Page 6 of The Casting Couch

I moved my hips, grinding slow and steady, trying to remember if I’d paid my electric bill.I had a set tonight at the Brooklyn Comedy Collective.Ten minutes.New material.The jokes weren’t finished, but they were percolating somewhere in the back of my brain like stale coffee.

Joke one: Why did the porn star refuse to do missionary?

Because after a decade in the industry, the only thing he believes in is doggy style and nihilism.

Okay.Not bad.Needs a punchier tag.

I shifted my weight, changing rhythm just enough to make Holden gasp like he’d been goosed by the ghost of bad acting past.

Joke two: Things I’ve learned from adult film: lube solves most problems, eye contact solves the rest, and if the cameraman falls off the ladder mid-scene, just keep going.

That one actually made me grin.My shoulders shook with the effort not to laugh.

And then came joke three.

Joke three: My career path was either to be a porn star or youth pastor.Honestly?The skill set is the same.Lots of fake enthusiasm, plenty of awkward silences, and you’re constantly pretending not to notice when people cry.

I snorted.

Out loud.

Mid-thrust.

Right into Holden’s ear.

He jumped like I’d tased him, and Laura’s voice sliced through the studio again.

“Cut!”

I froze.Holden froze.The sound guy actually dropped his mic boom onto the floor with a thud.

Laura stormed toward us again, rubbing her forehead like she was developing a migraine with my name tattooed on it.

“Nico,” she said, drawing out my name like she was considering using it in a curse.“Were you running jokes in your head again?”

I flushed.Warmth spread from my ears down to my neck like a sunburn of shame.

“…Maybe.”

Laura shook her head and let out a long, dramatic sigh worthy of a community theater production of Les Mis.“Baby, I love you.You’re talented, gorgeous, and you’re charismatic as hell.But please.Focus.Give me fifteen more minutes of serious top energy and I’ll let you out of here in time to bomb at your open mic.”

I grinned sheepishly.“It’s not an open mic.I got booked for a spot.”

“Even worse.Now make me proud.Or at least make me something usable for the website.”

I gave her a lazy salute, repositioned again, and did my best to clear my head of jokes, existential dread, and the temptation to improv a monologue about bad acting and worse moaning.

Fifteen more minutes.

Then I’d head straight for the subway, pray the L train wasn’t delayed, and go bomb onstage like the professional disaster I was born to be.

* * *

The L train screeched along the tracks like it was trying to shake us off.I had one earbud in, blasting some low-fi beat with enough bass to rattle my brain, but it still wasn’t enough to drown out Nessa and Moira holding court three seats down.

Nessa and Moira worked with me at Boys On Film, the adult film studio where I spent most of my daylight hours pretending to enjoy myself on camera.Nessa was one of our talent managers—a six-foot-tall, red-haired Bronx hurricane in platform heels, with a psychic ability to detect drama and romantic tension from a hundred yards away.Moira ran hair and makeup, with eyeliner so sharp it could cut glass and a voice that could wake the dead.Together, they were chaos in lipstick form.Loud, nosy, and endlessly entertained by my personal life.

Moira was already halfway into a story about some guy she’d hooked up with who, apparently, had a tattoo of Tweety Bird on his inner thigh.Nessa was wheezing with laughter, pounding her fist against her knee like she was trying to restart her own heart.

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