Men, Women & Children Read Online Free PDF Page B

had never had—that even her mother, who had acted in legitimate studio films, had never had. She enrolled her in acting classes, singing classes, dancing classes. She stayed up nights with Hannah, coaching her with techniques from countless books about acting, dancing, singing, and auditioning for jobs in all three of these fields. She was so willing to do anything to give her daughter the experiences in life that she was unable to achieve that she found herself locked in a relationship based on casual sex with the local community theater director, whom she found repulsive, just to ensure that Hannah would be cast in every production.
    It was this fervent desire to help her daughter that gave Dawn the idea to create a website for Hannah. In the beginning it was no different from any other aspiring actor’s website. It listed contact information, displayed headshots, a résumé, and a few video clips from various productions Hannah had appeared in. It wasn’t until the summer before eighth grade, when Hannah began developing breasts, that Dawn had the idea to put a few images of Hannah in her bathing suit on the website, hoping that she might be able to get work in print ads for summer fashion.
    A few weeks after uploading the first two images of Hannah in a one-piece red bathing suit, the site received its first e-mail—a request asking if a few more images of Hannah, this time in a two-piece bathing suit, could be posted. The e-mail went on to request that the photos of Hannah be taken lying down or bending over.
    Curious, and also excited that the site had generated interest in Hannah, Dawn replied to the e-mail asking its sender if he was an agent or manager interested in representing Hannah or a photographer looking for models. The sender replied that he was neither an agent nor a manager nor a photographer, just a self-proclaimed fan of Hannah’s.
    Dawn then realized that the person e-mailing her might very likely have a sexual interest in her daughter. But the person hadn’t yet asked for anything illegal. Dawn told herself that posting more photos of Hannah in various bathing suits wasn’t a bad thing if it generated further interest, no matter where the interest came from. She also recognized that there might be an opportunity to turn the website into a business, to make some money. She e-mailed the sender asking if he would be willing to pay a monthly fee for access to a private section of the website that would feature the photos requested. The sender replied by explaining that he would gladly pay a monthly fee of twelve to fifteen dollars to have access to such photos and also to be able to request certain outfits or poses once or twice a month.
    Despite being fully aware of the fact that what she was about to do was, at the very least, exploitive and possibly bordering on criminal with regard to the treatment of her own child, Dawn quickly set up a PayPal account and hired a web designer to build a members-only section on her daughter’s website. She had a talk with Hannah to make sure she had no reservations about wearing some more revealing outfits on this section of the site. Hannah explained that she was proud of her body and understood that if she was to be discovered by a director like Darren Aronofsky or Paul Thomas Anderson and they wanted her to participate in a nude scene, she wouldn’t hesitate to oblige them. This, she reasoned, was just practice for any such feature-film roles that might come her way in the future.
    After four months of the member’s-only section going live, Dawn had eighty-seven subscribers each paying $12.95 a month to see her daughter in bikinis and underwear in various poses. Dawn split the money with Hannah and told her not to tell anyone about it, including her grandmother. Hannah felt there was a salacious element associated with what they were doing and decided it was better to keep it a secret than to tell her friends at school. She liked doing it too much to risk