Chapter 6

Adam had some studying to do after he dropped Allie off across the road from his apartment. Unfortunately for him, two members of his ever-present cohabiters saw the petite girl exit his car. The questions began before he could open a book.

"Was that her?" Sean asked.

"If you mean Ashley, then yeah," Adam said. Sean and Rachelle were the only people he saw on a daily basis that didn't appear to be living vicariously through him.

"Does she know someone over there or is she looking for a place?" Rachelle wondered.

"She lives there," Adam admitted with a chuckle. "Just think, this area was already ruined and we didn't even know it."

Sean pondered silently for a moment then spoke.

"Well, it is knocking the hell out of my preconceptions," he confessed. "That's for sure."

Rachelle nodded her agreement.

"We were worried, Adam," she told him. "I've lived in L.A. my whole life. I've heard rumors about what those people do."

She caught herself with a shake of the head.

"What I should say is that I've heard what people in that line of work do," she rephrased. "I mean, the parties, the drugs, orgies, even shootings and suicides. I was scared you'd fall into the trap, too. I mean, especially after what you've gone through in the past year. But that girl lives across the road from here. I would have never guess what she did."

She shook her head again and frowned.

"What I mean is that there have been no wild parties over there," she amended. "She doesn't prance around the neighborhood in a thong or less. She hasn't come knocking on doors looking for action. That's sort of what I worried about. I didn't want you to start bringing women around who might have an eye for someone who has earning potential. Does that make sense?"

"It does," Adam agreed.

"And I was worried about someone using drugs here," Sean said. "You know about my uncle and you know how I feel about that. I didn't want to walk into the bathroom one day and find some girl I didn't know with a needle in her arm. I trusted that you wouldn't let that happen but well..."

He glanced at Rachelle and frowned.

"Well, I've been on that web site as much as Mary has," he confessed. "Damn, Chelle, I'm sorry. I was curious. Once I saw the pictures of Sahara Rain and Ashley Malibu I checked out some of the others, too. I should have told you. Those girls didn't resemble anything I expected to find there. But a lot of the girls didn't. I expected hard-edged, hooker types and there are certainly plenty of those. But you could pass either of those girls anywhere and not think for a minute that they were in the adult industry."

"And you probably did a few times," Rachelle said. She didn't appear angry at Sean, which Adam felt was a good thing. Of all his roommates and their significant others, Sean and Rachelle seemed mostly likely to last the long haul. Walt and Mary had a great deal in common but both could be reckless at times. Adam could picture Walt and Mary going doing in a ball of flames. Eric and Shelly were doomed. There was no doubt about it in Adam's mind – or in anyone else's.

Eric and Shelly had been together the longest, since high school. Shelly had grown her own personality once she left the small town in which she grew up. Eric had tried to retain the status quo. If he had his way, he would get his degree, return to his hometown and work for his father until he took over the business himself. Shelly would tag along and play the dutiful wife, just as Eric's mother had played the dutiful wife to his father. Just as his mother did, Eric expected Shelly to put up with whatever behavior he exhibited.

But Shelly seemed to be getting new ideas. She no longer seemed inclined to follow Eric's lead or cater to his every whim. She was striking out on her own and looking to make her own way in the world. She was studying cinematography at USC, despite Eric's insistence that she should study to become a teacher. He wanted a wife who would be home every evening whether he was or not and who would raise a family whether he had time or not.

Adam's foray into pornography had brought about a new facet of Shelly's personality – inquisitiveness. She asked questions about how scenes were set up and the lighting they used. She wondered about the makeup situation and how they acquired locations for the shoots. Most of the questions she asked had answers that Adam didn't know. But she had secured a promise that he would pay closer attention next time.

Adam realized both Sean and Rachelle were looking at him.

"I was not play the least little bit of attention to either of you," he admitted sheepishly.

"Playing tomorrow over in your head," Rachelle jibed. "Or were you reliving this afternoon. You're awfully late getting home from class."

"I went to hang out with Allie," he said. "I mean Ashley. Oh, hell. You're not planning to stalk her, are you? Her name is Allie and Sahara is actually Sarah. It's hard to keep them separate in my head."

"I'll bet," Sean said with a laugh. "I mean, with names so similar, I'm sure it's almost impossible. It would be different if one of them was Diamond or Mercedes or something."

"Those are stripper names, not porn names," Rachelle said. "Wanna hear my porn name, Adam?"

Adam blinked in confusion.

"We sat around the night you picked out Derrick Driller," Sean related. "Or at least the girls did. The rest of us stayed out of it."

"I would be Destiny Lixxx," she said. "That's with 3 x's at the end. What do you think?"

Adam laughed.

"Well, it sounds as good as most of them I've heard so far," he said. "So far, I've met Judy Jackem, Holly Ball, Sahara Rain and Ashley Malibu. Oh, and I've heard Jenny Cinnamon and Candy Essence mentioned."

"That's almost what Mary picked," Rachelle said. "She said she would be Candy Bottoms. Candy Apples and Candy Samples were already taken, as was Candy Cane – with a double 'c' and a double 'k' – and Candy Juggs. There are also a lot of Sugar names. Sugar Lips, Sugar Baby, Sugar Mama. There is even a Sugar Biscuit. And a lot of Sweets. I think every name in the universe has a porn star with Sweet in front of it. Sweet Anna, Sweet Becky. You get my point. There is even a Sweet Sugar. It was really fascinating. The database site sorts them by date of entry. In the old days, the names were almost normal. Now, well, now they're a little more exotic."

"Stupider, you mean," Adam related with a shake of the head. "I mean, Derrick Driller? That is ridiculous. I should be able to go with something more normal."

"It's better than Willie Survive," Rachelle joked. That was one of the names Walt had suggest along with Dick Goesinya, Peter Long, Jack Mehoff and a host of others equally as bad.

"Marginally," Adam said with a grin.

"So, are you?" Rachelle prodded.

"Am I what?" Adam said with a confused look on his face. "I was serious earlier. I completely tuned you both out and was lost in my head. It's a gift, really."

"Are you going to invite Ashley or Allie or whatever over to meet everyone?" Sean supplied. "She is our neighbor after all and since none of us has seen the cops over or heard loud music or had the whole parking lot taken up by her guests, she might enjoying hanging out with us."

"Maybe," he said. "I'll ask everyone else to see what they think."

"Please," Rachelle said dramatically. "Walt and Mary are dying to meet someone – anyone in that industry. Besides you, I mean. Eric is going to mack on all of them because he thinks they'll be easy marks, so warn them. Shelly will be cool with it because it will give her someone else to ask questions to. We haven't mentioned this to you because, OK, I'll admit it, Sean and I were reluctant to get to know them. Because of what we told you. I don't want some hot-assed girl seeing dollar signs when she sees Sean and thinking he is her ticket to Easy Street. He's my ticket to Easy Street."

Adam laughed. Rachelle's family owned several car dealerships in the area. She was the only one of the entire group who didn't need a job or outrageous student loans to survive.

Mary and Shelly came in a few seconds later, followed by Walt, who was loaded down with grocery bags – a lot of grocery bags. Adam glanced the girls, who carried nothing and shook his head.

"Oh, you finally showed up did you, you rat-faced prick," Walt said as he dropped his burden on the kitchen floor.

"Uh, was I supposed to be somewhere?" Adam asked. He started to rummage through his backpack for his cell phone where he kept his appointments.

"No," Walt said. "But you've been home by 11:45 every Wednesday morning for seven freakin' months. Seven freakin' months I could set my watch by your arrival on our doorstep. The one day I need you home by 11:45, you let me down. So we had to tote all this shit on the bus."

"Sorry," Adam said. Since he was usually low on cash, he let his roommates borrow his car almost anytime they wanted to – even if it meant him taking the bus. They didn't abuse the fact, which Adam appreciated, and it made him feel better about sometimes being slow to contribute his share of the food money.

"I stopped by Talbert's on the way to my dorm," Shelly said. "They were having a one-day meat sale. I mean, chicken breasts were a dollar a pound. So I called here to get Walt and Mary to help me pick out what we needed. Walt bet Mary you would be home by noon so he had to carry everything up the hill."

"He was out on a date with our neighbor," Sean said with a smirk. "You know, Ashley Malibu, our neighbor. She lives across the road from us."

Shelly slapped the table.

"I knew she looked familiar," she said triumphantly. "I ride the bus with her. She lives right over there on the bottom floor."

She pointed out the window to where Adam knew that Allie lived.

"Her name is Allie," Shelly continued. "She is really sweet. The first time I met her, she let me share her umbrella. She is just a tiny thing, smaller than I am even. Damn. And you went on a date with her? Isn't a conflict of interest or something."

She grinned at Adam to let him know she was joking. Then Shelly laughed aloud.

"I was going to try to get her to come over to visit right after Christmas," she said with a smirk. "I thought she might like our boy Adam. Guess I was right about that, huh?"

Adam chuckled and started to respond when Rachelle cut him off.

"That's what we were just talking about," she told the room at large. "Sean and I think he should invite her over sometime, you know, to get to know everyone."

"How about tonight?" Mary asked eagerly.

"I have class tonight," Adam replied. Mary waved her hand dismissively.

"So what?" she asked and stuck her tongue out. "We don't want to watch a performance. We just want to meet her. We don't need you for anything."

"I want to watch a performance," Shelly said. All eyes turned to her, including Adam's.

"What?" she said defensively. "I think it would be cool. I could go and check out how things work for myself. I mean, I've gotten to see how they set things up for a major motion picture and for a smaller budget film. I just want to see if it is any different. I mean, come on, the lighting in some of those scenes is horrific. Ashley Malibu's handjob scene was so dark you could barely see her."

"Her what?" Mary asked.

"'Handjob Hotties, '" Shelly said without embarrassment. "It's this really gross site where the girl jerks off two fat guys and they shoot on her tits. It's the same guys who do 'Hidden Treasures' and 'Swallow Your Pride.'"

Mary looked at Adam with an incredulous expression.

"Our little girl is growing up so fast," she said. "Look what you've turned her into."

Shelly gave Mary the finger and plugged a flash drive into the laptop in her bag. She clicked on an icon and Adam saw the girl he had just had lunch with sitting topless on a couch in a dingy room. Shelly was right, the lighting was bad.

"Sahara said she was doing a shoot for these guys when I talked to her that night," Shelly announced. "I wanted to see if had been posted yet but it's not there. She is one of the preview girls, though. Ashley is previewed on all three of them, so she must have stuck around. I guess it wouldn't be too bad. I mean, they only fuck her once. The other is blowjob and this is handjob."

Mary's incredulous expression spread to the rest of the room.

"What are you talking about?" Eric asked as he returned from his afternoon class – or wherever he spent his afternoons.

"Handjobs, creampies and blowjobs," Shelly said with a piercing look at her boyfriend. "Oh, and inviting our neighbor over to visit and me going to a shoot with Adam."

"What!?" Eric exploded. "There is no way in hell you're going to porn shoot! I won't allow it."

Shelly laughed and shook her head.

"Like you could stop me," she said with an edge of menace to her voice. "Look, Eric, I wanted to wait until Break started next week but let's not. I'm tired of you thinking you decide where I go and what I do. I'm tired of you skipping out whenever Tanya Reed visits so you can bang her at the Super 8 by the airport. I'm tired of listening to you lie about how well your classes are going and what sort of grades you're getting. You haven't been to a class since the second week of the semester. I don't know where you go or who you do when you leave here and, really, I've stopped caring.

"Why do you think I don't spend the nights here anymore? It isn't because I don't like this group or even because I'm embarrassed to share a room with Sean and Rachelle. It's because I don't like you. The only reason I still pretended to be your girlfriend is so I wouldn't put our friends in an awkward spot. So, there, it's said. By the way, I'm staying for summer classes – and I know you won't be allowed back next semester – so you and Tanya no longer have to sneak around. You never did, really. I would have been happy to get rid of you at any time in the last four or five months. Well, since Christmas anyway."

Eric's mouth dropped and his roommates exchanged glances. Everyone's budget – particularly Adam's – was based on having four people share the apartment. Each one paid $600 a month for rent, $80 for utilities and $120 for food. Losing a fourth roommate – even if Eric wasn't someone they were particularly fond of – would hurt. It would bump their contributions up $250 each.

"Were you planning to tell us?" Sean asked. He didn't doubt for a moment that Shelly was telling the truth. "About moving out. I don't give a rat's ass who you fuck but it's pretty shitty to treat Shelly that way."

Eric's face was red – with embarrassment and anger.

"Yeah," he said. "I was going to tell you when it was official. I dropped out, OK. I missed a quiz in a couple of classes the first week and I couldn't catch up. I withdrew in the grace period and got my tuition back. Even if I came back, I probably wasn't going to live here. In fact, I'm going to pack my shit and head home now. There is no reason to put off hitting my dad up for a job."

"And Tanya's there," Shelly chimed. "Tell your Mom I said I'm sorry. Or lie to her like you always do and let her think it's all my fault. I'm sure my Mom will believe it was anyway, no matter what you tell them."

She turned to Adam.

"So, you can pick me up at the dorm whenever you want in the morning," she said. "I'm free until 2."

Adam pinched his nose and watched as Eric shot him a dirty look from the hallway.

"I'm picking up Sarah at 7," he said. "Allie and I are leaving here at 6. Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, I don't know the people we're going to see. You might run into some really creepy people there. Allie said they'll shoot a half dozen scenes tomorrow. I mean, Tate, the guy who called me, said his company has a dozen web sites. So you might see something that you really don't want to see."

"Like your cock," Mary said with a chuckle.

"Oh, I want to see that," Shelly said, looking first Mary and then Adam right in the eye. "The fact that I want to see it is why I haven't invited our neighbor over for a visit."

She continued to look at Adam.

"Just so you know," she said with a shrug.

Adam stopped at Allie's before he left for class to see if she wanted to drive him so she could use his car for the evening. She told him she appreciated the offer – and gave him a soft kiss on the cheek to confirm that – but she said she had to prepare for the next day's shoot.

"Prepare?" Adam asked.

"Well, you know," she said with a slight blush. "I have to shave and douche and stuff. Make sure I don't have zits on my ass or my back. They won't be noticeable on the video but they will probably show up on the stills."

"Stills?" Adam wondered.

She chuckled.

"They'll take about 10 or 20 minutes to take pictures of us," she told him. "Each video on the site has a picture set to go with it. We'll do all the things we'll do in the shoot but the lighting will be much better."

Allie shrugged.

"I'll make sure you're in good shape for it," she said. "The director will know you haven't been in long and he'll either set things up or allow me to call the shots. Are you OK if I decide when we change positions and what we do? Some guys get really shitty about that."

"Oh, sure," Adam said. "That is no problem. Just let me know what we should be doing."

"Sarah said she gave you prompts without you really knowing what she was doing," Allie confirmed. "Or if you knew you didn't bitch and whine about it. Uh, you don't get into slapping or choking do you? I don't really enjoy that but I'll do it if you want."

Adam made a face.

"No, I can honest say I have no desire to slap you or choke you," Adam replied. "I mean, not now, not there and not ever."

Allie smiled and nodded.

"How about gagging?" she said. "You know, throat fucking? I'll check during the stills to see if I can throat you. But if you're as wide as you say, I don't think I'll be able to. But you can throat fuck me a little if it helps you get off."

"Is that where the guy grabs the girl's head and jams his dick in her mouth as far as he can get it?" Adam asked.

Allie nodded.

"If I were to do that, we wouldn't need to get off because I would probably go as limp as a noodle," he said with a shake of his head. "I saw that happen last week and I almost lost my breakfast. I was a bit worried the poor girl was going to lose hers right there on the floor. She had tears running down her cheek, snot dripping in her mouth and drool all over her chest. It was not a pleasant sight."

Allie laughed and put her hand on his.

"It is not a pleasant feeling," she said. "I've had it happen a few times. The last time, I couldn't talk the next day. I had a bruise on my neck for almost a week from the guy choking me. I won't work with that guy anymore. Listen, I don't want you to think I thought you were like that. But a lot of people are different when they get their clothes off. I have gotten into the habit of making sure the guy understands I don't enjoy any of that stuff beforehand but I guess it doesn't matter sometimes.

"There is a whole side industry of hard stuff like that. Women getting spanked. Hell, women getting beaten with a fucking whip or a cane. Guys pissing on girls. Girls pissing on each other. Girls getting huge things shoved up their asses then showing the camera how wide they can gape their hole. Girls getting fisted in their cunts and in their assholes. It's gross."

"I'm finding out more and more of that sort of stuff," Adam confirmed. "The couple of pictures I saw from 'Handjob Hotties, ' were those stills?"

"They were different," Ashley said. "Those guys have someone there taking pictures during the shoot. What you saw were things that will actually be on the video when it is released."

"It was released today, I think," Adam said. "At least I saw it this afternoon."

Allie smirked.

"Why, Adam, you do not seem like the porn-surfing type," she said. "In fact, if you wanted to watch me do that, I might have given you a close-up performance this afternoon."

She thought for a moment.

"Actually, I wouldn't have," she said after consideration. "I had a nice, normal afternoon with a nice, normal guy. Sure, the guy is going to screw my lights out in the morning – I hope – but it would have cheapened this afternoon if we had done that."

"I agree," Adam said. "You know, I don't think of Sarah and Sahara in the same way. Just like I see Allie and Ashley as different people. I hope that doesn't make me weird. But I hope you understand that Derrick Driller and Adam Walters are entirely dissimilar. In fact, Adam Walters would have been greatly embarrassed if you had offered something like that and he would have been too awkward to suggest anything that might lead to something like that."

Allie pulled Adam into a slight hug – difficult because of the disparity in their heights.

"That's a nice way of putting things," she said. "I really don't act like Ashley Malibu. I mean, sure, I like sex. But I don't like the sort of sex that you find on the internet. I like the sort where I can spend an hour teasing and getting teased. I like the sort where we cuddle up next to each other and go to sleep afterward, not get showered and dressed and on to our next appointment."

"You would be a terrible mistress then," Adam said lightly.

"Oh, an occasional bout of afternoon delight isn't bad," Allie said. "But it not something I want to do every time or even every day."

Adam glanced at his watch and sighed. He had a class to attend but he was still enjoying talking with Allie.

"I know, I know," she said. "You get me all riled up with talk of teasing me for an hour then run off. Typical guy."

Chapter 7 »