Porn Star(41)
Can’t type, my fingers are too busy, she responds after a few minutes.
I fall asleep to the image of her masturbating to a video of me jacking off with her panties, and maybe my depraved porno heart has never been happier than it is right now.
* * *
I can’t stop humming. It’s becoming a problem, apparently, at least according to Tanner, who has started grumbling about staging a humming intervention. I hum in between takes when filming scenes, I hum while I’m editing, I hum when I crack open a beer for Tanner at the end of our workday.
“You okay, man?” he asks, taking a drink of his beer.
It’s Wednesday, four days since I went down on Devi in the desert and told her that I had more-than-friends feelings about her. We’ve been texting every day, mostly banter and industry gossip, but at night, our conversations devolve into absolute raunch, usually ending in us sending each other naked selfies and videos of us masturbating to said selfies and so on and so forth until we fall asleep. I’ve been importing some of the selfies and texts and videos to incorporate into the Star-Crossed series (Vida and Marieke both loved Devi’s idea for the name.) All with Devi’s permission, of course.
But even as I work our late night messages into the series, I feel like we’re edging into this exhilarating gray area where the rules don’t apply; where what’s happening between us happens off-script, off-camera first, and then makes it into the project later. We’re skidding off the road in slow motion, and all I want to do is press down hard on the gas, barrel headlong into this thrilling thing together.
And to that end, I’ve been desperate to see her, but I had to stay in Las Vegas for a few nights for an extended shoot, and she has to work tonight. But tomorrow I get to see her again, and I feel like someone has injected me with pure, uncut happiness. Even right now, while I’m on my knees with leather upholstery cleaner wiping down the couch I just had sex on this morning.
“I’m more than okay, dude,” I reply to Tanner’s question. “I’m magnificent. I’m brilliant. I’m—”
“Are you using drugs?” he cuts in. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so...animated.”
“The only thing I’m high on is life,” I say with as much dignity as I can muster while scrubbing semen off my couch cushions.
“It’s that girl, isn’t it?” he asks. “Devi.”
Thinking of Devi sends my thoughts tumbling down a spiral of affectionate depravity. I want to do the filthiest things to her and then I want to take her to meet my parents. Is this normal? Is this how normal relationships work?
Can we even call it a relationship, given that the only thing we’ve actually admitted is how desperate we are to f*ck each other?
“So let me ask you a real question,” Tanner says, setting down his beer and walking over to me with a fresh roll of paper towels. “I don’t have sex with women for money, so I’m not sure how this all works—but do you feel weird at all about f*cking other women while you like this girl?”
His question burrows into me, sharp and shaming, joining the other thoughts I’ve been suppressing for the last few weeks. I’m a typical man, I’m good at compartmentalizing, but I’m also this sentimental bastard with all these gooey feelings, and I’d be lying if I said this doesn’t bother me when I think about it.
“I don’t know how I feel,” I start, not really sure how to frame what I want to say. I stop wiping at the couch for a minute and sit back on my heels. “Sex isn’t love, Tanner. It’s not even about liking someone. I respect all the girls I f*ck, and I enjoy f*cking them, but I don’t always want to hang out with them when the shoot is finished or wake up next to them in the morning. No more than eating a good sandwich for lunch makes me crave my actual dinner any less.”
“But sex isn’t food,” Tanner points out. “It’s not the same as scratching an itch or taking a nap—it’s not purely physical, and even you can’t deny that.”
I sigh. He’s right. “I know. But this isn’t my first time falling in love as a porn star. Even she—” we both know I mean She-Voldemort here “—wasn’t my first girlfriend in the industry. I know how to do this now, and it’s to have really clear boundaries and to keep some things special for each other.”
He looks doubtful. “Most couples have ‘no sex with other people’ as a boundary, you know. That’s like...a super-common boundary.”
“But that’s what I’m saying—porn people aren’t like other people. We’re not common. I mean, on some level, don’t you think that maybe we’re more evolved because we can separate sex from love? Don’t you feel like that’s noble? That I can have sex with so many different partners but still set aside my heart for someone else?”
The doubtful look hasn’t left his face.
“Okay, and yes,” I concede, “it does feel strange. All I think about, all I want, is Devi, and so it felt weird to f*ck Candi and Ang today and it felt weird to f*ck Jen and Nina yesterday in Vegas, but at the same time, my job is to f*ck beautiful women. I can’t just abandon my job whenever I meet a girl I like. And I love my job. My feelings for Devi don’t change that, and I would never expect her feelings for me to change her own career path.”