Veruca James, Accountant Turned Porn Star: 'I'd Always Been Wild'

W.B. Fontenot

Veruca James

On a cold, bright day, Veruca James poses in a stark spotlight on a stage in a downtown L.A. warehouse. Her black bob is perfectly straight, her almond-shaped eyes perfectly made up. Her breasts challenge the strength of the zipper on her shiny black half-shirt.

She tucks her thumb into the waistband of her skintight leggings and pulls the top of them down, then gazes up at the camera as if she's going to fuck its very lens.

But between clicks of the shutter, the seductive look falls off her face.

"Should I take my bra off here?" she says, in the way a mid-level manager might ask if a memo is needed by the next morning.

"Nah, leave it on," says photographer Kelly Lind. "But let's start displaying the vagina."

James' professional attitude comes naturally. A relative newcomer to the adult film industry, her pre-porn career was decidedly corporate: Before starring in triple-X films, she used to be a certified public accountant.

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But since shooting her first scene – anal sex, in 2011 – she's blazed into the world of adult movies. Represented by porn talent agent Mark Spiegler, she works regularly for such reputable companies as Burning Angel and Brazzers. (She's shot more than 70 scenes.) And, along with her new fiancé, who does porn part-time, she's a featured performer on WoodRocket.com, a website that produces X-rated parodies as well as full-length hardcore features.

Sipping tea on a Saturday afternoon at Café 101 in Hollywood, James wears light make-up and jeans, and explains that her former life was completely tame.

An only child, James grew up and attended high school in a Chicago suburb, then graduated from DePaul University – which bills itself as the largest Catholic college in the nation – with a double major in accounting and finance. The petite brunette then got her CPA and took a job in the public sector.

"I was this young, ambitious girl that really wanted to please her family, and do really well, and be successful," she says.

But James was miserable.

"I would go in to work on Sunday at 4 p.m. because my manager decided that some paper required more meticulous authorization," she says, "and I would come home bawling my eyes out. I hated putting in that much work for something that did nothing for me, for anyone else, that was all just paperwork."