Being Recognised

Many people assume porn stars walk around with transvestite style war paint makeup and big hair all the time. If you don’t look like a trashy Essex girl out on the tiles of a Saturday night you can’t possibly be a porn star!

I’ve said before that I fit into the girl next door category very well and I’m glad of this for one thing alone. I don’t get recognised and no one would readily believe I am a porn star without good evidence. I look too normal for that and in fact when on the odd occasion I have told people what I do half of them laugh at and attempt to humour me.

I hate wearing makeup when I’m not working and the only time I even venture near a mirror to fix up is if I’m going out for a fancy night out that requires abit of polishing. If I’m simply going local I don’t worry about my face or looks.

I dress down too. A lot of girls go for the off duty glamour girl look in tight jeans and skimpy cleavage promoting tops finished off with a pair of Ugg boots. I wear my sloppy stuff and Ugg boots too but I really do look like I’ve made no effort when I do it. Those girls still look polished and styled.

This is just me. I don’t attempt to go out in disguise. It seems to work though.

Not that I haven’t been recognised. The most embarrassing time was when I was out for the night with my boyfriend and his family. Luckily they know what I do or it could have been very awkward but I think they were as shocked as me when some guy had his girlfriend take a picture on his camera phone of me and him together. I was more worried about his partner decking me in a jealous rage than what the rellies thought but she was all smiles. Luckily I had dressed up that night! I may not be a glamour puss but I have a vain streak and wouldn’t want a porno fan having his picture taken with me looking like a tramp.

I also got spotted outside the GU clinic once after getting my sexual health test. I strongly suspect this guy had worked out where all the porn stars went for their tests and was loitering with intent. This wasn’t exactly confidential information and abit of Googling would easily give you access to that information. I rushed out the main entrance and ran up the street to grab the tube and dash off for my next job when some guy ran after me and asked for my telephone no. so he could book me. He said he was a fan and wanted to do the amateur thing – fair enough but I’m not giving any stranger on the street my phone no. I told him the name of a website where he could find my model advert and to book me through that. He kept trying to find reason to stand and chat to me but when I told him I was in a rush to get to a shoot he went all drooley at the thought of me getting yet another good stuffing from some well endowed stud and sent me on my way.

The first time someone I actually knew found out what I was doing was when I was rudely awoken from a Sunday morning lie in by an old friend and work colleague from back in my home town and old life. She was a few years younger than me and I always thought of her as quite sweet and innocent. We had drifted apart abit but still kept in touch - just about. You can imagine my surprise then when she comes straight out and says ‘was that you I saw on Television X last night with some other girl?’ For a split second I was concerned about what she thought of me. Not that I cared that she knew or not. I wasn’t trying to hide it or anything but then I was overcome with concern for her. What the hell was she doing watching Television X?

Apparently her man liked to watch it from time to time. I was definitely more shocked about her being exposed to adult material than she was about me staring in it. She thought it was funny and gave me encouragement. I think she thought it was cool that she now personally knew a porn star. Not that I was a star in those days more a mere debutant.

She assured me that she was grown up enough to watch porn and not to worry about her but was abit confused as she had viewed me in a lesbian scene. Did this mean I was a lesbian? It was now my turn to assure her that although id wondered for abit if I maybe was that I actually wasn’t. ‘Oh, that’s ok then’ she said. I think that admittance would have shocked her even more than seeing her old friend and boss taking it up the bum on late night adult satellite television.

Trouble In Paradise

My best friend was lying to me about not turning up to jobs and making me look like a fool in the process so we were on rocky ground to begin with.

I was fast coming to the conclusion that Cindy was a fantasist. She didn’t need to do porn to pay her bills. She had a normal job to do that so porn was just abit of fun and play to her. I’d met her on a job so I knew she would turn up for bookings when it suited her but the more I thought about it the more I realised she just liked the idea of being naughty and being made to feel sexy. Of being idolised by men and women the world over. Of getting to have sex with lots of good looking random strangers who were there for the same reasons as her. For being deemed as one of the glamorous elite.

Being a fantasist though sometimes shed lose her nerve and back out. She didn’t treat this as a job just a joke. A way to get her own kicks.
Each to their own and I guess she wasn’t physically hurting anyone but that soon changed.

I needed to go for my health check up and Cindy decided she should come along to and get herself tested. In those days tests weren’t mandatory for models only working to the levels Cindy worked too. Cindy said she should have one though to be on the safe side which I was pleasantly surprised to hear from her since she obviously wasn’t taking the business seriously.

We went back a week later for the results and Cindy was told she had a NSU. Non Specific Urethras. It wasn’t serious but they would treat her. She had most likely caught it sharing toys and these weren’t uncommon. Not an actual disease but the Drs found something there they didn’t deem serious enough to give its own name but wisely chose to treat anyway.
The clinic asked Cindy to take some treatment home for her boyfriend too as he would more than likely have it too.

We went back to her flat where she lived with her mum and boyfriend and she told me how she hated taking medicine especially pills. Rather strange since I later witnessed her downing ecstasy and fat lines of cocaine. I told her to crush up the pill and mix it in some yogurt. She did this and then pulled a disgusted face with the first mouthful. I told her she’d have to eat it now or she would have wasted the pill. The clinic only gave her one pill.
She made every excuse under the sun and in the end promised to eat it later. I left about 30 minutes later and I know that yogurt ended up in the bin.

How dare she do that to herself and to the people including me that she was going to work with. She knew she had something, however small and unthreatening, that could be passed on to her man or me or any other model but she wimped out of taking the medication and left everyone else at fates hand.
She didn’t see the harm in what she was doing as she couldn’t see further than herself in this business. There was only her having fun and nothing else occurred or mattered to her.

My mind was racing now that something was not right with this girl who I so much liked.

The icing on the cake came on the New Years Eve night I told you about earlier.
When Cindy, her man and myself all went back to the hotel in the early hours of the morning shed told me to get into bed with them both as she didn’t want me sleeping on the uncomfy sofa. The bed was a massive queen size affair so I agreed. Cindy and her fella started getting it on and kept looking over at me. People having sex in front of me was nothing new and I knew I wasn’t in their way as they had asked me to be in the bed with them. I just ignored them.

It wasn’t until the next day that the penny dropped. Cindy called me and said she was actually bi sexual. Not like most girls in the business that were gay for pay. She really was and she had convinced her fella to let her have a bisexual relationship with me as well as him. A love triangle. She had wanted me to join in with them in that bed that morning. I was told that I wasn’t allowed to engage in any action with her boyfriend though. He was off limits to me and we had to share Cindy but not each other.

I told her I liked her very much as a girl friend but that I didn’t think I was actually bi. I just enjoyed sex with men and woman. I certainly didn’t want that sort of relationship with a girl. And especially not a girl who was already with another guy. That just sounded unfair and like hard work to me. Not my cup of tea at all.

This girl was deluded. I’m sure she thought both of us would be falling at her feet for the opportunity. The fact shed gone around arranging our lives for us. Her boyfriend was besotted enough with her to allow her to do the porn and then naively to agree to let me share her with him. Well he was totally taken in by her but I wasn’t so I decided to cut all ties. This girl was psycho. All id wanted was her friendship but the way things were going it just wasn’t worth my sanity or effort.

Years later Cindy’s guy emailed me saying he’d split up with her. I don’t remember the reason he gave. I did my best not to pay any attention and in all honesty I didn’t trust it wasn’t her pretending to be him and see if id maybe run off with him or something equally as weird. She was the type to mess with people like that. If it wasn’t her all I could say was good for him.

I still see Cindys model ads up on modeling websites from time to time and wonder what other freeky shit she has dreamed up.

Friends or Foes

Going back to my time in the Dutch webcam house I made my first real friend in porn. Her name was Cindy and she was a pretty buxom girl from London. She told me she was fairly new to the business herself but she sounded like shed done a few more shoots than me so I looked to her for advice and help. Pretty much she took over from Jody but since she was new as well we and it was kind of like the blind leading the blind we became friends helping each other.

When I left the webcam house early I later heard she left 48 hours later. She said she agreed it was bad there but that she missed me. She went home to her boyfriend and mum who all lived in a council flat in north London. Her boyfriend knew about her career choice but she only worked up to a girl on girl level as they had set some rules which basically like many girls in the business whether there boyfriends know what they do or not feel that doing boy/girl shoots is cheating yet girl/girl or lesbian action is not. I suppose alot of guys would only dream about seeing their bird with another fit girl and this is why they agree as its abit of a fantasy for them. Or the girl can say “I wasn’t cheating on you. It was only another girl!” There is safety in lesbianism - apparently!

My man has quite a different view of this and he only likes to hear about shoots where I’m completely on my own. He doesn’t care if I’m with a man or woman. Unless I’m self loving it’s too much information for him to hear.

So Cindy and I would recommend each other for shoots. If they wanted a lesbo shoot wed say” I have the perfect model for you”. If we did solo shoots wed always suggest the photographer book each other next time. We started doing a webcam show in London which required two girls. We were scheduled to do one shift a week and always asked to be paired together. Wed meet up in town for a late lunch then get the tube to the studio. Her man would pick us up as by the time our show had finished the tubes has stopped running. He’d drop me home in south London then they would make their own way round London and home.

Wed meet up socially in between working together and chat on the phone a lot. Shed call and say she might have some work could she forward me the email and see what I think.
Id not had a friend like this since my school days and I liked it.

We went out together with her boyfriend on New Year’s Eve. He’d booked a lovely room in a nice hotel id never heard of near to the club and said I should come over to the room before hand for a few drinks and then we’d all get a cab to the club.

I felt abit odd about this. Abit like a gooseberry gate crashing this couples New Years Eve festivities. If they had said invite a friend of your own or that they were meeting other friends id have felt less invasive but they insisted and I like to socialise. I was new to living in London and still trying to get out and meet people.

It became apparent upon our arrival back at the hotel come the morning light why they were so keen to trap me and get me high as a kite and wonderfully drunk.

Growing Some Thick Skin

Having had a near run in with a girl carrying scabies was not the end of my troubles in Amsterdam.

It was the turning point at which I realised things weren’t as rosy as I thought out there.

Id woken up to the idea that Jody wasn’t mine as I had once concocted in the depths of my naive brain. The reality was that Jody was a very free spirit and although she was happy to help me out she was in no way happy to hold my hand for very long. This also made me wake up to the fact that this business could be a very lonely one. Not really one of camaraderie. More one of floating soles finding their own way. It wasn’t the bitchy one id been warned of though.
Jody was very kind to me and through my disappointment she dealt with my clinginess gently. All the other girls in the webcam house were friendly enough. We argued but you would if you worked stupid hours and were permanently tired and had to share a room with 5 other girls. Each girl would enjoy a sisterly joke or moan or gossip with me but I knew at the same time if it came down to friendship or earnings the later would always win.

No one would argue if you suggested these girls weren’t the smartest pencil in the box. OK they aren’t rocket scientists or brain surgeons or academically intelligent but they were shrewd business women. Focused, committed and driven.

They would conduct their business mercilessly but make it an enjoyable experience in the process by making friends or having a giggle, getting plastered on cheap wine or whatever.

To some girls an enjoyable experience meant getting in and out of a shoot as quickly as possible so she could run off and get on with real life. Boyfriends, girl friends, other jobs or even kids. This porn thing was to take up as little of their time and life as possible and prove a mear distraction rather than a job.

I was impressed and taken aback at the same time. I suddenly grew alot of respect for porn girls and realised there is a certain survival instinct that they possess. I was going to have to toughen up here. I was without doubt a very driven and independent woman but could I compare to these girls. They were so “street” to what I felt was a sheltered and fortunate me.

Well I hadn’t just walked away from the best job Id ever had, the job that other girls went to university to get, to give up on this so quickly. Besides I enjoyed the work and if I could just get my head around the subconscious walls I was going to have to build up around myself id be fine.

In later years I experienced some of the closest female relationships I’ve ever had with girls in this industry, and in a rare period I built up friendships with a group of girls where our relationships superseded our commitment to our jobs and profits. But as I say that was rare and still is unheard of for such a group to bond in such a way.