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.