How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale

FOR TWO DECADES I LOOKED MEN IN THE EYE AND

DENIED EVERYTHING. AND THEN FOR YEARS, IN PRIVATE,

I WRESTLED WITH MYSELF. THE TRUTH WON.

IT IS MORE NAKED THAN I HAVE EVER ALLOWED MYSELF TO

BE SEEN. NEITHER MY FATHER NOR MY HUSBAND HAVE

BEEN PRIVY TO THESE EXPERIENCES; THEY HAVE BEEN A

BURDEN AND A BLESSING FOR ME TO CARRY ALONE.

Until now.

Only some names and identifying features of individuals have been changed

in order to preserve their anonymity and protect their innocence. In addition, some

characters are composites, and one movie title has been changed.

IT IS A SHOCKING TALE,

BUT IT IS ALSO ONE OF HOPE AND BEAUTY.

.............

She was young, beautiful, and damned. Her name was Vanessa. And she was dead.

Vanessa was thin, tan, and graceful, with perfect boobs, a broad muscular back, and wire-straight blond hair cut in bangs that grazed her eyebrows. When she walked into the Crazy Horse Too for her first day of work, she instantly attracted customer and stripper alike. Some people are beautiful, others are sexy, but Vanessa was both. Add to this intelligence and a wicked sense of humor, and she was a goddess, at least to my seventeen-year-old mind. No man could resist emptying his wallet for her.

A born hustler with a love of the game, she taught me everything I needed to know about working guys. She had to: she was my only friend.

What was most striking about Vanessa were her eyes: big saucers of blue that sparkled with life. But beneath the surface was a deep reservoir of sadness. I knew that terrible things must have happened—and it made me feel close to her, because we had that in common.

I never asked Vanessa about her personal life, though. I knew better. But as Vanessa and I danced together, month after month, cracks began to appear in her perfect facade. She started to drink more heavily and would burst into fits of sobbing or curse out customers for no reason. On Christmas Eve, I decided to take Vanessa out to forget about her problems.

I took the night off work, picked up her friend Sharon, and we drank until Vanessa called and said she was ready. We drove to her house in Sharon’s Corvette. As we pulled up outside, we could hear Christmas music blaring from inside. Usually Vanessa listened to Guns N’ Roses.

Deck the halls with boughs of holly

Fa la la la la, la la la la

’Tis the season to be jolly

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Great, I thought. Vanessa’s in a good mood tonight.

As we stepped out of the car, Vanessa’s terrier, Frou Frou, ran toward us, barking. I knocked on the chipped yellow front door. There was no answer. The music was way too loud. We tried to push open the door, but it was locked. We went around to the back, with Frou Frou bounding after us, her barking loud and urgent. That door was locked too. Fortunately the kitchen window next to it was open a few inches. I reached around, turned the door handle from the inside, and pushed it open. As we climbed the stairs to Vanessa’s bedroom, the music became almost deafening. I couldn’t understand why she had it on so loud.

See the blazing Yule before us

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Strike the harp and join the chorus

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Light streamed out of Vanessa’s room, but there was no one there. Her clothes for the night were laid out on the bed, and I could hear water running in the bathroom. I followed the sound, and there she was: topless, with those perfect breasts, and her face made up like a goddess. She was always gorgeous, and her makeup accentuated her natural beauty without ever seeming too caked on.

Follow me in merry measure

Fa la la la la, la la la la

But everything was wrong. White foam dripped from her lower lip, covering her chin in lather. Her skin was discolored by heart-shaped bruises, which ran up her arms to her shoulders. I couldn’t see her neck, because there was a rope around it. She was hanging from the door of her shower.

While I tell of Yuletide treasure

Fa la la la la,la la la la

As Sharon screamed and ran out of the bathroom, I grabbed Vanessa around the hips and hoisted her up a few inches to take the pressure off her neck. I hoped that somehow we had arrived in time and could save her. As her head lifted off the rope, I heard one last puff of air escape from her lungs.

Get a knife from the kitchen! I yelled to Sharon. We needed to cut her down.

What? she screamed over the music.

Get me a fucking knife!

As I waited for Sharon, I noticed something strange: Vanessa’s feet. When I let go, they still touched the ground. There was no way she could have done this to herself. My father was a cop, and he always told me about suicides: girls rarely hang themselves. And when they do, they aren’t half-naked. And then there was that full face of makeup, just staring at me, mouth open, tongue out. Why would a girl ever want to be found like this? The Vanessa I know would have taken pills. In fact, she had pills.

Though the police deemed the matter a suicide, something wasn’t right. This had to be the work of a man. And I knew just who that man was. He was probably the most vile human being I had ever encountered.

They called him Preacher.

Fast away the old year passes

Fa la la la la, la la la la

Me at 15.

There comes a moment in every life when a choice must be made between right and wrong, between good and evil, between light and darkness. These decisions are made in an instant, but with repercussions that last a lifetime. My troubles began the day I chose the darkness—the day I chose Jack.

Men tend to be power-driven. They measure their lives by their accomplishments. Women are more relationship-driven. They tend to define episodes of their lives by the men they are with. That is, until they learn better. Jack was my learning lesson.

At age sixteen, I finally grew the breasts and pubic hair I had been praying for since sixth grade. It was as if they just appeared overnight. And suddenly I transformed from a homely wallflower to a full-bodied woman who turned heads. It was every father’s nightmare.

Oh my God, you are your mother, my father said to me one morning, shaking his head in disbelief. You look just like your mother.

As I became comfortable with my breasts, my closet changed too. The stonewashed jeans became tighter; the Flashdance shirts became see-through; the black-and-white-spotted cowboy boots gave way to high-heeled black go-go boots; the T-shirts now stopped at the midriff; and the boxer shorts were no longer something to sleep in. I wore them out of the house, rolled up my thighs as high as possible. I didn’t have any female friends who were intelligent, so there was no one to tell me that I looked like a hoochie mama. That is, a hoochie mama with braces.

When I walked down the Vegas strip, I loved watching men gasp and turn their heads, especially when they were walking arm-in-arm with their wives. I loved the attention. But whenever anyone tried to talk to me, I freaked out. I didn’t know how to interact. I couldn’t even look them in the eye. If somebody complimented me or asked a question, I had no idea how to respond. I would just say that I had to go to the bathroom and escape as soon as I could.

One of my favorite outfits was a tight red cut-off top, Daisy Duke jeans, and black boots with ridiculous chains wrapped around the bottom. I was trying to look like Bobbie Brown from Warrant’s Cherry Pie video. When I left the house like that to go to a Little Caesar concert, my dad didn’t even raise an eyebrow. I was always secretly jealous of my friends, who had to change in the car because their fathers didn’t want their baby girls leaving the house dressed like a slut. Since I was four, my father had been letting me run wild in the streets, but the freedom had come with a price: security.

My friend Jennifer was still in her sweatpants and sweatshirt when I jumped into her car. As she changed, I drove to the show, which was the finale to a weekend-long biker rally called the Laughlin River Run. We had to look hot: We were both in love with the lead singer of Little Caesar and wanted him to notice us.

He didn’t.

But the show blew my mind, almost as much as the audience did. We were surrounded by chrome, ink, and facial hair. Everyone we met opened their beer coolers to us, offered us rides on the back of their bikes, and unsuccessfully tried to talk us into smoking their foul crank.

Afterward, some bikers invited us to an after-party at The Rabbit Hole, the most respected tattoo parlor in north Las Vegas. There were Hell’s Angels, Satan’s Disciples, and Outlaws, not to mention the guys from Little Caesar. And for some reason, I wasn’t scared, though I probably should have been. I didn’t talk much, as usual. I just watched, and noticed how all these psychotic guys called their girlfriends old ladies and treated them like farm animals. I promised myself that I would never allow a man to take me for granted like that. Sadly, that promise didn’t last very long.

After the festivities, I came home and told my brother, I want to get a tattoo.

Are you sure? he asked.

Absolutely, I told him.

So the following Saturday, he drove me back to The Rabbit Hole with his girlfriend, Megan—a mousy, heavyset twenty-year-old brunette who for some reason looked up to me, even though I knew nothing about life or how to move through it. As soon as we walked in, I saw a big sign over the counter: MUST BE 18 OR OVER. I ignored it and pulled my lips taut over my teeth, so that my braces wouldn’t show.

A door behind the counter opened and out walked a slim, well-pierced, five-foot-ten-inch man with a ghostly pale complexion, spiky chestnut hair, and a Satanic-looking goatee. Sleeves of tattoos, mostly of Chinese characters and tribal patterns, ran up his arms and spiraled around his neck. He looked like trouble. I recognized him from the party because I’d met him and his girlfriend there.

What do you want? he asked me.

I looked up at the wall and saw two little overlapping red hearts. I bent forward over the counter, trying to show my breasts, hoping that if I worked it a little he wouldn’t question my age. I want to get those hearts done, I told him as coquettishly as I could manage with my lips curled over my teeth.

Where? he asked.

I needed to put it someplace where my father couldn’t see it. I’m not sure whether I was scared that he would react to it or, even worse, that he wouldn’t. On my butt cheek? I replied nervously.

No problem, he said. Follow me.

I was awestruck: I didn’t expect it to be that easy. My brother’s unoriginal girlfriend decided on the spot that she wanted to get the hearts too and followed us back.

You are so cute, the tattoo artist said as he pulled a single-tipped needle out of the autoclave. How old are you?

Eighteen, I lied.

His name was Jack and he was twenty-five. He hit on me throughout the whole affair. I was so shy, and nervous about being tattooed, that I hardly responded.

Do you want to hang out? he asked when he was through. There’s a cool lounge upstairs, and we can listen to some music.

No, that’s okay, I said. I have to go home. But it was nice meeting you.

Well, how about you give me your phone number, so we can hang out sometime? he persisted.

I declined again. I thought of myself as a sweet, innocent, traditional girl back then. In many ways, I still think of myself that way. And a sweet girl such as myself would never hang out alone with a beautiful tattooed boy she had just met. But she wanted to. In fact, she wanted to so badly that she decided to get another tattoo.

I convinced myself that the hearts weren’t enough. They were too ordinary. They conveyed nothing other than the whim of a teeny-bopper who pointed to the first girly image she saw on a tattoo-shop wall. But if the hearts had a crack through them, that would be cool. And if the word heartbreaker were inked over the broken hearts, that would be even cooler. And if that rock-and-roll-looking boy from the tattoo shop invited me upstairs again afterward, that would be the coolest. This time I wouldn’t be caught by surprise. This time I would say yes.

Two weeks later, I returned to his shop—alone. When I walked through the glass door, his face lit up. I could tell that he had thought about me, but hadn’t expected to see me again. This allowed me to rationalize that he didn’t hit on every single girl who came in for a tattoo. Just some of them. This time, the experience of getting a tattoo wasn’t like the last one, or any one I’ve had since. Every time he bent over me to apply the transfer or the ink, he’d stroke my leg or brush against my inner thigh. If he had done it the first time I was there, I would have thought he was a creep. But this time, all I could think was, Right on!

After he finished, he invited me upstairs for a drink again. My plan was to say yes right away, but I hesitated. I was scared. After all, he had no idea I was only sixteen. When he finally coaxed me upstairs, we sat on the couch and talked about our lives. His was so different from mine—so dangerous, so free, and so sad.

Suddenly, out of the blue, he said, You have beautiful boobs.

They were still growing in, and I was really proud of them.

Why don’t you show them to me? he asked.

And like an idiot, I did. I didn’t even hesitate. I put my hands under my yellow top, which stopped just below my breasts anyway, and lifted it up as I arched my back like some college girl in a spring break video.

His jaw dropped open. For the first time all night, he didn’t know what to say. That lasted about three seconds.

"Is there anything wrong with you?" he stammered.

We’d broken the barrier: there was now officially a romantic spark between us.

On his left forearm was a row of Chinese ideograms. Look, he said, gesturing to one of the characters and then looking at me with his soft, brown eyes. It looks like a ‘J.’ I’m going to start telling everyone this is your name.

It’s easy to see now that he used that line on every woman, but I fell for it and thought it was so romantic. He was working me, and it worked.

What about your girlfriend? I asked.

It’s taken care of, he said.

There it was: a big neon warning sign flashing right in my eyes. But I was already infatuated and oblivious. Most of the guys I had gone out with before were immature high-school brats. Jack was the exact opposite. He was strong, powerful, successful, and in control. I was searching so desperately for someone to take care of me. I wanted to feel safe and that afternoon I felt safe.

But what really got me is a trait that every girl falls for: he was emotionally closed off. And I thought I could fix him. I thought that I could break through the tough facade and find the real Jack, the sensitive man-child hiding behind all those tattoos. Precisely because he never opened up about anything emotional or sensitive, I thought he was the most emotional and sensitive man in the world. And I thought that I—and only I—could break through the walls he put up and turn him into the bad-boy lover man I’d always dreamed of. How ridiculous.

Now I know that if you’re dating somebody to improve him, you’re not really in a love relationship. You’re just being a nurse. The simple truth, and the hardest thing most women ever learn, is that what you see is what you get.

As for Jack, it was no secret why he loved me. He wanted me in the shop all the time, and I willingly obliged, driving forty-five minutes from Mount Charleston every day to see him. He liked showing me off to his friends, who were all even older than he was, and I enjoyed that he enjoyed it. I was the new girl on the block. And I was slowly becoming completely dependent on him. However, I never spent the night there—I had a midnight curfew.

After a few weeks of dating, Jack told me that he was having a party on a boat he had rented. He said it would be good times. There would be lots of alcohol, cool girls to meet, and he would even pick me up in Mount Charleston and drive me there. I told him I could go, as long as I was home by curfew.

If I could look back on my life and change one thing, it would be saying yes to that boat trip. It was the worst mistake I have ever made—and not just because I missed my curfew. If only it had been that painless.

It was an old wooden houseboat with a large cabin and the words The Ark stenciled on the back. Every kind of biker tattoo artist in Las Vegas and his old lady were on board.

Jack and I climbed onto the boat together. Waiting to greet us at the top of the gangplank was an older man with leathery skin and a high forehead with strands of greasy black hair running down his shoulders. His head looked like the kind of stained-wood souvenir you buy from a Native American gift store and put in your bedroom, but then remove because you’re too scared to sleep with it staring at you all night. His arms were strong but had seen better days, and the tattoos were faded and hanging in wrinkled flaps of skin, like a tie-dye shirt left in the sun too long. He smiled as we boarded, revealing a bottom row of teeth blackened from chewing tobacco.

Hello, Jenna, he said in a thick German accent. He knew my name. I’m Preacher.

I reached my hand out to shake his and he clasped it in both of his hands, squeezing a little too tightly. Typically, this would be a gesture of sincerity and fondness. But it felt malicious, like he was trying to trap and possess me. I pulled away and walked with Jack to the cabin below deck so that we could dump our stuff onto a bed.

I was raised by Preacher, Jack explained, since the day I was born.

Jack’s mother had gotten knocked up by a trucker and died during childbirth, so he had been sent to live with his uncle, Preacher, who was running with a right-wing German biker gang at the time.

The boat pushed off, and Preacher steered it to a small sand beach on the other side of Lake Mead. I was enjoying the chance to relax with Jack and meet some of his friends outside the shop. We all swam, laid out in the sun, and drank beer. I was never entirely comfortable, because everyone was so much older than me, but I was at least more relaxed than I had ever been around Jack and his friends.

As the sun set, the guys fired up a barbecue. I went back to the boat to use the bathroom. I climbed down the stairs to the head of the ship. Where the cabin came to a point in the head, there were two beds on either side and, in front of them, a small door leading to a bathroom and a sink. I never made it to the door.

As I walked toward it, something grabbed my shoulders from behind, pulled me backward, and threw me to the ground. It was Preacher. He jumped on top of me, as fast as a raptor, and straddled my stomach. He lay down over me, pressing his chest against my face so that I couldn’t scream. It was all happening too quickly for me to comprehend what was going on.

He shimmied downward along my body and, as soon as his chest slipped below my face, he slapped his hand over my mouth. People always say that if anyone tries to rob or rape you, you’re supposed to stay still and comply, so that you don’t get hurt. But I was my father’s daughter, and I fought him tooth and nail.

He pulled his shorts down and stroked himself a few times, until he was hard. I wanted to kick that thing with all my strength, but his legs were pinning mine down. My arms, however, were free. When I tore at his hair, his mouth twisted into an expression of pure hate and he spit in my face. Then he grabbed both of my wrists with one hand and held them over my head. I screamed at the top of my lungs.

Shut up and stay still, you fucking whore, he snarled.

He pressed his waist against my hips, keeping them steady while, with his other hand, he pulled my bikini bottom out of the way and thrust inside me. If it hurt, I didn’t feel it. I just flailed away twice as hard, until my arms broke loose and I started hitting him in the face and scratching whatever piece of flesh my hands landed on.

As we struggled, he kept slipping out and cursing. Every time he started to get it in, I would summon the strength to knock him off me until, finally, he just stood up and pulled up his shorts.

I looked up, and the first thing I saw was his eyes. They weren’t beady, they weren’t glowing, they weren’t like anything I had seen before. They were like the eyes of a wolf that has just torn apart a dog and is still in attack mode.

He pointed a finger straight down at me. Don’t you say a fucking word or you’re dead, he scowled. Nobody believes a whore anyway. He spat on the floor, then turned around and walked upstairs.

It was only then that I began to comprehend what had happened. I sat up, wrapped my arms around my knees, put my head between my legs, and started crying. My whole body was shaking. It wasn’t just the trauma of the rape but the realization that I was all alone. I was stranded with a bunch of strangers. There was no one to save me, or just tell me I’d get home okay. Except maybe Jack.

I walked into the bathroom to try to compose myself, so that I could brave the walk across the boat and to the beach to find him. But I couldn’t stop crying. I just stared at myself in the mirror and cried. As I washed myself—my hands, my legs, everywhere he had touched—I couldn’t stop trembling.

I wiped the snot off my upper lip, splashed water on my face, and took in a lungful of air as I prepared to climb the stairs. The first person I saw at the top was Preacher. He was laughing, sitting on a bench outside the cabin joking around with a few of the tattoo artists, as if nothing had happened.

Only Matt, who worked at the tattoo shop with Jack, looked up at me as I made my way to the back of the boat, clutching the metal railing. His eyes widened a little and his smile faded as he looked at me, as if he knew that I had just become Preacher’s latest victim.

I jumped off the back of the boat to the beach and found Jack. I needed to pull myself together. I wanted my father, I wanted to go home, I wanted somebody to help me or fucking do something. I was out in the middle of nowhere and the only way home was on that motherfucker’s boat.

As I told Jack what had happened between sobs, he didn’t say anything. He didn’t hug me; he didn’t even look me in the eyes. He just sat there—emotionless, useless. It was too much for me to handle. My body felt cold, like I had a fever, and all I wanted to do was go home, curl up in bed, and cry to my father. I was only sixteen. I still had braces and Barbie dolls.

I want to go home, I cried.

Okay, Jack said. We’re going to take you home.

He walked with me to the boat, and talked to his uncle.

She says she needs to go home, Jack told him.

Preacher didn’t even blink. We can’t, he responded. The boat is broken.

I ran off the boat and back onto the beach. I so desperately wanted to escape, but I knew that I couldn’t get very far. It was the middle of summer, about 105 degrees on the lake, and around me were just desert and mountains. So I had my choice: either run away and hope that someone would find me, or wait.

I waited. A girl with long brown hair, a dancer I had seen hanging around the tattoo shop, walked past me. She stopped, turned around, looked at me—my puffy eyes, running nose, shaking body—and said, He raped you, didn’t he?

I didn’t say anything.

You aren’t the first one and you’re not going to be the last, she said.

I still didn’t say anything. I wanted to ask whether he had done the same thing to her, but I couldn’t get the words out. She stood there for a moment, looking at me with a mixture of pity and disgust, then turned and walked away.

When the sun sank, Jack came out and told me that the boat would be fixed in the morning, so I should come inside and sleep. I refused to shut my eyes anywhere near that monster. So I slept in a sleeping bag on the beach. Jack crawled in and held me as I shook and sobbed for hours. All night, he didn’t utter a word. All I could think was that Preacher had done this before, that Jack knew he had, that maybe Jack had even offered me up to him. I thought about it all night, until I just shut down. I realized that I couldn’t trust Jack or anyone.

Conveniently, when we awoke the boat was running again. To this day, I have no idea if the boat was really broken or if Preacher just wanted to give me a night to calm down before sending me back into the real world. If I had gone home right away, I definitely would have told my dad and the police, because I was so shaken.

When we returned to the harbor, I asked Jack to take me home. We rode in silence. Every now and then he reached over and petted me. I couldn’t wait to get out of that car.

As Jack drove up the hill to my house, I had him drop me off half a mile away, so that my dad wouldn’t know I was with him. It was 8 A.M., eight hours past my curfew. I walked the rest of the way uphill, trying to figure out what to say to my father. I was a wreck compared to the girl who had left the house the day before.

I reached the front door, put my key in the lock, and turned the knob, hoping my father was away on patrol. But there he was, sitting on the living-room couch, just waiting in silence.

I so badly wanted to please my dad all the time. I never liked to get into trouble. My brother was so much worse than I was, but I was always getting punished instead. I was the good girl, and I was constantly trying to prove it to my dad.

Where have you been? he finally asked, very calm and cool. Having been a lieutenant in Vietnam and a police officer in Las Vegas, my father’s nerves had long since stopped responding to adrenaline. The more upsetting or dangerous a situation was, the cooler he became. He had never, in sixteen years, even yelled at me.

I scanned my brain for excuses. I lost track of time, I said. The boat broke down, and then we got lost on the way home.

That’s it, he said. His voice was actually starting to rise, the skin around the creases in his face reddened. I am not going to put up with this from you anymore. This is bullshit.

I was taken aback by his reaction. I felt all the anger—and more than that, disappointment—that I had kept hidden from him for so many years well up inside me and explode. Since my mother had died of cancer when I was three, my older brother Tony and I had been left to raise ourselves while my father tried to deal with his grief. He never really got over it. Instead, he buried himself in his work and different women, leaving Tony and me to raise ourselves. Despite everything, I loved him so much that I’d stay awake until after midnight sometimes waiting for him to come home. I never felt safe until I heard the door slam and the rustle of his uniform as he removed it.

As a teenager, I learned to enjoy his absence, because it spared me the growing pains that my friends were experiencing as they rebelled against their parents’ strictness. There were times when I longed for someone to talk about my problems with—or just to hug me when I was upset and help me feel grounded in this confusing world—but I knew that person wasn’t my dad. The problem wasn’t that he didn’t care about me; it was that he didn’t know how to show it. If I told him about boys who were pressuring me to have sex, he would sooner snap a guy’s neck than tell me about the birds and the bees. When I brought home a poem I had written about how lonely I was and how much I loved him—a thinly disguised plea for help—his eyes filled with tears, but he never talked with me about it or even attempted to deal with the problem. Eventually I stopped trying to reach out to him.

So he had no right to get angry now just because I was late coming home, especially after what I had been through. I needed him, more than ever before, to be there for me, to understand. And what did he choose to say instead? I’m done. He had never even started. I realized that I was truly on my own, that no one understood, that there was nowhere to turn.

Fuck you, Dad! I yelled. I’d never talked to him like this in my life. What do you mean ‘anymore’? You’ve put up with it your whole life, you asshole. I’m a grown woman and I can do what I fucking want. Mom wouldn’t have treated me like this! I couldn’t believe the things that were coming out of my mouth.

My dad was stunned. He slumped back on the couch. I am not going to deal with this, he said. I should put you in a foster home. I’m not going to have you in my house.

When he said that, all the emotion flooded out of my body and I went cold. I didn’t say another word. I couldn’t say another word. I walked upstairs and collapsed onto my bed. I slept all day and all night. I was physically, emotionally, mentally exhausted.

When I woke up the next morning, I went to the kitchen and brought a handful of Glad garbage bags up to my room. I threw all my shoes, clothes, makeup, dolls, and schoolbooks into them. I was used to packing by now. Our family had moved at least a dozen times. But this would be the first time I was moving alone.

Never had I been more sure about anything in my life: I was running away from home, never to return. And when I made a promise to myself, I kept it.

So where did I run away to? There was only one place I could go to: Jack’s house.

PART

 1 

I don’t mind heavy guys, skinny guys, short guys, tall guys, little boys, old men, trust-fund babies, chronically unemployed slackers, convenience-store clerks, rat-catchers, drug addicts, or rock stars (who fit into most of the above categories anyway). I like all kinds. But that doesn’t mean that I’ll let all kinds into my bed.

Ultimately, the deciding factor is the lack of a dealbreaker. I can have a perfect dinner with the hottest guy, but if he opens his mouth and smells like dead fish, the date’s over. That is a dealbreaker. For most girls, dirt underneath a guy’s fingernails is a dealbreaker because nobody wants that filth left up their insides after a night of passion. There are many dealbreakers, and in one crucial moment any one of them can end a relationship before it’s even begun.

Below are ten dealbreakers, all of which I have experienced. Consider this a not-to-do list:

My mom, me, and Tony.

My father never told me much about my mother. I think it was his way of trying to protect me from being traumatized by her loss. He figured the less I knew about her, the less I had to miss. But his silence had the opposite effect: the less I knew about her, the more I thought about her.

My only memories of my mother were of her being sick, and of being kept away from her room because she had no hair. Apart from photos, I can’t remember what she looked like; but I remember what she sounded like. As I lay in my bed at night, I could hear her screaming in pain from her room.

The night she died exists only in snippets in my head. The house was dark, and my father was outside. I remember seeing the ambulance lights, and sitting in the darkness in my brother’s room. He was very quiet. He knew what was going on. I didn’t, but I was crying for some reason. I knew something was wrong. After that night, I refused to sleep alone or in the