One of my works-in-progress, Rebecca: An Oral History of a Former Porn Star, follows my core character Christy into adulthood and the part-time job she chooses to bring in extra money as a single mom.
As the title implies, the book will be structured as a fictitious oral history, culling blurbs from invented interviews and articles together into a narrative… not just in Christy’s voice, but in multiple character voices.
Here’s one of the short blurbs I’ve written, where Christy’s high school best friend Margo talks about seeing Christy’s nude pictures for the first time…
Well, she [Christy] called me up and she just sounded like she wanted to get together, same as ever… I had no idea even really that she had something that she wanted to TELL me. I just thought that she wanted to get together because that’s what we DID on the holidays, you know? She was my best friend. It’d been a few weeks.
So we get in her car and there’s this big manila envelope on my seat and I just kind of toss it in the back, didn’t think anything of it. But that was THE envelope, as I found out later.
Anyway it was midday and cold as anything, and we drove to Gettysburg, partly because I think that the further we drove, the hotter the heater would get in that little old bug [VW] of hers. And we were just talking about how finals went, how was Tony, how was her family, all that, and finally she says “Do you remember me saying how a photographer up there was looking for models?”
And I said, “Yeah, nude models, and you sent me the article about it from the paper.” And I remembered her saying in it something like “I don’t think I could ever pose for something like that” but I look over at her and she is BRIGHT red and I go “You did it, didn’t you?”
And she laughs and goes “Just take a look in the envelope.”
So I reach in the back and grab the envelope and open it up and there she is: my little friend Christy, naked like she used to be in the locker room before gym. It was a cute shot… I mean, she was naked but demure, you know, covering up her boobs and her area, all cute, with that smile of hers. She’s always looked like a model anyway, so the fact that she was just drop-dead gorgeous didn’t surprise me. And I’d SEEN her naked plenty of times, so it’s not like I was seeing anything that I hadn’t seen before. [exaggerated mom voice] I mean, I brought her INTO this world. [laughs] You know?
But still, to see it in an eight by ten in front of me… I know I looked surprised and I just laughed and said “Christy…!” and she goes [nervous voice] “What? What?”
And I said, “‘What?’ You’re NAKED, that’s what.” Flipping through the pictures while I’m talking. “I thought you said in that article you could never do this.”
And she goes “Well, a friend of mine put me up to it.”
And I just went, “Christy… you KNOW that whereever this ‘friend’ of yours is right now, she’s driving someplace with HER best friend from high school, saying ‘Well, my friend Christy put me up to it.'”
And she laughed and goes, “She DID, she DID…” and I was giving her the eye, and she goes, “We kind of put each OTHER up to it.”
“O.K.”
So now… silence. I’m looking down through this stack of shots of my best girlfriend naked, and the first ones, the ones on top of the stack, they were just CUTE, you know? Because SHE’S cute, so how could they not be? Right? Just nudie shots. the first few. You couldn’t really see anything. She was covering herself in a lot of them.
BUT… as I look down through the stack– there had to be about 50 pictures there… it was a thick stack– and the further I go down into the pile, the less demure they get. Uncovered. But still just cute nudie shots. And of course I’m making comments.
But the other part was… as I’m looking at these pictures she’s sitting there next to me trying to drive but also trying to look over at me to see what my reaction is. So every time I flip one she can see it out of the corner of her eye and she glances over at my face and the car goes [she leans left slowly] and then [she jerks quickly back to the right], you know? But I can tell she’s all nervous and I don’t want to freak her out. Right?
And I go, “Woman, are you gonna drive or look at me looking at naked pictures of you and your babushka. Which, by the way, I see is shaved. What is the deal with that? Is that some punk thing?”
And she laughs and goes “No, that’s not some ‘punk thing.’ It’s a swim team thing. The seniors all shave during the season.” And I look over at her and she’s still bright red! I mean, I’ve got these naked pictures of her in my lap, which obviously she didn’t have any problem POSING for, but there she’s getting all embarrassed telling me about shaving her area for swimming.
Anyway, I keep browsing silently, and finally she goes, “What are you thinking, Margo? What?”
And I go “Well, just… you’re cute,” and I swear, just as I said the word “cute,” I flipped over to the next picture, and it was the raunchiest one in the pile, just… she was standing… ONE hand was down below, use your imagination, and the other she had up to her mouth and she was looking right at the camera, licking her middle finger with this naughty look on her face.
And I go “WHOA!”
And she goes “What?”
And the car goes [she leans right slowly] off onto the berm.
So I stuff the pictures back in the envelope and I go “OK…”
And she goes, “What?” And then all nervous. “You don’t think I should have done it!”
And I said, “No… I don’t think you should be DRIVING US while I’m looking at these if you’re going to keep looking over at me and almost running us into a ditch or getting us into a head-on collision.” And I tossed the envelope onto the back seat, and we went for breakfast.
Yeesh… counselor and driving instructor!
Interviews With A Porn Star by Max Harrick Shenk…
Max Harrick Shenk, writer 