Strip Search by William Bernhardt

always been that way, she reflected, as she sat in her private office in the studio she owned, sipping tea from bone china. She’d left home when she was sixteen, pregnant, a social pariah. Her own parents would have nothing to do with her. Those had been tough times, and some of the things she did back then still haunted her. But she had survived. She was too young for most of the legitimate work on the Strip—cocktail waitressing, dealing cards. She was young and skinny and more than once some pervert tourist had suggested ways she could make a little money. And she’d thought about it. But fortunately, she was able to resist, although some might think her next job—stripping at a downtown club—wasn’t much better. That led to working as a nude model, which in a short time led to an encounter with one of the top direct-to-video porn producers late one night at the Sahara. In less than two years, she’d gone from high school cheerleader to porn queen. But those porn movies saved her from prostitution. And a host of other evils even worse.
    She knew that, in some people’s minds, there wasn’t much difference. Taking money for sex was taking money for sex. But to Danielle, there was a Grand Canyon of a difference. She might be having sex (although most of the time penetration was simulated), but it was no squalid twenty-dollar back alley transaction. She was on a set, playing a part, following a script. She was acting. And when she did get paid, the money didn’t come from the man with whom she’d had sex. It came from the producer, who was compensating her in a legal and legitimate way because she had performed a valuable service.
    She was good at it. Not just at being naked—the whole job. She learned lines quickly and rarely stumbled, and that meant a lot to a producer working on a limited budget. What’s more—she could actually act. The flat delivery that characterized so many porn actresses (either because they were high or barely able to read, or both) was light-years from Danielle’s performances. She not only could deliver a line, she could assume a character. As a result, the producers started investing more time in the plot, costumes, music, spending an extra penny here and there to make it better. If they had a real actress, why not make a real movie? With a sex scene every eight minutes, of course.
    That’s when her career began to really take off. She became a name-recognized asset, something rarely accomplished in this industry where too often the women seemed interchangeable (and disposable). Her name appeared above the title. She got offers to make live appearances. She made decent money. But she still didn’t like the way they treated her: “Just lie on your back and kick up the high heels. Okay, bring the camera in closer between her legs.” And she noticed that, at the end of the day, it was those cigar-chomping producers, the talentless money men who you might pay to put their clothes back on, who were driving the Caddys and playing high stakes poker at the Sands.
    So she decided to do something about that, too.
    “All right,” Gina said, breaking her out of her reverie. She had a coat over her arm and purse in hand. “The captain’s bed set is ready to shoot. Everyone’s been told to be ready to do 42B at nine o’clock sharp.”
    “Excellent. And Gina?”
    “Yes?”
    “I don’t want to have any more problems with John’s…. mmm, problem. Time is money. Let’s have a stunt double ready, okay?”
    Gina arched an eyebrow. “A stunt member?”
    “Exactly. We haven’t cast Longsword’s mate yet. Get someone who can perform both functions; we won’t have to pay him any more than scale, no matter how many parts we give him.”
    “I think I know someone who’ll do it. I can send him over tonight if—”
    “I’ll be here. Still got mounds of paperwork, and I want to check the set. Don’t want any eleventh hour mistakes tripping us up. If we stick to our schedule, we