Before I returned to Miami, I went to see Dr. Garth. He was one of the most popular men in Los Angeles because he provided a service every woman there wanted: not dispensing painkillers indiscriminately, but perfect plastic surgery.

On the set of Dangerous Tides, in addition to everything else that had gone wrong, my left boob began capsulating, which happens when scar tissue forms and tightens around the implant.

The first thing Dr. Garth said when he saw me was, “No wonder. Your implant is too big for your rib cage.”

So I made an appointment to come in the next day and get the scar tissue cleaned out. As long as he was going to be in there, I asked him for a smaller implant with a little more hang to it, because the old ones from Dr. Canada stuck out like water tanks. Jill Kelly took me to the office and let me recuperate at her house afterward.

I had first seen Jill on the set of a movie we were both in, Cover to Cover. She was strong, beautiful, and bossy, and I was dying to meet her, but I didn’t have the guts to. Years later, at a Vegas strip club called Bob’s Classy Lady, we finally met. But that’s only because I thought she was Janine Lindemulder. Jill had started stripping at eighteen, but then, at a Consumer Electronics Show one year, she met Tiffany Million, who brought her into the industry.

When Jill walked into Bob’s with her girlfriend P. J. Sparxx, I said, “Hi, Janine.” She corrected me, I felt like an idiot, and a friendship was formed out of mutual respect. We were two of the only girls who took the industry, and our roles in it, seriously. So we began hanging out on and off, and I knew she was someone I could rely on to take care of me —without an agenda— while I had my breasts fixed.

I don’t remember much after the surgery because I was hopped up on Vicodin to kill the pain. However, I remember Jill talking on speaker-phone to a guy named Jay, the bossy asshole who owned Sterling Studio, where I had shot a lot of my movies. When she told him that I was in her bed recovering, he joked, “Can I come over and molest her while she’s out cold?” Guys were such creeps.

My boobs healed quickly. When I looked at them in the mirror, a huge smile spread across my face. They were perfect. I still wished, however, that I’d never gotten them done. I had big boobs to begin with, but in this industry, a girl has to be larger than life. The problem is that big implants are a magnet for creeps and a hindrance to most physical activity. That’s why you’ll never see retired porn stars playing golf.

When guys talk to a girl, they always ask whether her breasts are real or what her bra size is. But when girls talk among themselves, the question is always, “How many cc’s do you have?” My implants were only 400 cc’s, but because my chest was so big to begin with they look like they’re 900 cc’s.

When I returned home after the surgery, Jordan was furious. I think that girls often experiment by dating different types of guys, to see what will work for them. A dominant, possessive guy who wanted me to be a barefoot and pregnant housewife definitely didn’t jibe with my unhealthy sense of ambition. It takes a certain kind of man to be able to live with the fact that the woman he loves has sex with other men on camera for a living. And I haven’t met that man yet.

We lived together uneasily for a few weeks, until my agent called and asked if I wanted to do a few dance gigs in San Francisco with Jill Kelly. I jumped at the chance to get away from Jordan. And Jordan, of course, did not want me to go, because he didn’t want me dancing onstage with another girl. He was actually jealous of her, too —even though I’d never told him about the women I’d dated.

With Jill Kelly.

Eventually, we compromised, and he came along as a suitcase chaperone. Our first show was at the O’Farrell Theater, which was the worst place possible to have taken him. The club had no rules: Girls were stuffing themselves with dildos onstage and, in the back rooms, grinding guys silly. The audience was so jaded that our show fell flat. It was too tame and softcore for them. But not for Jordan.

When I returned to the dressing room, he noticed that there was lipstick on my G-string. Evidently, Jill had inadvertently brushed her lips against it. As soon as he saw it, his face turned red, the veins in his neck bulged, and he screamed and put his fist through the door with a splintering thud.

“You fucking whore,” he screamed. “How could you? Pack your things and we’re going. You are done with dancing. Do you hear me? Done!”

I looked at Jill, and her jaw was set. She didn’t say a word. But her eyes communicated everything: How could I let a guy treat me like this?

But Jordan was right: I was done. Done with him. Once again, I’d allowed a guy to control me and, in the process, lost my entire sense of self. I looked into the future, and imagined what life would be like if I chose to stay with him. I saw myself in that little house in Miami, with kids running around and a potbellied husband in a dirty wifebeater demanding more French onion dip for his Ruffles. And I realized that I was throwing my career away for a guy who gave me absolutely nothing in exchange —emotionally, physically, or financially.

When we returned to Miami, I told him I had to go to a Video Software Dealers Association trade show in Las Vegas —alone. Even though the convention was still a month away, I had to get out of there. I had no plans of ever returning. I left for the airport a few hours early, so that I could stop by a tattoo parlor. I wanted to cover up his name with flowers, not unlike a cemetery plot, though I kept the words “crazy girl.” They definitely still fit.

Even though Jordan couldn’t handle my lifestyle, he had somehow become addicted to it. For some reason that I will never know or understand, a few months after we broke up, he started working for Jill Kelly, which was a surprise, considering what she’d seen. She hired him to watch her house for her, and then later to be her roadie. He ended up dating one of her contract girls —even though she was married. He’s still dating —and managing— girls in the industry to this day.

Homeless again, I returned to the one place I knew best: Nikki’s couch. But our circumstances had changed: for once, she needed me more than I needed her.

Nikki had moved into Lyle’s house in Irvine. It was my first time seeing Lyle since we both started in the industry. I could barely recognize him. He was wearing a dirty white T-shirt with a stretched-out collar that had holes in it. His jeans hung loosely around his waist, held up by a belt of rope. The veins in his neck permanently bulged, and his gentle eyes now seemed angry at the world. Once, he’d driven me everywhere; now I no longer trusted him behind the wheel. He was paranoid, temperamental, and addicted to everything from crack to steroids.

Five years of hard living had erased the Lyle I once knew. I may have felt lost at times, but never for that long. It was like seeing an alternate reality: If I hadn’t gotten my partying out of the way when I lived with Jack, perhaps I would have made all the mistakes he seemed to have made. Lyle’s self-esteem was shattered, and he took his own failures and inadequacies out on everyone around him. To be in this industry, you need to have strong grounding —because you are questioned by everyone, even yourself, on a daily basis. And if you fall into the trap and start hating who you are, then you are going to start taking it out on yourself and everyone around you. So, in short, Lyle had become one mean son of a bitch.

Day after day, I watched that son of a bitch take Nikki’s money, accuse her of cheating on him, and fly off the handle for no reason whatsoever. It got to the point where Nikki had to hide her jewelry so he wouldn’t steal it. I’d never seen anyone go through such abuse in my life.

One night, while I was on the couch, I heard him yelling at Nikki as she cried. Then I heard a loud crack, like an ice-hardened snowball hitting the side of a building. I went to check on Nikki and saw them in the bathroom. She was crouching in the corner and he was hovering over her menacingly, his elbows pumping back and forth. I felt my chest tighten and I was seized by the horrible impotent panic that I used to feel with Jack. I wasn’t about to let the same thing happen to the girl I loved.

I ran into the bathroom and tackled him. I wasn’t operating with logic. I didn’t care whether he hit me or not, but he didn’t. I had been like a sister to him. And somewhere in the back of his scrambled mind, he must have remembered that.

The next morning, he was gone. Six days passed and he still didn’t return. That was when Avis Rent-A-Car called. Lyle had apparently rented a Pontiac Grand Am under Nikki’s name and sold it.

“Oh my God,” Nikki said when she hung up. “What am I going to do?”

“You’re going to pack your shit right now,” I said, “and you’re not going to let that psycho know where you’re going.”

“I can’t, Jenna,” she cried. “I can’t just leave.”

“I will get an apartment with you,” I told her. “I need somewhere to live anyway.”

Suddenly, with those words, I had clarity. I knew exactly what I wanted. “Let’s go back to the way we used to be,” I gushed. “We can start our lives all over again, just you and me. And this time we can make all the right choices. And we can make them together. No guys.”

We were so scared Lyle would come home, we packed that apartment in a day. If he caught her leaving him, I have no doubt that he would have killed her and I would have been helpless to stop him.

As we drove to Hollywood, I kept thinking about the old Lyle. It was largely through his kindness and selflessness that I had been able to get ahead. The Lyle I had known didn’t seem capable of treating a woman like he did Nikki. I swore I’d never trust a man again. I should have just listened to the message the world kept sending me: Men are for money, taking care of things, and sex, to be enjoyed only with a leaden shield around your heart.

Nikki and I found a two-bedroom apartment with a loft, which I claimed as my own. But I never slept up there. I crawled into bed with Nikki every night, and we’d talk until we fell asleep in each other’s arms. We were best friends again. We never had sex, though: our relationship had evolved beyond that.

Without Jordan or Lyle, we entered a new phase in our lives. Nikki had been bulimic when she was younger, so she took Prozac to keep herself stable. But it wasn’t enough. So she started medicating herself with vodka —which she’d drink straight— and a little bit of Vicodin. We found a doctor who gave us giant bottles filled with five hundred of those evil white pills. Because it was a prescribed medication, it didn’t seem wrong —like meth or crack. And I had enjoyed the drug when I took it after my breast reduction, so I started swallowing a pill on special occasions. Then I started drinking vodka every now and then. And that’s when the unhealthy living started again.

I had always thought that it was men who were bad for me. But the problem with guys, ultimately, was always one of control —who had it and how they chose to use it. All that was nothing compared to the trouble that Nikki and I got in to. With her, there was a control problem of a different magnitude —we were out of control. I slid back, day by day, to the Jenna of the Vegas days. But I had confidence now. Half the male population of the country was jacking off to me, and I was laughing all the way to the bank. I wasn’t going to take shit from anyone and neither was Nikki. So we let everyone we came across know it. And in return they gave us the nickname we deserved: Hell on high heels.