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

  Suze and I got along great and I was excited to share my other news with her. I told her that I was meeting with Stephanie at Playboy on Monday to discuss shooting for them. That was the biggest mistake, because after hearing this news Suze rushed the layout to Penthouse to make sure that her spread would get published.

  That Monday, I walked into Playboy to see Stephanie and she showed me the contract for me to pose for the magazine. I didn't know anything about contracts, but as I was reading it over it sounded too good to be true: $25,000 for a week's worth of work! I mentioned to Stephanie that $25,000 was practically a year's pay at the nursing home and that I was only paid $5,000 for Penthouse.

  "Um, Penthouse?" said Stephanie as she took the contract away. "You can't be in Playboy if you are in Penthouse. That's how it goes. Sorry."

  Suze Randall

  I quickly got on the phone with Suze and tried to stop the Penthouse spread, but it was too late. The Penthouse spread was a done deal and I was fucked. I walked out of Playboy's offices in tears and cried myself to sleep that night. It wasn't until years later when I became a famous porn star that I would have my shot at Playboy again. And that time, I ended up on the cover of Penthouse and Playboy within a month of each other, becoming the only girl in history who has ever done that. So, all's well that ends well. But that day in Playboy's Santa Monica studio, I felt like someone just punched me in the stomach.

  I decided to suck it up. It wasn't a total loss. I mean, Penthouse was a huge magazine too. And Suze Randall told me there was more where that came from. She said, "I'll put you in every nude magazine out there." So, that's what I did. I became a nude model, and I was Suze's muse.

  CHAPTER 7

  My Arousal

  Within my first year of nude modeling for magazines like Penthouse, Hustler, High Society, Club, and Cheri, I got a phone call from a man named Andrew Blake. He's a very artistic filmmaker who makes beautiful fetish and softcore erotica movies. To this day, he's considered the most artistic director of adult films. His first film, Night Trips in 1989, was given a silver medal at the WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, making it the only porn movie to win a medal at a major international film festival. If you wanted to make a beautiful film, Andrew Blake was the man to work with.

  Needless to say, when Andrew called, I freaked out. He told me, "I have seen your work in all the magazines and I'm interested in filming you in one of my movies."

  I was so flattered that he knew my work that I didn't hesitate. "OK," I immediately replied.

  "Are you sure?" he asked. He must have been shocked at how easy it was for me to say yes.

  I'd never really thought about doing movies before, but the idea instantly appealed to me. Right then and there, I was ready to make the leap. I told him, "Yeah, I'm ready to do something different. I'm ready to live out some of my fantasies. I'm in."

  And that was the truth about why I wanted to do porn. It really was all about the sex for me, and about acting out my sexual fantasies. Unlike so many girls in the industry, I got into porn for the right reasons.

  Yes, there are right reasons and wrong reasons to get into porn.

  THE RIGHT REASONS TO GET INTO PORN:

  You love sex and are turned on by doing it in front of a camera.

  You're a free spirit.

  You don't give a fuck what other people think about you.

  You love the money.

  You feel empowered, not degraded.

  THE WRONG REASONS TO GET INTO PORN:

  Your boyfriend made you do it.

  Daddy didn't love you enough.

  You have to support a drug habit.

  You need the money.

  You want to get into Hollywood. (Ladies, porn is not, I repeat not, the gateway to Hollywood!)

  When Andrew told me that my part in the film Aroused would be glamorous girl-girl scenes, it sounded like the perfect opportunity to see if film work was for me. I told him right away that I was OK with having my pussy licked by a girl, but I didn't want to lick pussy. I didn't really know how to negotiate, but I knew enough to tell him what I would and wouldn't do in a film. I never let anyone talk me into anything I wasn't comfortable with. This film was like dipping my toe into a pool to test the water.

  I went down to the Aroused set, which was at a beautiful mansion up on Cielo Drive off of Benedict Canyon in Beverly Hills. I was excited because Cielo Drive was also where the Tate Murder House was, which was where Charles Manson and his followers killed actress Sharon Tate and her friends. I was still obsessed with serial killers like I was when I was a young girl. I had read all about the Manson murders in Helter Skelter and now I was actually going to be able to see the house where the madness occurred. It didn't look as creepy as I thought it would on the outside; just your typical Beverly Hills ranch house.

  When I got to the shoot, the other girls were already on the set and everyone welcomed me with open arms. I wasn't sure what I was getting myself into, but I wasn't afraid of it. I felt a strange kind of nervous excitement that just washed over me. I couldn't quite believe that I was about to do my first adult movie even though my scenes were pretty mild. They involved a lot of slow, soft, sensual petting, kissing, touching, and posing in erotic ways. No lines of dialogue, thank God, because I wasn't ready for that!

  It felt like a real Hollywood movie set. The house was stunning. There were makeup artists, hairdressers, stylists, crew, and assistants everywhere. I remember being impressed by a plate of cut-up fruit and bottles of sparkling water. It was all very glamorous. And the scenes were beautiful. There was a lot of touching, teasing, and fondling, and many leg shots, boob shots, and vagina shots. It was beautiful, artistic, and erotic. If Fellini made porn, this would be what he'd have made. It was shot in both black and white and color, had a very surreal soundtrack and feel to it, and featured a lot of classic fetish elements, such as thigh-high latex boots, old-fashioned stockings, impossible-to-walk-in fetish heels, and dream sequences.

  Andrew Blake was a very go-with-the-flow director. I remember him directing me by saying, "OK, we are now panning up the legs," and he let me move my legs however I wanted. I glided my right foot over my left leg and he seemed pleased by that. Then he handed me a cigarette from off-camera and just said, "OK, smoke" and I looked into the camera and smoked in a sensuous way. And then he took the cigarette away and gave me a razor and put shaving cream on my legs and said, "OK, shave your legs." So I shaved my legs in the sexiest way I could. (That scene got cut, by the way.) Andrew had the cutest name for the pussy. He called it a fui-fui. So, he'd say, "OK, now we're panning down to the fui-fui." And I'd run my hand over my fui-fui. I wanted to laugh. But I stayed professional.

  My first scene with another girl was with a performer named Dahlia Grey, who was Andrew's muse and the main star of the movie. She was exotic-looking like me, and Andrew thought we'd look great together. We did. We had several scenes together and even kissed. I had never been with a girl before, but kissing isn't exactly "being with a girl." We kissed and fondled each other, and at once point I even kissed her pussy, but I never went down on her. There was no actual sex or penetration, so my scenes were considered softcore. One of my big scenes was titled "Sliced Fruit" and they laid me down on the floor with a flower in my hair and juicy exotic fruit on my pussy. A Russian performer whose real name was Lucy (I forget her stage name) ate me out while Dahlia felt me up. It was my first time having a girl go down on me. I had never been with a girl before, but as long as she was doing the licking, I was fine with it. I was excited to do it, actually. But the unknown was a bit scary for me. I didn't know if after the scene I'd want to go home and fuck her or just shake hands and say good-bye. We ended up just shaking hands and saying good-bye. This doesn't really count as my first girlie scene, since it wasn't hardcore. That comes later.

  For one of our scenes, we were both wearing super high heels--twelve-inch heels, the kind I'd seen Bettie Page wear in her fetish films. On the first take, we were walk
ing down the side of the house and I tripped and fell. Lucy and I had a good laugh about that. But we got it right for the next take. And then we swam in a pool together. It was a beautiful, in-ground pool, with glass panels that you could see through. The scene felt very sterile and cold, and I didn't cum. Part of the problem was the set: it was a modern, stone house with a waterfall and koi pond. And part of it was because there wasn't any sexual tension. I wasn't into girls. Cock got me off, not pussy. So to help motivate me, I imagined that my dream guy--at this time it was Johnny Depp--was looking at me through the lens, and that I was trying to impress him. That's how I got myself through my scenes.

  It was a four-day shoot (twelve hours a day), and every night I came home exhausted, but elated. I would lie in bed and think to myself, "OK, I made $3,500 today. Tomorrow, I'm going to make another $3,500, and then for the box cover the third day I'm going to make $5,000, and that's going to be a total of $12,000! And I'm going to be able to pay my rent and finally buy those new Gucci shoes I've been wanting. And then maybe I'll get rid of that little Mazda hatchback and buy a new car." My thoughts were racing. I wanted to live life on my own terms, and this felt like the way to get me there.

  I wasn't at all bothered at the thought of getting naked for the camera. I wasn't hurting myself or doing anything degrading. I felt like I was doing something really beautiful. There was no real sex, just a little bit of pussy licking. This was certainly not Hollywood, but it was the other Hollywood, and it suited me just fine. That said, I kept my on-screen activities as my dirty little secret. If my best friend Elena thought I was too good for Playboy, what would she think if I told her I was doing a porno movie? I wasn't going to find out. So I didn't tell anyone.

  I went home from the Aroused set so horny because we did everything but sex in the movie and it made me crave a man. So I went home to my apartment in Canoga Park and knocked on my neighbor's door and said, "Hi. I'm Tera. Want to fuck?" I don't even remember his name, but he got me through that four-day shoot.

  A week or so after we wrapped up the movie, I got a call from a woman named Patty Rhodes, who used to work for Andrew Blake. She had gone out on her own as a producer and heard about the work I had been doing.

  "I hear you're doing movies now," she said.

  "Well, sort of."

  "I know your work as a model, and I'd love to include you in one of my movies. I would like to make you an offer to do a boy-girl movie with me for Adam and Eve Productions called Fire and Ice. Is that OK or do you just do girl-girl?"

  I had no idea what she was talking about. Porn terms weren't exactly part of my lingo yet. Girl-girl? Boy-girl?

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "Well, you would have sex with a guy instead of a girl," she explained.

  "Oh, that's awesome. I would love to be with a guy! Oh, it's so weird for me to be with a girl. I like guys better than girls."

  Most girls starting out in the industry do girl-girl films for a few months before diving into boy-girl films, but not me. I was ready to do a real fuck film right away, so I said yes without hesitation. Knowing what I know now about the industry, this must have been music to her ears.

  I honestly never thought, and still don't think, that there was anything wrong with having sex for money on camera. It's not too far off from prostitution and that is, as they say, the world's oldest and most honest profession. Any living is an honest one if you're doing it because you want to do it.

  My saying is this: "We're all ho's on this bus."

  I don't judge anyone. It's funny because in this business the Playboy Playmates judge the Penthouse Pets. The Penthouse Pets judge the porn stars. The porn stars judge the hookers. But we're all ho's on this bus. What is the difference if you're a high-class, high-paid call girl sleeping with a rich guy for $10,000 or you're doing a porn movie scene for $10,000? It's the same. I truly don't think porn or prostitution should be frowned upon.

  So I went to visit Patty the next day at her house and we talked about the scene. She said my costar would be with a guy named Brick Majors, and she showed me his picture. I thought he was kind of cute. Then she talked money with me.

  "We're willing to pay you top dollar for this," she said. "Twenty-five hundred for just a couple of hours of work."

  "Great. Sign me up!" I said.

  I showed up on the set the next night at seven p.m. and was taken aback when I first laid eyes on my costar. Brick came out of the trailer and he looked like a Ken doll come to life. He was really tan and muscular with bleached, spiky hair. My first thought was, "Oh my God. This guy wears more makeup than me and he's tanner than I am. He's even in better shape than me. What the hell am I going to do?"

  He walked over to me and shook my hand. "Hi, Tera. I'm Brick. I'm happy that we're going to be working together." He was so nice and professional, but I began to feel some butterflies in my stomach. This was a big leap. Posing nude is one thing. Doing girl-on-girl porn is another. But this was the real deal--I was about to make a hardcore adult film with a man. I remember thinking to myself, "OK. Here's where the switch comes in. I just have to turn that switch on, and I just have to have sex. This is easy. I can do this." But really, I had no idea what I was doing or how to prepare for a scene. I brushed my teeth before my first scene with Brick, and the director yelled at me. "No. No. You're supposed to use mouthwash. If you use a toothbrush, you might get microscopic cuts in your mouth, and that's not safe."

  I had no idea what the positions were either. I was really winging it. I got my script and it said "reverse cowgirl," and I was like a deer caught in headlights. "Huh? Reverse what?" I asked.

  "It's like cowgirl, but backwards," said the director, Nicholas Steele, who was a blond, Californian surfer-looking guy.

  "Cowgirl backwards? So my back faces him?! Oh my God! How do I prop myself up?"

  The cameraman had to walk me through every position. I told him, "Listen, this is my first movie. I don't know what any of these positions are."

  He told me, "Don't worry. I'll show you before we get to each scene."

  Once I got famous, I refused to do reverse cowgirl again. I just don't have the leg strength for that. It's a hard position for a girl. It's quite the workout, and I hated to work out. I became known as a "pillow queen." A pillow queen is a porn girl who just gets fucked and looks beautiful and doesn't do as much of the hardcore work. I was fine with that.

  PORN SEX POSITIONS:

  * COWGIRL: The woman sits on top of the guy, facing him.

  * REVERSE COWGIRL:The woman sits on top of the guy with her back to him. This is a director's dream, but an actress's worst nightmare.

  * PILE DRIVER:The woman lies on her back with her legs over her head, and the guy is on top and over her.

  * MISSIONARY: Same as your regular missionary, but to get a good angle on a porn shoot, the girl usually has to put her leg up on his shoulder and the other leg is open wide to the camera.

  * DOGGY-STYLE: Doggy-style in porn can be any number of ways where the guy takes you from behind. You can be on all fours. You can be standing. You can be kneeling. You can even be leaning up on a wall.

  * SPOON: He lies behind you and you're lying side-by-side. It's like spooning when you cuddle, but with a penis inside you.

  * SCISSORS: This is usually associated with lesbian sex where two girls are touching pussy-to-pussy with their legs in an open scissor position. For a guy and girl, the girl lies on her side with her legs open and the guy is either kneeling or standing and inserts himself inside her.

  Even though he looked like a Ken doll and that wasn't exactly my type, I found it easy to get aroused by Brick. It felt oddly natural to me. I wasn't very sexually active at this time in my life, so I was pretty excited to just be having sex. Even while I was doing magazines, I decided that I was going to be single so that I didn't have the distraction of a boyfriend. Instead, I wanted to devote my time to building my career. As I did more movies, I would get so excited before going to work. "Woo-hoo! I'
m getting laid today! Plus I'm getting $1,000! Yeah!" Money really is a powerful aphrodisiac.

  When the time came for our scene, I didn't need any lube because I was naturally wet from being so excited to fuck on camera. I moved onto my hands and knees on this little stage area to get into the first position: doggy-style. But when I reached around the back to get more traction by grabbing onto his leg, I immediately pulled my hand away. His leg felt like wax and it kind of freaked me out. I hadn't noticed that he was completely hairless, and that waxed leg felt like a mannequin's. I had never been with a guy who had shaved his legs before. It was the weirdest feeling that I had ever felt in my life. I thought, "What is this? This guy is smooth like a baby! He's smoother than me!"