The Flaming Motel

IX


I was alone, but not without her. The thought occurred to me in the cab on the way home. By the time I got there, after forty minutes of cold night air blowing in my face, I knew I’d done the right thing. But that didn’t mean I had to miss her completely.

I stumbled around the apartment, my movements slow and exaggerated. I was shocked to discover it wasn’t that late at all, barely eleven at night. I told myself I should go to bed, get the day over with, but I lingered in the kitchen drinking water. My curiosity was unshakable. I was home. I was safe. I was alone. What was the problem, I wondered? What could it hurt?

Two minutes later the laptop was booted up and running. Thirty seconds after that, the high speed Internet connection was running a search for “Brianna Jones.” In those brief moments before the results came back, I pondered my ignorance. Perhaps she wasn’t in the business. Perhaps she was just a pretty girl who happened to live with these people. It was possible. But the computer told me otherwise.

There were thousands of hits. Her name was common enough that I’m sure many of them were irrelevant, but the ones at the top of the Google page were all about her. The very top listing was for a page called “BriannaRamma”—the official website of the world’s hottest new porn star, it told me.

I clicked the link and there she was, taut and tan and topless in a bright red g-string. Had I not seen her an hour ago, I would have sworn the picture was fake. I tried to enter the site, but there was a thirty-dollar monthly fee. I went back and surfed other sites, but most had only clipped or crude images of her clearly pirated from her movies. All in all, it seemed she had managed to keep pretty tight control over her image. I took it as a sign she was doing something right.

I returned to her website, got out a credit card, and signed up. I told myself it was merely curious fascination. I’d just had her leaning against me for crying out loud. Who was she? What did I know about her? Nothing, I told myself. But I was about to learn a few things.

The first thing I learned was that Brianna Jones was big business. The website was huge, well-designed, and structured so that the thirty bucks a month was just the beginning. For that, a customer could look at libraries of pictures and watch streaming clips from her movies, which appeared to number in the dozens. And of course, direct downloads could be purchased from the website “So you can do a download of your own anytime you’re off line”—Brianna assured her customers.

And then there were a variety of toys for sale, each with Brianna’s seal of approval: “This rubber p-ssy was made from a mold of my own hot, wet cunt. It looks and feels like the real thing. And I should know! Don’t just jerk off to me guys, f*ck me!” or “Sometimes a girl just needs a big, thick cock. But most of the time there’s no one around. When that happens, I reach for this ten inch monster. Give your wife or girlfriend what every woman really wants, (Sorry guys! It’s true) she’ll love you even more (and give you the best blowjob you’ve ever had!)”

But the biggest thing of all were the private parties. These were weekly online interactive video chats. Brianna would take requests from the audience, which was limited to twenty-five people, each of whom would pay $200 for the hour. In addition, she would auction off “one-on-one” chat sessions where she would do a private hour, once a week, for the highest bidder. She had two and a half million followers on Twitter and nearly as many on Facebook. Where the hell had I been?

I clicked on a movie. A scene from a gym. A trainer showing her his equipment. I wondered if the man had been at the party. He made a joke and she giggled—naturally, innocently—she could actually act. But it was the way she looked at him. Her eyes naïve, almost doughy. It was totally convincing, like she really was just a girl looking for a new gym and had no idea what was about to happen. Was I fascinated because I knew her? Or was she really that good? On the surface, it was like any other pornography, and yet it was addictive in a way I’d never thought possible. She lay on a weight bench in a gym, clinging to the upright posts for stability, as the man pounded her repeatedly. She looked like she loved every second of it, and with each squeal and gasp, I imagined her beneath me in that bedroom where I’d left her.

We all worked ourselves into a frenzy together. She on a digital file made at some other place and time. Me with my pants around my ankles at our cramped dinette. And when it was over, I went to bed and thought of her, unable to shake the sensation of her weight against me.