Photo Shoot 1

Part 1

I dread the day when one of my patients blurts out, halfway through an appointment with me, "You know... I think I recognise your face from somewhere... have you ever done any modelling, Dr Wallace?"

It's going to happen; it's inevitable. Sooner or later, someone bound to come into my consultation room who remembers my face from whatever gay magazine I appeared in a few years ago.

And when it does - well - I'm not quite sure how I'm going to explain it. I don't know if it's possible to casually, laughingly, tell someone why their trusty GP was, just three or four years ago, strutting his stuff in a hardcore all-male wank-mag.

I think the tactic I'll use will be to roll my eyes back, chuckle nonchalantly and say, "Oh that! Well... you know how tough it can get for poverty-stricken medical students! My girlfriend wasn't exactly impressed, but it earned us a few bob for a holiday..."

And then, maybe, while maintaining a sweet, harmless smile: "Doesn't your wife object to your interest in that kind of magazine?"

All nice and friendly.

That's assuming the person recognising me turns out to be a married man. But I think that's a fair assumption for me to make: the magazine was clearly aiming itself at that end of the market, as I remember it.

I can't recall it's exact name - I only saw one issue - but it was something like, "Professional Photographer" or "Photography Monthly" or something. It sounded pretty innocuous anyway.

It was the kind of magazine a guy could pick up in an out-of-the-way adult newsagents and carry home without arousing too much suspicion. Slip it in his briefcase between 'The Times' and some paperwork without his wife taking any interest if she was to get the odd fleeting glimpse of it.

The one I saw had a handsome young man on the cover, smiling pleasantly against an artistically-shot sunset. Intellectual-sounding captions about some of that issue's articles.

But inside...

The photography was very heavily orientated around male nudes. Solo models - clothed, then undressing and ultimately naked; couples in an assortment of sexually-suggestive poses together; and groups posing nude in varying states of arousal.

My only look at the magazine came one evening when I called in to see a mate of mine called Jono.

Jono was a photography student at Southampton, where I did my medical training, and he had a large attic room in one of the old Georgian terraces just north of the University campus. He'd set his room up as a kind of bedroom-cum-studio, with his bed almost crowded out by a couple of large painted backdrops and an array of tripods, cameras and lights around them.

I called in to give him copies of the holiday snaps I'd taken in Benidorm: Jono and I had been there with a couple of other friends during the previous summer. By now it was the middle of a cold, wet February and I apologised that I hadn't taken the time to see him in the intervening months.

Jono was fine about it and suggested we go out for a drink together, to catch up.

"Yeah, yeah," I'd said, nodding. "We'll have to sort something out sometime..."

"No - I mean now. What's wrong with going out tonight?"

I smiled. "Well, I'm hardly dressed for it, mate..."

I'd just been playing squash at the Uni sports centre and was still in my tracksuit; still pretty sweaty.

He shrugged. "You could clean up here, Seb... have a shower or whatever..." Then, throwing a look at the bag I'd brought with me, "You've got your regular clothes with you, haven't you...?"

I thought about it and it seemed like a pretty good idea. I nodded. "Yeah - if you've a spare towel you don't mind me using..."

"No problem."

So that was sorted.

I guess if I'd have got dressed in the bathroom after my shower, as I originally intended, then Jono wouldn't have made the comment he made and there'd have been no story for you to be reading now.

But the bathroom he shared with his housemates wasn't exactly the kind of place you wanted to hang around in. It was cold, musty and damp and the floor seemed like it hadn't been cleaned since the house was built. Maybe I'm over-particular, but I figure that a bathroom floor that's as sticky as fly paper isn't something that I want to put my bare feet on for too long.

So after my shower, I'd put a towel around me and hurried back up to the warmth of Jono's room.

Jono had looked over at me as I dried myself. That in itself wasn't that unusual: he'd always seemed as if he might have, at the very least, gay leanings even though he'd never admitted to them. 

But as I yanked my briefs up my legs, he'd said, "You know you could make quite a bit of pocket money with your body..."

I'd laughed hollowly and replied, "I don't think prostitution's got such a good pension plan as medicine has, mate..."

He'd chuckled. "No - I mean, you've got a well-toned body that would photograph well with the right lighting. You could earn a few bob modelling..."

Again I'd just laughed dismissively, tucking my cock into my underwear.

Then he'd said, "Sorry, Seb - it's just I've been doing a few pieces for this photography mag - one that specialises in the male physique. It pays pretty well so I guess I'm talent spotting..."

I'd smiled and pulled on my shirt. "What sort of money do they offer?"

"It varies." He pulled a magazine out from under some of the papers and prints on his desk. He leafed through it until he found a set of solo shots and showed it to me.

The photos were shot in grainy black and white and showed an athletic young man, probably nineteen or twenty years old, posing in just a pair of white Calvins. They were tightly-fitting and clearly held a fairly generously-proportioned package. He was standing in front of a painted backdrop similar to one of Jono's and was, for some unexplained reason, holding an oar.

Jono said, "I'd get between two and three hundred for a set like that..."

I was surprised. I heard myself say, "Pounds?" and then felt silly for saying it. Like it could have been anything else.

Jono just nodded.

I asked, "And how much would big boy get?"

"Depends. If he's unknown, maybe a couple of hundred. If he's made a name for himself, could be two or three times that."

I was interested. "Two hundred quid for standing around in your skivvies...? Sounds like pretty easy beer money... What's the catch?"

Jono smiled and flipped over the page. The guy had removed his briefs and was now naked. His cock more than matched its earlier promise: it was limp but large and swollen.

Jono raised his eyebrows like he expected me to be shocked by the pictures.

I shrugged. "So... two hundred quid for getting your kit off... it's still pretty good..."

Jono turned a few more pages. "That's just a starting price... if a guy's prepared to pose with another guy and, you know, pretend to play around a bit..."

He showed me another page. These photos were in colour and showed two guys, both in their early twenties, playing with a can of squirty cream wearing just their boxer briefs. Spraying some of it on each others' chests and acting like they were licking it off. Clearly both trying not to piss themselves laughing.

I smiled. "How much would they get?"

"Could be up to a grand..."

"A thousand quid? Each? For just messing around together...?"

Jono muttered, "Not quite," and turned a couple of pages. By now the guys were naked and boned up. They were both still clearly finding things more amusing than erotic but were trying their best to look serious as they pretended to lick the cream from each other's erections and arses.

I noticed that they weren't actually touching each other: their mouths and tongues only came close to one another; they never actually made contact.

I asked Jono to continue turning.

On the following two pages the lads were acting like they were squirting the cream up each other's arseholes. Once again, though, I noticed that no contact was made: there was no actual penetration, just the suggestion of it.

I gestured for Jono to keep turning but the next page contained one of the magazine's brief, insubstantial-looking articles. He said, "That's it... that's the end of the shot."

I was interested. "I can't believe they'd pay those guys a grand for just playing around like that... I mean, I've done that kind of thing with my mates when we've been pissed enough not to give a shit."

Jono grinned. "Yeah? Squirting cream up each other's arses?"

I laughed. "I've never quite gone that far, but I've messed around - you know, fun fights and stuff - with next-to-nothing on..."

Jono chuckled. "And all this time you could have been getting paid for it...!"

I thought about it. "Yeah..."

We dropped the topic, I finished getting dressed and the two of us went out for a few pints together.

And that would have been the end of it, if a mate of mine hadn't happened to mention how skint he was on the phone a few weeks later.