Chapter 58

Allie and Sarah caught the bus to campus to meet up with Shelly for their lunch date with Karlie Chandler. They planned to take the car, pick the girl up at her apartment on the seedier side of town, and head to lunch.

Sarah was feeling remarkable spry for the first day of her period. She was usually really touchy and got angry at the slightest affront. But rather than get made at Trinity – as she probably would have a month before – for dropping her pants in front of her boyfriend, she only laughed. Shelly was still giggling about the incident when they met at the student center.

"Did you tell her about the pubes?" she asked, between laughs.

"Oh, I forgot," Allie said. "That was the best, too. She said if Adam got lonely for pubic hair to let her know. He could take a look at hers. She wasn't getting rid of it."

Sarah shook her head but smiled.

"I'm going to grow mine back, too," she said. "I saw the last couple of shoots from Ruby Glass. She is no longer shaving. She keeps it trimmed but she looks more natural now."

"Except for that huge ass tattoo of a unicorn on her neck," Allie replied.

"She grew her hair longer and she wears it in a ponytail over it," Sarah answered. "I think she might be in the process of getting it removed. She looks a lot better. I think she's cleaned herself up. I heard she used to be a mess."

"She was," Allie said. "I met her my first week in. I guess her rep got her hooked up with that site, uh, I think it's 'Teen Reeducation.' She really got messed up on that set and she wound up hooked on pain pills."

"What in the fuck is 'Teen Reeducation'?" Shelly asked. "And why would someone need pain pills afterward?"

Sarah and Allie exchanged looks and frowns.

"It's a fem-dom site," Sarah said. "Feminine Domination. They basically tie a girl up, hang her upside down from a meat hook by her ankles and fuck up her world. I mean, they hit them with canes and whips. They punch them, put clamps on their tits and pussies. Stuff their panties up their twats and then gag them with them. They jam huge dildos in the girl's pussy and up their asses. It is really fucking gross."

Shelly had paled noticeably.

"Yeah," Allie said. "You know, if a guy tried a site like that, he would be arrested. Seriously. The cops would come and drag his ass to jail. But these bull-dykes can get away with it because it's girl-on- girl. Can't staunch the free expression of homosexuality and all that. And they are serious butch. It's like that sick guy at 'Daddy's Little Fuckhole' but instead of degradation it's violence.

"They pick these tiny little girls, too. And she's not kidding. They kick the girls. They punch them in their pussies. They beat them, literally beat them, with paddles and drip hot candle wax on them. I guess the bitch who runs the site took a personal dislike to either Ruby or her rep. She wound up breaking two or three of her ribs and fracturing her pelvis. Ruby got like a hundred grand to keep quiet about it. But she wound up on Oxy and you know how that goes."

Sarah nodded but Shelly looked slightly green.

"They ... they do that stuff?" Shelly asked. "I mean, people let them do that shit to them?"

"They pay $2,500 an hour," Sarah remarked. It was a part of the business she found distasteful but it was still a part of the business. "They can do that because they charge their customers like $70 a download. Look, Shelly, I'm not trying to be a bitch but what you saw at Daystar and what you've seen of me is tame – and it's rare. You remember what Adam was telling us about his Friday nights in Missouri? There is a site called 'Bitch Battles' just like that. They take an untrained porn girl and let one of their trained female fighters whale on them. The concept is that they to smother the other girl with their pussy or pinch her clit or tits until she submits. Then they get to fuck her with a strap-on – in both holes – and call her the same names guys do.

"There is a fem-dom site for female-male humiliation. There is a site where they let 100 guys cum on you. There is a site where the girl is essentially gang-raped. There is a site where they fuck a girl in public and make her walk naked to get her clothes back. There are more bondage and domination sites than I can even count. If it's possible, it's out there."

"You have to understand, Angel," Allie said in a soft voice so she didn't sound condescending, "this is what Adam talked about when he mentioned the risk in our venture. Porn isn't really for normal people. I mean, it's not geared for them. There is a large segment of the population that gets its kicks from shit they can't do at home. The pedophiles and bestiality groups fall here, obviously. But the same is true for men and women who like to see pain inflicted on others. 'Daddy's Little Fuckhole' doesn't lose money. Neither do 'Bitch Battles' or 'Teen Reeducation.' They make money because people are willing to pay to watch their content. People who want to see what we want to produce can usually get satisfaction with a partner. They might not be willing to pay to see it."

"Damn," Shelly said. "You know, I don't mind either of you playing with my butt. I sort of even like the playful smacks you offer. But if you wanted to really hurt me, I think I'd have a problem with it. I damned sure don't want to see either of you tied up by your ankles or with a foot-long dildo up your asses."

"See, that is the difference," Sarah said. "When we make love – or even just fuck like bunnies – we still care about the other. For us, it's sex. For these people, it's not sex. It's control and the only way they feel they are in control is by causing pain or forcing humiliation on their subjects. You know, there was a study that inferred that pornography leads to an increase in sexual assaults. The industry cried in its beer and said it was being persecuted. But I can see where that could easily be true. The study used like a thousand guys who were serving prison sentences for sexual assault. Almost every one of them admitted to looking at violent pornography on the day the assault occurred."

"But violence isn't pornography," Shelly said. "It might be classified the same but it is way different."

"Do you know the definition of pornography?" Allie asked. "I mean the dictionary definition? I got a letter from some feminist do-gooder who quoted it to me. I remember it. 'A creative activity with no value other than to stimulate sexual desire.' By that definition, those sites are pornography. If they didn't want to stimulate sexual desire, they wouldn't use naked women or men and they wouldn't do sexual things to them."

"Then what we do isn't pornography," Shelly replied. "We are not only trying stimulate sexual desire. We want to evoke emotional responses, too. Sure, we want people to have sex after they watch it. But we also want to help them spark or rekindle the passion and longing for each other. We want to encourage dialog and discussion between partners. Sex is important to any relationship. No one with any sense will dispute that. If we can facilitate an open discussion – communication – about wants, needs and desires between partners, then we do not fall into that very limited definition."

"I think we found the spokeswoman for Subarctic Enterprises," Sarah said. "Look, we're almost there. This girl has already had one really crappy experience in the business. Let's set aside this morbid discussion until later."

"Or never again would be fine," Shelly said, still cringing inwardly at the thought of having a muscular woman jam a strap-on up her ass while pulling her hair and calling her a "slut-whore."

"Even better," Allie added. "Never again works OK with me."

Adam rode the bus home from class and Trinity sat with him instead of just making sure to sit near him.

"I have strict orders to keep you out of trouble," she said with a laugh. "Oh, and to make sure you don't check out my panties again."

"Good to know," Adam said with a smile.

"Well, that still leaves my bra," Trinity joked. "Although it matches my panties so that might be out, too. Now, tell me about Adam."

"He was the first man, according the Bible," he replied. "Then he met a woman and his world went to hell in a hand basket. Life for all men has sucked since."

Trinity rolled her eyes.

"Fine, I'll start with me," she said. "My Dad is a butcher and my Mom works at a garden shop. I have a brother who is 15 and a sister who is 12. I graduated last year in the top 10 percent of my class and got free tuition to USC – or any of the other state universities – through an essay I wrote as a junior. My brother is a sophomore and he is playing baseball this spring. He's pretty good. My sister is a typical 12-year-old, I guess. She is in love with the latest TV star and spends half of her life on the computer."

Adam smiled. Trinity had a normal childhood, it sounded like.

"So, how did you wind up with a name like Trinity?" he asked. "I mean, you know, it's..."

He was going to say unusual but she beat him to the punch.

"It's a stripper name," she said ruefully. "My parents are a little off-kilter. They wanted unusual names for their kids. I'm Trinity, named after some music group they liked when there were in high school. My brother is Spenser, with an 's' after one of my Dad's favorite literary characters, not after the poet. My sister is Britney, just like the singer and named after her. She is the most likely to become a stripper, though."

She giggled.

"Shelly told me that you all have names, you know, even the ones who don't do it on film," she said with a twinkle in her eye. "I decided since I already have a porn name on my birth certificate, I'm going to be Ann Jones. What do you think?"

"You really have a nice laugh," Adam said. "I'm glad we're all getting to know each other. It would have been a shame to miss out on that."

"Thanks," Trinity said. "I think you guys are cool, too. You know, I was almost considering moving on campus next year. When I first came here, I figured I could make friends really easily. But it has been difficult. My classes are all huge. There is no such thing as study groups. All the campus groups have this, I don't know, militant feel to them. The poetry club I looked into is full of these weirdos who expect you to be at every meeting three times a week. I guess I really felt isolated out here. The longer it went, the more introverted I became. I'm usually pretty friendly. Not as friendly as you saw this morning but I don't usually quiver in the corner."

"It's hard being away from home for the first time," Adam said with a touch of wistfulness in his voice. He knew he had no home to ever return to. "I lived on campus my freshman year. My roommate and I did not get a long at all. We had nothing in common. I, well, I didn't have too many friends either. I had a couple and, of course, the blonde bimbo you used to see me with. That was a hugely bad scene."

"What happened to her?" Trinity asked. "If I'm not prying, that is."

Adam rubbed his nose. He didn't like to go into the specifics of his misfortune but that played a huge part in his parting with Lisa.

"My parents died last fall," Adam said. Trinity covered her mouth in shock. "I'm so sorry," she said and he saw tears in the corners of her eyes. "I didn't mean to bring up anything like this."

Adam gave a soft smile. He quelled the urge to wipe her eyes, figuring – correctly – she would find it inappropriate.

"Thanks," he said, "but this really goes into what happened with me and Lisa. That is her name. I had to go back home to deal with things. Then I found out some of the plans they had made to help me along we not going to come to fruition. I, uh, well, I had a little bit of money when I first got here. I mean, I am on full scholarship and my folks had put away a pretty good amount for my education. They gave it to me to help out with things. That money disappeared with their deaths and when it did, Lisa's true colors came out.

"I was really struggling, you know. I went like the entire month of October eating nothing but noodles. Lisa didn't enjoy the news that taking her to dinner or anyplace else was out of the question. It just went downhill from there. I was back about a month when I heard she had hooked up with a guy at a party while I was taking care of burying my folks."

"You have got to be kidding me!" Trinity said. "She better have found a movie star or a pro baseball player or something. I'm not sure even that would be an upgrade."

Adam gave a slight sigh.

"I don't think it was an upgrade," Adam said. Trinity detected sadness in his voice. "I confronted Lisa as soon as I heard the story. She denied it – obviously – but I could see she was lying. I didn't have enough of me left to deal with her. So I just pulled away. I would find a reason to be somewhere else if she wanted to do something. I stopped calling her and would only talk to her for a minute or two if she called me. Right before Christmas Break, we called things off, but I think we actually broke up in September. Things were different as soon as I got back from Missouri. I assumed it was me but it turned out it was her."

Trinity raised her eyebrows inquisitively.

"Lisa is just what you think she is," Adam continued, still with a sad tone. "She was a prom queen, a sorority girl, you know. Her mom raised her to be those things. She started entering her in pageants when the girl was like four. It took a toll."

"She expected everyone to make a fuss over everything she did," Trinity said.