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.