Snuff

I ask if that's a problem. A crucifix.

And the girl reaches out with the clothespin, squeezing it open. She jabs to pinch it on my nipple, but I pull back. She says, "We've been doing this a long time." She says, "We know to look out for you Bible thumpers." From her face, she could be a high-schooler, about my age.

The stopwatch girl says how the actress Candy Apples, when she set her record with 721 sex acts, they used the same group of fifty men for the entire production. That was in 1996, and Candy only stopped because the LAPD raided the studio and shut down the production.

She says, "True fact."

When A

That same year, 1996, Jasmin St. Claire broke Chong's record with three hundred sex acts in a single shoot. Spantaneeus Xtasy broke the record with 551. In the year 2000, the actress Sabrina Johnson took on two thousand men, fucking until she hurt so bad the crew had to pack ice between her legs as she sucked off the remainder of the cast. After her royalty checks started to bounce, Johnson went public with the news that her record was bogus. At most, she'd done five hundred sex acts, and instead of two thousand men, only thirty-nine had answered the casting call.

The stopwatch girl points at the crucifix, saying, "Don't try to save anybody's soul here."

The next guy down the table, he pulls off a black T-shirt, his head and arms and chest the same even suntan brown. A ring shines gold, hanging from one nipple. His chest hair lies flat, every hair cropped down to the same stubble size. Looking at me, he says, "Hey, buddy…" He says, "Don't save her soul before they call me for my close-up, okay?" And he winks big enough to wrinkle half his face around one eye. His eyelashes big enough to fan a breeze.

Up close, he's smoothed a layer of pink all over his forehead and cheeks. Three colors of brown powder around his eyes, folded into the little wrinkles there. Clamped under one arm, between his elbow and ta

On the other side of the table, the stopwatch girl turns her head to look both ways. She stuffs a hand into one front pocket of her blue jeans, asking me, "Hey, preacher, you want to buy some insurance?" The girl fishes out a little bottle, big around as a test tube, but shorter. She shakes the bottle to rattle some blue pills inside. "Ten bucks each," she says, and shakes the blue pills next to her face. "Don't you be part of that sixty-six percent."

The guy wearing makeup, the stopwatch girl hands him a bag numbered "137," saying, "You want the teddy bear should go in your bag?"

She nods toward the white bundle under the guy's elbow.

Guy 137 whips the wad of white clothing from under his arm, saying, "Mr. Toto is nothing so pedestrian as a teddy bear. " He says, "Mr. Toto is an autograph hound." He kisses it, saying, "You wouldn't believe how old."

The stuffed animal is sewed out of white canvas, a long wiener-dog body with, sticking down, four stubby white canvas legs. Stitched on the top, a dog head with black button eyes and floppy canvas ears. Crabbed all over the white canvas is writing, blue, black, and red pen handwriting. Some loopy letters, some block letters. Some with dates. Numbers. A day, month, and year. Where the guy kissed it, the dog's smeared red with lipstick.

He holds the dog in the crook of one arm, the way they'd hold a baby. With his other hand, the guy points out writing. Signatures. Autographs. Carol Cha

"Mr. Toto," he says, "is older than I myself would ever admit to being."

Still holding the bottle of blue pills, the stopwatch girl says, "You want Miss Wright should autograph your dog?"

Cassie Wright, the guy tells us, is his all-time favorite adult star. Her level of craft soars above her peers.

Guy 137, he says how Cassie Wright spent six months shadowing an endocrinologist, learning his duties, studying his demeanor and body language, before playing a doctor in the groundbreaking adult feature Emergency Room Back Door Dog Pile. Cassie Wright spent six months of research, writing to survivors and studying court documents, before she set foot on the set for the adult mega-epic Titanic Back Door Dog Pile. In her single line of dialogue, the moment Cassie Wright says, "This boat's not the only lady going down, tonight…" her west-country Irish accent is dead-on, depicting exactly how hot the steerage free-for-all sex must've been in the final moments of man's worst sea disaster.

"In Emergency Room," he says, "in the lesbian scene with the two hot laboratory assistants, it's obvious that Cassie Wright is the only performer who knows the correct way to work a speculum."

The critics, guy 137 says, justifiably raved about her portrayal of Mary Todd Lincoln in the Civil War epic Ford's Theatre Back Door Dog Pile. Later re-released as Private Box. Later re-released as Presidential Box. Guy 137 tells us, in the scene where Cassie Wright gets double-teamed by John Wilkes Booth and Honest Abe Lincoln, thanks to her research, she truly does make American history come alive.

Still cradling his canvas dog, its black button eyes against his gold nipple-ring, the guy says, "How much for your pills?"

"Ten bucks," says the stopwatch girl.

"No," the guy says. He stuffs the dog back under his arm and reaches around to his back pants pocket. Taking out his wallet, he pinches out twenty, forty, a hundred dollars, saying, "I mean, how much for the entire bottle?"

The stopwatch girl says, "Lean over so I can write your number on your arm."

And guy 137 winks at me again, his big eye looking bigger inside all that brown powder, and he says, "You brought roses." He says, "How sweet is that?"

3. Mr. 137

You know those days at the gym when you're bench-pressing six plates or you're one-arming your body weight in preacher curls, and one rep you're pumped and stoked, split-setting cable rows with wide-grip pull-downs, you're knocking out reps and sets fast as you can rack the plates—but then, the next set, you're toast. Wasted. Every curl or press is just more effort. Instead of powering through, you're counting, sweating. Panting.

It's not a sugar crash. Wouldn't you know it? The big shift is because some meathead at the front desk has shut off the music. Maybe you weren't listening listening, but when that music stops, working out turns into just plain work.

That's the same doom you feel, that drop in blood pressure, when the music shuts off, three in the morning, closing time at the ManRod or the Eagle, and you're left standing still unfucked, all alone.

That's the big letdown you'll notice about filming a movie: No underline music. No mood music. Down the hallway, in that room with Cassie Wright, you're not even getting wah-wah electric-guitar porno jazz. No, only after the editing, after looping any dialogue, then they'll add a music track to improve the continuity.

And wouldn't you know it? Bringing Mr. Toto here was a terrible plan.

But scoring a full bottle of Viagra. that just might pull me through.

Across the waiting area, the real-life genuine Branch Bacardi is talking to Mr. 72, that kid holding a bouquet of wilted roses. The two of them could be Before and After pictures of the same actor. Bacardi stands in red satin boxer shorts, talking, while one of his hands rubs his own chest in slow circles. In his other hand, he holds a blue throwaway razor. When his rubbing hand stops, his razor hand moves to the same spot, scraping away invisible stubble, the plastic razor scratching in the short, quick strokes you'd use to hoe weeds in a garden. Branch Bacardi keeps talking, never looking down as his rubbing hand roves to another spot, feeling, then pulling the ta