Wilder called out, screaming “Cut!” from his chair. The couple in front of us on the sound stage stopped, pulling away softly from one another. There was chemistry there, even though it was both of their first times doing that sort of thing.
I pulled my clipboard towards my chest and took out a pen from behind my ear. I leaned over my director’s chair towards Wilder, “I don’t get it. What’s wrong? Why did you make them stop?”
“Do you see that light? The third one over? It’s one light shade too dark. We need lighting to change the bulb before it goes out completely.” He nodded my direction as I headed off towards the lighting board.
I couldn’t help but to think how lucky I was – how lucky we were. For the past year, we had been back in porn. I wasn’t in front of the camera, nor was Wilder. Instead, we were directing our first full-length shot, complete with real, full stories and intricate sets. But despite me wearing the director’s hat, I was usually in casting where I was best. Still, Wilder, I mean Nickolas, loved showing me these little things only a person with a director’s eye could catch. He was training me for our business.
“Hey, Taylor! What’s going on? Why did Nick call cut?” The lighting booth director and assistant looked at me with irritated glares. I was used to it by now. My husband was such a perfectionist that it could be hard for even me to work with him.
It took me a second to recognize my new name before responding, “I know, guys, I know. But he says the third light is getting dimmer and going out. Can you do a real quick change and run through of the bulbs so we can get this back on and get home by ten tonight?”
Even now, ten months after Detective Alistar explained we’d have to go into hiding from the Potter family gang, I was still getting used to being called Taylor. And living in New York. It was quite a change from life in Vegas. But I was doing it with my new husband by my side and my best friend near.
Lana, now Gena, was the reason they found me that night one year ago. Wilder had spotted their van as the detective’s SUV pulled into the warehouse area. Both ducked down, watching where it was coming from. Alistar’s partners chased it down, getting to it just as one of Potters’ men had a gun pointed at Lana’s head and her small ditch dug. Thank goodness.
She was safe now, and New York was suiting her. She worked with us here in the studio as our makeup artist and costume designer. She had a talent for it that really couldn’t be denied. And she was flourishing, though, like us, she missed our home and family in Vegas.
But we could never go back there. Ever. As much as we tried to pretend that it doesn’t hurt, what happened still scared us, and the difficulties we faced in Witness Protection didn’t help. For a few months, we just lived on the few dollars the government gave us each month to lay low. And then, we slowly came out, testing the waters by doing things like grocery shopping or applying for real jobs.
When the money ran out, we turned to the one thing the three of us knew: porn. But we couldn’t work with the industry guys from back home. Instead, we started a company dedicated to newbies. It was Wilder’s brilliant idea to cast virgins with virgins, and it was my job to find and pair them. And, like our stuff in Vegas, it was an instant hit. We made thousands in the first night of our launch.
It was enough to pay for our legal fees from my trail. Wilder fronted all of his savings to spring for the best lawyer Vegas could buy. And because of his forward thinking the night I came for his help, the bloody lingerie was evidence of a struggle and I walked away a free woman, at least until the death threats came and it became clear that we couldn’t live as ourselves again.
By our second week of the “Virgin Stories,” we had more than enough to send both Lana and I back to school to finish our degrees. Both of us graduated months ago, and I was still debating going to law school. After all, with porn, there was always need for someone who understood the law.
But letting go of our old lives wasn’t all bad or sacrifices. Sure, we had to give up our names and our families, but that also meant saying goodbye to our ties. In our new world, no one questioned my relationship with Wilder. He wasn’t my brother or a former druggie who stole from the family. That was all behind us. Every barrier that kept us apart was erased or left back and buried in our own homes.
Now we were Taylor and Nickolas, a regular couple to the outside world. But behind the scenes, we were two people finding love all over again. This was our second chance to make this work without any pressures or judgment. It took us a long time to get to this point, but we were here, together at last. And nothing was going to tear us apart.
Three months ago, when he got down on that knee in the middle of the soundstage one stormy evening, I knew our love was never going to be perfect or tame. It couldn’t be. That wasn’t who we were. But I didn’t want that kind of life for myself anymore. I wasn’t the jeans-and-tee-shirt little sister, and I certainly wasn’t the porn star with the whips and ties (at least, not in public). I wanted a wilder life, full of adventure and excitement. Together, we were going to have it.
THE END
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