Porn Star

by Laurelin Paige

  Don’t get me wrong, I love feminist porn. The authenticity, the real women, the real orgasms, and I am a little obsessed with how creative and visual the directors are. Not to mention that my erection-fairy Devi Dare has only done the fair trade, female-friendly girl-girl stuff since Raven’s Real Playdates, and I make it a point to watch every single one of those.

  Plus, Vida’s party is going to be huge, and while O’Toole Films is doing well, it never hurts to rub shoulders with affiliate managers, distributors, and new talent.

  No, the problem is that the party will have the feminist porn crowd there. And the art-porn crowd, and the alt-porn crowd, and the locus at the middle of those three groups…

  Raven.

  My brain stutters to a halt, and I blink at the lighting board I’d just set on the floor.

  Tanner reads my mind. “She may not be there, you know.”

  “I know,” I say defensively, like my brain hasn’t just been immolated by a thousand terrible, wonderful memories.

  “And even if she is, maybe it’s time you showed her that you’re over…whatever it was that happened. You’re one of the biggest names in the industry right now—this is your playground too. You can’t hide from everything forever.”

  I take my time answering, fussing with the lighting board stand far longer than necessary. But when I do answer, it’s only two words. “You’re right.”

  This satisfies Tanner. “Of course, I’m right. I’m always right. I was right about tacos for breakfast this morning and I am right about Vida’s party. You go, impress everyone with your smile and your dick, and you make Raven regret the day she left you.”

  Tanner makes it sound so easy, so direct, and for a moment, I see it in my head the way I would film it. An establishing shot of Vida’s modernist mansion, richly lit, scored by something low but catchy. Me, laughing, making other people laugh. Raven, glowering alone into a glass of mid-range white wine. There would be a moment—closely tracked, carefully scored—where I would pass her on the way to somewhere, the balcony maybe. And she would lift her eyes to mine, and see the easygoing confidence I’m famous for, and nothing else. She wouldn’t see the empty Scotch bottles or that night I saw Goldfinger three times in a row at a classic movie theater because I couldn’t bear the thought of going home to an empty house. No, she would see the real Logan, the new Logan. The Logan who was about to kick everybody’s ass (and then come all over those asses afterwards.)

  Adrenaline pumps through me. For three months, my life has been a cycle of fucking, filming, and editing. I’ve only seen my friends if they happened to be part of my filming and fucking cycle. But tonight, all of that is going to change. Tonight, I’m going to take back my old life.

  “Get the girls,” I tell Tanner with a grin as I unbutton my jeans. “I’m ready.”

  Tonight, Logan O’Toole will finally come back from the land of the brokenhearted.

  2

  I can't even.

  And not just because my mother is in the middle of naked yoga in front of me. I did just drop in, so I’m the one interrupting her routine, and normally her ritualistic meditation practices don't faze me. I’m used to her. She's my mother, after all.

  But it is rather hard to concentrate on the bill in my hands from the student loan department when my mother's hoo-ha is right at eye level while she's in downward dog. Especially with a bush as full as hers. I respect my mother’s hippie liberal ways and totally support the female form in its natural state, but I’m not convinced that Eve didn’t do a bit of pruning first thing after she threw that apple core to the ground.

  It’s because I’m proud to be a woman that I spend so much time waxing and plucking. I know, I know, different strokes for different folks and all that jazz.

  At the moment, it feels awfully apropos to be faced with her asshole when I’ve just discovered that life is dealing me a pile of shit. Goodbye new apartment in El Segundo. I can’t even. This is terrible.

  I must have said that last part out loud, because a second later my mother interrupts her ohms to ask, “What’s terrible, Dev?”

  “Everything,” I answer. “Everything is terrible.”

  “’Whatever words we utter should be chosen with care for people will hear them and be influenced by them for good or ill.’” She’s quoting Buddha. I swear that in a lifetime of being her daughter, less than fifty percent of everything she’s ever said to me has been original.

  I wish my words would influence her to stop her routine and tell me how to get out of the financial mess I seem to be in. Why did I decide to stop by to pick up my mail today anyway? I could have continued through the rest of the week, blissfully unaware that my one semester at UCLA was coming back to haunt me.

  I look up as my mother moves into half downward dog, and immediately regret it. Shielding my eyes, I groan, “Mâmân, do you mind?”

  As she glides into her next pose, she glances back at me and whatever she sees causes her to shriek—ironic considering that I’m the one watching a fifty-year-old woman doing naked yoga.

  “Devi!” she exclaims. “Your aura’s so murky it’s practically black! Sit down, sit down. I’ll get you some turmeric juice and then give you a Reiki treatment.”

  “Thanks, but I think I just need to talk for a minute.” At least I’m now the focus of her attention. That’s the way with my mother—she’s either oblivious or doting. There’s nothing in between.

  “Nonsense.” She’s already pouring me a glass of her favorite elixir. “If you could see what I’m seeing, you’d know how badly your life energy needs healing.”

  “Actually, what needs healing is my bank account.”

  “’Contentment is the greatest wealth,’” my dad says, coming in from the kitchen, the grass beads in the doorway clacking together as they fall behind him.

  I try not to roll my eyes. “I bet Buddha would have thought differently if he’d had student loans,” I mutter.

  “Student loans?” my mother asks as she sets the turmeric juice in front of me, her voice rising with a hint of hopefulness.

  “Are you enrolling in school again?” My father’s tone matches my mother’s.

  I’m tempted to be annoyed—I know they only want what’s best for me.

  But if I’m annoyed at anyone, it’s myself. It shouldn’t be so goddamned hard to decide on a major, but somehow it is. It’s not that I don’t have any scholarly interests—I’m actually intrigued by a great many things. Just, committing to one subject and choosing it as a career is, well, daunting.

  “Not yet, Bâbâ. Soon. But not yet.” Soon. I hope that’s not a lie.

  “You’ll figure it out,” he says with a reassuring smile that almost makes me forget the terribleness of the paper in front of me. “You have your whole life to decide.”

  One of the most unbelievably amazing things about my parents is how completely they support everything I do. Even when they disagree with my choices, they smile and cheer me on wholeheartedly. As long as I’m doing what makes me happy, they’re all for it.

  My mother ushers me to sit down at the kitchen table, then moves behind me, and even though I can’t see her, I know she’s stroking the air above me, wiping the negative energy from my aura. Meanwhile, my father places a hand on my shoulder, channeling positive energy into my body.

  I take a deep breath and sigh. This isn’t what I need right now, but this is how they show their love, and it's the only way I’ll keep their attention.

  “Another deep breath, and then tell us what’s troubling you.” My father’s accent slips out as it often does when he’s practicing holistic medicine, even though he hasn’t lived in Iran since he was ten. I love hearing it just as I love every snippet of Persian heritage he’s passed on to me, including his coloring—dark hair, amber eyes, and olive skin. The “ethnic look,” as my agent calls it, has gotten me a decent amount of work in the erotic modeling business. Well, that and my willingness to shed my clothes in front of a camera like it’s no b
ig deal, another attribute of mine I credit to my parents. For as long as I can remember, they’ve instilled in me the notion that bodies are most beautiful in their natural state. While I’m more conservative than they are, I can be nude without the slightest bit of self-consciousness.

  I do as my father has requested and fill my lungs with air. Then I release it. “It’s my student loans. My deferment has expired.”

  “Ah,” my parents say in unison.

  Another incredible thing about my parents is how in sync they are. Perhaps it’s a side effect of doing everything together, and I mean everything. They work together, they cook together, they clean together. If my father wasn’t recovering from a strained groin muscle, he would have been alongside my mother doing her yoga au natural. Though I often poke fun at them for it, I hope to one day have a relationship with someone just like theirs. Perhaps with more clothing involved.

  My father moves his hand to the base of my neck. “If you go back to school, won’t the deferment kick in again?”

  “Yes. But I still have no idea what I’d study. I also can’t afford a payment like this—” I wave the bill in the air. “Not on top of my apartment.” I was only able to afford moving out six months ago. My modeling jobs pay well, but not support-myself-in-California well.

  “You know your room is always waiting for you.” My mother would be happy if I lived with her forever. But, as much as I love my folks, a child has to spread her wings.

  “I really don’t think moving back home is the answer.” Besides, living with them put a serious damper on my social life. Any time I brought a guy home for a nightcap, my parents would descend upon us with mushroom tea, pot brownies, and endless tips on how to achieve the best climax. They consider themselves experts in Tantric sex and aren’t at all shy about sharing their personal experiences. It’s awkward, to say the least.

  Not that there’s been a guy that I’ve wanted to bring home in a long time. The majority of my orgasms in the last year have come manually while watching Logan O’Toole porn. I imagine for a moment how he’d react to meeting my parents. Surely, he’s the one person who wouldn’t flinch at their carnal tales. God knows he could top any story they told.

  Is it weird how often I think about Logan? We did a scene together—once—a threesome where I played the “extra.” It was more than three years ago now, and I still fantasize about it on a regular basis. That’s probably a sign that I’m not cut out to do full-blown porn. One on-camera scene with a man—sans intercourse, even—and I’m attached. Since then I’ve turned down any job that’s strayed from my usual girl-on-girl.

  It would be nice if I had more of that work coming in. That could make a dent in the student loans.

  “Moving home might be the answer,” my mother insists gently. “What makes you so quick to dismiss that option?”

  “Is it pride, Devi?” There’s an edge of lecture in my father’s voice. Which is as close as he actually gets to actually lecturing. “You know what Buddha says about pride. ‘Let go of anger. Let go of—’”

  “—‘pride. When you are bound by nothing, you go beyond sorrow,’” I finish with him. “Yeah, yeah, I know and it’s very sweet of you to offer. It’s not about pride.” It’s somewhat about pride. “I just need to figure this out.”

  Mâmân is visibly disappointed with my response. I’m her only child and she misses me at home. “You know what? Let’s tarot,” she says. “The universe can tell you what to do.” Eagerly, she prompts my father to get the Tarot cards from the breadbox—because who doesn’t keep a deck of Rider-Waite in their kitchen pantry?—and takes a seat at the chair next to me.

  I blow out a hot stream of air, refusing to let my irritation show. Though I’ve been raised with the cards as a staple in my life, I’m less convinced of their divination properties and more convinced that my parents use them to convey whatever hard words they believe I need to hear. As my mother lays out the first card, I prepare myself for her interpretation to be, “Move home, go back to school, be happy.”

  And she’ll make it sound so simple. If only that was how life really worked.

  “We’ll just do a three-card spread,” she says, probably sensing my reluctance to give the reading any credence. “This is your pathway—The Wheel of Fortune.”

  My father grimaces slightly over her shoulder. “Not my favorite card in the deck.”

  “Don’t listen to your Bâbâ. That’s a fantastic card. It’s telling you to remember that things happen in cycles. You might be down right now, but the wheel always turns. You aren’t doomed to stay at the bottom.”

  “And then when she’s back at the top, all she has to look forward to is the ride back down.” It’s an uncharacteristically pessimistic viewpoint coming from my father, but it’s one I’ve heard before. Every time that card has shown up in a reading for the last twenty-one years, in fact.

  I put a hand up before they launch into further argument about the negative or positive aspects of The Wheel of Fortune and instead ask, “But how does that help as my path? I should just brace myself and know that eventually life will get better?”

  My mother shakes her head. “No, of course not. It’s a card that suggests you do exactly the opposite. Don’t stand still and let the wheel push you down. You can actively work to get on the upside again.”

  I nod, pretending to take it in. “So think of a way to make some more money.” Like I’d said before the cards came out. “Got it.”

  “Yes. Like you could move home. Temporarily.” And there it is—the words she wants me to hear.

  I grumble inwardly. “Next card, please.”

  “The greatest obstacle,” she says, flipping another card from the deck. “Aw, it’s The Lovers.”

  “Jesus,” I mutter. “A relationship would definitely be an obstacle.” Seriously, it’s the last thing I need right now.

  “The Lovers doesn’t just represent a romantic relationship,” my father says. “It can represent something more base—an indicator that it’s time to develop your own philosophy and belief system. It’s time to decide who you are. What you believe in.”

  “What you want to do for the rest of your life…”

  “Mother!” I groan.

  “Don’t get mad at me. I’m just a messenger for The Universe.” She seems to correctly interpret my skepticism. “Going on. The outcome.” She starts to flip another card, but halts when my father’s phone sounds with Peter Griffin from Family Guy shouting, “Who’s texting me?”

  I smile as I always do at the notification tone I set up for him, then chuckle to myself when I think about how he most certainly has no idea how to change it. My anti-technology parents only have a cell phone to be notified when one of their clients has gone into labor, so both of them perk up anxiously while he reads the message.

  “It’s Astrid,” he says, his eyes beaming. “Contractions are only a couple of minutes apart. Got to hustle.”

  My mother shrieks with excitement. “I’m not even dressed!” She hops up, abandoning the deck on the table and rushes to don her doula attire.

  I watch after her, wondering what it feels like to love a job as much as she loves hers.

  My father stands behind me, putting his hands firmly on my upper arms, and I know he’s directing his energy toward me. “Hang in there, kid. You’ll figure it out. And you’re right—the answer is not moving back home.”

  I’m a bit surprised that he isn’t on my mother’s side. And grateful. It’s nice to not have that pressure from at least one of them.

  He kisses the top of my head, and I soak up his affection, sending mine back to him. It might be hokey, but it makes him feel good, and he makes me feel good. “Thank you, Bâbâ. Asheghtam,” I say, using the Persian words to say I love you.

  He squeezes my arms and says it back to me. Then my mother has returned, dressed in her swimsuit. Must be a water birth.

  “Good luck!” I wave at them, promising to lock up when I’m done.

  As I
scoop up the mail, an invitation-sized card addressed to me attracts my attention. I slice through the envelope and find an invitation to an industry party hosted by Vida Gines. The date says it’s happening tonight. I consider for a moment. It’s not the type of thing I usually attend—her parties are geared toward her crowd, the serious pornmakers—but if I want more jobs, even just the femme porn variety, this might be the place to make some new connections.

  Wasn’t that what The Wheel of Fortune was telling me to do? Look for new opportunities and the like. Not that I believe in that divination stuff. Not entirely, anyway.

  It’s merely out of curiosity that I flip over the next Tarot card, the one that would have been the answer to my situation. It’s The Star, my favorite card in the entire deck. As a child, I loved it because I loved the stars. I didn’t care what the seers said it meant—for me it always represented the shining jewels that lit up the night sky. For hours and hours I’d stare at the bright dots through the telescope given to me on my tenth birthday, listening while my parents recited stories of the Greek Gods who resided in constellation form above us. Even then I wondered beyond their prose, wondered what elements made the balls of fire, what made them burn and glow and fall.

  Of course that isn’t the message the reading is giving me now. In my parents’ absence, I try to conjure up the intended meaning instead. Hope, I think. Yeah, that’s it.

  It’s a universal message that could apply to anyone at anytime. But as I gather my student loan invoice and Vida’s invitation and head home to get ready for her party, hope buzzes inside me, and I can’t help but think that the card was pretty apropos.

  3

  I suppose it doesn’t take much to break a man.

  Take me for example. My life checks a lot of boxes. Well-adjusted childhood, check. Successful business, check.

  Healthy? Decently good-looking? Amazing dick?

  Check, check, and check.