But despite the hiccup of this first kiss, which would need to be repeated, we’d agreed the show would be best if we let the relationship progress in front of the audience. And I’m head over heels with the concept. I’m head over heels with Logan’s desire to create something authentic.
I am even, possibly—probably—a little head over heels with Logan himself. Or a lot.
Which is why I let him say goodnight. I let him walk away. I let him leave me with the promise that we’d see each other again soon, and I haven’t stopped thinking about him since.
So when he sends over a rough edit of the footage two days after he left me on my doorstep, I don’t need to see it to remember how amazing he is and how incredible our date was, but I rush to play it all the same.
And wow. It’s fantastic. More than fantastic—it’s breathtaking. It’s art.
Too eager to wait until I’m at my computer to watch it, I stare transfixed at the screen of my iPhone and swoon all over again. It’s good. So, so good. I know I’m biased because I personally experienced what he’s captured, but it’s more than that. The angles he chose to shoot from, the way he cut the footage together—it’s beautiful and captivating and different than anything I’ve seen both in and out of the industry. I’d known it was going to be good, but I’m surprised by how good.
I’m also surprised how well he captured the sexual tension between us. It’s so thick it’s palpable, and I’m certain that if I were a stranger watching these two people on the screen, I’d be dying for them to bang. Just like I’m dying for us to bang. I’m dying for it so bad I’m in agony.
But I’m excited too—about how good the footage has turned out, about being a part of this incredible and innovative art, about what’s happening between Logan and me on a personal level. So excited that my cheeks hurt from grinning by the time I reach the part of the video where I get out of the car.
The part that’s supposed to be the end.
But it doesn’t end there. It goes on, and soon I’m watching Logan run after me—not once, but twice—and then he’s ravishing me on my doorstep in what I’m certain has to be the hottest kiss ever captured by a camera.
My heart sinks with disappointment—not with the speed of a comet or a falling star, but with the slow descent of a hot air balloon. It takes me a minute to process that the most utterly thrilling moment of my life so far has been tainted by its preservation. Because now I’m uncertain whether he ran after me for me, or for this.
I slump onto a dining room chair. He couldn’t have faked that kiss. It’s impossible. Isn’t it? He was definitely aroused—I know that for a fact. His cock was a steel rod through his clothes.
But this is his job. He knows how to deliver a kiss. He has his dick trained to respond, too.
And what does it matter if it wasn’t real? It looked real. That’s what’s important. Nothing else.
Logan must have assumed I’d watch the clip as soon as he sent it over, and he must have kept an eye on the clock, because not two minutes after I’ve finished, he’s texting me. Well????
I haven’t quite pulled myself together, and all I can think is to answer honestly. I hadn’t realized you’d filmed the kiss.
I’d left the camera running in the car. It could have turned out like shit recording through the window, but doesn’t it fucking rock?
He’s happy with the outcome—and he should be. It’s good! I’d just forgotten for a moment that this isn’t a relationship; it’s a show. Anything else I thought it might be was just a misunderstanding on my part.
I text him what I should have said to begin with. It’s incredible, Logan. All of it. You’re so talented. Even I was convinced by the storyline.
Then I pull up Halsey on Spotify, turn my speakers on so the music will play via Bluetooth, and flip my phone upside down so the screen is facing the table and I can’t see it light up with calls or texts. It’s possible Logan will want more feedback or will want to chat, but he’ll have to wait. There’s laundry to put away and dishes to be done and a whole slew of “real” things that need my attention.
* * *
Tonight, let’s try to aim for oral.
I reread the text several times as I get ready for my next date with Logan. My stomach flutters like I’m in an airplane that’s taking off, and I have goosebumps in anticipation. I probably shouldn’t be this excited, but I’ve been looking forward to giving Logan head again since, well, since the last time I gave him head. Despite my disappointment over the last date’s footage, I’m psyched.
As I step out of the shower and towel off my hair, though, a voice inside asks, Are you sure getting excited is a good idea?
I wipe the steam from the mirror and stare at my reflection. “There’s nothing wrong with looking forward to going to work,” I tell myself. Especially when work is sex. “You just have to manage your expectations.”
Tonight, I expect that everything will be filmed, everything that happens will be for the show, and as long as I remember that, it’s going to be fun.
Satisfied with my pep talk, I use the night’s agenda to plan my wardrobe. Since it’s too hot for pants, I choose a short black skater skirt to wear paired with a loose blouse with spaghetti straps and a low neckline. My cleavage will look awesome when Logan looks down at me bowed before him. My knees are likely going to get scuffed or else my thighs are going to strain from squatting, but that’s fine—it’s part of the job.
It’s not until I start applying my makeup, and realize I’ve been grinning for almost an hour, that I start to reevaluate my anticipation. The thing is, it’s not just the sex I’m looking forward to. And it’s not just the job. It’s Logan—I’m looking forward to seeing him. I’m looking forward to seeing him a lot.
And maybe that’s a problem after all.
“This is fine,” I tell the Devi in the mirror. “It’s probably completely normal to have a crush on the first guy you had sex with on camera.” The only guy. And perhaps that’s the problem—I need more het porn experience.
Logan’s project paid me a decent advance, but it’s a good idea to have something else lined up.
So when my agent happens to call a few minutes later with details about a lesbian shoot I have, I tell her I’m ready to book more. I’m ready to take the next step and commit to a hetero scene with Hagen. “Can you please make sure he’s aware of all my limits and restrictions?”
“Do you want me to give him the same guidelines you gave Logan?”
The honest answer is no. I want things with him that I want with no one. Which is why I tell her, “Yes.” Because I need to treat Logan’s job like any other, and that means treating every other job just like it’s a scene with Logan.
* * *
Logan already has the camera on when I open his car door twenty minutes later. It’s propped on his dashboard, and the minute I slide in, he slips his hand behind my neck and pulls me toward him. His kiss is fire and salt, and I’m dizzy when he eases up.
“Hello,” he says, his mouth still against mine. “I think I’ll be needing to do that a lot tonight.”
It’s for the show, but I melt. “Say hello?”
He grins and nods and then presses his lips around my lower one.
“Hello,” I say, breathless when we part again, and I suddenly don’t care if it is just for the camera because it has the same effect on me either way. And damn, the effect is amazing.
“I brought a picnic again.” He sounds apologetic. “It’s just so hard to obtain permits for most public places. Especially when I don’t have any intention of behaving.”
“Sounds good to me.” He’s the only thing I’m interested in putting in my mouth anyway.
He pulls out into traffic and then reaches over to lace his fingers in mine. “The picnic? Or not behaving?”
I shrug and smile coyly, partly for the camera, but mostly because I’m afraid if I speak, the only thing I’ll want to say is hello a few more times, or a thousand.
Logan doesn’t tell me where we’re going, but he drives north and east, and two hours later we’re pulling off Templin Highway outside Angeles National Forest onto a wide gravel shoulder.
“Good. We’re alone.” He gives me a quick peck before turning off the engine and gesturing for me to get out of the car.
Logan sets up our picnic on the hood of his car, and even with his handheld a distinct presence, our meal of sushi and tsukemono paired with plum wine is absolute perfection. Between popping California rolls in our mouths, we kiss and make-out like any two normal people who are attracted to each other and are newly going out.
Is that what we are—normal people? When I’m with him like this, and he’s touching me, and my blood is boiling in my veins, I actually believe we might be.
When the sun has set and we’ve finished both dinner and the bottle of wine, I realize why he’s brought me to this spot. “The stars,” I gasp. “They’re so clear here.”
“Impressed? Hint—you should say yes.”
My smile is so wide, I’m sure I look like a dork. “Yes.” I lose myself in the sky above me, searching out the patterns I know best, identifying their pinpoints silently in my head. Polaris, Orion, Rigel, Betelgeuse, Antares…
“Stay here.” Logan slides off the hood and disappears behind the car. I hear the trunk pop and a minute later he returns with a tripod. After extending the legs, he sets it on the ground, facing toward the hood of the car, and I swear my temperature rises a whole degree in anticipation of what he’s planning to film next.
I sit up, propping myself on my elbows, and watch him.
He can feel my gaze. I’m sure of it. But he doesn’t react to it, and as he begins to fasten the camera to the tripod, he glances behind him at the horizon and nods. “What stars are those?”
I follow the line to find the two brightest lights at the end of it. “They’re actually not stars at all. That’s Jupiter,” I point to the one higher in the sky, then at the lower one, “and that’s Venus.”
“Planets, then. Are they always that close to each other?”
“No. And they’re not really close. It’s an illusion. Venus is our closest neighbor and is about the same size as Earth. Jupiter is far away, but since it’s so big, it looks the same size at this distance. As the Earth rotates, they can look like they’re closer or farther apart depending on how the horizon lines up.”
I realize my scientific explanation probably sounds serious and bland so I add, “My father says they’re the lovers Layla and Majnun, immortalized forever in the sky. The two have been dancing nearer to each other all month. Later, they’ll get so close they’ll look like they’re kissing.”
Apparently done fiddling with the camera, he straightens and moves toward me. “Kissing’s nice,” he says. Then he leans down to kiss the inside of my knee.
Electricity shoots through my body like a bolt of lightning. “Yes.” Does my voice sound as thin to him as it does to me? “Especially because Layla and Majnun never actually touched on Earth.”
“That’s tragic.” His fingers graze the spot he kissed then begin trailing the line of my leg.
I shiver. “Very.”
“Tell me about them.”
“Well.” I take a breath, using the sky to center myself, to focus on what I’m saying instead of the blistering scorch of his touch. “The story dates back to seventh century Persia with Qays, the son of a wealthy and powerful descendent of Muhammad known as a Sayyid. When he’s just a boy, Qays meets Layla at school and they immediately fall in love.”
“As boys do.”
“As boys do.” Goose pimples skate down my arms even as I try to ignore what this boy is doing. It’s hard to think while his hands—both of them now—caress a pathway up the inside of my thighs.
But he urges me to go on, so I do. “Qays is so inspired by his love that he writes her endless letters and poems and songs and then recites them on the street corners for anyone who passes by to hear. Soon, the community starts referring to him as Majnun, which means madman, because his passion for Layla is so great it’s mistaken for insanity.”
Right now, I’m about to mistake my own passion for insanity because Logan’s journey has reached my panties and the nearness of his caress to my most wanting body part is driving me mad. His fingers wrap around the waistband, and I lift my hips so that he can draw the thin garment down my legs and over my sandals.
With a sly smirk, he stuffs my underwear into the pocket of his jeans. “He’s crazy with desire?”
“Yes,” I say on a hiss.
“I think I might know something about that.” He pushes my skirt up, and my legs spread automatically to bare my pussy for him. His stare is intense as he brushes his fingers across my trimmed bush, lust burned into his expression. “Go on,” he says, tracing up and down along my slit.
“Uh.” I’m so wet, so aroused. “Mm. Majnun gets the courage to go to Layla’s father. And he asks for her hand in marriage, but he’s denied. How could any father allow a union between his daughter and a crazy person? It would ruin the family reputation. Instead, she’s wed to an older man in a neighboring village.”
“She marries someone else? That’s terrible.” Logan dips inside my hole and pulls my wetness up to paint my clit with it.
“Devastating,” I moan.
“So what does Majnun do?”
“He’s, uh.” My body is already tightening with pleasure as Logan draws constellations on my clit with his fingertips. “He’s overcome. With grief. He spends the rest of his life mourning their love. Wandering the wilderness in solitude. Composing poems for Layla. If he hadn’t been mad before, he surely is now. Driven there by a broken heart.”
Logan is driving me crazy as well, delivering a touch so precisely gentle that it makes me wriggle and buck up against him, begging for more with my body.
He responds by reducing his pressure even further. “And what does Layla do about Majnun’s broken heart?” he asks. “Does she even care?”
“Yes, she cares,” I whisper. “She loves him. Secretly.” I’m so quiet he has to be almost still to hear me, his only movement now the rise and fall of his chest and the probing of his fingers. “So she lives ‘between the water of her tears and the fire of her love.’ She hears the songs and poems that he’s written for her because they’re everywhere now.”
His eyes lock on mine. He’s enrapt and I can tell that he’s as tortured as I am.
“One day,” my voice is low and shaky like my legs, but it still commands his attention “she meets an old man who, uh, mm,” (Jesus, I’m going to come!) “wants to help them. Help them exchange letters. Then, for one night only, he helps them meet. But they have to stay ten paces from each other.”
“He can’t even touch her from ten paces away.” Logan’s voice is as quiet as mine is, as threadbare.
“No, he can’t.” My palms are sweaty against the hood of the car, and my control is slipping. I’m so worked up that I know my release is going to be tumultuous.
“So sad.” With palms braced on my inner thighs, Logan bends down and draws my clit into his mouth.
This—this is definitely not sad.
“Oh, God, oh God, oh God.”
He licks and sucks, and I fall apart, coming in a sudden rush that is both unexpected and a relief. With a moan, I curl upward in a crunch and clutch onto his hair for support.
I’d thought I remembered what this felt like—how his mouth on my most erogenous zone turns me into pudding and short-circuits my senses.
I’d been wrong. This is so much more than I remembered. So much more incredible/arousing/overwhelming/perfect than I remembered. It’s a feeling that’s too intense to be able to commit to memory, I realize, and the fragments that I can preserve are feeble souvenirs. No wonder Majnun was so prolific where Layla was concerned—he wanted to remember everything, every bit of their time together just like I want to remember every bit of this time with Logan.
When my stomach muscles relax,
when I can finally fit air in my lungs again, I lay back on the hood, sated and spent.
But Logan’s not done.
He blows a warm stream of air over my damp pussy. “What happens next, Devi?” He traces a line around my hole with his finger. “Tell me what happens with Majnun and Layla when they meet but can’t touch. What does he do instead?” He blows again, this time plunging two long digits inside me.
And, fuck, I’m already winding up again.
I start to writhe, but Logan holds me in place. “What does he do, Devi?”
“He tells her the things he wants to do to her,” I gasp. That’s not exactly how the story goes. In traditional versions, Majnun spills his heart out in poetry, and I’d never assumed it was sexual language.
But now I’m certain that was the prose he spoke to her—how could he finally be so close to her and not let her know all the ways he wanted her?
“What things?” Logan crooks his fingers, rubbing the area I like to call the Control Panel because once I’m touched there I lose all control.
In a rush of words, I say, “He tells it all—how he wants to put his hands on her, how he wants to lick her and kiss her and be inside her and twist her up and break her down. He tells her with such vivid description that she comes just from his words.”
“Yes,” Logan says before circling his tongue around my clit.
“He tells her everything, in every word, in every way. Then, at dawn, they go their separate ways.”
“And then?” He continues to tease with his finger and his mouth.
“And then Layla dies, and Majnun dies of grief beside her tomb. The legend says that they meet each other in paradise and spend eternity together.”
“That’s not where you say it ends.” Logan’s lips tickle against me as he talks, and I shudder.
“No. It’s not. My father says that’s a foolish ending, told only as a moral lesson for those who fear worldly lust. He insists instead that the lovers remained star-crossed, even in death, and that they exist now as Venus and Jupiter, far, far apart in the night skies. But every now and then, they meet and spend a night of love and passion together before parting again at dawn. Like tonight.”
Porn Star Page 11
