Array Seka - Inside Seka

I thought I had placated Ken by going to that one swing party. Boy, was I wrong. Once he’d gotten a taste of it, he wanted to go again and again and again. The thing is, single guys were rarely allowed in, so he needed me as his ticket, and that’s exactly how I felt — I was nothing but a ticket. It also didn’t hurt that I was attractive. Even if I wasn’t participating, I made Ken look good by being his date. It’s the same thing in everyday life. A guy walks into a bar with a mousy-looking woman and no one notices him. He walks in with a stunner and all the girls want to snatch him up, figuring he must be something special.

I tried to find ways of entertaining myself, but I was never really into it. It was Ken’s thing, he was my guy — despite there being little real love between us — so I went along. It was like being a football widow. Even if you hate the game, you pull on his favorite team’s jersey, go to a few games, and try to amuse yourself. I know, most women would not have done this for their man, but I was in the sex business, so it was less odd for me than most other women. But it wasn’t for me, it was all for him.

There were loops and there were features. Only the biggest stars got to do features. On the other hand, there were a lot more loops being done than features, so lots of A-List porn stars did loops as well, in between features. The whole thing was like baseball. You began in the rookie leagues, then moved up to the minor leagues, and finally the majors — except even those in the majors still played in the high minors now and then just to make ends meet.

Loops were often compiled together into a sort of feature, kind of like a mix tape. For that reason, the same scene might be used not only in one compilation, but in any number of compilations. That’s why it’s a joke when porn actors try to count how many movies they’ve been in. You do one scene and it ends up in twenty different compilations. Is that one film or twenty? Worse yet, we never got paid for the multiple times a scene was used. We’d get paid for a day’s work and that was it. Sometimes we’d complain and get suckered into making a deal for “something on the back end,” which was a total joke. We’d be promised some sort of percentage or something down the line, but none of us ever saw a dime. We got what we got paid for that one day’s work and not a penny more, even if that scene was used a million times, forever and ever, amen.

The top name in loops was Swedish Erotica. They were the big time, the place where even the features actors continued to work even after they’d become big stars.

Soon Swedish Erotica came calling for me, and I completely flipped out. Unlike most new girls who came on the adult scene, my time spent working in Ken’s stores taught me who was who in the business. When I went to meet with them I thought, “Damn, I can really make a living at this. If these guys are here, I’ve arrived.”

We met, we hit it off, and I was the new Swedish Erotica Girl. Of course, there were a lot of Swedish Erotica girls, but now I was part of their stable of players. Their loops were probably the most popular in the adult book stores, and their compilations were spliced together and ran as if they were features in adult movie theaters — a thing of the past from back in the days before home video. And once home video came around, their compilation tapes were always top sellers — not that I saw any financial benefit.

I was doing scenes constantly. It all became more comfortable and natural for me. I began to see some of the same faces both in front of and behind the camera, which made me less apprehensive when I’d show up for a day at work. And it was work. For a twenty-minute scene, I’d be there all day long, doing this, doing that. Waiting, lots of waiting, just like in a mainstream movie.

Whenever I walked into a room, all eyes were on me. This crazy, accidental look of mine was turning heads. It made me very self-conscious, but I used that to my advantage. Do I shock you? Good. It puts you on your heels and me in a position of strength. I became less and less of a wallflower. I wouldn’t call myself a diva, but if something was way out of line, I wasn’t afraid to say so — politely and professionally — and it usually got fixed. The bedspread was dirty — get me a clean one. I needed a cigarette break — I asked and I got one. Pretty basic stuff that professional, polite parties should be able to work out without a big fuss, which was not always the case between filmmakers and actors. Some of the girls were treated like meat and it continued because they accepted it. I didn’t. I liked the money I was making and the attention I was being given, but I wasn’t really thinking long term. It was good for now, but if they fired me, I’d do something else tomorrow. It never occurred to me that if I pissed someone off I’d be lying in a gutter, begging for spare change. I always seemed able to bounce from one thing to another. I may not have been a career girl in the classic sense, but that actually worked to my advantage. Someone who wanted to be an accountant would be more worried that if they had a blow-out with a boss they’d not only lose their job, they might never work as an accountant again. Me, I had no problem changing what I wrote on an application when it asked for “occupation.” I was whatever I was doing at that moment. Work of some kind was everywhere for a person willing to do it.

Swedish Erotica had a certain image. For whatever reason, they wanted the girls in their scenes to wear lacy scarves. It was weird, but as it was explained to me, they wanted customers to see that scarf in a scene and make an immediate association in their head, “Oh, a scarf. This is Swedish Erotica.” It was like a hood ornament on a car: every car had its own design and it helped you know what kind of car it was.

Swedish Erotica thought that scarves were classy. I thought they were itchy and a pain in the ass to wear. I mean, in real life, who wears a scarf to bed? I can see keeping some article of clothing on — usually sweat socks. Ha! But even to be sexy, there are a lot cooler things to wear, like silky lingerie. But that was their signature and for as much as I asked for things here and there, removing the scarf was one thing on which they would not negotiate.

The more loops I did for Swedish Erotica, the more I became personally associated with scarves. People started to forget all the other girls in their loops who wore them, too. But I was doing so many scenes for them, I started being known in the industry and even among the fans as Miss Swedish Erotica. At one point, Swedish Erotica even gave me that title officially, like it was another beauty contest I had won. It was all good. They’d invite me to public appearances and things and introduce me as Miss Swedish Erotica, just like when I was Miss Hopewell Virginia. I don’t know how they came up with it. I don’t believe there was any official voting of any sort. It was a publicity stunt, which flattered me because they were saying, essentially, that I was now the face of their franchise. I was moving up in the world.