I couldn’t tear my eyes off Derek Cruise. He was a bit younger than the type I normally went for, but he was breathtaking: thick hair and a smooth, toned body, seemingly straight. I followed him into the gloomy exterior and my eyes drank in the décor—Drab walls and a threadbare couch and a bed in the corner of the living room that Derek had hopped back into. Apparently he had been asleep when I knocked.
“Do you live here?” I asked.
“Yeah, It’s Chi Chi’s place, and there’s only two bedrooms. Zak Spears has the other room.”
I had heard of Zak Spears, who was also from Minnesota. He had been working as a construction worker when Chi Chi “discovered” him. You couldn’t walk into a porn store without seeing Zak’s picture everywhere. Tall, hairy and extremely masculine, he was said to have the sexiest voice in porn. He was a huge star.
“Find somewhere to sit,” said Derek. “Move those Barbie dolls.”
I suddenly realized the room was full of Barbie dolls in boxes. They were strewn everywhere. There must have been 200 of them.
“Chi Chi collects Barbie dolls,” explained Derek.
I moved Wedding Barbie and High School Barbie out of the way and sat on the couch.
“Am I early?” I asked.
“No. Chi Chi’s always running late,” he said. “He works late doing drag appearances.”
“Does he direct in drag?” I asked nervously.
“Girl . . . are you crazy?” boomed a voice behind me. I turned and there stood a plump, bleached-haired guy with no eyebrows. “It would kill me to direct in drag.” This obviously was Chi Chi LaRue.
“Ooh, you’re gorgeous,” squealed Chi Chi. “Listen, I’m doing a movie called
Posing Strap
in a month. I can offer you two scenes.”
“Ummm . . . perhaps we should see how I do in this one first.”
“Please yourself,” said Chi Chi, as if I were passing up a golden opportunity.
I could tell he wasn’t used to being denied.
“Derek is the star of the film we’re making, but you don’t have a scene with him. You’re with Hunter Scott.”
“What’s the film about?” I asked.
Chi Chi sighed with exasperation. “Girl . . . it’s about a scientist that develops a plant and when you eat the seeds of the plant, if you’re straight you become gay . . . you play a gardener whom the scientist secretly experiments on. When you and Hunter Scott eat the seeds you suck each other off.”
The plot sounded absolutely ludicrous. I was just about to ask Chi Chi, who had written it, when a bedroom door opened and out strolled Zak Spears in a toweling dressing gown. He was very handsome, and I could tell by the way he was looking at me he thought I wasn’t bad either.
“Zak,” Chi Chi cooed, “Did we wake you?”
“I heard voices.”
“This is Blake Blue,” said Chi Chi.
“Blue Blake,” I corrected.
“Whatever,” she snapped.
“Nice to meet you, Blue,” said Zak, shaking my hand and looking deep into my eyes. “Wouldn’t Blue be perfect for
Posing Strap
?”
“I already asked him, but he turned me down flat.”
“Perhaps I could persuade him,” said Zak. “You’d be doing a scene with me.”
Now, I wasn’t super attracted to Zak, although he had a great body and fabulous looks. My mind was still full of images of Chris Duffy. On the other hand, he
was
Zak Spears and if I was going to make a career in porno it damn well couldn’t hurt to do a movie with Zak Spears.
“What does it pay?” I asked Chi Chi.
“Two scenes, sixteen hundred dollars.”
“I want a thousand dollars a scene.”
“I’m giving you two scenes so the rate is lower,” Chi Chi said matter-of-factly. “It’s always like that.”
This of course was a total lie, but I was new to the industry, so what did I know? Directors were paid
X
amount of dollars to produce and direct a movie by the production company. Whatever they could cream off the top by underpaying the talent they got to keep. I was about to refuse the offer remembering what Ted Matthews had told me.
“I’d really like to work with you,” Zak said.
I realized he was still holding my hand, a fact that hadn’t gone unnoticed by Chi Chi, who seemed to have a crush on Zak.
“Why not,” I acquiesced.
“Perfect,” Chi Chi purred.
“Will Derek be in the movie?” I asked.
“No,” snapped Chi Chi, “I have another model for you to work with.”
“Is he a bodybuilder? I like bodybuilders.”
“And I like breasts, but I don’t have them.”
“Then I’d rather not do it.”
“Of course he’s a bodybuilder!” Chi Chi exclaimed. “The movie’s called
Posing Strap
; it’s about all those 1950s
Bruce of Hollywood
bodybuilding magazines where all the guys wore posing straps, so everybody’s a bodybuilder in this film!”
Later, I would discover that Chi Chi and I definitely had different views on what constituted a bodybuilder.
For the moment, I said, “OK, it sounds like it might be fun,”
“Then it’s settled.”
“Is the film for Catalina?” I asked.
“No,” said Zak, “It’s for a company called His, they have big budgets.”
There was a knock at the door.
“That must be Chris,” said Chi Chi. “He’ll be working as my production assistant today; we’re in a rock band together.”
Chi Chi opened the door and in walked Chris Green. He definitely looked like he was in a rock band: black, spiky hair and tattoos. It turned out that Chi Chi was always putting Chris in movies but he never became a big star. He was too off-the-wall looking for the average porn buyer but Chi Chi was a good friend and believed in him. For some reason I liked Chris immediately. I was a little uncertain about my opinion of Chi Chi but I was willing to go with the flow.
As Chris loaded up Chi Chi’s SUV with various sugary supplies of energy for the day’s shoot—boxes of candy, soft drinks, etc.—Zak came up to me.
“You know, I’d really like to buy you dinner after the shoot.”
“You mean like a date?” I asked.
“Yeah . . . a date,” he grinned.
Why not, I thought, I wasn’t seeing anybody, and Zak was a famous, good-looking porn star. I could do much worse.
“Sure. I’d like that.”
I gave him my number then turned to find Chi Chi glaring at me. I could tell that he was used to getting his own way. Unfortunately so was I.
We piled into the truck and drove to the location in the hills of Hollywood. Chi Chi had rented a house that had a beautiful private garden, and already the rest of the crew was setting up for the scene we were to shoot. A very slim, mixed race guy approached me.
“Hello. You must be Blue . . . I’m Mocha.”
“Like the chocolate,” I said.
“Yeah, my real name’s Greg, but everybody calls me Mocha. I’m going to be taking all the photos today.”
There was something about Mocha that I liked right away. He wasn’t good looking but he had a great sense of humor, and I found out that he was one of the most famous photographers in the porn industry. He photographed for every major company and so shot every porn star in existence. He loved to shoot assholes. He had models bend over and spread their cheeks wide. He had a collection of literally thousands of asshole shots.
“Get into makeup and I’ll do your glamour shots,” he said.
Glamour shots were photographs that weren’t necessarily pornographic. They were of models posing and lit extremely well. Glamour shots would be used for the back of the video box cover and for photo layouts in magazines like
Torso
and
Inches
. Mocha made handsome men look like gods. I learned quickly to suck up to the set photographer. These guys could make or break your career.
I wandered into the kitchen of the rented house, and there sat a good-looking guy in his underwear having his face made up.
“Hello, I’m Hunter Scott, we’re working together today.”
“Hello,” I smiled. “I’m Blue Blake.”
“I heard about you. You’ve got a twin brother, haven’t you?
“Yes,” I lied. “Gage.”
As Hunter was getting his make up done I suddenly realized there was somebody else in the makeup room—a tall, skinny blond guy of indeterminate age.
“I’m Crystal. Crystal Crawford,” said Skinny. “I’m a good friend of Chi Chi’s. I’m actually a director myself.”
“And a drag queen too,” murmured Hunter under his breath.
Hunter looked Italian with a very athletic, hairy body. He wasn’t really my type, but I guessed I wouldn’t mind sucking his dick for five hundred bucks.
Hunter climbed out of the makeup chair and I took his place. The make up artist started applying foundation to my face.
“Listen, I’m doing a movie tomorrow based on
Sliver
, the Sharon Stone movie, and I need somebody to fuck the star in an elevator . . . do you want the part?”
I had seen the film and it was ridiculous. Sharon Stone played a book editor in NYC and William Baldwin was a crazed billionaire who owned the apartment building she moved into. Years later I met Ms. Stone at a party when she was married to her husband the gorgeous hunk of man Phil Bronstein. I was with my boyfriend, who knew her, and my mother, who had absolutely no idea who Sharon Stone was.
“Your husband is gorgeous,” I said to Sharon. I had seen Phil at various events with her. He was brawny and a total man.
“Not as gorgeous as yours,” said Sharon nodding at my boyfriend Harold.
“This is my mother Jean,” I said.
“Jean . . . you must have been a child bride,” smiled Sharon.
My mother developed her one and only girl on girl crush on Sharon Stone.
Wow, I thought, this is so easy. Work was being thrown at me. I was going to make a fortune in porn.
“Who do I have to fuck?” I asked.
“A really hot guy called Tanner Reeves; he’s really handsome and done hundreds of films.”
I had never heard of Tanner Reeves.
“What’s your scene rate?” asked Crystal.
“A thousand dollars.”
“Hmm . . . that’s not in my budget. How about if we make the scene an oral and I’ll give you five hundred?”
I actually thought this was a better idea. I didn’t want to agree to fuck somebody I hadn’t even met. What if I didn’t fancy him and I couldn’t get hard?
“OK,” I shrugged.
“Great, but don’t tell Chi Chi.”
With my makeup finished I headed outside to be photographed by Mocha.
“Take off your shirt and lean against the wall,” he said.
I did as I was instructed and gave my best porno pout.
“Girl . . . you look hot,” said Mocha.
I found out that “girl” was Chi Chi’s favorite expression and all the crew had picked up on it. I didn’t care. I thought it was funny. I was 220 pounds with a crew cut.
“You’re going to be very famous,” said Mocha, snapping away. “Who else have you worked for?
“Hmm . . . really just COLT.”
“Wow, you’re a COLT model and you’re doing hard core? That’s really unusual. Normally COLT models don’t do hard core.”
“Well, I only did one shoot with Jim French.”
“One’s enough,” laughed Mocha. “You’ll see yourself for years in those
COLT
magazines.” He was right of course.
“Crystal just offered me a film tomorrow,” I whispered. Mocha put down the camera and came over to me.
“Make sure you get paid,” he whispered back.
I was wondering what he meant by that when I heard Chi Chi shouting, “Hunter Scott and Blue Blake on the set!”
All of a sudden I was nervous. I was very, very, very nervous. This was my first real porn scene for a major company and I knew I was going to fuck it up. There were about ten crew members standing around, and I had never felt less horny in my entire life. There was no way I was going to be able to get hard and do this. There was no such thing as Viagra in those days; you had to get hard just by force of will alone. These days on the porn sets there’s Viagra and even Cavaject, which is a very common drug used in porn. It is injected directly into the penis to fill it with blood. The effect lasts for about six hours during which time you can even sit and eat lunch and your dick doesn’t go down. One side effect is that sometimes Cavaject induces priapism and then the model has to be rushed to the hospital to have his dick deflated with a saltwater wash-through before it literally explodes from the pressure.
“I’m nervous,” I said to Mocha.
“Everybody’s nervous their first time, but you’re gorgeous and you’re going to be great.”