The Juliette Society, Book II
Page 25
It’s like discovering a whole new color palette. I’m going to embrace that side of myself and see how far I can go, see how limitless I can be.
Inana’s diary is all about her trying to discover her own limits. I don’t know if she ever found a limit. If she’s the one who killed herself, that was a limit. She found something she couldn’t take, or unsee.
If someone killed her, that was a limit, too. But maybe she wasn’t strong enough. Maybe Anna wasn’t, either. This isn’t going to end with a neat little bow and a happy reunion over tea and cookies. Like in L’Avventura, I haven’t found the woman I’m searching for.
But maybe that’s only because I’ve been looking for someone else the whole time instead of trying to find myself.
Maybe Inana wasn’t strong enough. Maybe she had the innovation, the imagination, but without the tenacity and stability as a solid base for the things she’d eventually learn about the world. Some people can take knowledge like that and integrate it. Others can’t live with the things they’ve seen and done.
Can I take it further than Inana? Let’s find out.
TWENTY-NINE
THE DESERT BREEZE BLOWS IN through the window of my car, warm and clean. The grit exfoliates my skin as I go, sloughing off parts of me like I’m a snake shedding its skin, but my eyes aren’t clouded any longer. I can finally see myself, see the world and the way it’s connected through people and places.
I imagine that if I tried hard enough right now I could turn into some serpentine creature and bare my fangs, daring the world to fuck with me.
I turn on the seat warmer, letting it gently burn my ass even though it’s near eighty degrees even this late at night.
Where did the sun go?
Truths whispered in my ear are harder to hold onto right now with the way the night tastes.
I pull into Inana’s driveway, tumble from the car for a moment, forgetting how to walk. When I get up I buck and sway and undulate to the door, feeling the new movements of a dance I never learned suddenly taking me over like a fugue state.
I stop at the threshold, nose high in the air, breathing deeply. Something’s off, sings the night.
I feel it in my bones, the emptiness calling to me and echoing through my heart.
I head for the bedroom and feel beneath the pillow.
The diary’s gone.
Was it ever really th ere?
I sit down and hold the pillow to my chest, considering. Without the diary, where would I be right now? Without searching for the woman who left those words, where would I be? Inana’s words brought me to where I needed to be, but living another person’s words can only ever get you so far. Sometimes you need to stop searching for who you think you should be and just be the person you are.
Both sides—the dark and the light. Flaws and all.
There are limits to how far another person’s shoes will take you. I’ve got to forge my own path from here on out, and that’s okay.
I toss the pillow back onto the bed, and something falls to the floor with a gentle slap.
The diary’s gone.
But in its place is a USB drive with a note folded around it in heavy, creamy vellum.
The note is handwritten in ink so red it’s almost black.
You’ve come this far. Can you go a little further?
I turn the USB drive over and over in my hand, the temptation burning a hole in my palm as I weigh my options.
SASHA GREY
SASHA GREY first made her debut as one of the most popular adult film stars of the early 2000s; but in 2009 at age 21 she moved on from her former career without any regrets. She went on to star in HBO’s Entourage, published NEÜ SEX, a book of photographs, and even works as an international DJ. In 2013 she published her first novel, the wildly successful The Juliette Society, in 25 countries. She regularly tours around the world as an artist, author, actress, and DJ.
Sasha’s career kicked off in 2006 when, at the age of 18, Sasha made a name for herself in the adult film world. With a great propensity for sex positivity and self-exploration, Sasha used the adult film industry as a platform for experimentation and performance art, and as a means to encourage individuals to take pride in their sexuality. Frustrated by societal perceptions of female sexuality and preferences, she embodied an independent and sexually confident spirit both on and off screen.
Her fierce performance and determination to challenge the norm garnered attention both inside and outside of the adult industry, making Sasha a national sex icon. The New York Times described her pornographic career as, “distinguished both by the extremity of what she is willing to do and an unusual degree of intellectual seriousness about doing it.” She was profiled in Los Angeles Magazine the same year, which led to appearances on several entertainment news shows and collaborations with several artists and musicians. In 2008, she landed a leading role in Steven Soderbergh’s experimental film The Girlfriend Experience.
It became increasingly difficult to balance her role as an adult film producer and performer, with her passion for photography, music, and traditional acting; as a result, Grey left the industry in 2009.
After this move, she kept busy hosting TV specials for G4 TV in Australia, USA, and Thailand, and started touring as a DJ in 2010. Her filmography also includes: Open Windows (Nacho Vigalondo), Smash Cut (Lee Demarbre), I Melt With You (Mark Pellington), and Would You Rather (David Guy Levy).
As a musician, she has both written and produced her own original songs and remixes. She’s also lent her voice to tracks by artists Infected Mushroom, Current 93, and X-TG (Throbbing Gristle). United over their shared love for the bands Throbbing Gristle and Chris and Cosey, Richard Fearless, of the electronic music group Death in Vegas, recently partnered with Grey as writer and vocalist for a new album, Transmission. Her lyrics resonate across the soundscape of visceral techno and unsettling, discordant drones weaving into a state of dreamlike euphoria. Transmission was released by a London-based Record Label called Drone in 2016.
Sasha’s second novel, The Juliette Society, Book II: The Janus Chamber, will be released by Cleis Press in 2016.
Exhibitions & Selected Works:
Forum du Futuro (Oct. 2015)
Teatro Municipal do Porto Porto, Portugal
White Nights (2012)
Juliao Sarmento’s I Want you: Text (2012)
Leporello (2011)
Bodies Of Babel (Sept. 2011)
Mousonturm Frankfurt, Germany
Neü Sex (May 2011)
Martha Otero Gallery Los Angeles, CA
Case (Nov 2009)
New Museum New York, NY