It’s not a contract signature, but almost.
I grin. “Excellent! Marieke and I are thinking we could start filming in another month or so, just as soon as we line up the other performers.”
Her eyebrows rise. “Other performers?” she asks.
I nod enthusiastically. “So just like this season set up ‘Logan and Devi’ as a couple, this next season will follow another couple. But get this—” I’m so excited I can barely sit still “—we’ll be in it too, and there will be a much more complicated dynamic. Threesomes and foursomes and maybe even the illusion of cheating—nothing too seedy, of course, since we want this to be couples-friendly—but edgy enough that there’s that illicit thrill, you know?”
Devi looks away, chewing on her bottom lip, and I notice that her hand is gripping the back of the couch. “So we’ll be having sex with other people?”
I scoot closer. “Yeah, but we’ll still have sex together too. And sometimes it will be combined scenes. I think this has the potential to be incredibly hot and something really different, you know? Like The Affair, but porn.”
She searches my face. “You’re really excited about this, aren’t you?”
I blink. She’s not angry or upset, but there’s something strange in her tone. Strange and cautious, and I’m reminded of everything I still need to say.
But first, “Yes, I’m super excited,” I say. I take her free hand because I just can’t help it, I want to touch her and feel connected to her. “I love this project. It’s porn at its best, you know? Forbidden and hot and a little emotional, a little artistic.”
I hear my voice—energetic and full of optimism. Loud in the quiet, dark living room. I lower it as I gesture to the rug and to the camera equipment on the floor. “Don’t we have the best job ever, Devi? The best life? We get to fuck for a living. We get to feel good and make other people feel good for money. And yes, sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes the money is thin and the jobs aren’t great. But how many people get to love what they do for a living? How many people get to work their dream job? And Star-Crossed is exactly the kind of thing I want my dream job to be.”
I can see her turning this over in her mind, and it encourages me to be the logical, compartmentalizing guy I need to be right now. “Hey,” I say, catching her chin with my finger and meeting her eyes. “I need to say some stuff.”
I can see her wrestle with something, and God, I wish I knew what she’s wrestling with. “Okay,” she agrees after a minute. “I think that might be good.”
I lick my lips. I spent a good three years of my life constantly apologizing to a girlfriend who I was never political or intellectual enough for, and so you’d think I’d be good at it by now. But instead I’m insanely nervous. I have to get this right. If I get it wrong, if I lose Devi…
I’ll lose everything.
But that won’t happen, I tell myself. I’ve got it all figured out now.
“So,” I start clumsily. “I, um. I’ve been doing some thinking since yesterday. And part of it was about how smart you are, how logical and careful you are. And I’m not naturally that way, I guess. I’m more of a ‘chips all in’ kind of guy, more of a lover than a thinker. And I’m…”
Devi is staring at me, and I realize I’m babbling. I cast around for the clearest way to say what I want to say.
“I think we should stop mixing our love life and our careers.”
Her lips part. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“I think we shouldn’t be boyfriend and girlfriend on the camera. I think we should just act like two performers. And then have our personal life completely separate. And that way it won’t be like it was when I fucked Bambi yesterday—because I know that hurt you, and because it hurt you, it hurt me too. We’ll be able to keep working, keep making porn with other people with zero weirdness, which is what we both want. Right?”
There’s no answer. Even her dark gold eyes are still and frozen.
“Devi, right?” I repeat.
Still no answer. My pulse starts to thud in my neck as the silence stretches out, and then I feel my stomach begin to twist as I realize that maybe all of the assumptions I’ve taken for granted about Devi and me, and what we both want, have been very, very wrong.
20
I stare at him, silent. There are things to say—lots of things—but I’m not sure where to begin when I’m not even sure to whom I’m talking at the moment.
The Logan who greeted me today, who fucked me with his clothes still on because he was so eager to be inside me, who whispered I love you as I came—that Logan is not the Logan who had sex with me on camera for the bulk of the last two hours. I don’t know this version of Logan. He’s cold and clinical, and though he was still able to make my body respond to his every whim, he is not the man I’m in love with.
And this bullshit about adding more couples to Star-Crossed?
Hell no.
I mean, this show has been one of the special things we’ve shared, the thing that has just been ours. And he wants to open that up to others?
I don’t understand.
I’m not sure I want to understand.
I gather my clothes as I gather my thoughts, mulling over everything he’s said, trying to figure out how I feel and what to say.
My lack of response seems to make Logan sweat. “Let me back up.” He stands over me as I start to dress. “I think I understand why you left the set yesterday and I know how to fix it.”
“By being an icy, distant asshole?” My tone has bite, but I manage to keep the volume level.
He laughs awkwardly. “No, no. I should have explained beforehand. I’m sure I came off that way because you didn’t get where I was coming from. See, I realized I haven’t thought about us in the right way. I'm learning that from you—you are so good at using your head. And I always do this, I always jump in heart first.”
I pull my T-shirt on, then turn to face him. “I still don’t get where you’re coming from, Logan.”
“I’m saying I was wrong to try to make it real. The show, I mean. I know it will be good art, but it was bad for us.”
I stop, one leg in my skirt, the other in mid-air. My heart thunders in my ears, and there’s a bitter taste in my mouth. “You regret that our relationship is real?” He can’t mean that, can he? Because if he does…
“No. That’s not what I’m saying at all. I regret that I let the real parts cross over into the work parts and now, of course, the lines are blurred. I didn’t see that this would be a problem, but I get it now. Right now, you think when I’m touching someone else that it’s the same as when I’m touching you. Because of the camera. But it’s different, and the way to prove that to you is to take away the camera from the real us. Then you’ll be able to see what’s the job and what’s not.”
I step the rest of the way into my skirt and pull it up to my waist, suddenly needing very much to be dressed. “So, in other words, anything that happens with the camera on us would be just for the job?”
“Exactly. They’ll be like the scenes I have with any other woman. We should even be formal about it and go through the do’s and don’ts each time. I’ll wear a condom like the law requires. Just like every other shoot. Then you’ll be the only woman I’m with when the camera’s off.”
He isn’t saying anything that terrible. Not really. It’s logical. It makes sense. He’s thinking about the business in much the way I always have.
Still.
It sounds terrible. It feels terrible, and, while I’m not quite sure how to refute him, I know I don’t agree.
I offer the first thing that comes to my lips. “A lot of our most amazing moments together have happened on set. Lots of very real moments. I’m pretty sure I fell in love with you on camera.”
“I know, I know.” He steps toward me and puts a hand on each of my upper arms. Something about the gesture makes me feel the difference in our ages—makes me feel like he feels the difference. Like he thinks he has the better handle
on the situation because he’s older.
When he speaks next, it just gets worse. “I’m not discounting anything that’s happened before, babe. I’m trying to fix things for the future. So that we can keep doing the jobs that we love. And it makes sense, doesn’t it? We aren’t the first co-workers who’ve fallen for each other. How do other people do it? I’m sure they have to draw similar lines.”
“But most other people’s jobs don’t require getting naked.”
“And that’s why we have to make what we do at our jobs different than what we do at home. As much as possible. We need to make things clear. Keep things separate.”
Separate.
He says it so easily, so matter-of-factly, that I feel like a jerk for not being able to comply. Or like I’m naive. It’s the same way I felt when Raven confronted me. Am I really that ignorant?
Maybe we’re both that ignorant. Because this solution of his is not a solution I can get on board with.
Maybe this relationship isn’t one I can get on board with either.
Don’t jump to conclusions, Devi. Talk it out. “Is this really what you want, Logan?”
He shrugs. “I think it’s what’s best. For us. It will make things easier. It will make it possible for us to keep seeing each other.”
I run both of my hands over my forehead, as if I could sort out my thoughts if I just rubbed hard enough.
Logan drops his hands and bends down to meet my eyes. “Devi? Tell me what you’re thinking, will you?”
I can’t. Because the air suddenly feels heavy and the walls seem like they’re pressing down, and what I’m thinking is that I need to run. Which isn’t like me at all.
“Air,” I say. “I just…I need some fresh air.”
Before he can stop me, I bolt through the patio doors to the backyard and stand at the edge of his pool, drinking the night air in deep gulps.
I’m so mixed up about what’s happened. When I came over today, I’d been wary, but then I saw him. I saw the way he looked at me, and everything wrong was right again. He’d taken me roughly, yet it was, in every way, making love. We’d been normal. We’d been us. And when he’d held me in his arms and told me about his poetry love, all my worries about us disappeared.
Then came the scene. And everything was different, and part of me wants to tell him that his idea is stupid and ridiculous and can’t possibly work, but another part of me realizes that I have no other option to give him in return. Because how things were wasn’t working either.
Tears burn at the corners of my eyes. I know Logan’s trying to guide me through this. Maybe he’s even the North Star my mother suggested I look for. I mean, I hope he is. I love him, and I want to be with him. So maybe I just need to do what he suggests. But how can I, when everything he’s suggesting makes me feel even worse than before?
I hug my arms around my chest and look skyward. It’s smoggy. Typical for this part of L.A., and it’s barely worth looking up. Except just as I do, a meteor shoots across the darkness. It’s beautiful and blazing and not unlike how my heart feels at the moment. Like it’s on fire, and, even as it burns down to nothing, there’s something incredibly exquisite about it’s final fall into nothingness.
Like the fool stepping off a cliff.
“Did you make a wish?” Logan asks from behind me. He wraps his arms around me, his body warm and inviting against mine. Not for the first time, I’m aware of how the world around us dims when I’m in his embrace. If only we could live that way always.
I turn my head slightly toward him then look back at the sky. “You know, that tradition started back in ancient Greek times. Ptolemy used to say that it meant the gods were looking down on us, and that when they peeked through the spheres, star matter would slip through and that’s what we’d see fall through the sky. Since they were already paying attention to us, it was presumably a good time to ask for whatever our heart most desired.”
He brushes his lips against my temple. “I thought I had what my heart most desired. But twice now you’ve walked away from me, and I can’t help but think I should be wishing on that star right now for you.”
It hurts to hear him say it because in that one line I can tell both how much he loves me, and how much it’s going to hurt when I say the things I’m just beginning to realize I need to say.
So I stall. “They aren’t even stars.” I casually slip from his hold, needing distance from him to keep my mind in focus. “They’re particles of rock burning as they enter the earth’s atmosphere. Some of them so small, we’d refer to them as dust. Isn’t that funny how we put so much faith and trust into something so common and everyday?”
“Is it really so everyday, though? Dust might be, but catching it at just the moment that it burns up…I bet most people don’t look up enough to notice. Maybe the magic is in us taking the time to see it. And then taking the time to voice what it is we really want.”
His words strike a melancholy chord, and I turn to face him. Isn’t it kind of magic that I get to see Logan as I do? In common ways that burn brightly when caught in the right moment. Isn’t that what I have of him that no one else does?
It’s almost enough to send me back into his arms, but then he locks eyes with me and whispers, “Devi…” and, just like I know he’s voicing what it is he really wants, I know I have to voice what I really want.
“I can’t make pornographic films anymore,” I say.
He tenses. “Why? Because of LaRue? Because of Madden?”
“They’re a little bit a part of it, yes. But mostly because of—” you. That’s the word first in my mind, but I think of my heart and that falling star and know the real answer is, “me. It’s because of me.”
“I don’t understand. You don’t want to do het porn? Maybe you could go back to girl-girl shoots.” There’s concern in his tone, but underneath it I sense optimism. He’s relieved to hear this isn’t a problem with us, and now he’s probably assuming this conversation is going to be focused on my career.
And it will be. Just, there’s more, too. “I could do that. But…well, first of all, it’s a dead end if I stick with the work I’m doing. It’s not paying my bills and it’s not what I want to do for the long term. Staying in it doesn’t do anything to get me the future I want for myself.”
I pause to swallow before telling him the next part. The hard part. “The thing is, you say I’m good at leaving my heart out of things, and I thought I was too. I thought I was a person who understood how to separate the job from the emotions. But I’m not. I can’t. I can’t help but feel jealous every time you’re with someone else. Every time you go to work. I’m torn up and muddled, and I can’t even think straight because all I can see is your hands on Bambi—”
“I shouldn’t have had you stay and watch. That was—”
I go on as though he hadn’t interrupted, thinking of that awful tweet from yesterday. “And your mouth on Raven.”
“I will never have my mouth or my hands on Raven again.” He’s insistent and more than a little bit defensive. “I should have made that clear. She and I are over, and that means I won’t—” He pauses, an idea occurring to him. “Is this about the project she announced I’m doing with her? Because she just made that up. I’m not—”
“You’re not?” For half a second I’m relieved, but then I realize it’s not enough. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter, don’t you see? If it’s not Raven, it’s someone else. Because that’s what you do. You fuck other people for a living, and I can’t deal with it.”
He takes half a step backward, his green eyes shrouded with hurt. “So what you’re really saying is you can’t do porn anymore because of me.”
“No, Logan. That’s not what I’m saying. I can’t do porn anymore because I want to be in a committed relationship with someone. I want to be in love and I want only one person in my bed. I don’t want to share. I don’t want to share you. Making work separate and businesslike isn’t going to fix that. I can’t have sex with other peop
le when I’m in love with you. I can’t watch you have sex with other people either.”
“You want me to—?”
I cut him off, eager to make sure he understands I’m not asking what he thinks I am. “No. I don’t want you to quit. I don’t want you to be anything but who you are because that’s who I’m in love with. I want you to be happy doing what you do—and you are. And that’s why this is about me. I’m not happy with you doing what you do.”
He shakes his head as though dismissing what I’ve said, an expression of clear certainty settling on his strong, handsome face. “It’s because we’ve been doing this wrong. Like I said. We have to set things up differently between us, and it can work. I know relationships can work in this industry.”
“You know this because of your relationship with Raven? Because, far as I can tell, that didn’t work out so well.”
He tilts his head at me. “That’s not fair.”
I bite the inside of my lip and sigh. “You’re right. It’s not fair. And this has nothing to do with Raven or with any other relationship in this industry. Maybe they can work. For someone else. They don’t work for me.”
“We haven’t really given it much of a try.” There’s a hint of annoyance in his expression, but I get that he’s just fighting for me the best way he knows how.
I’m fighting for me too. “I have tried. I’ve tried enough to know that it’s only going to get worse from here on out. It’s only going to hurt more, the more I love you. And maybe I could eventually figure out how to be callous and bury those emotions, but quite frankly, that’s not who I want to be. That’s not who you want me to be.”
“Of course I don’t want you to be callous. You won’t be. You think it’s not hard for me too, when I picture you with Bruce douchecanoe Madden? It’s horrible. It drives me insane. You can’t imagine how I want to claw his eyes out.”
A spark of hope ignites inside me. “Really?” If he feels the same way, then maybe there’s a future for us I hadn’t imagined before.
He steps toward me, cupping my cheek in his hand. “Yes, really. I just need to tell you that more. That’s what I meant about setting boundaries.” He rubs his thumb over my lower lip, sending shivers down my spine. “And maybe we make up other rules like…” He glances up while he’s thinking then back at me. “Like there could be certain words we never use with other people and maybe we always have final approval on each other’s costars. Then we find things we never do with anyone else and we make sure that’s what we do together. Like we never sleep with anyone but each other—I mean actual sleep. And I want to be the only person who ever takes you to zombie movies.”
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