Vice, Virtue & Video: Devoted

by Bianca Giovanni

  I smack him again and shove him out of the doorway.

  He and Marty are laughing their asses off, and I’m attempting to pout, though I’m also giggling as we move back to the front door.

  “Did you know that place had a playroom?” I ask James when we’re back in the car.

  “Marty mentioned that it had a ‘private space,’ but I wasn’t exactly sure until I saw it,” he confesses with a smart-ass smile. “It was so cute to watch you try to solve the mystery of what it was.”

  “Drive the car, James,” I grumble, turning to look out the window. I can’t hide my smile, but I don’t want him to see that I’m amused.

  “Come on, Lo,” he teases, giving me a little poke in the shoulder. “It’s just a playroom. We could spruce it up, get a few shackles in there, maybe a spanking bench, and a few riding crops. You could wear a collar and call me Master James.”

  “Shut up and drive the goddamn car,” I say, shaking my head and trying not to giggle. I’m doing my best to look annoyed, but I’m not exactly pulling it off.

  He’s laughing as he looks forward at the road and follows Marty’s flashy ride on to the next house.

  Playroom? I don’t think so!

  Our next locale is up on a hill and has a gorgeous view. The exterior is white stucco with lots of windows. There are double doors in the front, and I’m impressed with the vaulted ceiling in the entryway as we walk inside.

  The interior is bright and airy with light wood floors, white walls, and enormous windows in the living room. The furniture is white and nondescript, very basic. There’s a spiral staircase leading up to a loft area and the hallway with the two bedrooms. The infinity pool has turquoise tile around the edges, and the patio has a large, brick fire pit that would be perfect for entertaining guests. The kitchen is large with stainless steel appliances, an extra-large fridge, and an island. This place definitely looks pricey, and I’m wondering how we could afford it.

  “The countertops are nice and wide in here,” James says, stretching his arms across the granite. “You can put a lot of stuff on them, really spread things out.”

  I notice his flirty smile, but I ignore it as I nod in agreement, and we follow Marty up the staircase to the bedrooms. I’m getting a strange feeling of déjà vu in here, and I’m not sure why.

  We arrive in the master bedroom, and James leads me into the bathroom. Again, I could swear I’ve seen it before.

  “The tub has jets and lots of places to put candles and stuff,” he says, turning down the dimmer and setting a romantic scene. “The shower’s nice too, big enough for at least four people.”

  Hmm. He certainly seems to know a lot about this house. He located that dimmer switch in a millisecond and “big enough for four people” is a weird unit of measurement for a shower.

  “Have you seen this one before? I don’t remember this stuff on the virtual tour online,” I ask.

  “I’ve been in here before.” He flashes me a cheeky grin and continues out to the master bedroom balcony.

  I follow him and look down at the pool. This definitely looks familiar. I try to recall why I know it as Marty comes up to stand behind us.

  “This place is a classic, huh, kid?” he says, patting James’s back. “Can’t believe they’re finally selling it.”

  Finally? What does he mean by that?

  “Bet you got a lot of memories in here,” he adds nostalgically.

  “Yeah, this place is nice. I remember wanting to buy a place like this when I first started,” James replies. “That pool is amazing, but I’ve got a special place in my heart for that countertop in the kitchen.”

  Suddenly, I realize where I’ve seen this house before. It’s been the set for dozens of porn movies, and I remember the pool from a scene James did early on in his career where he played a younger guy who seduced a wealthy housewife. They shot a wide angle from up on this balcony during a section where James had her spread-eagled on the corner of the pool. And the countertop in the kitchen? He did a scene with a brunette where he trailed whipped cream down her body while she was writhing on that very countertop.

  “It’s a porn house.” I sigh.

  “What? Come on, it’s a nice place,” James refutes. “History aside, you have to admit that it’s pretty rad inside.”

  “Yeah, it’s rad, but they shot porn movies here—your porn movies. That’s the equivalent of it being haunted.”

  “Christ, Lola, it’s not the Tate-LaBianca house!” he counters.

  “I can’t walk into a room and know that you’ve banged some chick on camera in there. I know it’s hypocritical, considering most of the money we’re using to buy this house probably came from shooting scenes here, but the concept of it freaks me out.”

  “You sleep in my bed every night now, and you know that I’ve had other girls in there,” James replies with a sweet smile even though I’m shooting him an exaggerated scowl. “It doesn’t matter what I did, who I did it with, and where we did it because I’m with you now.”

  “James,” I whine, “you know it freaks me out to think about your cavalcade of previous women. How could I possibly avoid thinking about it if we lived here?”

  “I understand your point, sweetheart,” Marty chimes in, trying to ease my annoyance. “The house does have a past, yes, but it’s very nice, and it’s hardly been lived in. It’s practically new.”

  “Besides, Lo, they clean up really well after those shoots,” James volunteers.

  “Dude, gross!” I laugh, shaking my head.

  “Honestly, Lola, it’s really something to consider,” Marty advocates. “I mean, look at that view. It’s gorgeous.” He holds out his hands like he’s framing a shot.

  “I hear you guys, I really do, but I’m just not—I don’t think I’d be comfortable living in a house where they’ve shot dozens of porn movies, especially considering that you were in those movies.” I poke James’s chest, and he chuckles.

  “All right,” Marty concedes, “fair enough.”

  We head out of this house, and I’m feeling a little discouraged. Playrooms? Porn sets? Mirrored ceilings? Can’t anything be normal for once?

  “The last one is a little pricier than you guys had originally told me to go, but it’s really nice—no porn shoots, no playrooms,” Marty jokes.

  I laugh and nod my head. “How far out of our price range is it?”

  “Not unreasonably far,” he says.

  “Let’s see it,” James replies. He is, after all, the one footing the lion’s share of the bill here, so he can make the call when it comes to price.

  I slide into the car, and James turns the key to start the ignition, but it doesn’t turn over right away.

  “Oh, no,” I say. “What if the old girl is on her last legs?”

  “Don’t talk like that, Lola!” James says dramatically, patting the dashboard. “She’ll be fine.”

  I cover my lips so he can’t see my amusement. He loves this car like a child, and even though it’s inching closer to three hundred thousand miles now, he’ll never get rid of it.

  “Come on, Pansy,” James whispers to the car. “You can do it, baby.”

  As if the engine understands him, it suddenly sputters to life, and he grips the steering wheel like he’s congratulating the car for finally starting up.

  I want to laugh so badly that I have to face out the window. It’s both hilarious and adorable at the same time. Little moments like this are why I love him so much.

  We follow Marty onto a tree-lined street with extremely well-maintained older homes. The majority are bungalows, most remodeled and painted in beautiful blues, yellows, and browns with wood trim and natural greenery. There are BMWs in many of the driveways, and I can see children’s forts peeking over one or two fences in the backyards. This is a neighborhood, a real neighborhood, a place we could definitely call home.

  James looks at me with a big smile as Marty pulls into the driveway of a beautiful olive green bungalow with an expansive porch, wo
od shingle embellishments on the angles of the roof, white trim around the doors and windows, and sprawling flowerbeds overflowing with color on either side of the four small steps leading up to the front door. This place looks like something out of a magazine—and not just the inside of a magazine, but the cover.

  “I wonder just how ‘out of our price range’ this one is,” I remark, mostly to myself. “It’s gorgeous. It has to cost a fortune.”

  “Let’s see the inside, and we’ll ask Marty if these people are willing to bargain a little bit,” James suggests.

  “Okay, because I already love it.”

  “Same here.” He nods and opens his door.

  “All right, you two,” Marty says as he unlocks the door, “I want you both to take a look around first, and then we’ll talk about money. Even if you veto it because of price, maybe it can give you some ideas for what you’re looking for and I can find some comparable properties.”

  We nod and follow him inside. It looks like they kept the design of the original house, but opened everything up. The ceiling is vaulted with original, thick wooden beams arching up like ribs to the central point. I can tell they’re old and not that “made to look antique” distressed wood you see in newer homes. The floors also appear to be original and are made of natural wood, the slightly different shades and grain visible in each piece.

  Inside the front door, there’s a short hallway with a half-wall that opens up after a few feet into a sprawling living room. The walls are a soft, ivory cream color, and the natural-but-bright palette carries on throughout the space with olive green, gold khaki, a navy blue wall in the kitchen, and a rich terra-cotta brick accent on the stucco wall with the fireplace in the living room. It goes really well with the comfortable white linen couches and deep brown, leather ottoman that they have in here. I’m already picturing the way we could decorate the main spaces.

  On one side of the living room is a hallway that leads to the bedrooms. On the other side is a dining room with a dark wood table and a simple, iron chandelier with four little lamps.

  It’s what’s beyond the dining room that catches James’s eye. The kitchen. It’s like a paradise for him. I swear, he almost sheds a tear at the very sight of it.

  The gas range has to be at least five feet wide with enough burners for a small restaurant. There are two ovens beneath it and a built-in double oven on the wall to the left. The Sub-Zero fridge is nearly three times the size of our dinky refrigerator at home, and Marty explains that there are two refrigerator drawers, two freezer drawers and even a warming drawer as well. The pantry is located to the side of the fridge, and it looks like it could be the stock room of a mom-and-pop grocery store. There are shelves and little boxes for days—clearly the homeowners are quite organized.

  James and Marty start talking convection and induction, and I take a chance to walk back into the living room. From here, you can see into the kitchen and eating area as well as out into the tile patio with trellis roof. Beyond that lies a small pool with a tiled hot tub elevated about two feet up from the far end.

  I love it, and I haven’t even seen the bedrooms yet. Unless it contains an S&M dungeon or it’s had an infamous past, I feel like this could be the one.

  “Let’s do the guest bedrooms first so you get the full effect when you see the master suite,” Marty suggests, leading us down a hallway.

  The first room is small with a subtle, sliding door closet and pale blue walls. There’s a crib in one corner and a load of toys on the floor. I glance over at James, and I can see he’s getting ideas, but I give him a look that tells him to cool his jets on the baby-making. Don’t even think about it for at least five years, my friend!

  The second guest bedroom is connected to the first by a bathroom, which includes a large tub and two sinks. This bedroom is a little larger and holds a queen bed with an iron frame that makes me wish I could have the house and the furniture right now. The ceiling angles up to a point on this side, which means the master bedroom must contain the other half of the slope. More exposed beams, more high windows and even a skylight. Gorgeous.

  I nearly swoon when we get to the master bedroom. There’s a sprawling, luxurious king-sized bed with sheets that no doubt have a ridiculously high thread count. The mammoth bed doesn’t overwhelm the wall, which lets me know just how big this room is. There are two windows on either side of the bed, a private terrace, room for a small loveseat and narrow coffee table, an area to wall-mount a TV, walk-in closet space that rivals our entire living room back at the apartment, and even skylights that make the whole place feel bright and warm.

  The bathroom is decadently perfect with a glass shower containing a rain showerhead bigger than a dinner plate and, I learn from Marty, a steam function. There are two sinks, more than enough counter space for both of us, and there’s another skylight overhead that sends a beam of light like a sign from heaven down onto the extra-large, jetted tub.

  “I want that,” I murmur.

  “Fuck, yes,” James responds in a whisper like he’s in a trance.

  This is our house. This absolutely needs to be our house.

  “So what do you kids think?” Marty asks with a knowing smile. Clearly, we love it, but now comes the inevitable sticker shock.

  “I love it. How about you, Lo?” James smiles at me and wraps his arm around my shoulders.

  “I’m beyond in love with it. I want to move in here right now.”

  “All right, here’s the deal,” Marty begins. “I’m not here to screw you guys over. I know this is a little out of your range, but before you consider the price, just know that this isn’t the final total. It’s been on the market for a while, so things are a little flexible. We can negotiate, and you’re looking at the best in the business when it comes to getting my clients a good deal, so I can make this work for you.”

  After the short preamble, he reveals the asking price to us, and my eyes grow wide as images of waking up in the bedroom and having breakfast at the kitchen island with my husband dissipate from my mind like wispy clouds.

  “And what’s the lowest you’re thinking you could get them to go?” James asks, his brow furrowed with concentration.

  “Eh, I could maybe get them to come down about ten, but I’ll have to really work them for anything less than that,” he replies.

  “If you can get them down, like, twenty, we could do this,” James proclaims.

  “We could?” I ask with disbelief. “I still haven’t found another job. I mean, my credit’s good, but I don’t think that would help us qualify for the loan we’d need.”

  “I could make it work,” he replies with a nod. “I might have to do a couple jobs on the production side of things, but I could swing it.”

  “What do you mean the ‘production’ side?” I ask hesitantly. If he’s thinking he needs to return to porn just for us to afford this house, it’s not worth it.

  “Just maybe produce a couple flicks, maybe try my hand at directing. Shawnna will give me a lot of cash, and I know the shit I make will sell,” he says, turning to look me right in the eyes. “Definitely not anything on the performance end, okay, Lo? You know I’m done with that.”

  “I know,” I mutter, looking away. I do know, and I believe him when he says he has no desire to return to having sex on camera, but I’m a tiny bit apprehensive about what other avenues he might have in mind.

  He and Marty go back and forth about bargaining power, and I listen in, though I’m still a little hung up on that suggestion. What if “just producing” turns into “just directing,” which turns into “just non-sex acting” and then just plain “porn-starring” again? That would destroy me.

  James can sense my distraction, and he holds my hand as we walk back out to the car. The ignition starts right away this time, and we head back home.

  “What’s wrong, babe?” he asks.

  “Nothing.” I shrug.

  “The production thing?” he says, reading me like a book, as always.

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nbsp; “It just makes me a little nervous, is all. It’s a slippery slope, James. I know you loved your job, and I feel bad about taking that away from you. You ruled that world, and it would be so easy for you to jump back into it.”

  “But I’m not going to,” he softly responds. “I have absolutely no intent of going within ten feet of any pussy but yours.”

  I crack a smile and shake my head at him. He always diffuses my tension with a little joke.

  “This would basically be organization stuff, budgeting, helping with arrangements, overseeing some shit, maybe a few casting suggestions, shit like that. I wouldn’t even have to be on the set for it.”

  “Let’s think about it, okay?” I sigh.

  “Okay. But I still think we should get that house.”

  “How are we going to afford it, James? Let’s be realistic.”

  “When was the last time you checked our bank statements?” he says with a smart-ass grin. “I got dolla dolla bills, baby.”

  Again, I laugh, and I’m more at ease.

  “Let’s swing by the store and get something for dinner,” he suggests, changing the subject.

  “Rosemary chicken?” I request, trying to be as adorable as possible.

  “Hmm, perhaps,” he responds with a sneaky smile. “I could make that for you, but what do I get in return?”

  I lean over and whisper exactly what he’ll get in return before I nip flirtatiously at his earlobe.

  “Rosemary chicken it is!” he exclaims, putting the pedal to the metal as we dart off to the store.

  We’re crammed into the bathtub, my back to his chest, but neither of us has said a word since we got in. I know we’re both thinking about the houses, but I’m also thinking about what he said regarding producing porn.

  “James?” I ask timidly.

  “Yeah, babe?”

  “What exactly does a porn producer do?”

  “Mostly just overseeing a lot of business stuff for the movies, just generally managing shit.”

  “And you wouldn’t have to be on the set for that?”

  “No,” he says, holding me closer against his chest as he wraps his arms around my waist. “I’d mostly just be making a bunch of phone calls. My job would basically be making sure I hired the best people to do the actual work.”