The Drop

glory. ‘That’s better,’ he told her and, all of a sudden, she seemed to be enjoying the exposure. She blew air out of the corner of her upturned bottom lip, disturbing a wisp of blonde hair over her forehead, put her hands on her hips and stood straight so there wasn’t an inch of her I couldn’t see, then she did a self-conscious little wiggle from side to side. ‘Good girl,’ he told her then turned to me, ‘I think Kayleigh here has got everything it takes to go all the way.’
    ‘Undoubtedly,’ I told them. She beamed at us both, the silly cow.
    ‘And he ought to know,’ said Miller and somehow we both managed to look serious. ‘Nearly done mate, why don’t you just take a seat for a minute.’
    I waited till he shot another roll of film while young Kayleigh stood there and posed. She tried to look serious, then pouted like a naughty schoolgirl, then adopted what she presumably thought was a coquettish pose and all on Miller’s instructions. He asked her to raise an arm, cup a breast, roll her nipples between her fingers to make them hard then stick out her tongue at the camera and laugh like he was the funniest guy she had ever seen. He even got her to bend forwards over the arm of the sofa so her bum was up in the air and her face was practically buried in the cushions. That way she couldn’t see he was no longer looking at the camera, just pointing it at her bare arse. He shot pictures one-handed while winking at me, silently laughing and giving me the thumbs up.
    ‘Thanks love,’ he said when he was done, ‘you were brilliant. I tell you what, that Keeley Hazell will be shitting herself,’ she laughed as she pulled up her knickers and put on her jeans. When she’d gone, he said, ‘that last roll was just for you, you did realise.’
    ‘I guessed as much. Interesting hobby you’ve got there Mark.’
    ‘Hobby?’ he asked, ‘bit more than a hobby. It brings in the money, which is always much needed round here I can tell you. I can’t retire early on what Bobby pays me you know.’
    ‘Yeah? How much do you have to shell out to get a lass like that stark naked then? And what will you get for the photos?’
    He laughed, ‘No mate, you’ve got it all wrong. I don’t pay them. They pay me.’
    ‘You’re joking?’
    ‘No, think about it. There are hundreds of young lasses all over Newcastle who’ve got big tits and they all think they’re going to be the next big glamour model but they don’t know how to go about it. Then they see my advert in their local paper; ‘professional modelling portfolios artistically created to your specification’, a snip at just £350.’
    ‘Three-fifty?’ I whistled.
    ‘I know,’ and he chuckled.
    ‘And has young Kayleigh got what it takes?’
    ‘In my considered professional opinion?’ I nodded. ‘Has she fuck. Got legs like a giraffe, she’s too top-heavy in the breast department, they’ll be sagging before she’s twenty and she has a smile like a frightened rabbit caught having a dump in the woods.’
    ‘Yet you told her she was gonna be a star. Shameless.’
    ‘Who am I to destroy a young girl’s dreams? That’ll come soon enough. At least this way she’ll have something to show her grandkids.’
    ‘A bunch of pictures with her arse in the air?’
    ‘Yeah,’ and he put on a dumb voice, ‘I used to be a mod-dull.’
    ‘Looking on the bright side, she gave you a cheap thrill at least.’
    ‘Oh yeah, definitely but she don’t mind,’ he laughed, ‘she did at first but I said I was gay.’
    ‘Unbelievable.’
    ‘I told her I’m immune to fanny. “Think of me like your family doctor,” I told her and she took her clothes off, easy as you like.’ He clicked his fingers to illustrate how quick she’d been to shed her knickers in pursuit of fame. ‘Ironic isn’t it. Some poor young bloke’ll blow a month’s wages tonight, buying her drinks so she’ll let him put his hand up her top. Look at me, I’m just an old git yet I saw the lot - and she’s paying me!’ and he laughed like it was the best joke ever, and maybe it was.
    As soon as I told Miller why I was there, he stopped laughing, ‘I heard about it,’ he admitted as he handed me a mug of tea. We were sitting at a table in the studio. ‘Been worried. I know it sounds a bit lame but me and Geordie Cartwright go back a lot of years. He’s a good lad. We used to take our boys to play football on Sunday mornings. He’d be there in all weathers,’ he shook