by Oriana Small
I always wanted more than what was offered. My entire motivation in life was based on my incapability to be satisfied. I wanted more money, more attention, more praise, and more love. With Kris, I had a constant source of longing. Kris simply replaced Tyler. Everything in my life seemed like a shallow replacement for a sense of contentment that I had never achieved. None of it made me happy, just temporarily high. Kris fell into this category, too. My little successes made Kris bitter and jealous. Because I was young and drugged out, I blamed myself for his insecurities. Even with my newfound success, I felt worthless.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
HIV Breaks Out
APRIL of 2004 was the beginning of a terrible panic in the porn industry. Three girls and one guy contracted HIV while doing scenes. The guy caught it first while filming in Brazil and then transmitted it to the girls back in California. His name was Daryl and I’d done one of my first scenes with him. The testing in Brazil is sketchy at best. Producers go down there to shoot because the girls will do scenes for bargain basement prices. The cost is dirt cheap because the talent pool there is dirty and cheap, but with much bigger risks.
Daryl gave HIV to the three girls unknowingly. When he’d returned from Brazil he still had a clean AIM test, good for thirty days. Because he only spent half the month shooting in Brazil, he went to work right away doing scenes back at home. There was now a hole in the system.
My contract agreement with JM Productions was finalized mere weeks before the HIV crisis. It was scary, and I felt lucky. I could have easily been one of those girls. They were infected doing the kind of hardcore sex scenes I was known for, anal and ass creampies. Just a few months earlier, two other guys had shot their loads up my ass. I’d needed the money, badly. If I hadn’t since come under contract, and someone had asked me to do one of those scenes with Daryl, I would have.
All of the producers, directors, and performers had to halt production for a few weeks while a quarantine list was put together. Some companies took the moral high ground and said that they would no longer put internal creampies in their movies. Everyone who wanted to be viewed as an important player in porno made the declaration that anyone who shot during this time was an immoral criminal. A few others announced that they would produce condom-only films from then on. In my opinion, it was quite lame the way so many voices wanted to be heard on record about their “safety.” I don’t advocate sleaziness or those who disregard the health of others by any means, but some of these people said and did things just to make themselves look better. If we all really cared about the health of porno actors, then why would we shoot in Brazil in the first place? Or be allowed more than one scene per HIV test?
My contract company wanted me to shoot regardless. Kris freaked out. He was supposed to be shooting his first movie for Vice Seraph Productions, but was postponing it because of the scare. It was important to Kris to do everything that Vice Seraph told him to. It was his equivalent of winning the Lotto. His dream job was to produce porno movies with this company. He hoped to get rich and famous with the new deal. Vice Seraph had quickly become more important to him than me.
I called Jeff and told him I was too scared to shoot any scenes.
“Look, no one in the movie is on the quarantine list. You’ve got to get this movie done by the end of the month, or it will screw things up for us. I can’t tell you what to do, but you will be fine. Trust me. We’ve dealt with this before.” He’d been in porn a lot longer than me, and it had happened before. Two girls who were popular in the 1990s caught HIV from a male performer in 1998. That incident is what prompted mandatory PCR DNA HIV testing for performers.
I could not stop thinking that it could have been me. Over the two years I’d been performing in sex scenes, I came down with chlamydia and gonorrhea six times. Not to mention the herpes and bacterial vaginitis infections I was constantly plagued with. My body was an STD cesspool, exploding at times with outbreaks. If I had kept up my usual number of scenes around the time of the HIV outbreak, there was a strong chance I would have been infected. I signed the contract in the nick of time. I felt saved by JM, in a way.
I had to face the fact that what I did for a living was dangerous. Thus far I’d chosen not to think about the risk and consequences of catching something terminal like HIV. All of the STDs I’d come down with were fixed with a dose of antibiotics. Just because we tested did not mean we were fully protected.
“Okay. I’ll shoot it next week,” I finally agreed. I talked to Sandy about it afterward. She was the kind one at JM. I could always talk to her, and she never got frustrated and pissed off like Jeff did. Sandy was also friends with, and former employer of, one of the girls who’d contracted HIV back in 1998, a hardcore anal girl. As their contract girl she was the star of many JM movies. Sandy explained to me in detail about what happened and about the business itself, and how now JM took extra precautions to make sure no one on the current quarantine list was linked to anyone I would be working with. But porno isn’t any safer than the last person you fucked.
I had to live up to my obligation if I wanted to stay on as the JM contract girl. All four scenes were shot in one day, and it was a blast. I was supposed to be the director, but I didn’t really have any responsibility. My directing consisted of being disruptive and laughing so hard during the sex that I was asked to leave the room. I didn’t take it seriously at all. Porno movies as entertainment really shouldn’t be taken seriously.
A lot of people do take them seriously.
Kris was one of those people. Ever since he became the newest director for Vice Seraph, he started taking himself most, most seriously. He insulted the movies I did for JM, calling them garbage and bottom-of-the-barrel. I tried to let it roll off, but it hurt. When he put down the work I was doing, he was putting me down. Kris certainly succeeded in making me feel like less of a person. The Ass Cream Pies movie I did for Anabolic back in December became a huge issue.
“You lied to me,” he said. “You never told me it was an internal pop! I have a right to know these things, since we’re together. Aren’t we?”
“Yes, of course we’re together! I’m sorry, I just didn’t think to tell you all the details. You hate hearing about them!” The internal ass cum shots became a safety issue. It was accepted as the likeliest method of contracting HIV. Nobody was concerned about this six months before, including me. None of us had any fear of ass creampies.
“Well, I just can’t stand secrets, Ori!”
I groveled to him. I knew I could spread a disease to him. It was a horrible guilt to live with everyday. He didn’t do scenes like my scenes. I was the dirty one. It would be my fault if we got sick from HIV, or any other STD.
It’s not like STDs suddenly sprung from nowhere. They had always been present, and we had elected to ignore them. And anyway, I could as easily catch them from him as he from me. Kris could be so condescending that it was almost like I had to keep reminding myself—and him—that he worked in porno, too.
Right around the time of the Ass Cream Pies argument, Kris had moved into my apartment for a month. He’d rented a big expensive downtown loft to live in, but it wasn’t ready. I offered my home as a temporary arrangement, and it was a temporary hell for us both. Kris was always cranky and spiteful toward me. My attitude was still immature and babyish. I was still only twenty-two. We weren’t getting along at all.
Stress brought on a massive herpes outbreak to Kris’s genital region. We went to see a doctor together. He said that he’d never had herpes before and that he must have gotten it from me. I assumed responsibility. I’d been tested, and I did have it. I apologized over and over for it. Kris accepted and allowed me to comfort and care for him. I held his hand dotingly even as the doctor took one look at the big red blisters on his private area and said, “Oh, no. This isn’t your first outbreak! You’ve had this before.”
I did love being the JM contract girl. I cannot stress it enough: That contract probably saved me from catching HIV. I wa
s damn grateful I was one of the chosen few deemed special enough for a contract. I only had to perform in three scenes, at the most, per month. One of the reasons I wanted to be exclusive with JM was to not have to work as much. I thought it would improve my relationship with Kris. It didn’t. He refused to see what I had as something special. Though only a few each month, I was still doing scenes, and he was still insecure if I did even one. He didn’t want me to talk about my scenes, though it’s natural for couples to talk about work at the end of the day.
I wanted to talk about my JM scenes. The people I worked with were all crazy and something always went wrong. I was proud. I got used to the feeling from being with Tyler. He’d always bragged about my scenes and loved to dish about the craziness on set. Tyler encouraged me to do porn, almost too much. He only made me feel bad about it when he couldn’t perform with me.
As far as I was concerned, the only person who’d earned the right to be morally conflicted about my work was me. I couldn’t explain this to Kris. His ego was pushing so hard. He was changing from a party guy in his thirties into this electro-hip suave porno mogul. It was a sham. Kris wasn’t satisfied with being Kris anymore. He had to be Kriss. He started wearing AG jeans and buying tee shirts from Barney’s. Kriss was somebody. Kriss was a big-time porno producer. He was doing his best to reinvent himself, but I wouldn’t buy it. I’m all for people making money and buying nice things, but not for building up phony personas. I hated the image Kris/Kriss was creating. It was dishonest. I couldn’t stand the way he kissed the Vice Seraph people’s asses. When I called him out on his identity crisis, he would get defensive and withdrawn.
According to the new Kriss, I did the kind of porn that only low kinds of people do. Trash. It affected my enthusiasm for my scenes. Before Kris and I started dating, I was a confident and willing little chick. Now, I was insecure and depressed, hindered by my guilt. Kris didn’t like it when I fucked other guys, so I better not be into it. That would hurt his feelings, so I told myself I really wasn’t into it anymore.
I began to hate the sex. I dreaded the days I would have to shoot. The job that had given me such freedom to do what I wanted in life had turned ugly. I would still go to the gym, but it wasn’t for any reason but to keep my weight under control. Adding Xanax to my cocaine diet, I stayed in this debasing relationship and continued to wallow. I was miserable most of the time. I couldn’t tell what I hated more—myself or sex. These two hatreds fed one another.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
White Trash Whore
DURING the summer of my first year on contract with JM, we shot White Trash Whore 30. When I say we, I mean the director, Jim, and the production manager, the still photographer, and the gaffer. I worked with the same crew on every movie I shot with JM, over a hundred scenes altogether. Originally, I was asked to star in the lead role as the main White Trash Whore. Sadly, I could not handle the detail. I quit doing gang bangs the year before. The White Trash Whore is required to do an all African-American, six-guy gang bang, no matter what. I stood my ground. I would not do another gang bang. My craving for giant cocks was at an all-time low. Jeff was disappointed. I was given the supporting role as the White Trash Whore’s sister instead.
We met at a liquor store off the freeway. Fitting for a White Trash Whore, I thought. I had to take the I-5 almost all the way to Valencia. It was rural. There were cows in the distance feeding off endless hills of grass. As I got off at the instructed exit, I saw a sign on the off-ramp that read “STATE CORRECTIONAL FACILITY AND DETENTION CENTER.” JM had gone to junkyards, deserted trailers in the desert, garages, farms, and tweaker houses to shoot these films. There are plenty such locations available in the San Fernando Valley. In some neighborhoods it’s all you can find. A tweaker house is perfect for shooting a white trash movie. The set’s already decorated to exact detail. Sometimes the tweakers who live there will play extras for you in the movie.
I pulled into the driveway of a strip mall parking lot. I saw the crew talking to some perfectly trashy girl getting out of her car. The star of the movie. I got out and walked over to them. “Hi Ashley, glad you could make it on time today. This is Sissie.”
Sissie was loveable. Her face was quite pretty. She had bleached-blonde, shoulder length hair. She had on white sweatpants and a cutoff white wife-beater tank top. Sissie had a giant all-natural DD rack. Her tits were showing proudly through her shirt. She looked like she was ready to shoot some porno.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t. It had recently been established to everyone that I hated sex. I liked everything up until the actual intercourse. Everything about the fucking grossed me out. It was a phase I was going through. The smell of balls and sweat from a man’s ass was repellent to me. When my hair would get stuck to my cheek because my face was sticky from a blowjob, I gagged. Not only was I burned out from doing the same old routine, I was grossed out because Kris told me repeatedly how disgusting these other guys were. He did his best to drive it into my brain, over and over, that I was doing seriously repulsive work. I was young and in love, so I believed him. All I could think about were his insulting words when I fucked these other guys on camera.
I would make excuses when I couldn’t fuck certain people that Kris despised. Before, I would have done anything that JM asked me to. I wanted to please Kris and JM both. There seemed to be no happy medium. Whatever I did would not be good enough for one or the other.
I did not feel this way when Tyler and I did porno together. Each of us fucked gnarly strangers—there was equality. Tyler may have been a manipulator, but he wasn’t an insecure one. Whatever quality I was grasping so desperately for at the end of Tyler’s and my relationship was not what Kris possessed. Kris couldn’t love or accept himself. How was he ever going to accept me?
When the rest of the crew and talent arrived, we caravanned to the feeder road on the side of the freeway. For a couple of miles we headed toward the correctional facility, then took a turn into the hills. A winding road, nothing but trees and cows to look at. The grass was yellow and the trees were giant oaks. It was a beautiful chaparral landscape.
We pulled to a stop in front of a big iron roadblock. There was a redneck guy in a pick up truck waiting for us. He was a big man with a stained white tee shirt and a beer gut. The director, Jim, waved his arm out the window to signal all of the cars to follow. The redneck unlocked the big chain holding the blockade and opened the gate. On the other side was a private road. He got back into his truck and onto this road, his huge Rottweiler in the bed of the truck grinning maniacally.
It was a dirt road covered in potholes and sharp rocks. I was furious that I had to drive my beautiful new car on this shit. I was a prima donna because I was the contract girl. Besides being late, hating sex, and whining, I was also consistently rude, only because I knew I could be. Being civil had been left behind at the liquor store. Trailers lay tucked in between giant oaks, and broken-down cars were scattered throughout the scenery. The place was reminiscent of a polygamist compound, but without the pioneer women. Colorado City with dirt bikes and beer.
Jim was always cheerful. Every day was a new and exciting day to shoot pornography. Nothing ever got him in a downer mood. Shooting for Jim felt like day camp. We were all here to do some nasty sex scenes and have a good time. He kept morale up and made me laugh at myself, which was crucial since I’d been feeling alienated from everything. If it weren’t for Jim, I would have hated every single thing about my job.
I followed Jim up the gravel driveway. Our White Trash Whore house was a pink crumbling mountain shack, a three-room dwelling made out of rotting wood. Random machine parts lay strewn around the sides of the house. Chickens wandered around the property, in and out of the house. An old, sick cat drank out of a moss-covered bowl. The smell of sulfur was strong, almost unbearable. An old, dirty trailer sat next to the back door of the house, along with more broken things. It was perfect.
The makeup artist went to work on Sissie right away. Sissie had to
do the scene before mine, and the one after. First two white guys in a DP, then five black dudes in a gang bang. We had to get moving, as Jim would say. Sissie was covered in blue eye shadow and pink lipstick while I rifled through the home’s belongings.
Jim said, “What are you doing going through this poor woman’s possessions?”
“A woman lives here?” I asked. I’d found a pile of old photographs lying in the bedroom. “Whoa! Look at this!” I held up a photo of a dead skunk. There were dozens of photos of a mountain lady holding her rifle and the dead animals she shot. There were skunks, deer, raccoons, squirrels, and coyotes.
“Ashley, the woman who lived here died a few days ago. Her son is the one renting this place to us. This house is set to be demolished in a few days.” He held up a necklace made out of snake rattlers.
I dug out a tiny confederate hat and a coonskin cap. This dead woman’s things were going to become our white trash props for the day.
Sissie emerged from makeup. Her blonde hair was curled and her big boobs shone. Jim asked her if she was all right to do some dialogue.
“Oh yeah, I can act. I’ve been studying drama for seven years. I did it all through high school. I just have to smoke beforehand.” She reached into her purse and pulled out her bag of weed and a glass pipe. This is a ritual that almost all porno actors must go through before attempting to act.
“Why do you need to smoke, Sissie? Because it makes you smarter?” Jim asked, both sweetly and sarcastically.
“I smoke it because I think too much. I’ve been tested and I actually have a really high IQ and an overactive brain. When I smoke, I can focus better on one thing. I can be normal.”