Golden Handcuffs

“Who’s this guy?”

“He’s too fucking pretty, that’s who he is.”

My partner and I were trolling Craigslist, looking for guys, as the current crop of perspectives sent our way by the agency were not attractive enough for our experiment. We wanted to make pornos for women who desired a certain type of fantasy: a beautiful boy at your beck and call, no questions asked. But with fucking. There were already enough romance scenarios on Lifetime and Oxygen and of course they all dissolved at the crucial part into the rainbow sherbet sunset.

“We can market the shit out of this idea and rake it in,” she enthused, pushing her black-framed glasses on top of her frosted hair. “But we need somebody totally juicy, y’know?”

“No, he’s perfect, look at him. Those lips, my god.”

“I wasn’t thinking pretty boy. A little more bad boy.”

“No he could be a bad boy too. Smirk instead of smile. But that smile is megawatt.”

She sighed. “So call him, take him out. Hell, I’ll pay for you to fuck him. But I bet he’s about as interesting as a piece of plywood.”

“Hey, plywood is hard and flexible.”

“Yeah he looks like he could do any number of things. Does have nice hair.”

I flashed on a scenario of riding his pretty pretty cock (for surely it must be as perfect as the rest of him), holding fistfuls of soft thick dark hair as I selfishly seek satisfaction.

Now there’s a nice title.

I look at the ad again. He posted two pictures: one smiling head shot, one full-view shirtless, all long arms and legs in tiiiight jeans, broad-shouldered and somewhat muscular, a sprinkling of hair on his breastbone, strong jaw, bright smile, lush mouth and deep dark eyes like chocolate pudding with a soul. And the aforementioned crowing glory, down to his shoulders in throw-back layered waves.

What’s your fantasy? - m4w – 22
You pay, I’ll play…whatever you like, I’ll be the boyfriend who never says ‘No.’

I suddenly have an overwhelming craving for German chocolate cake.

“He’s what they call a ‘honey and a half’ in my ‘hood.”

“Yes I forgot you’re the colorful native.”

My partner is from the kind of upper-class background which breeds savvy sarcastic entrepreneurs. In this business she feels she must outdick her competition by being twice as bitchy.

“Yass’um, miz ladee.”

“Shut up. But his ad reads like he’s carved out a niche for himself as an escort. Why aim higher than that?”

“You know someone like him would never work in mainstream. Like you said, too pretty. And the alternative? Probably can’t hack it. But dude, that’s gotta be a lotta work, the temporary boyfriend gig.”

“So book him. Whatever you can get for a grand, that’s all the petty cash we have right now.”

I know I’m not the first female to balk at the idea of financial negotiation - Pay? Aw no, baby, we make them pay…again and again and again. - but it feels bizarre to pick up the phone and leave a message at the beep.

“Uh, hi…my name is Mari and I saw your ad. I’d like a date.” I’m pausing, saying um too much, but I leave my number and wonder what he sounds like.

“A date?”

“How would I know if he could perform from just fucking him?”

“Wait…you’re asking me what?”

“You know what I mean. Performing and performing are two different things.”

“Whatever.” The glasses drop down to the bridge of her nose once more and she is click click clicking her way through more ads. But for me, no one else even comes close to that beautiful unknown as I wait for the phone to ring.

I can’t place his accent, but this is a multicultural mecca, so it doesn’t matter as long as we understand each other; and there is a sort of musical lilt to the way he speaks, but his voice is higher and softer than I would have imagined. Not feminine but…he sounds very proper, like he was born in a boarding school.

We arrange to meet in Marina del Rey, after I acknowledge the PayPal invoice for 10%. He says I can have four hours of his time, which should be sufficient to either talk him into the pitch, or receive a polite refusal. I ask him if he has any dealbreakers and he reels off a list which I’m entirely familiar with but not from actual enactment. I say I don’t want any of that and he says it’s whatever I desire.

“You want a four-hour fuck, that’s fine. Or if you just want someone to have dinner with that’s fine too.”

It’s a qualified risk for me…but his ad included testimonials with lots of exclamation marks, and so much in life is a risk, after all. It strikes me as absurd, but perhaps no more absurd than our idea…after marketing one soft-core video and receiving lots of fan mail from women who actually wanted to see more graphic content but primarily praised us for the hunkalicious lead who did most of the talking. The woman was only a stand-in for their own wish fulfillment. So we knew there was a whole untapped market of horny middle-aged women dying for pervy pretty.

“Does my ten percent entitle me to some phone foreplay?”

A slight giggle. “My, aren’t you a saucy one? Tell you wot…ten minutes, then. Wot sort of man do you like? Romantic? Rough? Intellectual? Sensitive?”

I get the feeling he could portray any of them nicely.

“Rough.”

“Name-calling?”

“Within reason.”

His voice drops to a soft purr, the cadence elongated with seductive menace.

“You’re a dirty slut, aren’t you?”

He’s not brutal, if anything he’s encouraging me, just the slightest tease in the tone.

“Oh Mr. Pot I’m sure this kettle is not as adept at being a slut as you are.”

“Gonna fill that smart mouth, y’know.”

“All men think the only way they can shut me up is with their cock.”

“Yes but do they all actually do it?”

“So…what? You’re gonna grab me by the hair, in the parking lot, force me on my knees to gag on your enormous wang?”

“Sarcasm is only going to make it worse for you.”

His accent is some vestige of Empire, I know, and my engrained response of cowed fear is sexy, I admit it. My labia is starting to tingle.

“Do tell, old chap.”

He chuckles at my bad impersonation.

“Your idea of dirty talk is awfully…combative.”

“Yes it is. Now tell me how I’m going to suffer.”

As he begins I’m looking at the pictures (right click-save’d) and imagining him naked, lounging on the couch, a hard-on at the thought of another female in his thrall. I imagine his skin is as soft as his hair, and his legs are spread (all better to give his dick some room to grow), sexy long legs and perfect feet.

“Do you have nice feet?”

“- and you rub it on your lips and – sorry wot?”

“Describe your feet to me.”

“I wear a size 12. I have long toes and high arches, which is a pain in the arse.”

“How tall are you?”

“Six foot three.”

Christ I want to see him naked. Right fucking now.

He seems to be asking for objectification and I’m a bit shocked I’m so willing to oblige. Me, I’ve never been attractive enough to experience that, nor have I known anyone that good-looking. All the pretty guys we do see, they just not human enough…they smile but they’re soulless behind it, politely telling us gay porn pays more.

“Now, you mouthy bitch, you’re going to suck the cum right out of me, repeatedly, and beg for more. And if you’re good I might actually fuck you as well. But like the bitch you are, from behind, hard and fast, because it doesn’t matter if you get off. And don’t you try to scream, or I will choke you.”

“Okay…uh, I’m good, really.”

“Are you? You’re not even breathing hard.”

“Oh that comes later. Like I will be.”

He laughs. “Thought that was the whole purpose, so you could pleasure yourself.”

“Is that one of your services normally?”

“A few of my clients like that, yeah.”

Me too. “I just wanted to hear you talk dirty. Did I overstep the bounds?”

“Your money’s good, milady.”

And that’s all that matters, of course.

After spending an entire day dithering over my appearance (what the hell, I’m paying for it, I’m not the one auditioning) when I see him I’m ready to email an endorsement of my own.

OMG he is soooo gorgeous!!!

But the lighting is low, cozy in candlelight and the glow of dusk from the windows facing the water. Very Eastern Seaboard, right down to the whole lobster he enthusiastically cracks and pries and pops in his mouth, his eyes alight with gourmand ecstasy.

“Want some?”

I do, but my stomach has seemingly been invaded by dragonflies: heavily buzzing and bumping against each other.

“Look, we’re going to fuck, but that’s not why I called you.”

Thick perfectly-shaped eyebrows rise in curiosity as he chews. There’s a slight shine of smeared melted butter on his lower lip and oh god I want to suck it off.

(You know, I kind of like my job, I admit. We can ask guys to take their clothes off and measure their cocks and relate the whole of their sexual history and watch them jack off and it’s okay because it’s what we do. But none of them have ever truly inspired raw lust in me, I thought I was better than this, my head in the game, but now? Fuck me.)

I take the DVD of Island Ecstasy out of my purse and put it on the table. He picks it up, examines the cover with amusement.

“I saw this one, with one of my regulars. She loves it when the guy fucks the girl in the shower, and he uses the nozzle on her. We had to reenact it.”

“I produced it.”

He puts down the case and eyes me warily. “Wot’s this about? Are you making some kind of reality porn, then?”

“No. I’m not filming you on the sly or anything. But I do want to make pornos with you. You are so fucking hot, do you even know that? Why the hell are you an escort?”

“It pays well.”

Of course it does. It’s actually fairly easy work as long as you turn off whatever passes for a conscience. Not in the recognition that you’re exploiting others, but yourself.

“So do we. Are you ready to step up and be the fantasy of thousands?”

“Do women watch pornos the same way? Dildo at the ready, pausing at the right moment to come?”

“I have no idea. Me, I pause it and rub one out and then watch the rest. I’m –“

“- anal like that?” A smirk, his eyes crinkled in mischief. Bad boy.

“Yeah smartass, just like that.”

“You certainly talk like you’re in charge. I half-expected you to bring collar and chain.”

“Oh that’s a tempting thought.”

“Do you have an actual casting couch? Or is it a bed?”

“Sometimes it’s the floor.”

“Gotta start at the bottom, right?”

Yeah that’s right…you on the bottom, little boy.

“I might let you start in the middle because you’re so pretty.”

Another smirk, just before a large piece of lobster is inserted between those lips. Slowly, with much sucking of fingers.

“One of my clients, we go to Citywalk and just stroll about, holding hands. I have to wear trousers so tight I can’t sit down. She’s happy when other women look at her with undisguised envy.”

“No sex?”

“She doesn’t care about sex.”

“So do you not believe me when I tell you there’s a market for you?”

His look is both amused and pitying, wiping his long fingers with a heavy linen napkin. I eat a few romaine leaves from his Caesar salad. He peers at the business card I produced.

“Ms. Harcourt, I know there’s a market for me. You paying me a grand for strange phone sex and a lobster dinner are obvious proof. But I wouldn’t be in change of things if I threw my lot in with you, hey?”

“Where are you from?” It’s been bugging the shit out of me since I first heard his voice.

“South Africa. But I prefer not to discuss my personal life.”

“Do you have one? Sounds like being a boyfriend simulacra takes up all of your time.”

He picks up a wine glass with easy grace, taking just the slightest sip. Licking those delicious lips. He’s posing, and I know intuitively that the camera will not only love him, but hunger for him, to be trained on his perfect bone structure and replicate it forever. Up close his eyes are not as dark as I first thought, more a deep thick amber. Like petrified honey, dark from eons of preservation.

“It’s none of your business.”

“I want to make it my business. You. All of you.”

“I’m not saying I’m too good for porn. But is porn good enough for me?”

“What are you worried about? Money? I can pay you the same amount of money you’re getting tonight for every scene. Maybe fifteen hundred depending on who the other performer is. Film three times a week…I’m sure you’re doing the math as we speak. You do a DVD, we can get you modeling jobs. Of course, there’s no telling what market the pictures would go to. You achieve recognition, more ventures open up. And of course we can’t tell you not to be an escort. But don’t let it interfere with what we’re paying you to do.”

“I won’t do modeling. Half the offers I get for my ad are photo shoots. It’s ridiculous.”

“So you aren’t really interested but you’re not going turn down a date, I understand that. But if we’re going to spar, this is not my idea of how it should go.”

He sighed. “I’m not saying no, but you’re not making a compelling argument.”

We ordered dessert, which I knew I would not touch, but I was relatively happy to watch him eat. I surmised he knew his true power was in being attractive, that sometimes someone is so attractive we are simply content to watch them exist. I knew more than a few guys who wished they had that kind of power, but they were always too eager to exert it even as they were not up to the task of delivering on the unspoken promise. Not everything they did was beautiful. He was different, he kept smirking at me, amused by my obvious avarice.

You can’t stop looking at me, I know.

There had to be a flaw, and it came to me as we were standing in the parking lot after dinner. We had walked over to his sensible car, as he retrieved his cigarettes. I wasn’t surprised, almost everyone I knew in sex work smoked, it was sort of an occupational hazard. We ambled to the edge of the parking lot, looking out on blue-gray water, accosted by the raucous squabblings of seagulls fighting over the dumpsters.

“Are you legal?” I asked him.

His expression was incredulous as the smoke of his exhale rushed away on the wind.

“I’m twenty-two, didn’t you read the ad?”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. Do you have a Green Card?”

“I don’t see how –“

“I’m a businesswoman looking to hire you. Legitimate businesswoman. Everybody pays their taxes. But I’m guessing you don’t because you’re not a citizen and if you’re here on some kind of visa it’s probably either expired or extremely limited, hence your occupation.”

He looked away, taking a nervous drag. “You’ve got less than two hours now.”

“Am I right?”

This time guarded disdain…but still so damn pretty. “I don’t want to talk ‘bout it. You could be from the INS or the police, for god’s sake.”

“Oh yes, this was an incredibly elaborate setup just to net you, some random guy from South Africa, who’s obviously cheating the system and must be stopped.”

“Exactly.”

The smirk had returned. I sighed. Might as well get what I paid for.

“Who’s hosting?”

“I will. I’ll take you there, bring you back here.”

“Do I look that stupid?”

“Those are the rules.”

And he knew no one ever argued with him. How could someone so beautiful be dangerous? Society had no template for the l’homme fatal.

He produced a typical STD screening report, dated two weeks prior. I expected to see a clean slate, but I was more interested in his history. Nothing major, though, women are generally very careful.

I always fucked the talent first. It was my one perk, the primary motivation. Things were so much easier this way: no emotional vagaries, no mind games, no nonsense. And I got away with it, that was the truly amazing part. These days, when everyone was required to be professional (though there were plenty of trainwrecks to witness), the old school style of hiring was frowned upon…but our talent wasn’t adverse to my opportunism.

His apartment is tidy, it might as well be a hotel suite for all its’ lack of charm.

I hand him the money, taking a perverse pleasure in doing so. “You first.”

I follow him into the bedroom where he strips and as I imagined he is long lean perfection. I reach out and run my fingers down his arm: soft. Then though his hair…the same. He is looking down at me, he takes my hand in his.

“How.”

I look around, notice the closet doors are mirrored. I take off my clothes and pull down the bedspread, then crouch on the sheet.

“Like this.”

“Just bang-on? Are you ready?”

“Yeah.” I got up again. “Give me a condom.”

“I can do it.”

“No. I have to do it.”

He is perfect, just as I thought he would be, and I’ve seen a lot of cock. It’s sort of a Platonic Ideal of penis. And yet women view them as inherently ridiculous but I enjoy them in context. Like his. I can’t resist a teasing examination.

“Very nice.”

One eyebrow quirks as I sheath it. “Well.”

“What?”

“Women actually pay me to suck my cock.”

“I don’t doubt it. But we don’t have time.”

I’m wet. I’ve been wet since the moment I saw his photos. But I don’t want to look at him looking at me. As he parts my lips and slides inside, my muscles instinctively molding around him, I watch his face in the mirror. He is looking down at my pussy and once positioned closes his eyes and opens his mouth slightly. He starts out slow, waiting for my command.

“Like that.”

A steady rhythm, expert manipulation: slow sliding against all the sensitive spots as my pussy twitches and contacts. He uses expensive imported “naked” type condoms and all I feel is blood-engorged muscle and the thick pleasure of his glans, parting the way in continual thrust. I have a feeling like melting as I become hotter and wetter and hope more time has passed than I think has passed.

It’s been so long since I’ve lost my mind in fucking…my favorite thing of all.

His face flushes slightly, the warmth of blood bringing out the olive cast in his skin. I study his face - in the midst of my own moaning enjoyment - and everything is just right: the shape of his nose and eyes, the way the cheekbones and chin frame the beauty of his face entire. All of it in perfect proportion…and if he’s faking the breathy moans he emits, the squeeze of my hips and ass as he pistons without a hitch, like that fantasy of fantasies – a sex robot – then I don’t give a damn. But I realize he doesn’t say or feel anything which is not previously scripted…and since he’s not looking at my face he doesn’t know what I want. On the other hand, my pussy is telling him what I want and he delivers.

I come…and I didn’t expect to. Ripples which grow larger and shake me inside as I squeeze him with one strong spasm and he lets out an ungainly groan and I feel the motion of his spurt. Feel proud that I could wreck his composure.

And he has a great cum face.


I dress, wait for him to clean up and do the same. He comes out barefoot in patched jeans and a t-shirt, then goes out onto the balcony to indulge his vice.

“I don’t pay for this place, I’m not allowed to smoke inside.”

“You have my card, if you’re interested call me. You can meet my partner, get the full pitch. I honestly believe I can make you a star. But it’s up to you.”

He’s looking out and away, perhaps pensive, but I assume it’s merely a pose.

“Look I know this kind of life offers a certain security. Golden handcuffs. But I can offer a few things you can’t get right now.”

“Yeah? Like wot?”

“I’m not going to tell you till you’re sitting in my office as a prospective employee.”

“So you think your carrot is more attractive than my handcuffs.”

“I guess that depends on your kink.”

He laughs, and I feel like we’ve bonded somehow. But that’s likely part of his boyfriend persona too.

Driving home from the restaurant, I remind myself that we are all persona, every one of us. He has an attractive persona, I won’t deny it, yet the minute I start thinking of him as human he’s going to let me down. But I smile when I see he has called while I was in the car and his voicemail message is merely a sexy-voiced “Okay.”

“Libby, this is Trevor.”

If she was stunned like me, she didn’t show it. She looked up with neutral politeness.

“Is that your real name?”

“Yes.”

“You’ve got to change it. Or at least change your last name.”

He shrugged. Again, I’d never seen anything so graceful.

“Have a seat,” she invited, gesturing at the couch. He smirked again once seated. He was dressed in a way I hadn’t seen in years and yet very simple: impossibly tight faded jeans with a black leather studded belt. A shirt which was actually more like a blouse, black with a pattern in sea green, tucked into the jeans but also unbuttoned nearly to the navel. He wore jewelry but the effect entire was not cheesy or feminine, rather ornamental in a way which complemented him. His hair was perfectly styled, and the only thing which might have detracted from the effect was the way he wore his shoes: hightop Nikes with slouch socks, the jeans so tight they were tucked in. Definitely girly. But it was endearing to me…although everything about him was, and this was dangerous. I couldn’t resist him, and I didn’t want to.

“So what’s your deal?” she asked, looking down at the pile of mail on her desk.

“Sorry?”

“I do like the accent,” Libby noted, looking at me. I nodded. “Why are you here?”

“Because Mari thinks I should be.”

“And what do you think?”

“I don’t know.”

She sighed, took a sip of coffee then looked at him with her palms pressed together, like she was praying. “Yeah, I know a lot of people think porn is the last rung. It’s actually the opposite. If you start at the top you might have to lower your standards a bit to make more money. You can only do better with this. Unless you’re ashamed.”

“I have no shame,” he cracked, but I imagined it was at least partially true.

I took him to Fatburger for lunch, we sat outside and he joyously inhaled a Kingburger with bacon and egg and skinny fries.

“She’s perfectly content to let you dick around on my time. And I’m okay with that too, but I’m not going to go on paying you for your time, not at your rates.”

“I make a good boyfriend, sort of.”

“Actually, if I could afford it I’d just take you to dinner all the time, because to watch you eat is a thing of beauty and a joy forever, but, you’re like crack and we all know nothing good ever comes of being addicted to something which is not designed to actually satisfy you.”

“I s’pose it’s the thought of all those women paying you to use me as their fantasy and what do I get out of it? A one-time fee. But they can watch me forever.” He lit a cigarette, looking out at the traffic on the street, his expression distant and disdainful. “I’m worth more than that.”

That’s always the unspoken supposition, of course. I sell myself, but I don’t come cheap. And usually coming wasn’t even in the agreement.

“I can understand that, demanding payment every time someone gets off on you. It’s the way things are. I guess maybe most performers are a little more altruistic. They don’t mind the thought of thousands using them as spank fodder, whether they see a direct cut of the profits or not.”

“We say ‘wank’ not ‘spank.’”

“Right.”

He gives me a genuine smile. Again, I feel like we’re meant for one another somehow and that’s just crazy.

“Look, I’m going to go over to that ATM across the street.” I point to it. “Stay here, please?”

He trims the ash on his cigarette with casual grace and smiles. “Okay.” Again, that same just-on-the-verge-of-orgasm tone.

I take out two hundred dollars and return, handing it to him.

“An hour, right?”

“Yeah. So you do have a casting couch.”

“You got a free lunch…but nothing is truly free, of course.”

His pouting smirk in reply is a telegraph straight from a master of delusion to those deluded. A voice within asks why can’t you keep your promises and another responds with oh fuck off. But I do have that fearful clarity of the addict who sees the binge coming and yet doesn’t run screaming the other way.

It’s not unusual to hear the sound effects of enthusiastic fucking coming from our offices. But I can imagine Libby sitting at her desk, shaking her head as she peruses head shots or scouts locations in the latest AVN directory.

“Be rough this time. Really hard.”

Again, the machine-like rhythm of pounding cock in molten pussy. We’re on the floor, and my voice is thick and low with need.

“Fuck me, slut.”

“As you wish, bitch.”

But I can’t see him and I move forward, he comes out of me with a liquid squelch.

“Wot?” He’s breathing heavy.

“On your back.”

I’m not a proponent of violence and yet something crawls out of me as I am humping him, slamming my ass against his crotch and repeatedly chanting slut slut slut and finally pulling his hair hard enough to produce a look of pain on that perfect face, breaking his composure again to see what is underneath.

“Ah, fucking bitch!”

I slap him without knowing I’d done it till I see the flush spread across his cheek. He smiles, and I wonder why but then see my reflection in the window and I finally look satisfied.

“He’s what?”

“There are ways of getting around that.”

“No. Absolutely not. We are wholly legal and above-board and we do everything by the book. You are not going to bring in some fucking illegal alien –“

“He’s not –“

”He is!”

“Okay, by the standard definition, sure. But what if we only distributed the film? We wouldn’t bear the responsibility for how it was made.”

“What are you saying?”

“You know what I mean, a shadow production, with gray money. We only need one. And then we’ll have enough money to help him –“

“What the - are we an immigration clinic now? What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“So I want to develop him, why is that so bizarre?”

“You want to save him and I am not in the business of saving people, okay?!”

“Look, if I can get the money are you in?”

Libby sighed, fixing me with a scowl. “You have lost your mind over this guy, Mari, I can totally tell. I thought you were better than that.”

“If you’re in, let me know. Otherwise spare me the fucking lecture.”

“You’re not taking me down with you!”

“Fine! I’ll do this on my own! But when he’s got a dozen box covers and his own website and I’m heralding the new age of porno you’ll be fucking choking on your own shortsightedness.”

“Dude, if you raise thirty grand I will direct the shit out of him. But you can’t do it. You know how they see us: we’ve got our nice little sliver of the pie, as long as we’re not too ambitious then they’ll let us live.”

“So you have no faith in me at all?”

“I do when you’re not fucking misguided, thinking with your pussy!”

Though I could retort with a childish mantra of I’m not, I’m not, I’m not! I don’t know if I can be sure of that. But neither can I halt the movement of my determination, even as I’m not entirely sure why.

“You say you don’t come cheap but you do.”

“Women can always charge more because men are desperate.”

I made him breakfast. He came over to watch videos and get baked and we fell asleep on the couch and now he alternately sips at orange juice and coffee (grimacing because he dislikes both) and waits for me to put a plate of fried eggs, bacon and toast in front of him.

“Won’t be the same without tomato,” he says, mournfully.

“You’re lucky I have this, slut.”

We didn’t fuck. Said he’d wave the fee because he hadn’t gotten high in months and was craving it. Our standards are starting to slip, I fear.

“So if men are desperate, what does that make me?”

“You have ulterior motives.”

“What do you get out of it? Besides money?”

We’re seated across from one another and my dining table is small, his legs intrude on my space. If he leaned forward he could embrace me.

“They’re so grateful. They spoil me, make me feel special.”

“You’re their prince. But only for as long as you say.”

“Yeah.”

A pause followed as we ate. “Do they make you breakfast too?”

“Sometimes.”

“That’s usually when you know somebody cares for you.”

He smirks, dragging a piece of toast through a puddle of egg yolk.

“Are you really going to do it? Get thirty grand to put me in a movie?”

“You don’t want to do a porno.”

“I would if you could.”

“Why?”

“You’re different.”

“Nobody’s different.”

“Not even me?”

“You’re special. But you’re not different.”

He expels air from his nose in an amused snort. “Well?”

“I don’t know. I have to make a few calls.”

We hear a chime, each searching for the phone. It’s his, he frowns at the display, then selects a number on speed dial.

“Hey, how you doing? Yeah. Sorry, luv, I’m booked today. Tomorrow, hey? Oh right. Well, Tuesday then, the usual time. Right sweetheart, bye now.”

It’s my turn to smirk.

“Don’t you fucking start with me, bitch.”

“Maybe that’s what the movie should be about. You’re the most desirable escort there ever was and you deliver, over and over and over. But then –“

“I meet my match? Fall in love?”

“Oh hell no. We have kissing but that has nothing to do with romance. No, something happens, but I don’t know what. We’ll leave that to Libby.”

We finish breakfast, he rinses the dishes in the sink.

“So you’re booked?”

Silence.

“I’m out of weed, you know.”

“I’m not always a whore.”

…and that’s exactly what I’m afraid of.

“Riley, babe, can I proposition you?”

“Mari darling, have you finally come to your senses and realized I love you?!”

This is how we talk in Porn Valley, doncha know, even as we can never be acknowledged by Hollywood we do our damnedest to emulate them anyway.

“I’m saving myself for you, of course. But in the meanwhile, can you keep a secret?”

“To the grave, sweetie.”

“I’ve got a project which is gonna bust our niche wide open. Thing is, we need to go gray on it, you get me?”

“Why? Is the talent underage?”

“No. He’s legal but he’s illegal. You get me?”

A pause. “Oh…yeah yeah, sure. Yeah, we had to shut down Muy Caliente 7 because our newest find’s student visa expired. A goddamn shame, babe, he was amazing with the coming-on-cue.”

“From Brazil?” Riley is a gay porn entrepreneur whose taste runs distinctly South of the Border.

A sigh. “Yeah. Broke my fucking heart, as usual.”

“Babe, you gotta step up shop in Baja, I’m thinking.”

“We had a plan, until the cartels decided to go to war. Me, I’d like to live and let live.”

“Yeah so…you know anyone who’s got some gray money they’re willing to chance?”

“How much?”

“Thirty.”

Riley whistled. “I’ve got ten I can give you. Can you do it for ten?”

“Not with real quality. We want to produce something Island Esctasy-calibre, and the talent we want to use, he’s gorgeous.”

“Yeah but, how is he when he opens his mouth?”

“He’s got the charisma to match, I promise.”

“You can have my ten, but I want to see pictures. Or meet him.”

“He’s not gay.”

“Honey, have I ever let that stop me?”

“You won’t get a audition fuck out of it, babe, I’m telling you.”

“You’ve tapped him, then, is what you mean.”

“Yeah.”

“Honey, how I can be the white knight when you’re always smoking me?”

I laughed. “Riley, you know I don’t go after the boys you want. This was a happy accident.”

“Send me pictures, and I’ll see what I can scare up. Set up a discretionary fund.”

“Done and done. Give me two days.”

We gossip about a few people in the scene, bitch about some others, and hang up with vague promises to do lunch sometime. The problem with Porn Valley is that unless you run into someone on-set somewhere, there is never any time to socialize. At the end of a long day all you want is a shower, a couple hours of television to remind yourself that the world is banal as you thought it was, and the privacy of your own bed where you may or may not sleep soundly.

I call my friend Rae, who is a big deal in our circle, but I’m asking her to aim a little lower than her usual amazing standard of dark arty sensuality. I say I want sofa shots, as if Trevor spends all his time laying around playing with himself and she finds the most decadently gorgeous red velvet couch - brothel-worthy but not too tacky – and he is like a piece of jewelry on it. I can’t breathe to look at him.

“He’s pretty and he’s not doing boy/boy.”

“No.”

“How are you going to pull that off?”

I laugh. We’ve known each other since before we both got in this business so I’m not offended by her sarcasm.

“Dude, I have no idea. But I have to try.”

He looks at me watching, and she has to keep telling him, look at the camera. That might be a problem. Usually even the amateurs are aware of that one simple rule.

I look through the Polaroids and want to lick them, he is so delicious as rendered by her lush lighting and angles. He doesn’t deign to look at himself, merely asks, “Is it okay?”

“Oh yes.”

“Can we go eat now?”

He waits in the car while I pay her. She looks disappointed.

“What?”

“He said he’s twenty-two. Dude, that’s too old. You’d be lucky to get a year out of him.”

“Yeah but, even so, it’s like finding a lost masterpiece. What, I should keep it to myself?”

“I’m thinking…yeah, you should. He doesn’t need to experience this.”

And although one might see the suggestion as inherently selfish…I know it’s actually the opposite. To suggest that I and I alone be the one to exploit him is the height of arrogance, but it’s never seen that way through the lens of Porn Valley, and for that I can count myself fortunate; though in this case I feel like I’m getting away with something I shouldn’t. And Rae, like Libby, is onto me, shaking her head.

“Are you booked tomorrow?”

“No.”

“Wanna come on a shoot with me? See what it’s like?”

That tone again, which he must have mastered in off-moments of scheming, as if I’m asking him if he wants blow jobs and ice cream. “Okay.”

“If your luscious ass is not here at 6am sharp, then it will get left.”

“Why don’t I just stay over then?”

“I can’t pay you for this, except in experience.”

“I know.”

The house was one of those amazing locations: on a hill in Calabasas, the city waaaay in the distance, as seen through a minimum of haze. The day was cooperating nicely: archetypal blue sky-sunshine which brought forth all of the details in beautiful clarity. I sat out on the front steps, enjoying the ambient scent of the rosebushes, watching a lizard sun itself on the red brick walkway. Trevor had gotten cornered by the photographer who tagged along with the director. Susannah was smart – she and I had a lot in common, actually – but her insistence on ironic distance made her extremely annoying in situ. After checking all of the pertinent details: equipment, wardrobe, toys and accessories, cast, crew, food, I made myself scarce, listening to the Intellectually Fascinated Voyeur attempt to seduce the Merely Curious Voyeur into some face time.

“So yeah, if you’re turning pro I’d love to shoot you. I wouldn’t sell them without your okay.”

“Uh well, that’s up to Mari. I work for her.”

“So you’re exclusive? Wow. Uh, so how –“

“Trevor – can you give me a hand with the clothes racks in the garage, please?”

He was there in an instant, blocking out the sun.

“Since you’re working for me and all.”

He snickered and sat down next to me, lighting a cigarette.

“Hey dude, can I bum one?” she asked him. But the look I gave her after she lit up made her go into the house.

“Do you think she could afford you?”

“Generally no one under 35 can. Nor do they think they should.”

“Oh she’s the right age. But she believes in bartering.”

“I’m not adverse to bartering. But I bet she’s not offering anything I don’t already have.”

No one owns him, but he is beholden to a definite network of support. And maybe I am trying to save him, extricate him from that silky steely net.

said the spider to the fly…juicy delicious fly

“Have you told any of your clients you’re thinking of going into porn?”

“No. Dunno how they’d take it.”

“Yeah you shouldn’t till you have some fuck-you money. So if they object you’d be okay.”

“What would you think?”

I sighed, looking at another lizard perfectly still in the warmth of the day. I remember as a kid I liked doing this, just sitting and watching one thing: the way the wind moved a tree, the way water sparkled in sunlight, the way the sky lightened when it met the horizon.

“I have no idea. I’ve spent the better part of my life in the game. And I’ve never fucked an escort.”

“Until now.”

“Right.”

“Never any pros?”

“Well, talent, sure. Or prospective talent. But not someone like you.”

In more ways than one.

When the shoot is over and everyone has departed we sit out by the pool, relishing the actual quiet of the ‘burbs.

“Wanna go for a swim?”

“Can we?”

“The house is rented for two days. It’s a freaking miracle we got everything shot in one.”

He takes off a shoe and sock and tests the water. “Nice. We could go starkers.”

“You first.”

It’s become a private joke and he strips without hesitation, then walks over to the deep end and dives in like he had trained for it. I took my shoes off and rolled up my pants, putting my feet in and watching him do laps. Eventually he swims over to me, smoothing back his hair.

“Are you ever going to tell me about yourself? You swim like an Olympian.”

“Grew up in a house like this, with a pool. That’s all you get.”

“I didn’t. I am every stereotype you can find in this business. Well, wait, not every one, but close enough.”

“Were you ever the talent?”

“I wanted to be. Worked for a guy who kept promising me to put me in front of the camera, while instead I was the go-fer on every one of his shoots, plus his fucktoy, and after three years I realized that I knew everything you had to know about actually making a porno, met Libby at Erotica L.A. who was in the same situation, kinda, and we decided to say fuck it and do it ourselves. We did a lot of typical shoots before we discovered our niche. We still have to take other projects because we’re not completely financially solvent, so we don’t always work together, like today.”

He floated on his back, and looked iconic even as he was very real. “Can we stay the night?”

“Yeah, there’s still some food in the fridge.”

“Found someone’s stash upstairs. In the medicine cabinet.”

“Probably from a previous shoot. I’m rather fascist about talent bringing drugs on-set. It’s in their contract. If I catch them, they get docked half their fee.”

So we had a mini-vacation, sort of. We swam naked like porpoises, roasted hot dogs on the electric grill in the kitchen, gorged on microwave popcorn while watching the latest incredibly lame slasher flick on cable. Eventually we went upstairs and crashed on the California King in the master suite, passing a joint back and forth as we snickered our way through Max After Dark.

“Your movie was much better,” he says, exhaling smoke rings then giggling. “I can only do that when I’m wasted.”

“Shotgun me,” I command, opening my mouth. He obliges and I swallow the smoke for as long as I can then sigh out the rest, it makes me think of ghosts as my mind buzzes half-paranoid with stoner logic.

“Houses like these creep me out. They’re too big. I’m getting a Tate-La Bianca vibe.”

“I’ll protect you, milady.”

He looked so cute, so boyfriend-like, I could only curl up and put my face against his stomach, his skin was smooth and warm. I flicked my tongue in his navel and he giggled again.

“Irony of ironies,” I muttered, turning my head and considering his lovely hipbones. “I don’t do cute. Can we just fuck?”

“Mmm yeah. Whatever you want, boss.”

It takes a while to get him hard, I like to think I have a certain finesse with sucking cock, but he’s thoroughly stoned and giggling and sighing with pleasure. But once I judge that he’s hard enough I pull him to the side and straddle his hip, inserting him with the innate snug knowledge that I can have him whenever I please.

“A little weed and you’re sluttier than usual, pretty boy.”

“We always have such lovely dates, bitch.”

And this is cute, even as I’m pulling his hair and biting his jawline and he pushes me on my back, pulling up my legs and thrusting hammer down, slapping my tits, shouting Come you fucking bitch, now!


And I do. I let him sleep with me, and we’re perfectly comfortable, curled up in a sweet parody of true coupledom.

We picked Daniella Dane for our female – she was non-threatening and more realistically built: nice tits but a low C cup, bit of a spread to her hips and ass, pretty face but not overtly attractive, possessing her original dark blonde hair. Dani was always on time, ever-willing and able to get the job done. She was a pro, the kind we liked.

“I’m ready for anal too,” she chirped from the makeup chair, sipping a cup of water with a straw so as not to muss the four coats of lip color designed to give her a natural look. “I cleansed today.”

“They didn’t tell ya, hon? Just vanilla today,” Libby said. “We’re doing a test reel for investors.”

“Okay.” She smiled wide when she saw Trevor. “Hi, I’m Dani!”

He looked a little overwhelmed as they talked, and she gave him tips on how to position himself, where to look, how loudly to speak. But his unshakable poise with women overcame any annoyance he might be feeling. Hell, Dani annoys me, and she’s one of the least drama-ridden girls we know. She even offered to help him prepare and he smiled gratefully but demurred.

“Want to look real, y’know, when I penetrate?”

“Oh sure!”

“Get out,” Libby murmured in my ear. “You know the rule.”

“Yeah but –“

“Get out.”

I walked around the anonymous house, eventually ending up in what I figured was the family room, picturing what a family might actually do in such a room, as opposed to what we would do.

“Mari.”

He was all prepared, wearing nothing but a pair of jersey-fabric shorts. I could see the burgeoning erection and his pupils blown wide from the supplement I had given him that morning, aptly-named Steel Libido.

“Pace yourself, okay? Listen to Libby, be cooperative.”

“You won’t be there?”

“I’m not allowed on-set when she shoots. She gets paranoid, thinks I’m looking over her shoulder.”

“Please?”

He’s got a look: wide-eyed slightly pouting slightly pitiful, like a puppy. His voice is softer than usual. He can feign gentleness with the best of them, I know, and there are few things as seductive in this world. An epiphany assaults me like the first time someone stuck their cock in my ass.

“You really do want someone to take care of you, don’t you?”

“Please.”

If I were a more dramatic person I could see myself shouting at him don’t you fucking do this to me, you manipulative slut but the collision of our desires is complete in this moment as he asks me to be witness to his destiny: watching him fucking for money that I’ll be paying him.

And which is the better deal, do you think? Watching him fuck other people and paying him for it, or fucking him whenever you want because he’s on the payroll and he knows it’s part of the deal?

Parity. Are we all getting what we want?

I stand in the doorway, Libby doesn’t notice because she’s into it, perfectly focused which is why she’s in demand. They are posed, like mannequins, but when she says ‘action’ they relax, stroke and kiss and deliver a good impersonation of a passionate couple. I know Libby is training the camera on Trevor: the glory of his face and body, perfect genetic geometry lit just so to bring out his creamy skin and deep eyes. He murmurs and moans as she takes out his cock and begins licking it slow and the camera devours it too as we urge our audience to imagine, to fantasize, to substitute. I am not unmoved when she sucks and he urges her on, and finally with a purring “oh baby I can’t wait any longer,” he makes a pretzel of her on the bed and they stop, to change the lighting and the angles and so he can put on a condom, then start again so we can see him move inside her as if we the viewers were who he touched, who he was fucking oh so sweet and slow. His moans will be the ones we hear, his shining face will be the one we see so beautiful in bliss.

What do I want?

What’s your fantasy?

Do I even know the answer to that? Somehow I think he does.