These Curious Pleasures

by Sloane Britain

  Amy went around the group exchanging pleasantries with each one of them. When she got to Allison I saw a change in her expression. The long drink. She'd never looked at me that way. O.k., so she didn't go for me. I wasn't her type. No crime in that.

  They went through the formality of reading for Amy. She okayed them all. Arrangements were made for rehearsals to be held at the Silver Medallion Studios in the Bronx starting the next week. Then everybody left and the production crew came in.

  This was the roughest part for me. Budgets had to be drawn up, computed by me, typed by me, rejected by Happy, drawn up again, computed again, typed again.

  I was astounded by the costs. A little thing like light bulbs was going to cost them $300. Everything had to be figured out in advance or they'd end up running thousands of dollars over the budget. As it turned out it rained one day when they were supposed to shoot outdoor shots and the delay cost them $7,000.

  The office was in even more of an uproar than usual. The production crew manager yelled at his assistant. Steve and Jack yelled at each other and at the crew manager. The crew manager yelled back. Happy yelled at everybody. No matter what they screamed at each other, everyone called everyone names that were more appropriate in the bedroom. In this business men call each other darling, doll, sweetie and lover all the time.

  The crew manager would bellow to me: "Darling, have you got the new schedules typed yet?" Then to Jack: "You'll see, doll, this new budget is a sweetheart."

  Jack would yell back: "Lover, it better be. I love you madly, passionately and without reservation but we can't spend $5000 for one set."

  And Happy would scream from his office: "What did I hear about $5000 for one set? What are you trying to do? Screw me? Take it easy with my dough, you bastards. Cut that crap about overtime. We're making this thing on schedule or we're not making it at all, right dolls?"

  And Steve would thunder back: "Happy, you son-of-a-bitch, we're doing the best we can. Stop bugging us."

  And I'd shriek: "Pipe down, will you. I can't hear myself think!" The atmosphere was beginning to get me and I was finding a capacity for vocal volume I never knew I had.

  Then the chorus would come in: "You're right, doll." "Sweetheart, you've got a point there." "Baby, we need you around here to keep us in line."

  Two minutes later they were all screaming again.

  I didn't have a chance to think all morning. I made up for it at lunch time.

  I fell into a seat at the delicatessen thinking that I'd never be able to get out of it again. Was I beat! I didn't even have the energy to fight my memories. So I thought about Marilyn. What else?

  Why did she have to treat me that way? Was that how she got her kicks? I loved her so much.

  Then I realized what I was saying to myself. Loved her? Past tense? Was I finally getting over her?

  It wasn't much to go on but it held the possibility of release from the most complete of tyrannies—the tyranny of memory. I went back to work ready to cope with anything and anybody.

  The afternoon was a repetition of the morning. Work and noise.

  By the time I left that evening, I was almost glad to be spending an evening home alone. I was so tired all I wanted to do was go to bed. Alone, for a change.

  I had been home less than an hour when the phone rang. It was Allison.

  "How the hell did you get my number?" I asked. I'm very polite when I'm tired.

  "It's in the telephone book."

  "Oh," I said.

  "I was wondering if you'd like to have dinner with me tonight?" Allison asked.

  I was beginning to feel better already.

  "What about coming up to my place?" she continued. "I could have dinner ready by the time you got here."

  She gave me her address and I said I'd be there in an hour. I was there in an hour and a quarter. I liked to play hard to get.

  Allison lived in a three room fiat in the West Eighties.

  It was one of those furnished deals that look like somebody had used the furniture in a juggling act.

  She told me her room-mate was out of town until tomorrow. She was an airline stewardess. I just raised an eyebrow. She got the message.

  "She's straight," Allison said. "We're just good friends."

  I'd heard that pitch before.

  It was sweet of her to make dinner for me but she should have let me help her. I could have opened the cans. I shouldn't complain. Canned or not it was food and I wasn't looking for a woman who could cook.

  After dinner we went to a neighborhood gay bar. The place was almost empty. Those places outside the Village only do real business on weekends.

  Most of the time we had talked about show business. Allison was still starry-eyed. I tried to set her straight about some of the hard realities of the theatre but I knew I wasn't reaching her. These kids only learn by experience.

  As the drinks began to hit me my mind shifted to far more interesting topics. Allison was wearing a pair of skin tight frontier pants and a sweater that made the first one I had seen her in look like a sack.

  "Let's dance," I said.

  "But no one else's dancing," she said.

  "Be a nonconformist. It's the style this season," I said.

  That dreadful moment came when we were out on the dance floor. One advantage to dancing with men... it's never a question who is going to lead.

  Allison solved the problem by immediately assuming the follower's position. That told me a lot. Now I knew what would be expected of me in other circumstances. It was fine with me. I'm a switch-hitter.

  She felt good in my arms. You'd think to look at her that she might be a little too thin but I found that there was meat on them there bones.

  She broke into my reverie by asking, "Why do you talk the way you do?"

  "Huh?" I asked brightly.

  "You know what I mean. Like a well-read Mickey Spillane character. Sarcastic and bitter."

  "That is because what you see is just a shell of my former self," I said. "I have been buffeted about by the winds and tides of human experience and now I am a broken woman trying vainly to present a brave face to the world. I joke that others may laugh while I cry inside."

  "Go to hell," she said pleasantly and snuggled closer to me.

  I could feel her body against mine. Her soft breasts were pressed tight against me. At every step I could feel the length of her long thighs against mine.

  Other people were dancing now. They kept feeding the jukebox and Allison and I kept dancing. A rock-and-roll number with a heavy beat came on. I tried the fish. In case you don't know, that's doing upright what rightly should be done horizontally.

  Allison went into the fish like a pro. That was as good as giving me references.

  "Let's get out of here," I said.

  "Oh, do you have to leave so soon? I was hoping we could be together for a few more hours," Allison said.

  "Fine with me. What about going back to your place?"

  "No."

  "Why not?" I asked.

  "Because I'm after a run-of-the-play contract and that's not the way to get it with you."

  "Don't be silly. How do you know it'll make any difference to me whether you sleep with me on our first date or not?"

  "Just a feeling I have about you," Allison answered.

  "Nonsense. You're a prude and you're trying to put the blame on me."

  "Think that if you want but it's not true. I'd love to go to bed with you tonight, Sloane, but I'm going to want to go to bed with you in the future too. I just think it'd be better for both of us if we don't rush it."

  "Why did you give me the free sample on the dance floor then? You knew what you were doing and what effect it was having on me."

  Allison smiled so sweetly I wanted to push her face in and said, "Call it an audition. I said I was after a run-of-the-play contract."

  "This show just closed out of town." I said and pushed her ahead of me to the checkroom.

  We got our coats and left the bar.
I should have just dropped her there but that was no neighborhood to let a girl walk around in alone. I walked her home.

  In front of her building I gave her her last chance. "Changed your mind?" I asked.

  She hadn't. I left without saying another word.

  I wasn't going to get hung up over any two-bit broad. The nerve of her to work me up that way for a big letdown! I took a cab to Lorraine's.

  Lorraine answered the door in her pajamas.. She had been sleeping. "What have you got against telephones?" she asked.

  "They would have slowed me up," I said. I walked straight into the bedroom and started divesting myself of encumbering clothing.

  "Don't you want a drink or some coffee first?" Lorraine asked.

  "No. Waste of time." I grabbed Lorraine and slipped my hand under her pajama top. I cupped her breast in my hand, teasing the nipple with my thumb.

  "Hey, aren't you taking a lot for granted?" Lorraine asked.

  "Yes and you don't mind a bit. You go for the caveman approach and you know it."

  "You bastard," Lorraine said.

  "So I'm a bastard. I'm a lot of other things too. You can tell me all about it afterward. We've got more important things to take care of now." I guided her toward the bed. When we were almost there she stumbled and fell and I was on top of her in a second.

  "For Christ's sake, let's at least get into the bed," Lorraine said.

  "O.K." I can be obliging.

  We got into the bed. I kissed her hard.

  Lorraine had an educated pelvis. She pushed it against me rhythmically until I thought I'd flip. I wanted her to wait for it. She'd appreciate it more that way.

  I took her breasts in my hands like they were two oranges to be squeezed. I trailed my tongue leisurely from the tip of one to the tip of the other. Lorraine was going out of her head.

  She was bruising the hell out of me with that overactive pelvis of hers. I got back at her with my hip bone. Placed properly it was punishing and I had it right where it would hurt. Healthy girl that Lorraine, she pushed herself up against me like she was going for it. If that was what she dug I was more than willing to give it to her.

  "Give it to me, baby. Give it to me," Lorraine breathed.

  We went crazy. She was holding me so tightly I thought I'd come out on her other side. We were making it together in perfect rhythm.

  I could feel Lorraine's body stiffening against mine just as I felt myself beginning to reach a peak. But then I went dead inside. Lorraine was groaning ecstactically but I wasn't with her.

  "That night between her lips and mine thy shadow fell, Cynara." Cynara alias Allison Millay. That's what went wrong. I was in bed with the wrong woman and I couldn't go through with it.

  Lorraine was so gone she didn't know the difference. Afterward, I just pretended I was played out and went to sleep.

  * * *

  The next day was a Saturday. I didn't have to go to work so I stayed in bed late.

  I could hear Lorraine puttering around the apartment. She was singing softly under her breath. She sounded happy. I had brought a little sunshine into her life. You can twist anything around to your own advantage if you try hard enough.

  I lay in bed thinking about Allison. I wanted her. Bad. She had succeeded better than she thought.

  I was just about to call her on the bedside phone when Lorraine came in. Ordinarily I liked to talk to Lorraine.

  She's a bright kid and easy to get along with. But that day she irritated me.

  I made up a story about a dentist's appointment and left.

  I could hear the telephone ringing as I unlocked the door to my apartment. It was Allison.

  "I was so worried," she said. "I called you last night to see if you got home safely."

  "I stayed with a friend," I said.

  There was a silence on the other end of the line. Then Allison said, "Well, I just wanted to make sure you were all right. Call me some time."

  "Allison, don't hang up. Are you free today? We could go to a movie or something."

  There was a definite note of triumph in her voice when she agreed to meet me.

  The bitch insisted that we go to a movie. So we went. I didn't pay any attention to the film. Allison's nearness was too distracting.

  I had to face facts. I had to play the game her way. That's the only way I'd get what I wanted. I was beginning to have a suspicion that she’d be getting what she wanted too.

  So we left the movie and went to dinner in the Village and then to another gay bar. We drank and talked. I wanted her so much I would have raped her on the spot if I had thought I could get away with it.

  We stayed at the bar late and then took a cab uptown. Allison squeezed my hand as she got out of the cab at her house. Big deal. I stayed in the cab and went on home. Boy, was I hung.

  On Monday Judy told me I had been promoted to Production Assistant. That meant the same salary, same kind of work but I'd be working at the studio part of the time and the rest of the time in the office.

  I lit out for the studio like a bat out of hell. Allison would be rehearsing there.

  They were rehearsing in a big studio. All around them technicians were arranging lights, measuring camera angles and distances, and taking light readings. Carpenters were still working on some of the sets. The painters were sitting around looking bored waiting for the sets to be ready for painting. Happy was running around getting in everybody's way and screaming about how much it was costing him for the painters to be idle.

  It was utter pandemonium. Compared to this the noise in the office was nothing.

  Allison was feeding lines to one of the actors in a corner of the studio. I ran towards her, nearly breaking my neck a hundred times on cables, lumber and miscellaneous workingmen that were strewn all over the floor.

  I was brought up short by the impact of an arm suddenly thrust across my diaphragm. "What the hell...?" I gasped.

  It was Perry Matthews, the director. "Sloane, am I glad to see you here! Look, I called Judy and asked her to have you put on this job this morning so that you'd get Happy out of our hair. He's driving everybody nuts. We'll never get anything done this way. Darling, Happy's a great guy. Salt of the earth. But I'll strangle him if he tells me how to do my job once more," he said.

  "Take it easy, Perry," I said. "I'll get rid of him for you."

  I found Happy lying on a huge four-poster bed that was one of the props. He was talking to the crew manager and giving him hell about not having the sets ready. The crew manager was trying to point out that they didn't need the sets for rehearsals and that shooting wouldn't start for two days and everything would be ready by then. Happy wouldn't let him get a word in earwise.

  I waited until the great man paused for breath and then marched over and started to give him the treatment Judy-style.

  "Happy, you look awful. I talked to Mrs. Broadman today" (a lie) "and she told me you only got two hours sleep last night and that you didn't even have any breakfast this morning." (a good guess.) You had to treat Happy like a child, a backward one at that, if you wanted to get anywhere with him.

  "Darling, you should have my troubles. I don't have time to blow my nose with all these schlemiels trying to screw me right and left," he said.

  "I should have your money," I said. "Come on, take me out to breakfast and I'll let you tell me all your troubles."

  He sat up on the edge of the bed and gave me a pathetic look from behind his horn-rimmed glasses. "I can't leave, baby. This place would fall apart without me."

  "We'll give them an object lesson. We'll leave them all alone. Then, when we come back, we can show them how they've done everything wrong and how much they need us."

  "Jesus, you're beginning to talk like Judy. Can't I even get some respect from my own employees?" he asked.

  "I doubt it," I said. "Come on, let's get some coffee." I walked him out of the place fast before he could change his mind. Allison hadn't even noticed that I had been there.

  We foun
d a luncheonette about a block away. It was one of those frighteningly sterile places. You know, tile floor, marble topped counter, white walls, sexless waitress. We took a table near the window and then both started giggling when we noticed the cafe espresso machine. It was sandwiched in behind the counter between a chrome-plated electric juicer and a chromier milkshake machine.

  Over breakfast Happy let me in on some of the ins behind the ins of the Harold Broadman Office. It took a lot of effort to keep from vomiting.

  With a perfectly straight face Happy filled me in on the mechanics of financing his various projects. It seemed perfectly logical to him that he milked one client to pay for the schemes of another. He had corporate setups with most of his clients, Broadson, Inc. with Amy Ferguson; Banman, Inc. with Marv Banner; Dalman, Inc. with Dallas Weaver, etc. As president and treasurer of the corporations he was able to manipulate the funds.

  So, for instance, if he saved money for Broadson, Inc. when making the Ferguson pilot he would use the dough for backing Marv Banner, the comedian. And if Marv Banner got his own show that way then Happy would make more money in commissions. Very simple, very crooked.

  I had thought before this that something was peculiar but I hadn't quite understood what was going on. There were little things like making personal long-distance calls on one of the corporation's phones, charging a corporation for office supplies that hadn't been ordered, taking money for his own use from the petty cash box, etc. The whole set-up stank to high heaven.

  But if I wanted to stay in that business I had to expect shady goings-on. At least I knew how Happy Broadman stole his money. If I had gone to work for another producer, I might have had to wait longer to figure out his angles. Like I've said before, there's no business like show business.

  Happy and I checked back at the studio before heading downtown. We were both due back at the office in a half hour and it was a forty-five minute ride back but I had to fight like a tiger to get him out of the place.

  While Happy was bugging Perry Matthews about something or other, I went over to Allison.