On a late November evening, Plush ignited a streak of spontaneous passion.

Certainly Las Vegas visitors are transfixed by the swarms of working girls so overtly advertising and plying their horizontal trade. Live here long enough, though, and the sight of so many intimate pleasure providers simply becomes tenderloin wallpaper.

Occasionally a standout presents herself. Plush is one of the notables.

Tall, voluptuous, buxom, a bottle blonde, her face retaining plenty of wholesomeness (aside from the scarlet slashes along her plump lips) despite her profession’s demands, Plush might’ve become Marilyn 2.0 (or a real-life Little Annie Fanny) under more favorable circumstances.

Instead, she’s pulchritude for hire.

The night she besotted some poor helpless sap Plush wore distinctly fashion victim apparel: a denim jacket form which her extensive upper carriage cantilevered under a thin white sweater. Skinny jeans slavishly followed those luscious contours of her lower torso into glittery platform shoes whose clicked heels ought’ve transported their wearer to Miami or Rio, though surely not Kansas.

Reliably dressed far more demurely while prospecting for business, this particular evening’s attire indicated a social outing with an acquaintance rather than any transactional hopes. The get-together occurred on the uppermost floor of an off-Strip property whose lounge garnished conversation and tippling by offering panoramic views of Las Vegas.

The fellow Plush inadvertently enthralled executed a neck-wrenching double-take upon first sighting her. He went from curious to insistent in 0-60. In frenzied order he complimented her beauty, asked her name, then inquired whether she was married.

To the surprise of the universe, possibly including himself, he dropped down on one knee, clasped his hands before him, and earnestly beseeched Plush for her hand (and presumably the rest of her, too) in marriage.

Nimbly, she replied herself already wed. She even displayed a sparkler on the correct finger for his inspection and expected disappointment. Undeterred in the least, Plush’s sudden suitor wailed, “Do you think you’ll be leaving him anytime soon!?”

Give him this, that cat was quick. Leaving crushed aspirations in her pleasantly perfumed wake, Plush joined an occasional correspondent. Rather than watch her approach, he followed the turning heads and eyes that trailed her to their table.

The reaction Plush prompted had amused her confidant but hadn’t really surprised him. He’d quickly become used to the ease which she diverted attention as well as scrambled some minds. When hadn’t he witnessed conventioneers and exhibitors and locals, male and female, whose purposeful strides had broken down and blinkered focus veered through glimpsing her?

Much imagination was unnecessary envisioning how those who’d engaged her for an hour or several or an afternoon or night must’ve combusted. Learning her married surprised Plush’s amigo. She pulled a face.

Plush confessed the ring merely a prop. It came in handy when brushing off distasteful men. Other times, the phony bauble further aroused dates. Apparently some men enjoyed the illusion they cuckolded a husband. The belief they tapped another man’s wife added immeasurably to their bliss.

This trickery amused Plush’s companion. His laughter intrigued her. More than 30 years the 20-something’s senior, under mercantile circumstances casual observers could’ve mistaken him for a prospective, um, date. Gray frosted his temples and an appreciative gaze far deeper than any calculating one from men her own age distinguished him.

Plush asked the obvious question. Through her explaining the “why” behind the wedding ring prop, she had for him inadvertently decoded a mystery of pornography. Adult entertainment of his generation, not hers.

What presently passed for porn bored him. He found the product repetitious, uninspiring, not very erotic, and, surprisingly, joyless.

The performers, the female performers, became indistinct after any initial recognition. Which one of them didn’t seemingly run off to the same plastic surgeon to have her boobs inflated or lips plumped? After a while all these women were similar breathing blow-up dolls.

Plush warmed somewhat to her companion’s complaint. Since his preferences were long before her time, she quizzed him. He happily fell back into his by-gone era of smut.

Generally speaking, porn actresses then were natural. They hadn’t been plucked and pinched into perfection. They were as imperfect specimens as those seen and fantasized on the sidewalks except these women fucked without much prompting as many an onscreen pizza delivery boy or plumber could attest.

And though it might’ve been odd to mention, the films themselves actually had production values. Rather than being confined to a single setting, the plots, such as these were, encompassed the quotidian through the luxurious. Porn today occurred in hermetic surroundings. Also the overuse of hand-held cameras, not Steadicams, resorted to, one supposed for aspirations of vérité, could induce nausea from all the jiggling and weaving. Good old mounted cameras permitted louchers like him to focus without regrets.

Earlier Plush’s companion had mentioned current female performers were indistinguishable. If he delved back far enough into memories, he certainly could’ve established a list of adult actresses who’d once actively, no, vigorously, fueled his younger mindless lusts. However, one who jumped to the fore, in his mind the queen, the one whose renown to which all the rest aspired, sufficed as example.

Marilyn Chambers.

Against present standards of fleshly fantasy Chambers couldn’t compare. Pretty, though not glamorous, she looked too real.

So real hers had been a visage that had once sold soap. From what she’d envisaged into what engaged her. Now there’s a contrast!

Chambers had flaws that made her appear normal, if not unexceptional. Not perfect. Meaning she was accessible. Availability which conversely heightened her desirability. Chambers was the girl next door. The girl likeliest put out and when she came across wouldn’t be put off by her partner’s or partners’ freakiest insistences.

In her lengthy heyday no part of Chambers had been augmented or suctioned. If fact Plush’s companion never doubted that contemporary male porn enthusiasts would’ve further discounted Chambers because she lacked a set of exaggerated tits and Barbie™ doll measurements.

When Marilyn Chambers died the man with whom Plush conversed confessed he did something out of his usual character.

Never mistaking himself as sentimental, he’d visited an adult emporium and bought several of Chambers’ DVDs. Her better known titles, or at least the ones he best recalled. See, unlike now all smut then wasn’t interchangeable or waist-down derivations.

Watching those movies not only retuned him to less involved, less gray, more carefree and careless times, but restored all his vigor for several hours. Or so he preferred to believe.

Nonetheless no one could fool himself that Chambers’ career promoted any art or artfulness. Yet aside from the base nature of her product, several of Chambers’ efforts actually entered the pop culture canon.

Anyway, regarding Plush’s wedding ring. Upon admitting the band a prop, she’d solved for him a minor though occasionally niggling question. Why porn actresses wore wedding rings at all? Almost without fail no matter how unattached her character she sported a conspicuous signet.

Sharp-eyed horn dogs must’ve appreciated these rings’ significance. This perversity sat fidelity on its head. Viewers watching another man or other men gratify themselves with a husband’s wife must’ve enhanced the thrills. Only possibility of displacing the onscreen figure and doing the actual driving could’ve given greater satisfaction. As it was the ring’s presence aptly substituted.

In real life, didn’t those gold reminders of unbreakable vows more often than not get temporarily shed while having side-stepping sex? Somehow Plush’s companion refrained from asking her whether those gentlemen with whom she kept company absolved themselves of whatever guilt by slipping off that which tangibly bound. Through reflex or rescue, or just woman’s intuition, Plush answered his unsaid.

Valuable accessories got placed within sight and easy reach so they wouldn’t possibly inflict scratches. Neither party wanted the telltale to leave signs or vanish. Either occurrence would likely raise suspicions, create difficulties.

That would be bad for business – and future enjoyment.