Passing Through the Flame (51 page)

“I’ll try, Paul,” she said. “I guess I’ve got a few things to learn about starring in a major feature. It’s a lot more complicated than porn, isn’t it?”

A flash of anger went through Paul at her reference to their recent unlamented past, but it was almost immediately replaced by a surge of affection. She was lending him a kind of moral support in her own fashion, and for sure she was a hundred percent right. Yeah, well, maybe we’re both faking it a little, Velva. But that’s the only way you get to try something that you can learn from in this dumb business.

“It sure is,” he said sincerely, cracking his mask of worry with a small smile. “But let’s go show these people what we can do, okay?”

“Okay, Paul,” she said, breaking into a little girl’s grin.

He broke away from her, clapped his hands. “Okay, places! Let’s get it this time! Madge! Velva!”

As Madge Johnson and Velva took their places on the kitchen set, Paul’s eyes happened to contact those of Rick Gentry. Again, he felt an offer of support, but this time in an unacceptable form: commiseration with him for the hopelessness of Velva as an actress, sympathy well laced with gloat. And what do you think vow have to gloat about, bub?

“Okay, lights!” he called, turning his attention to where it belonged: the kitchen set, where Velva and her mother were sitting in early-morning light over the dirty breakfast dishes.

He walked over to the camera, which was positioned for a simple static two-shot on Velva and Madge Johnson. Madge was a professional television actress who had played mothers since time began. She was having a good time because this bit let her do something a little more interesting than her stock persona without stretching her talent near the breaking point. But Paul knew that her interest wouldn’t last many more takes. She was better on the third take of this shot than the fourth, and that was the pattern of the first two shots too. I can’t let her turn sour waiting for Velva to accomplish something that she probably just can’t do. Unless this take is really awful, this has to be it.

“Roll it.”

“Sunset City, Scene Five-C, take five!”

“Speed.”

“Okay, action!” Paul said, holding his breath but prepared for the inevitable.

“I still think you should go to this hippie orgy in California,” Madge said, still managing to evoke dim memories of girlish lusts in this stock mother figure. “Don’t you ever dare tell your father I said this, but if you turn down the prize, you’ll regret it the rest of your life.” Her eyes sparkled with regret, but it wasn’t quite as good as the third take or maybe even the fourth.

“Oh, Mother, I could get raped at a thing like that.” Velva delivered the line with sincerity, but not with the fear that this simple child of the American heartland should have shown. But maybe it’ll play just as well this way. Anyway, it’s the
only way
I’m going to be able to get it.

“I’ve never been somewhere like that, Peggy, and I’ve regretted it.”

“Mother, I don’t understand what you’re talking about.” Velva mouthed the words mechanically, but at least she wasn’t rubbing her thighs together under the table.

“If you miss your chance to be young, you won’t get another one. Go to this hippie rock festival, Peggy, go have a good time for your mother who never got to do anything like that when she was a girl. I’ll calm your father down. I won’t let him take this chance away from you.”

“But, Mother, it’s all the way out in California, and I’ll be all by myself, and what will I tell Tod?” Thank God, this time the name “Tod” didn’t come out of her mouth sounding like the name of a pet duck. She finally didn’t sound as if she were trying to get away from the wimp as fast as a 747 would carry her. At least it’s playing.

“You tell Tod to mind his own damn business!”

And now, come on, give me the final few feet....

Velva and Madge leaned together, and Madge transformed her face into that of an adolescent girl. Velva was close enough to that so that it finally worked, he had finally got them to look for a flash like two conspiring teen-age girls, instead of a mother and her twenty-year-old daughter.

“Oh, Mother, do you really think I should?” Velva’s voice was still too old, too artificial, but it was usable, and Paul knew he would never get a better take. At least their faces were perfect.

“Cut. Okay, that’s a take. Let’s set up for the close-ups on Madge.”

Velva smiled at Paul and he felt constrained to smile back. I’m stuck with her, just as I’m stuck with Gentry. Two no-talents. But at least
she’s
trying. I can’t let her know how bad she is, or she’ll just get worse, the poor kid.

I can strengthen this scene with Madge’s reaction shots and close-ups, maybe do something with the music. Jesus Christ, the first day, and I’m already settling for what I know is barely usable footage. But all I can do is play the hand I’ve been dealt for whatever I can. I’m out here all alone.

Sandra Bayne wrapped her legs high around Paul’s naked torso, whimpering in animal delight as he thrust into her again and again on top of her orgasm, propelling her directly from her peak to another build toward the top, keeping her in that burning universe of pleasure where she had been for what seemed like forever. The sweat of their long, demonic lovemaking was an incense igniting the back reaches of her brain, plunging her into virtually cellular ecstasy.

She took his entire ear into her mouth, nibbling its delicate cartilage, raping its depths with her tongue, and he screamed and moaned and began to thrust harder and harder, faster and faster, hyperventilating, his breath coming in great ragged gulps. Again, she flashed through orgasm and her mouth slid from his ear, her head fell to the softness of the pillow.

Above her, Paul’s face was a flower of fire, eyes nearly lidded shut, tongue lolling half out of his mouth, hair snapping and flashing in a sun dance corona. And yet again, he kept her going through orgasm and beyond, into a region where fatigue began to meld with pleasure. It seemed as if his entire being were channeled into his cock, straining to pour itself out through that extension of himself plunging into her deepest core.

“Oooh, Paul,” she moaned, and almost at once came again in a series of three little flashes building into an explosion that had her screaming and gripping his sweat-slick body with arms and legs in a convulsive embrace of iron.

And at that moment he howled like someone in agony, and she felt him throb and fountain forth within her, all the energy in his body, all the tension, all the need gushing from him into the bottomless well of her womanhood.

Together, they sank down from the heights into a dreamy halfsleep, and when Sandra’s consciousness rose again to the surface of these velvet depths, she found herself awake in her own bedroom with her lover atop her, sleeping a sweaty, almost feverish sleep in her arms.

Outside the bedroom window, she could hear the crowns of trees rustling in a late night breeze, and the chirp of crickets. Paul’s breathing against her breasts made her feel warm, secure, and contented.

My God, she thought, feeling sweet exhaustion in every cell of her body, that was the best single fuck I’ve ever had in my life. The very best. Better than anything I’ve ever had from Paul before. Better than Jango. In his sleep, Paul muttered unintelligibly, and frown lines furrowed his brow as he changed the position of his head slightly.

As she watched the lines of his face melt from childlike relaxation into the mask of anger and worry that he had carried into the bedroom with him, a chill of guilt went through Sandra, for she knew from what source that demonic sexual energy had come. She remembered one of the last times Rod had balled her—perhaps it was the very last time—a long, torrid, physically satisfying, seemingly endless fuck... A grudge fuck, with him hating her and snarling the whole time, trying to fuck her brains out, trying to fuck her into oblivion. A demon had been in Rod then, and a demon had been in Paul tonight.

But it wasn’t
me
Paul was fucking into oblivion tonight, she knew, it was himself.

In a hideous convoluted manner, she owed those minutes of incredible lovemaking to Jango. There was no escaping Jango; he could do it to you with someone else’s dick.

And after playing teasing little games with her all afternoon, too. Knowing that she wanted to go over to the set, keeping her around for two hours after all real work was done, tempting her with his body, touching her here, there, then pulling away. Reminding her that she hadn’t balled him in weeks, apparently wanting her to want him just so he could turn her down. Then finally suggesting as if out of nowhere that the two of them might just go over to the set and see a little of the first day’s shooting of
Sunset City.

She tasted the sour tension in the air the moment she and Jango stepped inside the sound stage. Paul stood near a set of an office, talking to Rick Gentry while a makeup girl wiped sweat from Gentry’s forehead and diddled stray locks of his hair with a comb. It was nearly five o’clock, and no one remained in the sound stage but Paul, Gentry, and the crew. Paul was arguing with Gentry about something; his face was tense, but under tight control. His shoulders were sloped uncharacteristically forward, his face was sweaty, and his hair was a mess. She had never seen him looking like this before. He was transformed: tenser, nervous, haggard, tired, yet radiating a kind of frenzied animal energy.

“Why can’t we do these damn reaction shots tomorrow?” Gentry whined as Sandra and Jango came within earshot.

“Because they’re the last coverage we need for this scene,” Paul said. “Which means if we get them now while you’re still into this scene anyway, we can start a fresh scene tomorrow.”

“I’ve had to sit around forever while you shot two whole scenes with Little Miss Muffet and you’ve put me through endless takes myself,” Gentry pouted. “I’m tired.”

“My schedule calls for finishing everything in these two scenes today, Rick, and we’re going to do it,” Paul said coldly. “I know what a good day’s work is, and if we have to work longer to get it because we keep screwing up, that’s what we’re going to do.”

It was turning into a dramatic scene between the director and the star for the delectation of the crew, who by now were an audience. And from the looks on their faces, both the director and the star were coming off as heavies. Instinctively, Sandra started to close the gap between herself and the confrontation, to move to help Paul. But the touch of Jango’s hand on her arm held her back.

“Let the director direct,” Jango said in her ear, and he led her back a few steps to a chance alcove formed by some sound equipment and old flats, where they would not be likely to be noticed but wouldn’t look as if they were hiding from anyone if they were. She let him do it without resisting, remembering the last time she had got Paul out of a public confrontation, how her mothering instinct had set him off. She glanced at Jango, saw that his eyes were sucking in the scene with total concentration and zero emotion, like two telephoto lenses.

“Oh, very well, Paul,” Gentry said with condescending disdain and deliberate projection. “Let’s get this tiresome business over with.”

He shooed away the makeup girl and sat down in a leather chair in front of the empty desk. “Ready when you are, C.B.,” he drawled, drawing thin laughter from the crew. Paul did not rise to the bait. Once he had Gentry positioned where he wanted him, he treated him like an item of furniture, ignoring his crack and the crew’s laughter entirely, holding his temper by an act of will.

He turned to the camerman and said, “How much do you have?”

“Almost a full magazine.”

“Good. We should wrap this up before you have to reload. Just straight close-ups of Gentry.” Turning to the script girl: “Sally, mark this whole thing as one take straight through unless I have to stop the camera.”

An assistant director handed Paul a copy of the script, and Paul walked onto the set and sat down behind the desk. “Am I out of the shot, Harv?”

“Uh-huh,” said the cameraman, squinting through his eyepiece.

“Okay, Rick, I’m going to read David’s lines at you, and you just react.”

“It would help if we just played through the scene,” Gentry said tiredly. “I’ll react a lot better if I can deliver my lines too, instead of sitting there like some sort of
thing.
”

“If that’s the way you want to do it, that’s the way we’ll do it,” Paul said. “We won’t be using any of the sound anyway.” Sandra began to realize that she was watching something rather unusual. Paul’s professionalism was overriding the bad vibes between Gentry and himself. He was letting nothing get in the way of what he was doing. Including Gentry’s insulting attitude and his own loathing for the man. He was simply refusing to let Gentry draw him on.

“All right... lights... roll it...” The script girl snapped her clapboard in front of the camera, dashed aside, and Paul started to read from the script.

“You’re just the man to cover this freak show, Doug.”

“Why don’t you hire Rex Reed?” Gentry said in a horrid, quacking Donald Duck voice. The crew burst into a short gush of choked-off laughter. Choked off because Paul didn’t react, didn’t stop the take. Because Gentry was giving Paul the reaction shot he wanted, reacting facially like the jaded, sophisticated Doug Winter, and since no sound track was being recorded, his voice was irrelevant.

“Because I want your vicious serious viewpoint, lad. I want someone who’ll draw blood.” Paul read the last phrase with a flash of sudden hardness. Bui Gentry didn’t wince; he reacted with the cynical leer the part called for.

“So you want some muck raked up for the delectation of the readers?” Gentry said in a drag-queen voice, without going facially out of character, It was the most bizarre brand of ego contest Sandra had ever seen, and in the PR business with Jango, she had seen some pretty eerie stuff.

“But artistic muckraking done in your own inimitable style, m’boy, not righteous indignation about hippies smoking dope and humping each other on a hillside,” Paul said, without deviating from the tone of the script. “I want a Norman Mailer approach with a William Buckley content.”