Porn Star

by Laurelin Paige

  I shrug, because what can I say? That I have to completely disassociate myself from all emotion and thought in order to do the scenes? That I’m disgusted with myself as I fuck other women, as I come for them, because Devi is the only woman I want to touch now?

  After Tanner leaves, I trudge upstairs to my office. It’s been a week since Devi left me, and I’ve become a hollow version of myself. Even editing and writing my monologues is a terrible chore, and the worst task of all is finishing up edits of the last Star-Crossed scene because all it does is remind me of the heartbreak that came after the camera turned off. Every glance of hers in the footage, every pull of her mouth—I can see her confusion and pain so clearly now. How fucking self-absorbed and arrogant was I that I didn’t see it before?

  I can only watch a few minutes of the footage before the grief and guilt threaten to engulf me, and I have to turn it off. I’ll edit my scene with Ginger from today instead.

  Except I can’t.

  I plug in the external hard drive Tanner saved the scene to, and the minute I open it up, I know I can’t do it. Even just the still image of me cradling Ginger’s face at the beginning makes me cringe, because it’s something I used to do with Devi.

  No. It’s more than that. I did it with Devi because I do it with almost every girl I work with. That move never belonged to just Devi and me, it always belonged to me and the hundreds of other girls I’ve worked with.

  I can’t articulate to myself exactly why this bothers me so much right now, but it does. I try to force myself to look past it and press play, but the moving footage is even worse, even when I try to fast-forward to the less personal parts. But seeing my body pressed against Ginger’s, my hands rough on her tits while I fuck her, it makes me sick to my stomach with shame. Not Puritanical, anti-sex shame—I’m not ashamed of having sex or making porn—but a deeply personal shame, as if I’ve betrayed more than Devi by filming those two scenes after she left. As if I’ve betrayed myself.

  Which should be a ridiculous thought. How could I be betraying anything or anyone by merely doing my job? I try to remember all the things I’ve said before. It’s just a job. It’s only sex. But they don’t feel true any longer.

  I close out the footage and pace around my office, running my hands through my hair. It doesn’t make any sense to me, any part of my life right now. I’m wrecked, emotionally and mentally and spiritually, but I can still get hard for other women, still come for them. How is that? Is it because, like I told Tanner all those weeks ago, porn stars have a more evolved concept of love and can separate it from sex? Or is it because I’m a man, and men are wired to fuck indiscriminately?

  No, I don’t think that’s it either, and not only because Tanner would rant for hours about gender essentialism if I told him I’d even considered that last one as a reason.

  No, what I think is that maybe I’ve been asking the wrong question of myself—not how I can still fuck other women, but why.

  Maybe men and women aren’t naturally wired to be monogamous, maybe anyone can turn off their brain and their heart, and let their bodies respond to presented stimuli. But maybe that’s what makes relationships different. And special. Maybe that’s why people have given up their sexual freedoms for the last several millennia in order to bind themselves to someone else. Because it’s the sacrifice, the continued and repeated choosing of one person over all the others in the world, that makes a relationship stand apart, that makes a relationship significant and rare and unique.

  So the real question is: why do I choose to share myself with other women when I only want to share myself with Devi? Why do I do this job when it means struggling against a heart that just wants to devote itself to one woman and one woman alone?

  I don’t know if it’s right to change for someone you love, but I do know that it’s right to change for yourself, if that’s what you want. But is it what I really want? Devi’s so young, still so full of energy and opportunity, and it’s easy for her to change direction and start a new life. But how can I walk away from something I’m good at, that makes me a lot of money, without having anything certain in my future? What if I give up everything for her and she doesn’t want me anymore?

  I sit back down in my office chair and stare at the bulletin board by my desk. It’s mostly covered in tax receipts and Post-It notes, but I’ve pinned something else up in the middle, The Hanged Man tarot card from my reading with Madam Psuka. I stuck it up there as a memento of my first real date with Devi, but now it seems like more than a reminder. It’s a call to action.

  No growth comes without sacrifice, Sue said, and isn’t that exactly what Devi and the psychic tried to explain to me about the card? That The Hanged Man represented sacrifice and suffering without the guarantee of a reward, because the wisdom gained through the experience would be its own reward?

  What would I sacrifice? And what would I gain?

  I could leave porn, I think.

  It’s the first time I’ve allowed the thought to take form, to establish itself in words, even though it’s been creeping around the fringes of my consciousness for weeks.

  I let myself say it aloud, just to try it out. “I could leave porn.”

  Nothing dramatic happens. It’s not like a halo comes down from heaven and crowns me, it’s not like my office is flooded with golden light and the sound of angels singing. And I don’t feel like I’m hanging from a tree Hanged Man style, certainly.

  But the words are spoken now and the idea is real, and now it’s floating in the office like an invisible fog, making the air thick and cold. It never felt like a real option before, it never even seemed like a possible path, because I loved doing it, because it was my whole life. But now it’s there, beckoning to me, unfurling like the new leaves of spring. I could quit doing porn. I could stop being Logan O’Toole, porn star, and go back to my birth name, go back to the dreams I used to have. Going to school, making films.

  It’s not that easy, I realize with a sinking stomach and a glance around my office. Camera equipment litters the room, unfinished contracts pile high on my desk, old tax forms are banked against the far wall like a pile of red and white leaves. In my email inbox are practically thousands of unanswered emails—projects and scenes that are in every imaginable stage, convention panels that I’ve agreed to be on, articles I’ve agreed to be interviewed for. I live so deeply within my own life, and there are so many threads running through it. Tying off every loose end would take months, and the thought of all that work makes me preemptively exhausted. It would be easier to cut and run...or simply stay. Stay and change nothing.

  I get up and walk out of my office, trying to walk away from my thoughts. I go for a swim, I tidy up my kitchen. I drive to my parents’ house and help them pack up some things for their move to Portland, and as I do, things slowly start to settle into place.

  Their packing isn’t easy, and there are times when I catch Mom staring at the backyard with a look on her face that suggests she’s mentally replaying all those sappy moments from my childhood that parents like to hold on to. There are times that I catch Dad rubbing his jaw and standing in the middle of a room, just looking. They’re leaving so much behind, an entire life of memories and moments that fused us together into a family, but they’re still doing it and making these huge changes because they have faith. Like The Hanged Man, they know the sacrifice will be worth it.

  When I get home that night, the first thing I do is call Tanner and tell him everything, from the moment Devi and I jumped in a pool together at Vida’s to her leaving me last week, and I tell him what I’ve been thinking about today. He mostly listens in silence, only speaking when my ramblings finally come to an end.

  “So you think it’s wrong to do porn now?” he asks. There’s no judgment or expectation in his tone, but I still scramble to answer so that he doesn’t get the wrong idea.

  “I don’t think it’s wrong. I’m pretty sure I’ll never think that—I still love it, and I don’t regret making it fo
r a minute. But I think maybe while it isn’t wrong, it’s not right for me any longer. I think I want something else.”

  Tanner is quiet for a moment. “So what happens next?”

  “I don’t know.” I use the heel of my hand to rub at my forehead. “I guess the first thing is deciding if I really want to do this. If I really want to leave porn.”

  “Because there’s no guarantee that Devi will take you back,” Tanner points out. “So if you do this, then you need to be okay with that outcome.”

  I think back to all those moments in my life where I’ve felt that big feeling, where I’ve felt a sense of vision and purpose and creative will. As a kid and as an adult, by myself and with Devi. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t doing this for her,” I admit, “but I’m doing it for me too. When I ask myself what I really want for my life, I can’t find a real answer anymore—and I think that, in and of itself is enough reason to change.”

  “Just tell me what you need and I’ll do everything I can to help,” Tanner says, and I wish I could give him a giant hug over the phone. But I can’t, so I clear my throat, find a pencil and some paper, and we start planning the end of Logan O’Toole, porn star.

  In the end, it does take a couple months. Doing it right—ending all of my projects and contracts professionally and amicably—is so much harder than just packing up and leaving town. But leaving would have been something an older version of myself would have done—the impulsive, emotional Logan who just wanted love and romance and connection. He would have chased after Devi relentlessly, he would have been showering her with orgasms and gifts and saying fuck it to everything else.

  And at one point, I thought I needed to leave that emotional guy behind to be the best boyfriend I could to Devi, that I needed to be analytical and logical and even a little callous to keep our relationship strong. But now I know what Devi knew already—that it’s not emotion versus intellect or head versus heart. It’s both, complementary and balanced and all at the same time. Devi, my Devi, was the wisest of us all along, despite her inexperience and young age.

  I can’t change what—or who—I’ve done. But I can change what I will do. And so instead of shutting down my feelings or making a string of rash, impetuous decisions, I am determined that the next time I see my Cass, I will have used my love for her to make smart, determined strides towards a different and better life.

  I’m going to show her that the man she knew has come back for her, and he’s not going anywhere this time.

  22

  “It was twenty-seven hours of labor,” my mother says through the phone. “We’re both exhausted. But then at the end, a beautiful baby boy.”

  She’s spent the last ten minutes telling me the details of her and Baba’s latest delivery, and it feels like it’s been twenty-seven hours of listening. Admittedly, I’ve only been half paying attention, inserting uh-huhs and oh wows when it felt appropriate while I scurried around my apartment getting ready for class.

  “Your father didn’t even make it upstairs. He’s passed out on the couch. I don’t know how I’m talking to you right now, I can barely think straight.”

  “You should be in bed. I can chat with you later.” With my phone in one hand, I run my fingers through my hair and take a final glance in my bathroom mirror. God, I look tired, but I’ve looked tired for the last four months. I can’t remember the last time I slept well, the last time I didn’t wake dreaming of Logan.

  Of course, it would probably help if I didn’t fall asleep to a video of us every night. Sometimes I don’t even masturbate while I watch. It never completely relieves the knot of tension inside when I do, and it usually leaves me feeling more miserable than when I started. But I like hearing his voice last thing before closing my eyes. I like remembering what it felt like to be with him.

  It’s kind of pathetic, really. I know I can’t live like Majnun forever. Eventually I have to move on. Otherwise, why did I break up with him? Nothing’s changed. His job is still sleeping with other women. And I’m still miserable.

  Well, not completely miserable. I do have school.

  My mother dismisses my invitation to talk later. “I couldn’t miss today. Are you excited? Nervous? Did you fix yourself some of that calming tea blend I sent you?”

  I’ve been in Austin for two weeks now, setting up my apartment and settling in. Yesterday, I went to a new student orientation and a financial aid seminar, and trained for a couple of hours for my job in the bursar’s office. Then I met with my advisor. Today classes start, and though I feel a bit unprepared for what’s to come, I feel confident that I’m doing the right thing. The undergraduate astronomy program is one of the best in the U.S., and my living expenses are much more affordable than in California.

  “I am both excited and nervous,” I tell my mother, “and the tea is excellent.” I’m drinking coffee at the moment, but I don’t bother to let her know that.

  And if this is what I look like after already a cup of strong brew, then the bags under my eyes are probably going nowhere. I turn off the bathroom light and head to my bedroom to look for my flip-flops.

  “Nervousness and excitement are two sides of the same coin. You can rarely have one without the other.”

  “I don’t know that quote. Who’s it from?”

  “Me,” she says coyly. “See? I can say something useful every now and again.”

  I smile proudly, even though she can’t see me. “You always say something useful, Mom. It’s just not always what I want to hear.” Kneeling, I stretch to retrieve the shoe that got pushed underneath my bed.

  “Good advice never is. Speaking of which, let’s do your Tarot before I’m too sleepy to interpret your message. I have a feeling today’s going to be an important reading.” Every day since I’ve been gone, my mother has called to read me a Tarot card. That’s her excuse, anyway. Really, I think she just misses me.

  “Page of wands!” she exclaims. “I knew today was good. There’s going to be a boy.” We both know when she says “a boy” she really means “Logan.” Ever since she saw him the day she went to pick up my clothes from my apartment for me, she’s been convinced he’ll show up in my life again. “He’s growing,” she says whenever she gets the opportunity, “you’ll see.”

  But that’s my mother. She sees the good in people. I’d like to believe it’s a quality I inherited from her. But I’m also practical. And while I think that Logan probably is on a growth journey—because, who isn’t?—I can’t pause my life while he takes it.

  I have too much to focus on right now to bring up the subject of Logan, so I ignore the elephant and say, “Yeah, mom. It’s my first day. There will probably be lots of boys.”

  “Well, one boy in particular is going to be important. Maybe he’ll bring you good news.”

  My mother forgets I know Tarot almost as well as she does. While the page of wands can mean a messenger or a creative man, it is also very much like the fool card. It’s more likely my reading represents the new path I’m on, my new beginning.

  But I don’t contradict my mother’s interpretation. “Oh, yay. Hopefully that means my financial aid will finally drop into my account.”

  “It hasn’t yet? Do you need any money, Boombalee?”

  “No, no. I’m good.” Student loans and my part-time job in the bursar’s office will pay for my tuition. Revenue from Star-Crossed pays for my basic living expenses and all my textbooks. The first episode released two months ago and is currently Lelie’s number one most watched show. Critical response has been just as incredible and preliminary reports show the crossover to non-porn watchers is strong.

  I’m proud of it. Proud of Logan. I wouldn’t be surprised if he gets an award or two at the AVN show. If he got nominated, maybe I’d attend the ceremony. Surely, by then I’d be ready to see him again.

  As of now it’s been four months. Four long lonely months.

  “Don’t be prideful, Devi. ‘When you are—’”

  I cut her off before she
can finish her Buddha quote. “I’m not being prideful, Mom. I have enough money.”

  “Good. But I can do a distance reiki to manifest fortune for you if you need it. Just say the word.”

  “Yeah. I will.” I brace the phone on my shoulder with my cheek while I stuff my physics textbook into my bag. “Hey, I have to get to class now. Talk to you tomorrow, okay?”

  We hang up, and I take a minute to run through a centering meditation—another useful tool I’ve gotten from my mother—and then head out for the first day in my new world.

  * * *

  Do I miss doing porn?

  The short answer is I miss the money. (It was really good money for not a lot of work. I could cover the monthly stipend for my campus job with just one shoot.)

  The long answer is I miss doing porn with Logan.

  It’s a long answer because I’d have to go into all the details of how, in my mind, they don’t exist separately anymore. Even girl-girl porn reminds me of Logan. Not because he watched me that day with Kendi, but because sex in general is now tainted because of him. Logan made sex better. He made it about all of me, and not just a part of me. Not only my body and what it could do. He made sex a whole experience. Now I can’t go back to how it was. It’s like I spent my entire life drinking skim milk, and though I liked it fine, I had no idea what I was missing until I drank whole milk. I’m sure it will change one day, that I’ll enjoy sex and porn again more fully after time and distance. After I fall in love and have sex with someone else.

  But even when it does change, I don’t think I can go back to doing the kind of erotic films I was doing. I don’t even have an agent for it anymore. Back when I decided to leave Logan, when I decided to go back to school, I wrapped up a few assignments and then politely fired my agent. I’m not sure if I would have had trouble finding more work after LaRue threatened to blackball me, but my guess is that it wouldn’t have been the problem I’d feared since he didn’t even come after me for lost revenue like he said he would. He didn’t really want my money. He wanted me to spread my legs for his films.