Who Knew?

Then there was the fact that everyone liked her. Even when I was in the hospital and she came to visit me. The nuns liked her. It was totally unfair. I was the one in the hospital. I was the one who'd been manipulated and tricked into porn, unwillingly too. But Cherry was everyone's sweetheart. They all loved her.

I could just imagine her talking to people. "My name is Cherry," she'd say. "I'm a virgin. It's not because I'm not a whore. It's because I've been too busy dancing to find a guy to fuck me. I wanted to be a ballet dancer, but my titties got too big. So now I shake my ass in drunken men's faces for money."

She probably ran around the hospital telling that bullshit to everyone she met. The thing that galled me the most was that people believed it and liked her. I was the one lying there in the hospital and they treated me like I had Syphilis. Okay, I did actually have Syphilis, among other things, but they should have liked me, not her. Meanwhile, people just let her do whatever the fuck she wanted. Josh, my husband, who was all over TV and famous, had to fight his way into my room just to visit me. But they let a no account, stripper just waltz around the place like she owned it. It simply wasn't fair. It was up to me to set the world right.

I got up from the floor and stuck a band aid on my ass, then changed clothes. I went over to Josh's house. I hugged him and begged him to forgive me. Then I turned and hugged Cherry too.

"I missed you guys, so much," I lied. I actually did miss Josh, but I hadn't even been shooting at Cherry.

For the next two months we were like three peas in a pod. We went everywhere together. I hugged and pressed myself against Josh every chance I got, especially when the bitch wasn't looking. I often hugged her, too, and sometimes I did it without gagging.

Seeing them together was rough on me though, even though I knew that they weren't having sex. It was like every time I saw him tenderly kiss her, or when they just made out right in front of me, I knew that it should have been me in his arms. But I just smiled as I imagined how embarrassed she'd be when I played my final card.

Getting them to trust me again was simple, but it was only the first part of my plan. At the end of the first two months though, things got weird. I made the mistake of telling Josh that I loved him while hugging him. He actually told me that we should probably not tell each other things like that because his fiancé might not like it.

At the same time, I woke up a few days later and went downstairs in the middle of the night. I found Cherry, writing something and crying. When I asked her what was wrong, she hid the paper and she looked me in the eye and told me that she loved me. I was shocked, but I needed to stick to the plan so I just told her that I loved her too.

I began to wonder if maybe I could manipulate her into sharing Josh. Then I could simply push her out of the picture. There were lots of ways to do it. Maybe she could just spend more and more time at her dance school until she was just out of the picture. Or Josh could get me pregnant and I'd tell him he had to choose between me and his child, and Cherry.

I decided to stick with my original plan for two reasons: first, because the original plan would be faster and more definite and secondly, because I still needed to make the bitch pay for stealing Josh.

I told Cherry that I needed her to meet me at the massage parlor that I used to work at. She'd been there lots of times when she and I first started hanging out. It was where we shot most of my movies in the old days. I told her that I wanted to organize a surprise for Josh and she was all in.

When she got there we had a couple of drinks and started to talk about my plans. The stupid cow trusted me so she never suspected that her drinks were drugged. I didn't have to use anything exotic and hard to find. I used stuff that I had in my own medicine cabinet. For what I wanted to do I didn't need a date rape drug. I just mixed the muscle relaxers I had left over from the surgery, with the most powerful sleeping agents I could find.

In only a few minutes she was slurring her words and having trouble sitting upright.

"Cherry, what's wrong?" I said.

"I just need to lie down for a few minutes," she said cheerfully. "The doctors didn't tell me about this."

I wondered what the fuck she was talking about, but truthfully I didn't care. I half dragged, half carried her into the back, where the cameras and the men waited.

I lay her down on the couch and started taking off her clothes. There were four men in the room. Derrick was one of the best cameramen in the business. I was paying him ten thousand dollars to film the scene. He thought that I'd decided to go into directing. A lot of porn stars go into directing or producing when they tire of fucking onscreen.

The other three guys were special. There was Larry Fein who was the biggest white guy I'd ever worked with. Onscreen he went by Larry. He thought that it made him seem special to have only one name, like Madonna or Seal. Maurice Howard, who went by the name Moe was a black guy with a huge dick. He liked to be called Moe because the women who did the scenes with him were always screaming for "Mo," he said in his clipped British accent. I hated Moe because I'd done a few scenes with him and I really believed that his dick was the one that had stretched my ass out and made my pussy too loose. I also hated the fact that Moe was fake. Onscreen, he came off as extremely urban. People who saw him thought that he'd been taken straight from the ghetto. The reality was that he'd graduated from a famous college in England with a degree in some unusual discipline of history. He was only doing work in porn to pay the bills. Moe, not only wasn't from the ghetto, he didn't know where the ghetto was and had never really met any other black people.

The last guy was Joseph Howard. He wasn't related to Maurice. It was only a coincidence that they had the same last name. He was Mexican and was known because of how handsome he was. He had long flowing hair and everyone called him Curly Joe. I'd only done one scene with him. It had been awful. He spent so much time trying to look at him-self in every shiny or reflective surface that he couldn't keep his dick hard. I was sure of two things about him. One was that he was gay and trying to fake it. And the other was that he was the bastard who gave me the diseases.

"Action," I screamed.

"Um, what do we do?" asked Larry. "We don't have the script."

"What fucking script?" I asked. "This is porn. You just walk over there and fuck her, case closed."

"What's my motivation?" asked Moe.

"Your motivation is the fact that if you don't get your big black dick up her ass in the next five minutes, you won't get paid a God damned dime," I snapped.

"Where's the make-up person?" asked Curly Joe. I walked away fuming. Moe and Larry were already pulling Cherry's clothes off and Derrick was filming it all.

"Is this one of those films like you used to do?" asked Larry. I smiled and nodded.

"This chick is good," said Moe. "She's a better actress than you ever were. It's almost like she really is asleep."

I decided right then and there to stiff Moe, or at least short him some of his money. How dare he call this tramp a better actress than me?

The drugs must have been weaker than I thought, or cherry was more strong willed. I'd given her enough shit to keep an elephant down for a week, but as soon as they tried to pull her legs apart, her eyes clicked open and she said, "No."

"Yes," screamed Larry, grabbing her.

"Shut yo' ass up, bitch," spat Moe. I just shook my head. I almost believed him.

"You know you want me," said Curly Joe, sexily. He wasn't anywhere near Cherry. He was posing for the camera fully dressed as if he was a female fashion model.

Larry pulled Cherry's arms back and Moe stroked his huge dick. Curly Joe's eyes went huge all of sudden as he looked at Moe's dick and then everything went to hell. "No," screamed Cherry again. She lashed out with her foot and years of dancing gave her both speed and technique. She caught Moe right in the balls, even though she was still barely conscious.

Moe screamed like a girl and grabbed his nuts. "Gosh darn, that smarts, rightly," he said holding his damaged gonads.

Larry continued to wrestle with Cherry, who even in her sleep was fighting for everything she had to hold onto her cherry until the man she'd chosen to give it to took it. Curly Joe pranced across the room. He wasn't heading for Cherry though, he sauntered over to Moe.

"That looks like it hurts, dude," he said. "Do you want me to rub it?"

My eyes rolled back in my head. This was all going south so far and so fast that I knew I was cursed. The Gods just fucking hate me, I thought. Then things got worse. Cherry suddenly stopped fighting and even though she was technically asleep, I recognized the actions her body was making. I remembered the jerky motions and disjointed thrusts she was making. Cherry was having a seizure and a big one. I ran over to her to try to hold her down so she wouldn't hurt herself.

By the time I got to her it had passed. I watched her, waiting for her eyes to open but they didn't. I figured that the drugs had taken better effect and maybe we'd get a second shot at this. "Take two!" I screamed. "Places, gentlemen. Cherry, pretend you're asleep."

"I'm sorry but there's simply no way I can perform," said Moe angrily. "The woman is impossible, I say. She kicked me in the testes and I'm quite angry."

"I told you I'd rub it," slurred Curly Joe.

"This bitch ain't breathing," said Larry.

Derrick ran over and listened to Cherry's chest. "No heartbeat," he said. "What should we do?"

"Call nine-one-one and get the fuck out of here," said Larry. I don't know who called. All I remember is we all ran out of the building got into our cars and left.

Two hours later I was in the dining room of Josh's house watching him pacing back and forth. "This isn't like her," he said. "Lisa always tells me where she's going and when she'll be back. Something is wrong."

"She was supposed to meet me, but she never showed up," I said. I was already sweating. I felt guilty beyond belief. I also felt like an ass. Cherry, in the entire time that I had known her, had never done anything bad to me. It wasn't her fault that she fell in love with the same man I loved. One of the things that made me feel the worst was her actions that night. She deserved Josh far more than I ever had. Even heavily drugged, she tried her ass off to remain faithful to him. I'd often said things like I'd die before I'd hurt Josh, but she'd proven her love for him far beyond what most women were capable of.

Josh called his lawyers and had five PI's at the house in under an hour. I told Josh that no matter what happened we'd see this through together. He grabbed my hand and told me how glad he was that I was there with him.

"Josh, you know that Cherry has always been a little off," I said. "Maybe she just wanted to run away for a little while. You know, she just needed to get away from the pressure of planning the wedding."

"No, Brianna," he said. "Cherry was really looking forward to us getting married and having babies. She wanted to teach our kids to dance herself."

He looked so hurt and so vulnerable. This wasn't what I had planned. I'd planned to leave a copy of the tape on the hood of Josh's Mustang; the yellow one that he drove every day. The same car that he'd picked her up from her last dance in.

I was also going to post the video on a couple of free internet porn sites. I figured that by this time tomorrow, the engagement would be off and Cherry would be a world-wide whore. Josh would be distraught and I'd be there to pick up the pieces. I didn't want Cherry dead. I just wanted her away from Josh.

It took less than twenty four hours for my plans to fall apart. The police were at the door in under an hour. They told Josh that Cherry was dead and they needed him to ID the body. There hadn't even been time to file a missing persons report. I couldn't believe this shit. In real life the police never find the body this fast and after they find it, they almost never find the killer. They told him where they'd found her and how. One of the over-night cleaning guys at the parlor had found the body and called it in.

This shit was ludicrous. It was just another sign that the Gods hate me. I went to bed that night trying to decide at which point I'd skip town. I figured that there was no way for us to get caught. First off they had to do an autopsy to discover the cause of death. Even then they'd have to do all kinds of toxicology studies. And I was sure that she'd OD'd on the drugs I gave her. I'd simply been over zealous and gave her too much. The drugs I used were prescribed daily by thousands of doctors, so I was sure they wouldn't be able to trace me.

They did have the phone message where she told Josh she was meeting me, but I don't think he'd heard it yet. When he did I'd simply say that she had never shown up for our meeting. I didn't sleep alone that night, either. I put on the sheerest night gown I could find and got into bed with Josh. I told him that I was upset and didn't want to be alone. He wrapped his arms around me and held me all night. He'd also gotten hard a couple of times during the night. If I kept sleeping with him, he'd be back in me in less than a week. Sleeping with Cherry and not fucking her had to be driving him crazy.

I was just thinking about that early the next morning when the police arrived again. Josh's butler knocked on the door and told us to come downstairs. The detectives who waited for us greeted us warmly. They asked if we could go downtown with them to clear up a few things. They never really looked at me. They just stared at Josh. They spoke to him kindly but they never took their eyes off of him.

I was sure that they thought that Josh had something to do with what happened to Cherry. It made me laugh thinking about how stupid cops were. I realized that this was another opportunity to get closer to Josh. I whispered to him that I'd stand by him no matter what. I was sure that he'd get off. The police always suspect the husband or the boyfriend. They even asked him a few questions about how the relationship between he and Cherry had been going. We sat there in the interrogation room and they asked him all kinds of questions. Finally the district attorney came in and asked Josh if could sign something.

"But I didn't do it," said Josh. "I swear I didn't. I loved Cherry."

"We know that sir," said the DA. "I just wanted your autograph. All of the detectives have been staring at you because we finally realized who you are. They've been studying your reactions because famous people react to stresses differently. We are ready to press charges though."

"Against who?" asked Josh.

"Well we'd like you to look at something," said the DA. "Normally we don't show our evidence but this case was so horrendous and you are a victim so we're going to make an exception."

"The first thing we have is the surveillance cameras at the massage parlor," he said. He turned on a video monitor and it showed the front door of the massage parlor. You could clearly see men going into and out of the building regularly. "After the place closed a few guys entered the premises," he said. Unfortunately we couldn't get a closer view of them so we couldn't ID them. There seemed to be some kind of glitch in the system and it stopped recording.

My heart started to beat again. Maybe the Gods didn't hate me after all.

"We have no idea why your fiancé was there," he said, "but look at the video from later on." The video just showed the parlor's exterior. Suddenly the door flew open and four men ran out of the building and jumped into their cars. You could clearly see Larry because he couldn't get his car door to open. He dropped his keys and had to crawl under his car to find them and finally picked up a rock and broke into his own car by smashing the window.

Moe ran to his own car holding onto his nuts. Curly Joe seemed to be posing for every security camera he passed. Derrick was the only one with enough sense to cover his God damned face.

The tape skipped again before I came out. Score another point for me.

That was where my luck ran out. "We didn't get license plate number from any of the cars," he said. "We thought it would be very difficult to identify the men or even to determine if they had anything to do with your fiance's death. But then we got a break."

I could just hear Scooby-Doo saying, "Ruh-roh, Shaggy."

"There was a professional video camera in the same room where we found the body," he said. "And believe it or not those three morons and their friend left the tape in the camera when they left. There were enough clear pictures to easily identify them as three really stupid porn stars. We found them and brought them in for questioning after watching the tape."

My heart was beating so hard in my chest that I thought I was going to die. "At first we didn't believe their story," he continued, "but they all told us the same thing: they'd been hired by another person to shoot a scene. None of them realized that the woman had been drugged and was an unwilling participant. The black guy with the English accent actually wanted to press assault charges against your fiancé. We had to remind him that she's dead."

"Anyway, they all rolled over on each other and even on the camera man and the person responsible. The DA believes their story. The camera guy has the same story. He was just a dupe. He was offered good money to film a scene. He had no idea that the woman was unwilling. He's shot hundreds of scenes just like that. This wasn't actually a murder. It was an accident, so we're not charging those guys with murder. They were all just stooges. I really wish we could charge the black guy with being a drama queen or the curly haired guy with just being a queen but..."

"So they're getting away with it?" screamed Josh leaping to his feet. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yep they are," said the DA as cool as cucumber. "But we're charging your friend there with murder one." He said pointing at me. I looked down.

"But I don't understand," said Josh. "We're all friends. We love each other."

The DA shook his head sadly. "Ms. Kent, or Gittner Hole as she's known in porn, hired all of the guys. She was the one who convinced Miss Holder to come to the massage parlor. She drugged her and convinced the men that they were only filming a scene. Giving the drugs to Miss Holder is a felony. She'd get ten years for that minimum. If Miss Holder had died of the drug overdose it would have been murder or at least manslaughter. But Miss Holder died of a cerebral Hemorrhage as a result of a massive seizure. She had a history of seizures due to stress. Ms. Kent knew that and the stress of coming awake during a contracted rape was enough to cause the seizure that killed her."

In a flash, Josh had leaped out of his chair and snatched me out of mine. The man I love was trying to choke the life out of me while calling me every type of bitch in the dictionary. In the end they had to taser him to get him off of me. I wasn't worried; I knew that Josh wasn't a killer.

So of course they put me in jail. They assigned me a public defender, who quickly looked at the case and quit. When they told him he couldn't quit, he took all of his vacation time for the next three years at once and left town. They finally got me a guy who was fresh out of law school and graduated solidly at the top of the middle of the bottom of his class. I sat in my cell and pretty much ignored him. He tried to talk about different strategies with me and I laughed.