Broken Dignity

By Michael J. Lando

As a former adult film star, how do you rebuild a normal life when the world refuses to forget who you were? For Cristal Caprice, it seems impossible.

It took nearly a decade for Cristal to escape the control of a sadistic tyrant named Mason, who refused to let her leave the sex industry alive. Three years later, Cristal re-emerges with a new identity in a new home, the small town of Thornwood. There, her new neighbors and friends know her only as Bianca Nubreze.

Struggling to come to terms with her shameful past and adapt to a new life, Bianca isolates herself from the world and slowly sinks into a deep depression. As she teeters on the brink of suicide, Bianca finds acceptance and optimism in a Christian evangelist named Robyn. Even so, her new found hope in life is short-lived as her secret is exposed. Revelations about her past involvement with US Congressman Adrian Reese ignite a national media scandal, and her new life is turned inside out overnight.

With her true identity and whereabouts exposed, Bianca becomes the towns pariah and is once again relentlessly hunted by Mason. As her life spirals out of control, her only hope for redemption lies in her new found faith in God, Robyn, and a shrewd political strategist named Tamara who will do whatever it takes to protect Congressman Reeses career at any cost.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Oct 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462024865

Michael J. Lando

Michael J. Lando is an American writer born in Greenville, Mississippi, and raised on Chicago’s south side. Michael studied fiction writing at Columbia College Chicago and presently works for a Fortune 500 company. He has written several political commentaries and currently resides in the Chicago suburbs with his wife and daughter.

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Contents

Prologue

1|Desperate Women

2|The Men in Charge

3|Starting Over

4|Politicking

5|Scared of Lonely

6|Holy Roller

7|Club 319

8|Ungrateful

9|Boca Chica

10|Hard to Change

11|Scorned

12|Business as Usual

13|Homecoming

14|Big Panther Party

15|If I Were Your Girl

16|House in Order

17|Falling Down

18|Scandal Lust

19|The Aftermath

20|Revelations

21|Chaos and Disorder

22|Trafficking

23|A Resolution

24|Uprising

25|Unforgiven

26|Piñata

27|The Coriolis Effect

28|One and the Same

Epilogue

To my family and friends,

without whom

none of this would even have been worthwhile.

The most important human endeavor is the striving for morality in our actions. Our inner balance and even our very existence depend on it. Only morality in our actions can give beauty and dignity to life.

—Albert Einstein

Prologue

Authorities are asking if anyone has any information about the missing girl—five-year-old Marie Duval—to please contact the Miami-Dade police missing person’s hotline immediately. The missing child is African-American and Haitian, about four feet in height and was last seen wearing a blue dress.

—Rachel Nunez, News Radio 790, Miami, FL

God’s mocking me. I know it.

It couldn’t have been a more inappropriate day for weather that nice. A day like that was suited for rain—a heavy fog or overcast—not for clear skies and a calm seventy-one degrees. The way Dee saw it, the first day of summer couldn’t have started out any worse. As far as she knew, every one of her friends was hanging out at the mall, at the beach, or just basking in celebration of the end of sophomore year. Yet there she was in a car … with Nadine of all people.

Whenever the car came to a stop, a gentle breeze rustled palm trees and glided over her face, keeping the heat from the sun in check. Dee tried not to think about how nice the day was. Instead, she remembered how school administrators had told her that her sophomore year would have the highest number of dropouts of any other class and that she would be one of the lucky ones if she made it through the year. The joke was on them; Dee had made it through her sophomore year just fine. The problem was going to be her junior year.

It seemed so unfair to have to deal with something like that at fifteen years old.

Maybe God doesn’t care one way or another. Maybe there is no God, and I’m acting all scared for nothing. I mean … if He’s real and I’m not supposed to be doing this, why doesn’t He just stop me? Dee wished it were true that there was no God. It would’ve made it easier to believe she was doing the right thing. She even tried reasoning that others had done the same thing and seemed to come through okay; maybe it wasn’t the end of the world. That line of reasoning didn’t stop her from looking for the slightest hint of divine intervention to suggest that she not go through with it either. The conflict had played out in her mind for weeks; for every coin flip that had told her no, another coin flip overrode it and said yes. That was the day it could all end, and she still hadn’t decided if she should go through with it or not.

Dee wanted something concrete—a song on the radio, a guilt-inducing billboard sign. Even a car accident would’ve been better than the divine indifference she was receiving from God right then. Every funeral she had ever gone to—three in her short lifetime—had been underscored with gloomy weather to convey God’s sadness. Although this was technically not a funeral, it may have been the closest thing to it.

So why isn’t it raining today? Why doesn’t He care? She realized there was no logic in her question. If death affected the weather, given the number of people who died every day, it would rain indefinitely. Pausing, she reconsidered her line of questioning. What if I go through with it, and I’m, like, cursed forever? Maybe I shouldn’t do this. No, this is wrong. I can’t do this.

The more she thought about it, the worse she felt. She had barely come of age and been able to understand much about her own faith before she had stopped attending church. After her mother stopped going in order to pursue a full-time lifestyle of debauchery, Dee had stopped going as well. The absence of spiritual guidance had given Dee’s mind the liberty to create her own warped relationship with God; He had gone from Great Redeemer to Divine Punisher. As far as Dee was concerned, God was simply there to take a tally of her mistakes and decide which suite in hell had the best accommodations for her. A penthouse would be nice after that day, she figured.

Then there was the whole Nadine issue. Nadine was the mother of the boy who had caused all of this. For almost twenty minutes, a sudden case of diarrhea had held Dee hostage to a toilet seat while she listened to Nadine scream outside the bathroom door for her to stop stalling. Ten out of the twenty minutes were part of a stalling tactic, but Dee soon found out that that would have no impact on Nadine’s resolve. There was too much at stake, and she couldn’t imagine Nadine leaving something this important to the whim of some fickle teenager—or so Nadine called her.

When they finally arrived at their destination, Dee began to fidget. Nadine pulled her car into a parking spot at the side of the building instead of near the entrance. A place like that could endanger Nadine’s family’s reputation. From the corner of her eye, Dee watched Nadine shut the car off and release a deep breath. It seemed like this was as much of an encumbrance for Nadine as it was for her. Judging by way Nadine kept looking at the passenger door handle, Dee realized Nadine wanted her to get out of the car right away … not that she could move her legs. Stepping out of the car would’ve been like stepping off the edge of a cliff, knowing that there were only jagged rocks at the bottom to cushion the fall.

To cope with the excruciating silence between them, Dee rubbed the gold cross on her necklace between the base of her thumb and side of her index finger. There was no way Nadine would allow her to sit and think about it much longer without saying anything. As soon as Nadine sighed again and turned toward her, it was safe to assume a lecture would surely follow. Oh God, here we go.

Dee, I won’t sit here and pretend to know what you’re going through right now. I can only imagine how difficult this must be for you or for anyone in your situation, for that matter.

Dee looked away, hardly oblivious to the cynicism in Nadine’s comment. At the worst times, Dee’s facial expressions always betrayed her. She couldn’t help it. It had to be getting under Nadine’s skin to play nice to her. There was no love lost between them. From the moment they had met, Dee had felt she could do nothing to please the makeup-clad harpy with the knockoff Claire Huxtable hairdo. Nadine’s son Adrian had told her before that Nadine hated everything about her, from their relationship to the way she dressed. Just one week before, Nadine had scolded her for wearing too many pieces of gaudy Chinese store jewelry. It never seemed like much to Dee, but for some reason, the three thin gold chains and the multitude of gold rings on her fingers—some with letters forged into them—clashed with Nadine’s Beverly Hills sensibilities.

Shifting a bit to the right in the passenger seat, Dee turned her back to Nadine and looked out the window at some of the girls walking squeamishly toward the building. Her abdomen tensed and churned at the thought of going inside, but she felt like there was no other way. The sign from God that she’d been waiting for had never arrived.

Maybe that is the sign.

Look, I know we haven’t had the best relationship. Most of it—maybe all of it—is my fault, Nadine said.

Stunned by that admission, Dee looked back over her shoulder at Nadine to see if some alien life-form had jumped inside her body and assumed command.

I know I can be a little … overprotective of my son. I know this. I guess … Nadine paused. I guess, when you showed up, I just … I just felt like I was losing him to you, you know?

Dee squinted, not fully comprehending what Nadine meant.

It sounds silly, but every day after school, Adrian would always come home and tell me about his day, and then turn around and ask me about mine. He was the only one in the house who would ever take the time to do that … listen to me, I mean.

Why would anyone want to listen to you? Dee was aghast at the thought of having any conversations with Nadine, and Nadine’s son did it willingly.

He was the only one who seemed to care about what was going on in my life. So it’s like, after he met you, he barely had time for me. And with his father always gone, I guess … I guess I just missed having someone to talk to. I don’t know if that makes any sense. Does it?

Turning in her seat a bit to the left toward Nadine, though never quite looking at her directly, Dee nodded just enough to let Nadine know she wasn’t blowing her off completely. The modest gesture was all Dee was willing to give; she refused to let her guard down with the woman. Maybe it was selfish, but the way Dee saw it, she was the one who needed comforting, not Nadine.

He’s the only son I have, and I just want the best for him.

So do I, Dee argued.

I know you do, and I only want the best for you as well, Dee, Nadine whispered, moving a strand of Dee’s beautifully long, dark hair from her face. The moment would’ve been heartwarming if it weren’t so unsettling for Dee to have Nadine treat her as anything other than ethnic trash, a name she had overheard Nadine use to describe her once.

Dee nearly jumped out of her chair when Nadine reached into her purse and attempted to hand her an envelope.

What’s that?

It’s for you, Nadine said.

Dee cringed involuntarily when Nadine took her hand to place the envelope gingerly in her palm. Nadine’s touch was cold and alien, like that of the wicked queen in Snow White, handing Snow White a poisonous apple to swallow. If only dozens of tiny forest creatures would come along and peck at Nadine’s head through the sunroof, Dee could make her escape from the car.

Go on. Open it, Nadine insisted.

After cautiously looking inside the stuffed envelope, Dee sat up straight, surprised by the stack of money inside.

What’s this for? Dee asked, trying to hand the envelope back.

It’s for you.

The envelope had exactly forty crisp, one hundred-dollar bills in it.

What for? Dee was agitated and ready to fight.

Look. What my son did to you was wrong, and no woman should be asked to do what you’re doing for him. I know he’s sorry for the position he’s put you in, but he can’t possibly comprehend the sacrifice you’re making. He was stupid, and he was irresponsible, and there’s no excuse for treating you the way he has.

Even though what Nadine said was true, Dee felt compelled to defend Nadine’s son. Loving someone had that effect.

It’s not his fault, Dee pleaded.

I appreciate you wanting to protect him as much as you do, and I can see that you really loved him. That’s why I’m so sorry that I tried to get in the way of that. But the fact is … he’s not here. He ran off to college and left you all alone to deal with this all by yourself.

Those words hit Dee in the pit of her stomach like a punch from a professional boxer who had forgotten to wear his gloves.

I didn’t raise my son to be that kind of man.

The knot in Dee’s throat dared her eyes to join in by shedding a few tears. Biting down on her back teeth and fanning her face to dry away any tears before they could form didn’t seem to help. She hated being so emotional, even in a situation that warranted it. Not that it would’ve taken much; a sappy commercial could reduce Dee to tears on a normal day. That notwithstanding, she didn’t want to give Nadine the benefit of seeing her so vulnerable either.

I know money won’t take away your pain, and there’s no dollar value on a life.

Nadine almost appeared sincere.

But the way I see it, sometimes doing something for yourself is the best way to get your mind off the ones who’ve hurt you. And I think you deserve to have a fresh start … like the one you’re giving my son.

Curiosity curled Dee’s eyebrows. A fresh start?

Look, I know how your mother treats you. That’s why you couldn’t tell her about this, right? The question made Dee rub the cross on her chain even harder; the mere mention of her mother caused anxiety. That’s why I’m taking care of everything today. She won’t have to know anything, unless you want her to. That money I gave you is for you and only you. It’s not much, but it’s a head start toward your dream.

Maybe it wasn’t much by Nadine’s standards, but for Dee, it was small fortune.

My dream? Dee assumed that all Nadine knew about her was the fact that she was three years younger than her Ivy League son and that he was giving Dee a little more than just after school tutoring.

I heard you wanted to act one day?

Yeah, Dee murmured.

Well, it takes money to go to California, and I think you deserve that chance to go one day. Nadine smiled.

Clutching the envelope in her hand was the only sign Dee would give to Nadine that she had accepted the offer. She caught a glimpse of the clock on dashboard and wished for more time, but her appointment was in ten minutes. She never imagined that things would end so badly between herself and Nadine’s son, but when he had left her alone to deal with this, there had been no way she could forgive him. Of all the people she’d known in her life, Dee had never thought that he would treat her that way.

Maybe Nadine’s right. Maybe it is time I start looking out for me.

Dee reached out to open the car door, deliberated her decision again, and looked back at Nadine. Her own mother had made so many poor decisions in her life—from men to alcohol and drug abuse—that in this rare instance, Nadine seemed like the closest thing to adult supervision in her life. If she thought it was the right thing to do, then just maybe … maybe everything would be okay.

She suppressed the quivering fear in her voice as much as she could and asked, If it were you, could you do it?

She waited for an answer while Nadine placed her own hands together in a prayer-like position. If she remained true to form, Nadine would gesture every word she spoke with her conjoined hands.

Look, when we first talked about adoption, you and I both agreed that giving away your child to some stranger seemed … unnatural. Maybe it’s selfish. Maybe it’s wrong. But I wouldn’t want another woman raising my child for me. What if that other parent treats your child just as bad as your mother treats you?

She had a point, and it was all too much to mentally litigate right then; Dee just wanted it to be over.

Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.

She couldn’t focus as well as she wanted to; her mind continued to drift between her current situation and Nadine’s chopping motion with her hands.

Look, I’ve seen what happens to girls in your situation. Not many of them get a second chance to live out their dreams. They usually end up on public aid, struggling, trying to make ends meet. So if it were me knowing that I’d be forced to raise a child alone with a mother who already mistreats me, I wouldn’t hesitate, because I think it’s cruel to bring a child into that kind of a world.

Yeah, I guess so. It’s not like I have any other choice. Stepping out of the car, Dee pushed a lock of her hair behind her ear, put her sunglasses on, and walked meekly toward the building like the girls who had entered before her.

I’ll be right here when you come out, Nadine yelled.

Dee pretended not to hear her.

She walked around the corner in solace and alone with her head down, headed toward the entrance of the abortion clinic. When she made it to the front, she stopped, reached around her neck, and removed her Jesus chain, placing it in her back pocket. After that day, since He had refused to help her decide, she figured she no longer had any use for Him anymore.

1|Desperate Women

All employers must provide work and workplaces that are safe and healthful. In other words, as an employer, you must follow state laws governing job safety and health. Failure to do so can result in a threat to the life or health of workers and substantial monetary penalties.

—The California Occupational Safety and Health Act

Cristal Caprice was having a hard time ignoring what was happening to her best friend, Solae, in the other room. Between Solae’s high-pitched screams and the pungent odors that hinted at diseased sex, she was starting to get nauseous. It didn’t help that the men in the other room were calling Solae every sort of demeaning name imaginable to a woman. Cristal wanted out. She wanted out of that room, out of the business, and out of that life so badly that thinking about it gave her a migraine. It wasn’t the first time that Cristal Caprice had felt that way; the urge to quit consumed her several times a year ever since she had entered the industry.

This time, however, she was sure of it. Cristal Caprice was no longer willing to live her life that way.

It was a decision she always feared would come too late—after her looks were gone or after some horrible, untreatable sickness forced her to quit. Although neither had come true, Cristal felt the potential for those scenarios escalating.

She had reached a point in her life when nothing seemed to matter anymore, and she looked out the large bay windows that extended over a hilltop and imagined the unthinkable. It was a two hundred-foot drop to the start of the gated roadway to a home that sat on the tip of a small mountain. Cristal imagined climbing out onto the window ledge and free-falling to the pavement, ending all the years of guilt, shame, and disappointment that had built up inside her. Her death would be painless, because the impact would kill her in an instant, leaving her body no time to register the pain.

She considered the possibility that she might survive the fall and live out the rest of her existence as a vegetable in a urine-soaked hospital bed. She decided to pass on jumping.

From her vantage point at the kitchen table, Cristal could make out the front half of a black S-Class Mercedes idling in the driveway below. The trees that extended out from the cliff’s edge just underneath the window concealed the back end of the car. Looking down at that car reminded her of why she couldn’t quit or kill herself—the man in the car was far more dangerous than any fall from a cliff. The cliff would be merciful and kill her right away; the man in the car had no mercy. He would take pleasure in making sure Cristal suffered if she ever tried to leave him, so she couldn’t just quit.

If that weren’t enough, Cristal was terrified by the thought of living life among normal people. Over the years, she had heard countless horror stories of girls who had left the business and tried to live normal lives. They all tried to blend in at some office job, thinking that the degree they had earned in college would wash away their past sins. For most of them, it was only a matter of time before some gossiping pervert at their new job found out what they had formerly been and then spread enough rumors until someone in authority heard the rumors and fired them.

That was the reality for women like her.

Women in her line of work were averse to the realization that their college degrees were about as useful as resumes written on toilet tissue when it came to getting a job after the lives they lived. They typically ended up on the streets, strung out on drugs or dying in somebody’s rat-infested housing project.

Nope. Not me. One way or another, she had to figure out something. There was no way she could ever go back to this life again … not after that day.

The sickening sound of gagging and convulsing had replaced Solae’s screams. Cristal sat at the kitchen table, rubbing and scratching the palms of her hands, trying to ignore the situation by telling herself that it was all just part of the business.

The different boxes of cereal on top of the refrigerator across from her became a convenient distraction. Judging by the alphabet magnets on the refrigerator door and the variety of cereal brands—Fruit Loops, Captain Crunch, Fruity Pebbles, and a few others—it was clear that children lived there.

The leasing agency had mentioned that the house itself was something of a modern marvel. Built back in the late 1980s, it had been erected on a hilltop with support beams designed to withstand a 7.0 earthquake on the Richter scale. The sweeping view of San Fernando Valley made it seem worthwhile. That was assuming that the hilltop itself didn’t collapse, but people in California had a history of making stupid real estate purchases. In a state known for landslides, forest fires, and earthquakes, building a home on a cliff’s edge somehow seemed perfectly reasonable to Californians.

The interior of the home had a modern décor, accentuated with bi-level marble flooring that led to an oval-shaped living room where the filming was taking place. A spiral staircase with illuminated rails completed the back end of the living room, and colorfully recessed lighting gave each room in the home its own unique glow. The home was far too elegant for this kind of work and much too gaudy to live in.

Cristal wondered if the owners of the place even knew what kind of people they’d allowed into their home. The truth was that, like most people in the area, the owners didn’t want to know. It was typical for the wealthy to lease their homes out to companies such as these … so long as no one else in the neighborhood knew what was going on.

The house they were using had been leased to the production company that employed Cristal, Onyx Sinema. To supplement the cost of renting a home like this, Onyx Sinema sometimes shared rental costs with lower-end production companies like Wild Onez Entertainment—the company that was filming there that day.

Blocking out the convulsing noises caused by each breath Solae managed to steal between forced swallows was impossible. The sounds were accompanied by a suctioning that resembled the sound of a plunger removing sewage from a toilet. The sound alone was enough to make Cristal shudder.

Cristal peeked cautiously into the other room to see what was happening. Solae was on her knees. Her hands repeatedly slapped the thighs of the man she was working with, as if she were trying to push away from his body for air. It looked as though Solae was fighting against her body’s own spastic attempt to save itself. Cristal understood why she couldn’t. If Solae had simply pushed away from the performer she was working with, that would’ve done the trick, but it would’ve ruined the shot. A mistake like that could ruin Solae’s chances of ever getting more work. With money on the line, Cristal knew Solae would endure. Solae was coughing, gagging, and trembling violently. The veins in her forehead appeared to swell to a bursting point from the muscle strain. Her eyes were red and wide with terror. Her nose was running, and her lethargic movements revealed that she was getting weaker—possibly from a lack of oxygen. There was no way Solae could last much longer. Cristal knew it, so she turned away and closed her eyes, bracing for the sound that would come next.

The soupy splatter of liquid accompanied an Ughhhhh!

Turning around to look again, Cristal could see Solae coughing, and vomiting on the floor. Vomit and saliva splattered and saturated the entire lower half of Solae’s face and her body. It mixed with her bleeding mascara until she looked like she’d been dumped in a vat of raw sewage. No matter how much Cristal wished for it to end, she knew this was only the beginning for Solae.

Reflecting back on her own experience unsettled Cristal’s stomach as she watched what was happening to her friend. If Solae felt anything like she had after she had taken a job like this, then Solae was physically exhausted, mentally catatonic, and spiritually dead.

Cut. That’s perfect. That’s exactly what I wanted. Stay right there while I set up another shot, a videographer called to Solae from across the room.

Solae Devi often wished she could be more like Cristal Caprice. That was a thought that harassed her whenever she looked at herself in the mirror. The contrasts between them were too numerous for that to ever happen. In the looks department, there was no comparison; Cristal Caprice was every man’s fantasy, and Solae was just an ordinary, light-skinned girl from around the way. Solae figured God had been playing a practical joke when he had given her the chest of a ten-year-old boy. Cristal, on the other hand, had received more than a fair share of ta-tas. Like most girls in her line of work who were deficient in self-esteem, Solae had gone out and bought breast implants. Actually, Solae had bought a few pairs, because the first two surgeries hadn’t gone as well as she had hoped. The dim-witted, back-alley surgeon who had done her first implants had thought it would be a great idea to put the implants underneath her muscle tissue. The procedure had left her bruised and in severe pain for several months while she had worked a marathon of daily sex scenes to pay for another surgery.

Then there was an additional surgery after the next one, because the second pair was too big and left her nipples hideously offset.

Solae was humiliated. If her self-appraisals weren’t damaging enough, directors started requiring her to perform scenes with her top on or with her back to the camera to keep from turning viewers off. The constant ridicule within the industry and from fans in chat rooms had spurred Cristal to pay for a third implant surgery on Solae’s behalf, this time with a respected Beverly Hills plastic surgeon.

The last surgery was perfect. The doctor used an implant technique that inserted an inflatable implant through the navel and up into the breast socket, which would prevent any further scarring. However, all the prior augmentations had left Solae with scar tissue underneath both breasts that required extensive makeup before every shoot. Luckily, she had a friend like Cristal, who was an exceptional makeup artist.

Solae realized that it wasn’t just her body that impeded her quest for fame; it was her attitude. Over time, directors began to label her difficult to work with. It was a stereotype that readily attached itself to black women in the sex industry, because they were all thought of as having too much attitude and as being unwilling to do as much as their white counterparts. In Solae’s case, the latter was untrue. There wasn’t much Solae wouldn’t do for money. Her problem was her viperous temper, which had landed her in jail on more than one occasion for assaulting fellow performers who got a little too lippy with her. The stigma cost her money and countless opportunities, because stars and directors refused to work with her.

Resigned to the fact that she would never achieve the same status as Cristal, Solae had taken her career to opposite extreme. If she couldn’t become one of the glamour girls of adult entertainment like Cristal Caprice had, then Solae would set out to be the nastiest. The way she saw it, the only way to get noticed when standing next to a legend like Cristal Caprice was to do something a legend would never do. For years, Solae had studied Cristal’s performances and found ways to amplify them. Since sultry, seductive moans were Cristal’s trademark, Solae set out to be the best screamer in the business. Cristal was known for moving her body gracefully, like a salsa dancer, in her sex scenes, so Solae attacked her scenes like a bull rider: hard, fast, intense, and reckless. Unlike Cristal Caprice, Solae had had no inhibitions when it came to what she would and would not do on film—until that day. Cristal would work with no more than two men in a scene at once, and Solae would take on as many as they paid her to work with. Solae didn’t care what it cost her; she wanted the fame.

Cristal could see it in his eyes: the man working with Solae enjoyed hurting her. The disgusting sack of meat working with Solae went under the stage name Gamble. His oily, combed-back hair that rested in a ponytail to his sloppy man boobs and beer belly—how a man like Gamble got a job in an industry that required you to take your clothes off was beyond comprehension. Even in porn, there were double standards.

The vindictive, narrow-eyed stare that Cristal gave Gamble lasted longer than it should have. She wasn’t able to snap out of it and look away before Gamble caught her watching. In response, he flashed a crooked, stained-tooth smile at her that reminded her of the sadistic experience she had had with him years before. This time, she knew he couldn’t touch her; touching Cristal Caprice in any way was strictly forbidden by the man in the Mercedes outside. She knew that wouldn’t stop Gamble from fantasizing about her though.

Gamble owned Wild Onez Entertainment, a company that specialized in bondage, masochism, rape fantasy, and a variety of other vile fetishes. The video shoot was for a video series Gamble produced and performed in, proudly entitled X-treme Ebony Humiliation. Even though Solae knew what she was in for when she signed up for the job, it did little to ease Cristal’s guilt for recommending Solae for the job.

The wait in between shot arrangements felt like the wait at a dentist’s office before a root canal; she wasn’t looking forward to what came next, but she was anxious to get it over with. She saw Donnie, the videographer, setting up his handheld camera on the floor in front of Solae. He was a modestly buff young man with dirty blond hair.

All right. I’m ready to roll, he said. Let’s just pick it up from where we left off.

Good. I’m ready to tear her little ass apart. Gamble grinned at Solae and then at Cristal again. From where she was seated, Cristal could barely see around Gamble anymore, but she could see chunks of vomit still dripping onto the floor from Solae. Donnie was finished setting up.

Gamble was on the couch working himself up, and Solae was still sitting on the floor with her head hung low.

Okay. Let’s roll in three … two … one. Action.

The camera shot had been set up on the floor between Gamble’s legs when he stood, so that it would appear to the audience as if he was standing over Solae. She was sitting on one of her legs on the floor.

Clean it up so you can get some more of this, Gamble ordered Solae.

Nausea coiled through Cristal’s abdomen when she saw her best friend wiping her own vomit off the floor while Gamble laughed at her. This was all part of the role for a sick segment of society that enjoyed seeing women treated this way.

This is all my fault.

They had been best friends since they had been teenagers. They had looked after one another and gone along on each other’s shoots for support since they had started doing porn. This was the first shoot that Cristal had tried to avoid, but she couldn’t. The man in the car had specifically ordered Cristal to watch to teach her a lesson for betraying him.

For years, Cristal had listened to Solae beg for help in getting a job at Onyx Sinema; Onyx Girls worked less and received better pay than most. Cristal told Solae that the owner of Onyx Sinema—the man in the Mercedes—might look favorably upon her for doing the job for one of his smaller, subsidiary companies. It was an unforgivable lie. Onyx Sinema would never hire an average girl like Solae, but Cristal had gotten her to believe that they would. The job only paid Solae seven hundred dollars—hardly worth the money to let Gamble shake her hand, let alone have sex with her. Still, Solae couldn’t afford to pass up any work opportunities with her reputation.

Things were different for Cristal; she would never have taken this kind of work, not at her level in the business. Then again, she didn’t have to. Cristal Caprice was an anomaly in the sex industry as one of the few top-tier African-American adult film stars. She wasn’t quite Jenna Jameson famous—when she would be easily recognizable to mainstream America—but to adult entertainment aficionados, she was porn royalty. Cristal had warm brown skin that was soft and smooth like a newborn’s. Her eyes were a mesmerizing pair of amber jewels that gave her an exotically cat-like and inviting look all in the same glance. She had dark, shoulder-length hair that tapered around a narrow jaw-line and accentuated her pouty lips. Occasionally, her beautifully soft lips would part and reveal one of the most alluring bunny-toothed smiles ever seen.

Yet, none of that compared to her greatest asset: a spectacular physique, forged in heaven.

Cristal wasn’t a frail woman. Unlike Solae—whose physique, though sexy to some, was more of a by-product of being born a preemie, of poor eating habits, and of a lifetime of drugs—Cristal’s body was desirably curvaceous. She had natural 34C breasts, a slim waistline, seductively wide hips, and long shapely legs. She was always packaged in the hottest designer clothes. Her biggest complaint was that her ass, while nice by most standards, didn’t quite stack up against most black female porn stars. Her skin was free of blemishes, and she had no tattoos or piercings like Solae. That was not because Cristal didn’t want any; she actually wanted to get her nipples pierced like Solae had, but as with most things in her life, she was afraid of going through with it.

Cristal Caprice was a mix of African-American and Dominican descent, but because of her skin tone, her employer marketed her exclusively as African-American. Because most black women with any memorable level of success in the industry were typically light-skinned with long hair, like Heather Hunter, the fact that she wasn’t made her an anomaly among her peers.

Despite what their performances often led fans to believe, there was nothing enjoyable about their profession—if it could be called that. Men often viewed adult film stars as sex superheroes with insatiable, superhuman sex drives, invincibility to disease, and a genuine love for their jobs. That was the first lie adult film stars learned to sell to their audiences: that they enjoyed what they were doing. After all, you couldn’t sell a product if the people selling it didn’t like it either.

In most of Cristal’s shoots, the sex was awkward, unnatural, and sometimes extremely painful depending on the role required. Performances never flowed as smoothly during filming as they appeared to in the finished product. The process required a lot of stopping and starting while the camera crews reset lighting and readjusted cameras angles. It was like having someone burst into the room and asking for a pen every time you got ready to have sex.

There was no connection to the person you were with. It had been years since Cristal or Solae had enjoyed sex with anyone. That’s why having each other along for emotional support was welcome. There were no words of encouragement that Cristal could offer Solae on this assignment, though. A typical porn shoot was degrading enough; this particular shoot required Solae to endure not only physical abuse, which she was accustomed to, but also verbal abuse. For most of the shoot, Gamble referred to her as his little dumb black bitch. One of the first things Cristal had learned was that racial pride didn’t have a place in porn, given the number of offensive titles available. There was a limit to the amount of racial slurs most performers would willingly endure. Gamble habitually crossed that line on purpose, but Cristal knew the financial incentive of a potential job at Onyx would keep Solae quiet.

As insignificant as Cristal felt at times, she knew above all else that Solae respected her opinion. Even as emotionally unstable as Solae was, the one thing she felt safe in was in heeding Cristal’s advice. She was like a child longing for parental guidance. It was this thought, this self-awareness of her control over Solae’s life that made Cristal hate herself even more for selling her best friend out to save herself.

After almost ten years in the business, Cristal had done numerous things that she regretted, but this was the worst. To allow Gamble to do the exact same thing to Solae that he had done to her years before—under the false pretense that it would help Solae get a job at Onyx Sinema—was downright cruel. To justify the betrayal, Cristal had convinced herself that allowing Solae to go through with this would somehow make her feel better about what had happened to her. As if it was a blood oath or a gang initiation, Cristal knowingly allowed her best friend to endure the same pain and humiliation she had suffered early on in her career.

Solae’s a veteran. She knows the game. Besides, she’s always trying to up her notoriety, so it’s like I’m helping her. It’s not like I haven’t done it. Cristal was trying to distort her punishment into a sort of self-induced therapy. She was trying to assure herself that this was just business and not what it had felt like to her years before: rape on film. It didn’t assure her. Thinking that way was irrational, but everything about the life they lived was irrational. The only consolation in what they did was the thought that there were women in the real world who were just as promiscuous and abused but who didn’t make half the money they made.

Not that any of that made Cristal feel any better about the situation. Being there made her memories of the experience that much worse. From the moment she had seen Gamble’s face, every horrible emotion from that day had flooded her senses and immobilized her to the point of inaction.

At the time, she had been new to the business but in the same situation: wiping her own vomit off herself and the floor, crying, and praying for him to finish. Gamble’s violent performance had left Cristal with neck bruises and anal fissures that had required stitches and several doses of antibiotics to heal the infection. For hours after the shoot, Cristal had cried in her car until she had fallen asleep, wishing she had the courage to kill herself. She never forgot how Gamble had boasted—as he did with Solae—about tearing her apart. It was the first time a man had kept his word to her, and it was the first time she wished he wouldn’t.

Cristal was dying inside. She could’ve prevented this if only she had had the courage to stand up to the man in the Mercedes.

Get over here, Gamble ordered Solae.

Don’t hurt her too bad. I still might want some of that when you’re done. Donnie laughed.

Solae was on her knees with her back to Gamble.

Biting at her own thumbnail didn’t ease Cristal’s nerves as Gamble placed a dog collar and a leash around Solae’s neck, tightening the collar by using his foot on her back for leverage. Cristal watched him turn