For 15 years, I worked in the Flesh Industrial Complex: porn, parties and escorting. These are my stories. Extended article & podcast for paid members only.
The Audition, 2007
Sex can scar us. Moments when performance was everything and we failed. Accidents or miscommunications which bear years of shame. These memories burrow into the primal parts of our brains. We can go about our days without thinking of them but they return in our most intimate, delicate mechanism. These failures cost us erections, orgasms, joy, even money and love. Someone is usually bearing witness to our humiliation. On a warm San Francisco day in 2007, I was in a cheap motel, not only bearing witness to one of these moments but filming it. My camera pointed at a boy on a bed, a shaft of sun on wet skin and eyes welling with tears.
I was interviewing for a cameraman position for an adult film studio. San Francisco was still the capital of Gay porn, before skyrocketing rents and government crackdowns sent the industry to Nevada. I’d never shot porn before but the pay meant I could quit my job at the video store and stop freelancing camera gigs.
The weaselly office assistant scanned my resume, asked me what cameras I used and showed me around the offices, a bright, palatial loft in the SOMA district. “We got a barely-legal solo at the motel nearby. Easy. Shower then jerkoff on the bed. The boss will review your footage. If he likes it we’ll call you back and pay you for today. We need to see a cumshot. On his stomach or hand is OK. We can’t use it if there’s no cumshot, got it?” I nodded. “Here he is now.”
A young boy walked in. He looked nervous and sweaty. He took in the size of the office, fixed his hair and wiped his hands on his pants. He shook the manager’s hand and wiped his hands again. He gave me a sheepish wave. He was my height, dark skin, fit but thick with baby fat and a bubble butt I tried not to stare at. The manager took him to the Xerox to copy his ID. Then he walked to a big cabinet and pulled out an expensive camera bag. “Ya break it, ya buy it.” He handed it to me like a newborn. “There’s another scene booked in an hour so you’ll have the room for 45 minutes to do your thing. I’ll be there at 3pm sharp. Don’t forget to put the Do Not Disturb Sign on.” He gave me the keycard. “Have fun you two…and remember boys, no cumshot, no cash!”
I pretended not to notice how nervous the boy was (or how nervous I was). He avoided eye contact on the walk but warmed up by the time we got to the motel. He told me he was nineteen, new to the city and a fashion student at the Art Institute. He was broke and found the ad for models in the back of The Guardian. Some of his friends had done solos too so he figured he’d give it a shot. I told him this was my first time too and he got quiet again.
The room was a dump but the light was fantastic. Cream sunlight behind the fog pouring through the windows. “OK, so let’s get shots of you undressing, then the shower. After fifteen minutes we can get you on the bed. How’s that sound?” “OK” he said softly. I loaded the camera and pressed record. My heart was thumping. He peeled off his clothes to a jockstrap and the room filled with sweat and pheromones. This is kind of hot. I tried to push away any sex thoughts. I didn’t know what kind of test this was and I was determined to keep it professional.
He walked to the bathroom and I followed. The milky light bounced off the white tiles like a fill light on his curves. He showered with the curtain open. I stepped back and zoomed. Droplets moved like mercury over his curly hair, bejeweled his eyelashes and beaded on his skin. He let it dribble down his lips to his nipples. “That’s great.” I purred. The steam smelled like cocoa butter. He stroked his flaccid penis and in a second it was massive. No wonder they’d cast him. “Lather up with soap please.” My voice cracked and I cleared my throat. He rubbed white clouds on his chest and ass, glancing at the camera with timid pride. I pushed and pulled focus, emulating the shower scenes from the 1970s porns I stole from the video store: Wakefield Poole’s Boys in the Sand and Bijou. I had lost track of time. Shit, we have 25 minutes left.
“Now dry yourself and get on the bed.” I commanded him with a deep voice I’d never used before. “Lay on all fours and show me your ass.” He did as he was told. “OK, good. Push your dick between your legs.” His erection was furious at being bent back. “Great. Now get on your back, lift your thighs, show me your hole. Perfect. Keep stroking your dick. Nice.” I was no longer aroused. He wasn’t a boy now. He was a shot list, appendages and orifices, light and shadow. These are going to be easy paychecks. “Rub more spit on it. Yah, right on the head so it shines. Good.”
His erection began to deflate. “Play with your nipples, yah twist them.” His dick kept shrinking. He cleared his throat. I looked up from the camera. His face had changed while I was shooting closeups, an expression I didn’t register. The room shifted. Discomfort rising like a tide, the absurdity of it all caving in on us. Here we were, two strangers and a camera in a shitty motel in the middle of the day shooting porn. How did we get here? He kept pulling taffy for a few minutes then gave up. He stared at the ceiling with glassy eyes. “Do you need a break?” I tried not to sound impatient but we only had ten minutes. He went into the bathroom and closed the door. I heard him inhale and exhale like an athlete psyching himself up. He came out with an erection at half mast and got on the bed. I pressed record.
He squeezed the base of his dick and rubbed violently but it just shrunk and flopped over. I didn’t mean to but I sighed, like a wildlife photographer watching a rare bird fly off. There was that look on his face again. Embarrassment, frustration and… something else. My impatience was replaced with a sobering truth: this was not a porn star. This was a broke, sweet, young Black boy who had walked himself into a white porn studio to make a buck off his dick and now he’d walk out of here empty-handed, lie to his friends about how it went and probably think about this next time he jerked off or had sex. I felt a jolt of shame. If this kid can’t finish this scene it’s gonna cost him more than a couple hundred bucks. I lifted my face off the viewfinder and locked eyes with him. The look was longing. He needed contact and kindness but I was hiding behind the camera, adding to this artificiality, pretending it made me a spectator and not a participant. I had left him alone. 5 minutes.
The only way out of this was together. I took a deep breath of him, of cocoa butter and genitals and nervous sweat. It was my turn to perform. I rubbed my crotch and he stared at it and blinked softly. I undid my belt and unzipped my pants with one hand, holding the camera steady. He whimpered and gave me a tiny nod. I slowly pulled my dick out the side of my briefs and to my surprise, I was hard. I stroked the sheath and he matched my rhythm. His breath got shallow and I matched it. He got hard. We kept our eyes locked from across the room, floating to that realm of sex. I stole a glimpse from the viewfinder to make sure it was recording. I sped up, mimicking the breath of an orgasm. He looked at me with puppy eyes. I nodded and mouthed the words “Come for me.” It worked. He bit down on his lip, his eyes rolled back and he shot a roapy white load on his stomach. Not earth-shattering but it got us to the finish line. “Cut.” We sighed with relief.
The assistant knocked on the door and opened it with his keycard. The boy bolted to the bathroom for his clothes. “How’d it go?” I didn’t know what to say. “Perfect, he’s a natural.” The boy came out with a feeble smile. He didn’t look up as the assistant handed him an envelope with two hundred dollars. “Thank you” he said to me and walked out as fast as he could. He never shot for the studio again. I saw him at an art show a few months later and he pretended not to know me. Porn isn’t for everybody.
A week later I got the callback. The assistant led me into the boss’s office with a smug, satisfied look. The studio owner was a notorious and enigmatic man. He didn’t look as intimidating as his reputation. Just a skinny filmmaker stereotype in his late 50s. Gray beard, white hair, blue baseball cap and red flannel shirt. The boy’s puppy eyes were paused on a small TV/VHS combo on his desk. He shook my hand with a strong grip. “I reviewed your scene. I really liked how you floated the camera around him, it’s very elegant. My only note is: Don’t put so much space between you and the subject.” I didn’t tell him what I did to get the cumshot but I think he knew. I got the job. And I never hid behind a camera again.
To support this work, share & and subscribe. Thank you to paid members who make this account possible.
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to Herrera Words to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.