‘How much notice would you have to give at your current place of employment?’ Stuart asked.
‘Four weeks is the standard but I can negotiate if you need me sooner,’ meaning I’d drop them in the shit and jack tomorrow if you give me this job.
‘Money?’ he asked.
‘I can only afford to pay you a hundred a week,’ I joked. We both laughed and Stuart made a mental note to knock two grand off the number he’d first thought about.
‘Seriously, how much are you looking for?’
‘Well, if possible it would be nice if you could match my current salary,’ I told him, then chucked four grand on the top of my current salary.
‘Okay, I’ll see what I can do. Right, let’s get you set up on this subbing test then. The page should already be up on screen. It’s a 500 word dirty story, I just want you to go through it and correct and rewrite where you think it needs it and fit it to the page. If you could bold out any changes you make, that’ll save me reading the whole fucking thing again.’
I sat myself down in front of the computer and looked at the Quark page open up onscreen.
‘Alright if you start now you’ve got 15 minutes, that should give you plenty of time,’ he assured me.
I quickly skim-read the story which seemed to be about a posh housewife, a broken sink, a plumber, his mate and a big smelly face-full of splodge. It over-ran off the page by a couple of hundred words and there were a number of spelling, grammatical and physically impossible mistakes that all needed to be amended as well as a big pull-out quote which just read ‘FILL ME FILL ME FILL ME FILL ME FILL ME FILL ME FILL ME’. I was half-tempted to leave it as it was, as it seemed like the sort of thing she’d say anyway.
‘Is blowjob hyphenated or two words?’ I asked Stuart, who’d just phoned his secretary for coffee.
‘Hyphenated,’ he replied so I changed it to ‘blow-job’. At that moment there was a knock at the door and when I looked up I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was like there was an explosion of realisation in my head and my heart leapt into my throat. Standing before me, asking me if I’d like tea or coffee, was a tall, slender blonde girl, say 21 or thereabouts, wearing nothing but high heels and a couple of hair clips. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and I’m serious, I literally could not believe my eyes.
‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asked again, giving me a slight smile.
‘Erm... please,’ I replied, finally finding my voice.
‘One lump or two?’ she asked, barely three feet away. Her big round tits swung slightly as she leaned over to address me and her belly button stood at about my eye level, at least it would’ve been had I been looking at her. It seems daft, I know, there was a beautiful (and I do mean beautiful) naked girl standing not three feet from me and talking to me politely and the only place I could look was my shoes. I was burning up with embarrassment and my collar suddenly felt like a garrotte. I can’t explain this, I guess at the end of the day, all fantasies aside, most normal people feel fairly uncomfortable confronting bedroom stuff outside of the bedroom, particularly if you’re trying to sit a test.
A test?
That’s what it was. This was a test? The article didn’t matter, that was a red-herring, this girl in front of me was the test. Fuck, what was I meant to do?
First thing was first, I think she needed answering.
‘No sugar for me, than you.’
‘Cream?’
Oh God!
‘Just milk thanks,’ I replied and she gave me a little wink and left the room. Being the gentleman that I was, I waited until her back was turned before staring at her as hard as I could to try and indelibly imprint her image on my brain.
I looked over at Stuart, who hadn’t even looked up from his notes. I thought maybe he’d be smiling or laughing or trying to hide his boner like I was but he was completely unmoved. Was this a test? Perhaps not. Perhaps they really did have naked women who worked here full-time. What am I talking about why would they? What would be the point? Sure it was a porno company but that didn’t mean everyone who worked here had to wander around butt-arse naked all the time. Or did it?
No, it had to be a test. But again what sort of test? What was expected of me? If Stuart had turned around to me and told me to oil her tits up or take pictures of her then at least I would’ve known what to do, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t said a word. The initiative was all with me.
Not my specialist chosen subject.
They weren’t expecting me to get naked as well, were they?
No, they couldn’t be. Or could they? Why else bring a naked girl into the room? Oh lord, she was back.
‘There you go,’ she said, putting a mug of tea down next to me.
‘Rebecca, could you take a letter for me please?’ Stuart said and Rebecca sat in the chair next to me, picked up a pen and pad and started scribbling down whatever it was Stuart started banging on about. I couldn’t hear him. All I could hear was the blood coursing through my ears, my heart thumping in my chest and my zip starting to give.
I ploughed my way through the article, trying to take my mind off the naked woman beside me by reading about an altogether separate naked woman who had two cocks in her mouth.
Oh no, this wasn’t the test, was it?
I didn’t have to have sex with this girl in front of Stuart, did I? Oh Christ, I couldn’t do that, no way. I had trouble taking my top off at the beach, but getting my old fella out in front of another man? Oh no, oh no no no!
Was that what I was what was expected to do? I mean this was the porn industry after all. Presumably they were looking for a certain type of person who could work in the industry; a person who – like in the stories – enjoyed spit-roasting posh housewives in the afternoon while high-fiving their mates across her back. They didn’t want prudes or namby-pamby shy boys working with them. And if I wanted this job, I was going to have to overcome my inhibitions and prove I could be like the nastiest of them too. This was the real test, wasn’t it? To see if I was man enough to work in the industry. Me and Stuart were both going to have to do her and presumably high-five and say; ‘Yeah, take it bitch’ at some point.
Oh God, what if my balls accidentally touched his? I knew they’d shrivel up to the size and hardness of small diamonds and never be seen again.
I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t. I knew that was what they were both waiting for, for me to stand up and say, ‘Come on then, let’s party!’ but fuck that! No way. If this was what it took to get a job in porn then I had to admit I just wasn’t up to it and good luck to whoever was.
I cracked on with the article and subbed it and proofed it one last time before asking if that was all.
‘Good, well time’s up now anyway. Did you bold all the bits you’d done?’
I told him I had.
‘Well that’s about it then, unless there’s any final thing you’d like to ask?’ Stuart said.
I thought about this for the briefest of moments, this was my last chance.
‘Just one thing,’ I said and looked at Rebecca, ‘which temp agency do you use?’
A joke. One feeble joke, that was all I could manage. What a feeble excuse for a man I was. Stuart and Rebecca smiled and Stuart said he’d show me out. As I got to my feet, slowly and carefully, Rebecca glanced at the front of my trousers and then up at me and smiled. I could’ve cried. What was I doing? I’d never had anyone this beautiful taking an interest in me in my life (and wasn’t ever likely to) and I was turning tail and running like a coward. I caught her eye one last time and she gave me a wink.