Page 33 - AVN August 2017

LIGHTS, CAMERA
Time to Rumble
Morning dawns, and the flat is a hive of activity.
Amber is in the makeup chair as scheduled—and
applying the makeup is Steve’s wife, Sylvia, who
also takes still photos for him and tends to any
number of other miscellaneous duties.
The day’s sub, Liz Rainbow, has arrived, and
amidst the flurry of paperwork signing, pretty girl
picture snapping and wardrobe selecting, in strolls
Max Cortes, back from the scene three days earlier
with the girl who took the walk down the street. He
has an undeniable charisma about him; stocky, with
a bald head and formidable beard, his eyes twinkle
and he beams a wild, almost Joker-like permagrin.
Steve introduces him to me as “Max ‘Tomato’
Cortes … we call him ‘Tomato’ because he took a
tomato and squeezed it all over a girl.”
Though he mostly works behind the scenes these
days, Steve explains that “[Max’s] boss gives him
permission to shoot for me, because he likes it and
it’s something very special. For what we do, he’s
the best.”
Interjects Max, “Even if he didn’t give me
permission, I would do it.”
Before we can actually get rolling, Steve must
complete one required staple of all Kink scenes: the
pre-interview with Rainbow. Sitting her before the
large doorframe opening to the flat’s balcony, he
goes over her safeword with her (“uh uh uh”) and
gabs about what she might like to have done to her
during the scene.
“Today I want to use the cane,” he tells her. “Not
many girls can handle it, but I know you can. Is
there anything you don’t like?”
“I like everything,” she exclaims.
“Today we’re going to one of the most popular
places in the world, Maremagnum,” Steve informs
the doe-eyed brunette, who’s been outfitted
in a see-through blue dress of sorts with an
embroidered image on the left breast of a tri-
colored popsicle. “There will be tourists, police …
we’ll have fun.”
After gathering an array of cuffs, gags, floggers
and other pertinent implements, Steve declares,
“Let’s get ready to rumble,” and it’s out to the vans
and on to Maremagnum—basically a sprawling
shopping area at the city harbor whose name
translates to “The Big Sea.” Indeed, the place is
bustling with people.
The first location Steve scouts out to possibly
set this initial segment is a drawbridge going over
the dock waterway. A couple of police officers are
standing patrol as hordes of visitors cross before
them on the bridge. Steve approaches them. After
conferring with them for several minutes, he
beckons everyone to follow him to the other side
of the bridge, explaining as we walk that they can’t
shoot on it because they need a special permit from
the port authority to do so.
Instead, he decides to shoot on the stone
esplanade running alongside the waterway. Placing
a leash on Rainbow and going over exactly what he
wants with his cameramen, he prepares everyone
for the moment of truth with the final precaution:
“You know the drill—avoid children, avoid
strollers.”
And with that, it’s go time. As the cameras roll,
he bounds Rainbow’s wrists with leather cuffs and
hands the leash to Amber. Brandishing a bamboo
flogger himself, he and Amber flank Rainbow and
all three begin strolling casually down the walkway.
Street Art: Opposite page, top, Amber Deen, Steve Holmes and Liz Rainbow on the streets of Barcelona; bottom, Holmes shooting a BTS interview with Rainbow.
This page, Silvia Rubi and a crowd of onlookers watch as Steve Holmes dumps water on a leash-wearing Melody Petite.
It doesn’t take long for onlookers to become intensely captivated—especially when Steve halts the procession
and places a wide circular gag on Rainbow, and a few moments later makes her get on her hands and knees and
crawl several feet. A few guys ride by on bicycles and one of them swings his head around and keeps it there for a
dangerously long time.
“Let’s see what kind of underwear she’s wearing,” Steve announces and pulls up Rainbow’s dress.
A gaggle of girls standing off to the right are scrambling to snap pictures with their phones.
“Look, the ladies want to take a picture!” Steve shouts in their general direction.
As he’s turning Rainbow’s exposed bottom toward them so they can get a shot, his production manager quietly
whispers into the radioed headset several crew members are wearing: “Policia.”
Steve continues his carnival barking: “I think all these people came for a tourist attraction, and now they get a
very special tourist attraction!”
One old man sitting on a bench looks up from the book he’s reading and watches blank-faced as the three
parade past him.
Nearing the end of the walkway, the cameras cut and Rainbow immediately covers herself up with a black shawl.
Between us and the parking garage where the vans await stand the policia Steve’s p.m. spotted. Steve chats with
them for a few moments and then we’re on our way.
He later explains to me that the police were concerned not with what he was shooting but the fact that the
permit he had was only good for the adjacent street and not the sidewalk he’d used. “I knew that, but I shot it
anyway because I liked the way it looked,” he chuckles. “So I played stupid.”
His p.m. also laughs that the officers who questioned him had been taking pictures of the spectacle with their
own cameras moments beforehand.
“See, everybody likes it,” Steve marvels. “They want to know what’s going on, ‘Look! Look!’ I never had anyone
complain. My only problem is very liberal parents who point it out to their kids—I don’t care if they want to look,
but I can’t have them in the shot.
“The worst-case scenario is having our footage confiscated,” he adds. “It’s only happened once in nine years.”
Ice Cream and Other Stickiness
The second location of the day is a wide public square with dining tables set up all around the perimeter. As Steve
confers with the crew and the cameras come out, a palpable stir ripples through the lunchtime crowd, all cocking
their heads inquisitively toward the loosely gathered team, as though they can sense something unusual is about
to unfold.
Wasting no time, Steve brings Amber and Rainbow a little ways down an alley leading into the square, where
he shackles Rainbow’s hands to the leather bondage belt around her waist, and once again leashes and gags her.
Calling action, he leads the two girls out of the alley and along the side of the square, where many of the lunchers
are now avidly Zaprudering the goings-on with their phones.
Steve spots an ice cream shop facing out toward the square just ahead, and brings the girls over to it. Pointing
to the popsicle on Rainbow’s dress, he asks the attendant behind the counter, “Can we please have a red, a yellow
and a green, like on her shirt?”
(Continued on page 102)
8.17 | AVN.com | 33
ON THE SET | By Peter Warren