“Dude, it’s fine,” Corey said. “We’re in fucking Jamaica. This is our last week of filming.”
The long tour bus lumbered down the dilapidated dirt road like a frog jumping from electrified toadstool to electrified toadstool. Every pothole and trash heap and who-knew-what-else in our path caused our eight-wheeled mammoth to sink and lunge every few seconds, sending the thirty passengers several inches above our seats before dropping us back into them.
I was sitting in the second to last row, with two very comfortable seats all to myself. In the twenty rows ahead of me sat an exotic and colorful assortment of people, half of whom were treating the bus ride like a singles’ beach party, while the other half slept with heads shoved under pillows and jackets. Big bearded guys in bandanas, shorts, and sunglasses, who looked like they should have been touring with the Allman Brothers Band were happily sipping beers in their seats and making conversation with a handful of very attractive blondes in bathing suits. Half a dozen guys in cargo shorts and sleeveless tees were rooting through duffel bags, coiling loose wires, and finessing pieces of camera equipment under dim overhead lights. A brunette lowered the business section of her New York Times and flashed two of the bikers her breasts. Then a couple of well-dressed older white men glanced around at their travelmates from behind thin, expensive reading glasses before shrugging them off and returning to their briefcases and Blackberries.
We were a strange, diversified crew in that bus, vaguely resembling a modern-day Shakespearian troupe traveling to our next destination. And paired with the camera equipment stacked everywhere and lights and microphones poking dangerously up from between rows of seats, we could have easily passed for a contemporary, soon-to-be-televised performance of Hamlet coming to a town near you—had the Bard dabbled in pornographic themes, that is.
Corey was a gregarious 24-year-old production manager that I had been traveling with for the past couple of months. He had commandeered the entire row behind me, and he passed ahead a wrinkled joint from between the headrests dividing us—its orange lit end illuminating his nose and brow in the darkness. The perplexed expression on my face must have spoken volumes once its pumpkin glow got close enough to me.
“But the producers, they’re right there. They’ll smell it, man,” I explained as the joint crept closer to my lips. Corey and I had already gotten stoned together in a dozen different hotel rooms across the United States, but this was the first time we were doing it in the company of the entire film crew, on a crowded bus, in a country that wasn’t our own. Plus, this was my first big writing job and I didn’t want to toss away a “Head Writer” title in the closing credits of an actual television show by getting busted smoking a doobie in the back of a bus like some 1970s movie with Matt Dillon in it.
“They’re already blazing one up there!” He pointed down the aisle to the midsection of the bus, where a joint was being circulated between the rows. “Just chill, dude. This is the last week of the job. It’s time to party.”
So I took Corey’s advice and drew in my 1, 2 … 3 puffs and passed the joint across the aisle to Steven, the other, older, less-likable production manager. When I turned back to say thanks, Corey wiggled another lit joint at me through the headrests.
“Send this one forward when you’re finished,” he advised, both hands diligently rolling a third joint in his lap. “They’ll meet halfway.”
“Like lovers at midnight,” I added, and I was glad when he pretended not to hear it. I plucked the joint from his fingers just as the first three puffs slowly crept up on me. That was the problem with really good weed: It took a couple of minutes before it completely hit you, and then it was usually too late—too late to realize that you were going to be fucked for the next hour or two.
But I did as Corey suggested—took my 1, 2 … 3 puffs—and passed the thick, smoldering stick through the headrests to the willing fingers and turned face of the guy in the row ahead of me. I watched it slowly handed from seat to seat, lips to lips, row to row, until those two joints did meet near the halfway mark. And then Corey’s third joint wiggled between the headrests at me, so I took my puffs and passed it to the row across the aisle from me. How in the hell Corey got that much pot in the two hours between landing in Kingston, Jamaica, and driving here to bum-fuck Jamaica, I had no idea.
It took about eight minutes of staring out the window to realize it, but I was as stoned as an Iranian adulterer. I now possessed a perfect clarity, where I could finally absorb the lyrics of the songs on the Bob Marley album that had been blasting throughout the bus since this journey began 40 miles ago. It became so clear to me then. I am not going to worry about a thing, and every little thing really is going to be alright. The rattling bus began to feel like the Millennium Falcon going through that meteor storm right after its warp speed got fucked up, and the sights zipping by my window were at times both haunting and mystifying—splashes of third-world images briefly hitting the glass then disappearing forever; fleeting moments like windblown pages of a National Geographic magazine passing before the eyes. In the black of that Jamaican midnight, a shoeless farmer shepherded three sheep along a dirt path using only a twig to pat them with; a small, very vertical home made from nothing but front doors; a desolate town with darkened store fronts and wind theatrically whipping papers and trash across the ground. And the final memorable sight of that bleak three-hour bus ride before reaching humanity was an open-faced shack, maybe six feet high and wide, made from spare pieces of aluminum siding. It sat barren in the weeds and high grass about 30 feet from the road, and was surprisingly well lit against the backdrop of the surrounding blackness. As we sped by, I could see three barstools and a makeshift counter inside, a couple of liquor bottles behind the vacant bartender. And on top of the aluminum shack was a large plank of wood, most likely a found front door, set up like a billboard to the street. And crudely spray-painted in red letters atop this large plank of wood was its enticing name: MEAT N TINGS.
We finally reached the walled and well-guarded compound that was also known as Whispers, the world-famous, all-inclusive, clothing-optional, hedonism-friendly resort. Once past the 10-foot concrete barriers and inside the lively vacation spot, Jamaica was completely different—it was exactly what one pictured Jamaica to look like. Young white women were walking around in skimpy bathing suits and talking on cell phones, palm trees swayed above warm breezes, and middle-aged couples drunkenly laughed and sipped cocktails from the ledges of pools. I could see the white sand of a beach not more than a stone’s throw from the lobby, with small sailboats swaying in its mild current and patches of tropical jungle at either side. It was a paradise.
It took about 30 minutes before we unloaded the last piece of equipment and luggage from the bus, and after the production assistants checked in and handed everyone their hotel keycards, we all scattered off to find our rooms. The “talent” was going to be arriving the following morning, and our first day of filming would begin shortly thereafter—but up until that moment, it was just me, a hotel room, and Jamaica.
I passed two Olympic-size swimming pools, a Jacuzzi, and two outdoor cabana bars before reaching the building where my room was. This resort was so large that they had eight two-story complexes filled with hotel rooms of varying sizes and costs. I was pleased to discover that my room had a nice large queen-size bed, dining table, TV, and even mirrors on the ceiling. I was going to be calling this place my home for the next nine days, so I unpacked my bags and set up my laptop and printer—the traveling office—on the table.
I made it to the outdoor bar I had passed earlier and took a seat at one of the frilly stools next to a heavyset woman in her 60s. She sensed me next to her and turned to face me, her large, sagging, tanned breasts resting merrily at both sides of her belly.
“Good evening,” I said.
“It sure could be,” she replied.
“I’m going to have a drink now.”
She raised her margarita to me, took a sip, and turned back in the other direction. That was a very smooth transaction, I commented to myself—a clean, friendly rejection of her not-so-subtle advances. I was quite proud of myself because, put a few drinks in me, and there stood a very good chance I would be apologizing for my rudeness and playing hide-the-finger with grandma in one of the nearby Jacuzzis. Because that’s how I roll when I have drinks.
A smiling bartender appeared from the other side of the counter. He was wearing a fancy yellow short-sleeve and short-bottomed suit, kind of like an antique stage monkey minus the little music box.
“What can I get for you, sahr?” he asked in the type of thick Jamaican accent you only hear in movies. “We have margaritas, daiquiris, wine, and beer, sahr.”
“How about a daiquiri. Yeah, let’s do a daiquiri.”
“Very good, sahr,” he said, already pouring my drink from a premade batch in the blender. My natural reaction was to pull out my wallet, but he waved away my effort and reminded me, “This is an all-inclusive resort, sahr. You need no money for nothing.”
I gulped most of the daiquiri down. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’ll take a recharge since you’ve still got the pitcher in your hand.” He filled my plastic cup again. It took yet one more daiquiri before I got up the nerve to ask this complete stranger if he knew where I could buy some pot.
“Ah, the ganja, mon! Of course, mon!” His face lit up and he fumbled under the bar for something. He pulled up a wrinkled brown lunch bag and slid his hand inside. “How much you want, mon?”
“I guess this doesn’t fall under the ‘all-inclusive’ part?”
“No, mon. This is my own private harvest.”
I opened my wallet and pulled out a ten and a five. I let him see it then cupped the money in my hand and slid it across the bar to him as slyly as possible. Being a city toker like I was, you learned to make these sorts of transactions as covertly as possible, especially when doing it across a counter with the bartender. But apparently things were much different in Jamaica; the bartender made no effort whatsoever to conceal the two huge green buds he pulled out from the bag. He raised them to the overhead floodlight and pointed out the purple strands and microscopic crystals as he rotated them from front to back for me. They were two meaty stalks of the Indica variety, each nearly as long and thick as a Cuban cigar, and probably worth about $150 back in the States. I tucked them into my shorts pocket and patted them through the fabric every couple of minutes to make sure they hadn’t fallen out while reaching for a cigarette.
When the drinks are free, it’s difficult to pull me away. It’s not really a matter of alcoholism in so much as it’s about getting something for free, and getting my fair share of that free something. My dad always said I had died penniless in a previous life. But, in my defense, the daiquiris were quite small, not a sip over 8 ounces. That’s how I justified having six of them in those first 30 minutes.
I was readying myself to go back to my room when a flash of platinum blonde hair appeared beside me, then two large T-shirted breasts leaned over the bar. I recognized those fake tits, then the Puerto Rican-via-New York accent attached to them when she asked the bartender where rooms 400 to 600 were. As he drew out the location on the back of a napkin, she glanced over and recognized me, too. It was international porn star—and the host of the show that brought us all to Jamaica—Carmina Violatta; already a veteran porn actress at the tender age of 25, with more than fifty DVD titles to her credit.
“Oh, hey. You’re the writer, right?” she asked.
“I’m your writer,” I replied, still getting a proud chill every time someone referred to me by that moniker. Although I had traveled with her and been on set with her a dozen times over the past two months, this was the first time we had ever really spoken to one another. “You’re Carmina. I’ve wanted to say ‘Hi,’ it’s just been so crazy on the sets.”
“I know … all those people. Just crazy. You ready for tomorrow? Big day. Our first scenes with the finalists. Did you come up with any cool skits for them to do? I liked the sexy spy idea that the cameraman came up with.”
By “first scenes” she meant that 8 of the 16 finalists arriving the following day would be filming their first actual porn scenes as directed by a professional adult-film director and crew. That was the concept of the show basically. Our film crew had traveled to New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Tampa, and Las Vegas and collected the 16 best aspiring film actors and actresses after a grueling series of auditions from hundreds of the ugliest people in the nation. And when referring to “auditions” for our new “Search for the Next Best Porn Star” reality TV competition, you don’t have to imagine too hard what that tryout process entailed. But out of those hundreds, the eight men and eight women who were able to masturbate with panache in front of the camera crew, the producers, the lighting crew, and the writer, had all won themselves a spot in the show. They would all be coming to this private Jamaican resort for the next nine days to perform various on-camera sex scenes with one another until the best two rose to the top like cream, and were given $250,000 each and a two-movie deal with the porn company producing the show.
As for the “spy idea that the cameraman came up with,” I had no idea what Carmina was talking about. But I’d had enough daiquiris in me to smile and agree that it was one hell of a clever idea and deserved some fleshing out. I noticed her suitcases sitting beside her bare tanned legs.
“We got in like two hours ago … you still haven’t found your room yet?”
“We all just got out of the meeting,” she answered. “For tomorrow. Weren’t you there? I thought … Everyone was there. You’re the writer … shouldn’t you have been there?”
I didn’t know anything about a meeting, but yes, as the only writer on the show, I probably should have been there. And that would explain the skit for the spy idea she was talking about. I explained the situation to her and asked her to paraphrase what was talked about, then I sprinted off to my hotel room and fired up the laptop. An hour and forty minutes later, I was surprised to find how easily I had come up with four short scripts for the next day. I printed up four copies of each three-page script and collated them onto the bedspread before me, showcasing their title pages for the mirror on the ceiling: The not too cleverly named The Spy Who Butt-Fucked Me; the psychedelic ‘60s-themed Austin Cock-Powers; the oppressive thinking piece A Raisin Cock in the Sun; and finally, the Jaws-inspired “That’s not a scar” boat scene script with women playing the Captain Quint and Hooper characters, which I titled Great White Tits.
I stacked the scripts on the little dining table and turned on the TV to put the night to bed. I had totally forgotten about the two stalks in my pocket and pulled them out and studied them under the bedside lamp light. They were so fresh that they were still damp from their last watering. I really wanted to smoke but I didn’t put any forethought into a smoking device. No rolling papers, no aluminum can, no tinfoil anywhere in sight. The gift store was closed and I didn’t have the energy to hunt down a cola machine. I searched my bag and then searched the room for anything to use; it became a mission after a few minutes. I considered using toilet paper to roll a joint before considering a page from the hotel tablet by the phone. But necessity breeds invention, especially with drugs, and I managed to channel my inner MacGyver and make a pipe from a hotel pen and the little screen from inside the bathroom sink faucet. Although I inhaled more melting plastic than pot, I was again good and stoned and fell asleep to an episode of Law & Order.
I woke up to find that my bathroom’s shower had one full wall that was nothing but transparent glass, and it faced the already-full pool right below. I showered knowing that I was being watched by a few dozen middle-aged people drinking daiquiris at 8:00 a.m., and the only thing I did differently from home was spend less time washing my ass and more time washing my groin section—I wanted to at least give the people outside a decent show.
I took the handful of scripts and hustled to the main lobby to join Carmina, the two producers, and most of the production staff in welcoming the 16 contestants set to arrive any minute on the same bus we did the night before. As I gulped down my third coffee of the morning, Sam, the big producer with plenty of actual, non-porn TV shows to his credit, asked why I hadn’t been at the all-hands meeting the night before. Instead of explaining that I either didn’t hear about it or was just completely too stoned to comprehend it, I showed him the stack of scripts I had written and said, “I had a bunch of ideas I needed to get down on paper.” He examined the titles of each, smirked, then nodded.
The large bus then pulled into the lobby, sparing me any more of Sam’s inquisition. Its door hissed open and a vibrant and tanned string of 20-somethings poured out into the reception area. First off was the Pink Couple, whom we called the Pink Couple because the handsome pair both had bright pink hair. We would find out several hours later that they both had bright pink pubic hair, too. The colorful pair had been together for several years before deciding they wanted more action in their sex lives, so they auditioned at our Las Vegas tryouts and made it to the finals.
Next off were the twin brothers, whom we picked up in Miami. Looking like a couple of farm boys on a field trip to the big city, the near-identical siblings had auditioned together while drunk, just looking to get laid. But after one of the producers realized how valuable an asset two male twins in the porn world would be, he patted them on the back and gave them two free tickets to Jamaica.
The first of three buxom blondes then vacated the bus, followed by the second, then by the last. Each had hair more platinum than the one prior, and each set of fake tits grew bigger as they progressed. The only black guy then stepped off, followed by a smarmy, long-haired guy in a Fedora and open shirt, who looked like Brad Pitt had he been a heroin dealer in 1974. From our New York audition was the big, barrel-chested marine and his tiny fiancée Brittany or Brianna or something, who were both ecstatic about fucking as many people as possible before they got married in the summer—although he seemed a lot more excited about it than she did. The audition in Miami gave us our token little Filipina fox, who had the typical tight body and adorability factor that most pedophiles drooled over. An attractive brunette woman then stepped off the bus followed by a guy in his mid-30s, both of whom I couldn’t place to save my life. When you’ve watched 500 men and women wank off in front of you, their faces just began to melt into anonymity.
Sam shook everyone’s hand as the two assistants checked names off clipboards and handed out room keys. But there were two keys left, so the producer scanned the clipboard for the two names left unchecked. He grabbed Corey and frantically shook his shoulder.
“Where’s Donkey Dick?” Sam shouted.
“Donkey Dick?” Corey asked. He took the clipboard from the assistant and reviewed the contestant list. “Oh, the couple from the mail-in audition? The VHS tape guy?”
“Yeah, the guy with the huge dick! Where is he?”
Corey got onto his walkie-talkie to find out what happened while I recalled Donkey Dick’s very impressive 12-incher from his home-recorded audition. We had all sat around the office speechless as we watched the tape of this mild-mannered guy in his early 40s, who looked like someone who would do your taxes and do them well, drop his pants and diddle his petite wife with what looked like a child’s arm and clenched fist.
“They missed the flight,” Corey shook his head and informed Sam. “They’re catching the next plane in tomorrow morning. They think.”
“Damn it!” the producer shouted. “They know we’ve got a tight schedule here! We start filming in a few hours.”
“And I think it’s just him coming,” Corey said under his breath.
“Excuse me?”
“From what it sounds like,” Corey clarified, “she got cold feet and backed out.”
“But Donkey Dick is still coming, right? We didn’t lose the dick, did we? Fuck her … we got plenty of alternates with nice tits here. But that dick of his … we need that, Corey! You make sure you get the bus to pick him up tomorrow … you be on the bus, too. We need that dick here. That thing is gold!”
I could tell Corey didn’t want to sit on that bus and drive three hours through barren wasteland to pick up the dick then turn right around and drive another three hours back to the resort, especially because he would be missing out on seeing all these big-breasted women getting screwed and losing any chance he had of sneaking in a sloppy-seconds attempt after the day wrapped up. But this was his first production assistant gig and he took his orders like a man who would make it far in the business.
We all ate a hearty breakfast of jerk chicken Eggs Benedict and jerk chicken omelets after the cast members found their rooms and unpacked. It seemed that every meal at Whispers’ all-inclusive buffet featured some variation of jerk chicken. There was something oddly unappealing about it and I couldn’t quite put my finger on why until my ganja-providing bartender let me know that it wasn’t really chicken at all, but goat. Seems Jamaica had quite an abundance of goats but not very many chickens roaming the coast, and because everything tasted like chicken anyways it only made sense to use goat as a cheaper substitute. Needless to say, I started picking the jerk chicken out of each of my meals.
When one watches a porno on their TV or computer, it seems to have that fly-on-the-wall feeling where you, the viewer, are not really there, and you’re not interrupting the sexual act in any way. It’s as if you were a masked voyeur glaring through the window at two beautiful people having sex in plain sight, and neither of them knew or cared that you were watching. And the couple seemed very generous in their sexual positioning so that you could always get a great view of the pecker pounding away at that shaved, glistening, pinkish-sore vagina. When it was time for some oral, the male was considerate enough to press her knees against her ribs so you, the viewer, could get a great side view of the tongue action. And when it was the woman’s turn to perform oral on the man, he was always selfless enough to hold her hair back so the camera could get a detailed view of his balls slapping against her chin.
This always felt so organic on-screen, but my outlook of porn abruptly changed once seeing it filmed live in a hotel room with a camera crew of six men, a light crew of three men, two grips, one production assistant, two aged producers, and a 40-something female director shouting, “Lift your fucking leg! Lift your fucking leg! We can’t see your cock, genius!” It was horribly unsexual. The same scene was shot repeatedly, moans and screams were faked until hoarse, lights were being readjusted during the titty-fuck scene, pussy farts were pooting out during position changes, excrement was wiped off the sheets after a sweaty anal-sex incident, and an unlucky cameraman got a forehead full of a twin’s jism when he went in for a poorly timed close-up.
The grizzly sights were just the steak on this macabre dinner plate; I still had a couple more side dishes of my other senses to contend with. The air was thick and unbreathable and smelled of warm, filthy ass; the moistness would glaze across your face and mix with your own sweat, which dripped down onto your lips and tongue. You began to taste her sore asshole, his body odor, and the unmistakable caramel of sloppy sex. Then after close to two hours in that humid hotel room, our first scene would finally end. The twin and the Filipina girl wobbled out of the door and collapsed onto chaise lounges beside the pool. It was the next couple’s turn now—same warm room, same wet bed, same soiled sheets waiting for them inside. I gave the producer and director each a script for the upcoming scene then found the next couple—1974 Brad Pitt and one of the platinum blondes—making out at a nearby Jacuzzi, and I gave them their scripts to study. They were already three daiquiris deep apiece, and his Viagra had kicked in about an hour prior, giving him a perfectly horizontal and unyielding erection as he jumped out of the water and happily followed his scene partner to the hotel room. I only stayed for the first 30 minutes of their oral scene before I snuck back outside to the pool area for a cigarette. But from what I saw, that Pitt kid was good. Whether it was raw, natural talent or just the moustache and ‘70s sunglasses, he appeared to have all the right cinematic moves as he lapped at the blonde’s crotch like a hungry handless man with a bowl of warm soup.
From outside, I heard the director shout at 1974 Brad Pitt to jump to his feet and “spray her in the face” just seconds before a loud cheer from the crew erupted. A minute after that, Brad Pitt came out smiling with the producer patting him on his bare, wet shoulder. Then the platinum blond came out of the hotel room using a damp rag to wipe her face clean, and she jumped into the pool and stayed underwater for a couple of seconds.
The sole black contender in our show, whose stage name was Matrix because of his “underlying complexities as a stage thespian,” he explained, was next in front of the camera. He would be teamed up with the second platinum blonde—Brittany or Bethany or something—and I gave them both their Austin Cock-Powers scripts and ran through the dialogue with them poolside. I had requested the set location be a silver-walled underground lair on page one, but we were going to make do with the sweaty hotel room for the third time. Matrix was cocky and sure of himself, and he proceeded to playfully slap the blonde’s silicone breasts and tell her to get ready for his “chocolate fuck attack.” She was nervous, I could see it all over her—partly from knowing she would have to have sex on-camera with a dozen people watching, but I think it was mostly because she would have to fuck Matrix. I remember her audition back in Las Vegas, slowly and proudly masturbating for the camera as if she were lovingly churning butter in slow motion, even with the entire crew and the 100 other audition hopefuls in line watching her. She wasn’t nervous at all that day, but here she was now smiling frantically and lighting a cigarette from the butt of another. She was a handful of years older than the other contenders, probably not much younger than me, but she seemed born for this job—born to entertain with her body. She was sweet and kind of maternal, and it was just a shame Matrix was her partner; she deserved one of the twins at the very least.
But the complex thespian Matrix brought with him our first casualty of production: No matter how hard he tried, and no matter how many Viagras he took, the Black Stallion could not get an erection nor anything even near it. The director must have shot for three hours in hopes of penetration, two hours of which were the blonde giving him a blowjob. Then finally the director shouted, “Oh, fuck this!” and the light crew turned off their bright overheads. Bree or Brenda came out of the room with both hands caressing her jaw, and Matrix stormed out moments later loudly blaming her for his lack of a boner. On and on, he blathered; how she was too old, how she gave the worst blowjob ever, how her tits were too fake, and how she had probably deprived him of his chances of becoming America’s next big porn star.
But our first day of scene filming had officially ended. A full nine hours had passed in that little hotel room, with four of the couples having completed their first on-camera vignettes. The other four would be filming the following day—in that same room, but hopefully with cleaned sheets.
The last actual bit of filming for our first day would be Carmina’s wrap-up interview, where she and a couple of “celebrity judges,” who were actually two retired porn stars and a radio DJ from Miami, interviewed each of the eight tired actors and asked them how they thought they did, what they could have done differently, and who they wanted to fuck in their next scenes. The camera crew had set up the scene beside the pool with a gorgeous view of the beach and sunset in the background, and tiki torches were put out for the total package shot. There was an awful lot of honesty shared in their interviews, especially when two of the women compared their first scene with getting molested by their fathers when they were children—but that could be edited out in postproduction. Then Matrix ended the Dr. Phil moment when he whined about how crummy his scene partner was again, now immortalized on digital video, and that her blowjob felt as if he had rested his “huge cock” in a bowl of tepid water.
After that, it was official: Our first day of filming the finale in Jamaica was over. Everyone went back to their rooms for a shower or quick nap then we all returned to the enormous outdoor courtyard buffet for another jerk chicken and margarita meal. Between the cast and crew, there were about fifty-five of us there. And after gorging ourselves on goat and libation, we all scattered off in different directions to investigate the mysteries of the resort with our wide-open night ahead. Every bit of that place was clothing optional—even the gift store—and although public sexual acts weren’t condoned, they also weren’t hard to find. The resort had six or seven lagoon-like pools, a few dozen palm-shielded Jacuzzis, and open bars every 60 feet, so receiving an underwater handjob, joining a poolside orgy, or getting blindass drunk was an option pretty much anywhere you went, whatever direction you chose. But over the course of the past two months, being so submerged in the seedy, behind-the-scenes underbelly of pornography, my desire for sex or any kind of intimacy had diminished to almost nothing. The romance had been taken out of the process for me; the sweetness, the mystery, the taboo—it had all been violently removed from the sexual act because of this job. It’s a bizarre moment for a man to see a pair of breasts and a vagina right in front of him, there for the caressing, yet all he can think about is getting as far away from them as possible.
So instead of joining Corey, Steven, and some male crewmembers watch four of our female contenders daisy-chain each other at the Jacuzzi, I snuck off to the empty beach, smoked a joint, and deliberated how long it would take for the novelty to wear off of being in zero gravity. Seriously, watching a pen float at eye-level would definitely have a short entertainment shelf life.
I was already beginning to loathe these people whom I was writing dialogue for. Not so much for who they were personally, but for who they were trying to become. Sex was simply an overrated act that too many people thought solved everything when all it really did was deprive you of the time for doing other, more-productive things. And these people wanted to bathe in that ignorance, and spread it thickly from TV screen to TV screen. I suppose I was that way in my mid-20s, or at least attempted to be because everyone I knew was doing it, but now 10 years later I knew better. I knew that sex either got you killed, got you sick, got you broke, or got you a family you didn’t want.
I went back to my hotel room, smoked a little more, and retired in front of something Pierce Brosnan on cable. The next day I woke up to do it all over again with the remaining eight contestants in that same hotel room. The only thing that remotely interested me the entire day of filming was the Pink Couple having their turn on the mattress of dreams. They were cool and collected, and they didn’t try to impress anyone with raised legs or fake screams. They simply had sex the way they normally did at home, and it turned out to be quite the romantic scene, according to the judges.
The Pink Couple’s climactic finish signaled the end of our second day of filming as well as the end of the First Round of the competition. After another jerk chicken dinner, Carmina, the producers, and celebrity judges drank daiquiris and sorted out their score cards from the past two days, deciding which eight contenders would be staying in the competition, and which eight would be going home (but not really “going home,” just no longer in the competition; the losers were allowed to stay at the resort for the remainder of the week). None of the cast or crew were allowed anywhere near them while they debated the merits of a large penis versus a cute face or a bad blowjob versus an attractive, young-looking vagina. But I ran into one of the celebrity judges a few hours later at the poolside bar. He was the editor-in-chief of a major porn magazine and he could really put away the free daiquiris. He told me that the Pink Couple, the Filipina girl, 1974 Brad Pitt, Hershey Soft, Platinum Blonde #3, just one of the twins, and only Brianna or Bailey or something with a B (without her barrel-chested fiancé) would be moving on to Round Two of the show. Aside from Matrix making the cut, I agreed and let him know by ordering the next free round.
Just like American Idol or that semicelebrity dancing reality TV show, we also dedicated an entire episode to the elimination process. It was a big, filmed to-do over who was staying and who was leaving, shot on the white sandy beach with all 16 contenders in attendance. Carmina threw out teary hugs and industry advice to the departing eight, and encouraged them to keep on trying—but to keep on trying with a different adult entertainment company. The eight who were staying were then told that their scene partners would be shuffled around to make things fair and exciting, and everybody would have a chance to fuck everybody before the show was finished. After the cameras shut down for the afternoon, the producers informed the eight contenders that their next-day scenes would be shot outdoors, filmed at a local, privately owned island. It must have sounded like a dream come true to them at the time. Then the next day happened.
The island was indeed privately owned, just not by a legal, reliable, aware-of-our-arriving source. Seconds after beaching our two small boats onto the isle’s shore, three masked men fired rifle shots into the air from behind palm trees. The cast and crew jumped back onboard and we puttered around to the far side of the island and shot our hurried scenes there. The director fell in love with this isolated palm tree growing horizontally out of the sand, and she shot most of the scenes with it as the sole prop. The couples were told to get inventive with it, so they did. The lone twin bent Platinum Blonde #3 across the tropical bark and pounded her from behind, shredding up her stomach in the process. Hershey Soft finally achieved his erection and went all Cirque du Soleil on the little Filipina chick he was partnered with: five toes in the sand and one whole leg lifted up and over the palm tree, giving both cameras a clear view of his shaved black balls slapping against her little childlike ass. The Pink Couple was to be divided up for their second scenes, and Mr. Pink was going to give it to little Brianna or Brittney while Ms. Pink was supposed to have fucked 1974 Brad Pitt. But little Brianna or Brittney had a change of heart and didn’t want to sleep with anyone that wasn’t her fiancé, so she quit the competition right there on the beach. Now having an odd number of actors left in which to shoot two partnered scenes, the director improvised and proposed a threesome. I wasn’t too sure how it panned out because I took one of the early shuttle boats back to the resort and went straight for the daiquiri bar.
But all four scenes were shot that day, and it was again time for another elimination round. So later that night after a dinner of jerk chicken soft tacos, the remaining eight cast members collected on the evening beach before a half circle of fiery tiki torches and cameramen. Carmina stood in her bikini and wireless microphone at the center of the group and explained to the camera audience the rules of the competition.
“We’ve had so much fun watching you guys perform, and I wish you could all stay here with us on the show. But only two of you get the $250,000 and movie deal, so … looks like half of you won’t be moving on to Round Three, our final round of the competition.”
A cameraman slowly walked his lens down the line of shirtless and bikini-clad contestants, getting a nice close-up shot of each of their faces. Carmina bowed her head as if in mourning then brought the microphone dramatically back up to her mouth. She gave each of them a sincere glance.
“Craig, Bella, Jeremy, and Cynthia, please take one step forward.”
1974 Brad Pitt, the Filipina Chick, Lone Twin, and Ms. Pink all stepped forward. They were nervous—they weren’t sure which way it was going to go; was taking a step forward good or bad? Were they still in the running or were they going pretend-home? They would seconds later find out.
“You four … what can I say about you? What I can say about you is congratulations! You’re moving on to the final round! And the four of you in the back row … you’re not. You’re going home.”
The front row jumped and cheered while the back row all shook their heads; two of them looked relieved and the other two were genuinely pissed. But hugs and tears were again shared between all, and Matrix again complained in his postinterview about his scene partner’s unprofessionalism. From what I could tell, nobody felt too badly about him not moving on to the final round.
That next morning, just minutes before the final two scenes were to be shot, Ms. Pink explained to the producer and director that she never thought she’d make it as far as she had—it had been the boyfriend’s idea to do this all along, and they both thought he would have succeeded and not her. And now that he was out of the competition she didn’t want to continue without him. The producer snidely reminded her that he had posed this very likely possibility to her many times before agreeing to fly her to Jamaica, and this isn’t how Show Biz works, honey. She apologized and apologized and Platinum Blonde #3 was back in the show.
It was all on the line for these last two couples—what they did in these final scenes would decide the competition. We shot at a rented millionaire’s villa about an hour away, and Pitt pounded the shit out of the Filipina while the Lone Twin got it on with the blonde twice his size. My presence wasn’t really needed at the villa—in fact, I hadn’t been needed for the past three days; I had just been sitting around and watching people screwing—but the producer wanted to get his money’s worth out of me, so there I was, smoking cigarettes and eating at the buffet table from setup to wrap-up. I had no impact on the entire day of filming, and the only thing my laptop did was beat me at chess.
It was a torturously long drive back to the resort because I got in the crew bus that Corey wasn’t on, so I had to sit with a dozen guys who I didn’t know and who didn’t smoke pot during long drives like this one. But the finale was now finished for the most part—at least all the scenes involving sex. Once back at Whispers, I spirited off to my hotel room with two daiquiris and a bunch of candy, and decided I never wanted to date again.
The next day, the crew set up their cameras and tiki torches beside a tropical pool for our grand finale, where we would find out which two would leave Jamaica with the two-movie deal and the $250,000. The entire cast was reunited as if they hadn’t seen one another for months, when in actuality they had all just shared a breakfast of jerk chicken sausage and waffles an hour before. The cameras followed Carmina as she walked her microphone to each of the 12 expired contestants and gave a little recap of their journey through the competition—no doubt it would be peppered with video highlights of their auditions and Round One sex scenes in postproduction. Then she approached the final four and retold their rise through both rounds to make it where they were now. Then, with tears in her eyes and a Puerto Rican accent on her tongue, sweet platinum Carmina announced the winners to be 1974 Brad Pitt and the little Filipina chick. It all sort of felt like one of those situations where you knew there was a surprise party waiting for you behind the door, but you still acted surprised and probably overdid the shocked expression a bit once the door opened. But it was official. The show was finally officially over. In a day and change, we could all—cast and crew alike—check out of this sodomite resort and return to whatever city we called home, and probably never see one another again … not counting on a TV screen or magazine.
But realizing this pending conclusion just made it feel weirder. This show that was at one time just a simple, crazy job offer, then pages and Post-it notes taped to a rented office wall in West Hollywood … it had actually grown flesh and cameras and a budget and tits and cocks. This two-month fuck-fest had taken me to Miami’s ritzy South Beach and put me in a waterfront, $450-a-night hotel room. It had shown me my first taste of New York City and Jamaica. It had introduced me to per diems and limousines and bleached assholes. It had also illustrated for me just how far people were willing to go for a taste of fame. Had it not been for this job, I never would have imagined that hundreds of men and women would wait in lines for hours just to undress and masturbate in front of a camera crew in hopes of a little stardom. People you would never imagine, too. At the early auditions, only 10 percent of the tryouts actually looked like someone you would see performing in a porno movie; the other 90 percent looked like homely regular people you see every day: your balding 45-year-old neighbor with all the plants, the alcoholic lady with big red glasses who works at the grocery store, the old smiley black guy who drives the bus, the Renaissance Faire gal who acts out role-playing fantasy games on weekends and dates from Craigslist. And we had to watch each one of these dregs undress and pleasure themselves to too-near completion, from the West Coast all the way to the East Coast. And it was all finally finished. I could return home to Los Angeles with about $8,000 more in the bank than I had when I left, my name in an actual TV show’s titles as “Head Writer,” a few new contacts for future porn-writing gigs, plus my newfound disgust for anything to do with pornography, including writing it.
The following night I left my laptop in my room and decided to tour the resort and maybe even socialize a little, seeing as it was our last night in Jamaica. But I couldn’t find anybody I knew. I sauntered down the beachy paths wondering if they were all avoiding me and having some grand party in a secret location. It gave me time to reflect on the past week, and I came to the conclusion that I had A) acted like a royal asshole to every porn star and aspiring porn star in the show, and B) I was pretty much whoring myself out just like they were. This show had been my own taste of fame, just like the contestants, only I had used my words to jack off for the camera. I wasn’t really all that distraught once realizing it—it was an entertaining, well-paying, and eye-opening ride the whole time, and my literary sodomy was a hell of a lot easier to take than some of the contestants’ actual sodomy. But it did bother me that I had been treating “the talent” so assholeishly, looking down upon them from such great heights where Head Writer titles bloomed. I had always prided myself on being empathetic and open to people from all walks of life, especially the underdogs and the misfits. I was a misfit, after all. I should have embraced these people, and wrote for them scripts that might have revolutionized their porn scenes, and brought tears to the eyes of romantics and boners to the laps of the masturbators. But I hadn’t—I had given them a rewritten scene from Jaws that had two ladies comparing their breasts. I had been a dick to them; I knew it, I saw it, and I even began to relish in it, to be honest. And then to discover that we were the same! We were the same, my bare-backing brothers and semen-spilt sisters. We were both whoring ourselves out for that sweet taste of fame and fortune.
I heard laughter and splashing nearby and walked a little closer to a lit but empty pool. On the far side was a big bubbling Jacuzzi set into the stone floor with Carmina and a few of the crewmembers getting in. I walked closer wanting to at least say “hi” as some sort of amends for being kind of a prick to them over the week. Then Corey appeared from a side path with a handful of margaritas.
“Dude, where you been? I’ve been knocking on your door.” He handed me a drink, got into the Jacuzzi, and handed out two other drinks. “We’re having a little wrap party for the crew here. Get in.”
“Yeah, get in the Jacuzzi!” Carmina added with that colorful accent and her tanned boobs bouncing in the water. “You work too hard. The show’s over; it’s time to have some fun now!”
I kicked off my flip-flops and eased in between Steven and a brunette “celebrity judge” porn actress. The two cute production assistants we picked up in Miami were also in there plus a few of the cameramen and their very liberal wives. We each took turns running to the cabana bar to retrieve new rounds of margaritas every 15 minutes until someone finally got wise and brought a pitcher over. Then a few joints were passed around, and then we all got a little naked once truth or dare started. As I took a puff and passed the doobie to the topless porn star on my left, I realized two things: A) what an amazing bar story playing truth or dare in a Jamaican Jacuzzi with pot-smoking porn stars would be and, B) there weren’t many “truths” to be had when you’re playing truth or dare with drunken porn stars and porn filmmakers. There weren’t many secrets to keep in a crowd like that. Within the first 30 minutes of the game, almost everyone there had admitted to having had some form of a same-sex sexual experience in their life, cheating in a relationship, past STDs, trying heroin, even tasting their own semen. So our truth or dare turned into more of a game of dare-or-really-dare. I made out with one of the cameramen’s wives right in front of him before getting dared to do naked push-ups over an equally naked Carmina without getting an erection. Corey was dared to do a titty-fuck with the brunette porn star then the 20-something production assistant, and compare the two. Fingers were poked in orifices left and right, and margaritas were poured down tits and penises and between ass cheeks into eager open mouths. It was a Jacuzzi party worthy of its own TV show, but it was only as amazing as it was because there were no cameras around to capture its glory. We could all let our guard down and just let tits be tits and peckers be peckers again—no camera angles or lifted legs or job titles. We were just nine people in a Jacuzzi getting drunk and doing weird shit to one another.
“Hey, whatever happened to Donkey Dick?” a cameraman drunkenly asked with his face slouched between his wife’s armpit and breast. “I wanted to see that thing live, man.”
“I think he went to the wrong resort,” one of the assistants replied, the top half of her bathing suit floating beside her.
“That prick of his was huuuge, bro,” Corey slurred. “Homeboy was fucking ugly as hell, but that prick was huge!” He went back to sucking on the neck of the other production assistant.
“Fuck it,” the cameraman whose wife I made-out with said flatly. “I don’t want to think about any of that shit anymore. The show is done, man. This is all us now.”
That said it for all of us. A few moments of silence followed while we all drunkenly absorbed the two-month cost for our night of freedom, then we returned to the laughter, the margaritas, the joints, and the underwater hand-jobs. My only regret that night is not being able to acquiesce to Carmina’s final dare for me to stand at the center of the Jacuzzi and whack-off to her fondling her breasts, then unload on her stomach for all to see. Because I discovered that, like a large portion of the male contestants who never made it past our open-call auditions, I couldn’t perform in front of a crowd either. I gave it one hell of a try though.