The Hardest (Working) Man in Showbiz by Ron Jeremy

feature, and free airfare to California for the shoot, I didn’t have to think twice.
    Not that I needed it, but he gave me an advance copy of the script for Olympic Fever . I read it on the plane, and laughed like an idiot during the entire trip. It involved the U.S. Olympic swim team and a young swimmer with a protein deficiency that could be cured only by giving blow jobs. I was cast as a Russian spy, who, along with my partner (played by Seka) plotted to sabotage the swim team and stop them from winning gold at the summer games. We were basically doing versions of Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, only with less-believable Russian accents.
    The snow was coming down in such thick sheets, I had no idea where the road ended and the cliff began. I could very well have plummeted to my death at any moment. And to add to my anxiety, the bitter cold had almost brought on the first stages of hypothermia. With nothing but a lightweight T-shirt and shorts to protect me from the elements, I was shivering so violently that I could barely steer my bike. There were icicles on my mustache. I fully expected to die of frostbite.
    At long last, I saw the campgrounds in the distance. To re-create an Olympic training camp, the director had found an abandoned Boy Scout camp in the middle of the woods. I’d never been happier to see civilization, though I had a surge of panic when it occurred to me that there might not be running water or heat at this place. It was, after all, a fucking barracks.
    I staggered toward the nearest bunkhouse and knocked weakly on the door.
    “Good Lord! What happened to you?”
    I almost collapsed into Bill Margold’s arms. He was an actor and cowriter on Olympic Fever , and large enough to drag my limp body inside. By the expression on his face, I thought it might already be too late for me.
    “You drove a motorcycle up here?”
    “I didn’t know,” I whimpered. “It’s California in the spring. What happened to the expression ‘sunny California’?”
    “Ron, we’re up in the mountains. It’s cold.”
    “Well, I didn’t fucking know that,” I shouted at him with my last burst of energy.
    He took me into a back bathroom and pointed toward the shower. With what little strength I had left, I stumbled out of my clothes. “I have someone here who might be able to warm you up,” Margold said. He called over Connie Peterson, a beautiful blonde actress who’d been rehearsing with him before I arrived.
    “Oh, you poor baby,” Connie said, giving me a sad look like I was a sick puppy. She stepped into the shower with me, turned on the hot water, and soaped down my ice-covered body. When my body temperature finally returned to something resembling normal, she asked if I wanted to fuck.
    Well, sure, I thought. After a near-death experience, nothing makes you feel alive again like having sex in the shower with some big-boobed woman. Even if it was just a sympathy screw, I was happy for whatever I could get. I didn’t climax. I knew I had to save it for my scene with Seka later that day. But it was enough to get my blood circulating again, which is all I really needed.
    When I walked out of the shower, feeling refreshed and rejuvenated, Margold was waiting for me, along with Seka and a few of the other actors. He took one look at me and burst into laughter.
    “What’s so goddamn funny?” I asked him.
    “Will you look at this guy,” he said to the others. “He’s all pink and furry, like a little hedgehog.”
    “Oh, fuck you,” I snapped.
    “You look like one of those animals in The Wind and the Willows .”
    The entire room was laughing, so I ran back into the bathroom to check my reflection in the mirror. He was right, the combination of extreme cold and heat had given my skin a pink hue. And the hairs on my body were standing on end, which did sort of resemble the furry bristles of a rodent. Although hedgehogs are kinda cute.
    Margold was standing right behind me, enjoying the view. “You are