Absolute Mayhem (6 page)

When I started stripping, I didn't really know what
I was doing, but I practised my moves when the club
was empty and hung out with some of the other girls
and got tips from them. I did enjoy the social elements
of the job. When I wasn't on stage, I had to sit and chat
and drink with the guys, which came very easily to me
since I love to talk to new people, and I soon got the
hang of it. Dancing naked for a bunch of Londoners:
that does sound so strange after all those years in the
financial markets, but the truth was that, for me, it was
easy getting naked after a few drinks.

The best thing about dancing in London was all the
rules. We had a six-foot rule (meaning the guys had
to keep six feet away from us), so there were no dirty
lap dances, as is common in the States. I was especially
grateful for this when one of the guys from Salomon
Smith Barney came into the Rhino to see me one night.
I gave him a table dance, from six feet away, so he had
no chance of groping me!

The money was pretty good, too. I could get paid
£250 just to sit and have dinner and drinks with the
customers for an hour. Some guys would pay me just to
hang out and talk and drink with them. It was really fun,
and I enjoyed being an entertainer on that very direct,
personal level.

I never saw it as any kind of stepping stone, and
getting into porn never crossed my mind at all. But in
hindsight it was clearly an important transitional period
in my life.

If I could go back in time, I would have stuck with
the singing and acting classes that I'd started in Sydney
and really tried to pursue that, rather than listen to
what my parents wanted me to do. Their not encouraging
me to pursue my dreams – well, that's still quite
devastating to me. However, I think my life would have
gone nowhere had I stayed at the Spearmint Rhino in
London or just carried on as a glamour model doing
soft core shoots. Looking back, I'm so glad I moved on.
I didn't know then about half the things I was about to
do (and might've shrieked in horror if I had known) but
I'm certain that I would never have taken the time to
go to mainstream acting auditions while I was stripping
and doing glamour modelling in the UK.

After the madness of modelling for small-time photographers,
shaking my booty for the lads and louts, and
freezing my butt off while trying to analyse the volatile
financial markets, I was ready for a serious change of
lifestyle. London is a great place to visit but, personally,
I couldn't handle living there. I was a fun-loving Aussie
girl, and palm trees, pink sunsets, miles of beaches and
throngs of beautiful people were much more my scene.
Southern California was waiting for me.

So how did my big move from London to LA come
about? It was simple: one night in December 2000 at the
Spearmint Rhino, a bunch of us were getting drunk after
work as usual when I dared one of the club's owners,
an American, to fl y me back to the States with him. To
my complete astonishment, he called my bluff , and four
hours later we were on a plane – I'd got a free trip to
America!

I left everything behind and flew away on the wings
of sheer spontaneity. I trusted my instincts to guide me
onwards, even if most normal people would scarcely
have considered it a good career move. My only plan at
the time was to travel round the United States, hopefully
making money by stripping, and then return to London
to pick up the things that I'd left behind and take them
and myself back to Sydney.

But things didn't quite turn out that way.

After doing more than 400 movies and magazine
layouts, I find myself randomly remembering
things I had once forgotten. Sequences of events come
back to me in hazy fl ashes and sudden spurts, perhaps
because I wasn't always entirely sober at the time
(although I always am nowadays, as I'm much more
conscious of my image).

This can be quite distracting when you take into
account the outrageous, crazy or just downright ridiculous
things I've experienced. One time, for instance,
a bunch of us were smoking weed on set, and I was
working with this guy who had really long balls. The
camera couldn't see the hardcore action because of
them. So the director yelled out, 'Hey, move your damn
cow udders. I can't see the penetration.' I lost it after
that, and we had to take a break. I was laughing so hard
that tears were coming out of my eyes, and the make-up
artist had to re-do my make-up!

Not being entirely sober on set is a common trait
among quite a few porn stars, though we're not always
allowed to admit it. In fact, we're not supposed to
'fess up to a lot of things. A producer I used to work
with once threw a fit when she read one of my interviews
in which I admitted that I have terrible trouble
achieving orgasm from penetration, which is true and
still remains my biggest problem sexually. But tsk, tsk,
I was a porn star and porn stars don't say things like
that! We're all supposed to be these super-orgasmic
supersluts, don't you know?

Yep, my tough-Aussie swagger and my big mouth,
those sure get me into all kinds of trouble. But I'd rather
speak the truth instead of kowtowing to some prescribed
standard that's hypocritical or false. And
that's
not something
that's common to most porn stars, most of whom
happily toe the line, doing what they're told. I have never
been able to do that, and that could be one of the reasons
why I've never been signed to a contract with any of the
major porn production companies. I've never had time
for all the petty politics and back-stabbing.

So here is the truth about how I got started in the
glamorous profession that I'm in today, to the full
extent that I can actually understand it and make sense
of it all myself!

The Spearmint Rhino guy who flew me from London
lived in Houston, and after we touched down at the
airport there he kindly put me up in a hotel for three
nights. He even had his best friend, some pro-golfer guy,
take me shopping, 'cause I had no clothes and no money!
Then he flew me to Los Angeles with him and got me a
separate room in the hotel where he was staying.

Within my first week of being in LA, he arranged
my first gig – at a Spearmint Rhino, naturally enough.
Unfortunately, it was in the worst possible location – the
nowheresville of the City of Industry, in what Southern
Californians call the Inland Empire. I hated it and didn't
go back, because the guys there were sleazy and kept
trying to grope me. There might not have been a six-foot
rule like there was in London, but there was certainly a
no-touching rule – it was just that some of the creeps in
this place didn't know how to respect it.

After doing the gig, I had my benefactor drop me
off at a hotel downtown – because I didn't realise that
downtown was nowhere near Hollywood! And we said
our goodbyes from there.

Fortunately, my agent in London had referred me to
a really great photographer named Hank Londoner, and
I caught a cab to his studio in Culver City as soon as I
could. When I got there, he told me he wanted to shoot
me for adult magazines. And that's how my new career
began, from London to Londoner! Hank was around
50 years old, with greyish long hair and a moustache
and an interesting accent. (He had come to the United
States from Israel and had started out in New York
before moving to Los Angeles in 1997.) He was very well
known for shooting for
Penthouse
,
Swank
,
Leg World
and many other magazines, and he had also started his
own magazine,
New Rave
, in 1994.

Hank told me he wanted to photograph me exclusively,
so I should get in touch with a guy called Roy
Garcia. Roy would be my agent, and he would 'hold' me
for after Hank got back from his upcoming two-week
holiday. I found out that Roy Garcia had discovered a
lot of major talent (Belladonna, Noname Jane, Bunny
Luv and Kaylani Lei, to name just a few), so I thought
'what the hell' and rang him up. We arranged a meeting,
and he came and met me outside my downtown hotel,
as planned, and drove me to his place in Granada Hills.
There, he asked me a deceptively simple question: 'Do
you want to make a little money or a lot of money?'

I asked what a 'lot of money' would entail, and he
said the magic word, 'Hardcore.'

I said, 'Sure, I'll try that.'

The single burning question most people want to ask a
porn star is surely this: what were you thinking when
you got into it?

Not everyone I meet actually asks it, but I'm sure
they're thinking it. And the answer that a lot of the girls
in the business will give you, if they're being honest, is
'I wasn't'. I know so, because I'm one of those girls.

Not a lot of deep thought went into it, at least not
on any kind of conscious level. Saying I did it for
the money or the drugs or the sex is only part of the
answer. Those are really superficial reasons at best. Was
I thinking? The truth is, I really had no goals coming
into this industry. In the beginning, I did just do it for
the money, and then it kind of grew on me. And I started
to enjoy it, then I started to hate it, then enjoy it, then
hate it, and I just keep going round and round with my
emotions.

Another part of the answer is that porn was a great
way for me to be able to become an actress, even if it
wasn't the kind of acting I had intended on doing when
I was growing up. But at least I got to live a part of my
dream. And I also meant it as kind of a 'fuck you' to
society and all the people who put me down. My newfound
sense of glamour was sweet revenge on those who
had ever made me feel like shit in the past.

When I made that critical decision to leave London
and move so impulsively to Los Angeles, something was
simmering in my brain. What I could never escape from
was the fact that I had been teased my whole school life,
until I was 14, about being skinny and poor and having
big eyes. There were always people saying I would never
amount to anything, because all I wanted to do was be a
singer, dancer, actress and model. Even my own mother
laughed and jeered at me. I guess this was my way of
showing everyone what I was made of (quite literally,
I guess!).

So here I was in LA, about to banish the ghosts of my
abusive childhood and wipe the slate clean, post-London,
post-Brisbane, post-everything from my first 20 years
on the planet. I was going to start anew in Southern
California and reinvent myself as Monica Mayhem.

It didn't take long for Roy to sign me up to shoot my
first hardcore porn film,
Real Sex Magazine #38
. Bill
Witrock was directing and I was starring opposite Lee
Stone. Talk about in at the deep end! It was my very
first time in more ways than one. I had never even seen
a porn movie, I didn't know any names of any porn
stars, and I didn't care. I do remember being a little self-conscious
about whether or not I'd shaved properly!
I didn't know how much pubic hair to leave in place,
and I didn't even know about douching.

Roy explained to me what I needed to know
about shooting porn. He was very professional about
it, by which I mean there was no question of my having
to have sex with him or anything. (And there were
definitely no 'auditions', in case any of you were wondering!)
At the time, I hadn't even had sex in front of a still
camera – I hadn't done it with any kind of camera, still
or moving, at all!

A few days later, Roy drove me to the set, which was
at Bill's house, and I remember being so nervous. I had
not had sex for almost a year, and he kept assuring me
it would be easy. Bill was the cameraman as well as the
director. He was nice and made me feel comfortable.
I immediately received a vibe from him that he'd obviously
done this a thousand times. 'Don't worry, Lee is a
pro,' he said to me. 'He'll take good care of you. This is
going to be really quick.'

I was led straight into make-up and was impressed
at how glamorous the make-up artist made me look –
much better and more natural than I'd looked in my
soft core shoots in London.

Then in came Lee Stone – this huge, very buff and
totally porno-looking guy who was very flirtatious,
which made me feel comfortable and sexy. I had been
worried at first, not knowing if I'd like the guy, but
it turned out I was attracted to him, so everything
was great! I actually don't remember much about the
lead-up to the scene, but my jaw dropped when I saw
him au naturel. His cock was so huge and it was very
uniquely curved.

There were just three of us there in that room in
Bill's house, and Lee and I did it on the bed. I had the
guts to go through with it partly because it sounded
so crazy – like, 'Wow, am I really doing this?' Lee was
indeed a seasoned pro who knew what he was doing
for the camera, so he pretty much just threw me into
each position while Bill filmed and directed. It was over
within an hour.

I can't remember much of it, other than my own
feelings of being very unsure if I had done a good job
or not. I knew full well how to have sex, of course, but
I didn't know how to have sex for the camera. It was
almost like being a virgin all over again. (Well, almost!)

I do remember peeing in the bathtub for some
'behind the scenes' footage. I thought that was a very
odd thing to do and was a little uncomfortable doing it
at first. But hey, I thought, I've peed in the bush many a
time in front of friends, so what the hell!

So that was my first hardcore shoot. I got my cheque
(for US$1500), and when Roy picked me up I told him
I was ready to shoot more. I said to myself, and to Roy,
'If I don't like it, I'll stop doing it.'

It was that direct and straightforward for me. I know
of strippers who say that they can take their clothes off
and spread for men to see their pink but they'd never
do porn. I'm the exact opposite. Spreading my thighs
for a live audience is something I've done a lot, but
I find it a little creepy sometimes. It's too up-close and
personal, and I really have to get a little buzzed before
going onstage and stripping to show my pussy. Porn is a
lot more comfortable for me. I don't really think about
the fact that guys are going to be watching the film and
jerking off to me. The transition was pretty smooth, as
far as I was concerned, and many people have said that
I seemed more experienced than I actually was.

When Hank got back from his holidays, we shot
some hardcore stills in his studio in Culver City, and I
really enjoyed posing for him. They were long days but
good days. I did some solo sets, some girl–girl and then
boy–girl layouts. I was made up to look really glamorous,
and again I remember thinking how unlike my tawdry
modelling experiences in London this was. Everything
was so amazingly professional – the make-up, the
wardrobe and the sets – and I felt like a princess.