Broke. Down and out in Paris. Hiding out from brutal creditors. I'm in scarily way too deep. If you wanna hear about it, the things I did, the predicament I find myself in, all you have to do is buy me a cognac... and listen, eventually I may come up with the truth, only slightly embellished. Of course, you'll never be certain which parts are true, and which teasing fabrication. But I'm not about to get into that, right now. No, just listen, and I'll tell you all you need to know.
I'm the guy who tests out the limits of conventional morality, sees through all the petty lies and hypocrisies of the bourgeois lifestyle, all the festering unhealthy repressions of those small-minded plastic people trapped in their daily closed-up commuter grind. I view the world through Beatnik eyes, a hipster's view, an existentialist live-for-the-moment Left Bank immediacy. I'm the rebel against conformity. And trouble follows me around. It's not always deliberate. It's not something I do intentionally. It just tends to happen to me. It just does.
Until, in a cheap Brasserie wondering where the hell my next franc is going to come from, I encounter a college friend, a slightly built French boy of some twenty-three years. When he first sits down across the table from me I don't even recognise him. Paul... isn't it? Paul something. It's been a long time, and I'm preoccupied. A lot has happened. But he buys me a drink and I'll be nice to anyone who buys me a drink.
As we get into talking, with the wine coursing its pleasing effect through my mind, details of my predicament begin to emerge. I don't know why, but I tell him things I probably shouldn't have. He's easy to talk to in a relaxed Gallic kind of way, and hey, I can shoot the breeze anyway. It's one of the few things I'm good at. Maybe I exaggerate β about Mack The Knife, the Mafiosi drug-deal rackets, but only a little.
He catches my drift. "Money, you need money? No questions asked, fringe legal?"
"Why, what do you have in mind?" I'm intrigued now. And yes, more than a little desperate. If I can't at least come up with a token repayment on my loans... things start getting nasty. You don't mess with Mack the Knife.
He's about to suggest something, then backs off. "No, you won't be interested."
"I might be, try me." Something ticking in my head.
"No, it's alright."
I persist. He deals me clues and hints, nothing explicit, his suggestions coming in fragments. But I'm sure I've got him fitted into my inventory of character-types. I can work him. Eventually he glances around in a conspiratorial sort of way, and draws his chair closer to me, then mentions a name, a casual acquaintance. "Photos and stuff, risquΓ©, you know? They've got it lined up, an erotic movie, but one of the guys dropped out at the last moment. So there's a vacancy there, an opening, you want in?"
I pause.
He shrugs. "You say why, I say why not?"
He writes me an address on a napkin. I'm dubious, but I'm a free spirit, an adventurer, a ducker and diver, I'm the fly-guy, aren't I, living the edge? Loose cars, fast drugs and hard women. That gives me license to transgress further. Don't think for a minute that I'm about to make excuses for myself. No way, I haven't changed my opinions a jot, and anything I admit here and now is not β repeat not, by way of justification. I'd do exactly the same thing again if the same situation arose again. The only difference between me and you is that I'm not afraid to admit it.
So, with nothing to lose, I follow the lead up across the bohemian Montmartre to an ageing apartment block set back off the Rue D'Remarks. The concierge looks at me oddly, but directs me up to the correct suite where a man with a paranoid edge cautiously opens the door a crack, then suspiciously admits me.
"Paul sent you?"
I nod. "He said you'd pay me for some, er porn shoots."
"He told you that did he?" The man says he is Mr Jules, which is probably not his name anyway, and he must be on the wrong side of his fifties, greasy, in a black leather jacket and thin greying moustache. He smells of Gauloises and garlic. "You have the necessary equipment?"
I shrug. "I guess so."
"Let me be the judge of that. Undress please."
There's a momentary startle of fear. This is a little weird, a bit too pervy for my liking. But I think of the Bad Guys out there with my name on their list. I look around for a changing room, then stupidly realise there's no reason for modesty. I'll be nude for the shoots, so I might as well get used to the idea. Think of it like a trip to the Doctors. I pull my T-shirt up and off, then slide out of my sandals. The Frenchman's eyes are on me as I nervously tug my jeans down and turn shyly to let him appraise my nudity. My cock swaying stupidly, it seems suddenly small and unimpressive and I find myself blushing, fighting the urge to cover myself.
He leans back in his chair and lights a cigarette. "Make it stiff now."
I feel like turning away and forgetting the whole deal. This is a mistake. But in an agony of embarrassment I reach down and begin to wank the defiantly flaccid penis, my balls bouncing. I think of porn shoots β of naked girls opening their legs for me to fuck, of one girl sucking my balls while another has my cock in her lush mouth, and slowly it stiffens in my hand and stands out red and fierce.
"Yes, OK, enough β it will suffice, you get 25 Euros for some test-shots."
I nod unenthusiastically, aware of my cock jiggling sympathetically as I do so. At the same moment there's movement from the room beyond, and Paul comes in, my contact. He's wearing a short dressing gown. Something snags at the back of my mind, a connection.
"He's pretty good, eh?" says Paul running his eyes up and down my naked body. "Good cock."
"It'll do, it's adequate" nods Mr Jules. "You wanna start now?"