American Dream

I tell you, it's really weird having your boyfriend standing there next to you, busy telling some guy how to position himself when he's going to do you, and what he's supposed to do, and then telling me how my face should look, and what kind of expressions I should wear, and what noises to make while it was happening. Not to mention your boyfriend telling you what to do and how to act when some guy cums all over you, and that's one of those things about porn movies.

Cum-shots.

Everyone wants cum-shots, but personally, I liked that cum where it was supposed to end up. In me, but I hardly ever got it there in my movies. Face. Boobs. Tummy. Pussy. Ass. Back. Hair. You name it. Everywhere except where I really wanted it, but I guess it paid the bills.

Yeah, having my boyfriend watching and directing was totally weird, so I talked to him about it after those first couple of movies, and we kind of agreed, yeah, better if we didn't have that boyfriend-girlfriend thing going on, and besides, there was my other work too, that I was just starting back then, and Paul's next door neighbor, Pete, he'd sort of helped me there with a few introductions, because he did know quite a few people. Including Gavin, but you know all about Gavin, and we'll get to him later, I guess.

Introductions?

Very discreet introductions.

Discreet introductions? Other work?

Okay, in between movies, well, I network, and you know how it is. You build that little personal contact list, the guys that'll pay to make it worth your while to date. You know, compensated dating. Some people call them, you know, sugar daddies, but I don't like that daddy thing. That's a bit sick, if you ask me. I prefer saying compensated dating, because it is. For me, anyhow. I enjoy dating, and I really enjoy being compensated for it, and I don't mind at all that the guys are older. I like older gweilo guys, and they sure don't look like my dad because my daddy's Chinese, like me.

Anyhow, those older gweilo guys, they treat a girl really well, and I prefer saying compensated dating, because it is, and I don't mind being compensated at all, because I need to pay my own way through university and everything, after my dad threw my ass out the door. Besides, older guys need dates too, so it's almost like a social service really.

They do, and honest to god, I mean, if a fifty year old guy asked me out on a date, like, a normal date, of course I'd say no. I mean, I'm nineteen, and you date younger guys when you're young, right? Well, mostly. But these older gweilo guys, a lot of them were divorced or separated, they all made big bucks. You know, successful businessmen, that kind of thing, and they didn't want to get married again, they just wanted to have some fun, and, you know, get it on without the dance you go through when you date a girl.

Fifty years old and loaded? You don't have the time for that kind of dance, so you, you know, you date a girl like me, and when you do, you know where you stand, because I worked on personal introductions and referrals, and there were only seven nights in a week. I was expensive, and I only dated one guy a night, but that guy knew it was going to be a great date, right from the get go. And me, I was studying full time, as well as acting in Paul's movies. I didn't have any spare time at all, and I was paying my own way, so they better compensate me real good.

They all did, and I got to go to some really good restaurants and places that I'd never go to otherwise as well as being compensated, and let's not even talk about clothes shopping. And you should see my shoe collection.

Anyhow, compensated dating?

That's what I like to call it, because a lot of guys like to date a hot Asian girl, and me, I am hot, I am Asian, Chinese actually. I am in fact a real girl, with (mostly) real boobs and everything, and I do need the money after my dad kicked my ass out of our family apartment even if it was my mom's, but he told mom either I went or we both went, and then told me never to darken his doors again, except maybe that's not the exact translation, which was way closer to "fuck off and don't let that door hit your ass on the way out, you little slut," but lets skip over that.

Even if it was my mom's door, and we'll get to that eventually, don't worry.

So the compensated dating thing, it's a win-win as far as I'm concerned. And yeah, well, I didn't like having a boyfriend and doing that, because it's kind of weird to go out with some guy, and do the deed, and then come back to my boyfriend in the morning. Paul didn't seem to mind, though, which was a bit weird if you ask me, but then, I'd sort of found out that Paul was a weird guy. Like, really nice, but weird.

You have to be weird to make porno movies with your girlfriend starring in them, right?

Yeah, that's what I thought, too, but to Paul, making and directing movies was everything, and he was a real artist. He'd already got some really good reviews. I still remembered that one from that real mainstream online movie site from about the, I think it was the sixth or seventh movie we made together. Well, he made it, I acted in it. I had it printed out and pinned on the wall above my desk, because I was actually rather flattered, and Paul, he'd been over the moon.

"A film as sexually explicit as 'Screams in the Night' is almost always going to raise the question of whether we are witnessing a cutting commentary on the moral taboos of society which uses visuals and narrative to push against the boundaries of what is considered acceptable to be shown on screen, or if we are simply watching pornography masquerading as art....The majority of the running time of 'Screams in the Night' is taken up with increasingly graphic and involved sadomasochistic sex between the two main characters, but labeling it as nothing more than a "skin flick" is both an oversimplification and, in fact, an inaccurate description...."

I liked that, and yeah, well, that sadomasochism was a first for one of my films, but really, I'd rather enjoyed it, because it was acting, but Paul did go for realism, and we'd got the realism alright, and that reviewer, he'd nailed that one. About as well as I'd been nailed in that movie.

"While 'Screams in the Night' is inherently both erotic, explicit, and arousing, as the sexual encounters between the two main characters push their sexual boundaries, there is an increasing emotional closeness in their physical acts of sex and S&M. While it is clear from the start that Robert gains intense pleasure from inflicting pain on Molly, we can never be entirely sure if Molly, delectably played by April Foo-Lee, feels the same way, or if her agreement is simply an ingrained need to please brought on by a subconscious desire to be liked and wanted.

As such, director Paul MacDermott deftly pushes viewers to feel that they are watching something they shouldn't be, and that they are voyeurs watching the (fictional) abuse of a teenage girl by an older man, rather than seeing the film as containing only erotic and pornographic levels of adult content....

Director Paul MacDermott's decision to take viewers behind the camera lens on several occasions (the first of which occurs at the very beginning of the film, with the main actors discussing their feelings about the roles they are about to play) adds even more of a voyeuristic air to proceedings through the first half of the film, and brings a level of viewer intimacy along with it from the outset.

April Foo-Lee, the absolute star of the movie, is clearly uneasy about the explicitness of the sex as well as of the sadomasochistic acts within the film that playing the role of Molly requires, and her acquiescence to MacDermott's cinematic demands walks hand in hand (albeit in an inverted form) with the film's underlying theme of members of society needing to be seen to conform to the consensus of the majority while differing beliefs and desires continue to bubble under the surface....".

Well, it was a porno film, but I really liked it that Paul had tried to make it a little deeper, and add something more to it, and it really had made it stand out. I was sort of hoping we could do something similar with the one we were going to film next. You know, 'Social Studies'. But I didn't think I'd been uneasy about the explicitness of the sex, or the nudity at all.

That was about my tenth movie with Paul, and I was getting used to it by then, and it was more the BDSM stuff, because I'd been on the receiving end of that, and some of it had been a bit painful, even if it was only for the movie, but whatever. You had to make a few sacrifices if you wanted to get anywhere, that was what Paul had said at the time, but I hadn't been too sure of that at the time, because the only one making sacrifices had been me. In the end, though, I'd rather enjoyed it.

Anyhow, I was sort of telling you about compensated dating, not movie reviews from a couple of months ago, and that compensated dating paid really well, too, better even than the movies, and I enjoyed the dates, because they took me to these really expensive restaurants, and I actually met a few of those names you see on the news, and in those celebrity blogs and everything, and this one guy, Jeff, I won't tell you his last name, he lives down south in LA, but he comes up here on business trips, and he has a boat in a marina here, totally a cool boat, a Jim Smith Sportfish Convertible, it's seventy feet long or something, custom built, cost him quite a few million, he has some guy that runs it for him and does all the work. He'd told me how much that boat'd cost him one evening when we were out on the Bay, and okay, I was impressed. I loved going out for an evening on that boat.

When Jeff was in town, I always stayed overnight with him, down at the marina on that boat, and I wanted one like that for myself one day. Last time he'd come up, he'd stayed on for the weekend and it was like a dream. I made extra sure it was worth Jim's while, and I think he thought it was a dream too. Dream of paradise or something, because he gave me this huge bonus, and I was honestly a bit sad when he had to fly out, and so was he, because he was talking about maybe me moving south, or him moving north, but I wasn't sure I wanted that.

Anyhow, I liked to think that the old guys that dated me got what they paid the big bucks for. Sort of a spin-off from my acting, really, because it really was acting, although when we got going, it wasn't, and it actually paid way better, and I did enjoy myself too. I never dated sleazos though, even if they were loaded. If I wasn't sure, I didn't, full stop.

No doesn't mean no. It means, no chance, no chance at all.

But it did mean Paul wasn't my boyfriend anymore.

Didn't really worry about that now though.

I still shared that apartment in that old house with Paul. He had that spare bedroom, except it wasn't spare anymore. It was mine, and as far as his parents knew, he was studying full time at Berkley, which, actually, he was, just like I was now, for that matter, and his parents, they were loaded, and they actually owned the house as an investment or something, so there wasn't any rent. No student loans for Paul.

So a while after I came to stay, after my dad kicked me out, and we'd made those first one or two actual movies that went out on the pay per view and subscription networks, we'd had that talk, and we sort of decided it was better if I just moved into the spare bedroom. It wasn't like either of us were in love or anything, and it was still a sort of friends with benefits thing for both of us, which was nice, because I did like him.

"What's the new film going to be about, April? Can you tell me?" Oh yeah, John. We were doing that interview. That next film?

"Social Studies?" I smiled, and John blinked. "Sure I can tell you. It's about this Asian student. She's, like, this totally politically correct bitch at Berkeley who's really up herself, she's doing gender studies or some crap like that, and she's got a boyfriend. You know, some metrosexual soyboy you see right at the start, totally supportive, and into female empowerment, and supporting women and anti-racism, and all that woke cuck crap, and she meets this racist white frat guy on campus, and he abuses the fuck out of her when they meet, and she finds him, like, totally irresistible, and she can't help herself. She goes to his frat house to see him, and he ends up fucking her real good in his room, along with half a dozen of his frat house buddies. It's gonna be a really hot sort of gangbang movie, we lifted the script straight from a story on this website, Literotica or someth...."

"Cool, that's all I need on that, April. Not going to mention that you guys lifted the script, and yeah, I know Literotica. Grew up reading those stories, some of them are great. I write a few there myself, and there's this Chloe Tzang who writes stuff there, man, her stories are the best! Love to see you star in films of a few of her stories. That'd be totally epic."

"Really?" I blinked. I'd actually read some of her stories too, when Paul and I were looking for a few plots to steal. They were hot, and now that he mentioned it, yeah, I could kind of see myself as Altani, in One Night in Xanadu, or, you know, Chuntao in Tales From Old Shanghai. A bit outside Paul's budget though.

"Oh yeah!" John was getting excited. "Man, I have wet dreams over someone filming that On The Beach story, or that Mistaken Identity book of hers... or hey, that new Sci-Fi story she just had published, in that "Lust in Space" anthology, you know, "Penetration Testing," but we're doing you, not her, so how about we do some background on April? Like, I read your bio, the one that Paul sent me. You're nineteen, you've been doing these movies for what, almost six months now, twenty five movies out already, and you're one of the biggest names in the industry already, after you got that real career kickstart back earlier this year, right?"

"Yeah, sure. You recording? I've only got time to tell this once, I've got a busy schedule filming today. Closing off the last couple of takes for Teachers Pet this morning, and we're starting filming for Social Studies tomorrow, and we're doing a dry run for the whole pickup scene. I gotta read through the script before then. There's actually some dialog, which is kinda cool." I giggled. "It's not like people watch my movies for the dialog, after all."

"Not a problem, April. I know that. So let's leave that career kick-start until later, and get started with how a nice Chinese girl from a conservative family of Chinese immigrants got into starring in porn movies to start with? That okay?"

"Uh, sure, I guess. I mean, you already know about me and Gavin, right?"

"Let's talk about Gavin later, April. Why don't we start with your family immigrating to the United States. I mean, your fans all know you're from China originally, but why don't you tell us a little about why you came here?"

"Sure, I can do that, John." I smiled, leaning forward a little, and my tank top slipped completely off one shoulder.

"Aiiyaaaaah, John. Are you alright?" I was used to accidents happening around me, since I'd arrived here. Cars crashing. Guys walking into things. Women walking into things. John disappeared off my display, and there was this crash as he fell off his chair, and okay, I didn't actually mean to flash a boob at him. It just happened.

I did hope he was okay

And okay, okay, I kind of knew why he'd fallen off his chair, and it was my mom's fault. No, not my mom's genes. It was my mom's credit cards, and that's a long story. I'll try and keep it short for you, but it does tie in with me moving to America, so let's start there.

My mom, she'd always had this dream of coming to America, and living that American Dream, which was like this whole idea of America she had in her head, even though she'd never been to America, which is why we were here to start with. She'd made it to America in the end, alright, but she was, like, thirty eight by the time she got here, and it was me that was living her American Dream, and part of that was, well, better let me explain, okay....

I didn't mind that my mom wanted to move to America. My dad was okay with that, because he could have fun with those girlfriends he had back home in China, and dad could afford it. For me, I mean, it seemed like a real adventure, and, you know, opportunities and everything, so I was all for it. I just didn't like my mom's ideas about the whole thing.

My mom, she wanted me to have that all-American experience at high school and university that she'd never had, and she really made sure I was ready for it by stopping off in Seoul for a few weeks, which was kinda funny in a way, because I knew she wanted a facelift and stuff, but seemed there were a few other things she wanted to get done over on the way to our new life in America.

Like, apparently, me.

"Mom! I don't want to go to some plastic surgery clinic in Seoul. I look just fine the way I am!"

I mean, I did think that, back then. I wasn't, like, drop dead gorgeous, but a few guys had asked me out on dates back home in Guangdong. Not just Chinese guys either, because I went to a really good high school, with gweilo students whose parents worked in Guangdong and everything, and a few gweilo teachers as well, and some of the girls dated them, as well as the gweilo guys, quietly, because a lot of Chinese guys got upset with Chinese girls dating gweilos, not that it was any of their business, and if they learnt some manners and treated girls nicely, maybe they'd get dates too, but not me. I didn't date, but I'd been asked. So I wasn't, like, Fan Bing Bing or Angelababy or anything, but it wasn't like I was, you know, unattractive or anything, either.

My protests fell on deaf ears.

"Of course we can do her eyes and her nose, ma'am," that Korean plastic surgeon in Seoul said, totally obsequiously, because my mom was throwing money around like it was confetti. Well, throwing her credit card around anyhow, and it was one of those no-limit ones, and my mom was used to getting whatever she wanted, and she'd already organized pretty much all the upgrades she wanted for herself, because she wanted to look good, and even though she was my mom, she did look hot anyhow, even without the upgrades.

Me, I was thinking, well, dad was going to get a pleasant surprise when he came over to San Francisco and saw her. Sounded like he was going to get even more of a surprise when he saw me.

"Make her eyes a bit rounder, not those little slits. Get rid of those epicanthic folds? Sure, we do that every hour, most popular procedure we do. You'd like that one too? Sure, Mrs. Foo-Lee, let's just add that to the list for you as well."

He'd chuckled. "I can do that one with my eyes closed. Now, I recommend we get rid of that snub-nose. Do that and she won't look like a flat-nosed pug anymore....The cheeks? Yes, we can get rid of that chipmunk look for sure. It'll help if we can shave her jaw so it's not so prominent, and we can fix those rabbit teeth while we're at it, straighten them of course, replace those old fillings, make sure they're as white as the driven snow."

He'd chuckled. "Yes, Mrs. Foo-Lee, of course we can improve the lips. How could you doubt us? Yeah, we do those all the time. How about ones like these, ma'am? Or these. I'd recommend these ones myself, American men do seem to like lips like this."

"Those ones," my mom said, pointing, and her English was lousy. "Cock-sucker lips? That is how you say it? Yes, my daughter will have these cock-sucker lips. Perfect. We wish her to marry a wealthy young man of Chinese-American ancestry. She must look like an angel, and those cock-sucker lips are perfect. I'd like those for myself too. Do not concern yourself with the cost."