Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love & Porn

by Tera Patrick; Carrie Borzillo

  With Janine in 2001

  I had started to talk to my father again. Due to busy work schedules and living in different cities or states over the years, we would sometimes not talk as much as we should. But he came to visit me at my new place on Dickens Street in Sherman Oaks, one of the nicer cities in the San Fernando Valley, which was another upgrade in my living situation.

  Like ripping off a Band-Aid, I told dad very quickly. I said, "Dad, I've done some movies."

  "Of course you have," he said very matter-of-fact.

  There was a long pause. I was dumb and naive to think that no one watches porn or knew what I was up to. I told him that I was very happy and that I was making a lot of money and that I was doing it on my own terms. Then he said, "Will you sign a couple of these Playboys for my friends?" I felt relieved. He was proud to see me on the cover of Playboy. It was the approval I had been looking for my whole life.

  "It's an honor to be in Playboy, honey. I'm happy for you," he said. "Just be careful. Take care of yourself, and be happy."

  CHAPTER 11

  Life Is a Porn Movie

  As porn's It girl, I was getting my freak on when I wanted, where I wanted, and with whom I wanted. My favorite places to shoot and fuck were exotic, remote, faraway lands. Such was the scenario for the Penthouse video Penthouse: Pets in Paradise, which we filmed in tropical Costa Rica in 2001. Penthouse shoots were always so beautiful and tantalizing. This one was a softcore video with fellow porn stars and Pets Sunny Leone and Kyla Cole under the guidance of Nick Guccione, the son of the late great Bob Guccione, who founded Penthouse.

  I was in heaven. I was trying to be professional and do my job, but all I wanted to do was have sex in this tropical paradise. It was frustrating for horny ol' me because the shoot was only softcore--just girl-on-girl scenes with no penetration. It was driving me crazy. But I had a plan to get some satisfaction. I had my eye on the brother of the photographer. He was a blond boy who looked like he was straight off the beaches of California.

  During the day, I was shooting with the photographer--a brown-haired guy who was kind of geeky and not exactly my type. We were shooting on an active volcano in the middle of nowhere, with monkeys swinging from tree to tree and the biggest bugs I've ever seen in all my life. (I was the perfect porn star to bring into the great outdoors because I grew up hiking, camping, and hunting with my father. I loved being outside.)

  So the photographer was shooting me and he kept backing up and backing up farther and farther to get the right angle until finally the mountain gave way and his leg buckled and fell through a hole with hot lava underneath. Everyone freaked out. The shoot stopped. Selfish me was bummed that I had to stop shooting for the day. Nick Guccione and the photographer's brother had to carry the burn victim off the mountain. He then had to get airlifted to the nearest hospital to be treated for second-degree burns on his leg.

  Later on at dinner, we all feasted on fresh fruit, vegetables, and fish in the common dining area of the resort we were staying at, and the photographer excused himself from dinner because he wasn't feeling well. He was bandaged up from ankle to calf and the doctors had him medicated. I was slowly nursing my glass of white wine and getting a little buzzed and started thinking, "Hmmm. I think he needs a little attention. He's had a rough day." So being the horny girl that I am who loves to get fucked in gorgeous green surroundings like this one, I decided to follow the photographer to his room and make my move on him.

  Knock! Knock!

  "Come in," he said.

  Shocked at the sight of me standing in his doorway he said, "What are you doing here?

  "I thought you might need a little resuscitation," I said in my best porn-star voice. I loved using cheesy lines on guys like that--life was a porn movie to me.

  He was lying in bed with his bandaged leg out of the covers and I slowly started to kiss him and took my panties off. I took his hand and put it on my wet pussy. He got hard instantly. I gently started taking his clothes off. I used to be a nurse, so in my mind I was pretending I was a super sexy nurse taking care of a patient. I was very gentle with him because I knew he was in a lot of pain and wouldn't be able to do much. I did all the work. I climbed on top of him and used him like the sex kitten that I was.

  "Wow. I'm having sex with a Penthouse Pet," he told me.

  We had sex for fifteen to twenty minutes before his brother busted in the door. It so happened that they were sharing a room. With the photographer's cock still inside of me, I turned around when I heard the brother come through the door and I said, "Ooh! Double time!"

  "Whoa. What's going on in here? Is there a party?" the brother, who was a little drunk, slurred.

  "Yeah, there's a party and you're invited!" I loved playing the porn star.

  "No, no, no. You have to leave," said his brother, lying there under me.

  "No, I want you both to stay," I insisted. The laid-up brother was not too pleased at my idea. But I had never had brothers before and I wanted them both, so I had them both.

  I climbed off the photographer and started giving the blond brother a little mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. We started playing together and I gave him head. The blond brother had a bigger cock, so I was really excited. But the oral sex was too much for him to handle and he came all over my tits before we could fuck. I went back to the brother in bed and tried to finish my job there, but between being interrupted by his brother and being in pain from his injured leg, the photographer never got off. And he was not happy. It kind of ruined the moment for him. I felt bad.

  The next morning, the blond brother came down to breakfast all bright and cheery saying, "What a fabulous morning it is!"

  "Oh yes. I slept great," I said with a wink.

  The brunette brother just grunted.

  Oh well, you can't please everyone. But I certainly pleased myself.

  MY TIPS FOR A HAPPY THREESOME:

  Here are a few tips on how to make sure a threesome goes your way and everyone is happy.

  TIP 1: The girl is always in charge. We're the ones more likely to get jealous or feel uneasy, so the girl should be the one who lays out how it's going to go down.

  TIP 2: Definitely set up some ground rules. Spell out what is off limits, if anything, and what is fair game ahead of time so there are no surprises.

  TIP 3: Never spend too much time with one sexual partner over the other. That's how fights break out. Give equal attention to each person in the room.

  TIP 4: Don't do a threesome with a friend or close business associate. Pick a partner who is somebody you're never going to see again. If this person is already in your life and is going to pop up again and again, it can get uncomfortable for you.

  CHAPTER 12

  Four Reasons

  In late 2000, I started dating singer/rapper Erik Schrody, better known as Everlast, the former singer of the hip-hop group House of Pain, which had a big hit in the early '90s with a song called "Jump Around." As a solo artist, he was pretty successful too, having hit number 1 with his song "What It's Like" in 1998, just a few years before I met him on the set of his music video for "I Can't Move" from his second solo album.

  My agent called me one day with an opportunity to audition for his music video, and I knew a little bit about Everlast, who I called by his real name, Erik. But to me, it was just another job and just another good opportunity to do my thing, make some money, and have a bit of fun. Meeting him was such a cliched Hollywood moment. Here I am the "hot girl in the video," and the star asked me to come to his trailer. So in my sheer black dress, with no panties on, I went waltzing into his trailer and was greeted with a big cloud of marijuana smoke and Erik standing there with three of his homeys, whom he immediately dismissed. I'm thinking, "Oh, no, is he going to pounce on me?"

  "Hey, how's it going?" asked Erik while rolling a joint.

  I was instantly attracted to him. The shaved head, tattoos, and tough-guy manner . . . I dug it.

  "Do you want to smoke?"

 
"No, that's OK." I didn't smoke much during this time of my life.

  "Well, uh, see you on set," he said. He was kind of cold, but it was intriguing for me. A challenge, I thought.

  At the end of the shoot, he asked me for my number, which made me as giddy as a schoolgirl. I hadn't been dating much in the past few years because I just wasn't into having a boyfriend. I was into fucking, and something in Erik made me excited for a new adventure.

  Our first date was a movie date at his house. Ladies, don't ever let a guy take you on a date to his house: (a) It's cheap, (b) It shows disrespect (What? He didn't want to be seen with me in public?), (c) It usually means all he wants from you is sex, and (d) It's just plain lame. We deserve dinners and romance, don't we? I should've known how lame Erik would end up being by that very first date. But I was young and naive and just happy to have met a guy who could potentially be a boyfriend, which is something that had been lacking in my life.

  I went to his house in Reseda, California, for that date, and it was really uncomfortable at first. We sat on opposite sides of his couch as we watched a Lakers game, which had me bored out of my mind. We both seemed really nervous. After a few awkward moments, he took a thick, fuzzy fur blanket and wrapped me in it and then wrapped himself in it. I was cold and shivering, partly because it was winter and pretty chilly in his house and partly because I was a little nervous. Either way, he warmed me up fast. And unbeknownst to me at the time, we started a pattern that would be the basis of our relationship: I come to his house. We sit on his couch. We watch TV. We have sex. I go home, utterly unsatisfied.

  For two years, I'd follow that pattern. The sex was never mind-blowing. You can tell if sex is going to be good by how much effort a guy puts into you when you're not under the sheets. Erik put zero effort into dating me, taking me out, or making me feel special or beautiful, and that selfishness extended into the bedroom. He was very selfish, but I just went along because it was nice to have someone new around. I had been really lonely, and it was a time when I was feeling really low.

  Along the way during those two years, he'd say things to me like, "You know, you're lucky to be with me. Who's going to want to date a porn chick?" Well, he was dating a porn chick, so what the fuck? He was clearly torn over dating me. On the one hand, he's saying no one should date a porn chick. On the other hand, he's asking me to autograph my Penthouse cover. What was that? And the worst part about it was that he asked me to sign the Penthouse right after we had sex. Two words: tacky and creepy. He was attracted to what I did for a living but repelled by it at the same time. And it felt like he punished me for being who I was.

  I just remember thinking, "Well, it's bad enough that he doesn't love me for me. But it's worse that he seems to actually hate me for me." I wasn't really sure what to do with that, so I just let it slide for a while. But deep down, I felt hurt, humiliated, and depressed that the guy I had been with for about two years was treating me so badly, and I was letting him. It was also sad that he lived with his mother, but his mother never spoke to me and we never interacted. Erik obviously kept it that way on purpose.

  During this time I had very low self-esteem and was drinking heavily, and Erik's comments just dragged me down further. A low point in the relationship came on my birthday. In general, 2002 was a banner year for me. I landed both Playboy and Penthouse. I was one of the hosts of Playboy TV's Night Calls 411 Live and I was enjoying the press and promotion of the two simultaneous covers. Everyone was celebrating me around me, but deep down I was very depressed and felt so alone. Being with Erik made me even lonelier than being by myself because he wasn't there for me, supporting me, loving me, or respecting me.

  July 25, 2002, was my twenty-sixth birthday. I called up Erik and said, "Hey, it's my birthday! What are we doing?

  And he said, "I don't know what you're doing, but I'm going out with the boys."

  "You're not taking me out?" I asked.

  "Why would I fucking take you out? You can do whatever the fuck you want to do," Erik said.

  I shouldn't have been surprised at his reaction, but I was, and I cried and cried and cried.

  I called my best friend, Alexis Winston, who was a Penthouse Pet and dating a millionaire named Larry, and told her how sad and depressed I was and she came up with a plan. "Forget about Erik. I'm going to take you on Larry's private jet and we're going to get away." So I packed my bag, got dolled up, and flew up to central California with Alexis and her man, who had a big birthday cake waiting for me. I was so jealous of her relationship. When I got to Larry's mansion all I could think was, "Wow. He's going to marry her and she gets to live in this thirty-room house with the man of her dreams and here I am dating shitty, selfish asshole Erik. What am I doing wrong?"

  Erik did such a number on my self-esteem that I started to cry myself to sleep at night thinking, "What man is ever going to marry a porn star? Maybe Erik's right. Who is going to want to bring me home to their parents?" Seeing Alexis so happy with her man and all of these girls in the industry around me dating guys who lavished love and gifts on them made me really think about what I wanted in life. I wanted to marry a good man. And if porn was going to get in the way of that, I though, then maybe I shouldn't do porn anymore.

  Around this time we were shooting Island Fever 2 for Digital Playground in a rain forest in Hawaii. Perfect, a tropical setting, my favorite. It ended up being my worst filming experience ever. I was working with a Canadian porn actor named Erik Everhard, whom I worked with before on a Penthouse photo shoot with Suze, on the movie White Panty Chronicles and many other things over the years. I remember him being a genuinely nice guy when I first worked with him.

  From Island Fever 2

  I was in cowgirl position on top of him, and all of a sudden something in him snapped. He started fucking me violently, so hard that I bled everywhere. He actually tore my vagina. It was embarrassing and violating. I didn't even realize I was bleeding; I just knew that he was pounding the shit out of me and it hurt. I was so tired of working at this point that I just shut off my emotions, turned that "switch" on, and went through with my job. The director saw the blood and stopped the scene. He had to take me off the set. I wasn't able to work for the rest of the movie. I had other scenes planned but was only able to shoot this one scene. It was a horrible experience. He didn't even apologize. No one there even comforted me. There's no comforting in porn, I guess.

  I went back to my room that day and thought, "Wow. Is McDonald's hiring?" It left such a bitter taste in my mouth. This was not what I signed up for. For a split second, I thought, "I don't want to do movies anymore. I just don't want to do it." I loved having sex, but this episode left me feeling violated and used. However, I felt like I was in too deep and I couldn't quit even if I wanted to. It's who I was, and I didn't want to lose all that I had built up over the years. I didn't want to lose my fans. I didn't want to lose my livelihood. And my "boyfriend" Erik had me convinced that I was just some stupid porn chick who couldn't do anything else. What was I going to do if I quit? So, I didn't. Not yet.

  I started sinking lower and hitting the bottle extra hard. Up until this point, I drank with a party-girl attitude. It was celebratory drinking because life was indeed going pretty damn well. But eventually I was drinking myself to bed every night and needing booze to get through Night Calls. I was lonely and I wanted a good man to be with. I never regretted what I did for a living because it was always my choice, my way, my fantasies lived out. But the outside factors were starting to take their toll on me.

  My lowest moment during what was supposed to be this "stellar year" for me came on the set of Night Calls one random evening. I had downed a fifth of Jack Daniel's and could barely stand. I don't remember much from the night, but I do remember that R&B singer Brian McKnight was in the studio audience watching the show. We'd often have celebrities pop by to watch us tape and I always had fun interacting with them, but not that night.

  "Are you OK?" Crystal Knight, my cohost, asked repeate
dly. Crystal really looked out for me. She could tell by the glazed-over look in my eyes that something was way wrong.

  "No. I'm not OK. I don't think I can do the show," I told her.

  "You can do the show. I'll carry you. Don't worry. I'll do all the work," she assured me. She had my back. She knew I'd get fired if I couldn't do the show because I was too drunk.

  I was making it through the shoot, but my condition didn't go entirely unnoticed. My producer Jamie kept saying in my earpiece, "Stick! What's wrong with you? Wake up!" My eyes had been rolling back into my head. I couldn't believe how wasted I was.

  It was then that I realized how fucked-up I was getting, and how I was about to fuck up my career and life if I didn't get myself together. I was drinking myself to sleep every night, having bad hang-overs, feeling like crap, acting cranky to people around me, and starting to fuck up at work--the one thing that I loved. After that bad night on the Night Calls set, I vowed to take some time off from drinking, but it wasn't easy or immediate.

  There was also the money issue. Here I was the most famous porn star in the world, and I was still living in a small condo and driving a leased Infiniti that I would later find out was in my manager's name, not mine. I just wasn't making the money I thought I should be making. I was making about $20,000 a month between all of my gigs, and that sounds like a lot, but in the porn industry it isn't. It's a lot of money in comparison to a civilian lifestyle, but not for an entertainer. Most actresses make a lot more than just a quarter of a million a year. And the number-one porn star in the world is only making $240,000? Bankers make more than that! People thought I would be driving a Rolls-Royce, and I wasn't. I started seeing girls in the industry making a ton more money, wearing fancier designer clothes, and driving more expensive luxury cars. I had none of that, and I didn't understand why.