The Grande Futapest Hotel Ch. 07

They walked down the beach, watching as the sand gave way to millions of polished rocks. They looked perfect for skipping, but skipping them on the churning surf would be unsatisfying.

"Is anyone going to be out here?" Layla asked, watching her feet as she set them down on the treacherous stones.

"This beach is too rocky for what most people want to do on the beach." She set herself down and looked out to the surf. "But for sitting and watching the waves... it's nice."

"We could have done that from the porch."

"Not sitting on a bunch of wet rocks, we couldn't."

"Are your rocks wet?"

"No."

They sat next to each other and watched as the surf rolled up to the rocks.

"Are we going to have sex out here? Because that sounds uncomfortable."

"It does, and no, we're not." Selena answered. "It's just... nice to get away from all the technology for a bit. Even on vacation, we're still connected to our businesses through our phones. You were even emailing people about your streams."

"I was... just emailing out gift cards to my moderators." Layla said. "For... their help last week."

"What was the longest you've gone without your phone?"

Layla considered that. Most women her age were essentially born with a phone and never put it down. "Once I worked a whole shift without it because I forgot it wasn't in my purse." She answered. "It was weird going without it for that long."

"That's why this is such a nice change of pace." Selena said. "Get away from the phones, from email and Twitter and whatever else... and just relax and think about stuff. Maybe even talk about stuff without the government listening in."

"Do you believe they do that?"

"Not really the government, but tech companies... maybe. In fact, very likely." Selena said. "I find most conspiracies discouraging more than frightening, but... I still have a VPN, for whatever good that does. The thing with a VPN is... you have to trust the company encrypting your data to not look at it before it gets encrypted."

"Well, who do you think would be more likely to spy on you: the government or tech companies?"

"That's a good question." Selena rued. "Both are careers filled with greedy and amoral men, but only one of them do we get to vote for."

Layla blew out a sigh. "True enough."

"So... what's on your mind, Layla?"

Layla tightened. "Me? Uh..."

She thought a bit. She knew what she wanted to say, but...

"I... really want to thank you for this opportunity. This last week or so has been so great."

"It's been great for me, too, Layla. Don't forget that." Selena put her arm around Layla. "And that's not what I was fishing for. I really want to know if there's something on your mind, something you wouldn't tell your fans, or maybe even your friends or family."

Layla took a breath. While in Selena's arms, on a tropical island twenty five hundred miles away from home... all her worries felt very far away indeed.

"No, I feel good." Layla brought her head up from Selena's shoulders. "But something is clearly weighing on you, so... why don't you tell me what is is?"

They looked into each other's eyes for a few seconds. For once, it didn't end in a kiss. Selena instead turned back towards the eternally churning surf.

"Do you know Nancy's Law?"

Layla shook her head no.

"Nancy's Law is the American law that stops parents from altering the gender of a futanari at birth."

"Oh, that!" Layla knew there was such a law, but didn't know the name. "Well, that's a good thing."

Selena took a few seconds to respond, "Is it?"

"What do you mean? If that law wasn't there, we'd have been 'assigned' by some damn doctor."

"I was actually born before Nancy's Law." Selena noted. "But... the law is written in a way that has been interpreted as... a futa can't go through any reassignment until they're old enough to consent, and by 'old enough,' they mean eighteen years old."

Selena let the waves crash against the beach twice before continuing. "I've heard lots of stories about people figuring out that they're transgender long before they're eighteen."

"I've..." Layla hesitated. "never heard of a transgender futa."

"How could you? It's not allowed until they're adults. You'd have thought that our existence would have been the wedge that would have finally broken the gender binary for good. But instead... the binary became the ternary. Now that we're here, people can tell a transgender youth, 'you're not a woman with a penis. That's a futanari, and you're not one of those.' Nothing has changed. There were white and black chess pieces, White and Black Spy, and now there's gray.

"Worse, futanari moving in to porn has apparently hurt transgender porn stars. It's trended down every year since I came on the scene. The gravity of my star power has changed everything... is that wrong?"

"You earned everything you have right now, Selena." Layla insisted. "Unless you're hiding something, like you embezzled money and kept that secret."

"No, of course not." Selena shook her head. "I'd rather be broke than go to jail. Even cuddly minimum security celebrity jail. I made plenty of money, and I'm not one of these nihilists who always needs more."

The waves of the sea grew louder, though perhaps it was Selena's imagination. She continued, "You know who Sinéad O'Connor is?"

Layla shook her head.

"Do you watch Saturday Night Live?"

Layla sneered, as though Selena had asked if she watched The Lawrence Welk Show. "No."

"She was a musician who got in a lot of hot water in 1992 when she was the musical guest on SNL. At the end of the song, she pulled out a picture of the Pope and tore it in half."

A short silence. "Why?"

"To protest the Catholic Church's failure to control the abuse of children at the hands of their priests."

Layla noticed the incongruity in that statement. "THAT was controversial?"

"Somehow, opposing child abuse was controversial, yeah. That act made her more publicly hated than the Unabomber. This was how people acted before the Comet. They got wrapped up in stuff that didn't matter and that they didn't understand.

"Don't get me wrong. O'Connor made her own bed that night. If you know two things about SNL, it's that... it was best whenever YOU started watching, and that Lorne Michaels hates when people go off-script on his live program. She drilled a hole in her own boat.

"Then there was the Dixie Chicks, who were derailed by publicly opposing the war in Iraq. As country singers, maybe they should have known who was buttering their toast, but it's not like they were wrong. During the Civil war, William Hammond was removed as Surgeon General because he banned the medical use of mercury chloride, which was poisonous. He was completely right to do so, but it didn't matter. It was unpopular, and he paid the price. Wow, if I wanted to sound smart, I should have started with this one, huh?"

"It's alright, Selena."

"I feel like I should speak out against Nancy's Law, or at least in favor of amending it, but... I really hate when celebrities talk about issues. And what I'm about to say is definitely an unpopular opinion. Or maybe it's popular with lots of people that I wouldn't respect. But..."

She took a breath. "I'm sorry, I don't sympathize with Colin Kaepernick. Not because he protested during the national anthem. That doesn't bother me. The important thing is he did it while he was AT WORK. Football may be a game, but for him, it was his job. And when you're at work, your bosses CAN limit your speech, your behavior, while you're working for them and representing them. The NFL handled the whole situation terribly, of course. But I've always thought that celebrity protests would almost always be better if they just shut up and gave money anonymously to something that was working towards what they want.

"I would take them more seriously if every celebrity protest wasn't hooking on to a trend that wasn't already part of the zeitgeist. Mark Ruffalo is out there protesting petroleum fracking. Seth Rogen has a charity for Alzheimer's research. I think his grandma had Alzheimer's or something, but the point is... he didn't start that because everyone else was doing it. Kaepernick's heart is obviously in the right place, and I think he's correct morally, but what really was accomplished with his protest?"

"The phrase 'sheds more heat than light' comes to mind." Layla slipped in.

"Yes, that's perfect." Selena said. "And there's so many issues that nobody wants to talk about, like the appalling conditions of our prisons, or that the Nestle company buys millions of gallons of water from strained Californian aquifers for essentially nothing so they can sell it back to us in non-biodegradable plastic bottles, or the fact that everyone blames illegal immigrants for conditions created by corporations that make millions exploiting them and not paying them a minimum wage. That's just straight up blaming the victim right there.

"So if I speak out about against Nancy's Law, I'll get loads of people saying I've gone all Fox News on them, as they all ignore the thousands of times people have commented that they liked me... until I *became* an SJW when I spoke out on some thing I thought we could all agree on.

"Kakalina hates me because I'm the most famous futa, and thus all futa get associated with porn. Fine. I understand that. I've had lots of haters, lots of death threats. I can handle her hating me for something reasonable like that. But if I go out against Nancy's Law... what if the Internet just decides that I'm the latest person they want to cancel?"

"Selena..." Layla began solemnly. "If you're not in a position to say something about this... then who is?"

The waves crashed against some nearby rocks. A pit opened in Selena's stomach, and her hand was pulled towards it, clutching it tightly. Her eyes filled with tears.

Layla quickly wrapped her arms around Selena. She sniffed and sobbed a few times before Layla pulled her head in for a long kiss.

The tears mostly evaporated from her eyes, Selena looked at Layla, her breath still a little ragged.

"Thank you so much, Layla." She huffed.

"Don't do anything rashly." Layla said. "I'm sure there's someone out there who opposes Nancy's Law. Find who they are, find some other experts, find out what they think... do some research, find the arguments on both sides. Maybe there is a defense of Nancy's Law. Maybe it would be worse if it wasn't there when all the futa my age were born."

Selena's mood chilled a bit, as her eyes moved around, planning things in her head. "Yeah..." She said. "This sounds like it could be fun to make a difference in a way that's... not just writing checks."

With a breath that seemed to bring the spirit back into Selena, she stood up.

"That was it?" Layla asked, as Selena helped her up off the rocks. "That's what was weighing on you?"

"I had to get it off my chest. It's been there for months... years."

"Well... there's something I should get off my chest."

"Finally going to give up bras?" Selena joked, only to see Layla's hand go into her bra and pull out...

Her phone.

"Layla, I said no phones." Selena said testily. "What the hell?"

"What if you broke your ankle out there?! What then?" Layla snapped back.

Selena reached into her purse and removed a phone of her own... a very old candy-bar style phone of liquid crystal display and indestructible design.

"I... probably should have told you I had this for emergencies." She said before putting it back. "I doubt anyone's listening through this old thing. But... good job being prepared."

They walked back towards the hotel.

"You ever read MAD Magazine?"

"No, but I know who the Black and White Spy are."

"Did you know there was actually a Grey Spy?"

"No."

"She was this beautiful blonde woman. She existed somewhere between those two sides..." Selena leaned in closer. "And in the end, she always, ALWAYS won."

---

Selena and Layla spent most of the day relaxing on the porch, feeling the cool breeze. When the sun went down and the chill came in, they retired to their bedroom and watched television while snuggling. Perhaps the snuggling was the primary action and the watching television was the secondary action, as neither of them were really paying that much attention. Layla didn't even wait for a commercial before asking something.

"If you had to give one piece of advice to up-and-coming porn star..." Layla began.

"You first." Selena said. "I think you know what I'll say, and I want to hear what you think is important."

Layla was momentarily on the back foot. She thought of the first few awkward months. She didn't even show her face for the first few weeks. Then again, when she finally showed it, everyone in chat wondered why she'd hide such a nice face.

"If I was giving advice to a fellow camgirl or streamer... in the first few months, I would have to sit in a way where I could reach the keyboard, or at least a wireless USB keyboard, to ban spambots and trolls who would disrupt the chat. I would never mention what they said, and I would never draw attention to them when I banned them. Because being a girl on the Internet--not even a futa, just as a female--taught me that giving them ANY reaction at all... means that they won.

"Once I had been doing it long enough to recognize a few names in chat who kept coming back, I asked them if they wanted to be my moderators. And since then, I've never once had to worry about trolls. They took care of them and I barely notice it. They are worth their weight in gold."

"Never let them see you react." Selena condensed the story into a single sentence.

"Yeah." Layla nodded. "There are trolls who take pleasure at getting banned from these chats, and share their screenshots of being blocked. This is something I've never understood, why someone would be proud that they bothered someone, that they acted like a jerk."

"I used to be a muter, not a blocker, on Twitter." Selena said. "But then someone pointed out that only muting someone doesn't stop them from seeing the tweets... and seeing other people who respond to them and going after THEM."

"Oh." Layla hadn't known this.

"For a small-time user, muting is probably fine. But for someone as big as me, I need to block. If that means that they win, well... it'll be the only time in their life."

"Well... what's your advice for someone trying to break into actual mainstream porn?"

"Get good at something else, too." Selena answered. "Stay in school if you possibly can. Find the job you can do after it's all over. I know I didn't do any of those things, and it drives me crazy when people point to me as an example of how to do it right. But I was the first twelve-inch futa on the scene, and that moment is long gone. I completely overextended and I had no backup but to go back to Illinois and start over. I don't recommend others take such a jump. It's not the same out there as it was for me.

"Someone out there with a twelve inch dick will probably find a path laid out for them in porn. But it can all go wrong. Thank goodness I'm not the type to get addicted to drugs or whatever. It's like people pointing out that Bill Gates was a college dropout. Yeah, but he was Bill Gates. And there's a lot of people who are just as good as Bill Gates who you haven't heard of... because of the winds of fate."

There was a moment of total silence between commercials.

"Do you have a plan for what you'll do after streaming?"

Layla hesitated.

"If I say no, is that bad?"

"Well, I think most nineteen-year-olds don't have that much planned ahead."

"I should think I could do the streaming thing for at least two or three more years. Maybe longer."

"I think you'll still be sexy and lovable well into your fifties. But that's not really what I'm getting at."

"What do you mean, then?"

"Layla... do you love streaming?"

Layla turned her head back towards Selena's for a moment. "I love not having any other job."

"No. I mean... when you stream, and you whip it out for the Internet and come buckets... is that what you love? Or is there something else you'd rather be doing as a job? To love it isn't to like it a lot; to love it is to hate if you weren't allowed to do it anymore."

Layla looked down and thought for a while. "If I weren't allowed to do it anymore and I had to get a normal..." She stopped herself. "That's not the answer you're looking for."

"No, it isn't."

Layla sighed. "I know I can't do it forever. Eventually, people will lose interest, the market will keep expanding with more and more futa coming of age every year, and it will be tougher. I know that eventually, I will have to take this and turn it into something else.

"Despite working maybe... fifteen hours a week of on-camera broadcast time, being a camgirl is still tough. It's draining, it's frustrating when these websites do a redesign that changes how people get notified that I'm going live, or someone posts my streams on Xvideos or whatever and they won't take it down because I can't prove I am the woman in the stream, or even if just some toxic jerk decides that I represent something bad and wants to ruin my stream for others.

"So... the answer is probably 'no.' I don't love it so much that there would be a piece missing from my life if I had to stop. But I do love it. I love my fans. I love dressing up and being sexy. Obviously I love being paid to masturbate. Where was that booth on career day? I even love that most of my fans are OK if I have a 'slow day,' when I'm not feeling super sexy and I just chat for a few hours. Sometimes I get into it and I jerk off and everyone's happy, and all the losers who were like..." Layla mimed typing with both hands. "I don't care, show off your tits, show off your balls, blehhh... well, by that time, they're all gone.

"I couldn't have a slow day at my old job. At the coffee shop... I mostly worked hard just to do it, because it felt like a walk in the park compared to all the stuff I had to do on the farm. And after a year, I got Employee of the Month. I got a twenty-dollar gift card to Chili's, a floating key chain with the coffee shop's name on it, and a certificate of appreciation, which was a piece of paper in a really crappy cardboard document frame. And my name was misspelled.

"I kept that key chain on my keys to remind myself... not to grow roots there. It's not because I'm special or because I'm worth it or because I'm pretty or any of that. I just can't believe they think THAT what a sufficient reward for how hard I worked. THAT was supposed to be an incentive. Why not just barely put in the effort and float just above the Mendoza line like all the other disenchanted California youths who could barely tear themselves away from their phones?

"So... that's when I knew I had to push the stream harder. I just had to get out of there. The goal was to do that full-time and to save up some money, and eventually... I had enough saved up to take a chance. And now... it's paying all the bills."

"Do you like making videos? Could you become a video editor?"

"I hate every second I have to look at a video editor." Layla shook her head. "I've got a few fans who edit stuff and send me 'come-pilations' to post to the archive. I've paid for them in gifts."

"Like what?"

Layla started to blush faintly. "One wanted a pair of my panties."

"Did you do it?"

She nodded. "It's worth it. He evidently likes editing. If I made tons of money, I'd hire him to edit everything."

"Let's say that... you had enough money that you didn't have to work at all for a few years." Selena began. "Then... what would you do? What would be the thing you'd do to spend your time and try to make a living at?"

"Are you asking me what my dream job is?" Layla asked.