Midnight Cocktail

Midnight Cocktail - Chapter 5

Back in the early seventies I did some porno.

I know, it's disgraceful and degrading and I should be ashamed.

Couple of things: the early seventies was a very special time, a time of peace and love and a blossoming sense of optimism following détente and the thawing of the cold war. Also, I'm a remorseless, depraved, bloodsucking monster.

I don't have any shame or regret about a dozen or so porn movies I made back then. In the general scheme of things, it hardly fucking registers. And those movies were only ever shown in crusty old theatres or on projectors in the private cinemas of a few celebrities in Beverly Hills and Malibu.

The business was essentially the same back then as it is now - cynical profiteers filming other people fucking - but it seemed much more innocent, part of the fallout from the Summer of Love of '67, although I obviously missed out on the summer part.

My stage name was Ruby Night. I did my best scenes with a guy called Bruno Day. He was originally called Bruno Bone but they got him to change it so we could have movie titles such as Day Into Night, Night Comes Before Day, and my personal favourite - A Hard Day Fucks Night in the Ass. At the time, we all thought it was fucking hilarious.

I was billed as the world's first vampire porn star, which everyone took to be a silly gimmick, and we shot quite a few of the scenes using old set props from those dumb monster comedies from the sixties, The Addams Family and The Munsters. Due to the generally low quality of the recordings my fangs don't show up too clearly, even during the blowjob scenes.

I kept as many copies of the movies as I could, not really knowing why I was doing it, thinking maybe I could one day impress my great grandchildren with a peek at my seriously chequered past.

Fast forward to the late nineties, when vampires were rapidly gaining popularity in movies, on TV, and in a whole slew of unintentionally amusing works of literature.

My secretary recommended making my old vampire porn movies available to order through a website. I didn't ask how he had obtained the rights to do this from the original film company. I never ask how he does things. I don't need to know, which is one of the many reasons I employ him and pay his ridiculous fees.

I also didn't bother telling him that I don't need the money.

He has this tenet: If you look for ways to make money when you don't need to make money, you will never need to make money. He could probably pay someone to turn that into a more pithy mission statement, but we tend to disembowel anyone who uses the term mission statement so that's never going to happen.

As usual, there was nothing to link the website or the videos with Lana V. In the unlikely event that someone came up to me and said, "Hey, you look just like that filthy porn star vampire from the seventies," I had a legally sound response of plausible denial prepared: "Fuck off."

The site went live and we sold a handful of movies.

I paid it all about as much attention as most people pay the photos and videos they recorded on their phones a year ago.

Then I got this call from my secretary.

"Hey, beautiful. I've got an email here from a guy who wants to get in touch with Ruby Night."

"Tell him to fuck off."

"You might want to hear this out."

"Go on."

"His name is Duane Peterson, stage name is Shawn Horn. He's a porn star, quite a prolific one. I'll read some of this email to you. '... always been a fan, my old man had a few originals of your Night and Day movies. Saw the movies on your site...' bit of waffle, then this. 'I'm not a psycho or some stalker, I'm in the business and I rate you up there with...' then he lists a few A-list female porn stars. He goes on to say he would love to meet you, just for a chat, knows you're probably not going to reply but would really appreciate a few minutes of your time."