The laughter is contagious, spreading from me to Tanner to the crew, and I move to help her get uncuffed and cleaned up.
By the time mid-afternoon rolls around, my house is empty and I’m in my office, editing my monologue.
The digital version of me gazes out of the screen, raking his fingers through his light brown hair and grinning as he talks about Ginger.
“...always a new fantasy,” the on-screen version of me is saying. “Today, I wanted to pretend that we’d just met at a BDSM club, and that she was a new submissive that I had to break in—gently at first, and then not-so-gently after.” The Logan on the screen goes on to elaborate on the fantasy—being a skilled Master at a club, the thrill of meeting a new submissive, the satisfaction of feeling a stranger come around my cock.
For the first time, in a very real and concrete way, I wish that the scene had been a mirror to my monologue. Normally, my words complement the scene, act as a stimulating adjuvant, and the sex is still the chief enjoyment for me. But something’s off today, and when I finish editing the thing and save it, I feel a sense of nostalgia, a slightly bitter pang of loss—both emotions so sudden and unexpected that I feel genuine shock once I realize they’re what I’m feeling.
From the moment Traci Aliss wrapped her lips around my cock, I knew that I’d found my calling. I knew that I loved to fuck, and what’s more, I knew that I loved to fuck around other people. I never forget while I’m filming that thousands of men and women will watch me at home—the women wishing it were me between their legs instead of their vibrator, the men wishing they were me, fucking a sweet pussy or a wet mouth or tight ass. And the thought of all that desire and jealousy heaped on me—it’s more than a turn-on. It’s a raison d’etre.
So what’s wrong today? Why don’t I have that post-scene high? I mean, of course there have been days where the sex was less than magical, where it honestly did feel like work, where the girl and I couldn’t connect, or maybe I was tired or unmotivated or whatever. But I’ve never felt like this. I’ve never felt this peculiar emptiness, this odd disappointment, especially not after such an amazing scene.
So what am I disappointed about?
I have no idea.
I spin around in my chair a few times, rubbing my bare feet against the fuzzy-ass rug on my office floor, the one I bought even though Raven had hated it when we saw it in the store. I tap my fingers on my knees, I fiddle with a paperclip on my desk, and then finally, frustrated as hell, I stand up and walk out to the loft that overlooks my living room.
Other than a few low chairs and the waterfalls of golden sun pouring through the skylights, the room is vacant. An empty living room in an empty house.
Mentally, I direct the scene otherwise. I layer in the sound of Prior’s paws scrabbling on the wood floors as he trotted around the house looking for his squeaky toy. I layer in the neo-punk music Raven played whenever she was here, and I layer in Raven herself, wearing something black and clingy, her phone wedged between her head and her shoulder as she stirred a pot of kale or something equally disgusting on the stove.
For the first time in three months, I consider—really consider—that maybe I wasn’t as in love with Raven as I was with the idea of having a relationship in the first place. That it wasn’t her I keened for in those bleak days in the movie theater or on my kitchen floor, it was that life. That life with noise and affection and connection.
The realization hits me like a freight train, freeing and terrifying all at once. I loved Raven, I know I did, but so much of that love was because she was filling a void for me, a void I hadn’t known was there until three months after it yawned open and empty again. She gave me a fantasy, the fantasy, and I slowly begin to understand that it is the fantasy that underpins all the ones I film for my scenes.
The fantasy of being in love.
Jesus.
I scrub my face with my hands, feeling liberated and also feeling pathetic. Who in this selfish, indulgent, spray-tanned city would ever guess that Logan O’Toole has a chewy caramel center? That under his I’ll-fuck-anything-that-moves veneer, there is a guy who just wants to love someone?
It’s ridiculous. And bad for business. I’m the guy who thinks with his dick, not his heart, and maybe my brand is to be a little bit of both, but I can’t give in to this inner boy band song. Maybe guys like me don’t get to have love. Not the kind of deep, real, raw love that I want. We get casual fucks and friendships coupled with the occasional stoned blowjob, and if we’re really lucky, maybe we meet a girl whose life will travel on parallel tracks to ours for a while. But those tracks always diverge, and then we’re left alone. Again.
This love shit isn’t just bad for business, Logan, it’s bad for you, a voice tells me. And I agree.
I let the image of my life with Raven fade away, until there’s only my ground floor again, every corner and every floorboard and every nook in the soaring ceiling screaming out the emptiness of my house. My hands grip the ledge tighter and then loosen as I let go of the memories of a life with love, let go of the fantasy.
But it all still tumbles around in my mind, tossed loosely around like clothes in a dryer, tangling with the texts from Devi that I keep re-reading, tangling with my strange disappointment over my scene with Ginger. And all of it tangling with Vida’s business proposal, until a new thought emerges, unformed and flopping as all new ideas are. But the moment my mind seizes hold of it, I can’t let it go.
I stand there for a moment more, blinking, and then I jog back to my office to find the card Vida gave me at her party. I dial the number on it, relieved to hear the Dutch-accented voice saying Hallo? after only two rings.