Chapter 101

Adam had barely set the phone down when it buzzed again. He considered throwing it against the wall but then he remembered a couple of new invectives he wanted to hurl at Harmony Wakefield.

"What!" he answered gruffly.

"Uh, I'm sorry if I'm intruding," a soft male voice said. "My name is Tim Thomas. I used to work in the adult industry as Wade Leather. I was trying to reach Derrick Driller."

Adam felt like an ass as he apologized for answering the phone like an idiot.

"I apologize, Mr. Thomas," he said. "I've had a difficult time with a director and an actress I refuse to work with. I just hung up from explaining my decision to one of them and I assumed it was she calling to yell some more."

Tim Thomas laughed. He had not wanted to make this call but he decided he should.

"Mr. Driller," he began.

"Adam Walters, Mr. Thomas," Adam corrected.

"Thank you, Adam," Tim said. "I'll not use that frequently. I hope you've been advised of the dangers of having too many people know your name but even if you have, one more time won't hurt you."

Adam laughed.

"Are you going to give me advice about my taxes?" he wondered.

"Well, I wasn't but I'd be happy to if you need it," Tim said. His voice had taken on a lighter quality. He quickly understood what he'd read about Derrick Driller on the internet and what he'd heard from his sources in the industry had been true. "Pay them. Pay every last penny because there is always someone in D.C. or Sacramento looking to make a name for themselves by taking you down. Is that clear enough?"

"Perfect," Adam said. "Now, what can I do for you?"

Tim pondered how to broach the subject of his call. He decided a little history might be in order.

"As I said, I used to work in the adult industry," he said.

"I recognized the name Wade Leather," Adam said. "I've seen a lot of your work. In fact, well, I don't want this to sound perverted but I've patterned a lot of how I do a scene after what I learned from you and your contemporaries of that era."

"So long as you don't pattern your behavior after us, I think you might be OK," Tim answered. "I'm sure you don't remember the 1980s very well."

"I was born in 1990," Adam replied.

"Then you don't remember them at all," Tim laughed in spite of the fact this conversation reminded him of just how old he was. "The 80s were a decadent time, a time of wretched excess. Sure, we put on a good scene. But when the scene was over we were doing lines of coke and drinking as much as we could drink and sleeping with whoever happened to be nearby. It took a toll on us – physically, mentally and spiritually."

Adam cringed. Allie had mentioned that some of the hardest-line do-gooders were ex-porn stars. Tim heard the sharp intake of breath.

"Oh, no," he said quickly. "I'm not with the God Squad or anything like that. I am not calling to tell you how horrible you are or get you to change your mind about what you do. I've seen your work and you do it well. I was just giving you a bit of background. Is that OK?"

"Sure," Adam said with evident relief. Tim laughed again.

"The only reason I'm not still doing videos is because of my ego," Tim said. "I have nothing against religion but I'm more of a do unto others type instead of restricting free thought. I got out of the business because the only parts I was being offered were for old men. It took me a while to understand that I am an old man now. I turned 50 last winter and I'm not willing to do a scene with a girl in her teens. I mean, I wouldn't mind doing those scenes but, well, the one or two I did were terrible. The girl wasn't interested and she wasn't interesting. I could still get work with 'Prehistoric Pecker' but I'm just not comfortable with the way things in the business have turned."

Adam voiced his agreement.

"So, I was married in the heyday of my career," Tim began again.

"Emmanuelle Lynn," Adam offered.

"Yes," Tim said with surprise. This guy knew a lot of history about a business that many preferred to keep underground. "Yes. Em and I got married but we lacked the commitment to stay together. Check that. We thought we could have it all. It doesn't work that way in real life. Anyway, Em is sort of why I'm calling. We got divorced 25 years ago but I'm still close to her family. My nephew, also named Timm but with two 'm's', has asked me a couple of times to use my contacts in the business to get him started.

"His aunt, my ex-wife, used to talk about our glory days and I think Timm has an unrealistic view of things. I'm not opposed to him working in the adult field. But, well, he is a good kid, Adam. He wouldn't be able to leave some of the stuff he might have to do on video behind him. He would take it home with him and it would eat at him. I put him off but he's to the point where he is going to come out here in a few weeks to try it himself without my help. He goes to school in Louisiana and as soon as his semester ends, he's coming out to L.A. I was hoping you might consider taking him under your wing.

"I spoke to Judy Jackem," Tim continued. "I worked with her a couple of times when she was first starting out. She said I should give you a call. I read what I could about your career and I saw the way you work. I'm flattered to think that I might have played a small role in helping you develop your on-screen persona. It's a good one and I can tell you genuinely respect the women you work with. Or if you don't, you hide it well.

"That was the thing when I was in the business. I knew almost everyone I worked with. We partied together, you know. If you had been in the business for more than a few weeks, there was a good chance I had already slept with you before we did our scene. I know it's different now and I'm not saying it shouldn't be. But Judy gave me the impression that you do things differently. You talk to the actresses and you're friends afterward. If Timm wants to get in the business, I prefer he treats talent like you do instead of subjugating them like Monte Castle or Rod Harden. Is that something you would do?"

Adam didn't need to even consider the question.

"I'm sure it would be no problem," Adam replied. "Actually, I'm doing something similar for Judy and a female performer today. We're all going to get together for lunch to talk about the business, our perceptions of what is wrong with it and the plans we have to change it. I should warn you, depending upon the money situation; it could be tough for Timm to avoid those things completely. He'll meet resistance from a lot of producers and performers. That's what the call before you was about. I don't work with anyone who performs prostitution unless their card is less than 24 hours old."

"I read that and I thought it was a great idea," Tim replied. "I lost a lot of close friends to AIDS. It hit this industry hard before we knew what it was and how to stop it. It almost shut us down in the 80s, then again in the 90s and now in 2003. I also think it is a good idea that you're so open about it. It's right there on PornLife for everyone to read before they hire you."

Adam scoffed.

"Except they don't," he lamented. "The guy who called to hire me was surprised about my policy. The woman who called to yell at me said it was none of my business. She is never going to be a Rhodes Scholar but surely she can't be that stupid."

"It's not stupidity, Adam," Tim offered. "Kids today get it drilled into their heads from the time they're eight years old that sex can kill you. But there is the other end of the spectrum - introducing kids as sexual beings at the same age. I saw a thong for a kid last week. I'm not talking about something a girl can wear under her dress for her ninth grade recital. I'm talking about a thong for a child of five or six years old. We have tube dresses and miniskirts for children, for God's sake. We have dolls that the girls dress up as a miniature hooker. Television and movies are full of sexual innuendo. Don't even get me started on the internet.

"They tune us out when we tell them to wait. They see the other side of the coin as being interesting. And you know as well as I do that there is always one risk taker in every group – one girl who is sexually precocious by the time she hits fourth grade. She starts wearing lipstick and a training bra. Suddenly she has all the boys looking at her. Then everyone who doesn't live with Attila the Hun is dressing and acting the same way. It was that way in the 1960s when I was a kid. It was probably that way in the 1990s when you were a kid. It's the same way now. I got married again – once I was out of the business. It's why I would never come back. I have a daughter who is nine years old and I can tell you, kids are exposed to sex every day. But they are also overloaded with information they are not mature enough to handle. That creates problems for them long past when they are nine."

"I wondered why you knew so much about kids clothing," Adam said. "But I can see what you're saying. So, back to Timm, will he be OK if he only gets a job or two in the first month? That's about $600. If he is, uh, equipped properly, I'm sure Ben Benedict will throw a scene at him. Judy will, too. There are some others who can probably be counted on for work until he gets established. But, be warned, I'm getting a bad reputation around the business. Producers have taken to trashing me when I tell them the truth. I'm OK with it but I don't want Timm to start out with a reputation that he can't shake."

"Adam, producers have acted that way since time immemorial," Tim replied with a sigh. "It sounds like you're taking some of the control from them and putting it where it belongs – with the talent. It used to be that way. It used to be that performers had a say in who they worked with and what they were willing to do. In the 70s, when I started, it was rare to find a girl who would do anal. By the 1980s, it became almost necessary for the smaller-scale stars to do it in order to find work. By the 1990s, even the biggest names had to relent eventually. Now there are only a few who won't do it.

"The line has moved from anal sex to torture for the women. My wife and I are both from the business. She is only 35 but she got out in her mid-20s. We still try to keep up with people we knew. I saw reviews for some web site called 'Cruelty House.' It was just what it sounds like. Two women and a guy tie up a girl and whip her. They bind her breasts with ropes and put clamps on her nipples. They beat her and pee on her and sodomize her with things no sane person would allow."

Tim paused for a moment to compose himself.

"This wasn't a small-time site," he continued. "Those things have always been around. Bondage and domination have been sexual components since the 1300s. But it was never commonplace. Adam, this site was booming. It has some stars on there. It wasn't just girls too stupid for their own good. It had some of what I consider the biggest names in the business: Misty Nevada, Fawn Lake, Kerri Tropic. Those are not small-time girls looking to make a name. They have what pass for features under their belt. They are on dozens of web sites. And they're doing shit like 'Cruelty House?'"

Adam explained that the business had changed in other ways.

"Sites like 'Cruelty House' and 'Daddy's Little Fuckhole' have a payoff scheme with almost all the talent agencies now," Adam said. "We've found that the agents for girls like Fawn Lake and Ashley Malibu will really push them to do sites like that. The agents get kickbacks from the sites. The girls would get twice their normal rate – which would double the agency's commission. The site would get a name star. Everyone considered it a winner, conveniently forgetting it was a human being that they had tied up and were pissing on."

"They call it the Rabbit Hole – as in falling down the ... A girl gets a bit of stature and they break her down by using her agency to send her off to 'Gangland Slayings' or 'Ten Black Poles in a Little Brown Hole.' They send them to 'Bitch Battles' or to 'Teen Reeducation.' You can almost track a girl's career depending upon which agency signed her. Elite sends them to 'Daddy's Little Fuckhole, ' 'Teen Potty Mouths' and 'Poles in a Hole.' Live Angels sends them to 'Bitch Battles' and 'Gangland Slayings.' Premier sends their girls to 'Teen Reeducation' and 'Dark Meat, Petite Seats.' All the ethnic talent gets sent to either 'Chica Bang' if she is Hispanic or 'Ho Master' if she is African-American. Every agency has someone who takes the second contract and breaks the girls down so they're pliable. I mean, hell, what's an anal scene if your last scene had a 70-year-old man pissing in your mouth?"

"Damn," Tim said. He immediately sat down and started punching in web addresses. "Jesus, I never looked at it. The same girls do 'Teen Reeducation' and 'Dark Meat.' The same girls go to 'Fuckhole' and 'Potty Mouths.' The same girls get sent to 'Slob Job' and 'Ethnic Initiations.' Which Agency does that?"

"Rival," Adam answered. Karlie had taken hours on the web to go through and put this theory together. Trinity spent part of her Spring Break verifying information and tracking the girls back to their agency He was starting to reconsider what Walt and Mary had pushed for. "So far we've found a half dozen groups who rep most of the fresh faces: Elite Talent; Premier Casting; Live Angels; Rival Promotions; Majestic Models and Cannon Group. Cannon deals almost exclusively with blacks and Hispanics although they rep a couple of white females who work only with black guys. They can keep a girl usually through her second contract – seven months total. Some girls stay if they've been broken in properly, I guess. Others move on to Pinnacle or Jade or Bright Sun. As far as I'm concerned, the Rabbit Hole sites can go right back underground."

"Hear, hear," Tim said. "So I can give you a call in a few weeks?"

"Or even before that," Adam said. "Let Timm know that any of us here will answer his questions. That way he won't come out here expecting one thing and finding another."

Tim smiled at his wife, who had come in to the room. She had heard enough to know what was happening although she didn't know who her husband was speaking to. She did, however, see the web site for 'Rob the Slob' on the screen and cringed. The "star" of the site was about 400 pounds and looked like he couldn't get laid in a whorehouse with a thousand dollar bill stapled to his forehead. Ivy Waters was glad she left the industry when she had.

"Adam, that is very gracious," Tim said enthusiastically. He saw where his wife was looking and turned the browser to Derrick Driller's profile. "I admit; I was leery of making this call. But you've really brightened my day. I'll let Timm know he has a resource out here. Good luck on what you've got going on and I'm sure we'll meet in person as soon as Timm arrives."

He hung up and explained to his wife exactly what had just happened.

Adam hung up the phone and looked down at the notes he'd taken. Well, if Jason and Timm panned out, Five Friends Casting would have three men to work with, what was the count now, a dozen or so women? One to four wasn't a bad ratio. But he knew that Allie, Sarah, Shelly, Karlie, Rebecca and Leslie would bring in woman easier than he could find men. Any woman with a half-decent body could be a porn actress if she could get her mind around it. A guy had to have certain equipment to be considered viable.

That made Adam sit back and ponder. Why did a guy have to have a huge cock? That didn't make sense to him. Most men didn't. Maybe the idea of bringing normally endowed men into the industry had merit. It would certainly make his job of finding viable male performers easier. He would have to toss that around with Tate and Jerry.