Dr. Riggly, the doctor at the urgent care, was known as the porno doctor. He was a little sketchy—he asked for my stage name, which didn’t seem relevant—but I was desperate and needed someone with a medical license to look at me and tell me what my body was doing. As a porn actress, every time you visit a doctor you risk judgment and bias. I’m sure Dr. Riggly had judgments of his own, but I found comfort in knowing that I wasn’t his first sex worker patient.
He delivered the diagnosis, “Well, young lady, you have a couple things going on. You have a textbook case of herpes, for one. I mean, if I wanted to show a medical student a classic case of genital herpes, I would show him this outbreak. It’s quite bad. You also have bacterial vaginosis and a urinary tract infection.” The doctor scribbled something on his pad of paper, tore the paper from his pad and handed it to me. “Here’s a prescription for some antibiotics and I’ll write you a prescription for an antiviral for the herpes outbreak. Once you’re all cleared up you should continue to take this antiviral prophylactically to suppress future outbreaks and to significantly decrease your risk of transmitting to any future partners. I’ll give you some pamphlets to look over, okay?”
“When will I be able to work again?” I began to worry about the bills that were already piling up from the gallery, which I had yet to really be present at during the renovation of our new storefront.
“You should be able to be back at work in about seven to ten days, after a full seven days of treatment and after your outbreak is completely healed.”
I felt so stupid, forever marked with a scarlet “H.” What will Daddy say? Will he still want to be with me now that I’d be living the rest of my life with herpes? Why did I decide to work in the porn industry, again? This wasn’t part of the plan, was it?
When I told Speigler, he seemed unfazed. “Everyone in the adult industry has herpes. It’s not a big deal. Go home, take your medicine, and let me know when I can start booking you again. Let me know as soon as it clears up.”
While some girls took their STD vacations in Disneyland, I planned on dedicating mine to Femina Potens. Our gallery was reopening in four weeks and there was much preparation to be done. Spread Magazine was going to do a cover shoot and interview about the gallery and the way that I was funding the gallery—through sex work. I had coined a phrase through social media that I used to blog about my porno experiences—Anal for Art. Four anal scenes paid the gallery rent, another four paid the deposit, and ten anal scenes paid for the remodel. It was simple math, and it meant that anything in life was within my grasp; I just needed enough anal scenes to get there.
Once my outbreak cleared up, it was back to the math, and back to L.A. I had money in my pockets and a clean bill of health. I felt like a gladiator of sexual entertainment bravely facing the lions. I might lose a limb in the process, but I would hobble back into the arena with dignity; I was a dignified whore.
Back at Speigler’s after the bank, I go to the mall with Bobbi. I don’t place a lot of value on shopping, but I have been getting in touch with my feminine side since dating Mr. Mogul. Perhaps it’s his hyper-masculinity that makes me feel I need to tip the balance on the scales? I had begun exploring my femme identity with high heels and vintage dresses.
We strolled through Bloomingdale’s, testing perfumes, and I wondered which one Daddy might like. I needed a signature scent, and he can be particular about smells. Once or twice I came home smelling like a new perfume that I tested at the mall and they all repelled him. I wanted a scent that would turn him on, a scent that would make him want to fuck me immediately. I wanted to find a scent that did for him what the scent of rope did for me.
“It’s a rite of passage. Choosing a scent is something that a woman does before she, in turn, becomes that scent. I know it sounds corny but it’s true,” Bobbi shared. “It’s part of how people will remember you, they will think of your face and then swear that they could smell lavender or spices or vanilla, whatever. It’s an important decision, Madison.” She picked up a bottle of Coco Chanel and spritzed it on her wrist. The scent was strong and vulnerable, a delicate blend of feminine flowers, warmed with wood and leather.
“This is my scent. Classic, isn’t it? I remember the first time my mom bought me a bottle of this perfume. My mom uses Chanel Number Five.” She grabbed her mother’s perfume and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes, drifting off to some fond memory.
“I want to get something that James will like,” I pondered, as we veered off to the neighboring shoe department where high heels of every color and style stood promptly at attention like so many pieces of fine art. Some were more expensive than the artwork at Femina Potens.
“Well, all men love vanilla. It’s pretty much a given. Look for something sweet. How long have you two been dating?”
“Almost two years now. Yeah…two years in July. We just moved in together about a month ago. We’ve both been working a lot though, I miss him.”
“Are you guys open? Or, how do you handle the whole porn thing? My fiancé and I are open. It works for us.” She fingered the small solitary diamond on her right hand.
“Right now, it’s just us,” I said. “I’m open to us being with other people and I know he is supportive of that, I’m just not comfortable with him fucking other models, you know? It’s...I don’t know. It gets complicated. I don’t want him fucking my coworkers. I just can’t deal with that.”
My phone rang, and it was Daddy. “It’s James, I’m going to get this. I’ll be in the perfume department. Vanilla, right?”
“Daddy! I missed you so much,” I was hungry for the sound of Papa’s voice.
“Hi, sweetheart. I got your voicemail. I miss you, too. How is my Little Girl?” I could hear hammering and nail guns going off in the background.
“I’m good, Daddy. I was just talking about you. Oh, did the volunteers show up to help you with building the wall?” I picked up a bottle of La Vanilla Laboratories Vanilla and Grapefruit blend and sprayed it on my wrist. I inhaled a bright, cheerful bouquet that had a sexy, rich sweetness. This is it, my scent!
“Yeah, they showed up, but they basically helped sweep and hand me tools. They didn’t really have any experience. They were sweet, though. Who were you talking to about me?” Daddy shouted over the phone to be heard over the loud clamoring of hammers and nails. I was so proud that my Daddy is helping me build and launch the new Femina Potens. We were doing it together.
“Oh, Bobbi. She’s staying at Speigler’s right now, too.” I handed the woman behind the counter my debit card. She handed it back to me and pointed to the digital read-out that said declined. Puzzled, I reached for my wallet and paid in cash.
The phone began beeping with a call from Speigler, “Daddy, Speigler is calling. I gotta go. I’ll call you tonight. I love you.”
Daddy’s voice came through and I smiled, “Love you too, Maddie.”
I picked up Speigler’s incoming call and he got straight to the point. “I have a shoot for you.”
“When?”
“Now. You need to be there in an hour. Where are you?” His voice was gruff and unappealing, he sounded like a troll.
“I’m across the street with Bobbi at the mall.”
“Well, get your ass over here and grab your things so we can make it to the shoot on time.” Speigler barked into the phone.
I rushed back to the apartment and rifled through my backpack for my anal prep kit. Whether or not we are booked for an anal sex scene, we are always prepared for one. An anal scene pays $1,200 (as opposed to $1,000), which means more money in the girls’ pockets as well as in Speigler’s. I fashioned a preparation kit of baby wipes, a douche bottle, an enema bottle, a small bottle of lube, and a lucite dildo.
In two hours, I was on set, spritzed with new vanilla perfume, asshole clean, and ready to be pummeled by a huge cock. Don began throwing me around like a rag doll while Ashley Blue mastu
rbated and ran commentary, “I think that slut likes it. She’s a filthy whore. Fuck that dirty whore, Don!” He stuck his huge cock into my ass and then into her ass and then into my mouth and then into her mouth. Ashley stuck her hand down her throat, gagged herself, then spit huge gobs of saliva into my mouth and I spit more saliva back into her mouth. It was a relay race of pornographic proportions, a theatrical ballet of vulgarity.
Don was Ashley’s agent, and he also worked as a performer in adult films. I had met and performed with Don multiple times but he never remembered my name, and he always acted superior to all the other talent on set. As much as I despised him, I still loved having his huge cock in me, deep and fast. Don maneuvered my body into a pile driver position and plunged, fucking me hard. I was only moments away from coming, I began screaming, panting, and barking like a dog. Don pulled his cock out and looked down, horrified. Did I not cleanse enough? Is there shit on his cock? But it isn’t poop, it’s blood!
“Go to the bathroom and clean up, it’s probably just a little tear. Does it hurt?” Ashley asked, taking a closer look.
“No, I feel fine.” I felt unhurt, but I was scared and embarrassed and I just wanted to go home. I ran off to the bathroom with bloody baby wipes up against my butt. My ass was bleeding badly, and I couldn’t get it to stop. After a few frantic minutes, all of the blood seemed to be gone and, like a good gladiator, I fixed my makeup and hopped back in the arena.
Don re-entered, but I started to bleed again. Damn it, I can do this! Don cleaned off his dick and we decided that he should just fuck my pussy for a bit and then pummel Ashley more. Ashley and I knelt at Don’s waist, taking his come in our mouths and swapping it back and forth.
“Cut,” the director shouted. “That’s a wrap.” An assistant handed me a towel and some water and asked if there was anything that I need.
“Uh...I have to go to the bathroom.” I ran to the toilet and sat down. There was an uncontrollable urge building, a pressure that felt like I was about to shit everywhere, but what came out wasn’t shit—it was blood. A lot of blood. At least a cup poured out as I sat on the toilet, crying in horror. I called Speigler and begged him to pick me up.
“Yeah. What is it?” Speigler answered, curtly.
“I’m done. I need someone to pick me up. I’m going to the airport,” I sobbed into the phone. My voice was hoarse from crying, screaming, and moaning for hours.
“What happened? We have you booked on Tuesday. Are you coming back Tuesday?” I couldn’t think about Tuesday, and I needed a little sympathy. I needed a moment to regroup outside of L.A. I needed my Daddy. Where are the promises that everything is going to be okay?
“Speigler, I just busted my ass. It’s bleeding!” I cried, questioning my own sanity.
“That happens all the time. It’s no big deal. This guy Tuesday has a really small dick. It will be easy.” I grabbed more toilet paper to blot my bloody anus.
“Speigler! I’m sitting on the toilet and blood is gushing out of my asshole. Do you hear me?” It was the last bit of fight that I had in me. I wanted out, and back to the arms of Daddy.
“Okay, okay, I’ll send someone over.”
I called James. “Daddy?” I cried, still squatting on the toilet. One of my glued-on eyelashes had fallen off and mascara was running down my face.
“I’m coming home, Daddy. I need you to pick me up.” I used my shirt to wipe the snot coming out of my nose, it seemed more comforting than toilet paper.
“Baby, I was planning on playing pool tonight. What’s wrong?” I was so happy to hear Daddy’s voice, but I didn’t have energy to negotiate or explain the details of the situation.
“I need you, Daddy. I’m hurt. I’m catching the 8:00 p.m. flight so I’ll be in Oakland at nine. I love you, Daddy. I just want to go home. My anus is bleeding.” As we spoke, I slipped on a clean pair of panties and contemplated my puffy, sad eyes. Bondage modeling seemed so easy by comparison, so safe and secure. The sex being filmed in the San Fernando Valley always felt foreign to me, removed from everything honest and genuine that I believe in. Clearly, my body agreed.
“God, Maddie! Do you need to go to the hospital?” Mr. Mogul’s concern sounded perfect to my ears.
“I just want to get home. Let’s talk about it then.” I felt reassured.
“Okay, Maddie. Come back in one piece.”
On the trip, every twenty minutes like clockwork my ass filled with blood and I had to bolt to the restroom to expel it. I felt like I was dying. Feminist porn star found dead on commuter flight to Oakland from Burbank from anal hemorrhage, I imagined. It was not the headline I wanted to leave behind.
Daddy picked me up from the baggage carousel, escorted me to his pickup truck, and drove me straight to the hospital, all the while holding my hand.
The doctors immediately hooked me up to an IV. The constant enemas caused a dangerous level of dehydration, and my rectum was starting to prolapse. I’d heard of rectal prolapse: it happens when your rectal tissue basically hangs out of your anus like an outie belly button. It happens when your sphincter is severely weakened, one of the causes is extended anal penetration. Some people fetishize prolapse, endearingly referring to it as “rosebud.” My tear was significant and deep (deep in your anus you have less nerve endings, which is why I didn’t feel it), but it wasn’t bad enough to need surgery. Still, the doctor put me on permanent anal rest. He advised me to “never stick anything up there again.” This was not the advice that I wanted or needed.
Daddy climbed up into the hospital bed and I rested my head in his lap while the IV slowly dripped. “I’ve got to work, Papa.”
Mr. Mogul ran his hands through my hair, “Shhhh...Daddy will take care of it. Right now we need to take care of you. Everything is going to be okay, Little Girl, Daddy is going to take good care of you.”
Topsoil blanketed the rich forest floor. We were standing in cool earth, and James helped me scoop soil into two green ceramic flower pots. Coming from the compact spaces and cement sidewalks of San Francisco, I was used to performing this ritual with store-bought potting soil that I poured out of plastic bags. I missed James. I missed the way things used to be. I wanted to go back to the night we first made love and live it all over again, I wanted to wake up on some wet, Seattle morning to mugs full of hot cocoa and watch the rain fall from an inflatable mattress in his artist’s loft in Pioneer Square. I yearned to feel his warm body next to mine as we wrestled under the covers, discovering mutual insatiability for each other’s touch. I felt my eyes start to well up with tears, and James handed me a handkerchief. He was good at having one nearby to wipe away the tears when something wasn’t right. He had become an expert at holding me and calling me his kitten and letting me know that everything was going to be okay. I blew my nose a little and handed him back the handkerchief, a little dirtier from the earth on my fingers.
As soon as we got to Santa Cruz we set our iPhones to search for gardening stores, so I could buy dirt, but when we arrived at the wedding location, I felt a little foolish about bringing dirt into this beautiful natural space. Towering majestic redwood trees, moist earth, and hills of green grass surrounded us; it reminded me of home.
I was preparing for my performance in the wedding of the world’s ultimate art couple, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens. Annie and Beth had become family to me—not just artistic mentors but zany aunts who speak my language—and I was elated to share this day with them. Annie Sprinkle started her career working as a porn star in the seventies, and in the late eighties she began to make art about her sex work. Beth was a fellow artist; the two had been friends and collaborators for ten years, but it was only in the previous five years that they became lovers. Love radiated from them, filling whatever room they were in. They were the Yoko Ono and John Lennon of sex, and the Björk and Matthew Barney of love.
Their best performance pieces explored their connection. For “E
xtreme Kiss,” they sat down in a gallery and kissed for three hours. For Cuddle Art they moved a bed into my gallery for a month and would come in on certain days and cuddle in the bed while gallery-goers who signed up for a cuddle appointment joined them in loving embrace. These projects seemed revolutionary to me; a lot of art is about purging negativity, but Annie and Beth were making work about celebrating love. To continue their love-themed art performances, they vowed to get married seven times in seven years, and for each wedding to be a performance—an event to gather, create, and give love and blessings to the community, the world, and each other.
This was their fourth wedding, and this year they were holding the event at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where Beth was the chair of the art department. There, beneath a towering cathedral of redwood trees in the Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen, where every summer Shakespeare is performed in the damp woods, they would recite their vows to each other and to their third love, Earth. The entire wedding was environmentally sustainable and was as much about caring for our environment as about caring for each other. Everyone invited to Annie’s and Beth’s weddings had been asked to participate, and I offered to do a performance piece, which is how I came to find myself wrist-deep in the soil with James by my side.
Everyone was wearing green (it was the theme of the wedding, after all). In the art of feng shui, it is believed that the color green shouldn’t be near a lovers’ bed or it will make them sick with jealousy. There must be some truth to that; jealousy was eating me alive. I needed to reconnect with James. It felt like, though I glimpsed him occasionally, we were miles apart, even when he was right in front of me.
The wedding party and artists would be descending off of a hill to a stage that was nestled in the heart of the glen at the start of the ceremony. It could have been a scene out of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, it was so magical and lush with eroticism and creativity. Sparsely dressed green fairies flitted about, artists in elaborate costumes of goddess-like creatures with flowing green garments that looked like nymphs were blowing bubbles. There was an opera singer in a lime bikini and a whip-wielding dominatrix—Sadie Lune, a dear friend—that sparkled in the sunshine, adorned in gems, sequins, and tulle. She was reminiscent of Madonna’s VMA performance of “Like a Virgin,” and she had her pet snake coiled around her neck. Annie’s fellow veteran porn stars Veronica Vera and Sharon Mitchell were in attendance, along with well-known artist Linda Montano.
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