Preston L. Allen

Porn Star

In the parking lot of the warehouse by the bay, it is warm as it usually is at night in April in Miami, and a lone man sits in his car with the windows rolled down.

He seems to be reading a newspaper, this man, as he smokes his cigarette, but really he is illiterate. At least he does not read English. He can read a little bit in Spanish, but not in the dark as it is now. His name is Modesto, no last names please, and he is about fifty years old. Back in Nicaragua he fought for the Contras. He is certain that he killed three men, severely wounded at least half a dozen more. He was promoted to Corporal and would have risen higher despite his lack of formal education had the war not ended when it did, but in Miami he is a lookout for these people doing their late night business inside the warehouse. Modesto is on the lookout for police, and he has his story ready. In broken English he will say, “I am waiting for my sister’s child.” If the police persist, he will signal the people in the warehouse by pressing a single key on his cellphone, and a girl will come out of the warehouse dressed in a business suit and carrying a clipboard. Whatever this girl looks like, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, she will be his niece and her name will be Missy. Missy will have been doing inventory in the warehouse and she will get into his car and Modesto will drive off with her.

If a boy comes out, his name will be Billy (whatever his race) and he will be Modesto’s nephew, and Modesto will drive off with him and it will be because Billy is underage. The people in the warehouse are making an illegal movie, and when you make an illegal movie the last thing you want is for the police to catch you with someone who is underage.

Inside the warehouse, it is cool because of the air conditioning, but getting warmer because the lights have been on now for twenty minutes and things are heating up on the set. It is supposed to be a bedroom, but there are only pretty sheets on a double mattress set on the floor and a desk with a lamp on it. A window is painted onto the stageboard behind the bed—a window that shows night outside with stars and a crescent moon. The painting of the night is pretty good, a professional job. The woman on the bed is wearing a pink housecoat and fuzzy blue slippers—why she would be wearing fuzzy blue slippers in bed is something that no one asks—and she is supposed to be an old woman, a granny, because of the gray wig on her head, but if you look closely, you will see that she is young, not old, and very pretty, and that her hair underneath the cheap wig is very blonde.

The pretty girl in the cheap gray wig announces, in an old lady’s creaky voice, “My tummy is hurting me. I need to go to the bathroom before I wet myself.”

Then she rises slowly from the bed and walks, bent over like an old lady, to what is supposed to be a bathroom, but which is just a door painted on another stageboard, and very likely painted by the same artist who painted the night because it too is a professional job. Standing next to the bathroom door is a masked man, and the old lady reacts with a shout of surprise when he grabs her by the throat.

He says his lines, “Don’t scream, granny. I don’t want to have to kill you.”

He is a white man, and he sounds like he comes from somewhere up north. He is wearing all black, and he is about an inch shorter than the girl pretending to be the granny.

She says her lines, “Please don’t kill me.”

The girl in the wig does a good job of speaking her lines. She sounds genuinely fearful and old. But there is something about the way that housecoat fits on her, or doesn’t fit. She is a very shapely granny. Granny has larger than average breasts.

The man in the mask forces her backwards and orders her to sit down on the bed. She does as she is told. The man in the mask, it is like a raccoon mask, it is like Zorro’s mask—the man in the mask muses as he looks around the room, “There are a lot of nice things in here, granny.” Then an empty black sack appears in his hand. “I wonder what I should steal first.”

The man in the mask continues to look around the staged room, which is mostly empty, licking his lips, then he begins to make as though he is putting things in the sack. He does a good job of pretending, lifting empty space, smiling with approval as he inspects the pretend objects in his hand, then making great putting-in motions as he puts them in the sack. Then he spies the one real object in the room. The lamp beside the bed.

He says, picking it up, “This lamp looks like it is made of gold. Why, this lamp is indeed made of gold.”

He smiles with delight at his great find and begins to put the lamp in the sack when the girl in the gray wig cries out, “No, no, please don’t take that lamp. It is not a lamp at all. It is a gift from my husband. It is really an urn and his last remains are inside. It is all I have left of him.”

The man in the mask says, “But I must have it. I will have it.”

She pleads, never forgetting to maintain the creakiness as from age in her voice and the tremor as from fear, “No please do not take it. I will do anything if you do not take it.”

“Anything?”

“Anything,” she creaks.

The man in the mask gives back the lamp and unzips his pants. The girl in the gray wig gasps at his penis, which is magnificent in size. She deliberates for a moment, looking at the lamp and then back at him. She is such a fine actress that the viewer actually believes that it could go either way. Finally, she makes up her mind to do it and she begins to perform fellatio on the man in the mask. The lamp remains in her hands.

Thus, the sex scene proceeds. There are campy lines in it like “Granny, what big boobs you have” when she reveals her breasts—very nice breasts, large but not obscenely so. And just before he goes down on her—”Granny, what a nice snatch you have”—when she reveals her vagina, a nice one, with a dark, neatly-shaved patch of fuzz at the mouth. Granny seems to like that part very much. Granny is a very convincing groaner and a moaner, rather than a screamer and exclaimer of typical porno slogans. With this granny, there is no give it to me hard, harder, yeah like that big boy, oh yeah, oh yeah, I’m cumming. Her orgasms are as real on film as they are in real life because granny is not afraid to cross that line. She is not afraid to mix business with pleasure. That is why she is in demand. That is why she, Missy Camden, gets the big dollars.

The director, who has worked with Missy before, is a real artist, a master of minimalism and of the non-representational. The entire scene is to be performed with granny holding her precious golden lamp. She only puts it down once after one of the more challenging contortions (upside down anal) causes the wig to be rubbed off her head. So Missy sets down the lamp, briefly, to fix her wig, and her amorous burglar (his hips still pumping away) quips, “Granny, what blonde hair you have!” That gets a good laugh from the crew, a wink from granny, and the director shouts, “Don’t cut! Don’t cut! Beautiful! Funny. Keep rolling! Funny! Funny!”

The scene rolls to its predictable conclusion, where the actor explodes in the actress’s mouth and she adlibs, looking him straight in the eye (he has very beautiful eyes), “What tasty cum you have, my dear,” licking her lips.

The director says, “Cut. That’s a wrap. I love you guys! I love you!”

The actress goes into the bathroom, where she remains for a half hour before re-emerging as a leggy blonde in a red tracksuit, white Nikes, and over-sized dark shades in a gilded Louis Vuitton frame. Now this is Missy Camden. She goes over to where the actor, the new guy, is smoking and making small talk with the cast and crew setting up for the next scene. She has an unlit cigarette between her lips. She leans toward him for a light. He lights her up and says, “I’ve been dying to work with you.”

“You were good,” she tells him. “I had a blast.”

“I can now say I worked with Missy Camden,” he says.

“Yeah.” Missy Camden tilts her head and blows smoke at the ceiling. “So,” she says, “do you party?”

“I got something.” He nods his head and lowers his voice. “Out in the car.”

“Let’s go,” Missy Camden says.

They walk out together, not arm in arm, but blowing the same length of cigarette smoke at the ceiling and at the same time. They nod to Modesto smoking in his car as they pass. In the actor’s car, there is weed and nothing stronger. They smoke this. She comments about the weather. Warm. It’s always been warm. But this year it looks like it’s really going to be warm. He talks about the business. He’s new in the business, but already he’s met so many people, made so much money. He’s new, he lets her know, but not green. Not anymore. He knows how it works. The girls make the big money, twice the rate of the guys—but that’s okay because he’s got good size down there and he can go twice as long and twice as often as most of the other guys he’s seen, even without Viagra. In fact, tonight before their scene he had already done two scenes, and he’s got two more to do tonight—and he will do them and do them well. Maybe with the last scene, maybe when he’s a little bit tired, he might use the Viagra. Maybe.

He talks a mile a minute, even stoned. She does not know if she likes that about him. A girl she dated back in high school used to talk on and on like that. That girl was quick tempered and used to hit a lot. That girl had lots of problems. Who doesn’t? Missy takes a good look at him as she passes the joint. Handsome in a mousy way. Dark, almost Latin-looking. Jewish? Italian?

“Where are you from, cowboy?”

“Connecticut,” he says.

That, plus the penis—Jewish, she decides.

He says, “And you?”

“Davie, Florida, born and raised.”

“Ah, you’re a cowgirl. Where do you live now?”

“Davie. I only come down to Miami for the job.”

“You don’t do South Beach? Lincoln Road?”

“Seen ‘em. Done ‘em. I’m not into that, cowboy.” She puts her hand over her mouth. “Yawn,” she says. “It bores me. I’m a home girl.”

He takes a hit of the joint, then passes it back to her. “What’s at home in Davie, cowgirl?”

“Family. I’m into family.”

“You live with your mom and dad?”

“Mom and dad?” She laughs at the way he says it. Mom and dad. Who says that? “Naw. Foster homes all my life. I live at home with my baby girl and my partner.”

“Ah, so you and he—.”

“You know what I’m talking about, cowboy. She. I ain’t a shamed of it.”

He sucks in his cheeks. “No, no. No, I think that’s real cool.”

“No you don’t. You think it’s hot. You get horny thinking about me and my partner,” she says. “But if you ever met her, she’d kick your—.” She does not complete her thought because her mind wanders. She laughs at something and becomes aware of herself laughing and cannot remember what she is laughing at. Oh, the way he says mom and dad. Who says that? She passes back the joint. “You got anything to eat in this ride, cowboy?”

He’s got bags and bags of potato chips under the seat and a half liter of cranberry juice. They eat the chips, voraciously, without talking. He chugs warm cranberry juice from the bottle and offers her some. She shakes her head, declining. After she has eaten two bags of chips, she says, “Well, I got another job. I gotta be going.”

“Me, too,” he says. “JayD awaits.”

She slaps his thigh, laughing. “JayD. That’s where I’m headed.”

“No shit?” he says. “What time are you on?”

“Midnight.”

“Shit,” he says.

“Shit what?”

“I’m at 11:00,” he says. “Shit. I was hoping it could be with you again.”

“Yeah. It was fun. You’re good.” She leans over and pecks him on the cheek. Then she pecks him on the other cheek. She giggles, “Gotta go. I’ll see you there maybe. I’ll try to hurry back to see you do your thing. Gotta a little errand to run before my scene.” She pinches her nose and tells him with her eyes. Gotta go pick up a little nose candy, cowboy.

She gets out of his car and he shouts after her as she walks to hers: “I’ll go slow! I’ll take my time! I’ll make it last until you get there, cowgirl!”

She honks her horn. He blows her a kiss.

They drive off in opposite directions.

* * *

When he gets to the porn shop, JayD leads him into the back where everything is set up.

The girls are already going at it though the cameras aren’t rolling yet. There is a big girl, chunky, with black hair curling everywhere, and tattoos. The small girl is fair with freckles and thin, straw-colored hair. JayD tells him how it’s going to be: “They are a couple.”

He says, “I think I know the rules. I’ve done this kind of thing before.”

“You don’t know these rules,” JayD informs, giving him the eye.

“Shoot.”

JayD points. “As long as you don’t touch the little one. That’s Mia. She can touch you if she likes. She can do anything to you. Let her take the lead. I’m warning you.”

“Okay.”

“Now the big one, that’s Pedro.”

“Pedro?”

“Pedro does not like men. If she touches you, it will be to abuse you. She will spit on you. She will scratch you—within reason. She will insert a dildo into your butt. Do you see those whips?”

There are several little whips lying about. “I see them,” he says.

“She will whip you—within reason,” JayD explains. “Are you okay with that?

“As long as she doesn’t leave marks.”

JayD is suddenly enraged. He throws up his hands. He gestures wildly. “We’re paying you a lot of money for this shoot! We’re paying you three times the rate! If you can’t do it, why did you come here? Why are you wasting my time? Maybe you should just get the fuck out of here!”

He goes out into the main area of the porn shop and wrings his hands. He thinks about it. He thinks it all the way through. Ten minutes later, he goes back inside where the cameras have started rolling and he undresses.

Pedro scratches him, Pedro spits on him, Pedro whips him—within reason—and squeezes his testicles until they ache. Mia plays with herself while she watches. Mia has a pretty smile. So innocent. Pedro inserts a dildo in his butt, actually a vibrator, the double-ended kind that two women can use at once. She is not gentle. She leaves the vibrating dildo there while she eats Mia, right in front of him. He is on his stomach, watching them. His back has been whipped. The dildo—he does not look back there. It hurts enough for him to just pack it all in and go home, but three times the rate is three times the rate. When Mia cums, the girls move out of his line of sight and go behind him. He feels someone fooling around with the dildo back there, which already hurts enough. Then from the rhythmic movements back there and the weight on his back, he realizes that one of them has inserted herself upon the other end of it. He looks over his shoulder. Mia is riding the other end of the dildo back there. Her eyes are closed. She is in ecstasy. She is cumming. There is pain, but he begins to enjoy himself. It doesn’t feel so bad anymore because he is watching Mia over his shoulder. He loves watching her. She cums beautifully. She has such a beautiful smile. But where is Pedro?

Pedro positions herself in front of his face so that she can be eaten while she lashes his shoulders with the whip. She tells him, “Eat it! Eat it! Hurry! Eat it faster! What kind of man are you?” When she cums, at last, Pedro grinds it against his face. Then she whips him real good, pulls Mia off him, and locks lips with her. That is when he notices it. Pedro has a faint blonde moustache, like a pubescent boy’s.

After the scene, he goes into the bathroom to wash up, to vomit, and to reflect. He’s been in the business now three-and-a-half weeks. He’s done more than a hundred scenes. He has enough money saved up to move to California and turn pro. There are people out there who have seen his work and they tell him they like what they have seen. He has star potential. In California, he will make a mint. But there are complications. There’s the baby. The baby’s mother. His own mother. How can he leave his own mother? And of course, he won’t be eighteen until October.

Someone bangs on the bathroom door, jarring him back to reality. He splashes water on his face and leaves the bathroom.

* * *

Missy’s scene has started. Missy is doing a scene with Pedro. There are no whips or spitting or abuse in this scene. Pedro is eating Missy. It is a sweet scene with lots of kissing and fondling. The heat is very real. He is aware each time Missy cums. Pedro makes Missy cum fourteen times. JayD, Mia, and the crew are all transfixed watching this scene. It is very quiet in the room, except for the sound of their lips and tongues.

At the end of it, he overhears Pedro say to Missy, “It is such an honor. I’ve always wanted to work with you,” as she lights Missy’s cigarette, Missy in her dark shades. “You are beautiful. You are so, you are so, ohmygod, I can’t find the words to describe you. I’m in awe. I’m getting goosebumps, look at me.”

Mia cannot take it anymore. The young porn star watches as Mia breaks in on the conversation. Mia is smoking, too, but her cigarette is not in her mouth. Her cigarette is burning in her hand, which is pointing straight out at Pedro’s face. Mia’s stance is wide legged. Her head bobs threateningly. She is talking a mile a minute. Somebody says something to somebody—fuck you bitch—it sounds like Missy. Then there is a lot of pushing and grabbing. Now JayD and the crew are rushing over there to break it up. Nobody wants that kind of trouble.

The young porn star is rushing over there, too. When he gets there, Mia has Pedro in a headlock and is punching her in the face. Pedro is weeping big tears and blubbering—I’m sorry baby I’m sorry baby—while little Mia punches her in the face.

Someone helping to break it up jokes, “We should be filming this.”

Missy accepts his hand. “Get me out of here, cowboy.”

And he does.

In his car again, she says, “You got any smoke left?”

He finds the joint and lights it.

She says, “See, my partner would never do that. Never. She knows what I do, but she doesn’t know what I do, if you know what I mean.”

“I know what you mean,” he says, passing the joint. “I’ve got a mother—.” But he does not finish.

“Keep your love out of this. Keep your family out of this.” She takes two hits of the joint and then passes it to him. “It’s just a job, but it’s sex, too, you know? All of the feelings you have when you have sex are mixed up in it, you can’t lie about that. No matter how professional you are. I mean, I love women. I do. I’m not even into guys all that much anymore, but I’m not gonna lie to you. When I’m doing it with a guy, and he’s doing it right, I get these feelings. I mean at that moment right there, I am in love with him. Do you know what I’m talking about, cowboy?”

“I know what you’re talking about,” he says, nodding.

“I can’t even begin to tell you how I would feel if my partner was doing this for a living. If I caught her doing it, I would kill her. I’m serious.”

“But we do it,” he says.

“We do it,” she says, removing her Louis Vuitton shades. “But how do we do it, cowboy?”

She looks him right in the eyes. He’s got beautiful brown eyes. Like autumn leaf jewels. He looks her right in the eyes. She’s got beautiful blue eyes. Like fallen pieces of a jeweled sky.

He says, “We do it because we are professional.”

The door to the porn shop swings open. Pedro and Mia come out. Mia is wearing all denim now. Pedro is wearing all denim. Pedro is holding an icepack against her face. Mia is holding Pedro around the waist. Mia opens the door of a pickup truck and helps Pedro inside, then as she is about to get into the truck herself, she spots them. Before Missy can think to roll up her window, Mia has reached the car. Missy gets a fist in the eye. The young porn star roars out of the porn shop’s parking lot with Missy sobbing.

Missy holds a hand over her eye as he drives to the doughnut shop. “She didn’t have to do that. She didn’t have to do that. It’s just a job. We’re all in this business together. Why can’t people understand that? It’s just a job. We get paid to do it. I don’t want her girlfriend,” Missy sobs hopelessly.

When he parks, he puts his arm around her and he holds her. She weeps against his chest. He kisses her hair, which has a pleasant fragrance. They are like that for ten minutes at least. When the weeping stops, he goes inside and comes back with a cappuccino for him and a latte for her. She is smoking. She puts out the cigarette and takes the cup from him.

She puts it to her lips. Sips. “Hot,” she says, smiling with her eyes at him. Her eye doesn’t look so bad. There is a bruise that can be hidden easily with makeup. The swelling does not interfere with her beauty at all. “Hot but good. Mmm,” she says, sipping again. “They make the best.”

He sips his cup and continues to admire her. She is beautiful. He figures she is maybe twenty, though she hasn’t said. She is at the end of her career as a porn star, she has told him while sobbing. She is at the top of her game, but near the end of it too. She is more popular now than she has ever been, she makes top dollar now, but after six months in the business she has made over a thousand scenes, which means at some point very soon, the calls will stop coming because men will be tired of seeing her. That’s how it works. A new mediocre face with a mediocre ass can sell videotapes better than a beautiful but old face with a great ass. Men are like that. They get tired of seeing the same face after a while. At first they want to see you over and over, and you make lots of money, especially if you are good at it, but then they don’t want to see you anymore. In fact, your face on the box often means that the tape won’t sell at all. Men begin to avoid boxes on which your name and your face appear with the same passion they once used to seek them out. She worries that she hasn’t saved enough money. How can you save money when you have a child?

When the end comes, she has told him, she will go back to dancing at strip clubs, where she will be a headliner because of her fame. It will mean travel, lots of travel, to other states and to Canada. All that traveling will be hard on her daughter and her partner, but the money will be worth it. Headliners make serious money because the clubs have to pay you, plus you get a piece of the gate, plus the tips. You can make more in one month of headlining than in a full career of making movies, especially since a full career for a woman in porn is just about six months, remember. For a man? If he has a good dick, a man can last ten, twenty years in the business. Maybe more. A good dick never gets old, especially since nobody is looking at it anyhow. They’re all looking at the girl.

He says to her, “Have you ever been in love?”

She says, “I’m in love all the time. I’m in love every time I shoot a scene. Don’t you know that’s the secret to my success?”

“I’m in love with you, Missy.”

Her voice comes back small. “And I’m in love with you.”

“Let’s make love,” he says, setting his cup in the cup holder.

“What? Here? In the car?” she says. “That is so high school.”

He says, “I’m still in high school.”

“For real? You’re kidding, right?”

“I’m graduating in two months.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No.” He kisses her. His hands are roving. He is hungry for her. She opens her mouth. She opens her legs for his hand. He counts two times. She has cum two times with just his hand in her pants. He tugs open the top of her sweats. He says, “Mmm,” as he sucks her chest.

She says, “Mmm. No. Not like this,” breaking away. “Not like high school. Not like porno. Take me somewhere.”

“Where?”

“Take me somewhere like a man would.”

She twinkles for him with her blue eyes. With his brown eyes, he twinkles back.

“I know where we can go,” he says.

“Where, my love?”

“I have my final shoot at 3:30 at a motel. We can go there and get a room before my shoot.”

“It’s a crazy idea, my love, but I like it,” she says, kissing him.

“It’s crazy,” he says, kissing her back.

As they kiss, her cellphone goes off. It is her partner. Missy orders him not to say a thing as she talks to her partner. She tells her partner that her last shoot is going to run real, real late but that she will be home as soon as it is over. She makes kiss-kiss over the phone and hangs up. She says to him, “That was hard. Do you know how hard that was? She’s at home watching my child.”

He says, “Do you still want to do it?”

She answers with her lips. It is the best kiss ever. She says to him, through the desperate kiss, “I am so in love with you right now. What is your name? Your real name.”

“Adam,” he tells her. “And yours? Your real name.”

“Missy.”

“For real?”

“I do not fake anything,” Missy Suzanne Camden says.

* * *

They rent a room at the motel where he will do his final shoot of the night. The sex is magnificent. It is not like porno at all. It is not professional at all. There are no cameras but their eyes. No directors but their hearts. The sex is almost no sex. Actual penetration is incidental. Screaming orgasm is not an end result. It is mostly about kissing and lips. Their rhythm is the sound of their lips and tongues. They feast on this kind of love.

Missy cums fourteen times.

At the end of it, just before he must leave to go do his shoot, she is in his arms with her head resting on his chest, and this is the best part, they both agree. The best part by far.

He must go, but he does not want to and she does not want him to. She wants the feast of his love to last forever. It is against the rules, it is so against the rules. Missy does not fall in love with people in the business because they are wolves who will eat you up, then gnaw the bones. Plus it is bad for business to fall in love with someone in the business. But this boy—he is still green, still pure—like she was six months ago, when she was still only 18.

When he is dressed and ready to go, she is so in love with him that she puts on her clothes and announces, “I’m coming with you.”

“Wow, this’ll be great. I’ll introduce you around,” he says.

“I am Missy Camden. I’m sure I know them already.”

He nods. “I’m sure you do. Sorry, my love.”

“Who is it?”

“Brandywine.”

“I know them well,” Missy says. She puts a finger to her lips. “But they don’t usually do white guys. And aren’t they a little rough for you? Brandywine is a straight up freak and K-Dog’s idea of porn is . . . gross.”

He wants to hear no more of that.

Taking her hand, he says, “It pays the bills.” And like that, they leave their motel room hand in hand.

* * *

When they get to the room where the shoot will take place, they notice a familiar face sitting in a chair a few yards from the door. It is Modesto, pretending to read his newspaper. They wave at him. He waves back and gets back to pretending to read his paper.

When they get inside the grand suite, K-Dog and Brandywine see Missy and begin to make a big fuss. Oh Missy Camden, if we had only known you were coming! Hey Missy, why not do a scene with us? You’ve never done a scene with us. Why have you never done a scene with us? Are you prejudiced? Do you have something against us? We’ll re-write the script. We’ll pay you double. Come do a scene with us. Missy politely declines, explaining that she is on the rag. K-Dog lights her cigarette for her, Brandywine pours her a rum and coke, and Missy sits back to watch her boy in action.

The scene is about marital problems.

The wife explains to her husband that he no longer satisfies her. When he prods her, she confesses that he has never satisfied her and she has decided to leave him. The husband professes his love for her and even makes passionate love to her, but the woman is unaffected by it. Her decision is final. Time to move on.

The desperate husband suggests a radical solution. There is a man that he met recently in a bar, a big handsome black man who makes his living dancing for the pleasure of women who no longer feel pleasure. “It will put the spark back in,” the husband promises. The wife’s eyes perk up.

The black man arrives at the home minutes later and stripping down to his g-string, he begins to dance for the husband and wife. Pretty soon it is clear that the wife is very interested in watching the black man dance, but the husband’s presence is preventing her, she claims, from really “getting into it.” So the husband agrees to leave the room so that the wife can have her privacy, but he watches through the peep out of curiosity, as the wife and the black man satisfy each other orally. He cannot believe his eyes. The black man’s penis is so large the wife can only get half of it in her mouth. When the husband bursts back into the room, the big black man beats him up easily, then ties him up on the couch facing the bed, then proceeds to give it hard and brutal to the wife, who of course is loving every minute with the big penis, despite the fact that she is shouting things like “Oh my love, what did I get you into?” and “Oh my love, I hope he did not hurt you.” She is fondling the black man’s chest as she says things like this. She is rubbing her clitoris.

After the black man finishes with the wife, after he pulls out and cums on her face, he goes over to the tied-up husband and makes him lick the rest of it off. He makes Adam lick that big penis clean.

For that, he is paid double.

When Adam is released from the couch, Missy is nowhere to be found.

He asks for her, and they tell him, “She left, man. Said she hadda get out of here.”

He goes back to the room where they had shared their passion, and she is not there. He checks out of the motel and goes to his car. She is sitting on the hood of his car smoking a cigarette. He clicks open the locks without saying a word to her.

* * *

Halfway back to the porn shop where her car is parked, he finally says, “I shouldn’t have let you see that.”

“Let it ride.”

“I don’t know what got into my head. I just wanted you to know the truth. I didn’t want there to be any lies between us.”

“Are you gay?”

“No. I’m not gay,” he says. “It’s just business.”

“That’s what you think.”

“That’s what I know.”

She says, “In this business, you make decisions and you make them early. What Brandywine and K-Dog did to your career—it’s gonna be hard for you to get hetero work after a while.”

“I’m booked straight through the month.”

“When that scene comes out, it’ll change everything.”

“I think you’re wrong,” he says. “The people who watch that kind of thing don’t watch the other kind of thing, so I think I’m okay, and it pays better than the other kind of thing—I mean, it’s pathetic what they pay us men compared to you women. If they paid me what they paid you, I wouldn’t have to do that other kind of thing.”

“Let it ride, cowboy.” She has finished her cigarette. She lights another. “I’m not your mother. You do what you have to do. I do what I have to do. Business is business.”

It is almost five in the morning. The streets are almost empty. The car rolls through silent neighborhoods. The radio is not on. There is only the hum of the air conditioner and Adam’s voice.

“I have dreams,” he says, still trying to explain. “I need that money. It’s all about the money for me. I can’t live poor. I want to go places. I want to do things. But I’m so young. What else is there for me to do? I can’t sell drugs. I tried that. The fucking black guys scared me off. The fucking black guys threatened to kill me—I have a daughter.”

She says, “I have a daughter. She is black.”

He sucks in his cheeks. “Shit. What I said about black guys—. I didn’t mean to offend.”

“They’ve got big dicks. They know how to use them. No offense taken,” she says.

“Shit. You are offended.”

She exhales smoke. “I’m not.”

“We were hitting it off so nice.”

“That was a mistake. I forgot that we don’t date in the business. It’s bad for business.”

“Who told you that? Is that like a rule? Is that like a law? How can people like us ever find anyone if we can’t date people in the business?”

“It’s bad for business,” she insists. “Is there anyway you can drive a little faster? I want to get home to my family. It’s really late.”

He rambles on: “If they don’t get with people they work with—I mean that’s just crazy.”

She shakes her head. “You’re not even my type. What we did was just business.”

“I felt it when we were together in that scene. I felt it in the motel room, and so did you.”

“What did you feel when you sucked that guy’s dick?”

There is some kind of cruelty in her smile that he does not understand. He says, “That was business.”

“You sucked his dick,” she mocks.

“You’ve sucked his dick. I’ve seen you in at least ten scenes with that guy,” he says. “What does that say about you, you fucking dick sucker?” He’s trying to hurt her with words. How do you hurt a porn star with words? Call her a dick sucker? It’s part of the title of at least fifty movies she’s starred in. He snarls, “You dirty, cocksucking slut.”

She ignores that. She cannot be hurt with words. She’s already been hurt enough tonight.

“Hypocrite. You whorebag. You lying whorebag,” he says.

He looks angry enough to hit, like that girl back in high school. So this is his temper. She ignores that too. She says to him, “We used to date, me and him. Me and that black guy.” She stares out at the dark road, at the houses flying past. Family homes with families sleeping in them. She says, “I was young, like you are now. I won’t ever do it again. That’s why I’m trying to warn you. Because I like you, Adam. It hurts too much. It makes things too messy. I lost my head with you tonight. I forgot the rules. That black guy—Cain—he’s the one got me into the business. He’s also the father of my daughter.”

She waits for him to speak. Now say something, cowboy. He talks a mile a minute, but now he has nothing to say.

She continues: “Cain wouldn’t look at me tonight. He owes me money. No way in hell was I going to do a scene with him tonight no matter how much they offered to pay. Seeing him do that woman tonight . . . seeing him do you. What do you think that feels like, watching that? He was performing for me. Showing off. He’s got a big dick and he knows how to use it. He hurts with that dick. I gotta stay away from him for a while. I gotta stay away from you, too. It’s too messy, okay?”

The mile a minute mouth is closed for business. Adam says nothing more as he drives. He just drives. He hardly even listens when she talks. When she talks, it’s as if she’s talking to herself: “I have a partner. I love her. We’re making it work. We’re raising a child. We’re trying to have another child. There’s no room for anyone else. You’re a nice guy, but there is just no room for you. It’s too messy. What I did tonight just screws everything up even more. I don’t have room for anymore mistakes. Not in this business. Not in my position.”

When they get back to the porn shop where her car is parked, he grabs her hand before she can push open the door and leave his car—his mother’s car. He says, “I’m sorry what I called you. I am. And you’re right about everything. You are. But even porn stars have hearts, don’t they?”

“Go away, Adam.”

“No, listen to me. What I’m saying is, I feel something real strong for you, and I can’t lie about that. I won’t lie about that—but I won’t do anything about it either. I won’t make a big deal about it. I won’t let it get in the way of us working together again, as professionals.”

“It’s not possible.”

“If we’re professional about it?” he says.

“It’s not possible, Adam.”

“Aw shit, come on, Missy. It’s not like you’re even going to be in the business that much longer.”

Now that hurts.

She says, “I’ll ask them not to put me with you, just like I do with Cain. I am Missy Camden. They’ll do that for me.”

“Shit. Shit.”

“That’s the way it’s got to be.”

“Shit. I really did feel something for you.” He looks as though he is about to cry. He won’t let go of her hand.

They are quiet like that for a while, and then Missy’s mind wanders. She remembers their motel room, but she can’t remember why it is that she is so angry. She squeezes Adam’s hand. She leans over and kisses him on the cheek. Then the other cheek. She gives him her twinkle, her smile, come on, cowboy, but he only sighs. So she kisses him on the lips like back in that motel room. He looks at her. It is a real kiss. But it is their final kiss, because she remembers. He is a porn star.

“Business is business,” she informs, pulling away from his lips. Her voice is small. After that, Adam releases her hand, and Missy Camden pushes open the door and gets out of his car. It is a full three minutes before he hears her engine start up.

They drive off in opposite directions.

Cover Design: Joseph McNair