The Pornographer Diaries

7. Three’s a crowd

Now, I took what Howard said about us both being able to nail Zoe with a pinch of salt but it turned out he wasn’t exaggerating. Like I’ve said before, people were always asking me if I got to shag the models and the general answer was no because, by and large, I didn’t get to meet them. Most of my days were spent sat in front of a computer in the office, writing about how much I loved being taken hard up the arse by two truck drivers, while sucking off their mate on video (though I didn’t spend all day writing my biography, ha ha ha). It was the photographers who worked with the girls and, therefore, got the perks.

Take one photographer I knew: every new girl who came along to test shoot for him, he would ask them the same questions. Would they be prepared to do girl/girl? Most would say yes, that would be fine. Then he’d ask them if they’d be prepared to do boy/girl? Again, most would say yes. So then he’d pick up his camera, get his cock out and tell them, ‘off you go then’.

If the girl hesitated he’d explain that he wasn’t ‘going to fork out a load of money booking a make-up girl and a male model and reserving the studio for a day’s shooting on an untried girl who, for all I know, will probably run off at the first sight of a hard-on, am I?’ Then add, ‘come on girlie, this is a professional business so get your chops around it,’ and, hey presto, he’d get a blow-job off every girl who shot for him.

What a great scam!

And he wasn’t alone in this. A lot of photographers liked to make the most of their positions and who could blame them? Women have always used sex to get what they wanted and blokes have always used whatever they had to get sex. This was the natural order of things. It’s been going on since men lived in caves and will probably continue to do so right up until the hermaphrodites take over. The PC lobby won’t have this though and reckon we’re all equal in wants and desires but when was the last time one of them got a free one?

Me? I was just pissed off because I’ve never had anything anyone wanted.

However, all that asides, there have still been a couple of times when models have laid it on a plate for me – only for me to turn it down.

What? Are you joking? This sounds like bullshit. Nope, I’m serious and I’ll explain why and you tell me if you would’ve done any differently in my trousers.

See, the couple of times it’s been offered to me were very much under conditions and along the lines of how Howard had bade Zoe and Scott a fond farewell.

ie. ‘both of us.’

I was at a shoot a few weeks later, at Howard’s again, when Claire made me a definite ‘it’s on a plate if you want it’ pass. Claire was one of his Howard’s regular models and a sweeter, more lovelier girl you couldn’t wish to watch undress. Now, I’d been getting a few signals off her almost as soon as we started, with a bit of lingering eye contact here and a few suggestive remarks there, but I put this all down to the fact that we were just having a laugh, the wine was flowing and that Claire was very much at home with Howard. As the shoot went on though Claire’s come-ons became less and less easy to dismiss.

‘Get it out Godfrey, let’s have a look at it then. Come on, let’s see your cock.’

I’d stopped reading between the lines about five minutes earlier.

Claire was on a bed and she was playing with a selection of dildos for our Christmas issue (she had a Santa hat on) and she’d been getting a bit carried away with each of them and me and Howard had to keep telling her to withdraw them from herself so that we could take the shots we needed – Bling not being able to show penetration, you see. Well, Claire was quite full of high spirits and, in between Howard changing films, she would demonstrate them for real, right in front of me, purring away like a cat and holding my gaze until I turned away (which wasn’t happening too often).

‘Oohh, this one’s a good one. I like the feel of this. Tell me Godfrey, are you about this size or will you have to do me up the bum before I feel it?’

Say what you mean why don’t you?

‘Er well, I, er... don’t really know about that. I er... ha ha ha. Do you want another glass of wine?’

‘Mmm yeah, my mouth’s getting a little dry. Unless you’ve got something better for me to drink,’ she said, slipping a dildo into her mouth and slurping up and down on it suggestively (can you slurp up and down on a dildo any other way?).

This went on pretty much non-stop for about two hours as we were doing the shoot and Howard eventually leant over to me and pointed out, ‘she likes you’.

‘Have you got a girlfriend, Godfrey?’ Claire asked.

‘No, I’m between girlfriends at the moment,’ I told her.

‘What, like Yosser Hughes is between jobs?’ Howard asked. We had to spend ten minutes explaining to Claire who Yosser Hughes was before the conversation could move on, but when it did, she said to me:

‘That’s a shame, isn’t it, no girlfriend? What do you do about sex then? Do you tug yourself off all day, do you?’

‘Not all the time. Sometimes I go to work too,’ I told her.

‘Have you ever tugged off over pictures of me?’

‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t,’ I apologised, but decided that I bloody well would from now on.

‘Oh, I’m hurt. You’ve hurt my feelings,’ she simpered, so I promised her I’d crack one out over her as soon as I got home, and this seemed to cheer her up.

‘Why wait?’ she asked, and set about herself with a gusto with one of the sex toys by way of demonstration.

This was killing me.

It might sound like a right good sexy giggle, but at the time it felt more like Hell in hot grots. Can you imagine having an amazingly beautiful and breath-takingly dirty 22 year old doing everything she can think of to entice you into doing her and you can’t do a thing about it? That’s right, not a thing. I was a professional doing a job. Stuart had sent me along with a brief and I had to make sure that we got the shots that we needed for the issue. I couldn’t just go steaming in there with my big cock hanging out and ask Howard if he wouldn’t mind stepping outside for half an hour while I had a bit of a ding-dong with the girl he’d paid £250 to get in for the afternoon now, could I?

Of course not. That sort of behaviour would find its way back to the office before I could, and where would me and my smug, self-satisfied grin be then? Out on my ear, that’s where. I knew that much for a fact and had heard too many stories of luckless predecessors who hadn’t exercised the same control I was struggling to maintain in the face of such temptation and had found their P45s waiting for them when they got back to their desks. People might like to imagine working for a porn mag is a bit like clocking on at a Roman orgy but the only thing it’s got in common with those ancient times are the sirens that lure you into the rocky shallows (even though I think those ladies were actually Greek, but still, my parallels are all over the place so what’s it matter?). The powers that by at Moonlight Publishing left us in no doubt; you’re employed to do a job so keep your pants on during working hours and don’t expose yourself or the company to any possible legal unpleasantness. ‘You want to shag models?’ MD, Peter McMenamin once said in a now famous Christmas speech. ‘Do it in your own time’. Cue much incongruous laughter.

Of course, this all only applied if they found out, but seeing as Howard was about as discreet as those cats that went at it outside my bedsit window every night, I decided not to risk it.

And yet again, after another half an hour of putting Claire into various poses with various dildos we found we’d shot five rolls, more than enough for what we wanted, so I decided to call time. I looked at my watch. It was gone five. No point going back into town just to sit at my desk for ten minutes, so I also decided to give myself the rest of the afternoon off.

‘What are you doing now then? Fancy a few drinks?’ Howard asked. ‘The fun’s only just beginning,’ he assured me, pointing towards Claire with his eyebrows all over the place.

‘Yeah, don’t go,’ she said, ‘we can have a little party, the three of us.’ I watched Howard packing away his camera and lighting and I suddenly saw that Claire was expecting both of us to supply the custard.

Er... hello, thinks I. Things are taking a turn for the decidedly unpleasant.

‘Actually, I’m not sure I can stay,’ I said, taking a big step towards the door. ‘I’m meeting a mate tonight and I’ve gotta shoot.’

‘What!’ Claire exclaimed jumping to her feet. ‘No, don’t be silly, stay a while.’

‘Yeah, hang about, we’ll have a laugh,’ Howard urged, waving his eyebrows about even more as if I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

‘No, no, seriously, I have to. I’m really sorry, but I can’t get out of it. I’d love to, but I can’t. It’s my mate see, he’s getting married next week and I’m the best man and we’ve got to go over the running order for the day. It’s a real bummer, if only I’d known because then I could’ve rearranged it but he’s coming all the way over from Cardiff. Sorry about that,’ I shrugged, slipping into my coat and aiming myself at the door.

‘You get back here right this instant, Mr Godfrey Bishop. I’ll tell you when you can go,’ Claire stomped, all school mistress-like, but I was way too freaked out at the thought of me and Howard rolling around in the buff together to give in to any strong-arm tactics.

I don’t suppose Claire got too many rejections because my behaviour seemed to baffle and irritate her something rotten. Howard, on the other hand, tried a couple more times but eventually chucked in the towel when he realised that it was no use, I was off no matter how much he ‘Roger Moored’ me. He looked pretty narked off though, as if the thought of having to stay and give Claire a good seeing-to all on his own constituted the short end of the stick, but still I was gone.

I apologised to the pair of them for my shoddy manners once again, just as Claire was telling me that, if I went, I wouldn’t get my present, and slipped out of the door to last-ditch cries of, ‘wait, wait, wait. Just wait a second, I want to show you something really important’. It was no use though. I had a good idea of what this thing was and it was the very thing I was running from.

Out on the street the reassuring hustle and bustle of traffic restored some sort of normality to my senses and I shook my head in disbelief.

What was I doing?

I was running away from a definite shag with a porn model who was absolutely gagging for it, that’s what I was doing. Jesus, I felt like George Formby in one of those old movies where the evil Nazi slapper’s trying to shove her hands down his trousers and he’s fighting tooth and nail to stop her and the audience is sitting there, scratching their heads and wondering why he doesn’t just let her have it all over the knuckles.

So why did I do a runner then?

Well, at the end of the day, I suppose it all came down to a bad case of Cockclashophobia – ie the fear of my cock accidentally coming into contact with another man’s. I don’t know if this is a genuine phobia but if it is, I’m an extreme sufferer.

See, no matter how hot, horny and willing Claire was, I just didn’t want to get my cock out in front of Howard. And it’s not because I’m ashamed of my body or that I was frightened that I wouldn’t be able to perform in front of him or anything like that, I just didn’t want to be aroused and having sex when there was another bloke in the same room. Equally, I really didn’t want to be on hand when he was thrusting away like a horny dog with a bone. I make no apologies for this. I can’t. It’s just the way I am. You can pile in as many birds as you like but the moment another bloke wanders in I’m off. Consequently, the thought of me and Howard standing around in our socks, thrusting, laughing and high-fiving each other across Claire’s back was enough to send shivers down my spine. I can’t tell you why, it’s probably because I’m British (or more specifically, English). I was born and raised in these frigid isles and we Englishmen generally don’t like to drop our guard and expose our vulnerables unless we’re watching the football. It’s just not the done thing. Not the done thing at all. Can you imagine Trevor Howard tally-hoing his way up Celia Johnson’s arse while Cyril Raymond hot-danged it all over her knockers?

No, sex in Britain is a rather shameful little act performed by intoxicated adults in dark rooms under the covers. At least that’s what I was brought up to believe and, thinking about it, probably the reason I spent the most of my late teens driving to the next town in a hat, dark glasses and a big coat to buy a staggering number of porno mags.

Of course, this is just me. There are plenty of blokes who have no such hang ups, although these are generally ex-public school types, rugby players or squaddies; blokes who like to rough and tumble, grab each other’s nuts for fun and devise initiation ceremonies for newcomers which usually involve sucking everyone else off. I mean, come on, these sorts of blokes are so used to staring at each other’s cocks across digestive biscuits that of course they’re not going to have any qualms about having it off in front of each other.

Me though, I just couldn’t do it. Does that make me less of a man? I don’t know. Maybe. But then if in order to be regarded as a man I’ve got to drink some scrum-half’s piss through a sock or kiss cocks with the rest of the battalion then you can call me whatever you like. Though this is slightly getting off the point.

Like I said, I’m not shy in front of other blokes. Whenever I play five-a-side I have no worries about getting stripped off and jumping into the showers with the lads because this is just getting clean after the match. It’s no more sexual than washing your hands after working on your car or combing your hair. If however, all of a sudden, one of the lads turned around and had a big hard-on, that would change everything. Me, and I’m sure everyone else, would feel distinctly uncomfortable and want to get out of there and get dressed as quickly as possible (unless it was Michael Owen and he’d just won us the World Cup, then who knows what might happen?). But this is just my natural homophobia at work and that’s the truth. I’m not against gays or lesbians anyone else who wants to swim against the tide, I just don’t want to myself. I’m happy for the homosexual community to do whatever they want to do and enjoy the same sorts of freedoms and liberties as the rest of us, it’s just not my flavour of crisps that’s all, so I’d rather stay well out of it.

Same as I’m not into stamp collecting or Robot Wars; you can crack on if you like but personally I’d rather be in the next pub.

I used to work with this gay bloke a few years ago when I was on the caravan magazine and always got on all right with him, except when he would absolutely insist that I was actually gay myself but hadn’t come to terms with it yet. This, he would say, was why I was afraid to try shagging another bloke, because I was bent and frightened that I’d end up liking it. I mean, what sort of sense does this make? I’m gay and the proof is that I won’t let some geezer in a tight t-shirt give it to me hard up the arse? Am I a murderer too? My response was usually, ‘You don’t have to smack your hand with a hammer to know it’s going to hurt,’ followed by, ‘And even if I was going to try it, it wouldn’t be with you, you fat ugly cunt’.

No, I don’t know. I’m pretty sure I’m not gay (though you can never tell with these things) because my overwhelming desire is to be with women, who I am totally and intoxicatingly attracted to. Sometimes I wish I was a nine-bob note because I bet it’s a hell of a lot easier getting a shag than it is being straight.

And so, somewhere amongst these disjointed thoughts is probably the reason I fled from Howard’s that day.

I’ve been in a few similar situations with models since and I’ve always reacted the same way, like Mr Grimsdale’s assistant with the microfilm down his pants. I did a runner. I wish I didn’t, but I did. What can I do? We all have to accept our own limitations.

It particularly confuses and pisses off the models when you do this though because there they are, stark-bollock naked with not an inhibition in the world and there you are unwilling to join in. It hurts their feelings and makes them feel a bit cheap, like you’re saying to them, ‘Oh no, I couldn’t possible do that. Your sort does that, I’m above all that sort of thing’. This isn’t true, of course. I have only the highest admiration for women who get their clothes off in public. I’m just far too fucked up to do it myself.

And that’s the answer to that question – do you get to shag the models? Well, if you don’t mind getting your cock out in front of the lads and bumping balls with your mates then yes, you do occasionally get to shag the models.

If, however, you don’t go in for that sort of thing, well then no, you just have to be content with going home and whacking off over pictures of girls who’ve chased you around the studio and out the door, begging you for sex.