Fluff and Blood Pt. 01

- This story is set in an alternate universe from Hematoma. The vampire laws and mythos used in that work are present throughout this short story.-

When I tell people what I do for a living, I will invariably hear someone say that I have the best job in the world. "Wow, Cade! You get a free show every day! That's awesome!" And they're shocked when I just kinda shrug in response. But, listen... When you work as a production assistant for porn shoots, you kinda just end up jaded to the concept after a while.

Don't get me wrong, it's great. There's never a shortage of work, the teams are usually tight and friendly, there's no hotshot millionaires parading around and treating you like garbage. I was a PA for a news station before I ended up with the adult film union, and it sucked hearing all the horrible things that happened in the world day in and day out, with only tiny fluff pieces about old ladies opening bacon-centric bakeries and shit to comfort you, before you go cry in your car about climate change and politics on the way home.

But if you think you're gonna be hanging around getting to watch girls fuck all day... I mean, you do, but the magic's kinda lost when you see all the work that goes into making those shoots. It's hard work for everyone involved, the stars included, and I think the novelty of getting a free show wore off after my fifth day of holding a light up to a chick's ass so the camera guy could get a good shot. I haven't had a boner at work since.

A PA's job isn't exactly glamorous, no matter what project you're working on. I run cables, I set up lights, I fix props, I fetch crap, I started doing tech support on computer gear when no one else could troubleshoot it. In porn shoots, you just have the added task of freshening up the lube, cleaning cum spray off camera lenses, and washing dildos if you're unlucky. But even if I can't jerk off to professional videos anymore, knowing what goes into them, the whole industry and how it works is still pretty fascinating to me.

Like the crazy advent of Vamp porn a few years back.

See, this was back when I was working at the news station, and this was the story of the fucking year when it happened - turns out vampires are real and they've been living among us under the protection of an organization simply called the Society since whenever. There was a huge long thing about why and how they came to go public, and it was crazy. Prominent vampire figures came out of the woodwork to assure the general public of their safety and to explain that they weren't really all that different from you and I, minus the... everything. Of particular interest to me was the revelation that a late-night radio DJ from my hometown back east, who joked that he was a vampire... actually was one. Go figure.

Anyway, how long do you think it took for vampires to end up as part of the porn industry?

By the time I moved careers, Vamp porn was already quickly rising in popularity. The year I got my first job, I remember "Vamp" being the most popular search term on the biggest streaming site. And sure, there were plenty of stars who pretended to be vampires in films, but they weren't as popular as even the amateur real vamps. Nobody could compete with their unnatural beauty, their unmatchable stamina, or the unnameable allure that they had and we just... didn't. So Vamp stars were in high demand, and the most popular of those were damn near red-carpet famous.

But I had never actually worked on set with one.

Not until the offer.

✖✖✖

There are porn stars who work entirely for themselves, who negotiate their own contracts and book their own shoots, and I have to respect them for it. For the most part, though, it's just not reasonable to expect them to handle all the details and not get taken advantage of through work agreements... So agents, like my friend Mackenzie, book jobs and go over contracts for them. Mackenzie was actually the one who helped me get my foot in the door in adult film. I always told her I owed her big for that, but in the five years I knew her, she hadn't collected on that debt. I had no reason to suspect she was going to break that tradition one of the many times she escorted one of her stars to a set I was working on. I was rolling power cables up over one arm during cleanup when she came up for a chat, all pinned blonde hair and angular glasses looming over my hunched back.

"Hey," I said. "Sorry I didn't say hi earlier. You looked like you were pretty busy with -"

"Cade, hold on," she interrupted me. "We need to talk. Remember that big favor you owe me?"

Oh, boy. I hefted the cable roll over my shoulder and went on working, knowing she'd just tail me while I did. "Why am I suddenly scared to know what you're gonna ask?" I said. "Must be huge if you're finally cashing in."

"It is," said Mackenzie. Her high heels clicked around after me while I loaded a cart with the stuff I'd organized. "I have a job for you."

"A job? That's it? Not much of a favor. People need a PA, I sign up."

"It's a different kind of job," she insisted.

I laughed. "What, did one of your actors back out of a contract? I mean, if you need Asian Twink, I might fit..."

"Not that either," she snapped. "God, Cade, seriously. Can we just go get coffee and I'll tell you about it?"

I frowned. "You can't talk here?"

Mackenzie crossed her arms and sucked her teeth. "Do you want me to buy you coffee or not?"

I am incapable of refusing free food.

Half an hour later, Mackenzie and I were settled at a coffee place around the corner. She didn't even complain about the price of the cold brew frap I asked for. Boy, she must have really needed that favor.

Mackenzie had drained half of her own latte before she finally broached the subject. "Do you know London?" she asked me abruptly.

I took a sip of my drink and frowned. "Like... the city? I mean, I've never been-"

"The Vamp Star," she said. "London Saint-Michel? That one."

I blinked. "Well... yeah. Everyone knows him."

And it was true, at least for anyone in the industry... or Vamp viewers... or subscribers of popular magazines. It was impossible not to know the name. I had definitely never seen him in person, but he was really the face of the Vamp industry at the moment. Pansexual, beautiful, and well-endowed, a combination of traits that made him the ideal male Vamp star... But I was starting to remember why he was more familiar to me in particular.

"Hold on - you're his agent, right?" I asked her.

Mackenzie didn't seem to be all that proud of that right then. "Yes," she sighed.

"Shit," I said, "I forgot about that. Bet he makes you tons."

"If he took every gig he got offered, I would have to dump every other client I have. As it is, I'm lucky he doesn't need me to go with him to all his shoots."

"Okay. What about him?"

Mackenzie sighed again, more heavily this time. Before she could speak, she knocked back the rest of her latte in one go. "Okay," she said. "London needs an... assistant."

"For real?" I fidgeted with my straw. "I mean... I'm not really any good as a secretary or that shit."

"Not like that," she said, her voice lowering. "More accurately, he needs a fluffer."

The cafe's music and chatter filled in the silence at our table. Unable to hold it in, I snorted into my hands.

"Oh, god," I wheezed. "Oh, man... wait, you're serious, aren't you?"

"Yes, I am."

"You, uh... you know fluffers are a myth, right?" I grinned. "Guys don't get people to jack them off before shoots. Maybe they did once, but everybody just uses meds now."

"Well, the little blue pill doesn't work for vampires," said Mackenzie. "Do you know how they work? Like, how they have sex? Have you seen Vamp porn?"

"Can't say I'm an expert."

"Well, they don't have a pulse on their own. It's not possible for a vampire to achieve erection by themselves."

"You really just don't mind just talking about this in public, do you, Kenz?"

"Meaning they have to drink human blood to get hard," she continued, ignoring me. "So, yes... in Vamp porn, fluffers do exist."

I stared into my near-empty frap. "Hold on," I said slowly. "Are you asking me to fluff him? Like... letting him drink my blood. That's what you're asking."

She waved a hand. "It's completely safe. No risk."

"That's not really what I'm worried about. Why do you need someone specifically for that purpose? They show vamps biting their partners all the time. What, is he picky?"

"No," she said, rolling her eyes. "His co-stars refuse to let him bite."

"For real? But in the videos..."

"They fake it. It's just clever camera angles and half-decent acting. Porn stars almost never get bitten on camera. But that's why he needs someone. I'm sick of trying to finagle volunteers on set. I'm sure he's sick of it, too."

I looked past Mackenzie, staring out the window at the people passing by as I considered her words. Though they were few and far between, you could tell who was a vampire when it was sunny and warm like today. One girl crossing the street was wearing long sleeves and clutching a parasol tight to her shoulder.

"So what I'm offering is a job opportunity, basically," said Mackenzie, recapturing my attention. "A good one."

"I have a job," I told her. But I couldn't help but be curious. "When you say good..."

✖✖✖

I really like being a PA. It's hard as fuck, but it's fun. That being said, I'd be lying if I said that the numbers Mackenzie quoted me weren't a big factor in my decision.

Here's how she sold it to me: London apparently didn't do more than two or three shoots a month on average, so I'd be getting a bi-weekly opportunity, and I was free to do my PA thing as long as I kept those days he was filming open. Yes, I might be expected to act as his assistant in small ways on set outside of my role as his blood donor. But it didn't sound all that much different than what I already did, minus all the labor and technical shit.

Okay. An easy job that I could do a couple times a month. What's the pay? I asked her.

The answer was twelve hours minimum at my normal overtime rate. If the shoot doesn't go that long, I still get paid for the whole day.

Isn't that a little much to be paying a fluffer? I asked.

Not if it's London Saint-Michel's fluffer, she said.

Which was now my title.

The first gig I was expected to attend was the following week, and during that time I familiarized myself with the famed Vamp star. I liked to look into the details of upcoming jobs in general. But I'd never had a research topic as easy as London, or as daunting. It was both a boon and a bane that there was so much material on him, because on one hand I could just reach out into the ether and come back with a handful of articles and videos and interviews in which he featured. On the other, this made it really hard to pick a direction to go in, and I found myself going down less of a rabbit hole and more of a sprawling system of ant tunnels.

If nothing else, he was interesting.

I quickly learned that London wasn't just popular in Vamp mags - he'd been featured pretty strongly in Playgirl and several gay male presses, and even had a (chaste) photoshoot in GQ. Vamp stars usually fell into some category of appeal or another: gothic, leather, and the disturbingly popular "Forever Barely Legal" among them. But London seemed to be in a class of his own, at the junction of high-fashion and rockstar.

I had seen pictures of London before, at least, but never really looked very close. Like most vampires, he was youthful, appearing somewhere in his late twenties, with perfect pale skin. I'm admittedly bisexual myself, but London wasn't usually my type. That said, he didn't have to be for me to see his allure. One look, and it was easy to see why he stood out among his kind. As far as I knew, vampires couldn't dye their hair, so the white in London's shoulder-length locks had to be natural - which was further proven to me in his nude shots when I saw that it matched the carpet. His eyes were a violently deep shade of blue. Even as a human, he must have been beautiful, because even turning couldn't have given his face that incredible structure, the hard jawline, the high cheekbones, the soft and inviting shape of his mouth... In every spread he shot, he appeared perpetually bored and careless, and yet he seemed fully aware of how to move his body in order to bring out the best in every feature, as well as how to vary the intensity of his eyes, how to glower at the camera as if to say "You don't deserve to fuck me, and you know it."

And it was a good thing he was able to say so much with his body, because even in articles where he spoke with interviewers - and those were few and far between - he kept his answers incredibly short and brusque. In one article with Pink (very originally titled 'Interview with the Vampire', haw haw), the journalist seemed to have a particularly hard time wrestling answers out of him.

Q: The Vamp industry has been growing exponentially in the last few years. Do you feel you have to compete with newer stars?

A: No.

Q: Why do you say that?

A: Because I don't.

A veritable fount of charisma, for sure. I couldn't tell if he was a dick or... just shy.

That being said, he wasn't wrong. There were other Vamp stars who emulated London's grace, his style, his devil-may-care presence... But I never saw anyone really rise to his level. His social media presence was enormous, and yet he barely made posts revealing himself as a person, hardly followed anyone back, and never reacted or responded to any of his thousands of starving fans.

Near the tail end of my research, my curiosity eventually did lead me to watch a couple of his films, mostly because Mackenzie gave me a few for free - most were available only on subscription sites. He seemed to be willing to work with any partner, regardless of color, gender identity, or body type... But I began to notice a trend in every video, no matter what genre or setup.

However real the bite looked, the camera never stayed on London for a continuous shot when his fangs met skin. He really hadn't ever drawn blood from a partner on screen.

✖✖✖

At the end of my exploration, I still wasn't really sure what kind of a person London was. But honestly, my best guess might have sufficed.

I showed up to the set of my first assignment an hour early so I could familiarize myself with what would be going on that day, and - since I figured it might fall under the job description - to see what London might need help with throughout the shoot. The filming was being done in one of the warehouses this particular production team used for all their movies. I was actually familiar with a lot of the people there as it was. I'd worked under the director, Craig, and seen London's redhead co-star, Lizette Marin (stage name), at work before. It was a good start at least, being in tune with my surroundings.

I snagged a copy of the script while making my rounds and was ever so slightly amused by the project. The film itself, as it turned out, was the most cliche and boring waste of London's ability I'd seen yet, at least in my opinion as someone who wasn't even a fan of his. London was playing a stereotypical Dracula-type undead whose castle was invaded by a curious young woman (Lizette) who would inevitably become his prey. The set was done up like the bedroom in a creepy Transylvanian castle, complete with tattered silk and velvet bedding, fake cobwebs in the brocade drapes, and a large, awful portrait framed in gold on one of the stone walls. Judging by the white hair and blue eyes, this random aristocratic stock photo had been photoshopped to look like London (not very convincingly), then printed out and daubed with paint to make it look like an oil painting as long as no one scrutinized it very well. Apparently this was London's character. According to the script, he was supposed to stand in the plywood coffin leaning up against the wall, then pop out at the right moment to force the hapless maiden into his bed. I was actually surprised London had agreed to this; it seemed below him. Then again, they probably didn't have any budget left for a better set once they'd paid Lizette and London their fees. I knew what it was like to have this little to work with.

London wasn't the first big-name porn star I'd shared a room with at work before, but the atmosphere around even the biggest was usually pretty casual.

So I was momentarily caught off-guard when London's arrival caused a small stir.

He strode purposefully into the production area some fifteen minutes before we were scheduled to start shooting, and people either scurried out of his way or jogged alongside him to bring him up to speed before adjoining to wherever they needed to be. It wasn't hard to see the pressure he exerted just by being there.

The photos and films hadn't done him justice, or portrayed just how fierce and proud the air was around him. His outfit - chained ankle boots, slim ripped jeans, loose black muscle shirt, - was worn like he'd rolled out of bed in it. He sported designer sunglasses with gradient lenses, for the sun or for looks I couldn't tell. The hair that hung over one shoulder wasn't just platinum, but milk-white and shimmering, and half was tucked behind one ear to display the large silvery cross dangling from it. A clip-on, I knew, because vampires couldn't retain piercings... Clip-on jewelry had gotten pretty popular since their coming-out for that exact reason. I also knew that, although the cross wouldn't have hurt him, it would have if it was actually made of silver, and was probably stainless steel instead... White gold maybe, depending on how much he'd been willing to spend on something like that.

I ended up so lost in thought over the logistics of undead jewelry that it was several seconds before I realized that London was standing directly in front of me, staring me down through his oversized shades.

My stomach fluttered. I hadn't expected Mackenzie to tell London how to find me. "Uh - hey!" I stammered, thrusting my hand out. "I'm Cade, it's nice to -"

"You're in the way," he said tonelessly.

I blinked and looked over my shoulder. I was standing in front of a door with a paper taped to it reading "London Saint-Michel". His dressing room. Okay, maybe he hadn't come over to say hi after all. I sidestepped the door awkwardly. "Yeah. My bad." When he brushed past me and opened the door, I went on in a rush. "Mackenzie sent me over to assist you today. Did she tell you?"

That made him stop. Hand still on the door, London turned his head my way, paused, then lifted his shades to let his gaze wander me from top to bottom and back again... This didn't unnerve me much, but holy shit - when his eyes finally came back to rest on mine, I was startled by how deep the color was in person: not just blue, but nearly indigo. It didn't matter which way you swung. The guy was a snack, full stop. Fuck, if I was him, I'd shoot porn, too.

"You're the fluffer?" said London abruptly, snapping me out of another trailing thought.

"Uh - yeah," I replied, hesitant. I mean, the way he said it made it sound way dirtier than Mackenzie did, though.

"And you're wearing that?"

"Huh?" I quickly looked down at my outfit. I hadn't worn anything crazy... Canvas sneakers and chinos, and since I'd wanted to look a tiny bit professional, I'd put on a blue polo shirt with - oh, fuck. "Y... Oh, you mean my collar? Is it, like, in the way?"

London rolled his eyes and pulled his shades off. "Whatever. I'll manage." He seemed about to shut himself in his room, then glanced at my hands. "Is that my copy?"

I was still holding the script. I flipped it back to the first page and held it out. "It's, uh, Just an extra I grabbed. I can go find yours if you -"