Not Sorry

Her eyes grow large as she takes everything in. The amount of people in the room, the cameras, and then finally the naked people. I expect her quick, immediate response to be painful for me, but it’s not how she reacts. She takes her time studying everything, taking it in and trying to understand.

“You make porn for a living?” she asks, slowly scanning the room, trying to make sense of it.

“Yes. I’m in the adult entertainment industry. I make porn movies, and I sell sex toys. My job is to sell sex.”

She swallows and nods, like it all makes sense. “I figured you owned a strip club or something like this,” she says.

I grab her chin and tilt her head toward me. “This isn’t like owning a strip club. Stripping is nothing compared to this. I hire people to have sex in front of a camera in order for me to make millions.”

She sucks in a breath as she looks at me. Then, she finally nods, but she’s not running away yet. Maybe she’s in shock.

I take her hand again and pull her toward the camera. Many people nod and smile and acknowledge me as we walk by. Most of my employees like me because I’m a fair boss, and they know exactly what I expect of them. I show up at work often, trying to be as involved as I can be. I try to make the working conditions the best they can be.

“Watch,” I say as the director starts shooting another scene.

The scene the two actors are in is pretty tame compared to some of the things I’ve seen and produced.

They are supposed to be in a classroom. The woman is a teacher, and the man is supposed to be her student. The woman eventually seduces her student, and then they fuck on her desk. It’s a good scene to ease Olive into this world. The actors truly enjoy what they do, and they want to be here. But that’s not the same for everybody. I’ve seen too many actors come and do this just to make a quick buck and not because they love it, and it ends up destroying them.

I watch Olive’s face as she watches them have sex in front of her. She blinks a lot as she watches. Her face occasionally flushes a slight shade of pink. But she doesn’t turn away in disgust. She doesn’t say that I’m degrading women or anything that I was expecting.

When the scene is over, I grab her hand and pull her out of there and into the side room that we use for interviews and meetings. I shut the door and flip on the lights so that I can see her. I need to know how she feels. Now.

“What do you think?” I ask.

“I think…I think…I don’t know what to think. I don’t like it. I don’t understand it.”

My heart sinks.

“But I don’t hate it.”

I can live with that, I think.

“And what do you think of me?” I ask, needing to know if she hates me.

She narrows her eyes at me. “I think I like you more than I should, more than what’s good for me.”

I grin even though I shouldn’t. I get to keep Olive in my life for a little bit longer. She doesn’t hate me…yet.

I grab her and spin us around while kissing her hard on the lips. When I put her down, I say, “I can’t wait to fuck you in the bed on my plane.”

She bashfully bites her lip, and then her eyes catch something in the corner of the room. She stops grinning. She stops paying any attention to me as she walks slowly over to the corner. I slowly turn around, but I already know what’s in the corner of the room.

Everything I thought I had with her, the little time I t

hought I had left with her, is now gone.

I look at Olive looking at the DVDs of me on the front, shirtless, with words like, Sean and Stacey in College Facials. I knew that she wouldn’t be happy when she found out that I not only produced porn, but I also starred in them. What’s worse is, the other person on the covers of most of them—Jamie.

“Olive, I can explain…”

But I know I can’t. There’s nothing to explain. There’s nothing to be sorry for. This is my life. This is what I do, and if she can’t accept me, then I don’t want her in my life.

Olive slowly turns around, and I see the tears rolling down her cheeks. “I need some air,” she says, pushing past me and out of the room.

This is why I wanted to show her the real me—so she could run away. But, now that she has, I know that isn’t what I wanted at all.

Part III