Games Lovers Play

Trust James Avalon to conjure up a winner, despite the severe limitations of working with Mile HIgh's Erotica X label, which like so many other current Adult DVD purveyors likes to deliver all-sex entertainment with a patina of "story".

As usual, there's no script credit listed, but Avalon manages to set up each of his four required vignettes with a concise and effective little story line, before moving on to the half hour or so of non-stop sex scene.

Of special interest is the linking of two vignettes in novel fashion, sort of a simplified porn equivalent of that oft-used format of the Japanese classic "Rashomon". Opening scene has Vienna rose voicing over her little game of pretending to be strangers with husband Tyler Nixon, and sitting at a bar chatting with Seth Gamble. Nixon finds her there, has a loud and angry argument about her hanging out with another man, and after they PDA makeup with a big kiss, head home for some excited humping. Briefly present in the background is a pretty girl watching the entire altercation.

Third vignette of the DVD has Seth returning, with the mystery girl turning out to be Aria Lee, who voices over her side of the story. We see the bar altercation repeated, only this time Aria reveals that rather than being a merely innocent bystander watching the action, she had conspired with pal Vienna in the first place, having Seth and herself pretend to be strangers at the bar, too. Seth wasn't warned about becoming The Other Man when Tyler arrives and explodes, but is cheeful back home to have been aroused by all this gamesmanship, and ready to hump wife Aria to a fare-thee-well.

Stylish element has several of the bed scenes staged against blinding white on white decor in the protagonists' homes, setting off the foreground sex without distraction.

The other two unrelated segments are each intriguing in their own right. A May-December marriage is presented with very young-looking Zoe Bloom telling us about her day in the park, pretending not to know hubby Charles Dera, who is photographing the setting, and hooks up innocently with her when she asks to be photographed as well (he claims to be just taking pictures of birds). The vast age difference between the two (20 years in real-life) is notable here.

Finale is BDSM lite, with beautiful and exotic looking Emily Willis as the sub to husband Michael Vegas's dom. Their role-playing takes on the familiar incest tone, as she keeps calling him "Daddy" and needs to be punished (by all manner of spanking with hand, riding crop and even his belt) as well as serviced sexually while handcuffed. It doesn't sound all that romantic but is given the context of "games lovers play" established here by Avalon & co.