Who Knew?

"Well, two grand," he said. "But if you promise me more and the pics are good I could probably give you three."

"Set it up for tomorrow," I ordered, "and I don't trust you. I want the money in cash."

The next day was awful for me. I went into Sonny's back room at the parlor for the first time since he'd shown me the video of us together. Sonny was there in his wheelchair and there was a photographer, but thankfully no one else was present.

"As a bonus, I'm giving you this," said Sonny. I looked at him crazily as he handed me a small file folder.

"There are no other copies, I swear," he said.

"What is it?" I asked. I was nervous and I was pissed. I didn't want to do this. There was still the risk of Josh seeing the pictures of me and becoming even angrier. But I needed the money. I needed to track him down and I needed to block the divorce. There was also a nagging itch in the back of my mind. I was sure that someone that I knew had at least an idea of where Josh was or was in contact with him.

Someone had to have told that evil little bitch that I was back at our apartment. How else would she have known where to look for me?

"It's the video of us together that I used to blackmail you into having sex with me," he said quietly.

"You mean the video you used to force me to let you use my body," I snapped. "We never had sex TOGETHER. When you say have sex with you it means we both have sex. It means we both got something from it. Sonny, you got something from it. All I got was humiliation and disgust at myself. All I got was the right to be ashamed of what I was doing both to myself and to my husband. So you may as well tell the truth."

"Tasti, I'm sorry," he said. "I can kind of see now that you were right. You were a nice girl when you first walked in that door. So I guess in a way I did kind of help to ruin your life. But it's not all on me. You are a grownup, girlie; you DO have the ability to say no."

"Whatever," I said. "Let's just get this over with. Where's my money?" Sonny pulled another folder out of a drawer. He handed it to me. I opened it and saw the bills. I pulled them out and started counting them.

"Don't you trust me?" he asked. I looked at him like he was crazy.

I counted it and noticed that he'd slipped an extra five hundred in. "Thanks," I said.

It took only an hour to get the shots they wanted. I wore a wig and kept my face either turned as far away from the camera as I could, or held my expression so contorted that my actual features bore very little resemblance to my normal face. As I walked away, I felt dirty. I felt like I'd just taken one more step closer to damnation. My greatest fear was that Josh would see these pictures and just fling them down in front of me and tell me that they were just another thing to keep us apart. On the other hand, I now had enough money to either hire a lawyer to begin fighting this divorce -- or to hire a PI to find Josh -- but not both. I needed even more money and soon.

I began to realize the enormity of the task before me, then. It had cost me nothing to get Josh to fall in love with me. It had cost me nothing for us to get married and decide to be together forever. Lying to him and taking a job that I knew I shouldn't have, however, had cost me everything. Neither Josh nor I had ever made a lot of money, but when we were together I'd always felt like we were rich. Now I'd have to make a bunch of other people rich, just to get Josh back.

I went home and called and spoke to my aunt. The reception I got from her was frosty. I called my in-laws and they spoke to me for a while. I told my mother-in-law the entire story. I told her about my entire life with her son and how much I loved him and would do anything to have him back. I told her about all of the stupid decisions I'd made and the reasons behind them. She got really angry at me but at least she understood. She also promised me that if she heard from Josh, she'd try to explain my side of things. It was a start. She didn't promise me anything, but at least it gave me hope.

I hired an attorney. I wanted a woman but I ended up with a man. I figured that a woman would understand what I'd gone through. The problem was that the women all looked down on me. Forget about professionalism, all of those bitches had their own opinions and they all allowed those opinions to color our relationship. It was as if they all got to judge me, and found me lacking in moral fiber. Of course it could also have been that, as single women, they saw me as being a fool for throwing away something they'd have died for.

Even the male attorneys had their issues. A couple of them I had to report to the Bar Association because they made suggestions that were less than professional. I guess they figured that the kind of woman who would fuck around on her husband would probably screw her lawyer as well; that simply wasn't the case. Why couldn't they understand that I hadn't done what I'd done willingly? I also hadn't done it to help myself get ahead or to hurt Josh. I loved -- and to this day continue to love -- only my husband.

Most of the lawyers told me that it would cost a lot of money to delay the divorce. They told me that there was no way to stop it. The only thing I could hope for was to delay the proceedings long enough for Josh and I to reconcile. They could file motion after motion. We could ask for counseling. We could dispute every settlement agreement, but in the end, if Josh kept pushing for it, he'd have his divorce.

That made my money issues even worse because it meant that I would need money for the PI as well as the lawyer. There was no either/or; I needed both. The PI had to find Josh so I could try to talk to him, while the lawyer held his lawyer off.

I guess that need for money was how Sonny got me to try porn. The first videos I did were what they call solo videos. I did them the same way that I did the photo shoot. I wore a wig and kept my face hidden whenever possible. The perverts that watched the videos weren't really interested in my face anyway. The videos were badly lit and the cameras only focused on the action. I couldn't believe that anyone would really want to watch me walk around and then just take off my clothes but the videos all sold really well. Besides I was doing it for Josh and me. The next step was the masturbation videos. I got even more money for doing them. I was still shocked that anyone would want to watch me pleasure myself. I thought that it was gross, yet I got nominated for an award for best solo video at the AVN awards. I didn't dare go to the ceremony because I didn't want to become known as some kind of porn star. I especially didn't want Josh to ever hear that I'd done something like that.

Anyway I never thought that what I was doing was nearly as bad as what I'd already done. Having sex with another man had driven Josh from me, so I figured that anything less than that wouldn't matter. I was enjoying the money. Even with what I was paying the lawyer, I had more money left over than I'd ever had before.

This went on for a few months. My lawyer made a motion for counseling. The judge went for it. Josh never even came into town to attend the sessions; his lawyer instead forwarded a letter to the judge. I never found out what was in the letter but the judge waived the counseling. My lawyers refused the settlement that Josh proposed. They asked for a sit down meeting with Josh to discuss things. Since I was making more money, I wanted to give Josh some of it. He refused to even accept money from me. The judge agreed that it didn't make sense but Josh had a right to his stupidity.

The end came sooner than I expected. One of the things that Josh wanted was for me to go back to using my maiden name. I refused; I wanted to hold on to every little bit of him that I had. Josh withdrew that stipulation and the judge granted him the divorce. Josh didn't even show up. I had dressed in the best clothes I could buy, I wanted Josh to see me and want me again. It was the worst feeling ever. I sat in the court room and waited for him to show. I was sure that he'd show up early. There was an older man there and he sat at the table next to mine. Finally the judge came in and reviewed the case. He looked at me and shook his head. He sat there with his glasses perched on his nose and then started talking to me.

"I see here that you've filed a lot of motions and tried to do everything you could to stay married to Mr. McVay," he said. I nodded. "Young lady, your husband wrote me a letter that told me his feelings about the situation. I've also spoken to his counselor. The break up between you was devastating for him. He is only now beginning to be able to function in a normal state. Ordinarily, I'd try to force the two of you to at least speak to each other. I'd expect that the time you've spent apart would force you to at least calm down to the point where you could speak to each other in a civil fashion. But in this case I see no reason to stretch this out, divorce granted. The date will be 60 days from today."

The gavel sounded far louder to me than it actually was. The judge looked at me and said something, but I don't remember hearing what he said. My lawyer said something to him and then started pushing me out of the courtroom. I didn't want to leave. I remember I started crying uncontrollably because I had been hoping and praying that we'd find some way to delay it yet again.

I had never been a big drinker, but that night I drank myself to sleep. The next day Sonny and his nurse came to pick me up for another video and I was too out of it to function. Sonny, friend that he was, took that opportunity to change my life yet again. While I was too drunk to object, Sonny got me together with one of his actors and filmed me having sex. He kept feeding me more liquor and truthfully I didn't want to come out of it. All I knew was that my life was over and I no longer cared what happened.

I think it was "the talk," that finally drove me over the edge. Sonny sat me down and told me that in order for me to move on to the next level I was going to have to start acting. He told me that the biggest barrier to my becoming a star in porn were two things. The first was his fault. Making the movies in the back or the massage parlor was small time and their quality would never make us the money that we really could make. My videos were selling to a small niche market and would probably never go beyond that.

The next step for us was to arrange a distribution deal with a major studio. If we did that we could make at least ten times the money we were making. The hurdle to that, though, was me. I wouldn't be able to hide my face and just lie there and look away from the camera. I would have to act like I was really enjoying it. With the kind of money we'd be making, Sonny assured me, that he could hire better PI's and he would find Josh. My heart quickened when he said that.

He also told me that he had a plan to get Josh to see me. Sonny's plan was that we'd hire Josh as a photographer to take some pictures of me. Sonny would reject the pictures again and again if necessary until Josh and I had enough time together to see if we could fix things between us. If we did fix things then I could immediately retire and Josh and I could have the money I'd earned to start our new life with. If things between us couldn't be fixed then at least I'd be better off because being miserable is a lot more fun when you have a shitload of money.

So that was how Tasti Pucci hit the mainstream. Over the next three years and over seventy five films I became a star. I was voted best newcomer at the AVN awards that first year and best actress the next two years. I had a nice little house, a very respectable bank balance and I was famous or infamous over most of the world. I never did any gangbang scenes or DP scenes. In fact I never filmed any normal sex scenes at all. What I did mostly was sleep sex videos. Sleep sex videos are the ones where the woman is asleep and her husband, boyfriend, father or some other guy comes in and has sex with her while she's asleep. Even on film I didn't want Josh to think that I was willingly engaging in sex with other men.

The funny thing about it was that over the three years since I'd seen Josh, I hadn't really had sex with anyone. Filming a sex scene actually does involve penetration but it isn't really sex. You may do the same moves over and over again until you get it right for the cameras. You go through a lot of lube and pose for hours sometimes. The guys have to be really gifted to stay hard for the shots. Most of them have had some kind of enhancement procedures done and a lot of them are either gay, married or simply not attracted to the women they do the scenes with. Most of them were also totally professional and treated me far better than Sonny and my own people did.

When I wasn't making films I never left my house. I was pretty much a recluse unless I was doing one of the rare appearances at an adult video fair that I couldn't get out of or one of the even more rare appearances at a club that I was contractually obligated to do.

It was really strange to go out in public and have thousands of guys lined up who were dying to meet me and then go back to my little house all alone, feeling dirty and unloved. I knew that none of those guys new the real me. All they knew was Tasti. They knew nothing at all about Brianna McVay. They all wanted to fuck the "Sleeping Slut."

It was at one of those events that I met my actual best friend. Cherry Holder was a stripper who appeared both in clubs and at a lot of the AV fairs. She was one of the best dancers around. Cherry really was an incredible dancer. She'd spent her entire life doing ballet, modern, jazz, tap, gymnastics and cheerleading. She'd always wanted to be a ballerina but the same curvy body that made men instantly erect, ruined any chance she had of being a legitimate ballet star. Cherry could do things on a pole that just stunned the audience. She was always in demand and could pretty much write her own ticket. We met in the small backstage area at one of the fairs and have been friends ever since.

The most surprising thing about Cherry is that she and her life remind me so much of my own. We're both from small towns. Our families had both turned their backs on us. We both focused our lives on one thing that we thought would make us happy. And we both lost that one thing. The differences were that her one thing was being a ballerina, mine was Josh. We also did different things to lose those dreams. She hadn't done anything. She was a victim of genetics. I on the other hand was a victim of my own bad choices.

Our ways of handling the disappointments were different too. She'd always known that her career in ballet wouldn't last forever and saw herself in her waning years opening her own dance studio where she could teach the next generations of dancers. She danced now simply to make money so she could have that final dream. Perhaps she'd taken a different path than the one she'd envisioned to get there, but the final destination would be the same.

It made me look at my life differently too. Meeting Cherry, or Lisa (her real name), made me even more determined to get Josh back if it took me the rest of my life. Josh and I would grow old together and maybe we'd even have those babies, no matter what it took. Time healed all wounds; I'd heard that for most of my life, so maybe it would take time, but I was even more convinced that in the end Josh and I would be together.

I made Sonny spend even more of my money on PI's. I ramped up the search for Josh. I figured that he'd probably just gone off the grid trying to hide from me. But sooner or later he'd have to get a job or a credit card. Sooner or later he'd have to be hospitalized or, God forbid, he'd get married to someone else. Maybe he'd get a job or file a tax return and we'd have him. Then I'd go to wherever he was and we'd never be apart again. Nothing would separate us. Even if there was another woman involved, it wouldn't matter. She'd have to be ready to fight for him, because I would be.

The most surprising thing about Cherry was that at twenty four years old, she was still a virgin. Here she was, possibly the most well paid stripper in the world, and she'd never had sex. She danced in front of thousands of screaming men every week and simulated the most raunchy sex acts you could imagine, but she'd never done it. Cherry grew up dancing. That was all she'd done. There were daily dance lessons and hours of practice until she dropped off to sleep. There had never been any time for boys. I was spending the weekend following one of our mutual adult industry fairs at Cherry's house when I got the biggest disappointment of my life.

Cherry was into that whole entertainment industry big star thing. I always told her it was depressing because the stars of the legitimate entertainment industry would never accept us. Except for a few fringe cases and bad boys like Charlie Sheen or Bill Clinton, most really famous people would rather have their arms cut off than be seen with a porn star. That was one of the reasons that I didn't even own a TV. Maybe I should have; the blow would have been a lot softer.

Cherry and I were at her home watching one of those shitty, glitzy entertainment magazine shows that are all over everywhere. Cherry developed crush after crush on this star or that. For the last month she'd been crushing on some star photographer called Jim. I'd heard her talking about this fucking guy for days on end. She even had this dream scenario of how it would be when she met him. She's commission him to do a photo shoot of her for one of the adult magazines. Okay, that was crazy enough because this guy was a double threat: he shot legit fashion photos but he also did those unusual art photos that sometimes sold at art shows for prices in the six figure range. Why the hell would someone like that stoop to taking pictures of a stripper? But as a friend, I didn't want to piss on Cherry's dreams. After all she was the one who always told me that someday I'd find Josh and live happily ever after.

So there we were watching Entertainment Nightly or some other stupid show, just so Cherry could catch a glimpse of Jim, when it happened. The story was about Jim and his new fiancé. They showed up at some famous bullshit charity event in Hollywood together and the news of their romance was all over the wires. It's always big news when two of the beautiful people get together.

She was Elena Gornakovski, some world famous model and I went into shock. I was such a fool. "Holy shit," said Cherry. "Both of us are prettier than her. In fact, she looks a little bit like you, but she doesn't have any boobs and no butt. Your hair is shorter than hers though."

I couldn't make a sound. My heart was in my throat and I just fell. When I came back to my senses, I was on Cherry's couch and she was rubbing a cold towel on my forehead.

"What happened?" she asked. "Are you okay?"

"Why didn't you tell me?" I croaked.

"Why didn't I tell you what?" she asked.

"About Jim," I snapped.

"I've been telling you about JEM for months," she said. "He's hot isn't he?"

"Cherry I thought you were saying Jim," I said.

"No. It's JAY-EEE-EM. It's an unusual name, isn't it?"

"It's not his name, it's his initials," I said beginning to cry as I watched him on the screen. "His name is Joshua Eric McVay."

She looked at me strangely as the pieces clicked into place in her mind. Then she grabbed both sides of her head and ran out of the room. She slowly climbed onto her bed and removed a pill from a pill box disguised as a bracelet on her wrist. She chewed the tablet and then lay there as still as she could. After a few moments she relaxed and I started speaking to her again.