Luka

Luka.

His parents must have been joking when they gave him that name.

Because the one thing Luka did not have was luck.

It was because he needed to pay off some gambling debts - rather than to buy a new set of more tasteful drapes, which anyone else might have considered a more urgent priority - that Luka asked me to visit his small rented room one day.

He needed a favour.

I was the only person he knew with a decent camera and he'd decided that he'd send in pictures of himself - these pictures in fact - to a gay porno website.

God knows how he'd heard of HMBoys.com

He wasn't gay himself, as far as I knew.

So all I could think of was that maybe, when he'd needed money badly for his gambling debts in the past, he'd made a few friends in that particular way of things, if you follow me, and that they'd given him the idea.

Anyway, he was quite determined to go ahead and, given that he owed me a small sum of money too, I was more than happy to help him out.

Of course, both of us were completely new to all this.

I'm not a professional photographer (you can tell that from all the red eyes in the shots and the fact that I didn't realise how distracting those f*****g drapes in the background were going to be!)

And Luka certainly isn't a professional model.

But, with a bit of advice from the HMBoys boss Sam and the kid I guess is his butt-boy, Tyler, I think we made a good stab at working out the sort of things that would turn the HMBoys.com members on.

We started with Luka slowly stripping off his clothes and trying to look sexy and seductive.

Maybe we should have left that 'til last as he found it quite hard to do - and I found it hard to keep a straight face while he was trying.

Then, when he got out of his stuff, we followed Sam's advice and started off by using a prop to help him pose.

Unfortunately, the sexiness we were aiming for didn't quite make it into the finished shots because we forgot that Luka still had his very un-sexy socks on.

We tried a few more poses but Luka said he felt very awkward and self-conscious all the time.

Unluckily, I think it shows in the pictures.

So at that point we decided that the best way to proceed was to take as many close-ups as we could, so that, even if Luka was embarrassed, you wouldn't be able to tell from these pretty concentrated bits of his anatomy.

I think these pictures work a bit better.

And then we did a jerking-off sequence that climaxed just as you'd expect.

(Luka asked me to close my eyes while he did that - but how the hell could I have taken the pictures if I had!)

And then he surprised me more than I can say - and I can only put this down to his friendship with those gay guys I mentioned before - when he turned around and…

Well, as you can see, in spite of the bad modelling, the sub-standard camera work and the poor production values (those f*****g drapes!) Sam and Tyler liked the pictures enough to buy them.

Luka insisted they send cash by registered post.

They did.

But, within four hours of signing for it, he'd managed to lose the lot.

Gambling again.

By the way, did I mention that he was unlucky?

I don't mean he had any particular misfortunes in his life.

Of course, on the whole he had the same sort of life as the rest of us - some good bits, some bad bits.

No - Luka's bad luck was of a much more specific and measurable kind.

He had back luck in gambling.

And that accounted for his perpetual shortage of cash.

And that, in turn, explained why, although in reality it was his own fault, Luka went through life with the downcast air of someone who'd been repeatedly done out of their rightful deserts.

I don't mean he had any particular misfortunes in his life.

Of course, on the whole he had the same sort of life as the rest of us - some good bits, some bad bits.

No - Luka's bad luck was of a much more specific and measurable kind.

He had back luck in gambling.

And that accounted for his perpetual shortage of cash.

And that, in turn, explained why, although in reality it was his own fault, Luka went through life with the downcast air of someone who'd been repeatedly done out of their rightful deserts.