I Recruited Her for Porn at the Town Festival

I had no doubt: it was her, even if she had changed. She gestured the same way, moved the same way, only now she was several kilos heavier and had a little girl sitting in the shopping cart. Five years without seeing her, the same five I’d gone without setting foot in the village, and the place had barely changed any more than she had.

She kept glancing at me out of the corner of her eye and quickening her pace between the shelves. I went after her and broke the spell.

—Long time no see! —I said.

—P… sorry, I don’t know… —she stammered.

—I’m Darío. Don’t tell me you don’t remember me. You’re Lara. Lara Vela.

—Lara Quiroga —she corrected me in a low voice, looking at the girl—. I have to go.

And she hurried off, leaving the cart half full, buying nothing, as if I were a ghost she didn’t want to shake hands with.

***

The following Monday I told Nadia in the studio. We’d spent years building a small, homemade production company together, the kind that shoots in borrowed apartments. Her behind the camera and me, almost always, in front of it.

—Guess who I ran into in my village? Lara Vela.

—Of course I remember —she said without taking her eyes off the monitor—. One of the first ones who came through here. She disappeared from one day to the next.

—She ran off with some guy from the village, apparently. Got married, had a daughter.

—New life —Nadia muttered—. And that girl worked her ass off.

I stared at the dark screen and, without meaning to, went back five years. There are things you bury, and a stupid chance encounter in a supermarket digs them back up whole.

***

I met her at the village festival. I was almost forty and had gone back reluctantly, out of obligation, to be bored among orchestras and fair booths. She was nineteen, slim, dark-haired, with brown eyes and a face that looked like she’d never broken a plate in her life, which in fact was pure disguise.

I noticed her right away, in a dive bar where I’d gone to drink. The bartender, who I’d already made friends with, followed my gaze.

—That’s Honorio’s daughter, the butcher’s —he said, lowering his voice—. What a piece of work. With how rough her father is, if he ever finds out even half the things people say, he’ll lock her away.

—And what do people say?

—That she’ll get into the first guy’s car who comes along. That she likes a good time. Her father, with that temper of his, one day he’ll send her off to boarding school and that’ll be that.

He wasn’t far off. Two nights later I saw her come out of the bar with a long-haired guy on a motorbike. I don’t know what made me follow them by car. They didn’t go far, barely a kilometer, to a pine grove on the outskirts. I parked, got out, and walked down the path like someone stepping outside for a cigarette under the moon.

I heard them before I saw them. When I reached the clearing, the guy was already pulling up his pants. He came over to ask me for a cigarette with that twenty-year-old swagger of his; I gave him one and, without any real reason, he said:

—Fuck’s done, visit’s over —and took off with a growl of exhaust, leaving her stranded there.

I found her sitting on the ground, dizzy, groping for her handbag. This girl shouldn’t be going off alone like this, I thought, though my motives weren’t entirely noble.

—You all right? I’ll drive you home, you’re in no shape to walk.

I got her into the car. She smelled of wine and pine trees.

—That bastard leaves me stranded —she muttered—. As soon as I find work in the city, I’m out of this village and never coming back.

—And what do you think you’re going to work at?

—Anything. I quit school. I did a hairdressing course, but I hated it.

When I stopped where she told me to, I took a business card from the production company and slipped it into her bag.

—The phone numbers are on the back. Adult film. You’re of age now. Think about it.

—As a whore? Who do you think I am? —she said, slamming the door shut.

***

I had forgotten all about it when, a month later, I got a message. It was her. She had thought about filming, she didn’t get along with her parents, she wanted the money and the excuse to leave. We agreed to meet at the station. She arrived with a big backpack and the crumpled clothes of someone who has no intention of coming back.

—I’ve seen your website —she said in the car—. In some of the videos you’re in them.

—We’re small, but we pay religiously. I can promise you that.

When we got there, Nadia looked her up and down with her usual coldness.

—She’s not high-end —she told me aside—. But she’s got something in her face. That innocence. That sells.

The problem was that the actor who was supposed to test her had bailed on us at the last minute. Nadia shrugged.

—You’ll have to do it. I’ll handle the camera.

The idea didn’t bother me. At almost forty I still had a decent body, and I knew how to move in front of and behind the lens.

We sent her to shower. When I went out to set up the scene, she was already sitting in a chair, wrapped in a bathrobe, drying her hair. On the table there were condoms and a bottle of lube. She looked at them without even trying to hide it.

—Always with a condom? —she asked.

—Always. And the finish, on the face or body, never inside.

—And the money?

Nadia showed her the bills. She stood up, counted them, put them in the backpack, and sat back down to wait for me. She’s not as naïve as she looks, I thought. Better.

I came in without beating around the bush. She looked at my tattoos, looked at the rest, and raised an eyebrow with a kid’s insolence.

—Ever tried anything like this before? —I asked her.

—Maybe —she said, pretending nothing impressed her.

I lifted her out of the chair, opened the robe slowly, and kissed her neck until her skin prickled. I turned her with her back to the camera, made her spread her legs, and started working her over with my hand, slowly, until she stopped pretending indifference and began breathing through her mouth.

—Good shot —Nadia said from behind the tripod.

I sat her on the edge of the table, parted her knees, and kept going with my tongue where my fingers had been before. Lara threw her head back and gripped the edge of the table. She didn’t moan fake, like others did for the camera; she let the air out in short bursts, almost against her will, as if she resented enjoying something she’d come there to do for money.

I put on the condom and entered her slowly, letting the camera do its work, and then not so slowly. The table was at exactly the right height. She dug her heels into my hips and stopped looking anywhere else. When she came, she didn’t scream or overdo it: she just exhaled, long and hard, her eyes glazed over, and that was worth more than any fake scandal. I finished outside, as the house rules required, and she went straight to the shower without saying a word.

That first video, uploaded that same night, was the one that got the most comments in a long time.

***

Three days later she wrote again. She wanted more money and, what was new, she wanted to film again. I told her that day we were shooting with another girl, one who got revenge on a cheating boyfriend, and that if she wanted she could come by and watch. She showed up in half an hour.

That afternoon I introduced her to Bruno, one of our regulars, an ex-military guy, short but incredibly strong, one of those who never miss in front of the camera. Lara sat in a corner of the little apartment and didn’t miss a thing. When we came out, she told me flat out, with that streetwise tongue of hers:

—That girl isn’t getting revenge on anybody. She’s fucking because she likes it. Just like me.

I looked at her in the rearview mirror. She was no longer the drunk kid from the pine grove. In a few days she had understood the rules of the game better than actresses with years of experience.

—You’ve got three good weeks ahead of you —I told her—. Just so you know, tomorrow it’s your turn with two top-shelf guys. Come rested.

***

The next day Mateo and Aldo were waiting for her, the best on our roster. Mateo was around forty, serious, with a hard face and a thin scar crossing his nose, the kind of man who, though not handsome, drives girls crazy. Aldo was the opposite: twenty-three, mulatto, spectacular, a devil’s grin, and the habit of repeating “that’s it!” every two sentences until you wanted to throttle him. Separately they were a sure thing; together, an earthquake.

We finally premiered the room with a real bed instead of the table and chair from the castings. Lara was wearing a short dress and nothing underneath. Mateo came in, the formal introductions were made, and the attraction was obvious in the air from the very first second.

Mateo didn’t waste time. He kissed her hungrily while lifting her dress, turned her toward the camera, and traced every curve with his hands. Lara, who had still been hesitating at the casting, was now attacking with determination; she had learned to hold the camera’s gaze. He lifted her up, played with her mouth and her body in an impossible position, and then sat her astride him, standing, her legs wrapped around his waist. Lara swayed and moaned like a cat, with no shame left at all, until she finally let go in tremors. Mateo came quickly, almost in office-worker haste, and showered and dressed in no time.

—I’ve got to stop by home and pick up the kids —he said, putting on his jacket, as if he were coming back from the office—. Good girl. Learns fast.

***

Then Aldo came in, with his cap turned backward and his “that’s it!” already on his lips. Where Mateo was dry and efficient, Aldo was pure spectacle. He circled her like an animal studying its prey, kissed her long, made her laugh against her will, and when things really started, he showed why his scenes got thousands of views.

He laid her on the bed, folded her legs, and gave himself to her with a patience I wouldn’t have expected from someone so boastful. Lara stopped acting completely. Her gaze was fixed on the ceiling, her breathing broken, her whole body tightening in waves. I moved closer with the camera on my shoulder and caught the exact moment she lost control, eyes shut, a long cry that echoed through the entire room. Afterward he stood up, finished the way he knew how, looking at the lens with that grin of his, and went into the shower whistling, leaving the door open, faithful to his taste for showing off.

—She’s a bombshell —I heard Nadia say while Lara cleaned herself up in the bathroom.

—He’s a pig —Lara replied, but she was smiling.

***

It didn’t take long before I heard from my father. Someone had shown him the videos in the village and he called me to say it was a disgrace, that I had better not come back, that I’d taken advantage of the butcher’s daughter. He told me the whole inheritance would go to my brothers. Me, the black sheep. The funny thing is he had drunk his way through life and his hand never once trembled when it came to pointing at anyone else.

My uncle, on the other hand, called me laughing his head off.

—In the village they admire you and would kill you in equal measure —he told me—. And on top of that you convinced that girl. Where do you get the nerve?

In the months that followed, half the set and half the city would have killed to work with Lara. She worked until she was sick of it, and one day, without warning, she disappeared. I only found out years later that she had gotten married and had a little girl.

***

On November 3rd last year I went back to the village to bury my father. On the way back, on the road, a truck came at me from the side. Some said it wasn’t an accident. I have no way of proving it.

I’m writing this confession from a wheelchair. I still make my living in porn, producing what I can no longer star in, because my body stopped being good for that that night on the road. Sometimes I think of Lara pushing that cart, of how she lowered her eyes and ran off. And I understand that neither of us wanted to remember who we were. I, at least, have no way out anymore: I drag it with me everywhere, on these two wheels.