To attend a porn star's Christmas party.

State your hypothesis in the form of a prediction that can be verified by the results of the experiment.

I've never gotten any action at a holiday party. That's pretty pathetic, considering that I've attended the Hooksexup Christmas throw down for the last three years in a row. It's probably because I didn't drink the free booze fast enough and was prematurely sobered up by my co-workers' lewd behavior. Now I've been invited to a porn star's holiday bash, where getting some play should be a sure thing.

Please list all the materials required for this experiment (including, if applicable, how they were obtained).

Date (one, jetlagged, English)

In this portion of your report, you must describe, step-by-step, what you did in your lab. It should be specific enough that someone who has not seen the lab can follow the directions and recreate the same lab.

There's no social ritual more excruciatingly awful than a company holiday party: having to pretend to like the douche-bags in sales; being obligated to hang out with (read: quote Monty Python scripture with) the tech support crew, resplendent in their matching Santa hats and Babylon 5 T-shirts; drunkenly making a pass at the new intern within earshot of the office gossip. Before you know it, you're vomiting well liquor to the beat of Wham!'s "Last Christmas" before being stuffed in a cab. Yet another reason to quit the nine-to-five grind and become a beekeeper.

When a friend of mine told me I should go to her friend's work-related Christmas party last weekend, I told her I'd rather rub mustard in my eyes. Bah humbug, indeed. She then casually mentioned that the line of work was hardcore porn, one of the industry's leading sirens would be the hostess and the party was intended to be a type of free-form bacchanal. She had my attention.

It makes no sense to me that porn stars would screw each other at their holiday party. They've been doing that all year. It must be kind of like turning up to your firm's Christmas throw-down and doing a spot of filing, making some copies or giving a presentation. I'd imagine if I'd been shagging for six or seven hours a day for the past twelve months, I'd sooner celebrate the Yule season with a bridge night or a Jessica Tandy movie marathon. In any case, I said that I'd certainly be into checking it out.

The next day, I received an evite from the hosts. The party was being thrown by Siouxsie, a renowned, beautiful and award-winning adult star — whose work and likeness I happened to be far too familiar with — and her husband, Jack.

The invitation was particularly festive: full of Christmas imagery, the wording upbeat and cheerful. Neither of the hosts drink, the evite read, but guests were free to bring their own booze. Condoms and lube were to be supplied, but if attendees had a brand preference they were welcome to bring it along. In addition, guests who were still humping away come sunrise were invited to a post-fuckfest brunch at a "bizarre landmark Los Angeles diner" that is "always a surreal experience." That got me thinking: After an all- night porn star Christmas/Chanukah/Kwanzaa shagathon, how bizarre does a greasy spoon have to be to qualify as a "surreal experience"?

As you may or may not recall, I'd been to an "orgy" before, although it wasn't called that. The organizers of One Leg Up evenings go to great lengths to identify their events as upscale "sensual soirees." That's all well and good, but I found Siouxsie and Jack's invite to an all-out clusterfuck more appealing. I was also intrigued by an open invitation to shag someone that I had spent a nominal percentage of my life wanking over.

One logistical problem: the night of the party, I had to pick up a friend at LAX who was arriving from London. Not only would Charlotte be all kinds of jetlagged, I'd always thought of her as a bit of a prude. I called her and asked if attending a "risque Christmas party" would present a problem. She told me that she wouldn't mind at all. Wicked!

I'd solved one problem (finding the mandatory female to turn up with) but seemed to have created quite another: I'd been mad crushing Charlotte since we were sixteen. Back then, she'd mistaken my marked unpopularity for some sort of deliberate individuality and became a charming, beautiful but resoundingly platonic friend. She'd flown 6,000 miles to hang out with me for a week and we were going to be going almost directly from the airport to a cock-and-vag buffet. I consoled myself by thinking that ten-plus years of come-ons had been far too subtle. Perhaps taking her to an orgy would highlight that my intentions were totally dishonorable. Perhaps tonight would be the night!

Thankfully, Charlotte seemed no worse for wear when I picked her up on an atypically cold and drizzly L.A. evening. In fact, she looked even better than ever. We caught up over dinner at a Caribbean restaurant — where I smirkingly ordered the jerk pork — and I showed her the Sunset Strip in all its glory before turning onto the 101.

Siouxsie and Jack, the party hosts, live downtown. Their particular neighborhood looked like downtown Beirut on bad day. As we drove deeper in, Charlotte started to look extremely worried, and I couldn't blame her. We parked, and I let Tupac sing one more chorus of "California Love" (California knows how to party) before taking everything of value out of the car and double-checking every lock. Twice. Jack and Siouxsie's building looked like the bombed-out shell of a movie theater surrounded by a fifteen-foot chain-link fence. Charlotte and I found each other's hands and walked with trepidation to the entrance. Slightly in front of us strode an attractive, conservative couple in their early thirties, brandishing a pricy-looking bottle of red wine. In all the excitement of picking up Charlotte, I forgot to pick up a gift. My mum would kill me if she knew I turned up to a houseparty empty-handed. I was raised better than that.