"Life takes you to unexpected places, and you meet unexpected people."
It is a saying that is true for most people. For one guy, it was even more true. His name was Peter, and his unexpected story started in the early nineties. That time was at the forefront of digitalization. CDs and DVDs were invented, but people still used cassettes and VHS. The Internet was a thing contained chiefly at universities.
Peter was twenty-one and lived in a small town on the coast that lived off its fishing industry. He hated everything about fishing. He hated the smell, the ocean, the fishing boats, and the backbreaking work in the canning factory.
He had nearly flunked out of high school. Luckily, a student counselor talked him into continuing. She spent much effort in motivating him. Peter complained to her that he hated the miserable town in general and fishing in particular. He loathed the idea of becoming a fisherman. She made a deal with him. If he finished high school, she would get him a position as an apprentice plumber. She said that if he kept his end of the deal, he would never have to set foot on a fishing boat. He accepted the deal and tried his best to manage.
Peter was tall, with a decent muscular body. Most girls would say he was handsome. Not good-looking or hot but handsome. He was keenly interested in girls, like most guys at that age. He got a girlfriend. She was short, cute, and as inexperienced as him. Together, they discovered how it was to be with someone of the opposite sex. It was exciting, but often, they were fumbling around. They lost their virginity in the back seat of Peter's dad's car. Peter didn't know what to do and barely got the condom on. It was over in five minutes. Peter could tell that she was dissatisfied afterward. They did it again a few times but did not improve much. They broke up not long after.
Peter got a second girlfriend. Her name was Denise, and she was far more experienced than him regarding sex. Peter knew she had had several boyfriends but never told him how many. She liked doing it in the car but talked him into skipping school in the afternoons. Together, they would go home to her place. Her parents were at work, and they had sex in her bedroom. Peter was surprised at how excited she could become, and she was not shy about telling him how she wanted it. They spent many afternoons together in her bed, and she taught him about sex.
One day, he was called to the student counselor's office. She was upset with him for skipping classes. She accused him of breaking their agreement. She was agitated and nearly shouting at him. Peter was surprised at how angry she seemed to be. Only later in life did he understand that she sincerely cared about her students and wished them to succeed.
She said he would flunk high school if he continued as he had been doing. She said she had seen him with Denise and could understand the temptation to skip classes to be with her. Then, she shocked Peter when she said he had to find another time other than during school hours to fuck Denise. He had never imagined she could use such language with a student. She said that he had to stop if he wanted to have any other option than to become a fisherman.
Peter believed the student counselor. He had also seen how his grades were slipping. It did not go down well with Denise when he said they had to settle for the car in the evenings. She broke up with him the next day. He saw Denise leave school at lunchtime the following week with another guy. He had mixed feelings about it, but his gut told him he had made the right decision.
Things turned out for the better, and he graduated from high school. He got the position as an apprentice plumber with the student counselor's help. He was eternally thankful to her after that. The following month, he moved out when he got his first salary. He could not stand his parents. His father was a fisherman and could not understand why he did not want to become the same. He was forty-five but looked sixty-five with a broken body from the harsh ocean and hard work. His mother was a housewife and closet alcoholic. She was most days in a hazy alcohol-induced fog from morning 'til evening, and Peter hated it.
Peter moved in with four friends in a three-room apartment. It was cramped but cheap. All of them were happy to have moved out of their parents' homes. They had a great time together. Often, they were partying together. Occasionally, they rented a porno movie from a nearby porn shop and watched it together. Back then, there was no internet, and access to porn was limited to magazines and VCR movies. None of the guys were well off, and they would chip in the money for the movies.
Usually, it was Peter who went to the porn shop to rent the movies. He was there often enough to get to know the owner, Wesley, who was around fifty. However, it was hard to tell with his pudgy, pockmarked face and flabby body. Peter had never seen him wear anything but jeans, a white t-shirt that was perpetually dirty, and an unbuttoned flannel shirt. He was the epitome of a sleazy porn-shop owner.
One time, Peter complained to Wesley that money was tight on an apprentice plumber's salary. Wesley readily offered to lend him a fifty. He could pay him back the following week after getting his salary. He wanted steep interest, but Peter felt it was manageable. Not until later did Peter understand how Wesley had successfully played him. Over the following months, the fifty turned into a hundred, then two hundred, and even more until Peter couldn't pay him back.
They had a big argument when Peter wanted to pay Wesley back at a manageable pace without interest. After a heated argument, Wesley proposed that Peter could participate in an amateur porno movie as payment. Peter thought it was a ridiculous idea. He was no porn star. Wesley said that it was the beauty of amateur porn -- you should not be a porn star. They argued more, and Peter said he did not want people to see him in a porno movie. Wesley said it would not happen. He was part of a network of porn shops that traded amateur porn. He would send the film to the other side of the country. Wesley countered objection by objection. Finally, Peter said he had no girlfriend to have sex with. Wesley smiled evilly and said he had the perfect girl in the same position as Peter.
Peter said he needed to think about it and left. He was in a mess. Wesley demanded money that he did not have. The idea of performing on camera felt more and more appealing. It was an easy way out of his predicament. A few days later, he called Wesley, who was more than pleased to hear Peter's decision.
After a few days, Wesley called back to tell him everything was set up. Peter should come to the porn shop the following evening at closing time.
Peter felt nervous and could hardly concentrate at work. At home, he showered and prepared for the evening. He arrived at the agreed time in the porn shop and was surprised when a woman in her forties was with Wesley. He hadn't thought much about whom he would perform with but had taken it for granted that it would be someone his age. Wesley introduced her as Kiera.
Kiera acted very tense and was hostile toward Wesley.
Soon, Peter understood that she was also in debt, and Wesley had talked her into making a porno movie as a downpayment, similar to Peter's arrangement. Kiera wanted to be sure Wesley was not offering the film in his shop. He assured her he had no intentions of doing that. Wesley told them more about the network of porn shops. They produced and shared amateur porn between them. He repeated that he intended to swap the movie with another shop at the other end of the county, so it was perfectly safe.
Kiera was also rather hostile towards Peter. She softened a bit when she understood that he was also doing it because he owed money to Wesley. She quarreled with Wesley and wanted it to be worth more to have sex on camera. She argued that her husband had the actual debt, and she was sacrificing herself to reduce it. He had a gambling problem, and Wesley had tricked him into borrowing money. After a while, Wesley got fed up with her bickering. He told her to leave and return with the money she and her husband owed him. Or to shut up, and they could get down to business.
Reluctantly, Kiera agreed. Wesley locked the front door, and they entered one of the back rooms. A large bed occupied an otherwise empty room. There was a fancy-looking camera on a tripod by the bed. Wesley told them proudly that it was a digital camera. He said he could edit the film before copying it to a VHS cassette. Both Peter and Kiera were too nervous to appreciate the camera. Wesley took it and started filming them. They stood looking at him, not knowing what to do.
"What do we do now?" Kiera asked.
