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PORNO REILLY GIVES IT TO SEXY SANTINEAU; WHY NOT ME? AN EDITORIAL by C.C. Wexler

It’s every girl’s dream come true; an evening with überbabe Ian Reilly, ending with a passionate tryst. Vaughn Santineau, the women of the world will envy and despise you! We thought he was well behind the bars of matrimony, since his marriage has outlasted the Hollywood minute and made it through an eternal seven years. The seven year itch strikes with a vengeance! Now it emerges he can reach through those bars, grab someone, and make her thank her lucky stars she’s a woman. It’s all very naughty, him being married and all, but isn’t it that much more exciting? Who knew he had such depths? Or should we say shallows?

We wonder, now that the cat, or any other animal you care to imagine, is, so to speak, out of the bag, will the actual scene be shown when the movie comes out late this year? If a bootleg is available, one can be certain it will find its way online before long. Be still our hearts!

Jane studied these two articles and the copious pictures of Ian, Vaughn, Tam, Tor, and herself. Slightly queasy, she folded the paper back into the trifold in which it had arrived through the mail slot. She wrapped the rubber band back around it and held it, slapping it against the open palm of her other hand. Ian had disappeared into the downstairs bedroom, where he had slept when he first arrived. She’d heard him on the phone earlier; now all was quiet. The phone rang. Someone picked it up. She set the paper on the table and let her eyes drift out of focus as she remembered the past week and the joy they’d only just found together. Was that early morning phone call the beginning, the death knell of their newfound happiness? A few days, all they would be granted? 

Tam was ready for bed. Ian came and sat with her, read the first chapter from
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
, a purchase from a shopping trip to Waterstone’s, before it was time to sleep. 

“But where is the lion, Da?” 

“Be patient, Tam.” He closed the book.

“Mum and I have a problem I want to talk to you about. I want you to know what’s going on. The truth is I did something that made Mum sad.”

Tam twisted the covers and slid under them, until only her eyes were peering out. She pulled them down to uncover her mouth and said, “What did you do?”

“You know how Mummy and Daddy hug and kiss and love on each other?”

“Yes.” Tam giggled.

“Well. I did that with someone else, for a movie.”

She wiggled out of the duvet, sitting up. “You do that all the time, Daddy. That’s pretend.”

“Yes, it is pretend, and it was this time, too. It’s hard to explain, and it’s something you’ll understand better when you’re a little older. I crossed a line and did more than I was supposed to do. It’s like…let’s say you were pretending to have a fight, and instead of pretending, you hit your friend for real and she got hurt. That wouldn’t be fair, would it?

“It’s as if…I acted like I was in love with this actress. It hurt your Mum. I wasn’t in love with the actress. I acted the wrong way and it made Mum feel bad. I wish I never had to tell you this, because it’s something between your Mum and me, but now the newspapers heard about it and I need to tell you, before you hear it somewhere else. There might be something about it on the television, even. You can ask me or Mum anything you want to know, if you have any questions. Do you understand?”

“Mommy’s mad at you?” 

“Yes. She was, anyway. And she had good reason. Now Mummy and I are working hard to make things right again between us. We’re feeling pretty good about it. You don’t have to worry, all right?”

“But, Da.”

“Yes, love.”

“Did you like the other lady? More than Mom?”

“No, angel. I love you and your mum. I was doing my job. On this occasion I took it too far. But it was still pretend. I could never feel for someone else what I feel for your mum.” 

Tam scrunched back under her covers. “Are you getting diborced?” She fell into baby talk, her face like a baby’s, and her eyes an older girl’s, all at once.

“No, darling. Everything’s going to be okay. I’m not saying it’ll be easy. We’ll have a lot of the camera people following us around for a while. Most of them will go away when another story comes along. We can talk about it more tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I love you, Tamshele.” It was his secret name for her,
Tam-she-la
, just for the family, three syllables that tightened their bond.

“I love you, Da.”

“Night night.”

They hugged and he kissed her. He turned out the light on her bedside table. He sat with her in the darkness, until her breathing grow quiet and even. Smoothing the duvet, he tucked her in and left, leaving the door ajar behind him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

I
N
S
TUDIO
C
ITY
, at a small, trellised, house-behind-a-house where Marta normally spent the winters, a powwow took place. The owner of the main house, Cee Cee, a stylized blonde in the tradition of all the great studio blondes, who was in on the secret, sat with Marta in her little garden and reviewed the wreckage wrought by same. Newspapers were strewn around them: on the chaise lounges, on the grass, the side tables. They had headlines like THEIR MARRIAGE: CAN IT SURVIVE? and, 25 MILLION DOLLAR LAY and, WHO SCREWED WHO? and, WILL X-RATED ROMP BE ALLOWED RELEASE? 

Cee Cee shook out one paper. “Darling, if
I
had twenty-five million, I’d pay him twenty to do
me
. Seeing him
avec
sexy French chick, I’d pay my ten bucks to see that, you better believe it. It’s the next best thing to being there. Now you’ve probably gone and ruined it, you selfish wench.”

Marta lay in the sun, dark glasses hiding her eyes. “She’s not French. Australian. There were more important issues at hand than sexual gratification. Or a prurient interest in seeing this piece of film. Anyway, without me you’d never have known it was for real.”

“
True
, if you hadn’t blown the horn,
no one
would have known it was real. It would have just been hot. You’re denying American women their God-given right to an annual Ian Reilly sex scene. We don’t have everything the men have, precious: all the pornography, the magazines, the explicit
garbage
to get us off. Not wrapped up in a story, how
I
want to see it. We have a few beautiful men to fall in love with from afar, and their love scenes to look forward to as a
vicarious
satisfaction. And
you
had to go and blow it. In a manner of speaking.”

“Oh, please.”

“Come now, you can tell me. Did you have something personal against him? Why drag him
down
like this? Why destroy a
beautiful
man’s career? We have so few of them. And, need I add, most likely wreck his marriage, as well?” 

“Why do I want to destroy them?” Marta lit the cigarette in it's holder, holding it steady for a moment until it caught, then letting it bob up and down in the corner of her mouth as she talked. 

“I don’t. I don’t have the capacity to destroy them. They do that to themselves. All I do is hold up the light. I’m the torchbearer.” She took the holder out of her mouth and jetted a stream of smoke above her head. “I show the world what he’s done. Why should he escape so easily? Why shouldn’t the truth come out? I believe in truth. It’s partly why I do what I do. I don’t think things should be done hole-in-corner. People want to hide their little secrets, true. But when someone makes the bargain, he or she says, I want to be a star, not a private person but a public one, then they give up their right to fuss over what comes out about their little lives. It’s the trade they make for greatness. Not everyone manages greatness. Some do, some don’t. I hope it’s worth it for them, the loss of the private self. It’s no small thing.” 

Intent on her explanation, she got up and walked about her small garden. She inhaled more nicotine and exhaled a languid set of smoke rings. “We need lives to feed on, examples to hold up and say, this is what happens, if. That gives us something to worship, or distain. Often we do both to the very same person.” She waved her cigarette. “It’s been seen before. That’s what we like to do. Deify. Then tear down and condemn. It’s not like they don’t get a second chance. Sometimes we decide to forgive and reconcile, later. We like to take someone back into the fold.” She stood with arms akimbo, puffing away. “All this hinges on how we see ourselves in relation to that person. It’s all about making ourselves feel good. The public person is a tool.” She tapped her ash on the ground, stepped on it carefully, and went on. “In my job, I use that tool, at its highest degree of usefulness. When I’m done, well, I toss it aside and move on to the next. It’s served its purpose for society. In the greater context, justice and right have been served.”

Cee Cee fanned herself. “Sounds like a lot of high ideals for smashing a man’s reputation. And you said you almost got to be friends with his wife.”

Marta sat down and stubbed out her cigarette in a black marble ashtray resting on the round glass table between them. “I did. That was another reason. She was living in a fool’s paradise. Although I don’t think she was happy. Quite miserable, rather. It’s better to know the truth.”

“I thought you said she
did
know the truth, and that’s why she went to London.”

“After I told it to her. But I meant not living a lie.”

“So you think they’re
happier
now.”

“Happiness isn’t everything, Ceec.”

“What is, Mart?” Cee Cee said, with coy languor.

"'Truth is beauty, beauty, truth.’”

“And you decide who should know it. In this case, my dear, truth might have killed beauty.”

At the flat the phone had been ringing all day. Somehow
they
had found the number. One news source had it at first, and by osmosis they all seemed to have it, and they were calling, calling. And if they weren’t calling, they were ringing the doorbell. Everyone wanted a comment. They got Ian or Jane on the phone and asked the most blatant questions, as if they were nothing. Are you going to get a divorce? Does your daughter know what’s going on? What does Mrs. Reilly have to say about you cheating on her? Are you in love with Miss Santineau, Mr. Reilly? Ian turned the phone off and stopped answering the door. 

“I can’t take it. After last night, telling Tam, I couldn’t sleep. Now all this. We don’t have to let it in. We should hire someone to stand at the door. This is crazy.” 

“Yeah. I guess we should leave. Or hire a housekeeper.” They both made a face. The idea of inviting a stranger in was singularly unappealing.

They sat in the living room on the floor, leaning up against opposite couches, cards between them. Tam was having a bath in the lion-footed tub. They could hear her singing songs to herself and splashing around upstairs. 

“She doesn’t seem too traumatized,” Jane said.

“Thank God for her good nature.”

“Where do we go?” 

“I’ve got that place in Lucerne. We could go there. It’s quiet. We could go until the heat dies down.”

“Is there anywhere, where…”

“Where they won’t bug us?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t think so.” He gathered up the cards from their forgotten game and shuffled. “Let me think. Maybe some obscure country? Some place isolated. We could go to an island, a private one. That’d be more comfortable.”

“Rent a boat.”

“That’s the idea. A yacht with the crew and everything.”

“But helicopters. And other boats.”

“Yeah.” He shuffled and flicked cards out, dealing a new hand. “The top of a very tall mountain.”

She picked up her cards. “Outer space.”

“
Under
a very tall mountain.”

“Right next to a volcano.” She discarded two and got two.

“Submarine.” He discarded one, drew one.

“In a yurt in Mongolia.” She bet five paperclips.

“Stay put, but wear disguises.” He saw her five and raised five. 

“Move, and wear disguises.” She saw his five and, with a big smile, turned over her hand. A straight.

“Move, wear disguises and change our names. Full house.”

She jumped up. “Aw, dang! I was sure I had you!”

He rolled around with the paperclips in his hands. “I’m rich. Ho ho ho!”

A hard knocking at the door interrupted her dance of frustration and his laughter. They froze and looked at each other, as if they’d been caught doing something wrong. The knocking recommenced. They stayed where they were. 

Bam bam bam bam bam BAM.

“Think it’s them?”

“Who else?” He grabbed her hand and she pulled him up. “Probably want shots of Reillys
en famille
in their knickers.” Ian used his stage whisper.

Their consultation ended as the pounding resumed. 

“Who is it?” Tam stood at the top of the stairs, naked and dripping wet. 

“Tam, dry yourself off and get ready for bed!” Jane giggled helplessly as she sprang light-footed across the room and up the stairs. 

“Why are you whispering?” Tam said at full volume. 

Jane cast a look at Ian and escorted Tam back to the bathroom.

With a jut to his chin, Ian moseyed over to the door, not unlike Popeye, and with a flick to the porch light, peered through the peephole. With a small exclamation, he opened the door. A rather dapper, suspendered man stood on the front step. The cameras flashed blindingly behind him. He stood blinking at Ian. Ian held up a hand to protect his eyes and tried to see. 

“Hullo.”

“Angus! What are you doing here?”

The man glanced back over his shoulder. “Hullo, Mr. Reilly. I know Ms. Reilly. I stayed here with her, for a wee visit.” The crowd, swollen to three times normal size, and now on both sides of the street, shouted out questions and innuendo. 

“Getting it on the film set, what does Jane think?”—“Ian, do you deny the story?”—“Ian, Ian, how do you feel toward Vaughn now?”