8/27/23
Honorary Lesbian
This is number twenty-five in the blog series, “My Life In Erotica.” I encourage you to join my Patreon community so I can afford to keep writing.
“WHAT DO YOU WANT to accomplish at these shows?” my daughter asked me. She is also a writer and posts her stories on that other erotica site. We don’t share our author names with each other, but we often discuss what is happening in our writing.
“Well, most of the emphasis at the show is on video and porn,” I said. “But it strikes me that there should be a market for video that has more story to it than the pizza guy showing up to find a naked customer who has no money but offers to give him a blow job. The extent of that dialog is about three lines and they spend half an hour screwing with no other sound than oh-oh-oh fu-u-u-ck! I think I could contribute to the industry by working on some scripts. Maybe something for Bree Mills.”
If you are unfamiliar, Bree Mills is one of the top producers of women’s porn movies at Girlsway and Adult Time.
“Dad! Bree Mills only works with women!” my daughter informed me. How did she know that?
Well, it wasn’t quite accurate. Bree had been producing a series of retold fairy tales that included male actors and I thought they were right up the line with an adaptation of something like my Wayzgoose/Nathan Everett story Jackie the Beanstalk. Besides, I’d already met with Bree.
We talked about the problems with scripts and I attended a panel discussion with her and four of her actors (including men). One of the things the actors mentioned was that they enjoyed letting their dark side out in the movies. The guy playing a parody of the Big Bad Wolf, especially liked that, since he is generally very soft spoken and kind of shy.
But Bree acknowledged that once the sex starts, dialog goes to hell. It’s very difficult to remember lines while screwing. And so often, there seems to be something in one character or another’s mouth. She did invite me to submit some ideas if I’d like, and she awarded me my prized T-shirt that has emblazoned across the front “Honorary Lesbian.”
Well, lesbians and I do like the same things.
I wrote a short story continuation of my series Wonders of My World called “Whatever NOLA Wants.” It’s published on my website short story collection and revolves around the invitation I got to New Orleans as a result of wearing that shirt.
The next time we met, I told Bree about the conversation with my daughter. She sent a T-shirt with me to my daughter that says, “I like girls who like girls.”
I decided that I needed to jump into the industry with both feet, so to speak. I rented a booth at the Exxxotica Expo. It was costly at $600 for a ‘talent booth.’ The booth was 8x8 and I could sell books in it. I had a banner and some posters created to hang in the booth, and I bought some inventory. (I still have some of it left if you’d like to buy a paperback!) I was also approved to present a seminar titled, “Talk Dirty to Me, Baby.” I included some bits from that seminar in a blog post by that name back in June.
There was one small catch. The show rules required that your booth be manned all the time and you could only have one talent per booth. Back to advertising for an assistant who was willing to dress sexily and act as a shill to bring people in to look at my books. The answer was a cute girl who worked in a sex shop in Vegas, was high all the time, and would run around in her sexy clothes in front of my booth. Interestingly, her name was Devinne. It sounded exactly the same as my Devon, so people thought we were putting them on.
When I talked to her, she said she’d checked me out before she contacted me about working the show. (We were going to have to share a room because I just couldn’t afford any more. Two beds.) She said I was obviously a legit author with stuff to sell at that show and she was reading one of my books already. Good.
This venture was going to cost me close to a thousand dollars by the time I paid for the booth, airfare, stock, and promotional materials. I was pretty tense about making it successful.
Devinne and I arrived when the show packet said to and set up the booth the day before the show opened. I wasn’t sure this was going to even be a show with the condition of the space when we got there. The carpet hadn’t been laid yet and the stage area was still being constructed. Nonetheless, my booth looked great and I was confident the show would be profitable. We set everything up and took pictures of the pristine booth.
Then we went to the vendor reception at the hotel bar. I ordered drinks for the two of us at a very crowded bar. Imagine my surprise (and how impressed Devinne was) when a guy next to me said, “Hey, aren’t you Devon Layne, the author?”
Well, yes. As a matter of fact, that was me! He said he’d read about me on the internet and in the show bios. It turned out that he had a booth just across the floor from mine. He’s a photographer who specialized in photos of adult performers. Nice work!
It was the first time I’d simply been recognized in public!
The show was fun, but a financial bust. First, my seminar was scheduled for exactly the time the show opened, so there was no one there when I started. People trickled in for nearly half an hour and I entertained them for another twenty minutes with my discussion of how to talk like an erotic author. The seminar got high marks, but no one showed up at the booth to buy books.
It was ladies’ night and all women got in free. But they weren’t really in a buying mood unless you were selling cute pasties or unusual vibrators. And my location didn’t help much. I was located right across from ‘the dungeon’ with Msl8eluck and her crew of femdoms. You’d think that would be a high-traffic area, which it was. But everyone who passed by had their backs turned to me. I mean, actual attendees were volunteering to be locked to the X-frame and whipped. Why would you look at a book?
All in all, the sales from the show were a bust, but I’m still in touch with many of the starlets I met there.
In fact, the cover of my J-Hop story—SWARM cycle fan fiction—My Sex Slave features a photo of Maren Hill, who I first met at that show.
The designation of “Honorary Lesbian” still sticks with me, but sadly, I haven’t found another lesbian who wanted to hook up with an old bald man. I try to tell them I’m bearded for her pleasure. Nonetheless, next week I’ll continue the adventure with “Writing Smut.”
Please feel free to send comments to the author at devon@devonlayne.com.
