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Tor had purposely left certain scenes until the end of shooting, Ian now realized. He had wanted something more, waiting for Ian to be further along in the process, tired, broken in, a more malleable object to manipulate. Ian wasn’t sure if Tor had known exactly what he would ask for in advance of the Calypso scenes. Knowing Tor, he probably did. 

Tor operated the camera himself for many shots as he often did for important scenes. The Calypso scene, Tor said, would have a closed set. Then he announced it would only be the three of them: Tor, Ian, and Vaughn. They would be MOS, no sound, and he would operate the camera. Lighting, makeup: all to be complete in advance. If changes were required he would call someone in for adjustments, at last resort. That was the way he had started the bargaining with Ian and Vaughn. When had they ever had the opportunity for such privacy, such freedom to be natural and relaxed? Heady, such stuff, to be out-of-sight, secluded, almost alone, for a scene which was usually embarrassing at best, in front of a crowd of people. It was like a glass of champagne to Ian’s lips. 

He wanted something special, Tor had managed to hint to Ian earlier, by way of various small comments. From his innuendos Ian had expected nudity and the frank sex scene the script described. Ian had done many. The type of roles he played required them. This might be a little more raw, knowing Tor’s work, his background. Even his ethnic background. The Norwegians had no compunction over nudity, over portraying realistic sex. Now that new films were coming out of the Scandinavian countries, in English, Nordic Realism they were starting to call it, these films were having an influence. Another reason to follow where Tor led, to trust his judgment.

Vaughn, Ian knew, was to wear priceless gold jewelry on loan from a museum, including a gold headdress, necklace, and bracelets. Another example of Tor’s amazing powers of persuasion. The pieces were so old they were practically of the period. 

Tor had laughed. “The curator says this gold will last far beyond any of us. He says it should be worn again, in the spirit of the goddess Aphrodite, whom it honors. He wanted to give it for our film, so that it will bring people to Greece to see her treasures. He showed me how well it was made. Today’s jewelry should be so well-crafted.” A second set had been cast in silver, dipped in 18 carat gold, in case they needed to relinquish the other set due to unexpected developments. 

“Always have a back-up.” Tor was cheerful. 

By this time the entire film shoot was three-quarters of the way through, and Ian was so exhausted he wasn’t thinking clearly any more. He was going to bed at midnight, running over his lines, getting up at five in the morning and starting again. Since he was in almost every scene, he had little respite, except for the setups between shots, and those hours of waiting felt like their own stretches of purgatory as the weeks wore on. He sensed he was making his own misery, and should be trying harder to unite the cast and crew and be a leader, but a slow melancholy had overtaken him somewhere along the way, and he was without resolve. He drifted through, his few moments of pleasure the connections with another actor in a scene that felt true and right. Even his performance now felt hollow most of the time. Tor seemed pleased and didn’t fuss, so he brooded about it alone.

Tor didn’t ask him about Jane coming to visit. He was either too tactful or well-informed to do so. It was not unusual to be lonely on a movie set, but Ian felt Tor’s eye on him, appraising and marking his moods.

The time came for the Calypso scenes. Vaughn came on set a couple of days early. They were introduced and she greeted him with a smile, shaking his hand. They had met once or twice at events. They sat around an empty set, talking. She looked magnificent against the backdrop of an ancient Greek hall. He could see her as a goddess-nymph. He felt no anticipation of what was to come. He mildly sought to put her to her ease, as he always did with actors he had intimate scenes with. If she trusted him the scene would go better and they would get better work, faster. Love scenes could be awkward and uncomfortable, very technical, downright unpleasant, or, sometimes, quite enjoyable. He tried not to anticipate anything too much and let it be what it would be, not expect something. Vaughn was beautiful, but her beauty did not affect him particularly. It was a bit glacial: distant, pale, gold and blue. Her expression was contained, giving nothing away. 

“Has he told you much about his thoughts?”

“About what?” His attention wandered a little as he looked at her exposed pale bare foot (the other tucked beneath her). The cast and crew were easily marked by their tanned skin: despite SPFs, sun hats, and long shirts to the contrary. The makeup department hardly needed to bother with the spray-on version anymore.

“Our scenes.”

“No. He doesn’t tell me anything in advance. There isn’t time, really.”

“Oh, dear. That bad.” 

“Yeah.” He rubbed the sore back of his neck. What they really needed was a massage therapist. He’d have to see about that.

“What are your thoughts, then.”

He dropped his hands into his lap, head falling forward. “I have a few. Why don’t tell me yours.”

“Mmm.” She almost purred, wiggling a bit to arch her back and sit up straighter, like a cat being stroked down its spine; pleased to be asked. “I am Calypso. I get what I want.” She leaned forward a little. “I find you. You pine away for home by day; fulfill my every wish all night. I understand my motivations. But what about yours? You say all you want to do is go home. But seven years pass before you take a chance and leave. Is that native caution or your desire for me outweighing your desire for home?”

Ian perked up. Someone to really talk to. “I lie with you unwillingly. I want to go home more than anything but I’m compelled to sleep with you; it seems I have no choice.” He smiled. 

She arched an eyebrow. “I have the book. But actions speak louder than words. This fellow is a master sailor. He’s an incredible shipbuilder. Why don’t you build a ship before Hermes comes and tells me to let you go?”

“Without your help I’d never get out. You give me wine, and water, and a good wind…I need the gods’ help to escape.”

She was shaking her head. “I disagree. You have it too good. You get comfortable. Otherwise seven years…that’s too long. Remember you’re ‘worldly Odysseus.’ You know the score. You’ll take what you can get.”

“I love my family. They’re the most important thing to me. I want to get back to them. When you’ve got the gods against you, you’re caught in a trap until they spring it. I’m their pawn. When I get free, I can start to move through the world again, make some choices…when they have me, there’s nothing I can do. They’ve got me where I’m weak. They take advantage of that.” He discovered things as he spoke, slowing down. He was enjoying this, but at the same time he felt puzzled. He thought he understood this part of the story. 

They created together with the ease of professionals; knowing their characters and willing to feed off each other’s ideas.

“Worldly Odysseus.” Her green eyes pierced him. “You did what you had to do, but in your secret heart, wasn’t it also what you wanted?”

He sat back. “Ravishing goddess. I bow to your superior knowledge of the world in all things. In only one thing do I claim greater knowledge.”

Her eyes flashed. “Yes?”

“My own heart. In that I do claim to know what even you do not perceive. There is the greatest mystery, and there I keep my best gift: my love. That belongs to another. My wife.”

Her eyes dropped from their searing presence on his face. “Penelope is well-blessed in one respect. She has your heart. But she has not always had you. I have had that pleasure these seven years.”

Ian shifted in his chair and turned his face to one side. 

“Yes.” His gaze faded into the searching, out-of-focus look of a lost man. “I’ve been too long from home.”

Vaughn smoothed her long, pale hair. “I offer you the best gift of the gods, without guile. An immortality with me, as my husband, ever vital and young as you are now. We shall inhabit paradise forever. How can you refuse me?”

“I know to return is to grow old. Yet I choose my other life. And Hermes has told you the other gods’ command.”

“If you did not have Athena as your intercessor, I would have you still. One more night and you are well on your way, with all I can provision you for.”

His eyes found her face. “One night. Yes. One night more.” 

They shared a smile.

Thinking back now, sitting alone on an old chair in the converted barn, he reflected. In Crete, back then, he had never imagined it would go as far as it did.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

“I
AN
…”

“Y
ES
?” I
AN
barely looked up, sitting motionless in his director’s chair, the one with REILLY on the back.

“The cave scene…” Tor trailed off, having buttonholed Ian beneath the awning, a small pavilion on the beach where Ian spent much of his time between shots, keeping cool in the shade, alone with his favorite local citrus drink, his torn feet in a tub of seawater. 

“What about it?” Ian squinted up at Tor’s form, which blocked out the sun. It wasn’t like him to have trouble getting something out.

Tor sat in the chair next to Ian’s, rocking back, causing it to creak and tip. He kept it pushed back, balancing his sandaled toes on Ian’s water tub. 

“The scene is very important. It’s central to the film.”

“The sex scene?”

Tor steepled his fingers, continuing his balancing act. 

“In this film, it’s key.” He let the chair drop and turned toward Ian. “Look at me,” he said, even though Ian was already doing so. “You remember I said much would be required of you in this role.”

Ian thought of the sword hanging behind him, the real thing for a close shot, and how in a matter of seconds Tor’s grating lilt could be silenced forever.

“This is the scene where I shall ask it of you. You will give your all. And so will she. It will be magnificent. They will never have seen such passion, such conflict, yet desire…you must remember all Odysseus wants, your single purpose is to return home, and yet you are still a man, vulnerable to seduction. She would never let you go, but has been commanded so by the gods. Here is a man who is offered eternal bliss with a goddess and turns it down. Do you see? Even though you know to leave is to grow old, to one day sicken and die, you choose Penelope. I find your sex with Calypso the culmination of your choice, a leave-taking of the road not taken. It’s your kiss goodbye to immortality. That choice will be yours no more after this night. Goodbye to youth, to women, to that peerlessness at Troy, nevermore to be regained. It is much more than sex with a goddess. This is the end of all your yesterdays. Goodbye to the place where men and gods meet.” He made a chopping gesture.

Ian listened, his face a blank. He found it strange that Tor should call his card in now, for a scene such as this, but now a glimmering flickered behind his eyes. 

“I’ll do what you ask.” His voice grated. Tor held the reins. For the duration, Tor was his master.

“I’ll be running the camera. We're MOS.” Tor was irritable when an audio tech crossed his path. 

Ian arrived just outside the cave where they were to film the Calypso cave scene, wearing only a robe, to find an almost empty set. Tor prowled up to him, took his arm and drew him inside.

“It’ll be the three of us.” 

Two lighting technicians were busy lighting the bed while Andros, the cinematographer, moved around the bed looking at possible shots through a lens. A makeup person fussed around Vaughn, who was also robed, but seated on the bed, which looked like a huge pile of furs, supported underneath, Ian hoped, by something more substantial. Otherwise this might take on a more comical aspect than intended. Ian forgot his worries about slippery fur and Tor as he got a good look at Vaughn. A gold headdress fitted closely around her forehead and trailed down each side of her face, tiny discs on chains looping back to connect to the back of the headpiece. Her kohl-rimmed eyes were focused downward as she adjusted an anklet connected by a gold chain to her second toe. Her makeup artist followed her down, sweeping a brush at an invisible spot on her cheek. Gone was Vaughn’s ice princess air of coolness and formality. 

As she turned and raised her head she caught sight of him. Her eyes caught the light and he swam in green. Her lips twisted. She rolled her eyes upward and pushed her lips into a kiss, mocking her ensemble. As he continued to look into her eyes, she lowered her chin, gazing up at him. She patted the place next to her on the furs. 

He hesitated, then was drawn forward to sit next to her. In the background he heard Tor yelling for the set to be cleared. It was warm and comfortable in the cave; there must be a heater somewhere, he thought, as he sank into place. He got lost in her eyes for an immeasurable moment. Tor cleared his throat. They looked over at him, as one.

“Sorry.” For the first time he looked a little embarrassed. “I’ve worked with both of you up to this point.” He looked at them for confirmation. They nodded. “Trust. That is what this is about. Us three. An authentic scene. A real scene, as it has not been done. Especially in the midst of all this." He waved an arm. "The audience won’t know, but they’ll feel it, subconsciously, how real, how passionate—how full of the heartache and relief of goodbye this moment is, if you two are willing to take the leap. It’s up to you. The necessary safeguards are underneath the shell to your right. My camera will be discreet. My desire is for the authenticity of the moment. I leave it in your hands.” He paused. “As far as choreography, we now pass from the sublime to the prosaic. Let’s begin with Calypso superior, as she is the pursuer. Transitions I leave to your discretion and invention. Later, reverse positions to give the impression of Odysseus unable to fully conquer his lustful passion, much as he denies it. Let us have some quiet moments, too. I’ll be handheld, mostly, so I should be able to get whatever angles necessary.” He rubbed his hands together. “Let me add, needless to say, or perhaps needful to say, whatever happens here, nothing leaves this room. Agreed?”