Being an up-and-coming adult performer meant everybody else had a claim on my time. I was told when to show up, where to stand, and who to fuck. When I wasn’t working, I was expected at industry events so people saw me and didn’t forget me.

By the time Ashley and I reached Debbie’s mansion in the Hollywood Hills, I had spent most of Saturday wishing we weren’t going. I was exhausted from the previous day’s shoot and worried that Joe Rubin might be there after our altercation. I wanted to go to the movies to watch Three O’Clock High. Ashley insisted the party would be fun and good for networking, even though Jim had me booked through January 1988.

Valets directed cars along the narrow road. Mercedes and Corvettes waited beside battered Datsuns and dented vans, a reminder that most porn performers worried about rent rather than mansions. Ashley and I felt underdressed in my white Ocean Pacific T-shirt and red shorts and her black Power Station shirt and miniskirt.

The house appeared to be two stories of white concrete, dark wood, and smoked glass. Inside, staircases descended toward a sunken living room overlooking Los Angeles. An indoor pool passed beneath a glass wall and connected to a second pool outside.

The front lawn was already crowded with performers, directors, and producers standing beneath the landscape lights. The house looked prepared for a black-tie fundraiser, while most of its guests looked ready for Venice Beach. Anyone seeing that mansion might have assumed adult performers lived like movie stars. Most didn’t. They shared apartments, worried about rent, and accepted work because they couldn’t afford to wait for something better. Whatever had paid for Debbie’s home, it hadn’t been a few hundred dollars at a time for having sex on camera.

Before we reached the door, Charlie Cooper crossed the crowded lawn and shook my hand.
“Tommy Rodz,” Charlie said. “I’m a huge fan.”

“Likewise,” I replied.

Charlie hugged Ashley. “Hello, Sabrina, haven’t seen you at Abigail’s,” he said as his hands slid down and squeezed her ass.

Ashley removed his hands. “I’ve been busy spending time with this guy,” she said.

“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend,” Charlie replied.

“I don’t,” Ashley said. “He’s my special guy.”

“Remind me never to cross the guy who gave Joe Rubin two black eyes,” Charlie said laughing.

“I didn’t give him two black eyes,” I replied. “I never touched him.”
“That’s not what Troy Bennett told me,” Charlie said.

The rumor bothered me less than the way Charlie knew Ashley. His hug had lasted too long, and she had removed his hands from her ass without seeming particularly surprised they were there.

Charlie told her that she should stop by Abigail’s on Monday before walking away. I waited until he was gone.

“Why did he call you Sabrina?” I asked.

“When he asked for my real name, I gave him another fake one,” Ashley explained.

“Is Ashley Kunkel your real name?” I accidentally blurted out.

Ashley stared at me as she said, “For you, it is.”

Instead of explaining, she kissed me. When I insisted we needed to talk, her eyes filled with tears.

“Not here. Not now,” Ashley said.

I suspected she was playing me, but I couldn’t stand making her sad. “We’ll talk later,” I promised.

Ashley knew that kissing me usually ended an argument. Kissing led to touching, touching led to sex, and whatever question I had asked disappeared. That wasn’t going to happen on Debbie’s front lawn, but the kiss still kept me from demanding an answer.

As we continued kissing, Danny Rhodes approached. Nearly forty, he was tall and broad-shouldered, with swept-back brown hair and the athletic build of a former ballplayer. His fitted white polo, tight jeans, and gold chain made him look like a Chippendales dancer between shows.

“Kelsey Lynn,” Danny said. “Every time I see you, you get even prettier.”

Ashley immediately became Kelsey. She jumped into Danny’s arms and kissed him. I introduced myself, and Danny turned out to be pleasant. After joking about the exaggerated stories of my encounter with Joe, he offered simple advice.

I disliked how easily she switched from the vulnerable woman in my arms to the performer wrapped around another man. I wanted Danny to give me a reason to hate him. Instead, he shook my hand and treated me like a colleague.

“Keep showing up on time, do what you agreed to do, and don’t believe half of what you hear at parties,” Danny said.

Danny asked to borrow Kelsey for a bit, and they walked away, hand in hand.

I wanted to ask where they were going and how long they would be gone. Instead, I nodded as if watching the woman I considered my girlfriend disappear into the house with another man didn’t bother me.

“You know they’re going inside to do coke and fuck,” a young blonde said behind me.

“Watch your language, Dana,” her mother said.

Dana was around my age and only about five feet four, with brown eyes, soft curves, and blond hair teased until it looked twice as thick. Her cropped pink top and denim miniskirt made her look as underdressed as Kelsey and me.

She introduced herself as Dana Lynch Morrison and explained that she had created her stage name by keeping her first name and borrowing her last name from her favorite director, David Lynch . The honesty felt startling after Ashley’s evasions.

Dana introduced her parents, who had driven her to the party and stayed to see the mansion. Her mother had even taken her to meet Tex Roberts and driven her to her first shoot while Dana was still in high school.

“So, your dad wanted to see the house?” I asked.

“My dad wanted to see his favorite porn actresses,” Dana replied.

“I’d bet you a hundred bucks that most dads watch porn,” I said, laughing.

“So does my mom,” Dana answered. “I have to give them a list of my movies so they don’t accidentally rent one.”

Dana talked about the business the way other people our age talked about college. Her parents treated it much the same way, which made them either remarkably understanding or completely strange.

“I can’t wait to work with you next week,” Dana said.

She had been cast as Samantha, my lustful neighbor in Mini-Skirt Love, a role Kelsey had wanted badly.

“Please don’t tell Kelsey you got the part,” I said.

“I think they wanted someone younger and hotter,” Dana replied.

“She’s only twenty,” I said.

“That’s ancient,” Dana joked. “She’s so old she has cobwebs in her pussy.”

I glared at her.

“I’m sorry,” Dana said, although she didn’t sound sorry. “I think it’s hot that you’re defending a woman who won’t even call you her boyfriend.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

“I asked her about you when we worked together,” Dana explained. “She gave me the entire ‘special guy’ speech.”

Dana also revealed that Kelsey had spent most of their previous shoot talking about me, reassuring me despite everything that had happened on the lawn.

“For someone who says you’re not her boyfriend, she sure acts like your girlfriend,” Dana said.

That was what I needed to hear. Sabrina, Charlie, and Danny still bothered me, but Dana had accidentally given me the reassurance Ashley refused to provide directly.

Dana took my hand and led me inside. Before we reached the staircase, Ferrari Leigh claimed I had broken a chair over Joe Rubin’s head, while Lisa Hart said I had chased him with a fire extinguisher. Dana enjoyed every version.

Everywhere I looked, someone recognized me. A few people punched their fists into their palms. Others pretended to duck when I passed. They seemed to know that nothing had actually happened, but the truth wasn’t nearly as entertaining.

Near the staircase, Debbie approached us. She was five-foot-two, with a tiny waist, slender legs, brown eyes, and an impossible amount of blond hair falling nearly to her ass. Her cream blouse, black trousers, and understated makeup distinguished her from the other guests. I had worked with her before and knew how easily she commanded attention.

Debbie had the confidence of someone who had spent her childhood walking onto sets filled with adults. She never needed to raise her voice or ask anyone to move. People noticed her coming and cleared a path.

Dana and Debbie chatted like old friends, but Debbie’s eyes kept returning to me. Her gaze lingered long enough to make her intentions clear. I had the feeling she was waiting for Dana to leave.

“Dana, come help me,” her mother called from across the room. “Your father’s embarrassing himself.”

Dana glanced toward her parents and sighed. “I’d better go,” she said.

She hurried toward them, leaving Debbie and me alone near the staircase.

Debbie took my hand. “Do you want to see my bedroom?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

Debbie led me upstairs, where childhood publicity photographs lined the hallway. I asked if her sitcom and Disney movies had paid for the mansion. She laughed. Until then, I hadn’t even known she was married. Her husband was a wealthy attorney who preferred men. Being married to Debbie helped him keep that private, while she enjoyed the security and freedom his money provided.

Being gay in Hollywood was more acceptable in private than in public. Everyone knew gay actors, producers, agents, and attorneys, but many still risked their careers and families if they admitted who they were. Debbie’s husband needed a wife, and she needed the stability neither mainstream acting nor adult films had given her.

“Do you love each other?” I asked.

“Yes,” Debbie replied. “Just not in the way married people are supposed to.”

Her bedroom was larger than the apartment I shared with my sister. Pink wallpaper surrounded a massive bed. Her adult-film posters hung proudly on the wall. Across from them, thick textbooks with worn spines crowded the shelves, their pages marked with bookmarks and loose notes. Downstairs, everyone knew Debbie the porn star. I wondered how many knew she read books about physics for fun.

On her desk sat a photograph of Debbie with her television family from Me and My Family. It was a dumb sitcom about the Peterson family. Sam Klein played Jim Peterson, the clueless dad who wanted to be cool. Susan Kendall played Julia Peterson, the strict mom who did her best to put up with her husband’s crazy antics. Brandon Bixby played Carl, the brainy older brother who couldn’t get a girlfriend. Debbie Sterling played Jenny, the ditzy younger sister who became the sexy, ditzy sister—and the focus of the show—after her sixteenth birthday.

“For nine seasons, they were my family,” Debbie said.

“Do you have pictures of your real family?” I asked.

“They disowned me after I started doing porn,” Debbie replied. “Fuck them.”


Before I could respond, she kissed me.

Debbie pulled off my T-shirt and tossed it aside before kissing her way down my neck. She sucked one of my nipples into her mouth, then moved to the other as she pushed me backward onto the bed. After removing my shoes, she lifted one of my feet and slowly sucked my big toe.
She then pulled off my red shorts and underwear. Once I was naked, Debbie wrapped both hands around my cock and looked up at me.

“Tell me again how big it is,” Debbie said.

“Thirteen and a half inches long and seven inches around,” I replied with a smile.

“You’re a girth monster,” Debbie said.

She stood up and began removing her clothes.
Once she was naked, Debbie climbed onto the bed and pressed herself against me. She kissed me slowly, with the same unnerving talent that had put her at the top of my kiss list. Debbie could make a kiss feel like a confession.

“Are you ready to fuck?” I asked when our lips separated.

“We’re not going to fuck,” Debbie replied as she pinned my hand to the mattress. “We’re going to do something even more personal.”

“What could be more personal than fucking?” I asked.

“We’re going to get to know each other,” Debbie replied.

She sat against the pink headboard with her legs parted and motioned for me to face her. As our hands began wandering over our own privates, Debbie held my gaze.

“For this to work, we have to be completely honest,” Debbie said. “Who did you lose your virginity to?”

“Mrs. Washington, my public-speaking teacher,” I answered.

Debbie raised her eyebrows. “How did that happen?” she asked.

“When I was sixteen this jerk named Gary Mertes pulled my pants down in class,” I explained. “After school, she saw me walking in the rain, drove me to my dad’s condo, and seduced me. It was the best day of my life.”

“How long did it continue?” Debbie asked.

“I lost count,” I admitted. “I went to her house once a week for what she called extra study lessons.”

“That is so wrong, yet so hot,” Debbie whispered as she buried two fingers into her cunt.

Her breath caught, and a shudder moved through her body. When she looked at me again, I decided it was my turn.

“Who did you lose your virginity to?” I asked.

“Promise you won’t laugh,” Debbie said.

“I promise,” I replied.

“Sam Klien," Debbie confessed.

I stared at her. “Holy moly,” I said. “You fucked Mighty Man? Please tell me he wore the costume.”

“He didn’t wear the costume,” Debbie replied as she rolled her eyes. 

“That doesn’t make it any less strange,” I said.

“It wasn’t strange to me then,” Debbie replied. “I grew up surrounded by adults pretending to be people they weren’t. Sam was the first one who treated me like I wasn’t a child anymore.”


“How old were you?” I asked.

“Sixteen,” Debbie replied. “For my birthday, my parents bought me a car with money I had earned.”

“That was generous of you,” I said.

“I didn’t realize I was buying it for myself until years later,” Debbie replied. “Sam asked me to take him for a ride, so we drove along Sunset until he said he needed to stop at his apartment.”


“His apartment?” I asked. “According to Robin Leach, he lived in a mansion, with an actual Mighty Fort.”

Debbie replied, “He lived in a beautiful house in Beverly Hills with his wife and children. I couldn’t understand why he needed an apartment until he brought me inside.”
Debbie slid her hand between her legs and continued touching herself.

“That was where he took women he didn’t want his family to know about,” Debbie explained.

“Once we were inside, he kissed me,” Debbie said between soft moans. “It wasn’t anything like the fatherly kisses he gave me on the show. This kiss was hungry. His tongue entered my mouth, his hands pulled me against him, and my entire body started trembling.”

“Was that your first real kiss?” I asked as I continued stroking myself.

“Yes,” Debbie answered breathlessly. “Then it got hot. When the kiss ended, Sam told me that, for the rest of the night, we were going to pretend to be our sitcom characters.”

“The episode began with the two of us returning home after taking Mom and Carl to the airport,” Debbie explained. “They were flying east to visit colleges, which meant we had the house to ourselves.”

As Debbie continued telling me her story, I closed my eyes and imagined she was describing an actual episode.

“What do you want to do tonight?” Jason asked Jenny.

“I thought I’d go out with my boyfriend,” Jenny replied as she smiled toward an imaginary camera.

“You do that every night,” Jason complained as the audience erupted in laughter. “Why don’t we have a good old-fashioned daddy-daughter night?”

“Dad, that sounds boring,” Jenny said. “I’m too old to hang out with you on a Friday night.”

“You weren’t too old last Friday when you needed twenty dollars,” Jason replied as the audience laughed.

“I’ll do it for a hundred,” Jenny said as the audience’s laughter grew even louder.

“A hundred dollars?” Jason asked. “For that much, I could hire someone who’d pretend to enjoy spending time with me.”

The audience roared with laughter.

“That’ll cost you two hundred,” Jenny said as she winked at the camera.

Jason handed her the money. “If your mother asks where you got it, tell her you received an advance on your allowance,” he said.

Jenny plopped onto the couch. “So, what are we going to do?” she asked.

“I thought we could watch one of my favorite movies,” Jason replied.

“Which one?” Jenny asked.

“One your mother never lets me watch,” Jason answered as he held up a VHS copy of the porn classic Taboo.

“What’s it about?” Jenny asked.

“Family,” Jason replied.

The studio audience erupted with laughter.

Jason slipped the videotape into the VCR before sitting beside his daughter on the couch. The moment he pressed play, the mom appeared on the television, giving a blowjob to the actor playing her son. Jason began rubbing the front of his pants as Jenny stared at the screen.

“What kind of movie is this?” Jenny asked.

“A dirty one,” Jason replied as he unbuttoned his pants, exposed himself, and started masturbating.

The audience erupted with laughter again.

“What are you doing?” Jenny screamed.

“Masturbating and enjoying the movie,” Jason replied nonchalantly.

Jenny’s gaze shifted from the movie to her father’s swollen penis. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t concentrate on what was happening onscreen. Her body refused to remain still. She shifted against the cushions, crossed her legs, then uncrossed them again.

“Are you all right?” Jason asked.

“Dad, I feel strange,” Jenny replied.

“What kind of strange?” Jason asked.

“The kind I get whenever I think about Charlie Cooper, my favorite movie star, Jenny replied as she pointed between her legs.

The laughter swelled as Jenny smiled at the camera.

“That means the movie is making you horny,” Jason explained.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Jenny asked.

“Only when it’s a good movie,” Jason replied.

The audience laughed again.

“What am I supposed to do about it?” Jenny asked.

Jason turned toward her and rested one arm across the back of the couch.

“I’ll show you,” Jason replied.

Jason then kissed her. Jenny hesitated for only a moment before wrapping her arms around his neck and returning the kiss. When their lips separated, Jason studied her face.

“You’re a good kisser,” Jason said.

“That’s what my boyfriend says,” Jason said smugly as the audience laughed out loud.

“After tonight, he’ll be your ex-boyfriend,” Jason said directly into the camera.

Jason then stood and offered her his hand. Jenny accepted it, and he lifted her from the couch...