Passing Through the Flame (75 page)

“I think we’re two of a kind,” Ruby said. “I don’t think there’s much real difference between us except what we carry between our legs. And I like that. It makes me feel good.”

Sargent was beginning to get an inkling of what she was talking about, of what this whole performance had been designed to show him. We really
are
a lot alike. It turned me off when she stripped like a whore, and it turned her off when I treated her like one. And I
like
her the way I’d like a guy, I admire her guts, I like the way she doesn’t go in for all that female bullshit. She’s like a buddy with a cunt. And I like it; it makes me feel comfortable. Isn’t that weird?

“You know, Ruby,” he said, “I think I know what you mean. I think we could be friends. Friends who fuck. I mean—”

“Oh, Chris, Chris,” she cried, kissing him again, then sliding her lips down his throat, over his chest with a series of little nibbling bites, and burying her face in his loins. “That’s beautiful. That’s just what I want.” She smiled up at him with hazy eyes. “How about a friendly little blow job?” she said, and gobbled him up.

Sargent let himself go, let all sensation focus on the sweet interface between her mouth and his flesh, let his feeling for her go free as well, stroking her hair, playing with her ears, and, yes, loving her after a fashion for who she was, and what she was, and how she was doing what she was doing. When he came, the flash of physical pleasure merged with the warmth of his feeling for her, and he felt happy and a
t
peace.

He lifted her face to his and kissed her long and deep on her wet lips, imagining he could taste himself in her mouth, and not minding it at all, in fact, taking pleasure in the thought.

Ruby smiled at him. There was something ironic and challenging in it, but he found himself liking that, too. “Now how about a little fair play from you to me?” she said.

Sargent stared down at her rich black shock of hair. He had gone down on women a few times, but he had never really liked it, except when he was blind drunk. And no one had ever
asked
him to do it to her. Not this way. Not one friend to another. He was repelled; he was turned on; he was confused. But he felt he owed it to her. One friend to another.

“Fair’s fair,” he said, putting his arms around her waist, moving down her surprisingly soft skin, and taking the alien quick of her in his mouth, feeling the roughness of her hair, the slickness of the flesh within—so much like Ruby herself, tenderness within an ornery, bristly hide.

He caressed, and kissed, and got deeply into the textural contrasts of rough and smooth, while Ruby moaned, and rolled, and snaked her fingers in his hair. It seemed to him that he was tasting some essential truth about her, about himself, about the kind of relationship there might be between them. The secret softness within the outer rind, a sweetness for him alone. And maybe I’m a little like that, too. Maybe that’s what we can be for each other.

And when she shrieked tenderly and called his name, Sargent felt her pleasure as his own. And was amazed at what he felt.

Afterward they lay side by side on the cot, snuggled in each other’s arms. Face to face, belly to belly. Equals. Friends.

“Maybe there’ll be something for us together afterward, Chris,” she said.

“I might like that,” Sargent said impulsively. “I think I might like that just fine.”

But later, holding her sleeping body in his arms and drifting off into the darkness of sleep, he realized that what they had had no more reality than her fantasy of actually taking the festival away from Jango on Sunday. When
that
bubble bursts, she won’t even want to remember my name.

Ruby breathed against his chest, and Sargent sighed, wishing that what he held in his arms was more than castles in the air and stupid lies. There’s a wall of bullshit between us, baby, he thought.

Can we put together enough truth to knock it down?

“Cut,” Paul Conrad said wearily. “That’s not it either. Velva, Rick, back to your places, and let’s try it again.”

Velva gave Paul a small uncomplaining smile and walked out of the frame to the left, taking up her position about five yards from the huge potted palm tree that dominated the background of the shot. Gentry stood in front of the tree for a long pointed moment, letting Paul know what a bore all this was. Then, with deliberately irritating slowness, he took up his starting position under a canopy of vines.

Paul washed down a Dexamyl with a swallow of black coffee. His body was caked with sweat, his bones ached with fatigue, and his vision was actually starting to get a little blurry. It wasn’t any warmer here inside the Ecoenvironment Dome than outside in the hot Southern California night; but the humidity was kept artificially high to simulate the environment of a tropical rain forest, and the effect worked all too successfully.

Monkeys chattered through the network of vines and plants hanging from the ceiling of the dome, and parrots squawked at them like New York taxi drivers. It made for interesting background noise, but it also caused monkey and bird shit to rain on the cast and crew at unexpected moments. Paul had been crapped on twice, and almost everyone had been the target of at least a near miss. The turds falling from the sky, the humidity that made everyone’s clothes stick to his body, and the fact that there had already been four blown takes on this damn shot had the crew looking beat and sullen and made the temptation to settle for
anything
on this last shot of an incredibly long shooting day more irresistible with every passing moment.

But this was the key shot of the whole sequence, and it simply wouldn’t play with Gentry walking through it like a decorticated robot, Paul reminded himself. I’ve got to get this damn shot right if it takes all night!

He gulped down the rest of his coffee, took his position to the left of the camera. “How you holding up, Harv?”

Friedman grimaced. “I’m asking myself the same question.”

“Maybe we’ll get it on this take.”

“
Sure
,” Friedman said sourly.

Paul patted him on the shoulder, clapped his hands together once, nervously. “All right now,” he said. “Let’s see if we can’t wrap it up on this take. We’re all tired, and we all want to get to bed. Rick, try to remember that you’ve been walking through this crazy hippie scene all day; you hate it, and Velva is like a breath of fresh air. Velva, you try to remember that you’re a little scared, and very lonely, and terribly confused.”

Gentry started to say something, but Paul, knowing it would be just the kind of sarcastic crack he didn’t want to hear, loudly overrode him. “Okay, roll it!”

“Sunset City
, Scene Forty-nine, take five.”

“Speed.”

Paul made a frame square with his fingers, looked through it. Half-hidden by a clump of low palmettos beyond the big tree, a young couple, looking very much into the festival scene, were sitting together on a rotted log by a little artificial stream sharing a joint and each other. It would make a nice touch if we can get the shot now, Paul thought as he said, “Action!”

Velva walked slowly into the frame from the left, looking up at the night sky peeking through the vines and the transparent facets of the dome, smiling like a lost little girl as two monkeys skittered by high over her head. Gentry strode toward the center of the frame from the right, his shoulders hunched, his hands thrust into the pockets of his sports jacket, looking grim and hostile. So far, so good.

They met in the center of the frame, Velva looking down from the vine canopy, Gentry looking up from the wet black loam that covered the floor of the Ecoenvironment Dome.

“Mr. Winter... Doug,” Velva said, managing to look genuinely glad to see Gentry, something that Paul knew all too well was ultimately difficult for her to pull off.

“Hello, Peggy,” Gentry said. His face didn’t change expression; his eyes didn’t light up. He looked like a dirty old man encountering Little Red Riding Hood with her basket of goodies between her legs. It certainly wasn’t what was called for, but it just might play this way. Paul decided to let the take go on.

“Having a good time?” Gentry said, forcing a smile. But his voice was cold and sardonic.

“It’s all so... so different, you know? Like being in a foreign country. All these thousands of people, but I can’t think of anything to say to any of them.” Velva smiled at Gentry, and he leered back horribly. “It’s so nice to see a familiar face, to have someone to talk to.”

“I know what you mean,” Gentry said. “It makes me feel old, like some kind of prehistoric relic wandering around in the wrong age.”

“Isn’t it weird? I almost feel that way myself, and most of these people are my own age. I feel I have more in common with you than with any of them.”

“Does that make you feel sad?” Gentry said, again with sardonic overtones where the script called for tender wistfulness.

“A little.”

“It makes
me
feel a little glad,” Gentry said. “Does that bother you?” His voice suddenly became vicious, snide, and a look of pure faggot cruelty passed across his face. Shit!

“Cut!” Paul shouted. “That’s horrible!”

Gentry whirled to face him, pure hatred blazing in his eyes. That’s all I need now, Paul thought, fighting for self-control. “I’m sorry,” he said more softly. “We’re all beat. Let’s take five, everyone. Rick, I want to talk to you.”

Paul led Gentry back away from the shooting area, and circled around a miniature grove of palmettos to a wooden bench in front of a forest pool, where they were screened from sight. He hadn’t the faintest idea of what he was going to do, but he knew that he had to do something. The crew was foggy from fatigue, and each succeeding take was getting worse and worse.

“Sit down, Rick,” he said, dropping down on the bench, feeling delicious release in his aching knee joints. Gentry sat down beside him, his eyes narrowed, his face hard and guarded. What the hell am I going to do? Paul wondered. He pulled a baggie of raisins and almonds out of his pocket, put a handful in his mouth, offered the plastic bag to Gentry. “Give you energy,” he said. Gentry took a little of the fruit and nuts, put it mechanically into his mouth. A little human warmth came into his eyes.

“Look, I’m sorry I lost my temper, Rick,” Paul said, “but I’m dead on my feet, and we’ve
got
to get this shot right before we knock off for the night. And you’re just not making it. Your eyes should light up; you should start standing a little straighter. The world should look brighter.”

Gentry leaned forward, stared down into the little pool of water. High above, out of sight in the canopy of vines, a monkey chittered. “You know what I am,” Gentry said softly.

Paul felt a nauseating shimmer around the edges of his massive fatigue. “You’re an actor, Rick. You’re a professional.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

“I know that’s not what you mean. But that’s what’s relevant now, not... not the other thing.”

Gentry looked up at him; his eyes were soft, his face almost tender. God, if only I could get this expression out of him in front of the damned camera! “Do you hate me, Paul?” Gentry said.

“No, I don’t hate you.”

Gentry sighed. He nibbled at his lower lip as if trying to come to some momentous decision. “Paul... I... look, do you know what I want to do now, what I’m thinking at this very minute?” Paul looked down into the depths of the artificial pool, knowing more or less where Gentry was going, not daring to acknowledge that knowledge even to himself. And certainly not to Gentry.

“I want to... I want to pull down your pants, and take your prick gently in my mouth and suck it till I feel the taste of your come, and that would make me very, very happy.” Gentry shuddered. “There, now I’ve said it! Do I disgust you? Do you loathe me?” Paul’s gut throbbed. He couldn’t lift his eyes
from
the pool of water. His cock felt like a cold, shriveled worm, and the very focusing of his attention on it made him squirm inside. Yes, he felt disgust, yes, he felt loathing, but the self-hate in Gentry’s voice, the hopelessness he radiated even as he made his confession, tinged that unbearable disgust with an equally unbearable pity. He’s a faggot who wants to suck my prick, but he’s also a human being. And I wish to God he wasn’t. I wish I could simply hate him.

“I don’t loathe you, Rick,” he said. “I... I’m trying to understand... I....”

Gentry placed a hand on Paul’s knee, and it sent a galvanic shock through him. It took all his will not to pull violently away. But he made the effort and prevailed. And made himself look at Gentry’s face. Gentry’s eyes were moist, and he was smiling wanly.

“You’re really a pretty good guy for a straight,” Gentry said. “You
are
straight, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am.”

“This is pretty difficult for you to take, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Well, what you’re going through now is pretty much what I go through playing a love scene with a woman. Can you understand what it’s like now?”

“Yeah,” Paul said. “But there’s nothing I can do about it. You’ve got to
act.
”

“Maybe there is something you can do about it, Paul,” Gentry said. “If I could go out there thinking of you, and knowing that you knew that I was playing it to you and not to her, and knowing that you understood....”

Their eyes locked, Paul forced himself not to look away. There was an infinite progression of levels in Gentry’s eyes: sincerity inside cunning inside sincerity over and over again like two barbershop mirrors reflecting each other down into some vanishing point hidden in their interior logic. Paul could not fathom a bottom-line reality and doubted whether Gentry could. Terror gripped him as he found himself spinning down into that bottomless abyss. For he knew that this might really work, might get him the footage he needed. And he knew for certain that nothing else would. But the price he might pay was something beyond his power to foresee.

“You do what works for you, Rick,” he said softly, not looking away. “You’ve
made
me understand, whether I want to or not, haven’t you? Let’s get the shot.” He stood up, and Gentry’s hand slid smoothly off his leg.