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4/1/05 I began my approach to interview Ashton via email on March 11. Her husband Jay emailed back immediately: "Ashton is interested in doing an interview with you. We are trying to work out a time which is convenient. I will email you back soon." A few more emails and we had a date and a time. Friday. April 1. 2pm. Friday was a bright sunny day in Los Angeles. Not normally a big deal, except that it has been rainy and gloomy here the past four months. I want to believe that it was the sun, and not my own lack of professionalism, that accounted for me staggering around my neighborhood at 2pm when I was supposed to be on the phone with Ashton, who's wrapping up a month of dancing with a weekend of performances at The Blue Zebra in North Hollywood. I finally got home at 2:30pm, listened guiltily to Ashton's message while taking heavy swigs from a bottle of pink lemonade. Thus refreshed, I called her cell phone a couple of times and, on my second try, got a hold of her. Duke: "Your husband is very polite and very professional." Ashton: "Yes, he is. Because if he's not, I kick his ass." Duke: "He writes these lovely emails, 'Dear Luke: Ashton would love to talk to you at such-and-such a date at such-and-such a time,' and always reply 'ok.' "He says, 'He's like the one word guy. He writes back, 'Yes.' "I had a couple of interviews to do today. They had just gone longer than I planned. I called him and asked, 'Could you ask him [to move the scheduled interview from noon to 2pm]? I don't want to look like the typical flakey porn star.'" Duke: "I feel guilty. I feel so lazy. Because I write for a living, [I'm all shagged out when it comes to emailing, so I restrict myself to one-word emails unless I'm sleeping with the person]. There's a quota on how many words I can write each day. When it comes to email, I'm squeezed." Ashton: "I'm one of those slow one-fingered typers. It takes me a half hour to write, 'Yeah, sure.'" Duke: "I heard a rumor that you're drug-free." Ashton: "I am. I'm high on life. I'm high on excitement with my career. If I had to do drugs to do this, then I shouldn't be doing it. I'm a level-headed, normal, boring person." Duke: "If the whole industry was made of people like you, I wouldn't have a job. "When I was at the AEE in January in Las Vegas, I went by the Jill Kelly booth [on the first day of the show]. I saw Scott Hoover, their publicist. He said, Ashton Moore just faxed in that she's leaving us for Club Jenna." Ashton: "That's funny how stories change. That's not how it happened. "I had hired a lawyer. My contract renews every January 31st. After I got my paycheck for working in December, on December 16, my lawyer sent over the first letter stating that I wasn't going to be renewing my contract on January and contact him back to make sure we got all the details worked out. We didn't hear back. "On December 23, before the holidays kicked in, he sent over another letter. 'Please confirm that you received our letter. We need to make verbal contact.' Again, we heard nothing. "I rolled out to [the January porn shows, Internext and AEE] a couple of days early. I called my lawyer. I still had heard nothing. "I ran into Bob Friedland during the Internext show. He came up and gave me a hug. I'm thinking, do they know? What's going on here? "Again, I call my lawyer. 'I'm here in Vegas. Do they know I'm not signing at the booth? Do they know I did not renew my contract?' "My lawyer said they wrote back. They got the letter. They were aware of the situation. They weren't going to fight me on it. "I thought, yippee! "When I went to pick up my ticket for the [AVN Awards], this [AVN] guy said, 'I heard you just dropped the bomb yesterday on JKP.' I said, 'No. That's not how it happened.' "I'm a very professional person. I went about everything the legal way, the right way. I don't like drama. I don't like conflict. I get along with everybody." Duke: "You had a lawyer do all this? Come on. You're a porn star." Ashton: "Because I don't like drama. I'm not a mean person. I don't like it when people are mean to me. I don't like to deal with it. I just wanted to make sure that I wouldn't have a problem getting into a new contract." Duke: "Do you have a lawyer negotiate your contracts?" Ashton: "No. I get into my contracts myself, which is probably the stupidest thing I do. "I always read it over and make sure I agree with all the terms. As long as I understand everything, I don't need a lawyer trying to make problems for me." Duke: "How many pages is a contract?" Ashton: "When I signed on with JKP, my contract was a page-and-a-half. It was simple. It was cut-and-dried. When my contract renewed a year later, all of a sudden, it was eight pages long. Very detailed. A bunch of mumbo jumbo. Legally, I never signed it." Duke: "Did you illegally sign it?" Ashton: "No. They gave it to me. They asked me to sign it and get it back. I never did. I continued working with them. I didn't really agree with the [new] contract they gave me. Originally, it was a one-year contract renewable for up to six years. It was for four scenes a month at an agreed amount of money. "The next year, my four scenes became five-to-seven scenes. It was for the same amount of money. And it was a straight six year contract. I think they had gotten screwed by a couple of girls leaving the company. And it left a bad taste with them. So they decided to cover their own asses and sign their girls to the straight six-year contracts. I was not in agreement with a six-year contract. Things change all the time. I don't know where I'll be a year from now. "I continued to work for them. Nobody asked any questions. The next year rolls around. Nobody even brought up the contract situation. January came and went. I worked for a whole nother year. The company just wasn't going in the direction I wanted to go. I felt there was a lot of drama over there. I just wasn't happy with the quality of things they were putting out. "This is my career. I want to be proud of the stuff I do. I want to put out good movies. I'm not here to float by. This is my work. I want to take advantage of it. I want to do everything full on. I only have a couple more good years to go. I want to make it worth it. "As of March 1, I signed a two-year contract with Club Jenna." Duke: "How many pages was it?" Ashton: "A lot. About ten pages." Duke: "Did it say that you have to give over your first-born child if you do anything wrong?" Ashton: "Not quite. Jenna has been a friend for a long time." Duke: "How many scenes will you be doing for them?" Ashton: "It depends. They had a plan to do so many movies last year and I know that they didn't do as many as they wanted to. They're more about quality as opposed to quantity. I'm not in it for quantity. I've got plenty of movies out there. I want quality. I want movies that people will watch and write back to me, 'Ohmig-d, I loved such-and-such a movie.'" Duke: "So you do find meaning in your work?" Ashton: "Oh yeah. I want to do stuff that I'm proud of. A benefit of being part of Club Jenna is being able to do more mainstream. That's something I haven't had the chance to take advantage of yet. I know she's looking for a lot of mainstream." Duke: "Have you read her book?" Ashton: "Not yet. I haven't had the time. I'm trying so hard to get through it. I flipped through most of the pictures and some of the little quotes in there. I am planning on reading the whole thing from start-to-finish. I'm wrapping up a hectic month." Duke: "What do you love and hate about the industry?" Ashton: "I love the fans. I love [the AEE]. I love getting emails. I love having people come see me dance. It makes you feel so good about what you do. It just feeds your ego. I get so much positive stuff. I really don't have a negative side. I don't get any bad comments." Ashton: "I've been married for ten years. I'm a good girl, aside from films. Everything I do is either at home or on camera. "When I'm done [with porn], I have a degree in interior design. I have an interest in real estate, whether it is sales or appraisal. However, because I'm a Club Jenna girl, and Club Jenna is based out of Scottsdale, Arizona, maybe I will stay in the business and work on the business side." Duke: "How do you spend your money?" Ashton: "Very wisely. I'm lucky to make the money I make. It could be gone tomorrow. When I am done in this business, I want to have something to show for it. I bought a house last year. I built my dream home. I paid for my cars. I'm trying to put money away to put my kids through college. When I'm not working, my time at home is valuable. We take lots of family vacations. I'm very smart with my money. I don't splurge." Duke: "What is your husband's role in your professional life?" Ashton: "He is my everything. He runs my house when I'm not at home. So I am out of town, I don't feel guilty about being gone. I have a Yahoo account, MySpace accounts. I have fans everywhere. I have email coming in. He goes through everything and keeps me updated. He's my housekeeper, my maid, my secretary, my personal assistant. When I come home, he gives me backrubs." Duke: "What kind of man can do that?" Ashton: "On some days he says, 'I just feel like such a loser. I do nothing.' I said, 'Trust me. If you were to do nothing for a day, I'd definitely feel the effects of it.' He says, 'I feel like I'm not a man. I feel like I'm just sitting here...' "I would be so exhausted if I had to do all this myself. He doesn't answer emails for me. I really do it. But he sorts through and puts it all in priority. If I come home for a day, he'll say, 'Your email is stacking up. Sit down with it for an hour. I'll wash your dance costumes so you can repack.'" Duke: "How many words per minute do you type?" Ashton laughs: "One. I'm a one finger typer. He sits and makes fun of me all the time. But I'm getting faster with that one finger. If fans email me, they know that I usually write big long stories back." Duke: "Why doesn't your husband teach you how to type with all ten fingers?" Ashton: "Because I don't have time." Duke: "How did you do your papers at college?" Ashton: "I'm going to date myself. I'm old. When I was going to school, computers weren't that big. In highschool, I didn't even have a computer. All my papers were handwritten. When I got to college, I handwrote all my papers and he typed them up for me." Duke: "Did he come in and take tests for you as well?" Ashton: "No. I did all the dirty work. He just helped me. "I was 19 when I got married. I turned 29 yesterday. But porn years are like dog years. Multiply everything by seven and I am about 200-years-old." Duke: "What song would be your theme song?" Ashton: "Kid Rock's Only God Knows Why. And Limp Bizket's My Way." I read aloud some of Kid Rock's song: "I've been giving just ain't been gettin'" Ashton: "That's how I feel about the last three years. I've been working my butt off. That's why this year I decided it is time to step up. I need to get out of this contract. I need to be happy. I need to do stuff that I'm proud of. I love this business. When I feel unhappy, I know that it is time to make a change. "I can't wait to look back a year from now and see what I've accomplished this year." Duke: "There's a lot of drama with Jill Kelly Productions." Ashton: "Jill Kelly is a fabulous lady. She works so hard. I respect her. It just seems that for some reason drama and conflict follows her. It's too bad. She deserves better than what she has now." Duke: "How much did you get to know the Bizarre Video crowd?" Ashton: "I didn't. All the JKP girls were given the option of shooting fetish videos for Bizarre. That's something that just doesn't interest me. If you're going to do fetish, you should love it. There are rules to it. You don't just go in and beat the s--- out of somebody. I'm not that dominant to give it, nor do I enjoy the type of pain you get from receiving it. It wasn't something that I enjoyed. Therefore, I decided not to do it. "After I got out of my contract with Jill, Skye Blue offered me fetish [work]. It was a couple of spanking videos. I played the submissive role. I shot three segments. I tried it. Let me tell you, the tears that are coming out of my eyes while it is happening, those are real. I tried it. I had the welts on my butt for two weeks afterwards to prove it. "I enjoyed it at first. A little bit of light choking. Being submissive and letting someone else have control was a turn on until the start of the actual spanking and contact. I don't like that. I like to feel good when I'm having sex. "I don't just do things for money. I do it because I enjoy it."
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