Sinner Takes All: A Memoir of Love and Porn

CHAPTER 6 From Bedpans to Bedrooms

After a few years of meandering through life, I decided it was time to stop fucking around and get serious. At age eighteen, I spent a week studying for my GED and passed it on the first try at Boise State University, and began my undergraduate studies in nursing there. I transferred to the American Institute of Health Technology, also in Boise, where I earned an emergency medical technical (EMT) certificate and trained to be a nurse.

Dad was finally proud of me, and I was finally settling down and growing up. No more self-indulgent wild ways. It was all about being of service to others for a change. I worked most days as a telemarketer for a security-alarm-system company. It was my first time dealing with rejection: I got hung up on a lot! And I went to school at night. I moved back to California after school because I found a job at a nursing home in Simi Valley. At first I really loved working with old people and was good at it. So good that I remember my dad telling me one day, “I don’t fear getting old because I know you’re going to take such good care of me.” That made me feel good. It was nice to have Dad back in my life again.

The nursing work came easily to me at first. I loved to knit, so in the wintertime I would knit lap blankets for my patients, and in the morning instead of just giving them their meds and pushing my medicine cart to the next room, I would sit down and talk with them and brush their hair and put on their makeup, or even do some exercise with them. I was all about engaging my patients. It felt good to be good.

It also felt good to be around hot doctors, whom I flirted with shamelessly. The other nurses would often tease me about what a big flirt I was and say things like, “Oh, Linda. You belong in front of the camera.” Or, “Oh, Linda, you should model.” I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I tried modeling. I was embarrassed to let them know I blew it. Besides, I was enjoying my new life. For the first time, I didn’t have to watch my weight and I wasn’t messed up on drugs and alcohol. At age twenty-two, I was finally feeling pretty happy and normal.

But as time went on, the work became a little more difficult and a lot more depressing. There were still a lot of great patients whom I enjoyed helping, but the day-in, day-out nature of the job started to take a toll on me. My breaking point came one day with one of my regular patients—a woman named Catherine, who was in her mid-seventies and had a bad case of Alzheimer’s. She was demanding every single kind of drug under the sun. I helped her as much as I could, but she just kept hitting her call light and demanding more. At one point, she put on her light and asked me to put her on the bedpan, which I did. Normally, another nurse would have come in a few minutes later to remove it. But the nurse ignored the light. An hour or so later, I saw her call light was going off again. I was about to leave for lunch, but I felt really bad for her and I thought to myself, “I’ll stop by her room one last time and see what she needs before I go.”

I walked into her room and before I could even ask her what she needed, she took her bedpan from underneath her and threw it at me. She might have been an old lady, but she had a good arm—it was a direct hit. I was standing there, soaked in her urine, and she told me, “That’s what you get for not coming back on time.”

I thought to myself, “Oh my God. This just did not happen to me.” In that moment, I was deeply humbled. Here is a woman who can’t go to the bathroom on her own and the only way to communicate with me is to throw a fucking bedpan at my head. It felt awful. I wiped the urine off my face and decided in that moment that there had to be something better for me out there. I took the rest of the day off and I quit my job the very next day. It was the spring of 1999 and time for a fresh start.

I had been living in an apartment in Canoga Park, California, a city in the Valley—the porn capital of the world. It was a small place, but for my friends and me it was our dream pad—a real party apartment. My girlfriends would drop by all the time to hang out there. When I arrived home soaked in urine that day and ready for a shower, two friends were waiting for me: Elena, a hairdresser, and Honey, a photographer. I told them what had just happened, and we began brainstorming about what else I could do with my life. Naturally, the talk turned to modeling. Honey said, “I think you should pose for Playboy. I think that it would be an amazing opportunity for you.”

I had never done nude modeling before, but the idea appealed to me. I was an exhibitionist and, of course, I grew up loving those girls in Playboy. Elena wasn’t so sure. “I think you’re too good to do Playboy,” she said. “I think it’s degrading to women. I don’t think you should do it.” I didn’t think it was degrading to women. I figured if nude modeling was good enough for my idols, then it was good enough for me.

At the time, I was a size 6 and 135 pounds. That was way too large to go back to runway, print, or commercial modeling. You need to be about 110 at my height for that kind of modeling. But you can be a size 6 or even larger to pose in Playboy or other nude magazines, and that is what I love about that part of the industry. You don’t have to be stick thin to show the world you’re beautiful. This was a door that was open to someone like me, so I ran through that door with my arms and legs wide open.

Nude modeling and porn are the only areas of the entertainment industry that seemed to truly embrace women of all sizes, shapes, colors, and backgrounds. Hollywood makes you conform to being that size 0, but porn and slutty magazines don’t. It’s an equal-opportunity industry. In mainstream Hollywood, a woman like me—half Thai, size 6, big double-D natural breasts—wouldn’t get work. The real Hollywood discriminates. But the other Hollywood—the sexier side of Tinseltown—welcomes all. Marilyn Monroe and Bettie Page weren’t stick figures and they got tons of work, so I learned to enjoy my voluptuous body. I liked being curvy, just like my idols.

I wanted to be part of this other side of Hollywood. I didn’t care that Elena thought Playboy wasn’t good enough for me. I made my decision. I filled out the application and made an appointment down at Playboy Studio West in Santa Monica, California. I was interviewed by a woman named Stephanie, who was impressed by my modeling resume and my look. She told me, “Wow, you are so beautiful. We’re going to do a test shoot with you next week and we’ll let you know right away.”

For the test shoot, which was in May 1999, I wore a casual summer dress and sandals. I’d put on my best thong underwear and made sure not to wear a bra so I could really show off my boobs. As we were about to shoot, I got worried that I wasn’t dressed well enough. Stephanie told me, “Oh, no, don’t worry. We’re going to put you in a pretty little outfit and we’re going to do your hair and makeup.”

“Perfect.” I felt at ease and excited at the same time.

As I walked down the hallways of Playboy West Studios to the dressing room, I saw pictures all over the walls of various beautiful girls, one after the other, including Marilyn Monroe. That really clinched it for me.

The makeup artist was a really sweet girl named Kimberly. She started playing with my hair. She picked up a handful and said, “Wow, you have just about the thickest hair I’ve ever seen on any girl.”

I wondered whether that was a good thing or a bad thing.

She sat me down in the chair and she put my hair in hot rollers and started painting my face. They brought me a cup of tea, a Coke, and some iced coffee and got me all jacked up. Then they took me to the wardrobe room and picked out a sexy, matching black bra-and-panty set for me.

My strongest memory of the studio is how cold it was. It was a hot summer day outside, but it was ice cold in there. In the middle of the studio was a giant bed with big fluffy pillows surrounded by big beautiful lights. I’d been a little nervous about being in front of the camera again—it had been six years since I’d done any modeling. But I have to say that modeling is like riding a bike. I just automatically fell back into it. They asked me to lie on the bed and I did, arching my back, looking right into the camera. It felt so natural, just like my first test shoot but more glamorous.

The photographer’s only direction to me was this: “OK, this is for your expression: I want lots of ‘Ooohs’ and lots of ‘Ahhhs.’ ‘Oooh. Ahhh.’ Get it?”

I got it. And for the next twenty minutes I went “oooh” and “ahhh” and it was a lot of fun. It was an amazing feeling being in front of the camera again, and I really enjoyed it. It felt like being a princess for a day. After that, I went to my little Mazda 323 hatchback and called my friend Honey. “Well, I did it. I wonder what they’re going to say.”

She was confident. “Oh, they’re going to pick you for sure.”

Sure enough, I got a call the very next day. It was Stephanie: “We’d like to have a meeting with you to talk about being in Playboy.” They wanted me! I was thrilled. I couldn’t believe it. We set up a meeting for the following Monday. I was on my way.

As if fate knew what I was about to do, that same week I saw an ad for figure models at Jim South’s World Modeling Agency on Van Nuys Boulevard in Van Nuys, California, and I walked right in. I figured if Playboy wanted me, other magazines would too. So I marched into World Modeling’s offices in these super-short white denim shorts, a baby blue tank top, and heels, looking like Miss Slutterina, and told them I wanted to model.

“Oh my God. Who are you?” said a woman in her late twenties named Chazz. She was Jim South’s receptionist, and I’d later find out that she was a performer in the porn industry too. I’d also later find out that World Modeling didn’t just rep girls for nude magazines, but for adult films as well.

“I’m Linda. I’m here for the figure modeling.”

Chazz must have liked what she saw because she immediately took me into one of the back rooms and Polaroided me. That’s what they did back then. They would take quick Polaroid photos to get a feel for how you photograph. She took a few shots from the front, a few from the back, a few from the side, and then said, “I can definitely get you in Penthouse.”

“Penthouse? Oh my God,” I thought to myself.

“When can I get in Penthouse?” I asked Chazz.

“I’m going to call photographer Suze Randall. She shoots for the magazine. She’ll shoot you and then submit the photos to Penthouse and we’ll see.”

“Great!” I couldn’t believe it. Playboy and Penthouse?!

A few days later, I went to Suze Randall’s studio on Kotner in Santa Monica, California. Suze is this wonderful dykey woman with cropped blond hair like Victoria Beckham, schoolmarmish glasses, and a charming thick British accent. I showed up in a matching peach bra and thong set and asked, “Do you want me to get naked?” I was ready to bare all.

“No, darling,” Suze said. “Keep your clothes on this time.” She took ten photos of me in my bra and panties and said, “Oh yeah. We’re getting you in Penthouse. I’m shooting you next week.”

She followed through. We shot that Friday for Penthouse. It was just a few days before my scheduled Monday meeting with Playboy. I couldn’t believe it was happening so fast. All I could think was, “I’m going to be in Playboy and Penthouse, make tons of money, and be famous!” This was my second chance at modeling and my ticket back. I was filled with a newfound optimism about my career and my life.

The shoot for Penthouse was unlike any shoot I had done up to that point. It was at Suze’s ranch in Calabasas, California, and it was the biggest, most glamorous shoot I’d ever done. I was so thrilled to have Emma Nixon, one of the most highly regarded makeup and hairstylists in the industry, do my hair and makeup. She worked with everyone. I was floored that the same woman who helped make Pamela Anderson look so beautiful was working on me, too. I felt like I was finally at the level I always wanted to be.

The problem was that I had no idea what I was doing. Sure, I had modeled before, but never completely naked! For instance, I had no idea I was supposed to spread my pussy. I’m starting to pose for photos and I’m just lying there with my legs wide open, thinking this was how you do it. The next thing I know, Suze takes a Q-tip covered in baby oil and she starts petting my pussy with it. She stroked the lips, she stroked the inside edge, she stroked around the outside of my pussy with this moist little Q-tip.

“Pinky, pinky, pinky,” Suze was saying in that British accent of hers.

“Pinky?” What the hell is she saying?

“Yes, darling, you need to show your pussy. We need to see more pink. Pinky, pinky, pinky!”

I had no idea you had to, as Suze said, get the pussy all “shiny and glistening and inviting.” That’s where the baby oil came in.

With my pussy moistened, open, and ready to be properly photographed, I really got into the shoot. But every time Suze would remind me to “show more pink,” I would laugh my ass off. As she shot me, she would say things to coax the sex kitten out of me, such as “Come on, you little slut. Open your legs, you little slut. Let’s see the pink!” Thinking about it now, it sounds so vulgar but at the time she sounded very charming and posh in that British accent, and I couldn’t help but giggle every time she said “pinky, pinky, pinky.”

Suze and I got along great and I was excited to share my other news with her. I told her that I was meeting with Stephanie at Playboy on Monday to discuss shooting for them. That was the biggest mistake, because after hearing this news Suze rushed the layout to Penthouse to make sure that her spread would get published.

That Monday, I walked into Playboy to see Stephanie and she showed me the contract for me to pose for the magazine. I didn’t know anything about contracts, but as I was reading it over it sounded too good to be true: $25,000 for a week’s worth of work! I mentioned to Stephanie that $25,000 was practically a year’s pay at the nursing home and that I was only paid $5,000 for Penthouse.

“Um, Penthouse?” said Stephanie as she took the contract away. “You can’t be in Playboy if you are in Penthouse. That’s how it goes. Sorry.”

I quickly got on the phone with Suze and tried to stop the Penthouse spread, but it was too late. The Penthouse spread was a done deal and I was fucked. I walked out of Playboy’s offices in tears and cried myself to sleep that night. It wasn’t until years later when I became a famous porn star that I would have my shot at Playboy again. And that time, I ended up on the cover of Penthouse and Playboy within a month of each other, becoming the only girl in history who has ever done that. So, all’s well that ends well. But that day in Playboy’s Santa Monica studio, I felt like someone just punched me in the stomach.

I decided to suck it up. It wasn’t a total loss. I mean, Penthouse was a huge magazine too. And Suze Randall told me there was more where that came from. She said, “I’ll put you in every nude magazine out there.” So, that’s what I did. I became a nude model, and I was Suze’s muse.