Zach and Mason/Maci Make a Porno

It’s hard to make it in the film industry, especially when you’re not a nepo baby or incredibly lucky, as Zach and Mason were now learning. Having spent four years in school for screenwriting and production respectively, they were now waiting tables and serving coffee in order to hold onto their meager apartment so they could send scripts and job applications out for every production assistant job that crops up on Backstage. In fact, it was on Backstage that Mason discovered the ad that would change their lives forever.

“Hey, check this out, dude!” Mason shouted. “Zach!”

Zach adjusted his gaming headset and turned towards his roommate. “Huh?”

“Get over here! Check this out!” Mason pointed excitedly at the screen.

“Submission Contest. Submit short film, 30 minutes or less, chance to win… Woah! $100,00?! That’s insane!” Zach shouted.

“I know! We can totally do that! A 30 minute short, don’t you have a script floating around that’s just two guys in a room?” Mason asked.

“Something like that… Except… Dude, look at who’s running the contest,” Zach pointed at the screen.

“Pop Porn Bucket? Oh jeez.” Mason sighed. “I misread that as Popcorn Bucket, figured it was some movie review site.”

“Oh, it’s a movie site, just not that kinda movie,” Zach laughed.

“Well, there’s that dream squandered. Guess you can go back to your game.” Mason said.

“Although… How hard can it be to make a porno? It’s like, what, five minutes of shitty dialogue and then it’s just different positions for the other twenty-five, right?” Zach questioned. ‘I’ve got a big sausage pizza for Bunny?’ ‘I’m Bunny, but I don’t have any money.’ ‘I think we can find another way for you to pay…’ Ungh, ungh, oh yeah, don’t stop baby, oh oh oH OH!”

The second half was punctuated by Zach sticking his right pointer finger into his enclosed left hand repeatedly.

“That’s disgusting dude, and you watch way too much porn to be able to come up with that improv-style.” Mason rolled his eyes.

“I’m serious, man! We could do it! We can use pen names so no one ever knows, and we get $100,000!”

“Just one problem, genius! Who’s gonna be in it? It’s not like we’ve got Elly Clutch and Johnny Sins on speed dial. Who’s gonna be in this porno? Us?!”

It was at that moment, watching Mason speaking, that Zach’s lips curled into a smile, a smile that Mason knew wasn’t a good thing. But he couldn’t have anticipated the next words that would come out of Zach’s mouth in a million years.