Chapter 73

Adam was still a little befuddled when he stepped away from the conversation about new phones and other electronic needs to call Rita Looker. The young woman answered on the first ring.

"Uh, hi, this is Derrick Driller returning Ms. Looker's call," he said.

The person on the other end laughed.

"There is no Ms. Looker here," she said. "Rita Looker is fictional, just like Derrick Driller is. She doesn't use a courtesy title any more than you do for your character, I'll bet."

Adam chuckled a bit.

"No, Mr. Driller has no ring to it, does it?" he replied.

"Neither does Ms. Looker," Rita answered. "The last name sort of flies in the face of traditional woman's liberation. Thanks for calling me back."

"Is this a good time to talk?" Adam asked.

"It's fine for me," Rita answered. "I'm not sure about Cassie, though. I want to conference her in on this if you don't mind."

"Uh, no," Adam said. "But I should warn you. If it requires any knowledge on my part to help you, I'll have to get someone else to do it. I'm a technological nincompoop."

Rita Looker's laughter filled the earpiece.

"A technological nincompoop?" she said. "That's a good one. I plan to steal that and use it frequently. No, I just need to put you on hold for a minute. I'm not hanging up on you. I'm just bringing in Cassie. Don't go away."

Adam heard a click and he waited patiently. Rita was back in only a few seconds.

"This is a good time for Cassie, too," she said. "OK, here goes. I've never tried to do this so if I drop anyone, I'll call them back. Cassie, are you there?"

"I'm here," another voice said.

"Derrick?" Rita queried.

"Yep, me too," he said. "Nice work. I probably would have disconnected everyone and fried my phone if I tried that."

"Because you're a technological nincompoop," Rita replied. Cassie exhaled sharply. "Don't worry, Cass. Those are his words, not mine. So, Derrick, you heard what we have in mind. Are you good with it?"

"On the surface, yes, I think so," Adam replied. "But I probably have a few questions."

"Shoot," Cassie said.

"Well, uh, is it OK if I'm blunt?" Adam asked. "I don't like to hem and haw. It's just not my style."

"Ours either," Rita answered. "So sure, blunt is OK with me if you can handle me being blunt back, Derrick."

"I wouldn't have it any other way," Adam said. "Uh, first off, please, call me Adam. I can't quite wrap my mind around my pseudonym. OK, I'll start with the question that's foremost in my mind. Are you sure you want to do this?"

"Absolutely," Rita said.

"Yes, I'm sure," Cassie chimed in. "Why do you ask?"

"Well, I mean, look I don't know either of you," Adam said. "So I am going by strictly what I've heard from a couple of friends of mine who are familiar with your careers. Rita, I understand you work exclusively with your boyfriend for male-female scenes. I don't want to create a problem on that front."

Rita sighed. A part of her was gratified that a guy she didn't even know would ask that question. But another part of her didn't feel like discussing the inner workings of her personal life.

"That is not a problem," she answered. "But thanks. I do appreciate your concern."

"You're welcome," Adam replied. "Now, Cassie, I understand that you prefer to work with women or at least you've worked with women exclusively in the past few months. I just don't want anyone to walk away from this feeling like they did something they didn't want to. Does that sound as stupid to you as it did to my ears?"

"No, it doesn't," Cassie answered. "Adam, thanks. Let me just tell you a little about the past few months. Right before Thanksgiving last year, I got talked into doing an ego site. Do you know what those are?"

"I do," Adam said.

"It was terrible," Cassie continued. "I mean really, really terrible. I refused to sign the release and wound up having to contact an attorney to confiscate the card. Even after that, some stills leaked out. The guy hurt me, Adam. I guess you know I'm pretty small. He did some damage that took a while to heal. Even though I could have gone back to guy-girl stuff a couple of months ago, I've balked. Rita and I have talked off and on about doing something together. We were trying to figure out just what that project should be when we saw something on PornLife about what was happening with Ashley Malibu and Daystar.

"We saw her scenes with you and we were really impressed. I mean, honestly impressed with your demeanor and your performance and the way you carried yourself. We do not impress easily."

"I run my own site so I have access to the producers' side of the web site," Rita put forth. "So I logged on and we read what everyone had to say about you. Some keywords jumped out at us: 'professional, courteous, gentle.' I have seen Ashley a couple of times. I know she is just as tiny as Cassie. I have been looking for someone to work with outside of the niche I've created. Pat isn't my boyfriend. He hasn't been for a while but that's immaterial. After we read what Tate Benedict and Holly Ball wrote about you and then what Judy Jackem said about your scene with a relative newcomer, we started to talk about going all out. I mean a three-way boy-girl scene. Jerry Goldsmith over at Dazzle was very positive in his assessment and there are rumors about how that scene with Sahara Rain is going to translate into a contract spot for her."

"This is what we want," Cassie said, rejoining the conversation. "There are very few people who can get a good scene out of a girl. I mean, I would say less than a handful of males in the business, Adam. You're clearly one of them. It is even more difficult to do with someone my size – or Ashley's size. There is a real tendency for the guy to see a girl of small stature and to try to dominate them. That isn't what I saw in those scenes. I read where Ben said those were almost entirely unedited. He didn't go through and cut them to make it look like you and Ashley were good together. You were good together. And the dialog was fantastic. He said it was all ad-libbed, that you two simply played off the other. I, uh, well... , I called Ben today and spoke to him. Even after I left the message yesterday, I started to worry a bit. Adam, what happened at the ego site stopped just short of rape.

"I know, I know... ," Cassie continued after a pause. "I knew what I was signing up for – or at least I thought I did. But I found out he edits the hell out his videos to make them look less graphic than they are."

"I don't care if you signed a waiver, that's not right," Rita said.

"It's not," Adam agreed. He sighed. "Look, this is probably the wrong time to tell you this but I'm going to anyway. I won't work that way. I saw it first hand with Tony Armani and a girl doing her first scene and I refuse to do it. My goal – and the goal of some other people in the business – is to move the industry away from the ego sites and humiliation factor. Ben and Tate at Daystar are on board with this. I think Jerry Goldsmith at Dazzle is too. Melody Schott at Goldwall is committed. I'm not saying that you two have to agree with me in order for me to work with you. That's not the case at all. But I want to be upfront about what you can expect from me. I do not pull hair or slap behinds. I'm not comfortable with gagging or gaping or any number of things that this business presents as normal."

"If you've seen our work, then you know we don't want to operate that way either," Rita said.

"Actually, I've not seen anything either of you has done," Adam admitted. "Well, I might have but it was before I was involved in the business so it doesn't really register as being you. I'm sorry. I hope you're not offended."

"Hey, you called us back anyway," Cassie said with a laugh. "That means either you return every call or you decided we're OK to work with."

"Well, you have some admirers among my friends," Adam told them. "When I played the voice mails for them, they pretty much insisted that this was something I couldn't pass up."

There was silence on the line.

"Uh, Adam," Rita said finally, "a lot of information in the voice mail might be considered private. I hope your friends understand that. If we can't reach an agreement and we go another route with a different guy, he won't be offered the same terms as you were."

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Adam said quickly. "My friends are females and they are in the business. They understand that all too well. I simply run all my job opportunities past them before I make a decision. They have a better idea of what is right for me than I do – and I don't mean simply professionally."

Cassie chuckled slightly.

"So, the other rumor I've heard might be true then," she said. "Are you dating Ashley?"

"Sort of," Adam admitted.

"I heard he was dating Sahara Rain and she worked only with him," Rita put in.

"I guess that's true, too," Adam confessed. "It's not as tawdry as it seems. Well, maybe it is more tawdry than it seems. I'm not sure how it worked out but, uh, well, I guess I'm dating Allie and Sarah – shit, Ashley and Sahara – and another girl, too. She did a non-sex part for Judy Jackem over the weekend."

Again Adam was greeted by silence.

"They know," he put forth quickly. "I mean, they know about the others and each other and all that. We all sort of live together. It's confusing. To an outsider, at least, it would be confusing. I live in a houseful of women: Ashley Malibu, Sahara Rain, Jenny Cinnamon and Michelle Foxx. Crap, this isn't really helping, is it?"

Dual peals of laughter erupted from the phone.

"You sound like a really nice, shy guy," Cassie said. "Most guys would brag about it, not be embarrassed by it. Wait a second; I'm pulling up the last two so I can put a face to a name. Whoa, Jenny Cinnamon is cute as a button."

"So is Michelle Foxx," Rita said.

"Shelly has a profile?" Adam wondered. Rita laughed.

"Just one credit," she said. "A non-sex part with Goldwall Productions. It's under new performers so it must be recent. Anyway, I agree with Cassie. I haven't heard anything today that makes me reconsider. So have we reached an agreement in principle? We all are willing to do a video together?"

"I agree," Cassie said.

"Sure," Adam replied.

"OK, Adam, there is one other thing you need to consider," Rita said. "My web site is going to undergo some retooling. Pat, my webmaster, is out. I'm doing my own designs until my contract ends with my host in a couple of months. Cassie is restarting her own site in a couple of months once she can figure out a reasonable way to host it. We want to use this video as a launch for our sites. Are you OK if nothing hits the web until June first or later?"

"I'm OK with it," Adam said. "I also might have someone you can discuss your web hosting needs with. At least I will when she gets back from Spring Break. Dazzle is interested in using our group to do their site."

"You host your own server?" Rita wondered.

"Uh, sort of," Adam said. "It's a part of the business I'm not really involved with yet. I honestly can't tell you a bit from a byte. But we have someone in place that does that sort of thing. She is really good at it but I will let her give you the lowdown if that works."

"It works for me," Cassie said. "I can't commit to anything right now but I'll listen to proposals."

"Me, too," Rita put in. "So, when can we do this? Adam, don't be offended, but I've heard you are sometimes hard to schedule."

Adam sighed.

"I'm in college," he said.

"We are, too," Rita said. "But I'm on break this week."

"Me, too," Cassie said.

"That makes three," Adam laughed. "Do you go to USC?"

"I do," Cassie said warily.

"Not me," Rita replied. "In in Vegas. I go to UNLV."

"Oh, well, I'm at USC, too, Cassie," Adam told her. He understood her reluctance given her notoriety. "So I'm free until next Monday."

"Can you travel?" Rita asked.

"Depends on how far and for how long, I guess," Adam said. "Where are we talking?"

"Vegas," Rita said. "I have a pretty nice house we can use for the shoot. Otherwise we might have to rent something. I don't really want to do that but I will if you can't come up here."

"I don't see any problem with coming up," he answered. "But, well, crap, I have to check."

"They can come, too," Rita said, laughing. "I mean, if they are OK with what you're doing."

"Hold on for just a second," Adam said.

He knew the others were waiting just inside the doorway. It was their nature to make sure he didn't screw things up. He opened the door and there they were.

"You're missing one," he pointed out, noticing Karlie wasn't nearby.

Allie simply stuck out her tongue.

"What is my schedule this week?" he asked.

"How would we know?" Shelly replied. "Why not ask your personal assistant?"

"As I said, you're missing one," Adam returned. "I guess I should have asked: What do you three have planned for me this week?"

Sarah had an off-color rejoinder on her lips, Adam could see it. She was dying to make a rude comment to him but she didn't want to be overheard in case it was someone else on the phone.

"If you called Celina today, I don't know of anything else," Sarah said. Instead of making a comment, she lifted her shirt and flashed her breasts at him. Adam tried to nibble on one of them but she pulled away giggling.