I opened the door to Ing’s and bathroom nonchalantly, trying to downplay even the remotest possibility of any potential horror awaiting on the other side. I looked back with a shrug, “What could possibly be so bad?”

Spark knew. “You have to see it for yourself.” He said as if I might be walking into a room where someone just got hacked into bloody bits.

Then I saw it with my own eyes.

It could could have been a twisted prank. Some dadaist art piece designed to instigate disgust and provoke a riot. Or special effects from a horror movie made real  and therefore infinitely more disgusting. The bathtub. It looked like it was alive, crawling… hairy. From the hot water a steamy cloud thick with a stench of body odor and scented putrid soap scum hung in the air. The bathtub was thick with Ron Jeremy’s body hair, short, thick curly black hairs that clung to the sides of the tub with greasy suds drying to a hard fuzz lined it end to end. The puddled remnants of water that could not pass down the choked drain was grey with a dirty film. It rippled at one end trying to find a way down and out drop at a time.

Renting an apartment or house out for a location one is always taking a huge risk. The bored production minions, the apathetic actors, the selfishly arrogant directors and producers that are too busy trying to get their shots couldn’t care less. As far as they are all concerning, that space is theirs to do as they wish for the duration of the shoot. They own it.  They don’t care if they break the vase, flick burning ashes on the oriental rug, rip the upholstery moving the furniture into a stack in the corner. In mainstream or in porn, it is all the same regardless but ALL of those things would have been easier to handle than the devastation of Ron’s bath.

Ing stood behind me gently sobbing, demanding a new bathtub. “How am I going to clean that?” She wanted to know and I honestly was at a loss for any suggestion. Some sort of incendiary device would be too dangerous. Chemicals too noxious. It would require a complete hazardous waste disposal team to secure the premises and begin a toxic waste disposal process. Chances were good that Dupont hadn’t yet come up with a solvent that would break down such a biohazard as Ron Jeremy’s hairy soap scum.

I didn’t have the heart to warn her that we were probably going to find used anal sex condoms under the couch too when the Vivid shoot was finally wrapped.

Don't look under the couch...

I ran into the courtyard between my studio and Ing and Sparks. The screams stopped. I had to check myself. Were those screams the sounds of someone shooting her anal sex scene for the Vivid shoot going on in both our respective lofts?  I have heard a few porn stars in my day that were hard to tell if they were enjoying themselves to the outermost limits of pleasure and beyond, I mean – at least until the cameras stopped rolling. If you couldn’t see them then you might wonder if they were fending off an attack from a deranged fan/abusive boyfriend/fiendish serial killer. But this was not that sort of scream…

I paused to listen more closely. Since there was a possibility that an anal sex scene was indeed being shot, I would only be a problematic distraction if I burst through the doors and tried to save whomever was screeching so vehemently because a huge cock was possibly cracking her ass in two. Now breaking down the “4th wall” – the imaginary wall that separates the stage from the audience, doesn’t only happen when the actors speak directly to the audience, from the inside, out. Breaking down the 4th wall can also occur from the outside in, when the audience intrudes on the stage, usually unwittingly. In fact, this can be a problem in most of Los Angeles, where reality and fantasy can intermingle on any given day wherever a film is in production, and it happens all the time. But, on a porn shoot if it happens then you tend to feel a bit more awkward.

Sure, in both cases, the director is going to scream at you and yell to get off the set. On the porn shoot though, the stud might lose his edge and have a tough time regaining his… composure… so to speak. So I listened more closely, the quiet actually kind of disquieting.

Then I could faintly hear sobbing. Time to finish donning the superhero mantle and figure out what the fuck was up.

Alyssa was done. Time to go.
I was living the stereotype like a freaking sucker chump on a slow decline into palookaville. Feeling ashamed, hollowed out, carved up, and roasted crisp. Ashamed that I wasn’t smart enough to read the signs and see the play going down to suck us out of whatever we could give up to make their scene. Hollowed out by my greed which eviscerated me and left me gutless and wretched in my own bullshit, I was easy carvings for a couple of hacks with greedy intentions and little remorse. The drive home Alyssa roasted me for failing the sacred calling of manly men to defend his woman to death do you part. Fucked. Fucked over. Fuck.
I was a total heel. Worse, I was the gummy shit stuck to the bottom of the heel that picks up all the crap until it lop sides the gait and must be scraped off. I felt disgusted and useless but if there was one thing I could do it would be to talk to Jim South. After all, he was our agent and he proclaimed that he would be playing sheriff if ever we had a problem on set. He was the one to talk to if we had a problem, if we couldn’t get paid for example, he would be there to make things right and make sure the sun would still be setting in the west.
I went into the office but had to wait while he took call after call and found enough to keep busy with between calls that I began to wonder if he even knew I was sitting there. But then he would remind me that, yes, I was actually there waiting, as he would look at me and make eye contact then sort of nod like my number had obviously not come up yet. So wait.
Finally, he looked at me. Only now he wasn’t just the sheriff but also the judge, jury, and executioner too. Apparently, I guess we were the ones that had the problem.
“I heard you had some problems on set yesterday”. His okie accent made the word “problems” stretch out, roll, and snap like a whip across the back. I tried to explain but he was not the least bit concerned about me getting paid; see, I was a slave to his getting paid. “If you are going to turn down work then I don’t know what you expect me to do”.
I did all I could do. I agreed. Thanked him not so much for his time but for teaching me a good hard painful lesson. Yes suh, massah, suh.
If Aja were still in the business then I would’ve asked her what we should do next time. If she had any great advice on how to deal with the agents, and directors, and producers, and talent and all the other freaks, trolls, and scary monsters we might have yet to encounter. Making amateur videos had been so much better, more fun, easier; maybe we should go back to doing that and forget the LA porn scene. I would’ve liked to have one more chance to chat – to pick her brain – free of charge again. But she had already retired from the business, like a thousand others that came through LA, and made a trip around the World Modeling office then fall off the face of this earth.

Daphne, Homegrown Video

Some folks just absolutely ooze with Homegrown Video’s truest spirit, the unbridled sexuality that pumps life into those homemade sex tapes. For example, when the time came to represent, to stand up, to deliver the goods, Daphne would always go the extra mile to make good great. Whenever she and I shot some amateur porn taking turns running the camera, shooting photos, and that sort of thing, if she became turned on by the action then off would come the clothes and Daphne would be wanting to jump into the middle, usually pulling me by the Johnson to join in the fun.
Once, while I was finishing up shooting a live show from our San Diego studio, Daphne disappeared briefly. I was a little miffed that she was leaving me to deal with everything. You can only imagine what the aftermath of several hours of live sex looks like. Sweaty sheets pulled out of place with a tangle of spent condoms slithering around oozing cum like runny noses drip. There is wet underwear and stinky shoes. The swampy sweet fog of greasy lust permeates and clouds the senses. Don’t get me wrong.
I love it. But….
I just don’t like being the one that has to clean it up. So I called for her. No answer. Where the hell did she take off to? Things were put back in order. The sheets changed, the condoms gingerly coaxed into waste buckets. I was sitting on the bed pausing to enjoy a moment of peace and cleanliness when Daphne stepped in. She had changed into a sexy red gown and put her hair up. She crawled up on the bed and lifted the dress to show off her gorgeous ripe pear of an ass. She looked back at me mischievously. “I want you to fuck my ass” she begged.
I turned back on the live feed. The show would definitely go on.

Stephanie Swift was not returning the calls. I gave up. We would have to find someone else to sign at our booth in Las Vegas at the AVN show. Worse, I know I sounded like a frigging didn’t know  he’d been dumped yet high school boyfriend that hadn’t taken the hint yet when I left the messages basically pleading with her to return my calls on the promise, made weak with such hesitation and uncertainty, that it would hopefully, maybe, possibly be worth her while. Time was running out. We would just have to try and find someone else that would stand there and look hot and keep a smile through grueling hours of slobbering guys paying her greasy compliments all day long. In addition, I had other concerns to deal with because our genius graffiti artist hired to spray our booth had not come in yet to discuss the artwork and he was becoming just as hard to get a call back from. I am not sure if that is a compliment to porn stars or a critique of artists but either way I was going nuts and was ready to throw the artist into an anal gang bang scene or spray the flaky porn girls with a can of rust-O-leum.

Finally the artist came by the office to discuss the booth. I told him we wanted it to tell a story about the evolution of Homegrown Video, how we started as a purely amateur porn company but blossomed into something completely unique and how far we were looking into the future as we grew and matured as an adult entertainment company. He nodded but when he nodded he seemed close to nodding out since I think he had worked perhaps one too many late nights with a can of paint spraying out mind altering vapors of toluene without the protection of a gas mask. This may have had some benefit to  the creative side of the process but nailing down some sort of  business arrangement was becoming increasingly complex; I might as well have been dropping acid and trying to take the police entrance exam.

I couldn’t be sure that he actually understood that we needed the work done by a specific deadline in order to send the booth to Vegas in order to be set up in time. I couldn’t even tell if he had actually started work on it. He asked if I could provide some reference material to help inspire the female figures that he wanted to paint. Well, in an amateur porn company that certainly was not  going to be a problem. Why it took so long to get to that point, dude wants a porn handout, fine, not like I haven’t  heard that before, was a bit beyond me. I wasn’t about to sniff paint to figure it out though; I went to the rack full of all the porn mags that we had and grabbed a few for him to review. He showed me some pictures that he wanted to use and I said no problem, good luck, ok I will advance just a bit  more of the cash that was not due until completion, please, please, please  get this  done in time and sent him on his way. He tore out the images carefully and went on his ethereal, dopey way.

A few days later, the magazine was still on my desk.  I opened it up to see if we had any of our movies reviewed. Nothing. But there was something that certainly got my attention faster than a porn star faking her first orgasm. I turned the page and there was Stephanie Swift. Not only was she very clearly and prominently featured absolutely blatantly in a porn rag, but also she was engaged in an act that truly represents the very pinnacle of porn sluttiness. There was sweet and shy Stephanie Swift, who didn’t  want her boyfriend to know that she did anal or other guys and didn’t want her boyfriend’s parents to know that she did an amateur porn for Homegrown Video, pure and natural amateur Stephanie Swift in a gang bang video. Anal, oral, vaginal, the triple penetration crown of dirty nasty whorishness, massive multiple loads of spunk plastered on her face from a bunch of meat heads and mooks, even a line of guys bending over for her to lick each and every one of their assholes, including the hairiest and nastiest puckered sphincter of the king of smut himself Mr. Ron Jeremy, Stephanie was doing it all and with a sly smile on her face. Maybe she was just happy that she had a multi-video contract. Maybe she knew that once people saw her licking Ron Jeremy’s sweaty stank of pubic twirled and curled anus they would know that she was capable of going where not porn star had gone before.

Time rolls on in the porn biz at fast forward speed so you can get to the good parts faster and forget about the crappy and boring parts sooner than later. If Stephanie Swift wanted to settle down with her boyfriend and have a nice life hoping his parents never found out about her secret porn alter identity then we were more than happy to support her in that effort. Homegrown Video honors its promises and we would keep our vow not to put her on the box cover of any of the anal sex scenes or blow job scenes or group sex scenes that we had shot up to then. We rolled up our sleeves, stiffened our… upper lips… and went back to the orifice, business as usual.

We kept producing more amateur sex videos and started gearing up for the big trade show that happens every year in Las Vegas. The previous couple of years we had a booth that was starting to come apart at the seams. Rather than haul it out one more time only to find out which parts never made it back into the boxes from the previous year – which always sent us into manic fits of stress as we tried to pull it together into something that looked halfway decent – as long as no one looked too closely to see the duct tape and chewing gum holding it together, we decided the time had come to upgrade our look and hit the show with a stylish new booth.  The new booth would have to be sexy. It would need to be modern, eye catching, unique, but still be able to celebrate our amateur status. The new booth would have to tell the world “this is Homegrown Video and we make the best amateur porn that money can buy!”

Of course, we would need hot young amateur porn girls to stand there and make pleasant small talk and sign autographs for the droves of horny and curious fans that packed the aisles, sometimes waiting in line for hours to get autographs from top tier starlets. One local girl of course would’ve been a perfect candidate but I wasn’t going to bother calling Stephanie Swift and pepper her with invitations to come back and work for us. If she didn’t think we were worth her salt then so be it. I was a seasoned pro after all and I knew they came and they went through the porn grinder every day. However, one or two calls might be worth the effort.  What was I thinking?

“Well, there are thousands of videos made per month so the likelihood of him seeing it is not very big.” I said consolingly. “Besides Max isn’t going to put you on the box cover is he?”

“I can’t be on the box at all.” Stephanie Swift was standing at that crossroads moment, no way to go forward without paying a price, no way to go back free and clear of a lasting record of her antics. Forever now barricaded by the barbed wire of people’s opinions of what she was doing, Stephanie Swift was going to have to learn what lust in the big porn city of Los Angeles really meant. Lust for the latest hot girl in the porn biz is one thing but lust for the almighty dollar is another mightier lust. Lust for the woman can be quenched in minutes, while lust for the dollar usually can never be satiated. Stephanie Swift had to come to grips with the fact that the only way to sell more videos than the competition is to put your best face forward, literally. She was going to have to become a porn star and rise to the level that God and LA’s porn moguls intended or she was going to have to quit now and hope that no one even saw her in a video until she could make the excuse that it was just someone that looked like her… a lot like her but definitely not her.

“Can you tell Max to not put me on the box?”

“I can ask but I can’t promise anything. Max has to run his business differently than I do. I can make that promise. Max could maybe make that promise. But the other people that Max sells his titles too are not about to make any promise like that.”

“I really don’t want my boyfriend to find out what I did. If he finds out that I performed anal sex without a condom then he will definitely break up with me.”

“Doesn’t he understand that being in the porn biz is about all kinds of sex? Didn’t you guys talk about the risks before you started doing this?” I had asked that very question – a few times – so at this point I was simply being a grindstone of accountability against which responsibility is sharpened. Whether or not this approach was working at helping the situation or not was just a very dull, absolutely mute point. I just had to whet my appetite for making a point even when there was not a point to the point of what point was so pointedly making everything so difficult.

“How did the shoot with Max go?” I asked. I had to figure that since it was not the police calling me in for questioning that the shoot couldn’t have been all bad. The pause at the other end of the line was just a little too long though to think that everything went swimmingly. Max Hardcore had a name to live up to and marathon anal sex was not something most ordinary people would be comfortable with even talking about much less engaging in. “We changed my name to Stephanie Swift.”

Oh, ok, fine with that, not a traumatic issue at all since our Grateful Dead themed named was sort of like a working title until she came up with something better. “How was the shoot?” I asked again, “Did you two get along ok?”

Again, a long pause.

“Yes.” He was completely professional but…”

“But what?”

Stephanie Swift spoke in almost a whisper.

 “Well, I did things… I did some things that I really wish I hadn’t done.”  Welcome to the LA porn scene. She couldn’t say that I didn’t warn her – extensively.

“Like what?” If I was a true perv and worth my salt as a porno kingpin then I  probably would have asked for all the juicy details and had my secretary take “dictation” while I listened to her recount her tale of having Max Hardcore savagely fuck her tight puckered little asshole like a dirty little schoolgirl but, alas, I am a failure in that regard. I just wanted to make sure she was not scared – physically or emotionally. Stephanie was hesitating to continue but I didn’t want to push her too hard.

“Did you do anal?” I finally asked.

“Yes. That was ok. I agreed that would be alright.” She said. “But I let him do it without a condom.”

For a second I felt a twinge of something very similar to jealousy. In fact, who am I kidding? I was jealous. She said no way to anal for my shoots with her much less doing it without a rubber which I was perfectly acceptable with. Chalk up one more failure to prove my worth as a true scoundrel of XXX, a defiler of innocents, an ass fucker phenom. So I guess I was sort of defensively antagonistic when I asked why that was a problem.

“I told my boyfriend that I was only going to work with girls.” Stephanie started douching her conscience. “If he sees me in that video he is going to be really upset.”

I was worried about Stephanie going to Los Angeles to work with Max Hardcore. There were plenty of models that after working with Max decided porn was definitely not for them  and would hit the eject button on the porn vehicle career path before even really pulling out of the starting gate. Shooting a Max Hardcore scene was certainly a trial by fire. He demanded high intensity, extreme sexual acrobatics, and absolute obedience to his directing style. Love him or hate him for the type of content he makes, one still has to acknowledge that he does have a standard of style and, scoff at this all you want, an artistic vision for what he is doing.

I once saw a memo from one of his chief production company clients, internationally successful porn company Private Media, and one of the directives stated “Start with the female dressed up and with good make-up then start with one male performer but add another or two or three more and do not retouch the make-up during the scene. By the end of the scene the female should look completely opposite, sweaty, disheveled, a complete mess”. This was the type of scene that made Private a successful company and Max cut his porn chops on this kind of client, but I wasn’t sure Stephanie was ready for this type of stuff. It was a long way away from the kind of amateur porn Homegrown Video distributed, which apart from the Max line was based on letting horny folks do whatever they wanted to do with whomever he or she wanted to be with.

I told Stephanie to call me and let me know how it went.  When I didn’t hear from her, I didn’t know what to think.  I worked for Max back when there was a rumor that a girl had died on his set and he had buried her in the San Fernando Valley somewhere. Even though I knew that wasn’t true I still knew some models that were so freaked out by the sort of crazed scenes that they did afterwards would disappear to mend their fragile and shattered sense of self. Then you might never hear from the model again, or the model would say “Don’t ever work for Max” to any other aspiring starlets, or the model would realize that it wasn’t so bad – the pay good, the notoriety better – and they would spend the next couple of weeks  shooting exclusively for Max.

I called Stephanie a few times. Almost a week later she finally called me back.

“Be patient,” Stephanie assured us, “when I am ready then we can do that.”

We never felt comfortable in the hard sell approach to these matters. Nobody wants to be responsible for encouraging someone to do something that later he or she might regret. At least, nobody that operates from a considerate consciousness and a humane respect for his or her fellow beings wants to pressure anyone into a porn career. Making amateur porn and becoming a porn star are things that need to come from the heart and soul of the truly sexual, unashamed, and uninhibitedly exhibitionistic of us. Stephanie so far had been so spare in words, soft in her tone, and shy in her demeanor that we wished to tread especially lightly in any conversations about doing more videos. However, just because she was quiet and not terribly extroverted, we should not have underestimated the sexual demon that lurked inside of tender, innocent, dainty Stephanie Swift.

The first clue was that she asked to work with Max Hardcore, the notorious producer distributed exclusively with us at the time. Only the truly freaky hardcore porn girls would request such a thing where so many others said “absolutely no fucking way” otherwise. We had told her about Max, the annihilator of assholes, the pugilist of puckered orifices, and the destroyer of derrieres.  And we showed her the footage of his scenes which some reviewers had described as being hard to look away from in the same way that is true of an accident on the freeway. But instead of scaring her straight back to amateur porn where one can do whatever, however, with whomever, she  wishes, Stephanie wanted us to make the introduction immediately.

For even a city the size of San Diego, most young adults that make the choice to go to Los Angeles feel that it is a big jump – LA represents another planet. For a young amateur porn model on her way to becoming a big time mainstream porn starlet, Los Angeles presents another universe entirely. There are agents, and producers, and people that alienate you because you challenge their space as competition to that piece of the stardom that shines hot with flashy cash. There are hardcore physically demanding sex scenes that you might not want to do but if you don’t then that person aligned directly behind you is going to land the part and collect the cocaine dusted do-re-mi.

We warned her. Max only shoots anal scenes. “I don’t want to do anal.” She said. “My boyfriend only wants me to be with girls.” She said.

We reminded her. Max doesn’t work with condoms in his anal sex scenes. “He can only have sex with me if he wears a condom” .

What about only working with girls?