Chapter 2- THE GIRL I USED TO BE

My name is Riley. For almost six years that name meant something very different. It was a very popular name in the adult film industry.

I joined the adult film industry immediately after I finished school.

I used to wake up on sets with bright lights already on and a camera pointed at me before I even had coffee. Directors told me where to put my hands, how loud to moan, and how long to hold a position while some guy with a thick cock fucked me for the tenth take. I did it. I got good at it. My body learned to come on command. I learned how to look straight into the lens while someone stretched me open and kept going long after most men would have finished. The money was good. The attention was constant. For a while I told myself it was just work.

Then one morning I looked at the call sheet and felt nothing. No excitement. No pride. Just a quiet tiredness that sat in my chest. I began thinking about my life whenever I go outside and see a proper family.

I made up my mind to stop the adult film show and focus more on myself.

I was called into a room by a director to shoot a scene. After I finished that last scene, I walked off set, and never went back. I deleted the old numbers. I stopped answering messages from agents. I wanted a normal life. Quiet mornings. A real bed that did not have to be cleaned for the next shoot. A man who looked at me and saw more than the girl from the videos.

Three months later I met a handsome looking young man, Ethan at a small bookstore downtown. I was standing in the fiction section pretending to read when he asked if I needed help finding something. He had kind eyes and a soft smile. We talked about books for twenty minutes. He asked me out for coffee the next day. I almost said no. I was still scared someone would recognize me. But I said yes.

On our third date he told me he already knew.

“I saw some of your old work,” he said across the table. His voice stayed calm. “I looked you up after our first coffee. I wanted to be honest.”

My stomach dropped. I waited for the usual questions or the smug look. Neither came.

“I don’t care about that,” he continued. “That was then. I’m sitting here with you now. That’s what matters to me and I believe you are not into the business anymore.”

I stared at him. “Most men either want to recreate the videos or they want me to pretend they never existed.”

“I’m not like most men,” he said. “I want the real version of you. The one who likes to be herself and is willing to have a family.”

I cried in the car afterward. He held my hand and did not say anything else. That night I went home and packed the last of my old hard drives into a box and never opened them again.

We dated for almost a year. He told me he wants marriage before we have any sex. I was very surprised and wondered what his reason was but I never asked him. He would often hold me and kiss the top of my head like I was something precious. I told myself that was better. Safer and real.

He often noticed how people look at me whenever we are outside because of who I used to be.

One evening on his balcony he took my hand and said, “Marry me. We’ll leave this city. Start over somewhere no one knows your face. New name, and everything.”

I looked at the ring in his hand. Finally, the day I have waited all my life has finally come.

“Yes,” I whispered.

We started packing the next week. Ethan sold his place. I gave notice at the small office job I had taken after leaving the industry. We drove north for two days until we reached a quiet town with wide streets and houses set far apart. The mansion sat at the end of a private road. High walls. Tall trees. No neighbors close enough to watch.

The first night there I stood in the bathroom and studied my face in the mirror. I still looked like the girl from the videos if someone stared long enough.

The next morning I went to a clinic Ethan found. Small changes. A little work around the eyes and jaw. Nothing dramatic. Just enough to soften the old angles. I dyed my dark hair a warm chestnut brown and cut it to my shoulders. When I looked in the mirror again the old Riley felt farther away.

Ethan came up behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist. “You will always look like you to me,” he said.

I leaned back against him. “You really don’t mind what I used to do?”

“I mind that it made you tired,” he answered. “I don’t mind that it happened. You’re here now. With me. That’s the only part I care about.”

We spent the next weeks making the big house feel like ours. New sheets. New dishes. Quiet dinners on the back patio. Sometimes I still woke up reaching for something that was not there, but Ethan would pull me close and the feeling would pass.

One Sunday morning he brought coffee to the bed and sat beside me.

“We should set a date,” he said. “Nothing huge. Just us and a few people. Something simple.”

I took the cup and smiled. “I’d like that.”

He pulled out his phone and opened the calendar. “How does next month sound? We can look at places this week.”

I nodded. The idea of standing in front of him and saying the words felt steady. Safe. Like the life I had chosen was finally solid under my feet.

We started talking about flowers and a small guest list. Ethan wrote notes on a pad while I leaned against his shoulder. Outside the window the trees moved in the wind. Inside the room everything felt calm and possible.

That was the morning we began planning the wedding.

I never knew I was entering a marriage I will regret for the rest of my life.