Intro

It was one month and thirteen days before my birthday. I wasn’t normally one for counting down to holidays—especially when they were personal—but this was a special one, my thirtieth. So far, anticipating it was turning out to be a lot like waiting for a tab of acid to hit; one by one, as my peers experienced the customary thirty-year-old freak-out, I patiently waited for my turn. With every moody period day, I wondered: Is this is it—am I feeling it? Is this the beginning stage? Is this when I start to panic about my age? I think I’m feeling it! But as every period ended, I realized no, this was not it. I was still stone-cold sober.

For as long as I could remember, I’d known with absolute certainty that turning thirty came with a whole show of dramatics. Knowing this was like knowing the earth is round. On television, in the movies, there was always the girl on her birthday, crying because nothing had gone according to plan, crying because her boyfriend had not proposed, crying because of, well, just the overall pressure of being a real-life adult. It had been ingrained in me, the idea of the thirty-year-old’s panic attack. Whenever someone asked me my age, I found myself automatically saying something like “I can’t believe I’m about to be thirty. That’s so crazy.”

The truth was, it didn’t feel crazy at all. I almost—no, absolutely—wished it did. It was what I’d been expecting. Sometimes I would try to force myself to think of all the things I thought I’d have by this age but didn’t: a child, a primary care physician, a credit card. I’d close my eyes and concentrate on thoughts like: My mom was already pregnant with me at this age. Biggie had already been dead for seven years when his thirtieth birthday came around. I didn’t think I’d be thirty with Hello Kitty stickers still on my phone. I didn’t think I’d be thirty and still be watching Teen Mom; grownups didn’t do that! And certainly, I didn’t think I’d be thirty and still be using the word “grownup.”

That weekend, we were in Philly: Me, Jay, Mike. They were brothers, guys I had known since I was nineteen years old. I met them when I was waitressing at an underground poker club in New York City—these guys had known me since my boobs were real. Since before I had worked in the adult industry, in any capacity. Since I had still lived at home with my parents. Since before I was married, the first time. Now, whenever I had a feature-dance gig on the East Coast, I had them drive up from New York City to help me. It’s not a glamorous job, helping me on the road—it’s all staying in cheap hotels, counting dirty singles, making sure I don’t get raped during lap dances. It’s a job that pays alright, but it’s not like they needed the money. I like to tell myself they’re in it more for the intangible compensation of their old friend’s company.

We were sitting around the table in my dressing room. Dressing room. A term I’d come to use very lightly. It’s rare that a strip club has an official room solely dedicated to housing the feature performer. There were no “green rooms” in the feature dancing world. One time, a club just put me in a spare bathroom; I sat on the toilet to strap my heels on before going onstage. Tonight, we were lucky: They had given us a nice “champagne” room to use. Nice. Another word I’d come to use lightly. If you ever get the chance to go into a champagne room with the lights on, I strongly suggest you don’t take it. It will make you question why a place like a strip club would decide on fabric upholstery.

The guys were counting the singles I had just made onstage, while I looked at my phone while wearing nothing but a towel, my feet crossed on the table. We probably looked like a scene out of some gangster movie, only with much smaller denominations of money. I scrolled through my Twitter feed.

“Oh shit!” I sat up, stomping my six-inch heels on the floor. “The AVN nominations are up.”

I scanned through the list looking for my name. I found it a few times: best anal scene, best solo scene, best website...

I couldn’t fucking believe it. Squinting my eyes, I looked at the list again—maybe I had missed something—using my finger, pointing at each name, making sure it was not mine. I did this four times before giving up.

For the first time in five years, I was not nominated for performer of the year.

I looked up to see that the guys were finished counting the singles.

“Well? How’d you do?” Jay asked.

“I’m up for a bunch,” I casually answered, not wanting to seem like I cared. “Except for performer. It’s fine though, I mean I already won it two years ago—plus, it’s not fair if a contract star gets nominated for it anyway. The other girls work way more. Like, I really don’t care,” I said way too fast.

“Cool,” Mike answered. The guys knew me well enough to know that I was lying. That I did care. That I felt like shit. They also knew me well enough to know that discussing it would only make it worse. Pretending he needed to go do something, Mike left the room. Jay soon followed, mumbling that he was thirsty. Silently, I thanked them—I was sure my pride could not have continued the conversation further.

I didn’t always care about the awards. My third year into porn, my date to AVN was the original Gonzo Queen herself, Jenna Haze. As we got our makeup done for the show in her hotel room, I distinctly remember being shocked at how nervous she seemed, unable to sit still in the chair—she was Jenna Haze, a huge star by then, winner of dozens of awards, one of the biggest names in porn ever.

“I’m so nervous!” Jenna had squealed, gripping the armrests on the makeup chair. “I just want to win one. Once I win one, I’ll be fine.”

Did she know these were just porn awards? Winning an award in porn, wasn’t that like being the tallest midget? Did it really matter so much? Without saying anything, I silently judged her as she lost cool points in my mind. It’s that classic thing about meeting your idols: They become real human beings, with real insecurities and personality flaws.

That night, I won my first award. It was for best double penetration scene, which had been my first DP, ever. And then I won for best anal. And then best lesbian three-way. I won five awards total that night.

And I came to understand Jenna’s love of winning.

The next year, I was the same nervous wreck Jenna had been. I even repeated the exact phrase I had found so ridiculous twelve months ago: “I just want to win one. Once I win one, I’ll be fine.” I had tasted the fruit, I wanted more. Only, rather than fruit, it was more like an illegal controlled substance—I craved more. I was genuinely crushed when I didn’t win performer of the year, despite winning seven other awards that night, the most of any performer.

Finally winning performer of the year the year after that was one of the best moments of my life, but it followed a nervous breakdown in my hotel room while waiting for the show to start. And the year after that, when I won a mere total of one award, my only consolation was the two cheeseburgers I ate alone, in silence, in my hotel room after the show.

When Jay and Mike came back to the dressing/“champagne” room in time for my next stage show, I was still sitting in the same spot, chain-smoking. They were kind enough to not mention anything, only ordering me to get dressed to go onstage.

The rest of the night, I was on autopilot. I went on stage, shook my ass, met fans, gave lapdances, didn’t get raped (thanks Jay and Mike!), and went back to the hotel.

I texted Dee after I got out of the shower.

How much longer do you think I can be in porn?

She wrote back immediately: Are you asking ’cause we are now 30?

Holy shit. I realized that, like everything else in my life, my version of the thirty-year-old panic attack was the porno version. Was it over for me? Was I officially a MILF now? Were people no longer interested in seeing my gaping asshole?

What if my problem wasn’t that I wasn’t peaking yet—what if my problem was that I had peaked too soon?

It got me to thinking that, if anything, I felt I’d done too much to be only thirty. I’d had two abortions, which was just about the most shameful thing in my life. One was perfectly excusable, every girl is entitled to it—mistakes happen, and you learn from them. But two? Come on, get your shit together, stop telling so many guys to cum in you. I’d been to jail, survived a minor opiate addiction. I’d contracted countless STDs, had more boyfriends than Lindsay Lohan, and fucked so many guys that my body count was an (extremely rough) estimate. I’d been married in Vegas (twice)! I’d been divorced once. I’d stripped, shot porn, worked in a dungeon, even hooked a couple of times. Worst of all, I’d smoked cigarettes for over ten years, and even though I said I’d quit, I was still smoking when at parties, on vacation, on set, and pretty much just around people in general. On paper, I was Patty and Selma from the—At least fifty years old, and that was being nice.

With one question, Dee had given me the best birthday gift: my customary thirty-year-old freak-out.