Focus... Come on, Izuna, focus!

I looked down on my book, Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. I'd read it two times already, the first time when I was twelve, so I knew I could write an essay and gain the highest mark without even opening the book. But I had figured I might as well read it again and not only earn the highest mark, but blow the professor's mind away.

But I couldn't focus. I kept looking around me, terrified. It usually wasn't this bad, not even at university. But being in a library was, somehow, even more nerve-wrecking. It was so full of innocent people, children even, coming to borrow books or to study or to just be together without the pressure of talking. That made the library worse than university.

The library was the main one in the city, not connected to the university but public, and newly built. The modern, glassed-in rooms for studying or group work were all taken on a Saturday afternoon like this, so I had to sit outside on one of the benches in the centre of the top floor among many others who were there to study or maybe just to read. I tried to convince myself that people were not looking at me, that they did not recognise me, but it wasn't the easiest. It would make sense that some people I saw out each day knew who I was; I wasn't famous, by any means, but I was a name. I wasn't ashamed of it, mind; I was too carefree for that. But I was awfully shy about it.

I looked down on my notebook again, on my hastily scribbled-down notes. The essay was about comparing and contrasting Aldous Huxley work to the poets of his time. I knew I would do a splendid job of it, if I had only stayed home. Oh, why had I decided to go here? I knew why. I was longing for the normality and incredible cosiness of being an English literature student writing his modern classic essay in a library, a piece of confectionary next to him, maybe some tea. I wanted to feel as though I belonged, that I wasn't carrying around a big secret constantly hooding over me like a raincloud.

Why am I even doing all of that? I could just quit and be just a student and nothing else.

I shut my book closed and sighed. I knew why that wasn't possible. Mother was already working two jobs in order to pay for everything, excluding my education. During my first year, my mother had drowned herself in work trying to help me so I didn't have to take a student loan. But since the second year, she hadn't had to help me out...

"I'm so happy you have a job at the library!" she would beam. "Who knew that paid so well?"

I hated lying to her. But it was better than the truth.

I took my black-and-white checked Vans backpack, slung it over one shoulder, fixed my light blue jeans shirt, tightened my high ponytail. I stretched, took my paper mug of tea, now lukewarm, and walked towards the exit.

It was one of those crisp early spring days, the ones who you knew would make the crocuses bloom and the leaves start to peek through their buds if the weather only lasted for a few days. I hadn't needed a jacked, and I enjoyed the freedom of just the fabric of my shirt and my black trousers between my skin and the wind. I walked happily beneath the trees in the alleyways, more relaxed now I was out of the pressed quietness so typical and universal for libraries; here I was more okay with someone recognising me because they would just catch sight of me, wonder is that him? and then I would have walked away before they had time to make sure, and even if they made sure they couldn't approach me without heavily outing themselves.

It had all started on the summer between my first and second year of university. I had started university a bit later, so I was twenty-two then, having started at twenty-one. At the end of the term, one of the popular boys had approached me. I had always believed the division into popular and unpopular kids would end with high school, but apparently not so much. I was shy, quite alternative and a little girly, so I was pretty lonely. This boy, however, was part of the in-group. He had angelic blond curls and a spark to his eyes, wasn't too tall but had a good physique. When he had approached me when I sat alone in a study room late one evening, I had been terribly flattered.

But he only wanted us to meet in secrecy. He had apologised and said he wouldn't start saying hi to me in public, that we could only meet somewhere we could be alone. He was my first true love, so I had accepted, feeling incredibly good about myself for making life easier for the man I thought I loved.

He was the first man I had had sex with. Incredibly gentle and kind, he had stretched me with his fingers for a long time before our first time. We continued fucking, got more and more used to each other, as you did, until, in the middle of summer, he could just shove himself into me without prepping.

The turning point came one summer evening. We had been at the ocean all day, enjoying our last day together before he was going to Florida for two weeks with his family, that he'd never let me meet, and we came home to his apartment hungry, salty and thirsting for love.

He had hugged me close, grinded his hips against me. He had grabbed my hair, pulled my head so his lips was to my ear.

"I want to film you."

I looked at him in surprise.

"What?"

"I want to film you masturbating so I can look at the film while I'm away."

My first instinctive reaction was fear. Despite the huge amounts of sex we had had, I was still inexperienced, and didn't really know how I would act in front of a camera.

My second reaction was flattery; he wanted a video of me when he was away.

I had agreed, hesitantly but still believing I was absolutely certain I wanted to let him film me, that I, in fact, wanting nothing more than to give him this.

And to both of our great surprise, I had come alive in front of the camera. What started as hesitant stroking and caressing soon turned into wet moans and screams while I was laying on my back. I arched my back, licked my hand, fingered my opening with one hand while beating my length with the other.

And my partner just filmed, eyes locked on mine, my eyes locked on his, until I came.

When he shut the camera off, he railed me.

Afterwards, I went to take a shower, and when I came back, he was looking at his phone, his hay-coloured brows furrowed, deep in thought. It took me a while to realise he was looking at the film of me. I blushed, looked away, but my boyfriend was deeply engaged in the piece he had shot.

"Izuna, this is... This is, like, really good." I couldn't speak. He looked up at me with seemingly new eyes, as if he saw something when he looked at me that he hadn't seen before . "We should post this."

My first reaction was, as when he'd suggested we'd film in the first place, instant negation. But he was adamant. He used flattery. He begged. In the end, he even threatened. Finally, I agreed.

You should be flattered, I tried to convince myself, to no avail. You should be flattered he thinks you're so good. I wasn't.

But it was posted. And it went much, much better than we could ever have expected. The video exploded on the homosexual part of the porn site where my secret boyfriend had posted me. It actually earned him some money, that he didn't share with me insisting that by the lay, the money was rightfully his as he'd been the one who stood behind the camera. But when he came back from Florida, I had gotten ten offers to shoot more, professionally. I thought of my mother at work in that moment, only getting four hours of sleep a night, the lines of age showing up on her face far quicker than could possibly be natural. I thought of my studies that I loved. I thought of taking some control back from my boyfriend, actually earning some money for myself to prove to him that I wasn't his to own.

And some part of me also thought about how I had come alive in front of the camera.

I told my boyfriend I would accept some of the offers.

He wasn't happy. He wasn't happy and I couldn't blame him. Of course I couldn't. His boyfriend, no matter how secret, wanted to shoot porn with other men. 

So I had broken up with him. 

I had shot my first gay porn film a month after that. I had been nervous and it had shown on screen, but somehow, that suited the audience and the film thrived. I was booked more and more, only to film with men, of course, became more and more comfortable but still managed to maintain some of my vulnerability that worked so well with the style of the films I was booked for.

And the money was great. My mother now only had two jobs, to pay for rent. I could pay for my own food and also my education.

But I was conflicted. Nobody would believe I was the type to do porn. I had always been shy, laid-back, a little alternative but not too much. Doing porn went wildly against who I was, or who I thought I was, or who others thought I was.

"Hello."

I jerked back to reality, to this moment where I was twenty-four years old and not in my early twenties. I had been completely lost in my thoughts, and was in a small shopping street close to home that was completely void of people.

Except for the person who stood in front of me and had said hello.

He was tall, in a suit, holding a briefcase. His hair was strawberry blonde, and he wore glasses. He had a kind face, or would have, if his face hadn't been contorted in an awful grin.

"I thought it was you."

My heart froze to ice. That ice spread to my lungs, covered them in ice as well so they couldn't move, and I couldn't breathe.

It happened, from time to time, that someone came up to me. But they had all been shy fans, usually younger than me, sometimes even thanking me for giving them more confidence in bed. I didn't like it, being very awkward, but it was okay.

This man, however...

He looked hungry, and he reached his hand out, grabbed a strand of the hair that framed my face.

"I would fuck you right here... If it wasn't for the fact that you've been had by so many already. I'm sure you're all stretched out. Nothing to grip me."

I was frozen in place. The man leaned forwards. His breath smelled of cigarettes and alcohol.

I ran.

I ran and ran, my lungs screaming for air. I was home in only two minutes, but my lungs, thawed from the ice of fear that had grabbed them, now burned instead. I stood outside the white fence of our little house, leaned my hands on my knees, panted. Then, I walked to my mother's beautiful bushes on the small patches of emerald green glass, the green leaves just having bloomed, and threw up.

I waited for a few moments, made sure I felt normal, or at least as normal as I could; my heart was still pounding, and I couldn't get the image of the man out of my mind. For minute after minute I just stood there, until a new fear gripped me; what if my mother looked out the window and saw me?

I walked to the front door, always unlocked during the day when she was home, and opened it.

"Mom, I'm home!"

My voice was wobbling, but not enough that she would notice, I hoped.

"Izuna, darling!"

I tentatively walked into the little green-and-yellow kitchen, letting the comforting atmosphere and smell of freshly made cookies consume me.

"You made cookies", I said, feigning enthusiasm.

"For you, my darling!" She planted a kiss on my cheek. Some mothers immediately noticed something was wrong with their child. My mother, however, was not one of them. "I'm going to work in half an hour. I'm back tomorrow at seven am."

"You should rest more, mom."

I took a cookie, a butter cookie with raspberry jam. It took it up to my room to eat after I had brushed my teeth, but I knew it would taste of caramelised sugar and spring and guilt.

I finished it up, went to my little room upstairs, still the same since I was a teen. It had room for a bed and a small desk and little else, and had window looking out over the street in front of the house. I'd had a space phase in my teens, deciding the theme of my bedsheets and pillows, but also a classical rock band phase entailing that the walls were covered in Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers and Sex Pistols posters.

That man recognised me. He recognised me and was going to rape me.

I laid down in my bed and cried silently, a porn star in his boy's room, his mother who loved him downstairs with a tray of freshly baked cookies, preparing to go to work to pay for rent.