Chapter 26: The First Anal Commission
The morning light through Aidan’s cheap blinds felt accusatory. Catriona woke alone, the space beside her cool. A dull ache lingered deep in her muscles, a physical footnote to the previous night. She could smell herself on the sheets—sex and salt and a faint, sterile hint of the lube they’d used.
She found Aidan in the kitchen, shirtless, scrolling on his phone with a coffee going cold beside him. The hum of the fridge was the only sound.
“He replied,” Aidan said, without looking up.
Her throat tightened. She pulled her cardigan tighter around her pyjamas. “And?”
“He’s in. Sent a contract. Terms are standard. Exclusive content for his studio, six-month minimum. We own the footage, but he has distribution rights.” Aidan finally met her eyes. His were clear, focused. This was the engineer, not the lover from the dark. “The advance hit my account at four AM.”
The number, when he told her, was so large it felt fictional. More than six months of her librarian salary. For an hour of work. For the thing she would have done for free.
“Oh,” was all she could manage.
“He also sent the first proper script.” Aidan pushed his phone across the breakfast bar. “Wants it by the end of the week. Says the test clip had ‘precise degradation energy.’ Whatever the fuck that means.”
She picked up the phone. The document was meticulously formatted. Scene Description: Debutante Anal Introduction. Dialogue beats were marked in bold. Camera Angle 1: Close-up on subject’s face during initial penetration. Capture flinch, then gradual acceptance. It read like an autopsy report of her fantasy.
“It’s specific,” she whispered.
“It’s professional.” He took the phone back. “We need better kit. Leo’s guy is wiring the rest of the advance today. I’ve ordered lights, a proper camera, a mic. It’ll be here tomorrow.”
The speed of it stole her breath. “Tomorrow?”
“No point waiting.” He finished his coffee. “You work today?”
She nodded. Tuesdays were her late shift.
“Good. Do the normal thing. Be normal. Then come home. We’ll talk through the script.” He stood, rinsing his mug. “The money changes nothing, Cat. Not between us. It just means we’re not amateurs anymore.”
But it changed everything. The proof was in the bank transfer, in the clinical language of the script. This wasn’t a shared secret anymore. It was a business.
The library was a cathedral of quiet, a world of dust motes and soft sighs. She reshelved biographies, her fingers tracing familiar spines. A student asked for help finding sources on glacial erosion. She spoke in her calm, measured library voice. All the while, the script unfurled in her mind like a sinister scroll. Line 7: “Please, I’ve never taken anything this big there.”
Mrs. Henderson, the head librarian, peered over her glasses. “You’re a million miles away, dear. Everything alright?”
Catriona’s smile felt brittle. “Just a bit of a headache.”
“Get some air. Take your break.”
She stood outside on the stone steps, smoking a cigarette she’d bummed from the caretaker. The rain had started, a fine, cold drizzle. Her phone buzzed. Aidan.
Boxes arrived.
Her heart thudded once, hard. She typed back. I’ll be home by seven.
We start at eight.
The flat was different. A large cardboard box sat in the living room, tape slit open. Aidan was unpacking pieces of black metal and coiled cables. A large, soft-looking light stood in the corner like an alien sentinel.
“Camera’s in my room,” he said, not looking up from a tripod manual.
She walked down the hall. His room, usually messy, had been cleared. The bed was neatly made with black sheets she’d never seen. The new camera was mounted, a hulking thing with a lens like a insect eye. On the nightstand, the script sat beside a bottle of expensive-looking lubricant and a brand-new, terrifyingly thick black silicone dildo.
It was a set. Her life had become a set.
She changed out of her work clothes, opting for a simple grey dress. No tights. When she returned, Aidan had finished setting up. The room was bathed in a warm, shadowless light. It erased flaws, made everything look staged, which it was.
“We’ll do a run-through without recording,” he said, handing her the script. “Then we go for a take. He wants it raw, but we need to hit the marks.”
She read her lines aloud, her voice flat. “You want to put it there? I don’t know…”
“More hesitation. Less question, more fear.” Aidan was directing, his arms crossed. “Try it like you’re genuinely worried it’ll tear you in half.”
She did. The fear wasn’t hard to conjure.
They blocked the movements. Where to kneel. When to look at the camera, when to look at him. The angle of her hips for the initial penetration shot. It was choreography. Degradation, plotted on a grid.
“Okay,” he said, finally. He walked to the camera, pressed a button. A soft red light glowed beside the lens. “Sound is rolling. We’re going. From the top.”
The heat of the lights was immediate. She stood on her mark, the centre of the black satin duvet. The camera saw everything—the pulse in her throat, the minute tremor in her hands.
“My name is Catriona,” she began, the line from the test clip feeling like a lifetime ago. “This is my first time… like this. For you.”
She unzipped her dress. Let it fall. The air was cool on her skin despite the lights. She followed the script, her movements slower now, infused with a dread that read perfectly as vulnerable arousal. She touched herself as instructed, fingers sliding over her clit, then lower, circling her asshole. The lube was cold. She gasped, and the camera caught it.
Aidan entered the frame on cue. He wore only jeans, unbuttoned. He looked at the camera, not at her, a coldness in his gaze that made her shiver. It was an act. She knew it was an act. It still worked.
“You ready for this?” he asked, his voice low, for the mic.
She shook her head, the scripted denial. “It’s too big. I can’t.”
“You can. You will.” He picked up the black dildo, coated it. “Show them you want it.”
She turned, presented herself. The first press was a blunt, impossible pressure. She cried out, her knuckles white on the sheets. She pushed back against it, a reflex that was not in the script, a genuine fight against the intrusion. It gave, slowly, a burning, stretching fullness that stole her breath. Aidan’s hand was on her back, holding her down.
“Look at the lens,” he commanded, his voice tight. “Tell them.”
She forced her head up. Tears blurred the red light. “It’s inside me,” she choked out. “Oh god, it’s so deep.”
He worked it in and out, a brutal tutorial. The pain crested, then fractured, morphing into a sharp, shocking kind of pleasure. Her cries turned to moans. This was the beat the script demanded: acceptance.
When he finally replaced the toy with himself, it was not a relief. It was a consummation. He was thicker, hotter, more real. The camera, on its tripod, watched unblinking as he sank into her, inch by devastating inch. Her whole body convulsed. He gripped her hips and began to move, a hard, driving rhythm that had nothing to do with love and everything to do with demonstration.
“You see that?” he grunted, half to her, half to the microphone. “She takes it. She fucking loves it.”
And she did. The shame was a far-off island. Here, in the centre of the burning, breathless storm, was a terrifying purity. She was a thing being used precisely for its purpose. She came screaming, a raw, ragged sound, her body clamping around him in waves that felt like they’d tear her apart. He followed, his release a hot flood inside her, and she felt a grotesque pride that she could contain it.
The red light went off.
The silence was absolute. He slipped out of her, and she collapsed forward onto the slick sheets. She heard him moving, clicking switches. The hum of the lights died, leaving the room in the soft gloom of the bedside lamp.
He came back to the bed, a towel in his hands. He cleaned her, gently. Then he lay down beside her, pulling her into his chest. They stayed like that for a long time, listening to each other’s hearts slow.
“The file’s uploading,” he said into her hair. His voice was his own again, tired. “You were perfect. Better than perfect. You were… real.”
She didn’t ask about the money. She could feel it in the room, like a third presence.
“What do we do now?” she asked.
“We wait for the next script.” He kissed her temple. “And you go to work tomorrow.”
She closed her eyes. The ache was profound, a deep, satisfying throb. The librarian was in there somewhere, horrified. But the woman lying in the afterglow of the professional lights, her body sold and recorded, felt something else entirely.
She felt, for the first time, like she was telling the truth.
She felt, for the first time, like she was telling the truth.
“It’s incredible isn’t it,” Aidan said to her, his voice a rumble against her ear. His fingers traced idle patterns on her shoulder. “Doing something we both love, something we’d have paid to be a part of and getting so much money. And this is the first commission. We’ll be earning more if it’s popular, and it will be. You’re so beautiful, your submission is so real, and you take every inch of my gigantic cock in such a stunningly tight little asshole. Did you enjoy your first porn performance as much as I enjoyed mine my love?”
The question hung in the lamplight. It demanded an inventory. Her body throbbed in agreement, a persistent, warm ache that felt like a medal. Her mind, quieter now, scrolled through the highlights: the terror of the lens, the shocking pain yielding to a pleasure so sharp it carved her clean.
“Yes,” she said, the word leaving her like a settled fact. Then she amended it, because he’d asked about enjoyment, and that was different. “It was… more than that. It was like finally scratching an itch in my bones.”
He exhaled, a sound of pure satisfaction, and pulled her closer. “Good.”
They lay there until the sweat cooled. The camera on its tripod was a silent witness, its lens dark now. The professional lights were off, but their afterimage seemed seared onto her retinas. The room smelled of sex and silicon and the tang of the expensive lube Leo’s guy had recommended.
“I need a shower,” she murmured, pushing herself up. The movement sent a fresh, deep twinge through her.
“We’ll eat after. I’ll order something stupidly expensive.” He slapped her lightly on the thigh and got up, heading to his desk where his laptop glowed. “Just gonna confirm the upload and send the verification.”
Under the hot water, she watched the evidence of him swirl down the drain. Her skin was flushed. There were faint red marks on her hips where his hands had been. She prodded one, feeling the tender promise of a bruise. It felt like a receipt.
Wrapped in a towel, she stood before the steamy mirror. Her face looked the same. Softer maybe, the usual anxious pinch around her eyes gone, replaced by a hollowed-out calm. She leaned in, looking for the woman who had begged for a camera. She was in there, in the slight dilation of her pupils.
When she came out, Aidan was on the sofa, two cartons of Thai food open on the coffee table. He’d put on a t-shirt. The domestic normalcy of it was almost funny.
“He already acknowledged receipt,” Aidan said around a mouthful of pad thai. “No notes. Just ‘await further projects.’ The money’s already cleared, Cat. It’s just sitting there.”
She sat, tucking her legs under her. “What do we do with it?”
“Whatever we want. Save it. Spend it. Your cut’s half. I’ve transferred it.” He nudged his phone toward her. “Check your account.”
She didn’t want to. The abstraction was safer. But she picked up her own phone, opened the banking app, and the number stared back. It was violently real. It was more money than she’d ever possessed at once, earned in an hour of raw, filmed compliance.
Her throat closed. “Christ.”
“I know.” He grinned, a boyish, thrilled grin that was entirely at odds with the commanding director from an hour before. “Think about it. No more worrying about the rent. You could quit the library.”
The library. The thought was a splash of cold water.Mrs. Henderson’s kind concern, the quiet aisles, the students with their glacial erosion essays. It was a costume she still had to put on tomorrow.
“I can’t just quit,” she said, but the protest was weak. The money said she could.
“Why not?” He shrugged. “This is a job now. A better-paying one. You were born for it.”
You were born for it. The words landed with a profound, unsettling weight. Was this her birthright? Not stories or silence, but this specific, carnal skill? She picked at her food, the flavors too bright, too much.
“What about Dave?” she asked suddenly, the name of his old friend, her almost-boyfriend, jumping out of the past.
Aidan’s smile faded. He put his fork down. “What about him?”
“You said you felt guilty. Before.” She pushed, needing to find a flaw, a seam of normal regret in this seamless new reality. “Does that not matter now?”
He was quiet for a long moment, studying her. “It matters,” he said finally. “But it’s a separate thing. This is about you and me. That was about him and me. I’ll carry that. But I’m not letting it stop this.” He reached over, took her hand. His was warm. “This is us. This is the real thing we almost missed.”
The real thing. She looked at their joined hands, then at the dark doorway leading to the room with the camera and the black sheets. The script was done. The file was sent. The money was in her account, already spending itself in her head on freedom from overdue notices and sensible shoes.
“What’s the next project?” she asked, her voice low.
He squeezed her hand. “We wait. He’ll send something harder, probably. More specific. You up for that?”
She saw it then—not an end, but a threshold. The first commission was an audition. This was the permanent contract. The ache in her body was a preamble. She pulled her hand back and picked up her fork, meeting his gaze.
“Yes,” she said, and took a bite. The food tasted like the future, strange and unequivocal.