In any event, Konstantinos became an even more avid and ardent photographer after the industrial workplace accident, the explosion that occurred while he was in the middle of welding the oil pipeline. The large out-of-court settlement he received allowed him to buy expensive photographic equipment and even build a studio in his garage. But he was far more interested in photojournalism and street photography. Whenever he partook in street photography, though, he found himself constantly stopped and questioned. Feeling harassed by the police and security guards, he realized the stops and questions were probably due to the facial disfigurement, since he had done precisely the same sort of photography in the same places without any interruption previously—before his injury.
The part that surprised Enola and Kiara was the money. Both entered this arrangement with Konstantinos based on the premise they were in for the fun, volunteers, up-and-comers, struggling to break into some niche of the adult video and erotic movie making and Internet. They wanted to be artists and performers, so when he offered them each cash at the end of the night, they felt awkward but finally no compunction about accepting his money. They walked from his house and waited at the intersection near Centennial College’s East York campus, for the Pape bus. When they got tired of waiting for the bus, they walked down the street to Pape subway station in Greektown. She asked him why she wasn’t working in the family business, learning the trade, studying to become a pharmacist. He told her the truth, when he should have prevaricated and admitted nothing: he didn’t get along with his father, who wanted her to have an arranged marriage to a university educated husband of high caste from her home village in Mumbai in India. Her father thought she should be in graduate school studying for her PhD while working as a research scientist, earning several hundred thousand dollars a year, in a research and development lab at one of the big pharmaceutical companies in the United States. She also revealed that she only recently overcame her addiction to Adderall and Oxycontin.
Meanwhile, Enola started to complain she could not see the videos of them with their “Ironman” cameraman on the Internet. She checked the adult video sharing websites but could find no videos of their ménage à trois. When she went to the third shooting the following Saturday, she asked Konstantinos why no videos of them had been posted. He admitted he hadn’t posted any videos of them because he wasn’t confident that they were ready.
“Why would we do this on camera if we weren’t ready?” Enola demanded.
“What about your futures?”
“What about our futures?” asked Enola, in an argumentative tone.
“Aren’t you worried these kinds of videos might affect your future prospects if they were posted publicly?”
Enola started to shout and argue. “No. Absolutely not. We’re wearing eye masks, for Christ’s sake, and I’m really not worried about my future night now. I’ve no intention of running for political office. I want to be a porn star, not an Etobicoke city councilor, like this bitch,” she said, gesturing towards Kiara.
Konstantinos shrugged. He nurtured serious reservations about posting their videos online or uploading them to a popular porn website, despite the fact Enola and Kiara both wore lace Venetian eye masks and reassured him they wanted to break into the porn industry.
As they walked to Pape subway station Saturday night, Enola asked her what she intended to do with the money she earned. She said the other hundred and fifty dollars she earned that night would be enough for a cheap computer tablet or an e-book reader.
“A hundred and fifty dollars? You earned a hundred and fifty bucks every time?”
Her brow contorted; Enola seemed genuinely puzzled. “Well, yeah.”
“That’s what he gives you?”
“Isn’t that what he pays you?”
“Yeah, of course.” Enraged, Enola visibly trembled and shook with anger, but Kiara didn’t then think she was upset about money about video shoots.
The following Saturday night it rained. While she insisted on leaving early, heading to the warmth and dryness of home in Etobicoke, Enola decided to walk back to Konstantinos’s house and ask if she could stay overnight at his place. He said she could stay in the guest bedroom. She told him she intended to ask what he did with the data cards on which he stored the videos of our performances. He put them in a filing cabinet, he said, which she noticed he locked with a key on a silver keychain slung to his trousers and wallet. After he went to sleep, Enola crept into his bedroom. Still angry over the fact he paid Kiara fifty dollars more, she took the keys from his cargo pants, where he had the ring tethered to a belt loop. She crept from his bedroom and shuffled her feet to his home office and opened the filing cabinet. He had a filing cabinet full of camera equipment, including eternal hard drives.
Then she took the keys, which she found in the filing cabinet, and went to the closet and opened the fireproof boxes. The fireproof boxes were full of cash. She helped herself to a bundle, which she slipped into a compartment of her handbag and went to sleep. When Enola and Kiara returned the following Saturday, Konstantinos, not his usual self, seemed upset about something. He invited them inside his house after they waited for several minutes. He said, after some consideration, he thought they shot their last video.
“What’s wrong with Konstantinos?” Kiara asked. “I think he just fired us.”
“I don’t know,” Enola said.
She figured he noticed the theft, which totally changed his appraisal of using them as models for his video making.
“Anyway, he can’t fire us; it was a partnership, a relationship, a ménage à trois.” Enola decided to take her for coffee at a Starbucks café on the Danforth.
“Did you enjoy making videos with Konstantinos?” Enola asked.
“Yes,” I said. “Didn’t you?”
Enola said she had to admit, she did. “He could really turn me on. I only wished we could have mated. Didn’t you feel that way? He could have fucked us both; he didn’t have problem getting hard, even though it took a while, but once he got hard, he stayed that way and didn’t come for a long time. I think the videos would have been better if we fucked.”
“Yeah,” Kiara said absently.
“I think I even loved him. He was like a father.”
“Except we had oral sex with him,” Kiara said, “and he videotaped it.”
“I think his sex club story was bullshit. I mean, I believe him, she was hot and had sex with him, but probably only because she felt sorry for him. It was a charity fuck.”
“Actually, he didn’t say they fucked. He said she was hot, good looking, and they had sex.”
“Same thing. Are you trying to argue with me? If you are, Kiara, I could just stab you with this.” Enola clenched the butter knife she used to spread salmon cream cheese on her bagel. As they locked eyes, Kiara grew wide-eyed and fearful of her. Enola finished her Starbucks latte, but they passed Pape subway station and they walked back down Danforth Avenue.
“Let’s go back to his place. I’m worried about him.”
Kiara ended up following Enola back down Pape and Coxwell Avenue to his house, even though she thought she should return to her safe house in Etobicoke. Enola rapped and knocked on the door gently. Then, observing the door was unlocked, Enola slipped inside the brick house.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Kiara asked.
“Just keep quiet,” she said. Enola crept down the hallway and tried to orient herself in the darkness of the kitchen. She grabbed a sharp boning knife from a drawer of utensils.
“Enola, what are you doing?” Kiara asked.
“Keep quiet,” Enola whispered.
Konstantinos walked in on Enola while she went into his office, as she searched for a key to the filing cabinet and the locked fireproof box. Apprehensive, Kiara lingered in the dark hallway near the back door. Clenching the grip of a baseball bat at his side, Konstantinos walked in on Enola. Enola figured because of the darkness he didn’t recognize her because he threatened to call the police. Then Enola lunged through the darkness of the home office and stabbed him, in the neck. Kiara went hysterical when Kiara saw the blood. From the other room, Enola said, “There’s your beloved sugar daddy.” When Kiara saw Konstantinos appearing lifeless, Kiara broke down altogether.
“Kiara, hold it together. Get your shit together and stop crying. He was ready to attack me.”
Enola somehow managed to momentarily convince her she acted in self-defense. She frightened Kiara and her act of violence managed to persuade her to stay in the guest bedroom overnight. In the late morning, she stripped off his clothes and dragged his naked body into the kitchen while Kiara sobbed and wept.
“Get your shit together, Kiara. Stay calm. We’re in the mess together.”
