Authors Note: This is the 3rd story in The Sindustry series. The first 2 are "Baggage" and "Carry On Baggage".
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"When you think about it, porn vignettes are just sketches with interludes for sex. Absurd set ups, usually punny dialogue, and a conclusion, usually witty if the writer or director wasn't lazy."
That was an observation that David gave me early on when we started shooting porn together. Wanting to do the best porn out there, I decided to sign up for one of the sketch writing classes around town.
I was worried I might not get into one of the better ones. The good thing was that they all really are kind of rackets that makes most of their money from the 101 basic classes. Obviously, a few move on and end up on
Saturday Night Live
or film, but the low end is the cash cow. And I wasn't looking to spend my Saturday nights in Rockefeller Center.
It didn't take long for my classmates to recognize me. Obviously it was the the guys. I wasn't the biggest pornstar by far, but it doesn't take a bunch of early career comedians with a lot of time on their hands to find the newest porn stars. So my not-a-lie excuse that I wanted to write funnier "short films" was quickly exposed when the first guy recognized me as Gwen Morgan.
Luckily, that only made me more popular in the class. But with that popularity came problems.
Everyone wanted a chance to get with me in some way. Oh, obviously the guys always wrote me in a shallow, slutty role (though every woman ended up that way with undersexed beta-male scripts.). And I could manage the men and their horniness, and their belief that they could bed me with the right funny script (which, if one of them actually put it up, wasn't outside the realm of possibility).
It was the women that were the real problem.
See, every woman in comedy wants to be a whore. Okay, not all, but a lot. Like the guys, most of the funniest women have some chip on their shoulder. Not many prom queens end up in comedy. They got to thinking that by hanging out with me they could get some secret to great sex and getting attractive guys with huge dicks.
The one that tried hardest was Annette. It didn't take long talking with her to know she was a straight-A people pleaser sort, who had forsaken the usual route of med school, law school, or political science for comedy. This was a woman starving for validation, and that is why she sought me out.
"Hey, would you want to be a guest on my podcast?" she asked me after class one day.
There is no worst request than that. I get hit up by a lot of douchebags who want sex for nothing but merely existing, but I can blow them off easily. The podcast ask is a harder thing to do, since those asking think they are really offering you something valuable ("exposure"), but what they really hope is to plug your name into the title and get a boost in listeners.
And I had turned down plenty of those requests. It's not that I was ungrateful for the attention, it's that it was clear who benefited more from that. I'd have no time to fuck and make porn if I said yes to every one.
But what bugged me about Annette most wasn't that it was yet another comedian's attempt to build their career with a podcast. It was that she was actually talented, and I doubted she was willing to truly reciprocate what I would offer her.
"I don't know," I said.
"Come on, it could be fun. We can talk about your process, your career, how you ended up there..." Annette begged.
"Would you do a one-for-one and appear in one of my videos?" I asked.
Annette was taken aback by the request.
"What? That's weird," she said.
"Why is it weird? Isn't that what you want me to talk about?" I asked.
"I..." Annette stumbled.
I had her caught. So many people are hypocritical about porn. We all consume it, but most relegate it to the incognito window on their computers. It's something to joke about and silently acknowledge using, but never really giving it the same cultural discourse attention that film, television, or even shallow reality TV gets.
"Sorry, but I need a one-for-one on this. You want me to make your podcast cooler, I can do that. But I'm in this class to make my porn funnier and better written," I said.
"I mean, if you want me to help you write a good script, I can do that," Annette offered.
"Okay. But then I will only write for your podcast, not appear on it," I said.
"These aren't the same thing," Annette offered.
"No, they aren't. Your podcast will get a much bigger audience boost from this than my videos will, but I will trade that for a better quality for my work," I said.
"I can't do porn. It's hard enough being a female comedian and taken seriously as a professional," Annette said.
"Look who you're preaching to," I said, "I'm not asking for sex. I wasn't presuming that I was going to have sex with you on your podcast. I'm not opposed to that if the scenario is right."
"What would you want me to do then?" Annette asked.
"I don't know, but there are non-nude roles. You could play my friend and help me set up a scene, and dip out before the sex starts. Gay porn has women do that sometimes. You know, 'Right in front of my salad?'," I said.
"Yeah, I've watched gay porn with friends," Annette said, "Doesn't mean I want to star in it."
"Co-star at best. Supporting actress," I said.
"I don't think agents are going to be able to tell the difference," Annette said.
"Then they aren't good agents. I'm not asking you for any more than you'd get from a bad sex comedy. You don't event need to show your tits," I said.
"Again, it's hypocritical, but people can write off a sex comedy. It's not hardcore," Annette said.
"What if it were softcore? A throw-back to Red Shoes Diaries?"
"If you could get me Showtime, we could talk," Annette said.
What I knew now was that at heart Annette wasn't a hard on no-nudity, it was public perception. But I had no way to work that at this time. It was the Catch-22 of my goal to bring porn into the mainstream. Good but unrecognized talent would rather fade away in obscurity in Hollywood than chance it.
"Well, I guess we're at an impasse," I said.
We let it drop then and there.
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That was, until the next class. We went through our class as normal, and I jealously read a minor part in Annette's hilarious sketch based on working in coffeeshop. She spun gold from her minimum wage survival job, and no one would be see it except the people in this class. My own sketch, based on a bad date pre-California, was a bronze medal script at best.
I packed up my stuff and was ready to head home to cam for rent, when Annette approached me.
"Can we talk?"
She was nervous, which made me cautiously optimistic. We walked down the street to a coffeeshop (Not the one she worked at). I got a small latte, and she didn't get anything, Given how her hands shook with nervousness, I figured she didn't need the caffeine.
She pulled out a printed script. I didn't have to ask why she didn't email it to me, if was obvious she didn't want to leave a digital trail.
"Here, tell me what you think?"
I read the script. It was a porn vignette, and in it was a clearly Mary Sue tale of where Annette inserted herself in to a fantasy. It needed some work -- it was a bit too wordy and timid, the lead was too passive, and it just felt restrained, and not in a BDSM way.
"Interesting," I said, "Needs a pass by a pro in the genre, but I can see it."
"So, could you make it?" Annette asked.
I had two questions to ask her, though I already knew the answer to one..
"Who is the guy you would want to cast?"
"Ideally... Lars Yeats," she said.
Great fucking choice. He was one my list of people I wanted to work with. Lars was new to the industry, but he stood out. He was a black haired Irishman nicked named "69": Six foot tall, nine inches long. More than his ripped body and chiseled handsome features was the fact that he oozed charm and charisma. He didn't hide his sensual Irish brogue. Even the worst dialogue porn had to offer seemed to come out like poetry from his mouth. And while he didn't have a wide range as an actor, he did his best work without seeming to try. A look, a light touch, a gentle smack on the ass could do so much, at least for the female viewer.