Chapter 11

Sally drove us into the shopping centre of Murcia, and on the way, we dropped Mandy off. She had a list of stuff to buy and said she could get a taxi back to the villa. It was a nice-looking city, there were bars and coffee shops with outdoor seating, seating that had already been put to effective use, it was a nice day for sitting around people-watching. There were restaurants of all sizes and nationalities.

We then headed into the business district where Sally parked the minibus in a huge car park and then she led us into an office block. I was not sure what a porno distributor’s office should look like, but it was not this. I looked around, there were filing cabinets, a fax machine, and a water cooler. It was like any other office I had ever been in.

It was like an accountant’s office to be fair.

The receptionist was a nice middle-aged lady, she spoke excellent English, and she offered us water, tea, or coffee. We all opted for tea. She made a joke about the English and our love of tea, and we all laughed politely.

She had just made the tea when her desk phone rang, she spoke in Spanish for a few words, then put the phone down and smiled at us.

“Please, you can go in now,” she said, waving toward a huge oak door.

Sally led us in and again I was surprised. I was expecting to see movie posters with naked birds on the walls and a sleazy fucker with a droopy moustache with a couple of heavies on standby.

Lorenzo was a guy who must have been reaching retirement age, less than five feet tall and as skinny as a bean pole. He had a good head of jet-black hair and a friendly smile. The hair was dyed, I was sure.

On the wall were pictures of classic cars and certificates in frames. Lorenzo came out from behind the desk.

“Buenos días my friends,” he said with a huge smile.

I did not know much Spanish, but I knew that meant good morning, I watched as he air-kissed Sally and Toni. Then Sally introduced us.

“This is Toni, she is my makeup lady and set dresser,” she said and then she turned to introduce me.

“And this is Zak,” she started to say but Lorenzo interrupted her.

“Oh yes señor Zak” he smiled,” I would know that face anywhere, my wife and I have seen a few of your films, Señora Sally left some samples for us to watch!”

“Oh wow, I didn’t think anyone looked at my face,” I said as he shook my hand, and I was sure I was blushing.

“Oh yes we love your work” he smiled, “Señora Sally she makes good films, and you are her star!”

“Oh, we all play our part!” I replied with a smile.

“You are very modest my friend, very modest indeed!” he said and led us to a conference table.

“SO, Lorenzo the rest of my team are at the studio getting familiar with the gear and we are ready to start shooting films from Wednesday,” Sally said with a smile, I saw she had pulled a notepad from her bag.

“I am sorry to say I have some bad news about that,” Lorenzo said with a rueful smile.

“Okay, what’s happened now?” Sally said and you could hear the frustration in her voice.

“Some of the girls we had planned to use for the films have decided to go home,” he said, “I am sorry we tried to talk them around but they were fed up with the delays, plus the company from the Netherlands that was supposed to pay their hotel bills refused to pay them and they were out of pocket,”

“Then I guess them going home is understandable,” said Toni and Lorenzo smiled in agreement.

Sally let out a huge sigh and shook her head, you could see the frustration on her face.

“So how many of the girls are left?” she asked.

“Three, the two are how do you say it, the lesbians?” Lorenzo said, “They are called Camila and Gabriela.”

“Are they Lesbians or are they Bisexual?” Toni asked.

It was a good question, as it made a difference to the types of movies, we would do with them.

“They are full-on lesbians,” Lorenzo said apologetically, “They said they will do films with you, but they have flights to catch on Friday as they live in Lanzarote, and then you have Isabella,”

If they had flights on Friday, we did not have much time with them, that was for sure.

“Isabella is new to the industry guys, and she had yet to make a movie, but she has done stills,” Sally told us.

I had been told by both Toni and Mandy that many girls who did stills, or magazine shoots thought the step up to movies would be easy but not all of them took to it as well as they thought they would. Some made it and some didn’t...

Doing a shoot for readers’ wives is not the same as being filmed shagging I thought to myself.

“Well, we will have to try to sort out some more girls or the whole thing is totally fucked!” said Sally, the frustration evident in her voice.

And she was right...

“Señora Sally it will not be easy to find girls of this type so quickly in a town such as ours!” Lorenzo said with a shake of his head.

We left the office an hour later with all the paperwork we needed, Lorenzo was apologetic but it was evident there was little he could do.

He had given Sally the telephone numbers of the girls and she said she would call them and see if there was anything she could do to make them stay a little longer.

We jumped back in the minibus; Sally was annoyed that was obvious. I got into the driving seat and she got in beside me and slammed the dashboard.

“Right, we need to get back to the villa and try to sort something, Porn stars even wannabes are going to be in seriously short supply over here!” she explained, “I will have to call Colin and see if he can sort some out, but the flights and stuff all add to the overheads, which means less bonus for the rest of us,”

“Plus, we only have the studio for a week or so,” Toni said, “it might take any girls from back home a few days to get their arses out here.”

“I hadn’t thought about that love,” Sally said, then she shook her head, “Fuck this is a total fuck up!”

We drove the rest of the way in silence, the meeting had put a real downer on the trip. It was obvious we would need to rethink our schedule.

As soon as we got back to the villa Sally hit the phone and it was obvious, we had a huge mountain to climb.

She was pacing up and down the dining room having a heated conversation with someone. Toni and I stopped in the kitchen. We heard a car pull up outside and seconds later the door opened, and Mandy came in.

“Guys can you give me a hand with these bags, please” she smiled.

Toni and I helped her in with the bags. There were bags of clothes, bags of provisions and one bag from a pharmacy.

“I could kill for a cup of tea please, guys” she said once we had all the bags lined up in the kitchen. Toni filled the kettle and started to prep the mugs.

Sally walked in with a face like thunder.

“Well, the two girls are still happy to do two films, they will be with us on Wednesday and Thursday, but they are adamant they only work with each other. Isabella can do a short tomorrow afternoon and then she can do Friday, so the most we can make is three or four films!” She sighed and took another long glug of her wine.

“Tea Sally?” Toni asked, Sally just shook her head and poured herself a glass of wine.

“Hello, love you will never guess who I bumped into in town,” Mandy said to her.

“Sorry, Mandy I don’t have time for idle chit-chat,” Sally snapped as she punched another number into the phone and left the room. I glanced at Mandy, and you could see she was shocked by Sally’s tone.

“Is she okay?” Mandy asked.

“It’s a long story,” I said and explained all about our visit to meet Lorenzo and the bad news he had given us.

“Oh fuck!” Mandy said, “I know that there is a huge investment from our side in this and if we can’t make it work, we are fucked.”

“Fucked is right, right royally fucked” Sally said, she had walked in just as I had finished talking, “and Colin is far from happy, and it looks like we might be going home early, and it looks like I will be picking up the tab for all of this,”

“But why Sally?” I asked.

“He tried to talk me out of doing this trip and I said we could make a mint,” She sobbed.

There were tears in her eyes and her face looked drained.

“Right okay, so can I tell you who I met earlier?” Mandy said.

“Yeah, go on tell us then it’s not like we can do any real bloody work,” Sally said sarcastically and poured herself another glass of wine.

“Yes, well let’s not jump to conclusions, “Mandy said with a smile.

“Jump to fucking conclusions, Mandy for fucks sake I have to pay for the studios, the villa, the flights, the travel and we don’t have any actors to make the fucking movies that pay the wage bill!” Sally snapped and drank the glass of wine in one go.

Her body language showed she was angry and who could blame her? this trip was going downhill fast.

“Right first of all no more wine, we are going into town, and we are going into town to meet Jo and Sue!” Mandy said with a smile.

I looked at Toni, but she looked as confused as I was, who the fuck were Joe and Sue?

I was about to ask when Sally blurted out what I was thinking.

“Mandy who the fuck are Joe and Sue?” she snapped.

“Jo and Sue, they are two ladies that we made a few films with a few years ago,” Mandy said with a smile, she was not letting how techy Sally was faze her in any way.

“I don’t remember them?” Sally said, and looked at Toni, “Do you, Toni?”

“Toni won’t remember them, love, it was before her time, remember when we went to Blackpool to film that movie at that bloke’s bed and breakfast?” Mandy said.

“The guy who wanted to join in but shot his load before he got going?” Sally said.

“Yes, and he wanted to bed you, didn’t he?” Mandy said.

“Oh, fuck yes, he was a muppet!” Sally giggled.

“And the girls we worked with there were Jo and Sue,” Mandy said.

From the look on Sally’s face, the penny had dropped.

“Bloody hell yes, they were two amateurs, weren’t they?” Sally asked.

“Yes, they had both done some photoshoots, readers wives type stuff and they did a couple of films for a wannabe producer, but he ripped them off and then they did around half a dozen shorts with us,” Mandy explained.

“Of course, I remember then now, I had just started the studio,” Sally said, “Jeez that takes me back,”

“So sorry to interrupt, but how old are these ladies?” I asked.

“Oh, they would be late thirties I would guess, maybe early forties,” Mandy smiled.

Thank God for that I thought, the way they were talking I wondered if these two would be old, aged pensioners.

“Yes, they would have been in their late twenties when we did the movies, was one of them the orgy scene with that Yank lad, was his name Dwayne or something?” Sally said.

“Yes, that’s him, he was crap but thought he was god’s gift,” Mandy giggled.

“That’s right he tried to get me and you in the jacuzzi on the night we were due to leave, and you kicked him in the balls!” Sally laughed.

“That’s the one,” Mandy said, and she laughed like a drain.

“And do they still work in the industry?” Toni asked.