Chapter 1 Kara Barnett Turner

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to star in a porn film?

I did up until about a year or so ago, then a bunch of things happened and the next thing I knew I`d appeared in several "X" rated films with some of my friends.

My name is Kara Barnett Turner. I'm thirty, five foot five inches tall, with a nicely shaped '34C' top. I'm not bad looking and if I really 'doll up' I can even pass for 'hot'. I'm a dirty blonde which means a brunette who always plays with lighter hair colors.

My childhood was in a traditional family with parents worried about all the things parents have to worry about: alcohol, drugs, sex too early, unwanted pregnancy, behavior vi and dress whores, wild parties, my reputation, who I hanged with, and so on. Sure, I did well, but I'm much more comfortable in life than my parents. I have an older brother who is married to a petite woman we love and call Pixie; they have two small children. We used to call Pixie like a beach ball when she was pregnant.

I attended college in Texas and helped maintain the institution's reputation as a party school. I never missed anything, but I was close to completing a few courses in my freshman year. I graduated on time, which about two-thirds of the people who started me didn't. My parents have my diploma; glans glans; and some sloppy pictures of me in their beanies and coats at their home an hour from Columbus, Ohio. I have lived in Texas with my husband for three years.

Carl, my husband, is three years older than I am. He's a hunk, standing over six feet tall with sandy colored hair and a muscular frame. Sports are his thing; he's always trying something new and then excelling at them. He just mastered windsurfing for instance. We went together starting in my freshman year at State he played varsity football. The team did not perform well that year. Carl thinks it might be because most of the team drank too much and slept with several "dogs" at a nearby motel the nights before the last two "big" games. I'm not one of those "honeys".

Anyway, Carl and I started to really learn about sex and screwed up his senior year of college. I spent more time naked in his apartment than in the classroom. Thank goodness I've got some smarts because I've screwed up my path in the five courses I've taken each term this semester.

After graduating, Carl found a job in his hometown, an hour's drive from the school. We met often, but not every day, so I studied hard, got good grades, and graduated on time. Phew!

I moved in with him right after graduation to the displeasure of my parents. They love Carl but don't think we should live together without getting married. We both assured them that modern couples our age do this, and in fact, we were right.

Soon we'll be old couples, I guess. We both worked hard and started saving money to buy a house and other material things we wanted in life. We quickly discovered that we were not only compatible in terms of gender, but also shared our values about when to have children, how to save money, how to spend it, and how to deal with arguments. Most of our early arguments were about the division of labor in our households. At first, Carl thinks the woman should be his maid; I ended it pretty quickly and we established a much fairer division of household chores and the 'if it bothers you and it's nobody's business, so do it' principle.

When I was twenty-six years old, Carl formally proposed at a sumptuous candlelit dinner at the local inn. We've both grown up a lot and saved up some money to buy a 'dream home'. Our parents are delighted that we have finally made it legal. We both laugh but have fun with them.

We got married in Texas because our friends now outnumber where I grew up. Some of my old friends flew in to attend the ceremony and party tour we had. A girlfriend in my hometown is my bridesmaid; We were like sisters growing up.

I could write a whole chapter about our marriage, the parties around it, and who did what to whom, but I'll save that for another time.

Anyhow, after four days of partying and our weeklong honeymoon in the Caribbean, Carl and I settled into a married life. In fact, our lives together in the three years before our wedding hadn't changed much, except that we bought the house.

I use capital letters for the House because we were in debt to buy it, but it says "dream home" on it. We knew we were over the financial limit, but this place has so many great features that we convinced ourselves. At least the economy was healthy and we had good jobs.

The house is one of three on a small, wooded alley in the prettiest part of town, right next to a good elementary school. We thought ahead. The house is 5 years old, so it has all the latest appliances and personal touches that today's builders put into their flagship homes, the marble this and that, the tiles that... we love, cove molding, alcove, walk-in closet, etc Additionally, there are five bedrooms, three full bathrooms, a family room, media room, and cell, as well as dining rooms and kitchens. We also think we can finish the basement one day. The landscaping is the best in town and we even had a large pool and spa in the garden. We each have fifteen minutes to work.

We loved the House and spent the next two and a half years perfecting it with expensive curtains, furniture, wallpaper and artwork. We've settled on our mortgage payment after a few years, but our credit card bill has grown a bit more than expected; That said, the house looks absolutely stunning and is our showcase and pleasure. We love to entertain and show off our decorating and home projects to our friends and neighbors.

We were surrounded by wonderful neighbors and so The House had a wonderful social life. Our neighbors are other people our age who have similar difficulties paying for their homes and “toys”. Our best friends and next door neighbors are Sy (short for Simon) and Nancy, and the other side is Mike and June. We saw them almost every day and got to know them so well and each of us developed a unique bond with each other.

Well, we all thought we were in heaven until last year when the mortgage crisis hit and the economy started to deteriorate. Sy became a real estate agent after graduating from college and was a good person; He specializes in first-time buyers. After a few years, the real estate market crashed and he couldn't sell anything. Buyers in the real estate market have suddenly disappeared and moreover, banks are not willing to give anyone a mortgage.

Sy went weeks without selling anything and those weeks turned into months. He went out of his way and even asked us for opinions or comments on his sales approach. He was on the phone constantly and had become very adept at setting up advertisements for properties he should have sold. Nothing works.

We waited until evening when Sy and Nancy passed the house. Nancy was 'dropped' from a technical job at the bank where she worked. Suddenly they have no income and are really worried.

"God, we have to pay off our $3,000 mortgage at the end of the month and that's all we have right now," cried Sy.

"And we almost used up our Visa cards," Nancy added. "Now is not the right time for us." She looks really worried and about to cry.

I asked, “Can't your parents help you? Brothers and sisters?

"They're just making pensions and social security money. Our brothers and sisters are desperate, they're always asking us for money."

We try to reassure that one of Sy's houses will soon be sold and Nancy will find another job soon, she is smart, talented and beautiful.

These guarantees are hard to come by more than a month after nothing had changed except that they were exhausted from the search for a new job or a real estate sale.

Then the bomb fell on our knees: Carl lost his job. He worked on CAD/CAM systems in the information systems group of a large manufacturing company. Sales fell and profits quickly evaporated. The company announced layoffs of five hundred workers in all fields. Carl received a pink slip and a severance package that included seven weeks of pay plus accrued vacation and sick leave.

Now Sy and Nancy empathize with us, hug us, and assure us that everything will be okay. We defer mortgage payments on their advice, notifying the bank that we are experiencing temporary financial difficulty.

My job disappeared two weeks later. I am working as an editor and writer for a magazine whose headquarters are about five miles from our house. When the economy collapsed, so did advertising revenue, and so did some jobs, including mine. I also had severance pay.

On a Friday night I got fired, Carl, Sy, Nancy and I were sitting around us, drinking a lot and talking about all the ways we could have gone that would help us work or even to become rich.

In the evening, Carl suggested we go to the hot tub, which we had done a lot before, but always wearing swimsuits.

Sy talked about going home to get her Speedo back, but Nancy stood up and said "It's time for us to take risks and be bold, after all we are very close friends. We have to take risks to get a job or make money. Now we will start with our social life.

Having said that, Nancy stood in the middle of our backyard and carefully removed each of the clothes she was wearing. Sy froze in place as she stared at his wife, her six-foot tall figure silhouetted against the house lights. Sy was once a runner-up in college and always had a thin, square jawline. He has black hair and a great sense of humour. She sighed with pleasure that we could all hear.