Porno Romance by Danny Wylde

I don’t know how this usually works. Really, I don’t. The coffee shop romance, the cubicle affair; this stuff is outside of my experience. It’s in the realm of the unreal for me.

But, I play out these scenarios all the time. I’ve been an office manager, an interior designer, a high end photographer, and a pool boy. Each time I seem to fuck something up. And each time, the client still sucks my cock.

Porn is the purveyor of happy endings. I’m the guy who always gets the girl. It’s just that come tomorrow, someone else gets her too.

In the world of machismo, it’s not so bad. I can fuck a few hundred women and never look back. But the hopeless romantic still resides in me. Every once in a while he’ll stick his head up. He’ll tell me this whole thing is a sham.

Its a bit more complicated than that though. Sometimes that side of me is wrong.

I sat on set with a girl I’d only met twice before. The first time, I thought she was cute. The second, easy enough to talk to. By the third, I just wanted to fuck. And afterwards, well…with some people, fucking’s not really enough.

A few months spent together and I still hadn’t got my fill. By that time, I had to admit it. I was in love.

Today my heart’s in the same place. I’m still riding that high that every couple wants to last forever.

Other people can be a problem though. And I guess it’s not much of a problem, sometimes things are just complicated.

“Like how do you deal with it? Knowing your girl is going to work to get fucked…” Someone asked me this on the phone, someone I’m sort-of friends with.

“Well, I do the same thing. Maybe if I didn’t, things would be different. Besides, if you take away all that societal conditioning, I don’t think it’s that difficult to get over. I mean, sexual monogamy is cultural, right?”

Sure, but I’m from the United States, raised Christian, and subject to the same media as every other post-modern kid. Sexual monogamy is part of my culture. Sometimes it feels like a part of my brain.

Scratch that. Jealousy is a part of my brain. Not monogamy.

We’re at a convention and I’m watching her from twenty yards away. “Some day I want to be able to yell at motherfuckers for groping my girlfriend,” I joke.

The person I’m talking to smiles, maybe laughs. So does the guy with his arm around her.

She looks like she’s supposed to: cute, available, fuckable, whatever. Still, she walks back and kisses me. Our arms are around each other. It’s obvious we’re together.

The guy doesn’t look upset. His attention is drawn elsewhere. He was just expressing his admiration. She was networking.

“I think you have to be a certain type of person, or just learn to make it work. But when you love someone, you should be happy when they’re successful. You should love the fact that they can make money doing something they enjoy.

“Like, your girlfriend works at Starbucks, right? She probably hates every yuppie she serves an Espresso to. And she’s getting paid what?.”

This guy says, “I don’t know. Not very much.” And he makes a face that means he still doesn’t get it.

Sometimes it’s hard to determine whether these issues are real. Other people bring them up. But when I’m with her, it’s not something I think about all that much.

I guess it was weird the first time my ex showed me one of her videos. Somewhere along the line, she mentioned that her scene partner was “Male Performer of the Year.” So I was watching her get fucked by the industry-standard best guy at fucking.

Still, she was in bed with me, showing me stuff she liked or was good at. She was trying to impress me. If we were in high school, she could have played me an acoustic cover of her favorite ballad. Maybe I wouldn’t be that into it. But I’d still listen. Something about it would still make me smile.

The jealousy’s just a way to feel sorry for myself, or pretend that I’m not enough. But apart from moguls and tycoons, no one’s enough to keep their partner from going to work.

Love is grand and all, but without money, it’s hard to do that sappy shit like cuddle up in the back booth of a restaurant or go see a movie you don’t actually want to watch. And I like doing those things.

I also like having sex for a living. So it’s not hard to imagine that my girlfriend does too. If she did something else, people would still get her attention. She’d just give it in some other way.

At the end of the day, it’s a job. I’m human, so I get jealous and protective, and whatever. I also light up when I see this girl is happy. Porno romance or not, it works.

To the interrogators, the other people: it’s really not so bad. I get the girl in the movies, then come home and it’s for real.

Danny Wylde is a pornographer, writer, and filmmaker living in Los Angeles, California. He updates his personal blog at http://trvewestcoastfiction.blogspot.com.