Chapter 6

1:04 AM. That’s what the display on the digital clock said as Kenny lay wide awake in his bed feeling the warm night air stirred by the softly humming ceiling fan. It wafted softly over his restless, naked body. His brain was far too busy to sleep.

Of all the possible career paths he’d considered over the past year as he approached his high school graduation, Kenny had never once entertained the thought of being a porn actor. Now, here he was being asked to be featured in a fuck film. And to add a little spice to the idea, it was going to be shown to a room full of juveniles that he would have to face literally every day!

Sure, at eighteen, he could legally perform the role, but to be complicit in making a video specifically targeting a bunch of fourteen-year-old kids was a whole other thing, and it would definitely be testing the limits of the law. He couldn’t see any D.A. who was the least bit concerned with public opinion buying the argument that it was intended to be educational, let alone therapeutic. Do Barb and Josh honestly think that will fly if they’re ever called to answer for it?

While Kenny, seeing it from the inside, could theoretically appreciate the value of something like this, the idea of actually doing it weighed heavily on his conscience. What was it Barb had asked him on that first day? Did he adhere to a conservative moral code when it came to freedom of sexual expression? And his answer? Some cavalier bullshit about being a wait-and-see kind of guy. Lame.

So now, here it was, right in his face. He was going to have to put up or shut up. It really wasn’t the fucking part that bothered him, although having his performance recorded and evaluated by relative strangers was not a comfortable thought. He was pretty sure he’d be capable of doing the deed, but how natural and spontaneous could he be with a camera lens zeroing in on his business? And Sandy’s?

And another thing: Who was going to be operating the camera? Barb? Josh? Was the whole thing going to be handled like a screenplay? Would he and Sandy have to follow some kind of script?

And what about Sandy? Kenny could only assume she was going to demand some pretty damned strict guidelines be followed as they carried on their little affair for the benefit of their charges. And how would that affect their actual relationship? (Not that they had one yet.) How would it affect their roles as counselors?

Given the ethical concerns, not to mention the possibility of being prosecuted on any number of morals charges, agreeing to Barb’s plan wasn’t going to be easy. He needed to be thinking with his brain, not his dick. If he were charged with a crime, he knew damn well that claiming his boss made him do it would carry absolutely no weight with a jury of his peers. If he did this thing, it would be with the full knowledge of the legal risks involved.

So, what were the pros and cons? On the plus side, if it were done well, tastefully, he could see that it might well serve as a positive role model for some of the kids, the ones who already led a relatively normal home life with relatively normal parents who loved each other.

But how about the kids who were constantly subjected to a crappy home life because their parents were locked in a never-ending game of one-upmanship; who never passed up an opportunity to dis each other; who used their kids as pawns in their war of wills? Kenny had a suspicion that those kids constituted the majority of the class. Otherwise, why was something so delicate and sensitive being turned over to relative strangers? Those kids probably already saw sex as something totally separate from a close, loving relationship. Was a tumble in the sheets with Sandy, regardless of how perfectly ideal it appeared on screen, really going to erase any skepticism on these kids’ part, sway any opinions?

On the very positive side, he was going to get to fuck Sandy!

Oops! Back up there, mister! Here he was, thinking with his dick again. Actually, he already had fairly high hopes that doing Sandy was a real possibility. But if he had to be honest, while he would certainly treat her with all due care and respect, at this point, he certainly couldn’t say he was in love with her.

Could he fake that? Was he the kind of guy who would lie to her to get into her panties? What if, as they played their roles, he decided he couldn’t fall in love with her? Does that make the whole thing phony? Just another porn flick? Would the kids pick up on something like that? They might be young, but they weren’t idiots. Fourteen-year-olds are perfectly capable of picking up very subtle signals, even if they might struggle to interpret them. Kids have built-in bullshit detectors.