Keegan (Wounded Hero Book 1)

by Marysol James

  Keegan started to say something, paused. She looked up at him.

  “What were you going to say?” Trish asked.

  “I just – I was goin’ to ask about L.A. I feel like – I don’t know. I feel like somethin’ happened there. But you know the deal, sugar: you tell me stuff when you feel ready.”

  Trish took a few deep breaths, focused on the cake again. It was all iced, but now she was fussing with it; her ‘tell’ of fidgeting with her hands was showing up big-time and Keegan didn’t push. He just waited, watched Trish run the knife over the cake again and again, obsessively trying to make it all come out just right somehow.

  But cakes are like life and sometimes no matter how hard you try, you can’t make everything smooth and defect-free: a little hairline crack here, a slight imbalance there. It can all be delicious and sweet, of course, but not picture-perfect.

  “The thing is –” Trish cleared her throat, set the knife down at last. “The thing about L.A. is, I got pretty desperate after a while.”

  “OK.”

  “I told you and Kelly about how I was going to be an actress, and that’s true. I got off that bus and was so sure that I’d make it, you know? I know how stupid it sounds now but back then, back seventeen years ago, I was so optimistic, despite everything that had happened in my life. I’d learned to depend on myself and nobody else and I figured that if I just worked hard enough and kept everything in my own hands, it was a matter of time before I was discovered. I honestly believed that if I was the one in control, I couldn’t go wrong.”

  “Did it go wrong?”

  “Not for a long while. I held it together for about eight years, just waitressing and doing some crap modeling. Catalogues, some catwalks in a shopping mall, stuff like that. But then I got fired from a really good restaurant job because a customer put his hands on my ass and I dumped a glass of wine over his head.”

  Startled, Keegan barked out a laugh. “Good girl.”

  “Yeah, well, my boss didn’t see it that way because the handsy idiot was a big-deal movie producer. I was supposed to overlook being groped and felt up, and just take the hefty tip and shut the hell up about it. I’d done that for years and that one day, I just snapped. Had enough. It felt pretty damn awesome at the time, but then I couldn’t find another job even close to as good. Word gets around in L.A. and the place that I got fired from was a well-known restaurant for the business-types to have meetings and do deals. It was hard to take a step up from there without a reference, and even a move sideways was impossible.”

  “So you took a step down.”

  “More like twenty steps down.” Trish pulled her hair out of her ponytail and Keegan watched as all that blonde gorgeousness cascaded over her slim shoulders, watched as she started to tug at and twirl it in yet another displacement activity. “It was back to the all-night diners and greasy-spoon cafés and half-shifts at one place before running like hell to start my shift at another. It was about working every hour sent to me, but still not having enough to pay for my life. I tried to get back to modeling, but by then I was twenty-five and almost aged-out for casual work.”

  “Are you for fuckin’ real?” he asked, incredulous. “Aged out by twenty-five?”

  “In L.A., if you haven’t made a name and you don’t have some people in your corner by twenty-three, you can pretty much give it up.”

  “Insanity.”

  “That is exactly right,” she said wryly. “But that’s the deal.”

  “So… what did you do?”

  Trish started to twist her hands and Keegan’s chest tightened up. He had a bad, bad feeling about what was coming.

  “Well, first I couldn’t pay my rent and I couldn’t find any place that would take me without a security deposit, so I was kinda homeless,” she said in a low voice, the humiliation coming through loud and clear. “I mean, I’d stay in motels sometimes, but they were full of people just like my parents and I couldn’t stand to look at or listen to them for long. I crashed on friends’ sofas, I had a boyfriend for a while and I stayed with him… you know. Just slept wherever I had a pillow. Then –”

  “Then what?” he asked as she looked away and down. “Trish – tell me. C’mon.”

  “…then I met Joey.”

  “Joey?”

  “Joey Cabrio. He was a –” Trish shut her eyes, took a deep breath, then blurted out, “A porn guy. He – he starred in porn movies and he was always on the look-out for co-stars.”

  “Oh, baby,” Keegan said quietly. “He made you an offer and you weren’t in any position to refuse.”

  She opened her eyes. “Exactly. That’s exactly how it was.”

  “I get it.”

  “The thing is… ummm. The thing is that it wasn’t just once. It was way more than just once.”

  “OK,” Keegan said calmly. “How many porn movies were you involved in?”

  “Seventy-four,” she whispered. “Over six years. Until I was thirty-one.”

  Keegan was very still, just looking at her. Trish was sure that he was disgusted, that he was out of there, that she’d never see him again, and she decided to just go for it.

  Nothing to lose now.

  “Under the name of Thalia Flame, I was one of the most successful female porn stars around for about four years,” she said, her voice devoid of all emotion. “I was hugely popular online and after a while, I got to pick and choose my own work. Call my own shots. I set my own fees and I had final say about who I worked with and in the world of porn, that’s rare for women. I had an agent, I was rolling in cash, I had a closet full of designer clothes, I had an amazing little place on the beach. I was – I was a star, Keegan. Thalia was a star. A real one.”

  He nodded.

  “I may have started out as a desperate, penniless, homeless and naive little idiot, but that didn’t last long. I was in survival mode for about a year, living hand-to-mouth and on the cash that I got from the movies, but after the third movie, I saw the potential for making serious money. And frankly, it was easy money. It was even fun. It was weirdly glamorous and I was invited to all kinds of parties with celebrities – I had fans. You know? I’d never been shy about my body and I knew about acting and angles – it just all seemed to come together and suddenly, I wasn’t broke and starving and living in drug motels. It all seemed – it was better. And I really thought that I was in charge and in control, that I was making the decisions, so I felt… I don’t know.” She looked down at her feet. “I felt powerful. For the first time in my whole life, I felt like I had final say over everything to do with me. My home, my work, my body. It was – it was easy to make peace with the porn side of it when everything was going my way.”

  “I get it,” Keegan repeated. “Sugar, you did what you needed to to survive.”

  “You’re not – not looking down on me? For what I did for all those years?”

  “Look down on you?” Keegan said. “Last I checked, porn was legal and you were a consentin’ adult. You got paid what you thought was fair, you called the shots, you worked when you wanted and did what you wanted. I ain’t into porn, not even a little bit, and I got some thoughts about young women bein’ exploited and taken advantage of, but it don’t sound like it was that way for you, at least not for long. Sounds to me like you were doin’ what you wanted and you made a fuckin’ go of it.”

  “I –” She blinked. “Well… yeah. But you don’t think – think that I’m –” She hesitated. “You don’t think that I’m… a whore? A cheap slut?”

  “Hey.” Keegan snapped the word out, reached out and grabbed Trish’s forearms. “Don’t you ever talk about yourself that way in front of me, not fuckin’ ever again. You hear me? I ain’t got much love for what you did for a livin’ but I ain’t judgin’ you either. I’ve been down and out and the truth is that if I didn’t have my family, who the hell knows where I’d have ended up. I was doped to the eyeballs on anti-depressants when I got back from Afghanistan, and I was only about one step away from tot
al addiction. I was so fuckin’ depressed, I was suicidal.”

  “You – what?”

  “I thought about killin’ myself every day for a year,” Keegan said relentlessly. “I was a pill-popper and I lived alone and I had a gun. That ain’t a good combination, darlin’.”

  “No. No, definitely not.”

  “I was spiralin’ and I was losin’ the battle big fuckin’ time. Then Kelly read me the riot act and brought Luke to my place to get me to join his support group. That turned everythin’ around for me, but it took a hell of a lot of time and love. I had my parents in my corner, and my sister and Janie, and I had the guys in the group who fuckin’ drive me crazy sometimes, but they’re family now too.” He looked at Trish, just stared at her like he was seeing her soul. “Who’d you have, baby? Who was in your corner when you were down and out? Who’d you ever have in your corner, in the whole of your life?”

  “I –” Her throat closed up and she choked out her answer. “Nobody.”

  “I was lucky, you weren’t. I had family and loved ones, you didn’t. I had money and that gave me options, you had neither. We both got on paths, the difference was that I had people draggin’ me off mine kickin’ and screamin’. You got on a path into porn and it worked for you the way that nothin’ else did in your whole life. Why would you get off the path?”

  “I saw zero reason to leave porn, that’s true.”

  “And so you didn’t. If you think that makes you cheap, you’re wrong, sugar. That makes you smart. It makes you an independent business person in some ways: controllin’ your image and brand and your schedule, settin’ your own fees and choosin’ who you work with. You were successful.”

  “For a while, yeah.”

  “What happened to make you leave? You said that you did porn until you were thirty-one, you moved to Denver over two years ago now… so you left L.A. and all the work behind.”

  OK, girl, time to start telling half-truths now. Mostly-truths. Put on your game face and dust off those acting skills, sweetie pie. And – action.

  “About three years ago, porn and fetish sites really took off and amateur porn shot on cell phones started to really gain traction and popularity,” she said. “Suddenly, anyone could do what I was doing, anyone could become an internet sensation overnight and gain thousands of fans and followers. I mean, there was always competition with other female porn stars, that’s normal and expected, but the industry was pretty closed, at least at the level where I was. Only a few really big names were in serious demand, and I was one of them. That’s what allowed me the freedom of choice and all my advantages and perks. But when any cute college girl could film herself with her boyfriend, or join a fetish site and post hundreds of pictures of herself naked or with an endless array of sparkling butt plugs, the game changed and I mean completely. Cute college girl could post a picture every day, twenty pictures a day – she could post as many videos as she wanted. And she didn’t worry about hiring a set, or hair and makeup, lights, a director and paying actor’s fees.”

  “The amateur porn and fetish people started to hurt the more traditional porn industry?”

  “Damn right they did, they did serious damage. Anyone can join a site and post pictures and videos and get paid-per-view or per download – and none of these people have any overhead costs.”

  “I never thought about that,” Keegan said. “Sex sells, huh, and I guess that means all sex.”

  “You know it. Freelance sex stars are popping up all over the internet and social media and what took me years to achieve, they’re getting within months. Faster if they go viral. Overnight.”

  “So – you saw no future anymore in porn?”

  “Not the way that I’d been involved in it, no. And I didn’t have any interest in setting up profiles and accounts on fetish sites and porn sites, alongside the eighteen-year-olds. No, I just figured that my time in the sun was over and I’d bow out gracefully.”

  “That was OK with everyone else?”

  No. No, it wasn’t. I got punished for that decision. I’m still being punished.

  “Yeah, it was totally fine,” Trish said. “Everyone saw the writing on the wall and were making their own moves and plans. I wasn’t the only one who opted out of the naked rat-race.”

  “So – what? You sold your place and some of your clothes? Got on a plane out here? You still get some kind of royalties or whatever from your movies?”

  Not even close to what happened and is happening, honey cake. I sold my house and car, and I gave the money to Dragon Decker as a pay-off to make sure that that video didn’t come out. Under duress, I signed over all the rights to any earnings on my movies to Dragon. And I save every penny that I can and am slowly selling off my wardrobe, bags and jewelry because when Dragon sends me one of his dragon envelopes via his lapdog Bulldog, I need to show up with more cash to buy his silence. Because as it turns out, scumbags never ever accept a one-time payment, no matter what they say.

  “That’s exactly what I did,” she said aloud. “Banked all my money and came out here to start again. But I have no real job skills and savings run out fast, so now I’m a glorified waitress at weddings and I live rent-free with Meredith.”

  “And that’s why you look so nervous so much of the time,” Keegan said slowly. “Because you get recognized as Thalia Flame. Don’t you?”

  “How did you –” she stammered.

  “I told you before, darlin’. I’m fuckin’ brilliant.”

  “Yeah, it seems that you are, and yeah, you’re right. I dyed my hair red for my first movie and called myself Thalia Flame but I’m a natural blonde and so I went back to that after I left porn. I wear about one-twentieth of the makeup now that I did then but still… I’ve been recognized before.” She twisted her fingers then said quietly, “That’s what happened that night at Nick’s wedding. The night that we met.”

  Keegan started. “You mean the asshole in the parkin’ lot?”

  “Yeah. He wanted to force me into his car and act out some of my porn scenes. Kept telling me to quote some of my porn dialogue. Gave me helpful suggestions.” She shuddered. “He was going to record it on his phone and put it online. Said he couldn’t wait to show the world what Thalia Flame was doing now.”

  “That fuckin’ dickhead. I should have finished him.” Keegan stared at her, his brow furrowed over his dark, furious face. “That’s why you wanted his phone, right? Because he was recordin’ the whole time and usin’ your screen name?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Jesus, baby. It ain’t never gonna end for you, is it? Bein’ worried about bein’ seen and recognized?”

  “It sure feels that way sometimes. I mean, OK, yeah, I was the one who put it all out there and I know that. I was the one who signed the contracts and took off my clothes and collected the money. I knew that my face and voice and body were out there, and could be seen and consumed by anyone with a credit card and a porn site membership. I was high-profile and famous, I was visible. You know? I wasn’t hiding and I wasn’t embarrassed. Not then.” She broke off talking, shifted on her feet.

  Keegan said quietly, “And now you are?”

  “In some ways – yes. Yes, I am. I’m embarrassed about the bullshit way that I showed sex, like the average guy can go for an hour without drugs, and every woman can have eight screaming orgasms in a row in twenty minutes. I never had any surgery, but I was just about the only person in the industry that I knew who didn’t. Boob jobs and liposuction and facial reconstruction and lip injections were all the norm, and the truth is that if I’d stayed in porn any longer, I’d have gone under the knife too, just to stay competitive. But real women don’t look like porn stars, don’t have sex like porn stars, don’t get full hair and makeup breaks by professionals in the middle of sex like porn stars, don’t get shown from nine different camera angles like porn stars.”

  “You’re embarrassed that you added to unrealistic expectations of women?”

  “And men,” Trish said. �
�How many young guys watch porn and think that that’s how sex is supposed to be? No foreplay, no focus on a woman’s body, just start pounding away and she’ll scream and cum in one minute? It’s lazy and it’s all lies and it helps nobody, not men or women.”

  “That’s why I ain’t really into porn,” Keegan said thoughtfully. “The fakeness of it all. I never found it even a little bit erotic or hot, did nothin’ for me at all. I ain’t into scripts and plastic, I like real flesh and blood women, real passion, real moans, real orgasms.”

  Trish sighed, looked down at the beautiful honey cake on the kitchen island between them and felt deep regret that she wasn’t going to get to enjoy it. She turned and headed to the coat tree.

  “Whoa, wait up, darlin’.” Keegan was right behind her within half a second. “Where do you think you’re goin’?”

  “Home,” she said, trying to sound all light and casual and totally A-OK with it. “Back to Meredith.”

  “Why?”

  “Because… well. Because of what I told you.”

  “What did you tell me?”

  “About what I did in L.A. About making seventy-four porn movies. About the whole damn world having seen me naked and having sex with a revolving door of guys.”

  “First up,” Keegan growled. “I thought I’d been pretty fuckin’ clear that I got why and how you got into porn. I told you that I understand how gettin’ on a path can take you someplace different that you thought you’d ever go, and I also told you that you didn’t have anyone in your corner, not your whole life.”

  “Keegan –”

  “Shut that sweet little mouth, baby, and you listen up and listen good. You can talk plenty when I’m done.”

  Trish slammed her mouth shut.

  “Second, the whole world ain’t seen you naked and havin’ sex – ‘cause I haven’t. I told you more than once that I ain’t really ever been into porn and so obviously, I had no idea who you were when we met. I have no need or want to get online and find your movies and I ain’t breakin’ my neck to watch you have sex with some paid actor. Why the hell would I? That ain’t the woman that I know. I got zero interest in Thalia Flame, porn star, I can promise you that. I’m into Trish Montgomery, waitress and amateur cake-baker.”