The memory transforms into fantasy, and the words I hear aren’t ones he spoke then, but ones I imagine he’s speaking to me now. Greedy, greedy girl, he says from across the distance.
Please, I beg. Put it in me. Put it in me now.
That’s not how I want you to come.
But I need you.
He’s unflinching. This isn’t about you right now.
And he’s right—this isn’t about me. I can see clearly that he is as swept away with this fantasy as I am, whether or not the words he hears in his head match the ones that play in mine. It doesn’t matter. We are in this together. This scene is about us. This moment is about us.
It could be like this, he tells me. Our world. Filming with each other, for each other. This could be the future you were looking for. This could be us.
I’m coming, my pussy throbbing, my hips stuttering as they buck against Kendi’s hand, my breath frozen as Logan encourages my climax. Give it to me, Devi. Give it to me, Goddess. Layla. Cass, the Queen of the Night.
The fantasy swells with my release, pieces of the puzzle shifting into place—the star I could be with him, the movies we could make, the art. How we could go on working together, how we could go on seeing each other. How we could go on…together.
I’m completely spent when it hits me—I don’t just want to make porn with Logan O’Toole; I want to make a life.
14
The scene goes long.
Lynne says it was too beautiful, and she couldn’t bear to call cut. “Absolutely the best thing I’ve seen from you,” she says, and I look past her to Logan, who has surely heard her, and I wonder if he knows, like I do, that he’s the reason my performance today was so superb.
I don’t have time to find out because now I’m running late for the scene that I have booked with LaRue, and I barely have a chance to gather my things and kiss Logan goodbye before I have to be on the road.
It’s not a long drive, and instead of using the little time I have to prepare mentally for the next scene, I spend it thinking about the one I just left. Thinking about last night. Thinking about Logan, and how he’s burrowed inside me, how I should have maybe built more walls to keep him out. How I don’t know what my career will look like now that he’s in my life. Wondering how I will ever be able to work again without him.
It’s not until I’m parked in the driveway of the mansion that LaRue has rented in the Hills that I finally pull my thoughts into focus and realize I’m about to film my first het sex without him. A male/female scene without Logan.
Oh shit.
Seriously, oh shit.
I’m being silly. I’ve done lots of scenes without Logan. I’ve had lots of sex that wasn’t with Logan. I can have sex now in a scene without Logan.
I start to get out of the car, and my stomach lurches. For half a second I wonder if I can pretend I’m sick, but I quickly dismiss that plan. The phrase “the show must go on”? I’m pretty sure a porn director coined it. After a performer has been booked and the contracts have been signed, there’s almost nothing that could prevent the show from being filmed. Even if the performer is on the rag, even if she’s puking her guts up, even if she’s got Montezuma’s Revenge and they’re shooting an anal scene—the show goes on. There’s too much money on the floor not to; a crew and other actors that have to be paid. It’s too expensive to forego a scene for just one person.
I check the time. I have a few minutes before I need to be inside so I get back in the car and phone my agent. The call goes to voicemail. I groan as it plays but sound like my usual chipper self when I leave my message. “Hey, it’s Devi. I’m at the LaRue job, and I can’t…” My voice trails off.
Any way I explain this is going to sound terrible, especially left in a voicemail. Besides, I don’t know exactly what it is I want her to do for me. Talk me down? Remind me of my obligations? Tell me it’s okay to cancel? “Just call me. Please. As soon as possible.”
I hang up and stare at my cell for several minutes—four of them, to be precise—willing it to ring.
It doesn’t. Now, officially late for my call time, I start to panic. What if I can’t get aroused? What if I can? Is this cheating? Can it even be cheating when I’m not officially anything to Logan? Only a sort-of girlfriend? Can you even cheat on a porn star?
I’m overwhelmed with doubts and anxiety and this isn’t like me at all. I’m level-headed, dammit. I’m calm, cool, collected. I’m a professional.
So get your shit together and act like one!
I take a deep breath.
A professional would pull up her big-girl panties, go in and do the scene. It’s one scene. Two hours of my life. I can imagine the guy is Logan. I can pretend it’s for him like the last scene was. Afterwards, I don’t have to book another het scene again until I figure out, well, everything.
Right. Yes. I can do this.
One more breath, and I’m out of my car. Three more, and I’ve made it to the door. A sign on the door says to come in quietly in case the camera’s running. I turn the handle and step in.
And run smack into Raven.
And it’s embarrassing because I run into her with such force that the reusable shopping bag I’m carrying full of wardrobe choices spills and my panties are strewn all over the entryway and on top of Raven’s Jimmy Choo ballet slipper-style shoes.
Yes, that Raven. The Raven. The only Raven. Logan’s Raven.
He’s never talked to me about her, and I’m not sure what all went down with Raven and Logan, but everyone in the biz, as well as a lot of people outside of the biz, knew about their relationship. They were an “It” couple. For nearly three years, they made XBIZ’s “Porn Pair We Ship” List and frequently graced the cover of Adult Video News together. They played on the same charity softball team. They had an Instagram account for Prior, their Yorkie. They held hands at the O’Toole Films press conference where he announced his commitment to respect women in the industry. When Logan won his last AVN award, he thanked her with an intimate wink that suggested they had a whole secret language between them.