"Co-morbid behaviors." That's how the psychology community refers to assorted behaviors it considers to be 'marginal' — that accompany and exist as outward expressions of an actual undiagnosed problem. Example: I have a transsexual friend that finally got help after getting arrested for her second DUI. As it turns out, she's no alcoholic, but she drank to relieve the pressure of living the wrong life in the wrong body. Once she transitioned her interest in alcohol vanished. A lot of pre-transition gender dysphorics are involved in all manner of 'fetish' behaviors. And most — if not all — loose interest once they transition.
What's this got to do with our interest? Before my transition, my participation in our community was a fairly big deal. But once I crashed, burned — and woke up to the realities of just how bad it was for me and what I might have to do to survive being transsexual, the Quicksand Thang quickly faded to insignificance.
That was about three years ago. During that time, I had a discussion with one of our female members — and the opening quote of this missive was her reaction to my apparent apathy towards all things mud and quicksand. And my honest answer was that I just did not know.
Enter Fred and Studio 588. Fred and I had been discussing my participating as crew in a shoot from roughly the time I first transitioned up until this summer. I figured I'd give it a try — curiosity and all — but I didn't expect much of a result. For two summers Fred and I discussed logistics and pencilled in dates, but each year my summer work schedule shot the venture in the foot. I would have to turn down too much money in shows to make time for a shoot, so each year I did sound instead of sink.
Not so this time. This year I had gigs booked right up until the time Fred had zero crew for a fairly important shooting date — and I found myself with nothing better to do but visit his little playground. (And I have family in that part of the country who had never 'met' me — at least not since my transition — so I had added incentive to make the trip.) I booked a flight and Fred worked out the logistics of picking me up at the airport.
I left LAX a day early in case I had flight difficulties — and spent the night in Denver. Grr … It turned out United was having a brutal day for delays and missed connection in Denver and I joined a growing list of passengers spending the night on interrupted trip vouchers. I had to pay a token fee for a hotel room — sixty dollars — and I spent the night in a THREE HUNDRED DOLLAR SUITE!
The following day I flew into town without incident. I met Fred, we did some shopping — and then we returned to the airport to pick up our model.
Brinke Stevens. I hate her.
This is a woman in her fifties who looks better than most girls do in their twenties! And a genuinely nice person! Brinke is sweet and intelligent — and a genuinely gifted actress! Her on-stage emotions are so white-hot that's it's difficult to tell if she's genuinely distressed during a shoot. There was one scene where she was in trouble — she'd gotten clay in her eyes — and nobody could tell. It just seemed like part of her character. In another scene, she stepped into a deep part of one of Fred's peat pits that wasn't quite thick enough — and she went down like the Titanic! She came up sputtering and genuinely shocked — and went right on acting! Fred called a halt to check on her. He's that kind of guy. (More on our fetish videographer who's really a knight of the Old Code later!)We got out to the studio and the first thing I noticed was … remote. It's really remote. Fred's got about fifty acres of virgin nowhere located in the middle of nowhere off the beaten path from a nowhere town that barely qualifies for map recognition! And the studio is built squarely in the middle of this fifty acres of prime nowhere. After all, it would not do for the neighbors to come calling with law enforcement in tow every time they heard a woman screaming, "Help me! I'm sinking in quicksand!" Now would it?
To be continued …
