Moving from Livonia, Michigan, to Santa Monica, California, had sounded like a good idea. There were no winters, and we would live near the beach. Two and a half months after arriving, however, my younger sister, Annie, and I were struggling. Everything cost more than I expected, and at eighteen I barely knew how to balance a checkbook, much less support the two of us.

While my friends back home enjoyed their final summer before college, I worked at Safeway to cover our rent and groceries. I stood five-foot-ten, weighed 135 pounds, and considered myself reasonably attractive, but my romantic life had disappeared. The older women at the store frequently offered to introduce me to their daughters or granddaughters. I was interested in only one woman: Ashley Kunkel, my downstairs neighbor.

We lived in the upper-left apartment of a four-unit building at Pier Avenue and Lincoln Boulevard. Ashley lived downstairs. She was a beautiful blonde better known as Kelsey Lynn, one of the era’s hottest porn stars.

Ashley kept to herself. At Safeway, she either looked disheveled or hid beneath a long black wig and sunglasses. At the mailboxes, my attempts at conversation earned only “hi” or “bye.” I couldn’t tell whether she was shy, arrogant, or simply wary of anyone who recognized her. On Tuesday, July 14, that changed.

On Tuesday morning, I completed my usual routine, dressed in my Safeway uniform, and left the apartment at seven-thirty. As I prepared to ride my bicycle to work, I heard Ashley repeatedly trying to start her car. It sounded like a dead battery.

“Can you help me?” Ashley asked through the open window.

“I would, but I don’t have jumper cables,” I replied.

“Fuck,” Ashley shouted. “This fucking sucks.”

I started to ride away, but Ashley climbed out and ran after me.

“Wait, Tommy,” Ashley called.

I squeezed the brakes. “I can’t. I’m going to be late.”

“Drive me to my shoot, and I’ll pay you a hundred dollars,” Ashley offered.

I hesitated. A hundred dollars was tempting, but apparently I took too long to answer.

“A hundred dollars and a blowjob,” Ashley added.

“I guess I’m calling in sick,” I replied.

I carried my bicycle upstairs, called Safeway, and changed into a black T-shirt and jeans. Because I rarely missed a shift, my manager accepted my excuse without an argument.

Ashley waited beside my Volvo in a short red halter minidress, looking ready for a nightclub at seven-forty in the morning. She was five-foot-five, slim, with striking green eyes and teased platinum-blonde hair.

We listened to KROQ in silence until Rodney on the ROQ played “Down in the Tube Station at Midnight” by the Jam. Ashley began singing, and I joined her. By the end, we were laughing and having our first real conversation. That was when she told me how she had become a porn star.

Ashley told me she was born in Des Moines on April 7, 1966, the youngest of Mike and Denise Kunkel’s three children. Her family moved to Berwyn, Illinois, when she was seven. After playing Snow White in an elementary-school production, she devoted herself to plays, choirs, theater camps, and local commercials. A nationally televised performance during high school convinced her to skip college and move to Hollywood.

Hollywood quickly taught her that every town in America had sent its prettiest girl west. She landed a few small parts but supported herself by dancing at the Body Shop in West Hollywood. One night, adult-film director Ronald Samson—better known as Pierre Packard—offered her a role. Ashley declined, but he left his card.

The next day, the club’s bartender handed her the script for Ronald’s Bare Elegance. Ashley had assumed adult films were written on napkins, so the existence of a real script surprised her. The character was better than she expected, but performing on camera could anger her family and end any hope of a mainstream career.

By the following morning, she had accepted the role. A week later, she filmed her first scene with Samuel South and soon became one of the industry’s biggest stars. Her only regret was that Kelsey Lynn became famous while almost no one knew Ashley Kunkel.

It was a great story, almost too perfect in the way every setback seemed to lead her exactly where she needed to go. Still, I believed her. I assumed she had simply told it enough times to know every detail by heart.

When Ashley asked what had brought me to Los Angeles, I told her that my sister and I wanted a change after our mother died. She sensed that I didn’t want to say more, so she did what everyone in Los Angeles did when a conversation became uncomfortable: she complained about the traffic.

The 405 was completely jammed. Moving a few inches felt like an accomplishment. We had traffic jams back home, but nothing like this. According to KROQ, two accidents farther ahead had turned the freeway into a parking lot.

Traffic eventually began moving, and for the first time in my life, I drove into the Valley. A few minutes after we crossed over, Ashley suddenly leaned forward and pointed toward an exit.

“Get off here,” Ashley instructed.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you when we get there,” Ashley replied.

She guided me through several turns before pointing toward a gas station on the next corner. After I pulled into the lot, she told me to park near a phone booth. Ashley glanced at the surrounding cars, then got out without explaining what she was doing.

I watched as she entered the booth and lifted the receiver. She didn’t dial. Instead, she looked over her shoulder, reached beneath the phone, and removed a folded piece of paper that had been taped underneath it. She opened it, read what was written inside, and slipped it into her purse before returning to the car.

For the first time in my life, I felt like I was in a James Bond movie. I imagined that being a porn star was merely Ashley’s cover and that I was an unsuspecting patsy she had drawn into a dangerous world of international intrigue.

“Are you really a spy?” I asked, only half joking.

“I wish,” Ashley replied. “These are just directions to the shoot.”

In 1987, filming pornography in California could still lead to arrests. Although adult movies could be sold and exhibited legally, prosecutors argued that paying performers to have sex on camera constituted pandering. Los Angeles productions therefore operated in secrecy, often sending the cast and crew through several meeting points before revealing the set. The directions hidden beneath the telephone were another precaution.

As we headed deeper into northern Topanga Canyon, Ashley explained that this was the final day of a two-day shoot. The earlier scenes had been filmed inside a closed Burbank restaurant and a motel. Today, they would complete the remaining dialogue and sex scenes inside a private home.

We reached the neighborhood around nine forty-five. The instructions warned us not to park near the house, so I left the car several blocks away among the other vehicles lining the narrow road. We walked the rest of the way carrying Ashley’s bag, passing large homes hidden behind fences, trees, and overgrown hedges. Nothing about the area suggested that a movie was being filmed nearby, which was exactly the point.

The location was an ordinary two-story colonial with white siding and dark shutters. From the street, it looked like any other expensive family home. Inside, cables ran across the floors, lights crowded the hallways, and equipment cases had been stacked against the walls. The living room smelled like coffee, cigarette smoke, and the breakfast someone had abandoned on a folding table.

Victor DeLuca, the director, lit up when Ashley walked through the door.

“Kelsey Lynn, you’re not late,” Victor exclaimed as he hurried toward her. “This must be a sign of the coming apocalypse!”

On a set, Ashley became Kelsey, so that was what I called her from that point forward.

After giving Kelsey his undivided attention, Victor finally noticed me standing beside her.

“Who are you?” Victor asked. “I don’t remember hiring you.”

Before I could answer, Kelsey stepped in.

“This is Tommy,” Kelsey explained. “He’s my neighbor and my hero because he drove me here after my car wouldn’t start.”

Victor crossed the room with his hand extended.

“Nice to meet you, Tommy,” Victor said as we shook hands. “Because you delivered Kelsey on time, we can start on schedule. That makes you my favorite person here.”

I liked Victor immediately. I would eventually work with him many times and understand why he was considered one of adult cinema’s finest directors. His films had introduced performers such as Peg Jewel, Adrienne Havenwood, and Dominique Rousseau, while Pretty Penny and Cutie Pie were already considered classics.

Unlike directors who merely recorded sex, Victor arrived with a schedule and a precise shot list. He was also shooting on 35mm, an expensive rarity by 1987, when most adult filmmakers had moved to cheaper video. Every foot of film cost money, so nobody could waste time searching for a mark or remembering a line.

Victor checked his watch, picked up his clipboard, and called everyone into the living room. Conversations stopped as performers, camera operators, and crew members gathered around him.

“People, listen up,” Victor shouted. “First, we’re filming the non-sex scene with Kelsey, Evan Edmonds, and Troy Bennett in the kitchen. Everyone knows the dialogue, so let’s get it in one take.”

Victor glanced down at his schedule before continuing.

“After that, we’ll break down the equipment and move upstairs to bedroom one,” Victor announced. “Debbie will masturbate while talking to Kelsey on the telephone. If everyone does what they’re supposed to do, we might finish before dark.”

Debbie gave Victor a thumbs-up while drinking coffee. She looked even better in person and was one of the few performers who worked under her real name.

Before entering adult films, Debbie had played the wisecracking daughter on the sitcom Me and My Family. The show ended when she was seventeen, and the network wanted her to headline a prime-time soap for teenagers. Instead, she disappeared for a year, fired her agent, and shocked the country by starring in Eighteen three months after her eighteenth birthday.

Debbie was five-foot-two, with long blonde hair and striking brown eyes I recognized from her movies. Seeing her only a few feet away left me starstruck. I considered asking for an autograph but couldn’t decide whether that was acceptable on a porn set—or what I would ask her to sign.

While I undressed Debbie with my eyes, Victor continued outlining the schedule.

“From there, we’ll move to bedroom two and shoot Kelsey playing with herself while talking to Debbie on the telephone,” Victor announced. “Then we’ll touch up Kelsey’s makeup, change her outfit, and film her sex scene with Ricky Star.”

Victor checked the next item on his clipboard.

“We’ll finish with the group scene featuring Debbie, Kelsey, Ricky, and Troy Bennett,” Victor continued. “If nobody wastes my time, we’ll be done before dinner. Let’s do this.”

“Rock and roll,” Ricky replied before disappearing into a room at the back of the house.

Debbie, Evan, and Troy headed upstairs for makeup and wardrobe. Kelsey had already vanished with one of the wardrobe assistants. Within minutes, the living room emptied, leaving me alone with the crew as they transformed the kitchen into the first set of the day.

I watched them reposition lights, stretch cables across the floor, check the camera, and place strips of tape where the actors were supposed to stand. It was interesting for approximately five minutes. After that, I was bored and starting to feel like a piece of furniture nobody remembered bringing into the house.

When Victor walked past, I stood and approached him.

“Mr. DeLuca, is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.

Victor stopped and looked me over as if he had forgotten I was still there.

“Kid, you’re lucky to be here,” Victor replied. “I normally don’t allow outsiders on my sets. But you got Kelsey here on time, which means my production is starting on time, and that makes you a good guy in my book.”

Victor pointed toward the maze of cables crossing the floor.

“If you really want to help, don’t trip over anything expensive,” Victor added.

“Did I hear someone say my name?” Kelsey asked from the staircase.

We both turned. Her hair had been teased and sprayed into place, and her makeup made her eyes look darker and more dramatic. The tight red minidress barely covered her ass. She no longer looked like the woman who had sat beside me in traffic. She looked as though she had stepped directly off a video box.

My heart began pounding, and my cock stiffened beneath my pants.

“Darling, you have the face and the bod to get every man excited,” Victor declared.

Victor glanced at the bulge in my pants and nodded in my direction.

“Including your friend,” Victor added.

My face turned red as Victor put an arm around Kelsey and led her toward the kitchen. I followed a few steps behind them.

“You remember all your lines?” Victor asked.

“Of course I do,” Kelsey replied with a giggle.

A few minutes later, Troy Bennett entered the kitchen. Since his 1982 debut, Troy had built a career playing innocent young men and goofy teenagers, although at twenty-six he was beginning to resent being cast as the same nervous kid.

Tall and thin, with short brown hair and a boyish face, he looked more like someone’s college roommate than a major adult-film star. Yet he had worked with nearly every important actress in the business. At nineteen, after one semester at Houston Baptist University, he had moved to Los Angeles. Two years working in an adult bookstore led him to Tex Roberts at Global Modeling, where his looks and charm finally opened the door.

Standing a few feet from him made the industry feel real. Troy had turned a fantasy into a career, and I was in awe of him.

As the crew continued preparing the kitchen, Troy slipped behind Kelsey and began dry-humping her. She looked back at him with practiced annoyance.

“You don’t have an off switch, do you?” Kelsey asked.

“Only after I blow my load,” Troy replied as he moved beside her at the counter.

Everyone treated his behavior as normal. Kelsey rolled her eyes, Troy grinned, and the crew continued working as if nothing had happened. I was beginning to understand that the boundaries on a porn set were different from those everywhere else.

The lights came on, and the boom microphone was lowered into position above the kitchen counter. A crew member placed glasses of orange juice in front of Kelsey and Troy while another checked their marks on the floor.

Evan Edmonds entered wearing a conservative suit and carrying a leather briefcase. He was another legend. Evan had entered the business in 1969, the same year I was born. In this movie, he played Kelsey and Troy’s straight-laced father, a respectable family man who would eventually surrender to every sexual urge he had spent years suppressing.

Victor stepped behind the camera and looked toward the actors.

“Is everyone ready?” Victor asked.

Kelsey, Troy, and Evan nodded.

“Quiet on the set,” Victor ordered.

The room fell silent.

“Action,” Victor called.

Troy looked Kelsey up and down with an exaggerated expression of disapproval.

“Why are you dressed like you’re going to a club?” Troy asked.

“I have a job interview,” Kelsey replied before taking a sip of orange juice.

“As a stripper?” Troy asked.

“Gross,” Kelsey replied. “This is why you don’t have a girlfriend. You’re a pervert.”

They launched into an argument that sounded remarkably authentic. Troy interrupted her, Kelsey talked over him, and both rolled their eyes with the weary irritation of siblings who had been fighting since childhood. Watching them, I understood why Victor cared about the dialogue. They weren’t simply waiting for the sex to begin. They were creating characters.

Evan entered through the kitchen doorway and shook his head.

“Knock it off, you two,” Evan ordered.

“Dad, she started it,” Troy complained.

“No, I didn’t, Daddy,” Kelsey replied.

“It doesn’t matter who started it,” Evan said. “For one week, I would love for the two of you to appear to get along.”

Kelsey crossed the kitchen and kissed Evan on his left cheek.

“I promise I’ll try,” Kelsey said.

Evan smiled, then pretended to notice her dress for the first time.

“Are you really wearing that to your job interview?” Evan asked.

“Yes, Daddy,” Kelsey replied. “Mom bought it for me. She thinks it’ll help me stand out from all the other girls.”

“Your mother and her crazy ideas,” Evan said before turning toward Troy. “Are you ready to go?”

“Let me grab my backpack,” Troy replied.

“No need, son,” Evan said. “There’s no summer school for you today. You have an appointment.”

“Am I going to the doctor?” Troy asked.

“Kind of,” Evan replied with a private chuckle.

“Where?” Troy asked.

“You’ll find out when we get there,” Evan replied.

Evan opened the back door and motioned for Troy to follow him. They exited together while Kelsey remained at the counter, watching them leave.

“Cut,” Victor called. “That was perfect.”

The tension vanished instantly. Troy stepped back into the kitchen, Evan lowered his briefcase, and Kelsey finished the orange juice she had been sipping throughout the scene. I had just watched three porn stars perform several pages of dialogue in a single take, and none of them had missed a line.

Evan reentered the kitchen carrying his briefcase.

“Do you need anything else from me?” Evan asked.

“Evan, as always, you were a consummate professional,” Victor replied. “Thank you for lending your talent to this incredibly sexy cast.”

Victor shook his hand, and Evan left the house. As soon as the front door closed, Victor called for Debbie to prepare for her masturbation scene. The crew sprang into action, carrying the camera, lights, cables, and sound equipment upstairs. Within minutes, the kitchen looked like an ordinary room again.

While everyone else hurried around us, Kelsey approached me.

“How’s it going?” Kelsey asked.

“I’m bored out of my mind,” I replied.

“I should have warned you that porn sets aren’t very exciting,” Kelsey said with a giggle. “Most of the day is just waiting for something to happen.”

“How are you doing?” I asked.

“Horny,” Kelsey replied.

“Me too,” I answered before I could stop myself. I was surprised the words had escaped my mouth.

“Of course you are,” Kelsey teased. “If the...