The sensation in my fingers was incredibly satisfying.

I loved everything about it. The softness. The wetness. How it bent and gave way for my fingertips.

I leaned forwards, my black, long-sleeved T-shirt rolled up to my elbows showing off the crying cloud and the lower part of the Japanese garden tattoo, consisting of a bridge, a koi pond and several trees with lanterns. The tattoo artist had used such a fine needle to make it, it looked like a picture.

My fringe tickled my nose, but I refused to move any muscle in my face to blow it away. I was making a delicate piece which required deft and able fingers, and a slight move such as tensing my facial muscles ever so slightly to get my fringe away from my eyes could be devastating.

My electrical potter's wheel hummed as it spun, and I shaped the cup carefully as the ceramic sputtered onto my already stained cargo trousers. I was making a teacup but Asian in style, tall and slim, having no handle, the traces of my fingers still visible as part of the finished result. On the table next to me were four already finished ones, two covered in blue lacquer, two covered in turquoise. My goal for today was making two more that were going to be bright yellow.

I stopped the wheel, stretching my back out. I often forgot about ergonomics, having my chair too high up, and my back was paying the price. I smirked at my own nerdy dedication as I looked around my little apartment during my little break.

It wasn't big, by any means, my apartment. A square hallway leading to a small living room, where I had placed all my pottery equipment, a kitchen that was open to said living room, separated by a kitchen half-island. I had a bedroom, quite decently sized, and an en suite bathroom that was newly renovated with grey stone tiles and a big rain shower where I loved to soak. The rest of my apartment was white. And everywhere were shelves, all of them covered in my ceramic creations, from simple ones like the mugs I was making and pots where I'd put flowers, to more advanced vases and urns and teapots. They ranged in all sorts of different colours, and I sometimes painted them in my very specific style of symmetrical, white flowers.

And it was a complete secret. Nobody was allowed to visit. Nobody knew about the pottery. Not because I was ashamed, neither of my apartment (that was too small for my fortune but, let's face it, who would have the energy to move all of my pottery to my new place?) or my quirky choice of hobby. No, it was because I wanted at least this part of me to be my own. My entire body belonged to the Internet and, therefore, to everyone. When you googled my name, the fact that I was a world-famous porn star was the first one to show up. I even had a Wikipedia page stating my date of birth, height and estimated weight. The pottery, I was keeping to myself.

It did look beautiful in the apartment, I had to admit. Well, if it wasn't for the fact that each and every piece of my work stood on a square of newspaper.

I sighed, looking into the corner where the reason that each and every piece of my work stood on a square of newspaper was snoozing. Ahh, the love of my life. Her name was Betty, and she was a rescue cat with long, white hair and quirky eyes. I had gone to the rescue after I turned eighteen and was moving out of my parents'.

"I want the cat that's been here for the longest."

Betty had been a young cat then, and had been almost completely void of fur, and so ugly that nobody wanted her. As I lifted her up into my embrace, she had mewed pathetically and clung to me, and we had loved each other immediately.

Now, she was the most gorgeous cat you could imagine. But she adored my pottery. Or, to be more precise, she adored slamming my work into the ground. She would look at each new piece, sniff it, then used her paw to top it over the edge of whatever shelf it stood on. Fortunately, Betty was terrified of newspaper, so placing my work on a square of it was my only way of saving it.

She was fourteen now. I fretted losing her more than I fretted anything. I believed that might have been why I handled the fact that everyone could find out about my career by a simple Google search so well; nothing scared me as much as the thought of losing her did.

Over the years, she had learned to trust me. Her desperate need for affection had diminished, and we now lived in a silent and reserved companionship. From time to time, though, she would jump up on me when I watched a film, or ate breakfast, and I would let her and she would purr, and we would ensure one another that we loved each other.

I took my finished mug and placed it in the heated ceramic oven to dry. I was just thinking about going to make myself some falafel salad when my phone rang. It was my manager.

"Hi", I said.

"Tobirama, I have a job for you."

"Thank you, I'm good. And how are you, Roland?"

He laughed heartily.

"Sorry", he said. "You're so famous now I sometimes forget you're a person. You just generate money for me."

I smiled warmly.

I had hired him as my manager as I was still a rising star, and him, seeing my potential, had hired me with the generous requirement of me giving him twenty percent of my income. Ron wasn't known at all in the porn industry, but I had chosen a small name as I decided that would be more cost-effective and I would find them more trustworthy. And he had proved to be worthy of my trust. But as I reached the skies and even beyond and also learned more about the industry, I had decided to take over management myself.

To my great surprise, Ron had broken down on the phone when I told him. I had never, ever heard him express any form of emotion before then. Our interactions had been solely professional.

And he'd told me.

He had an ill child at home, and his income from me had been the sole thing paying for her medical bills in our stupid and corrupt country. I had immediately said I would keep hiring him. He had thanked me with dignity.

His wife and him had later invited me for dinner. They said it was because they wanted to thank me, but I suspected it was because they wanted to show me that Ron wasn't tricking me. Well, he wasn't. Their house was warm and clean but old, in some areas in dire need of renovation, and their daughter was at home for the dinner, permitted from the hospital, and was carried in a wheelchair and had a constant requirement of oxygen. I always felt uncomfortable with children, not seeing it fit that they met a porn star even if they didn't know. But she had been sweet, well-spoken and very, very ill.

"How are you?" Ron asked me now.

"Good. Money rolling in. Party invitations just as. How's your wife and Cornelia? And you, of course."

"Cornelia has a good week. And therefore, so do my wife and I."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"So... Work." Even if me and Ron were now closer, he was not a man for small talk. Neither was I, to be honest, if it wasn't to get a girl home. I just pretended to be to annoy him.

"Tell me", I said, taking out falafel I'd made from scratch last week from the freezer and turning my kitchen oven on.

"With William Harold." I whistled; he was a huge director. I had never worked with him before. "About time, right?" Ron continued. "But there's one catch."

Ron sounded hesitant.

"You know I'm open to filming any kink", I said, unbothered.

"It's not a kink", Ron said, which caught my interest and I stopped posting frozen falafel into my oven tray.

Ron was quiet for an awfully long time.

"What?" I asked, a little irritated.

"It's gay porn."

I frowned. Then, I kept pouring falafel into the tray.

"How much money?" I asked.

"So you're fine with it being another man involved?"

"Do I top?"

"Of course you top!"

"Then I don't care. What's the money?"

Ron mentioned a number that made me whistle again.

"I'd bottom for that money."

"Oh, come on, Tobirama. Both of us know that isn't true."

"Who is the male?" I asked.

"I don't know. Will didn't tell me. And I didn't ask because I wouldn't know who he was anyway."

"You sure about that?"

Ron was quiet for some time.

"No", he confessed. "No, I'm not sure about that."

I laughed heartily.

"If it makes you feel any better, I would probably know who he is, too", I confessed.

"You watch gay porn?" Ron asked, not even trying to sound surprised.

"Uhh-huhh", I said.

"Ever had a man before?"

"That's too much of a personal question." Roland was quiet, not taking my answer. "Okay, fine", I said. "No, never."

"I'm actually surprised."

"Shut up."

Ron laughed. I smiled. He gave me the date and time, and we hung up. I finished making my falafel salad with pasta, which I happily ate as Betty purred in my lap.

It was true; I did watch gay porn. I found it exotic, in a way, straight and lesbian porn giving me a feeling of been there, done that. I was curious if I would recognise my counterpart.

I spent the rest of the evening painting little white flowers on a vase with yellow glaze I'd made last week, entirely relaxed.