Tera Patrick - Sinner Takes All

He took the ring out, got down on one knee, slipped the ring on my finger, and said, “Linda, will you marry me?”

“Yes! Of course!” I said. I had been waiting for this moment my whole life. It was the perfect proposal: simple and surprising. I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. I had spent so many years crying myself to sleep, praying for a man like Evan to spend my life with, and here was the moment. I couldn’t have been any happier. We went out to dinner that night to celebrate with friends.

The next day, we drove to Evan’s parents’ house in Boynton Beach, Florida. It was so nice to be with a man who was proud to introduce me to his family. They were completely blown away that we got engaged so fast. It had only been two months since we met in person for the first time and five months since we started our phone courtship. They were supportive, but understandably surprised. We started talking about wedding plans immediately. Knowing neither of us had a lot of money at the time, Evan’s mother, Lois, said, “Oh, I have a great idea. To save money, you can wear Elena’s wedding dress.”

She did not just say that! Elena? Really? Elena?!

Elena was Evan’s ex-wife and mother of his son, Sammy. My eyes welled up when Lois said that, and poor Evan was beyond mortified. (“She was just being a cheap Jew,” Evan said to me about it later.) Later in the evening, Lois whispered to Evan, “I’m not going to get attached.” I didn’t take it personally. Evan didn’t exactly have a good track record with women. His dad, Ira, used to call the constant turnover of girls in his life “The Girlfriend of the Month Club.” But I was different. I was here to stay, and I knew he wasn’t going anywhere. His mother would eventually learn this too. It was just a matter of time.

(Evan had already met my dad, under inauspicious circumstances. Shortly after we met, Evan was visiting me at my condo in Sherman Oaks. We had just finished having sex… that’s all we did back then, have sex and order food from Pink Dot, a famous delivery service in the L.A. area that delivers you anything, anytime, in this weird little blue-and-pink polka-dot car.

Evan heard a key enter the lock at my front door. He bolted out of bed, stark naked, and asked me, “Where’s your bat?”

“Bat? What bat?”

In Brooklyn, Evan kept a bat by his bed. I didn’t have one, so he grabbed the most lethal-looking item he could find in my apartment: a large, heavy stone ashtray.

“Who’s there?” he asked.

“It’s David. I’m coming in,” a man said.

“I don’t know no David,” Evan snapped.

“I have the keys. I’m coming in,” he replied.

As the door started to open, Evan held the ashtray cocked overhead in one hand and swung open the door with the other, which made the man literally fall into the condo. He grabbed the long-haired, hippie-looking man by the neck and hung him over the balcony railing and said, “You better start talking.”

By this time I’d emerged from the bedroom to find Evan holding my father over the railing.

Evan turned beet red. He immediately let go of him, apologized profusely, and we all had a good laugh about it. My dad had come to the condo that night to get his car keys because he’d left his car in my garage when he went on a trip to Hawaii. He didn’t want to wake us by calling, so he used the set of keys I had given him. Not exactly the best way for Evan to meet the father of his future bride.)

I was the happiest I’d been in a long time, but at the same time I felt really sad that I didn’t have anyone to share my news with and those I did tell were skeptical because we were moving so fast. I’d call up “friends” with the big news, and the reaction would typically go like this: “Come again? You’re engaged? Tera, you just met this guy. That is crazy.”

It might have seemed crazy, but sometimes crazy pans out. Why is it so hard to believe that you can meet someone and fall in love instantly? When you know, you know.

Nobody believed in us in the beginning, but that only made our bond even stronger. It felt like Evan and me against the world, and I liked that. What people don’t realize about Evan is that he may come off tough and in charge, but if it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t have found my true independence and strength. He helped empower me to take control of my life and of my career and helped me become a better woman in the process. He got me through the toughest times in my life. He wasn’t the one marrying me because I was a porn star. I was the one marrying him because he was a rock star, and I always wanted to marry a rock star. I just got lucky that my rock star was also my rock in life. The one solid thing I could always count on for all of my needs.

In November of 2002, I called my manager, Sam, and told her that I was no longer going to be with Digital Playground. I liked the break I had taken, and now I was in love and getting married and I thought this was my chance at having a normal life. I didn’t want to work for Digital anymore. I didn’t want to be in the porn industry. I just wanted to be in love and play house with my new man. Of course, I was under contract so it wasn’t going to be that easy to get away. She told me I was making a big mistake and not to trust Evan, that he was a rock star who would just cheat on me.

Despite what had happened in Germany, I was actually surprised at Sam’s reaction when I told her I wanted out. Digital Playground wasn’t just my manager and production company, it had been like my family, especially Sam. I honestly thought she’d be happy for me that I met a great guy and fell in love and that she would want for me what I wanted for myself. That is what a friend does. That is what your closest confidante does. That is what your “mother figure” does. That is what I expected Sam to do. I expected her to support me. But instead she supported Digital.

Leaving Digital also meant leaving my cohosting gig on Playboy TV’s Night Calls , which I loved. My last episode taped the last week of December. My contract had expired, and Playboy didn’t renew it because I wasn’t with Digital anymore. But it was OK. I was ready to move on and make a clean break.

Evan said to me, “Look, I don’t want to get into your business, but you need help. Where I come from, your manager and your production company shouldn’t be the same thing. You have a conflict of interest here. And I don’t think they are going to let you go that easily.” He was right, and things got nasty pretty quickly.

I just cried. “My life is over, isn’t it?”

“It’s not over, but it’s going to cost you a lot of money to defend this and we don’t have the money,” he said.

I can’t go into the legalities of it, but I was able to keep some money that I had in the bank. I got rid of my condo in Sherman Oaks, got rid of the Infiniti that Digital leased for me, and moved in with Evan in Brooklyn for the next year or so.

Digital filed a breach of contract lawsuit against me that same month, and we countersued for damages. I was ready to just give up. I didn’t think I had a chance and was just too tired to fight.

But then Evan sat me down and said, “Listen, I love you very much and I just want you to realize that no matter where you go in the world, no matter what you do, you’re always going to be Tera Patrick. Don’t give up on that. We will fight this together. You should really think about capitalizing on who you are. Everybody else has made money from you, and I know you want to give up and never want to work again and I know you’re really enjoying your life right now, but you should really go out and fight for what is rightfully yours.”