Porn Star by Laurelin Paige
He’s so sweet and adorable and sure, and I want so much to be able to let go and trust his conviction.
“I love that you can see a relationship unfolding like this, Logan.” It’s heartbreaking to say, but it’s sincere. “It gives me hope that you’ll be able to find someone who will share those special things with you.”
“I have found someone.” His voice is tight, and for the first time I think he actually senses I might be ending this. He moves his hand to grip behind my neck. “We can be like this together.”
I’m already shaking my head. “It’s not me, Logan. I can’t share the man I’m in love with. That’s never going to change.”
“Oh, Cass. You’re so young. You—“
I pull out of his grasp, my voice sharp when I cut him off. “Don’t say that. Don’t say that to me right now. It’s not fair. Yes, I’m young. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know how I feel. It doesn’t mean I don’t know myself well enough to know that this isn’t working for me.”
In the darkness, it’s difficult to make out the details of Logan’s features, but I can tell when it finally sinks in. “Devi, are you breaking up with me?”
I can’t say it. I don’t want to say it. I don’t want to mean it, but it’s the only answer. I see that now.
So I fold my arms across my chest and break up with Logan O’Toole with just a nod of my head.
His breath catches like I’ve knocked the wind out of him. It’s the single most heartbreaking sound I’ve ever heard in my life, and I have a feeling that no matter how long I live, I’ll never forget it. It’s the kind of sound that makes me want to be a different person than I am, makes me want to forsake my own happiness. Makes me want to step forward and press my mouth against his so I can kiss away the sound and the pain.
But I don’t move except to wipe a stray tear off my cheek. “I’m going to go back to school. I’d planned to tell you that today. I’m not sure what I’ll study, and I’m not even sure what school I’m going to go to. I’ve been looking at a few. UCLA is still a possibility, but I’m starting to think I need to get out of California. UT Austin, maybe. I was accepted there when I applied in the past.”
“You don’t have to break up with me to go to school, Devi. I’ll support you in that, if that’s what you want. You don’t have to stay in the business for me to love you. And I don’t have to live in L.A. to do my job. I can go wherever you need to go.”
My knees buckle. “Don’t say that, Logan.”
“Don’t say what? That I love you? That I’ll support you?”
All of it. “If you loved me at all you wouldn’t say any of it. You’d let me go.”
“No, I’d fight for you. I love you, and I’m fighting for you. And if you loved me, you’d let me.”
“Have you considered that maybe the problem is I love you too much?” With that, I’ve exposed my greatest fear—that the real reason I can’t handle our jobs and he can is because I love him more than he loves me.
Before he can respond, I go on. “This is pointless, Logan. We’re just dragging this out, and it’s already painful for both of us. I’m so grateful for the opportunity you gave me with Star-Crossed. I’m so inspired by your work and your passion. And I’m so very honored to have had the chance to—” My voice cracks, and I go to clear my throat.
But then Logan is on me, a hand behind my neck, another tangled in my hair, and it doesn’t matter if my voice is working because he’s captured my mouth with his. His kiss is searing and aggressive. With his lips and his tongue, he demands, and I want to give into him so I do. For the space of our kiss, I do.
When he breaks away, we’re both panting. “You don’t want to leave me. You couldn’t kiss me like that and want to leave me.”
“I don’t want to leave you.” My voice is barely more than a whisper. “But I can’t live in your universe, Logan. If there was any way I could, I promise I would.”
He leans his forehead against mine and shuts his eyes tight. “Don’t do this, Devi. What can I say or do to make you not do this?”
It rips me up inside because it feels like he’s asking me to answer honestly, and I want to. So much. I want to tell him the solution that’s already staring him in the face. In the same way he asked me to “make porn” with him all those weeks ago, I want to plead, “Don’t make porn with me.” Don’t make porn. Just be with me.
But I know better than anyone that if he doesn’t see that answer, it’s because he doesn’t want to. And it’s not something I’m ever going to ask him to do. I’m not as vain as Cassiopeia to believe I would give Logan a more beautiful life than the one that he has, no matter how much I wish it were true.
“I have to go,” I say, pushing out of his arms. Don’t look back, I tell myself as I head through the open gate of the pool area to my car.
“Devi?”
Despite my self-coaching, I turn. Because I can’t not turn when he says my name.
“You should study stars.”
For a second I think he’s being sarcastic. Like he’s referring to himself—a porn star. That he’s suggesting I study another porn celebrity the way I studied him.
But he glances up, gesturing to the sky with his eyes.
Oh. Stars. “Yeah. Maybe that’s what I’ll do.”
This time when I turn to go, I don’t look back. I don’t stop. I step blindly off the cliff into darkness like the fool, and hope, eventually, I’ll land on solid ground.
21
I almost do it. I almost let her walk away from me. Because I’m so stunned. Because I’m so hurt. Because I can still taste the fire and heat of her kiss, and how could she kiss me like that and then just walk away?
But my feet move before my mind, and I’m jogging through the gate right as she shuts the door of her old VW Bug. She starts the engine but she leaves the car in park as I run over to her.
She rolls down the window, and on her young face is an expression of pain so poignant I can barely look at it.
“You’re hurting,” I say, bracing my hands against the top of the car’s window frame so I can lean down to see her better. “And I’m hurting. Devi, it doesn’t have to be this way; we don’t have to be hurting right now. Come inside, and we’ll talk. We’ll figure this out.”
“There’s nothing left to figure out,” she says quietly. “I can’t be with you when you can’t be with only me.”
I slam my hands against the window frame, rocking the tiny car and making her jump. Anger like hot acid fills my words when I speak. “You know it’s not like that! My heart would be with only you, so why the fuck does it matter where my cock is?”
“It matters to me,” she answers, her voice trembling slightly.
I’m still furious, my hands clenching the window frame now, and I want to tear this car apart, rivet by rivet, until she agrees to stay. “You knew what you were getting into,” I accuse. “You knew exactly what it would mean to date a porn star. It’s not fair for you to change your mind now!”
Tears catch on her eyelashes as she shakes her head. “I can’t be in this porn world anymore, Logan. I can’t be in your world.”
“It’s our world,” I insist, her tears thawing my anger into a messy, guilty regret. “We both live in it, and we both love doing porn.”
“No, you love doing porn.” She takes a deep breath. “And that’s why I’d never ask you to stop. I love you exactly how you are, and part of who you are is porn. Doing what you love. Do you think I’m so cruel that I would ask you to give that up?”
“But…”
I don’t have anything to follow that word, though. I just know I need to struggle against this, fight for this, salvage something, anything, because Devi is the one thing I can’t afford to lose…
Except she’s right about me. I can’t afford to lose doing what I love either. If I’m not Logan O’Toole, World Famous Porn Star, then who am I?
“It just never occurred to me,” I finish lamely. “That anyone would want to quit po
A tear finally falls down her cheek, a shimmer racing down her perfect face. “I do love you. More than you love me, and that is why I have to go—and why I’m going without asking you to come with me. Goodbye, Logan.”
She puts the car in reverse, and I have to step back so my foot doesn’t get run over. And it’s not until her taillights vanish around the corner at the end of my street that I manage to whisper, “Goodbye.”
* * *
Gutted.
I’m fucking gutted.
The good angel on my shoulder tells me not to call her, to give her space and time, because she needs it and she asked for it, and if I invade her mental and emotional space, then I’m violating her consent in a way, and I don’t want to do that.
On the other hand, Devi Dare just broke up with me, and I’m practically hysterical with betrayed misery. I make it until about two in the morning before I call her, but the call goes straight to voicemail. Like her phone is turned off.
I call her three more times to make sure, and then I leave her a message. “Devi,” I say, clearing my throat because her name is the first word I’ve spoken in hours and my voice is hoarse from crying. “Please call me back. Please.”
After that, I finally roll out of my bed and search out my scotch collection. But after I pour myself a glass, I can barely force myself to take a drink. I don’t want to be drunk right now. I maybe don’t want to be drunk ever again, because it would mean numbing myself to reality, and I can’t cheat myself out of one second of feeling this pain. I don’t want to; if this suffering is all I have left of Devi, then I’ll hold onto it as tightly as I possibly can. I won’t disgrace the memory of the perfect thing we had by drinking myself into amnesia.
So I set down the drink and pull out my phone, not to call Devi again, although I want to, but to watch the video I took of her in my pool a few weeks ago. And I watch her swimming over and over again, her hair and her body and the water, and I fall asleep on my couch that way.
Alone. With my phone in my hand and my heart in my throat.
* * *
I wake up, not hung over, not exhausted, but dazed all the same. There’s that weird, floating moment between my eyes opening and me remembering, a moment where I feel like something bad has happened but I can’t remember what. When I finally recall Devi’s tears and her terrible, untrue (does she even realize how untrue?) words, I do love you, more than you love me, and that’s why I have to go, I’m destroyed all over again.
I call her several more times, I text her pages and pages of texts, because how could she think that she loves me more than I love her? But also how could she think about leaving porn? I text her long, stream-of-consciousness threads of thoughts, about how much I love her, how much I already miss her, all the things I would do to prove it to her, but she never answers me back.
I don’t have any scenes booked for today, thankfully, so I drive all the way down to El Segundo to see her. I shouldn’t be surprised when she’s not there, but I’m devastated all the same, and I wait on her porch step for her to come home. The autumn sun rises high and hot, and I get sweaty and uncomfortable but I don’t care. I want to suffer. I want to suffer for her.
She never comes home, though. It’s just me and my wretched thoughts until the sun sets over the ocean, and the sky fades into oranges and pinks.
And that’s when the ancient Volvo rattles into the driveway. A stocky older man with a black mustache and a full head of thick black hair gets out and then walks around the front to open the door for the woman inside. I recognize her immediately.
It’s Devi’s mother.
The couple comes up to the door and I stand, wiping my sweaty hands on my jeans and extending a hand to Mrs. Jones-Daryani to shake. She ignores it and pulls me straight into a hug, a tight one. For some reason that makes me want to cry again, but I manage to keep it together.
“Hi, Logan,” she says as she pulls away. “It’s so good to see you again. This is my husband, Davud Daryani.”
“Hi, Mrs. Jones-Daryani. Nice to meet you Mr. Daryani,” I greet them back. I look at the car hopefully, even though I already know it’s empty. “Is Devi coming or…?”
Sue gives me a pitying smile. “We came to get some clothes for her. She’s going to be staying with us for a while.”
I want to ask where they live, if I can come back with them, but even in my desperate state, I know that would be crossing a line. So I don’t. I just look at the ground and try not to cry in front of Devi’s parents.
“Davud,” Sue says softly, “why don’t you go inside and pack up some things for our boombalee? I want to talk with Logan for a minute.”
Davud nods, and before he walks in, he places a heavy hand on my shoulder. It should feel weird, the father of the girl who just dumped me touching me like this, but it doesn’t. Instead, I feel just a little bit stronger, just a little bit more clear-headed, as if he’s transmitted perspective and wisdom through my skin. And then he pats my shoulder and unlocks the apartment door, walking inside and leaving Sue and me on the porch.
And then it hits me, hits me hard.
This is real life. This is Devi’s parents gathering up her things and this is Devi not answering her phone, and this is me left broken-hearted for the second time this year, except this time it’s so much fucking worse.
Devi and I are really over.
I sit back down on the porch and put my head in my hands, and I feel Sue sit next me, a musical chiming coming from all her anklets and bracelets as she does.
“Logan,” she says, laying a hand on my back. And again, it should feel weird being comforted by my ex-girlfriend’s parents but it’s not for some reason. “It’s going to be okay.”
“I fucked up,” I say miserably. “I fucked everything up.”
“Devi made a point to tell us that you didn’t do anything wrong,” Sue soothes me. “Porn just isn’t right for her. There’s a difference.”
“I thought I was doing the right thing,” I say, still staring at the ground. “The right thing for both of us. I was trying to be more like her—more logical and careful—and I thought we could make it work. Have each other and have porn at the same time.”
“Let me ask you something,” Sue says. “Deep down, is that what you really want? To have both?”
“Porn is my entire life,” I say defensively. “It paid for that car and for my house and my 401k. It’s the only thing I know.”
“That’s not what I asked,” Sue counters gently. “I asked what you wanted. Pretend that Devi would have been willing to stay, willing to continue doing porn. Is that what would have made you truly happy in the end?”
Yes, of course, I want to snap back, but the response is automatic and rehearsed. Because porn was my entire life, until I met Devi, and now I want my life to be more than just my job, no matter how amazing my job is. And I also know the reason I’m defensive right now is because I finally have to look all those haunting questions in the face after avoiding them for weeks, look at those questions and then look at the answers I already know deep down. The answers that I started to comprehend the first time Devi and I made love without the camera.
That I might only want Devi.
That I love her in a way I’ve never loved anyone else before.
That I want to give her all of me. All of me. Meaning I don’t give myself to anyone else.
Sue pats my shoulder again. “Your heart and your head chakra are stronger than before, Logan, which means you’re growing and learning. But no growth comes without sacrifice.”
And then she kisses my cheek and goes inside the apartment.
* * *
I know you want to hear that I stop doing porn right that day, that I swear it off and become immediately celibate, but that’s not what happens. Instead, the words Sue said to me only very gradually unfold into an epiphany. And as they unfold, I mindles
Well, not entirely as before.
I give up drinking altogether, sending Tanner home with my magnificent scotch collection one afternoon. I stop posting on social media, because I’m tired of faking a jovial happiness that I’ll never have again, and also all I want to do is stare at Devi’s feeds, hoping for a single post, a single tweet, one selfie. Anything to connect to. But there’s nothing, either from her or about her. When Raven left me, Twitter and Tumblr exploded with people chattering about it, bemoaning it, and yet after Devi leaves me, the fucking love of my life, there’s complete silence about it on the Internet, because no one knew. It was only two months. And they were the best two months of my life.
I give up going out, I give up talking to friends. I spend my spare time reading through my poetry collection and reading The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Astronomy, because reading about space and the stars makes me feel closer to Devi.
I give up texting and calling her, but I don’t give up waiting for the phone to ring. It never does though.
I film two more scenes after Devi breaks up with me. The first is with a performer named Candi Hart and the second is with Ginger. I feel itchy and empty after both, even though Tanner tells me that they are some of the best scenes I’ve ever shot.
“You’re so fucking in the zone lately,” he says as Ginger and I clean up after our scene. “Damn, you were intense.”