Out of Bondage by Linda Lovelace Read Free Book Online

$5,000.
    If I had known what awaited me in that Miami courtroom I would never have gone. With no warning, the judge ruled that the entire movie, Deep Throat, must be screened for the jury. Then he made a second decision. He also decided it was important that I stay in the courtroom and verify that this was, indeed, the film. This meant that Larry—the man I loved, the man I was thinking about spending my life with—would sit there and watch the movie with me. The film he had never seen.

seven
    Larry knew a little of what to expect; he knew that he would be watching a film of the woman he loved involved in sex with other men. But he didn’t realize he was going to watch the woman he loved performing sexual acrobatics with several strangers.
    There was such a risk to this, such a terrible risk. I realized I might lose Larry forever. Some men would never have been able to look me in the eye again. But total honesty has always been important to me. What good is a love if it’s built on a lie? In a strange way I wanted—needed—Larry beside me; I couldn’t sit in that crowded courtroom totally unprotected.
    There was still one other thing in my mind. I wanted Larry to understand. I wanted him to go with me into the very depths of my life, I wanted him to feel it.
    This happened to be the first time I sat through the entire movie myself. I had been in other places—like Hefner’s mansion in California—where the movie was being shown but always, in the past, I would get up and walk out of the room as soon as the lights went off. What I had seen in the past seemed to me incomprehensible, disgusting, embarrassing, smelly.
    When it was learned that Deep Throat was being screened, that Florida courtroom suddenly filled with people. Every lawyer and judge and legal secretary in the building suddenly found an excuse to visit the courtroom. Although I tried to brace myself, the pain was acute. I sat there, suffering, as once again the rape went on. It was worse than I remembered, worse than I imagined it might be.
    I couldn’t look at Larry directly. From the corners of my eyes, I could see that he, too, was avoiding looking at the screen. His eyes remained on the floor. However, there was no way to block his ears, no way for him to avoid hearing it.
    A few times I tried to make light of it by whispering something to Larry. I tried to adopt an oh-it’s-not-all-that-bad attitude but it didn’t work. There could never be a way this part of my life could be turned into a joke. Larry seemed tense, frozen in position as if braced against some unseen assault. What was he thinking? What could he be thinking? Was he tough enough for this, tough enough to trust me despite this?
    I couldn’t guess the answer. As the action on the screen moved on relentlessly, I began to feel spaced out. This should not be happening—but there was no way to stop it.
    Unfortunately, Larry was seeing this movie—this dismal chapter of my life—out of context. He, like millions of others, had no idea what was going on when the movie camera was turned off. He hadn’t read director Damiano’s description of my appearance (“Many times she’d come on the set and be completely black and blue.”)
     
    Flashback to—
    A Florida motel room, the first day of shooting Deep Throat, the entire movie crew partying it up in the next room, drinking, smoking pot, carrying on. Chuck turning on me—“You cunt!”—and hitting me. What had I done now? What was wrong? “Your smile,” he said. “That fucking smile of yours. You were so busy smiling all day—well, let’s see how you smile now. Why don’t you smile for me now?” And me knowing the crew can hear every word, can come to my rescue: “First you yell at me because I look too sad, and now you yell at me because I’m smiling too much! Smiling too much! You ought to see a doctor, Chuck, you really ought to. Because you’re crazy.” Him coming at me then: “I’m not the one who’s gonna need a