What he did not tell me was that when you got to this apartment, as I did the night before my shoot, you opened the door to a living room with nothing in it except a giant hot-pink papier-mâché squid. Its long, foot-wide tentacles were everywhere, climbing up the walls and resting on windows. It had suction cups about the size of my fist.
“She adds to it when she’s high,” Glen said.
I had so many questions. I still have so many questions. But I escaped the sea creature and got to his room. He had a mattress on the floor, a skateboard, a drum kit, and some clothes in a box. Nothing else, certainly not an air conditioner. I stayed over, and all through the night people threw bottles in the Dumpster right by his window. In the morning I showered after Glen showed me how to use pliers to turn the water on.
One night was enough for me. “I’m out,” I said, “and you’re coming with me. We’re gonna rent you an apartment.”
The new place became one of our landing pads when we weren’t on the road. Glen respected my job and never asked me about my past relationships. It never once occurred to me to say to Glen: “Guess what I did one time? I fucked Donald Trump.” Who gives their partner a laundry list of the people they’ve had sex with?
But I admit I was intensely curious about his. Not out of jealousy, but this was the first grown person I had been with who was not from the porn world. He had slept with—let’s be real—fucked loads of women on tour. He would tell me what he did with girls, and I would have to stop him like a sheltered anthropologist of sex.
“Wait, what?” I remember saying. “You didn’t know this girl and she just grabbed your dick? People do that in real life?”
He described things that maybe I hadn’t done on camera but certainly had directed in porn, but I thought it was all just fantasy. Tales of women wanting double penetration in a threesome or demanding that he cum on their face.
“You are joking,” I would say. He thought it was funny that I was so ignorant about what happened in the real world, but everything I learned about sex was from working in porn. I didn’t even know how to have a one-night stand. I could not imagine walking up to someone in a bar and saying, “Can I suck your cock? Meet me out back.” But this had happened to Glen! Out there in the straight world. I couldn’t get my head around it and I still can’t, to be honest.
As I pressed for more details about life in the real world, he let slip about one person he slept with who I never expected: my friend Amanda. Yes, the one who thought he was too dirty to even get in her car the night I met him.
“What?” I yelled, way, way more out of surprise than annoyance. “She hated you! You fucked her?”
“Maybe I didn’t,” he said. “I remember her kissing me and then I woke up and she was in bed with me.”
“You totally fucked her!”
I didn’t blame either of them. They didn’t think I had any intention of dating him. Soon after that I was in Tampa and I bumped into her on a night out networking. She was having a drink, and she put her phone down on the bar to give me a hug.
“How’s it going?” she said.
“I’m just in town for a little bit,” I said. “I’m just back from touring with Hollywood Undead.” I said it very pointedly to see her reaction.
“Oh yeah, that band,” she said. “I forgot. So, uh, you still talk to that guy?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Do you?”
“No, why would I do that? Though, you know, I think I ended up in his room that night….”
“Yeah?” I said.
“Yeah, but it was totally no big deal,” she said, smoothing her hair. “I actually forgot about the whole thing until you mentioned him.”
“Cool,” I said.
“Cool,” she said.
We sat there, and just as it couldn’t get more awkward, her phone rang. And her ringtone was a song from Hollywood Undead.
I wanted to laugh so hard, but I just smiled at her.
“Um, I’m, uh…,” she said, snatching her phone, “I’m gonna take this outside.”
As with almost everything that happened in my life, I couldn’t wait to tell Glen.
SIX
You know I wasn’t that kid who played Mommy with dolls. I just never had that urge to to be a parent when I grew up. I was going to be a rock star, or at least live like one. Besides, you can’t ride a horse if you’re pregnant, so who would want that? Then my body obviously became a big part of my career, and let’s face it, that shit just looks like it fucking hurts. In fact, childbirth is the worst idea anyone’s ever had.
And then, once I was with Glen, the idea started creeping up on me. It continued to grow once we moved to our new place in Las Vegas. There were a lot of kids around, and I would have a weird feeling when I saw them. Was it maternal instinct? Gas?
I put it out of my mind until one morning when Glen and I were at home. I was on the couch, writing up a script on my laptop. Glen came in like he’d had a revelation.
“I want to have a kid,” he said.
“Ha, ha,” I said. “No.” I went back to typing.
“Serious,” he said.
The thought hung there in the space between us, just long enough for me to formulate a plan.
“Okay,” I said. “But there are terms. You have to do porn.”
“Uh, what?” He laughed. Poor guy thought I was joking.
“If I let you get me pregnant,” I said, “you have to do porn.”
“Well, why? That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Because if we ever split up, you can’t use it against me in court.”
“Well, I would never…”
I laughed ruefully and closed the laptop. “One, everybody says that,” I said. “Two, it might not even be your decision.” I have had friends in the adult entertainment business who have had their kids taken away from them by judges who don’t approve of their careers. These were instances where the mother and father were splitting amicably and had agreed on everything regarding custody, but the judge vetoed it. The decision, which was out of the hands of the parents, amounted to “Oh, she’s a whore. You get the kid.” I know a couple who doesn’t even follow the custody agreement, but if something happened the mom would be screwed.
“Let’s just level the playing field,” I continued. “So you can’t say I can’t have the kid because I did porn.” I have always been a realist. I was very aware of what men are capable of doing to hurt the women they once loved.
“That is so fucked up, Stormy,” he said, “but you’re kind of a genius.”
“I love you, too,” I said. “So those are my terms. Take it or leave it.”
“Well, I don’t know if I can,” he said. “What if I’m not good at it?”
“That’s also a good point,” I said. “The only way to know is if you try.”
So we started slow. I asked Keith to shoot a photo set for my website. That went great, so we did a scene with him filming us having sex as a POV thing. I didn’t throw him in the deep end.
Then I added him into scenes of some of the smaller films I was directing and always had him doing scenes with just me. One of the first was called Whatever It Takes, funnily enough. I never critiqued his work in front of people but trained him at home. The sex is completely different. Sex at home is about what feels good; sex on camera is about what looks good. Especially for the woman.