Chapter Five

Loncey

I fall asleep with the stars, and I wake with the sunrise. Some would say that's a disadvantage of not having curtains or drawing my blinds, but personally, I like it. I like waking with the sun and at this time of year it's starting to be a more respectable time than the peak of summer. It means I can switch off my alarm and slowly let my eyes adjust to the bright light filling my space.

It's going to be another hot day, not that I'll be outside much between taking Jessica to her tune-up and then hitting the gym. After that I don't have much planned aside from some meal prep I need to do for both me and Jessica, and I should probably do some laundry too.

So, yeah, I may have spent most of yesterday getting my back broken by a tall Brazilian dude with a delicious dick shaped like a banana but today I'll be separating whites and colors and making sure I've got enough clean boxers for the coming week. Such is the life of a porn star.

After I've had a quick shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and packed my gym bag, I finally pick up my phone. It used to be the first thing I looked at in the morning but that would always flood my brain with too much information before I'd even taken a deep breath and it never seemed to set me up for a good day. Now I like to at least have a shower and get dressed before I bombard my brain with notifications and emails.

And a small bombarding it certainly is. Today is no different, as I open my emails and see too many new arrivals in my inbox. It's the same story on my messaging apps, and my social media is awash with new notifications despite not uploading any new content yesterday. Oh, wait. That's not true. I did upload that reply video.

I jump to it and see that it's taken off. With over two hundred thousand views, there are thousands of likes and comments, and I already know reading them all is going to be impossible. But I don't have to read them all to see that many of the comments are very similar, mostly in support of what I had to say. As I scroll down them, I keep seeing people tagging a creator with the handle @MaeBae. I read what a few of the comments say and am not surprised when I tap through to their profile and see a pinned video titled, "So I guess I'm asexual!?" The bio includes her pronouns she/her and tells me she's based in Dublin, is queer, and "has been doing this way too long." I open the "So I guess I'm asexual!?" video and feel my neck lengthen and eyes widen a little when her face pops up on-screen.

She's stunning. Breathtakingly beautiful with narrow features, an elegant long neck, golden blonde hair and eerily green eyes.

And yet, it's not in a way I like. She's too carefully composed. Her make-up is thick and obvious. Her hair is styled to look natural but it's so clear that it was achieved by anything but nature. And the way she talks to the camera is also so conscious and deliberate and so far from easy or natural. Those are my first impressions, but then, when the video loops, I listen to what she has to say with a bit more attention.

"So, if you didn't catch my Live earlier this morning, here I am making it TikTok Internet official. I'm asexual. If you don't know what that is, firstly, pull your head out of your arse, and secondly, go Google it. I'll wait. And if you didn't know, we are what the A stands for in LGBTQIA. No, A is not for Ally, you brainless spanners. You cishets already have enough. Keep your hands off our A.

"Anyway, I've not come to this conclusion lightly or easily. And honestly, I'm sitting here today with a part of me still not really wanting to be asexual because trust me, it's not easily explained or experienced when it feels like the rest of the world just doesn't get it or even want to try and understand. But I can't let that stop me from speaking my own truth, you know. I've done that for too long. I also hope by sharing it with you all, that it means I can create a safe space for other people to learn more about their asexuality, because depending on what research you read, us aces account for one to two percent of the population, which sure look, isn't a lot but if that statistic is true, one percent of my following is like… wait, my brain is mathing, which it really doesn't like, by the way… well, look, it's still thousands of people, right? So, yeah, that's all I wanted to say today. That and have a good one. Look after yourselves."

I'm smiling as I listen to her lilting Irish accent. I also realise that even though she's evidently performing in her talk to the camera with her make-up on, her hair carefully tossed around now and then as she studies her reflection, I was wrong in assuming she is being disingenuous. She is not completely fake. Her tone is mostly relaxed and what she's saying has a certain level of fragility in it as she shares something that I know from my own experience is challenging to put into words.

I respect her for sharing her truth. I respect her so much that I feel the need to tell her. But to do so without acknowledging the comments tagging her on my video about being aromantic feels strange and disjointed. And yet, I don't want to reply to one of those comments or tag her in my own comment. So, I do what I almost never do. I click Follow on her profile and then tap on the Message button to send her a DM.

Pausing only briefly before typing, I check the time on my phone and realize I've got to get a move on. So I just type what's on my mind and read it once before hitting Send

Hi Mae, I keep seeing you getting tagged in my recent video. I'm not ignoring those comments or you, but I don't feel it's my place to comment on them when you're not replying. But I wanted you to know I respect you for sharing your journey as an asexual. I know it will help others. Have a great day. El>

And then I quickly grab my laptop, go to my MyFans account and upload the video I edited last night. I could have scheduled it to go out but I like to answer DMs while I wait for it to upload, adding in my replies that there's a new video about to land. I don't really need to do that anymore – hustle for extra views and tips – but old habits die hard. No matter how much money I make doing this or how popular my videos prove to be, I am always worried someone or something is going to take it all away from me. and I'll be back where I was: a personal trainer with one too many thirst traps on social media who found themself being asked to share more than just their top abs workouts.

Because this wasn't my dream. Yes, the money was, not to mention the ability to take care of my sister and pay off my mom's mortgage, but it was never my dream or even my intention to do so by fucking on camera. Being a porn star, albeit an ethical porn star, was not top of my list of ambitions growing up. That was being an astronaut.

All I did as a kid was dream of the stars, and when I grew a little older, in my teens, when I knew I wasn't book-smart enough to make it to NASA and I was feeling increasingly out of place, no, misplaced, as the man everyone told me I was growing up to be, I took to painting the stars. I would literally go out into my mother's yard – the one outside my door now – and would paint what I could see.

I imagine some people think painting the night sky is just adding white dots to a black canvas. How unimaginative. How uninspiring. And yet, the star-filled night sky was anything but to me. I saw endless shades of black and gray, or sometimes blue or purple, and I would try to capture each one with my acrylic paints. The patterns tell stories and I memorized the most visible ones. My paintings would track their movements across the sky, reminding me that we're never standing still on this Earth, even when our feet aren't moving.

I lost myself in the stars, clouds and sky above my head. And I found myself again as I painted them.

I'm not sure when exactly I stopped painting the stars. It was some time in my late twenties, when I started focusing all my spare energy and time on growing my YouTube channel. That and being with Geneva.

But I don't want to think about her. Lucky for me, there's no time to do so.

The video has finished uploading, and I type out a quick caption and push it live. I close my laptop, grab my bag and make my way over to the house to find my sister.