Burn My Shadow

by Tyler Knight

  Lance towers over us standing on the couch, and shoves his prick into the girl’s mouth.

  Bouncing.

  Sweaty tits slapping together in my face.

  Lance dismounts the couch and backhand strokes his dick as though his aim is to rip it off, then positions himself behind the girl.

  Double penetration time.

  Because I’m on the bottom, my job’s to anchor. I stop thrusting into the girl and I pull her down onto me so that her tits squish flush upon my sweat-slicked chest. I’m still in her vagina, her asshole is angled and ready for Lance to penetrate.

  He spreads her cheeks, pushes at her sphincter—it gives with a thuk—and he’s into her rectum. The added weight of him and the girl on top of me steals my breath and sags the sofa like the piss-sponge of a mattress I sometimes sleep on in the flop house. Her vagina tightens as he penetrates and there’s a sensation on the underside of my vagina-sheathed dick, like my penis is a tube of toothpaste and Lance’s cock is forcing my mass upwards to the nozzle of my head. I steal sips of air. The standard amount of footage needed per sex position: three minutes. I count down.

  2:57.

  He starts slow. When Lance finds his angle and rhythm I join the action and fuck the girl, also. My enthusiasm for this is no greater than if we mashed both dicks together and rolled on a single condom. The two-finger width of girl-flesh and taint between us is compressed to the point of being moot. Each gliding pass of his dick pumping in her asshole feels as though I’m getting worked by a hardwood massage roller. With an imagination like mine, shutting my eyes to escape this moment and into my mind would be worse, so I stare at a greasy smudge on the wall.

  The assistant director stoops low and gets in close with the C-light, broiling my balls. The heat sizzles right up to the edge of discomfort, crosses into pain, then backs off to tolerable and stops as he moves in and backs out with the light to find his range.

  2:42.

  Lance looks over the girl’s shoulder…and is searching for eye contact…with me? He’s determined to marry our eyes. My head’s range of motion is restricted; wherever I turn he’s always in my field of vision. His gaze sears into the side of my face.

  My eyes and his eyes dart, climb, and dive in a dogfight for the ages. I evade. He chases. All the while, both of us fucking away at the girl between us.

  2:09.

  Lance’s jaw slackens and his tongue looks like it’s breaded in flour and it’s draped out the corner of his mouth.

  He crashes against Goth Girl’s ass in waves. I hold fast. If she moves, one or both of us pops out of our respective meat-holes.

  Vaginas are good… It’s just me and her…alone.

  Lance is not looking at me as much as his eyes seem to focus at a point deep inside of my skull. My clenched jaw grinds my molars to dust.

  I am alone with this girl. Fucking…just like God intended! Right?

  1:43.

  It’s not Goth Girl’s job to fuck; it’s to receive. My arms coil around her waist, my hands fix into a wrestler’s Gable grip. The pace quickens. Dueling pistons in alternate in-and-out action. I can’t see the director, he’s crouched down somewhere feeding his hungry camera lens.

  I need a focal point, like: Goth Girl’s pussy feels good with the added tightness of something in her asshole at the same time…

  1:30.

  Lance gets lazy with maintaining the optimal angle that both avoids ball-to-ball contact and maintains the camera’s ideal sight-line. I feel the first hint of scrotal heat. The proximity, juxtaposed with the super snug cooze milking my dick, is conflicting. Lance hammers harder and moans. Goth girl is slipping and I double my grip. The hair of his balls tickles the base of my dick where my cock and sac meet. My natural reflex is to cringe. My flinch and Lance’s anal ramming pops me out of the vagina.

  I say, “Can I get a minute? I need to get my edge back.”

  Partly because the words are spoken on a third of a breath, partly because I’m flustered, this comes out as a whisper. I’m insta-pissed at myself for sounding so fucking weak.

  The director says, “Fine, but we need to get an additional thirty seconds of runtime for the editors because you verbally asked to stop.”

  “As opposed to what? Semaphore?”

  “Yes, actually. If you need a break, signal when the camera isn’t on you.”

  “Noted.” I say to the flesh pile on top of me, “Get off me. I can’t breathe!”

  It’s now that I notice the room is fetid.

  I say to the director, “Why an extra thirty seconds?” He says, “Because now I have to look at where we left off through the viewfinder and cue it back a good ten seconds to overlap your voice. On top of that, I have to give the editor some extra footage to work with so he has a margin of error.”

  “Oh.”

  “When we start again,” he says. “You guys have to give me the same pace so that it matches.”

  I step out from under the set lights that are triangulated on the couch. As soon as I do my sweat dries cool on my back.

  I say, “Lance, chill out with that shit.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, man.”

  “The staring into my eyes and the ball-on-ball shit! Not cool.”

  Lance scoffs. “If that bothers you, then you shouldn’t be doing porn.”

  “Incidental rubbing is to be expected, but you were into it.”

  “Hey,” Lance says to the director, “his negativity is messing with my chakras.”

  “Did you just tell on me like a little bitch?”

  “Let it go,” the director says. “Both of you.” The chopper lingers. “Everyone shut up while I record room tone for audio.” I’m standing next to a coffee table that’s been pushed aside to make room for the lights. An ice-cooler sits on the floor next to the table. It’s filled with ice, sodas, and waters. Next to cooler is the rape kit. I grab the lube from it and stroke my dick back up.

  I take a Tyler moment with an icy cold water bottle on the back of my neck. My breathing slows to normal.

  Money… “Room tone done. Whenever you’re ready.”

  “Okay,” I say as I walk back on the hot side of the lights, “let’s get this fucker done.”

  2:00.

  Same position. I hold Goth Girl steady. Lance lowers and enters her once again, except this time something is different. It’s much hotter on the backside of my dick and far tighter inside her, too. This new compression is right on my sensitive spot. My eyes roll half-lidded back in my head and I’m rounding the corner from inhaling to exhaling my own primal emote of pleasure, then I feel the slither of the back-stroke, and in an instant, understanding flashes by me.

  No, he can’t be in the same hole—“I’LL KILL YOU, MOTHERFUCKER!”

  Lance says, “Why you gettin’ all hostile ’n’ stuff, man? It was an accident.”

  I don’t bother with my socks and underwear, pulling on only my pants and shoes.

  “Let him go,” the director says to Lance. “Are you two available tomorrow so we can finish this?”

  Shirt now on, I heft my bag over my shoulder and leave the room. I go through the kitchen to the table with the red plastic cups. With a sweep of an arm I clear the table, splashing the wall with booze and I walk out under the starless night sky of the city. And I walk.

  The residential neighborhood gives way to a street with shopping centers. I reach for my phone.

  Amanda answers after a few rings. She knows what I do for money. Our relationship is simple. She never asks the details, so I’m never compelled to lie. It works. For now.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey.”

  It’s hard to breathe, my eyes water and my vision blurs and I tilt my head back as headlights from a passing cars find my face, hang there, and move on.

  • • •


  The gym never closes. It’s pay-by-the-day and for a couple of bucks I can lift weights, take a shower, reread my worn copy of Sartre’s No Exit or nap in the sauna. Nobody fucks with me.

  Towel slung around my waist, I walk over to the locker, unlock it, and pull out my pre-paid cell phone. Time to get to business.

  “Good morning. DVD Gangstas. How may I reject your call?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “How may I direct your call, sir?”

  My voice echoes off the tiled walls. “This is Tyler. Wanda, please.”

  “Oh, she walking in right now. This is Tyler…?” she asks.

  Finally. Okay, get right to the point and don’t take no for an answer. I sit on the locker room bench.

  “Knight. Tyler Knight. Remind her that I was referred by Gino Colbert.”

  “Hold please.”

  The girl does not bother with placing her hand over the receiver. The intent is for me to hear everything.

  “Wanda,” the receptionist says, “Tyler Knight is on the line for you. Again.”

  There’s a sigh. A second woman’s voice says, “Tell him I’m in a meeting.”

  Fuck this! I hang up before the receptionist can spin some bullshit. I reach inside the bag and swap the towel for clothes, pull out a VHS cassette, dump the bag into the locker then slap my padlock on it. I give the lock a couple sharp tugs and head out of the men’s room into the gym proper.

  • • •

  DVD Gangstas’ warehouse is not the first time I’ve ever seen a porn studio. I used to live two doors down from the high-end studio VELVET Video camouflaged as an arts and crafts company. It was tucked deep into a residential neighborhood of single-family homes in Van Nuys, and I was never the wiser. If you ever drive through LA’s Porn Valley, you can play the game Porn Studio, Not A Porn Studio. They range from the garish edifice wrapped in neon to the innocuous warehouses hidden away in business parks.

  DVD Gangstas’ office building falls into the latter category. They are the studio in the high-end ethnic porn niche. One successful scene for them can ignite the booster rockets of my career.

  • • •

  “I’m sorry,” the receptionist says, “but Wanda doesn’t receive visits from male talent. Especially unannounced.”

  By the way she crosses her arms throws glances at the door to the inner office, I’m concerned that she pushed a silent alarm and anti-mope goons will bust in at any moment. A boy band is singing a tune of teen love on the radio behind her command station.

  “Calling on the phone to set up an appointment wasn’t very effective so here I am. Can you at least tell her I’m here?”

  “I’m quite sure she won’t care.”

  “A good friend of Wanda’s referred me. Isn’t there someone here I can see?”

  I watch her look at the tape in my hand, then I feel her eyes probing me.“Sure,” she says. “Why not?” She picks up the phone and presses a button. “Stan, come to the reception area, please.” She replaces the phone back on its receiver.

  “Stan is our contract director. He’s absolutely brilliant. A genius, really.”

  I sit on the edge of a replica Barcelona chair. “Thank you.”

  “Nothing personal, I’m doing my job,” she says.

  “I understand.”

  After a while, the door bursts open. A white kid wearing a visor backward and upside down on his head, a T-shirt down to his knees, pants hanging off his ass, and bright blue sneakers limps out like he’s shit in his pants.

  He says, “What’s crack-a-lackin’, my nigga?” He bends his arm like a chicken wing and extends his elbow.

  I walk over to him. “Uh…hi?”

  His elbow is still pointed at me and I figure it out. I bump elbows with him.

  I say, “I’m Tyler Knight. I’m looking to get on your roster of male talent. I brought this.” I hold up the video tape.

  “What’s that?”

  “A recording.”

  “Of?”

  “Me, fucking.”

  He says, “Who’s the girl in the scene?”

  Who cares?

  “I forget.”

  Stan snatches the tape from my hand. “This is a professional scene? Not some bullshit with you setting a camera on a tripod and fucking a chickenhead from around the way?”

  “Of course.”

  “A’ight, coo’, coo’. Let me check this shit out. Chill out here, I’ma be right back.” He slithers back through the door he came from.

  I pace, sit, and pace some more. Stan returns, waving the tape.

  He says, “That was some bullshit with you setting a camera on a tripod and fucking a chickenhead from around the way.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “how ’bout that?”

  He looks at the VHS tape and laughs. “It’s the twenty-first century, nigga!”

  “Look,” I say. “Just give me a shot, man!”

  “Get a talent info sheet from the receptionist and fill it out.” He turns for the door, opens it, and I get a glimpse of a cubicle bullpen filled and buzzing with workers.

  “So I’ll call you to see if you have anything going on?”

  “Nah, man,” Stan says, “I’ma holler at your ass if I need you, player.”

  The door closes behind him cutting off the noise of worker activity. I stand there a moment, looking at the door. When I turn around to the receptionist’s podium there is a clipboard and pen. I fill the form out and leave the building.

  I fucking blew it.

  • • •

  When I return to the gym, the management finally tells me I’m no longer welcome, so I take a final shower, grab my bag, and leave.

  Sitting on the Hollywood Library steps, I call porn studios that advertise in the trade magazines like ATM. When I’m tired of getting yelled at or hung up on, I stop calling.

  • • •

  Tonight I’ll sleep on the train. The Blue Line is cool if it’s raining or if there’s nowhere else to go. The chairs are metal sheets folded at ninety degrees and covered with low-pile fabric designed to resist wear and stains rather than provide comfort. They are absolutely not designed to be used longer than the forty-minute ride from Downtown Los Angeles to Long Beach. Because I have a monthly pass, I have unlimited rides. The plan is to stay on it all night as it makes its continuous loop back and forth.

  I don’t really sleep on the train in the truest sense because it glides right through the kill zone of South LA. What I do resembles torpor. Hungry wolves enter and exit the train cars at each stop, hunting the weak, stupid, and alone. I’m alone. God help you if you are caught unable to defend yourself because nobody else will.

  It’s dark and today bleeds into tomorrow as the train rumbles onto a towering overpass. Outside the train window, South Central LA sprawls below. The day’s events replay in my mind until it tires out. My eyes shift focus from my profile reflected in the glass, to the rows of yellow streetlights beyond. The ghetto appears peaceful from this high up, but then, so would Fallujah. Occasional greens and reds regulate the non-existent traffic.

  The landscape is aglow with buildings burning orange, stretching to the horizon. Black columns of smoke put a lid on the boiling pot and choke out the stars. The homes and the businesses blaze once again with hope as kindling. I can’t hear the wailing—human or siren—this high up and from behind the train’s glass, but I don’t need to. Pain is universal.

  The minstrel show plays itself out for me in my rolling balcony seat. Blacks and Latinos, the Koreans with the rifles on rooftops; all races play their parts to the critical acclaim of the media and its spectatorship. Cops keep everything inside. Contained.

  My long-suppressed emotions surrounding race are stoked to a flame. Raised in suburbia but grappling with the implications of this urban conflict, I grew up in both wor
lds yet fit into neither. It is at once familiar and foreign. I want to get off at the next stop and go down there but if I did, what would I do? Would my hands choose to mend or rend?

  • • •

  The train doors snap open and a kid with French braids pokes his head through. He scans the car, eyes passing over me as he evaluates his odds, then stalks off to the next car.

  The train rolls. My cell rings.

  “Yeah.”

  “Yo, TK, this is Stan at DVD Gangstas. Somebody just canceled on me. You wanna work tomorrow, nigga?”

  • • •

  The sun evaporates the dew on the car windows and starts to work on the fog, but it does fuck-all to the frost in my mind. Bag over my shoulder, I trudge up the steep residential neighborhood toward the set.

  I hear a thwump-boom-thwump of bass as I approach the front stairs of the hillside McMansion.

  I open the door, and 50 Cent’s “In da Club” throttles my face. Stan enters the foyer, affecting a stooped-over pose and clutching his crotch through his baggy jeans like he’s about to pass a kidney stone. He shuffles toward me, one hand holding his pants up by his cock. He lifts the other arm, bends it at the elbow, and points his elbow at me. We bump elbows.

  The effects of sleep deprivation start again. I glance at his “Fuck You, I’m Batman” T-shirt… The Life Saver-colored letters rearrange themselves into, “Fuck You, Black Man!”

  “Thanks for the call last night, Stan.”

  “No sweat, my man. Did I wake you?”

  “Nope, I was in bed playing Xbox,” I lie, “it’s all good.”

  “Coo’, coo’. The girl’s in the bathroom cleanin’ out her booty. Julio St. Lox is in the kitchen where the paperwork is at.”

  I’ve only owned one TV for a month in my entire adult life. I’ve never watched much porn, but even I know who Julio is. The man is a legend.

  Stan continues, “It’ll be you an’ him with Lana Pierce. I’ma take the pretty-girl stills for the box cover when she done cleaning up and changing before her makeup gets all fucked-up from fuckin’, and we can get crack-a-lakin’.”