“Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “I see what you mean.”
“You must know Dr Chris,” Robson said.
I bowed. “My mentor.”
Robson smiled as Mickey laughed. “We did some fundraising for the clinic last year. She’s not someone you forget easily.”
“Absolutely not,” I replied.
“You do some amazing work there,” Robson said. “I think the idea is great, but…dare I ask this? Do you have any experience in porn?” I shook my head. “Acting or filmography?”
“In a word…no, but my friend is a photographer. He’s going to film it for me.”
“A photographer?” He started laughing and it was in that moment that I realised I was way out of my depth.
“You think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”
He thought for a moment, scratched his head. “I think if you’re serious about this, you need to see what’s involved.” He blew out a breath and muttered, “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” before pulling out his phone from his pocket. “I’ve got a friend who directs porn films. We often premiere them at our cinema. I could ask her if she’d be willing to meet you or even allow you to watch her film a scene.”
“Her?”
“Yeah. She’s built up a name for herself as the first female porn director who films in the style of big-budget films. Real storylines and proper scripts, but instead of cut-and-fade or a tame sex scene you’d see in a Hollywood movie, she features the sex scene from start to finish. Very popular with women. Here.” He handed me a Blu-ray from the shelf. It was a film called Stronger Ties. The back cover had a blurb just like you find on a novel. This one was obviously a nod to Fifty Shades with an office worker being pulled into the world of submission by her dominant older boss. “Take that and see what you think. I’ll give her a call and see if she’ll have you there when she’s filming. It’s a good place to start.”
I left my details with Robson and Mickey and later that day I got a call to say that Margot Phillips, female porn director, would be willing to let me shadow her on her next shoot, which happened to be on Sunday evening. I’d cleared it with her that Will would come with me; I just hadn’t got around to telling him yet.
We’d left things in a cloud of weirdness. He stayed on the sofa the night we watched Harley Quinn, the Joker, and Batman get it on, and in the morning, he was all stilted conversations and awkward glances. We settled into our familiar territory of banter bordering on mild abuse and he left by lunchtime after sitting in the corner of the café watching me as I helped serve the lunchtime rush. He’d texted me a handful of times during the week, asked if I’d watched any good porn lately, and met Stacey for lunch where she later described him to me as weirder than usual.
Saturday rolled around and I still hadn’t asked Will if he would come to the porn shoot with me. I only had a day to convince him, but I knew something had been holding me back from the conversation. Just watching porn with Will had caused an ache I couldn’t seem to shake. A body vibration that didn’t ease up. What would happen when we were watching people having sex in front of us? I was sensing a combustion. An explosion. An uproar.
“He seems like a good guy,” Will said as we looked across to Stacey and Matt deep in conversation on Brighton beach. It was the weekend of the Ironman competition and they’d both agreed to help me hand out some brownies that had a promo attached to them for Vanity Fur. Unexpectedly, Matt, the escort Stacey had interviewed, slept with, and apparently fallen in love with, was a competitor and fate appeared to be bringing them together.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I like him but get her reservations about his job.”
“You couldn’t handle a male escort?” He smirked.
“I’d be happy to try,” I replied, pulling Reggie’s lead. “Or I could always ask out his mate.” He ignored me. “Come on, let’s rescue her.”
We approached Stacey and wrapped our arms around her as she watched Matt run out towards the tide.
“What are the chances of that, hey?” I said. “There may be something to this fate bullshit.”
“Or he’s just really good at stalking,” Will added.
“Thank you for being nice to him.”
“Stace,” he said. “He’s an escort, not a fucking murderer.”
“Jesus, I’m so confused,” she replied, covering her face with her hands. Will pulled them away, kissing her on the top of her head firmly.
“Love your escort, but proceed with caution,” I said.
“Be fucking happy,” Will said, staring at me. “Life’s too short.” I wondered what he meant and why he was still watching me, but Stacey was expecting some pearls of wisdom and she was in no mood to wait.
“He seems really nice, looks good in a wetsuit, and he has a fit mate. It isn’t all bad.” Will frowned and I probably had a similar facial expression.
“He does look good in a wetsuit,” Stacey said, bringing me back to the conversation.
“I don’t want you to get hurt, but at the same time, I want you to have the love you’ve been craving,” I said and the voices inside me became stronger.
What about the love you’ve been craving?
“He isn’t always going to be an escort,” Will replied.
“I know, but isn’t that the point?” She asked, watching him in the distance and walking away. “He’s the right man…at the wrong time.”
“Is there such a thing?” I asked, but she didn’t respond.
Will stood behind me and sighed. “Yeah, there is.” I swear he moved towards me, taking a deep breath, smelling my hair.
“Are you free tomorrow night?” I blurted out.
