15.
Tabitha Moore’s shoot was for Rawkus. They were set up in their dusty, cavernous studio on Stagg Ave. I never shot for Rawkus, since they don’t pay for shit and I don’t care for their creepy, misogynistic and insulting titles. Filthy Fuckpigs. Whores Can’t Say No. Or their most popular series, She Needs the Money. I was actually a little surprised that Tabby was shooting for them, but she had always been one of the most cheerfully rowdy girls I’d ever met. She loved doing things just for the shock value and was famous for enthusiastic dirty talk that would make Max Hardcore blush. With her triple D implants and her voracious sexual stamina, Tabby was the Gonzo Queen of Over-The-Top town and didn’t care who knew it.
Unsurprisingly, they were shooting a gang bang scene. The set was a half-assed mock-up of a locker room and a few of the guys had on random, contradictory pieces of athletic gear and various mismatched team uniforms. The parts of Tabby I could see between the seething tangle of male bodies seemed to be half dressed in a torn cheerleader outfit. I remembered Malloy’s comment the night before about Teenage Nympho Cheerleaders and statutory rape. Cheerleader costume notwithstanding, nobody was ever going to mistake Tabby for a teenager. She had been in the business for seven years. Years in porn are like a lot like dog years. They tend to age the girls much quicker than normal human years. Tabby was only twenty-four but she already had more surgical enhancement than a Beverly Hills divorcee twice her age. She was a legendary party girl too, with a pill habit the size of Nevada, and whenever she started to run low on painkillers she’d just pop in for another procedure. Still, underneath it all, she was a good kid. I don’t know if I would call her completely trustworthy, but she was all we had.
There were maybe five guys actively working the various stations of Tabby’s anatomy while another six or seven stood back on standby, keeping their pumps primed and waiting to be rotated in. One funny thing about working in porn is how quickly you get used to seeing guys jack off. When I first started out, I couldn’t stop staring. It gave me a nasty kind of thrill I can’t quite explain, seeing something that was supposed to be this shameful secret done in such a public, nonchalant sort of way. I was fascinated by the wide variety of techniques and the odd, individual quirks each guy seemed to have to get the job done. But that didn’t last. By my fifth or sixth film, I barely even noticed it anymore, unless the shoot was on standby, waiting for wood. Veteran cops and paramedics are unfazed by the sight of sucking chest wounds or decomposed babies. Porn pros don’t bat an eye at the sight of six guys standing around yanking their cranks.
Malloy only had two months in country and was clearly not quite used to it yet. As we stood on the sidelines, waiting for them to finish up and call lunch, I could see in his body language that all this wanking made him itchingly uncomfortable. A lot of guys imagine that it would be this big turn-on to visit a porn set. My advice is, unless you really love watching other men jack off, don’t bother.
Malloy turned away from the action and from me and walked quietly over to stand near the director. The director was young and morose with a large shaved head and a scruffy, chinless face like a strung-out fetus. He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to the action. He sat alone and hunched over by the monitor, picking at a large scab on the back of his hand.
The cameraman was the one running the show. He was older, fat and beery with a backwards baseball hat and an oily little ponytail. Sweating profusely as he hovered around the fleshy jumble like a woozy fly, he droned on and on in a wet, nasal voice about how great everything was.
“Tito,” the cameraman said. “Grab her hair. Great. Keep going. Now Tabby, can you raise your left leg up a little higher? Great. Keep going. Nick, trade places with Drew. Great. Keep going.”
I felt sorry for the editor who was going to have to replace all that audio. I also felt sorry for Tabby, who was giving it 110 percent and would probably wind up with dreary stock music over all her saucy, creative dialog because that asshole camera guy wouldn’t shut up.
A very deep man’s voice spoke softly to my left, startling me.
“Hey.”
I turned and saw that it was Dick Dallas. He had debuted just as I was getting out and we had never worked together, but we knew a lot of the same people. He was bigger than ever, shredded muscle on top of muscle and his formerly handsome face was becoming distorted and caveman-craggy from excessive use of steroids and Human Growth Hormone. He had a deep, leathery tan the color of barbeque sauce and had dyed his hair a dull, monochrome black. It kind of looked like he had gotten those hair implants, but I didn’t want to look closely enough to be sure. He was wearing nothing but sneakers and was very happy to see me. I didn’t take it personally. I knew it was just the Caverject. My breath caught as I waited for him to recognize me. Amazingly, he didn’t.
“Are you okay?” he asked instead.
That was not at all what I had been expecting. The genuine concern in his face and voice seemed almost funny coming from a big hunky guy standing there naked with a hard-on.
“I’m fine,” I replied, trying to pitch my voice as low as possible.
“Did he do this to you?” Dick asked, frowning as he gestured with his chin toward Malloy.
“Oh,” I said. “Uh... no.” I dug around in my brain for my cover story. “Some guys beat me up in front of my apartment, so I’m staying with my uncle until they get caught. He used to be a cop, my uncle. I was, y’know, scared to be alone so...”
“Son of a bitch,” Dick said, shaking his blocky head. “Those spineless fucks don’t dare try shit like that with me. Instead they gang up on a little guy like you to prove they’re real men. Bastards.” He put a hand on my shoulder, leaving a greasy lube spot on my t-shirt. “What’s your name?”
“Daniel,” I said, looking at my feet and flinching away from the large, bobbing erection threatening to poke me in the kidney. Dick Dallas never was the sharpest tool in the shed, but I still couldn’t believe he didn’t recognize me.
“Well, I’ll tell you what, Daniel,” he replied. “If you ever feel like you need someone to talk to, a shoulder to cry on...”
“Dick!” the cameraman called. “We’re ready for you.”
“Right,” Dick called back over his shoulder. He turned to me with a wry, it’s a living sort of shrug and then made his finger and thumb into the shape of a gun and pointed at me. “Catch you later.”
The second his massive back was turned I burst out into silent stifled giggles behind my hand. My first day as a gay man and I’d already been cruised. Of course, Dick Dallas would pretty much fuck anything that didn’t pull a knife on him. Still, I had to admit that it felt good to be desired, to be thought of as attractive again. The last person who’d thought I was sexy was Jesse.
The shoot continued through a few more rotations. I was feeling itchy and uncomfortable under my binder and the disturbingly familiar smell of sex and sweat and fruity body spray and cheap lube all baking under hot lights in an old dusty warehouse was a powerful reminder of why I got out from in front of the camera in the first place.
“Okay kids,” the cameraman said. “Snap crackle pop. Who’s ready?”
Of course it was Dick Dallas who led the pack.
“Come on all of you hot fuckers!” Tabby cried in her unique, un-American syntax that never failed to make me smile. “I must taste all of the cums right now in my face!”
One by one, each guy came forward and earned his check. There were a few stragglers who held things up, taking longer than the rest to get to the point, but eventually the last guy did the job and the cameraman zoomed into Tabby’s wide open mouth.