Hot Cop Boxed Set

by Paige, Laurelin

  “Yeah. Whenever you want to come over is fine—we don’t have a scene booked and I’ll be editing all day.”

  “And don’t forget to ‘gram those pictures you took of Candi and Ang today.”

  “When have I ever forgotten to post on social media?”

  He laughs. “Okay, okay, you’re right. But you do have to occasionally promote yourself, you know, not just talk about the lunch you’re eating or whatever show you’re bingeing at the moment.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  He tosses me a wave as he leaves out the front door, and I throw myself onto my newly-sanitized couch, digging out my phone to post the pictures on Instagram and Twitter, and tease up the scene a little, even though it probably won’t go up until next week.

  When I’m done, I check Devi’s Twitter feed on a whim. We follow each other, but Devi doesn’t leave much to follow...her most recent tweet is from last month, and it’s a selfie taken inside the flagship Good Vibrations store in San Francisco, where she’s giving a giant dildo an exaggerated, adorable wink. No hashtags, no caption. Her Instagram feed is equally sparse, usually shots of the beach or the desert, never with any words attached.

  What was she thinking when she posted those pictures, I wonder. How was she feeling? For all that we’ve done together, for as intimate as we’ve been, I have no idea what her inner life is like. I don’t know if she felt lonely when she looked out at that ocean sunset she posted, or if she felt complete. I have no idea whether her lack of online presence is because she’s shy or because she lives so fully in the moment that she doesn’t even think about sharing it publicly.

  I stare at that Good Vibrations selfie for a long time, at the way her hair tumbles around her shoulders and her mouth opens playfully. And then my chest squeezes hard and my mind floods with uncertainties and questions, and I jam my phone back into my pocket.

  I wish Tanner hadn’t asked me all those questions, even as I also realize that they’re necessary. I’ve been avoiding thinking about it, trying to put Devi in a mental box as I filmed my usual scenes, as I leaned down to whisper all my dirty, intense thoughts in the ears of other women, as I came on them and inside them, as I wrote monologues inspired by them.

  But it was messier than that. The boxes I’d put Devi and Star-Crossed in were porous, and they seeped into everything else, creating these confusing scenarios where I fantasized about Devi as I fucked other women but I was still turned on and completely engaged by the other women. Is that a thing? Being able to want one person so utterly and consumingly, but also being able to throw myself into sex with other people without missing a beat? If porn wasn’t my job, I have no doubt I’d be monogamous. But porn is my job, so where does that leave me?

  I stand up, suddenly determined not to think about this anymore. I don’t even really know that Devi has capital F Feelings for me; I don’t know that she’ll want me after Star-Crossed is over. Right now, the only thing that we’ve established for certain is how much we want to fool around with each other and that we maybe like each other in a more-than-friends way. Hardly the time to start thinking about the future.

  Even if it’s all I want to think about.

  God, she’d look good in my house. Sleeping in my bed, swimming in my pool. Sharing my life…

  But no. I’m not going to think about this anymore. For all I know, I’m just setting myself up for heartbreak when I discover she doesn’t feel the same way.

  My phone rings, and I fish it back out of my pocket, hoping against hope that it’s Devi and then letting out a world-class sigh when I see that it’s my mom.

  Dutifully, I answer. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Hi, honey. Am I interrupting...anything?”

  I can’t help but smile. My parents have been mostly supportive of my career choices—not as enthusiastic as Devi’s parents seem to be—but supportive enough. Except that neither of them, Mom especially, like to mention anything about my job by name. The words porn, sex, scene, and even adult as an adjective coupled with anything else, are never words you’ll hear around my family’s dinner table.

  “No, Mom. I’m not working right now.”

  “Good, because I need to talk to you,” she says briskly. “Dad and I are selling our house.”

  I frown. “Why?”

  “Dad got a job offer near Portland and he’s decided to take it. We never meant for California to be our forever-home, you know. We thought maybe we’d head back to Boston, but then this Portland offer came in, and we’ve always loved Oregon.”

  I’m still frowning. “But…”

  “But what, honey?”

  “But I kind of like you guys being here and stuff. What about when I want to come visit my old XBox? Or my high school computer?”

  She laughs. “Well, of course we will give you a chance to go through all your old stuff. Which reminds me, Phil from down the street said his grandson is about the right age for that old game set you had, the one with the plastic guitar and drums and stuff.”

  I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Rock Band, Mom. It’s called Rock Band.”

  “Anyway, I gave it all to Phil. It’s all got to be almost ten years old now—isn’t that like ten thousand years in technology time?”

  “Yes, but still! I don’t like this. The giving stuff away and the moving stuff. What am I supposed to do for Thanksgiving? I can’t make a turkey by myself!”

  “You’re supposed to book a plane ticket to Portland, or accept that you are almost thirty and that your dad and I have lives outside of being available for your turkey needs.”

  “I guess.”

  “Are you really upset about us moving?”

  I think for a moment, standing up and drifting over to the huge window that looks out from my living room onto my sparkling blue pool. “No, I’m not. But I’ll miss you guys,” I say honestly.

  I know. It’s gross and un-masculine. But I like my parents, and I have dinner with them at least once a month, and I guess I’ve also never really thought about my childhood being so ephemeral—that the biggest fixed geographical point in my life could shift so suddenly.

  Plus, this means my mom is really right. I am an adult, and fuck, I hate being reminded of that. It makes me start thinking of questions I can’t really answer, like what am I going to do with the rest of my life? Will I ever really pursue film as a dream? And don’t I someday want to have adult sons of my own whining on the phone about Rock Band?

  “We will miss you, too,” Mom assures me. “I’ll call you later next week to set up a time for you to come by and go through your stuff, okay?”

  I decide to put my parents moving into a mental box, just like I’ve done with Devi. I’ll figure out how I really feel about it later. “Okay, Mom. Love you.”

  “Love you, sweetie. Goodbye.”

  She hangs up, and as she does, I hear a strange clicking noise, clicking like little dog claws on the hardwood. It’s a sound that used to be as familiar as the washer running or traffic outside. Out of habit, I squat down and pat my leg, not even thinking about what I’m doing until Prior is actually butting up against my hand and giving me tiny, effeminate yaps to let me know how happy he is to see me.

  As I pat his furry gray and blond head, my mind gradually catches up.

  Prior.

  My old dog.

  The dog She-Voldemort took.

  Here in my house.

  I look up towards the entrance to the living room, already knowing whom I’ll see there. And I hate to admit it, but she looks as gorgeous as ever, pale skin accentuated by a red crop top and a yellow tulle skirt, dark hair in a tight ballet bun on the top of her head. As always, she looks a hundred percent New York, a hundred percent fashionable, and a hundred percent unattainable. There used to be a time when I felt like the luckiest guy in the world.

  “Hi, Raven,” I say, scooping the Yorkie up in my arms and standing.

  “Hi, Logan.”

  They’re literally the first words we’ve said to each ot
her since she left.

  She steps forward into the light, and I see her face clearly. Delicate, almost European features. Bright red lips. Eyes limned with the blackest kohl.

  “So did you just let yourself in or what?”

  “I still have a key,” she says primly. “And I thought it was time that we finally talk. After all, you didn’t come find me after you saw me being fucked at Vida’s.”

  Entitlement, manipulation and a dose of guilt, all in three sentences.

  Yep, it’s definitely her, all right.

  “What is there to talk about, Raven?” I ask, willing myself to put down the dog and escort her to the door. Except I can’t put the dog down because I’ve fucking missed the shit out of this dog, and I’d bet everything I own that Raven knows that, and brought him for the sole purpose of throwing me off-balance.

  She takes a step forward. “Don’t act with me, Logan. We both know that you were never a good actor.”

  Jesus. Going for the balls already.

  “I’ve never pretended to be a good actor,” I say as pleasantly as I can while still gritting my teeth.

  “Oh, that’s right. You wanted to be Logan O’Toole, erotic auteur, am I right?”

  “What did you want to talk about again?” I repeat, my eyes sliding away from her to the door, wondering how I could make her move towards it. “Because if you came here just to make me feel shitty, I think I’d rather you left.”

  Raven glances down at the floor, rubbing the back of her right calf with the toe of her left foot, encased in some expensive ankle-boot thing that straddled the line between haute couture and Skid Row thrift store. “I didn’t come here to make you feel shitty,” she says after a minute. “I’m sorry about that. I guess I’m feeling defensive because...well, you know why.”

  There’s silence. If this is her apology, her actual play to win over my time and energy, then it’s not enough. “I think I do know why, Raven. You left me. You didn’t talk to me about it, you didn’t leave a note or a voicemail, you just left. I couldn’t even tell people that we ‘broke up,’ because you did all the breaking. You broke my heart, you almost broke my career, and you certainly broke my mind, at least for a little while.” Prior reaches up to lick my neck. “Oh yeah, and you took my fucking dog. And all so you could gallivant across Europe and fuck some Italian?”

  “It wasn’t that simple,” she insists. “And it wasn’t fucking easy. Do you think I woke up one day, and was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just throw away three years of my life because I want someone who can read the menu at a pasta place’? It was the hardest decision of my life, walking away from you, and I thought it would be better for me if I left with a clean break.”

  “Well, I’m so glad you made the decision that was better for you,” I say bitterly.

  Raven throws up her hands. “You’re deliberately twisting my words. I only meant that if I had tried to talk it over with you, if I’d lingered in your house—in your bed—then I would have ended up staying.”

  “And what would have been so terrible about that?” I say, and it comes out broken and hushed, a deathbed whisper, and I hate myself for it. I don’t want to show her a single iota of weakness. She doesn’t deserve to know how thoroughly she wrecked me.

  But as soon as it’s said, her face changes. Not into an expression of pity—I probably would have lit my own house on fire if I’d seen even the barest trace of pity on her face—but of pleading.

  “Logan,” she says, begging. “Please understand. I had to leave for my own sanity, for my own life. Everywhere we went, I was your girlfriend. Every industry party, every joint shoot...every solo shoot for that matter, I wasn’t Raven Fleur, I was Logan O’Toole’s fuckdoll. Rumors started that I was only getting jobs because of you, that I would never be able to work if we broke up, and I started to think they might be right. I’ve been working in this business since I was seventeen, and for the first time in twelve years, I doubted every decision I made. I started to lose a sense of who Raven was, the work she liked to do, because it was so hugely eclipsed by your…” She gestures to me, to the freshly cleaned couch behind me. “Just you. Not only your business—I could have handled that. But your vision. Your you-ness. You didn’t leave any room for me to create my own world.”

  I am immediately defensive. “I never, not even once, told you what kind of jobs to take or what kind of scenes to film. I never pressured you to be any more involved with O’Toole films than you wanted to be. And I would certainly never—”

  “Logan,” she interrupts. “You’ve never had to pressure anybody in your life. Don’t you fucking get it? People fall all over themselves trying to make you happy. One tweet reply from you, one smile across the room at a party, and you win friends for life. And me?” Her mouth twists up in a rueful smile. “I was so desperate for your smiles, to be inside that playful but intense inner circle, that I was sacrificing myself in advance.”

  “You should have told me,” I maintain. ‘“You should have talked to me!”

  “And said what? Exactly what I just said, and then have you say exactly what you’ve just said, and then feel both reassured and ignored at the same time? Or worse, ready to go willingly back to my personal prison?”

  I turn away from her, walking back towards the window overlooking the pool. I’m too angry and hurt to think clearly, even though I recognize the grains of truth in her words. I can be a little monomaniacal about my projects, and I do have a bad habit of wanting everyone I care about to be involved with all the same things I care about too. And maybe if I’d been a more sensitive boyfriend, I would have seen that Raven felt stifled in our creative partnership even as our domestic partnership still sailed steady atop smooth seas.

  But it doesn’t excuse her cowardice. Or her infidelity.

  “You did so much more than try to renew your career when you left. You didn’t even pay me the courtesy of a goodbye, not to mention the Italian guy.”

  She clears her throat, and I realize she’s come up very close behind me. “I was wrong to do that. Luca and I...we were seeing each other for a while before I left.”

  I know this. I have known this for months. So why does her admission spark so much rage inside of me? It should be old news, and besides, it took some courage for her to admit that. She never did like admitting she was wrong.

  Once I can trust my voice, I speak, still keeping my eyes on the pool. “I wish you and Luca the best. And I suppose I feel more enlightened now than before we talked, so thank you for that.”

  “Luca and I broke up,” she says quickly, before I can get to the part where I ask her to leave. “It wasn’t real, Logan, it never was. He was just in the right place at the right time, able to tell me all the things I wanted to hear.”

  I swivel my head to look at her. She’s standing beside me now, her eyes on the pool as well, one pale hand pressed against the glass.

  And then she says it.

  “I’m still in love with you.” Her dark eyes meet mine. “I know I’ve fucked things up, but I’m not too proud to beg.”

  For a moment, I remember why I loved her once. Her sharp beauty. Her stubborn pride. “You don’t still love me,” I tell her. “You’re here because things didn’t go according to plan, and I’m the last person you remember being happy with. Whatever you’re looking for though, I can’t help you. I’ve moved on.”

  She takes this on the chin, her only sign of disturbance at my rejection of her a slight sucking of her top teeth.

  “You’ve moved on,” she echoes. “Who is she?”

  Devi flashes to mind, but no fucking way am I willing to tempt fate like that. Instead I say, “There’s not another girl. I just mean that I’ve moved on personally. I’m past what happened, and I’m looking to the future. I’ve got a great new project lined up, too.”

  “A new project?”

  I have no interest in pitching Star-Crossed to her, but my latent enthusiasm for it bleeds into my words anyway. “It’s a new project with Vida a
nd that Dutch studio Lelie, like a reality show where two people are falling in love, but all the sex is also open-door, which makes it better than reality TV. Plus I’m making it with Devi Dare—remember that girl from Real Playdates? She’s fucking amazing. Like, her body melts my brain, and her actual brain could melt my brain, she’s so smart.”

  Raven chews her lip. “Sounds like quite the project.”

  I shrug. “I’m super pumped about it, but yeah. It’s needing pretty much all of my free time.”

  “That’s a shame. I was kind of hoping we could at least work together while I’m in L.A. this month.” She drops her hand from the window and smooths her skirt. “You know, some clear-the-air kind of fucking. Even if we don’t get back together, it would still feel good, wouldn’t it?”

  She steps so close to me that I can feel her breath on my chest. Prior squirms to get down, but I hold him tight.

  “Don’t you want to fuck me?” she asks in a low purr, her mouth in that performance pout I witnessed at Vida’s. “Aren’t you mad enough at me that it would feel so good to pin me down and take me hard?”

  I hate how well she knows me; hate how well she knows I itch for exactly that. But what she doesn’t know is that even as I itch for it, I’m also repulsed by the idea of ever touching her again. “No, Julie,” I say, using her real name. “I’d rather not.”

  Her jaw drops and I can’t tell if it’s using her real name or my outright refusal to work with or sleep with her again, but I don’t care. I keep going. “I’m sorry that you felt lost and I’m sorry that you felt like you couldn’t talk to me. But for future reference, a general sense of ennui and weltschmerz is only reason enough to cheat on your partner in indie movies and book club novels. It doesn’t excuse what you did, and while I will work on forgiving, I would be an idiot to forget.”

  I put Prior back in her arms. Her stunned expression is slowly giving way to fury.

  “Fuck you,” she hisses. “Fuck you, D—” And I see it coming, hear it on the tip of her tongue, but I block it out. She can say my real name in all its twangy and possibly ironic grandeur, but it doesn’t change anything about how I feel.