Continued thanks for the support, comments, and ratings. The story is getting close to complete. I appreciate everyone that's stuck with it this far.
Note there is some mild violence and injuries related to domestic abuse in this chapter. Also this chapter continues the pattern of being much more plot than sex.
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The rideshare trip to a coffee shop that was still open took some time; Monika's house was well away from major cities and rural and even suburban Oregon did not encourage a lot of night life. The ride was mostly silent, Jaya turning over various things in her head but not wanting to start any serious conversation with their driver there, especially as the man was spending about half the time looking in his mirror, which Jaya was fairly certain didn't point out his back window by then.
They sat at a table in the mostly empty café. The only other people there were a woman in loose clothes with a lot of jewelry working furiously at a laptop, and a guy in a hoodie and sweatpants with a vape pen that probably did not have nicotine in it, judging by his look and demeanor.
"So what's up Mariah?" Sally asked.
"Can you...can you explain more to me about the girls you were talking about?"
"Like I said it's another bullshit double-standard type thing. I've never actually worked in the industry, I'm just adjacent to it, sort of like you are. But you know you can get sucked in. So I've been doing this a while and I started to notice that the party girls, the ones that were always naked, or flashed whoever wanted it, and had sex on a whim? They were always treated like kids. They could never start serious conversations with anyone about directing or producing their own stuff because everyone assumed they didn't have their shit together. And unfortunately, most of them didn't. They went up like fireworks; shoot to the sky, big bang that everyone could see, then poof; blown away by a breeze and never heard from again. So nobody will discuss anything with them beyond 'will you blow me' or 'are you gonna be in my next shoot?'"
"But...how does that affect you? You aren't on camera," Jaya said.
"And it's worse for me for that reason. I've got a solid group of listeners. I mean, hell, I put one picture up on your site and I got enough money to buy a mustang after one week."
"Well, I don't know if anyone's told you but you are kind of hot," Jaya said.
"Thanks," Sally said, shrugging with a smile that said she knew it, "But you know I try to cover real shit on my show sometimes too. I'm not just the tit-flashing trivia show. At least I try not to be. But if I start going to all these parties and partying with the porn stars all the time, all of them start to see me as a groupie. They'll think I do my show just to have enough credibility to get past the door guards so I can fuck the porn stars or get selfies with them. If that happened the only type of guests I could get would be the same type of girls; the ones people don't take seriously as anything other than porn stars."
"Is...um...how can you tell if..."
Jaya felt tears stinging her eyes again and then felt Sally holding her.
"God I fucked up," Jaya said.
"You've got two million people on your site, I think you have a weird definition of fucked up," Sally teased.
"But it's like you said; I'm a groupie now. Fuck I was there to talk to Candi Kane tonight. I don't even know her but I can tell she's one of the girls like you said."
"Yeah she's...she's a character," Sally said, "Look, I don't think you've fucked up like that. Everyone gets a little nuts when you first get on the scene. I was probably a little too eager to spread my legs the first couple of times I got in with the real porn stars. But your site is up, it works, you've got people on there, so you've got nothing to prove. You just want to watch out that people don't start thinking you're like Monika, and you make people fuck you to get on the site."
"Yeah, I...I haven't had anyone ask about that. Everyone just offers to sleep with me," Jaya said.
"Well, I don't know if anyone's told you, but you are kind of hot," Mariah said with a wink, "But what brought this on, anyway? I mean, if it's too personal I get it, and I think I might have an idea of what's going on, but you looked like you were on the verge of a panic attack back there."
Jaya began laying out a heavily edited version of the last year or so of her life, muddling her way through explaining the issue she faced with Jasmine.
"Oh," Sally said, "I think I get it. You've got the civilian problem."
"Civilian problem?"
"It's a term porn stars use for people not in the industry. Almost all of them have a story where someone made a real effort because they thought they wanted to date the star, and they were charming, or hot, or rich enough that the performer gave it a go. They'd go on some dates, maybe even stay over a night or two and everything would be fine. Then when it turns into a real relationship it ends up falling apart because the person dating them doesn't realize they're, like, a real person. Real people have bad days, and periods, and don't actually want to do three enemas and fast all day so they can go ass-to-mouth without literally eating shit. Then you sit down to dinner and suddenly 'how was work' becomes a really loaded question because 'I was working with Jimmy today' means 'his cock was in every hole for two to three hours and by the way my pussy's too raw to do anything like make love and reassure you I'm your girl.' In the end it pisses them off and you get what happened to you; when push came to shove, they were trying to date the fantasy, and they rejected the real person."
"I...yeah, I guess it's sort of like that, now that you mention it. Except Jasmine knew the real person at one point. Sort of anyway."
Sally gave Jaya another side hug. "Look, I can tell there's a lot you aren't sharing with me, and I'm sure you've got your reasons. I know we don't know each other that well but I promise you no judgement if you want to chat about all the details. But I can also tell you that you need to do something about this. I think you're using sex the way other people use booze or coke or whatever, and apart from damaging your business relationships I've seen a lot of people end up in bad places from that kind of shit. Can you talk to your sister and her boyfriend about it, do you think?"
"Yeah. Yeah, I can do that," Jaya said.
"Okay. And like I said, you can talk to me too," Sally said.
"Is there any hope with Jasmine, do you think?" Jaya asked.
Sally's face fell a bit. "Tell you the truth, I haven't heard a lot of success stories from that kind of thing."
Jaya sighed, "I figured."
"I know hot stuff. I really hope you find some sort of solution to this, but I don't think I'm the one who can help you right now. One more thing."
Sally stopped talking so Jaya turned to her and was surprised to feel Sally's mouth press up against hers. After a moment her tongue also teased against Jaya's lips but pulled back before they could go farther.
"If you decide that you can't work it out, I definitely want to hear from you."
"I thought you didn't want to hook up?" Jaya said.
"I don't want to hook up," Sally said, "I want to take you out. I have ever since you came on my show. Also, flashing those tits at me didn't hurt."
* * * * *
Jaya didn't end up going to Jenny; she didn't need to hear the genie tell her for the hundredth time how sexual mores of the day confused her. Instead, she ended up having lunch with Trevor.
She was grateful at least for the fact that she didn't have to rehash or conceal most of her relationship because Trevor was there. He hadn't literally seen the fallout but it wasn't hard to guess.
They were having lunch at a rooftop bistro in the city Jaya actually knew about because of one of her business meetings. They chose an off time of day so had a little bit of privacy, enough that Jaya felt comfortable sharing everything, including the bits featuring Jenny. After she caught Trevor up on her current situation he let out a long breath.
"Well Jenny and I can help you, of course. I mean, we sort of have the same problem as before, though; most professionals are going to want you to reject your feelings about Jasmine. And, I mean, you might think I have some experience but your situation is totally different from mine."
Jaya stared at Trevor in shock until he said, "What?"
"What...what do you mean your experience? Your wife was...you didn't marry your sister," Jaya said.
"No, my chil...wait you don't know about them?" Trevor said.
"What?"
"Rich and Olivia, they...well..." Trevor trailed off.
"No, I knew about them. Hell
Jasmine
knew about them. We didn't think you did."
Trevor chuckled. "Ah the assumptions childless people have about parents. Mary and I knew something was up when they didn't come back from prom; Rich had just dumped his girlfriend and wasn't the type for a one-night stand, and Mary knew Olivia was not into the guy she was going with. Chances of them spending the night with anyone were nil."
"I mean...he could have; according to Olivia girls were throwing themselves at him. Or there could have been a party with their friends or something," Jaya suggested.
"Except they were dumb enough to get a rideshare home together, and when we called them on it, they were laughably awkward about excusing it. Then of course, we actually caught them."
Jaya's mouth almost hit the table. "How? Olivia said they were careful, and the only people who caught them didn't know them."
Trevor chuckled. "Of course they did. The invincibility of teenagers. Mary came with me on a business trip that was supposed to last an entire weekend, but the conference venue had to shut down because of a water main break. Vendors tried to quickly rent mini-halls and schedule ad hoc meetings but I'd already met with everyone I wanted to and Mary didn't really want to stay in Charlotte for any particular reason, so we flew home early. Since it was the middle of the day on a Saturday we assumed Rich and Olivia would be living it up with friends somewhere. Instead we came in the door and saw Olivia on all fours on a sun chair with Rich hammering her from behind."
"How did they not see you!?" Jaya blurted in a rush.
"They were in profile through the window, and it was bright outside and dark inside," Trevor said with a shrug, "We decided to just leave. We backed out and spent the night at a hotel in the city. It was a nice end to the trip actually."
"And you didn't think you should stop them?" Jaya asked.
"My wife and I were not idiots. We knew we'd thrown two hormonal teenagers together in the same house. At first we didn't want to press the issue because we felt like it was an ultimatum; if we told them straight off that they needed to prevent those feelings they'd either pursue them because it was forbidden, or any chance at friendship might be sabotaged because one or the other would think they had ulterior motives. So we just took a hands-off approach. And it was actually Mary that convinced me there wasn't much harm to it as long as everyone was careful."
"Wow."
Trevor chuckled. "It also made that night kind of interesting. I kept teasing Mary about how hot Olivia looked, and she got back at me by commenting on Rich's 'equipment'."
Jaya couldn't help but giggle at that. "It worked for you two?"
Trevor shrugged but looked a bit uncomfortable. "It was a one time fantasy type of thing, but on that night we definitely got each other revved up about the idea of fucking our stepchildren. Then we woke up in the morning and went 'what the fuck was that?' Never repeated it."
