by Isa Mazzei
Jiggy placed his hand on my waist. “Well, if I’m so fun, we’ll just have to do this again sometime, huh?”
I gently removed his hand and set it on his lap, then stood up and moved toward the door. “Maybe,” I shrugged. “We’ll just have to see.” I stood in the doorway, facing him. “Come drive me back to my car?”
×××
As well as trying to procure Jiggy for my room, I decided to give my brand a mini makeover. I hired another photographer, commissioned a new logo, and updated my website. Boots, the camgirl who had originally retweeted me all those months ago, was hosting an event in California. Her husband was a filmmaker, and for the low price of $1,500, I could come to a giant rented house on the beach and film porn for a week. I scrubbed through her husband’s reel. He looked legit.
I told myself I should go. I didn’t want to, I didn’t want to feel the way I did by the end of the AVNs—out of place, like I didn’t fit in. But I knew the videos would sell, and I needed new content. I decided to set limits. I would shoot solo videos only. I wouldn’t cam with the other girls. Okay, well, I might cam with the other girls. But I wouldn’t have sex with them.
A week later, my Lyft pulled up to a large, sprawling house near the beach. I got out and opened the trunk, struggling with my giant suitcase. Lyle, my driver, did not offer to help. I approached the front door, dragging my suitcase with its broken wheel behind me. I rang the doorbell.
The door was opened by Boots. She was taller than I expected, with long red hair and tattoos covering her body. I already knew she was an entrepreneurial badass, and I was pleased to find her energy soothing. She squealed and gave me a hug, ushering me into the large, tiled entrance. I saw a pile of suitcases stacked near the door and wondered how many of the other camgirls were already there.
Boots walked me down the hallway and toward the kitchen. The house was large and beautiful with random furniture in every room perfect for camming on. There were white leather couches, black leather couches, a calfskin rug, wood floors, tiled floors, carpeted floors, and a giant hot tub with multi-colored lights.
“Girls, Una’s here!” Boots announced to the three girls in the kitchen. EmmaXO, a newer camgirl, sat at the kitchen table with her head resting on her knees. She was a part-time camgirl, who was also in school. She looked up and waved at me.
“Hi. I’m Emma!”
Across from her, Betty sipped a Diet Coke, looking bored. She had long dark hair and long dark nails and was strikingly beautiful. She was quiet, reserved, and on her show wielded a particular type of ethereal mystery that made me want to give her all my money. She nodded in our general direction.
In the opposite corner of the kitchen, a girl named Margot unpacked a case with a ventriloquist dummy. She was famous for her cosplay and her theatrical shows, and I admired her for her artistry. I sometimes wished my shows were a bit more artistic.
“Hi Una!” Margot called out, goofy. I wanted to tell her I was a fan, but I also didn’t want her to know I had Googled her.
Upstairs, more girls claimed rooms and unpacked. I walked up to the bathroom and glanced inside. Two girls named Tickles and Liliana were doing their hair in the mirror, getting ready to cam.
“Una…” Tickles said, smiling at me as I set my makeup bag down on the counter. “What’s your real name?”
“Oh, um.” I glanced at her warily. “It’s Una.” She raised her eyebrows. I tried again. “Like, that’s a real nickname. Because my first word was moon. Well, moon in Italian. Which is Luna. So, Una.” That was the story I told my cam room, at least.
Tickles laughed and glanced at Liliana. “Yeah. Whatever you say. I’m Laura.”
“I mean, my real name is Isabella,” I rushed, pressing the lie. “I’ve just always been called Una.”
“That’s super weird, using your actual nickname like that,” Liliana chimed in from where she had sat down to pee on the toilet, unperturbed by the total stranger in the room and the open door.
“Yeah,” Tickles agreed. “Super weird. Doesn’t it feel weird?”
“No.” I shrugged. “I like my cam persona to be real.”
“Okay.” Liliana reached for some toilet paper. “Hey, can one of you guys help me shave my pubes later? I need to collect them. Just gotta take some photos first.”
“You sold your pubes?” I asked.
“Hell yeah I did!” Liliana stood up and dry-humped the air. “My pubes sell like hot cakes, man. I just need someone to catch them.”
“She sells her sweat, too. In cute little vials,” Tickles bragged about her friend.
The atmosphere of the house felt professional, and the week passed quickly. I worked fast, efficiently. It was a mutually supportive community, which helped me do my work. I shot my videos: a voyeur scene with the camera peeking through a doorway. A black-and-white scene where I touched myself in a mirror. I masturbated quickly, mechanically. I stared into the camera while I orgasmed, barely registering the cameraman’s presence. When I wasn’t shooting, I cammed quietly from the backyard, pantomiming silly shows. I cammed with other girls, too, holding vibrators against them and ignoring their sounds when they came.
At the end of my trip, I texted my dad, who had moved to California after my parents divorced when I was seventeen. Their divorce had been a relief, but as a result, I saw my dad less and less frequently, even after college. At this point, I hadn’t seen him in almost a year; I had been too absorbed in work to even consider visiting him. A few weeks before, my sister had told me he had threatened to throw himself off the roof of his apartment building again. He had even called her to say goodbye, telling her it was too late to do anything about it. Since I was going to be close by anyway, I asked him to meet me for tacos.
“So who are you visiting again?” he had asked me over the phone.
“Jackie. My friend from college.”
“Jackie?”
“Yeah, Jackie. You met her at graduation. Remember? Brown hair?” My dad had met about fifteen girls with brown hair that day.
“Right, right.”
We arranged to meet at a Baja Fresh in a strip mall next to Trader Joe’s. I was wearing a short striped sundress which, I realized, yanking it down, might be way too short. I spotted my dad getting out of his car. I gave him a hug. I did miss my dad.
“So, how’s your web design job going?” he prompted as we sat down with our food.
“Good, good.”
“Yeah? Lucy says you have a new apartment.” Was I imagin-ing things, or was his tone kind of pointed?
“Yep.” I loaded a chip with salsa and shoved it in my mouth. “I got a good deal on it.”
“It’s downtown?”
“Yeah, but it’s not that expensive.” I ate another chip, not making eye contact.
“Still doing only freelance?”
“Yeah, have a ton of clients.” My tone came off braggy.
“That’s great.” He paused, sipping his iced tea. Maybe he knew something. He didn’t usually ask so many questions. “So what kinds of projects are you doing?” he continued.
“Same stuff as in college. Websites, mostly,” I replied.
“And you really know all that coding stuff?”
“Yeah. Just like in college. I’m doing an online course actually, learning more. Building new types of sites.” My dad had seen the websites I built in college and in my brief stint as a frontend developer a few years before. The best lies were exaggerations, and this was hardly even a lie. I had built a website recently. It just happened to be a website from which to hawk the porn videos I was here to shoot.
“So why didn’t Jackie come? She could’ve joined us.”
I eyed my dad for a moment. He was studiously pouring hot sauce into his burrito.
“Oh, she’s busy. She has a pool, though, that’s gonna be fun.” My dad never usually cared about my frien
ds or their names or what they were doing.
“Why does she live out here? What’s she do?”
“Uh, something generic. Marketing? Something like that. She’s super into yoga,” I said, offering up the one fact I knew about the real Jackie, a girl from my freshman-year dorm.
“And you just thought you’d come out and visit her?”
I nodded, raising my eyebrows as if to say, duh.
My dad bit into his burrito and said nothing. He knows. He must know something. My phone vibrated.
Demon: I have good news.
Una: oh?
“Well, I’m glad your web design is going well. I’d love to see some of your work sometime.”
Relief. Even if he did know something, he wasn’t going to bring it up. “Yeah, definitely.”
Demon: I got a new job! It’s great too
Una: that’s awesome. Congrats
“Can you send me some links?” my dad pressed.
Demon: Thank you.
Demon: It’s at a great company. In Boulder of all places!
I stared down at my phone. Boulder. Demon was moving to Boulder?
“Isa?”
“What? Yeah, sorry. For sure.” I changed the subject. “How’s your new place?”
“It’s good. Things have been hard, you know. ”
“Yeah, I heard.”
Demon. In Boulder. Demon in my hometown. I reached down and grabbed my wrist, checking my pulse to see if I was literally dead.
“Well, how do you feel about it?” he pressed.
“Feel about what?” I stood up and gathered our trays to take them to the trash next to the table.
“Me being sick.” I thought for a moment about my dad, standing alone on the roof of his apartment building, staring over the edge at the rain-soaked asphalt, contemplating jumping. My phone buzzed.
“I don’t know.”
“I am doing my best, you know, Isa. I can’t help that I’m sick.”
“Sure, Dad.” I grabbed his empty drink cup and tossed it in the trash with our napkins. “I know. I have to go.”
My dad stood up, sighing.
“I’m very proud of you, you know,” he offered.
“Thanks, Dad.”
I gave him a hug and speed-walked out of the parking lot, reaching for my phone. I tried to steady my breathing and stared down at the screen, alternating between rage and terror.
Demon: Isn’t that great?
Una: sorry what
Demon: It’s in Boulder! We’ll be neighbors. Well, town-mates at least
Una: Why are you moving there?
Demon: I mean, it’s a coincidence. It’s a really good job. I needed a change of pace, you know that
Una: you can’t move there
Demon: Well, I am. I took the job. I didn’t realize this would upset you
Una: You’re not moving there for me right?
Demon: No.
Demon: Of course not. But Boulder is a beautiful city, and I think it might be good for me to leave the east coast
What the fuck. What the actual fuck. Demon couldn’t move to Boulder. Boulder was my town.
Demon: Are you okay?
Una: yeah, it’s fine
He couldn’t invade my home. He couldn’t just do that. He wasn’t allowed to do that. I sat down on the curb outside of someone’s house and tossed my phone in the grass next to me. It rang. I glanced down: Funny. I ignored it. It rang again. Voicemail. A text message selfie from Funny with a pouty face. Then it rang again. Jesus Christ.
“Yes?” I picked it up as I stood and began walking again.
“Una,” Funny drawled, his sober voice scarcely more intelligible than his drunk one. “Can I do anything for you? Do you wanna go back to school?”
“What? Why are you calling me?”
“I just wanted to chat…was thinking about you…listening to some music…Una,” Funny liked saying my name. “I always go to the Broadmoor. Have you been to the Broadmoor?”
“I have not.”
“You really ought to go…it’s a beautiful hotel. I used to go there with my wife, often. She liked it. It’s got this grand entrance. You really ought to see it…”
“I’ll look it up, but I can’t talk right now.”
“All my patients, you know, they’re all older,” he was explaining, justifying himself. “I do house calls. No one does house calls anymore, you know? People ought to do house calls more. Some of these patients I’ve known for their whole lives! I mean, can you imagine?”
“Yeah, you’ve told me. Listen, I gotta go, Funny, sorry.”
“Okay, well. I just wanted to let you know, if you ever need anything, just a friend, or tuition money, you know, anything at all…”
“I really appreciate you.” I hung up before he could answer. Breathing hard, I approached the house. Out front, camgirls lounged on the grass in the sun. Tickles glanced up from her phone and waved. I waved back. The distance between us felt enormous. I took out my phone.
Una: when are you moving
Demon: Two weeks.
Green Light
When I returned to Boulder, I told Demon he needed to get lost. Well, not quite get lost. But I told him I felt weird and needed space, and I would appreciate it if he stopped texting me, and maybe could he stop coming to my room, and now that I think about it we should just stop talking altogether. Maybe forever. I felt confused and overwhelmed, unsure of what to do next.
Shortly thereafter, Jonah came to town to visit his parents. Despite our rocky relationship, Jonah had been the only one I shared my identity search with over the years. He was the one I hired to shoot my porn and the one I bragged to when shows had gone particularly well. In fact, I craved Jonah’s approval. When we were in high school, I had shown him the first draft of my first novel: a rambling story about a girl who worked in a flower shop. He read my book, then spent three weeks avoiding the topic until I sat him down on his parents’ brown leather couch and forced it out of him.
“Just tell me. Be honest.”
“I can’t be honest.”
“This matters, Jonah. I’m trying to pick a major here.” It was our senior year, and I was torn between becoming a neurosurgeon or a writer. I knelt next to where he was seated on the couch. “Please, Jonah.”
“Let’s just say,” he paused for dramatic effect, “you should probably stick to premed.”
“Jonah!”
“You said to be honest!”
“What does that mean, stick to premed? I mean, this is just a first draft.”
“I just don’t know if you’re artistically inclined.” He smiled apologetically and patted the couch next to him. “You don’t really have creative instincts.”
At the time, I was crushed. I trusted Jonah absolutely. He was, after all, what I considered an artist. By the time he was sixteen, he had already written and produced a play in a real, actual theater. And he had made several short films. His disapproval more or less dashed my artistic dreams for the better part of the next five years.
He had, however, become supportive of my camming career. When I started camming, part of the draw had been the way that camming was an outlet for my creativity, and Jonah saw that. He even admitted he was proud of what I had accomplished. He believed in me. But after the AVNs and months of repetitive shows, I no longer fully believed in myself.
“I’m burning out,” I complained to Jonah in the living room of my apartment. He was hanging around while I set up for a show, observing my every move.
“No, you’re not,” Jonah said, watching me.
“Helpful, thanks.”
“Okay, so what are you doing now?” Jonah was sitting on my white vinyl couch, leaning forward, elbows on his knees. He was entranced.
“Oh my God, Jonah, I swear to G
od…” I was on the carpet of my living room, with a large whiteboard and a ruler. I drew a fat purple line on the whiteboard, and then another, crossing it perfectly.
“You always measure out your squares like that?”
“Not always. It’s not perfect. But I want it to look some-what nice.”
“So how’s it work again?”
“I put Post-it Notes over the squares with token amounts on them. If someone tips that amount, they win the prize under the square.”
“Oh, that makes sense.” Jonah grabbed a bag of potato chips from the table next to the couch. “So then how much is the board worth, total?”
“I dunno. Depends on the numbers I choose. Maybe twenty-five hundred tokens.”
“Which is?” He ate another chip, chewing with his mouth open.
“Like, a hundred and twenty-five bucks.”
“And that’s a lot?”
“No. But it’ll get me naked. Which is when the real money starts coming in.”
“How will it get you naked?”
“When they clear the board, I get naked. Or take my bra off. Or whatever. Can you stop asking me questions? You’re messing me up.”
“Ah, gotcha.” Jonah pushed more chips into his mouth. “This is so fascinating.”
A few potato chip flecks fell onto the whiteboard.
“I do token keno at least once a week. Sometimes twice. It’s boring. Same shit. Day after day. I may as well work in an office.”
Jonah laughed.
“Is this funny to you?”
“Yes. You have a real job now. And you hate it. Just like everyone else.”
“I’m tired of it. I can’t even talk to my biggest tipper anymore. I’ve started ignoring his calls.”
“The doctor guy?”
“Yeah, he just says the same things over and over and over. It’s boring. I’m bored.”
“I don’t think it’s boring.” More potato chip flecks. “I think it’s super interesting.” Jonah leaned forward more, the edges of his boots dangerously close to my whiteboard.
“Well you’re not the one doing it every day.” I stuck Post-its on my whiteboard in a rainbow pattern, writing various tip amounts from twenty-five to two hundred on them.