Student of a porn director

‘YOU CANNOT JUST FINGER HIS ASS FOR THREE MINUTES!’ Says Fabien, the legendary French porn director who I am studying under. There’s a boy on the bed, nineteen (?), and behind him is Colin, a fifty something year old man, who has three fingers in the boys arse. The boy looks fairly un-phased by the whole affair. During this short intermission, where his  fingered anus is being discussed, he has retired to his phone; texting a friend, checking an update, or tweeting about his working life: three fingers or two?

Fabien, a short man, no bigger than 5’5, with brown curls, is pacing the floor smoking a cigarette.

‘You cannot have three fingers in his ass for three minutes. We’ll need to cut it down to one point five at least. I want you to do as we discussed.’

A young black man, Andre, who I’m told is an asylum seeker from Nigeria, is asking me if I’d like Coffee, or just a line? I decline the line, and accept the coffee. He shimmies off.

‘I was never made to do that by Trapped Door’, says Colin, who is still in fingering motion, his left hand in play, the right resting on the boys buttocks.

‘TRAPPED DOOR IS NO STUDIO 9, BABE. STUDIO 9 DOESN’T MAKE YOU INSERT CUCUMBER INTO A MIDGETS HOLE, DOES IT? STUDIO 9 DOESN’T MAKE YOU SLEEP WITH EIGHTY YEAR OLD MEN!’ screams Fabien. His face has grown a sudden red, the cigarette is clamped between his teeth, and he’s holding his hands up in reverence.

Colin retorts: ‘I don’t care; I said I don’t do that. And not for bloody eight hundred. 1.5 K and we can talk.’

Fabien throws his cigarette to the floor. ‘YOU’RE ON A CONTRACT! AND IN THAT CONTRACT YOU WILL DO AS I, THE DIRECTOR, ASKS. THEN YOU GET PAID. AN OLD SHIT LIKE YOU SHOULD BE GRATFEUL I’VE HAD THIS IDEA AT ALL. YOU’RE OLD NEWS, DARLING’.

The boy pipes in: ‘Can I have another spliff?’

Fabien paces over, grabbing the boys’ defined cheeks in his tobacco stained hands ‘No my darling, you cannot have another, as you say, spliff.’

‘But it hurts’ the boy whines.

‘Mmm, poor baby’, he slaps his face ‘deal with it’.

Andre returns with my coffee, handing me a cup and saucer, with a free spliff – the boy glares at me.

‘Com-pla-men-tary’, he winks.

‘Thank you.’

He then rushes to Julian, offering him a glass of white wine and a cigarillo.

Julien mutters to him ‘get the gerbils’.

Andre nods, pensively walking off: gerbils or deportation?

I take in my surroundings, trying to ignore Colin asking if the boy wants to ‘taste?’

We’re in Fabien’s house, a delicately decorated room painted in white. There is little furniture, just some chairs, two side-tables, a picture of a naked woman on the wall, and a drinks table. The side that we’re on is more tech-centred. A camera on a horizontal track, some lights operated by a fat guy wearing Dark Side of the Moon t-shirt; a young woman from L.A is lying on a sofa, drinking a Kir Royale and smoking a Vogue cigarette. And me, the twenty nine year old actor, a recent graduate of Fabien’s school for porn actors, watching this live scene, as I may be joining in at some point. I have bills to pay.

Andre returns with a cage, covered in a white linen cloth, he places it on a table, and resumes rolling joints.

‘CAN SOMEONE PUT ON SOME FUCKING BACH? I WANT BACH, THE GOLDBERG VARIATIONS! HOW CAN WE WORK WITHOUT THE REFLECTIVE GOLDBERG VARITIONS? JESUS CHRIST, I MAY AS WELL HAVE GONE INTO ADVERTISING.’

Andre rushes to plug in Fabien’s iPod into the Bose dock. The room IS suddenly filled with the opening piano notes of the Goldberg variation. Fabien places two fingers on the ridge of his nose: ‘thank Christ for that’. The boy asks for a spliff again.

‘GET HIM ANOTHER LAXITIVE.’ Shouts Fabien, I now understand the plying of drugs. Andre pops two laxatives into the boys’ mouth: ‘d’ere you go, Benny’.

Benny, the boy’s name is Benny.  

Fabien pulls a small plastic packet from his pocket; he used to tell us that coke was essential to creativity, the only means to ‘excite and fuck the mind’. He snorts it out of the palm of his hand.

‘RIGHT, LETS FUCK THESE BABIES.’

He goes to the cage, and reveals two tiny beige gerbils, gnarling on small pieces of apple.  

‘GENTLEMEN, YOUR CO-STARS’.

Both Colin and Benny stare at the animals. Benny goes back to his phone, muttering something about wanting cocaine. Colin shakes his head. ‘Not since the eighties, going to need at least a grand and five’.

Andre presents Colin with his contract ‘but id’s in your conTTTRRACCT’

Colin snatches the paper from him and reads the document, his hand still on Benny’s buttock. His eyes dart across the paper. ‘You never mentioned animals.’

‘AND I HAVE TO MAKE DO WITH A BOLD ASS-HOLE, WITH SAGGING TTIS’.

The woman drinking the Kir clears her throat. ‘Fabien, darling, just pay the man a little extra. We can afford it.’

Fabien rushes to her, kneeling at her feet.

‘Darling, are you sure? We don’t need bald assholes telling us what to do. I’ll get the lawyers onto him’.

She strokes his hair, brushing his brown curls behind his ear.

‘No, just give him the extra’.

He kisses her forehead. Getting up, I hear him mutter under his breath ‘I hate working with faggots.’

Waving at Colin, he confirms that more money will be paid.

Benny is given a line of coke, whilst Colin has a small toke on a joint. Fabien raises the Goldberg Variations to such a high pitch that it echoes in my rib-cage. The Kir woman with apparent gerbil sex money adjourns to another room. On her way out, she catches my eye, and comes over; she kisses me lightly on the cheek ‘Meet me later, for a test’

Fabien snorts a line, and then demands herbal tea. Andre goes to the cage, and grabs at one of the gerbils; the animals try to scurry away from his hands. He grabs one and hurries over to Colin, who has a toilet tube. He puts the tube to Benny’s ass, and Andre puts the wriggling animal in.

‘ROLL IT!’ Fabien shouts, and the fat Pink Floyd fan starts rolling the camera. The lights got down. Having been instructed by Fabien, Benny demands that he ‘be royally chewed out’.

Colin takes a lighter, and lights the tube, causing the animal to try and burrow as deep as it can.

The moaning and shouting is intense. Fabien is waving his hands, as if doing a Mexican wave, delighted by what he’s created. I turn away, and leave the room, praying my ‘test’ will be okay.

As I shut the door, I hear Colin yell ‘it’s on fire!’ as the music ends as a quiet chord, in problematic amplification.