She had always been sexual. Her childhood in the working class Podoli neighborhood of Prague was filled with the kind of play that, looking back, she could only describe as sex play. She could not even remember the first time she had intercourse. It was just another step in the natural progression of her sexual development.

As a teenager, she continued to experiment freely with both boys and girls. She never had a steady partner, but quickly realized that boys, and in particular older men, were very easy to control if she used her sexuality as a reward. Although it was frequently offered, she never took money in exchange for sex. She was only willing to have sex with people she liked, even if they were not always physically attractive.

There were many gifts and shopping excursions, many fancy meals, many nights out at clubs. She had almost no money of her own and took a very practical view of the phenomenon of men wanting to buy things for her. She had to survive, and it would be foolish not to use the most powerful tool she had available.

* * * *

He was ten-years-old the first time he had sex. It was not something he wanted to do. In fact, he was terrified. But his friends in the South Central neighborhood of Los Angeles constantly talked about having sex and were beginning to suggest that he must be a “fag” since he hadn’t done it yet and had nothing to contribute to the conversation.

His friend’s older sister was thirteen and much more experienced. She didn’t leave him much choice in the matter and was even a bit mean to him initially. But after she removed his clothes, her attitude changed. She used many superlatives to describe his body and her feelings toward him. She repeatedly told him she loved him and called him “sweet baby. ” He imitated the acts he had seen performed in pornographic videos, and her reaction seemed to confirm that he was doing everything correctly.

After they were finished and dressed, she held him in her arms for many hours while they watched TV, frequently kissing his face and telling him how much she loved him. She shared her large stash of candy with him and laughed uproariously at his impersonation of Michael Jackson. Never before in his life had he felt so good about himself and so valued as a human being. He wanted to stay in her bedroom forever.

Although it rarely made him feel as good as that first time, he started having sex frequently with a variety of girls. It came easily to him. It felt natural. At least there was one thing in the world he was good at. As word spread that he was a “playa,” more and more girls wanted to be with him. By the time he turned fourteen, he had slept with over twenty girls.

* * * *

Her mother died when she was twelve. A severe alcoholic, she had been in poor health for many years and had not been much good. Her father had already taken up with another woman by the time of her mother’s death. This woman was much younger, and they had a son together. She never met her half-brother.

Her father had been a cook in the cafeteria of a high-level government office. After the Communists stopped calling themselves Communists, after the tourists started to arrive, he was able to use his connections in the government to open a small tourist restaurant in the old part of the city.

Although she technically lived with her father, she saw him rarely since he was either at the restaurant or at the home of his girlfriend and child. But she had a free place to live, so she did not feel like she had reason to complain. She had essentially been living alone from the time she was twelve. It just felt normal.

* * * *

His mother died of cancer when he was an infant. His father was a sort of freelance auto mechanic who worked almost constantly and who, when he wasn’t working, hung around with other men, smoking cigarettes and playing scratch-off lottery games. He was afraid of his father since he was always angry and yelling, though fortunately he only came home to sleep.

His three older sisters were the ones who really raised him. They frequently complained about having to look after him and rarely let him forget what a burden he was. Secretly he wished he had never been born. This feeling never left him.

As soon as he was old enough, he preferred to be out of the house as much as possible. There were many dangers around the neighborhood, but he always felt more comfortable when he was with his friends. He felt fairly safe on the streets because everyone, even the most dangerous gangbangers, liked him because he was funny.

* * * *

She was always a good student and considered education an essential means to improving her life. She enrolled in university and studied engineering, although she hated it. By the time she received her degree, she knew she would never work as an engineer.

Her father told her she had to move out of the apartment after she finished her education. He wanted to move his new family in, and there would not be room for her. She did not see how she could earn enough to get her own place and she had no desire to move in with her friends, not that any of them offered.

She knew two girls who had made some money performing in pornographic videos. One of them even went to Italy once for three weeks to work and came back with an amazing amount of money. She asked one of the girls about it, just to get the information, but then an agent started calling her. Everything moved so fast. Some nude photos were taken, and soon after she was told there was an offer for her to go to Italy for three days for a video and two photo shoots.

She wondered if she was making some kind of mistake but reminded herself that it was just sex, something she did all the time anyway. The money was not as good as she had anticipated, but it would be enough to pay for an apartment for a few months.

Then the agent said that the work in Italy had fallen through but he had something even better for her: two weeks in Los Angeles, shooting four videos and doing four photo shoots. All of her expenses would be paid while she was there, and the money was significantly better. Her English was excellent, and the prospect of going to Los Angeles excited her much more than the trip to Italy had. This was her chance. She decided very quickly that she would not be returning to Prague.

* * * *

After he graduated from high school, he started doing some work as a sound engineer. He dreamed of being a music producer and, without knowing too much about how the business worked, thought that learning the technical aspects of the studio would help him achieve that goal. With money he had earned helping his father, he purchased a used digital mixing board, microphones and other equipment. He spent a month learning how to use them in his bedroom. Anything he couldn’t figure out on his own he looked up on the internet.

When he felt like he knew the basics, he advertised his services on craigslist and also hung up some signs around the neighborhood. He charged so little that he was able to get fairly steady work, enough so that he could stop helping his father except for when he needed some extra money. He refused to work himself to death like his sisters, all three of whom worked long hours in the healthcare industry.

One of his best clients and he were smoking weed after a recording session, and the client told him he was going to an open casting call for a porn film. The scene called for ninety-nine African-American men and one blonde white woman. It only paid $120, enough to cover the cost of the mandatory STD test, but he thought it would be fun.

Immediately he knew that he wanted to do it, too. It wasn’t the potential for sex that appealed to him as much as the idea of showing off what he believed to be his one true talent. The world needed to know what a great lover he was.

They were both hired, though it ended up being a rather boring experience for him. After the shoot, the director approached him and asked if he’d be interested in participating in some of his other projects. He didn’t have to ask why: of all the men from that day’s shoot, his penis was by far the largest. His overall physique was in the top tier, as well. The director told him he’d be paid $200 per day, but he immediately turned him down, laughing and saying he gets all the sex he needs and $200 was “chump change” for driving all the way to the Valley. His gut told him he was worth more than that, but his mind worried that he had blown it. That extra money could be used to rent some professional studio time. The director laughed at how offended he became and said he might be able to pay him $500 on a trial basis. He agreed and started working the very next day.

Every time he worked, people complimented him on his performance. He was a natural, they said. He laughed it off, but the praise made him enormously proud. Over the course of the following six months, he performed in over fifty scenes.

* * * *

Even before she did her first scene, she suspected that she had made a huge mistake. Despite what they said about all of her expenses being covered, only her hotel was paid for. She received a cash advance of $25 per day, but that would be deducted from what she would be paid. The other guests at the hotel frightened her. They all seemed to live there and several obviously had mental problems. Then she had to pay $75 for a taxi from the hotel to the house where the shooting was to be done, and the driver yelled at her for not tipping.

The scene called for six black men to be with two blonde white women. She had never even spoken to a black person before, but that did not bother her. She had also participated in several orgies, so the prospect of multiple sex partners was nothing new. What did bother her was her female costar. First the woman had slammed the bathroom door in her face when they were preparing for the scene. Then, as they were about to begin, the woman looked her up and down and made a face when she saw the scar from her appendectomy.

Everything began with her and the other woman having sex with each other before the men arrived. The director yelled at her for not showing the appropriate enthusiasm, but she was finding it very difficult to have sex with someone she despised.

When the men joined in, she was shocked. Every one them had an exceptionally large penis. She had previously been with only one man who was in the same category. Although she had rarely experienced such a problem, she had great difficulty lubricating herself and relaxing the muscles of her vagina. Shooting had to stop so that an assistant could hand her a bottle of artificial lubricant.

One of the men, the one who had been joking around and making all of the others laugh before shooting began, pushed the assistant away and said that he wanted to try something else. Then he crouched between her legs and started licking her. The director yelled at him and told him he didn’t want any of that “boring shit,” but he just mumbled something incomprehensible into her crotch, which made everyone laugh, and kept licking.

They started shooting again, with five of the men focusing on the other woman while the funny one was licking and sucking her. His skills were impressive, and for a few minutes she managed to convince herself that the two of them were alone. He made eye contact with her while he was performing and somehow managed so smile without slowing down or breaking his rhythm. Out of range of the camera, he took her hand in his and squeezed. She squeezed back and, not caring if it angered the director, reached down and tenderly stroked the side of his head. Gradually she started to relax and then very quickly was turned on and ready to go.

The rest of the scene went well enough, although every muscle in her body was extremely sore by the end. She didn’t know how she would manage to do another scene the next day, as planned. Having noticed that she arrived by taxi, the funny one asked her if he could give her a ride.

* * * *

He was her first long-term boyfriend, and she his very first girlfriend. She was shocked by the intensity of her feelings for him and how rapidly they developed. Perhaps it was an effect of being so far from home. Almost certainly she would have returned to Prague after those two weeks were it not for him.

Romantic courtship wasn’t something he had ever tried before. Normally his aggressive come-ons were simply a means to obtaining sex. But with her, everything was different. It wasn’t only her exceptional physical beauty. There was something about her that he felt he understood from the first moment he saw her: she seemed to be just as alone in the world as he considered himself to be. The desire to be close to her overwhelmed him.

That first day, he convinced her to drive to the coast with him to sit on the beach and watch the sun set. It was the first time she had ever seen the Pacific Ocean. He walked on his hands in the sand and circled her like some demented animal, all while pretending to be a French waiter. He spoke with a horribly fake accent and kept asking if he could please take her order. This ridiculous spectacle made her laugh until her stomach hurt. Throughout the rest of her life, without consciously trying, she would think of this experience at least once per week.

He took her to dinner to California Pizza Kitchen and continued to make her laugh like no one ever had before. All that laughing made her feel very American. Los Angeles suddenly was not such a terrifying place. When they rented a small apartment together in West Hollywood, she felt quite certain that her life would continue to get better.

* * * *

As she grew more comfortable in front of the camera, and as her reputation for being able to handle the most extreme sex acts spread throughout the industry, she started getting a lot more work. She made friends with other actors and, through them, discovered cocaine. Although weed was his drug, he sometimes did cocaine as well, while at the same time warning her that she needed to be careful with it.

Very soon she was using it on a daily basis, most of the time hiding that fact from him because she knew he would disapprove. Once she stayed up doing coke all night with her fellow actors after a shoot. She didn’t call him. Even if she made up some excuse, he would know exactly what was going on and demand that she leave. She didn’t want anything to interrupt the fun. When she finally arrived home in the early hours of the morning, he was sitting up waiting for her. Immediately he started to cry, and she understood that he really did love her. No one had ever cared what she did with herself. It shocked her that he cared so much. At his insistence, she promised him she would not use coke again. This promise was easier to keep after she calculated how much money she had spent on the drug. Her material wellbeing was far more important than some momentary thrill.

He did not tell her this, but that night he realized just how precarious his hold on her was. He knew she was ambitious and perhaps a bit cold. She could leave him at any time. He had to be good to her while making it clear that he demanded respect, as well. He had to stay in control.

Their bond quickly grew even stronger. They believed they understood each other as well as two people could. They were selfless and kind with each other. He always found new ways to make her laugh. Once when she was coming to bed after him, he turned out all the lights and climbed headfirst under the covers so that his feet were on his pillow. Not suspecting a thing, she got into bed, leaned over to kiss him and ended up kissing his feet. Whenever she put on Czech pop music, he would begin to dance around the apartment like a manic Nazi robot. Out of all the funny things he did, this made her laugh the hardest. She didn’t know it then, but she would never again be as happy as she was during that year.

* * * *

Eventually he began to encourage her to find a way to leave the adult film industry. This made no sense to her since she made far more money than he and far more than she would earn doing anything else. But the more she thought about it, she realized he was right. Already, she could see the effects of aging on her body. This could not last forever.

Along with English, she had studied Russian in school and was fluent. Their Russian landlady, who lived on the first floor of their building, was delighted to discover this. They often spoke in Russian, and the landlady frequently mentioned that if she was ever looking for some part-time work she could speak to her brother, who owned a small real estate agency. When she finally met with him, she knew immediately that she would get the job. He was smitten with her. As had happened so often in her life, a man was about to give something to her because of the way she looked.

* * * *

Even after she earned her real estate license, she continued her work in the adult film industry. She had been told that it could take several years for an agent to begin earning anything close to what she was paid for her acting.

Her income was supporting them both. He had stopped working entirely, saying that he just couldn’t stand it any more and that he wanted to focus entirely on his music career. Although he was working very hard in his first attempt to produce a hip-hop album, he was spending a lot of money to do it, and she knew it was highly unlikely he would ever earn any of it back. This secretly bothered her a great deal, but he was still better to her than anyone she had ever known, so she did not complain.

He always reminded her that she was the only person with whom he’d ever been in a monogamous relationship, that for the first time in his life he did not feel the desire to sleep with as many women as he could get his hands on. He did not tell her this, but she was also the first person, he was certain, who had ever truly loved him.

In a voice that was a nearly perfect impersonation of Nat King Cole and entirely different from his natural speaking voice, he sometimes sang her spontaneously made-up songs professing his eternal love for her. She adored that but still wondered how long this relationship could really last. His possessiveness was beginning to irritate her. She didn’t like to think about it, but there was a part of her that was continuously aware that she could do better.

* * * *

Although she usually avoided them, she attended an industry party at the home of a director who was considering casting her in one of his high-budget adult films. A small man with strange glasses and a shaved head approached just after her arrival. He came on to her very aggressively. This little man had produced a single horror film that had surpassed expectations and performed moderately well in the global market. He was sure to tell her exactly how much money he had made, and despite herself she could not help being impressed. Because he was apparently successful and wealthy, she chatted with him instead of just walking away.

Barely ten minutes into their conversation he took her hand in his and told her that he was looking to fill a supporting role in his next film and that she would be perfect for the part. She immediately suspected that he was probably lying in some crude attempt to bed her. But it was also possible that he was serious. When she sat down in his Mercedes, the smell of the leather seats was intoxicating. This was a world she could not have conceived of only a year before. She had already come so far. How much further could she go?

* * * *

He ignored every one of her calls and emails. He had loved her like he had never loved anyone or anything, and she had broken his heart. No woman, he told himself, would get a second chance with him.

She had left him for the producer, who only a week later had discovered an eighteen-year-old starlet who was more suitable for his needs. If he went back to her now, it would just happen again. He had moved back into his father’s house. He had no money, and all work on the album he was producing had stopped. She was on his mind constantly, but there was no way he would humiliate himself by going back to her, even if she had learned her lesson, as she claimed.

He tried to convince himself that he hated her, that he hated all women. Weed dulled the pain but brought him no pleasure. He started having sex with women around the neighborhood again. The need to do so was overpowering, but it no longer left him feeling good about himself. All it did was make him feel even more alone.

After four months at his father’s, almost out of money for weed or anything else, he decided to try to get another job in the industry. He was told he would only be paid $300, far less than the rate he’d previously received, but he still agreed. He spent the last of his cash at AIM, getting the mandatory STD test. When he received the text message with the results, he thought there must have been a mistake. There was no mistake, they said. He was HIV positive.

He knew that he could live for a very long time with HIV but he didn’t care. This was just the final sign that his life was over. What good was he now? Three days after receiving the text message, he sat on his childhood bed, put his father’s 32-caliber pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

* * * *

She was not HIV positive, but this news brought no sense of relief. For a month, all she did was sit at home and wonder how things could have gone so wrong. Part of her had always expected something like this to happen. She didn’t blame herself: such tragedy, she believed, is an unavoidable part of the human experience. She had made a mistake, but his reaction was a thousand times worse. The only thing she regretted was that she had ever allowed herself to believe that their happiness would last forever. She had been a fool.

The thing that made her the saddest was thinking about his final hours and minutes before he killed himself. She would imagine him alone and suffering and she would cry until there were no tears left. Why couldn’t he simply have forgiven her?

She had to pull out of several movie roles at the last minute, and one irate director had threatened to ruin her career as a result. Her boss at the real estate agency was more understanding. He seemed to have an appreciation for her tragic story to go along with his appreciation of her attractiveness.

Without having thought about it, she told him that she was thinking of leaving Los Angeles. She didn’t know why she said it. The idea of going back to Prague and getting some shitty job was intolerable, but LA was haunted for her. Then her boss told her that his cousin had a very successful real estate agency in Florida and that he could speak to him if she’d like. She told him that she would appreciate that.

* * * *

After working as a real estate agent in Florida for just under a year, she met and quickly married a wealthy developer. He was in his fifties but in good shape and he was very kind to her. She did not love him with anything close to the intensity she had experienced in Los Angeles, but he made her feel very safe.

Her husband wanted her to quit her job, but this initially was the one thing she refused to do for him. She wanted to maintain her financial independence. Once she had their first daughter, however, she finally agreed that it just didn’t make sense for her to keep working. She reminded herself that American divorce laws were such that, even if her husband left her, she would be financially secure.

For the first time in her life, she knew she did not have to worry about her material wellbeing. What was she to do now? They had a second child, another daughter. The kids kept her busy, but she was very conscious of the fact that she was not happy. Her life was so much better than it had been in Los Angeles, yet several times a day she thought back on her life there fondly.

Around the time they had their second child, her husband, with a friend’s encouragement, “found Jesus. ” This seemed to make him very happy. Though she found the whole concept very strange, she knew this was a common experience and simply accepted it. She had always been honest about her past, and initially he had even bragged to his friends about it, but he suddenly began criticizing her for having worked in the adult film industry. Every time they had even a minor disagreement, he would bring it up.

She was shocked when he told her that he had fallen in love with a woman from his church and wanted a divorce. Long before the divorce was final, however, she knew that she would not miss him. She received custody of their daughters, their primary house, a substantial lump sum of cash, and monthly child support and alimony payments. She would never have to work or worry about money again.

* * * *

She did not have sex again for over six years. She had no desire to date, preferring instead to focus upon raising her children. It was not until this period of her life that she fully understood how much she had used her sexuality to ensure her material wellbeing. There was a physical feeling of relief that accompanied the realization that she did not have to do this any longer.

She did take up horseback riding, something she had always associated with wealth. But the thrill quickly wore off, and she gave it up. Feeling that she had to do something to fight off the sense of emptiness, she later tried to learn tennis. Her instructor was an African-American man seven years younger than she. He reawakened her sexual feelings, and they married very soon after having met. She followed her lawyer’s advice and insisted that he sign a pre-nuptial agreement. Once the thrill of their mutual physical attraction evaporated, it was clear that they had nothing in common. They were divorced within a year.

* * * *

Her children were her one reliable source of pleasure. It amazed her that they were so American. But as they grew older, they needed her less and less, and the feeling of emptiness in her grew larger.

She tried golf, charity work and many other things, even skydiving, but always gave them up after a few months or years. Her time was filled with the reliable if ultimately unsatisfying pleasures of smoking cigarettes, drinking wine and going shopping with the one truly close female friend she ever had. She made a conscious effort to appreciate her friend and, just as importantly, to show her appreciation. At the very least, she often told herself, she had learned to recognize when a person was meant to be a part of her life and to treat that person with gratitude.

* * * *

Without ever having found another man who made her happy, but with one healthy friendship and a reasonably good relationship with her two children, she died of a heart attack in her sleep on the eve of her seventieth birthday.