The teaser below was released before the premiere in order to introduce one of the main characters: Trick Magnum. He’s a former porn star (played by Ezekiel III) and at the time I wrote this, his backstory and career hadn’t been fully explored on the show. So my brain decided to fill in some gaps. If this contradicts future canon, I apologize. But for now…enjoy.
My name is Nicole. When I first met Trick, I was a senior in high school. I was just like any other kid – so relieved and excited to finally fucking graduate, yet at the same time terrified and clueless as to what I was going to do with the rest of my life. Looking back on everything, everyone else seemed to live such perfect lives and had their shit so perfectly together that I guess I was kind of envious of it all. That’s how I ended up where I am today. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me start from the beginning.
In order to really understand my story, you have to use a little imagination. Imagine a young, blonde-haired, green-eyed, good little Christian girl from Middle America, USA. Imagine she got straight A’s all her life and never disappointed her parents. Imagine that she loved animals and wanted to grow up to be a veterinarian. Now imagine that, despite growing up in middle-class suburbia, she couldn’t afford college on her own. Imagine that she worked so hard to apply for every single scholarship she could get her hands on, but got rejected by all of them, even the most obscure ones. Did you know that there are college scholarships available for left-handed people who want to write book reports about Ayn Rand’s shitty novels? I’m not even joking, that’s a real thing.
Imagine that same girl sitting around the lunch table at school, listening to her friends gush about the thousands of dollars in scholarships that they had earned for themselves. Imagine that girl congratulating them with a big, sincere smile on her face and big, sad eyes which secretly envied their success. Now imagine one of the other kids at the lunch table noticed her sad eyes and quietly handed her a red business card with gold lettering on it. Imagine they told her that contacting the man that the card belonged to could change her life forever.
The business card was a glossy, fuck-me-pumps red with embossed gold lettering. The front said Trick or Treat Productions. The back listed an email address and a phone number. I may have been disgustingly innocent back then, but I wasn’t naive. I knew that I could be getting into trouble just by putting that card in my pocket. But I also really wanted to go to college and make something out of myself. It’s crazy what some people are willing to do when their entire future is on the line.
I didn’t want to leave a paper trail – not even an electronic one – so I decided to call the phone number instead of emailing him. The slightly raspy voice of a silver-tongued snake oil salesman cooed something about leaving my name, number, and a brief message after the beep if I was interested in business opportunities with his organization. The voicemail I left him was a rambling, brutally honest mess about who I was and how my freshman year of college was rapidly approaching and all the reasons why I had no way to pay for any of it and that I was about to lose my mind. To this day, I still have no idea why I was so forthcoming; but there was just something about the sound of his voice…
I received a text message the next day from the number I had called. It had a time and an address, and one brief direction: “ask for Trick”. It was then that I really started to have my doubts. Every fiber of my being told me that something was very, very wrong and that I should delete this text right away and throw his business card in the trash. My thumb was hovering over the delete button at the exact moment that a second, follow-up text popped up on my phone screen with eerily perfect timing. It read:
You DO want to be a veterinarian, right? I’m only trying to help you.
In that one, overwhelming moment, it felt like my entire future was hanging in the balance on the tip of that painfully simple question. I immediately texted him back and told him I would be there.
Fast forward to that Saturday afternoon. I pulled up in the driveway of a house that was a good 20 minute walk from the nearest neighbor. It wasn’t necessarily the biggest house I’d ever seen, but it was a mansion compared to my family home. I rang the doorbell and made a conscious effort to keep my nervously tapping foot still as I waited for someone to answer the door.
The man who opened the door was a little over six feet tall. He had his hair dyed dark red and an unfortunate case of dad bod syndrome. He was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses and a trilby hat, which seemed like odd things to be wearing indoors. The warm smile and sultry hello that he greeted me with had a faint hint of an ‘old southern money’ country accent.
He moved out of my way and held the door open as he gestured for me to come inside. I took one trepidatious step across the threshold and when I looked up, I saw the craziest fucking thing I had ever seen in my life (up until that point, at least). One man and two women were standing buck-ass-naked in his living room. One of the women was on her knees, handling the man’s equipment with the assistance of her mouth. The other woman was standing on his opposite side, their bodies at a 45 degree angle with each other. He caressed her breasts and engaged in some very, very open mouth kissing with her as an adventurous finger of hers danced its way down the small of his back and below. They were surrounded by a semicircle of hollywood movie cameras on one side and a large, expensive-looking leather sectional couch on the other.
My eyes must have been as wide as saucers because I could hear him chuckle as he closed the door. “Damn, I could tell from your voicemail that you were new to all this, but I had no idea you would be so green.” That amused smirk never left his face the whole time I was at his house. Hell, I don’t think it’s left his face over all the years that I’ve known him.
“You want me to do…that?” I asked him, pointing to the threesome they were filming right before my very eyes.
“No! No. No, no, no, no, no…” He said, his soothing voice flowing like honey from his mouth. He slid his hand down the middle of my back and gently guided me to a large, cherrywood cabinet that was full of liquor and fancy glasses to drink it from. “I only want you to do what makes you comfortable. Nothing more, nothing less. You are 18, right? We like to keep things strictly legal around here. I am a professional, after all. Can I get you something to drink?”
“You keep things strictly legal around here? Is that why you’re offering alcohol to an underage female?” I asked. Even today I still have no idea where that kind of bravery came from, because I was nervous as all hell and even in my most confident moments back then I had a bad habit of acting pathetically sheepish. But he took it in stride with the grace you would expect from someone whose livelihood comes from one of the most loathed – and at the same time most popular – industries in the world.
“You’re smart. Smart girls are usually feisty. I have lots of customers with very deep pockets who pay extra for that sort of thing-
“Pardon me, I’m getting ahead of myself,” he apologized, pressing a hand to his chest for emphasis. “I didn’t mean to offend you by offering you that drink. But you seem like the trustworthy type. You can keep a secret, right?” He asked me, pulling his sunglasses down just long enough to give me a mischievous wink. I nodded and swallowed hard before I asked him to pour me a club soda. He did as requested, and also poured two fingers of whiskey into a separate glass for himself.
“To new business endeavors,” he toasted, extending one arm to hand me the glass of club soda I’d asked for. But something strange happened as I lifted my hand to meet his. By the way, did I mention that I was nervous as all hell? Because I was. My first minute inside his home was as far outside of my comfort zone as you could possibly get – but for some strange reason, I hadn’t run away screaming yet.
As if possessed by some unknown force, I reached past his extended arm and grabbed the glass of whiskey from his other hand. He released it easily, almost as if he was expecting me to take it from him. It was the first drink of alcohol I’d ever had in my entire life, and I threw back that entire glass of hard liquor in a single, thirsty gulp as if I were a seasoned lush.
The funny thing is that even though my mind was willing, my body wasn’t having any of it. I coughed and gagged so hard at the foul taste of the whiskey that it almost came right back up. Trick chuckled sympathetically and gently rubbed my back, patiently waiting for my coughing fit to calm down.
“I’ve been in this business a long time”, Trick insisted. “I’ve seen it do terrible things to a lot of people who didn’t deserve it. So I want to keep everything above board. I won’t so much as ask you to squeak out a sweet-smelling fart unless you are 100% enthusiastic about it. But in order for me to honor my end of the bargain, I need you to be open and honest with me about what does and does not make you feel comfortable. Can you make me that promise?
“I’m only trying to help you. You want to be a veterinarian, right? Well they need lots of school, and school ain’t cheap. Just think of all those poor little animals you can save. And all for just a few hours of your time. It’s a lot of money.
“Let me help you.”
Let me help you he said, as if it were the smallest and most reasonable request in the world.
When he said those four little words to me, reality turned upside down. The world grew pitch dark around him and flames danced in his jetstone eyes with an unrelenting passion I’d never seen in a human face. The words warbled out of his mouth with an otherworldly tone that didn’t sound anything like a natural human voice. Every single bone in my body wanted to run away right then and there. The young, innocent, naive part of my personality which had dominated my thoughts and actions all my life was screaming at me to dash through the nearest exit and never look back.
But something else stirred deep inside me as he said those words. It was something dark, and buried, and felt surprising yet oddly familiar all at the same time. Somehow, I instinctively knew these new feelings were as true and real as the sun rising in the East and setting in the West. His words bored their way into my brain and took on a life of their own, practically hijacking my own thoughts. Let him help you I heard myself thinking in my own voice. It can’t be that bad. It might even be fun. When have you ever let loose before, honestly? Your whole life, everyone has manipulated you into believing that your deepest, darkest desires were wrong and sinful and dirty and shameful and bad. But what if they’re not? This may be your one and only opportunity to discover the answer to that question. take it. Embrace it. And don’t look back.
“W-what do you want me to do?” I asked, shocked that I didn’t choke on my own words as they percolated out of my throat.
Trick smiled. His shoulders relaxed as he released a tense sigh. “I’m so glad you asked,” he cooed, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and guiding me down the nearest hallway. “You did say you were a virgin, right?” he chuckled. “We’re going to make a lot of money together, you and I.”
***
Trick was right about a couple of things. He and I did make a lot of money together. And I did end up saving a lot of animals – just not the kind with whiskers or fluffy tails. More like the kind that would go insane and shoot up their workplace if they didn’t have any good porn (starring yours truly) to stroke it to.
My life pretty much went off the rails after I met Trick but, do I have any regrets? I’m not sure. I know my life isn’t nearly as boring as it used to be back then. I know I have more money than God and zero student loan debt. And I can honestly say that more than a few of the screaming orgasms I’ve had on camera were not entirely contrived. I can’t imagine how motherhood and monogamy could do anything but pale in comparison to that.
But what do I know? I’m just a trashy porn star, right?
