#BABYMACHINE

by Cassandra Dee

  “So is your stage name MelMelMel?” read the text. “Or was that just a random tag?”

  What the? Who were these dudes and what were they talking about?

  “Lauren,” I called. “What were the names of those two frat boys you mentioned over the phone?”

  “Matt Parker and Rick Donovan,” she replied, glancing up from her textbook. “Why? Did they contact you?”

  “No,” I replied. “But two anonymous dickheads just spammed me. Probably just randoms,” I sighed.

  To be sure though, I flipped over to Trinity’s online facebook and looked up the two Sigma Chi guys. They were meatheads, typical frat boy types wearing backwards baseball caps with sloppy grins. Good-looking in their own cocky way, but definitely not desperate enough to be sending misspelled, poorly punctuated gchat texts.

  But things just got weirder as the day went on. As I walked to campus for the exam, people stared at me, standing in huddles, stopping to whisper as I walked past. Wtf? Maybe it was my imagination.

  But it was even worse when I walked into the classroom. A hush descended over the crowd, and people literally turned around in their seats to look at me, craning their necks my way. Fortunately, the exam was about to begin, so I took a seat in the back and pulled out my blue book, reminding myself to focus on the task at hand.

  But the whispers and weird looks started up again after the exam was over. Walking back to my dorm, again I noticed hushed voices and curious looks from total strangers, people I didn’t know. Okay, this was definitely not my imagination and was getting seriously creepy.

  When I got back, Lauren stopped me at the door, her face pale.

  “Mel,” she said slowly. “There’s something you need to see.”

  She swiveled her monitor so that it faced me, and surfed over to a website called Nubile Girls. Oh my god. She scrolled down to a still, and all I could see was a cunny held apart by fingers, the folds dripping and wet. Frankly, it looked kinda hot.

  “So what?” I asked. “What does this have to do with me?”

  Instead of answering, Lauren pressed play. Moans began to filter out … breathy, sexy, feminine, and all too familiar. I froze in shock, desperate to stop this from happening, telling myself this was some kind of horrific nightmare. But the camera panned up, tracing over that creamy body, lovingly zooming in on the brunette’s breasts before capturing her face. It was me! There was live video of me on the internet, masturbating for the world to see!

  “What the fuck!” I screamed. “This is my audition video for the Donkey Club! How could it have gotten out?” I shrieked.

  “I have no idea,” rushed Lauren. “I swear, I don’t know. It must have been that skeeze Ralph … but Mel, I have no idea why. I mean, he sees dozens of girls a week, he’s gotta have hundreds of these videos. Why would he leak yours?”

  The blood drained from my face and I hyperventilated, an iron vise constricting around my chest, my heart beating so loud that it thundered in my ears. I sat on my bed, trying to think straight while images of my naked, flushed body continued to twist on screen.

  Holy fucking shit. This is why people had been staring at me. I’d been outed as a stripper, or even worse, as a porn actress. How had this happened? I started crying, my shoulders heaving uncontrollably, the sobs so hard and fierce that they made my chest hurt, my throat squeezing shut so I could barely breathe.

  “I’m going to be labeled a stripper and a whore! My life is over,” I wailed, not caring who heard in our dorm.

  Lauren came to sit beside me.

  “Mel, calm down,” she pleaded. “I mean, I’m sure we can get the tape back, ask the site to take down the video, whatever. It’s not that bad.”

  That didn’t make me feel better and I turned on her in a rage.

  “Not that bad? What the hell are you talking about? This is your fucking fault!” I screamed. “I only did the audition because you said everything was going to be fine! And now look what’s happened … I’m a whore for the entire student body to see!”

  “I know, I know, I know,” she soothed, trying to calm me. “I swear I had no idea. Ralph has a tape of me as well, I don’t know why he leaked yours.”

  But I was inconsolable.

  “What do I do now?” I shrieked, the hysteria making my voice shrill and harpy-like. “Tell me! Tell me what I do now with my life since I’m the official Trinity fuckslut!”

  “We’ll call Ralph,” she said hurriedly. “I’m sure he can pull some strings and get that video taken down.”

  I sat on my bed, sobbing as my head spun. Ralph was a mid-level manager, seedy and disreputable. The people that I needed were my brothers … stet.

  “Get out,” I snarled at Lauren. “Get out of my sight, now.” And she scrambled away, trying to get out of the line of fire, giving me my space.

  When Saxon picked up, I was already hiccupping into the receiver.

  “Melly? Sister?” he rumbled, his voice concerned. “What’s wrong?”

  “Brother,” I said pitifully. “Someone … someone leaked my audition tape for the Donkey Club to some porn site, and now everyone at school thinks I’m a porn star,” I cried into the phone. “People were looking at me like I was some kind of slut, a dirty ho,” I sobbed pitifully.

  “Shhh, shhh,” he soothed over the phone. “I’m sure it’s not that bad. What site is it again?” he asked.

  “Nub … Nubile Girls,” I sniffled, the tears still coming hard and fast. “Brother, it’s so embarrassing! I thought it was just my imagination that people were staring at me today. But strangers are pinging me on email with dirty messages, asking questions like “how does your pussy taste” and texts like that,” I wailed. “How am I going to finish my degree here?”

  I could hear my brother typing away as he looked up the site.

  “Damn that motherfucker,” he growled. “I’m going to take care of this. Melly, don’t worry,” he said. “Stryke and I are on it. Just sit tight and don’t worry about a thing.”

  I hiccupped and said goodbye, weary and mentally exhausted, getting in bed despite the fact that it was only 5 p.m. I could hear pings on my laptop, the relentless dings becoming a veritable storm of chimes until in a rage, I got up and slammed the lid shut.

  I knew what it had to be. Thousands of dudes reaching out, commenting on my tits, ass or worse. Now that my body was in the public domain, it seemed that the world owned me, shaming me, groping me with its metaphysical hands.

  Oh god I moaned, burying my head in my pillow, hot tears starting again. How could this have happened? I was an innocent girl, a freshman at Trinity, trying to earn money for tuition. How had it gone so wrong? How would I ever face my peers again? I cried myself to sleep, the devastating revelation only subsiding as the darkness of sleep took over.

  But things were only worse the next morning. As usual, a copy of USA Today was delivered to our door and I opened it up to find the headline screaming: “IVY LEAGUE STUDENT TURNS PORN STAR: Have tuition increases driven our girls into a life of sin?”

  With trembling hands, I forced myself to scan the article. Oh my god, I was on national news, dubbed “The Trinity Whore.” Plus, they had slipped in my real name, Melanie Jones, and given away my address. I’d been doxed. The floor came rushing up at me as I collapsed into a heap.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Saxon

  We flew her out as soon as we found out. Our sister had been victimized by someone, although it’s still a mystery who.

  “Wasn’t me boss, nuh uh,” said Ralph over the phone. I could almost see him chewing his cud, he was so fucking gross. But he had a point.

  “Why would I endanger my living?” he asked. “You pay me good money to scout girls, I fuckin’ love this job, why would I throw it away?”

  “Because, you fucking asshole, journalists pay for scandal, it makes or breaks their careers,” I snarled. “Did some fucking reporter come by the Donkey Club looking for a scoop?”

  I could hear him chewing.


  “Naw,” he drawled. “Naw, nothing outta the ordinary.”’

  “Well nothing better have happened,” I raged into the headset. “You lost control over those videos and now a little girl is destroyed!”

  “What the fuck?” ground out Ralph. “She was lookin’ to be a porn star, this is a step in the right direction.”

  I stopped to consider his words. There was some truth to that, to be sure. Many a reality TV career was launched on the back of an illicit sex tape, but Melanie wasn’t a Pam Anderson or Kim Kardashian. She was a sweet co-ed, trying to earn money for tuition. She was smart and resourceful, not total hos like those women.

  “Listen,” I said wearily. “We’re keeping an eye on you. DON’T FUCKING LET ANYONE INTO YOUR OFFICE!” I roared into the phone.

  “Got it, boss, got it,” Ralph mumbled, before hanging up.

  But I wasn’t so sure that he got it. We’d dispatched a PI in New York to trail that skeezeball, figure out what the fuck had happened with Melly’s tape. In the meantime, I’d encouraged her to fly out to LA.

  “Listen baby, it’s bad, I know,” I soothed. “Why don’t you come and hang with us? Stryke and I miss you, and you were going to come back anyways.”

  “I know I was, as soon as exams were over, but Saxon,” she cried, “what do I do about right now? Everybody looks at me when I walk by now, I’m a pariah,” she sobbed tearfully into the phone.

  My heart broke. How hard it must have been for an eighteen year-old girl to realize that her college career and future job prospects had probably just been flushed down the toilet. That’s what the adult entertainment industry does. Good-bye to a white collar job. These days, with social media and all that whatnot, Melanie would likely never be able to escape the claws of her past.

  I was floored. I didn’t know how to comfort her except to say, “Come to Los Angeles honey. Everything will be better here.”

  And feeling hopeless, our baby agreed, due to arrive in a few days.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Melanie

  The firestorm had only intensified, raging hotter as word spread that I had a double life as a porn star. Lauren and I had stopped by a bar one night to grab some dinner and as soon as we walked in a girl eyed us and went over to her friends, looking over at me as they spoke in hushed tones.

  I felt so awful.

  “Lauren,” I whispered. “This is embarrassing. Those people,” I whispered shame-faced, “they’re talking about me.”

  “Do you want to go?” she whispered back. “We don’t have to stay.”

  But it would be like this no matter where we went. So instead I held my head up and walked through the restaurant, sliding into a booth by the window.

  That was a huge mistake. Everyone in the restaurant literally craned their heads to get a look at me. Plus, passerby could see me through the big window as they walked outside, doing double takes when they realized who I was. One guy even stopped in his tracks, pointing me out to his friends before laughing nastily.

  Then there were the comments themselves. When our burgers came, the waitress asked silkily, “You’re so skinny when you’re naked, where do all those calories go?”

  I cringed inside. In the video I’d been a healthy, curvy woman but I’d lost weight recently due to stress. My figure was now like a rail because I was unable to eat, unable to focus on anything but the tragedy of my life. It made me feel ugly.

  Even more upsetting, it seemed that comments about my body were fair game now, even if they were disguised at compliments. Just the other day a woman I didn’t even know said, “Love that outfit, the color suits your bush down there.”

  I’d stood stock still, my face burning, unable to even put together a response. The woman had merely sniggered before running off with her friends, leaving me dying inside, wanting to go home.

  But where was home now? My life has gone completely to shit ever since the news hit the papers, and my mom’s a mess, her distress making her helpless.

  “Melly,” Noreen cried into the phone. “Why did you do it? You know I have some money saved, I could have helped you with tuition.”

  “No, Ma,” I said quietly. “Don’t you remember our last conversation? With Sam in the Army now, you asked if there was some way I could get a part time job, remember?”

  “But Melly,” sobbed my mom. “I didn’t mean for you to go into the adult entertainment industry. I never meant for you to sell your body, it’s now how I raised you,” she choked.

  I felt really sad. “I know Ma, you did the best you could. But I didn’t want to burden you, and forty-six thousand a year is way more than we can afford. I didn’t see any other way.”

  “Oh Melly,” sobbed my mom again. “What are we going to do?”

  I didn’t say anything. There were no answers after all, and it was all I could do to try and survive day to day.

  I want to say that I was strong, that I soldiered on stolidly, putting on a brave face by going to class, doing homework, and being productive. But the truth is after a week of torture, I applied for and was granted academic leave from Trinity. Again, another blow to my dreams. I’m not sure when or how I’m going to finish my degree now, and without a degree, how am I going to get a job, especially with my porn background?

  Plus, I’ve been inundated by interview requests of the wrong kind. Journalists ask the most intrusive, degrading questions, and it’s almost as if nothing is off-limits anymore.

  “Do you think you’re being exploited?”

  “What is it like being the face of teenage promiscuity?”

  “Can I take a look at your ID myself? I just want to verify your age for the paper.”

  The questions babbled on in my head even after I left the scene. To be honest, I’m thinking about giving a candid interview just to correct some of the falsehoods. People immediately think that I was abused as a child, molested, locked in dark closets for long hours. How do I explain that my mom worked hard to raise me right, and the porn is in no way a reflection of her parenting skills?

  God, I was exhausted just thinking about it. So very, very tired. Sometimes I feel Melanie fading into the distance and my porn star persona slowly taking over, overshadowing everything that I used to be. People call me “Trinity” occasionally, and I find myself answering questions as her.

  “Trinity, what do you think about double-teaming? Do you think women are abused when they do double penetration?”

  I was fatigued but at the same time so angry, it’s hard to explain. On the one hand, I was ashamed that I’d gone down the adult entertainment path, but on the other, my subconscious knew that I had to own it. After all, anyone who’s ever watched X-rated stuff knows that there are performers who love DP. The girls are usually squealing as they’re sandwiched, savoring the double-stuff in their cunny and ass. So my reply was direct and straightforward.

  “No, women in porn agree to a scene beforehand,” I said firmly. “No producer would spring DP on an actress. Remember, she gets paid a bonus for taking two, so there’s no surprise, it’s all built into the script.”

  “A script?” laughed the reporter disbelieving. “There are no lines in the film.”

  I kept my face resolute. What a jerk-off. But it wasn’t over yet.

  “Trinity,” asked another reporter. “Are you making enough to cover your tuition now? Forty-six thousand a year is a lot.”

  That was the other big angle to the story. How increasing student debt burdens had forced an Ivy League student to sell her body. And I wasn’t sure what to say in response to this question because it was basically true.

  I decided to dodge instead.

  “I’m sorry,” I said sweetly. “But my financial situation is none of your business. Besides, it’s rude to ask someone’s salary,” I said. “How would you like it if I asked how much you made?”

  “Seventy-five thousand,” he sniggered, not missing a beat. “After taxes. So how about it? Answer the question, honey bun, you know we’ll
find out anyways.”

  “No can do,” I replied sweetly. “But I’ll let you know the next time I have a new release.”

  Because I was thinking of taking control of the narrative. Things had spun so out of control, all the lies and rumors about me building up, making me feel sad but also violated and outraged. I needed to regain control of my life and maybe the solution was to throw myself into the lion’s den. After all, I was already at its edges. Why not go all the way?

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Stryke

  I wanted my sister home asap. She was flying in this afternoon and we couldn’t get her in our arms soon enough.

  The maelstrom has been fucking incredible. Melanie’s been profiled in Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, all those publications focusing on the salacious parts of her story, painting her as a “porn star” when in fact, she’s never performed professionally. It was all because of that leaked audition tape.

  But celebrity is cruel. The press has taken to calling her “Trinity” and her answers have been getting sassier and more confident. She’s saying things like, “Women own their bodies and if they want to make a little money, why not?” Holy cow. What had become of our innocent little girl?

  When Melanie showed up at our doorstep, Saxon and I were on her in a second, helping her in, settling her on the couch. She looked tired and I was again reminded of her relative youth. In the magazine profiles she’d been doused in make-up, her hair blown-out straight so that she looked at least twenty-five. Here, out of the public glare she was eighteen again, our little sister to be protected and cherished.

  “Baby,” said Saxon, “how have you been holding up?”

  “Brother,” she sighed, leaning her head against his bicep. “Not good,” she murmured. “I’m so sorry, I ended up taking leave from school and they said they couldn’t refund tuition for this semester, not even part of it,” she continued sadly.

  I kissed her head.