“I know. He bought an Acura. Can you believe that?”
“Yes, I can,” said Liz, finally. “He’s a fucking idiot. I can believe anything about him.”
“He says he wants to go out on a date with us. His girlfriend Terri is coming down to see him, and Timberlake says, double-date time.”
“What kind of girl would date that asshole?”
“Pm not sure. Someone with deep-seated issues?”
“Who doesn’t have deep-seated issues, Sam?” said Liz. She looked at me. Watching me.
“Well, I’m completely normal, if that’s what you’re trying to say. I’m the normalest person in the porn industry, in fact.”
“I’m the most normal person in the porn industry ’ said Liz, a tiny hint of a smile on her face.
“Then I’m the second-normalest. Can we agree to that?”
“Yeah,” said Liz, in a goofy tone. “Look, honey, I am so tired. I’m not sure what it is, but I think I better go to bed.”
“Let’s both go to bed,” I said, waggling my eyebrows sexily.
“Yeah, but none of that,” warned Liz.
“Aw, well what the hell ... I came all the way over here,” I began.
“I’m dying of a fucking spider bite, Sam!” cried Liz, outraged.
“You’re hardly dying ...”
“You see what I said?” came the voice from Lisa’s room. “Didn’t I tell you he was only after one thing? He’s unworthy of you, Liz!”
“You should come out to the house tomorrow, Lisa!” I yelled, seething. “I have several large black friends I’d like you to meet.”
“Racist!”
“Yes!” I crowed. “I am! I am so fuckin’ racist that all I do is make movies of black guys fucking white women! I am so fuckin’ racist!”
“Guys!” screamed Liz. “Guys! Both of you, stop! I’m like, succumbing to a spider bite here, and no one seems to care!”
I smooched my girl on the center of her forehead. Her apartment was brutally hot, and it sure smelled like cat litter in there, so I decided to take the hint and go on home, snaking a Parliament Menthol for the celestial heavenly breeze-from-the-side-of-the-window ride back on home to Malibu.
There was a nice little masturbation waiting for me when I got there, so no need to think about much else: how I was going to make anything better, including porn, including my life.
Slap Happy 3: Valentine’s Day. Michelle Raven has a lipstick valentine on her face. Brandon Iron invades her throat and she collapses to her haunches, looking vaguely shat upon. There is no part of her face that is not covered in maroon lipstick. An anonymous cameraman pans rudely down her body, kind of as an afterthought. She is naked on a tight-weave rug, in someone’s commercial office space in the middle of the day. Muffled sounds of working chatter outside the door provide a counterpoint to Michelle Raven’s goggling eyes. They are surprised and deer-like, hungry for their own kind of succor encircled in ghostly glowing maroon war paint. The gagging that hiccups forth from Ravens gullet further animalizes her. She is a walking throat, a tall savage who has checked her personhood at the door, tranced out, a sacrifice to the suburban gods, and I am frightened by how I find this not amusing, nor exciting, but instead, somehow satisfying.
And then it was just me and my wonderful solitude, the moon, the Jacuzzi, berries on the bushes, me in my green jockey underwear, walking on the grass, bugs on my hairy toes, two sweet tokes on a leftover half-inch blunt that tasted of ashtray, a light frothy little buzz, eminently manageable, clomping down poolside, my naked behind pressing on the brick of the pool, clasping hands around shins, shivering in the cold California 2 a.m. air, stoned and wonderful, starry, silvery, regarding my dripping underarms, the physicality of life, and myself a record of its impermanence.
TWENTY
Like that? Me eatin’ on that pussy? Like that? Want yo ass licked? Want that little white ass licked?
That’s proper. Oh, that’s proper. That’s a white girl for you, though. Always gonna be leading the pack in the nastiness. That’s right, show ’em. Show ’em you nasty. You look at me, goddammit. That’s right. Get that dick. Let go of it?
Shake that mothafucka? Shake it back and forth?
Yeah, that’s right. That’s my white girl, boy, oh, love my white girll She just a li’l thang, huh? Dap that up, nigga? Ain’t she jus’ a li’l, tight-ass, pretty thang?
Don’t fight it, let me get it. Don’t fight it, let me get it. Nigga, stop playin’ with me. You got to take it. Up and down. Up and down. That’s right... I got this white pussy twisted. Don’t you run from me. Don’t cheat me. More. More. Strong dick. Strong dick.
Don’t you run from me. You give me this little white pussy. There you go. Oh, don’t that shit look sweet on there? Do your thing, baby. There you go. Tight pussy. Tight pussy . . . Li’l skinny deep white pussy. Skinny deep white p—(tape cut)
Liz was back up on her feet within the week. A gauzy bandage clothed her upper right thigh, and I couldn’t touch her in that sensitive area, but for the most part we were back in business.
“Must not have been a brown recluse, after all.”
“I don’t care,” said Liz. “I don’t like your house anymore. There’s something wrong up there.”
“Silly,” I murmured. “Come here, okay? I want to help you feel all better.”
“God, no. You’d think I was just there for you to bang,” Liz responded, swatting me away.
It wasn’t long before she was back at work, where some of her responsibilities included sending us new flesh. Generally, Liz gave me all the good girls. But this time she called Timberlake, and hipped him to Ashley Moore.
I couldn’t help but be disappointed at the snub. A new girl was always an event, and a pretty one all the more so. No matter how many women came over to our house, no matter how stupid, repetitive, or depressing the sex often became, a new actress coming up into the joint was always an occasion. We were pornographers. We simply had nothing better to do than examine pictures of “the girl” beforehand, analyzing her look, her history, her cultural heritage. It was like Internet dating, but with the guarantee of a more satisfying payoff. -
We’d wait around the kitchen table, bullshitting, an hour before she was supposed to show up, listening for the strains of her car in the driveway, keeping the cordless phone nearby in case she got lost. It was the responsibility of whoever was manning the shoot to go out and meet her when she showed, bring her and her porno suitcase, full of shoes and toys and butters, inside. You couldn’t step over another guy’s actress; it was horrible manners and anyway he’d elbow you out of the way, send you downstairs to eat doughnuts with Rag Man while he carefully guided the actress up the stairs to the bathroom, where he could watch her undress, get first glance at her naked, supervise her costume changes, maybe steal a caress. It was the privilege of our post. And fuck the other guy.
We simply had rules. And we respected them. The day Belladonna arrived on set, I literally snarled whenever Timberlake came within ten yards of her. If Rag Man had tried to butt into our conversation with some insight about her performance with Rocco Siffredi in Italiano Fuck Racers I would have clawed off his arm at the elbow. It was my right.
And thus, I couldn’t help but be slightly bummed when Ashley Moore arrived and I got a glimpse at her. She was all leg, like about 90 percent shapely leg, and the other 10 percent was a huge smile on a cute but not intimidatingly beautiful face. A mop of brownblond hair fell over her head like she was an emo kid and didn’t have time to style it because she was just too busy skateboarding.
I desperately wanted to draw nearer to this insouciant, high-titted twenty-year-old beauty school dropout from Orange County who chewed strawberry bubble gum like it was her job. But I would have to stand in line, for hovering before me was Timberlake, and behind him Rag Man. And there, looming in the corner with his powerful, magnetic gaze, was Pitts.