Scott Sherman: Third You Die

“But I couldn’t separate the real person from the guy in the movies. Everything we did felt like a rerun, even if it was the first time I was actually in the scene, as opposed to just watching it.

“What really ruined it for me, though, was the feeling that he was performing. Putting on a show for me. Like he had to be ‘Brock Peters’ as opposed to a mere ordinary lay.

“The whole thing was a little depressing. Brock seemed so… mechanical about it. It makes me look at porn differently. Maybe it’s not much fun after all.”

I thought about my own time in the sex trade. “You shouldn’t generalize,” I said. “I’m sure there are some guys in porn who are totally jaded and burnt out, but I’m sure there are others who keep it in perspective. You’re a full-time TV producer used to running the show, but it’s not like that affects every other aspect of your life. You don’t go into the supermarket and tell the manager where to stack the cereal boxes, or rearrange the lighting when you go to a club. There’s a difference between what you are and what you do. A healthy person can separate the two.” Who had recently told me that?

Andrew looked thoughtful. “You think?”

I know. “Yeah. I hear you talk about Brock, and I figure it’s a chicken-and-egg thing. Did years of being in porn make him into a self-centered lover, who’s more concerned with technique and dazzling his partner than he is with forming an actual connection? Or, was he a ridiculously handsome, narcissistic stud who got into movies because he already saw sex as a ‘performance’? One in which he was the star?”

Andrew rested his chin in his hand. He nodded. “Maybe. I don’t know. You’re right about one thing. It wasn’t so much that I felt he was aping his films that bothered me, it was the total lack of interest in, like you said, ‘making a connection.’ I could have been anyone. He wasn’t expecting to ‘enjoy’ me; he was looking to ‘wow’ me.”

“That’s the thing with narcissists. It’s all about them. Brock wasn’t looking for a lover. He’s looking for an audience. For attention and applause. And, if my two semesters of psychology at NYU can be trusted, it’s a deeply ingrained personality trait. Here’s my bet: Porn didn’t make him that way; he makes porn because that’s the way he is.”

Andrew smiled. “I feel kind of… relieved. It really bothered me how… detached Brock seemed. I mean, generally when a guy has his head between my legs, I think he’s at least a little into me. But not Brock. He reminded me of those guys who demonstrate home appliances at department stores. It’s a good show and everything, and at the end you might get a tasty treat, but he’s still just going through the paces. I thought maybe I was losing my mojo.”

Andrew was still probably one of the ten best-looking guys I’ve ever met. “You haven’t lost a thing,” I assured him. “You just happened to spend the night with a guy who wasn’t looking for mojo-he was looking for a mirror.”

“How did you know he asked me to put one by the bed?” Andrew asked. “Did I tell you that part?”

I’d been speaking metaphorically, but I figured it didn’t hurt to leave Andrew guessing. “The magic eye of Kevin,” I said, tapping my forehead, “sees all.”

In hindsight, I’d wish I did. Then I’d have known to get out of there before disaster came crashing through the door.

“What,” my mother screeched, her voice reaching a frequency I’d have thought capable of breaking windows, “is this fakakta dreck? ”

This didn’t look like it was going to be good. She came crashing into the office like a hurricane, only less concerned with the damage she might be leaving behind. She flapped a paper in her hand wildly. Worst of all, she was using Yiddish, always a bad sign.

Andrew, who was paid by my mother and therefore contractually obligated to placate her, sprang to his feet. “What’s wrong?” he asked, his eyes soft with concern.

“This!” she wailed, directing a withering gaze at the paper she clutched in a death grip.

“This what?” Andrew asked.

“This!” my mother said louder, as if the problem was that we couldn’t hear her. People in New Jersey could have heard her.

“Sophie,” Andrew said in the low, measured tones of a person trying to talk a jumper off a bridge, “why don’t you sit down and we can…?”

“Sit?” my mother echoed, as if Andrew had asked her to commit hara-kiri. “This is not the time for sitting! This is the time for action! Sitting around,” she cried, thrusting the paper she held at Andrew like a dagger, “is hardly going to get us on this! ” She returned to shaking the paper like a crazy woman.

“Okay,” I said, having had my fill. “Enough with the drama, Mama. We can’t even see what you’re talking about if you keep waving that around like you’re trying to put out a fire. Maybe if you let one of us see it, you could get an answer.

“So, why don’t you settle down”-I pointed at the small sofa in Andrew’s office-“and we can talk like normal people.”

She collapsed into the seat with a resigned plop and sighed heavily.

“Oh my god,” she said, no longer loud but with a miserable whine in her voice, “I just threw a diva fit, didn’t I?”

“Just a little one,” I reassured, rising to join her on the sofa. I took her hand in mine. She squeezed back with the same pressure with which she’d previously throttled the paper into submission. I heard one of my knuckles crack. At least, I hoped that was all it was. A broken finger or two wouldn’t have surprised me.

I ignored the pain and soldiered on. “Now, what’s all the fuss?”

“This,” she repeated. But now she actually handed me the paper, which made the conversation more productive. “Look!”

I looked.

“The nominations for the Daytime Emmys,” she moaned. “Someone just showed me. And look-under Best New Talk Show. Notice who isn’t there?” Her eyes filled with tears. “It’s the Jewish thing, isn’t it? They always hate the Jews.”

The nominations had come out yesterday, but I guess no one thought to tell my mom. Probably an oversight, I reluctantly admitted to myself. Luckily, Andrew and I had discussed them, so I had the words to put her at ease. Andrew and I exchanged relieved glances before I explained.

“It’s not you,” I explained. “It’s the rules. A show has to have been on for six months before it can qualify. We’ve only been on for four.”

The tension drained from my mother in a palpable rush of relief. Her fingers released my hand, which I pulled back and flexed. It seemed like all the digits still worked.

“So it’s not,” my mother asked, “an anti-Semitic thing? In your opinion?”

My mother blamed the majority of her self-caused problems on anti-Semitism, an issue about which she was very sensitive. Which made it so odd that she’d married my father, a German who looked like the poster child for the Aryan nation. It was from him I’d inherited my blond hair and blue eyes.

“I think it’s just the rules, Ma.”

My mother turned her face to Andrew. “I’m sorry about that little outburst, darling. I don’t know what came over me. Maybe it’s this studio-the ghost of Yvonne possessing me.”

“Yvonne isn’t dead,” I reminded her.

“Well,” my mother observed, “you can’t have everything.”

“It’s hard,” Andrew said, still speaking with the caution of someone defusing a bomb, “to be in the public eye. Sometimes, you just have to let off a little steam.”

“It’s so nice to have a professional like you on my team,” she answered him. “But there’s still no excuse for bad manners. Promise me-you’ll tell me if I’m becoming too much of a pain in the tuchus, won’t you?”