Lola Licett - Queen of Porn:

On the edge of the L.A. suburb Hollywood was a sprawling set of buildings surrounded by a concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Apart from the neon sign that said 'Shooting Star Studios,' it looked like a bunch of warehouses in a prisoner-of-war camp. However, enter one of those buildings and you would be transported to another place and time—the interior of an ancient Egyptian temple, for example, or a 17th century French bedchamber or, indeed, a prisoner-of-war camp.

Studio 69 was dressed to look like a millionaire's bedroom. It contained a huge pink bed that stood like a huge marshmallow on a pink carpet surrounded by pink curtains. The bed's wooden frame was reinforced with steel brackets and dressed with seven layers of covering, the topmost being French satin and the undermost industrial-strength plastic hospital sheeting. This was a working bed, co-star of more than two thousand films such as 'Tittie Parade,' 'The Great Go-Go Girl Gangbang' and that immortal classic 'Hot Women Get Fucked By Armies of Huge Cocks.' Milling around the edge of the pink carpet were the supporting players—cameras, lights, boom microphones, cables and thousands of dollars-worth of recording equipment held together with gaffer tape. A team of operators took care of their own corners of the universe, each one of them male, pale and either overweight or skeletal.

Among this small army of technicians were three people important to our story. The first was Roger Ramrod, a man with an extraordinary body and a huge chin. He was dressed in a purple silk shirt and leather trousers and was studying his image on one of the many monitors, occasionally touching his impressive moustache and sideburns with a careful finger. The slim girl with jeans and perky tits who stood next to him was Shirley Goober. She held a script in one hand, a bottle of water in the other and was trying to drops hints to Roger that she gave world-class blow-jobs. In fact, as a fluff girl, that was her job. The third and most important figure in the room was a small man with a carefully trimmed goatee bard and blue-tinted glasses. He wore a French beret and a red polka dot scarf which didn't quite cover the loose skin of his neck. Like Shirley, he held a script, but his was rolled up and he was banging it against his thigh. This was Cyrus Bender, the director.

'God damn it! Where is she?' he bellowed.

'Where's who?' said Roger, still touching his sideburn.

'Our star! Who d'you think?'

'I thought I was the star?'

Cyrus looked at him sadly.

'Oh, Roger,' he said. 'Do you really believe people pay to watch you fuck?'

Cyrus gave Roger a fatherly pat on the arm and then turned away to check his watch. Roger looked at Shirley with hurt confusion on his face. She gave him a sympathetic look back. She was about to suggest he might like a blow-job to make him feel better when Cyrus interrupted.

'Shirley, go and get her, would you?'

The girl went pale.

'Don't you need me to give blow-jobs?' she said.

'No. I need you to get Lola,' said Cyrus.

'But I was contracted to give blow-jobs.'

'You were contracted to do whatever the fuck you were told!'

'Yeah, but I thought that meant being gangbanged and sodomised and cum over. I didn't realise it meant ... dealing with Lola.' Shirley leaned close and lowered her voice. 'She's nuts!'

'She may be nuts,' said Cyrus, 'but her films make nearly three million a year. So do me a favour and get her.'

'Are you sure you wouldn't like a nice blow-job yourself? With all this pressure—'

'Now!'

Shirley jumped and scuttled off. She had a good figure and every man in the room watched her run out before getting back to his work. Roger went up to the director and shook his head.

'Poor old Shirley,' he said with a sigh. 'Wanted to be a star and ended up being a fluff girl.'

'Well,' said Cyrus, 'if it makes you feel better, we pay her twice what we pay you.'

'Oh good.'

Cyrus walked away leaving Roger to smile and touch his moustache. It took a while before Roger's smile faded.

Shirley zigzagged her way through the corridors that led out of the studio building, the sound of groaning coming through the sound-proofing. She reached the double doors of the nearest fire exit and slammed her hands down on the crossbar to open it. There was a shout from nearby Studio 61—'Hey! We're trying to make a movie in here!'—but Shirley let the door bang shut as she walked into the L.A. sunshine. Her sunglasses were hooked onto her belt and she now put them on as she walked.

There was a line of warehouse buildings with signs that said 'Studio 60-69,' 'Studio 70-71' and so on and beyond them a bunch of parked trailers of varying sizes and colours. One trailer stood out amongst them. It was huge, silver and had a couple of metres of faded red carpet laid out before the doorway. On both sides of the red carpet were enough potted plants to constitute a small garden and there was a man watering them with a spluttering hosepipe. He was old—at least forty—and he wore a Panama hat and yellow flip-flops. Shirley walked up to him.

'You're Juan, right?' she said.

'Felipe,' said the man, tipping his hat.

'Felipe, right.' Shirley put her script under her arm so she would look more official. 'Well, Felipe, I need you to go knock on Lola's door.'

There was a sudden burst of Spanish cursing from within the trailer. It was followed by rat-a-tat shouting and the crash of something breakable. Felipe pointed his hose at another plant.

'I need to finish this,' he said. 'But you may knock if you wish.'

Shirley glared at him and then looked back to the trailer. One foot began to tap nervously on the grey tarmac. It was possible to hear a woman's voice having a one sided conversation that was clearly disagreeable to her.

'How long will she be on the phone?' asked Shirley.

'I don't think she is,' said Felipe.

'What makes you say that?'

'Because she threw her phone out the car window this morning and it was run over by a truck.'

Shirley blinked.

'You mean, someone is actually in there with her?'

'No, no.' Felipe seemed to find the idea amusing. 'If I know Lola, she is talking with her pussy.'

'She has a cat?'

'No, no. Her pussy. You know ... her secret garden. Her tunnel of love. Her rose petals of pleasure.'

'Her vagina?'

'Yes.'

Shirley blinked twice more. Her foot was tapping double speed.

'Lola talks ... to her vagina?' she said.

'Yes.'

There was another crash of crockery.

'And I don't think the conversation is going too well,' sighed Felipe.

Roger was trying to engage Cyrus in a conversation about which side of his face looked better when Shirley came in alone. As she walked over to them, Cyrus put his hands over his face and swore. Shirley stopped, folded her arms and looked at Cyrus, her foot tapping. Roger frowned.

'What's going on?' he said.

'It appears our leading lady is reluctant to join us,' said Cyrus.

'Why?'

'Because she's busy talking to her vagina,' said Shirley.

Cyrus gave her an angry glare, but Roger looked astonished.

'Her vagina can talk?' he said.

'No, of course not!' said Cyrus. 'But she does has imaginary conversations with it.'

Shirley stared at him.

'You know about this?' she said.

'Of course,' said Cyrus. 'Most artistes talk to their private parts.'

'Get out of here!'

Shirley looked at Roger to confirm the craziness of this notion, but Roger had taken a sudden interest in the ceiling, one hand unconsciously stroking the front of his trousers. Shirley blinked and looked back at Cyrus in confusion.

'Look, Shirley,' said Cyrus. 'Unless you're a textbook nymphomaniac, constant sex with multiple partners screws with your brain. Most actors need a coping mechanism and treating their genitalia like a work tool is one way of doing it. You know, the way a plumber might have his 'lucky' wrench. And at the end of the working day, that lucky wrench goes back into the toolbox and the plumber can be a regular person again.'

'I like that anal... um?' began Roger.

'Analogy,' said Cyrus.

'Yeah, that. So a porn actor is like a plumber?'

'In more ways than one,' said Cyrus. 'But what we have with Lola is a plumber whose lucky wrench talks back.'

'What do you think it says?'

'Who the fuck knows? The story I heard was that Lola went to some bullshit self-help seminar to deal with her issues.'

'A lifetime project,' muttered Shirley.

'What sort of seminar?' asked Roger.

'Something about "The Wisdom of the Body",' said Cyrus. 'One exercise was to give each body part a voice and imagine what it would say. People with heart problems would get 'advice' from their heart, people with asthma would talk to their lungs and so on. Lola, being a porn actress, imagined her pussy with a voice and apparently when it started talking, it wouldn't shut up.'

'I can relate to that,' said Roger, peering into his trousers.

'Anyway, after this seminar, Lola fired her manager and started renegotiating her contract based on the "wisdom" of her vagina.'

'You're kidding me?' said Shirley, staring. 'How did she not get committed?'

'Oh, she didn't present it like that,' said Cyrus. 'Lola may be nuts, but she's not stupid. She claimed to have a new manager called Carlos U.N. Tiburon. He would never show up in person, but during meetings Lola would leave the room to phone him. He was a tough cookie and he knew things about the studios that...'

Cyrus caught himself. He paused and took a breath.

'Well, let's just say he was a strong negotiator,' he said. 'Devlin even hired a private detective to find out more about him. Turned out that C.U.N. Tiburon didn't exist.'

'You didn't guess from the name?' said Shirley.

Cyrus shrugged.

'Most managers are cunts,' he said. 'And in an industry where people call themselves "Lola Lickett" and "Roger Ramrod," it didn't seem so odd.'

Shirley nodded thoughtfully and Cyrus rubbed his face with a handkerchief. Roger looked troubled.

'What's so odd about—?' he began and was interrupted by a loud bang. The door to the studio had been thrown open and everyone turned to look.

'Hola, boys!' said Lola as she walked into the room, hips swinging, tossing her raven black hair from over one shoulder to the other. She stepped over cables and tripod legs without seeming to notice them, blew a kiss towards the boom-mike guy, then stopped, aimed her chest at a cameraman and pulled open her red silk blouse.

'Hey, Frankie! How do they look?' she said.

'Mighty fine, Miss Lola,' said the cameraman, staring at an impressive pair of breasts barely held in by a black lace brassiere.

Still holding open the blouse, Lola turned to a lighting technician.

'Stan?'

'Beautiful.'

'James?'

'Lovely.'

Shirley watched this performance with an unpleasant mixture of disbelief and envy. This woman had wasted everybody's time and yet the men were smiling at her, falling over themselves to get her attention. Shirley looked at Cyrus to see if he was going to say anything, but the director had the expression of a man who had got so used to taking it up the arse that he'd decided to live with it. Roger, on the other hand, had gone over to one of the monitors to check that his mullet haircut looked okay on camera.

'H'okay, boys!' said Lola. 'Enough monkeys around. We have work to do!' And she clapped her hands: Chop! Chop!

Shirley wanted to kill her.

'Of all the n—' she began.

'Shirley,' said Cyrus quietly. 'It's not worth it. Let's be just grateful she's here.'

Shirley opened her mouth and then shut it again. Lola was walking up to them. Cyrus coughed and stepped forwards.

'Good of you to join us, Lola,' he said.

'First things first,' she responded and walked right past without even looking at him. Cyrus stared at her.

'Yeah, being grateful really helps,' said Shirley. 'I can see how—'

'Shut up, Shirley.'

Lola stalked over to Roger who was waving at the camera. He smiled when he saw Roger-on-the-Monitor also wave.

'Hey, Bryan!' said Lola.

Roger looked at her, looked around and looked back at her.

'Yes, you,' she said.

'I'm not Bryan,' he said.

'Dick, George, whatever your name is. Where are your papers?'

'My what?'

Lola put her hands on her hips and turned to scream.

'Zee-rus!'

'Cyrus,' muttered Cyrus as he walked up to them.

'What is it?'

'I want to see his papers!' said Lola. 'Why he no have them?'

'I've got my driver's licence,' said Roger.

'No, you imbecile! Your papers from the doctor to say you no have venerable disease!'

'I haven't got a venerable disease,' said Roger.

'She means "venereal",' said Cyrus.

'But I haven't got that either.'

'So why you no have papers to proof it?' said Lola.

'Lola,' said Cyrus, 'you know damn well that all the paperwork is kept at the office, including the compulsory monthly check-ups. And if Roger had tested positive, we would have been informed.'

'Pah! You think I trust the bitches in that office? I want to see for myself.'

'To be fair,' said Roger. 'I haven't actually tested for a venerable disease.'

'It's not "venerable",' said Cyrus. 'It's "venereal." Venereal!'

'What's venereal?' said Shirley, walking up to them.

'My disease,' said Roger.

'You've got venereal disease?' said Shirley, shocked.

'No, he hasn't,' said Cyrus.

'But he might have venerable disease,' said Lola.

'No, he doesn't!'

'How you know? Roger just say he no test for it.'

'There is no test! You can't test for a disease that doesn't exist!'

'Wow,' said Roger. 'That sounds pretty deadly. You know, I saw this film 'Contagion' and—'

'Shut up, Roger! Just shut up!' Cyrus had his beret in his fist and his balding head was bright red. 'We're supposed to be making a sex film, not arguing over non-existent diseases!'

'How you know it's non-existent if there is no test for it?' said Lola.

'Enough!'

Cyrus turned to face Lola. He was breathing hard, but there was something about his manner that suggested a man making a decision.

'Lola, you have a choice,' he said in a voice of forced calm. 'You can take off your clothes and fuck this man—or I will call Devlin and personally tell him that I've had to abandon today's filming.'

Lola stretched up to her full height, folded her arms and looked down at the little man with the blue-lens glasses and neat goatee.

'He'll fire you,' she said.

'If this film doesn't get made, he'll fire me anyway,' said Cyrus. 'But at least this way I'll go down fighting. However, it's your call.'

Lola continued to look down at him, but Shirley saw that her sneer had been replaced with a frown. Eventually, she nodded.

'H'okay, you win,' said Lola. She looked over at Roger. 'But I still want to see his papers.'

'Lola!' said Cyrus. 'We're already two hours behind schedule!'

'So we film the scenes where he plays with my tits and eats out my pussy,' said Lola. She jerked her head towards Shirley. 'Meantime, you get the little girl here to fetch his papers from the office. When I've seen them, we can do the penetration scenes. Okay?'

Cyrus considered, then gave a sigh. He turned to Shirley, trying not to notice that her face was purple with rage.

'Shirley, would you be a darling and fetch Roger's monthly check-up results?'

'Of course, Cyrus,' she said.

'But don't take too long. We need our fluff girl.'

'Not with me around,' snorted Lola and she walked away fiddling with her silk blouse. Cyrus gave Shirley a pat on the arm and went over to the cameraman to discuss the first shot. Shirley walked out, stumbling over a cable and nearly toppling a spotlight. Lola was adjusting her stockings and none of the men were even looking in Shirley's direction. She went to the door, ripped it open and slammed it behind her.

'This was not the kind of humiliation I signed up for!' she stormed as she marched down the corridors in the direction of the office.