Going Down in La-La Land

by Andy Zeffer

  “Oh yeah! Shoot it!” Dale hollered as my body jerked convulsively like an epileptic.

  After I climaxed, I looked straight into the camera and moaned out loud, “I love me!” as though I had just bestowed upon myself the best orgasm ever.

  Having a sense of humor, Dale clearly appreciated my improvisation.

  “That, my friend,” he paused for dramatic effect, then said, “was priceless.”

  He grinned at me like a proud parent, and I looked back with petulant pride. He was really kind of cute in his own way.

  “Here ya go,” he tossed a roll of paper towels at me, and with that we wrapped things up.

  “Great!” Dale said as he snapped his camera lens shut. I got my check from Ron and called it a day.

  The Human Sponge

  The group shoot was basically a large gang bang set in an army barrack. The day before the shoot Ron asked me to pick up two of the models at LAX. I drove to the arrival flight level and sat in my car trying to spot two young guys from Denver who I had never seen before and wasn’t even shown a picture of. I was just given a brief description.

  The traffic to LAX was a bumper-to-bumper nightmare. When I finally got to the arrival level nobody in sight fit the description. Shit, I thought. There was no fucking way I was going to drive into the parking structure, park my car, start searching, and go through all that trouble to find these morons. It was bad enough I had to make the drive to the airport; I would have refused if I didn’t need the money so badly. I put my emergency signals on and jumped out of the car.

  I went upstairs to departures, thinking maybe that these guys were confused. There was no sign of them up there either. By now I was starting to get really irritated when I finally saw two scrappy blond dudes standing on the sidewalk in baggy jeans and sweatshirts.

  This had to be them. I went ahead and approached them, and sure enough it was this weekend’s talent. They looked relieved to see me. I threw their stuff in the trunk and drove off. They appeared to be just over nineteen years old. Neither looked older than twenty, and if I thought I was misguided, seeing these two left me feeling I could be much worse off.

  The first guy was a self-proclaimed skateboarder who wore a baseball hat that hung so low over his forehead you couldn’t see his eyes, and he enjoyed listening to annoying techno music. He sat in the back and kicked his shoes up against the front seat, fueling my bitterness and resentment over my current job responsibility.

  The other kid was a pudgy-faced blond with wide blue eyes who informed me that he was the bottom of the scene.

  “So how’d you two get involved with HUNG Video?” I asked.

  “Our agent sent in our pictures,” the bottom told me.

  “Can I put in one of my tapes?” the skater leaned over and interrupted.

  His music sounded like something you’d hear in a bad disco in Berlin, or perhaps Eva Braun’s bedroom.

  “Sorry, dude. It’s broken,” I lied. Not that it mattered much. I could still hear his awful music blaring from his headphones.

  We had just gotten on La Cienega and had a long ways to go, and I was already sick of them. Sitting in the LA traffic, I listened to the blond bottom blab on about his life in Denver, which sounded warped and disturbing. He proceeded to prattle on and ask me what I thought they should do that night in Hollywood.

  “Not much without a car,” I replied.

  I wondered if either of them had the slightest idea of what they were getting into as I waited at a traffic light. Eventually I reached the Holiday Inn on La Brea, right around the corner from Hollywood Boulevard. A bunch of Pakistanis ran the place, and they looked at me suspiciously when I approached the front desk. They then informed me that in order to check dumb and dumber in, I had to have the actual credit card with me, even if reservations had been made prior. Now I was visibly pissed and just wanted to get out of there.

  I called HUNG Video. Ron bitched endlessly about it over the phone and told me he was sending Dale Warren over. Dale arrived with the credit card.

  “I’ll take over from here,” he grumbled. He looked frazzled and pissed.

  I took off, glad my driver gig was over.

  The next day was the big shoot. I headed to the Santa Monica location in the morning to help Dale set up. Brian was there, along with Ron and a small camera guy who was very serious, made no conversation, and looked like he really didn’t want to be there. In the same large room where I filmed my solo video we set up cots and flagpoles, re-creating a half-assed looking army barrack. After helping set up the equipment, I was sent off to pick up a giant sub at Blimpie for the cast and crew.

  By the time I came back with the food the cast was beginning to arrive. They included a very handsome Eastern European guy. Maybe he was Armenian or Turkish. I wasn’t sure. Two well-built blond guys came in together, looking as if they had just been picked up from a farm in Nebraska. Then I spotted a gorgeous dude making conversation with Dale Warren. He had an amazingly solid and buff body, thick brown hair, and green eyes. I later found out he was a pharmaceutical salesman who did porn on the side for money. I was introduced to him and we spoke a little. He told me that he lived in Redondo Beach. I imagined that Ron paid him well, because this guy was a knockout. His only drawback was that he had bad skin, but not bad enough to take away from what was otherwise an outstanding package.

  Two more guys came in together. They struck me as rough and working class, the kind of guys you’d see at a pool hall in San Bernardino or someplace like that. Unlike the others, these two actually did resemble real army guys. For all I know, maybe they were in the military. But I wasn’t going to ask.

  One was a bit too red. I’m sure Ron told everyone to go in a tanning bed, including him. But this guy had stayed in for way, way too long. It looked painful to me.

  The two twits from Denver rounded out the illustrious cast. Dale had picked them up at the Holiday Inn while I went to grab the giant sandwich, which now looked totally unappetizing as it sat on a foldout table in the corner. A cooler of soda and bottled water was shoved underneath.

  Before the cameras rolled Ron took me aside.

  “Now,” he began in his flat, lazy accent, “if you want to jump in I’ll throw you a couple hundred extra bucks for the day.” He wore a satisfied expression on his face, as though he had made me the offer of a lifetime.

  I rejected his offer. I almost wanted to join in just to have sex with the pharmaceutical salesman. But making my porn debut with eight other people on camera would have been a bit too much.

  I noticed the baby-faced blond from Denver sitting in the corner staring at the floor with his eyes glazed, fear written in his expression.

  “What’s wrong?” I went over and asked him.

  “I’m going to have to get gangbanged by eight guys,” he murmured, looking completely petrified.

  “Didn’t they tell you before the fact?” I asked awkwardly.

  “No, they just said it would be a few,” he answered.

  “Wow,” I replied, a little speechless.

  I was at a loss for words. What do you tell someone who is about to get the shit fucked out of them by eight other guys, gangbanged six ways since Sunday?

  Brian had started taking still shots of the guys, all of whom were in the room now. They were all well hung; nobody was lacking in that department. But the most endowed of them were one of the farm-fed looking guys and my favorite, the pharmaceutical sales guy. With a long and thick member, he must have been very popular with the girls (and boys) in Redondo Beach.

  The shooting began with the European guy laying on one of the bunks, looking at a girlie magazine, and the wide-eyed Denver boy coming in to get nailed. My job was to stand by with lube in one hand and paper towels in the other. Today I was the official lube man. Evidently, instead of having a makeup person running on set in between takes to powder the actors’ noses, a porno set had a lubricant person standing by to squirt some grease into their hands. I also had to make sure that co
ndoms were unwrapped and available nearby.

  As I stood there waiting for the action to begin I wondered if they taught a class for this at The New School.

  As the blond twink sat on the European’s dick, immediately it became evident something wasn’t right. A foul smell arose and the condom the European had on looked darker than normal, with a cloudy grayish-brown hue.

  “I thought you said you douched yourself,” Dale said, clearly annoyed.

  “I thought I did,” the blond responded, blushing red from embarrassment.

  “Go back in the bathroom and do it again,” Dale ordered.

  The humiliated baby-faced bottom sprang up and darted into the bathroom.

  The European lay there with a disgusted look on his face. I grabbed some paper towels for him, beginning to fulfill my professional duties on the set. Ron glanced at me with a grossed-out expression.

  “This side of the business does not appeal to me at all,” he sneered.

  That comment left me confused, as anal sex was the bottom line of this business and what it was all about, so maybe he was in the wrong business altogether. Perhaps he should try something else to suit his sleazy personality, like used car salesman.

  Soon the blond returned with everyone hoping he had cleaned himself out completely.

  Evidently he had, as the next scene called for him to be on the bed and get it from both ends. First he started with the pharmaceuticals guy, who seemed completely at ease, not minding sticking his huge shaft in another guy’s mouth or rear end if the price was right. Then the two big blond corn-fed looking guys came in and began playing around with each other.

  “Oh yeah. Take that dick,” they ordered in bored voices.

  “Can you guys make it look at least halfway believable?” Dale complained.

  Brian and I glanced at each other, trying our best to keep from laughing.

  They were followed by the marine guy without the sunburn and the skater. Now they all surrounded the baby-faced blond, a few keeping him occupied while others played around with each other, switching around places every once in a while.

  “Yeah. Fuck him!” they ordered one another comically in gruff tones.

  If the kid had any reservations about getting gangbanged earlier, by now he lost them. It was especially apparent when he demanded out loud, “Can I get a dick in my mouth?”

  Someone was turning into a little gay porn prima donna diva in front of our very eyes.

  Dale turned around and jokingly said, “I like this kid,” while Brian and I just looked at each other and rolled our eyes.

  The models kept calling me over for more lube, a few giving me suggestive looks when I stepped forward. One of the stocky blond guys was jerking off with extreme vigor as I approached. The next thing I knew he made a little groaning noise and then gave me an expression of guilt and surprise, as though he had done something wrong. Looking down I saw he had ejaculated in his hand.

  “Oh shit. I came,” he said.

  Dale overheard and barked, “Don’t anybody come yet!”

  The stocky ejaculator turned back to me, smiled, and said quietly “It’s cool. I can do it again.”

  The whole situation was surreal. Me running around with a bottle of lubricant for a bunch of naked men, all busy slapping their salamis. I could just imagine telling my friends about this one, or better yet, my mother.

  “How was your day?” she’d ask.

  “Well, I have a new skill to put on my resumé, mom! Lube dispenser and condom overseer!”

  I’d have to write this experience down in some journal to believe it years from now.

  The other marine with the sunburn was the last to step in. This guy actually had lines. He was the angry drill sergeant who finds his men having gay sex and decides to punish them by joining in on the action. Wearing a uniform supplied by HUNG Video, he did his best drill sergeant à la An Officer and a Gentleman or Stripes.

  “What in God’s name is going on in here!” he spat hoarsely at the top of his lungs.

  He was surprisingly convincing, and now I was 99 percent sure he and his buddy were really in the army. God only knows how HUNG Video found them. He joined in the circle and starting humping the blond like the rest of them.

  After that they all ejaculated over him in a circle jerk. Dale and the camera guy moved in for close-up shots, and I put aside the lube and readied myself with a big wad of loose paper towels.

  At this point, I was really sick of the smell and feel of lube, to the point where I felt like I was about to puke. One by one they came all over Mr. Denver.

  “He’s like a sponge!” one of them cracked.

  The other actors thought that was really funny and laughed about it, telling Denver it was his new nickname—“The human sponge.”

  With the jizz having popped from almost everyone, we were all ready to get paid and scram. Dale was just waiting on the skater guy, who tried and tried to come but with no success. Finally the human sponge, still lying there all covered in what by now must have been very cold sperm snapped, “Let’s just finish. He’s never going to be able to do it!”

  In a few hours he had made the transition from nervous bottom to snappy star, almost like some fucked-up gay-porn version of A Star is Born. Dale gave up on waiting for his last money shot and called it a day. The models grabbed their pay and took off. I stayed behind with the others to take the equipment down and clean up a little. Not having been in LA six months, I had been given an explicit view into the world of gay porn, up close and personal.

  Beer and the Billionaire

  Before long, my first brushes with porn led to the first trick I turned in Los Angeles. Ever since I became involved with HUNG Video, Ron had been telling me of possible tricks he could arrange with important men in town. It turned out that besides being an expert porn producer he was an expert pimp as well. All in a good day’s work for him. He kept mentioning how he knew “major” clients and emphasizing that I must never reveal their identities and must keep them in complete confidence.

  As if prostitutes signed honor codes like students at Columbia University or some other Ivy League school, or their work was right up there with FBI agents. I could just see the male hustlers who serviced Hollywood bigwigs going out for a drink afterward and blabbing about it to their friends, exchanging secrets like “He had a dick smaller than a peanut” or “This time he threw in a few extra hundred.”

  But I just kept reassuring Ron I’d always keep my mouth shut. Besides, who did I have to tell but Candy and my school friends back in New York? Other than Candy, they couldn’t care less and probably didn’t know who any of these people were anyway.

  “Would you be interested in seeing these clients for the right price?” Ron asked me a few days after our initial meeting.

  “Sure,” I told him.

  I was now paying Candy $450 a month in rent for her guestroom. She charged me less rent than the place was worth because she used half the room to store her excessive wardrobe. But still, I had gas, food, car insurance, and other expenses. And though I was looking for a job on the Internet and in publications like The Hollywood Reporter and LA Times, I still hadn’t found something decent.

  Yeah, I could have gotten something at Starbucks. But if I could stand turning a few tricks for a while, I’d rather hold out for something better and have more time to look. That and the fact I was sick of low-paying jobs in the service industry.

  It was a few weeks before Ron would become more specific about who his very important clients were. Then he divulged the names, emphasizing both a famous manager and a billionaire producer. At first I thought he was bullshitting. Ron was such a sleaze, and a bit of an idiot on top of it, that I could not believe such accomplished people would speak two words to someone like him, even for the freshest piece of ass off the farm. Ron nonchalantly went on to explain that the billionaire had been out of town for a while but was back in LA. He had just been sent nude pictures of me taken the day of my jerk-off sce
ne.

  I wondered why someone so successful couldn’t find a gorgeous boyfriend to satisfy with. I reasoned the bigger the bank account, the bigger the appetite.

  Supposedly that was how it worked. Ron sent him pictures of guys and the billionaire decided if they were worth his time or money. I thought of myself as attractive but hardly an Adonis, therefore putting any thought of ever meeting the billionaire out of my mind. A few nights after Ron mentioned the whole thing, I got a phone call at home.

  “The billionaire wants to see you tonight. How soon can you be ready?” he asked in a serious tone.

  “Umm . . . fifteen minutes,” I stammered, caught completely off-guard.

  “Where are you again?”

  “Right near Robertson and Olympic.”

  Ron figured it would take me an hour to get there.

  “Just so you know, I told him you love to swallow dick and can suck the metal off a tailpipe, so be prepared to do just that. Sometimes he’ll have guys stay over depending on how much he likes them or what mood he is in. And the pay is at least five hundred dollars.”

  He gave me directions and told me to call him when I got there. The address was in Malibu, right on the Pacific Coast Highway.

  I showered quickly. After getting out of the shower I stared at myself in the mirror, immediately focusing on the first feature I always looked at, my hairline.

  At age twenty-three I was convinced my hairline was already beginning to recede. I was continually paranoid about it. Every morning I worried about how someday I was going to have to go to the Boseley hair transplant institute. I was so neurotic about losing my hair I would work my mind into frenzy about how I’d better get some acting roles very soon, while I still had a full head of hair.

  I got dressed and headed for my car. I remembered reading an article about the billionaire in Vanity Fair years ago. My mother used to subscribe Vanity Fair, and it was always on the living room coffee table. In this particular issue there was a photo of the billionaire at his colossal mansion in Beverly Hills. His name was Wayne Hanley. I guessed his place in Malibu was where he met all his tricks, a more casual environment. No hustlers allowed in the big place, I thought while driving down the Santa Monica Freeway toward the coast.