The Pornographer Diaries

5. Talking dirty

Of course, it took me a good year and a couple of hundred letters before I worked all this out for myself. In those first few of weeks I was more preoccupied with a more immediate question.

‘Where the fuck is Stuart?’ I asked Roger.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied without turning around. ‘Doesn’t give a fuck does he...’ he started muttering to himself before his muttering became a mumbling and I was no longer able to make out what he was saying.

I phoned Wendy on reception and she told me she hadn’t got anything written in the book and that Stuart hadn’t phoned in. I replaced the receiver and wondered what I could do. Bling was late by about three weeks and we’d only got a couple of the features done: one about jet-skiing and one about one ‘crazy’ night on the Ibiza clubbing scene. Both were extremely dull and wouldn’t be read by anyone except the PR girl who’d taken Stuart jet-skiing two months ago and Stuart’s ‘crazy’ mate, Gerard, who’d paid for half his holiday in Ibiza by writing about his ‘mad antics’ in Manumission. Not that they were that ‘mad’, all he’d done was drop a couple of tabs and get up on some stage with the in-crowd and dance around like a cunt in front of several thousand people all doing exactly the same thing. Gerard had tried to convey the ‘craziness’ of it all though by tagging on the end of each sentence, ‘it was mad’ or ‘it was wild’ or ‘it was unbelievable’ all of which were deleted from the feature in a charitable attempt to make him sound like less of a wanker.

Anyway, that was all by the by. I’d subbed the letters for this month and reviewed a couple of movies and was now stuck and bored. I twiddled my thumbs a bit more, picked up a copy of Ace, flicked through it for a few minutes but soon became bored again.

How bizarre! Only six weeks ago, before I’d started working here, I would’ve been poring over the pictures and fantasising about the girls until my trousers needed loosening. Only five weeks ago, I would’ve been sitting here surreptitiously stealing glances and shoving the magazines away the moment anyone looked over in my direction. But now, Hazel came up and asked me if I’d picked a loupe (a little magnifying eye-piece for looking at slides) up off her desk and I didn’t even put the magazine down. She stood in front of me and complained about people nicking stuff off her desk all the time and how this was her third loupe to go missing this year and I just carried on flicking through the mag and looking at the naked girls bending over and spreading their arses without the slightest twinge of embarrassment. Well why shouldn’t I? They were only arses, after all. We all had them.

Paddy had been right. In my first week he’d told me that when he’d started he’d always known that the novelty of looking at naked girls would wear off. What had surprised him was just how fast it had worn off.

‘Haven’t you had her in your mag recently?’ I asked Hazel, showing her a picture of one girl resting her head against another girl’s beaver.

‘Gabrielle? She’s our regular girl, she’s in every month. I don’t know what Ace are doing running her. Anyway, if you see my loupe let me know because I don’t want to go ordering another one because it makes it look as if I’m stealing them.’

‘You should scratch your name on it, that way everyone knows it’s yours and no one can nick it.’

‘I bloody will next time,’ she fumed and marched back to her desk.

‘I’ll let you know if I find it,’ I assure her as I scratched my name into Hazel’s loupe. Well, it saved ordering one for myself, didn’t it?

*

It was halfway through the afternoon and a bit sleepy after a couple of lunchtime pints when Stuart rang.

‘Did you manage to speak to any of them?’ he asked.

‘Any of who?’

‘The girls, did you phone them up?’

‘Er...’ I said, wondering if I’d nodded off during a briefing. ‘What girls? Sorry, who do you mean?’

‘Did Roger not give you those sets?’ he asked, his voice now tinged with irritation.

‘Er...’ I said again, not wanting to get anyone into trouble.

‘Let me talk to Roger, put Roger on.’

‘Roger, it’s for you. It’s Stuart.’

Roger’s shoulders sagged at the unfairness of it all and took the phone off me without turning around.

‘Yeah?’ he grunted. There was a pause then I listened to one half of a sulky, petulant Q&A, then Roger handed me the phone and turned back to friendsreunited.co.uk.

‘I left some stuff for you with Roger, he’ll explain what needs to be done. I’ll speak to you in the morning.’ And with that Stuart was gone again.

Roger didn’t explain anything. In fact, he didn’t even speak to me after I’d hung up, he just sat their clicking on the names of the class of ’77 and muttering ‘cunt’ after reading each little biog. In the end I had to prise it out of him.

‘Well, what’s this stuff Stuart left for me?’

‘Just some girl sets stuff,’ he replied, clicking open another name.

‘What girl set stuff? Where?’

‘Doing the old bullshit that goes with ’em,’ he muttered.

‘Well, why didn’t you give it to me earlier?’ I demanded.

‘Why should we have to work when he’s not even here?’ he replied.

‘For fuck’s sake Roger, I’ve been bored out of my mind all morning when I could’ve been cracking on with this stuff.’

‘Well it’s not my fault,’ he replied without any trace of irony.

‘Come on then, let’s have it.’

‘Ow... in a minute,’ he whined and it took another five minutes before he handed over three sets of slides and a list of written instructions.

The three girls were all British and living in the UK so Stuart had decided that I should talk to them. I remembered him banging on about this a few weeks earlier, about how it would be better if all the little girl blurbs were true and that we should interview the girls and get them to talk dirty to us instead of just making them up, so here it was: three names, three sets of slides and three phone numbers. I was to call them up, introduce myself and get them to talk smut to me – what they liked doing in bed, what they fantasised about, what their best sex was, that sort of thing.

How embarrassing.

This might sound like a giggle but try phoning someone out of the blue and getting her to say dirty things to you down the phone and see how dry your mouth suddenly becomes. Actually, I wouldn’t if I was you, you’d probably get nicked if you did.

I looked at the first set of slides. She was tall, slim and blonde, and as bald as a baboon’s arse downstairs. Her name was Jennifer.

I misdialled three times before the phone started ringing and when it was picked up I almost choked.

‘Is that Jennifer?’ I asked.

‘Yes?’ she replied. I’d never talked to a real live porn model before (well, not counting my interview) but here I was looking at pictures of Jennifer’s horse’s hoof through Hazel’s loupe and speaking to her in person.

Suddenly porn was no longer fantasy.

‘This is Godfrey Bishop, I work for Bling,’ I told her.

‘Yes?’

‘Hi. Er... well, how are you, okay? Right, erm...’ I said and realised I should’ve thought out what I was going to say first.

‘Yes?’

‘Right, well, you had a set shot with Howard Parke (the photographer) recently and erm... we’re just putting it in the magazine now.’ She didn’t reply. ‘You know the set? You’re wearing black fishnets and lying on a big round bed (with precious little else on and your lunch in sharp focus, I didn’t add).’

‘Yes?’ she repeated, parrot-like.

‘Well, I just wanted to talk to you about them for a bit,’ I told her.

‘What about?’ she replied, tripling her vocabulary.

‘Well, you know in the magazine, we always have a little bit of text that goes with the pictures, a little bit about yourself. Stuart – that’s Stuart the editor – asked me if I could interview you very briefly for it.’

‘I don’t know, my mum and dad don’t know I do this and I’d rather not say anything,’ she said, less than enthusiastic about the whole thing.

‘What?’ I replied, not understanding what she meant.

‘I don’t want you using my real name or details because I don’t want my family to know what I do,’ she explained, again making absolutely no sense to me. I got her to explain this to me again and she did. Jennifer didn’t want her name or details used in the magazine because she thought no one would realise it was her if she used a fake name. Seriously, like her mum could peruse through Bling and study all the pictures, but she wouldn’t realise she was looking at her daughter unless we included a fact box. Bizarre huh, but I’ve talked to dozens of models since who all believed the same, that they could protect their anonymity not by wearing a bag over their heads or keeping their pants on, but by giving themselves a stupid name such as Tex, Jackson or I.Fux.Gr8.

‘We’re not doing an in-depth family portrait, I just wanted to ask you a couple of questions, that’s all,’ I reassured her and after a few moments of silence she responded.

‘Er... go on then, what?’

‘Ooh,’ I started scribbling anything I could think of down on the pad in front of me. ‘Well, er for example, how do I phrase this? What’s your favourite fantasy?’

She thought for a moment.

‘To win the lottery.’

‘No, I mean, your favourite sexual fantasy.’ Several heads in the office turned in my direction.

‘Why, you’re not going to write them down are you?’

‘What the fuck do you think I’m phoning you up for? And don’t tell me your mum and dad will recognise you if stick a caption on informing readers that you like sucking donkeys off.’ Naturally, I didn’t say any of this, but I was sorely tempted and screwed my face up as she became stupider and stupider in the slides before my very eyes. What I actually said was;

‘Yes, of course I’m going to write it, that’s the whole point. We’ve got to put a few little details next to your pictures for people to read. A sort of, I like it from behind or I’ve always fantasised about doing it this way and that. That kind of thing.’

‘Well, I don’t want any of that next to my pictures.’

‘Er... but that’s the style of the magazine. It’s just a bit of fun.’

‘But that’s personal. That’s none of anyone’s business.’

Huh? How did that work? Her fantasies were personal but she was happy to show her arsehole across two pages?

‘Well, what sort of stuff do you like?’ I finally asked.

‘Why?’ she insisted.

‘Because I have to write something,’ I told her.

‘I don’t want you writing anything, what’s wrong with just having the pictures?’ she said, getting a little upset with me now.

‘It’s alright, there’s nothing to it, everyone does it, all our models tell us their fantasies (bullshit). You could tell me anything.’

‘But I’m not like that. There things are personal to me, I don’t want to share them with everyone.’

‘But you’re naked in the pictures?’

‘But I don’t want anyone to know anything about me.’

‘You don’t have to if you don’t want to, you could just make it all up if you want to.’

‘Well then, why don’t you just make it all up?’ she asked.

‘Apparently, this is sexier,’ I said and told her not to worry about it. ‘Leave it with me and I’ll write something myself.’

‘What are you going to write?’

‘I don’t know, something silly.’

‘You’re not going to write anything rude are you because I don’t want anything rude?’

‘Well, of course I’m going to write something rude, we’re a rude magazine!’

‘But I don’t want anything rude next to my pictures.’

‘Sorry, but I’ve got to.’

‘But why?’

‘It’s just something dirty to read while guys fantasise about you,’ I said, amazed that I was having to explain this to a porno model.

‘I’m phoning Howard,’ she said and the line went dead.

Well if that conversation didn’t have the readers bashing their cocks to bits, I didn’t know what would. Personally, I’d never felt softer or more reprehensible in my life.

The next girl I phoned, Tracy (modelling name Traci), wasn’t much more forthcoming. She simply wanted to meet a nice man who could make her laugh and settle down with by the sea and it took twenty minutes of badgering before she finally admitted, ‘I quite like going on top’ which was written up as ‘I love to grind my hot cunt into my man’s face and not let him up until I’ve cum all over his chin’. At least Tracy didn’t seem traumatised by the whole idea that there might be some sexy stuff written next to her pictures, although she did say that she found it rather hard to speak because she was in the middle of Woolworths.

Paddy came over after I’d put the phone down and gave me a knowing smile.

‘Let me guess, Stuart’s quest for truth, yeah?’

‘He’s got me phoning up models.’

Paddy smirked and shook his head. ‘Fuck me, when’s he going to give that one up? Stuart goes through this at least once a year and it’s always the same. “It’s got to be true, it has to be real.” This is such a load of old bollocks. This is porn, and porn has nothing to do with reality,’ he said as he offered me a fag and lit one up himself. ‘You know what reality is? Reality is going down the newsagents to buy pictures of naked birds because you ain’t getting it yourself. Or if you are, it’s off your fat, and utterly broken-in, old lady who you can’t bear to drill these day unless you’ve sunk half a bottle of scotch.’

‘You know what I like about you, Paddy, is that you’re refreshingly uncynical.’

‘He’s not fucking wrong though,’ Roger said somewhere off behind me.

‘Reality? Reality’s girls who still live at home with their mum and dads, or girls who are engaged to be married, or girls who take evening classes in art. Girls who collect teddy bears and girls who watch EastEnders and get upset when one of their favourite characters is written out.’ Paddy paused to blow a couple of smoke rings across the room. ‘Reality is girls who get embarrassed the same as you and I do when someone finds out what they really get off on. Reality is these girls are no different from the ones you’ve been encountering every day of your life, and how many of them have told you that they like taking two cocks up the arse? Not many I’ll bet,’ he said with a wise old wag of the finger. ‘Except your mum, of course.’

‘Yeah, but they’re porn models, they’re expected to be different.’

‘And I’m a porn editor, so presumably so am I. Still doesn’t stop me from not getting a sniff in the last three months, does it? And I’m meant to be getting it left, right and centre, that’s what all the lads down my local think and they refuse to believe me when I tell them I’m not. They think I’m just being modest or a bit circumspect but I’m not like that. I’m the first one to climb the holy tower and announce it to the whole of Mecca when I’ve had a shag but I live in the real world. I work in porn, but I live in reality. And it’s the same for the girls. The readers might want to think that they’re dirty, cock-hungry old slags who’ll do or say anything to anyone because they’ve got low moral standards – well they must have if they take their clothes off in front of cameras, mustn’t they? But they’re just people. And people don’t talk like the old rubbish we write. Not even blokes. It’s just fantasy, it’s what guys want to imagine a woman is saying while they’re bashing off because blokes find that sort of thing a turn-on. And yeah, you might get your girlfriend or some old tart you’ve just brought back from a night out to say “do my cunt” a few times when you’re poking her – if you prompt her a bit – but you’re not going to get these models to dictate these girl blurbs to you in the language and style that the reader wants to see them written in because they’re models, not writers. This is why Moonlight employs people like you. And why, every time Stuart does this, he ends up with some boring tame issue full of girls all claiming that the most important thing to them is a nice cuddle and a bit of a chat after making love. And who the fuck wants to jack off to that?’

‘I know what you mean.’

‘Stuart’s problem is that he’s confusing real sex with reality. That’s what the readers want, real sex, but they’re fucked in the head if they think they’re going to get it for £2.95.’ And with that, he wandered off to leave me to make my last phone call.

Gemma (real name) turned out to be a different sort altogether, Paddy was wrong. Gemma seemed made up by the fact that I was phoning from Bling and giggled with devilment when she observed that this was like a dirty phone call.

‘Are you looking at my pictures right now?’ she asked and I told her I was. ‘Do you like my pussy shaved? I did it especially for the shoot,’ she said.

‘Very nice,’ I told her as I made notes with my right hand and adjusted my trousers with my left.

‘I’ve never shaved it completely before, I used to just trim, but it feels so smooth and soft now that I think I’m going to keep it like this for a while.’ I wanted to ask her if she was feeling it right now but I didn’t know how to phrase it without Roger asking me who I was talking to.

‘Smashing,’ I settled for.

‘Okay, ask me anything. Anything at all and I’ll tell you,’ she said all excitedly. I adjusted my trousers still more and wished I’d made this phone call in Stuart’s office where no one could hear me.

‘What’s the dirtiest sex you’ve ever had?’ I asked, my voice low, my hand cupped over the phone.

Gemma pondered a bit then told me that she loved it up the bum, especially when she was stoned. I scribbled this down frantically and stared hard at her pictures through the loupe. There she was, in full glossy colour and talking to me on the phone. Suddenly her facial grimaces of mock sexual ecstasy didn’t seem so mocked any more.

‘And when was the last time you did that?’ I asked, a bit nasally.

‘Ooh, only last night. I was feeling really horny and I just had to have it so I lubed myself up and used my favourite dildo up there,’ she said and I felt my cock pump air a couple of times.

‘And have you ever done it with another girl?’ I asked.

‘Oh yeah, loads of times. I love eating pussy – but I only like it if there’s a guy there to fuck me from behind while I’m doing it,’ she growled down the phone to me.

‘And lastly, what’s your favourite fantasy?’ I said, sitting impossibly forward in my seat.

‘Imagining all the readers of – who is this again? Bling? – Bling wanking all over me and covering me from head to toe in spunk,’ she said, emphasising every sensual word before breaking out in laughter. ‘You’ve got the coolest job,’ she said. ‘Is this what you do all day, phone girls up in the middle of the afternoon and make them say rude things?’

‘Sometimes,’ I said, suddenly seeing an angle. ‘Or sometimes I have to go around interview them in person,’ I lied.

Gemma laughed at this and purred delightfully. ‘Well next time I’m in London you can take me out for a drink and interview me properly,’ she said, not taking the bait.

‘No problem. Where do you live,’ I said and looked at the code. ‘Manchester, yeah?’

‘Bit of a long way to come just for a five minute interview, isn’t it?’

‘Yes, shame.’

‘Never mind, you poor poppet. You just think of me next time you’re doing some young girl from behind. Alright?’ she said.

‘I will do,’ I assured her. Or the next time I was thrashing myself off... whichever comes first.

*

Several of the slides from Gemma’s set followed me home that night and wouldn’t leave me alone until I’d knocked at least three good ones out to them while fantasising about away day trips to Manchester.

I drifted in and out of sleep throughout the night, remembered our conversation each time I woke up and pictured all sorts of possibilities and scenarios through the early hours.

At work the following day I scoured the back issues and found four different sets of Gemma in four different magazines and these too made their way home with me that night. In one of the mags, Ace, Gemma was the centre spread girl and I was half-tempted to pin her up on my wall until I remembered that my elderly landlady often let herself into my room while I was out to empty the coin-operated electric and gas meters. I doubted whether she would’ve approved. Instead, an unofficial Gemma shrine was set up in the linen drawer under my bed and rapidly grew as the week went by.

On Friday night, I had a couple of beers with the lads after work and bought two bottles of Bulgarian red on the way home, along with a small £10 bag of grass, 20 fags and a take-away chicken Madras. It had all the makings of a famous night in.

By 10 o’clock, Gemma was out of her drawer and laying all around me in a crescent of best pages. I studied her pictures and fantasised that she was in the room with me right now, begging me to do her just the way she liked it. She really was the quintessential sex object for me at that moment and I wanted to bone her so badly that it hurt. In fact, I had to. I simply had no choice. My life wouldn’t ever be complete if I didn’t. And I knew it.

I pondered this as I relit my joint and took a big dirty drag.

‘So why don’t you?’ said the little red demon sitting on my left shoulder.

‘Why don’t I what?’ I asked him.

‘Fuck her. Come on, you actually know her, it’s not like you’re just some reader. You’re in the business. Besides, you know what she’s like, she told you herself. She loves it. You’d have no bother there.’

‘But she’s all the way up there in Manchester,’ I told him.

‘So? Give her a ring, you’ve got her number in your wallet, we all saw you slip it in there. Give her a bell and tell her you want to go up and pay her a visit. Then just drill her. She’d be well up for it. Maybe not tonight but you could jump on a train first thing in the morning and be up there before lunchtime tomorrow. A fucking porn model man, and look at her. Imagine that.’

‘She is something else isn’t she?’ I said, staring at her centre spread and taking another big toke.

‘And she’s already as good as laid it on a plate for you, you’d have to be bent not to give her one. Go on, give her a ring. You know what they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained. You only live once and all that old bollocks.’

‘That’s all very true,’ I told the demon. ‘You’ve made some excellent points there. But hey, what do you think?’ I said turning to the angel on my other shoulder.

‘Count me in, I’m with you lads,’ he said, tossing away his halo.

I dug my mobile out and tapped in Gemma’s number. My pay-as-you-go credit was pretty low but I had enough for probably a couple of minutes. I pressed the green button and held the phone to my ear.

As horny and focused as I was, I was still a bit apprehensive about calling a porn model out of the blue and inviting myself up for a sex session. I mean, how the hell was I going to phrase that one? I assured myself that Gemma would remember our call from earlier in the week and know what I was ringing about. I mean, she’d been chuffed to bits to hear from me last time I’d rang and she hadn’t even known me then. Now that we’d shared a little telephone intimacy she was bound to be even more forthcoming. I took a couple of big swigs from my wine to steady my nerves and another big drag on my joint. My fingers were shaking as I held phone and drugs to my face and my heart pounded violently when the ringing tone started. This, however, was compared to nothing when the phone was finally answered.

‘Hello?’ I heard her shout.

‘Hi Gemma?’

‘Yes?’

‘Hi, it’s Godfrey from Bling, we spoke the other day.’

‘Huh? Oh right, yeah, hi.’ There was a bit of a pause as she passed this information onto someone with her, then asked me, ‘What’s up?’

‘Oh nothing, I just wanted to give you a quick ring, if that’s alright?’

‘Er... what about?’ she shouted again.

‘Well, just to say hello and all that, and follow up something we were talking about the other day.’

‘I can’t hear you, you’ll have to speak up a bit,’ she yelled. ‘Hang on a minute, I’m going outside so I can hear you.’

There was a lull in the conversation as she made her way through a background of laughter and music and emerged out into the relative quiet of a street.

‘That’s better, I can hear you now. Okay, sorry but what was you saying?’

‘Oh, er well, nothing important,’ I told her and squirmed as I struggled to find the right words. ‘Well, you know when you said the other day that it was a shame I wasn’t up there in Manchester?’ I said, trying to introduce the subject in a roundabout way. In my mind, when I’d planned this call, she’d remembered our conversation immediately and extended an instant invitation for me to come up and stay with her. This didn’t happen quite like this in reality and I felt my heart sink a little when she replied:

‘Er, no but go on.’

Not the recognition I was hoping for. I decided I’d better double check I was talking to the right person.

‘This is Gemma, isn’t it? The model, who I spoke to on Tuesday afternoon?’

‘Yes. Sorry, who is this again?’

‘Godfrey Bishop. I work on Bling, I spoke to you the other day.’

‘Okay. Yeah?’

‘Well, you said the other day that Manchester was a long way to go just to interview someone,’ I said, not getting any closer to the point and finding it extremely hard to find the right words.

‘Look, can this wait until Monday because I’m freezing my tits off here?’ Gemma said and I pictured her pert little tits all goosepimply and pert. My phone started beeping to signal that my credit was disappearing fast so I realised I’d better get to the point and quick, but this wasn’t easy. Why wasn’t it easy? She’d seemed right up for it the other day.

‘Well, when I spoke to you last you said that it was a shame I wasn’t up there in Manchester and that I should think of you next time I... er... you know....’ I tailed off as more beeps punctuated my train of thought. Get to the point! Get to the fucking point, I told myself, but my heart was going like the clappers and my voice was starting to croak. ‘Anyway, er, tomorrow I was thinking of coming up to Manchester to see you in person, if that’s alright, you know?’

‘To see me? What for?’

‘Well, it was what you was saying the other day, you know, when I spoke to you then? About me? Thinking of you?’

‘Thinking of me, what?’ she said, failing to make any sort of connection at all. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘About...’ I whined, then quickly concluded I’d misread the signals and was in the process of making a beauty of a mistake that would have me cringing for years. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I told her all urgently but she wouldn’t let it go.

‘What? Hello?’

‘It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.’

‘Look, I’m with my boyfriend and his family at the moment and I don’t work at the weekends anyway.’

‘No, really, it’s alright,’ I tried to reassure her.

‘What are you coming to Manchester for?’ I heard her ask, but then there was a second voice in the background demanding to know what was going on.

‘No, no, really, it’s alright. Honestly, it’s alright, don’t worry...’ I tried to tell her but it was too late, my phone suddenly died.

That hadn’t gone as well as I’d hoped.

I looked at it for a moment, buried my head in my hands and didn’t move for about twenty minutes. I stayed in this position, shaking my head and grimacing so hard that I’m surprised my cheeks didn’t tear before deciding the best way forwards was a big drink.

What had I done?

A sudden, horrible realisation crept over me and threatened to devour my every last shred of self-worth as I tried to shake the words ‘What are you coming to Manchester for?’ out of my brain but I couldn’t. They were there now, and they were there to stay.

Whenever I’d think of Gemma from now on, I wouldn’t think of her talking dirty to me or taking it up the arse or eating some other bird out while I looked on, I’d think of her standing in a cold pub car park on a Friday night with her boyfriend at her elbow, asking me why I was coming to Manchester.

Jesus.

What an utter wanker!