Episode 2: "Silicone Valley"
She had a longstanding fear that living in the San Fernando Valley might mean being among those who sin in unthinkable ways. This wasn't Hollywood, she thought. Or Santa Monica. Or even Bel Air where the pedophiles live. This was Porter Ranch.
When she heard the strange sounds of a woman moaning...or grunting...or yodelling or something, she knew she was right to proceed.
Gretchen had seen porn once, for 28 long seconds in 2003 when she clicked on an email attachment. It turned out to be a porn virus, one where a lewd message keeps popping up on your screen telling you to buy porn. It wouldn't go away.
Instead of taking her computer to the repair shop she had it destroyed.
Or so she thought.
She asked her housekeeper to take it far away and run over it in a back alley. She instructed the house keeper to use her own car, a Honda Civic, for the deed, a honda civic, and not tell anyone, especially Ronnie. The housekeeper agreed but lied about running it over with her car. Instead, her kids got rid of the virus and she kept the computer. She still uses it today, mostly to facilitate her Etsy addiction.
Gretchen's hands were trembling as she reached to open the door but it suddenly lurched open on its own.
Gretchen was met by Talia, a slender younger woman in a white tank top and excessively ripped jeans, the kind that are pre-ripped by children working at factories in the third world before you buy them. Talia was excited to see Gretchen and pulled her inside the by the wrist.
Gretchen was horrified and thought she was about to be murdered. Her voice quivering, all she could say was, 'What do you want?'
Talia leaned in and whispered in Gretchen's ear, “Gina is set up by the pool for makeup if you want to sneak around back.”
“What?” said Gretchen, clueless.
Then the moaning grew louder.
Gretchen looked into the adjacent dining room and saw flesh. Lot's of it. She hardly ever saw flesh. She didn't care for it. She didn't have a lot of mirrors for that very reason.
She moved toward the pink commotion in the dining room like she was being compelled by a spirit. There, a seventeen thousand dollar, ten-foot Ralph Lauren duke pedestal dining table, handcrafted out of penthouse rosewood and featuring a polished nickel finish that accentuated the craftsmanship of the fluted pedestals and the rich luster of the wood... had two people fucking on it
Not ten feet away from Gretchen, laying comfortably on his back, was a naked, disgusting man. A plump, hairy, disheveled troll of a naked man with a moustache. On top of him was another naked person, a tanned woman who was engaged in...movement. She was the source of the noises.
Gretchen couldn't believe what she was seeing. She had to piece it together part by part in her mind: There's a naked man laying on his back on the dining table / being straddled by a naked woman, who is vocalizing...physical pleasure. They were having intercourse, she determined—something that should be an intimate and private act.
Like most people, Gretchen had never seen other human beings having sex before.
Aside from the computer virus, she did once have a terrier that liked to hump Ronnie's leg. She deemed the dog untrainable and had it put down.
Or so she thought.
In actuality, the vet gave it to a young family who promptly trained it and it's now living a happy and full life. His name is now Bandit, by the way. Gretchen had named him Beau. Their two paths crossed once when the two paths they were walking on crossed. But neither acknowledged the other.
The point is, when Gretchen entrusts someone to get rid of something for her, they never do.
Strange slapping sounds reached Gretchen's ears and the whole scene hit her like a freight train: She was standing right in the middle of a porno.
Frankenbreasts tossed around white pears on the naked woman's chest, no different than the pearls Gretchen herself would wear and often clutch. The woman gleefully rode on top of the grotesque man like a demented frog while he just laid there lifeless.
Gretchen was frozen like a deer caught in the headlights. except the headlights were two people fornicating on a very expensive dining table.
Then Gretchen became aware that there were other souls in the room too. A women held a camera aimed at the ungodly act. Someone silently followed her around to help.
Other people sat around oblivious to everything that was going on. Seemingly, and implausibly they were unconcerned, and, if anything, bored.
Who are these people? Gretchen wondered. Were they hostages? Were they in a cult? Was everyone on drugs? Why were they not running away?
She tried to say something but no real audible sound came out of her mouth. Nevertheless, a man holding a microphone glared at her to be quiet.
Gretchen recognized the man. It was Carlos, her former gardener.
Traitor! Thought Gretchen. What the living hell?
Talia tapped Gretchen on the shoulder and motioned down a hallway.
“There's lube in that bathroom...” she said quietly. “Try the Goop, it's really good.”
Gretchen looked at her confused.
“Made with all natural ingredients,” said Talia. “Maybe from Gwyneth Paltrow's own vagina, don't you think? I mean who knows, right?”
Talia had mistaken Gretchen for one of the performers due to show up for the GILF scene later in the morning. That's GILF with a G, for what it's worth. The G is for grandma, in case your mind refused to go there.
Gretchen was having a panic attack and couldn't move. She wanted to escape but to do so she'd need to regain control of her body, and it was now paralyzed.
She forced herself to assess the situation with her eyes, the only part of her body responding to inputs from her brain.
Unfortunately the first thing her eyes focused on were two implausibly large testicles hanging underneath the tanned buttocks of the naked woman. Gretchen was reminded of a monstrous bull she saw on a fourth grade field trip. Except these looked like two pears vacuum sealed in a dollar store handbag.
She tried to look away in search of an exit but her eyes stopped on a golden brown turkey sitting right next to the copulating couple. Around it were fine place settings, wine glasses and elegant candles. It was all so proper in spite the carnality that was taking place beside it. The creative genius behind the project had decided that a fully cooked turkey brought some sort of levity to the scene. He didn't know what, exactly, but everyone on the crew agreed and was excited by the bold artistry of it all.
Gretchen remained fixated on the Turkey as she gathered her strength. Were the people in the porno about to eat Thanksgiving dinner and instead found themselves copulating like wild animals? she wondered. Was the bedroom that far away?
Attempting to solve this insolvable puzzle caused Gretchen to faint. She began to fall, only to be saved at the last second by Talia who helped Gretchen land safely in a sitting position against the wall.
Gretchen looked up at all the people congregated in the dining room in support of the sex act. They were acting like nothing unusual was going on. There were just passing time. They might as well have been waiting for a flight at the airport. She saw Carlos sneak a piece of turkey when the camera was pointed in the other direction.
“Am I in Hell?” Gretchen sincerely wondered.
A concerned Talia told Gretchen she'd fetch her a glass of water and then left.
Gretchen couldn't look away from the giant sack of testicles. She wondered if they were fake or if porn people injected them with something to make them big.
When Talia returned with a water glass, Gretchen took it and drank it down. She was determined to muster the strength to flee.
Talia noticed Gretchen staring at the testicles.
“Oh, is this about Jerry?” asked Talia. “Is this your first time doing a scene with him?”
For some reason, Gretchen answered, “Yes.” She wasn't really listening.
“Don't worry,” said Talia. “He's a nice guy and he's been bathing again lately.”
Gretchen made a slight grunting sound as a tear rolled down her face.
“Don't worry,” said Talia. “His penis doesn't match his balls. It's...I don't know... unremarkable at best.”
“Unremarkable?” asked Gretchen.
She looked at the fornicating man and was mortified to find him looking back at her.
“Yeah, unremarkable,” said Talia. “No one's every really remarked on it, I don't think.”
Gretchen had to get out now. She forced herself onto her feet with Talia's help. When she got there, she found the man still staring at her. Now even more intently.
He had such a dumb, glazed-over look on his face. She couldn't figure out why. It was such a bizarre expression. And then she remembered Ronnie.
Ronnie, she recalled, has that same weird look on his face toward the end of lovemaking. This realization made Gretchen feel truly unclean, like she was a participant in this unholy ritual.
The man's gaze practically burned her skin. She looked down at the turkey and envied it for not having a head. Then she noticed Talia staring at her waist.
“What?” asked Gretchen.
Talia, looking downward, whispered incredulously, “You didn't shave.”
That didn't make any sense to Gretchen.
She looked back at the deplorable man who was still staring at her. Then she felt a draft on her chest and it became terribly clear: The grisly man's gaze was directed at her body.
She looked down to see her robe had come partially undone when she fell. Gretchen instinctively stopped herself from breathing. It sometimes works for bear encounters, but not so much for getting stuck in the middle of a porno.
Long milliseconds passed as she stood motionless and exposed in front of a room full of strangers.
Talia continued. “Or is this a hairy GILF thing? I mean sometimes people don't tell me everything.” She flipped through papers on a clipboard looking for answers.
Then, without warning, the puzzle finally came together for Gretchen. Talia had mistaken her for a porn woman. She couldn't have been more disgusted. She was actually surprised her heart was still beating. Death would have been a sweet escape at that moment.
Then things got worse.
The nature of the moaning from the silicone-infused woman shifted to legitimate ecstasy. This startled nearly everyone in the room. Alarmed crew members put down their phones to see what was a matter. The sound recordist exchanged a quizzical glance with the lighting man. This—apparently—was very odd.
Gretchen finally covered up. However, the naked man continued to gaze upon her, his eyes growing increasingly demented.
Gretchen's heart raced so wildly she was sure she was about to have a heart attack. “Good!” she thought, “Get me out of here, Lord. I'm ready! Take me!”
Then she thought, no!
There couldn't be a worse place to die. How on earth would Ronnie explain it to everyone? She envisioned the neighbors watching her corpse being rolled out of a porn house on a stretcher while in her bath robe. How would that look? She wondered.
Gretchen became angry with herself. How did this Sunday morning turn into a living nightmare? she thought. Why did she come inside a stranger's house? What kind of a stupid idea was this?
And with that, Gretchen tightened her bath robe and walked with as much dignity she could muster out of the house the same way she came in.
She paused on the front drive in the bright sun, a defeated and broken woman.
When a yoga dog walker passed by she looked at Gretchen and smiled. Gretchen angrily growled at her and gave her the finger, something she had not done since high school. The smile on the dog walker's face turned to shock and she hurried on. A moment later Gretchen apologized to God and limped back to her house.
She didn't mention it to Ronnie, none of it.
Even though she couldn't bring herself to go to church that Sunday, she later attended the brunch with her book club. She barely said a word to anyone the whole time and drank far more than she ever imagined.
Later, she would be driven home in shame by Alice in her blacked out SUV.
The man on the table is known professionally as Jerry Balls. It's also his legal name since he had it changed the day he turned 18.
He was a sensation at a very young age because of his gigantic testicles. Those balls were so big they revitalized a struggling porn industry which was under threat from amateurs armed with cheap camcorders.
This is his story.
It's the story of an over the hill porn star known the world over for his massive balls.
A well-meaning but misguided man who claims credibly to have had sex with as many as four thousand women, mostly on camera. Yet you couldn't find a more lonely human being. He's never maintained a long term relationship.
He's been making pornographic videos his whole adult life.
It's pretty much all he knows and along the way he became a cultural icon, travelling the world and making money, money that he spent as fast as he made.
Sadly, today—this beautiful Sunday morning in porter ranch, California—will be the last time Jerry will ever have sex.
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