John Holmes - Porn King

“What did you say?”

“One hundred dollars,” she repeated, punctuating each word. “Quick and easy”

Money from Heaven, “Who do I have to kill,” I asked facetiously.

“I met a guy last night who makes dirty films for colleges and stag parties. You know, the kind where they show two people getting it on.”

“And ? ”

“Well, he wants me to be in one of his films. You and me! I told him we make a great team.”

Linda and I weren’t strangers in bed. Whenever she had a rare night off, we’d sleep together. She was totally uninhibited.

“One hundred bucks!” I could see myself driving onto campus with my permit and pulling into a parking space. It sounded too good to be true. Getting paid for a few minutes of sex with my roommate? Surely, there had to be a hitch. “Come on, who do I have to kill?” I repeated.

Clever, clever me, Where had I heard that line before? On television or a movie, spoken by Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson? They were words that pleased the silent majority of patriotic Americans who stood by the government’s effort in Vietnam, and sent chills through the hearts of draft resisters and flower children who proclaimed, “Make love not war,” and “Girls say ‘yes’ to boys who say ‘no’.”

“Who do I have to kill? Six words spoken in jest, certainly without malicious intent! They were words that would come back to haunt me in the years ahead.

It was close to 11:00 a.m. when the doorbell rang. Through the curtains in the glare of the porch light, I could see the shadowy figure of a man pacing nervously back and forth. He appeared short and grossly overweight.

Linda beat me to the door. She opened it and quickly steeped aside. “Come on in, Harry,” she said, keeping her voice low. “I’m glad you made it.”

“Why not,” the fat man asked as he struggled through the opening. He turned his bloated body slightly so as not to bang the equipment in his arms. He carried a large, battered suitcase, two long light standards, and a tripod.

“I was afraid you might have a little trouble finding this place,” Linda replied.

“Trouble? Don’t mention the word.”

“You know what I mean, Harry. Sometimes my directions are…”

“Listen, I made it,” he interrupted. Setting the equipment on the floor, he plopped into the nearest chair, letting out a great rush of air as he landed. For a moment, he leaned back, wheezing, looking out through heavily lidded eyes like a dog on the alert. “Stairs,” he gasped, “You didn’t tell me about stairs.”

“I’m sorry, Harry,” Linda apologized. “I wasn’t thinking.”

A hacking cough jolted Harry upright. He learned over the edge of the chair, gagging, his enormous belly tugging between his legs, seemingly on the verge of throwing up. His eyes bulged and turned glassy; he grew flushed and sweaty. At last, he dislodged some foreign matter deep in this throat and brought it forward on his tongue, letting it rest between his thick, rubbery lips before wiping it away with a small, dirty rag from his breast pocket. That done he sighed agonizingly, mopped at his face, neck and, hairless dome, and returned the rag to his shirt.

“Would you like some water?” Linda offered.

“No,” Harry said, waving her off. He struggled to his feet. “I’ve got to get busy—it’s getting late.”

“I want you to meet John,” said Linda. “He’s the guy I was telling you about.”

With all of his distractions, it is doubtful Harry had really noticed me, even though I was in the same small room, sitting directly opposite him on Linda’s bed. At least, that was the impression I got when he turned my way.

He stared more at my crotch than at me. I was dressed so he couldn’t see anything, but he kept quiet. I had a sinking feeling that Harry didn’t approve, and the possibility of bringing in a substitute to work with Linda began crossing my mind. I hoped I was misjudging his lack of comment, because I’d psyched myself up for the job. At the moment, getting on with it and collecting my money was all that I wanted. In the thirty hours since Linda had asked me to participate in Harry’s little epic, I’d had time to think about what I was getting myself into. Having sex in front of someone didn’t bother me—I’d “performed” in front of people before, but only women. The thought of having a man looking on was something else.

Linda had tried to ease my fears. “He’s just a slob who works in a bar in Hollywood and sells stag films to people in back alleys,” she had told me. “He’s nothing but a big jerk… Don’t worry about him.”

I wanted to believe Linda, but I was apprehensive nevertheless—until Harry walked in. The moment I saw him I knew I’d do just fine. Harry didn’t qualify as anything quite human. How he felt about me was another matter.

“You’ve never seen anything like John in action, Harry,” Linda prodded. “He’ll have your eyes popping.”

“Good, good,” Harry drooled. “That I want to see.” He tugged up his pants and waddled over to the battered suitcase, pulled out a roll of aluminum foil, then scurried toward the large, curtained window.

“I’ll be in the bathroom,” Linda whispered to me. “Don’t do anything until I come out.”

I remained on the bed to watch Harry unrolling large sheets of silver paper. “What are you doing?” I asked.

He drew the curtain aside and pressed his fat face to the glass, scanning the street below. Pulling back quickly, he began covering the panes with foil. “The lights are like beacons at night,” he puffed. “If a cop drives by and see them, he’ll know what’s going on up here.” I knew that stag films were both very popular and highly illegal, but I wasn’t prepared for what Harry was about to tell me. He couldn’t have picked a worse time to start babbling. “The cops make it difficult,” he said. “They bust in during a shooting and do you know what you get? Ten years, that’s what. Armed robbery gets one year. Murder gets seven. Think about it.”

I did. Harry was making me nervous. The numbers he tossed out so freely made the paltry sum I’d be collecting—and indeed, everything else—seem incidental. I was so steeped in thought that I didn’t notice Linda until she was standing beside me. She had changed into a beat-up terry cloth robe, and she smelled delightful. “Are you going to get undressed?” she asked, nuzzling my ear.

“What?” I stammered.

She looked at me oddly, raising an eyebrow. “You’re not getting cold feet, are you?”

“Who, me?” I asked, forcing a grin.

“Then come on. Harry’s almost ready.”

Over her shoulder I could see Harry shuffling around. He’d already set up the lights; now he was mounting an 8mm camera on the tripod. I kicked off my tennis shoes, unzipped my pants, pulled them down, and was working on my shirt when I felt her moist tongue slithering around my crotch. I became aroused immediately.

“Good… good,” Harry cried. “That’s what I need. Just keep it up… but get on the bed.” He snapped on one light, then the other, flooding the room with a blinding glare. “Now the camera,” he said. “Ready?”

“Ready,” I muttered, hovering over Linda’s waiting body. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do next, only that I was about to be in my first—and last—sex film.

Little did I know…

August 8, 1944

As the Nazi war machine continued its devastating march across Europe, leaving the Continent in flames, squadrons of Allied planes took to the skies above Cannes to begin their counterattack to recapture occupied Paris. On the home front that August day, Americans were buying War Bonds, doling out ration stamps, working in defense plants and tending victory gardens. Students crowded high school gyms at lunchtime to demonstrate the latest dance craze, the jitterbug. The taverns, malt shops, and jukeboxes blared The Trolley Song, Swinging on a Star, and other Hit Parade favorites for a nickel a play. Movie goers lined up to see Since You Went Away and Going My Way. GIs with crew cuts pasted pin-ups of Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, and Lana Turner in their lockers. Teenage girls in sweaters, knee-length skirts, and bobby sox daydreamed of Frank Sinatra, Guy Madison, and Van Johnson. Oklahoma! was Broadway’s big show. And on a wooden table in the kitchen of a modest Ohio farmhouse in Pickaway County, my mother gave birth to her fourth child, a son: John Curtis Holmes.