Chad Corbett wasn't going to look at the thing in the corner.
He looked up at the mirror on the ceiling instead. Reflected back in it he saw his nude form lying on a pink silk bedspread. Chad was tattooed and buff. He was proud of his body. It had taken long hours at the gym to develop that chest and abs.
The bed was big and fancy. It was a proper fancy tart's bed. It was the bed of someone that liked nookie and liked it often.
Chad liked nookie too.
That was how he'd ended up handcuffed to the bed. His wrists and ankles were chained to the bed posts. They weren't
handcuff
handcuffs. They were covered in fluffy pink fur—the type of thing you might find in a sex shop, for use in kinky sex games.
Chad was well up for kinky sex games on a fancy tart's bed. That was why he'd allowed himself to be handcuffed to the bed posts in the first place.
In hindsight that wasn't the smartest decision in the world.
His gaze strayed back towards the corner. He checked himself.
No, we are not looking at the thing in the corner.
He looked up instead. A fancy camera was mounted on a corner bracket and pointed down at the bed. Chad could see his reflection there too, in the blank lens.
"Mr Corbett, are you ready to play?"
The voice came through a speaker on the wall. The owner sounded like a well-to-do woman in her late forties or early fifties. The accent was very plummy.
No, Chad wasn't ready to play. This wasn't the game he thought it'd be.
Ineffectually, he tugged at the handcuffs. He stared up at his buff reflection in the mirror. His muscles flexed and bulged, but were no match for steel chains.
His head fell back on a soft, scented pillow.
How the hell did you get yourself into this mess, Chad? he thought.
He found himself looking towards the far corner of the floor. He snapped his gaze back to the ceiling.
Don't look at the thing in the corner.
* * * *
It had started with a conversation down the pub. Chad had had a few. His mates had had a few. As the night wore on the conversation became boozier and less inhibited. The topic of sex came up, as it inevitably did. With it came the usual bravado of young adult men getting beered up.
"Perfect career—porn star," Chad said. "What's better than fucking hot women all day
and
..." he paused for emphasis "...getting paid for it."
"I dunno," his mate, Owen, said. "I've heard it's harder than it sounds."
"Or rather, isn't always as
hard
as it sounds," another mate, Jez, added with an elbow and guffaw.
"Nah, not all of us have that problem," Chad jabbed back with a wink.
"It's more
difficult
than you think," Owen said. "I read this magazine piece about a kinky tour operator that was offering weekend breaks on the set of porn films, so people could see what goes on behind the scenes, even take part if they want. Some took them up on the taking part bit. The porn actress they interviewed said hardly anyone was able to perform. Said it takes a special sort to get hard and stay hard when all the lights are on them and they're surrounded by a film crew."
"I could," Chad stated.
"Hardy said the same," Jez said. "You remember him—Andy Hardcastle? Randy Andy. Was always in the knickers of some bird or other. We were out in Prague for a cheap weekend of booze and sex. Hardy and some of the other lads found a brothel with a really weird business model. You didn't have to pay anything. Instead you gave them permission to film it all and put it up on the internet as cheap porn.
"Didn't interest me," he continued. "Having film of me having sex put up on the internet for the whole world to see, forever... I'd rather slip a tart a couple of notes and be done with it. Hardy was well up for it, though. Free fucking? No way is he turning that down. He's the only one of us mad enough to go for it, so the rest of us bugger off to the nearest pub and wait for him.
"About an hour later he comes back looking like someone's just run over his favourite puppy.
"'Couldn't do it, lads,' he said.
"'Were they all minging?' we asked. I mean, if they're giving it away for free they're hardly likely to be the hottest chicks in the world.
"'That was the worst part,' Hardy said. He told us she was a really fit Russian bird. Really top totty. But once he looked up and saw the camera on the wall, that was it."
Jez held up a finger and curled it down while making a sad trombone noise.
"I'm not Hardy," Chad said. "It wouldn't bother me in the slightest."
"Okay, let's say you are one of those people that can get it up in front of the cameras," Owen said. "It ain't just that. You have to keep it in until the right moment. Getting too excited and spunking your load too early is just as bad as not getting it up."
"You don't know my rep," Chad came back with. "I'm Mr Control. It's how I've always been. I get hard when I want to get hard and I don't come until I want to come."
Chad was used to people doubting that. When he was younger he hadn't even thought it was that big of a deal. Wasn't it the same for everyone?
Apparently not.
"How else do you think I've got three on the go... at the same time," he added, and there was much laughter.
"If you've got the control, this might be up your street," Benny Barker said to him later the same night.
Benny Barker was a guy that hung around on the fringes of their crowd. He wasn't much older than Chad, but he looked way older. His face was pudgy and most of his hair had washed away. Chad's sister described him as 'creepy-looking'. He was proper fugly in Chad's opinion. Nice enough bloke, but proper fugly.
Benny handed him a plain pink card. There was some small handwritten text and a phone number at the bottom.
"Found this on the noticeboard of the sex shop on Coronet Road."
That Benny spent time checking the noticeboards of local sex shops didn't come as any surprise to Chad. Benny was so fugly Chad reckoned the only way he could get laid was by paying for it.
"It's some kind of challenge," he said. "Filmed. They try to get you off within twenty minutes and if you're able to hold out you win a hundred quid. I looked into it, but it seemed a little... weird."
