full is not heavy as empty

“Awww…I didn’t know you cared!”

“Shut up.”

It’s only in moments like these that I recall he’s nearly a foot taller than me, as I join the clasp of the gold necklace and smile approvingly at the way it hangs just in the jugular notch, framed by his collarbones, the word slut like an etched faceplate, almost. He had given me a crystal-beaded choker which spells out BITCH when the test shoot was finished. I wondered who had really bought it…could have been me, for all I know, and isn’t that a hilarious thought?

We were in bed, the jewelry encircled my neck like hands, he laid me down and took my picture, he smiled like he really meant it. I said I wouldn’t wear it all the time, but he said I only needed to wear it when we fucked.

I want him to wear his all the time.


The immigration lawyer Riley had on retainer shook his head, bemused, and muttered something about everything being outsourced now, even porn, but neither of us laughed. We sat in his cramped office in Echo Park which smelled like old grease and exhaust, listening to ranchera music from the bar next door and I could see the glint of the necklace in the ambient light. No fluorescents, just open blinds and a desk lamp. So Trevor looked like a painting, sort of, his skin slightly flushed from the heat of the day, a damp curl or two sticking to the side of his neck.

He had stopped wearing all jewelry save the necklace. Like a vow.

I knew what the lawyer was going to say. The easiest way to consider the problem, for now. The paperwork would still take forever, but he would be safe, relatively speaking.

And I was…scared. Because it didn’t bother me to hear what he said. Trevor turned his head, just slightly, one thick eyebrow quirked, his lips pursed then stretched in a smirk, but a faint one, as if he wanted to laugh. But his eyes were fixed on a spot somewhere on the man’s desk, widened but not imploring or asking or even curious. I think he knew.

He knew all I would not say, somehow he had managed to see it all, maybe in those moments when in the midst of orgasm my expression revealed every nuance, every secret.

“Hey, shake your moneymaker, pretty boy.”

Even mostly asleep with severe bedhead, dark circles, and skin creased from heavy slumber, Trevor is delicious. The cloud of unwashed male musk which hits my nose when he shifts in the sheets makes my pussy twitch.

“Wot time is it?” he slurs.

“Seven-thirty. We’ve got tons of shit to do, so get your luscious ass up.”

He groans and sighs, but does what he’s told. Over time I’ve come to realize that his reluctance to let me take the wheel of his destiny was only a ploy, now he rarely does anything which is not somehow sanctioned by my command. But his smirking sarcasm makes it seem as though he objects in some way…and of course that’s exactly what I like.

I know, I know…I’m fucked up. But knowing doesn’t make it any less strange.

I went back out to the balcony…I like my apartment, but he’s always here and therefore it’s become too cramped. With the eminent production of The Remedy, Trevor sat his client base down and gently explained the situation, and the woman who held the lease on his apartment declined further sponsorship, as did the woman who owns the title on his car. So now he’s my foundling, and Libby relished trotting out the phrase self-fulfilling prophecy. I look out over the canyon, all the other houses and apartment buildings precariously clinging to the craggy walls and resting lightly on the summits and I remind myself I like the fact every sound is muted: traffic is a whoosh, music is a hum, even other people’s annoying barking dogs are echo-y evocations of rural living. The way this canyon is formed, sound never comes at you directly. In the cool overcast misty interlude of morning…this is what I like. It’s not how Porn Valley is, but it’s a little niche I’ve carved out for myself, my own illusion…as opposed to the ones I create for money.

When he finally emerges he pointedly sniffs at my bowl of oatmeal.

“Porridge, ugh.”

“It’s good for you, even if you drown it with sugar.”

“Pass.”

“You could use more fiber. I’m tired of not being able to use the bathroom for two hours while you’re taking a shit.”

“I eat plenty of fruit!” He looks rather aghast, and I consider that the women in his world likely never discussed his defecation habits. But I haven’t lived with anyone in so long, and every thing he does makes me feel claustrophobic, even as I dislike being too far from him at any time. I took him to my dentist to have his teeth cleaned and bleached and rather than fetch him later I sat out in the car and read through a stack of industry magazines, afraid that if I were late he’d wander off in the company of some other kindly old woman.

(I’m not old, but I’m older than him. I’m not even a member of the demographic we plan to sell him to.)

We need a house, so I can put him in a room with a home theatre system and video game platform and he would happily stay there while I ran our empire right down the hall. We would be secure, and fulfilled, and get on with the business of deserving one another, as Libby has taken to noting we do. We went to Bridge for a celebratory dinner after the test shoot and when he belched loud enough to draw dozens of stares in the main dining room she smirked at me over her martini.

“He is exactly what you deserve.”

I was puzzled, because he doesn’t strike me as the gauche type at all. I like to imagine Trevor was the recipient of an incredibly privileged upbringing. He has impeccable table manners when necessary, doesn’t resort to casual profanity, listens to classical music…any number of qualities which add up to well-bred in my estimation. And then I consider perhaps he’s trying to emulate me, and it’s with fascinated dread that I watch him work his perfect boyfriend mojo.

I stared, annoyance hardening my expression.

“Sorry. The beer caught up with me.” He then called out a louder “Pardon me!” to the patrons at large and some turned away amused, others kept staring at him. Because common or not, he is beautiful…and beauty makes its’ own rules.

We approached a very high-end sex store – Coco de Mer – regarding their assistance in promoting the venture. We signed ten women for our initial focus group: we gave them lunch and gift bags, asked them questions before and after showing the test reel we made for our investors. Though the room was dark save the glow from the screen, I could see their expressions and they were all a wonderful mixture of titillated and stunned.

Their responses post-screening were all enthusiastic giggling raunchy I want to see it now! By the time we were ready to invite them back for an advance screening, word-of-mouth caused the ranks to swell…we had to establish a cut-off of twenty-five participants. The store had promised to stock the video if we provided them an exclusive edition, so we paired it with a coupon to obtain a free poster at point of purchase.

The poster. I swear, I’m a fucking genius.

I thought I was the fucking genius, he said. Smartass.

Playgirl was interested in a pictorial and sent us a long list of suggestions regarding locales and scenarios. We insisted on using our own photographer and they capitulated after we sent a few watermarked proofs of Rae’s sofa session. One of those suggestions was “shower shoot” and I liked that, so we rented a house I knew had a great big marbled shower with multiple heads and thoroughly flexible nozzle and spent five hours trying to catch every nuance of his enthralling appeal. I stood right behind her so that he could pose for me and still seem to be looking through the camera, to whomever might be out there waiting to use him as an object of fantasy.

Looking through the proofs I found the image I knew would make him famous. He was on the threshold of the shower stall, just before going in, turning his head to smirk at us, the glory of his ass and legs fully apparent, as well as other delights: the way his hair fell to his shoulders, curling just so and lending greater warmth to his eyes, his mouth made for sin, a long arm curved just enough to hide his genitalia. The photo wasn’t truly posed, Rae just happened to get the right moment - she was good at that, it was the main reason for her fame. After a click of the shutter she asked him to smile and that shot was a little more posed, a little less magical.

But there’s no such thing as magic in Porn Valley. It’s all bullshit.

We were organized, professional. We had a checklist, and every day we met and discussed the items on the checklist. As each was crossed off we felt that much closer to true legitimacy.

The poster was in my office, I could sit at my desk and turn my head to the left and look at him any time I wanted: utterly delicious and mesmerizing in a specific way. I think of him on walls all over the country…smirking at the world at large, and it gives me a feeling of accomplishment.

“We still need to think of a name,” Libby comments, from my right side. We have identical coffee mugs, save the inscription. Hers reads “whore,” mine reads “bitch.”

“Why can’t I be one of those blokes who uses his real name?”

“As a performer? No fucking way,” she shot back. “Now stop being such a PITA!”

His open-mouthed, creased-brow look of confusion would be absurd on anyone else.

“Pain in the ass, and yeah, you are, now hush!”

“I like Trevor Tremaine,” Libby continued, paging through several sheets on her legal pad.

“I hate alliterative names!” he proclaims, and there it is again: that touch of culture.

“I don’t hear you coming up with anything better, pretty boy.”

“Mann. M-a-n-n,” he suggests.

“Waaaay too Bauhaus for porn.”

I’m looking at the poster. I think I like looking at it better than I like looking at him. In that moment as captured by Rae’s camera he is forever what I think he is: unrepentant temptation. I suddenly snap my fingers and look at Libby.

“Wilde. With an ‘e.’”

“Oooh, and a nice literary allusion. Yeah, okay, I can dig that.”

“Trevor Wilde,” he murmurs, looking up at the ceiling, pondering.

“You don’t have to sign anything like that, just your first name. But yeah, it’s perfect.” I frame his face with my fingers. “Trevor Wilde is…The Remedy. There’s the tagline for the box.”

“You’re a fucking genius!” Libby said, toasting me with her coffee.

“No, I’m the fucking -“

“Shut up, slut!”

We did veggie for lunch, Trevor frowning at the menu.

“Can’t even get a proper cheese sandwich, they cover it with all sorts of frilly green shite.”

“Look,” Libby begins, leaning on the table to look him in the eye. “You cannot continue to eat like a pregnant sow and expect us to film you naked.”

“I’m not fat!”

“Not yet. You look just buff enough in the footage but you’re pushing it. Stand up.”

He shot me a look like What’s her deal? but I nodded.

Libby pulled up his t-shirt. “You’re losing definition in your torso. And I bet your ass is starting to sag too. We’re not asking you to be ripped, but you can’t look soft either, alright? If you don’t want to go to the gym at least do some crunches every day.”

“We’ve gotta move anyway. We’ll find a place with a pool so he can swim every day.”

“And what are these?” Libby pinched a tiny bulge above his left hipbone.

“Mari likes them well enough,” he smirked.

“Yeah but when Mari can’t sell your ass to the public anymore then we’ll see how much she likes your burgeoning love handles.”

It was true, though, I did like him just the slightest bit pudgy. I didn’t encourage him to expend himself physically beyond hours of fucking – either me or the female lead we were going to cast for The Remedy - so he had probably gained at least five pounds or so since moving in with me.

“Are you two finished discussing me as if I’m hanging from a rack in a freezer?”

“Sit down, shut up, eat a goddamn salad and we won’t have to talk about you like that. And you,” Libby continued, pointing at me, “stop spoiling him rotten by cooking for him and letting him drink a sixer every night.”

“I don’t drink that much!”

“You’re English-by-association, right? So you’re practically socially determined to be a lush. Don’t feed me the bollocks, as you say.”

Trevor snickered. “I don’t say that. I’d say stop tuning me kak, you annoying bitch.”

“He does say that,” I noted dryly, still puzzling over which salad I wanted.

At the initial test screening, one of the things we discussed with our focus group was what kind of women they wanted us to cast…was Dani acceptable, or was she still too glamorous? It didn’t surprise me to hear that they wanted someone even plainer, and brunette.

“Or maybe redhead,” one woman said, “but not, like, slutty, y’know?”

“Like Gillian Anderson, maybe? She’s sexy but she’s not obvious about it,” another chimed in.

I nodded. “So dark-haired, then?”

They all nodded and began throwing out names of mainstream actresses they liked, who were pretty but not too pretty. We wrote those names down, for a later process of elimination.

“So you all think he’s good-looking, right?”

Lots of shouting, cheering, and whistling.

“What about his accent?”

More enthusiastic response, with the obvious question.

“He’s from South Africa. But he’s easy to understand?”

They told us yes.

“Should that be an aspect of the story? Fish out of water?”

“Crocodile Dundee, you mean? No no, don’t do that!”

“Does anyone have any suggestions?”

We heard every goddamn romance cliché there is. Granted, Island Esctasy did use a romance convention in its’ story: two strangers meet at a luxurious resort and fuck each other senseless. But that was the difference: it was really all about the sex (and by extension the scenery). Sort of like Last Tango in Paris but without any philosophical or artistic considerations. I wanted this movie to be a little bit more…but what I meant by that, I wasn’t sure.

We pretended to take them seriously, and thanked them for their time. Later, we ate the leftover fruit salad from the buffet and made our usual complaints.

“Have I mentioned lately that I think women are moronic bitches?” Libby groused. “And goddamn it they ate all the pineapple. What, is there a pineapple diet now?”

“Probably. I don’t think women are stupid…just socialized to be stupid. And it’s a goddamn shame.”

Funny, isn’t it…we don’t think of ourselves as women, just men with tits and pussy. That’s what Porn Valley does to you.

We were watching The Sentinel on AMC sometime in the middle of the night post-marathon fuck and it came to me. I called Libby.

“Cristina Rains.”

“Dude, what the fuck are you talking about? It’s 3:47 am fer chrissakes! Have you two been smoking crack?”

“You know I never do anything heavier than pot.”

“And I also know you’re a trailer trash trainwreck, okay? There is nothing I think you’re incapable of.”

“Listen, go put The Sentinel in your Netflix queue. Write that down, The Sentinel. The lead actress is Cristina Rains, and we need someone like her. She’s pretty but she’s not threatening. You actually care about her character.”

“All right, I wrote it down. I’m hanging up now.”

Trevor rolled onto his side during the commercial break, brushing my arm with his fingertips. “Speaking of pot –“

“No. Not until we move into a new place.”

“Okay, okay…you just seem terribly tense, is all.”

“Oh fuck off. I know you want to get stoned and eat everything in the fridge and it ain’t happening, son.”

He turned away, pulling a pillow over his head. “God you’re such a fucking bitch.”

The movie had started again, things weren’t looking good for Allison. I could relate, in my own twisted sort of way. I touched his hip.

“C’mere, it’s getting to the scary part.”

He turned over and snuggled next to me, putting his head in my lap. I ran my fingers repeatedly through the thick waves of his hair as the denouement arrived. It was ridiculous and overwrought but it scared me anyway. I think the sense of being haunted is what I fear the most. And it doesn’t matter what it is, really, just the thought of not being able to get away from a specific horror.

I left the TV on after the credits ran and slid down to curl around him, holding Trevor as tightly as Allison, now Sister Theresa, held the crucifix and kept the demons from escaping the entrance to Hell which - in a stroke of poetic justice - was located in Brooklyn.

I had a therapist, once upon a time, and she said to me you don’t like yourself, do you? and I replied I’d never had any reason to. Even as I succeed in the skin trade, it only appears to confirm my baser instincts, not the higher functioning which allows one to find meaning and validation in daily pursuits. But this world is one I know, one which keeps playing out with an eerie predictability and therefore I can always see trouble coming.

I wake up in neutral light and white sheets and look at the face of trouble next to me. Not inherently trouble, of course, but trouble for me.

“I’m onto you.”

Libby says this to me with frightening regularity. Because she’s usually right. But she’s a worst misogynist than I am, so that’s saying something for me. I don’t dislike women, I just dislike what we’ve become. And the only way I could get out of that, as far as I can tell, was to erase my femininity before anyone mistook it for weakness. But I still promote myself as a sexual being, because that is the one trait men can always handle, somehow. I know this is wrong (even before I was told so) but we do what we can to get by, right?

“Bring the revelation, my prophet.”

“He’s your Mas Marquez, isn’t he?”

She refers to Riley’s one claim to fame: Mas Marquez, the Brazilian Bombshell, a guy who at his peak was even more astoundingly beautiful than Trevor, so much so there was never any question that his destiny would be as an icon of gay porn. He did it all: from the sensitive soft focus to the rough-and-ready, lushly lit and grainy gonzo. Riley worked Mas like a thoroughbred but he finally walked away at age 36. There wasn’t anything wrong with him, as far as anyone knew…except, perhaps, that his religious ambivalence finally caught up with him. Mas had a reputation for wallowing in Catholic guilt even as his fucked his way to the top of the game, praying before and after scenes.

One of the few things Libby and I could agree upon was our enduring love for his movies. I’d gone through three copies of Cum To Rio alone. Whenever I felt overly cynical I would put it in the DVD player and allow myself to be mesmerized by the planes of his body and those wide wide eyes of his…there’s a scene where he’s sunbathing on Copacabana and he’s lying there seemingly asleep as the camera lingers on shining soft dusky legs and torso…then the camera travels up and he opens his eyes. My breath hitches to see the sweep of his ebony lashes and the slight purse of his lips as he spies a possible conquest coming along the shoreline.

He rarely spoke in his movies, he was a cipher of sorts. His intonation and accent weren’t a liability, but Riley told me Mas (whose given name was Eduardo) had the inherent ability to “act” almost like a silent film star: expressions and gestures as communicative as actual words.

I sighed. “Who doesn’t want a Mas Marquez, hmm? A performer who becomes a legend with his very first movie? Tell me you don’t dream of something like that.”

“I don’t get attached to talent, you know that. It’s a sucker bet.”

We’re at The Lodge, trolling for some unspoiled girl and yelling at one another over the music. Libby bums a cigarette from Trevor and I know she’s on her way to drunkenness, looking for a fight. And then the DJ spins “Back In Black.”

“Duuuude, it’s your song, get up there!”

“Fuck you!”

She smiles, leans towards Trevor. “She never told you, huh?”

“Told me wot?”

My folded hand in front of my mouth hides the expression, my eyes wide and blank, this I can see in the mirrored wall. No stupid faux brothel wallpaper in this place, thank god.

“She was a –“

At the same time she said ‘stripper’ I said ‘exotic dancer.’

“Fuck that shit, you took your clothes off for money, you were a stripper!”

Trevor doesn’t look surprised, he only smirks. “Were you any good?”

I shrug. “I made money, but was I a pole jockey? Nah.”

Libby looks smug. She never had to pay the bills like that. Most of the girls start out somewhere near the bottom and practice obsessive determination. Maybe even desperation.

“Did you like it?”

My expression is obvious now, a sort of Are you fucking kidding me?

“Nobody likes it, ever. Live sex work brings out the worst in people. Look at these assholes, and this is the Platinum Room.”

Pay a premium, they let you do things you wouldn’t normally do, a shitload of code violations. But the hysterical thing is they’d likely get shut down for letting people smoke in the bar, rather than the blowjobs in the back booths. I love California.

I hired a realtor and began the tedious process of looking at houses. Trevor would come along on these excursions but knew his opinion was not required. We visited too many places which reminded me of clichéd normalcy and societal expectation. And then we found a place in Calabasas which was depraved, strange, and possibly even haunted.

Therefore, entirely the sort of residence I could inhabit.

It was a odd mix of hacienda style with castle allusions…there was turret at one end with an honest-to-god wrought iron spiral staircase leading up to a room with only one window, looking out on the hills of Las Virgenes Canyon beyond the street. The rest of the house was one storey laid out in a circular fashion – each room leading into the other – but the living room commanded the house…and it had a conversation pit. I didn’t think such things actually existed except in films I’d seen from the 70s. A specially-made couch took up the entire area, one could have a fairly legitimate orgy in its’ depths.

“Where’s the table for the hookah?” Trevor joked.

“It did used to be decorated sort of opium den-like,” the realtor remarked. “But the guy who last owned this house went kinda retro with the furniture.”

“So it comes with?”

“If you want. Or I can have it hauled away.”

I walked around, considering. Retro was right…it was that mid-70s color scheme which most of Southern California had sported: avocado green, burnt orange, harvest gold, chocolate brown. Earth tones, but I never thought of them that way. There was a sort of menace inherent in those shades.

The backyard is completely paved over, but there is a pool. Probably against code, but no gate cordoning it off from the rest of the space. The brick wall is high enough to block out the neighbors on the left, but as the house is at the end of the street, the view on the other side is undisturbed by further cohabitation.

The whole place seemed suspended in that era of easy debauchery and I had the feeling I’d been there before. I wondered if anyone had ever used it in a porno.

I didn’t ask the realtor, if she knew she wouldn’t have told me. It’s a fair question, though, in the Valley.

Libby is not pleased, she doesn’t like the idea of us not living in the same zip code. And she doesn’t trust me with him, I’ve known that from the very beginning, but she’s not stupid. She drove out from Studio City bearing sushi and Klondike Bars and reminded us we needed to get our shit together.

“Man, if we could get someone like Dana DeArmonde, y’know? But not so spunky.”

Trevor looked confused…we sat through an entire day of movies and I’m sure all the women blurred together for him. None of the blondes, of course, only brunettes.

“Yeah, we will find somebody, don’t worry.”

The sun goes down, the sky turning almost the shade of the couch in the conversation pit, vanilla ice cream melting in my mouth like his flesh.

“Thanks for the goodies, Lib, but I need to fuck this boy now, on that ugly-ass couch.”

“It smells like K-Y, y’know.”

Yeah, I know.

He’s waiting for me after I walk her out to her car and she takes my head in her hands and says Don’t break him, goddamn it. and strangely enough he does the same thing, hands on either side of my head, fingers cradling my jaw, and he darts for my mouth, hummingbird-quick, and I don’t expect it but I don’t freeze, or tense. His kiss is soft, like his lips, but deep breath and just the quickest flick of tongue and again I am melting.

It’s the first time we’ve ever kissed.

I think kissing in porn movies is disingenuous, unless it’s gay porn. I like boykissing, I admit it. I don’t think I’m abnormal that way, even if most of them fake it. And I know people kiss all the time, it’s what we do, but kissing always feels like lying to me.

I’m on the fluttery edge of panic but he pulls off my shirt and slides his hand down my shorts and fingers fit themselves into my pussy and he’s biting my neck and I know this, and that stranger who kissed me and made me swoon stepped back to allow my foundling, my urchin, to return and show his gratitude and I’m safe again.

I bottom out, literally, as he’s pumping me slow and steady and I know every inch of his cock as well as my own body and he’s yelling oh you fucking bitch because my pussy is the ever-tightening vise and who will come first…we like this kind of game. Or should I say, I do, and he likes what I like because he knows how to be the perfect boyfriend. We need to exploit that ability for the camera, for the machine. For the hungry gaze of the expectant audience.

But for now, I’m the audience and he is the star and the room smells like heat and pheromones and K-Y rising out of the fabric of the couch like a ghost.

Libby comes into my office and tosses a DVD box at me.

“Caroline Ducey.”

I stare at the cover of Romance and cuss myself out for being stupid. Of course. We both love this movie and I’m pissed I didn’t think of it before she did, but that’s why she’s the director.

“Yeah.”

We go in her office and watch it on her editing suite desktop, with the huge monitor. The main character, Marie, has an inherent purity which informs her performance at every turn.

“Breillat said romance is the illusion of love. Do we need to put that in there?”

Libby frowns, chewing at already gnawed fingernails. “Do they want love? They all probably have it or they’re sick of it and what they really want is desire. Lust, but pretty lust, you know? Look at the colors in this movie – look at how Breillat does the Hitchcock thing with the colors changing – from white to beige to red to black.”

“Well yeah, but –“

“I’m not saying we have to legitimize shit, but, we have to do what we do and do it right.”

And finally I’m smart and merely nod. But then we watch The Last Mistress and I point at Fu-ad Aît Aattou and say, “You know what Breillat said when she saw him? She said, ‘If he can act, then he’s the one.’”

“She did not say that.”

“Okay I’m paraphrasing, but you know what I mean. The feeling that it would be a crime to deprive the world of the privilege of watching a boy like that.”

“Yeah okay, I get it. Shut up already.”

Then I feel smart, which is something different from being smart.

“Can we get a dog?”

He’s lying on one of the chaises beside the pool, legs spread on either side of the furniture, and I’m staring at his naked body in a detached sort of way, appreciating that Trevor has been a good boy and exercises daily to halt the flaws we feared.

“We’re not ho – here, enough. It’s cruel to leave a dog alone all day.”

He sits up, fixes me with a particularly searching stare.

“Fully.”

I’m not sure what that means, but he stands up and wraps a towel around his torso, smoothing back his wet hair, drying his hands then lighting a cigarette from the pack on the table. Like every other piece of furniture it’s particularly Draconian: heavy wood and wrought iron legs and accents. I feel like I’m in some movie from 1973 about a Satanic cult.

We’re testing a girl today, she’s going to come out so we can talk to her and take some pictures. I want to see how they look together. He goes to shower and eventually I follow him, pulling off my clothes in the steam and coming into the stall, letting my chilly skin meet his warm slickness. I hold him from behind and he’s still and flush, allowing me to enjoy his solidity.

“How about a cat?”

He chuckles. Every time we go to Libby’s apartment, her cat Sheba is thoroughly enthralled as Trevor sits on Libby’s ugly oatmeal-colored couch and lets her climb him like a toy. She’s a pretty black shorthair with emerald eyes and during one visit I was inspired to photograph him. He took his shirt off and held her willing form in a number of poses, one of them absolutely precious as they looked at one another nose-to-nose, Trevor crossing his eyes comically. In another he kissed the top of her head and I could swear she looked as smug as I would have, if I’d let myself be vulnerable enough to allow it. The lens loved them both as I filled up the photo card.

When it’s time to go she follows him to the door, meowing querulously, a scold. Don’t leave me, pretty boy.

“I’m trying to think of a pussy joke.”

“How about there’s room for two pussies in this house as long as one of them is a cat?”

“Agreed.”

He turns and pins me to the wall in a kiss and I’m overwhelmed but he knows I like it, then his mouth slips and slides down my flesh and he’s meticulous in licking my labia, sliding his tongue inside me, breathing on my clit, until I shove his face into my mons, pulling his wet hair and screaming, a nice echo against the tile…and I wonder how we look together, a fantasy of being the double for blocking every shot…being able to watch us whenever I wanted, just to see we three: him, and me, and that watchful eye recording my possession possessing me in a recursive fantasy of voyeurism.


We’ve seen five girls, and none of them is just right, but all of them are acceptable, adequate. The last one, Karen, brought a friend, Becky, who lobbied me until I was ready to throw her through the sliding-glass door. I told her why she wasn’t right: she was blonde, her tits were too big, she was too much of an attention whore. But this seemed to deter her not one whit and I finally snapped, saying you are the reason I don’t like women and she giggled and replied I don’t like women either and seriously, what the fuck is happening to the world?


“So what did you think of Karen?”

Trevor scowls before taking a swig of beer. “She had a bony arse.”

Libby asked me to make pizza and French fries, she’s depressed at our lack of progress. Trevor watches me slice vegetables and shred cheese.

“How did you learn to be a cook?”

“I worked in a place, under the table, for years. That’s how I saved money to get into porn. The guy I told you about, he was a regular customer. I sucked a lot of cock to get the experience.”

“I thought you worked for him.”

“Not for money, slut. I had to live but I didn’t want to go back to the pole, so luckily I found the other job. Used to work nights cooking for the freaks and the scenesters.”

He’s looking at his nails, he cleans and files them obsessively, never turns down a manicure.

“Karen’s the only one who’s close to what we need,” Libby insists. She keeps stealing pepperoni out of the neatly-sliced pile and I slap her hand. “Look, I know not everyone has the junk in the trunk like Mari – well shit, maybe you should do it, then. I’ll just film you guys fucking all pretty and leave it at that.”

“Shut your whoring mouth,” I say, but affectionately teasing. “I know I don’t have the kind of body which inspires inadequacy in others, but –“

“Why not?” he asks, and he’s waiting for a reaction. I point the knife at him.

“Don’t start with me, slut.”

“You wanted to be in the front of the camera, hey?”

“Jesus Christ, is no one listening to me?!”

“No,” Libby replies with a crooked smile. “We’re totally not.”

“Yeah well if you want your carb orgy then zip it. We’re going with Karen because now we’ve only got a month to finish everything if we want to meet the authoring deadline.”

“We still don’t have a location.”

“I don’t care. Fuck, we’ll film it here if we have to.”

They both look a bit weirded-out by that suggestion, but finally there is peace in the Valley when the food is ready and we’re sitting inside the monstrosity watching E! on the new big-screen TV. Conversely none of us are repulsed by eating in a place where two of us have had sex. Trevor picks up a Polaroid from a stack in the center of the couch, he and Karen are faking a passionate pose.

“She’s pretty, I s’pose.”

“Who is pretty?” I ask, between bites of pizza. He knows it’s not confusion which prompts my response, but clarification.

“I dunno. I don’t think of it that way.” He eats his fries with a fork, I shit you not. But he eats pizza with his hands. I notice the little things, it’s the only way I’ll ever learn about him.

“What do you think about?”

Trevor seems to be looking at the television, but the character of his gaze tells me it’s some other place, a memory, perhaps, of the first time he came to grips with the reality of his own seductive power.

“What they want from me.”

And then he takes a bite of pizza and there’s a little tomato sauce in the corner of his mouth and I wipe it away with my fingertip and his gaze moves to me and he’s doing it, he’s wondering what I want and how to give it to me.

Then he will, eventually. He will figure it out as long as I’m so easy to read. But I don’t know how to stop being so transparent when he looks at me. To my very bones, I feel those dark eyes like a drill…or a camera which never stops documenting the decomposition of my façade.

I wake up, startled by a sound somewhere. We are on the couch, hot daylight radiating through the windows beyond. The sides of the couch are high enough that anyone spying from across the street would not see us. My heart is pounding in panic and I look around, the silence not silent but a sssshhhh against my eardrums. Trevor is wholly unconscious, vulnerable and…not delicate…but breakable, somehow, despite his size.

This house is a weight on my soul. I can’t explain it in any logical fashion but I feel as though it’s watching me, as I make calls and send emails and pay bills from my new office – the smallest bedroom – and down the hall I hear the sounds of Grand Theft Auto and an occasional bloody hell as Trevor attempts to figure out how to advance in the game. More often he’s got the television on, doing crunches during the commercials. I pretend everything is fine but I hear a voice, calling me to his closet and all the boxes on the floor, containing the various detritus of his life abroad. There is nothing within them which imparts what I need to know….such information would require talking to him and I think we do much better when we don’t talk. We don’t fight, but we are equally stubborn in our opacity.

Our foundling is a cat the color of graham crackers with black spots and enormous honeyed eyes. He follows us around, sounding variations on a meow. Trevor talks back to him and I wonder if it’s some other echo of his childhood. He carries the cat – who we call Charlie – on his shoulder, draped like a towel. Charlie comes with us on shoots and does not care to roam…Trevor holds him in his lap like a doll. He watches us fuck from the foot of the bed, purring. He looks at the photo of Trevor and Sheba which I have enlarged and hung in my office and makes insulted vocalizations, but at which entity I am unsure.

Libby texts me with an address and we journey up into Laurel Canyon; I am not entirely sure I know my way among various twists and turns and unmarked streets where the superstars reside just above the smog line and then we arrived at an amazing abode. It looks like something Frank Lloyd Wright would have built. I am not surprised it stands empty…either a nasty divorce or failed venture likely caused the owner to bail.

“Whaddya think?” Libby asks, flinging open the door after I ring the melodious chimes.

“Libby what did you do?”

“What do you think I did?” she quips, turning back into the stylish depths, deliberately swishing her ass.

“How much?”

“Five days, two grand.”

“Get the fuck out!” I exclaim and Trevor is startled enough to drop Charlie, who immediately demands to be picked up again with a murrrow. “How about today? Is it starting today?”

“Tomorrow. Today is a freebie.”

“Are you sure about that?”

She chuckles and stretches as we walk down the main hallway, examining all of the five bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths. “Yeah, it wasn’t anything I wouldn’t have normally done.”

“Oooh,” Trevor murmurs, looking into one room, “I like this one.”

The bed is one of those Ikea monstrosities referred to as an orgy bed and the décor is shades of blue. They’d look nice in this room. The adjoining bathroom has cobalt marble and gold fixtures and we all swoon at the possibilities. Libby is already on the phone to Karen’s agent, moving out of range of the echoing marble.

“Damnit, she can’t get here till Thursday.”

“We can still block it out, that way three days shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I’ve got all my stuff.”

“I’ll go back and get mine. Have you called everybody else?”

“It’s just Brooke and Sean. They’re ready to go when I say.”

“I’m gonna call Riley, just in case we need anything else. He’ll be impressed.”

“Don’t call him till tomorrow. Let’s have one night, just us.”

And I agree. You can’t waste an opportunity like this.

Trevor doesn’t want to stay behind so we spend another couple hours shutting back and forth and as we’re packing up all the gear he sighs wistfully.

“You’ll say I’m daft but I was hoping we could shoot it here.”

Suddenly I feel a chill between my shoulderblades. The house seems to sigh…

See I told you so.

“This place is a decorator’s nightmare.”

“Maybe that’s why I like it.”

But I know why…he knows it’s just for him. Beyond Libby and the girls we auditioned, no one has been out here to visit. An audience of one (now two, my brain reminds me) to revel in the glory of his presence.

“We need to have one place that doesn’t remind us of work.”

And because I said we he smiles.

We do what we usually do…get high, try to empty the refrigerator (luckily we bought enough food for a veritable army of stoners) and tell Trevor stories of our career. He giggles his way through various narratives and I worry that Charlie is getting a contact high. I pass the joint to Trevor and pick up the cat with the idea of going outside. The garden is very carefully landscaped, and its’ semi-tropical scheme reminds me of Baja. In the near-distance, Downtown is surrounded by foothills and urban sprawl, not truly attractive although everything looks better at night.

“So are we gonna do it?” Libby asks me, suddenly at my side. Charlie sniffs her curiously.

“What?”

“Block it out, you and him, all the scenes?”

“Tonight?”

“Fuck no, I’m too wasted. But tomorrow.”

“Yeah okay.”

“You’re not gonna freak out on me, are you? When it comes time to shoot it?”

“What, with me?”

“No. You know what I mean.”

And what she means is Are you really going to let him fuck some other woman on camera for the titillation of thousands? I don’t know which would worry her more: if I said no like someone who actually cares, or if I said yes and validated how creepy she already thinks I am.

I hear music, just then, and at first I think Trevor found the stereo but I don’t remember him packing any CDs. The sound is too halting to be a recording and we go back inside to find him sitting at the piano on the far side of the living room, cigarette dangling between his lips as he finally makes it through some classical piece without screwing up.

“Whazzat?” Libby queries, taking the smoke for herself.

“Elgar.”

I flash on a vision of him, as a little boy, practicing piano in a house full of antique furniture, the metronome stirring dust motes in the air, with a serious frown on his beautiful face, even then.

“Wanna write the music for the movie? More money for you,” I counsel.

He laughs. “Somehow I don’t think it would fit.”

“So you swim like an Olympian and play piano like a prodigy.”

Trevor lit another cigarette and shrugged. “I s’pose.”

Charlie purrs in my arms as Trevor begins another melody. He accepts the mystery, focusing only on the immediate pleasure. But me, I can’t help but think that the more I learn the less I will enjoy.

I get my wish...Libby’s camera is trained on me as Trevor thrusts through a repertoire of fuck moves: slow and swirly, deep and dividing, fast and hard. She eggs me on.

“C’mon you frigid bitch, give me attitude! Give me reaction, goddamn it!”

And I realize I could have never been cut out for this, the lights are too hot and my knees hurt and I’m afraid to let my guard down. So I have to close my eyes and just concentrate on his cock, whimpering as I squeeze and bring all my sensitive spots in contact with the surface. He rubs my anus and that helps, synapses firing as I let out a groan.

“Smack that fat ass, boy!” she yells and I counter with Shut the fuck up!

“Listen to your director,” he teases, and what I pay attention to is his inflection…die-rector…and then I rebel, disengaging and flipping onto my back, feet nearly behind my head and Trevor gives a bravo performance which involves alternating his cock between my pussy and my ass, while tweaking my nipples with one hand as I shoved my tits together, then at just the right moment pulling out and sliding between them, blowing his load onto my neck and chin.

“Oh fuck yes!” Libby proclaimed. “Awesome!”

He’s panting, his face turned upwards, eyes closed, gleaming with sweat. There’s a transcendent triumph in his vaguely blissful expression, like an athlete. It’s not the first time the comparison has been made, of course.

“Niiice pacing,” I purr and he smiles wide.

“Do come again sometime,” he answers, aping my tone.

And I did, though I didn’t focus on it at the time, but to watch the playback as I slapped the mattress and screamed…well, you would think I actually liked it.

I just can’t quite decide if I did. I ponder it a bit more as I towel myself off and we move into the shower where I suck him from soft to hard and then ride him like a pogo stick. Libby decides the blow job is good but the sex isn’t, because it’s too much of me. So we try another position where I am wedged into a corner and she films from underneath looking up at his ecstatic expression and glistening cock.

“Oh much better. Gotta get the waterproof housing for this one, though.”

Now my back hurts like a motherfucker and despite the slippery delights of his dick I just want it to be over.

“Oooh Mari, I never realized how pretty your pussy is. Don’t you think so, slut?”

“Absolutely,” he says, not breaking rhythm.

“Normally I’m so bored with pussy shots, but…I like this.”

He smiles at me again and finally I succumb to vanity and experience a starmaker moment of being admired, my cunt twitching in a string of small spasms, a litany of oh oh oh echoing off the marble.

“Oh that’s a keeper,” she teases, and somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder how much it would cost to let Karen out of her contract and then my common sense snaps are you out of your fucking mind and the other voice says yeah I guess so.

I open the door and one of the men on the other side causes me to reel internally with surprise and pure jaw-dropping awe. He’s in his 40s now, but Mas Marquez still looks amazing…better, even, with laugh lines and an inherent maturity in his features…from pretty boy to beautiful man.

Riley bears a shit-eating grin, of course.

“Heard someone was filming some hot ass here.”

I snicker and bade them enter and try not to faint when Mas takes my hand in his, bowing slightly. His accent is softer than I recall, but he’s a nomad, so I imagine being exposed to so many different cultures has that effect.

“This is the best thing you’ve ever done,” I whisper to Riley once they’re inside.

“It’s serendipity, he called me from the airport yesterday, couldn’t remember my address.”

“You mean you didn’t tattoo it on him somewhere?”

“Don’t make me hurt you, girl.”

Libby introduces Mas to everyone else, and Karen is stuttering, like she was suddenly hit with a klieg spot, blinking rapidly. Trevor is composed, but he knows it’s a big deal…I made him sit through three of my MM favorites, telling him that if he wanted to know how to be the kind of performer I wanted him to be he had to watch and learn from the best.

Brooke leads Karen away for hair and makeup and Mas follows Trevor outside, accepting a cigarette. They’re probably talking about what it’s like to be an expatriate.

“Goddamn it, every time I turn my back he’s smoking again.”

“Riley babe, he doesn’t belong to you anymore.”

“I don’t care if he’s not working for me, I made him.”

I shake my head, smiling. I take my mentor in the kitchen and fix him a drink.

“So what’s he doing here?”

“I asked him to come for E3, there’s gonna be a panel.”

“The ‘Legends’ thing?”

“Yeah.” He sips the blood-orange screwdriver delicately, his other hand toying with his shoulder-length hair, which always reminds me of feathers: a pale blond bordering on platinum, but it works on him, with his watery blue eyes. Other than his hair he’s not particularly fey, his wardrobe is a uniform of jeans and black t-shirt, expensive tank watch and hiking boots. Hipster rural, I guess.

“What’s he been up to?”

“What he always does…wandering around taking pictures, breaking hearts, going to Confession, crying whenever he reads stories about child or animal abuse. Eddie is so sensitive.”

“Do we have to call him that too?”

Riley shrugged. “He doesn’t care.”

We hear laughter and look out the window over the sink. Mas is gesturing towards the skyline and Trevor looks genuinely interested in the commentary.

“- and they paid me jackshit but I always got an Armani suit!”

Trevor snickers. “I used to have lots of clothes. Sold them to consignment.”

And I wonder, when I found him, how quickly he sought to dismantle that well-maintained façade. Not that he became slovenly, but decidedly less poised.

But he’s still acting…right?

“I want to shoot them,” Riley continues, after a few more moments of eavesdropping. “The Legend and the Ingenue.”

“They do look good together,” I note. Mas is slightly shorter than Trevor, but his presence is much more obvious; he is immediately at ease in the situation whereas Trevor fidgets slightly, flicking ash and looking around as if distracted by something.

“There’s an exhibition scheduled. Usual suspects.”

“Yeah, Rae is going to be showing a few photos.”

“Trevor?”

“No, some of the Alt girls, I think.”

“Good. This will make an impression, trust me.”

I realize he’s thinking logically: the more attention we can attract, the more money we’ll make. But I bristle just slightly.

“The poster is going to make him famous, even more than the movie, I bet.”

“But you don’t want him to go mainstream too quick, gonna cause problems.”

“No –“

“Wait, you’re not gonna –“

“Look Riley, I’ll handle it, okay? He’s mine and I’ll take care of him.”

“Ohhhh Mari, don’t play a player, now. Because I’ve been there, and it never turns out how you think it will.”

“Yeah I get that. It’s already turned into something that I didn’t expect. But now we’re committed, so –“

He laughs, brittle and bright. “That’s a good word.”

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t have –“

“Don’t you think I tried, don’t you think I prayed? Can you fucking believe that? Got down on my knees and went through the Rosary with him because I wanted to be what he needed. But it wasn’t enough. I could not be redeemed.”

“So you’re just the faggot pornographer, huh? Ye Olde Pervert.”

“He’ll talk to me, he always talks to me. But he won’t let me touch him anymore.”

Mas is walking around the yard, gesturing as he relates another anecdote. Trevor is seated in one of the patio chairs, Charlie in his lap.

“Did he ever tell you, to where you believed it?”

“I tried to, but I guess I knew, I knew it was only gratitude talking. But we pretended it was real, and we thought the better we got at that, then one day it might actually become real…like fucking Pinocchio.”

I know Riley never got over Mas, and has spent the years hence trying to find a substitute. I wonder if it’s going to happen to me. I feel like I have no choice, either situation is a stranglehold on my emotions. The crazy desperation of obsession and addiction – the feeling of literally not being able to control your actions – it’s like the metallic-aftertaste head-pounding hyper-paranoia of a crank rush.

With or without him, I’d be a fucking mess. I can’t go back to that place where I didn’t know he existed.

Eventually we do some filming, and after Trevor has pancake applied so that he won’t look too shiny under the lights, Riley shoots them standing in the living room at different angles and looking serious. Then - in another of those moments which can only be captured, not posed – Mas leans over and pretends to bite Trevor on the jawline. Trevor closes his eyes but does not flinch and the shutter whirrs repeatedly.

“Oh fuck me,” Riley murmurs, and I know it’s not merely an expression. But he’ll take Mas back to his house and they’ll politely converse through dinner and several bottles of wine, and eventually Riley will cry alone in his sumptuous bed while in the guest room Mas will get down on his knees and pray for forgiveness for coveting a sinner…even such a beautiful one as my star, who gives the Legend a wicked smile and demurs by saying although his necklace reads slut he’s already been paid for. Mas then grants him an equally knowing smirk in reply.


The documentation package for our attendance at the Erotic Entertainment Expo was delivered via Fed Ex and I felt a strange rumble in my stomach. We were staying at The Venetian, way up high, sharing one suite and Libby promised she wouldn’t have a threesome in her room like last year. I couldn’t get any goddamn sleep all fucking weekend.

Libby was looking online at airfares, the two of us debating carriers.

“Why can’t we drive?” Trevor asked.

We both looked at him, pulling annoyed faces.

“I never drive to Vegas,” Libby declared.

“I’ll do it.”

“Both ways?” I asked.

“Sure. I’ve done it before. One of my –“ he stopped, clearing his throat, looking for a reaction. But I just sat there, expressionless.

“ – clients, she liked to go often. So I drove her. I like to drive.”

I shrugged. “Probably cost us the same in gas, but no stupid security to deal with.”

“Can you even drive in this country?” Libby asked.

“I have an international driver’s license. It doesn’t expire.”

“Yeah but –“

“I promise to behave.”

Libby looked at me, I shrugged again. I figured it was best to let him feel useful in those things he desired. I hadn’t truly considered that this experience was emasculating him in some way, even as he seemed to want me to lead him down the path.

“Fine. I’ll rent a car, something bigger than either of ours. I don’t want to be crammed in the back for five hours.”

“We’ll both ride in the back. Oooh, wouldn’t that be a good flick? He’s the chauffeur!”

“Cliched.”

“Oh like they’ll even care, once they see him giving it to some rich bitch on the trunk of the car.”

Libby looked off into space, chewing on her thumbnail. “Hmm.”

Trevor winks at me and I find it interesting that he is already resigned to his career. But perhaps it’s not resignation. I can’t bring myself to dwell too much on his demeanor during filming or face that same strange twisting inside, as if a scalpel is seeking my emotional core with no regard for what it excises along the way.

I pack his suitcase for him, pondering the best items of his existing wardrobe.

“You’re lucky I like the way you dress.”

He is lying in bed, the cat curled like a cinnamon roll on his chest. They both have their eyes closed.

“I’m used to being told what to wear.”

I bet you are. Women love a boy they can dress.

There’s a black dinner jacket in the back of the closet. I put a sleeve to my nose and smell him. I pack it: I know why and I don’t know why. I wish, for a second, we could be naked if/when/how/why it happened. Because that seems the only honest way to do it.

“What are we going to do with Charlie while we’re gone? Can’t we take him with us?”

“You can’t take a cat in a hotel.”

“But he’ll go spare if he has to stay by himself.”

I sigh. “We’ve spoiled him too much. But he can stay with Brooke, she has other cats.”

“What if they want to fight him?”

We both know that would be disastrous, Charlie is the kind of tom who wants to do nothing but lay around all day, preferably on one of us.

“We can’t take him.”

Trevor pouts at me, and it’s been a long time since he’s done that.

“Even if we did take him with us, we’d still have to leave him in the room for long periods of time. He’s used to being here without us, at least somewhat.”

“He’ll be so upset.”

What the fuck were you thinking? You can’t even figure out what to do with a goddamn cat.

“Listen to me, it won’t kill him to be alone for a few days, okay?”

Those enormous brown eyes are still protesting but I wonder if it’s really Charlie we’re arguing about.

The glittering insanity squats in the desert, a gaudy attention whore…and we know her well. To come from nothing into a self-proclaimed mecca of greed and empty pleasures, it’s a relief, really. All that emptiness creeps me out after too many hours of driving. Trevor knows all the short cuts and delivers us to the valet parking with nary a crisis. We’re not staying in the immediate vicinity of the Expo, but after our first year Libby and I vowed never to stay in the host facility…we’re not in it for the wild scenes, we just want to do whatever business we can while everyone is in the same convention center. Some of the old school players used to joke that if the government wanted to stop pornography they should just drop a bomb on E3 any given year.

We spent most of our budget on promotion, rented a booth for a signing, and prayed that a month was long enough for the movie to go viral and create a hoard of fangirls crazy-excited enough to want to come and meet Trevor.

Libby, as always, knows exactly what I’m thinking as we’re ascending in the mirrored elevator.

“Bet you twenty it’s mostly guys.”

“It will be if the gallery is up.”

Riley’s photo of Mas and Trevor was entered in the competition. Granted, it’s not truly kinky or artsy for its’ own sake, but it is beautiful.

“Gonna be a lot of disappointed blokes, then,” Trevor says, looking up at his reflection..

“Oh it’s not like you have to fuck them…but it wouldn’t hurt to flirt.”

She’s waiting for the fuck off but neither of us say anything, and she finally lets out a huff of disappointment.

Wicked Pictures threw a bash at the Crazy Horse Too and because we know people we scammed our way in for the free booze and snacks. A few people actually recognize Trevor and there is lots of innuendo and feeble attempts at poaching.

“Whatever these bitches are paying you I’ll double it!” Steve, the head of Immoral Images, proclaims. His hairline and his gut are moving in opposite directions.

“Fuck off, loser!” Libby tells him, and then they go dance, grinding to the latest heavy-breathing electronica.

“Does this mean I get to demand more money now?” Trevor asks me, teasingly. He put his arms around me from behind, resting his chin on top of my head.

“How ‘bout I just get you a dog?” I said, and he laughed. The next song was a favorite, Goldfrapp’s “Train,” and Libby pulled me out onto the floor, rubbing against me and squeezing my tits.

“Ow, I’m not one of your girlfriends, you know!”

“You love it rough, you whore, don’t even try to play me!”

She’s on her way to drunkenness again, but it’s fun to dance with her, and Trevor watched us with a bemused smirk from behind a cigarette. Several people approached him, but he largely ignored them, pretending he couldn’t hear them over the music. I was touched, half-expecting he wouldn’t behave himself if some sweet young thing latched onto him. Libby moved on to molest more people she knew and I danced over to him in a rare moment of silliness.

“Let’s go fuck, pretty boy.”

“Is that your best offer?” he asked archly before finishing off his beer.

“Yeah.”

He looked around, and I could tell he wasn’t gawking at the scene, as if he’d experienced something similar.

“Shouldn’t we be doing something outrageous, like snorting lots of drugs and joining an orgy?”

I patted his chest. “That’s the clichéd version, which we try very hard to avoid.”

Trevor pointed towards the dance floor. “Libby doesn’t seem to be doing so well with that.”

I looked over to see her gyrating between two women – one black and one Asian – and with her washed-out pallor she really did look like the cream filling in a cookie.

“Libby’s trashy side always comes out in Vegas.” I stepped away from him, hands up. “But hey, if that’s what you want...I can only offer you some Mendocino weed and me.”

“And Room Service.”

I nodded. “And Room Service.”

He pretended to consider, gleaming teeth scraping a plump lip. His eyes narrowed as if he were trying not to laugh, then finally that familiar tone of breathy acquiescence.

“Okay.”

I made to move off the floor and he held onto my arm.

“Are we going to leave her here?”

“Libby wants to get laid. We’ll see her in the morning.”

“What do you think Charlie is doing right now?”

I want to giggle, he looks so sweet, his mind not in the bacchanalia before him, but at home with our cat.

“Sleeping, probably.”

“I think he’s going ‘round the house, calling for us, wondering where we are. Poor chappie.” He then did a perfect impression of the plaintive wow-er sound which Charlie is known for.

I looked towards the door again and suddenly came face-to-face with a big rack and the slender life support system behind it.

“Mari, oh my god!”

“Hey Savannah.” I did the air-kiss thing with my colleague, she was a favorite of my former boss. She looked up at Trevor with her patented pouty smirk which graces dozens of boxes and photo spreads.

“You’re Trevor, right? I saw your movie tonight, dude, you were awesome!”

“Thanks.” He smiles back, megawatt, diplomatic with a side of pride. I wonder what’s going on in his head now. She’s seen him naked, and so her actual vision of him is tempered by that consideration. God knows mine is…half the time when I look at him I don’t actually see him in the moment, I see whatever it is which makes me desire him. So how do you deal with people who’ve seen you naked? The world around me stops for a moment as I realize what we are going to do to him tomorrow, and then I want to hug him tightly and tell him I’m sorry.

You have officially lost it, bitch.

“Babe, I need a drink, but c’mon, let’s find a table and catch up!”

“We’re bailing, Sav, but it’s good to see you. You look gorgeous. Hey though, Libs is so ready to party.”

She’s typical: too tan, too blonde, strangely proportioned (like a flotation device with legs), but Savannah is incredibly sweet. She grew up in Phoenix and likes to collect Precious Memories figurines. Every time I see QVC I think of the times we hung out in her apartment with Cessna, her Pomeranian, and she would have it on in the background, waiting for the next fabulous offer.

Savannah looks towards where I’m pointing. “Whoo hoo, party over here! So hey, are you two together?” She gives me a knowing look and I nod. “Good for you?”

I do something which, had I actually stopped to think about it, I never would have done. I put my arms around Trevor in a thoroughly possessive gesture. “Yes. Yes he is.”

She smiled, and I saw that sweetness again. “Yay!”

“Good luck tomorrow, babe, I hope you sweep the awards.”

She shrugged. “It’s so fucking political, you know that. But it wouldn’t hurt!” She gave me an actual kiss in parting and shimmied onto the dance floor. I looked up at Trevor and he said, “Woof.”

He had to sign a few things on our way out, luckily I thought to bring a Sharpie. But the shindig was Industry-only, so there was a lot of blasé posturing, people pretending not to recognize one another. We cabbed it back to the hotel and he looked at me with a frown.

“I thought you said Libby didn’t like girls.”

“She doesn’t. But, much like a guy, she will fuck them.”

“That’s –“

“Extremely fucked-up, I know. We all have our issues.”

I didn’t take my eyes off him, waiting for his response. He looked out the window for about thirty seconds, at the throngs of people moving through the neon-tinged residual heat. Then he looked back at me with a wry smile and nodded.

We spent over an hour making Trevor look perfect. During the shoot, Brooke showed me what to do with his hair (which even he has proclaimed “hopeless” more than once) and how to even out his skin tone with concealer. He also endured a coat of clear mascara on his thick lashes. Libby took several pictures with her cheap camera and declared him ready for a photo op.

“What if no one rocks up?” he asked, sliding on a dark blue silk shirt which compliments his coloring, making him look exotic. He tucked it into jeans which were tight, but not too tight, just enough to frame his luscious ass.

“Well you look good, and looking good at E3 is never a waste, trust me,” Libby tells him, taking his place in front of the mirror to fuss with her own coif.

The gleam of gold against creamy tawny skin…I decided that if no one showed up to the booth I’d talk dirty to him all afternoon. He likes to feel special. When he got out of the shower I was ready to douse him in the fragrance I decided was him after weeks of trying every one I might possibly like on him, as he patiently produced application spots and sniffed at himself in kind, saying things like this one’s too much like soap or I smell like my dad. But when I finally found the right one, he sniffed himself repeatedly and smiled. I didn’t want to do the laundry and lose that alchemy between the scent and him, the two mingling to produce a kind of animalic-meets-warmth-meets-ambient delight. As if he carries the smell of delicious pursuits on him, mixing with a tang of exertion and natural amplification. We had every woman we knew in a twenty-mile radius smell him and they all said mmmm. It gave me a moment of smug victory when I buried my face in the sheets every morning on his side of the bed.

Whoever does show up, I want them to remember how he smells, and then watch the DVD over and over again and masturbate with that thought in their heads: recalling his voice, his eyes, his smile, his scent. Trevor will become as addictive as any fictional character and they will want to create numerous fantasies with him in the starring role.

It’s what I do, after all.

We are led through secret tunnels and back rooms and then told to proceed up another corridor to the blue double doors, beyond which lay our booth. We wear special badges which we have to show to Security. Trevor is fidgeting and frowning.

“Blow jobs and ice cream,” I chirp, straightening his shirt so that it hangs just so on his coveted torso.

“Blow jobs and cheeseburgers,” he rejoins, smirking. I repeat the phrase and he pulls me to him. I close my eyes and sniff him, resting my head against his breastbone. His heart is thundering and I can feel him trembling slightly.

“Holy fuckballs!” Libby exclaims, closing the doors quickly, as she had gone ahead to peek.

“What?” I asked, standing up straight immediately.

“There’s, like, over a hundred women out there.”

“Noooo fucking way!”

“Go look,” she says, gesturing at the doors.

I obey, shutting the door just as quick again to see a veritable cluster of chattering laughing estrogen-ridden obsessives.

“It worked!” I squeak.

“Duuuude.”

“Duuuude!”

“Have I suddenly wandered into a Keanu Reeves movie?” Trevor wonders aloud.

“Okay, look, we need more security. There’s only one guy out there. And then you need to go out and explain the rules. Because you know these bitches are gonna lose their shit.”

“Okay, okay, I’m on it,” I say, turning to run up the hallway. “Stay right here.”

“Trust me, we ain’t going nowhere.”

“But –“ Trevor begins, giving me the puppy look again.

“Noooo, you can’t go out there without security, they will eat you alive!”

And he suddenly looks sad. I wish I had a photo of that moment, but I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s an expression I’ve never seen before. Another hint of all I don’t know.

I’m wearing Trevor’s dinner jacket – it hangs on me and I had to roll the sleeves up to above my elbows - the air conditioning in these places is always too cold for me. I basically look like an agent: black-clad, tight t-shirt and slacks, my hair pulled back, my face made up to look “natural,” whatever that means. I stand on a chair.

“Good afternoon, ladies! I’m Mari Harcourt of Wanton Visions. Thank you so much for attending this signing, Trevor truly appreciates your interest. Do you like the movie?”

Cheers wash over me and I want to do an arms-in-the-air YES! type of pose, but restrain myself. Just barely.

“Wanton Visions is very proud to distribute Trevor’s debut and equally excited for future ventures. Now before we bring him out I need to go over the security protocol. This is for everyone’s comfort and safety and to make sure that everyone gets a chance to have something signed, get a picture, say hello. Please listen and please comply with the protocol, otherwise you will get pulled. The venue is very strict in this regard.”

I hear faint grumbling, but women have an inherent desire to behave, to play nice.

“You must form an orderly line. Our security officers are going to enforce this, so please, everyone form a line where you see Officer Jerry standing.” I point to one of the additional security guards I wrangled. The biggest one, Marcus, is going to be standing at the table, hopefully poised to discourage any batshit crazy behavior.

“You may have one item and one item only signed. This means one poster, one DVD, one magazine –“ I pause for dramatic effect, “- one boob, one asscheek, one arm, okay?” There is much tittering laughter. “ONE item. If you try to get more than one item signed you will be asked to leave. Same thing with photos. Only one photo is allowed. You may take the photo, or our assistant will take it if you want to be in the frame. There are a lot of people here, so we need to keep the line moving. Please maintain an orderly presence and every one will have an opportunity. One last thing: if you are here for the weekend, there is a gallery showing in Exhibition Hall C and one of the photos on display is of Trevor with adult film star legend Mas Marquez. It’s absolutely gorgeous, check it out. Also, the film festival runs every night beginning at seven o’clock in the theatre in sublevel A, and The Remedy, along with our previous film Island Ecstasy starring Jeff Danner and Celine Caresse, will be shown tonight. The schedule is available at any of the information kiosks in the facility.”

I stand there, arms folded, watching them get into line, hopefully broadcasting the message that nothing it going to happen until they do. Eventually they appear less chaotic, but there is a tangible hum in the room, people from the adjoining booths are watching with envious curiosity.

“Thank you for your cooperation. In just a moment I’ll be bringing Trevor out and he’s just as gorgeous as you think he is.”

More cheers and whistles.

“I would also like to add that while he is an adult performer he is also a person. Please be mindful of this and be on your best behavior. Again, thank you for your patience.”

I got down from the chair and went back into the corridor, where Marcus, built like a wide receiver, was watching over my cohorts.

“Okay, we’ll see if my plea for common sense works. Are you ready?”

Trevor suddenly grinned, but then looked at his Nikes as if embarassed “I s’pose. Is my hair alright?”

I stepped back and examined him, gently pressing on the top of his fluffy curls. “Yeah.” I undid another button on his shirt and made sure his necklace was in full view. I pulled a tube of lip balm out of my jacket pocket. “Here, your lips are a little dry.”

“S’the desert, man,” Marcus commented, and we all nodded.

“By the way, dude, you’re on photo duty,” I said to Libby. “Otherwise we’ll be here all day if we let them take their own pictures.”

She nodded. “Marcus brought us some bottled water.”

“I’ll keep it by me in case anyone tries to swipe it as a souvenir. The Sharpies too. Trevor, if they want you to use their pen, okay, but don’t give them the pen you’re using.”

He pouted again as I handed him a Sharpie. “I wanted purple.”

“Stop whining, pretty boy.”

He stuck out his tongue. “I’m the star, I’m the fucking -“

“Shut up, slut!”

Then I opened the door and we nearly went deaf and blind from the reaction to his presence.

Four hours later, sprawled in the living room of our suite – Trevor out on the balcony smoking and icing his right wrist – we conducted a post-mortem.

“I counted. Two hundred and sixteen people, only twelve guys.”

“Yeah I’m shocked. I read a review of the DVD on My Straight Buddy and the guy was all, Trevor Wilde is much yummier than most twinks and if you don’t mind watching him fuck some Plain Jane piece of ass you need to get this. I mean, that kind of endorsement is big.”

“Plain Jane? Karen is pretty.”

“Yeah, but you know what he means. Not typical.”

“I keep seeing spots,” Trevor said. “Everything looks glare-y now.”

“How long do you think before the first photo goes up?”

Libby couldn’t shrug, she was lying down on the sofa. “Eh, I give it a couple hours. But he’ll be all over Facebook by morning, I bet. I’ll upload my photos in a little while. I Tweeted about midway: everybody loves Trev.”

“I loved the ones who waved the pictorial at him like he was supposed to be embarrassed.”

Libby snickered. “Yeah it’s, like, ‘Uh, what part of porn star are you not getting?”

“I didn’t like the knickers they wanted me to wear.”

I know, now, that he prefers to go without. But the editors at Playgirl were insistent that some underwear shots be included.

“Hush, black silk boxers are timeless!”

“No not those…that ridiculous thong!”

I stood up and went to investigate the mini bar. “Yeah that was pretty cheesy.” Our distributor, Private Pictures, had sent us a nice gift basket; I rummaged through it while reading the enormous catalog-sized program everyone received…highlighting all the talent and events over the course of the Expo. A lot of coverage was being given to a certain newcomer who was said to be even more daring than the Alt girls in terms of her films, she wanted to be a “radical force for change in the industry.” She had a typical working class near-white trash upbringing in the central region of the state, where there is nothing to do but get stoned and aspire to nothing in particular. In that context, sex work seems like a godsend. Reading Laura Jones’ press bio causes a moment of extreme pique as I rant to my captive audience.

“I’m sorry, there’s no fucking virtue in kicking a drug habit, okay? The survival instinct is just as strong to stay alive as it is to self-destruct. I’m soooo fucking tired of ex-junkies being treated like fucking heroes. Because you know what? I was there. I am a fucking piece of work. But just because I kicked doesn’t make me special. No one is special.”

I tear out the page and then rip it to shreds. Stripper. Junkie. Triumphant in spite of typical circumstances which seek to grind females to dust. I know them well, and I don’t glorify my tawdry past as mythologizing fodder. Everyone knows me, and nobody knows me.

Nobody knows me.

Anyone too quick to confess is suspect. This is why I have…feelings…for my foundling. He knows it’s better to not to speak, sometimes. He knows mystery is one of the greatest aphrodisiacs. He knows me.

Nobody knows me.

I enjoy my glass-walled world. No one is special. Nobody knows me.

And we two, we strangers, we look at one another every morning and wonder what comes next. That is our addiction. It might possibly destroy you…but probably not.

We have a day to kill. We could do anything we wanted. But we had decided.

“I don’t want you to go back.”
“I don’t want to go back, believe me. I probably wouldn’t leave.”
“Why?”
He looked at the carpet, for once his expression was regretful, even fearful. “I –“
I don’t need to know.
“Then we’ll –“
“I’ll sign –“

And he did. But I didn’t tell Libby. We woke up and then lay in bed, pretending to watch TV. We weren’t speaking, or looking at one another, afraid to acknowledge the decision. But finally the silence was too heavy to bear.

“Remember when I told you they all cut me loose?”

“Your clients?”

“Yeah.”

“Uh huh.”

“That’s not how it happened. I told them I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

My stomach feels like it’s dropped into my pelvis. But what does it matter?

“Did any of them try to change your mind?”

“Yeah. It would have amounted to the same thing…as this. So I’m not -”

A choice of cages.

“What, you think I’m –“

“Fully. And I understand but there’s only two options for me, d’ya see?”

“I’m not –“

“Yes you are. But it’s okay.”

You want to save him. Everyone acknowledges the truth but me. I can see it, I do, I just can’t say it.

I hold his hand for a moment, remembering the signing, and how he smiled at me amongst the blitzkrieg of flashbulbs and hormonally hysterical women shouting his name and he smiled like he meant it and there was never a moment where I truly felt like he was faking it. But I don’t know how to do this.

We take a shower, and I hold him like I usually do, convincing myself he is real, and then I’m in the bathroom alone, drying my hair and putting on my Vegas face, wondering when I open the door…will he still be there? Of course he will, he needs me.

But where will I be? Because suddenly I’m looking at this woman in the mirror and she’s not really me. And then she opens the door and there he is, dressed and standing out on the balcony and he smiles again, but he smiles at her and I don’t know how to do this, but she does. The smile drives a stake through the heart of my confusion, my ambivalence, my distance. She gets dressed, she says shake your moneymaker, pretty boy…she is ready to step off the precipice.

And I will watch her, because I have a feeling I will be standing on that ledge forever, watching as they fall, clinging to one another and hoping for the best.