Porn Star (15 page)

She takes a step forward.  “Don’t act with me, Logan.  We both know that you were never a good actor.”

Jesus.  Going for the balls already.

“I’ve never pretended to be a good actor,” I say as pleasantly as I can while still gritting my teeth.

“Oh, that’s right.  You wanted to be Logan O’Toole,
erotic auteur
, am I right?”

“What did you want to talk about again?” I repeat, my eyes sliding away from her to the door, wondering how I could make her move towards it.  “Because if you came here just to make me feel shitty, I think I’d rather you left.”

Raven glances down at the floor, rubbing the back of her right calf with the toe of her left foot, encased in some expensive ankle-boot thing that straddles the line between
haute couture
and Skid Row
.
 “I didn’t come here to make you feel shitty,” she says after a minute.  “I’m sorry about that.  I guess I’m feeling defensive because...well, you know why.”

There’s silence.  If this is her apology, her actual play to win over my time and energy, then it’s not enough.  “I think I do know why, Raven.  You left me.  You didn’t talk to me about it, you didn’t leave a note or a voicemail, you just left.  I couldn’t even tell people that we ‘broke up,’ because you did all the breaking.  You broke my heart, you almost broke my career, and you certainly broke my mind, at least for a little while.”  Prior reaches up to lick my neck.  “Oh yeah, and you took my fucking dog.  And all so you could gallivant across Europe and fuck some Italian?”

“It wasn’t that simple,” she insists.  “And it wasn’t fucking easy.  Do you think I woke up one day, and was like, ‘Oh, I’ll just throw away three years of my life because I want someone who can read the menu at a pasta place’?  It was the hardest decision of my life, walking away from you, and I thought it would be better for me if I left with a clean break.”

“Well, I’m so glad you made the decision that was better for
you,
” I say bitterly.

Raven throws up her hands.  “You’re deliberately twisting my words.  I only meant that if I had tried to talk it over with you, if I’d lingered in your house—in your bed—then I would have ended up staying.”

“And what would have been so terrible about that?” I say, and it comes out broken and hushed, a deathbed whisper, and I hate myself for it.  I don’t want to show her a single iota of weakness.  She doesn’t deserve to know how thoroughly she wrecked me.

But as soon as it’s said, her face changes.  Not into an expression of pity—I probably would have lit my own house on fire if I’d seen even the barest trace of pity on her face—but of pleading.

“Logan,” she says, begging.  “Please understand.  I had to leave for my own sanity, for my own
life
.  Everywhere we went, I was your girlfriend.  Every industry party, every joint shoot...every
solo
shoot for that matter, I wasn’t Raven Fleur, I was Logan O’Toole’s fuckdoll.  Rumors started that I was only getting jobs because of you, that I would never be able to work if we broke up, and I started to think they might be right.  I’ve been working in this business since I was seventeen, and for the first time in twelve years, I doubted every decision I made.  I started to lose a sense of who Raven was, the work she liked to do, because it was so hugely eclipsed by your…” She gestures to me, to the freshly cleaned couch behind me.  “Just you.  Not only your business—I could have handled that.  But your vision.  Your
you-
ness.  You didn’t leave any room for me to create my own world.”

I am immediately defensive.  “I never, not even once, told you what kind of jobs to take or what kind of scenes to film.  I never pressured you to be any more involved with O’Toole films than you wanted to be.  And I would certainly never—”

“Logan,” she interrupts.  “You’ve never had to pressure anybody in your life.  Don’t you fucking get it?  People fall all over themselves trying to make you happy.  One tweet reply from you, one smile across the room at a party, and you win friends for life.  And me?”  Her mouth twists up in a rueful smile.  “I was so desperate for your smiles, to be inside that playful but intense inner circle, that I was sacrificing myself in advance.”

“You should have told me,” I maintain.  ‘“You should have talked to me!”

“And said what?  Exactly what I just said, and then have you say exactly what you’ve just said, and then feel both reassured and ignored at the same time?  Or worse, ready to go willingly back to my personal prison?”

I turn away from her, walking back towards the window overlooking the pool.  I’m too angry and hurt to think clearly, even though I recognize the grains of truth in her words.  I
can
be a little monomaniacal about my projects, and I do have a bad habit of wanting everyone I care about to be involved with all the same things I care about too.  And maybe if I’d been a more sensitive boyfriend, I would have seen that Raven felt stifled in our creative partnership even as our domestic partnership still sailed steady atop smooth seas.

But it doesn’t excuse her cowardice.  Or her infidelity.

“You did so much more than try to renew your career when you left.  You didn’t even pay me the courtesy of a goodbye, not to mention the Italian guy.”

She clears her throat, and I realize she’s come up very close behind me.  “I was wrong to do that.  Luca and I...we were seeing each other for a while before I left.”

I know this.  I have known this for months.  So why does her admission spark so much rage inside of me?  It should be old news, and besides, it took some courage for her to admit that.  She never did like admitting she was wrong.

Once I can trust my voice, I speak, still keeping my eyes on the pool.  “I wish you and Luca the best.  And I suppose I feel more enlightened now than before we talked, so thank you for that.”

“Luca and I broke up,” she says quickly, before I can get to the part where I ask her to leave.  “It wasn’t real, Logan, it never was.  He was just in the right place at the right time, able to tell me all the things I wanted to hear.”

I swivel my head to look at her.  She’s standing beside me now, her eyes on the pool as well, one pale hand pressed against the glass.

And then she says it.

“I’m still in love with you.”  Her dark eyes meet mine.  “I know I’ve fucked things up, but I’m not too proud to beg.”

For a moment, I remember why I loved her once.  Her sharp beauty.  Her stubborn pride.  “You don’t still love me,” I tell her.  “You’re here because things didn’t go according to plan, and I’m the last person you remember being happy with.  Whatever you’re looking for though, I can’t help you.  I’ve moved on.”

She takes this on the chin, her only sign of disturbance at my rejection of her a slight sucking of her top teeth.

“You’ve moved on,” she echoes.  “Who is she?”

Devi flashes to mind, but no fucking way am I willing to tempt fate like that.  Instead I say, “There’s not another girl.  I just mean that I’ve moved on personally.  I’m past what happened, and I’m looking to the future.  I’ve got a great new project lined up, too.”

“A new project?”

I have no interest in pitching
Star-Crossed
to her, but my latent enthusiasm for it bleeds into my words anyway.  “It’s a new project with Vida and that Dutch studio Lelie, like a reality show where two people are falling in love, but all the sex is also open-door, which makes it better than reality TV.  Plus I’m making it with Devi Dare—remember that girl from
Real Playdates
?  She’s fucking amazing.  Like, her body melts my brain, and her actual
brain
could melt my brain, she’s so smart.”

Raven chews her lip.  “Sounds like quite the project.”

I shrug.  “I’m super pumped about it, but yeah.  It’s needing pretty much all of my free time.”

“That’s a shame.  I was kind of hoping we could at least work together while I’m in L.A. this month.”  She drops her hand from the window and smooths her skirt.  “You know, some clear-the-air kind of fucking.  Even if we don’t get back together, it would still feel good, wouldn’t it?”

She steps so close to me that I can feel her breath on my chest.  Prior squirms to get down, but I hold him tight.

“Don’t you want to fuck me?” she asks in a low purr, her mouth in that performance pout I witnessed at Vida’s.  “Aren’t you mad enough at me that it would feel so good to pin me down and take me hard?”

I hate how well she knows me; hate how well she knows I itch for exactly that.  But what she doesn’t know is that even as I itch for it, I’m also repulsed by the idea of ever touching her again.  “No, Julie,” I say, using her real name.  “I’d rather not.”

Her jaw drops and I can’t tell if it’s using her real name or my outright refusal to work with or sleep with her again, but I don’t care.  I keep going.  “I’m sorry that you felt lost and I’m sorry that you felt like you couldn’t talk to me.  But for future reference, that’s only a good reason to cheat on your partner in indie movies and book club novels.  It doesn’t excuse what you did, and while I will work on forgiving, I would be an idiot to forget.”

I put Prior back in her arms.  Her stunned expression is slowly giving way to fury.

“Fuck you,” she hisses.  “Fuck you, D—”  And I see it coming, hear it on the tip of her tongue, but I block it out.  She can say my real name in all its twangy and possibly ironic grandeur, but it doesn’t change anything about how I feel.

“Goodbye, Raven,” I say, and then she shoots me a look of such livid fury that I actually feel its acidic heat prickle against my skin.  

She leaves without another word, and after a moment’s thought, I shuffle into the kitchen and root around for some scotch.  I finally said goodbye to Raven, I finally got all the closure I had once so desperately craved, but I don’t feel satisfied.  I don’t feel at peace.

I feel like getting drunk.

T
hursday dawns
with the kind of aggressive sunshine only California in late August can muster.  I open one eye, then the other, fully appreciating how much like shit I feel, from my scuzzy mouth to my roiling stomach to my pounding headache.

Yep, I sure showed Raven last night.  I drank half a bottle of scotch and sang Ben Folds Five’s “Song for the Dumped” at the top of my lungs for about two hours straight, and then I think I went swimming with my clothes on, guessing from the strong smell of chlorine around me and my still-damp clothes.

So what’s on the docket today, Your Honor?

Devi.  We have a scene today.  

I stumble into the bathroom, where I drink approximately seven glasses of water and swallow a handful of Advil without bothering to count out how many.

Well, Cass.  I think it’s about time you returned a certain favor for me.

I can’t wait.  Can I come over now?

I glance up at the mirror, wincing at my reflection.  I look like Deadpool without his mask.

Sure thing, gorgeous.  I partied a little too hard last night, so I’m going to hop in the shower and scrub the top layer of skin off my body, but go ahead and let yourself in.  I’ve got a key under the potted succulent plant by the door.

The three telltale dots appear on my screen while she types and I use the lull in our conversation to brush my teeth and find a clean towel.

Then my phone pings.  
I can’t believe you didn’t make a joke about the word succulent.

I groan.  She’s right.  I’m off my game.

I think I killed a few brain cells last night.  They must have been the funny ones.

Jesus.  What—or who—did you do last night?

It involves Ben Folds and mid-level scotch.  It doesn’t matter.  Drive here so I can give you orgasms.

Okay, Cyrano.  I’m on my way.

I brush my teeth several more times in the shower and scour my body with soap and a washcloth until the drunk-last-night feeling starts to wash away.  “I’m never drinking again,” I promise myself in a mumble.  And I actually kind of believe it.  The truth is that I was never a heavy drinker—I preferred being buzzed to being drunk—but after Raven left, I had no emotional tools to cope with it.  No tools except for liquor, that is.

But I feel released from Raven now, released from my complicated emotions about her.  I meant what I said yesterday.  I’m not in love with her anymore.  And I’ve moved on.  In fact, on the other side of things, it’s incredible to believe that I was so devastated.   Yesterday proved just how different we are, and how I ever thought what we had was actually sustainable happiness is astounding.

Finally clean and awake, I turn off the shower and pad into my room, settling for my usual uniform of a T-shirt and jeans.  I scrub at my hair with the towel, don’t bother brushing it, and then walk out to my living room, where I find the patio door open and Devi Dare out by my pool.  Hopping into my pool, actually.

And she’s completely naked.

I walk over to call out to her, to tell her that I’m finished getting ready, but then I pause as she breaks the surface of the water, slicks her hair back, and starts backstroking easily across the pool.  She has no idea I’m standing here, has no idea that anyone is watching, and she’s so unself-conscious right now, so natural.  So fucking sexy.

I lick my lips as I watch her, water droplets shimmering on the soft curves of her breasts, on the taut lines of her stomach.  A small pool of water has gathered in her navel, highlighting the dip it makes in her trim but still feminine stomach.  Her skin is a dark bronze in the bluish-clear water, and her hair is like a coffee-colored cloud around her head.

Her eyes are shut, her nipples are hard, and God-fucking-damn if I’m not more turned on than I’ve ever been.  My cock is already pushing against my jeans, my pulse speeding up, and never have I wanted to fuck someone so badly that it’s like I want to crawl inside of them, like I want to fuse my soul to theirs.  

But that’s how I feel now.

Quietly, like a sailor trying not to disturb a mermaid, I move closer to the door and pull out my phone.  I start filming her.

It’s mesmerizing, the way she effortlessly cuts through the water.  The grace, the supple lines of her body, the sharp contrasts in color coupled with the occasional tantalizing glance of her pussy—

It’s not porn, I know that, otherwise I’d be running for my actual camera.  But it’s undeniably, powerfully, painfully erotic; it’s that slow burn of desire that reminds you with subtle but insistent nudges that you are a sexual being.  It’s the kind of image that lodges in your mind before it nudges your dick, and makes it that much harder to shake, that much more consuming.  My theater teacher in high school liked to talk about the unities, where time and place and action all converged into one point.  Well, Devi is my unity right now.  Drawing my body and my mind and my heart into a single, crystalline point, fusing all the disparate Logans into one bewitched, infatuated man.

I was wrong earlier—I’m not
falling
for her.

I’ve already fallen.

I don’t know how, given that I can count the number of times we’ve hung out on one hand, and I don’t know why necessarily, given that she’s so vastly different than the other career porn stars I’ve dated.

But it’s true, nonetheless.  

I tap my phone screen and end my private video, my throat tight for no reason other than the display of beauty in front of me.  I want to jump in there, I want to fish her out of that damn pool and make love to her right here in the sun, but I don’t, because I’m a coward.  Because I still remember how it felt to be abandoned, rejected by someone I loved.

Instead, I clear my throat.  She drops her feet to the bottom of the pool with a sheepish smile.  “Sorry,” she grins.  “I couldn’t resist.”

“I can’t resist
you
,” I rejoin, but the joke is half-hearted because she’s climbing out of the pool, and I’m having trouble breathing.  Water streams off her firm, curvy body as she walks towards me.  She seems so casual, so open about being naked, and then I wonder if it’s because she is always like that or if it’s because she trusts me and feels comfortable with me.

The thought gives me a little puff of pride, with a simultaneous jolt of affection, and I’m determined to keep her comfortable around me, no matter what the cost.  Even if it means keeping my inner Romeo caged up for the time being.  I’m sure she has guys claiming to be in love with her all the time.  The last thing she needs is her co-worker doing it.

“Do you want a towel?” I ask.

“Yes, please.”

I go fetch her one, but—I can’t help myself—I don’t hand it to her.  I towel her off myself instead, drying her limbs before I stand up and dab gently at her face.

She’s smiling.  “Full service pool.  I like it.”

“It’s not the only thing that’s full service.  Come on inside.”

Without bothering to scoop up her clothes, she follows me, and while I talk, I try to drown out the voice in my mind that’s screaming
she’s almost naked she’s almost naked, under that towel she’s naked
.  I’m around naked women every day; it shouldn’t be something that affects me.  But it’s Devi, and so it does.  Not only because her body is delicious and perfect, but because this marks the first time I’ve seen her completely naked in person since
Real Playdates
all those years ago.

Somehow, I manage to keep it together—at least on the surface.  “So, I have a little something special planned for our oral scene tonight.  Do you have any plans late tonight or early tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow?” she asks, and her cheeks darken.  “Um, no.  I’m pretty much completely free until morning.”

“Excellent,” I say, walking backward into my room.  I re-emerge with a bag stuffed full of shit—film equipment but also clothes and toiletries and a giant-ass sleeping bag hanging off the side.  “Our scene might be filmed late at night.  Is that okay?”

She swallows.  And nods.  “More than okay,” she gets out.

God, I want to fuck her right now.  Watch that delicate throat move as I take a nipple into my mouth.  Watch that mouth part when I finally push inside of her.

Patience, patience,
I coax myself.  
All good things come in time.

“
I
don’t think
you can handle it,” I say doubtfully an hour later.  After Devi dressed and I packed the car, I decided that I needed hangover food—stat—so I took her to a bar on the edge of the suburbs.  Ungentrified, unglamorous, without even the cozy, warm feeling of a dive hangout.  Nope, this place is as cheap as it is soulless, and that’s why I like it.  No lawyer bros on lunch break, no hipsters basking in a “genuine vibe.”  Russell’s caters to one clientele and one clientele only—people willing to put up with surly service and scuffed drywall for cold beer and the best wings in the city.

Right now, Devi Dare, in her naive innocence, thinks she can handle a dozen wings on her own.  

“Why don’t you start with a half dozen?” I suggest diplomatically.

She looks up from the laminated menu.  “This is not my first wings rodeo, son.”

“Devi, I only like to tell women what to do in bed.  But I’m telling you, a dozen is too many.”

She smirks at me.  “Want to put money on it?”

“I can think of things more interesting than money.”

“Like what?” Her eyes are sparkling.

“Okay, if you can’t eat all the wings, then I get to take you to the most arthouse, painfully subtitled movie playing right now.”

“And if I can eat them all?”

I shrug.  “I don’t know.  What’s something that would be totally new to me?”

She thinks for a moment, looking at the ceiling and slowly tapping her mouth with one, slender finger...

….And that is how I end up on Venice Beach two hours later walking towards a small psychic’s shop.

D
evi leads
the way down the boardwalk, her fingers laced loosely through mine as she half pulls me forward.  “I can’t believe you doubted my ability to eat wings,” she huffs, the breath catching in her throat the precise same way I’d like it to when I’m fucking her.

Even her scoffing is sexy.  Jesus, I have it bad.

“You just seem so healthy,” I argue.  “Like the kind of girl who only eats chia seeds and that kind of shit.”

She giggles as a gust of wind blows her hair around her face, and fuck, she’s so young.  I know eight years isn’t the biggest difference in the grand scheme of things, but it feels big right now.  It feels important.

Worse, it feels exciting.

“I eat pretty healthy most of the time,” she admits.  “Mostly because my parents are always dropping stuff by.  A fresh batch of kombucha or leftover kale from their co-op or whatever.  But at least once or twice a week, I eat something terrible and amazing.  Like a triple cheeseburger.  Or a dozen wings.  After all, this ass won’t stay thick on its own.”

She gives her ass a playful smack.  I almost perish on the spot.

“Anyway,” she continues, “I think balance is important, right?  A little bad sprinkled into good makes everything so much more interesting.”

“You have to stop talking like this or I’m not going to be fit to meet the psychic.”

She laughs again, and then we’re at the bead-covered door of
Madam Psuka’s, Psychic Extraordinaire.
 Neon moons and stars vainly attempt to compete with the bright beach sunlight.

“We’re really lucky,” Devi says in a hushed voice.  “She spends half the year in Michigan.  Whenever she comes back to L.A., she’s usually too swamped with her repeat customers to see anyone.”

A ray of hope blossoms inside me.  “So maybe she won’t be able to see us today?” I ask, trying not to sound too relieved.

Devi just points to the sign hanging in the window.  
Walk-Ins Welcome Today.

“Shit,” I mutter.

Devi swats at my arm.  “You lost fair and square.  Be a good sport.”

“You can’t really believe all this stuff, right?  It’s so silly.  And you’re so...science-y.”

She pushes me inside, into the thick, dark air within.  While my eyes adjust, I hear Devi digging into her big slouchy shoulder bag, and when I can finally see again, I realize she has my camera.  I gave it to her just in case we wanted to capture any moments for
Star-Crossed
.

She turns it on.  “I think this is worth filming.  It’s like we’re on a fake date again!  Wings and now psychics.”

“You know, when I gave you that, I was really just imagining us finding a place to make out or something.”

She tuts at me and flaps her hand, indicating that I should sit in one of the chairs packed into the tiny waiting area where we are now.  “It smells like pot,” I observe, taking a few more experimental sniffs.  “A
lot
of pot.”

Devi grins.  “It’s sage.  People burn it to purify a space of negative energy.”

“
This
is considered purified?  I think that is an excellent way to cover up smoking pot.  ‘Oh no, officer, I wasn’t smoking marijuana, I was just purifying my car of negative energy.’”

Devi giggles, and then I hear an older woman say, “Boombalee!”

It’s not precisely English—or any other language I know—and I wonder if it’s psychic-speak for something important, or if maybe this woman is speaking in tongues or having a stroke, but then she pushes past the beads separating the inner space from the waiting room and scurries toward Devi, arms outstretched.

“Oh, shit,” Devi mutters, looking at me with something akin to panic.  “I’m so sorry about this.”

“Sorry about what?”

But she can’t talk now because the woman has pulled her up from her chair and wrapped her in a massive hug.  She’s in her late forties, with thick gray-blond hair tied back in a utilitarian braid, and a petite but willowy build.  She’s wearing a long skirt and blouse that have an unmistakable “Sedona, Arizona” vibe.  For a minute, I think she’s the psychic but then she pulls back and I say aloud, “Holy shit.”