‘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?