The Pornographer Diaries

9. The morning after

‘Urghhh… what time is it?’ Paddy groaned rubbing his face.

‘Morning,’ I coughed, shredding my throat to ribbons. This caused me to cough even more until all I could do was grimace with pain and right myself into the airline passenger emergency position until my throat simmered down enough for me to take a sip of whatever was in the glass on the coffee table in front of me.

‘Fuck me, you’re starting early,’ Paddy said as he dragged himself up off the sofa opposite and scratched his nose and arse, in no particularly order.

‘Gin and tonic, oohhhh,’ I said, but took some more.

Don’s living room was dark with the curtains drawn but the bustle and traffic outside told us that the world was up and on its way to work.

Matt told us to pipe down as he was trying to sleep, so Paddy told him it was gone ten and we were all late. ‘I don’t give a fuck!’ he shouted angrily and neither of us could argue with that.

Don had turned in a few hours earlier and gone to bed to leave the three of us to fight over two sofas. Me and Paddy had won, albeit through a battle of attrition with Matt, who’d collapsed behind the sofa about an hour earlier.

My neck was really stiff and I felt fucked. I tried to stand but had to sit back down again after a bit of light-headedness and nausea. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes (all three hours of it) and took a few deep breaths but that just kicked off my coughing fit again.

So soooo tired.

‘Bollocks to it, I can’t be arse,’ Paddy announced and curled back up on the sofa. ‘Fuck it.’

Neither he nor Matt showed any further sign of life other than a persistent sniff sniff sniffing and an occasional moan/sob.

It was different for me though. I couldn’t blow out work. I had to go through all the proofs with Roger and return them to our repro-house. Actually, I was meant to have done that yesterday but after Don jacked, we all got a bit sidetracked in the pub. The stuff was late. It had to be done today otherwise I’d be in for a right bollocking come Monday. I had to go in, no matter how I felt, it was as simple as that.

What a nightmare.

Fucking Roger. He could’ve done the stuff without me no problem, but he wouldn’t if I wasn’t there because he was in a strop because I’d stayed in the pub all afternoon. Roger never went to the pub. He didn’t like going to the pub, but he was one of these petty killjoy bastards who hated to see other people enjoying themselves. He was a wanker, a fucking wanker, and at that moment in time I hated him, because it was him who was making me have to get up and go to work.

I felt really tired, really rough and really fucked off, all in one.

I was also quite unbelievably thirsty.

I went to the kitchen, filled up a cup and drank and refilled it three times before turning off the tap.

Man, I was starving too. It was then that it occurred to me that I hadn’t eaten anything since Wednesday. It was always the same on cocaine. All thoughts of survival and safety would go straight out the window after a few lines as I threw myself and all my efforts into drinking myself stupid and getting my cock sucked.

Oh no… hang on, I suddenly thought to myself as a memory flashed across my mind. Shit, what did I do? I concentrated my mind and tried to remember. ‘Cock sucked?’ When I finally remembered I suddenly wished I could forget again.

Fuck, I’d followed Mary around the pub all last night in a drunken stupor, practically begging her to give me a blow-job. Oh no, I was wrong, there was some actual begging as well. Oh shit.

Did anyone see me doing it?

Yes, nearly everyone.

Would they remember?

Oh fuck!

My face burned with embarrassment as more and more details came flooding back to me.

I’d kept touching her leg, trying to feel her up, grabbing her tits and guiding her hand onto my hard-on – in the pub.

Oh no, why had I done all that? Why? Because I was coked off my tits and hornier than an Alsatian with a beach ball, that’s why. I tried thinking some more. Did she take it all as a joke or did she seem to mind?

She seemed to mind.

I think she told me to fuck off at one point and Wendy had tried to steer me away before I...

Oh no, I’d tried it on with Wendy too!

Shit. Fuck. Shit.

The memory of me banging on at Wendy as to the pros and cons of her sucking me off (there hadn’t been many cons) actually hurt. I tried shutting it out but had no more joy than Wendy had had the previous night. She had been really angry at me and had kept telling me to go home, and so I’d told her I would only go home if she came with me.

‘Go on, you might as well,’ I think was the phrase I’d used over and over again. ‘Go on. It won’t mean anything,’ I’d tried reassuring her, then… oh no, gone into graphic detail about what I wanted to do to her – as if this would somehow seal the deal. I can even remember the logic behind my thinking and what I was trying to get at, but it was pissed-up, mad logic based purely on a kind of animal instinct that was telling me if I wanted something hard enough, I’d get it. Wendy had told me to fuck off and go home for the umpteenth time before Paddy had come over and taken me aside, and the memory faded once again into the fog.

I was mortified.

How could I have done such a thing? What would people think of me now? I couldn’t ever face Wendy again, that was for sure. I’d have to do a Don. I couldn’t ever go back there.

Oh shit, what if she or Mary put in a complaint to the police about what I’d done? You could get locked up for that sort of shit these days. What was it, sexual harassment or something? Sexual assault even. Just imagine that, being interviewed by the police for something like this? Jesus, what would I tell them? Would I just hold up my hands and take everything that was coming to me or should I try and wriggle out of it, take the ‘it was nothing, just mucking about, everyone does it’ stance as I sat in front of two stony-face policewomen from the rape squad.

‘Would you call repeatedly pulling someone’s hand onto your erection after you’d been warned not to do it ‘just mucking about’?’ she’d ask me. ‘Would you call grabbing a girl’s breasts or trying to put your hand up her skirt when she wasn’t looking ‘just mucking about’?’

‘Well, would you?’

‘How would you like it if we did it to you?’

‘How would you like it if we kept grabbing your cock?’

‘How would you like it if we flashed you our panties and made you get down on your knees in front of us and undid your trousers and…’

Jesus, I really needed a wank too, something else I hadn’t taken care of since Wednesday. I’d have to have one later, I had other things on my plate at the moment.

I turned my thoughts back to Mary and Wendy, and this immediately poured cold water onto my little impromptu police fantasy. What was I going to do? Should I apologise to them? It would seem like the proper thing to do but in order to do that I’d have to confront and admit what I’d done and I really just wanted it all to be quietly forgotten. Fat fucking chance of that.

Maybe they’d been so drunk that they wouldn’t remember it. Maybe everyone else had played up too and my actions would be lost in a night of drunken debauchery and outrageous behaviour. And maybe if I grabbed a big enough handful of straw I could stop myself from falling out of a hay loft.

Would they go to the old bill? Probably not, but they might go to Stuart or even Peter or someone and put in a complaint. But what could they do? It wasn’t in work time or the work place so what business is it of theirs if I want to sexually assault my co-workers?

Fuck me, was I for the sack, or what?

Maybe Moonlight wouldn’t have a watertight legal case but what was I going to do, take them to a tribunal and stand up in front of a panel of arbitrators and argue that rubbing my boner up against Mary’s arse while she was trying to play pool in no way affected my ability to perform my job to a satisfactory standard?

Christ on a bike, it weren’t that long ago they’d brought in laws just to stop people like me from moving too near schools.

No, when they sacked me I’d go quietly and know that I’d fully deserved it. Probably best if I saved them the bother and never went back. At least I’d never have to face them again. It might be the coward’s way out but it would spare everyone any further unnecessary embarrassment.

Do that and it might even allay legal action. Maybe Mary and Wendy might think getting the sack was punishment enough and just let me be. Maybe they might even end up feeling sorry for me and realise that they’d over-reacted to what was really just a drunken misunderstanding. But it was more than that, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just a bit of horseplay, no matter how much I’d tried to convince myself, I was burning up with the horn, unable to think rationally and being a pest.

‘Oh you twat, you twat, you twat,’ I muttered to myself over and over again.

Why did I do this thing? What was the matter with me?

Drink, that was it. Drink and coke. Everyone else seems to be able to have a couple of pints and the odd line and have a good time. Not me though. Oh no. Me? Me? I turn into a fucking nightmare. A rambling, drunken, desperate, old wanker who, when he wasn’t trying to get in the sack with anything in tits, was boring them off everyone else with his theories on why everyone was either my best mate or an utter cunt.

I crept back into the living room and saw that both Matt and Paddy were still out for the count. I was half-tempted to wake them up and asked them if what I’d done was really that bad but I was too embarrassed and too afraid of what they might tell me.

See, there were great swathes of the evening that I couldn’t remember at all. I know people who don’t want to admit what they drunkenly did the night before always claimed amnesia but I was serious. There were some worryingly large gaps.

We’d gone somewhere else after The Abbot. I remembered that. Some little drinking club in Soho and we’d stayed there for about four hours, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember more than five minutes of it.

I racked my brains and tried to remember who was there. Paddy, Don and Matt, obviously. Hasseem had come along too, as well as fat Paul and even Monty, whatever the fuck he was doing there, but I couldn’t remember seeing Wendy or Mary there. I racked my brains even harder and desperately tried to picture them either sitting around the tables, dancing away on the little dance floor or beating me off with their handbags, but the pieces weren’t fitting. They obviously must’ve bailed earlier to get away from me and who could blame them? Thank fuck for that, I thought to myself, at least there’d been a limit to my idiocy (which was a bit of a first), but then somebody else started coming into sharp focus. There had been a girl there. I’d been talking to her at great length. Shit, who was it? What had I said?

Hazel.

Hazel?

I slowly remembered. She had come along and found us after The Abbot because she didn’t want to say goodbye to Don on bad terms. To be fair, Don was all conciliatory and explained that his blood had been up and that he was sorry for what he’d said and that he really liked her, really (he was well drunk and coked up as well) and they’d had a hug and a few drinks and a line of this and that… and then I’d sidled up.

Bollocks.

The dam burst and our conversation came flooding back to me. I’d been probing her about Susie. Earlier on in the day, when Don and Susie were having their little shouting match and Don had kept on accusing the pair of them about being lesbians, Hazel had really gone to town vigorously denying any and all pot-holing. This had alarm bells ringing all over my bullshit radar station so I thought I’d subtly try and wheedle the truth out of her the next time I saw her – and after seven hours of solid drinking, I was feeling spy-masterly subtle.

‘So, what’s this that’s gone on with you and old whats’erface then?’ I slurred.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean, you and old er… fucking er… Susie, you know?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Look, it’s all right, you can tell me, I ain’t going to tell no one else. Have you shagged her then?’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘That’s not what she said,’ I told her tactically.

‘I don’t care what she said, I haven’t shagged anyone at work.’

‘All right then, not shagged, what do you lot call it? Licked her out then?’

‘Listen, I don’t know where you lot get this from but nothing went on with me and Susie.’

‘So something did happen then? Go on, tell us about it, don’t be a cunt.’

‘What business is it of yours to go asking me questions like this. You’re just as bad as all the rest.’

‘Look, do you want a line of coke?’

‘I’m not telling you anything.’

‘I don’t want you to, I’m just being hospitable and offering you a line of coke, that’s all. Don’t be so paranoid.’ (This ought to loosen her tongue).

We nipped into the women’s when no one was looking and darted into an empty cubicle, locking the door behind us. I dropped down to my knees and polished the top of the seat with toilet paper to save us snorting up a load of piss while we were at it, then scrapped two decent-looking lines out of my rapidly dwindling gram. Behind me Hazel rolled up a £20 note and dropped down beside me and snorted the first line, then she handed me the note. I did the same and snorted the other, then with a quick sleight of hand, pocketed her twenty and gave her back the tenner I’d already rolled. Well, this stuff did cost money, you know. We dabbed the rest on our gums, waited until the coast was clear then rejoined the pub.

Only then did it occur to me that I’d been alone in a bog cubicle with a woman and some drugs and I hadn’t tried it on at all. Where was my head? I decided to save a couple of lines for later and give it another go then.

Me and Hazel chatted quite amiably for the next half hour, each of us telling the other more and more irrelevant stories about our childhoods as the minutes went by, until the conversation turned around to Susie again and I decided to try another tact.

‘You know, I don’t know why people get so protective about their sexuality. I agree with old whats’erarse when she said that, you know, just being straight is discounting half the population.’ (See where I’m going with this?)

‘Really? So have you ever been with another bloke then?’

‘Me? No, fuck off! I mean, no, I haven’t, but it’s… well, it’s complicated.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Oh yeah, like I’m going to tell you.’

‘Why not? Go on, tell us. I can keep a secret.’

‘What, and I can’t I suppose, is that it? Birds can keep secrets but blokes can’t.’

‘Hey? I don’t get you.’

‘Your Susie secret. You want me to tell you all about my big secret but you’re not willing to tell me about yours. That’s hardly fair, is it?’

‘There is no secret.’

‘Yeah, well, whatever.’

Hazel spent some time mulling this over then leaned in and lowered her voice so that I could just about hear her.

‘Oh look, it’s nothing really, but you can’t ever tell anyone about it, ever, all right?’

‘Yeah, no, definitely, tell us,’ I urged her.

‘No, you first, tell me your supposed big secret first.’

‘No, that’s not how it works. What if I tell you mine and then you don’t tell me yours?’

‘As if I’d do that. Come on, I will, but I’m not saying anything until you tell me yours.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ I faffed.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I’ll tell you afterwards.’

‘Bollocks. Look, you brought this up, you have to go first otherwise I’m not doing it at all.’

‘We go at the same time,’ I suggested

‘How can we go at the same time? We won’t be able to hear each other speak.’

‘All right then, we’ll write them down. Agreed?’

Hazel agreed and pulled some paper and a pen from her bag. She handed it to me and I had a think about what I could write. Obviously I hadn’t done anything and I was just trying to use it as bait to get her to spill the beans but I had to write something. What could I write that would sound like a deep and dark secret? I wasn’t about to put down that I sucked off geezers every Sunday afternoon no matter how many times she’d sat on Susie’s face, as there was a limit to these things, but it had to be something suitably fruity.

In the end I wrote down that I liked getting shagged up the arse by girls wearing strap-on, as that seemed to be the sort of thing people wouldn’t admit to in public that didn’t involve geezers.

By the way, I don’t.

When I was done I handed Hazel the pen and she spent a few minutes writing her confession down before announcing that she was ready to exchange. We swapped papers and I eagerly unfolded hers to find that she’d written only one word: ‘Sucker.’

I looked over at her as she shrieked with laughter at my bullshit confession and desperately tried to snatch it back out of her hand, but it was like trying to get a small child off a Rottweiler.

‘Oh my God,’ she was laughing as I was wrestling with her over the seats.

‘Give it to me. Give it to me,’ I was yelling, making her crack up even more for some reason. ‘I was only joking that’s just bullshit, I wasn’t serious, I just wanted to hear about you and fucking whatsh’ercunt,’ I yelled as she elbowed me in the guts and kicked me onto the floor.

‘Right, then I’m definitely not telling you anything now.’

I slumped down on the seat, humiliated and fucked off with her and wishing that I’d written something like that too.

‘You’re just a cunt,’ I told her. ‘I thought we had a deal.’

‘Look, don’t worry, I’m not going to show anyone else. I’m only teasing you. Go and get me a drink and we’ll be friends again.’

I told her to go and spin on it but she said she’d show everyone at work what I’d written if I didn’t buy her a drink.

‘You’re blackmailing me?’

‘Yes. Get me a drink, ding ding ding. Go on, I’ll give you this back if you do.’

I went to the bar and bought her a vodka Red Bull and was about to hand one to her when I had a thought and demanded to see what was written in the paper. Predictably, it had ‘Sucker’ written on it again so I withheld her drink until she handed over the real one.

I didn’t get to shag her in the bog later either because her boyfriend showed up and scuppered my last remaining chance of drunken sex.

All in all, the evening had been a bit of a shitter.

I stood in Don’s living room and remembered all of this and wondered what Hazel would do or say about it today... or Monday... or the day after that. I hadn’t heard the last of this, that was for sure, but what could I do short of telling everyone the truth? No one would believe me for a second.

They wouldn’t want to believe me, not when Hazel’s version of events involved me getting banged by strap-ons.

Jesus, you know, this sort of shit has a tendency to follow people around for life. I mean look at Richard Gere. Who hasn’t heard those rumours? He was probably just doing the same as me and trying to get Kim Basinger to admit she’d done it with donkeys or something and look where it got him?

Bollocks.

I picked up my coat and pulled on my shoes, but even as I did, more memories were triggered. It was here, here in this room around this coffee table that me, Paddy, Matt and Don ended up talking and drinking and doing the last of our gear till the very early hours of the morning. Hang on, I’d told Paddy all about my little Hazel episode already and they’d all been cool about it. In fact, oh yeah, fuck, Paddy had even told us the real dirt on Hazel and Susie (he’d gone for Susie a few months earlier with similar suspicions and she’d proved a bit easier to tap up). Apparently, Susie had tried it on with Hazel when they’d both gone over to LA to visit a couple of their photographers. By all accounts (or Paddy’s anyway), they’d both got drunk and a bit coked up after a shoot and carried on drinking back at the hotel when Susie began to kiss and fondle Hazel all over the bed. What had started out as a playful wrestling match ended up in a bit of a snog (as it always does in these lesbian stories) only for Hazel to suddenly freak out just as things started to get a bit interesting and run back to her room. Susie had spent half the night and pretty much every siege tactic in the book trying to get in there with Hazel, but Hazel was having none of it and a rather uncomfortable working relationship was born.

Hee hee hee.

Susie, being Susie, couldn’t understand why Hazel had flipped so badly over something that was water off a dyke’s back to her, and had confided in Paddy as much to assure herself that she’d done nothing wrong more than anything else. Naturally, Hazel was less keen for the story to break.

Well I’d show her who couldn’t keep a secret.

I was just starting to feel a tad better about myself when one last image flashed across my brain. Again, it was here, we were all sitting around the table doing the last few lines and Paddy was telling us his story when I was struck down with a severe case of honesty and I’d told them about…

Oh bollocks…

… about phoning Gemma in Manchester. No no no, I thought, screwing my face up as I cringed at the image of myself going into every tiny embarrassing detail as I unburdened myself. Even after ten minutes of banging on about it, when they were starting to get bored with the whole confession, the coke told me to keep their attention with ever more humiliating revelations. Fuck.

Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut?

What was wrong with me?

Well, that was it. I was giving up the booze. I’d been kidding myself that I was going to cut down for years but this put the lid on it. No more. I just couldn’t go on the way I was going. Jesus, I was just becoming known as a real cock when really that wasn’t me. I was a serious-minded, sensitive, even shy sort of guy who had things to say and wisdom to pass on; not someone who’d walk around with the fat end of a pool cue sticking out of his flies for half an hour in the hope that someone might notice and laugh. I was sick of making a cunt of myself and it just wasn’t me. Booze (and especially coke) was doing mad things to me, stupid things and I’d come to hate it. I loved a pint, I won’t deny that, but in recent years I’d really started to hate getting plastered. I didn’t want to do it any more, I didn’t want to be seen as king of the wankers anymore and last night was exactly what I was talking about.

Christ, no wonder nobody took me seriously. What an arsehole!

Well that was it, that was my final session. If no other good came out of last night then at least it finally put me on the wagon. From this moment on I would be a quiet, easy-going and unassuming sort of bloke. A happy-go-lucky fella who spent his time reading or having dinner parties or going down the gym or fishing or something, and I’d be happier for it.

I didn’t need to drink and I didn’t want it any more. I was finished with it. Some blokes might piss away their lives on the sauce but I wouldn’t be one of them. I’d seen the light and I swore that from this moment on that I was a changed man. From now on, people would come to regard me as an intelligent and level-headed fella, someone they could rely on, someone they could trust. Someone who could be turned to for advice, someone to look up to, admire even. Above all, I would become someone to respect.

This was my future and I was looking forward to becoming this person already.

In the meantime, I’d just lie and tell everyone that I couldn’t remember anything about last night.