The front door is always unlocked at a porn shoot, but you should still enter carefully. I was reminded of this when I arrived at the location house for Love, Lust & Longing and almost walked into a shot-in-progress of Kurt Lockwood, in coat and tie, carrying a couple of suitcases. In another corner, just off camera, jessica drake is changing her clothes, unselfconsciously stripping down to panties and walking over to get her new outfit as nobody pays attention.
The house, on a side street in the old-money Hancock Park district, is remarkably homey and welcoming. (Sunny yellow walls, low ceilings and hardwood floors bespeak luxury and elegance, but not pretense. Many windows let in natural light and the back yard is visible from most of the house, its inviting greenery reflecting direct and shaded sunlight. A stairway leads to a large square hallway with four bedrooms off it. Two are being used for the shoot, the other two are being used by the residents.
“This beats the Valley McMansions,” director of photography Alex Ladd says. “They're all vaulted ceilings and hard walls. Echoes. This is nice.”
“Love, Lust & Longing is about a bed-and-breakfast with two live-ins,” writer-director Scott Allen tells me. “One is an experienced prostitute—not old, but experienced—growing tired of the business, looking for a way out, a new life. The other live-in is a young girl, played by Allie Haze, who lost her voice because she had a traumatic experience. Her brother was dying in the street and she was yelling through the neighborhood and no one came. So she felt her voice was ineffective when her brother died, and she never spoke again. It's a linear narrative: The way they interact is there's a food truck that comes to the back every night, and the characters interact there. And the owners of the truck are Nick Manning and Asa Akira, so one night they take a break inside the food truck. Kurt is a gentleman who, we find out, is having trouble with his wife for what seems to be a short while. He's just staying there until, he thinks, they resolve their issues. Symbolically, I had him playing with his wedding ring all the time; when there's moments of tension I get a close-up of him fiddling with it."
"It's my first time working with jessica drake," Lockwood tells me, as the techs set up for their scene in a bedroom. The bed is flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, making a frame around the head of the bed. Several books have to be turned around to conceal the titles on their spines.
Before the cameras roll, Lockwood walks up to drake. "What should I not do?" he asks. "I've never worked with you before. I'm so nervous."
"Don’t hit me," drake says.
"I quit!" he explodes in mock outrage. Then they draw Allen into the conversation. "Start with oral, go into mish?" Allen nods approval. Ladd will take the brunt of the photography, but Allen is also shooting: "I'm going to climb a ladder and shoot ’50s detective style down through the ceiing fan."
When the scene starts, the tension is evident between the two experienced-but-not-with-each-other players. When he kisses his way down to her pussy, she looks at him, ready to make eye contact, but he doesn't look up so she lets her head loll back, luxuriating in the pleasure. During a water break he keeps teasing her as they get ready to go back to the action. I overhear him say, "When we get back let's get your panties off" and her response "Yes yes yes."
On "Action!" he gets her panties off, pulls her legs apart, goes in with his tongue, flicking up and down, seriously backlit, as she gasps. "Are we shooting hardcore and softcore at the same time?" "Yes." She cradles his head in her hands, back arching, gasps "Oh uh OH YEAH." Looked like a real one. Theoretically they should be transitioning to a new position now but they aren't going anywhere. "Oh yeah, I'm cumming. Oh yeah. Oh my gawd." Her hips buck. "Aaugh." Gasp. Giggle. Yep, totally looks real. He goes up to her breast, then kneels up, pulls off his shirt, loses his pants. She puts her foot up on his chest, he kisses it. "Wow!" she groans. "I'm still having aftershocks."
He stands on the bed, reaches up to touch the ceiling, beckons her with a finger. She crawls across the bed like a lioness stalking her prey. She licks her way up his leg and starts to suck him. Soft popping sounds. She licks both hands and corkscrews them around Lockwood's dick, then settles into stroke-and-suck. He caresses her hair, moves it out of the way. She puts her hands behind her back and starts sucking, alternating fast and slow. "Can we go more aggressive?" Allen asks. She does. "Pound on the wall." He does. Break. As the cameras reload, he holds her face, maintaining eye contact.
They decide to start the fuckscene with reverse cowgirl. She leans back, bracing on his chest as he thrusts up into her. She has one hand on her clit as he pulls her legs wide and grabs her hips, pulling her up and down on his cock. She suddenly explodes with a gutteral "OH YES," biting her lower lip. "Oh yeah, oh yeah so good OHHHHHH—fuck.” Practically a squeak. The scene progresses with the characters warming up to each other until they finally settle into a casual mish, her with one leg raised high, with a little dialogue punctuated by kisses. The dialogue finished, he starts bearing down, thrusting harder, going for the pop. She puts her hands behind her head, just long enough to realize that it's blocking her face. As he gets more intense she starts to encourage him. "So good..." Faster, harder, bed shaking, almost there when she moans, "Gimme your fucking cum!" and pushes him over the edge. He pulls out, ditches the condom, and shoots across her torso all the way up to her chest. She fingers some into her mouth and smiles. Cut. "Stills!"
"I'm really picky, and I have a short list of people I work with, and it's for a reason," drake said, after the scene. "I thought Kurt was too well-endowed, and our paths never really crossed. But I saw him in 24 XXX and I thought he did a really great job and it made me look at his acting. He's a great actor, and I like that. We've been on set together but it's been a really long time. I think we were on a bus and I think I might have blown him—you know, tasting the goods—but he was great and I think I'll keep him on my list. The scene was a lot of fun, and that's why I'm so picky with the people on my list because I want them to be people that I like, people that I have chemistry with. If it's someone that I would never bang in my personal life—I’m not saying I go home and have sex with co-stars—but if I would never have sex with them in my personal life, I would not have sex with them on camera."
Pictured above: jessica drake and Kurt Lockwood in Love, Lust & Longing
