Underneath It All by Traci Elisabeth Lords

shiny Vette. I soared along the highway blasting Pat Benatar on the stereo. "Hell Is for Children" screamed through the air.
Isn't that the truth,
I thought, wondering if I could bring myself to drive off a cliff and be done with it.

I abandoned the thought in favor of liquid. My mouth was twitching from the coke. I needed to balance it out and ended up at my designated perch on the patio of the Poop Deck. I was just finishing off a pitcher of Budweiser, grooving to the soothing sound of the Eagles and feeling like nothing really mattered, when Sonny came waltzing in. He picked me out of my chair and wrapped me in a hug. He kissed me softly, singing "My angel is the centerfold" loud enough for the whole bar to hear.

In his hands, he had a copy of the most recent
Penthouse
with Vanessa Williams on the cover. I only knew who she was because a few weeks earlier all of Sonny's friends wanted to check out the swimsuit competition of the Miss America pageant and her name had come up. But at the time I had no idea how her girlie photos were going to affect my life. Now, there she was, Miss America, on the cover of
Penthouse
smiling with George Burns at her side, and while this normally wouldn't have affected me at all, I was, in fact, the centerfold of that very issue.

I flipped to the center of the magazine. It really was me, and I was shocked to see how pretty they made me look.

I couldn't remember taking those photos, but I must have because there they were. Sonny was jazzed to be with a
Penthouse
centerfold model and I was stunned at the attention directed my way. The bar was hopping with both men and women, and I was suddenly the main attraction. Patrons were going to the liquor store next door and coming back with their own issue of
Penthouse
for me to sign.

Signing my very first autograph as "Traci Lords," I corrected the misspelled "y" to an "i" and felt important for the first time in my life, giggling about how they didn't even spell my made-up name right. I was cocky and arrogant. Becoming the life of the party, I danced with Sonny extra sexy, showing off, and lifting my skirt as I'd seen fat Heidi do on my first visit to this bar. I was completely aware of the jealous looks from the women and lust from the men. At the time, it didn't occur to me that perhaps I looked as silly to them as Heidi had looked to me. I only knew that I was "Miss Tracy Lords, September 1984 Pet of the Month," and it felt good to be Her.

By the time my buzz wore off the next morning, the reality of what was going on hit. I knew there was something wrong with my body being available for the world to view in a porn
magazine, and although it wasn't the first time I'd seen myself in a nude layout, it hadn't actually registered until that moment.

Still, I couldn't stop myself. I was in way too deep and couldn't possibly turn back now. I had North to answer to, Sonny to feed, and my unrelenting hunger for approval to satisfy. Besides, now I was a star.

That became the best selling issue in the history of
Penthouse
. While the TV reporters continued to gossip about the lesbian photos Miss America had done, there I was, right in front of the world, a naked fifteen-year-old girl staring up at them.

The attention that issue of
Penthouse
magazine brought me in the porn world sealed my fate. It was October 1984 when I graduated to doing porn films.

It just kind of happened.

The first time I walked onto a porn movie set I was wired. I hadn't slept a wink the night before, and as I drove myself to the location I was exhausted and overwhelmed by the anxiety of imagining what it would be like. I had one line, which I'd practiced a dozen times the night before. North had told me my line was "I know what gets me hot," but I had no idea what it referred to. All I knew was I was getting paid four hundred and fifty dollars a day with a guarantee of two days' work and no nudity.

I'd made every excuse I could think of to North, trying to convince him that I