My Life as a Video Pornographer

"This is so wrong."

We were sitting at "our" table, getting through lunch as quickly as we could, both of us heading to different classes in fifteen minutes.

I looked at her, eyebrows raised. I knew, or I thought I knew, where she was going. "Tell me more. What is 'this'?"

She squinted at me, trying to see if I was being a dick. "This," she waved at our phones. "It's bordering on exploitation...I'm...concerned I'm contributing to a delinquency; your delinquency, or maybe a felony, at best, and probably a crime against women for certain."

My head drew back, surprised at her concerns. "Really?" I said it quietly, hoping we weren't going to have a fight about it. It would be our first since we had officially started dating. Or, whatever it was we were doing.

For the past three weeks, after that amazing day together, we'd hooked up at least a few nights every week. And, no matter where we were, her place or mine, I had a camera going. She protested after the third time, wondering if I was only using her for material. And that's when I learned so much about her, and why we were meant to be together.

"Oh. My. God. Loralei! I...no! No! Fuck no! I'll stop. Right now. But tell me it isn't a huge turn on for you: having that blind eye watching you...? Knowing you're on display, naked, stripped, your raw emotions, your real feelings being captured...tell me that isn't one of the reasons you've been having mind-blowing orgasms." I had turned off the phone and held it up to her, shrugging, waiting.

We were at her place: a one bedroom on the ground floor of a four story walk-up, about 20 minutes from campus. Not a great neighborhood, but not so sketchy she felt unsafe walking to the commercial street one block over. She had already stripped off, lying on the bed, waiting for me when she'd protested. Now, watching her watching me I saw her eyes flicker between the narrow vee at the top of my legs and the camera, her tongue unconsciously peeking between her lips.

"Tell me L. Tell me you don't want me to record you; that you haven't loved it." I turned to set the phone back down, still set up to record but shut off.

"tskyay."

I turned back to her, not sure what I'd heard. "Sorry. What? I couldn't hear you very well."

She cleared her throat and looked away. "It's...okay, Jewel. I..." She swallowed, her throat so beautiful in the light from her bedside lamp. "I know you get turned on..."

I started the recording and nearly jumped on the bed. "Oh no you don't," I tsked, nuzzling my lips into her neck and nibbling on her earlobe. "This isn't just about me. You just can't admit you're a closet lesbian exhibitionist who wants to make naughty girls rub one out watching me ravish you."

She turned her face to kiss me, bringing her hands to hold my head, her lips shutting me up.

That had been about a week after our first time together, and we were still getting to know what each other was into. That first night, when she was acting so weird in her room, I didn't understand it. But then, the next time, she did something similar: almost asking me permission to do whatever the fuck it was that she needed to do.

I puzzled over that, even as we were playing on her bed. She was only the second girl I'd been with, and Llew was just business. Lora was business too, I kept reminding myself, but it felt different. More personal. Even more personal than Tim. Which was weird. I had thought she was new to being with a girl too, at first, but then that first time, in my dorm room, when she totally got into it, I realized she must have had experience.

"Tell me about the first time you were with a girl." I draped my left arm across her chest, feeling her nipples, hard against my forearm, my right arm squeezed between us, my fingers on her thigh.

"Really?" She looked down the bed to the phone and back to me. "You really want to hear that?"

I shrugged, lifting my eyebrows. "Why the fuck not?" I smiled and kissed her nose. "You're only my second, you know. You want to hear about my first? It was only last year..."

She sighed and turned her head to look at the ceiling. "I seriously didn't think I was queer," she said softly. "I liked boys. I still like boys!" She turned quickly back to make sure I was okay with that.

I shook my head, totally not understanding what was going on. "I like boys too, Lora. A lot. And I like you. A lot. When did you first figure out you liked girls?" I let my hand drift back to play with her nipple, loving how hard I could make it, seeing her shift her legs after a minute, probably from whatever it was doing to her insides.

"Senior prom," she said flatly.

I almost jerked. I'd had it sooooo wrong. "Really?" I asked quietly. "But...last week, in my room, I thought...you said you'd never done it with a girl before?"

She blushed and shook her head. "Shut up. Just listen."

I kissed her nose again. "Shutting up. Listening."

"I'd gone with Bobby Thompson cuz he asked me, and he was cute. And sweet." She just went quiet for a moment, and then exhaled slowly, her breasts dropping. "We made out in his car, and it was pretty nice. And he'd smuggled some alcohol in, so a group of us were getting toasted on the dance floor. About half-way through, seeing that it wasn't going to get any better, we left together to an all-night diner. So stupid to have been driving like that, but we survived." She shook her head. "Anyways, we're there, and I'm feeling pretty loose, hoping maybe Bobby would try something before it got too much later, but the guys got all..." She waved her hand around vaguely, "like guys get. Roughhousing and shit talking.

Clarita Santos had been sitting next to me, and she leaned over to whisper in my ear." Lora stopped and shivered a little. "It still gives me goosebumps whenever I remember it. She said, 'You want to ditch these guys and go back to my place? I think we could have a lot more fun together than with them.' I remember thinking that I couldn't believe what she'd just said, or that she meant what I thought it meant. But when I looked her in the eyes, she nodded, glancing down to my gown and back again. And, shit, something kinda happened inside me. 'Okay?' I said, 'but what do we tell the guys?' She just smiled and told me she'd take care of it. And then she got up and walked over to JJ, the guy she'd been with, said something I couldn't hear, and then walked back and sat down again. By then, he'd leaned over to the others and they got quiet, turning to look at us every other moment.

Cathy Abers, the third girl in the group, turned to Clarita and asked her what she'd said. 'Oh,' Clarita smiled, patting her hand, 'you're good. I just said Loralei and I were heading back to my place cuz we both got our periods and needed to get cleaned up. But I thought you'd kinda like their company, yeah?' I remember Cathy looking so confused, like Christmas had come early for her. She always was into horny guys." Lora stopped and smiled at the memory. "So yeah, I went home with Clarita and slept the night there."

I let her think for a moment, our breath the only sound, her nipple so tight and ribbed under my fingers. "And...that was it? You had a sleep over?"

Lora laughed. "As if! Oh, my god. Clarita. She knew what she was and I think she knew more about me than I did. She was so sly. Explaining to her folks we'd decided to come back rather than be out with guys who were getting a little rowdy. Having me call my folks in front of them so it was all on the up and up. And, before I had even gotten upstairs to her bedroom, she'd peeled off her top and skirt. She was waiting for me to get undressed, like it was totally the thing we did all the time! But I hadn't spent much time with Clar before that night. She seemed so out of my league, and I was sooooo shy." She closed her eyes, her legs starting to wiggle a little, her hand joining my fingers on her breast. "I just stood there and watched her peel off her bra and underwear, and then she sat on the bed and made me strip for her." She moaned a little, maybe from my fingers, but probably from the memory. 'Go on, you little kitten.' That's what she called me. 'I got undressed. Now it's your turn. Please. Take off your clothes and then we can take a bath together.'"

I was starting to get the picture and almost blew it by asking her if that's how she wanted to be treated, but I kept my mouth shut, wriggling my right hand out from between us to work on the nipple closer to me, my left drifting down to pluck at her pubic hair. "That sounds totally hot," I whispered in her ear. "So, did you?"

She nodded, swallowing and licking her lips. "Yeah. I did. I was so embarrassed just standing in the middle of her room, unbuttoning my dress and letting it fall. And when I slipped off my bra she told me to keep my hands at my sides, that she wanted to 'see me naked and exposed.' Oh, fuck that was so intense. And then she told me to stop delaying the 'inevitable.'" Lora laughed a quick bark. "She actually said that! At the time I was too scared to even know what she meant, but later," she inhaled sharply, probably from my finger playing with her clit, but maybe from the memory, "later she had me doing all sorts of things." She closed her eyes and opened her legs. "So wrong. So awful. So...fucking terrible." She lifted her pelvis to open herself more for me, begging me with her body to push my finger into her deeper.

I needed to hear what those were, but I didn't know if Lora was reliving a trauma or just judging her younger self. "It's okay if you don't want to tell me, Lora. It sounds intense." I said softly, continuing to play her body like the way I thought the girls watching the final cut would want me to.

She turned to look at me, her eyes glancing down to watch my fingers fondling her before looking back into my eyes. "It was fucking intense, Jewel. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to run, but I wanted to do what she asked even more. I mean, I wasn't a lesbian! I'm not a lesbian! I like boys! But, maybe it was the alcohol, or maybe I was just super horny and a little pissed at Bobby T." She shook her head, her pelvis pushing against me, wanting more.

"In the bathroom, while she filled the tub, she told me to lift the toilet seat and straddle it, putting my hands behind my head. 'You can join me here, when you've peed everything out of your cute pussy. I don't want you to pee in the bath.' I mean, what the fuck!!!?" Loralei grunted a laugh but moved against me, inviting me into her further. "She sat on the edge of the tub, her fingers reaching down to test the temperature, staring at me, making me stare at her. I could never pee like that! I'd never peed in front of someone before! And with my hands like that? I was completely 'naked and exposed,' just like she had said. Not to mention how she talked about my body, my...pussy." She stared at me, her eyes closing with the intensity of my caresses, I hoped, and not the memory of Clarita's words. "I never called it that before Clar," she continued. "Her body was so different from mine: dark hair, breasts so much bigger, her labia, I remember thinking how big they were. Later I realized she was probably totally on fire watching me, swollen and horny. But I didn't know about any of that back then."

I waited a heartbeat. "So, did you go? I mean, pee? Were you able to do it?"

She nodded, staring into my eyes. "Uh hunh. The sound of the water in the tub, the alcohol, and her suggesting I needed to pee, it all was more than my embarrassment. It just came gushing out of me, the sound in the bowl making it even easier." She closed her eyes again and sighed. "And then she said something that I've never told anyone, Jewel. Seriously." She looked at me, her expression a plea to not fuck with her.

"You don't have to tell me anything, Lora. It sounds pretty difficult." I felt her lips getting slick, so it couldn't have been all that terrible. Whatever it was, it was lighting her up.

"No. It wasn't bad, Jewel. It was the sexiest thing anyone has ever said to me, but I didn't know what to make of it. She said, 'That's a good pet, Loralei. Peeing in the toilet and not making a mess on the floor is a well behaved pussy. You're going to be my well behaved pussy tonight, aren't you?'" Loralei looked at me with wide eyes. "Fuuuuckkk...that was so fucking awful. So fucking fucking hot. I didn't know what she meant. I mean, that's not it...I...I knew exactly what she meant, but I couldn't make sense of it. I just looked down to see the pee on the rim and in the bowl, and looked back at her and nodded, my hands still on the back of my head. 'You can come here, now kitten. Stand in the tub. Tell me if it's too hot or too cold.' And then she did things to me that night that I never knew were possible. I actually had an orgasm!" She smiled at me and leaned in to kiss me. She pulled away after a couple of heartbeats. "And that was my first time."

And that's when I knew Loralei needed me to give her permission to do the things she wanted. I didn't have any experience with BDSM, but I recognized the power dynamic. It wasn't much different from what I was doing, and that's when it hit me why she was with me. She needed someone like me, as much as I needed to be someone like me. I smiled wickedly at her, and leaned back in to kiss her, the finger inside her channel pulling up, forcing a moan from her, the hand on her breast reaching behind her head to pull her more firmly against me. I could feel her melt. I knew what she needed, and I knew we would be perfect together because of it.

"But there were more, weren't there, Lei?" I decided to give her a name just for us. "You didn't tell me the truth before, did you?" I watched her struggle, my fingers and thumb pulsing, sending jolts into her, my question forcing her to admit to me who she really was. "You kept going over to Clar's house, didn't you?" She moaned. "You did terrible things with her. And then, when you came to college, you found other women who would treat you that way." She opened her mouth, her eyes clamped shut, her body begging me to keep doing what I was doing. "You're a submissive little lesbian, Lei, who needs me to give her permission to have sex with girls, to show the girls how terrible you can be, opening you're pussy, begging for release." I watched her blushing even as she started to pant, nodding her head.

"Ysss, please, please, fuck yes, yes, more fuck more more ohhhogOOODDDDDD!"

She wrapped her arms around me, curling into my hand to push harder against me and spasmed as her climax wound her up and then unsprung.

Sitting with her in the café, I was getting concerned about her second thoughts on my work. "Hold on a sec, L. Wait." I looked at my food to collect my thoughts. "You're saying that by making porn videos, I'm committing a crime against women?" I wasn't angry. I was just trying to make sure I had understood her. I mean, it's not like I hadn't been thinking about my work the entire time as something potentially terribly wrong. Not even being able to discuss it with my folks was a huge red flag to me. But I had also been thinking hard about how to not make it harmful. I hadn't read any of the feminist literature at that point, which of course, Loralei was deep into.

She nodded. "Yeah. It's possible. We've been reading the stuff out of the 70s and the authors are pretty clear that the porn industry is designed, by definition, to objectify and subjugate women for men's pleasure...and livelihoods."

I was stunned by her statement. She wasn't saying it to judge me, simply pointing out a fact. But I

knew,

in my heart, that there was something wrong with that point of view. "Wait. That was like 50 years ago! Hasn't anything happened between then and now that might change that point of view?" I turned my palms to point at me. "Do I look like someone who's trying to subjugate women?" I left out the 'for men's pleasure' part, since it was only with Lei that I had started to explore what girls wanted.

She shook her head, also struggling. "No," she said quietly, staring at her plate. "That's what's so confusing to me. Why do

I want to do what you're asking me to do

if it's so harmful to women?"

I reached across the table and held her hands. "Shhh. That's taking this a little too far, isn't it? I mean, what we do together, that's been pretty fucking fantastic, right? Even if I didn't ultimately produce movies from it, you've definitely told me you are okay...fuck, more than okay...with me recording you...us...while we're fucking around. Right?" We'd been over this a couple of times and I was still concerned she hadn't fully committed to being comfortable with it.

She turned her palms up to hold my hands and looked up from her plate. "I know. It's so fucking confusing. I feel like I need to talk to the group about what we're doing..." Her eyes widened at the thought. "I mean. If that'd be okay with you! Would it be okay if I raised this as an example in my Women Studies' seminar?"

I just laughed at how conflicted she was! Having to ask me permission, again! About a topic she felt so strongly about! I teased her, watching her squirm at how I was framing her, and then I stopped, knowing I was bordering on being unkind, and leaned into a kiss. She was terrified we were kissing in public, but I knew the minute she kissed me back that she was grateful. "Of course you should bring it up!" I assured her. "I'm definitely not wanting to make this some weird act of misogyny!" I knew that line of reasoning had to be wrong, but I hadn't read any of the books she was reading, so I couldn't debate her. That was the moment I decided to really understand what I was doing and whether my vision of the future was truly as wonderful as I had thought it was.

*-*-*-*

"You're totally comfortable like this, right?"

She looked up at me and nodded, but her face said something different. At least it didn't look totally comfortable. But maybe because of the position she was in. Maybe it was impossible for anyone to be 'totally comfortable' posed like she was.

We were back in my dorm, Brendi gone again. As much as I really liked the privacy of being at Lei's place, my equipment was all set up at mine. It was cramped. Way more cramped than her room, but enough space for what I had in mind. And Brendi hadn't been back here regularly for I couldn't remember how long. I'd started to rearrange the furniture and not put it back.

I'd landed on an idea for the next feature film. The first time since

Contrasts

in which I saw a full narrative arc. It had come to me during all the discussions and debate and diving into the feminist literature.

"I want to make a porn movie with you," I'd said to her over lunch one day.

She just looked at me like I was crazy, the blush starting on her cheeks. "Shhhh...! I, uhhh, Jewel, uhhhm, aren't you like

always

making a porn movie with me? Like, when

aren't

you making a movie of me?" Her voice barely louder than a whisper

I laughed and shook my head. "No. That's just us having incredible sex in front of a camera. You get off on that. I get off on that. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with any of that. If ever. No. I had an idea and then I realized it would be much better if the two of us did it together."

She pressed her lips together and stared at me, her head shaking slightly "Keep your voice down, Jewel. Please. I...um...I...fuuccckk...I don't know the first thing about making movies, Jewel! That's your thing. What...how...could I possibly help?" She looked down and took a bite of her sandwich. "I'm totally in over my head with my own work. I've got three papers due and I haven't even finished the syllabus yet!"

I knew where that was going to lead if I didn't change the subject. We'd been together for almost two months, celebrating our anniversary the coming weekend, and Lora's go-to panic button was how far behind she was in her work. Except she always got it done, and as far as I could tell, she was probs top in her classes. I picked up my plate and set it down next to her, pulling my chair over. "You're such a geek, girl. Just take a breath. I'm not asking you to, like,

make a movie

for

me.

You're right. That's my thing. I'm asking you to help me make something real together. I want a partner on my next film, and I want it to be you." I leaned over and kissed her cheek, seeing her blush redden further at the public display of affection. I definitely had to work on that. Who was she worried about?