It was immediately clear that the brothers intended to sell Al’s masterpiece as soon as possible so it was no surprise when they put it on the market. But who was going to buy such a behemoth of a house? It had taken years to sell the first time around, after the Indian builder and his unappreciative newlywed wife moved out—and that was before the housing bubble burst, before all of Al’s “beautification” projects, which had only succeeded in reducing its value to an ordinary family. Indeed, the house was completely unsuitable for normal people. There should have been six bedrooms in a structure with the square footage of the monstrosity—estimated at over 8000 square feet. Instead, there were only three. Two of these bedrooms were quite small as contrasted with the master bedroom, which took up half the second floor. And half of that master suite was made up of the oddest collection of closets I have ever seen. I opened a door to what I thought would be an ordinary closet, only to find an empty space with a door at the far side, which opened to another closet space and, once inside that second closet, there was another door to a third. What type of sex act was supposed to go on there, I wondered? It couldn’t be good but something had been planned; the possibilities for laying more endless camera track remained. No, the house was simply not what most people wanted.

I thought that perhaps the exception would be a wealthy one-child couple with a closet fetish. The couple would have no end of fun in the closets while their son had all his friends over to play Lazer tag in the converted garage.

Needless to say, the neighbors were concerned. The desirability of the monstrous house next door was in question. And with an asking price of $4 million in an area where most homes were in the $500,000 range, you’d need to be nuts to plunk down the kind of money required to make it your own. No, the only person or persons we could think might buy the place would be—just like the house’s dead owner had been prior to his death in flagrante—from the porn industry. Between the dramatic possibilities of capturing carnal engagement in every room, and the house’s proximity to Chatsworth—the adult film industry mecca—it seemed ideal.

So it was with great curiosity we watched the new neighbors move in.

Note: This is not a plot in one of my novels; at least not yet. This is the true story of the house next door in my corner of the city of LA.