Chapter 2: Housemate

I turned to Stella, “This reunion is not going to be a good place to eat and socialize. I think you deserve better – a lot better. May I invite you to dinner at ... any place but here?”

She nodded quickly and smiled. “Thank you for rescuing me. Yes, please.”

She quickly gathered up her purse and wrap, chugged the last sip of her appletini, and we headed out the door. My thoughts about my old high school buddies and friends, were ‘fuck them and the ass they rode into town on’.

Outside, I suggested that Stella follow me to a restaurant in her rental car. I called and made sure we could get a table at a nice restaurant named Della’s. The place turned out to be uncrowded, quiet, and we got superb service.

Over dinner, we each talked about the career tracks we’d gotten on after high school and college. Stella had gone to Los Angeles, hoping to be in movies in some way. I recalled she’d been in some school plays. She’d moved in with some other girls she didn’t know, and two of them were making money doing porn videos. She resisted at first, but when she needed money, she succumbed to the offers.

Moreover, at eighteen and for a few years afterwards, she’d been a real party animal. Her roommates were, too; and soon she was as involved in the sex parties as she became involved in the making of adult videos. She even did some escort work, ‘helping out’ her roomies when they had too much business to cope with. That brought in even more money, but never enough.

She got ‘discovered’ in the adult entertainment world, and fundamentally went viral almost overnight, a fact that helped her cash flow. Many men wanted to see, buy, or rent one of her videos. They were ‘hot’, and she was eager to please. The rich ones wanted her, in person.

Stella said, “I got swept up the whole pornography and party scene. There were drugs, and I floated from one high to another, as I fucked myself from one end of L.A. to the other, and then repeated the scene in Vegas. Moreover, I was the super slut in the industry. There was nothing I wouldn’t try. Fortunately, my producer kept me out of BDSM, water sports, and scat. Those really kill your reputation in the field.

“I’d do a period – a year maybe – where I’d specialize in something: couple sex, group sex, orgy sex, interracial sex, lesbian sex, and so on. I can’t really tell you how many videos they made, because the producers would make ten or twenty videos from one two- or three-day filming session. I think a thousand isn’t a bad guess though.

“Eventually, I wised up a little. I realized that I couldn’t continue to trade on my good looks and body forever. I needed a fall-back position. I’d always liked writing. I took a course on creative writing and loved it. The teacher urged me to get a college degree, and so I went back to school. It was hard at first, but then I really got into it – community college, at first, and then UCLA.

Then I got the killer question from her out of the clear blue, “Did or do you watch my videos?” She smirked at me.

I tried to look serious but then burst out laughing. “That’s a crazy question. Of course, I watched and I still do, occasionally. You were the classmate that became famous, plus I’m a guy. I like to look at pretty things, in your case, pretty and erotic things, as well.

“Further, everybody in that ballroom at the country club has done the same thing – watched some of your videos on the Internet.”

She continued, “And you’re not embarrassed to be seen with me?”

“No, and nobody else should be either. We all just chose different paths to live and make money, and even contribute to society in some way.”

Stella laughed, “I never thought I was contributing to society.”

“Sure, you were. You provided the stimulus for sexual relief for millions of men around the world. Without you, wars would have started and millions of people slaughtered. Without you, thousands of women would have been raped and pillaged and plundered. You are the salvation of the planet.”

Yes, I was laying it on thick, but it was humorous and taken in good spirit.

Stella teased, “And a computer geek didn’t do that – save the world, I mean?” She laughed and toasted me with the remnants in her wine glass.

I shook my head. “Fame and fortune have evaded me.”

She said, “It’s over rated. Besides, I’m not famous, I’m infamous. There’s a difference and you saw it tonight at the reunion. No one really wants to associate with a porn star – well, except mostly other porn stars. Our social circle is kind of small.”

I teased, “But you party and ride high all the time. Me? I’m lucky if I get invited to two parties a year – the Christmas party for my company and maybe New Year’s Eve. The reunion tonight was a risky move for me.”

“Parties, especially like the ones I attended, are over rated. Just to set the record straight, when I started college, I gave up that scene almost entirely. I studied instead. By then, I wanted to excel at something else besides fucking and sucking. I did keep doing it though to maintain the cash flow. UCLA isn’t cheap to attend in spite of what you read about in-state residents getting a big break.”

We finished dinner, and I set a time to pick Stella up in front of the Hilton on Monday morning. She looked surprised, but we shared a brief hug and kiss just outside the restaurant, and said goodnight. I made sure she knew how to get back to the hotel.

That night, to refresh my memory about Stella Manning, whose stage name was also Stella Cox, I watched six of her short videos – about an hour’s worth. I was pretty well drained by the end of that time. I slept well and repeated that activity all day on Sunday. Meeting her in person again inspired me.

I picked Stella up Monday morning in front of the hotel. She looked like a young professional in a conservative skirt, blouse, and the same low heels that she’d worn Saturday night at the reunion.

In ten minutes, we were in front of Marcia’s office door. She worked in a business center near the county jail. I peeked inside the door. Marcia was at her desk, and her secretary was off to one side typing. She waved us inside.

“Stella Manning, meet Marcia Ryder. Marcia, Stella.” The two shook hands. The secretary disappeared into an adjacent room. We sat down at a conference table in a corner of the room.

Marcia jumped right into action. “I read the chapters that you sent me. You’re good – very good, in fact. Your characters leap out of the pages and are right there with you. Your dialogue is unparalleled. Your plot line makes the readers eager to keep reading without giving too much away too soon. Grammar and spelling are perfect, even when you use dialects. I would like to represent you.”

Stella sat back stunned, especially at Marcia’s no-nonsense direct manner. “Really? This is the first I’ve tried to do anything with my writing.”

“Is that story finished?”

“Pretty much. I need to go back through it several times to tweak it here and there, but basically yes.”

“I want all of it, if for no other reason than to see where you take it. How long is it?”

“In Microsoft Word on my laptop, it ended up about 450-pages single-space with double spaces between paragraphs. I uploaded it to my cellphone.”

“Perfect. The editors will worry that down a bit and grill you about what they see as flaws in the story and characters. That’s not my department unless they ruin the story. My main job is talent discovery and getting you inside their door.”

“So, that’s it?” Stella asked.

“Oh, no. I would like a contract with you. I need to make some money off of you. Moreover, I will kind of own you for a while, what with all the editing, manuscript prep, review of galley proofs, and all that, and then I’ll be the one that gets you on book tours, public appearances, TV shows, and so on in concert with the marketing department at the publisher. I think I know which one will buy this. You are going to be famous at the end of this. This is a great book. Are there more inside you?”

“To that question, yes. You might know that I’m already kind of famous.”

Marcia shrugged, and I chuckled as I sat listening to the two women. She said, “Yes, I know. Rob told me yesterday. I even looked at a few of your films last night. You’re talented, and I think I learned a few things in a short time. Your fame in that segment of life is beside the point as far as I’m concerned. It may help or hurt sales; so what? If you want, we can use a pseudonym. I don’t care; it’ll balance out. Even using a pseudonym, somebody will discover who you really are very quickly. Rob said you want a new life, and I think you found the gateway to doing that. I’m more than willing to help you with that, too.”

Stella’s eyes got glassy with tears. “Thank you. I hope this works out.”

Marcia said with certainty in her tone, “Oh, it’ll work out or I’ll eat the first thousand copies of your book once it hits the stores and online. I consider myself a great judge of talent and literary excellence. I think you have what it takes.”

“And you don’t judge me – my personal life?” Stella asked cautiously.

Marcia laughed. “Me? Hardly. I wish I’d been you twelve years ago when I graduated from college. My life has been boring and monotonous a lot. You, at least, have done some radical things that I envy.”

Stella nodded, “I’d settle for boring and monotonous about now. It’s under-rated.”

There was more talk about a contract, and Marcia stepped Stella through the whole six-page document, clause by clause. She also suggested a lawyer. Stella looked at me, and I told her to sign it and get started. She did. I knew Marcia wasn’t the kind to force herself on people, even if she had the legal right.

The two women then laid out a schedule that Stella would want to meet to get the book to Marcia, and hence to a publisher. Marcia wanted two ‘ready-to-go’ chapters a day of Stella’s first book ‘Starling’ for the next two weeks, for starters. She also wanted anything that Stella had on Story #2, a yet untitled piece of work. Stella agreed. There was also talk about an advance. Stella mentioned that she’d stay in town for the next two weeks to be near Marcia. Marcia liked that idea and suggested several meetings.

We finished in Marcia’s office just before lunch, so I made the invitation. The three of us walked a short distance to a hole-in-the-wall luncheon place that was mostly full of lawyers, men and women from the sheriff’s department and court, and probably a few defendants. We got a table and sat.