by Sasha Grey
Copyright © 2018 by Sasha Grey.
All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in newspaper, magazine, radio, television, or online reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published in the United States by Cleis Press, an imprint of Start Midnight, LLC, 101 Hudson Street, Thirty-Seventh Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.
Printed in the United States.
Cover design: Scott Idleman/Blink
Cover photograph: iStock
Text design: Frank Wiedemann
First Edition.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Trade paper ISBN: 978-1-62778-182-4
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62778-183-1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
To all of you.
PROLOGUE
KNOWLEDGE IS POWER.
At least that’s what we’re told. It’s another of those pretty sayings that is meant to tempt us or condemn us, put the onus of our decisions back onto our shoulders, weighing us down with our agency l1ike a yoke. If you don’t bother informing yourself, whatever happens next is your own fault because you chose to be ignorant, right? It’s what they want us to believe so we’ll look inward when things go wrong instead of trying to burn the system to the ground.
But then they tell us ignorance is bliss and make that side of the fence look pretty damned appealing when we’ve seen too much, known too much, done too much, and long for an escape. And yet, we can never truly go back once we’ve crossed a line. Pandora’s Box can’t be closed once the lid’s been cracked open for a harmless little voyeuristic peek. Things can’t be unlearned. So, if we look, we must plow ahead, forever changed by the things we know—even if no one can see the information burning beneath our skin, inside our minds and hearts.
Knowledge is power. Application of that knowledge is wisdom, but it’s also complication, for what are you going to do with the things you’ve learned? Offense, defense, weapon or shield, the things we learn can make us actively powerful or passively strong. It’s all about the choices we make.
Three years ago, I left a towering monolith in the desert after finding out a lot about the world I live in…and myself. I lost myself inside the life of a dead woman, a provocateur named Inana Luna, whose life mission had been creating art through the medium of sexual imagery and acts meant to push the limits of what sexuality is.
I found The Juliette Society again.
I had a surreal threesome with DeVille and his double.
A USB stick had been placed in my possession with the invitation to go a little further on my journey of self-discovery—for that’s what it was. The choice was mine to make.
Though I’d had no idea it was a path I was taking at the time, I chose to tell Inana’s story instead of living more of mine. I chose to tell everyone about who she really was, who women like her, true provocateurs, really are—and why we need them in the world. Her story was more important in that moment to me than the journey deeper down the rabbit hole of The Juliette Society, though I left their name out of the story I gave to my newspaper for obvious reasons.
It was my choice not to look at the contents of the flash drive right away. It disappeared from my possession when I went back home and handed in my article, and I took that as a sign from TJS that our time together was over. I’d diverged from one destination when I’d chosen to go ahead with Inana’s story instead of choosing to stay with TJS, and while I don’t know what I’d have found, I lived with my decision. I’ve lived well with it. Profited.
At the time, it made sense.
The article led to interviews, the biggest of which being with my old buddy Forrester Sachs. Ironically, he probably knew Inana better than I did, having frequented the secret rooms beneath the hotel she worked at enough to be a VIP member himself. I saw him there strapped down while a dominatrix rammed a Jesus-on- the cross-shaped dildo the size of my forearm in a very uncomfortable place.
Sitting with him, being filmed while he looked austere and serious in a three-piece suit, asking penetrating questions (pun intended), made me want to laugh. But the interview was important and it was perfectly executed, maybe because he’d known and cared about Inana too. Besides, he owed me a favor for my silence—not that I’d have exposed him. Sometimes people’s low opinions of you, or fears, will encourage them to be very accommodating.
The interview led to huge success, but not necessarily in the field I wanted. I’m still a reporter, not making movies like I dreamed of doing, but I’ve achieved a certain level of success. The doors the article opened weren’t the ones I’d hoped to walk through, and yet it’s only been positive from a career perspective, a vertical trajectory laden with prestigious opportunities other people would die for. Still, sometimes I feel as though I’m living someone else’s dream instead of pursuing my own, not exactly content in this niche, but not dissatisfied enough to truly break away.
Lately, I’ve been wondering about the role fate plays in our lives. Are we freed of the womb at our births only to be shackled by the invisible chains of destiny? Despite our best efforts, are we trapped on a wheel of predestination? Struggle or acceptance, will we end up exactly where we were meant to?
Because if everything is predetermined, what choices are we actually making? Is it the illusion of choice, the idea of free will that keeps us getting up every day, or is that not an option at all either but another thing beyond our control? Maybe fate is a construct designed to make us feel safe when things in our lives spiral out of our control. Fired, cheated on, a friend passing away. God meant this for us, life meant this for us, the universe needed this to happen so we’d learn a lesson and grow as a person. We never get more than we can handle. When bad things occur, it’s easier to accept them if we have the comforting blanket of destiny to curl up with at night.
I remember how it all felt being there three years ago, embracing the side of myself who was always waiting in the shadows for me to step aside and let her play. These days, vanilla is the flavor of the day… Maybe a little swirl action, if you catch my drift.
After Jack and I split, after I chose saving a dead woman’s reputation and legacy over decadence, nothing was the same. I wanted things from Jack that he wasn’t capable of giving me. After years of being together he was no longer interested in the simple pleasures of discovering my sweet spots. The Juliette Society gave me that. Becoming Inana gave me that. I was tapped into my entire being in a way that I could only describe as seeing myself inside and out.
But by becoming Inana I also sacrificed those experiences when I chose to save her. In reality I had everything and nothing was left at the end of the day for me.
Casual hookups became awkward moments, sex was different. I can’t say it was as unfulfilling as not being appreciated or having zero spontaneity with Jack—but it became a new self-discovery in finding sexuality again. I was able to feel and smell and get excited because of what my body now knew. What I knew. What made me tick, and what just didn’t work. I felt stronger and more confident in me than I ever have.
Even if I had to sacrifice TJS, even if I had to discover there was a side to Jack that I never wanted to admit existed, I was and am whole.
But I can’t quite forget what happened. The flavor of letting go. The feeling of what happens when you become sensation and lose yourself completely inside your body. Silk and satin are nice on the skin, but I wanted to wear the red of stinging flesh and the rippled edges of rope indentations.
To this day, they’re th
e most beautiful things I’ve ever worn. I took them off and haven’t felt the press of a rope in years. This is the version of myself I traded everything in for. Maybe I never really had a choice…
I still don’t know if fate is real. Did I settle for having a successful career instead of chasing my dreams and breaking every limit of who I thought I was? Who I could be? Maybe. Would I be in a better place if I’d plugged in the USB and dived into the contents? What reflection would I find in the mirror if I’d gone down that path?
I’ll never know.
Regardless, I’ve had three years to wonder if I made the right decision that night.
ONE
THERE’S A LEVEL OF WEALTH most of us will never fathom. Oh, we’ve all fantasized about becoming wealthy. We’ve all dreamed of winning the lottery, or finding a rich relation we never knew about passing away and leaving us their obscenely large fortune. There were always the kids who you envied that had a maid, heated pool and Jacuzzi, a room dedicated to video games and movies, and whose parents always had the kitchen full.
The fantasies aren’t uncommon. We want the dream. Children and adults. No one wants to struggle or spend the best parts of their life working themselves to death, waiting for life to begin after their retirement when they’re too old to do the things they’d always wanted to try.
That’s why the fantasies are appealing—they’re all the riches with none of the work—instant wealth without having to build an empire yourself, for that takes too much time for us in this culture of instant gratification. Who’s got the time to devote to that when they spend half their time trying to take pictures of their lives to convince others they’re doing better than they are?
But there’s a level of wealth that brings more than just security to those who attain it—it brings pure, unadulterated indulgence. Luxury items most of us would work months or years to save up to pay for and treasure—new designer shoes, a crocodile Birkin bag, a flashy car—become disposable to these people almost as a matter of show, simply because they can.
Imagine:
Your favorite musician playing at your birthday party. In your house.
Fleets of Ferraris.
Private jets on standby—even for fifteen minute long flights. Penthouse apartments with the best views.
Celebrities at all your parties.
Blowing the yearly salary of the average American in an afternoon shopping spree.
Michelin star meals as a matter of habit rather than a once in a lifetime experience.
I’ve even seen a picture of a rose gold Hublot watch…on a dog.
See, these people have all of these things and more—and don’t give a shit. But we’re not talking about the one percent.
We’re talking about the percentage of the wealthy inside those upper echelons who leave these millionaires behind. Their garages are bigger—and probably nicer—than your home. Their yachts hold submarines and helicopters.
Sheikhs and tycoons and dot commers. A good portion of them are economic meritocrats, having made their fortunes themselves, often at the expense of others. But some have been born into this tax bracket and wallow in it. They don’t live in the same reality as the rest of us do. How can you when you’re someone like Donald Trump’s youngest son who it’s said doesn’t have his own room—he has his own floor in his parents’ residence.
The children of these people will only “know” what hardship is like when they’re raising their humanitarian profiles by volunteering in soup kitchens, or doing mission work in Africa or South America. Their stresses are different than ours, as are the doors that automatically open at the color of their credit cards or the whisper of their last name. The prestige their parents worked hard for is theirs automatically and they milk it hard enough to bruise the teat.
Which brings us to the Rich Kids Of Instagram. I’m pretty active on social media for work as well as the fact that now more than ever, our lives are happening online, but I’d never heard of RKOI until I looked up Jacob—my date for the evening.
You know that obnoxious friend you have who spends twelve minutes before each meal trying to snap the perfect picture for their Instagram? The one who doesn’t enjoy any given experience because they’re too busy snapping selfies to participate? RKOI are these people to the nth degree, only they’re capturing the life of your dreams. Usually the children of barons, oligarchs, and moguls, they were born into this lifestyle and document it like they get royalties from the photos. It’s like some of them have made Instagram their jobs, updating with pics designed to flaunt their wealth and privilege in your face.
Receipts to boutique designer shopping trips in the tens or hundreds of thousands, bottles of rare champagne being shaken and sprayed into the ocean from a yacht, casual snaps of them surrounded by friends in exotic locales—they’re glimpses behind the curtain and they make sure it’s even better than you imagine it to be.
Self-validation? Maybe. But wouldn’t you like to try that lifestyle on and see how it fits?
My date is one of these Rich Kids.
He’s got one of those trendy, big, white watches strapped to his wrist, but hasn’t even glanced at it once in the hour we’ve been here at the restaurant. Other than on ludicrously rich men over fifty, I haven’t seen a watch on a man in ages—don’t get me started on Fitbits—and became curious as to whether it was decorative or functional. But he didn’t even look at its face when I asked him what time it was to prompt him into it. Instead, he pulled out next year’s smartphone and fiddled with that, hoping I’d notice, hoping I’d care about his toys.
There’s a certain expression that crosses a man’s face when he’s trying to impress a woman. A suggestive half-squint while he’s carefully sifting through his vocabulary to choose the right words as though he’s staring into the sun to find them, only in this case the bright object is one he’s acquired instead of the one at the center of our universe. They’re one and the same to him in that moment, though, and he thinks the world should stop and marvel at the fancy object he’s showing off.
I don’t. What’s the point? True wealth hides itself in quality whereas new wealth is insecure and flashy, begging to be noticed, seeking validation like that sexy thirty-year-old man whose ego is still bruised from being a nerd in high school and so he womanizes as hard as he can now to make himself feel better. A man who should understand what it’s like to be overlooked, but becomes just another fuckboy. It’s a treadmill of affirmation that never works because insecurity is an insatiable black hole that never gets fed enough.
Besides, I’m not wowed by possessions. The more I’m plunged into situations with the rich and famous, the more I find myself drawn to intellectual stimulation instead of pretty faces and flashiness. Last week I got caught up in a conversation with a complete stranger about predetermination and free will that got me into such a frenzy, I ended up screwing his brains out in his car as though I could take in the deliciousness of his intellect through osmosis and come.
I used to dream of dating a man who would sweep me off my feet. Then I wanted someone to sweep me off my bed with long thrusts. Someone who would ask, “What’s new for you? What’s something sexually you’ve been curious to try?” And I’d say, “Can we fuck while high and while eating churros? Or pizza? Can you text or call me the next day with lots of dirty sexy talk to tide me over till the next time we get to fuck? And if the next time we fuck isn’t with each other, I need you to be okay with that. Can you massage my feet and tell me how badly you wish you could always be inside of me? Can you finger me discreetly under the restaurant table?”
And he’d say, “Done and done. When do we start?”
But they never do, and I can’t imagine this guy’s going to be any different.
My date must catch the disinterest on my face. “So, Inana Luna.” He leans in closer. “Did you get to, like, see private videos she made? She seemed wild. How freaky did she get behind the scenes?”
I take a sip of the cloyingly sweet
white wine he ordered for me to wash down the bitterness. I wanted everyone to remember Inana Luna’s name, to remember her as more than the whore-like model the media painted her as when she died. I had no idea there would be people using her name to suck up and feed from my notoriety and try to use it to get an in with me, hoping that would turn to an in with someone higher up the social ladder than myself. Sometimes I wish I could make some people forget her name so I could protect us both.
I don’t want my entire career to be defined by my article on her—no one wants to be pigeonholed. But at the end of the day, I can’t change people’s perception of me. I can only focus on putting new things out there and hoping people respond well to my efforts. Haters gonna hate, and vultures gonna swarm. It’s the way of the world.
But this guy wants to talk about freaky? He’s a novice. They all are. If I said, “I want your hot come dripping down my thighs and then I want you to lick it up and eat me out and make me come over and over again,” he’d counter with, “Can I skip the lapping of my own jizz part?” And if I said, “No. I want you to love every bit of my delicious, sweet, wet pussy,” he’d say, “My jizz ain’t tasty.”
Yet he’d still expect me to gobble it back like it’s the newest taste sensation. I don’t mind, but kink is about pleasing both partners.
I’ve noticed the average man is only kinky when it comes to coming on us. Tits, ass, face, they think that moment of power is the hottest. But you want them to truly get kinky, and that’s when they get squeamish.
I set down my glass. “With her, what you saw was what you got. Part of the beauty of Inana was her lack of guise and guile. Her journey was one of transparency and she documented it well, trying to capture that. I did get to see inside her thoughts a little, though…” I trail off rather than mention the specifics of her diary, as a protectiveness surges through me. Her diary was about finding the limits of herself artistically through the medium of physicality and sexuality.
