It’s a universal message that could apply to anyone at any time. But as I gather my student loan invoice and Vida’s invitation and head home to get ready for her party, hope buzzes inside me, and I can’t help but think that the card was pretty apropos.
3
I suppose it doesn’t take much to break a man.
Take me for example. My life checks a lot of boxes. Well-adjusted childhood, check. Successful business, check.
Healthy? Decently good-looking? Amazing dick?
Check, check, and check.
I had a great life. And I thought I had a great girlfriend to match it. For three years, I had this porcelain-skinned, dark-haired beauty at my side, and she was creative and smart and driven, and so goddamned sexy I couldn’t keep my hands off her, even after a long day spent on set fucking other women. We had a purebred Yorkshire terrier that we named Prior. (After the character in Angels in America. Raven’s idea.) We picked out towels and plates together. And she was so integral to the founding of O’Toole Films, helping me write business plans and apply for loans and shooting scenes with me that we knew we wouldn’t get paid for until the company got off the ground…
And then I came home one night to an empty house.
No warning.
No goodbye.
I left her to her quinoa and fair trade coffee one morning and came back and she was gone. Clothes, makeup, dildos—anything that was hers, she took. Along with Prior, the furry little guy with his sweet little face and the habit of licking my toes when I tried to edit scenes in my office.
It didn’t make sense. We were happy, right? We were having fun. I won’t pretend that jealousy didn’t stab me in the ribs when I saw scenes that she filmed with other people, but that was part of our business. I didn’t stop fucking other girls and she didn’t stop fucking other guys; we agreed at the beginning that our relationship wouldn’t affect our jobs in any way, but for my own sanity, I set one simple ground rule: no off-screen fucking with anyone else.
There. Easy.
Except when she left, it became very clear that it was not that easy. Not only did she abruptly bow out of all of our upcoming projects—professionally embarrassing, since most of them were with outside studios that then had to scramble to find another performer to be with me. But the tall Italian guy that appeared in all of her Instagrams the following week indicated that I had probably missed a few key signs that Raven had checked out of our relationship long before she threw her dildos and our Yorkie into her purse and drove off.
I wish I could say that I dealt with this gracefully. That I didn’t Google-stalk Italian Guy (some big shot producer over in Europe,) that I didn’t listen to Damien Rice songs on repeat, that I didn’t miss that dog so fucking much that I went to the pound every morning to pet the dogs there.
That I didn’t drink my weight in scotch every week.
That I didn’t withdraw from my family and my friends.
That I didn’t fall asleep folded into a ball on my kitchen floor, because I couldn’t bear looking at the empty bed, much less sleeping in it.
Those are not the kinds of things Logan O’Toole does. Logan is funny and friendly and worldly, too emotionally wise to feel heartbreak. Logan should have endured the departure (and probable infidelity) of his long-term girlfriend with a Zen-like equanimity, and wished her peace on her new journey or some bullshit.
And so that’s who I am tonight. Worldly and Zen, flirty and aloof. My wounds have started to scar over, and I want to prove that I’ve moved on. And that is why I walk into Vida’s like I own the place, shoulders back, grin at the ready, with a steady, focused gaze that makes it clear I’m not scanning the room for any hint of Raven’s presence.
Tanner is in the main room—a large open space studded with low couches and ottomans that I’d be hesitant to shine a black light on—and he comes toward me with a drink in his hand.
“I got you some scotch,” he says.
I sniff the glass. It’s something smoky, probably an Islay Scotch, and although I prefer Speyside, I’m still impressed that it’s single malt. Vida must have pulled out all the stops for this party.
While I sip, I finally take the chance to assess the room. Like I thought, it’s mostly the feminists—tattooed, pierced, bespectacled. I do a lot of scenes with those types for O’Toole Films because we have a very similar ethos when it comes to consent and female pleasure.
Also I think girls with tattoos are fucking hot.
But there are other types here too—mainstream stars who frequently work with Vida’s company, the indie crowd, the underground BDSM people in their vinyl corsets and thigh-high boots. And Vida herself at the center of it all—mid-forties, deeply tanned, platinum blond hair coiffed short and stylish. She looks exactly how you’d imagine an aging porn star to look—sagging plastic surgery, careworn face, too much makeup—but you’d be dumb to discount her business acumen or intelligence because of the way she looks. There’s a reason even the most insulated, conservative Americans have heard of Vida: because she gets marketing and she gets content and she gets platform saturation.
I want to be her when I grow up.
“I like this party,” Tanner says, taking a sip of his craft beer. “And hey, I’m not the only black guy here.”
He’s right about this crowd being more progressive than most, although it’s still not ideal. “We’re going to make it so all the parties are like this, but better,” I tell him. When I hired Tanner two years ago, he was frank about all of the problems he saw within the industry—including the inherent racism embedded in the very foundations of mainstream porn. So I told him that if he came and worked for me, we’d fix it; we’d cultivate diversity without all the weird taboos and fetishes normally present in interracial sex work. And so I managed to snag an incredibly talented filmmaker right out of art school, and he managed to make a believer out of me.