Traci Lords Read online

  From then on I was known in the sex industry as Traci Lords. The buzz in the business grew as North hyped me. The talk of the town was his new girl with the baby-fat bod, pouty lips, and appetite for destruction. The combination of little girl gone bad had photographers fighting to shoot me. It was a total ego trip. I was the flavor of the moment, the It girl. I felt like I’d won a spot on the cheerleading squad. Any doubts I had about posing nude were overruled by my insatiable desire for attention.

  For five weeks I led a double life. I was high school sophomore Nora Kuzma by day and nude centerfold model Traci Lords by night. I avoided my girlfriends, ditched classes, and barely squeaked by in school. I started wearing the slutty outfits I posed in to school. My microminis and come-fuck-me high heels raised an eyebrow or two, but no one said anything. I wanted to be stopped, yet I got off on the idea of getting away with it all.

  I was playing a dangerous game.

  One sunny afternoon, as the lunch bell rang, I rushed into the cafeteria wondering what the day’s mystery meat would be. I was conscious of my snickering classmates as I collected my food. Something weird was going on. I paid for my tray and moved toward a half-empty table near the door. Minding my own business, I arranged my food and wondered if my tarty outfit was responsible for the unwanted attention.

  The moment I slipped into my seat a beefy jock sauntered over. “Hey, Paula,” he said with a stupid grin on his face. I took a bite out of my green Jell-O, ignoring this Neanderthal.

  Smack! The magazine landed on the table.

  On the front cover, there was a young girl in a pleated skirt with her hands over her breasts. The caption read “Pump Paula,” referring to a pullout board game that boasted how you too could fuck the centerfold.

  I choked on my food. Oh my God, it was me!

  As I sat there frozen, my neighbors craned their necks for a better look.

  It was me—spread-eagled in a really sleazy skin magazine that looked nothing like Playboy or Vogue.

  I ran out of the cafeteria and off campus, never to return to school again. My heart pumped in my throat. Oh my God, everyone at school knows I’m a nude centerfold! Someone might tell my sisters…my mother! I can’t go home. I can’t go back to school.

  What now? I hadn’t even finished tenth grade. What am I going to do! What have I done? Panic-stricken, I forced myself to slow down. I walked briskly toward a pay phone, my thoughts racing. I had to speak to Roger. He’d know what to do. But he was nowhere to be found. I waited on his front porch for hours, praying he would come home soon. I grew more anxious with every passing car, afraid I would be caught and put in jail. Where was he! I didn’t know what to do. Kids at school knew I was a nude model! What was I going to do? This was not supposed to happen.

  Anxiety overwhelmed me as I raced for a passing bus, making my way to Hollywood, where I was sure I’d be safe.

  12

  No One Rides for Free

  Walking down Hollywood Boulevard, I could breathe again, grateful to be just another ant on a big hill where no one knew my name. I’d never spent any time on Hollywood Boulevard, but it was worth the three bus transfers and passing freak show I’d encountered to get there. I was curious about the other sights but knew exactly where I wanted to go first.

  I found her star at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Sitting down next to her, I placed my hands in hers, surprised that they fit so perfectly. I wondered if everyone fit in them.

  Marilyn Monroe was a curiosity to me. Since Tim North told me she’d had a similar start in Hollywood, I really wanted to know more about her. What I did know was when I looked into her eyes, I saw someone as lost as I was. Was she told she’d have to pose nude to be a star too?

  Roger still wasn’t answering his phone. It was getting dark.

  I’d spent the day on the Walk of Fame and needed to move. I had a hundred dollars and change left over from my last photo shoot and figured I could clear my head by walking a bit. High heels in hand, I walked for blocks and blocks. A taxi driver offered me a free ride. Thinking he felt sorry for me, I climbed in. He took off, but no sooner had we left the curb when he looked at me in the rearview mirror and said, “Listen, honey, no sex, okay? Don’t freak—I just want a golden shower.”

  The cab stopped at a light on Santa Monica Boulevard and I jumped out fast. I was shaken up, cursing myself for being so stupid. How could I get in a car with a total stranger? Freaks—everywhere I looked there were nothing but freaks! Who likes to be pissed on?

  I learned an important lesson that day: no one rides for free.

  On the walk down Santa Monica Boulevard, all these hot boys were looking at me. Some made crude jokes and pointed, and I had the feeling I’d better find a place to stay—fast. I saw a motel near Highland and made a beeline for it. But before I could get across the street, a nasty Latin kid stepped in my way, demanding to know what the fuck I thought I was doing there. “This isn’t pussy town,” he said. “Don’t you know that? Take your cock-sucking ass somewhere else, and quick.”

  I was in Boys Town and these cuties were going to beat the crap out of me. I lost it, sobbing my apologies, explaining I just didn’t have any place to go. I only wanted to find a place to sleep. I’d give him all the money I had if he would just leave me alone. I pulled out a few twenties and he grabbed me by the hair. Suddenly laughing, he wrapped his arm around me and pulled me down the sidewalk, calling to the other boys and saying, “The ho has dough! Let’s party!”

  We ended up under the overpass of the 101 Freeway, just blocks from the bus stop where Roger had first picked us up. We scored some pot and a bottle of whiskey and got high. There were five of them, all around my age. The youngest boy was about eleven, and everyone called him Tricky because he turned more business than anyone else.

  They were male prostitutes and they scared me. I was sure they didn’t want to rape me for pleasure but I wasn’t certain they wouldn’t do it for entertainment. They slept here all the time, the oldest one said. Every once in a while the cops would drag them off, the city would then throw their couches away, and the boys would be stuck sleeping in the dirt until they found new ones.

  I didn’t know where the night would take me, or if I’d even be alive in the morning. I felt so small I longed to sit beneath the clothesline in my daddy’s backyard as my mother folded laundry.

  Tricky asked me to sleep next to him. Afraid to say no, I curled my body against him and laid still. He was so young. As he fell asleep he told me everyone he loved had left him. It was sad, looking at his baby face covered with cigarette burns and scars from who knows what. I wanted to wash all those bad memories from him. That night, I didn’t sleep at all, and when the sun rose I had no choice but to leave Tricky too.

  I found a motel that charged by the hour. A lot of girls probably worked there, I thought, but I didn’t care. I needed a shower and a washing machine to tidy myself up before work. I still couldn’t find Roger and was due in Hollywood in a few hours for a photo session. I asked the manager how far away Vine Street was and discovered it was within walking distance. I cleaned myself up and made it there with a few minutes to spare.

  The clients and photographer were all waiting for me. The shoot was for a book on couples and sex. I was there to do the photo illustrations. A stunning man in his early twenties showed up about an hour into the session. The director said we were playing a married couple and we’d be shooting some lovemaking poses together. We’d be dressed in our underthings and it would be tastefully done. The man who had written the book stood nearby and was watching the entire process intently.

  I was outfitted in a beautiful white lace teddy with stockings and garters, and my “husband” had on red silk boxers. The set was a garden, which reminded me of one of the corny romance novels my mom collected. The guy was instructed to kiss my neck softly and hook his fingers under my bra strap as if he were going to remove it. He was an amazing kisser and I found myself enjoying his touch. We spent the entire afternoon bein
g photographed in a series of simulated sex acts.

  I got a real education that day. I had no idea so many positions existed! It was like Sex Ed 101. The author was a chatty man in his fifties who proudly boasted about how the book was to be used for sex education classes in colleges. He said he wanted to help young adults come to a healthy conclusion about their sexuality. I wanted to scream, Help me! I need a healthy conclusion! I wanted this wise fatherly man to see through the persona I’d created and save me from myself. Instead I finished the job, collected my two hundred dollars, and left.

  During that photo shoot I found myself completely turned on and hoped to God no one could tell. I had no idea sex could be more than what I’d experienced until that point. There was so much I didn’t know and couldn’t understand, but it was strangely exciting. The other model was really nice and didn’t try anything with me unless he was specifically asked. But that confused me too, until his boyfriend showed up to take him home.

  Was everyone in Hollywood gay?

  13

  House Pets

  It was August 1984. I was sixteen years old. I’d been in the business for seven months now, and one photo shoot bled into the next.

  I was constantly hungover from something. Between the downers I took and the cocaine I snorted nearly every day, I was a walking zombie. When I was high, I could deal with life.

  My “chauffeur” Roger could no longer meet the demands of my chaotic modeling schedule, saying he “had to work,” although that had never stopped him before. I wasn’t sure why he was suddenly distancing himself from me, but I was sick of him leering at my naked body anyway—even if it did mean spending half my earnings on transportation. At the time I was making two hundred dollars a shoot, and although that was more money than I’d ever had in my young life, it barely paid for the taxis I took from Roger’s Redondo Beach house, where I’d been staying for the past few weeks, to the heart of the Valley.

  One afternoon my agent, Tim North, summoned me to his office in Van Nuys. When I got there he presented me with a check for a whopping five thousand dollars.

  Oh my God!

  Stunned to have that kind of money in my sixteen-year-old hands, I tried to cover my shock quickly as North explained what it was for. I didn’t want to appear immature or desperate, so I listened quietly as he told me I’d been chosen as the September centerfold for Penthouse magazine.

  At the time, I had no idea what an “honor” being a Penthouse Pet was in the porn world. But I did notice several of North’s favorite girls giving me dirty looks as they milled about his office, eavesdropping on our conversation. I had no idea why they were so jealous. It was just another skin magazine, hardly an “accomplishment.” So fucking what? I thought, licking my lips at the thought of all the coke I could buy with five grand!

  It must have been my lack of excitement that drove North impatiently to say, “This is like getting the Oscar in the porn world!” He turned his attention to the tarts milling about the office. “Right, girls?”

  God, they are old, I thought, staring at their bleached-out hair and hooker makeup. They must be at least twenty-one, maybe even older. They smiled meanly at me. They obviously hated the amount of attention I received from North, and I couldn’t have cared less. Having no friends in the porn world made it easier to keep my true identity a secret. I cozied up to North, smoothing over the tension between us. “I’m just tired,” I cooed softly in his ear. Then I gave him a wet kiss that left him smiling and me desperate for a shot of tequila. I disappeared down the hallway wiping his saliva from my mouth, amazed at how easy it was to get what I wanted.

  As I left North’s office, Penthouse check in hand, I heard him on the phone talking up his new girl, Christy Canyon. He was bragging about how young she was and what a “sweet little pussy” this eighteen-year-old had. Disgusted, I stepped out onto Ventura Boulevard and took a cab to my dealers, desperate to turn down the volume on my life.

  I scored a gram of coke, spending all but twenty bucks of my remaining cash, and headed back to Roger’s house, check still in hand. What was I going to do with a check? How could I cash it? I didn’t even have a bank account, as I’d always been paid in cash. I got high and contemplated this situation in the privacy of Roger’s garage apartment. I was glad he wasn’t home, thinking bitterly of the man I once trusted. Angry tears stung my eyes as I snorted line after line in Roger’s room, the smell of his musky cologne everywhere.

  I had been sleeping at Roger’s for several weeks now and my mom had started asking questions. She knew I was gone, but she didn’t know where I was or what I was up to. I still checked in with my girlfriends, and Maria told me she’d called and was worried. I’d sent a message back that I was okay, paranoid my mother might hunt me down at Roger’s.

  Or was it hopeful?

  Regardless, Roger and I were on the outs and I had to find a new place to live. I’d been woken days before by him stroking me in my sleep. But this time when I awoke, I waited, needing to know if it was real. And it was.

  I wanted to hit him and run and scream and cry, but I couldn’t. I had nowhere else to go. I needed his shelter for the moment. And so I lay there, still, not moving at all, and plotted my revenge.

  The next day I made my way to Hermosa Beach and walked down the Strand toward my old hang. I stood staring at the ocean and remembered how Lorraine and I used to surf those waves. I missed her. I wondered if my family knew. I wanted to call them up and explain, end the lies, stop the game. But my shame wouldn’t let me.

  I couldn’t go home.

  The Poop Deck was directly in front of me. Many a summer, my school friends and I had tried to sneak in for a cold one and were always promptly thrown out. But this was a different time, and I was a different girl. I marched straight through the wooden net-covered door, my tight T-shirt clinging to my breasts. Without missing a beat I beelined for the bar and looked the bartender right in the eye.

  “I’ll take a screwdriver, please.”

  The crusty old-timer who carded me made a big deal of checking out my ID and looking me over. Finally he shrugged and brought me my drink. I paid him with my last twenty, wondering how the heck I was going to cash my Penthouse check.

  Wandering out onto the patio, I perched in a corner in the sun. It was weird being near all these partying adults. I tried not to stare but was interested in how older girls acted toward men. I was surprised that these girls were as silly as the cheerleaders and surf bums I’d gotten drunk with in the past. One rather fat girl named Heidi was clearly two sheets to the wind, swaying to Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell” and raising her top to show off her multiple rolls of blubber. But her strip routine was nonetheless met with hoots and whistles from the horny drunk crowd.

  I was well on my way to being wasted when yet another drink arrived, compliments of Blue Eyes at the pool table. The waitress pointed him out and he raised his glass to me. His friends were all grinning, slapping him high-fives. He reminded me of my father, though, so I escaped to the bathroom to collect my thoughts. As I came out, he stepped into my path, smiling that smile. Unsettled, I feigned indifference.

  He smiled at me and I smiled back. He kicked up a tangerine-sized beanbag into the air and, when it got to his elbow, swatted it again. “Hacky Sack” was a popular sport in this beach community, and Blue Eyes was swept up into the frantic energy of beer-induced competition. I watched the crowd of drunk men fight for possession of the tiny orange sack, hanging around simply because I had nowhere else to go.

  The beer was cold, the sun was hot, and I was drunk. When he offered me a ride home, I knew what he meant, I needed a place to sleep, and so I said yes. Sex was all I had to bargain with. I didn’t think I had anything else of value to offer, and wondered if other girls felt the same. Did all teenagers do battle with their hearts and bodies like I did?

  I longed to matter to someone, to feel loved and needed. Was this man the one I’d been waiting for? Was he my knight in shining armor? As unlikely as
that seemed, I was homeless and willing to sacrifice my body to bandage my soul.

  He drove a motorcycle and I climbed on the back, both of us wasted. I let my dress blow in the wind, unconcerned by the gawking motorists.

  He was a forgettable lover, and when I woke up the next morning, I crept out of his room ready to make a clean getaway. But I was busted by his roommate, Eric, who greeted me with a “Good morning” cup of coffee and then asked about me. I told him I was a model, my name was Krissie, and I was looking for a new apartment. He was a sweet one. I wished I’d ended up in his bed while we sat for a while chatting until the blue-eyed stranger appeared in a towel.

  His name was Sonny and he was handsome, even though he had a jagged scar that cut down his check to the corner of his mouth. God, he reminded me of my father: blond hair, blue eyes, tan. I made a move toward the door, but he stopped me by offering breakfast and a hot shower.

  Breakfast turned to lunch and once again I was tearing down the highway with a man who had gone from stranger to friend in just one night. We spent the day commiserating about life, but I was careful about what I revealed, admitting only that my real name was Nora. I needed someone to know the truth. It made me feel like I wasn’t totally alone.

  “Your secret’s safe with me.” He laughed, having no idea how many secrets I really had.

  Soaring down Pacific Coast Highway, I squeezed Sonny tighter.

  14

  Hell Is for Children

  On a crisp fall day, only weeks after I’d first gone home with Sonny, I found myself washing his dirty underwear in the kitchen sink of a house we’d rented together in the modest neighborhood of Lawndale. I was now only about a dozen blocks from where my mother and sisters were living, and although I hadn’t spoken to any of them in months, I felt better just knowing I was practically sleeping in their backyard.