The New Catalogue Arrives

You find the Chipster in the mood for litigation. As you can no doubt see, my complimentary copy of J.D. Williams’ new Autumn and Winter catalogue landed on the doorstep today. What else can I say except that promises were not kept by the industy leaders in the larger sized gusset. I never wanted you to see me like this. It’s somewhat humbling, especially since I thought that I’d had a zero-Y-front clause written into my contract.

The picture was taken when I was much younger and in a bad place. It was actually a few months ago when I was stuck on the corner of Poverty and Flat Broke. There’s a well worn bench there where my cheeks regularly rest. The last time I found myself struggling to raise cash, I agreed to do a little male modelling to help pay the bills. I’ve done catalogue work before but it has usually been for high quality menswear or the occasional bit of crotch work for ‘Thong Monthly’. Most of the pictures of the lower half of men’s torsos you see in that magazine are of me. Most of the buttocks too. I’ve also done other work for Argos and for all of the major retail catalogues. That’s me you see in shots of tightly packed swimming trunks. It may not be as well known as being the Face of Avon but being the Speedo Crotch is still a kind of fame.

As is usually with the J.D. Williams gigs, I had to travel up to the studio in Manchester where I spent a day changing in and out of different items of clothing, striking random poses, and having my picture taken. It was towards the end of the morning session when we did the underwear shoot. I’d never before worked for Keith, the photographer, so I was a bit hesitant when I came out of the changing room in just a vest and pair of high band y-fronts.

‘How do you want me?’ I’d asked him as I took my place on the set.

‘Just point into the distance as though you’re hailing a bus,’ he replied, barely bothering to look up from his camera.

I peered over my glasses. ‘As though I’m doing what?’ I asked.

‘Hailing a bus.’

‘In my underpants?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ he asked.

I thought about an old Groucho Marx line. ‘What a bus is doing in my underpants, I’ll never know,’ I said and wiggled an imaginary cigar as I did the Grouch walk. I can’t imagine how I looked. Or looking at the above picture, perhaps I can…

Keith just gazed at me, the huge camera resting on his hip. ‘Are you going to point like I tell you to or do we have to get another model?’

I hitched up my underpants which had sagged at my Groucho. I said I would do what he said but it went against all my instincts. There might be little I’ve not done wearing just my thong but I would be seen dead signalling for a bus in a pair of Y-fronts. Not even in Manchester where that sort of thing isn’t frowned upon as it should.

‘Look, Chip, love,’ said Keith, ‘I am the photographer and you are the model. If I tell you to stand as though you’re being given an enema by a midget, you will stand as though you’re being given an enema by a midget. Capiche?’

I did more than capiche. That was the sort of instruction I could work with. ‘Oh, like this?’ I asked, hitting the slightly mannered pained look.

‘Perfect!’ he cried and shot the photograph you see at the top of this post.

It was only at the end of the day, as we looked through all shots, that I noticed how well I had indeed caught the look of being given an enema by a midget.

‘Oh, that’s much too realistic,’ I said, pointing it out on the digital lightbox. ‘And I’m beginning to regret allowing you to shoot me in those pants. They don’t do the Chipster a bit of justice.’

‘Perfectly good shot,’ Keith replied, though I was beginning to think he was growing tired of me.

‘But I look too much like I’m being given an enema by a midget. That’s not how I’d like my many fans to think of me.’

He sighed and raised his glasses to prop them on the top of his head in that way that all creative types sometimes do. ‘Look, you don’t like it. Fine. We lose it.’ He clicked on the picture and dumped it into the Mac’s wastebasket.

‘You are a true gent,’ I told him as I picked up my coat. I shook his hand and was on my way.

Since that day, I’d heard nothing until this morning when Gabby found the catalogue.

‘What Chip doing?’ she howled and fell backwards reeling with laughter.

I picked the catalogue from her fingers and saw my picture.

‘He was a very bad photographer,’ I explained. ‘And to make matters worst, they can’t even spell “briefs” correctly.’

I dropped the catalogue to the floor but Gabby rescued it before I had chance to stamp on it.

‘No, no,’ she said. ‘We keep it. We show people what Chip looks like in underpants.’

‘I’m sure people aren’t interested,’ I said.

‘Chip,’ she said, smoothing out the page. ‘You look lovely. You look just like you being given enema by midget.’