Michelle (with cigarette), the author, the makeup artist, Barbara Nitke (with camera), and actor Damien Cashmere, as shot in a makeup mirror, behind the scenes at Every Body (Photo courtesy of Barbara Nitke)
When Maria applied slutty makeup to my face and plopped a cascading wig of scarlet curls on my head, I looked like an erotic Princess Ariel but teetering around on do-me pumps instead of with a mermaid's tail.
Ever wonder who the non-sex performers are in porn films? SAG actors down on their luck? AFTRA dropouts? Homeless people pulled in off the street? Actually, it's nothing that juicy. Just someone who happens to be at the right place at the right time.
Like me.
In my checkered past, long before I was a member of the PTA, I sometimes worked behind the scenes in X-rated films. I was usually hired as a Jill-of-all-trades and did things like help dress the set, make (and unmake) beds, and scrub the dildos.
And occasionally, when they needed a spare body, they turned to me.
A husband and wife team, Bob and Charlie Latour, produced adult videos with actual scripts, many of them quite involved. One was called Silence of the G.A.M.S., a tawdry send-up of Silence of the Lambs. In our iteration, G.A.M.S. stood for the "Government Agency for Monitoring Sex." It was good, dirty fun with a tongue-in-cheek storyline, and even a jail-cell romp with the Hannibal Lecter character.
In addition to prepping meals and wrangling the cast, I was given a small but key non-explicit role as an ultra conservative bent on censoring coitus. My costume? A prim and proper suit from my stint as a 9-5 administrative assistant, big glasses, tightly-pursed lips and (ugh!) pantyhose, which were displayed in a pivotal scene.
It was a hoot and my pic from that role is even plastered all over the Internet.
Then the Latours got even more adventurous. Charlie penned a medieval morality play called Every Body, which included hardcore sex. Heady stuff, it was the saga of a widow who wrestled with her dual feelings of fidelity (to her recently-departed hubby) and general horniness. She's visited by a myriad of characters, including "Integrity," yours truly, who's a voice of reason amid all the bawdy boffing.
I took my high-necked, Venetian lace wedding gown out of mothballs and dusted off my crown of ivory flowers for the occasion. Not a trained actress, I managed my mouthful of Shakespearean-esque lines that served to remind Charlie's character to be true to herself—which pretty much gave her the green light to be lusty.
My carnal compatriots were decked out in rented costumes including sound man Nigel with a monk's bald spot and robes, leading man Robby looking hunky even in tights, and naughty Michelle in a Juliet cap, silken gown and nothing underneath. 
The Latours' following bout was a ditty they called Murder By Sex. This would be edited into both an explicit version and a soft-core, made-for-cable endeavor. The premise involved a series of murders with a kinky twist. I played Turcotte, a detective, who was the irrepressible Scott Baker's sidekick.
Shooting on a shoestring budget, we were ballsy beyond belief, actually grabbing footage outside of the Midtown North NYPD precinct on West 15th Street. Guerilla-style, the cameraman filmed me and Scott near a row of parked squad cars. We cheated the shot to make it look like we were actually coming out of one.
Although the exteriors went off without a hitch, my lines did not. Thankfully, they were delivered in a makeshift office rather than on the street. I don't know how many takes we did but I kept bumbling my dialogue. A union actor with decades of experience, Scott was unbelievably patient, giving me pointers on how to remember my lines. It finally worked.
Happily, no dialogue was involved when I was asked to step in for Bunny Bleu in Mind Mirror. An adult send-up of Alice in Wonderland, instead of falling down the rabbit hole, this Alice has her holes joyfully explored by the colorful cast. The only problem was that Bunny/Alice was one of the few females in the sexvid and was, uh, "overexposed."
I knew something was up when Bob asked, "What kind of underwear do you have on?"
"A flowered thong," I responded. "Why?"
"Well . . . we were wondering if you wouldn't mind . . ."
"I'm not doing hardcore," I told him flat out.
"No, no," Bob swore. "We just need another female body for a little variety. We were hoping you'd be willing to be a body double in the next scene."
Bob promised that no penetration was involved. Maria, the talented makeup lady, would disguise me so no one would recognize me, not even my husband. Reluctantly, I agreed.
When Maria applied slutty makeup to my face and plopped a cascading wig of scarlet curls on my head, I looked like an erotic Princess Ariel but teetering around on do-me pumps instead of with a mermaid's tail. My long locks covered my teacup titties but I was nude but for my thong. At first, even the actors didn't know it was me.
What had I gotten myself into? Stud Damien Cashmere was in blackface and JeanValjean was in whiteface. They were naked except for bow ties. The scene called for me to be "taken" while leaning over a gymnastics pommel horse. Since the action was simulated, in the editing room they'd intercut the action with Bunny doing the penetrative honors.
Luckily, my wig was so big and puffy that you couldn't see I was laughing during the whole thing. Damien and Jean looked so ridiculous pounding away in their makeup, I couldn't stop giggling. So much for getting hot and bothered on an X-rated set.
The finished product was flawless, however—you really couldn't figure out it was me masquerading as a red-haired porn princess. I think they ended up calling me "Rose Bud" in the final credits.
But don't tell anyone.
