“Whatever Ma,” I’d dashed off carelessly. “I know what I’m doing.”
But the shake of her head and the sad look in her eyes were reproachful.
“Look at me Jenna,” she said. “I was once a pretty girl, even prettier than you, and where am I now? A single mom with four daughters, struggling to make ends meet. I don’t want you to be like me.”
I’d sighed exasperatedly. My mom’s mistake had been that she’d hooked up with my dad, who’d turned out to be a deadbeat loser. I knew better than that. Find a rich man, get married with no pre-nup, and boom! My problems were solved for life.
“I’ll be fine, Ma,” I said shortly. “Go worry about someone else, like Tina. She needs to lose weight before she becomes a sack of potatoes, no one’s ever going to want her,” I’d sneered.
My mom had sighed and turned away, but looking back, there was an uncanny element of truth to her words. Now it was Tina married to a rich man and I was getting dumped with a diamond bracelet as the consolation prize.
I cried in the bathroom, grateful that atelier’s restroom had plush, fabric-covered walls, the better to muffle my sobs. Not knowing who to turn to, I dialed Deborah on my cell phone.
“Deb, I can’t,” I cried into the phone. “The wardrobe folks have been so nasty to me, they say I look terrible and ugly. They say it right to my face, they think I can’t understand.”
“Oh ignore them,” soothed Deborah. “Pepe is known for having a sharp tongue, you know how gay guys are, they’re jealous of women as if they were women themselves.”
“I can’t,” I cried. “I can’t go back out there,” I said pitifully, sniffling into the phone.
But Deborah, who’d been kind to me in the past, did a one-eighty.
“You can and you will,” she said nastily. “Because you know what? The shit’s about to hit the fan.”
“You can’t scare me with Rafe Connor,” I said woodenly. “I know I signed a contract with Levant Corp. but contracts get broken all the time, I’ll pay whatever penalties are required.” At least my legal training was coming in handy.
“No, you dumb bitch,” said Deborah, her voice like nails over the phone. “It’s that video you did … the video plus the nudie pix.”
“What do you mean?” I asked slowly. “I’ve done nude photo shoots, I mean, you were there during one, but I’ve never done any video. What are you talking about?” I asked confusedly.
“The porn!” screamed Deborah. “The porn you did is about to hit the wire!” Her voice lowered. “I heard it’s already got ten thousand streams on some seedy website, people watching you get pummeled every which way in some dirty gang-bang.” She continued. “Did you like it Jenna? Did you like being a slut in front of the camera? I suggest you finish this job because your career is about to be over.”
The woman slammed the phone with a clack and I stood frozen in the tiny bathroom. What video? a voice screamed in my head. Was I being blackmailed? I had no idea what was going on and my only thought was to call Rafe for help.
12
Rafe
I watched the stream dispassionately on my computer. It was coming from the Green Guys, a website known for its hardcore POV porn, gonzo shots where the girls are routinely humiliated, shamelessly fucked in public, that sort of thing.
Jenna was gorgeous. Her blonde hair covered her face, but the moans were familiar, the sensuous body, the way her pussy twitched and squeezed as she was pummeled from behind.
“Please,” her breathy voice moaned. “Do me, I need it hard,” she sighed as a big dude obliged, reaming her with his ten-incher, another guy feeding his cock into her mouth, muffling her moans even as her ruby lips parted willingly, eagerly even, to suck the glistening rod.
I slammed the cover of my laptop down, the snap a vicious crack in the silence of my office. I didn’t need to see more. Everything I’d believed about the girl was true, and then some. Not only did Jenna lie by omission, but the omission had been greater than what I’d believed.
Sure there were the nude photos, but a lot of starlets do that shit when they’re young and penniless. They don’t know any better, they’re victims of predatory photographers, guys who convince teens to take it off, blowing compliments to make the girls feel better.
Little do the girls realize but those photos last forever and the rights are almost impossible to buy back. Look at Jennifer Lawrence and Ariana Grande. Their phones had been hacked and private photos released, with the only recourse being a lawsuit to end the ordeal.
But this was a thousand times worse. This video hadn’t been taken from Jenna’s private stash. These weren’t personal sex tapes, for a special someone’s eyes only. This was full-on porn for an audience, professionally produced with cameramen, lighting, a director, marketing, advertising, all that shit.