Porn Valley- Standing in her kitchen carefully arranging dollops of chocolate-chip cookie dough on a baking sheet, Tera Patrick could be any housewife in America. Cute vintage Hershey’s chocolate syrup posters hang on the walls and a wooden dragon rests on the counter near the tidily arranged baking materials. “I’m going to bake some cookies! I’m going to bake some cookies!” she sings cheerfully. “I’m going to bake some cookies and take them into Vivid tomorrow!”

And that’s where normality bends. Tera Patrick may be a housewife, but she also happens to be the world’s second most popular porn star right behind the ubiquitous Jenna Jameson. She splits her time between homes on both the East and West Coasts. Since she’s currently in her Redondo Beach, CA, townhouse, she’s made the cookies for the nearby employees of Vivid Video, America’s largest adult film company.

Tera’s husband, Evan Seinfeld, wanders into the kitchen and gives his wife a quick kiss on the cheek. Covered in tattoos from neck to ankle, Evan is known to many as the lead singer of the metal band Biohazard. Others recognize him as Spyder Jones, the only man Tera has sex with both on and off camera. He has just spent the morning logging porn footage for their Web site. He leans down and scratches the head of Chopper, the couple’s obscenely beloved toy fox terrier.

“Most people think we have a wild lifestyle and that we have sex all the time,” Tera says. “I wouldn’t say my life is normal, but I do a lot of normal things. I go to the grocery store just like everyone else. I like to get massages. On my days off, you’ll find me at the mall. I mean, besides living like a bicoastal porn star, my life is pretty normal.”

Like most well-established adult film actresses, Tera spends fairly few days actually shooting porn. She stars in about one film every three months. An additional six to eight times a month, Evan will videotape her masturbating or getting it on with another woman. Those shoots will eventually hit her Web site. “I’m trying to stockpile content,” Tera explains. “I’m 29. That’s about the average age for a girl to retire, and I want to move behind the camera.”

To that end, she and Evan have begun building the Tera Patrick empire-the Web site ClubTera.com, a production company called Teravision, and the fledgling Tera Patrick Agency, which manages the careers of new girls entering the skin biz. “I produce films now, which means I pay for them,” Tera says. “I hire girls through the Tera Patrick Agency and then I release the film under Teravision, which Vivid distributes for me in America.”

In the adult film world, appearing on screen isn’t nearly as valuable as owning the raw rumpty footage, which is frequently re-edited and inserted into scores of different releases. And now Tera owns that footage. “Paid talent gets a one-time fee between $1,000 and $1,200,” Tera explains. “When I came into the business six years ago, I had a new look, so people jumped on me and were like, ‘Oh my God, we have to shoot you for Up and Cummers 53!’

And I was like, ‘OK.’ I was really naive about how the business works, so I was taken advantage of. I didn’t know that once you made a movie, you only got paid for the scene and they could put it into 300 other movies and you’d never get paid again.”

That doesn’t happen to Tera anymore. “I made my first million last year,” she says. “Now I can easily make $500,000 from one movie.”

Porn also has a hidden money shot: personal appearances. Tera spends about 14 days each month traveling to strip clubs across the country. “I can make anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000 from one dance gig,” she says. “That includes my regular rate plus merchandise sales.”

“For my girls at the Tera Patrick Agency, I really emphasize how important it is to treat this like a business,” Tera says.

“To fuck on film and to be a porn star are two different things,” Evan explains. “There’s a lot of marketing that goes into being a porn star. If a girl comes to us and wants to get into the business, we sit her down and say, ‘What are your goals? Are you just mad at Dad or do you want to be famous?’ It’s a one in a billion thing.”

Taking a break from managing her empire, Tera leashes Chopper and takes a leisurely stroll to a nearby coffeehouse. She introduces Chopper to the other dogs on the outdoor patio before settling in to sip an ice-blended green tea and reflect. “When I was 13, I went to Barbizon modeling school and it worked out,” she says. Tera ended up traveling the world as a fashion model, doing runway shows and print campaigns. But even in her early teens, she was lugging around 36-D breasts. “All through my career they had to tape me down,” Tera says. “Boobs weren’t allowed in fashion.

By the age of 18, she’d had a nervous breakdown. “I was traveling and exhausted,” she says. “I pulled a Mariah Carey.” So Tera left the modeling life for a nobler profession-medicine. She became licensed as a paramedic before going back to school as premed. But it wasn’t meant to be.

Then she saw an ad for “figure models” in the back of an L.A. paper, and, at the age of 23, ended up in the office of a porn agent. “I zipped down the dress, and I felt like I’d stepped out of a shell of who I was and become a new person,” Tera says.

She soon made the jump to film. “It was kind of a fantasy, and I was offered a lot of money,” she says. “I didn’t know it would become my career.”

But as Tera penetrated deeper into the porn world, she also took up booze and pot. “I would drink a fifth of Jack Daniels a day, pass out and throw up all over myself,” she says while lifting Chopper gently into her lap for a muzzle rub.

“I was going through this phase of ‘Who’s gonna love me?'” Tera says. “What guy is going to take me home to his mother and say, ‘Hey, Mom, this is Tera. I really love her. Isn’t she amazing and isn’t she beautiful and, by the way, she was filthy whore No. 52 in Asian Street Hookers 12’?”

While crying in bed, one night, Tera turned on HBO and saw Evan in an episode of OZ, where he’d landed an acting gig. In this particular scene, he happened to be naked. “I saw his penis,” Tera recalls, “and I was like, ‘Wow, who’s that?'”

Porn star tracked down rock star and the two met up. “I got into the car and he instantly grabbed my tits,” she says. “I pretended to be scared. Then we went home and didn’t get out of bed for four days.” And so began a fairy tale relationship that would blossom into marriage.

Evan knew a little something about alcohol abuse, but he’d been sober since 1988. With his help, Tera kicked her habit. Now the most powerful drug she downs is caffeine. “Green tea is so good for you,” she says. “It’s loaded with antioxidants!”

As if on cue, Evan rolls up in his pimped-out Escalade, and the two head to the grocery store. “Evan and I are monogamous,” Tera says from the front seat. According to the rules of their relationship, Tera can have sex on film with other girls, but not other guys. Evan can get oral sex from other girls, but can’t have sex with them. “I draw the line at a blowjob because that’s where my comfort level is,” Tera explains. “I don’t try to rationalize it.”

As Tera saunters into the grocery store, the bag boy’s jaw drops to the floor. Groceries pile up on the counter in front of him. Evan’s phone rings. He takes the call, but by the time he finishes, his wife has wandered away. So he whistles loudly. “I can’t yell, ‘Tera!’ because half the people in the store would mob her,” Evan explains.

The two cruise back home, unload the groceries and crash on the bed. Even though it’s supposed to be a day off, they each grab their respective laptops. Evan works on a promo Web site for a Teravision film featuring a Robert De Niro lookalike, while Tera writes up her daily diary entry at ClubTera.com. “Evan runs the Web site and answers all of the e-mails,” Tera says. “For my diary, I’ll talk about my day. Fans like to know you’re normal and that you do normal things. It’s a turn-on for them.”

She types a few lines about the events of the afternoon, then pauses. “Evan’s the one who convinced me that I’ll forever be known as ‘Tera Patrick,'” she says. “I used to think I would eventually just go off and open a little dog store somewhere-sell little dog sweaters. But I’m not going to be anybody but Tera Patrick for the rest of my life, so I should exploit myself. I can’t run; I can’t hide. I’m a porn star.”