“I love you, you’re just great!” With her hand on my cock: “I could definitely fuck this.”
I blossomed, sprouted, grew ten feet tall, with mighty roots and strong limbs. Together we were Young and Beautiful, and I have it all on tape. The Luckiest Kid on Earth and the Best Porno Girl in the Whole World. Finally, I’d found her. The woman who held the key to ecstasy and sexual bliss. Vaporous gold clouds exploded around my head, striking me behind my eyes. As I climaxed deliriously, I slumped atop her, heavy, exhausted, and drenched with sweat.
“Sam,” said Kate, laughing. “Come on. Get up. Don’t die on me now.”
I kissed her gently, apologetically, all over, worshipful, thankful. A totally aware being, in our resplendent universe.
ELEVEN
Kate showered quickly, in my disgusting shower, seemingly unbothered by its grossness.
“Would you mind telling me what time it is?” she called out.
“I gotcha, baby!” I yelled back, naked and stupidly happy. I gave a quick euphoric glance to my alarm clock. “It’s three thirty-six!”
“Three thirty-six? Oh my God, baby, I have to go!”
Kate emerged from the shower and wiped her body dry hurriedly. She pushed her clothes back on.
“Will you dance for me before you go?” I said, pointing the video camera at her.
“No, sweetie!” She gave me a kiss on the nose. “I have to go now!
I have an appointment. I knew this was going to make me late!” “But you had fun, right?” I said, doubtful for the first time. “Oh, it was so good. Now, where did I put my purse?” And she hustled out onto Glendale Boulevard, toward her car.
I spent the next few days at home, replaying the incident in my mind and on tape, wondering if what transpired between me and Kate had been real. According to my TV screen, it had been, indeed: the informal, amateur attitude had somehow served up a mishmash of real, honest desire. It was by far the best pure porn I had ever made, and when I threw it up on eBay, unedited and unchanged (I even included my opening pube-trimming scene, as a nod to the ugliest kind of truth), buyers seemed to agree. Ninety-nine perverts ordered a copy in its first week on sale. I had to go out and buy another VCR to keep up with the transfers.
But it was our romantic connection that troubled me. I’d called her about ten times since the day of our shoot, but she never seemed to be answering her phone. I left a few casual messages, trying to sound unconcerned. Like that ever gets you anywhere.
I walked around tired and depressed for the next couple of days. It was as if something deep inside me had broken. Even Bert and Darth took notice.
“Sam,” Bert said, clapping a fatherly hand on my shoulder, “you can’t get all bent out of shape over these women.”
“But Kate was different,” I insisted. “I can’t explain it. We had a connection.”
“A connection? You got a taste of good pussy, is what happened. You’ll get it again, my friend! Try to remember that.”
“I’ll try.”
“Look, we called her, too,” Darth confessed.
“Of course we did!” Bert exclaimed. “I’ve been callin’ each and every one of these girls, after every shoot! Think I ever get a call back? Ever? Of course I don’t! But you don’t see it bothering me none.
I understood what Bert was saying, and I tried njot to let it get me down. But damn: that beautiful smile. That wild spirit. I had been so sure that we were going to be partners in crime, spending our weeknights sniffing drugs off each other’s bodies, projectile-vomiting together, not a care in the world. But it just wasn’t happening. Porn girls just weren’t that into me.
Meanwhile, Pitts kept sending me money. He seemed to have no shortage of it. Being an idiot, I always paid everyone in cash. I grew adept at walking around Long Beach with thick bundles of bills concealed inside my camera case. Sometimes, before a shoot, I’d drive into a McDonald’s parking lot, lock the doors, and spread the wad all over the seat next to me. I was lucky I didn’t get shot in the face.
The nights grew cooler, and I bought an expensive jacket with a built-in reversible hood. So-what? I was still sad. I wanted to snuggle up next to someone beautiful, to press my face into her sweater and whisper at her from one inch away—to tongue her beautiful neck and lick her beautiful eyelids and pull her perfect hair, tease her, call her names. It wasn’t fair.
But I made my first real friend that fall, a guy named Isaac. He was a painter in his last year of grad school at Art Center. Isaac made horror movies on the cheap, was completely obsessed with women, and could talk a blue streak about absolutely anything in the world. So we got on fine.
He was also getting sober, which fascinated me.
“I hate going to meetings. Hate it. You have never met a more self-absorbed group of people in your entire life.”
“So, why do you keep on going?”
He smiled gently. “Because the shooting range isn’t open at night.”
Soon, he permitted me to watch his film. Very bloody. Friends murdered each other with baseball bats and plastic bags.
“That’s gross, dude.”
Isaac frowned. “Don’t you have to have a strong stomach for the stuff you shoot?”
“It’s different.”
“I low so?”
“My gig’s cum. Don’t go in for blood. It freaks me out.”
Isaac, on the other hand, liked all kinds of films equally. Or so he said. Porno mattered, according to him, because it offered meaningful insights into human psychology.
“You did a very strange thing with that Dennis character. Utterly naked. I loved it.”
The compliment made me blush.
“So, what’s your next move?”
“Not sure,” I admitted. “I haven’t been able to think of anything very good.”
“And you’re too busy shooting for this guy in Seattle to do anything for yourself. I get it. Totally get it. Happens all the time. Look, I’ve been thinking, there’s a couple of movies you need to see. You’ve heard of Up Your Ass #18, right?”
“Of course,” I said, suddenly defensive. The idea that an outsider might have his own intellectualized take on pornography rankled me powerfully “An Anabolic production.”
“Exactly. So, you know the scene in that flick where Lexington Steele and Mr. Marcus are giving it to Alexandra Quinn? I was watching it for like the trillionth time yesterday when I had this realization: Quinn’s the one who’s controlling that room. The guys are playing to her, looking to her for approval. In effect, she’s actually topping them—though she does it through what looks like submission.”
“Well, sure, maybe,” I muttered, upset that I hadn’t come to that conclusion first.
“It’s called power-bottoming,” he said, matter-of-factly. “But you know what’s really sort of interesting, which you might want to try? Fatty porn.”
“Huh? Why?”
“Oh, man, are you kidding? Okay, I mean, at first, I was with you: I was totally baffled as to how anyone could find rolls of decaying flesh appealing. But then it came to me: people who dig this stuff are actually fascinated by death”
“Death?”
“Sure. It’s all about guilt. A guy who perceives morbidly obese women as sexually attractive is compensating for his own mixed feelings about being alive and prosperous. Fatty porn is a great way for conflicted individuals to embrace failure and success at the same time.” ■
I didn’t necessarily follow everything Isaac said, but in my heart I could sense he was part genius, so I kept hanging out. In my own half-assed way, I began to try to untangle the black-on-white porn dynamic I was now being paid to reinforce. Clearly, an element of racism was central to the whole idea — look, it’s a chick who’s so slutty, she’ll even fuck a black guy!—but the question was, who, exactly, found that concept so sexy that he was willing to pay to watch it? Was it an Alabama man, high on the cuckold pleasure of imagining his wife taken from him by a strong, dark buck? Or was it a frustrated, nerdy black man who spent his nights envisioning vengeful scenarios just like these?