! You’re up in the cage. Fade to black and in a blink you’re down on the boards, free as a bird. Magic.’

      ‘How do I get there?’

      ‘Let us worry about that.’ He gestured to the flanks of the model. ‘This is your series of pulleys and platforms; it’s the oldest trick there is. All you need to be is in the right place at the right time—oh, and be happy to get thrown about like a pinball.’

      ‘Sounds like fun.’

      Drummer Matt leaned back and put his hands behind his head. ‘Seriously, you’re gonna recreate this at every single venue?’

      ‘Sure we are,’ said Barney. ‘All this, it’s the point of Robin’s show. The whole outlook: style, sex, a let’s-see-what-you’ve-got-then stance…’

      The tour was to kick off at the start of next year. They were covering multiple sites across North America, major arenas she had never imagined filling but incredibly tickets were shifting and one had sold out in hours. Her success over the Atlantic had been thanks to a recent US version of The Launch, which had sparked interest in its British counterpart. Word of mouth had taken her the rest of the way; an underground rumble that began via YouTube and in an overnight surge had fans addicted to her tunes. Her album Beginnings had been released at a time when the Billboard 100 had been saturated with manufactured groups (boy band Fraternity had held the number one spot for eleven weeks) and had offered a welcome contrast. There was no one quite like Robin Ryder. She was quintessentially British but at the same time identifiable to and representative of females worldwide.

      ‘Did you hear about Puff City and the US track team?’ Polly asked when they were done. The women grabbed a coffee in the canteen.

      ‘No.’ In spite of herself Robin’s tummy flipped at the connection to Leon Sway. Why? He was nothing to her. ‘What about them?’

      ‘Jax Jackson wants to release a single.’

      ‘Fuck off!’

      ‘I know. My bet is he was laughed out of town before someone with half a brain realised they could make a charity gig out of it. Anyhow it’s going ahead.’

      ‘With Puff City?’ She was agape.

      ‘Yeah. You should ask them about it at your meet. Anti gun crime or something? Jax wanted to go it alone but he’s been forced to rope in the rest of the team.’ Polly rummaged in her purse for red lipstick. ‘I wish you could smoke in here.’

      ‘I’m surprised they said yes. Isn’t Jax a bit of a dick?’

      ‘He’s a lot of a dick,’ said Polly. ‘But, honey, Jax and the guys are in demand. And if they’ve got a cause attached to it then, well, who’s going to be able to say no?’

      It would certainly give Leon the screw he was so obviously after, Robin thought. Not that he would be short of offers, sending bunches of hackneyed flowers all over town and relying on his looks to make up the rest. She had seen in the Metro that he’d returned to LA. He probably had seventeen girlfriends queuing up at home that he couldn’t wait to get back to, not to mention The Waltons family set-up.

      ‘D’you know what? I’d rather talk about the tour.’

      Polly nodded. ‘Nervous?’

      ‘Nah.’ Robin grinned. ‘Not my style. Far