NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD - Chapter 28 -by Peter Nolan Smith

TWENTY-EIGHT

"You should have seen the look on the faces of girls in the brothel, when we walked in decked out in leather. They couldn't figure out, if we were lost or looking for a job. Then I tell the madame, I want one of the girls for an hour. The girl almost shits in her pants, till I double her price. I dragged her out back for some cowgirl reverse action. By the time the meter ran out, I had her screaming for more," bragged the big butch gaffer named Stevie, as she raked a comb through her short black hair.
"Since most of them girls only see dead-drunk miners, you might have been the best piece she's had in years,” Georgia, the steroid-pumped grip in dirty overalls, said, setting up the lights inside the mountain cabin.
"I was thinking about going back across the Nevada Stateline for another taste tonight," Stevie stuck the comb in her back pocket and laid out the cables on the dusty floor in preparation for the film's next scene.
"Me too, though I'd like to bring along the old Johnson strap-on for the little blonde I had last night,” Georgia chuckled, as she secured the camera's tripod.
"I'd like a crack at that Mexican bitch there," Stevie said, though while staring at the young actress on the bed, for with her skin slightly tanned by the desert sun the actress more resembled Inca princess than a low-budget actress. "She sort of looked like you, Lena. Not as pretty, of course. If you gave it up to me tonight, then I could save myself a hundred-mile drive. Save me some gas money too."
The grip stiffened and Lena put the script down.
In most cases Stevie's come-ons were just talk, yet this time there was no mistaking that the gaffer's intent, as she gestured lewdly with her tongue. "So what about it, Lena? Do I get lucky tonight?"
Georgia would have paid her entire month's salary for a minute with Lena, if only to lick her feet, but she would not overstep the boundaries of sexual harassment and faced her partner. "Stevie, you're way over the line."
"Stay out of this, truck bitch?" Stevie outweighed Georgia by fifty pounds, could out-press her by 30 kilos, plus Georgia was a 'bottom', when it came to S&M, besides the gaffer had been receiving what she thought were come-ons from the small Spanish actress all week and now demanded from Lena, "My talk bothering you?"
"No more than when a man speaks that way,” Lena’s reprimand stunned the gaffe, who had worshipped the young girl, since working on Lena's first video LOST VIRGIN. "I'm sorry. I was just joking."
"I may make fuck films, but I am not a piece of meat like men think I am. You are a woman. You should know talk is never just talk."
"I'm sorry," Stevie re-apologized and fought back the tears of shame, for Lena was right.
"And you should be." The actress stormed out of the cabin and heard a woman crying inside the cabin.
"Why did I do that?" Lena had been playfully clit-teasing Stevie throughout the filming. Just a joke like Stevie said. Her nails dug painfully into her palms, for her outburst had another source other than Stevie's comment.
The sun had descended below the broken spine of mountains across the shadowed valley and the warmth of the day was being sapped from the air. Sherri and the crew hogs were over by the van, totally immersed in preparing the 16mm camera, but Lena was looking for her co-star, who usually wandered someplace no one could see him between shots to visualize his movement in front of the camera and finally spotted the blonde man in the dusty black suit by the opening of a mine.
"Damn him." Her knowing Sean was simply a man she had picked up in the desert did not prevent her from admitting to herself that she longed to be with a man, even more so this one, since he had always been the man from nowhere. All week Lena had been plagued by the torrid fantasies of having sex with Sean. She had fought it, but her legs grew weak and her flesh pulsed with heat, as the itch ached deep inside her body. She grabbed a padding blanket from a pile of film equipment and ran barefoot to the mine entrance, into which Sean had disappeared.
Stale air mixed with the foulness of the man's odor issued from the hole and she turned around to look down on the film crew. Everyone was busy. None more than Sherri. Even Lena's loving the older woman could not deter her from going inside the mine and she entered at the black hole, fantasizing wildly about his body pressing inside her thighs and her nails furrowing red streaks down his back. His hands would pin down her arms, sweat dripping off his chest to create salty rivulets on her belly. He would thrash against her like a shark out of water, till he jetted inside her like lava.
At first Sean wondered who was at the mine entrance, but after taking a couple of steps closer to the light, he recognized Lena, though with her thumb in her mouth and the blanket scrunched up against her chest she could have been eight or eighteen. While puzzled by the pedophiliac phantom she presented, Sean reached out for her, but as soon as he touched her, Lena fell onto the ground to resemble a desert sleeping beauty, with whom he could whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted. Instead Sean lifted Lena in his arms and carried her into the last light of the day, the blanket trailing in the dirt.
All work around the van stopped, as Sean gently laid Lena on the floor of the van. A purple bruise was rising on her forehead and Lena's robe fell open. Sherri had never seen her so fragile and was on the edge of breaking into tears. "What wrong with her?"
"I-I-I don't know,” Sean stammered, for the crew instantly convicted him of assaulting the gypsy princess with their stares. "S-s-she fainted in the mine,"
"What were you doing in the mine?” The make-up woman asked in a threatening tone.
"He raped her.” the camerawoman accused, as the murmur of hatred bubbled to the surface like swamp gas searching a match.
"You bastard."
"Macho scum."
Sean's saying nothing was probably his best defense, however he had had enough of their blind detest for anything male, especially when he was completely guiltless, if thinking about sex with Lena wasn't a sin. "Fuck you all. I did nothing."
The big-boned gaffer shoved him hard. Sean normally didn't hit women, but this was nine-on-one, so he clipped the gaffer in the jaw with a light jab. It wasn't meant to hurt her, but effectively turned them into a lynch mob. Sean tried to evade their encirclement, only to be backed up against the cabin.
With the director tending to her girlfriend, the leash of control had been slipped and these women were out for his blood. They all picked up stones, indicating this was going be an old-fashioned biblical stoning, and the half-circle of women glanced at each other to see who would throw the first stone. When Stevie cocked the stone behind her, the other women began their wind-ups.
Sean wrapped his arms around his head and closed his eyes. He was going to die in the desert after all.
"Stop.” Lena cried out.
Every head turned to the girl standing in front of the van. Her black hair streamed in the wind. The robe had fallen off her shoulders. The magenta sunset reflected off the clouds and onto her olive skin, temporarily shattering the astral pane between heaven and earth. Sean almost wished he had raped this unconscious Aurora, if only to be stoned in her honor.
"What are you doing?” Lena demanded.
"He almost killed you." Stevie, like the rest of them, trembled before the vision.
"What are you talking about? I fainted in the mine. That is all.” Lena’s tone softened and humanity regained possession of her countenance, as the aura disappeared with the further sinking of the sun. "Put down the rocks. Sean did nothing."
The women dropped the stones, which raised little puffs of dust to be blown away by the wind. Light in the high desert tends to play tricks with one's eyes. No one standing before Lena was sure, if they had witnessed a miracle or a mirage, and Sherri did not give them any more time to think about it. "What are you standing around for? The show is over. We still have a scene to shoot. Are you ready yet?"
As the film crew returned to their final preparations, Lena went over to Stevie and spoke to the powerful gaffer in words only the two of them could hear. When she was finished, Lena closed the robe and went inside the cabin.
The entire spectacle had amazed Sean and his eyes searched for evidence for what had just happened, however the windblown sand had already drifted over iconography of the women's bootprints and the stones they had held resumed their eons-long anonymity. No one came over to apologize or explain, because none of the women could comprehend the emotions unleashed by the sight of Lena in his arms and neither could he.
When a cold gust from the north wrapped around him, Sean lifted his arms and his grimy black suit flapped in the wind like he was a scarecrow. In obeying Sherri's diet, his body had dropped six pounds closer to fighting trim. Of course the no-eating had a price and he understood how Christ must have felt one-third of the way through his thirty-day fast in the desert and reckoned visionary hallucinations were next on the menu.
After loading the camera, Sherri warned the crew that they would be shooting in a few minutes and went to her male lead, who was standing fifty feet away with his arms outstretched to catch the wind, as if he were having an out-of-the-body experience. Having blocked out his non-film name, she called out to him, "Are you all right?"
The five syllables reeled in Sean to the here and now and he replied. "Just a little weak from my diet, that's all."
"I know this has been tough, but I have to keep pushing everyone.” The grinding pace had put them ahead of the schedule and in the movies that's all that matters.
"I understand. You have a film to shoot,” Sean answered, fighting the grumbling in his empty stomach. "Still it might be a good idea, if we keep the crew inside the cabin to a minimum. One brush with death a day is my limit."
"Everyone gets a little weird, when we work too hard,” Sherri explained. "I'm sorry, I let them get out of control."
Sean doubted exhaustion was the cause for his near stoning. "They hate men. My character is hateful. They love Lena. They were just being a little protective. We'll move on, right?"
Sherri usually only viewed him through the camera and took a couple of seconds to examine him more closely. The one meal a day regime had melted off his gut and the bloat from his face. The bruises and black eye were fading, though the make-up woman touched them up according to continuity. Brown roots were sprouting from his scalp under the blonde hair, yet these physical changes weren’t the source of his transformation into the man from nowhere.
"You know I've been looking at the dailies."
"And?"
"You're surprisingly good for a first-timer.” A compliment could only help him settle down.
"Good enough to be a star."
"It depends on this next scene."
The next two shots required full nudity for both Sean and the two women, for she did not believe in faking sex like they did in mainstream Hollywood, where the stars looked like Ken and Barbie rubbing their formless groins together. "For this next scene, it'll only be you, Lena, the camerawoman, and myself. The crew will be outside. For the second scene, it'll be just you, me, and the camerawoman."
"I wish I could have rehearsed this. I'm sort of a little shy."
"Shy about what?"
"About having to be naked with you and Lena.” Like he had told Lena it had been a long time.
"Just pretend it's the end of the world and nobody else exists.” Sherri had started off nude modeling for an art professor at seventeen. The money was minimum wage and she moved onto go-go dancing, then nude photos and finally into hard-core films. Each step's trauma had lasted for a day or two. She reckoned Sean could live through the trauma too. Lena will lead you through the scene. It will be easy."
"If you say so,” Sean said, though what concerned him most was the prospect of Lena on top of him, and his getting an erection. Last night he had masturbated, until every ounce of lust had been drained from his libido. He could only hope it had been enough and walked past the sullen crew into the cabin, where he picked his way through the equipment scattered about the cabin and found a place to sit in the rustic kitchen.
Lena sat on the bed with the .38 in her hand, acting as if nothing had happened outside, while Sherri's eyes swept the Ponderosa-style bed for any items out of continuity. "Okay, let's do this. Mr. Tempo, down to nature."
"All the way?” Sean had hoped to be able to wear his underwear, but Sherri said, "All the way."
Once undressed Sean lay down on the bed's scratchy woolen blanket and stretched out his arms and legs. Sherri and Lena expertly tied his wrists and ankles to the four wooden bedposts. After the director arranged the pillow under his head, she asked, "Are you comfortable?"
"Never better,” he answered, though praying he would remain flaccid.
"Now remember, the only real important part of the scene is the dialogue. We'll go through that a couple of times from different angles. Afterwards we'll improvise on the lovemaking. Keep it going, until I say cut.” Sherri stepped behind the camerawoman and said, "Camera....action."
Sean had always thought acting, the theater, and the movies were phony, but once the camera started twirling, he became the last man tied on a bed in the house of the last women on earth.
Bare feet pad across the wooden floor. The girl in the robe nears the bed, the gun dangling from her hand. The man on the bed looks at her face, then the gun. He fights to free himself from the ropes.
"So it comes to this. You killing me?"
"Who said anything about killing you?” The girl puts the gun down on a chair and sits at the edge of the bed.
"Your girlfriend, she's talking about it all the time. Killing off the last man. A world only for women. Just the two of you and in fifty years, there'll be no one left, just bones. That's the only future left for us. No future."
"There is another option,” the girl suggests.
"Like what?"
"You and me starting it all over again."
"You mean, you and me breed?"
"It is a long shot."
"Never thought I'd be Adam. Funny, huh?'
"Maybe God didn't have much of a choice the last time either.” The girl undoes her robe. She is naked underneath. The man tries the restraints. She shakes her head. "Sorry, I feel safer with you like that."
The girl puts her hand over his mouth, telling him, "I've heard too much talk."
She crawls onto the bed and straddles the man, then thrusts downward and groans. Rocking back and forth she is lost in ecstasy. Panting, she shudders with pleasure and her head drops onto the man's heaving chest.
"Cut.” the director finally yelled, for the last minute had seemed like an eternity to Sherri and she hid her shaking hands inside her leather jacket's pockets. After they repeated the dialogue part of the scene two more times, Sherri croaked, "Cut."
"That's it?” The camerawoman lifted her head from the 16mm camera. "What about a 'safety'?"
"The last take was perfect," Sherri replied coldly, for while she had a lot riding on this film, she was more concerned about Lena's going hard-core with Sean than getting this scene right. "We can dub voices later. The scene works fine for me."
"You're the boss,” the camerawoman commented with an accompanying shrug. "We have more than eight minutes of film left on the reel."
Lena's last reserves of energy had been drained by the pseudo-lovemaking and she climbed off Sean, bending over to grab her robe. "It is cold in here."
"Yeah, what about me?” Sean was relieved, for throughout the last scene the young actress had been straining to get him inside her and her slick vagina rubbing against his member had brought him to precipice of orgasm. He had only fought off ejaculation by conjuring up the least sensual images possible; bags of worms, soggy bread, and unshaven female bodies. Now it was over, he wondered what he had been attempting to prove, for he had never taken a vow of chastity.
"We have one more shot here. You're not in it, Lena, so go out to the van and get warm."
"Would you mind letting me loose.” Sean demanded, as Lena trudged from the cabin.
"We are doing our scene in a few minutes. Just be patient." Sherri tossed a towel across his groin and conferred with the camerawoman.
"Could you please undo the ropes?” Sean’s only chance was to go to the bathroom and relieve the increasing sexual stress, for the restraint he had exhibited with Lena would be non-existent with Sherri.
"We're almost ready,” Sherri said.
"I don't know the lines to this scene.” Sean was at her mercy.
"You don't have any." She was going to have her way with the lead. Directors always did. "I cut them all."
After the camerawoman arranged the lights, she left the room and Sean asked, "So when she comes back, we shoot our scene?"
"She isn't coming back. The camera is in focus and eight minutes of film. That's all we need. I just turn it on and we go for it.” Sherri stripped off her leather jacket, then her boots, jeans, and t-shirt to cut short any further discussion and stood by the camera in a bra and panties. Her tanned body was devoid of any fat and her muscles visible under the skin. Her being years older than the woman whose videos he had watched a few days ago did not prevent him from wanting her any less than the first day he had seen her. Sherri switched on the camera and slowly transformed from a director into the betrayed lover of the last woman on earth, when she picked up a long stiletto and walked over to the bed.
Sean stared at her belly and then her breasts. Her nipples were two dark brown spots poking through the white bra. She had been right. He did not have to worry about saying any lines, because he was speechless.
"So she came to see you?” the older woman demands, whipping the towel from the man's groin. "Don't even bother to lie or make up an excuse. You're like any other man who ever lived. A snake."
The woman gags the man with a towel in his mouth. Terror reads out of his eyes. She holds the knife to his neck. "I should have killed you the first time I saw you. Everything would have been much easier that way. Now you've fucked her. Probably knocked her up on the first try. That's how lucky men are."
While the script described the older woman preferring to let the race of Man die out rather than have to copulate with a man, Sherri spoke the lines a little too close to the bone for his taste, especially when she pronounced murderously, "If it were up to me, I'd kill you right now."
Sherri's fingers tightened around the knife's handle. Sooner or later and probably sooner, Lena and this man would have sex. Why was unimportant, but Sherri would die, if that happened, and there was only one way to prevent that union.
"I'm only doing this for her and God knows why she did it.” Sherri explained, though Sean was uncertain whether she was talking about Lena or the young actress' character.
While Sherri Conti had no idea how many cocks she had seen, touched, fellated, or had in her since being a high school wild girl through her career in porno, she could vividly remember the when, where, and why of her last.
Five years ago her stepbrother, a go-go bar owner, had been shot outside his club in Van Nuys and later died in the hospital. She sought out refuge from the trauma in a bindle of China white and accompanied Che Chasta to a biker bar to take on all comers. The attempt to burn the sadness out of her soul only OD'd her body on smack. The bikers could have left her in the alley to die, but being long-time fans of Sherri's films, they took her to the nearest hospital instead.
When Sherri had returned to the world of the living the next day, a doctor, another admirer, regarded her chart with puzzlement before saying, "That's funny, we had another Conti in this bed just the other day."
What he had said made little sense, until she grasped that she was lying in the same bed in which her stepbrother had died. She had to be restrained from killing herself and was sent off to a detox clinic.
Several weeks later after kicking heroin and cocaine, she finally found the will to live through the simple beauty of a sunny day and swore that men would no longer be a part of her life. Blaming them than herself for her previous state of decadence was a lie she could live with, instead of dying with the truth.
Getting out of the clinic she attempted to lead a straight life, but every manager of a shop, restaurant, or bank to which she applied for a job would inevitably ask, "Aren't you in porno films?"
Porno was the only way she had been making money most of her adult life and there was plenty of work for someone of her talents in the girl-on-girl market. Since then women had been all she had known.
Now she was going to break her vow.
Tears came to her eyes and she plunged the blade plunged into the pillow, as her hands wrapped around the man's blood-hot shaft. She had fucked bigger and smaller. Thankfully her vagina was wet. She breathed in several times, then shoved herself down. The thick cock forced itself between her heated lips and ran along the vaginal channel, until the head rammed against her cervix. She had forgotten about that and gasped for breath.
The man forced himself up into her, mumbling incoherently behind the gag. His wrists strained vainly against the ropes, and his pelvis ground her clitoris flat. She rose and fell slowly at first, but this piston motion accelerated. It was not as bad as she had feared, but not as good as she remembered, then again this was for the only woman she had ever loved.
Her goddess.
Her star.
Her lover.
Lena.
Sherri had expected the man to come within seconds, however he was merely matching her move for move, adding to the long-neglected pleasure welling within her womb. She recognized each symptom's arrival. A growing warmth fevered through her body. The pounding of blood in her ears. The quickness of breath and snap, she came trembling and like that it was over.
She had not noticed that the man underneath her had ejaculated, until she slid off him. Sherri grabbed the towel from Sean's mouth and walked out of the camera's vision. Sean barely heard her say, "Cut."
Everything between them was going to be different between them all now, but then sex always has a funny way of doing that to people and Sean and Sherri would be no exception to that rule.