Chapter 129

It took a few minutes for Adam to explain what he had learned about bondage videos during his most recent shoot. Celina didn't really see how the two situations were similar but she let it go.

"In some states, you have to be 21 to see pornographic movies," she explained. "In most states 18 is old enough. In some states you can get a learner's permit at 14 or 15. Most states start at 16. I'm sure it's the same thing. Some states have decency laws that extend to those situations. Most don't. I can't really speak to those. But I do agree with almost every anti-discrimination law on the books."

"I did, too, until they applied to me," Adam said with a smile. "I think we can agree that some types of people deserve to be discriminated against. I should be able to use a set of reasonable criteria – ability to pay, criminal history, affiliation with undesirable groups – as a standard for leasing a property. It's just my own personal view and you're not going to change it. I accept the need for certain standards in some areas. But if I purchase something, put the money into it to make it into something, I should be able to sell it, lend it or lease it to anyone I want. If the government wants to control that situation, let them put the money out. Then they can rent to anyone they want and they can clean up the shit they leave behind."

"I guess," Celina said. "But without those laws, almost every ethnic group would be segregated. The law has been reaffirmed a dozen times. It's not going to change."

"And people are going to do whatever they can to subvert it," Sean said with a shrug, "and it is exactly what we will do, though we won't mention it in front of Celina. If we put apartments there, we'll find a way to make sure we know and accept the people who live in them. It's that simple. The same way we will be careful about who we rent space to in the office building. I won't have the Ku Klux Klan opening a recruitment center there."

"I can't know about what steps you take," Celina said. "I can only advise you to abide by the California Code as it is written and by all local and county statutes."

"Thank you for your advice," Sean said. "But we have the cart well in front of the horse. Right now, it is a lot and we need to pay Celina for its purchase. Then we can fight over what we want to put there and who can live there. I think the office structure is our first priority. Do we agree upon that?"

"I do," Shelly said. "We're going to be diversifying again in the near future. We're going to be going into property development. We're expanding Five Friends Casting. We probably will be expanding Petal Technologies in the near future. That doesn't even count the production company which is going to be our next big deal. Ben is ready to shoot 'Dragon Lore' as soon as Walt gives him the OK and we can clear our schedules and learn our lines better."

"I'll have things ready to test by Friday," Walt promised. "Timm was out today and he has some real quality ideas about how to make this work on renewable energy – solar batteries. But we're looking at that for the next one. Right now, they are electric. I want to revise one thing that he pointed out to make it a little smoother looking, otherwise they would be ready to go today."

"Great!" Shelly said, a huge smile lighting her face. "So we could be ready to shoot this in a week? I was thinking a month was more realistic. Walt, that is amazing. Ben is going to be happy as hell."

"I have a shoot scheduled for next Thursday," Adam said. "Other than that, I'm good."

"We got that big shoot for 'Cotton Panty Chronicles' next weekend," Shelly pointed out. "That's going to be a long day for you."

"Oh, yeah," Adam said. "I guess I might need to call 'Bountiful Assets' and see if I can shoot earlier in the week. How many scenes are we shooting next Saturday?"

"Seven," Shelly said. "But you have just the three. You work with me at 9 in the morning. Then Rebecca and Allie do their scene at 11. Then Sarah, Karlie, Tyanna and you at 1. Leslie does a scene with Timm and Cameron at three o'clock. Elena and Jason follow them at 5. Meredith, Katey and Beth are scheduled to go at 7 and the group shoot is at nine o'clock. It should be click-click-click. They're setting up three rooms for the shoots. I told them we'd help them out with getting everything set up if it meant we could do it in a day."

"Wow!" Mary said. "They're using our whole roster. That's great. What are they paying?"

"Five Friends will see about a grand," Shelly said. "They're paying the group $22,000 for the day."

"No shit?" Walt said.

"It's a month's worth of content for them," Allie explained. "Maybe closer to two months. They update about once a week. They are only paying the normal one-off scale. Leslie is doing a scene with two guys so she gets a hundred more. All the women except for, who is it? Every girl but Leslie will get $1,700 for a 14-hour day. Leslie will get $1,800. Adam will get $1,200. The other guys will get $800. The company that produces 'Cotton Panty Chronicles' will see a minimum of $25,000 in profits. They offer one-off downloads and I think there will be a lot of downloads."

"Still, that is awesome," Mary said. She was still smiling.

"Well, it's a risk," Adam said. "We offered them an on-time guarantee. If something happens and we can't finish by 11:30 p.m., we'll wind up paying them a late fee."

"If it's our fault," Shelly clarified. "We were very specific about what circumstances could lead to that result. If any of us show up late or unable to work or create a disturbance on the set, we're liable. But if the lights go out or the camera doesn't work or the photographer breaks his camera, we're not. This is a good company and it will really get us some serious notice when we accomplish this. It's unheard of for some place to schedule so many shoots at once. They might do two or three in the amount of time we're going to do seven. No other group in the business can offer this. That's our hook."

"I know but it's a real tight window," Adam said. The seventh scene had been added after he had agreed with the concept. The group scene was the brainchild of the web site director who made an off-hand comment about how he wished there was a group scene with all the talent running around. Shelly and Sarah were on the phone with the guy and looked one another. With a shrug, they agreed to it so long as the compensation could be worked out.

The producer took only seconds to offer to double the total amount the crew would receive if they would do a group scene. He had no trouble with the requirement that the group itself set the pairings.

Sean cleared his throat to bring the group back the task at hand.

"So, we can reimburse Celina for her purchase and transfer the deed to us," he said.

"I thought we decided that," Shelly said with a laugh. "I think we should make her wait. If I didn't think she'd charge us for a fresh document search, I'd recommend it."

"So, it's agreed?" Sean asked again.

"Yes," Mary said. "For God's sake, it's decided. I want to hear more about the shoot next week."

"Would it help if some of us came to help you set things up out there?" Erin asked. "I don't mind helping to, you know, clean up afterward and to make sure everything is set up for the next one."

"It might," Shelly said. "I'll know more next week. You might keep your schedule clear."

"Like we're a hotbed of activity," Trinity joked. "Sure, I'll see if I can squeeze you in."

"Maybe I'll see what I can squeeze into you," Shelly rejoined with wriggling eyebrows.

"Or that," Trinity replied, refusing to be embarrassed.

"I can come out, too," Mary said. "It might be cool to see how things actually go on set. Lord knows I've seen enough of the finished product in the past few months. Maybe we can bring lunch or something to the set."

"I don't plan to stick around there all day," Adam said firmly. "I'll come and go but I am not really interested in showing up there at 8:30 a.m. and still being there at midnight."

"I know," Sarah said. "It won't be that bad. It will be just like here only somewhere else. We were planning to sort of making it like a picnic. I think it would be cool for everyone to come out. I can see it being a nice little getaway. They're doing it in a really swanky place from what I heard. They want to set up the scene like a series of party interludes."

"That sounds almost like a feature," Rachelle noted.

"That's the way they want to play it," Shelly confirmed. "I thought it would be a decent little test run for what we want to try. If we can pull off shooting a full feature in two days, it could be a real coup."

"Some features take three weeks to shoot, particularly with a cast as large as ours," Allie said. "So if we can do it in 48 hours it would be amazing."

"That's why it should be shot in Las Vegas," Rebecca said. "You'll have everything you need right there. I think we can convince Tate, Ben and Jerry to come up."

"She makes sense," Walt said. "The biggest problem I can see is the transportation of the 'horses'. But I think we can rent a trailer with no trouble. Besides, I'd love to spend some time in Vegas while the rest of you are working."

He chuckled at Adam's expression. He, too, wished he had time to just visit Las Vegas again. But that didn't seem to be in the cards – if they wanted everything done in 48 hours.

Erin got the cuddle duty with Adam the next morning. Even Sarah got out of bed to let Erin have some special time.

Erin wasn't feeling particularly frisky. Instead she just wanted to spend an hour or so just being held. It was a side of sexuality she had never experienced. Her encounters were about a frenzied attempt for one or both of them to get off. Usually just one, Erin ruminated bitterly. Her lovers were more interested in their own pleasure than hers.

The trysts invariably ended with one or both sneaking away, back to her Mom's house or his parents' house or, a few times, back to his wife and children. There had never been time for cuddling or snuggling or even kissing.

It was always get your panties off and get on your back. Then spend 10 or 15 minutes rutting like crazed animals. There were times when there was only time for her to blow the guy. Not surprisingly, those times were never reciprocated. If there were only a few minutes, the guy whipped his cock and she went down on him. She never lifted her skirt and had him go down on her.

That was behind her. Sure there were times when the group went after each other with primal need. However, most of the time it was calm and loving. And never – not once – had she gone to sleep without getting off. Someone was always looking out for her needs. It wasn't always the same person, either.

Everyone was so caring about everyone else. There was always someone to talk to her if she wanted to talk. There was always someone to give her a hug if she needed a hug. There was always someone to give her a kick in the butt if she needed a kick in the butt.

Her relationship with Sean was 180 degrees from where it had been the year before. He seemed to have recognized that she had grown and learned from her mistakes. He didn't look down on the bond she was developing with seven lovers. They had exchanged more cordial words with each other in the last six days than they had in the last six years.

She had even gotten closer to Rachelle. Erin had always treated Rachelle as a mentor. Rachelle had responded by treating Erin like a little sister. Now they treated each other as equals. There was no leader-follower dynamic. They discussed major projects and shared funny stories. The interaction with Rachelle and Sean set the stage for how Erin was viewed by the rest of the group more so than her affiliation with the group in the second house.

Walt was a hoot. He was so calm but had such a great sense of humor. He always had a kind word for Erin. He had given her good advice about her future without making her feel like an idiot for asking him. Mary, despite the problems of the first week, had turned out to be a really stabilizing force. She never failed to ask Erin's opinion about which direction the web sites would go.

The owners of the individual sites were the same way. Leslie would always solicit ideas from Erin about upcoming shoots. Karlie, Sarah, Allie and Shelly just let her set things up any way she wanted. She was most surprised about Rebecca's willingness to allow Erin great freedom in selecting settings for the shoots for her site.

Erin had done her due diligence, of course. She had pored over Rebecca's site and spent hours trying to come up with something new and unique. For the most part, she succeeded.

Trinity acted like Erin had been there all along. Because they had entered the group at about the same time, there was a bond between them. In fact, Trinity was always with any group that came to visit her before she graduated and moved to L.A.

At that moment, she was snuggled up next to Adam: her head on his shoulder; her naked breasts pressed against his side; her hairless pussy nestled against his hip. She looked up at his blondish hair, tousled from sleep. He needed a haircut and a shave, she saw. The stubble on his chin was cute because it didn't cover his whole face. There were patches that were still hairless. She knew he didn't shave everyday unless he had a scene scheduled on consecutive days.

Adam had always been so supportive of her, Erin thought. Even before they became lovers, he had become a friend. He would have been her friend even if they hadn't become intimate. She knew that. She knew that everyone was content to let the decision be hers alone. They had not pressured her – even after the first time she had sex with all of them.

When she arrived back in L.A., she could have moved to the main house. No one would have said anything and they might have even let her borrow Adam from time to time, as they had with Rebecca before she decided where she wanted to be, and as they would do for others in the future.

She was part of that decision now. The others had made it clear that if she were uncomfortable with the practice or the person, it would stop. She was a full partner. Adam seemed to especially go out of his way to make sure she was consulted about every single decision that was made. She thought it was probably because he often found himself as the last person in the know where so many things were concerned.