Tera Patrick - Sinner Takes All

When I got to the shoot, the other girls were already on the set and everyone welcomed me with open arms. I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, but I wasn’t afraid of it. I felt a strange kind of nervous excitement that just washed over me. I couldn’t quite believe that I was about to do my first adult movie even though my scenes were pretty mild. They involved a lot of slow, soft, sensual petting, kissing, touching, and posing in erotic ways. No lines of dialogue, thank God, because I wasn’t ready for that!It felt like a real Hollywood movie set. The house was stunning. There were makeup artists, hairdressers, stylists, crew, and assistants everywhere. I remember being impressed by a plate of cut-up fruit and bottles of sparkling water. It was all very glamorous. And the scenes were beautiful. There was a lot of touching, teasing, and fondling, and many leg shots, boob shots, and vagina shots. It was beautiful, artistic, and erotic. If Fellini made porn, this would be what he’d have made. It was shot in both black and white and color, had a very surreal soundtrack and feel to it, and featured a lot of classic fetish elements, such as thigh-high latex boots, old-fashioned stockings, impossible-to-walk-in fetish heels, and dream sequences.

Andrew Blake was a very go-with-the-flow director. I remember him directing me by saying, “OK, we are now panning up the legs,” and he let me move my legs however I wanted. I glided my right foot over my left leg and he seemed pleased by that. Then he handed me a cigarette from off-camera and just said, “OK, smoke” and I looked into the camera and smoked in a sensuous way. And then he took the cigarette away and gave me a razor and put shaving cream on my legs and said, “OK, shave your legs.” So I shaved my legs in the sexiest way I could. (That scene got cut, by the way.) Andrew had the cutest name for the pussy. He called it a fui-fui. So, he’d say, “OK, now we’re panning down to the fui-fui.” And I’d run my hand over my fui-fui. I wanted to laugh. But I stayed professional.

My first scene with another girl was with a performer named Dahlia Grey, who was Andrew’s muse and the main star of the movie. She was exotic-looking like me, and Andrew thought we’d look great together. We did. We had several scenes together and even kissed. I had never been with a girl before, but kissing isn’t exactly “being with a girl.” We kissed and fondled each other, and at once point I even kissed her pussy, but I never went down on her. There was no actual sex or penetration, so my scenes were considered softcore. One of my big scenes was titled “Sliced Fruit” and they laid me down on the floor with a flower in my hair and juicy exotic fruit on my pussy. A Russian performer whose real name was Lucy (I forget her stage name) ate me out while Dahlia felt me up. It was my first time having a girl go down on me. I had never been with a girl before, but as long as she was doing the licking, I was fine with it. I was excited to do it, actually. But the unknown was a bit scary for me. I didn’t know if after the scene I’d want to go home and fuck her or just shake hands and say good-bye. We ended up just shaking hands and saying good-bye. This doesn’t really count as my first girlie scene, since it wasn’t hardcore. That comes later.

For one of our scenes, we were both wearing super high heels—twelve-inch heels, the kind I’d seen Bettie Page wear in her fetish films. On the first take, we were walking down the side of the house and I tripped and fell. Lucy and I had a good laugh about that. But we got it right for the next take. And then we swam in a pool together. It was a beautiful, in-ground pool, with glass panels that you could see through. The scene felt very sterile and cold, and I didn’t cum. Part of the problem was the set: it was a modern, stone house with a waterfall and koi pond. And part of it was because there wasn’t any sexual tension. I wasn’t into girls. Cock got me off, not pussy. So to help motivate me, I imagined that my dream guy—at this time it was Johnny Depp—was looking at me through the lens, and that I was trying to impress him. That’s how I got myself through my scenes.

It was a four-day shoot (twelve hours a day), and every night I came home exhausted, but elated. I would lie in bed and think to myself, “OK, I made $3,500 today. Tomorrow, I’m going to make another $3,500, and then for the box cover the third day I’m going to make $5,000, and that’s going to be a total of $12,000! And I’m going to be able to pay my rent and finally buy those new Gucci shoes I’ve been wanting. And then maybe I’ll get rid of that little Mazda hatchback and buy a new car.” My thoughts were racing. I wanted to live life on my own terms, and this felt like the way to get me there.

I wasn’t at all bothered at the thought of getting naked for the camera. I wasn’t hurting myself or doing anything degrading. I felt like I was doing something really beautiful. There was no real sex, just a little bit of pussy licking. This was certainly not Hollywood, but it was the other Hollywood, and it suited me just fine. That said, I kept my on-screen activities as my dirty little secret. If my best friend Elena thought I was too good for Playboy , what would she think if I told her I was doing a porno movie? I wasn’t going to find out. So I didn’t tell anyone.

I went home from the Aroused set so horny because we did everything but sex in the movie and it made me crave a man. So I went home to my apartment in Canoga Park and knocked on my neighbor’s door and said, “Hi. I’m Tera. Want to fuck?” I don’t even remember his name, but he got me through that four-day shoot.

A week or so after we wrapped up the movie, I got a call from a woman named Patty Rhodes, who used to work for Andrew Blake. She had gone out on her own as a producer and heard about the work I had been doing.

“I hear you’re doing movies now,” she said.

“Well, sort of.”

“I know your work as a model, and I’d love to include you in one of my movies. I would like to make you an offer to do a boy-girl movie with me for Adam and Eve Productions called Fire and Ice . Is that OK or do you just do girl-girl?”

I had no idea what she was talking about. Porn terms weren’t exactly part of my lingo yet. Girl-girl? Boy-girl?

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, you would have sex with a guy instead of a girl,” she explained.

“Oh, that’s awesome. I would love to be with a guy! Oh, it’s so weird for me to be with a girl. I like guys better than girls.”

Most girls starting out in the industry do girl-girl films for a few months before diving into boy-girl films, but not me. I was ready to do a real fuck film right away, so I said yes without hesitation. Knowing what I know now about the industry, this must have been music to her ears.

I honestly never thought, and still don’t think, that there was anything wrong with having sex for money on camera. It’s not too far off from prostitution and that is, as they say, the world’s oldest and most honest profession. Any living is an honest one if you’re doing it because you want to do it.

My saying is this: “We’re all ho’s on this bus.”

I don’t judge anyone. It’s funny because in this business the Playboy Playmates judge the Penthouse Pets. The Penthouse Pets judge the porn stars. The porn stars judge the hookers. But we’re all ho’s on this bus. What is the difference if you’re a high-class, high-paid call girl sleeping with a rich guy for $10,000 or you’re doing a porn movie scene for $10,000? It’s the same. I truly don’t think porn or prostitution should be frowned upon.

So I went to visit Patty the next day at her house and we talked about the scene. She said my costar would be with a guy named Brick Majors, and she showed me his picture. I thought he was kind of cute. Then she talked money with me.“We’re willing to pay you top dollar for this,” she said. “Twenty-five hundred for just a couple of hours of work.”