Without a studio of her own, Rae plans YesBoobs photo shoots as mobile operations. And on a balmy summer afternoon, that means she and The Dude pack up the cameras, outfits and massage oil into duffle bags and drive to a Hampton Inn in St. Charles.
"The Hampton Inns are usually really clean," Rae says, eyeing the sparse room, its drab carpet and blue drapes. "They usually have a good décor and a lot of space. This one is...different."
But the show must go on. The star of today's shoot is Charlotte, a nineteen-year-old local who has already shot one scene for YesBoobs.
While waiting for Charlotte to show up, Rae, dressed casually in black booty shorts and a gray T-shirt, busies herself adjusting the lighting equipment. She says models like Charlotte can be found through social media and, in some cases, Craigslist, although she and The Dude have been burned before.
"People are trying to take advantage of us constantly," says The Dude from the other side of the room. Sometimes, he says, models simply fail to show up, even after YesBoobs pays for airfare. Sometimes the model's boyfriend will do everything he can to scuttle the shoot.
"This boyfriend thing is a huge problem," Rae says, laughing at the obvious irony. "A lot of them want just want to control the models, control what they do."
Fortunately, Charlotte's boyfriend seems to have no objections to the proceedings. When they arrive at the hotel room, he chitchats with Rae and The Dude before settling into an armchair. He'll remain mostly immobile for the next several hours.
Charlotte, a platinum blonde with pale skin and tattoos running down her arms and legs, is no stranger to these shoots. She's performed in one hardcore scene, she says, for another local porn studio — which, incidentally, failed to pay her. With YesBoobs, Charlotte will take her $500 check after the shoot.
Charlotte begins laying out silk lingerie and bras on the bed, and Rae inspects the options while she goes over an outline of the planned shoot.
"Let's just start with the silver dress," Rae says. "I was thinking we could do a strip, then masturbation, then we could do ice. Are you OK with ice?"
Charlotte seems momentarily thrown by the last suggestion.
"Ice?" she repeats. "To do what? Because I've never done anything with ice."
"Oh, just icing your nipples," Rae says. "And then I was thinking we could do oil, and then do a shower video. We'll save those for the end. How's that sound?"
Charlotte says she's game, and she goes into the bathroom to touch up her makeup while Rae and The Dude finish with the lighting setup.
Finally, Charlotte is ready. She sits up on the bed as Rae clicks away on the camera and directs Charlotte's movements. Charlotte bats her heavy-lidded eyes at an unknowable number of future masturbators. Each action appears practiced and teasing. Her fingers play with her loosened bra straps.
"Do my faces look OK?" Charlotte asks suddenly, breaking the spell. Now she looks more like an anxious teenager at a theater rehearsal.
"Yeah, they look good!" Rae says to Charlotte's visible relief.
She continues in her singsong director's voice: "Can we take the dress off? Can you take down one strap? Now the other? Um, can you unhook the back but then still hold the cups over your titties?"
Charlotte spills out of the silver dress, leaving only her bra and panties. Rae continues to talk her through the action.
"Okey-dokey, can you take it off? Can you do, like, a hand bra? Then, on all fours facing me, and then the side, whichever side you want."
The Dude interjects. "When we do the video I want a lot of that position, hanging, swinging stuff. Like a solid five minutes of that."
When Rae finishes the still photos, it's time to do the whole thing again on video. This is The Dude's purview, and he takes Rae's place at the foot of the bed.
Charlotte introduces herself to the camera and, again, slowly peels out of her clothes. She gets on all fours while The Dude captures her breasts swinging and bouncing for several minutes. When she gets on her back for the masturbation scene, The Dude keeps the camera low, focusing on Charlotte's vagina and the movement of her fingers.
"I want to get a close-up of your face," The Dude says. "We're going to blend it in. The masturbation is going to cut to a shot of your face for like a minute as you're moaning and doing all the stuff you just did, and then we'll go back to the masturbation. Then we'll edit it together." From the hotel room, the intimate subject matter is a technical film shoot, not a sexy romp.
Charlotte complies, finishing the scene with another climax. Of course, she isn't actually climaxing. Later, after she finishes another scene, she casually mentions that she only experienced her first orgasm a few months prior. "So I had to fake it for a looong time," she says, smirking at her boyfriend.
But this isn't Charlotte's life, not really. She doesn't have a cam stream like Rae, and her distinctive tattoos make it harder to hide from nosy employers or relatives.
"This is a hobby, almost," Charlotte muses as she replaces her lingerie in its dress bag, throwing the bras and makeup cases in a rolling suitcase.
"I've thought about it being a career," she adds, "but it's a lot of hard work, and I would have to commit myself to it. I can't have a real job and a porno job. So you kind of have to choose."
