Free Shadow Man by Cody McFadyen Page B

sense. They were businessmen. With marketing plans, offices, staff, the whole nine yards. They weren’t coming across as some sleazy substrata of society anymore. And it paid off. Some of those first companies make eighty to a hundred million a year now.”
    “Wow,” Callie says. Leo nods.
    “Yeah, wow. It may not seem like a big deal to us, but if you really dig into the history of porn, it was a paradigm shift. To be honest? Most of the people making porn in the early eighties were from the seventies. We’re talking a lot of drugs, promiscuous sex, all the clichés. But these new Internet guys? Most of them weren’t involved in wife swapping or snorting coke while getting a blow job, any of that. Most of them had never been on a porn set in their life. They were guys in business suits, making millions off the newest thing. They started to make it, well, respectable. As much as porn can be.”
    “You said ‘twofold.’ What’s the other part of it?”
    “While these business guys were carving out their empires, you had another whole ‘adult revolution’ happening. This was at a more grassroots level. Rather than Web sites that were a collection of pics of professional porn stars, you had women or couples creating Web sites that were centered around themselves and their real-life sexual escapades. These weren’t people trying to make a living off porn. These were people doing it for fun. Getting off on the exhibitionism of it. It was called
    ‘amateur porn.’ ”
    Callie rolls her eyes. “You’re not talking to babes in the woods here, honey-love. I think most of us know what amateur porn is. The ‘girl next door,’ swingers, blah blah blah.”
    “Sure, sorry. I’m in lecture mode. The relevance is, the demand for that type of porn turned out to be just as big as the demand for ‘pro porn.’ So much so that most of these women or couples couldn’t afford to keep it up for free, as a hobby. The costs of having their Web sites accessed by so many people became prohibitive. So they started charging as well. A few of those who started early on made millions. And—and this is the key thing you have to understand—these were not pornindustry people. They didn’t know anyone in the adult-video industry. S H A D O W M A N
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    They weren’t in magazines, or in videos in adult bookstores. These were people driven first not by money but by the enjoyment of what they were doing.
    “Whether or not you or I think this is a healthy way to be, the truth is, it created an entirely new demographic within the porn industry. Moms and dads, members of the PTA. All the while having a secret life and raking in the dough showing themselves off to the world.” He turns to me. “So, what I meant when I said you weren’t accurate is just that. I saw your friend’s Web site. She did soft-core stuff—as in no sex. She did masturbate and use sex toys and . . . stuff like that. She charged for viewing it, and I don’t necessarily approve—but she wasn’t a hooker.” He fumbles with his words for a moment. “I mean, I don’t know if that’ll help you, when you think about it, but . . .”
    I give him a tired smile. Close my eyes. “It’s a lot to take in, Leo. I’m not sure how I feel about any of it. But, yeah. It helps.”
    My mind is spinning, spinning, spinning. I think about Annie, posing nude as a chosen profession. I wonder about the secrets people keep. She was always beautiful, always a little wild. I would not have been surprised by any number of sexual secrets. But this—this throws me for a loop. Partly because I am unsure of my own ambivalence about it. A picture floats into my mind, sudden and unbidden. Matt and I were both twenty-six. The sex we were having that year could only be called spectacular. No area of our home was unchristened. No position had been left untried. My lingerie collection had grown by leaps and bounds. Best of all, none of this was happening because we were working at it. We