Pornwoman

She loved porn. She was Pornwoman, after all. Pornwoman? The woman who fancied herself beyond porn. She literally lived above it as if it was a location. It was at least one in her case. I should first tell you about her superpower. While sexual servicing was part of her solicitude, Pornwoman did not fly or anything like that. But I should begin from the start, as chronology is rarely a given, unless one makes it stream.

I am not sure about where she was born, but my urban legend recounts that she hailed from Georgia. O Georgia on my mind, and Pornwoman too. What a woman! I must have drifted or digressed, you may think. I do so often, but not this time. Where in Georgia is unknown, but I prefer to imagine that she was born in Athens, Georgia, known as the Classic City, where Pornwoman must have acquired at least some of her class.

She appeared on the scene, as they say, in 1999 in Philadelphia, free as a bird at only 17, and you know what I mean, on both counts. Being beautiful at the right places and spaces, all of them by the time she became Pornwoman, she got a job at the Hooters on Roosevelt Boulevard (The Boulevard), starting as a Host because of her age, but becoming a Hooters Girl as soon as she turned 18. She never liked the food.

To think of it, I have never been to a Hooters. The one where she worked closed its doors in 2019 when the German grocery chain, Lidl, purchased a large section of the Northeast Shopping Centre, where Hooters seldom rested, to demolish the section in order to build their grocery store. She was long gone by 2019 and I doubt that she would have liked the Lidl food either. She preferred wholesome foods.

A bit of irony can be experienced below in tanka form, or any other form, although a tanka is much easier at 5–7–5–7–7 syllables over five lines. I do not consider it poetry, but many do. I still do not care. A haiku is also not poetry. I know what you think and you are mostly right. What? Exactly. I drifted or digressed this time. I am not sure why. At least I did not write a sonnet. A haiku was insufficient.

Diddly squat Lidl had
closed The Boulevard Hooters
after Pornwoman
became famous in circles
catering to elite food.

When she turned 21 — twice since she was only 20 the first time but 21 on her driving license because of a DMV error — Jessica Jones, a businesswoman from the porn industry stopping at Hooters for a bite, noticed her curves and conduct and asked to audition her for a new original role in a movie titled Pornwoman. She smiled at first and then tittered. I will have to read the script first, she had replied.

You can guess that Jessica agreed. She had to acquiesce because Chloe Dearborn, not yet Hardelia Lollipop, was striking. Did I forget to mention that she was beautiful? Perhaps I assumed too much. At the end of her shift, Chloe drove to Jessica’s hotel where she received a copy of the script. Given its purported originality, Chloe had to read it there, in a room booked just for that and until the morrow, if she so wished.

Hardelia Lollipop was the name of the character that she would play before becoming Pornwoman. We can all guess the obvious wordplay in Hardelia and Lollipop, but there is an obscure one. Delia is primarily of Greek origin, meaning “from the island of Delos,” the sacred Aegean island where Artemis, goddess of the hunt, was born. So, perhaps Chloe was indeed from Athens, if words possess any determinism.

Lolly is a northern English dialect word, meaning “tongue,” which can be easily tied to the obvious wordplay, although lolling following a hunt is not unheard of. Chloe lolled on the queen-sized bed and read the entire script twice, only stopping at the end of the first pass to have supper with Jessica in the hotel’s restaurant. The food was adequate, but the script was wonderful and truly original.

When she finished reading it again, she felt hungry, but not for food. She wanted to become Pornwoman, albeit that she had to be Hardelia Lollipop first and for half of the movie. Jessica never asked her if she could act. I guess that most pornstars are born actors as soon as they take off their clothes. After all, nakedness is not as bad as public speaking, so they say. I wonder if it is true. I doubt it a bit.

She gave her two-week notice at Hooters and moved to Los Angeles, or the actual Lost Angeles, although it was not as lost in 2003 as it is now. Jessica picked her up at the airport herself, perhaps already aware of some of the wonderous things to come. They had spoken frequently during the weeks before her fateful flight. Jessica loved Chloe, which became reciprocal even before the move, and the movie. There was food for thought.

The movie set was sprawled on the grounds of a large estate on Corona Del Mar in the Huntington Palisades. It was surrounded by old-growth eucalyptus trees, towering Canary Island date palms, and massive Monterey pines. Chloe was in love, kissing Jessica on the mouth as soon as she breathed in all the scenery, and thanking her profusely for offering her the main part of a movie to die for.

Jessica reddened, lowering her pretty face, surely to avoid any looks from the movie set crew, especially the director, a stunning woman called Carla Dewinter. Everybody advanced towards her and Chloe, smiling with love in their hearts, excited to meet her, the woman who will be playing Pornwoman. Some of them had tears in their eyes, including Carla. Upon feeling all this love, Chloe silently cried.

Everyone wanted to hug her, almost standing in line, waiting for Chloe to invite them into her space. She hugged every one of them, with more tears appearing on many faces, as they probably also felt some of her superpower. I do not know if you did, but I did while writing these words. When she moved, walking towards the nearest trees, they moved with her. Anyone above would have perhaps seen love in motion.

“I love trees,” she told them. “But now I love you too and look forward to the first scene: Love Between the Trees.”

“We will start shooting tomorrow morning, if you wish, dear Chloe,” Carla replied. “I can feel that you know the script by heart.”

“I do, dear Carla. I have been rehearsing it in my mind for weeks. And what a setting you have here! I can hear the trees. They also like it here.”

I was flabbergasted by her words. I am sorry but I will be drifting or digressing more often now. Can you blame me? I also love her. Chloe Dearborn. I need a break. I cannot write for a while. Please bear with me. What am I going to do?

You have to continue. You may be my best narrator, but you are losing your keys. It happened before with Jenny, and you were a mess. Get some rest and we will continue later. I hope that I will not have to take over again. I have not written this type of narrative for a while. And to think that we do not even know the rest of the story. Not even the next sentence.

The night was short for everybody, except for me. Here I go again. What a narrator! I hate myself for being in such a state. California, I say. Where Pornwoman is going to be famous. They slept for a few hours at most, except for Chloe. She slept from midnight until 5:55, dreaming about two trees and then about five. A threesome and then two of them at once. The first scene had already started before any call for action.

“She was almost twelve, he had just turned fifteen, and the world was three years old.” That was the first line of the script. She even said it in her sleep. She did not understand it then, but it was clear now, as she stood half-naked between two trees. Two eucalyptus trees. Two cameras rolled. One from above and one from below. She is crying, because almost nothing had happened between them. They did not even kiss.

Carla wanted to stop the cameras, but she could not. Crying was not part of the scene, but how could she stop her, when even the cameramen were crying with her, and she was too, and everyone else on the set. What were they crying about? Hardelia Lollipop was not crying. Chloe was. And it appeared that the trees were crying with her, shedding some of their leaves, with a number of them covering her textbook breasts.

She was crying about her first love, when she was supposed to speak about it and reveal that she never knew physical love — not lust — and that her world was similar to a three-year-old girl. But in this unscripted passage, she cried instead of following the script. She was not acting, yet her acting was immaculate. Everybody looked a bit dazed and confused. Chloe was seemingly acting like a mood-modulating remedy.

While keeping, probably forever, this first missed scene, Carla asked everyone to prepare for the second take. And it took, I must say without too many details, except that everybody had to take a break after what has been taken, both forward and aback. No one cried this time, except for yours truly, as she danced between the two eucalyptus trees as if they were two humans, men or women, begging her to stop and continue.

“Hardelia Lollipop? Are you serious? What a name!” said the dirty auditioner. “You must be good at it, and everything else from the looks of you. Hey! Where are you going?”

“I have better things to do with my life than waste another second on a creep like you. You will never see me again, except in a porn movie not about porn,” replied Hardelia, although by now everybody on the movie set only saw Chloe. It was a short scene with a lot of scenery.

The next scene became legendary, at least on the movie set. Hardelia is seen walking back and forth between a big door and a small elevator, trying to decide whether she should knock on the door or simply open it. Instead, she chooses the elevator but not before knocking on the door. The door is never in the scene again, but Hardelia is seen smiling to herself, and the cameras, appear to be fixated.

Carla was pleased. And Jessica, on the movie set from the start, felt elated both within and without. She had entered Hooters for some chested fare, coming out with an angel in disguise. Her chest was filled with love for Chloe, like never before, except perhaps her father, who died when she was almost twelve. She suddenly looked at Chloe, gradually realising that she was much more than what could be seen.

Scene after scene proceeded, but more slowly than a lost turtle. In one particular take — several scenes required a second take because the cameras had suddenly stopped — Hardelia was dancing for two couples dressed like a stripper, except that she was also wearing a blue-and-white dad cap. The song that she was dancing to was Louis Prima’s Just a Gigolo, not the David Lee Roth version. What a scene!

The retake only occurred because everybody wanted to see it again, and this time in their minds, as the first take took over their hearts. I almost melted on the screen, both times. I had to erase several unfathomable words. Hardelia Lollipop earned her name in every possible and impossible sense. Even the screen was hotter than usual. And when she removed the cap, we all prayed for rain.

It rarely rains in Huntington Palisades, with up to fifteen inches of rain per year during the winter. And here we were praying for it during the summer. But it rained after the second take, when we, they, were all perspiring. I took a shower. Under the warm water I also wondered, and wandered, about her name. Hardelia Lollipop. It was uncalled for and even an insult. Was Pornwoman any better? What do you think?

You should disregard most of my drifting or digressions. The screenplay is superior to my comments. My writing, however, is dictated by the author, and he tends to allow me a freedom of expression. What am I saying? The shower did not help meaningfully.

O Chloe! Dearborn you are from there to here and everywhere.
Pornwoman is your new name, but I am left in disrepair.*

Given the narrator’s breakdown, I will continue to relate the rest of this story. As the replacing narrator, I promise not to stray from the story of Pornwoman, also known as Hardelia Lollipop; I mean Chloe Dearborn; I mean both. Let me get this straight! I may need a replacement as well. But I am not going to write a mantinada before I leave. Please standby! The author may need to use his tree narrator.

Near the middle of the screenplay and soon-to-be movie, Hardelia Lollipop changed her name to Pornwoman. Normally, she would have sat in an office in the San Fernando Valley with an agent who would pull up a laptop, check if the proposed name’s .com domain and Instagram handles were taken, and then see if it clashed with anyone currently high on the porn industry’s charts. Jessica fixed all that in a jiffy.

I usually write about trees and their plight on this human-dominated Earth. But I think that I know why the author has chosen me to continue the narration of the story. Chloe loves trees and they stand proudly all around the movie set, with a few of them appearing in the movie. I could have been the narrator from the beginning. Live and learn, as they say; I mean write and change.

Her first scene as Pornwoman will never be forgotten, especially that there were five takes. She excelled in all of them, but each subsequent one was needed, at least by the director. Carla wanted to see it again and again, feigning that something was missing. Pornwoman was simply becoming more striking from take to take, with the second one only demanded because Carla was deeply moved.

Pornwoman’s words perfectly rhymed, which was not in the script. The meaning remained the same, but the sounds enveloping the words emphasised them, especially when assonance joined them like a fairer maiden. If ears could cry, they would be singing. Pornwoman became a poet, performing porn poetry before anyone needed to undress, remove a chemise, or tear a revealing pair of panties.

The rest of the movie ensued like an incantatory film, with Pornwoman scoring out the ordinary pornographic genre, and the cameras loving her for it along with every other man and woman in the crew. The script never lost its grip, but the words of the scriptwriter grew like a tree after winter, flowering beyond recognition, yet bonding indelibly to create a new form of life; I mean film.

By the time that the movie was completed, although no one wanted it to end, especially that the scriptwriter had been working on a long addition, Pornwoman; I mean Chloe was fatigued but not drained by the twelve weeks of shooting; a rather long period for a porn movie. Her inspired transformation almost rivalled a metamorphosis, except that this one also surpassed the emotional boundaries around her.

Even the trees around the movie set had been affected. But only Chloe noticed it. They were more inclined towards her when she was near, with no wind to explain it scientifically. When everyone learned that they had witnessed the last take, tears abounded in every corner and under every shade. Something magical had transpired, and nobody could have imagined it happening on a so-called pornographic landscape.

Pornwoman or dear Chloe Dearborn
Over trees and beneath the branches
Rendering her words as to adorn
Neverending diegetic ranches
When the images lastly settled
On the wondrous earthly horizon
Men comprehended as they mettled
Against the disgrace of the wizen
Negating those keen to be nettled

* A mantinada typically consists of a Cretan 15-syllable rhyming couplet. Mantinades is the plural.

Louis Prima - Just A Gigolo