The Pornographer Diaries

13. Fantasy? Schmantasy!

Colin got 18 months and was booked in for a thorough check-up from the neck-up. It got him out of our hair for a little while, although I was dreading the day he was released. Insanely enough, he still wrote to Jerry after his sentence, professing his undying love and telling her what colour his piss was this week after being pumped up to the eyelids full of medication. We got three love letters in a month from him before they suddenly dried up and we never heard from him again. I have no idea what happened to him, maybe the authorities cottoned on and stopped him from writing to us, or maybe he suddenly sobered up one day and realised what an utter cunt he’d made of himself or, I don’t know, maybe he just started fancying someone else. Probably the last one as it’s easy to go off someone when you finally wake up to the reality that you have no chance whatsoever.

And talking of no chance whatsoever; that suddenly summed up my prospects of getting Wendy in the sack. I don’t know what I’d done but the next time I saw her she was back to her frosty best with me.

‘We still on for tonight then?’ I asked when I passed reception in the morning, but all I got by way of a reply was a stern, steely glare that chilled me to my boots.

‘What’s up with her?’ Stuart asked, seeing her reaction.

‘I’m not sure,’ I told him. ‘Did Liverpool lose or something last night?’

Stuart thought about this for a moment then said he didn’t know what that meant. This was one of the difficulties with working in the porn industry, there were so many phrases and euphemisms for everything that misunderstandings were commonplace. In fact, according to Paddy, it was more than possible for two people to have a completely different conversation with each other and not even realise it. This sounded like a load of old bollocks but I quite liked the idea. If indeed I’d even understood him right.

I sat at my desk, lit a fag and told Stuart all about what had happened to me the night before, at how I’d spent half the night down the cop shop giving the Old Bill a statement and numbers to check before they’d got hold of Peter and he’d told them to let me go.

I asked Stuart if I could go home early today but he wasn’t having any of it. ‘One of us has to stay here today and I wouldn’t put much money on it being me,’ he said.

Stuart was out meeting freelancers this afternoon, which was what Editors did in all fairness, but that didn’t alter the fact that I still wanted to go home – not because I was knackered or anything, I just wanted to go home and it seemed like too good an excuse not to use. But no, that was that. Stuart was out so I had to stay, meaning as soon as he went I could piss off over the pub all afternoon, so that was good enough for me.

Taking of freelancers, I had to deal with them too, sex copywriters mostly, who’d write our regular erotic fantasy sections. It was around this time, and in my regular monthly dealings with the freelancers, that I got involved with Sophie.

Now Sophie was completely the opposite end of the spectrum from Colin and it frustrated me no end.

She’d started writing sex stories for us a few months back and every few weeks she’d email her latest copy in. I’d read through it and have to have the same conversation with her; ‘Keep it real.’

Now, I’m not saying this in a funky black Ali G way. What I mean is that the women in her stories were always far too keen and so willing to drop their drawers for no discernible reason that they bore no resemblance to real women – certainly not the real women I knew anyway. Therefore, the stories rang hollow and lost a lot of their appeal.

Like I’ve said before, most blokes don’t get wanton gorgeous women running up and tearing into their boxers without so much as a ‘Hello, how are you? Your shoes are nice. My name’s Debbie,’ unless they happen to be millionaires, although even with the most shameless of harlots, there’s still a certain amount of pussyfooting around as they size up whether or not their targets seem like a good bet. Why do I say this? Why, because she knows, in fact, I’ll say it again and even underline it, she knows that she can shag you. All blokes have a green light over their heads all the time and it takes an absolute minimum of skill on the part of a girl to get laid. You can brand me a sexist if you like but if you’ve stuck with me this far I imagine you already have.

I’ve been down the pub before with girls when they’re trying to get all sassy and impress me with their sexual prowess by telling me about their hyperactive sex lives and my answer’s always been the same.

‘Big fucking deal. If I had tits and a bush I’d be getting banged over this table right this very minute.’

They go on to you about what nymphomaniacs they are and how many blokes they’ve had but the moment you try getting in their pants too, it’s all, ‘You wish,’ ‘In your dreams,’ or ‘Don’t touch what you can’t afford’.

Maybe it’s me. Maybe I am an ugly trog. All right, okay, fair enough. But then I want to at least find some solace in porn and believe that an ugly trog like me can get it too, so give me a decent reason as to why she’s decided to shag this guy. Don’t just tell me it’s because she’s horny and loves it, because I’ve met lots of horny birds who’ve claimed to love it and I’ve yet to make it into the pants of a single one of them.

So, this is my thinking and my rationale and I’d explain it to Sophie every month, and every month I’d get exactly the same story back.

‘Me and the girls got all dressed up in our sexiest clubbing gear and hit the Apollo. I was dressed in a little one-piece cocktail dress, with fishnet stockings and high heels and had no underwear on. I was getting loads of looks from all the blokes dancing around me and started feeling really horny. This guy came up to me and told me his name was Bruce. Bruce was a fireman and he had the body to match. Stripped to the waist, with a tanned six-pack and biceps I couldn’t get both hands around, he pulled me close and I felt ten inches of solid meat against my leg. “Let’s fuck,” I said, dragging him off towards the toilets... etc’

Now, this story isn’t doing a great deal for me or my ego. For me to relate to this story it would need to read something more like this:

‘Me and the girls got all dressed up in our sexiest clubbing gear and... yah-da yah-da yah-da... and I started feeling really horny. This skinny little bastard came up to me and told me his name was Bruce. Bruce worked in Pizza Hut and still had his coat on. He said he didn’t like leaving it in the cloakroom in case they went through his pockets. We danced about to the music and he brushed against my leg every time he bent down to pick up his glasses. “Let’s fuck,” I said to him, dragging him off towards the toilets. “But I haven’t got any Johnies,” he replied, knocking off his glasses again.’

But then, this is stupid, because we all know for a fact that she wouldn’t shag the Pizza Hut guy. I mean, why would she? And this is the secret to a good porn story. Come up with a believable reason for her to shag this fucking loser and you’re half way home. Okay, the example’s a slight exaggeration but tell me you understand what I’m banging on about, please?

Sophie could never grasp this. She’d send in story after story with absolutely no story to it and every month I’d have to email her and say, ‘Look, I don’t understand, why is she shagging her driving instructor?’

‘Because she hasn’t had it in ages and she’s feeling horny,’ she’d replied (via email).

So I’d say (again, via email, all this is via email), ‘But she wouldn’t. She might ask him for a drink or invite him around for dinner or something if she fancied him, but she wouldn’t just drive off up some country lane during her test and start sucking him off for no reason. Women don’t do this sort of thing.’ Then I’d go on and have to rewrite her story so that it was actually this girl’s eighth test and that she knew she’d failed it again, so she decided to use her powers of persuasion to get her licence. (‘You can do anything to me, anything you want,’ she said, baring her slender young arse as she bent over the bonnet... etc). I’m not claiming to be William Shakespeare here or nothing but a little twist like this makes all the difference. It’s certainly more appealing than, ‘I was feeling really horny (for no apparent reason) and started grinding his cock like I’d been grinding the gears all fucking test’. It also makes me want to be a driving instructor.

But again, Sophie wouldn’t get it and the next month I’d get a story about a hunky young shop assistant being dragged into the changing rooms by some old cockaholic housewife. It was very frustrating.

In the end, I tried to demonstrate my point to her by saying (at the end of my latest email to her) ‘Look, let me put it this way. If I was to tell you to come down here and suck me off, you wouldn’t, would you?’ And she wouldn’t. She was way up there in Birmingham, she had a husband and a couple of kids, she’d never met me and I had nothing to offer her. Of course she’d never do it.

Her email comes back. ‘Who says I wouldn’t? I’ve always fancied a trip to London. I’ll be in touch. x’

Well, I thought to myself, sew a button on that one.

The next day Sophie sent me a story in which I summoned her down to London, took her into my office (yes, in this story I had this lovely plush office with thick shag pile carpets and old 70s leather furniture) and made her do everything she’d ever written about with me to prove that she knew what she was talking about. This story was the best thing she’d ever written and I couldn’t help but print off a copy to take to the bog for a second read.

Boy, I needed that one.

At the bottom of the letter, just after she’d written ‘Hope you liked the story’ she added ‘Your turn. Tell me what you want to do to me.’

I got back to my desk, sat down and reread Sophie’s covering email. I looked over my shoulder at Roger but he was redesigning his CV for the third time this week and paying me no attention. Neither was anyone else for that matter. Everyone who was in today was in their corner of the office, either working or shirking, so I started quietly tapping my keyboard and didn’t stop for another two hours. I attached my story to an email and sent it to Sophie, with the words, ‘Hope you don’t mind but I got a bit carried away’, then went and had another 15 minute bog stop.

It was quite unnerving giving a complete stranger a glimpse into my darkest desires and I hoped I hadn’t misread the situation. What if I had? What if I’d just emailed her a great long pornographic wish list of what I wanted to do to (and on) her when all she’d actually meant was ‘Tell me what stories you want me to write for next month?’

I suddenly shat myself. I reread her email again and again, trying every which way to see how it could be interpreted, then sat there all afternoon panicking and working out a plausible excuse as to why I’d done what I’d done in case the jizz hit the fan.

Just as I was about to leave for the day I received Sophie’s reply. This in itself was a small relief as I always hated those emails that disappeared into thin air. Like the email I’d sent Sophie, they almost always contained incredibly personal or highly incriminating stuff and I’d always panic that I’d somehow sent them to Stuart’s computer or my Auntie Pat by mistake.

I stared at her name for a few tense moments, looked around the office to make sure no one was paying me any mind, then clicked onto it.

‘Oooh Godfrey, aren’t you a wicked boy? I don’t think I’ve ever read anything so rude and filthy in all my life. It got me going like you wouldn’t believe. I don’t think I’ve wanked that much since I was a schoolgirl. Guess where my fingers are right now (I had a guess). You made me cum Godfrey. I just wish you could’ve been here to see it. And no, I don’t mind at all the things you wrote. You can’t say anything that’ll shock me. The harder the better as far as I’m concerned. You want to fuck my arse next time? Write to me again and let me know how you’d do it. Sophie xxx.’

This gave me a woody Pinocchio could’ve laid claim to.

That night I worked till 8 o’clock bashing out another story for her and when I clicked SEND I almost popped in my pants.

I rushed into work the next day and logged onto my email and there was another reply from Sophie. This one said similar stuff to the first but she’d also attached another story in which I took her to a London hotel room and made her pose for the camera, then spanked her bum till it glowed like Rudolf’s nose. Well, I didn’t really go in for the spanking bit, especially when it was my turn and she used a big spiky hairbrush on my arse (yeah, try that with me in real life love and you’d get your lights punched out) but the rest of it seemed like something I’d definitely be interested in.

I wrote back to her, asking when she was coming down to London and she replied something along the lines of ‘All good things to those who wait’ or something like that. She thought we were being terribly naughty and it was turning her on no end just knowing I was a short train ride away. ‘Tell me what else you’d like to do to me. You can be as filthy and as dirty as you like. Go on, try and shock me,’ she challenged, so I answered.

Over the course of the next week or so, her emails became the whole focus of my attention. I could barely concentrate on anything else as I fantasised about finally meeting up with her and nailing her through the wall. My wank-count went through the roof, so much so that Paddy asked me if I was eating okay.

More and more stories would arrive and more and more replies would be sent. It got so that if I didn’t get a reply from her that day, I’d stay late into the evening then go home all frustrated. I badly wanted to see her naked, and I didn’t even know what she looked like. She’d described herself in one of her emails and she didn’t sound half bad; early forties, big knockers, slim, brunette, big knockers, long legs, big knockers and big knockers. I could almost picture her... slamming up and down on top of me with her great big knockers in my face.

Oh man!

‘How about this week? Can you get away for a night?’ I’d email her.

‘Aren’t you the impatient little man? Are you hard right now thinking about me? What would you do if I came down tonight? Tell me what I can expect.’

I’d then run off 500 words of absolute depravity, send it to her, she’d read it and tell me how hot she was and how much she wanted me to do these things to her, but unfortunately she couldn’t get away, so we’d just have to make do with our imaginations tonight.

‘I’ll fuck you in my head, my love,’ she’d sign off and I had half a mind to reply, ‘Well you’re certainly fucking me in mine.’

I spent the next week trying to pin her down as to when we could get together with similar success. Each time I’d suggest a day or a week, she’d sidestep the question with some flirtatious reply and tell me what a bad boy I was being.

I told her if it was inconvenient for her to get away I could go up to Birmingham, check into a hotel room and she could come and see me one afternoon. Even if she could only manage an hour or so, at least we could finally get together and take out some of this pent up frustration on each other. If she needed it as badly as I did, even five minutes would’ve done. The next day I received a story in which she went along to some hotel room in Birmingham and fucked me silly for an hour during her lunch break.

And that was it – another story.

‘When are we going to do this for real?’ I asked.

‘Very soon I would imagine. How are you holding out? Did you like the hotel room story I sent you? Send me one about fucking me in the woods. Sophie x.’

I stared at those few words with confusion, frustration and mounting annoyance scrambling my brain, then went outside and smoked two fags in ten minutes.

What was this? Was she just stringing me along for laughs or something or did she actually want to meet up? Talking dirty to someone is a lot of fun, especially when you’re swapping graphic descriptions of what you’re going to do to each other, but it can only get a man so far. Okay, you’ve hooked me, I’m ready, let’s do it. Let’s cut the chat and get to the real stuff. That was what I was interested in. I mean, didn’t she think I read enough fucking porn stories all day long as it was? Just because these ones had my name in them, that didn’t make them any different. It had, at first, but only because I’d thought they were a prelude to actual sex. On their own, they were nothing more than extra work.

When she went to a restaurant did she just read the menu for three hours?

I went back inside and replied to her.

‘Dear Sophie, do you have any idea how much I want to have sex with you? I’m literally at bursting point and I want to meet up with you right now. My schedule is clear for the rest of my life. I can bunk any day, meet you anywhere and anytime. All you have to do is say the word and I’ll be there. We need to do some of this stuff for real. God x.’

Her response came back within the hour.

‘Dear God, what an absolutely wicked thought. I’m wet just thinking about it. Next time I’m in London I’ll be sure to take you up on the offer. We could stay in one of those sleazy hotels where all the prostitutes go. I could dress as a hooker if you wanted and you could pick me off the street. Write me a story about that. Sophie x.’

This made me fucking furious.

‘Fuck the stories, I don’t want to read any more of your fucking stories. I want to fuck you for real, what is it you don’t understand about this? Your stories are boring the fucking plums off me.’

I was so tempted to write this and send it back to her but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I suddenly realised that I’d been led up the garden path good and proper. She was never going to shag me any more than... well, any other bird I knew at that moment in time. All she wanted was a pen pal to have computer sex with. Devilishly naughty, if you’re a bored old housewife, but ultimately very safe.

This wasn’t what I was after.

I mean, Jesus Christ, I hadn’t had it in so long, this was the last fucking thing I needed.

I took a few deep breaths (through a cigarette) and composed an email.

‘Sophie, no more stories. I’m afraid they’ve lost any sort of appeal for me. I only started writing them because I thought they were going to lead somewhere but now I realise they’re not. I can’t honestly see us ever getting together and this is just frustrating me. I’m sorry to be like this but I read porn stories all day. It’s what I do for a living. And unless we actually get together, that’s all they’ll ever be. Just stories. I don’t think this is going to happen so I’m going to stop torturing myself. All the best, God.’

I clicked SEND then reluctantly got on with some work. Her reply came back later that day.

‘Well, you certainly seem to know it all. How do you know we won’t ever get together? Do you have a clairvoyant’s ball? Who says I wasn’t getting ready to come down for the weekend? I don’t presume to read your mind, why do you presume to read mine? Sophie x.’

What was I, some sort of fucking mug or something?

‘Dear Sophie, I’m not reading your mind. All I’m saying is that I don’t think you’re ever going to shag me. If I’m wrong, then that’s great, but you’re going to have to prove it.’

‘I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. If you don’t want me to fuck your brains out then that’s your loss. Personally, I was rather looking forward to...’ then she went into a 500 word description of what she reckoned she was going to do to me and ended it with, ‘but I guess that doesn’t appeal to you, does it? Sophie.’

‘That does appeal to me, very much. But doing it, not reading about it. I mean, why not just send pictures of buns to Aid for Africa while you’re at it? If you want to have sex with me then let’s get together this week. I’ll come up to Birmingham and you meet me at the hotel. Agreed?’

‘I’m sorry, but if you’re going to be like that, I don’t think I want to meet up with you. Sophie.’

‘See, that’s what I’m talking about. This is never going to happen. Look, let’s just drop the pretence and level with each other. I want to have sex with you, for real. Are you going to have sex with me, for real? It’s as simple as that.’

‘But it’s not that simple. I want to have sex with you, I really do. Sometimes I get so horny just thinking about you but I’m married and I love my husband. It’s not easy for me you know. Please, try to understand that I was serious, I really do want to fuck you, I really really do, but it’s just not possible. The intention was there, just not the timing. Where were you twenty years ago? Sophie x.’

And there it was, finally the truth.

I think this whole episode had started when I’d tried to demonstrate a point and show her that her stories were a little threadbare as far as their plots went and that women simply didn’t behave the way she’d been portraying them. Like I said in my first email, ‘If I was to tell you to come down here and suck me off, you wouldn’t, would you?’

She was the one that had responded, ‘Who says I wouldn’t?’ starting this whole sorry saga off.

Well, this finally proved my point. She wouldn’t come down and suck me off because she couldn’t and didn’t, although I think this was still a little lost on her.

And who says you wouldn’t, Sophie? I say you wouldn’t and I should know. I’m not much at anything but I’ll tell you this, I’m a fucking expert on the things women won’t do.