That did ease the serious expression on his face, and I was almost sorry when he released my hand back into the cold air of the room.
“Ah, I see the Clauses are getting acquainted,” someone said, coming through the door and closing it. It was the man from the hallway—plus the ugly dog, which was now tucked securely against his side like a football. A pink tongue was drooping from the side of its mouth and it was looking around the room with cataract-shiny eyes.
Too late, I realized the pouch was still out on the table in front of me, making me look like a total creeper, but when theintimacy coordinator’s eyes landed on it, his face split into a delighted smile. “You’re already digging in, I see. Excellent.”
“No, I—”Come on, Winnie! Be the unruffled composure you want to see in the world!But before I could answer about the penis-holding pouch in a very unruffled, very composed way, Kallum was stepping in for me.
“I was showing her your sex Caboodle,” Kallum said smoothly. “So she could know all the tools of the trade and stuff.”
I shot Kallum a grateful look and he winked at me.
“What a good Caboodle Yoda you are,” the coordinator said, setting his dog down on the table. It took two steps and then laid on its belly with its head raised and its eyes staring straight ahead, like a very small sphinx. The coordinator sat at the seat next to the Caboodle and opened it up to tuck the pouch neatly back inside.
One of Kallum’s massive hands curled around the back of a chair and pulled it out for me. “Milady,” he said gallantly, gesturing to the seat.
I sat, wondering if I’d judged him unfairly all those years ago. Between the surfboard and the picture, I’d assumed he was an inconsiderate wang. But today he’d apologized for the Teen Choice Awardsandhe’d helped me through the awkward pouch moment. Could I have been wrong about costarring with Kallum?
Maybe... it wouldn’t be so bad?
Maybe this wholeSanta, Babything wouldn’t be so bad?
“So,” the coordinator said as his dog started gently—wetly—snoring, “about me. I’m your intimacy coordinator for this shoot, and my name is Jack Hart.”
“I knew I recognized you from somewhere!” exclaimed Kallum, and Jack gave a little bow.
“I assume you are familiar with my body of work, which is of course as groundbreaking as it is extensive.” Seeing my blank look, Jack added, “Porn, Winnie Baker. I mean porn.”
“You make p-pornography?” My voice caught on the word, and then I flushed. And then flushed about the flushing. I hated sounding like such a fuddy-duddy (and I hated getting embarrassed about it even more).
“Darling, Iampornography,” Jack declared, not seeming bothered by my reaction in the least. “I’ve been redefining the medium since I was twenty, erasing boundaries and inspiring ode-like Pornhub comments for years. My oeuvre defies categories and transgresses expectations; I’ve been called ‘bold,’ ‘fearless,’ and ‘eerily limber.’ My bisexual Hoover Dam orgy has been viewed over a million times, and I’ve had not one, but two! Two toys! That were molded from my anatomy—both of which come with discreet yet stylish travel cases, by the way.”
My mouth was open. I had so many questions. There were toys made to look like real people’s bodies? Was the orgy inside the Hoover Dam or on top of it? And what on earth was this eerily limber person doing at the Hope Channel of all places?
He seemed to sense my confusion, because he said, in a slightly less declarative voice, “But then I got divorced, and my ex-husband ruined my career, and despiteall I’ve donefor pornography as an art form, I’m forced to seek gainful employment elsewhere.” He sniffed. “Unfortunately for me, but fortunately for the world, the only thing I’m good at is making sex lookamazing on camera. Since I can no longer find people willing to brave my ex-husband’s ire to perform with me, I had to pivot, and now I’m officially certified to make other people’s sex look good on camera. Or their fake sex at least.”
I was still trying to process that I was sitting next to an actual porn star, to someone who’d had sex for money. My entire life, pornography had been held up as an example of how far our modern world had fallen into sin, as the single seediest vice a person could have.
And yet the man sitting next to me didn’t seem seedy at all. He seemed like any other LA-dweller: great hair, perfect teeth, elevator pitch at the ready. High-need dog with an obvious backstory.
I mentally shook myself. I’d managed to slough off so much of what I’d grown up thinking, and so I had no idea why my stereotypes about pornography had stuck around. And I was done with thinking that way. After all, my replacement forDuke the Halls, Bee Hobbes, was also a porn star and seemed to be awesome. And heck, I was making a sexy movie myself now!
Also your costar is no stranger to adult entertainment himself...
I looked across the table at Kallum, who’d sat down at some point during Jack’s introduction. I knew Addison had watched his sex tape after he’d officially licensed it and rereleased it, and she’d said it was the dirtiest thing she’d ever seen. (She’d said it like a compliment. Also a compliment: “The man-fur on that guy!”)
My eyes dropped to Kallum’s hands as Jack kept talking. There was a faint sprinkle of hair on the backs of his hands, gold like the hair on his head.
“So the main thing I need to stress before we get started is that sex will fuck with your head sometimes. Even fake sex. Even fake sex with lots of crew members nearby holding heavy equipment. On paper, we’re all grown-ups with rational brains that recognize we’re doing a job, but in reality, lots of us are horny meatbags with easily confused limbic systems. So while much of what we do will be sneaky angles and pretending—and while we’ll have some barriers in place for when we’re not pretending—there will be times when you need to remind yourself that it’s just biology. Got it? Just. Biology.”
“Just biology,” I echoed.
Kallum was nodding, looking totally at ease, like he didn’t need this reminder at all. And he probably didn’t; a man with a sex tape probably wasn’t a man with an easily confused limbic system.
“Thank you for coming to my TED Talk,” Jack said and then tapped the screen on his phone to wake it up. The background was a picture of his dog sitting in front of a crumpet with a birthday candle stuck in it. “Now,” Jack continued, tapping his email icon and then opening an attachment, “we’ll be in Christmas Notch next week, which means we need to get your first love scene mapped out before we go, since it’s being filmed on day two. We’re going to review the scene together, and then I’ll chat with you both separately about your thoughts. And then we’ll reconvene for the... choreography.”
Okay.
Okay.
