Landlady

Alex has been keeping a cat without her landlady's consent. A surprise visit leads to big trouble, and Alex chooses to experience some old-fashioned discipline rather than find a new home.

In this scene I asked Alex if she'd be willing to help me re-create an experience from my real life, with her playing me, and me playing the role of my landlord (or landlady, in the case of this film). Apart from the spanking, this actually happened. I hadn't obtained permission for my cat when I moved into my new home. I planned to ask about it at some point, pretending I was getting the cat for the first time, but before I did so my landlord paid me a visit to fix a broken blind.

He'd said he'd come round later that afternoon, and I was planning to hoover the place and set the cat up nice and comfy in the shed for an hour or so in time for his arrival. He showed up in the morning, however, and I barely had time to shove the cat and her litter box in my bedroom before letting him in.

One of the first questions he asked me was, "So where's the cat?" Turns out that without having hoovered, the cat fur everywhere was a dead giveaway. What can I say – she sheds a lot.

The dialogue in this is pretty much true to life, apart from the fact that in real life he let the matter drop, fixed my blind (when we picked it from where it had fallen onto the floor, the catnip mouse was on the carpet underneath it, plain as day; that would have been obvious even if I had hoovered, but he didn't mention it), and went away without saying a thing about it. He still hasn't called me on the fact I was blatantly trying to hide the fact I had a cat, but I felt guilty about it for weeks.

Initially I thought I might re-create this scene with me playing myself and enjoy a bit of catharsis for my misbehaviour, but we needed a domestic scene when I shot with Alex at my place, and I decided to go with this one. It meant that Alex got to star in a video alongside Fatface, who is her favourite spanking performer ever. It also gave rise to this superlative image, which is possibly my favourite photo of all time and which still makes me laugh whenever I see it.

Alex and Fatface formed a close connection during filming and are now bonded for life. No cats were harmed in the making of this video.

Photography: Nimue Allen