by Judith Gould
He met her at the lift door, which opened right into the loft. 'You're early,' he said. Smiling like the Cheshire cat.
'I'm punctual,' she corrected, laughing. 'I always am. It has something to do with defective genes, I think.'
He looked delighted to see her and watched as she reached back and pulled her waist-length hair from inside the collar of her field jacket and shook it loose. Below the shapeless utilitarian olive green, her legs were encased in a second skin of outrageously expensive French jeans which were tucked into a pair of gleaming high-heeled fuchsia cowboy boots. He looked at her approvingly. 'You are a sight for sore eyes. Come in.'
'Said the spider to the fly?' she asked softly as she breezed across the threshold and shrugged off her glove-leather fuchsia shoulder bag. She watched as he rolled the heavy, riveted metal door shut and latched it with a heavy iron bar. Then she followed him across the wooden floor, shiny as the floor of a gym, to the distant seating area where thriving tall ficus trees were spotlighted by can lamps, created a dappled, leafy shadow effect on the ceiling. Four sofas, each draped with rich, shimmering lengths of silvery fabric faced one another across a shipping pallet which had been pressed into service as a coffee table. Enormous abstracts, bold slashes of colour, hung on the exposed-brick walls. The view north looked out at the distant Empire State Building and the glittering office towers of midtown. Janis Joplin wailed softly over the turned-down powerful stereo. Daliah liked the place at once. There was something exceedingly stylish and eminently luxurious about all that barren, empty space in the middle of one of the most crowded cities in the world.
'This place is nice,' she said, parking her huge bag on one of the couches.
'I'm glad you like it. Why don't you have a seat while I get you a copy of the script. Then I'll explain my overall idea to you. Would you like some wine? I happen to have a decent Bordeaux uncorked.'
She shook her head. 'I'm purging today. A glass of plain water will suit me just fine.'
'I'll be right back with it. Make yourself comfortable.'
She took a seat on one of the couches. The fabric felt luxurious. She ran her hands over it. It was antique Fortuny. 'You have good taste,' she said.
He handed her a glass of Perrier on ice. 'More taste than money, I'm afraid,' he said with a smile. 'Right now, even if I had the money, I wouldn't spend it on any more furnishings. God only knows what location I'll be sent to next month.'
She heard some pounding and scraping noises and turned around. 'Is that someone hammering?'
He followed her gaze to where a white linen curtain hung down from the ceiling, neatly dividing the 150-foot loft in half. 'Why don't you go and see for yourself,' he suggested softly. The Cheshire cat smiled wider now.
Obediently she rose, put her glass down on the pallet, and walked the fifty-odd feet to the curtain. She hesitated, and then pulled it swiftly aside. She caught her breath. For a moment she could only stare in amazement. Two young men and a stringy-haired blonde in overalls were busy putting the finishing touches on what was obviously a three-sided movie set.
She moved closer to it, her eyes everywhere at once. It looked amazingly authentic, as though a musty, stuffy middle-class parlour had been scooped up from pre-war Berlin and set down right here in Manhattan. Everything looked historically correct, right down to the fussy pattern of the wallpaper, the faded, tattered Oriental rug, the Biedermeier secretary, the Bechstein piano with its clutter of old photographs and bibelots, and the overstuffed armchairs complete with yellowed lace antimacassars. And facing all that were the high-tech implements of a much more recent decade—floodlights on trolleys, an overhead microphone boom, and a professional thirty-five-millimetre camera, as well as all the other expensive paraphernalia and accoutrements of the professional filmmaker. A jumble of thick black electrical cables snaked across the floor.
'Oh, glad you're there, Jer,' the blonde girl called out. She moved a chair a few inches to her left. 'You want the piano the way it's there now, or you want it on the other side, by the window?'
'Where it is now is fine, Marie. But the backdrop outside the window is still too garish. Soften it up with some more tree branches. I want an effect of very hazy, dappled sunlight once the floods are switched on.'
'Will do, boss.' She grinned and saluted. 'That lady our star?' She indicated Daliah.
'It is. Why don't you stop what you're doing for a minute and come meet her. And you guys too.'
Marie and the two men dropped what they were doing and came on over.
'This is Marie,' Jerome said. 'Marie, meet Daliah.'
Marie gave her the once-over and grinned. 'Pleased to meetcha.' She stepped forward, popped a giant pink chewing-gum bubble, and pumped Daliah's hand vigorously.
'Marie is our set designer,' Jerome explained. 'And this is Tim Fawcett, and Ian Potter. From their names they might sound like a plumbing company, but believe me they're first-rate engineers. Tim works the sound and Ian the lighting.'
'Fawcett and Potter at your service,' Ian and Tim said in a chorus.
Daliah laughed. 'Nice to meet you both.' She shook their hands and nodded at the set. 'You've been busy. I must say it looks impressive. Up to now I've been calm and collected, but just seeing the set and all that equipment is making me weakkneed.'
'I've got just the thing to calm you down,' Marie said. She went to get her bag, rummaged through it, and came up with a Marlboro box stuffed full of rolled joints. She extracted one, stuck it in her mouth, and struck a match. She took a couple of puffs and handed it to Daliah.
Daliah held it delicately between two fingers and looked at it for a moment. 'I've never done this before,' she confessed sheepishly.
'There's no time like a first time.' Marie smiled brightly. 'Just inhale deeply, hold it, and let it out slowly. It'll make you into a new person. I guarantee it.'
Daliah took a deep toke, held the smoke in, and broke out in a coughing fit. Then it subsided and a sense of well-being flooded through her. She passed the joint to Jerome, who took two puffs and passed it on.
'Good pot,' Jerome said. He looked at Marie. 'Got any more I can buy off you?'
Marie shook her head. 'One of my boyfriends was making a film on the West Coast and brought it back with him. He only gave me half an ounce.'
Tim passed the joint back to Marie. 'Well, we'd better get back to work.' He made a little gesture for Daliah's benefit. 'Jerome's a slave driver and wants us ready to roll by the weekend.'
Daliah turned to Jerome. 'So soon?'
'And why not?' he asked. 'We have the script, we have the equipment, and now we have the actress. The other members of the technical crew and the supporting actors will come and go on an as-needed basis.' He glanced around. 'Where's Cleo?'
'She was working on the costume sketches just a minute ago,' Ian said. 'Maybe she jumped into the bathroom.'
'Cleo!' Jerome called out.
'Comin', White Bwana,' a muffled voice called back cheerfully. There was a distant flush and a moment later a young, thin black woman with an urchin's face and glowing, intelligent, but naughty eyes and the build and poise of a model stepped out of the bathroom and came toward them. Her hair was corn-rolled, her face had a lively expression, and she was dressed in baggy army fatigue pants and a tight-fitting camouflage T-shirt. Yet despite all the man-tailored military green, there was something decidedly feminine about her, and the perfectly shaped apple-sized breasts tipped with aggressively jutting nipples made it clear that T-shirts were not for men only. 'What's the matter,' she asked. 'Can't a girl have a wee in pea—' She came to an abrupt halt. Slowly she bent forward, her eyes widening to saucers. 'Daliah?' she asked incredulously under her breath. 'White Woman, is that you?'
Daliah leaned toward the black woman and blinked her own eyes in disbelief. Her voice was just as incredulous. 'Miss Cleopatra, honey?' she asked softly. 'Is that you?'
Cleo's wide mouth curved into a huge white grin. 'Well, I'll be damned!'
And the
n they were both laughing happily and flew into each other's arms, embracing warmly. After a minute they drew back, each holding the other at arm's length.
'Jesus, it's been years!' Cleo exclaimed, laughing and crying at the same time.
'Seven years, to be exact.'
'Wrong. Six years, ten months, and let me see . . . twenty-four days.' Then they hugged each other again. 'Jesus! After we lost touch Ah never thought I'd see you again. What are you doin' here?'
'Haven't you heard?' Daliah said. 'I'm the star of Jerome's movie.'
Hearing his name, Jerome cleared his throat noisily and both Daliah and Cleo looked at him. Only now were they aware of the perplexed looks the others were giving them.
'I take it you two know each other?' Jerome said at last.
'Shore do.' Cleo nodded happily. 'I was an exchange student in my sophomore year, and Ah spent it in Israel. Then we sorta got out of touch.' She turned to Daliah. 'Well, we ain't gonna let that happen again, are we?'
Daliah shook her head. Her eyes were shining.
'What I want to know,' Cleo asked Jerome succinctly, 'is how the hell did you ever talk her into starring in this shoestring movie, anyway?'
'I asked her. Why?'
'Don't you know she could be in anything she wanted?'
Now it was Jerome's turn to be puzzled. For once he looked out of his depth. 'I don't understand.'
Cleo shook her head in disbelief. 'White Bwana,' she declared, placing her hands on her hips and arching her back, 'you mean you don't know who she is?'
He looked at her blankly and then peered at Daliah closely. 'No. Should I?'
' 'Course you should.' Cleo placed an affectionate arm around Daliah's shoulders. 'This here is the daughter of one of the movie greats of all time. Just so you find it out sooner instead o' later, her mother happens to be your number-one screen idol!'
He stared at Daliah. 'You mean—'
'Thas right.' Cleo nodded. 'White Woman here, she the daughter of the one and only Tamara. But what Ah wanna know is, what's she doin' in an amateur production like ours!'
Daliah heard the key turning in the lock, and then the door of the suite opened and shut. Still in her Ishagiatsu pressure-point pose, she opened her eyes and twisted her head around. Jerome was standing just inside the door. His wire-rims reflected a shaft of sunlight, and he was holding a bottle of Cristal champagne by the neck in each hand. A crystal champagne glass was tucked under each of his armpits. He grinned wickedly. She lowered her arms from her head and wrenched her knees together. Now that he was back, the calm the Ishagiatsu had inspired was all for nothing. Just seeing him made her temper return in force. 'Welcome back, stranger,' she said sarcastically. 'What's the matter? The party finally over?'
Ignoring her, he strutted wordlessly over to the desk by the window. He set the bottles and glasses down and with a flourish began peeling the foil off one of the bottles.
She climbed to her feet and thumped over to him. Angrily she grabbed his forearm just as he popped the cork. It went flying across the room.
'Don't ignore me, dammit!' she yelled, pulling him around to face her. 'Where were you all this time while the sharks were having me for breakfast?'
One corner of his mouth twisted into a grin. 'While the sharks were having you for breakfast,' he said, maddeningly unfazed by her outburst, 'I was out shaking the money tree, chérie. And guess what fell?'
'Obviously something hard and near-lethal, but not hard enough to kill you, which is what you deserve and what I'm going to do to you in a second! You are a skunk and a prick and a dildo and a piece of scum! Eat shit and die!'
'Said like a true lady,' he said with a good-humoured bow. 'How does seventeen-million-five sound to you?' He waved the bottle in front of her. 'Care to celebrate?'
She was suddenly speechless and all she could do was stare. Seventeen million, five hundred thousand dollars was the exact amount of money he'd budgeted as necessary for their next film!
'Well?' he said slowly, leaning into her face. 'Has the cat got your tongue? Meow? Meeeowww?'
She couldn't trust herself to speak. 'You . . . you mean to say you managed to raise it all?' she said shakily. 'Already? On the very first day?'
'Every penny. Every last shekel and shilling and yen and sou. Every buck and pound and beautiful drachma. My name isn't skunk and prick and dildo for nothing. Now all we have to do is push the foreign sales of Red Satin, and then we're flying!' He rubbed her with his nose and leered at her. 'I don't have to meet with the backers until lunch. What do you say we kill a couple of hours in bed?'
'Did you think you had to ask?' she said seductively, and with one fluid movement snatched up the unopened bottle and walked into the bedroom.
Chapter 2
Jerome hung the do not disturb sign outside the door, took the phone off the hook, and shut out the world behind closed windows and thick, heavy curtains. The noise from the traffic jam was muted now, and the room was a dim, sensuous womb. Bright slivers of sunlight leaked through the chinks between the curtains, each beam a spotlight alive with dust motes dancing suspended in the air. Leontyne Price warbled Samuel Barber's Knoxville: Summer of 1915 on the big portable tape deck. The second bottle of champagne was half-empty on the nightstand, and the air smelled pungently of marijuana.
They were lying side by side on the big double bed, looking dreamily up at the ceiling as they passed a joint back and forth. After a few more puffs, Jerome pinched it out and placed it carefully in the ashtray. Then he slid around, got to his knees, and looked down at her.
Her arms were streched lazily above her head, the pillow entirely hidden by the glossy blanket of her fanned-out hair. She had one knee casually bent, and the other leg stretched out straight, her toes languorously playing with the corner of a sheet. Even in a languid pose, there was something of the jungle cat about her, at once tauntingly feline, yet almost virilely powerful. Naked, she always looked charged, ready for sex. Her brownish nipples jutted like small hard cones from the dusty-rose areolae of her conical breasts, and her lean, hard body looked ready to pounce. There wasn't an ounce of superfluous flesh on her. From her neat lattice of ribs down to her forward-thrusting pelvic bones and sleek, coltish legs, her entire body seemed as streamlined as a Deco statue. Her smooth, muscular belly dipped smoothly inward, so that her hairless mound seemed to rise aggressively outward, a firm pink hill.
As always, the mere sight of her nakedness and the mellow high of the pot had aroused him. His swollen penis was slender and pink, and swooped upward at a rakish curve. His testicles were two tight little fists taut against their nest of dark pubic hair. His eyes gleamed devilishly.
She looked up at him in anticipation, her lips slightly parted, the tip of her pink tongue visible between her straight glossy white teeth.
Slowly he reached down and strummed his fingertips back and forth across her nipples so that each fingertip brushed them ever so slightly. The ticklish sensation made her catch her breath, and she began to grind her pelvis obscenely into the sheet. From the heavy way she breathed, he could tell that she was ready.
But for him it was too soon. The game had barely begun.
He dipped two fingers into the open jar of Vick's Vap-O-Rub he had handy on the nightstand and scooped some out. Deftly he smeared a little dab on each of her nipples and slowly worked it in. Instantly she could smell the eucalyptus and, as the menthol made her nipples start to tingle, they jutted out more aggressively than before. Cruelly he slid a glob of Vick's inside her vagina and another up her anus. In a moment her back arched in such a spasm of agony that her pelvis lifted up off the bed and she seemed to levitate. He probed some more and she squeezed her eyes shut and thrashed her head back and forth in ecstasy. Suddenly he slid his fingers back out, kneaded her nipples, and squeezed. She went crazy, the burning and tingling inside and out making her writhe like a cat in heat.
It was exactly how he wanted her.
'You thirsty?' he asked.
S
he nodded.
Grabbing the champagne, he swigged straight from the bottle, filling his mouth. Then he held her face between his hands and pressed his lips against hers. She parted them, and slowly he fed her little spurts of champagne from his mouth. At first she looked surprised and then her throat worked hungrily. It tasted warm and tingly.
He drew his head back and watched, pleased by the way she licked her lips lewdly. Then he lowered himself gently atop her. A moment later she could feel his penis sliding between her warm, wet thighs. She braced herself, squirming into position, parting her legs wide and relaxing her muscles to make the entry easier. Little by little he prodded himself into her. When his hardness filled her completely, she felt impaled. 'Oh, God, God!' she cried out at the exquisite sensation. With grim determination she scissored her legs tightly around his waist and clutched him close.
Slowly he began to ease in and out with steadily mounting thrusts.
Everything inside her burst into glorious, sparkling life. Every thrust and retreat hit a raw nerve and sent delicious ripples of passion through her entire body. The movement inside her slid and throbbed, and her face shone eagerly as she gazed up at him. His tempo built as his need became more urgent, and still clamping her legs tightly to hold him close, she began to grind her hips, thrashing and rolling and lifting herself halfway off the bed as she responded with a wild abandon, pushing her hips up and forward to meet his thrusts. Her face became contorted into a grim mask of concentration; purring sounds rasped from deep within her throat.
Quickening his ramming thrusts, he dug his fingers into her buttocks and rode her for all he was worth, throwing himself aggressively into her. His face was grotesque with an unholy joy. His muscles gleamed as they strained. And still he triphammered, pounding in and out of her, faster and faster and faster. The blood was roaring through her and a rushing sound rose in her ears. Liquid fire erupted within the depths of her womanhood. Soon he had to explode; surely he couldn't continue on this way much longer.
