Angry White Male

Angry White Male Page 20

by Steven Travers

“Whata’ya wanna ask me, man?” Stan said to Brad, sitting in the booth of the West Hollywood IHOP at four in the morning.

  “I’m starting a production company here,” said Brad. “Nomad Films, I’m gonna call it. I’ve got investors in Europe. I have an idea for a movie. How’d ya like to write it?”

  Brad’s question resulted in the next great change in Stan’s life. He flew back to New York, gathered himself, and drove his car back to California.

  “California here I come,” he sang, “right back where I started from.”

  Stan moved back in to his parents’ house. Dan had retired from Adams, Duque & Hazeltine. He and Shirley were now living almost all the time at their Lake Tahoe cabin, leaving the run of the house to Stan. It was a very good situation.

  “I have to stake my claim,” Brad told Stan. “If I don’t come back to the States, I’ll have given the best years of my acting career to Europe. If I’m gonna make it, I have to make it in Hollywood.”

  Brad was an admirer of the legendary Hollywood producer, Robert Evans. Evans had been an actor, appearing in “The Son Also Rises” among other 1950s films. But Evans realized early that he did not want to be at the mercy of producers and directors, begging for work. He wanted to be the decision-maker, so he set out on a quest to acquire property, in terms of screenplay and book rights.

  Brad pulled himself away from a lucrative, yet limited, European acting career to take a chance as an independent producer in Hollywood. Brad had found several European investors to back his venture. He had a nice condo near Sunset and Laurel Canyon Boulevard, and an office about three miles east at the old Sunset/Gower lot. He found an agent in the mid-Wilshire and had an idea for a script.

  Brad’s friend Timmy Silvera was a native New Yorker who came to Los Angeles to make it in films. Silvera was a good-looking Italian kid who was born in Brooklyn. When his father became successful, they moved to Westchester County. He had looks, but held no illusions about his acting ability. He had none. His plans were nebulous, at best. He did not enroll in any film schools, or any of the numerous writing programs or seminars that keep the wanna-be’s spending their $300 for false hope every weekend. One character named Dov S-S- Simens had formed a “school” he called the Hollywood Film Institute. Hundreds of hopeful Tarantinos flocked to the Roosevelt Hotel on Hollywood Boulevard to listen to Simens teach, in machine gun manner, everything needed to know to make an indie film, from writing the script to buying film stock.

  “If you don’t know how to buy film stock,” Simens said, “you ain’t a producer.” Other schools were a little more legitimate, like the UCLA Writers’ Program. Silvera never went for any of them. Instead, he took a low-paying job as a driver for the president of a low rent production company that made schlock movies. He married the pain-in-the-ass daughter of famed Hollywood film editor, and over time learned how to edit film himself. Armed with connections and a marketable skill, he was earning a good living in the film industry.

  Silvera, like everybody else in Hollywood, wanted to write and direct. He could not write, but he had ideas. Most of his ideas stemmed from his wild child personality. Like Stan, he was a big fan of Jim Morrison. Unlike Stan, he had at one time tried hard to emulate Morrison’s drug habit. He wore black leathers and wore his hair like Jim. He dropped acid and went on peyote trips, in homage to one of his favorite writers, the Mexican author Carlos Castaneda. Silvera walked around flailing his arms in psuedo-karate style, spouting Hunter Thompson-isms.

  Now, Silvera had an idea. He called it “Baja California”. It was the story of an amoral California businessman who burns all his bridges, and escapes on a druggies’ vacation to Mexico. In Mexico, he encounters seedy characters, prostitutes, drug dealers, bandits, and other local delights, all amid peyote/Castaneda visions bordering on the surreal. The businessman then saves the life of a young village girl, falls in love with her, and decides to return with her to California, hoping to repent his sins with all the lovers, friends and business partners he has hurt over the years. His efforts at redemption are cut short, however, when drug dealers from his Mexican past catch up with him and settle an old score by killing him.

  Brad would produce it, and star as Troy West, the womanizing businessman. Silvera would direct. Stan was paid a sum far below the standard Writers Guild minimum to write it. He was happy to do so.

  Stan and Brad worked together day and night. Silvera was usually stuck at his regular editing gig, but he came by every chance he got. Most of the work occurred in the Sunset/Gower office, or at Brad’s pad. Despite their legendary party past, they held the line and kept their nose to the grindstone. Brad had investors to answer to, and Stan knew this was a chance that does not come every day. Brad was a workaholic, but Stan was out of control. He worked relentlessly into the wee hours of the morning, night after night. The 124-page screenplay was completed in a little over a month.

  A cast and crew were put together. Just as he had with Darren, Stan lobbied for an acting role of his own. He read for the part of an American gold miner who meets up with the Troy character in Mexico. The gold miner befriends Troy, leads him on a series of adventures to whore houses and other dive bars, then helps him escape a drug lord hot on his trail. Just as he had knocked Darren out with his good work, Stan showed great talent and earned the role.

  The film went into production in Orange County, using non-union crews. After the American scenes were filmed, everybody went to Mexico, where the filming was cheap. They had to pay off local officials, fend of thieves, and deal with various aspects of corruption. Stan called up his old frat buddy Larry Thatcher. Thatcher’s father had flown “cargo” in and out of Mexico for years, and now he owned a lot of land and businesses there. Larry had come to Mexico often for surfing and hunting vacations. Larry helped smooth things over with the local officiales, and the film managed to get done on time and under budget. Everybody did impressive work. Silvera showed real talent for directing, Brad nailed the Troy character, and Stan was beautiful as the Damon Runyan-esque, bearded adventurer.

  “Baja California” made it to the Cannes Film Festival, some art movie houses like the NuArt, and a run on stations like HBO and Cinemax. It broke even. Stan did not make much money, but the experience was a good one. He managed to parlay it into membership in the Screen Writers and Screen Actors Guilds.

  Brad was offered and accepted a role on a network drama. His production company was dormant while he pursued the TV job. Silvera did not get the directing gigs he was hoping would come his way, but he did earn an Academy Award for his editing on a subsequent hit film.

  Stan had been very busy, but once “Baja California” wrapped, he had some time to breathe. He went to Walnut Creek and spent every waking second with Kaitlyn. He brought her to Tahoe so his parents could see her, then took her back to L.A. He had loved traveling, living in Europe and New York, but he wanted to stay closer to her. He decided he was going to try and get her to live with him.

  When Stan was not with his daughter, however, his dark side emerged. He lived a continuing battle between the “good Stan” and the “bad Stan,” and what Abe Lincoln described as the “better angels of our nature” did not always prevail. Stan went to his Episcopalian Church in Palos Verdes. The old folks loved him.

  If they only knew, Stan thought to himself. He sat in his pew looking at all the good Christians, making their announcements about some charitable drive or volunteer work. Are these people as perfect as they seem, or are they like me, with hidden secrets and wanton desires?

  After viewing Ashley Michelle’s infamous gangbang tape, he had become infatuated with porn stars. They were always dancing as features at Jet Strip, Bob’s Classy Lady, Spearmint Rhino and 4-Play. Stan went to see a Hispanic bombshell named Veronica Brazil. She was something else, with enormous breasts and succulent lips, long black hair, and a perfect body. Stan had seen her movies, and he sensed something about her. He understood that this girl was not just doing porno for the money. Rather, she
was a genuine sex maniac. His suspicions were confirmed at the club when she came out to dance. Stan positioned himself in a seat at the end of the stage, put a few dollars in front of him, and when Veronica came by he started talking nasty to her. She liked it. She liked it so much that she pulled Stan on stage with her. Stan had a tremendous woodie going. Veronica unzipped his pants, blew him for about five seconds, then bent over, stuck her ass at Stan, and directed Stan inside her. Stan had intercourse with her for about 10 seconds while everybody cheered. It was totally illegal. The owner of the club almost went out of his mind. The place went bonkers. The other men thought Stan was her partner and they had viewed some live carnival sex show.

  Stan found Veronica a few minutes after her show ended, and she invited him to her hotel room. She was to meet him out front of the club. Stan showed, but Veronica did not. It was disappointing, but it confirmed for Stan that wild sex with incredible girls could be had, if you played your cards right.

  He read the papers, including the undergrounds, looking for porn stars at strip clubs. Bridgitte Blue headlined for a week. After her dance, she retired to a private room where her fans could get their pictures taken with her, and have the autographed Polaroids for $15 for one, $25 for two, and so on. Stan noticed that sometimes the girls had a man with them. The man might be a husband, a boyfriend, maybe a bodyguard. But they did not always have these guys. Sometimes they entertained their fans in privacy. Such was the case with Bridgitte Blue. Stan went in, and he was alone with her. There was no photographer, but Bridgitte was offering signed glossies. Stan started a conversation with her, and found her engaging and friendly.

  “Where else can a girl get paid to have sex with handsome guys?” she said.

  “You love sucking cocks, don’t you?” asked Stan.

  “I’m cuckoo for cock,” she replied giddily.

  “Tell you what,” Stan said. “For $200 would you blow me?”

  Bridgitte hesitated.

  “Are you a cop?” she asked.

  “Scout’s honor,” said Stan, “just a horny fan.” Then he unzipped his pants and demonstrated that he was not lying.

  Bridgitte agreed. Stan told her he had to go around the corner to the ATM and get the money. She agreed to meet him in 20 minutes in the room they were in. Stan went to the ATM. He tried to get $100, but that was his bank limit for a single, and he had already taken out $100. So he took out $100, went back in the club, and explained to Bridgitte that he only had $100 because his bank limited how much it would dispense. Bridgitte bought the story, and gave Stan a very satisfying blowjob.

  Stan worked his magic on the regular strippers, as well. He learned how to talk their language. There were two kinds of girls who worked in these clubs, whether they were house strippers, porn stars or even hookers. They often morphed together.

  Some girls did it just for the money. These were often single moms and college students. Some had debts. Some had husbands and boyfriends. A lot of them supported loser guys. Stan was amazed at how many of these women fell for “bad boys,” and were willing to support their drug and beer habits. A few questions and suggestive comments by Stan helped determine who fell into this category. Once that determination was made, he moved on.

  He was looking for the girls who did it because they loved to satisfy men. There were plenty of those. She might be a mature woman in her 30s, even late 30s who liked to party. Stan looked for signs that they were into drugs. If he felt they were, he backed off.

  Stan watched the girls. He hung outside the clubs to see whether they had boyfriends waiting for them after work. One club had a little bar around the corner. Stan saw that a lot of the girls liked to go in there. He sauntered in, and if he saw unattached stripper girls, he made his move. The results were mixed, but the effort was fun.

  Nancy Cummings’ real name was Nancy Gonzalez. She was half white, half Filipino. Nancy was from Northern California. She had a daughter in high school. She was not the best-looking porn star, but what she lacked in classic beauty she made up for in sexual heat. She made “gonzo” movies that featured exceptionally nasty acts like “fisting.” She danced at 4-Play on a regular basis, and was not even considered a feature girl. Stan saw her and immediately identified her as a bone fide nympho.

  Stan was friends with Los Angeles Raiders quarterback Todd Marinovich. Marinovich, a former USC star, had a friend from college getting married. He wanted to throw a bachelor party. Stan told him he would make the arrangements. Nancy Cummings told him she did bachelor parties.

  “Listen, baby,” Stan told her. “This thing requires a ‘full service’ girl, if you know what I mean. 40 or 50 guys.”

  “No problem,” said Nancy.

  The bachelor party was held at the 502 Club, which was now owned by Stan’s old buddy, Bruno. Nancy was into it, and on the night of the party, she proved it, and then some. The girl left the equivalent of an NFL roster drained and dry. When she left, she gave Stan her card.

  A week later, he called her.

  “Listen, I know this might sound weird,” Stan said to her, “but I’d love to take you to dinner.”

  “Sure,” she said. What a girl!

  Stan showed up at her apartment in Culver City. She looked terrific. She had a sexy little leather mini-dress, lingerie, her hair was done nicely, and her lipstick was sensual.

  Stan felt a little strange, but she made him comfortable. The question of sex seemed to hang in the air, just like any “regular” date. Stan took her to a nice little Italian restaurant in Hermosa Beach. It was a family place. He was convinced that every patron recognized her. Once she started to communicate, Stan realized she was a pretty intelligent girl who had grown up a Navy brat. She spoke openly about sex and the adult film business. Stan thought the people sitting nearby overheard her, but he may have been overly sensitive. Overall the dinner went without incident.

  They went to the Lighthouse, a rock ’n’ roll club on Pier Avenue where a Jimi Hendrix cover band was entertaining a crowd of rockers. Nancy eyed a beautiful, dark-haired girl wearing skintight leather pants.

  “Do you want to take her home with us?” she asked Stan.

  After thinking about it for about one point two seconds, Stan stammered “Y-yyyyess.”

  Nancy took control. The next thing Stan knew, they were in Nancy’s apartment. It was Stan and two babes, all night long. The next morning, the dark-haired girl kissed them both good-by. Stan gave her money for a cab, and she was gone. Then Nancy got on the phone.

  “Anna,” he heard her say, “I got this guy over here you gotta meet.”

  “Anna” was Anna Malle, a gorgeous new porn star, who was in Chatsworth shooting a porn movie. Stan took Nancy to lunch, and then they swung by the hotel where Anna was staying. Anna’s husband was there, watching a football game on TV. He was a nice guy. After rapping with him for a while, they headed to the shoot. They got there just in time to see the “money shot.” Anna showered and they went back to the hotel, where Stan and Anna’s husband swapped the two girls back and forth. It was unbelievable.

  Seemingly drained dry, Stan announced he was done for the evening.

  “We’re just getting started,” Nancy announced enthusiastically.

  “What have I got myself into?” Stan said.

  They went to dinner, where Nancy made sure that Stan ate plenty of prime rib.

  “You need all the protein you can eat,” she said.

  Exactly why was demonstrated when they got back to the apartment. By now, the date was over 24 hours old and still going strong. Nancy called up Lana, another escort girl. She was a tall, lean, exotic Polynesian babe. Lana attacked Stan with sexual voraciousness. To his amazement, Stan maintained wood as if he had not released in two weeks. He satisfied both girls in every way for hours.

  In the morning, he awoke to find both of them giving him head. Again, he got it up and had intercourse with them. Lana showered and left.

  Stan went to sleep, trying to figure out if
all of this was a dream. Nancy made a bunch of phone calls, lining up bachelor parties, escort times, porn shoots and strip club appearances. Then they went to lunch. After lunch it was back to the apartment, where Stan watched TV, and Nancy made dinner. Then they went to the Rainbow. Nancy had called a bunch of her porn star friends to meet them there.

  At the bar, Nancy told all the hot girls that Stan was the greatest stud she had ever been with. She graphically described his length, width, staying power and ability to, uh, produce what General Jack Ripper in “Dr. Strangelove” called “vital bodily fluids.” They oohed and aahed as if she said she had just discovered the cure for AIDS.

  Naturally, two of Nancy’s porn friends came home with them. Stan serviced them. She was right. He delivered the goods and was proud of himself. After four days, Stan finally left Nancy’s apartment. He called Kaitlyn in Walnut Creek. He needed to hear her innocent little voice to convince him that he was still a decent human being. That Sunday he went to church and prayed that God would forgive him for being such a deviant. He truly felt that maybe, this time, he had gone over the line.

  I am doing the work of Satan, he lamented in prayer.

 

  Stan followed Billy Boswell’s baseball career with a combination of pride and envy. Boswell was the best athlete in the world and the greatest baseball player of all time, and had once been his rival. They had dealt with each other as equals. Stan had battled Billy, giving as much as he took. Their rivalry had encompassed a significant portion of Billy’s life. It had lasted from little league, then to a terrific high school career that spanned the glory days of sports on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, and on to college, where they represented ancient rivals USC and UCLA.

  Stan’s career had not taken off. Billy’s had. Stan talked down about Billy’s attitude. He was not comfortable with Boswell’s well-known preference for white women. Stan felt the sting of envy when Dan brought the subject up. Dan did not just talk about things. He rubbed it in. Stan wished his old man would shut up some times.

  Dan was getting crankier and crankier. His racial attitudes were getting more pronounced. Still, he was complex in this regard. Dan could be watching a baseball game on television, and the camera would show a white guy and a black guy laughing and joking with each other. Dan would get sentimental, almost to the point of tears.

  “I love seeing that,” he would tell Shirley. “That makes me feel good.”

  “Only in sports do you see that,” Shirley replied.

  Stan liked seeing racial harmony, too, but he had a more realistic outlook on things. His political and racial views were well formed. He was a Reagan conservative and a Christian, but he considered himself moderate. He opposed Roe vs. Wade, the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion, but was realistic about its existence as the “law of the land.” Stan had studied constitutional law at Georgetown, and he agreed with former Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork that the privacy clause was not a legitimate legal principle to apply to abortions. Children in the womb were human beings, not viable tissue matter. Ending their life was simply that, ending life. On the other hand, he was not willing to call it murder. Stan was a “big tent” Republican.

  “I don’t have the time to worry about what gay people do in private,” he said, “and I have other things to worry about beyond whether blacks and whites get together and become couples. If it makes `em happy, God bless `em.” Still, he had what he called “racial baggage.” Stan harbored a nagging frustration with black America, and what he considered an inability to solve their problems. He was of a mind that only black America could fix the inner cities. Throwing money at the problem had not worked. White guilt had not worked. The Great Society had failed, and in his view made things worse. Blacks were successful in sports and entertainment. Stan was increasingly peeved at black athletes who knew nothing about Jackie Robinson and other pioneers who had paved their way. Some of these guys, Stan reasoned, might be drug dealers if they were not great athletes, yet they were making millions while an educated, hard-working guy like himself struggled to overcome the “obstacles” tossed his way. Families like his - the ruling upper crust - no longer dominated society. For some reason, Stan did not feel like he had the advantages that a guy like himself used to have. The tables had turned.

  He knew his father was not a real, actual bigot. Dan was too intelligent to be a true bigot. Bigotry came from ignorance. Dan had gone the other way. He had started off as an idealist. The more he opened his eyes, the more anger he felt towards minorities who he had grown up feeling benign about. Dan was bitter, for some reason. His frustration with blacks was a manifestation of a greater frustration with himself.

  Stan was spending a lot of time with his friend, Mac, from USC. They often discussed their fathers. Mac had dealt with his Marine Corps dad and could relate to Stan’s angst.

  “What the hell does he have to be bitter about?” Stan told Mac. “I’m the one who has a right to be bitter. My old man, everything’s gone his way. College, sports, law school. He made it through law school. He had a great career in the law. A great marriage. Maybe I wouldn’t stayed married to either of my parents, but they made it. A good son. I’m not perfect, but I’m a good son. He’s been healthy and lived a good, productive life. A nice house. What’s he got to complain about?

  “Me, I’m the one who’s gotten the short end of the stick. I’m the one whose marriage tanked and who had his kid taken away. I’m the one who dropped out of law school to save a bad marriage. I’m the one who went into debt trying to save my business when Maslin bailed on me. What’s my old man got to complain about? I’d do anything to have my child with me, and he’s been able to enjoy me his whole life. You’d think from listening to his complaining ass that I was a fucking drug addict or something.”

  “So what’s his problem, do ya think?” asked Mac.

  “I think he doesn’t have God in his life,” was Stan’s assessment. “If he had God, he’d have some peace of mind. I at least have that. For all my faults, and I’ve got many, I’ve got God. I screw up all the time, I sin and I wander from the straight and narrow road - hell, I don’t wander, I’ve fucking taken major detours, but I always come back to get replenished.”

  Stan had always read a lot. Now he was extremely well read. Brad had studied Shakespeare in London, and had helped Stan to read and understand the Bard. Stan became learned of the classics, Greek mythology, biblical history, and all things having to do with Western Civilization. His knowledge became incredibly wide spread on a tremendous variety of topics. He listened to classical music, enjoyed plays and the opera, and became a font of information among his crowd of friends. Stan also spent a lot of time honing the craft of writing. He enrolled in the UCLA Writers’ Program at night and read a number of books about writing.

  Over the 1996 Christmas holidays, Dan and Shirley came back from snow-covered Tahoe to spend the holidays in sunny Southern California. Sweet Kaitlyn was flown up, and the Taylor’s enjoyed a beautiful family time. On Christmas day, they were sitting in front of the television, watching the video “Prancer”, starring Sam Elliott. Little Kaitlyn was right with the world in her daddy’s arms. Then the phone rang.

  “Hello,” said Shirley. A funny look came over her face. “Whoooo?” came out sounding like an emasculated owl. Finally she handed the phone to Stan. “It’s for you. Somebody named Ce Ce.”

  “Ce Ce?” muttered Stan. “Who the hell is Ce Ce?” He picked up the phone. “Hello.”

  “Hi, Stan,” came the female voice. It startled him. It was the voice of sex. Hearing it in the idyllic environment of the family room, with his perfect daughter sitting a few feet away, it somehow did not sound right. It was out of place. “This is Nancy.”

  “Oh, hi,” said Stan, without a clue who Nancy was.

  “I’m flying in tonight,” said Nancy. “I want to see you.”

  “Could you hold on for one second,” said Stan.

  “S
ure,” she said.

  Stan put the phone down.

  “I’m gonna get this in the other room,” he said to his parents. He went in to his room and closed the door.

  “Hi, Nancy,” he said.

  “Hi, baby,” cooed Nancy. “I’ve been thinking about you.”

  Then Stan heard Sam Elliott’s voice on the TV in the background.

  “Hold on, I’m sorry,” he said again.

  Stan trudged back upstairs and into the family room. His mother was listening in on the phone, while Dan stood a foot away, trying to hear what was being said. Stan wordlessly took the phone from Shirley and placed it on the hook. He trudged back downstairs. Then he realized who Nancy was. The porn star.

  God, how’d she get my number? he thought.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Umm,” she purred, “I’m horny.”

  Stan, as it has been demonstrated, was not a man of great discipline when it came to matters of sex. He melted. Nancy was one of those material girls who talked a mile a minute. Stan could hardly tell what the hell she was talking about. She explained that she was flying in to L.A. for the night. She no longer lived at the apartment in Culver City. She wanted to know whether Stan would pick her up at the airport, let her sleep with him (she went into pretty graphic detail on that score), and the next day would Stan drive her to L.A.X.?

  “Sure,” said Stan, who felt his erection at the same time that he was overtaken by a sense of dread. Did I give her the number? Sometimes a man makes a really bad mistake, but despite knowing it at the time, continues to make the mistake against all his better judgment. Such was the situation. Now Stan had to face the music. He trudged back upstairs.

  “Who was that, Daddy?” asked Kaitlyn, very inquisitively.

  “Uh, a friend,” he told her.

  “A girlfriend?” she asked.

  Oh, no, thought Stan.

  “Mom, Dad,” Stan stumbled. “I have this girl I know. She’s flying in for a night. Can she spend the night?”

  Stan had never gotten comfortable about talking to his parents about girlfriends. This was no ordinary “girlfriend.”

  Mom, Dad, uh, Kaitlyn, there’s this porn chick who screwed most of the Raiders’ and Trojans’ varsity a few weeks ago at Matthew Garr’s bachelor party. Matthew’s a friend of Todd Marinovich. You know, the quarterback who keeps flunking drugs tests. Everybody calls him Mariuanavich. Anyway this girl serviced all the boys and then I took her on a date and spent four days screwing all her porn friends, mostly without a rubber, and now she’s coming to fuck my brains out here, tonight, uh, how’s the movie goin’?

  “Sure,” said Dan, but he said it with hesitation.

  Everything went in slow motion. Stan’s “little head” dominated his thinking. He was quite excited about that hot little number squirming and licking and doing all the other things she did. But in his parent’s house? With his parents home? With his daughter there?

  Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, Stan prayed as he drove to airport. She looked great - just like a porn star! - in a dress and halter, her breasts all but flopping out of the top. It was a late flight. Stan theorized, no, prayed that his parents and Kaitlyn would be asleep when he got home. He would be okay until the morning. Then he would try and spirit her out of there. He normally would have gone for a hotel, but he had Kaitlyn at the house. She would ask why he had not come home.

  Stan arrived at the house. It was close to one in the morning. The light was on in the front room. Stan figured it was just left on for him. He had thought about telling Nancy he was going to his parent’s house, but he never did. Another bonehead move.

  “Wow, this is a nice house,” she said. She was ready to inventory the cutlery. She thought it was Stan’s own house. God knows whom she knew.

  Octavio, Raoul, I got a job for you. A white boy on the peninsula. Tons of expensive shit. It’ll be an easy rip job.

  He was wrong about Dan going to bed. He came in with Nancy, and there he was, waiting for them. The second he walked in that room, he knew he had made a mistake.

  Nancy was a nice, friendly girl. She was surprised to see Dan standing there. She turned and looked at Stan. For a split second Stan was mortified with fear that she would say something like, “I don’t mind doing a double team, baby, but it’ll cost an extra five hundred for grandpa.”

  Then Stan saw Dan look at her. She might as well have a big sign around her neck saying, “I’M A FUCKING SLUT AND I LOVE IT.”

  Stan made the introduction. Dan was formal and polite. They made small talk, talking about Nancy’s dog (who had constantly tried to lick Stan’s ass while he was screwing Nancy). Stan was just happy that Nancy did not mention that. Every time Nancy opened her mouth, Stan thought she was going to say something about “father/son fuck combos,” or something like that.

  Finally, Stan and Nancy went downstairs. Nancy started taking her clothes off. Kaitlyn was sleeping in a room down the hall.

  “Staaaan,” came Dan’s booming voice from the top of the stairs. He managed to sound like an injured moose.

  That was all Stan needed to hear. He was done. The game was over. The jig was up.

  “Yeah,” he replied, weakly, knowing his fate was sealed.

  “Would you come up here, please?” Dan said.

  Like a condemned prisoner, Stan trudged out of the room and halfway up the stairs.

  “Yeah,” he repeated.

  Dan’s face was about 47 feet long. His jowls normally curved downward, making him look like he was frowning even when he was not. Now his mouth was pursed into a dot. His eyes were narrowed, He was not happy.

  “You’re not gonna sleep with that girl, are you?” Dan asked.

  “I was thinkin’ about it,” Stan barely muttered.

  “You can’t do that,” said Dan. “I made up the guest room for her, but she can’t sleep with you.”

  Stan just looked at him. Then he heard Shirley’s high-pitched voice.

  “Staaaaan,” she said, “you can’t do it. It’s immoral.”

  “Stan,” said Dan, “not with Kaitlyn here. It’s wrong. If this gets back to Karen, you could lose custody rights.”

  Stan had listened to his parents give him a ton of crap a million times. He had long ago learned to decipher their rhetoric, and concluded most of the time that they were full of hot air. They just liked to give him heat because they felt the need to give him heat. He was an easy, available target. He filled their need to complain about somebody.

  This time, however, Stan knew he had nothin’ comin’. He was on the wrong side of the moral equation. There was nothing to say. He just folded his tail between his legs, turned around and went back in the room. Nancy was lying seductively on the bed, looking like a girl who was ready to worship every inch of what he had. Stan had to explain, as gently as possible, that his parents more or less realized that she was a complete floozy. Therefore she would have to find other lodging tonight, thank you.

  “It’s just because my daughter’s here,” Stan explained. “My ex-wife is a real bitch, and if word gets to her I have some girl here, she could cause trouble.”

  Nancy could have started trouble, and that would have been baaaaad! She could have yelled and screamed. She could have aired dirty laundry. Kaitlyn would have wandered in and said, “Daddy, who is this lady? Daddy, why is she yelling bad words?” Stan imagined his father yelling, “Shirley, call the cops. Now!”

  Instead, thank God instead, Nancy, sex hound that she was, said, “I understand.” She was terrific about it. She was still a mother and despite her way of life, not a complete Dumbellionite.

  Stan packed her up, spirited her to the car, and drove to a motel in El Segundo. He paid for her motel and gave her money for the short cab ride to the airport the next day. He kissed her good bye.

  “You’re not going, are you?” she said.

  After all that she still wanted Stan. God bless her. Stan went to town on her for an hour. She finish
ed him off in the usual manner, and Stan left. Stan was prepared for the worst. To their lasting credit, Dan and Shirley never mentioned the incident again.

  Unbelievably, Nancy called him a few days later.

  “Hey, wanna go to the porn convention?” she asked him.

  Like asking if he wanted to go to the Laker game. Kaitlyn was back with Karen.

  “Sure,” Stan said.

  So it was that Stan found himself in a car with four hot porn stars driving to Las Vegas. He heard all their “tricks of the trade” for five hours. The porn stars met at Bally’s bar the first night. The “porn convention” was really the Consumer Electronics Show. The CES was supposed to be a convention that displays all the latest electronic gadgetry. The porn stars had attached themselves to it, ostensibly because their product, videos that played on VCRs, needed electricity. They actually had their convention in a location separate from the site where Japanese techies displayed their latest gizmos.

  Everybody goes to the convention for the porn stars, not the electronics.

  On the way to Vegas, Stan told the girls about “Once He Was An Angel”, the screenplay he wrote in New York about Bo Belinsky.

  “There’ll be a lot of roles for cute girls,” he said. “I can use all four of you.”

  The girls giggled as if Daryl F. Zanuck had just promised them stardom.

  “Really?” they gushed.

  What a bunch of Dumbellionites, thought Stan.

  Aside from Nancy, there was Crystal Gold, Olivia and Heather Lee. Crystal was a statuesque blonde with a set of volleyballs for breasts. Olivia was an emaciated blonde with a set of volleyballs for breasts. Heather was a gorgeous Hispanic firebrand with a set of volleyballs for breasts.

  At the Bally’s bar, Stan was amazed at all the talent. In his entire life he had never seen so many gorgeous women in one place. That night, he had sex with Nancy and Heather.

  The next day, flush with another sterling performance, Stan was lying in bed when the phone rang in their hotel room. The girls were gone, since they had to be on the showroom floor early.

  “Hello,” he answered.

  “Is Nancy there?” said a female voice.

  “No,” he said, “can I take a message?”

  “Whose this?” said the girl.

  “This is Stan,” he said.

  “Steve Drake!” she gushed. “Ohh, I can’t wait to work with you.”

  “Uh, I can’t wait to work with you, too,” said Stan, “but I said Stan, not Steve. Stan Taylor. Whose this?”

  “This is Crystal,” she said.

  “Ah, Crystal,” said Stan, “I rode here with you, Nancy, Olivia and Heather yesterday.”

  Indeed, she had spent five hours in a car with Stan, but was so ditzy that it took two minutes for Stan to refresh her memory.

  What a Dumbellionite, thought Stan.

  Of course, she was a Dumbellionite with one of the finest racks in the Western world. Crystal was not quite sure what Stan was, a producer maybe. That meant she should be nice to him.

  Stan invited her up to the room to talk about his script, “Once He Was An Angel”, figuring these porn girls were easily impressed. Crystal was. Half an hour later, she was in the room. Stan started talking about “Once He Was An Angel”, a legitimate script idea that he planned to get into Charlie Sheen’s hands.

  “Oh, I know Charlie,” said Crystal.

  “Really?” said Stan.

  “That son of a bitch,” she said. “He thinks he can just treat women like shit because he pays more than the others.”

  “Whaddaya mean?” asked Stan.

  “Well,” she said, “he’s all nice-nice at first. Flowers and wine. Then he gets you to dress up in some cheerleader outfit that he keeps and he starts to treat you like a whore and a slut.”

  Treat you like a slutty whore? Stan thought. Naaaaaww.

  “Did he hit you?” asked Stan.

  “I think he wanted to,” said Crystal. “He just hates women. It’s that whole Catholic thing.”

  Crystal did not understand that “Once He Was An Angel” was a real script. She must have thought it was a porn flick. What she thought, nobody knows. What this girl did not know could fill a void larger than all space. What is known is that she had Stan’s erect manhood in her mouth when Nancy walked in the door.

  “Hi, honey,” Stan said, cheerfully. “I was just talking to Crystal here about my script.”

  Having a blowjob performed on him when Nancy entered the room had not seemed unusual to Stan at all. Nancy was the same girl who had invited half the porn chicks in the San Fernando Valley to swing with them. She had shared him with Heather the night before. But logic does not figure with these girls. Nancy went ballistic.

  “What about me?” she whined. “If Crystal’s gonna be in your movie, what about me? I thought I was gonna be in your movie.”

  “You will,” said Stan, who noticed that Crystal’s mouth was no longer wrapped around his woodie.

  “Who told you you could fuck Crystal?” asked Nancy. “She won’t fuck you.”

  “Well, she certainly has no problem blowing me,” said Stan.

  “But she won’t fuck you,” said Nancy, as if this was some kind of important differential. She turned to Crystal.

  “He won’t pay for my breasts,” she said.

  “Asshole,” she said. She was now standing up and had shoved one melon-size breast back into her Summer dress.

  “Who said anything about paying for your breasts?” asked Stan. “This is bizarre.”

  “He lives at home with his parents,’ said Nancy.

  “Eeeeeuuuhh,” said Crystal.

  “You never fucked Heather,” Nancy said to Stan accusingly.

  “You mean Heather who I screwed in front of you last night?” asked Stan. “That Heather?”

  “He said he was Steve Drake,” said Crystal.

  “You don’t love me,” Nancy said to him. “You just wanna fuck my friends.”

  “Ain’t talkin’ bout love,” sang Stan like David Lee Roth.

  “I never should have believed you,” said Nancy.

  “What’s love got to do with it,” Stan mangled Tina Turner.

  “I can’t believe I didn’t charge you,” said Nancy.

  “What in the wide, wide world of sports is goin’ on her?” said Stan in an excellent Slim Pickens imitation from “Blazing Saddles”.

  “You owe me a thousand dollars,” said Crystal.

  Stan stared at his watch.

  “Gotta git gotta go,” he said, imitating Robert DeNiro in “Cape Fear”.

  “Call Rocco,” Nancy said.

  Crystal dialed a number.

  “Rocco,” she said, “we’ve got problems with a mook.”

  Who the fuck is Rocco? thought Stan. He was not about to find out

  The rest of the conversation contained no more intelligence or common sense than the first part. That was irrelevant to the fact that Stan got the boot. He actually was packed and leaving anyway. He did not want to find out who Rocco was. He doubted Rocco’s presence would be of any value to him. He called his former teammate Danny Ferrara, who lived in Vegas, and asked him to pick him up.

  Dan came by, and Stan described the entire thing to him driving to his house. Dan thought it was hilarious. He was utterly titillated that Stan was such a stud with all these porn stars.

  “You’re my hero,” he told Stan. Dan was married. Such thrills were unavailable to him, so he would have to live vicariously through Stan. Stan had never met his wife. Dan told her all the details of what Stan had told him. She was absolutely disgusted. Stan stayed there that night, and she looked at him as if he was a convicted rapist.

  “Women don’t understand our primal urges,” Dan told him the next day on the way to the airport.

  Back from Vegas, Stan was determined to try and get on the straight and narrow. His expenses were low. He paid child support to Karen and serviced his debt. Settled in to his r
oom at the house with his folks back in Tahoe, he started writing another screenplay.

  His adventures with porn stars had been so wild and crazy that Stan got the bright idea of hunting down Rebecca. My God, she’s stable compared with these adult film stars. He found her at Critter’s, an aptly named dive near the beach in Hermosa. She was living with the bartender in Manhattan Beach. Stan was shocked when he saw her. She was still beautiful, but painfully thin.

  Stan and Bruno took Rebecca on one last hurrah, a road trip to Palm Springs, where her parents now lived. Stan could tell she could not to be saved. His fantasy of rescuing this damsel from the distress of drug addiction was gone. He still loved her as a friend, but it was only a matter of time.

  After the Palm Springs trip, Stan did not see or hear from Rebecca for some time. He could have looked for her, but he chose not to. He knew what he would see, and he chose not to face it. Finally, he went down to Critter’s to check on her. He saw Mickey, the 60-year old drunk/bartender she had been living with.

  “Hey, remember me?” he asked Mickey. “Rebecca’s friend. How’s she doing?”

  “Rebecca died last week,” he told him. The news hit Stan like a ton of bricks. He broke down and cried.

  Rebecca had cirrhosis of the liver, from years of drinking, compounded by drugs, bad diet, and overall poor lifestyle. She would go long periods without sleep. It had all caught up to her. Once she went into the final stages, she had no strength and no willpower. She went quickly.

  Stan wrote a letter to her parents, expressing his sympathy. He had a funny feeling that her death had almost been s a relief to them, after all the years they had spent worrying about her. Stan prayed for her mortal soul, hoping that somehow this troubled, yet sweet girl, had found peace and maybe even salvation.

  Why not, Lord? prayed Stan. I don’t know why this girl was the way she was. She never found peace on Earth. Please let her find peace now.

  Kaitlyn turned nine in 1996 and entered the fourth grade in Walnut Creek. Her mother was not re-married. Stan went up to see her frequently. She visited Lake Tahoe a lot, and Stan had her in the Summer, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter. They loved each other dearly.

  One morning, Stan woke up, got a cup of coffee, and sat down with the Los Angeles Times, which had taken to printing ads for strip clubs in their sports page. There she was. Ashley Michele, the gangbang queen. She had gone on to make many other videos after the one that had entranced Stan in New York. She was unbelievable. Her videos never failed to deliver massive facial cum shots, usually from multiple guys after giving her double penetration. Ashley was the biggest star in adult films.

  She was dancing at Bob’s Classy Lady in the San Fernando Valley. Stan had sworn off porn stars after his Vegas trip. He was still asking theological questions that resulted from seeing the beautiful Rebecca die of liver cancer. He had buckled down to writing and did not go to strip clubs. He did not even hang out at bars that much.

  I gotta see this girl, he told himself.

  Stan arrived early at Bob’s Classy Lady. It was a medium-size strip joint located in a non-descript industrial park in Van Nuys. Various Michelle Ashley paraphernalia was displayed around the club. The place was jam-packed with Michelle’s adoring, perverted public. Stan was unable to situate himself up at the front of the stage. He eschewed the advances of the other strippers.

  Finally, at the appointed time, the lights went low.

  “Here’s what you’ve all been waiting for,” droned the announcer. “She’s the number one sex star in the Universe. You’ve seen her in Penthouse, Playboy, Hustler, and numerous men’s magazines. She’s starred in over 100 triple-X rated adult films. They call her the Queen of Double Penetration. The gang bang girl of every man’s fantasy. The porn chick who never met a cumload she didn’t not want all over her face. The sexiest, sluttiest, wildest woman of all times…ASHLEEEY MICHELLE!!”

  Ashley appeared on stage wearing yellow lingerie. She was very tanned, and in the light of the club this made her so hot it almost drove Stan over the edge. She put on a fabulous show, and had every guy in the place convinced she was going to actually bust into a full gangbang.

  When she was finished, Ashley signed autographs for a long line of guys. Stan did not even bother. She was very busy and it looked impossible. Too many other guys were around. There was no intimacy. Then she disappeared. Stan hung around the club for a while. The other strippers were annoyed because he did not pay for any lap dances. Finally, he was ready to leave. Then he saw Ashley, dressed in thigh high black boots and leopard skin pants. She was leaving. By herself. Stan followed her out. She headed to her car with an escort, one of the club’s bouncers. Stan saw her go to her car, a red Mustang.

  Nice car, he said to himself.

  Then a light went on in Stan’s head.

  Jesus, he thought to himself. Stan ran to his car. He saw her pull out of the parking lot. He followed her. She entered the 101 westbound. Stan followed right behind. It was after midnight and traffic was light. She picked up the 405 south. Stan popped his favorite Garth Brooks tape into the cassette.

  “I got friends in low places,” sang Stan. He had developed an eclectic taste in music. He listened to country, rock, classical and Frank Sinatra. He had taken to wearing a cowboy hat and had one perched on his head.

  She kept going over the Sepulveda pass, past Santa Monica and the airport.

  Jesus, thought Stan, does she live in the South Bay?

  He got his answer when she signaled right at Lawndale. She headed to Artesia, took a right, then left at Aviation.

  Shit, thought Stan, she lives where I used to live.

  Indeed, when she turned left on Pacific Coast Highway, she was headed to Redondo, where Stan had once lived with Karen. Ashley’s car kept going, and she parked in front of Hennessy’s in South Redondo, one of Stan’s favorite haunts. He enjoyed singing Karaoke there on Sunday nights. Stan parked, and got out. Ashley got out, and headed into Hennessy’s.

  “Holy cow,” said Stan. He knew everybody there. Stan checked himself. He was wearing cowboy boots, jeans and a blue dress shirt. He tossed the cowboy hat in the back seat and smoothed his hair.

  “Here goes,” he said.

  He entered Hennessy’s. It was a Tuesday night, and the place was almost empty. Stan saw her sitting at the bar. Stan sat two seats down from her. They made eye contact.

  People talk about “love at first sight.” Stan was, of course, infatuated with this girl. Technically, it could be argued that he had just stalked her. But what he saw in her eyes when they she looked at him stunned him. She smiled, a huge, inviting smile.

  “Hey,” she said. “I’m Michelle.”

  Stan was a pretty good-looking guy. He was tall and blonde in a Viking way. That had worked well for him in Italy. But he was not the kind of man who got the big girl reaction. Brad got the come-hither stares and the blatant propositions. Stan got women in unorthodox ways. He had gotten groupie girls when he played ball. He got “leftovers” when he hung out with handsome friends. He had learned to manipulate the women who work in the sex industry. He found an angle, figured them out, watching them and preying on their individual traits. He was the thinking man’s pervert.

  To some extent, he had done that with this girl, having seen her in the club and following her. But she did not know that. She had not seen him at Bob’s Classy Lady. Michelle just viewed him as a guy walking into a bar for a nightcap. Stan had a lot of experience with beautiful women. That experience had taught him that most of the time they needed to be “broken down.” That was one of the things he enjoyed, getting a girl, full of herself because of her looks. Getting her to give herself up and submit to lovemaking. That was the essence of the conquest. It was why porn movies were so popular. Most men have no chance of ever getting beautiful women. The porn stars represented gorgeous girls, the girls they never got in high school, the kind they never got in bars or anywhere else. They submitted to their wildest
fantasies in the privacy of their homes, via the videocassette recorder.

  Stan was the guy who never got the girls in high school. He had idealized women into a kind of fantasy hooker. But he had enough going for him, in terms of looks and smarts, to occasionally break into their world and be a part of that fantasy. But Michelle, smiling at him after seeing him for two seconds, immediately reminded him of Rebecca, that rarest of women. She was truly beautiful, yet she appeared totally open and friendly. There was no doubt that this girl had spent a lifetime getting hit on by men. There was no way it could be any different. She could put on a sweat suit and a camouflage Army jacket, and everybody could still see that she was built like a brick outhouse. But she did not possess any attitude.

  “Hi,” said Stan, casually. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Sure,” she said. “Merlot.”

  “I’m Stan,” he said.

  She offered her hand. Stan kissed it. She smiled.

  So it went. Stan and the most beautiful women he had ever set his eyes on, for 45 minutes in an empty bar, with no other competition. It was as off God had arranged it.

  “So what do you do?” asked Michelle.

  “I’m a writer,” said Stan.

  “A writer?” she said, as if Stan had said he was an astronaut. “What kind of writing?”

  “I wrote a stage play in New York called ‘Killer’,” he said. “I wrote a screenplay called ‘Baja California’ that we filmed in Mexico. It had an art house run and I think it’s on Cinemax next week, during the day I think.”

  “Oh, my God,” said Michelle. “I’m an actress.”

  “I was gonna say,” said Stan, “an actress or a model. Do you mind if I tell you something.”

  “Please do,” she said, smiling.

  “You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever set my eyes upon, in person, from afar, in pictures, anywhere,” said Stan.

  “Flattery,” said Michelle, “will get you everywhere.”

  “So where would I have seen your work?” asked Stan.

  “Well,” said Michelle, “I was a Raiderette for one season. I’ve been in Penthouse and Playboy. The Frederick’s catalogue. Swimwear Illustrated. Those kinds of magazines.”

  “What about acting?” asked Stan.

  “Well,” said Michelle, “I studied drama at UCLA for a year, but my daddy got sick and I had to drop out. I’ve taken modeling assignments to make a living until I can get on my feet as an actress.”

  “I’m working on a script right now,” Stan told her, “that you’d be perfect for.”

  “Really?” she said.

  “It’s called ‘A Murderous Campaign’,” said Stan. “It’s about a girl who has to drop out of college and becomes a porn star.” Stan eyed Michelle to see if she was going to give away her identity. “Then she becomes a high class fantasy escort for politicians, businessmen, sports stars and whatnot. She gets involved with the Governor of Louisiana, a Bill Clinton-type sleaze ball. Political marriage to a heartless Hillary type. Claims he’s gonna drop out of politics and marry the girl. She’s naïve and believes him. Then she overhears him planning the assassination of a political rival. They find out that she knows, and she runs. They try to kill her, so she has to go into hiding.

  “The girl finds a crusty journalist who knows all the dirt on the politician. They’re both targets, so they go on the lamb and discover a network of assassinations. All the politician’s rivals, people who stood in his way, have been killed going back 15 years. By now the politician’s running in the Democrat Presidential Primaries. They uncover it and take it public.

  “At first, the politician looks to be done, but then his PR guys get on damage control and explain the writer is a right wing ‘wacko’ with an axe to grind, the girl’s a porn star, who’d believe them? The candidate emerges stronger than ever. The girl and the writer know their goose is cooked if he makes it to the White House and has control of the F.B.I., C.I.A., all that.

  “The writer goes back to Louisiana and finds the father of the Governor’s chief of staff, an old Ku Klux Klan guy who the writer knows has a crisis of conscience. He gets the guy to spill the beans on a big drug smuggling operation in the Bayou swamps. Just like what Clinton had going in Mena, Arkansas when he was Governor. The writer has friends in the F.B.I. and Republicans who want to bring the Democrat down, and the whole op is exposed. Whaddaya think?”

  “That’s a great story,” said Michelle.

  “My buddy Brad is a producer,” said Stan. “Maybe we can make this our next project. You’d be great. We need a girl who’s beautiful enough to be believable as this incredible porn star who can knock anybody off their feet.”

  Stan looked at her again. Had he gone too far talking about porn stars? She never wavered.

  “God, that sounds great,” she gushed.

  Stan had little doubt that he could have gone home with Michelle that night, but he decided to play it very cool. She told him true facts about herself. She simply did not tell Stan what he already knew, which was that she had once sucked off 47 men at the same time on camera.

  Michelle told him all about growing up in Tahoe, how her mother and father were divorced, and she loved her “daddy” very much. Michelle had made enough money to take care of his operations, and had bought him a house. Now, thanks to her, he was doing very well. She had never been married, had no children, but wanted marriage and kids very soon.

  She did not say that she had chosen not to go back to UCLA because being an adult film star was too lucrative a profession to quit. She did not say that she knew her chances of ever becoming a legitimate actress were over now that she had taken a giant leap into adult fame.

  Stan was quite sure she stared into his eyes an extra second or two when she talked to him. She said she had not had many “steady” boyfriends because her modeling career had taken a lot of time, what with travel and all. She made it very obvious to Stan that she was available.

  She lived in a house on the ocean just a few blocks away, in Redondo Beach. She gave Stan her phone number. Stan went home. He could not believe what had happened. He was also immediately confused as to what to do with this girl. He wanted to tell his pals that he had landed - or was soon to “land” - a popular porn star. But he liked her. Did he want an actual relationship with her? Did he just want fantasy sex, like his fling with Nancy? She seemed much more intelligent than the porn girls he hung out with in Vegas, but he did not know her yet. Plus, she was recognizable. People would know who she was. What about his family? If he got serious with her, and introduced her to them, how long would it take before they knew about her sex goddess status? Dan had a sixth sense for this kind of thing. He had brought Nancy into the house, and Dan just knew she was a tramp.

  This girl was unbelievable. She had the biggest, most awe-inspiring breasts in the world. It would be impossible to walk around with her. Everybody would know she was something. Stan had put a moratorium on porn stars. Oh yeah, he had lifted it voluntarily by going to Bob’s Classy Lady. In the back of his mind, he had wanted this to happen. But this was so fast, so easy. Who can explain physical attraction and chemistry? For whatever reason, Stan was Michelle’s exact type. She liked `em tall, blonde, athletic, rugged, and All-American. She did not want the pretty boys, the exotic Hispanic pop stars, the soap opera types like Brad. Give her a young Clint Eastwood. The kind of guy who would go to the Naval Academy - or be a Marine officer!

  Christ almighty, Stan thought to himself. How would this go over at the family Christmas get-together? He could imagine Uncle Charles, and his stodgy cousins, getting a glimpse of this one. There are some girls, no matter what, when you see them you just know they make their living through sex. On the other hand, she had been a Raiderette, and a model of bikinis and lingerie. Lord, this was respectable compared to being a porn star. Maybe it could be pulled off.

  “Every time I try to get out,” Stan said out loud, like Al Pacino in “Godfather II
I”, “they pull me back in.”

  Stan waited a couple of days, then called Michelle, leaving a message. She called him the next day from New Orleans, where she was dancing at a strip club. She told him she was shooting for Swimsuit Illustrated. They made arrangements to see each other when she came back to L.A. in a week.

  Stan waited the longest week of his life, and went to her house for their date. It was a nice place with a great ocean view. She was dressed in a spectacular black cocktail dress. Stan was unable to contain his enthusiasm over the fact that she liked him.

  Michelle showed Stan her portfolio. Indeed, she had posed for Playboy, Penthouse and many other magazines. Many of the photos were nude, but not pornographic. She had been a Raiderette, and had the photos to show it. At some point, she had had some plastic surgery. Not just upgrading her naturally substantial breasts into the mammoth rack she now had, but work on her lips, and in other areas. Stan noted that the Penthouse layout was before her gangbang video. She was hiding that from him! Stan wanted to tell her that he knew and it did not matter to him, but he held his silence. She had been doing a lot of legitimate modeling, even recently, in addition to porns. It seemed that she had the ability to make a living without being an adult film star.

  Stan took her to P.F. Changs on Rosecrans on the El Segundo-Manhattan Beach border. They drank wine and talked. Stan told her about his life and his new writing career. He told her about going to Mexico to shoot “Baja California”, and how he was sure that this was just the beginning of his success in Hollywood. She was enthralled with what he told her, laughing at his jokes, her big eyes wide and impressed at everything he said. It was incredible.

  In the mean time, Stan was aware of amazing stares and whispers. He could not tell whether she was being recognized as a porn girl. Rather, her looks were so stunning that she awed people. It was impossible to hide their amazement at her face and figure. It was a little uncomfortable for Stan, but at the same time he liked it. He had been out with beautiful women before and they always drew stares, but nothing like this. He understood the concept of a girl looking like his “trophy.” Men seemed to respect him more, and he was getting admiring stares from women - patrons, the attractive maitre’d, everybody. It was obvious what they all were thinking, that if he could handle a hot number like that, he must be pretty outrageous himself. Yeeow.

  Stan was determined to play it as cool as possible. He even told himself he would not take have sex with her, even though he knew she would go to bed with him. He wanted to stretch it out, make her yearn for it, to be special. Those plans went awry when they arrived at her house. Stan walked her up to the door, and she started to kiss him. Stan was as hard as blue tungsten steel. Michelle stroked him with her hands.

  Once in the house, it was “Katie bar the door.” Into the bedroom they went, like wild animals, and Stan made love to that girl until the sun broke in the morning. He was in love, and so was she. They immediately became a couple. Stan had to make a decision, quickly, on what he was going to tell his parents and daughter about Michelle. When Kaitlyn, now nine years old, came to visit for Thanksgiving, he had Michelle over to the house.

  It was the Saturday night after Thanksgiving, 1996. Normally, Stan and Dan would have used their season tickets to go to the USC-Notre Dame game. They decided this year, because Michelle was coming over and Kaitlyn would be there, to watch it on television.

  When Dan came out of the house to greet Stan and Michelle, pulling up in the driveway, Stan was paralyzed for just a second when he saw his father’s reaction to her. She was dressed conservatively, but it did not matter. Her breasts were so huge, her body so seductive, that male (and female) reaction was impossible to avoid.

  “Lord almighty, you’ve done well for yourself, son,” Dan muttered to Stan after being introduced.

  “Dear Gawd,” was all Shirley could say at first.

  “Dad-deee,” was Kaitlyn’s interesting eye-opening reaction.

  The saving grace was Michelle. She was simply so nice, articulate, polite and wonderful that everybody, Kaitlyn included, fell in love with her immediately. On top of everything, USC ended a losing streak against Notre Dame that night that had stretched all the way back to 1982.

  “That’s all I need to know, Michelle,” Dan told her. “You’re a member of the family now. You’ve brought us good luck.” Indeed, her presence, coinciding with the Trojans’ victory over their greatest rival, could not have been better timed.

  Everybody was pleased with Stan’s new girlfriend.

  I wonder how they’d all feel if they saw “Ashley’s Facial Cumshot Gangbang Fantasy”, thought Stan. Everything in life, it seems, comes with a catch.

  In January, 1997, Stan moved into Michelle’s house. He concentrated on writing his screenplays and taking pitch meetings with industry executives. Stan had an agent by now. Lon Robertson was an angular, jovial fellow who represented mostly B-list writers and producers out of an office on Robertson Boulevard near Beverly Hills. He had high hopes for young Stan.

  Stan managed to get some work, mostly “script doctor” assignments in which a writer or producer would have a screenplay that needed work. Maybe it needed better dialogue, a better ending, or just an overhaul. Lon negotiated a price, and Stan got the assignments. Most of it was non-union, but it was work and Stan was happy to do it. One rich businessman paid him $50,000 to write a 20-page treatment about a friend of his, a former Marine fighter pilot who had courageously battled back after a terrifying crash. Stan managed to milk the treatment into several articles, in Orange County and Aviation magazines. It never became a movie.

  Stan even wrote a song, an ode to Kaitlyn. Brad was a musician with a deal in Europe. He recorded the sweet ballad on a CD that sold reasonably well on the Continent.

  Stan’s profits, from “Killer”, “Baja California”, the Marine flyer’s story, “Broken Wings”, and other work, went to paying off the large debt he had incurred in his unsuccessful attempt to keep New York Sports Management, Inc. a growing concern. Every time Dan saw him on television, he want crazy.

  “There’s our Goddamn hundred grand,” he muttered. He never knew that Stan had poured additional money into the deal, and lost it. Dick Maslin, after filing for bankruptcy and singing for the Feds after getting caught violating S.E.C. laws, was now a salesman for a salami company.

  Stan wanted very much wanted to make enough money to pay Dan his $100,000 back from the sports agency fiasco. He needed that one deal, the big break that would put him over the top.

  Billy Boswell’s reputation got worse and worse with the media. He made enemies left and right. The hard-hitting L.A. sports radio circuit was all over him. Billy was a man-child, and the slow process of maturation took longer for him than most people.

  Stan had followed Billy’s baseball career with a combination of pride and envy. But Billy had never acknowledged Stan in the years since college. Stan had tried to get to him when he was an agent. He never succeeded in breaking past the phalanx of Billy’s gatekeepers. There was his manager, his agent, his bodyguard, his personal trainer, his nutritionist, his “go-fer,” and his friend. Matt Hobli. The only “civilians” allowed into his world were nasty sex girls.

  33-year old Stan Taylor had lived an interesting life. He had experienced his share of ups and downs, with the emphasis on downs, when it came to business. His love life had proven to be flashy and unstable. Now he was living with a porn star hiding that fact from him. He knew about it but could not bring himself to tell her. He had tried to make a go of it with Karen. The result was his beautiful daughter. He was very grateful for her. She was the one true and sacred thing in his life.

  He looked at friends of his who seemed to move easily through life, and wondered why it could not be that way for him. Was that what he really wanted? Mark Terry had married Sandra. He was a top beverage company executive in the South with three children. Walt Coleman, of all people, had married his liberal feminist girlfriend from Long Island. He
was settled into a lifetime job with his dad’s international re-insurance company. His outrageous racial views were now replaced by sopping liberalism, spoon-fed to him by his wife. He might as well have gone to one of those “re-education” camps that the Khmer Rouge had set up in Cambodia. Stan thought it was great that Walt no longer drove up and down West Adams Boulevard yelling “nigger” at the blacks on the sidewalk, but he had gone so far to the left that he seemed brainwashed. “The Manchurian Executive,” Stan called him. Nobody could get old Walt out of the house anymore. All his free time was spent with his kids.

  Brad Cooper, still single and loving it, was the kind of guy who could appreciate the irony of Stan’s life. Stan confided in him how he was trying to pass off a highly recognizable porno chick to his family as his respectable girlfriend.

  “Only you could get into a mess like that,” said Brad.

  “For God’s sake don’t tell anybody,” said Stan. “Especially don’t tell Timmy Silvera. Christ, he’ll make a movie about it.”

  Michelle went off to “work,” and it made Stan feel uneasy. She came home, and Stan imagined that just a few hours earlier a bunch of guys had been jacking off all over her. It was a disconcerting concept. He constantly tried to justify the relationship. On the one hand, she was very sweet and loving. She was articulate and supportive of him. She truly loved him. She was the first woman who ever really loved Stan. This was a feeling that Stan felt was worth anything to maintain.

  But he could not see how this could be a lasting union. Right from the start, Michelle talked about marriage and children. Stan was gung-ho to get married and especially to have more kids, but could he marry her? Could it work out? She was so incredibly beautiful, but Stan could not get past the concept of her being his fantasy woman. He thought about all those pro athletes who party with flashy strippers and scantily clad pop singers, but when you saw there wives at the stadium they were a bunch of “plain Janes.” Stan realized that he was just like they were. He liked the hot chicks for sex, but he wanted “the girl just like the girl who married dear old Dad” for his wife and mother of his kids.

  Stan started having nightmares. Michelle would be having sex with men on a porno set while Stan’s children observed from a playpen a few feet away.

  “Mommy, can I have some milk?” the child asked.

  “Just a second, sweetie,” said Michelle while taking it doggy style.

  Stan woke up in a cold sweat. On the other hand, despite her looks and her profession, Michelle was very old-fashioned. She loved her father and had many of the traits that Stan, or anybody, would look for in a wife. She had started off at UCLA as an aspiring actress. The problem always came back to what other people would think. Other people included his family - his parents and his daughter. If Karen got wind of this she would have a fit. Stan shuddered at the thought. He soldiered on, not telling Michelle what he knew.

  Stan also found it hard to believe that she wanted to be with him. He was a struggling writer, and she was the kind of girl who could get millionaires to do anything for her. When it was all said and one, however, Stan chose not to look a gift horse in the mouth. It was a very good deal, everything considered.

  Stan never made mention of porn movies. The subject never came up, and Stan never expressed that he had ever seen one. Apparently, Michelle thought he was some kind babe in the woods. She chose to keep her life a secret. When they went to rent tapes, Stan always made sure that they went to Blockbuster, because they did not rent adult titles. Secretly, when she was gone, which was quite often, he went to the video store that did carry adult films. There she was, her newest works! He would check out Hustler’s Erotic Video Guide, and find extensive news and information about Ashley Michelle. Stan had always wanted this kind of woman – a vixen, a sex goddess, a love machine. Now he had one.

  Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it.

  Michelle got phone calls on her cell, and disappeared into the other room to have secret conversations. She always masked her porn work as a modeling shoot. She did enough straight modeling to carry it off. Michelle pulled the wool over Stan’s eyes. Stan was willing to go along with the charade.

  Michelle loved children, animals, and wholesome things. Sexually, though, she was everything that Stan could possibly ask for. No fantasy, no sex game was out of bounds. In fact, she wanted to get riskier. She wanted to do “role playing,” and hinted at bringing others, even her girlfriends, into their lives. They always had names likes Summer, Paradise, and Destiny. Did she really think she was fooling him, and how dumb did she think he was? Stan just played it that way. To Michelle, he was a lawyer’s kid from Palos Verdes Estates who had never been around the block. What a crock!

  Michelle visited her father often. Stan knew that Michelle had entered the adult film industry so she could make enough money to take care of him. She had succeeded in doing that. The family had been in debt, and she had made this decision.

  Michelle got along famously with Stan’s parents.

  “She lights up the room whenever she’s here,” Dan said. He was crazy about her, and Stan even enjoyed being around him when he had her with him. Shirley fell in love with her. But Stan was constantly worried that her secret would be revealed. He wondered how it would all play out if it did. He kept her from his friends as much as possible. When he took her out, she garnered stares all the time, but her looks were responsible for that. They would go to the beach, and Michelle in a bikini was a sight beyond the wildest imagination.

  In the Summer of 1997, Kaitlyn came down to stay with them. She thought Michelle was the neatest, nicest lady she had ever met. The contrast with her frumpy, overweight mother was not lost on her. That Summer, the subject came up, “Would you like to live with us?”

  To Stan’s great joy, Kaitlyn said she would. Instead of returning to Walnut Creek, 10-year old Kaitlyn was enrolled in the fifth grade in Redondo Beach. Stan was in paradise. He went to church every Sunday, and thanked God for delivering him from a wilderness of pain, a fruitless search for happiness through hedonistic pleasures of the flesh. He had a woman and a daughter who loved him. Stan decided not to question it.

  Having Kaitlyn was a salve to him. She possessed the sweet innocence that tamed the savage beast within. She was a great kid, full of spunk and vinegar. She had a sassy mouth, and could be annoying, but she loved her daddy and was safe in the sure knowledge of his love.

  He wrote screenplays. He had found his calling as a writer. He thanked God for that. He needed passion to deal with the writer’s life. He had not progressed as quickly as he had hoped. His original writing forays had been successful. The big break into mainstream Hollywood had not yet happened. His acting career had not taken off, since he had not pursued that with the kind of effort he put into writing.

  Stan hooked up with a fellow named Dave Casey. Casey claimed to be a big friend and partners with Frank Capra, Jr., and Frank Capra III, the son and grandson of the famed director of “It’s A Wonderful Life”. Casey “owned” a property about a cancer drug that had been blackballed in the 1950s, and said he felt it would be a major blockbuster. He was raising money for the project. Both Capras were co-producing it with him, he told Stan.

  Stan made the mistake of introducing Casey to his parents, and before he knew it - in fact, against Stan’s objections - Dan and Shirley gave Casey $10,000 as an investment in the movie. Furthermore, Stan agreed to write it for free, all against his better judgment. Michelle was furious.

  “He’s a scam artist,” she told him.

  Stan figured he was, but he did it anyway. He constantly asked Casey to introduce him to Frank Capra, Jr., or Frank Capra III. Casey always had an excuse not to do so. One day, Stan got an invite to a retrospective on Frank Capra, the elder. Stan went up to Frank, Jr., who had produced the documentary.

  “Hi,” said Stan, “I’m Stan Taylor. I’m the writer Dan Casey’s been telling you about.”

  “Who?” said Capra.

&n
bsp; “Dan Casey,” repeated Stan.

  “Oh, that guy,” said Capra. “What about him?”

  “I’m writing the cancer conspiracy script,” said Stan. “You’re producing it.”

  “I’m not producing any cancer script,” said Capra.

  “He said you were,” said Stan.

  “He says a lot of things,” said Capra.

  This confirmed what Stan already knew, which was that Casey was not a real producer. He was just one of those fringe guys in Hollywood who prey on people’s dreams. Meanwhile, his folks were out 10 grand, in addition to the $100,000 that they had given Dick Maslin.

  Stan chalked it up to experience and dropped Casey like a bad habit.

  His agent managed to set up a meeting with Charlie Sheen to talk about “Once He Was An Angel”. Stan went to Sheen’s office in Calabasas. He came very close to asking Michelle to come along. He figured Sheen was familiar with her work. Maybe he had even paid for services. She could close the deal. He decided against it, and played it straight.

  Sheen was as nice as can be, a gracious fellow without a trace of vulgarity or arrogance. Stan had heard horror stories about him from porn stars. Maybe he got that way when he was high, or horny, or both, but the Sheen he saw was a humble gentleman. Sheen took the screenplay, read it, and liked it. In the end, he decided against producing it.

  A couple of years passed. Up north, Karen actually met somebody. Stan saw him once. What an oaf! He had the biggest, fattest head Stan ever saw.

  “They look like they deserve each other,” said Stan. “Well, she’s his problem now, not mine.”

  Kaitlyn enjoyed living with Stan and Michelle. When she visited her mother, Stan called to tell her he loved her.

  “Hi, Kaitlyn,” Stan said to the answering machine. “This is your daddy. I’m just calling to tell you I love you very much. I miss you and I can’t wait to see you soon.”

  Kaitlyn heard these messages. She hated the kindness in Stan’s voice. She hated his sweet demeanor. She hated the fact that he was in love and was happy.

  “You’re father left another one of those saccharine messages,” she spat. “Christ, it’s enough to give me diabetes.”

  Stan got to thinking he could actually pull this thing off. Nobody openly recognized Michelle as a porn star. The secret was still not known to Stan’s parents, or to Kaitlyn. The only friend who knew was Brad. There were close calls. Guys recognized Michelle, but she played them off as fans of her Penthouse and Playboy spreads.

  “No, no,” they said, “I saw you in porns.”

  “That’s somebody else,” Michelle said.

  Stan pretended not to pay attention, or just played it dumb.

  This can’t go on like this forever, he thought to himself.

  Kaitlyn was in her pre-teenage period. Of course, this meant problems. She got mad at her father, and made him suffer her silences and moods. But Stan had an understanding for his child that his parents had never had for him. He had vowed that he would never act towards her the way they had been with him. When Dan yelled and screamed at him, Stan made a mental note that he would never do these things to Kaitlyn. He did not.

  When Dan called him an “asshole,” a “cocksucker,” a “son of a bitch,” and told him, “Goddamn you all to hell,” Stan calmly looked at his old man and said, “You know, Dad, that is very impressive on your part. I think you’re a great role model. In fact, what I’m going to remember to do is to apply the kind of words you use towards me, towards Kaitlyn. Remind me, the next time I’m talking to my daughter, to call her a ‘cocksucker.’ I mean, it obviously is application of proper parenting skills.”

  Stan’s smartass remarks, and the calm demeanor in which he delivered them, never shamed Dan into realizing that he was in the wrong. It just made Dan madder. He could no longer dominate his son. He was frustrated that the “kid” was now smarter than he was. Stan saw past his bluster and bull crap. Kaitlyn was the one who got under his skin. Stan felt that “little bit of Dad” that he knew was in his psyche, crawling around somewhere. He fought it off. He refused to give in to this horrid way of acting towards a child. He chose, instead, to reason with his little girl.

  This, of course, had mixed success, if any success. Sometimes logic was no more effective with his daughter than it had been with the silicone-injected porno girls in Vegas. Stan felt that it might not offer the immediate results he wanted - compliance based on fear, as he had been forced to endure - but when Kaitlyn matured and grew into adulthood, he thought it would benefit her.

  He also saw fragments of Karen in his daughter. This frightened Stan. Stan knew Karen was evil and could not be reasoned with. If Kaitlyn “went Karen’s way,” so to speak, could she be saved? Karen had found Stan’s gentle ways, his niceness, to be weakness. She used it against him. She reminded him of something former Secretary of State Dean Acheson once said.

  “I’ve dealt with the Soviet all my life,” Acheson was quoted, “and all they respect is brute force.”

  This was, in a way, all Karen respected. She had no use for manners and a gentle approach. She was smart enough to hide her true nature from people who were in a position to judge, or whose approval she needed. But in the end those who knew her well knew that she was a destroyer.

  Stan prayed that he could help dissuade Kaitlyn from heading in this direction. He knew he would have his hands full in this endeavor. Michelle told him that he was doing the right thing, and to stay the course. When Kaitlyn acted like Karen, Stan maintained his composure.

  He thanked his father for showing him the way not to go. The question was, would he have enough time to truly influence the girl into becoming the kind of person she was capable of becoming. She loved animals. She had compassion. Stan introduced her to Christianity, and it appeared to take. He knew she would face tests, and that her faith in Christ would have to go through the tumultuous high school years ahead, with all the attendant problems and hurdles that lay therein.

  Kaitlyn volunteered to work with retarded kids, and showed love for them. There was a soft, sweet, caring side of her that made Stan tremendously proud. Maybe Karen was not so bad after all, he generously told himself. If her daughter was capable of such love and tenderness, this was possible. Then he woke up to reality. Kaitlyn was nice despite Karen. It was his side of her, shining through. He did not want to analyze this too deeply. He just wanted to do right by his daughter, to help raise and guide her. He loved her totally. He would do anything for her.

  She was growing into a beautiful girl. Kaitlyn was prettier than her mother had been at that age. Karen had been quite beautiful until she let herself go to hell. Once Karen started going downhill, though, she went downhill fast. Kaitlyn took to Stan and Michelle’s healthy lifestyle. Stan and Michelle ate nutritious foods and worked out daily at Gold’s Gym. Kaitlyn followed suit. He figured that with his genes and a healthy approach to towards physical activity, Kaitlyn could avoid going down the tubes like her mother.

  Kaitlyn roller-skated on the Hermosa Boardwalk, played tennis and volleyball. She was not a great athlete, but enjoyed herself. Stan encouraged her to do just that, eschewing the pressure and screaming that Dan had applied to him. He just wanted her to enjoy healthy activities and make friends. If she became good enough to seriously pursue sports, he would be there for her. If not, that was fine.

 

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  “SOMETIMES YOU GOTTA GO AGAINST THE GRAIN”

 

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