“Hey, babe,” I say, setting the scotch down. “Thanks for calling me back.”
“I’m sorry it took so long,” she says. Her voice is measured, unreadable. “I wasn’t feeling well this morning, so I had to leave. I went to my parents’, and then my phone died.”
It has the practiced pitch of a rehearsed excuse, and my stomach sinks. I’m pretty sure this means she’s upset about my scene with Bambi today, not that she’s actually sick.
“Cass, I want to see you.”
“Not now,” she says. “I’m still not feeling well.”
“Later tonight maybe? If you’re not feeling well, I can come take care of you.”
“I’m going to stay at my parents’ until tomorrow,” she says, and there’s a note of apology in her voice. “I think I really just need to sleep it off...whatever it is that I’ve caught.”
“Devi.” I swallow. “Please.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, Logan. Remember we planned on shooting in the afternoon? I’ll be over at one.”
Come over now.
Or let me come to you.
Please, Cass, don’t do this.
I don’t say these things. I don’t say them because I know the right thing to do is to give her space. I don’t say them because a good guy would give her the benefit of the doubt and believe her when she says she’s not feeling well and needs to sleep.
Most of all, I don’t say them because my throat is too tight to speak. I clear it and manage to say, “Okay, babe. I love you. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Love you too,” she echoes, and in those three words, I hear pain and confusion fathoms deep. “Goodnight, Logan.”
* * *
If I were filming a movie of my own life, I’d be disgusted with it right now. First of all, I’m not exhibiting any believable character growth in response to my obstacles. And second of all, there’s no coherence or unity of theme right now. I mean, what am I even feeling? I’m feeling way too much contradictory shit to express in film. No, if I were a director, I would tell my character to pick one thread and stick with it. Am I trying not to cry or am I swooning on my feet whenever I think of Devi? Am I checking my phone constantly or am I trying to resist throwing my phone across the room? If I were a director, I would tell myself that feelings are passive, and to choose actions instead—and then to choose those actions deliberately.
One action at a time.
The idea is appealing to me as I get up the next day and shower. I’m not naive enough to believe I could actually pick one of those feelings and discard all the others, but the idea of cleaning up all these emotions is so deeply attractive. And as I remember Devi’s eyes as she watched me prepare for my scene with Bambi, as I remember convincing her that reality is not the antithesis to porn, I realize something so terrible and clarifying that I abruptly stop washing my hair and drop my hands, simply standing under the spray and staring at the wall as I absorb how wrong I’ve been.
I wanted everything to be together, gloriously messy and unified, because I felt like our palpable love and attraction would make Star-Crossed a better project. I thought that blending our personal romance and our onscreen sex would be the answer, not taking into account Devi’s youth or the fact that I would end up falling for her so much harder than I ever could have guessed. I wanted everything together, because I thought that together was better, more real—hyper-real—but all it did was mix everything up. It cheapened the real connection we had and gave the filming more emotional importance than it deserved.
Fuck. No wonder Devi and I both felt confused yesterday.
The worst part is that this is all my fault. I convinced Devi to go down this path. I made us blur all the lines. I’m responsible for all our pain right now.
If we want to continue this, if we want to survive with our hearts intact and with our careers thriving, then we have to carve out boundaries now. We have to separate porn from real life, we have to compartmentalize. And I have to take responsibility for what I’ve done to us.
I just hope it’s not too late to fix it.
So when Devi unlocks my door at one, right on the dot, I have an entire speech prepared, practically an entire class to teach on Why I’m an Idiot and How I’m Going to Fix It. But then I see her, and all the words melt away from my mind, because she’s so fucking beautiful right now, wearing a short flared skirt and tank top, her long hair in a messy braid that’s slung over one shoulder.
The moment she steps in, I’m pinning her against the wall and crushing my mouth against hers, my hands roaming everywhere, aggressive and needy. She kisses me back with an eager hunger, her mouth searching. And then her legs are wrapping around my waist, and we are grinding together while we kiss, and then she pants, “Let’s go to your bedroom,” and she doesn’t have to ask me twice. I carry her, her legs still wrapped around my waist, and we barely make it to my bedroom before her hands are fumbling with my zipper and I’m yanking at her tank top. I set her on the bed, toss her on her belly and then climb on top, flipping up her skirt and yanking her thong aside so fast that I hear the fabric tear. I don’t care; another second’s work and I’m notched in her cunt, pushing roughly inside.
She’s not quite ready, but she’s bucking back against me, raising her ass up in an attempt to get me inside her faster, and the friction is fucking unbelievable. Tight and raw and primal. I’m grunting and thrusting hard, the zipper of my jeans scraping against the soft skin of her ass and thighs, her skirt a twisted pink mess of fabric around her waist.
And all I can think is
she wants me
she loves me
she still wants me.
“Make me come,” she says, squirming like a wild woman under me. “God, Logan, please. Make me come.”
“Anything,” I say, dropping my lips to the back of her neck. “I’ll give you fucking anything.”
I mean it. I reach under her hips and find her swollen bud, and this is another position I rarely film in, because I’m almost completely on top of her, all of the motion hidden by her thick ass and my pumping hips. But who cares how it would look? It feels fucking amazing to take her like this, it feels fucking wonderful to impale her like this, with the rounded curves of her ass pressing back into my hips.
I’m still kissing the back of her neck, stretched out on top of her and bearing most of my weight on my left forearm and my knees, and my right hand is rubbing the throbbing bundle between her legs, and she comes abruptly, catastrophically, keening into the pillow as she shudders and quakes her way through her release.
I feel the sharp heat thrumming in my pelvis already, and the porn star in me wants to change position and slow down, draw this out. But the boyfriend in me wants to go with her, fall together, just like she said two nights ago, and so I let the frantic torrent of desperation and relief carry me over the edge. Deep currents of pleasure unfurl into jagged arcs of lightning, and then I’m pulsing inside of her—still thrusting and ramming hard and fast.
Frenzied.
Relentless.
And finally it comes: sweet relief. All of the pain and worry I’ve chewed on for the past twenty-four hours bleeds away as I slow my thrusts and my breathing returns to normal, and as she starts to make that purring sound underneath me, my chest constricts with incandescent joy.
“I love you,” I murmur.
“I love you,” she whispers back, and I want to shout with triumph. I haven’t ruined everything after all!
With our clothes still rumpled and twisted around us, I roll us onto our sides, my arms wrapping tight around her torso and my cock still buried deep in her pussy. It’s possibly the shortest amount of time I’ve taken to have sex in years, it’s possibly the most spontaneous sex I’ve had as an adult, but I don’t care. Because it was only about us, the two of us, no cameras and no bullshit. I hold her tight and breathe in the smell of her skin, thinking that I’m right, I’ve finally figured it out.
This is so amazing right now, so perfect, exactl
y because there are no cameras. And if we carry these boundaries into everything else—if we only think about Star-Crossed when we’re doing Star-Crossed, and Logan and Devi when we’re just Logan and Devi—then we’ll be able to sustain this peace and satisfaction. Sustain us, for the long haul.
Devi’s going to love this, I think happily, pressing my lips to her shoulder as she snuggles back against me. She and her parents seem into that Eckhart Tolle mindfulness stuff, and this is basically mindfulness, right? Mindful fucking.
“What are you thinking?” Devi asks.
I answer honestly. “About writing a book called Mindful Fucking for Fun and Profit. I could do seminars and speak at corporate retreats and stuff. Make lots of money.”
She giggles. “You already make lots of money.”
“Pfft. I work hard for that money. I need a plan for when my stamina runs out.”
“As if that will ever happen.” She shifts against me, and my cock is very eager to prove her right, except we’re still supposed to film a scene today, so I tell him to wait. “Look at all the books in here,” she observes. “I never noticed them before.”
I’m far more interested in licking circles on her shoulder, tracing the line between her tank top and her skin with my lips. “I don’t have nearly as many as you do,” I say in between kisses. “Was always more of a movie guy. But I think good storytellers should appreciate all mediums.”
“Logan O’Toole: fiction nerd.”
“Hardly.” I glance up at the set of low shelves against the window. “Most of those are poetry collections.”
I hear the smile in her voice. “Poetry?”
I feel a little defensive, not because I think she’s teasing me but because it’s so hard to explain. “It was always my favorite part in English class, when we’d read the poetry. And I knew when I made the choice to do porn instead of going to UCLA like I’d planned, that there probably wouldn’t be much poetry in my future. So I started doing this thing where every month I’d buy a book of poetry. I didn’t have to like it or even read it all, but I had to try it. Because I think poets come the closest to seeing the world how I see it sometimes. Images. Tastes and sounds. Not always perfectly stitched together, but uneven and unexplainable.”
“That’s beautiful,” she says quietly.
“You’re beautiful.” And then I’m going to say it—all the stuff I planned on saying—and explain to her how we’ll keep our relationship safe and just for us, but then she turns. My cock slides out of her and I can’t help the sad groan that I make.
She smiles and bites her lip. “How about we start our scene now?” And all my other thoughts go out the window.
* * *
It feels weird to go back to making “just porn” with Devi. And maybe even go back is the wrong way to look at it, since it was never just porn with her. It was always something more; it was always blended with how deeply we felt for each other.
I wish I’d talked to Devi before we dove into the scene’s particulars; but once we started blocking and running through what we wanted to do sex-wise, there didn’t seem to be a good time to say, “Oh hey, just so you know, I think it’s best if we act strictly professional right now.”
So I don’t say anything. On one hand, it feels good, natural even, to set up the cameras and block the scene like she’s just another girl and not my girlfriend. But on the other hand, it feels jarring and bizarre, like waking up to find your house has blown sideways but everything is still perfectly in place. It’s hard to stop fiddling with the camera settings when I know exactly how glowing that bronze skin can be in just the right conditions, it’s hard to think about what sex positions will translate best on the screen when I know which positions she actually likes the best.
But I manage. It’s a mental workout for sure, and there are times before we start that I catch her looking at me quizzically, as if she can tell something is off. I’ll explain it all afterwards, I think. After we shoot the scene like this, she’ll be able to see how much easier it is. How much better.
Today’s scene is the last we’ll shoot for this season of Star-Crossed, and I decided to do something a little more intimate than normal. No separate location, no public fooling around. Marieke and I agreed that we should leave the Logan and Devi characters in a happy, loving place, just like you’d leave characters at the end of a romantic comedy. In love for perpetuity.
Of course, we’ll shake things up with the second season of Star-Crossed, and I smile to myself, remembering I still have to tell Devi about that too. Marieke and I brainstormed some serious sexy, steamy, twisted shit, and I bet my girl will love it.
“What are you smiling about?” Devi asks. She’s perched on the edge of the massively fluffy rug I’ve dragged in from my office, wearing nothing but brightly colored knee socks. The white fluff of the rug is such a stark contrast to her Persian skin that I stop what I’m doing and just stare at her for a minute.
My Cassiopeia.
My queen.
She tilts her head at me, the loose braid sliding tantalizingly over one perfect, full tit, and all I want to do is drop to my knees next to her and kiss her until the stars come out. Have I done that yet? Just kissed her for hours? Made out until we’ve both forgotten our names, our lives, our histories?
I almost do it. I even get so far as taking a step toward her until I remember, no—that’s a boyfriend thing. A boyfriend thought. Logan the porn star loves kissing and will definitely kiss the shit out of her once the camera starts rolling, but it will be kissing for the camera, kissing to make an amazing scene.
Later, I promise myself. Later, we will have the kissing just for us. Kissing without a goal or without a time limit…God, the thought makes me hard and excited and warm and melty all at once. How do people handle all of these feelings all at once? How do people stand being in love?
How could I have ever thought that I had been in love before?
This—this—is love.
And I have to protect it at all costs, starting right now.
“I’m just smiling because this is going to be a badass scene,” I finally answer Devi’s question. “Are you ready?”
She nods. And I press record.
All in all, it’s possibly one of the best scenes I’ve ever filmed, maybe even ever participated in. We start with her in those knee socks on the rug, grinding on a pillow while I murmur the dirtiest things I can think of, and after she comes against the pillow, her naked stomach visibly tightening, I unzip my jeans and walk over to her, feeding my thick erection through her lips.
Everything is light and bright, with the afternoon sun streaming in and the white furniture and rug, and everything is perfectly staged and seamless. The blowjob transitions to a sixty-nine, the sixty-nine transitions into condom-sheathed fucking, first doggy-style, and then spooning from behind—one of the best filming positions because I can show off her jiggling tits and taut stomach and pussy all at once. And then after she comes a second time and then a third, I pull out, yank off the condom, and then jack myself off onto her stomach. The scene ends with me turning her head back to me for a long, deep kiss while she draws idle circles in the mess on her stomach.
After the kiss lasts what I think would be the right amount of time for a romantic sort of fade to black, I break it off and hop up to turn off the camera. And then I grab a box of baby wipes I keep in one of those ottoman storage cubes (along with lube, condoms and other things I need on hand but also hidden discreetly in case of a surprise Mom and Dad Visit) and trot over to Devi, zipping up my jeans with one hand as I do.
Weirdly, she doesn’t look at me as she starts scrubbing at the mess I’ve made on her stomach. I’m suddenly aware of how quiet it is in here and also how dim—the September afternoon has started to bleed into evening outside, the first pinpricks of starlight piercing the thick sky above my skylight.
I turn on a lamp, and then start breaking down the tripods to put back in my office, watching Devi out of the corner of my
eye the whole time. She seems pensive, methodical, as she finishes cleaning up and gets to her feet.
“Are you okay?” I ask as she returns from throwing away the used baby wipes. She’s still naked, still in those girlish knee socks with that immensely tuggable braid, and it’s so hard for me to focus on anything other than dragging her back to bed. I promised myself that I’d get boyfriend time after we made it through this scene, and now we’ve made it, and I just want to wrap myself up in her and never let go, but something doesn’t feel right. But I can fix that—I’ll talk to her, and apologize and explain everything, and then it will be better.
Then kissing until the sun comes up.
“Yeah,” she says, “everything is okay.” And I can tell that she’s not exactly lying, but that she’s not giving me the whole answer either. And just as I’m about to launch into the speech I should have given her hours ago when she showed up at my door, she asks, “So this was really the last scene we’ll shoot for Star-Crossed?”
And then her distance makes sense, because she and I haven’t talked explicitly about the future of the series, and I’m so relieved because I get to tell her all the exciting stuff that Marieke and I dreamed up. And she’ll be a central part of it, and I know she’ll love that we get to keep working together like this.
I button up my jeans and flop down on the couch, patting the space next to me. She obliges, sitting down, but she sits a couple feet away from me, her legs tucked under her and one arm wrapped around the back of the couch, as if she’s bracing herself.
“So I know you know that Marieke and Vida are thrilled with Star-Crossed and how it’s turned out, and we all think it’s going to be fucking huge when it debuts in November. They want to do a second season, and I do too. The only real question is if you’d be on board for that.”
Her face lights up—but just a little. “Thank you for asking,” she says softly, hesitantly. “I think I’d like that. I’ll have to think about it though.”
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