Craigslist Porn Star

The night I spent with a Craigslist porn star.

I don’t want to get a real job. I can't go on as a 9-5 wage slave any more.

Browsing through the Craigslist “gigs” section and I see a fun listing: xxx cameraman needed for amateur shoot. no experience necessary. $80 an hour. email for more details.

Great, I’ve always wanted to sit in the Cuck Chair. Just kidding. But this does sound like easy money. And potentially interesting. I’m no prude, I can stand there and hold the camera just fine. I’m terribly bored of life anyways.

I send an email describing myself as an enthusiastic applicant with an open mind. I hope he doesn’t take this to mean: fuck me in the ass. My mind is not that open.

Anyways. I send the email and forget about it. These ads probably get a ton of responses.

He gets back to me the next day. He asks me to text him a picture. That’s not good. This is feeling gay. Maybe he just needs me to be white. Ah, what the heck.

I text him a picture. Immediate response. He says can you start tonight.

I don’t know... It’s 8 PM on a Tuesday, I’m in the bookstore wasting away on social media, I’m a little high… “sure” I respond. Why not. I haven’t been shaken in a while.

“10:30” he responds. Already I’m doubting this. My girlfriend will be suspicious if I’m out so late. She’ll say she’s scared but really she’ll think I’m cheating. Really I’m just filming some strangers fucking. Which is probably worse.

Should I go? I tell him yes. 9:45 comes. Decision time. I’m walking to my car. Fuck it. I like money. What’s the worst that could happen. I’m really hoping it’s just some mild white guy in his 40s who wants a human-shot video of himself banging his girlfriend so he can look back on it one day when she’s no longer so young and beautiful.

Please don’t be gay. Don’t be gay. Please don’t be two huge bearish gays clamoring for a new hole. This is what I’m thinking as I speed down the highway feeling increasingly affected by the marijuana and fear.

I get there. He texts “Yo…”

Fuck — it’s going to be a huge black guy. I’m not racist, but still. He says “let’s push it back to 10:45.” I say “okay”… I’m outside his place, on time.

25 minutes later, no response. So I just sit there in Oakland, street-parked in some decent neighborhood, nervously scrolling through social media, about to turn around and drive home, until he texts:

“Ok, you can come in…
Sorry it’s a mess— I’m about to move”

Okay, whatever man, I don’t care. I don’t judge.

It’s cold outside. Let me in. I worry I’m about to be raped and killed. Just a little bit. I write a note to my future self, recording this thought.

Door’s open. Dingy sad apartment that reminds me of Los Angeles. Looks like a drug addict of some kind lives here. I don’t inspect the place too closely. He calls me from upstairs: “Hey man,”

Hey… I make my way up the creaky stairs and say hello.

Fuck, he really is a huge black man. And he’s all alone. Externally I'm keeping my shit together but inside: I’m about to get raped.

He’s huge. He’s fit. He’s sitting alone on a shallow gray sofa that reminds me of college, in front of a big TV screen playing painfully generic porn. The kind of human-on-human fucking porn that idiots watch.

This is what I signed up for, I guess. For some reason I thought it would be a couple. I thought it might be a normal straight heterosexual couple who just wants somebody to film something they think is beautiful but they can’t ask anyone they know because it’s too weird. Nope, it’s just one huge gay shirtless black man.

Despite all this I smile. Because that’s how I deal with people. I look him in the eyes with curiosity and patience and give him the benefit of the doubt and I smile and I ask him: so what do you want me to do.

I get to know him a little bit, he’s a grown adult, maybe in his mid 30s, he knows how to get to know somebody. He keeps stroking his hair, which he doesn’t have much of— it’s kind of a Mr. T Afro, down the middle of his skull. He keeps stroking it like he’s tweaking on meth but from the tone of his voice I can detect some humanity, so I’m thinking maybe I’m okay. He might not rape me after all.

He introduces me to this thing he does; jerking off in front of a camera for money, which apparently people pay him for. He says he pays the bills this way and strangely I believe him. He’s got a huge semi-hard penis poking through his briefs. I notice but do not comment. Suddenly it dawns on me that I’m more comfortable in this room than he is. He’s the subject, not me. He's the one with his cock out. It’s unclear who is the alpha male in this situation.

I don’t dislike him. I find him a little sad but I can work with anyone. He says there are old ladies online who pay good money for videos of him stroking his penis. Interesting. He says there are gay guys too, but he doesn’t communicate much with them. Besides just giving an honest, genuine “thank you” when they compliment him on his stuff.

He often live-streams himself sitting around stroking and that’s his main source of income. Kind of similar to what I do as a writer. Some days are more lucrative than others. I get it. I can see all this being real. I’m feeling a bit less afraid and more hopeful, even intrigued.

He mentions he has a friend who “just got out of jail” who may be coming by tonight. Oh boy, sounds like a party. I can handle anyone. He says it’s hard to trust guys who say they just wanna be your friend, they always turn out gay. Yeah, well, maybe that’s because you’re a professional male porn star. And what straight guy is trying to be friends with a guy who is that? I don’t say this, I don’t even think it, until I’m reflecting on it now.