Money Shot

For Richard S. Prather Words don’t die.

1.

Coming back from the dead isn’t as easy as they make it seem in the movies. In real life it takes forever to do little things like pry open your eyes. You spend excruciating ages trying to bend your left middle finger down far enough to feel the rope around your wrists. Even longer figuring out that the cold hard thing poking you in the cheek is one of the handles of a pair of jumper cables. This is not the kind of action that makes for gripping cinema. Plus there are these long dull stretches where people in the audience would probably go take a piss or get popcorn, since it looks as if nothing is happening and they figure maybe you really are dead after all. After a while, you start to wonder the same thing yourself. You also wonder what will happen if you throw up behind the oily rag duct-taped into your mouth or how long it will take for someone to notice you’re missing. Otherwise you are mostly busy bleeding, trying not to pass back out, or laboriously adding up the cables, the stuffy cramped darkness, the scratchy carpet below and the raw hollow metal above to equal your current location, the trunk of an old and badly maintained car. That’s what it was like for me, anyway.

I’m sure you’re wondering what a nice girl like me was doing left for dead in the trunk of a piece of shit Honda Civic out in the industrial wasteland east of downtown Los Angeles. Or maybe we’ve met before and you’re wondering why it hadn’t happened sooner.

My name’s Gina Moretti, but you probably know me as Angel Dare. Don’t worry, I won’t tell your wife. I made my first adult video when I was twenty, though I lied on camera and said I was eighteen. It was volume one of Marco Pole’s now-famous amateur line, Brand Spankin’ New. My scene was just one of five but there’s no question that I stole the show. What can I say? I know where my strengths lie. I had a contract with Vixen Video less than two weeks later and before I knew it I was on the Playboy Channel doing soft-focus video centerfold segments for more money than I earned in a year back home. A porno Cinderella story, but unlike so many of the girls I worked with, I was smart enough to stay off drugs, save every penny, and get out before my pussy turned back into a pumpkin.

Problem was, I just couldn’t stay retired. Like a pro wrestler or a jewel thief, I was a sucker for an encore. I had no idea when I said yes to Sam Hammer that I’d end up stuffed in a trunk.

Sam’s an old friend. One of the few genuine good guys left in the biz. Kind of a cross between Santa Claus and John Holmes. He must have been pushing sixty, burly and cheerful with a silver ponytail and neatly groomed beard. He was the kind of guy that always had a sofa to crash on or a shoulder to cry on, a loan till your next check or a guy he knew who would fix your toilet for cheap. I’d say he was like a father to me, but that would sound kind of weird since we did a few scenes together, back before he started working exclusively behind the camera. Never mind how long ago. He had been a perfect gentleman too, easygoing, respectful and reliable as clockwork. No easy feat before Viagra became the backbone of the industry, so to speak. Back when you actually had to count on feminine wiles to make the trains run on time, a man like Sam who could stand and deliver on cue was worth his weight in gold. Now you have guys popping Viagra and Cialis like tic tacs and shooting Caverject directly into the equipment to get things up and running. Better loving through chemistry.

Sam Hammer shoots were always a blast. No pressure. Sam was married to all-natural triple-D legend Busti Keaton, star of the Topsy Turvy series and Battlestar Gazongas. She would cook huge amounts of the best down-home comfort food and fuss around the set making sure nobody was too hot or too cold or uncomfortable in any way. I’ve been on plenty of jobs that were just jobs, or worse. Hammer shoots never felt like work. More like big happy Sunday barbeques where they just happened to be filming people having sex.

Sam could have easily made the jump to Hollywood. He had a great eye for composition and wrote witty, original scripts that actually kept your finger off the fast forward button. But we all knew that he would never leave the Valley. Sam was a lifer. He liked being around naked girls way too much to go legit. So many smut directors are nothing but jaded hacks who spend most of the shoot snorting lines or talking on their cell phones, but not Sam. His enthusiasm was infectious.

When he called, I was having one of those days. Those sneaking-up-on-forty days when I can’t stop looking in the mirror. Comparing what I see now to the image of that perfect, flawless little twenty year old bouncing around on top of Marco Pole for digital eternity. I’m in better shape now than I ever was, working out six days a week and kickboxing to knock out stress, but all the crunches in the world can’t reverse gravity, or crow’s feet, or the fact that I have to use the hair dye that advertises “100% gray coverage!” Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got a pretty iron-clad ego, but I run Daring Angels, a high-class adult modeling agency out in Van Nuys, and being around all those gorgeous nineteen-year-olds sometimes gets to me. Makes a girl feel like yesterday’s news.

When Sam called, I was standing in the full-length mirror beside my desk, topless and sideways. I have always been proud of the fact that I never had my tits done. I’ve seen way too many beautiful women ruined by ghastly, wall-eyed Frankenstein implants. Yet, on that day, I was hefting my assets in the palms of my hands and wondering if maybe they could use a little surgical pick-me-up after all.

I called my receptionist, personal assistant and all-around Mom Friday into my office. Didi was big back in the Deep Throat days, though if you saw her now, you’d never know it. She was fifty-two, five feet even, with a plain, sweet face like your favorite teacher, but underneath that G-rated exterior was an old- school porn veteran who talked about sex like other people talk about the weather. She had a rich, phone-sex purr of a voice and she got asked out on dates nearly every day by the men who called to book girls. More than half of the time she said yes, and though they may have done a double take when she showed up, I doubt any of those guys were sorry by the end of the night. Didi was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I don’t even want to think about how I would have run Daring Angels without her.

She came in the door with her sparkly vinyl purse on one arm and the other arm sliding into the sleeve of her pink leather jacket.

“What’s up, boss?” she said. “I’m just out the door. Got a hot one lined up tonight.” She looked down at my exposed breasts and rolled her eyes. “Would you stop it already! You do not need a goddamn boob job.”

I grinned. “Go on, Didi. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She blew me a kiss and split. I turned back to the mirror. I knew she was right, but still...

When I heard my phone’s electronic chirp, I jumped a little, feeling like I’d been busted somehow.

“Daring Angels,” I said.

“Angel, baby.” Just hearing Sam’s familiar growl was enough to cheer me up. “How you doing, beautiful?”

“Never better,” I replied, turning away from the mirror and grabbing my push-up bra off the back of my chair. “You?”

“The usual,” he said. “You know. Making dirty movies.”

“How’s Georgie?” I asked, holding the phone between my cheek and shoulder and hooking the bra around my ribs.

Georgie was Busti Keaton’s real name. I should have noticed the tight little pause and the pinched tension in his voice as he answered much too quickly.

“Fine, she’s real good. Listen, Angel, I got a favor to ask.”

“Anything, Sam,” I said, turning the bra around and slipping my arms through the straps, settling everything into place. I eyed my reflection. Much better.

“I’m shooting with Jesse Black,” Sam told me. “I had a new girl flake on me and we’ve only got the location for another two hours.”

I nodded and leaned over my laptop, calling up my booking calendar.

“Okay,” I said scanning the schedule. “Zandora Dior and Kyrie Li are both out of town featuring, but Sirena,