The Porn Star Next Door

This is an excerpt from a project that I can’t talk about yet. When I wrote this last year, it was inspired by one porn star, but it’s also about porn viewers. Hopefully, I’ll be able to share more about this project in the not-so-distant future.

What about you? You’re not in the room with her. You’re down the hall, or watching the live-feed video monitor, or sitting at home in the dark with an edited version that you downloaded onto your desktop computer, or your tablet, or your mobile phone. You’re a voyeur, or a person who is curious, or looking to get off. You don’t really know why you’re watching, or you don’t really care, or maybe you understand that the girl is a person but you’re not sure you want to know too much about her or why you’re watching her, because if you know too much about her or why you’re drawn to her, that might be what someone who works in the adult movie business would call a “boner killer.” On some level, you know she’s a real person. Heck, maybe you even googled her. You think you know her because you know her name, but you only know her stage name, the name by which she has allowed you to understand some part of herself. She has named herself for a piece of fruit (like peaches), or a time of the year (like autumn), or the way she intuits she makes you feel (like you’re in a haze). The truth of the matter is that you don’t know her real name, or the real her, and frankly you don’t really want to know. At this point, you’ve seen her enough times that you could recognize her without seeing her face: by the curve of her breasts (natural or fake), the tattoo on her hip (sometimes she covers it up with makeup to make her more appealing to more people by making herself less specific), the telltale signs of her (genuine—you think? you hope?) arousal (the flush that spreads across her chest, the sounds she makes as she climaxes). You like her because: she seems happy, or she looks like your ex whom you miss, or she is the girl you always wanted and believe that you will never have. To you, in this time that you share together, she is everything and nothing—the one to whom you turn when you are lonely/bored/wanting something: It’s just you two. Then, it’s over. When you’re done with her, you turn off the device, you walk away, you don’t tell your wife/your girlfriend/your lover what you did (or maybe you do). But, either way, you know the next time you go back to her, she will be there: glowing, radiant, available on the screen. She’s your secret—the secret inside of you.

Buy my latest digital short story: “The Tumor.” It’s “a masterpiece of short fiction.”