My friend the Iolan Wonder

*In part 2 of the Friend Appreciation series, HellCat reflects on her best friend of 7ish years, Iolan Wonder, and their shared fondness for pornography.*

So my gal pal of forever and four days is writing a book. This is a new and somewhat randomly-discovered passion of hers. I'll let her tell you the premise of the book herself, but let's just say that if you had to put it in a general category, it would rhyme with Rex but start with an S.

I just got done reading a couple of her sample chapters. Let me tell you my darlings--this book might save many youngsters from sexual suicide. I was engaged by this book--I found myself transported back to a time when I needed more down-to-earth and basic education about doing it so I could feel better about growing up. And doing it.

Anyway, her second chapter reminded me of how I discovered that porn can be a fun thing to share with your friends and loved ones. I remember one night, a few of us were really bored. In fact, I think we had missed a special screening of Meet Joe Black (which I still haven't seen) and we were searching for an activity. Cue the suspenseful music. A bunch of 18 year olds with some cash, a car, and nothing to do. Trouble!

We got on the highway and one of the seedier elements of the group told me to keep heading south (no pun intended). I exited when he directed me to, and did a double-take when he commanded me to turn right off the service road. "But Jerry," said a wee HellCat, "there's no road here." I flashed my brights into the thick patch of trees and other scary southern foliage and discovered that there WAS a road there. It was just small, dirty, and covered with paint-dinging pebbles. Against my better judgement, and apologizing to my Jeep Cherokee, I turned. As we bumbled down the road, I couldn't shake the feeling that Jerry was going to kill us all.

All of a sudden, a neon XXX light appeared. The little shack it was perched on was almost an afterthought. I was in awe of this place. In my memory, it's very dark except for that overwhelming red light. Dust kind of settled in your mouth when you stopped moving to take it all in. A stray dog affectionately referred to as Nips by the regulars was humping Fritz's leg.

We rented Deep Throat, Behind the Green Door, and Devil in Miss Jones. We returned to our co-op and made it through them all (except for the last half of Miss Jones, which I still say is inferior). I finally excused myself from that 5th floor room and went back to mine on the first. I wanted to shower in bleach. I didn't know exactly what kind of portal I had opened in this Universe, but I knew that talking to my parents would never be the same. I was marked. Tainted. Porned.

I couldn't even call my boyfriend for a couple days.

Then I came out of my haze. Porn is super! It serves many purposes! It can be instructional or hysterical! Shock your friends! Wow your dates! So much porn, so little time.

Here's where Iola comes in. She has always inspired me to do things that are just a little bit outside my comfort zone. When I met her at our freshman orientation, she was prim and proper. Very polite. A nice girl. But when I spotted the very same skirt that Rose McGowan wore in Scream casually hanging out of her suitcase, her secret was out: she was a wild woman trapped in an A student's body.

I quickly decided to bring her into the new world I discovered. She loved it. We laughed and laughed. I bought her a burnt orange-colored vibrator for her birthday ("To put the UT school spirit in you," was on the gift tag). We went dancing and flirted with boys we didn't know. We read sex books. We got tattoos. Soon, our love of finding new porn spread to our friends. We've seen AssWoman in Wonderland, Encino Housewife Hookers 4, some Italian thing that was NOT worth the trouble (stick to designing fabulous footwear, Italy), and countless others about firefighters, guys dressed up in seal costumes, clowns, and copy machine repairmen. We've seen dudes dancing naked while wearing their socks and shoes. We've seen chicks watching dwarves have sex, and guys with birdcages over their torsos have work done on their mm-mm. We've seen a lot of things on that little glowing box.

And it really brings people together.

A lot of the people that I've seen porn with are still my very close pals. But Iola is different. We're compadres, in this together, like it or not. Chicks that watch XXX movies together, stay together. So cheers to you and your book, girl. And when you make it to Letterman's couch, ask him what porn he has hidden in the den. You KNOW he's got some f'd up stuff in there.

clear heels rule. g