By now, you might be wondering, how does a sweet guy like Logan O’Toole end up in the porn industry?

To which I say three things:

Firstly, I wasn’t always a guy named Logan O’Toole.

Secondly, why not?

Thirdly, I get why you wonder.  I mean, my parents are both pharmaceutical scientists.  I grew up in the “right” school district, in a house with a big pool and a remodeled kitchen, with cable but not HBO, with family dinners almost every night and family vacations a few times a year.  We went to a blandly pleasant Episcopal church on a semi-regular basis, we volunteered twice a month at a food bank in the city.  I never touched drugs, I only slept with two girls in high school, the only trouble I ever had with the law was a speeding ticket one morning when I was late for class.

No, I was never destined to do porn.  After high school, I was destined for an undergrad in film studies and the same sort of life my parents had before me and their parents had before them, except I planned to be wielding a camera instead of a microscope.  

It was a series of accidents that altered my trajectory, that sent me spinning out of orbit and into the uniquely heavy gravity of the porn world.

It started with my theater teacher approaching me after school in the spring of my senior year.  He had a friend who was filming a commercial for a local community college, and would I like to give him a call?  It would be easy work and the first non-retail line on my flimsy resume, and even though I wanted to be a director or a cinematographer, it never hurt to explore acting too, right?

I did the commercial.  And then I did another, this time for a dating website aimed at college kids, which led to a commercial for a “companionship” phone-line, a dying service in 2005, but apparently still strong enough to pay for a television ad.  I never lied to my parents about what I was doing, and to their credit, they never tried to dissuade me from it, even though it must have been awkward for them to see my phone sex commercials while they were trying to watch CSI reruns.

And that’s how I accidentally got into the commercial business.

This lasted about three months, and the day after graduation, while I was squinting at my computer screen, trying to parse my UCLA orientation email, I got a call from the director of the hotline ad.

“Hey kid, I’ve got a friend who likes your face, and he’s short an extra for a little movie he’s filming next week.  You’d get fifty bucks a day, plus lunch.  You in?”

The only thing I had planned for my summer was my part-time job at Best Buy, and honestly, getting paid to stand around on a film set sounded like a much better opportunity.  I quit my Best Buy job and drove up to the set that next week, assuming a “little movie” meant an indie film or maybe a made-for-cable shlock-fest.

I was wrong on both counts.  After meeting with the casting director—who was also the script supervisor—I was led back to the pool, where a woman lay on her back moaning, her hand buried inside of her lace panties.  I remember watching, mesmerized, as the director occasionally called out instructions—more about the mechanics of her masturbation than about her acting.

“Spread your legs a little wider, Tara, we have a shadow.”

“Okay, now use both hands.”

“Rub your chest a little, please.  Good.”

I glanced back over the thin script I’d been handed.  I hadn’t read it over yet, because I knew I didn’t have a speaking role, but now I read the lines with avid fascination.  Lonely housewife.  Seductive gardener.  And me, “Pool Party Guest #2,” who was scheduled to linger in the background with a red Solo cup and a veneer of partygoer merriment.

And that’s how I accidentally got into the soft-core porn business.

From there on out, it was a series of gradual steps onward—or downward, depending on your point of view.  The director liked me, and I came back the next week for a film about a naughty college cheerleader who falls for her professor.  I played her jilted boyfriend—a role that required a scene where I received a blowjob, something that I initially had mixed feelings about.  On one hand, no eighteen-year-old male has ever felt despair at the prospect of a blowjob, but on the other hand, it felt strange to be sucked off and then handed a check.  

Not wrong, necessarily.  But strange.

I don’t remember much about that scene—my very first—but I do remember the actress, Traci Aliss, who’s now married to a podiatrist and lives somewhere in Arizona.  She was Asian-American, with glossy-smooth hair and flawless skin, and even with all the unnecessary makeup, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life.  I’d never been touched in front of an audience, and so I’d been worried about staying hard with all those eyes on me.  But when Traci trained her eyes on my face, licking her lips as she unzipped my pants, all of my apprehension vanished.  I felt something I’d never felt before in my life, something deeper than lust, something essential, something akin to what I felt when I watched my favorite movies.

I suppose Devi would call it bigness.  For a moment, I felt the entire expansive bigness of the world, of Traci’s glowing skin, of the sunlight coming in harsh and bright through the window, of the subtle dynamic of power that coursed between us.  I didn’t feel like a boy who didn’t have his future figured out, a boy who already felt limited by a path he’d barely stepped on.

I felt like a man.  And I threaded my hands through Traci’s hair and murmured everything I felt to her, I told her what I wanted her to do to me and what I wanted to do to her, and for a moment, I could tell that she was as lost in the scene as I was.  That despite the cameras—or maybe because of them—these sensations were galvanized into something exhilarating and intoxicating, and we both ended the scene filled with a sense of happy magic.

The director was so pleased with my performance that he asked to do another film, and another, and another, and by the end of the summer, I’d made five thousand dollars by having sex on camera, with the promise that I could make more if I was willing to segue into hardcore pornography.

I was.

After signing with a talent agency, I cancelled my UCLA classes, told my shocked but accepting parents, and rented an apartment in Burbank.

And that’s how I accidentally became a porn star.

---

You’re right.  Porn is always the answer.  No wonder those people keep losing on Family Feud.

That’s the first thing waiting on my screen when I wake up.  It’s crazy what falling asleep without half a bottle of whiskey will do for a man’s energy, and during the past week, the urge to go whiskey-numb has slowly diminished.  Part of it is Vida’s offer, an offer that I’m still trying to think of something for.

And part of it is Devi, my personal Cassiopeia, my Persian Queen.

But even thinking those words sends weird shivers down my spine, hot and cold flashes of lust and excitement, and also fear.  Because what if she doesn’t feel the same way I do?  What if I’m just that friendly guy she did a scene with once?

Or worse, the guy who spurned her advances at a party?

Fuck.

Don’t I give great advice? I text back to Devi, still lying in bed.  I can’t believe I got fired from writing fortunes for the fortune cookie factory.

No response.  Not for the first time this week, I wonder if I’m bothering her with my texts, intruding on what I imagine to be her well-ordered, healthy, beachy life.  Maybe she’s just tolerating me because she doesn’t want to be rude.  Maybe she actually thinks I’m pathetic—too limp-dicked to kiss her at Vida’s and now texting her like a boy in middle school.

I let the phone drop to the comforter and groan.  I should leave her alone, I should bottle up this years-long crush I’ve had on her and give her space.

But then she texts me back and I’m diving for the phone again.

So tell me, O Wise One.  I’m thinking about maybe doing some mainstream scenes.  You know—with guys instead of girls.  What do you think?

What do I think?  I think I want to run over to her place now and make sure I’m the first male performer on her list!  But no, I need to think like a friend and a mentor, not like a guy that jacks off to her every night.

Hardcore? I ask.  A lot of people hear hardcore and think of extreme porn—BDSM and rough sex and all that, but really all it means is explicit.  In hardcore porn, you get to see all the good stuff happening, pussy-eating and ejaculation and actual fucking.  A lot of Devi’s lesbian scenes could be considered hardcore, since she goes down on girls sometimes and they go down on her.

Yes, she texts back.  But nothing too intense.  No kink or group-sex.  I’m on the fence about anal.

*On* the fence?  No, no, no, you’re supposed to be bent over the fence.  I can’t help myself. I’m only human.

Har har har.  I don’t have anything against it—but I really don’t know if I could do it with just any performer, you know?  I’d want to be with someone I trust.

I groan again, turning my face into the pillow.  My dick is stirring from all this Devi-anal talk, and God, I wish I could be the performer she trusted.  I would make her feel so good, I’d go slow, warm her up with all the orgasms she needed to relax, and then I’d make her feel like a glowing goddess.  I’d use my fingers first, probing as I kissed and licked her cunt, and then I’d slowly work her open, sucking on her clit until her toes curled.  I’d make her come with my dick inside her pussy, and while she was coming down, I would roll her onto her side, get on my knees and gently press inside.  And then I’d make her come with my dick in her ass.

You’re making me too hard to think straight, Cass.

Very funny, Logan.  But really, what should I do?

Does she honestly think I’m joking about being hard?  Does she not realize the impact she has on me?

Of course she doesn’t, Captain Skinny-Dick. All she has to go on is how you pulled away in the pool.

I force myself to focus on her question. You know me, my camel-riding queen.  I’ll always say do more porn.  But make sure that it’s stuff you feel comfortable with—stuff you feel safe and happy doing.  Work with people you trust.

This is unexpectedly serious for me, and I feel a little self-conscious pressing send.  She doesn’t respond, and I hope it’s because she’s mulling over what I’ve said and not because she’s rolling her eyes at how suddenly pretentious and paternalistic I’ve gotten.  

This doesn’t solve the problem of me being hard, however.  Hard and dying for a taste of Devi—her skin, her lips, her cunt.  I reach down and circle my erection, using my other hand to cup my balls, which are heavy and aching for release.

I glance at my clock—eight in the morning.  Ginger will be here in a few hours to shoot a scene, and as good as it would feel to rub one out right now, it might feel even better to use Ginger’s wet pussy to get off.  I squeeze my dick gently, imagining it now, Ginger tied up and helpless while I stroked in and out.

I would give my eyeteeth for it to be Devi, though.

With a groan of extreme restraint, I get out of the bed.  I shower in some cold water to kill my boner and then brush my teeth. Once I’m all clean and minty, I trundle to my kitchen in only a pair of jeans to make a cup of coffee and wait for Tanner.  He and I need to do some extensive blocking for the scene today because Ginger has decided she wants to try the harder, kinkier stuff, so we’ll have some props going on and some cues that I’ll mention in my monologue when we record it after the scene.

While I wait for the Keurig to power up, I open up my laptop and make a new Word document.  I type in Ginger’s name at the top, along with the date and the style of scene we’re filming.

I film all sorts of scenes—sweet ones, filthy ones, public ones, scripted ones—and I try to make every monologue match the tone of the sex.  I’ve become a bit famous for these monologues, which was a surprise to everyone when I started doing them a few years ago.  Who wants to sit and listen to a guy talk for ten minutes before the fucking gets started?  Who wants to wait for the penis-in-vagina, the P-in-V, just to hear the guy talk about the girl and what he loves about their sex?

A lot of people, actually.

A lot.

And I enjoy doing it.  Honestly.  What turns me on, what turns a girl on, what makes sexy, filthy porn—I could talk about that shit all day.

I limit myself to ten minutes though.

I won’t draft the full monologue script until after the scene, but I go ahead and skeleton in several of the things I know I want to say.  That right now, Ginger’s newness to kink inspires me to be rougher than I normally am.  That her submission fantasies and my domination fantasies dovetail perfectly, and that when we’re fucking, I like to imagine dirty things, nasty things.

I won’t say that I imagine Devi when I’m screwing Ginger, or that all of these dirty, nasty fantasies come to my mind when I’m alone in my bed with my hand under the sheets and one of Devi’s girl/girl scenes on the laptop next to me.  That would dispel the fantasy that I’m trying to create with my monologues, the fantasy that I sort of sexually fall in love with every girl I film with.  But still, it’s Devi I’m thinking about while I drag the bondage bed out of its usual corner in the basement and into the center of the concrete-floored playroom I had built here for filming scenes.  

It’s not nearly as elaborate as Vida’s, but it works.  Bare floor (easy to clean, plus it adds to that dungeon vibe people like), racks of toys and restraints, and chains and hooks dangling from the ceiling.

God, Devi would look good here, strapped down and waiting for me.  Or maybe with those toned arms bound and stretched up toward the ceiling…

By the time Tanner and Ginger arrive, my hard-on is back and I’m more than ready to begin fucking.

---

Thirty minutes later, after we verbally run through Ginger’s limits and make sure she’s cool with what Tanner and I have come up with for the scene, she’s flat on her back on the bondage bed and I’m buckling the cuffs around her wrists, subtly checking to make sure they aren’t cutting off blood flow to her hands and fingers.  It’s something I’ve done hundreds of times, and I smile affectionately down at her.  Is there anything better than a great day on a great job with an old friend?  And then out of the corner of my eye, I see my phone light up on the table behind Tanner, and my heart thumps with an electric judder, knowing it could be another text from Devi.

It really is a fantastic day.

“We’re going to have fun now,” I tell Ginger, practically humming as I move down to cuff her ankles.

Tanner’s filming behind us, and there are a couple of other crew guys here today to help, and so Ginger is on, tilting her head so that the camera can’t miss her seductive smile as she replies, “I know.  I can’t wait for you to fuck me.”

This is the part where I should respond in kind, maybe growl something harsh and kinky, but I’m still in this bubble of goodwill and happiness, and my mind is full of Devi and stars, so instead I say, “I’m going to make you feel as beautiful as Cassiopeia today.”  

Ginger gives me a look that isn’t just blank.  It’s blankness with shock and ignorance and the slightest whiff of humiliation.  She has no idea what I’ve just said, I think.  So I add, “Cassiopeia was an ancient Greek queen.”

She looks a little taken aback by this, like she still doesn’t know how to respond, like Greek mythology has no place in a BDSM porn scene, and after a couple of beats, she arches her back and purrs, “But you can’t make me feel like a queen, because I’ve been such a bad girl.”

And then she wriggles in her restraints, her mouth in a little moue of disappointment.  “Stop talking, and punish me, Sir.”

And my happy bubble starts to collapse in on itself.  

Because of course Greek mythology has no place on a porn set.  Of course Ginger doesn’t want to make small talk or flirt or listen to my stupid thoughts.  She’s here to be flogged and fucked, and as friendly as we might be, we’re not friends in the normal sense of the word.  We’re co-workers, colleagues, and Ginger is like the girl in the next cubicle at an office.  As chatty as we might be in a meeting, we’ll never be anything more.

And it’s not just Ginger.  Can I honestly claim that any of the other girls I work with are anything more than friendly co-workers?  That they wouldn’t get impatient with me if I wanted to talk about constellations instead of simply get on with the scene so we can all get paid and back to our real lives?

Devi wouldn’t be like that, though.  

Or would she? a worried voice in my mind wonders.

Tanner shifts behind me, and I snap out of my bubble-collapsing reverie.  Focus, Logan.  Now isn’t the time for existential fussing.

I return all of my attention to Ginger and run a practiced hand down her bare stomach.  She shivers, and I walk over to the wall and come back with a flogger.

“So you’ve been a bad girl?” I say with rehearsed menace.  

She nods, biting her lip.  One of the light guys follows Tanner as he moves around the table, and I see the shadow of the flogger outlined on her stomach.  And despite all of my internal complaining, my dick is responding precisely the way it should, still a hard rod in my jeans.

“Then let’s get started.”

Ginger squirms as I begin flogging her—lightly.  Since this is one of the first real bondage scenes she’s done, I try to make it less about the pain and more about the subtle humiliation, more about the power dynamics between her and me.  She doesn’t have very many limits, but she brought up extreme pain as one, and I’m doing my best to keep her feeling safe and comfortable, just like I told Devi to do this morning.

So I keep the riding crop light, with small, flat-sounding slaps against her skin, just enough to redden her freckled skin the tiniest bit. Then I reach down to pluck at her nipples and slide my fingers into her mouth, and after ten or fifteen minutes of this, I reach between her legs and find her swollen and wet.  

“Look at me,” I tell her, and she does, her eyes glazed with lust and her hips moving on the table.  She makes a small noise of frustration when I lift my hand from her pussy, and I know we’ve crossed the boundary between pretend and real, where the cameras and the contracts are starting to blur into the background as the needy hum in her core becomes all-consuming.

Which is perfect, because I’m hard as a fucking rock and aching to sink into her—into any woman, if I’m being honest—to get some relief.

I mean, there are other things I could do right now.  I could bring out a different flogger, I could flip her over and paddle her, I could fuck her mouth until her eyes water.  But Jesus fuck, I am so caught up in wanting Devi, in craving her, that I don’t have the patience to wait any longer. That raw, gripping need to come is clawing at me, and Ginger is so lovely right now, with her freckled limbs and panting mouth, and wet, pink cunt.

I unbuckle the cuffs quickly and easily, intoning in my sternest voice that she is not to move until she’s been given permission, and then I grab the spreader bar from the wall.  There are a hundred creative things I could do right now—and should do, given that this is a bigger scene than usual—but I barely have enough focus left to flip her onto her hands and knees and attach the spreader bar to her ankles.  I cuff her wrists to the spreader as well, which has the effect of forcing her head forward onto the table as her arms are stretched underneath her to the bar, and then I make a circle around the table.  It looks as if I’m admiring my handiwork, which I am, to an extent, running a hand over her raised ass, biting my lip once I see how much her seam glistens in the dim, indoor light.  But I’m also making one final check to make sure that she can breathe easily, that her weight is distributed comfortably, and to give her an easy opportunity to snap her fingers—our pre-arranged signal—if she needs a break or needs me to back off.

She’s comfortable and there’s no snapping; she even gives me a flirty wink when I walk around the side she’s facing.  I give her ass a slap, hop up onto the table on my knees, and I’m as giddy as a teenage boy when I unzip my jeans and push them low enough to free my erection, which has been straining against the denim all this time.

After sheathing myself with a condom, I line up the head of my cock with her opening and push inside, giving her ass a few spanks as I do.  She’s wet and warm and willing, all I need right now, and I can’t help my mind drifting to Devi, to the fantasy of Devi pinned underneath me as I finger her ass and fuck her pussy.

It’s filthy, but hey, I’m a filthy guy.

I get going, really get going, burying myself deep into Ginger’s channel and stroking back out again.  Yeah, that feels good.  So good.

“You feel amazing on my cock, baby,” I tell her, leaning forward to croon in her ear.  I don’t know if the camera can hear us, but I don’t care, because I always talk to my girls, especially when they’re edging towards the brink like Ginger.  “You feel like you were built to have a big dick in this pussy, isn’t that right?  Don’t big cocks like mine need to be taken care of?”

She nods and moans as I find her clit with one hand and work her mercilessly, rubbing until she has no choice but to come, and she does, so hard that her leg muscles quiver and she lets out a little shriek.

“Another,” I growl, fucking her hard now, and I rub another climax out of her as I pound into her pussy, making her scream with pleasure.

And my vision splits and merges and splits again, sometimes Ginger’s pale ass up in the air, sometimes Devi’s bronze body writhing under mine, sometimes both. And then I’m grunting hard, pulling out just in time to yank off the condom and pump lashing jets of cum all over Ginger’s ass.  I milk myself with long, taut strokes, but the orgasm keeps barreling through me, and by the time I’m finally done, I’m barely able to keep myself upright.

I fall back on my heels, spent and also a little grateful that I didn’t jerk off this morning, saving myself for this.  It was worth it.  Even if I wished it was Devi the entire time.

“Um…” Ginger says with a weak, post-orgasmic laugh.  “I think I may need some baby wipes over here.”

The laughter is contagious, spreading from me to Tanner to the crew, and I move to help her get uncuffed and cleaned up.

---

By the time mid-afternoon rolls around, my house is empty and I’m in my office, editing my monologue.  

The digital version of me gazes out of the screen, raking his fingers through his light brown hair and grinning as he talks about Ginger.

“...always a new fantasy,” the on-screen version of me is saying.  “Today, I wanted to pretend that we’d just met at a BDSM club, and that she was a new submissive that I had to break in—gently at first, and then not-so-gently after.”  The Logan on the screen goes on to elaborate on the fantasy—being a skilled Master at a club, the thrill of meeting a new submissive, the satisfaction of feeling a stranger come around my cock.

For the first time, in a very real and concrete way, I wish that the scene had been a mirror to my monologue.  Normally, my words complement the scene, act as a stimulating adjuvant, and the sex is still the chief enjoyment for me.  But something’s off today, and when I finish editing the thing and save it, I feel a sense of nostalgia, a slightly bitter pang of loss—both emotions so sudden and unexpected that I feel genuine shock once I realize they’re what I’m feeling.

From the moment Traci Aliss wrapped her lips around my cock, I knew that I’d found my calling.  I knew that I loved to fuck, and what’s more, I knew that I loved to fuck around other people.  I never forget while I’m filming that thousands of men and women will watch me at home—the women wishing it were me between their legs instead of their vibrator, the men wishing they were me, fucking a sweet pussy or a wet mouth or tight ass.  And the thought of all that desire and jealousy heaped on me—it’s more than a turn-on.  It’s a raison d’etre.

So what’s wrong today?  Why don’t I have that post-scene high?  I mean, of course there have been days where the sex was less than magical, where it honestly did feel like work, where the girl and I couldn’t connect, or maybe I was tired or unmotivated or whatever.  But I’ve never felt like this.  I’ve never felt this peculiar emptiness, this odd disappointment, especially not after such an amazing scene.

So what am I disappointed about?  

I have no idea.

I spin around in my chair a few times, rubbing my bare feet against the fuzzy-ass rug on my office floor, the one I bought even though Raven had hated it when we saw it in the store.  I tap my fingers on my knees, I fiddle with a paperclip on my desk, and then finally, frustrated as hell, I stand up and walk out to the loft that overlooks my living room.

Other than a few low chairs and the waterfalls of golden sun pouring through the skylights, the room is vacant.  An empty living room in an empty house.

Mentally, I direct the scene otherwise.  I layer in the sound of Prior’s paws scrabbling on the wood floors as he trotted around the house looking for his squeaky toy.  I layer in the neo-punk music Raven played whenever she was here, and I layer in Raven herself, wearing something black and clingy, her phone wedged between her head and her shoulder as she stirred a pot of kale or something equally disgusting on the stove.

For the first time in three months, I consider—really consider—that maybe I wasn’t as in love with Raven as I was with the idea of having a relationship in the first place.  That it wasn’t her I keened for in those bleak days in the movie theater or on my kitchen floor, it was that life.  That life with noise and affection and connection.

The realization hits me like a freight train, freeing and terrifying all at once.  I loved Raven, I know I did, but so much of that love was because she was filling a void for me, a void I hadn’t known was there until three months after it yawned open and empty again.  She gave me a fantasy, the fantasy, and I slowly begin to understand that it is the fantasy that underpins all the ones I film for my scenes.

The fantasy of being in love.

Jesus.

I scrub my face with my hands, feeling liberated and also feeling pathetic.  Who in this selfish, indulgent, spray-tanned city would ever guess that Logan O’Toole has a chewy caramel center?  That under his I’ll-fuck-anything-that-moves veneer, there is a guy who just wants to love someone?

It’s ridiculous.  And bad for business.  I’m the guy who thinks with his dick, not his heart, and maybe my brand is to be a little bit of both, but I can’t give in to this inner boy band song.  Maybe guys like me don’t get to have love.  Not the kind of deep, real, raw love that I want.  We get casual fucks and friendships coupled with the occasional stoned blowjob, and if we’re really lucky, maybe we meet a girl whose life will travel on parallel tracks to ours for a while.  But those tracks always diverge, and then we’re left alone.  Again.

This love shit isn’t just bad for business, Logan, it’s bad for you, a voice tells me.  And I agree.

I let the image of my life with Raven fade away, until there’s only my ground floor again, every corner and every floorboard and every nook in the soaring ceiling screaming out the emptiness of my house.  My hands grip the ledge tighter and then loosen as I let go of the memories of a life with love, let go of the fantasy.

But it all still tumbles around in my mind, tossed loosely around like clothes in a dryer, tangling with the texts from Devi that I keep re-reading, tangling with my strange disappointment over my scene with Ginger. And all of it tangling with Vida’s business proposal, until a new thought emerges, unformed and flopping as all new ideas are. But the moment my mind seizes hold of it, I can’t let it go.

I stand there for a moment more, blinking, and then I jog back to my office to find the card Vida gave me at her party.  I dial the number on it, relieved to hear the Dutch-accented voice saying Hallo? after only two rings.

“Marieke,” I say.  “It’s Logan.  I have an idea for me and Lelie, and I’d like to tell you about it.”