Undead L.A. 2 (14 page)

“I assure you there will not be any weird stuff,” Benjamin cajoled, his voice straining slightly as he did his best to hide his annoyance. He wasn't the kind of man used to having to ask twice, and Samantha took pleasure in his obvious frustration. She knew Benjamin secretly wanted to join her long list of lovers, but she'd never given him the satisfaction, insisting they keep things professional instead. She made him so much money he had no choice but to accept things on her terms, and she used that to her advantage every single chance she got.
 

“Fine,” she finally agreed. “Where do I go and what should I wear?”

“I'll have a driver come pick you up,” Benjamin offered, sounding more than a little relieved.
 

“No,” she countered. “I want to drive myself, in case something goes wrong. I'm not waiting for an Uber in the freezing cold at three in the morning if this guy decides he wants me to bottle feed him with a dildo up his ass. Besides, I just got a new Benz and I wanna take it out.”

A short argument ensued, but Benjamin quickly relented when he realized he couldn't win. An hour later she'd met her mystery man with no name at his suite. There was very little talking and absolutely no weird stuff, just as she was promised. Samantha was relieved to discover her lover for the night was simply a huge fan with the wealth and means to live out his greatest fantasy. On top of all that he was a better than average lover, bringing her to climax twice with his mouth and once with his lovemaking. She'd fallen asleep around three in the morning, not a dildo or a pacifier in sight, feeling more content than she had in years.

Now if I can just get my things and sneak out,
she thought. She hated spending the night because no matter how well things went she always found it awkward saying goodbye in the light of the next day. By then all the fantasies had been played out and there was a level of familiarity between her and her clients that usually made her skin crawl, even with the famous ones.
 

Especially with the famous ones,
she thought.
Guess I'm just no good at the walk of shame.

She heard the shower start. She knew she'd have a minute before her Middle Eastern friend came back out. She climbed out of the bed and made a quick sweep of the room. There was nothing she could take, not without him noticing. She threw open the curtains and stared down at the pool, hoping her nakedness would shock someone. A jumbo jet flew overhead towards LAX. Down by the pool several people relaxed in the warm sun of the early day. None of them looked up at her. Her phone vibrated incessantly in the sheets. She picked it up and flipped it over to see who it was, but discovered the number had been blocked. She answered it anyway.

“Hello?”

“Oh God baby, you have no idea how good it is to hear your voice,” a man gushed.
 

“Who is this?” It came out harsher than she meant it to sound.
 

“That's what you have to say to me? I've been locked up for months in this shit hole, my whole life is hanging by a thread right now, and the one woman I love asks me who I am when I go through the trouble of sneaking a cellphone into prison? Nice, Sam.”

“Joshua? How are you calling me?”

“I told you,” he said, sounding more confident now that she knew who he was. “I had a guard smuggle a burner cellphone to me hidden inside a burrito. Well actually, the gang I joined did, but same difference. Do you miss me, baby?”

“You know I do,” she said, her head suddenly clouded with a mix of emotions. “But I'm mad at you, too.”

“Mad at me? What the hell for?”

“Are you kidding me right now?” She started pacing around the room naked, lighting a cigarette and taking in deep puffs.
 

“I'm the one on trial for my life,” he droned. “You should have my back.”

“Josh, they found you in a hotel room with Jenna's dead body,” Sam countered. “So what's your excuse for that?”

“You know I didn't kill her,” he protested. “It was an accident. She wanted to be choked out, but she didn't tell me she was on pills at the time. Even the coroners report showed that she didn't die of asphyxiation.”

“Fuck you! Never mind that she was my friend,” Samantha cried, her voice dripping with indignation. “You told me you were committed to me, that we were going to make it work. I quit doing side work because of you. I deleted all of our text messages so no one would find out. You told me you weren't seeing her anymore and the next thing I know I wake up and you're all over the news. I've been watching the trial, you know. I saw you crying and telling everyone you're in love with her. What am I supposed to think?”

“That was the lawyer's idea,” Joshua cooed, trying to calm her down. “She told me I needed to look sympathetic to the jury. Look—we're freaks, baby. You go to work and fuck other people every single day. I never judged you for it. We're just built differently than other people. You know damn well that normal people aren't going to understand our lifestyle. I've got the NFL all over me right now as well. I'm acting, just like you do when you do a scene for Brazzers or Digital Playground. It's no different.”

“That doesn't explain why you took her to the Marmonte in the first place, does it?”

“I didn't,” he yelled. “She was at the hotel bar. She told me she was staying there. I didn't ask why. We were drinking and reminiscing and I don't know, one thing led to another.”

“They said you were high on painkillers too, you know,” Samantha cut him off. “I read all about it on TMZ.”

“I wasn't on painkillers,” he said pleadingly. “Just the stuff my sports therapist prescribed me for my pulled hamstring.”

“So why did you take her up to your room? Why didn't you go to hers if she was staying there? You should have known people would be watching you. Fuck, if you love me so much why did you wanna fuck her again anyway?”

“You weren't talking to me at the time,” he shot back. “Remember? You were mad that I missed your birthday party when we got snowed in after the game in Buffalo.”

“No. I was mad because you were acting like we were still a secret,” she fired back. “Now I have to read about how you never meant to hurt Jenna and how you two were getting back together and she was the love of your life every time I turn on the news? Jesus! You're such a pig. You know that?”

“Fuck me. I'm not perfect, Sam,” he sighed, sounding tired for the first time, “but I'm also not a fucking murderer, so would you cut me some fucking slack.”

“So what do you want me to do?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I just want you to hear my side of the story before you convict me like the media did. They're handing down the verdict later today. I'm being moved back to the courthouse in the next hour. I'll be out by the end of the day. You are the first person I wanna see, baby.”

“You're assuming a whole lot,” Samantha informed him. “And what if they find you guilty?”

“They won't,” he said, the cocky attitude he normally had returning to his voice with full force. “I've got the best lawyer money can buy and if she says I'm gonna walk, I believe her. I've gotta go. Guards are coming. Call you later.”

He hung up without warning. Samantha quickly dressed and slipped out of the room, making sure not to leave a trace of herself. She was in the elevator heading back towards valet parking when the phone rang again. It was Benjamin.

“How did it go?”

“Surprisingly well,” she admitted. “I'm just headed home now to clean up and get some...”

“Cancel that,” he ordered, abruptly cutting her off. “I just booked you on a feature. I need you to head to set right away.”

“I've been up half the night,” she protested. “Besides, with traffic this time of day it would take me two hours to get back to the Valley.”

“They're not shooting in the Valley,” Benjamin assured her. “David Lord had a last minute cancellation on his big show. Turns out you were his first choice for the part anyway. They're shooting near the 3
^rd
street bridge on Figueroa.”

Samantha didn't have to ask who the shoot was for. She knew all about it. David Lord was filming Raw Blue for Hive Mind. It was all anybody could talk about for months. The company was new, but they paid well and got lots of attention for their online stunts, like offering celebrities millions to perform in sex tapes. They'd come up by stealing other people's content and using it to drive unprecedented amounts of traffic to their tube sites featuring the free porn, making a killing in ad revenue in the process. When a lawyer for one of the adult companies would file a complaint, they'd simply take down the clip and put it back up under another fake user name, forcing the lawyers to start the process all over again. Between them and the torrent sites, the industry had been devastated. The only companies capable of surviving had big money cable distribution deals in place, or their own mail order catalog, or at the very least owned stores they could directly place new product in. Many of the smaller companies vanished overnight. Soon there was less and less quality new movie clips to use for their sites, which ended up causing a loss in traffic. Hive Mind had become a victim of its own evil success. That's when the owners got the brilliant idea to simply buy up the bigger named companies they'd helped to destroy. Porn company owners were so happy to have a way out they sold their once profitable empires for pennies on the dollar.
 

Instead of shunning them for nearly demolishing the adult entertainment industry, those who remained in the business wholeheartedly embraced their new overlords. The fact that they paid much higher rates than the guys who used to run production didn't hurt. They could afford it. Raw Blue was going to be their first million-dollar movie. They were shooting both an adult version and a less explicit mainstream style for release on premium cable, Blu-ray, and streaming download. After the success of Pirates, by Digital Playground, catapulted their contract stars into mainstream roles on HBO and Showtime practically every girl that fucked on camera for a living had been dreaming of the day another company would take the risk to make another crossover movie. Considering the sharp nosedive things in smut production had taken economically over the previous years, it was starting to look like the glory days were long gone. Raw Blue was set to change all of that.

The plot was a direct knockoff of the movie “Training Day,” with the older cop being played by seasoned male porn performer Stephen St. Thomas, and the young rookie being played by Hive Mind's newest contract star, Jezzabella. Virtually every other big name girl currently working in the business was starring in it—if not as a main character like Bonnie Rotten, cast to play the bad girl in the barrio, then as a stripper in the orgy finale. Somehow Cherry Haze hadn't made the list. At first she thought Benjamin was teasing her, but her playful laughter soon turned to shrill anger as he did his best to convince her that it was no mistake.

“I don't know what to tell you, love,” Benjamin offered. “You must have pissed off someone in their production department.”

“That's fucking ridiculous,” Samantha roared, but in the back of her mind she knew it wasn't, not at all. Hive Mind had wanted to sign her but she'd turned them down, being used to having her independence and being able to work with whichever directors she wanted. Being a contract girl wasn't what it used to be back when girls got paid big money and called their own shots. These days, companies treated you like they owned you—like you were their property. They wanted way too many scenes for not nearly enough money and girls didn't have a say over the actors they worked with, much less who was directing. Then they wanted you to do store signings as part of your monthly fee, and events, and sometimes meet with distributors and go out on dates. She'd even heard Hive Mind was interested in taking over girls’ websites, trademarking their names and owning their social media sites as well.

No one is going to tell me who I fuck
, she thought.
Ever
.
 

Despite the general public's opinion of the industry, there were tons of great people in it—including several amazing male performers she'd gotten close to in the last year, guys like Mickey. By contrast there were only a handful of bad apples, sickos, and psychos, guys who got off hurting girls and thought nothing of slapping them around—both in and out of the bedroom. The trouble was, it seemed like the bad guys got a lot more attention than the good ones. Worse still, there were some male performers who saw nothing wrong with secretly moonlighting as gay escorts between scenes, or barebacking with shemales in their personal lives, or shooting junk and sharing needles with their scummy friends.

Not to mention I'd never give anyone that much control again,
she thought.
If I could go back and do it all again I'd never even have signed with Benjamin.
 

She'd made her opinion of their offer clear. When Benjamin told her they weren't casting her in Raw Blue she just assumed it was karma coming back to bite her in the ass in the most predictable way. Her curiosity was getting the better of her and she had to know why.

“What's the job?” she asked, stepping out of the elevator and getting her ticket ready for the valet.

“You'll be taking over for Jezzabella,” he informed her. “They're paying your full rate. I moved a couple of jobs on your schedule already since they'll be shooting over two weeks.”

“Who are my guys? Who would I be working with?”

“St. Thomas,” Benjamin said. “He's already cast. The other is open. David said he'd let you pick. He's partial to using Derrick Pierce or Tommy Gunn. I told him you like working with both.”

“What happened to Jezzabella?”

“She quit,” Benjamin said.
 

“What?” The valet brought her car up and she slipped in, handing him a rolled up twenty dollar bill. She shut the door and activated the Bluetooth, slipping her cell into the center console. “Why would she quit this gig?”

“Look I don't have all day to gossip with you,” Benjamin said testily. “I have to call them back and tell them yes or no. A million dollar budget is riding on this. Are you in?”