He sits up, surprised, when I walk in the room, but then I think he must get a good look at me, and his features quickly wrinkle into concern. Instantly, he’s on his feet. “What’s wrong?”
Instead of answering him, I fall into his open arms and let out a raspy, “I need you.” Because, the truth is, now that I’m wrapped in the cocoon of his warmth and his scent and his touch and his him-ness, the answer to his question is, “nothing.”
16
Devi’s face is buried in my shoulder, and I want to pull back to look at her, but then I feel the unmistakable warmth of tears on my skin, and so I don’t. Instead, I hook an arm behind her knees and scoop her up into my arms and carry her into my dark bedroom, where the drawn shades keep out most of the afternoon sun. I sit on the edge of the bed with her still in my arms, and simply sit, rocking her slowly and resting my head on top of hers.
I don’t ask her what’s wrong again, even though I’m itching in the worst way to know. When I last saw her this morning, she was dewy-faced and flushed from her scene with Kendi (and, I secretly hoped, the moment we shared on set). And when she kissed me goodbye, she seemed happy and chipper, if a little nervous. I know she had a scene scheduled after the one I saw—could that be what’s upsetting her? Something that happened on set?
I rack my brain, trying to remember if she told me any details about the shoot she was going to. Generally, her scenes don’t get much rougher than some dildo play and maybe the occasional light bondage, but certainly not the kind of punishing scenes some actors film. So maybe she fought with someone on set? Another performer? A director?
“Devi,” I say. It’s an invitation for her to speak, but it’s also an affirmation, a reminder that I am here for her and only for her, and that she is completely safe and cared for in my arms.
“I—I didn’t tell you something,” she gets out.
I frown, my eyebrows pulling together. “Whatever it is, babe, it’s fine.”
She shakes her head against my chest. “It wasn’t fine,” she says, the tears flowing faster and harder now. “I—I thought I could do it and then he was so aggressive and he cornered me—”
He?
A fucking he?
What the fuck was she doing this afternoon? While I was missing her and feeling lonely as I worked on my couch, she was on a set with a he?
My mouth reacts before my brain entirely catches up. “What?” I ask sharply. “Who is he?”
I feel her shrink in my arms, retreating into herself and curling into a ball. “I booked a het shoot with LaRue Hagen,” she whispers tearfully. “That’s where I was going today...not for a girl-on-girl scene, but for a scene with Bruce Madden.”
“Bruce Madden?” I demand, five different kinds of anger rising in my chest, the chief one an insanely protective instinct, because Bruce Madden is notorious for shitty onset behavior and fuck that guy. My blood immediately boils, conjuring the worst possible scenarios and elaborate fantasies that involve me going on vigilante murder sprees, but I try to breathe myself into a state of patient calm until I know what actually happened. It’s just that I know my girl, and I know that she’s not the type to cry. She’s not the type to let emotions overrule her control, and so whatever happened must have been big.
And bad.
I think about some of the worst stories I’ve heard about porn sets, all the rapes that happened on camera and were never prosecuted. Raven and I advocated hard for those performers—and we still do, albeit separately now—but I never ever thought that it might happen to someone close to me, someone I love…
Oh God. If something like that happened to Devi today, there will be no end to the hell I will rain down on everyone even tangentially connected. Hell and handcuffs and blood and money, and I will personally see to it that Bruce himself is castrated, followed by LaRue.
You don’t know what happened yet—set the mental castrating knife down.
“Yes, Bruce Madden,” she sniffles. “He was...oh God, Logan, he was awful.”
“Did he…?” I can’t even get the question out, because I’m asking two questions—did he assault you? and if not, did you still fuck him? But even in my protective rage, I can’t bear to ask anything that makes her feel for one second like she’s to blame or did anything wrong. Whatever happened was one hundred percent that shit-bag’s fault. “Did it happen during the shoot?”
“I couldn’t even start the shoot. But then he found me while I was trying to leave…” She breaks off abruptly and starts sobbing, the kind of sobs that tell me words can’t happen right now, and so I just hold her and rock her, stroking the back of her head as she cries.
Then, as I’m murmuring my reassuring words, something else hits me and hits me hard.
Devi booked a het scene. When Devi kissed me goodbye this morning, she was driving off to go fuck another man. And even through the veil of my rage at Bruce Madden and my desperate fear that she’s been terribly hurt, another emotion surfaces, ugly and undeniable.
Jealousy.
I remember our first fake date in the park, when I saw that Sinner’s Playpen was calling Devi, and I remember her asking my advice about doing more mainstream porn, and I remember telling Tanner that of course we were both professionals and would keep filming all the scenes we wanted to do. And somehow none of that matters right now, because before now it was all in abstract, just things that could potentially happen, things that didn’t feel real. I told myself and everyone else it was okay.