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 mindlessly and numbly continue life as before.
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.”
I shrug, because what can I say? That I have to completely disassociate myself from all emotion and thought in order to do the scenes? That I’m disgusted with myself as I fuck other women, as I come for them, because Devi is the only woman I want to touch now?
After Tanner leaves, I trudge upstairs to my office. It’s been a week since Devi left me, and I’ve become a hollow version of myself. Even editing and writing my monologues is a terrible chore, and the worst task of all is finishing up edits of the last Star-Crossed scene because all it does is remind me of the heartbreak that came after the camera turned off. Every glance of hers in the footage, every pull of her mouth—I can see her confusion and pain so clearly now. How fucking self-absorbed and arrogant was I that I didn’t see it before?
I can only watch a few minutes of the footage before the grief and guilt threaten to engulf me, and I have to turn it off. I’ll edit my scene with Ginger from today instead.