by Dermot Davis
“What kind of movies do you make?” I ask, in a neutral tone which I hope suggests that I’m only here because of my interest in student film work and art, in general. But, as the movie starts, she doesn’t answer and sits beside me on the sofa.
I feel like saying that I’m here with Frances to clarify my position, but then she might think that it is presumptuous of me to think that she is interested in me. She’d probably laugh and later ridicule me in front of other guests and, as a consequence, it would embarrass the heck out of Frances. I don’t want to risk that or come off looking like an idiot, so I don’t say anything.
I figure that she’s probably just bored at an old folks’ party and maybe she wants or needs some encouragement of her work, her passion and her art, from an objective observer.
As classical music plays in the background, the camera slowly pans across a four poster bed. In the scene, Janice lies dressed in period attire and looks bored. A moment later, she gets up and looks out the window. She sees a gardener, chopping wood.
Janice beckons to the gardener and he tosses aside his axe, wiping the sweat from his brow, which to some ladies might be perceived as a turn on. The gardener sheepishly enters the room where Janice is and stands like he’s awaiting further instructions. Janice approaches him and takes off his hat: his long flowing hair falls down. The gardener is a woman.
Is this going where I think it’s going? Is this a friggin’ porno film?
I sneak a look at Janice but she seems riveted, as if watching it for the first time. On screen Janice takes the gardener’s hand and places it on one of her heaving, full breasts. Leaving it there, Janice slowly undresses the shy, female gardener.
I have absolutely no idea why guys get turned on watching girl-on-girl action. On so many levels it doesn’t make any sense why guys find it so terribly hot but they do and, guess what? I’m no exception. I’m beginning to panic because I have no friggin’ idea of how to watch this and in the process, prevent myself from getting a boner.
Short of closing my eyes and thinking of something horrible like the holocaust or something, I don’t think it can be done. Okay, if I make some excuse to leave, will that be like saying to a neophyte filmmaker that her work sucks? If I stay and this goes where I think it’s going, am I watching porn with a young woman I’m attracted to at a party my girlfriend brought me to and I can’t stop myself from getting turned on? This is so effed up.
“Are you liking it?” Janice asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“So far,” I say, tactfully. “What would you call this, soft porn?”
“It’s erotica,” Janice says, with a tone in her voice as if she’s insulted.
“What’s the difference?” I ask, because I seriously don’t know.
“Don’t you see the parallels with D. H. Lawrence?”
“I’m not familiar with his work. What kind of films does he make?”
“The author, D. H. Lawrence,” she corrects me, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover?”
“I haven’t read it, sorry.”
“It’s like if Mrs. Lawrence was to write the book, instead of her husband, maybe this is what it would look like,” she says earnestly.
I have no idea what point she’s making with this erotica movie, except maybe she’s making some feminist point about how men objectify women. I guess she’s turning the tables…and now, instead of a man, it’s a woman that’s objectifying women? That doesn’t make any sense. I need to get out of here fast and get another drink.
On screen, the door suddenly opens and the women react with panic as, I assume it’s the husband, comes barging in. He checks out the women and after a long cinematic moment that is loaded with all kinds of meaningful looks to each other, presumably denoting some weird shit subtext that I’m not even going to try to decipher, the Janice character extends her hand to the husband and invites him to join them.
He smiles as if he likes the idea and then he starts to undress and, oh, come on, this is porn, I don’t care what bullshit feminist point she claims to be making.
“You hate it,” Janice says, biting her lower lip. Boy, is it hot in here or is it just me?
“No, not at all,” I unabashedly lie. “I think it has a great message.”
The door opens and Frances stands in the doorway.
“There you are,” she says to me. “What are you up to?”
“Nothing,” I automatically say, in exactly the same tone and reactive sense of guilt with which I answered my father, when I was thirteen and he caught me smoking pot round back of the house.
“I’m showing Martin my short,” Janice says with a mix of familiarity and coldness that I can’t quite decipher. She pauses the DVD with the remote. “You don’t have a problem with me entertaining your boyfriend, do you?” Okay, definite coldness there. How come everyone here knows who I am?
“Are you being entertained, Martin?” Frances asks and I can’t tell if she’s okay with everything or if I’m in trouble.
“Oh, sure,” I say, as neutral as I can.
“Steve is about to leave, if you want a ride,” Frances says to Janice. “Or you’re welcome to crash here.”
“If I stay here, you’ll make me help clean up tomorrow,” Janice answers, getting up. “I’ll go with Steve.” She then turns to me. “Take care of the DVD for me and I’ll pick it up tomorrow, okay? We can talk about it then.”
“You bet.”
Janice leaves and Frances opens the door more fully to see what’s on the screen: a threesome. “You don’t have to watch the rest,” she says.
“Are you guys related?”
“Janice is my daughter. Beautiful, isn’t she?”
“You never said you had a twenty-year-old daughter?”
“You said you wanted things to be revealed as we went along, right? You can ask me anything you want.”
“Steve is her father?”
“No. I never kept in touch with her father. I was very young when I had her.”
“You were married twice?”
Frances sits beside me and takes my hands in hers. “I got pregnant when I was eighteen. It was all about free love back then and…well, I wasn’t sure who the real father was. Steve was crazy about me. He was older and, at the time, I thought he was really cool and very gallant for wanting to marry me when I was carrying someone else’s child. But that didn’t work out, obviously. As time went by we both realized that we weren’t very compatible but we remained friends and he was like a father to Janice. I know you think he’s weird and he is but I understand his weirdness and I know his heart. He has been a good friend to me over the years. There you have it.”
“You married again?”
“Yes, I did marry someone since Steve but that didn’t end well, at least for me and I don’t want to have any contact, ever. Let’s save that story for another day, what do you think?”
“This is a lot to digest and I honestly don’t know what to think.”
“Welcome to my life.” She smiles and once again, melts my heart and brings a smile to my lips. She is truly lovely and I feel giddy that she seems to really like me.
“We’re sleeping in here tonight. There’s some sheets and blankets behind the sofa, okay? Enjoy the movie.” She gives me a big wink and closes the door behind her as she leaves. I stare blankly at the TV for a few moments, not sure of my thoughts. There’s no way I can watch the rest of this crap. What I really need is another drink. Or six.
10. Tantric Sex
Okay, curiosity gets the better of me and I do watch the rest of Janice’s short. Just like any porn I’ve ever watched, which is not a lot, after the first titillating ten minutes, it becomes repetitive and boring. I’m really trying not to focus on the erotic aspect but instead look at it from a political point of view. I still don’t get it.
She can call it anything she likes: a satire, a political indictment, a commentary, an homage, a revisionist portrayal…Two women and a guy getting it on in a four poster bed? It’s porn.
At some point, I must have dozed off and I’ve no idea what time it is now. The “short” film has ended and the DVD logo floats around on the TV screen. Everything sounds quiet outside and there’s no sign of Frances. Is she punishing me by sleeping somewhere else?
I look behind the sofa and try and make a bed out of the jumble of blankets and sheets that I find there. It’s dark, the light switch is on the wall by the door and I’m too lazy to walk over and switch the lights on. I don’t think I can take the glare of the main lights, anyway, so I just drop where I am and try to get cozy among the wad of messed up blankets and bedding.
The door opens quietly and I smile that Frances is going to sleep with me after all. Except it doesn’t sound like Frances. The walking sounds like a man. I sneak a peek from around the end of the sofa and see a man’s pair of shoes. I hear him pick up the phone and dial.
“Hello there, my hot little Chickadee,” he says. It sounds like Chuck; who is he calling at this hour? Should I let him know that I’m here? “Guess who?” he says and his voice is really flirty. Maybe I should innocently cough or something.
“Boy, am I feeling horny for you, my hot little pumpkin.” Holy shit. I think now that the cat is out of the bag and if I were to declare myself it would be obvious that I have just caught him cheating on his wife!
“I want to ram my rod into your hot lower lips, you make me so hard.”
Oh, please god, let this not be happening. Phone sex? Seriously?
“I’m a horny, horny ramrod and I want you so bad I’m going to…”
Okay, at this point I cover my ears and mentally sing the last song that I heard, whatever is easily accessible. I sing ‘Happy Birthday to You’ as long and as loud as I can until my inner eardrums can’t take any more volume. The entire time I keep an eye on the door, praying that this horror of all horrors will be over soon and that the cheating son of a gun creeps back to his unassuming missus.
After what seems like an eternity, the door finally opens and Chuck sneaks out the same way he skulked in: like a thief in the night. Except this is his house and I guess he can do what he likes but jeez…
I’m numb from shock and the cold and feeling lost and alone in a strange room in a strange house, I gather up the bedding and huddle on the couch, practically rocking myself to and fro to stay calm. Frances finally comes in. I’m so glad to see her, I rush up and hug the life out of her.
“Wow,” she says, happily. “Somebody missed me.”
“Oh, I missed you,” I almost sob. “Don’t ever leave me again,” and in this moment I truly mean it.
“What’s going on?”
“What’s going on?” I ask, with all the grandiose indignation I can muster. “All your friends are weirdness personified: your ex-husband is a pervert, your daughter is a pornographer and your sister’s husband is having an affair.”
“Chuck is having an affair?”
“I would have taped the conversation but it was so disgusting, even my cell phone had its ears covered.”
“What was disgusting? What are you talking about?”
“I’m lying asleep behind the sofa and in sneaks Chuck, like…like a thief in the night…he didn’t know I was here and he got on the phone and called his mistress.”
“I don’t believe you. If he did call someone, it could have been a client or something.”
“Trust me. Whatever client takes calls at this time of night and has a conversation like that is in only one kind of business. It may be the oldest profession but it’s not a business you’d declare on your end of year taxes, if you get my drift.”
Frances looks at me like I’m nuts. So I pick up the phone that Chuck used.
“Don’t believe me, hit redial. See who answers. If you get her machine, you’ve got a name and a number. Case closed.”
“What if it’s not a she?”
“Pretty sure it’s a she. Go on. I dare you.”
“Did he say a name? Did you get his lover’s name?”
“No. But apparently she answers to the name of ‘hot little chickadee.’”
I didn’t actually think that Frances would do it but she does press redial and holds the phone to her ear. “Hello, who is this, please?” says Frances. I’m standing with my hands on my hips, and as I await vindication, I can’t help but admire how brave this woman is. If she was a man, I’d be admiring her hueovos but I’m not sure if you can use that term for a woman, even though, technically they do have them, at least once a month for some and...
“Oh, hi, Doris. It’s Frances.” What, now?
“I know it’s late but I…we can’t find the pillows.” Frances listens and then hangs up. We look at each other for a long moment, just the way Watson and Sherlock Holmes do on that TV show when they’re trying really hard to crack a difficult case.
“Chuck called his wife from the downstairs phone to have phone sex?” I say, encapsulating the mystery.
“I guess. If that’s what you heard.”
“I know what I heard,” I say. “I’m no expert in the field but I know phone sex when I hear it.”
“Maybe, because they are apart so much…” Frances says and stops.
“That that’s the only way they can have sex?” I finish her thought. “On the phone?”
“At least he’s not having an affair, right?”
“Yeah,” I agree. “It may be weird but at least no one’s getting hurt. Except maybe my poor ear drums and my delicate psyche.”
“Well, why don’t you get your delicate psyche over here to bed and I’ll kiss your ear drums better.”
“Okay.”
I lie down and take Frances into my arms. She smells so…soft and, well, I don’t know…fragrant. Whatever it is about her scent, I just want to lose myself in her…beingness, for want of a better word.
“What did you think of the book?” she whispers into my ear. I instantly grin. Holy crap, she wants to have tantric sex.
“I liked it,” I say, which is a ridiculous understatement.
“What did you like about it?” she whispers playfully, her lips brushing against my ear lobes and inextricably registering in the pleasure centers of my brain.
“I like…trying new things.”
“You want to try new things with me?”
“Totally.”
“What was your favorite…position?”
“All of them. There wasn’t a position in there that I didn’t like. I want to do all of them…with you.” I almost giggle.
“Why don’t we start at the beginning?”
“Absolutely. Now?”
“No time like the present, right? Unless you’re too tired.”
“I’m not too tired. Are you too tired?”
“Take your clothes off.”
I can’t explain how fantastically gorgeous it is to feel Frances’ naked body against mine: her warm soft skin is unreal. If I was a poet I’d be using words like yielding and yearning and, I don’t know, mellifluous, which would be a huge challenge to put into an acceptable sentence. She yielded her mellifluous body into my yearning embrace. Not actually sure what mellifluous means but then I never understood half the poetry that I learned by heart in high school.
“Now lean back a little,” Frances says softly as I effortlessly get into position, “does that feel good?” It feels so gosh darn good, that I now know where songwriters get their song lyrics from. We are moving, slipping and sliding, grooving rhythmically to the beat of each other’s bodies. Ooh, baby, baby, it’s a wild world…
“Does that feel good?” Frances asks again.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Feels good for me, too.”
“It’s more than good, it’s amazing,” I say, just as I’m about to…
“Don’t come,” she says.
“What?”
“Don’t come. It’s tantric. You read the book, right?”
“The text was so boring and confusing, I mostly just looked at the pictures.”
&nbs
p; “In tantric sex you reach orgasm without coming.”
“What, now? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”
“You circulate the energy internally, instead of letting it explode in orgasm.”
“Too late,” I say and I explode. I see stars. I see galaxies forming and exploding and like a circle in a spiral and wheel within a wheel, never ending or beginning…
“Are you okay?” Frances asks as I collapse to the bed.
“I’m fine,” I say with the widest grin my face has ever seen. “How are you?”
11. Love Is A Drug
I wake up before Frances and again, all I want to do is watch this beauty sleep. I’ve never watched anybody sleep before. I’ve seen people asleep but it’s not the same, I’ve never actually studied them. Not that I’m studying Frances so much as just admiring her, maybe admiring is not the right word, either. I can see how poets have difficulty finding the right words to define things that aren’t really definable.
Maybe I will try my hand at poetry and try to describe what I’m seeing with my eyes when I take a picture of something. I really think that photography is like poetry for the eyes.
She sleeps like an infant sleeps
This lady with the turbulent past
Yet in sleep, innocence becomes her
“You watching me sleep again?” Frances says without opening her eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” I say.
“Sounds like you got it bad.”
“I got it bad and that ain’t good,” I say, without missing a beat. “Got what bad?”
“When a person falls in love, the body releases a bunch of chemicals and hormones. You’re high on endorphins.”
“What are you saying? Love is a drug?”
“Yep.”
“I don’t care. I’m feeling good.”
“You’d do anything for me, right now, wouldn’t you?”
“You have something in mind?” I say suggestively.
“Breakfast in bed would be a real treat,” Frances says, bursting my bubble, that’s not what I had in mind, at all.
“You got it!” I say, jumping up instantly because, in truth, all I want to do is make her happy.
