Bodies and Souls

by John Rechy

  Near them, laughter erupted in high, false peals. A stumpy, fat man in a ridiculous oriental robe waved his long sleeves like colored ribbons. Bits of crushed caviar tinted the edges of his fleshy mouth. He was entertaining a clutch of strident men and women—who leaned toward him and automatically echoed his laughter—a second or two after each burst. Never on him, their eyes constantly ricocheted about the room.

  Amber saw Theodore Landers—and Jimmy. They had not been shoved into the shaded purgatory in back. Although she had never really liked him, she felt a sigh of warmth at the sight of Jimmy Steed, at ease anywhere.

  The assistant maitre d'hotel pulled out a chair for Amber. Theodore Landers stood up. He had resplendent, old-fashioned manners. Beaming, Jimmy Steed tipped his chair—he loved being seen with beautiful women. The only thing better was being seen with beautiful rich women. Theodore Landers placed cool lips on Amber's cheek: “Darling.” Amber sat down, aware of the looks swirling about her, the buzzes perhaps identifying her. Jimmy leaned over and kissed her on the mouth; his tongue automatically attacked her throat.

  “Theodore … Jimmy,” she said. Jimmy! So well dressed, his hair so lovingly styled, his shirt open one button past acceptable daring. A man under forty—how far under, or how near, was a matter for conjecture; that he was tall was apparent even when he was sitting down. Despite the careful grooming, he was still ordinary. Not threateningly handsome, he did not alienate the heterosexual men who saw all his movies. That near-plainness—and his enormous cock, which men fantasized was theirs—made Jimmy Steed the top male sex star in films. He was also an expensive prostitute. His fan mail was impressive.

  It came from men—whom he always turned down, Jimmy announced periodically—and from women, who would offer to pay his fare for bought assignations. Usually in a happy, loose mood, Jimmy could be brought down deeply by any aspersions on his penis—which he took with profound seriousness. “It looks bigger on screen” sent him into a serious sulk.

  “You look smashing, darling,” Theodore approved of Amber.

  “Good enough to eat, yum-yum,” came Jimmy's expected remark.

  The captain filled her glass with wine—good wine, Amber knew, and as cool as Theodore.

  Theodore Landers was not fat, he did not sweat, he never huffed, his tie never became loose or askew, he did not have a balding spot, and he never chewed cigars or used profanity. No, the most successful producer-director-manager in the production of “erotic films” looked and acted like the high-paid legal advisor of an international, powerful corporation. In his middle fifties, with neatly cut graying hair, he wore conservative but fashionable suits. Producing “erotic films of quality” was his business. “Quality” meant big budgets, careful sets, audible dialogue, clear, focused, imaginative shots—and bookings only in the best theaters available. “Russ Meyer,” he was quoted as having said, “is a very vulgar man.”

  “Sorry I'm late,” Amber called attention to the fact.

  “That's all right, darling,” came Theodore's cultured, modulated voice. “Jimmy and I were enjoying this excellent wine—isn't it?—and Jimmy's been recognizing some of the women he's been with— …”

  “That's that rich millionaire woman,” Jimmy Steed indicated Margaret Manfred in tones meant to suggest he had been with her. But Jimmy was not subtle. If he had been with her, nothing would have stopped him from announcing the details of the encounter. “Must've fucked half the women at this Shay Too, and that's the truth,” he drawled in his shanty tone.

  “You're lying, Jimmy,” Amber challenged. Oh, yes, the wine was fine—and self-assured.

  “Well, at least a dozen,” Jimmy reduced the number of his conquests.

  “You're still lying, Jimmy,” Amber said.

  “Okay, then, two—and that's for sure. That woman over there with those two others? She don't—doesn't—know I know who she is, but she's the wife of a very powerful politician or judge, something like that. I saw her picture in Beverly Hills People.”

  “You read that?” Amber asked in amusement. That was the “house organ” of the chic restaurants and social affairs in the city.

  “Sure. Get to know my rich ladies.” Jimmy winked.

  Amber's eyes glided toward the woman Jimmy had just indicated. She had an anxious face, which she kept touching at the edges of her hair. She caught Amber's look—merely another in the constant magnetized trajectory of glances that sometimes become stares. She almost smiled, absently.

  The captain was bowing at Theodore's table; the waiter stood next to him. A cute busboy was fussing unduly with the silver, napkins, water at their table, flinging entranced glances at Jimmy. Amber ordered poached salmon. Theodore chose the mixed grill. Jimmy said, “A large, blood-rare steak, and some A-1— …”

  “Monsieur?” the captain stopped him, in premature accusation; his eyebrows collided.

  “A-1 Sauce. With the steak,” Jimmy said easily. “Never have meat without it.”

  “If monsieur— …”the captain began.

  Theodore said, “The gentleman would like a New York-cut steak please—very rare—and some A-1 sauce. Kindly bring that to him.”

  “Of course.” The captain was in full retreat.

  Amber couldn't help admiring Theodore. He had frosted the captain. Yet it would be that same ability which he might use against her, his controlled performance warned her. He could give—seem to give—in abundance, and then take more, much more—all.

  Margaret Manfred's eyes were on Amber again. The lips had managed the slightest smirk, harsh tilts at the tips.

  “Darling, I have great news,” Theodore began. He frowned in annoyance because his wine glass was empty. Filled! “I have the largest budget ever for your new film. It will be pure quality.”

  “Is that the title?” Amber said. She wanted Theodore to perceive more of her purpose in her sarcasm.

  He cleared his throat, as if for words he was already gathering.

  “Dynamite.” Jimmy was enthusiastic. “You're married to this middle-aged guy, Amber—this is the story. And the only way he can get it up—listen to this—is by showing movies of this big sex star before he fucks you. Guess who plays the sex star and the wife? You! See, you are the star, moonlighting, but he doesn't know it. I play your partner in all the movies he watches before he fucks his wife, who's really the star—he just has to pretend he's fucking a whore. In one skit in the movie, I play an electrician fixing your electric oven, and I'm carrying this long, long wrapped wire.”

  “And it unwinds,” Amber said.

  “Yeah. It's supposed to represent my cock.” He let his hand drop into his lap, and the busboy gaped.

  Over his wineglass, Theodore's eyes locked on Amber.

  Amber said casually, “Have you heard, Jimmy, that there's a new … star … who's bigger than you? Young kid, too; got a movie coming out, talk of the town.”

  Ambushed, Jimmy Steed needed emergency reassurance. He sought the awed busboy and deliberately dropped his fork. The busboy leapt for it. Finally, he handed Jimmy a clean one.

  The boy said quickly, “Hello, Mr. Steed, it's a pleasure to meet you.” Jimmy flashed what came as close to being a dazzling smile as he could muster. “Thanks.”

  “Real cute kid,” Amber said.

  “You're bullshitting about that other guy,” Jimmy recovered.

  I'm the biggest—and in this country big is best, right, Theodore?” He felt flushed with patriotism; he knew Theodore was very patriotic. “Hey, babe,” he said to Amber, “what the hell's eating you? It's not me—at least, not this moment,” he laughed, satisfied.

  Amber faced Theodore. “I saw Meat yesterday.”

  Theodore did not stop his wineglass on its trek to his lips. But when he put it down, he twisted it in a full circle, his fingers sliding on the skinny stem.

  “You never saw it?” Jimmy Steed marveled. He was still basking in the busboy's awed attention. “Was everyone jerking off in the theater, Amber?” Jimmy asked her. “At
night you get the better clientele—the hip young swingers, the women and the men. The early part of the day, that's when the guys come alone, or come back, alone. You get off on people jerking off watching you fuck, Amber? I sure do!”

  “Yes,” Amber said. “I do.”

  “Those guys imagine they're me,” Jimmy Steed said, “that they got the big ding-dong, and they're fucking this gorgeous whore— …”

  “That's the second time you've called me that, Jimmy,” Amber said calmly, not wanting to spend any of her stored anger on him, not now. “Just for the record, I have nothing against prostitutes, but I've chosen not to be one. You're the famous prostitute, Jimmy.”

  “Shit,” Jimmy gave the word three syllables. “Men can't be prostitutes.” He glanced at the woman he had pointed out earlier; their glances collided. The wife of the famous man touched her hair again. She said something to another of the three women with her, and they all looked at Margaret Manfred, who faced Amber. “Hey! Get this. Somebody sent me this little bottle in the mail—well, it wasn't really little—and guess what they wanted me to shoot in it?”

  The waiters arrived, the captain began serving. The A-1 Sauce was in a small peaked vial. With a flourish, the waiter placed it next to Jimmy, who devoured the meat with his eyes. The busboy rushed over, about to pour more water into the filled glass. He retreated just in time, but Jimmy granted him another smile.

  In the moments of the serving, the noise of Chez Toi asserted itself in broken cacophony. Jimmy poured all the sauce over his steak, coating it. A waiter looked wounded. Theodore began cutting the varied cold meats, neatly, tasting the chicken first, then the liver. Now he cut a piece of lamb and held it up between his plate and his mouth. The piece of meat was impaled on the fork, slightly away from him—almost as if he were going to toast Amber with it.

  “All right, Amber,” he said, the meat still in mid-journey, “Tell me what you're playing so I can play, too.”

  Afraid her words would drown in anger, she looked down at the salmon, a slab of pink flesh. She put down her fork, her appetite gone.

  “So! You saw Meat today—and you didn't like— …” Theodore paused like a judge about to pronounce sentence “… —yourself.”

  “I love seeing myself naked,” Amber asserted. “I like sex, sometimes I love it, and it excites me that men masturbate looking at me.”

  “You like other women's bodies?” Jimmy asked absently.

  “Yes,” Amber said.

  “You're not a lez?” Jimmy felt stung—somehow.

  “No—but I can still admire other women's bodies. What about you, Jimmy? You like other men's bodies?”

  “Hell, no,” Jimmy protested. “I'm no fag, you know that. Hell, I turn down— …”

  Theodore interrupted. “You're very serious, Amber—but you don't seem to know about what.”

  That strategy, that strategy! It allowed him to win without even fighting. “I am serious, very serious,” Amber said, “and I do know about what. And so do you.”

  “Tell me, tell me, tell me,” Theodore fired the words at her—but still softly. He said, “You didn't like how you looked fellating Jimmy?” Nothing sounded sexual coming from him, he rendered everything neuter. “We light you splendidly, you know. The best!—everything to display your beauty.”

  “I didn't care how I looked eating your pussy, yummy,” Jimmy said. “Meat—that's a great title, isn't it? … Hell, I love being a hunk of meat—a great big prime salami.”

  “Why are you suddenly ashamed of showing your body?” Theodore thrust at Amber.

  “You're doing it, Theodore, you're doing it—trying to confuse before anyone even explains.”

  “Then explain!” he said.

  Amber placed her hands on her lap, to contain her premature rage; he wanted to dissipate it, she knew. She glanced at Margaret Manfred. The woman ate carefully, tiny pieces on her fork, brought into her mouth, which hardly opened, her movements almost like those of a puppet, careful, guarded. When someone spoke to her, she merely leaned, slightly, in that direction.

  “I'm proud of my body,” Amber said, and then she formed the words: “You tricked me, Theodore.”

  “How did I trick you?” came the controlled words. “You get very well paid—the highest!—and more for this new film. You get well treated—always! You thought I wouldn't bring you to Chez Toi—oh, I knew that—but here you are. And just look at how that Manfred woman is looking at you. She hasn't taken her eyes off you. You know why? Because she'd give all her millions to look like you. Think of that. And have I ever even asked you to meet the people who make the big budgets possible—who want an introduction to you as a contingency? I tell them no, I won't stoop to that, I'm not a procurer, you're not a harlot— …”

  “Hell,” Jimmy said.

  “Did I ever force you to do anything?”

  “No,” Amber conceded. “I'm not ashamed of any of it.”

  “Damright.” Jimmy shaved at a strip of fat on his plate.

  Theodore lowered the fork with the stabbed meat, releasing the lamb onto the plate. He cut the liver. His appetite seemed aroused.

  “That scene where you had Jimmy hold his cock over my breasts while he made that hissing sound— …” Amber started.

  “Hot scene,” Jimmy enthused. “That's the one guys come back to see—alone—that one, but mostly the one it sets up.”

  “Which one?” Amber thrust. In his clumsy way, Jimmy would lead her into the territory where she was faltering.

  “Golden showers,” he said easily. “That's probably the main reason the movie's such a big hit.”

  Amber breathed in audibly. “You created the impression that Jimmy was pissing on my breasts, Theodore. And in my— …”

  “I was,” Jimmy said casually. He ate the stripped fat.

  The owner of Chez Toi was making his late lunch rounds now. Faces strained eagerly for his benediction. He chose those to honor, shaking a man's hand, kissing a woman's. Those passed over were shrouded in gloom. He approached Theodore's table. He glanced at Jimmy, quickly away; then at Amber, slowly, coolly. “Monsieur,” he touched Theodore's hand—more lightly than at other times, Amber knew, from Theodore's slight frown. Because of that perhaps, the owner reached to kiss Amber's hand. She dropped it to her lap. He glided away to dance about Margaret Manfred's table.

  “You're lying, Jimmy,” Amber said softly. “That scene was faked.”

  “Yeah. And no.” Jimmy chewed on the red, red meat.

  “It was water I rubbed on my breasts!” She faced Theodore's unblinking gaze. “You shot Jimmy pissing alone into the bathtub, then you spliced the film so it looked like he was doing it on me, and you inserted his line telling me to drink— …”

  “Some of it was piss—on your breasts,” Jimmy said easily. “When I stood under the shower with you in the tub, remember? Theodore told me to get a few drops in the water, make the fake golden showers look even realer.”

  Amber felt cold, hot, cold.

  Theodore fired: “I don't understand you, Amber. The camera has been almost inside you; you've been sodomized, you've fellated, you've had cunnilingus performed. And whether you pretend or not, you're the most convincing actress in erotic films. Everybody feels you love it—all.”

  “Goddammit, Theodore, what the hell was sexual about that scene—which you had to fake!” Despair echoed in her voice.

  Theodore's words were softer than ever, every word modulated, precise—the expensive corporate adviser explaining the most intricate transaction in the simplest terms. “You really don't understand, Amber. You're not just a woman on the screen. You're the beautiful woman. And you are—a perfect face, a beautiful body, the most famous breasts. When those men see Jimmy urinating— … pretending to urinate— …”

  “I did piss, you told me,” Jimmy emphasized.

  “…—on you,” Theodore continued without a break in his words, “they can pay you back for all the times they've wanted you—the beautiful woman they'v
e longed for, long for, without being able to have. You. They come to see you turned into raw meat. It's revenge, Amber—that's what you don't understand.”

  The buzzing in the restaurant drilled into Amber's ears. She saw the fat man in the oriental robe wave wildly at a woman in tight jeans, boots, t-shirt. Black oily liquid smeared the man's lips.

  “Did Jim piss on me?” Amber asked Theodore.

  “Yes,” Theodore's lips sealed the word with a forkful of cold lamb. “Just what do you want, Amber?” he asked her.

  “Not piss,” Amber said.

  “You want to be a serious actress?” It was the only time Theodore had allowed overt derision to sweep his voice “If you do, reduce your breasts. Have breast reduction. That's the only way anyone will take you seriously.”

  “Repeat that!” Amber commanded. Her hands were wet on the white silk.

  Theodore chewed on a piece of chicken. Jimmy basked in the attention of the people looking toward them.

  “That's what you've been doing all along,” Amber said, “reducing my body, my breasts, my sex—until no sex was left. Just revenge. What did you have planned for the next film?” She stood up.

  “Sit down, Amber. Everyone is watching,” Theodore said.

  Amber looked down at him: “I know why you are always so cool, Theodore, because you're always sweating and panting inside.”

  She walked away. Margaret Manfred's eyes seized her. The undisguised look wrenched at her even when, standing very near her, Amber challenged it. The maitre d'hotel froze, the captains stopped their movements about the room, all eyes in the restaurant swiveled. The two women stared into each other, deeply. It was Margaret Manfred who withdrew—looked away. Flustered, the captain snapped his fingers at all the waiters. In the rare silence of Chez Toi his Snap! was like the crack of a bullet. Margaret Manfred winced.

  Then Amber walked out of Chez Toi, hearing, behind her, like the hurried breathy prayers of commiseration at a spontaneous wake, the urgent whispering around Margaret Manfred.

  Outside, the young Mexican attendant ran to get Amber's car. She stood in the small lot, isolated—thinking she was isolated, until she heard the man's whistle and knew it was the same chauffeur.