Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love & Porn Read online

  My early shows were more like a photo shoot in slow motion. I would walk around the stage doing various modeling poses to the music. But it was very sexual. The first song was like the foreplay and I'd take off my sheer robe or little top. The second was where the sex begins and I'd take off my skirt or shorts. The third song was the big reveal and off my top would go. And the fourth and final song was the big climax when my panties would come off and I'd do my giveaways of posters and photos.

  A typical set-list for my show was:

  1. . AC/DC, "Girls Got Rhythm"

  2. . Def Leppard, "Pour Some Sugar on Me"

  3. . Marilyn Manson, "Great Big White World"

  4. . AC/DC, "Givin the Dog a Bone"

  When my fifteen minutes were up, I ran backstage, pleased with my performance, still panting and hot from the show. Evan rushed in and immediately yelled, "What did you do?"

  "What? No, 'Great job on your first show, honey'?" I thought.

  "You forgot to take their money!" Evan said.

  The bouncer then walks backstage and says to Evan, "Why didn't she take any money?"

  Oh my God! They were right. I forgot to take the money from the customers! I was so excited to be onstage performing that I forgot to even one time bend down and take that 20-dollar bill from the guy's hand like you're supposed to. It was flashing back to me now. The stage was lined with girls and guys holding up bills, waving money at me, and looking up at me in anticipation. And I forgot to go to those fans and take their money!

  "You did not take one dollar from the customers," Evan sighed, completely exasperated.

  No worries. I could make up the loss by selling them my merchandise. I powdered up my face, put on fresh lipstick, and threw on a sexy robe and went out to greet my fans. There were about 300 fans in line waiting to spend their money on me. For $50, they could pose for a Polaroid photo with me topless, and I would sign the photo. For $30, they could buy a signed DVD of one of my movies. And for just $10 they could buy a signed 8 x 10 glossy photo of me. Between the guaranteed fee of $3,000 and my merchandise sales, I made close to $10,000 that night.

  But more important, it helped pull me out of my depression because: (1) I had a job and we needed the money. (2) I got to go on a dance tour and see new places. And (3) There is nothing like standing onstage and having a room full of people cheering for you. I felt like a rock star. It was a creative new outlet for me. It's something so terrifying and so freeing at the same time. And dancing turned me on. When the crowd cheered for me, my nipples would get hard and my pussy would get wet. Dancing was another way to turn guys on and be the exhibitionist that I am.

  I think dancers are among the bravest people in the world. You are going out onstage whether you feel you look good or not and you are taking money from people. The average person has that nightmare of being in class or in the boardroom and suddenly they are naked, or on a busy street and naked. We live that nightmare. But for me, it was my dream.

  Proud of my earnings as a stripper

  That dream soon took me dancing all around the world from every major city in the U.S. to France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Hungary, Croatia, England, Scotland, Australia, and other countries. I made $3,000 for my guaranteed fee at every show, but took in between $10,000 and $60,000 per engagement with the tips (which I never failed to remember to pick up after that first time) and merchandise sales each night. I danced three weekends a month for about four years in a row. The Foxy Lady in Rhode Island was one of my biggest bookings--$35,000 for ten shows. We came home with nearly $60,000 in twenties, tens, fives, and singles that night. The strangest place I danced was at Anthony's Showplace in Tennessee. It was a converted church. As I strutted my stuff onstage I kept saying in my head, "Sorry, God!"

  But hands down, the craziest performance I ever danced was on July 24, 2004, at the Pink Pony in Atlanta. I was into my third song, which was either Marilyn Manson's "Great Big White World" or Deftones' "Change," and I do this move where I'm on my back on the floor with my back arched and my legs slightly spread and I do a little shimmy. All of a sudden, I feel this girl right between my legs and she's trying to take my panties off. There was no security, and Evan was off getting the bag of merchandise that I throw out to the crowd for my final song.

  I bolted upright and tried to push her way, literally kicking her away with my legs and she's still clinging on to me. I was screaming, "No! No! No!" but kind of laughing at the same time. The girl was clearly wasted and she was just going for it . . . going for me! She was relentless and wouldn't let up. I think she just got really excited and couldn't contain it. All of a sudden the DJ says, "Wow. We got a live one!" Evan finally saw what was happening, rushed to my side, and pushed her back down.

  One of my favorite dancing gigs was at the Trails Men's Club in Salt Lake City, Utah. It's a gorgeous club with a long, winding stage with rails on the sides that you can really use to your advantage when dancing. And it was a pasties club, which meant that I didn't have to get naked! Once in a while, I liked not having to get naked. I felt like a true rock star there. They put a star with my name on it on the outside of my dressing room door and gave me monogrammed towels to use for my shower that night. I still have those towels. And my dressing room was filled with gift baskets of champagne, soaps, perfume, lotions, body sprays, and other girlie things that I loved.

  Two very pretty strippers walked in and said, "Hi, Tera. We're really big fans. And we have a little present for you."

  "Oh, no," I thought. "Are they going to get naked or something? I'm sooo not a lesbian."

  "We heard you love pot, so we got you some marijuana popcorn," they said.

  Strippers aren't usually that nice. You know how girls can get.

  The only place I didn't feel welcome was in Las Vegas. Vegas is such a strip club town that they don't really need to bring in feature dancers, and when they do, the girls get pretty snippy about it. Such was the case one night at Little Darlings. I didn't ask for this, but the club owners gave me the entire dressing room area instead of just one room. Naturally, this pissed off the regular dancers there. As I was getting ready for my show, I had to listen to strippers bitch loudly, "Tera Patrick has our dressing room. Who does she think she is?"

  I'm usually nice to the girls. I always gave them free Polaroids with me and hung out and talked with them. But if these girls were going to be bitchy, well, two can play that game.

  I fired back: "That's right, bitch. I have your dressing room. You know what? You get your pussy ripped on set and you can have your own dressing room too!"

  Now that we'd become famous, there was terrible gossip about Evan and me in the adult industry trade papers and on gossip sites. They were saying things like Evan got me hooked on heroin and he was just using me to get ahead. Here is this guy who has a crazy fiancee who's been institutionalized, is on medication, had filed for bankruptcy and who he spent all of his money on, and they are saying he's the bad guy? It really hurt me. He treated me so well and I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for his love and support.

  The worst rumor was the drug thing. Evan's been sober since August 1, 1988, and I quit drinking for a while the January after I met him, thanks solely to him. I've never done heroin, cocaine, or any hard drug--just Valium when I was young or some pot here and there. But I do still drink, even though I went to AA and spent 2003-2007 sober. AA got me through a period in life where I was abusing alcohol and using it as way to cope or escape. Once I became more stable, I learned that I could control myself and handle a glass of champagne or two with a friend or at a party.

  Now would be a good time to set the record straight on the other rumors that have plagued my career. . . .

  RUMOR VS. TRUTH:

  RUMOR: Evan made me get a boob job, dye my hair blond, and get tattoos.

  TRUTH: Hell no. If you don't already know by now, I'm a strong-willed woman who makes my own decisions and have been violating my own body of my own free will long
before Evan came along. In fact, Evan has never been fond of girls with tattoos. And as for the boob job and dye job, I did those in 2003, which was the roughest year for me. I just wanted to treat myself to something special and make a change. So I got Lasik eye surgery so I didn't have to wear glasses anymore. I always wanted to be a blonde like my idol Marilyn Monroe, so I dyed my hair. And when I first came into the business I was 130 pounds, but when I did Playboy in 2002, I lost a ton of weight and dropped down to about 107 pounds and then stayed around 110 for years and I lost some of my boobs. I used to be a full D cup, then I went down to a small D, almost a large C, and I wanted my boobs back, so I got them upped to a DD. It was 100-percent my choice.

  RUMOR: I'm half Jewish.

  TRUTH: I'm not Jewish, but I got a lot of it in me over the years because Evan is Jewish. I don't practice any one religion. I don't consider myself religious. But I've always been very spiritual and I do believe there is a God. Both of my parents, however, are Buddhist and I do believe in some Buddhist ideas. And as a child, when my parents were still married, I attended Sunday school at a Pentecostal church and loved to sing and read from the Bible.

  RUMOR: I worked with Salma Hayek on a USO tour.

  TRUTH: I did do a USO autograph signing in January 2002 at Edwards Air Force Base in Mojave, California, but not with Salma Hayek. I never met her, but she has great tits and I would love to meet her someday. That autograph signing was special for me, though. A young military daughter came up to me and said, "I wanted to meet you because when they said your name in the announcement, all of the guys in my section cheered." So I signed to her, "Maybe someday they'll cheer for you too."

  RUMOR: I'm a hunter.

  TRUTH: Nope. I love animals and have never killed an animal, unless fishing counts. But my dad was a hunter and I would go with him on hunting trips.

  RUMOR: Carmen Electra was mad that I used her real name as my professional name.

  TRUTH: False. We've actually met, and she was very friendly with me! In fact, this is what she says on the matter: "The first time I heard about Tera Patrick, the porn star, I truly thought that was her real name. When I found out Tera Patrick was inspired to use my name as her porn name, I was flattered. Every time I see her at an awards show or event, Tera is so sweet, beautiful, intelligent, and obviously sexy."

  RUMOR: I was a Ford model.

  TRUTH: False. I was signed to the Morning Sun Agency in Tokyo, Japan. I was scouted by Ford, which referred me to my agency.

  RUMOR: I speak fluent Hungarian.

  TRUTH: No. I only speak sexy. But I once had a Hungarian boyfriend and I learned a few Hungarian phrases.

  RUMOR: I dated and/or slept with Vin Diesel, Eminem, Gene Simmons, Michael Douglas, Charlie Sheen, Nicolas Cage, and Reggie Miller.

  TRUTH: Hell to the Fucking No. Except for the one sexless date with Reggie Miller, the only other celebrity I fucked was the late Alice in Chains lead singer Layne Staley.

  RUMOR: I've had gangbangs with a S.W.A.T. team, Navy SEALs, and an entire firehouse.

  TRUTH: No gangbangs. Sure, I fucked in front of some fire-men but I only did the one. I did once confess that I fantasized about filming a gangbang, but I never did it and I think if I did, I would've regretted that big-time!

  CHAPTER 20

  The Birth Of Teravision

  Tony Lee was right. I made a ton of money from feature dancing and it more than covered our legal bills. After battling it out in court for most of 2003, we settled with Digital. Steve Hirsch, the owner of Vivid Video, was instrumental in convincing us to settle with Digital.

  Steve's interest in me helped me make the decision to settle with Digital. The deal on the table was this: I would be a Vivid Girl, and he would help us with our new company, Teravision, by guiding us and serving as the distribution company for our company's films.

  But I still had this thing about settling with Digital. I didn't want it to mean I was backing down. Evan and my lawyer came to me and said, "Listen, you're operating off of emotion right now. If I learned anything from the music industry, it is that I got ripped off on my first album. I signed a really bad deal. You just have to let it go, let the anger go, and take what they give you. You're going to work. You're going to be Tera Patrick."

  I agreed to settle on Thanksgiving 2003, and boy did I have a lot to be thankful for. I cooked my first Thanksgiving dinner for Evan and Sammy, and it was the beginning of a fresh new start in the industry.

  I never dreamed of owning my own business until I met Evan. I just didn't think it was something that I could even do if I wanted to. But Evan made me realize how much I was capable of doing if I really wanted to. Just when I was ready to give up, he encouraged me to fight on and made me believe in myself and that I was capable of more. My goal for Teravision was to form a company that produced beautiful movies where the women always looked gorgeous and classy and the performers in it where treated like stars. We were trying to portray women in a positive way. We were also trying to make high-quality films to elevate the business. We had our movies at high price points, and we wanted everyone else to have their movies at high price points to bring us all up.

  While I was excited to own my own company and thrilled I could work again and under my name, I still had one hesitation. The big dilemma now was that I didn't really want to do more movies and fuck other men. I was in love, and I just didn't want to have sex with anyone other than Evan. I couldn't do it. Call me old-fashioned, but I only wanted to share my body, my most intimate moments, and myself with my husband.

  Evan said to me, "It's great that you won. But what have you won? It doesn't count if you don't now do something with it. Look, for your career, you need to make movies again. Your fans want you to."

  "But I don't want to have sex with another man," I told him.

  "Well, I don't want you to either," he said.

  And then he made the decision that would change everything. "How about if you have sex with me on camera?"

  "What? Really?" I was surprised. My ex-boyfriend wanted nothing to do with porn, and here was a guy who was willing to fully jump in and be my partner in crime. For the first time in my life, I had a man who wanted to see me be the best I could be and achieve the most I possibly could.

  He said that while he wanted to do this for me, he was worried about how it would affect his son. At the time, Evan was also still trying to have a mainstream acting career. After Oz was over, he went on many auditions for movies and television roles. His friends who were mainstream actors would tell him that if he did porn, he wouldn't be able to work in mainstream. So Evan had to make a hard decision about what path he wanted his career to go down. As we know, once you take the porn path, there is no turning back.

  I was excited at the thought of doing movies with Evan, but in the back of my head I was a little worried at first. Is his head going to get big from this? There's a long history of guys getting into the business through their porn-star girlfriends, and the end isn't usually pretty. This is what everybody warned me about. But we decided we were stronger than that and we'd do this. Evan would become my sole male porn costar and, after a two-year hiatus, I would return to porn. The first film, my comeback movie, would be Tera Tera Tera, which was a Teravision/Vivid production. It was also my first hardcore girl-on-girl film and my first film with Evan.

  With Evan, my sometime costar

  But first Evan needed a porn name. We did the usual formula of using the name of your first pet with the name of the street you grew up on. But Splasher Ocean didn't exactly work. He came up with Spyder Jonez because his nickname was "Spider" because of his huge spider tattoo on his back. I thought it was such a weird coincidence that my nickname as a child was also "Spider" because of my arachnid-looking limbs. For the last name, Jonez, Evan picked that spelling because he said he thought it sounded like a badass guy in a Blacksploitation film.

  The only problem now was: How was I going to have sex with my husband on camera? At home, I can be nasty w
ith him and let myself go. There was no one in the room looking at me, judging me. At home with Evan, we're more extreme. I like to be choked and peed on. We like to get out the rope or duct tape and tie each other up. I didn't know how to do it with him on camera and make it believable, because you have to be so mechanical and safe on camera and that is so different from how we are in real life.

  For the mainstream porn companies I've worked for, you have to be careful not to cross the obscenity line. For instance, on camera, most mainstream companies don't let you have sex in bondage. You can do bondage, but penetration can't be involved. Well, at home with Evan, sex and bondage go hand-in-hand. On camera, you can't be tied up and penetrated. That's something else we love to do. Choking, of course, is off-limits on camera. Spanking is OK, but it needs to be consensual and you need to give permission on camera that you want to be spanked. I'll never forgot when Evan and I shot Sex in Dangerous Places for Teravision, which featured a scene where he tied me up and fucked me. As we were doing the scene, we had our lawyer on the phone giving the director, Paul Thomas, instructions on what I had to say to avoid legal action. I had to acknowledge that I was being tied up and fucked and that I liked it and it was not against my will.