“So let me ask you a real question,” Tanner says, setting down his beer and walking over to me with a fresh roll of paper towels. “I don’t have sex with women for money, so I’m not sure how this all works—but do you feel weird at all about fucking other women while you like this girl?”
His question burrows into me, sharp and shaming, joining the other thoughts I’ve been suppressing for the last few weeks. I’m a typical man, I’m good at compartmentalizing, but I’m also this sentimental bastard with all these gooey feelings, and I’d be lying if I said this doesn’t bother me when I think about it.
“I don’t know how I feel,” I start, not really sure how to frame what I want to say. I stop wiping at the couch for a minute and sit back on my heels. “Sex isn’t love, Tanner. It’s not even about liking someone. I respect all the girls I fuck, and I enjoy fucking them, but I don’t always want to hang out with them when the shoot is finished or wake up next to them in the morning. No more than eating a good sandwich for lunch makes me crave my actual dinner any less.”
“But sex isn’t food,” Tanner points out. “It’s not the same as scratching an itch or taking a nap—it’s not purely physical, and even you can’t deny that.”
I sigh. He’s right. “I know. But this isn’t my first time falling in love as a porn star. Even she—” we both know I mean She-Voldemort here “—wasn’t my first girlfriend in the industry. I know how to do this now, and it’s to have really clear boundaries and to keep some things special for each other.”
He looks doubtful. “Most couples have ‘no sex with other people’ as a boundary, you know. That’s like...a super-common boundary.”
“But that’s what I’m saying—porn people aren’t like other people. We’re not common. I mean, on some level, don’t you think that maybe we’re more evolved because we can separate sex from love? Don’t you feel like that’s noble? That I can have sex with so many different partners but still set aside my heart for someone else?”
The doubtful look hasn’t left his face.
“Okay, and yes,” I concede, “it does feel strange. All I think about, all I want, is Devi, and so it felt weird to fuck Candi and Ang today and it felt weird to fuck Jen and Nina yesterday in Vegas, but at the same time, my job is to fuck beautiful women. I can’t just abandon my job whenever I meet a girl I like. And I love my job. My feelings for Devi don’t change that, and I would never expect her feelings for me to change her own career path.”
“If you say so,” Tanner says, draining the last of his beer and walking over to the recycling bin to chuck in the can. “I just don’t think I’d even want to touch another woman if I was in love with someone else.”
“That’s very chivalrous,” I say, and I don’t say it mockingly. I mean it. I admire that, because despite my warm, gooey center, despite my fantasy to love and be loved, I also know that while it’s still my job to fuck women, I’ll do it happily. Maybe with some complicated feelings, but never with any regrets. It’s not as if I’m going to start going limp on set because my heart’s in another place.
It’s just that I don’t think my heart and my dick have to be connected, at least not all of the time.
“And I think you know yourself pretty well, Logan,” he says, grabbing his keys and phone off the kitchen counter. “I don’t doubt that you’ve got it all figured out. But what about this Devi girl? Do you think she feels the same way? You think she’ll really be cool letting you fuck your way up and down and sideways around the Valley?”
“Of course,” I scoff. “She’s a professional! And I guarantee she won’t stop fucking other people either. I know for a fact that she’s ramping up her career as we speak.”
Tanner shrugs. “Alright, man. Whatever you say. I’ll see you Friday?”
“Yeah. Whenever you want to come over is fine—we don’t have a scene booked and I’ll be editing all day.”
“And don’t forget to ‘gram those pictures you took of Candi and Ang today.”
“When have I ever forgotten to post on social media?”
He laughs. “Okay, okay, you’re right. But you do have to occasionally promote yourself, you know, not just talk about the lunch you’re eating or whatever show you’re bingeing at the moment.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
He tosses me a wave as he leaves out the front door, and I throw myself onto my newly-sanitized couch, digging out my phone to post the pictures on Instagram and Twitter, and tease up the scene a little, even though it probably won’t go up until next week.
When I’m done, I check Devi’s Twitter feed on a whim. We follow each other, but Devi doesn’t leave much to follow...her most recent tweet is from last month, and it’s a selfie taken inside the flagship Good Vibrations store in San Francisco, where she’s giving a giant dildo an exaggerated, adorable wink. No hashtags, no caption. Her Instagram feed is equally sparse, usually shots of the beach or the desert, never with any words attached.
What was she thinking when she posted those pictures, I wonder. How was she feeling? For all that we’ve done together, for as intimate as we’ve been, I have no idea what her inner life is like. I don’t know if she felt lonely when she looked out at that ocean sunset she posted, or if she felt complete. I have no idea whether her lack of online presence is because she’s shy or because she lives so fully in the moment that she doesn’t even think about sharing it publicly.