Blue Movie (30 page)

“Dig
it
.”

So they put in a call to Malibu, to the inimitable Teeny Marie.

I
T WAS NOT UNTIL
about an hour before wrap time—after a great deal of hemming and hawing (and then only because she couldn’t bear being thought of as “square”)—that Debbie had finally agreed to try the love scene with Dave, or at least had agreed that they would get under the blankets together, naked, and hold each other close . . . which they did, and, after a bit of nervous giggling, tickling one another, and kidding in general, they had just about settled down enough to try a take.

“Well, Dave,” Boris asked, “how does it feel?”

“Groovy,” said Dave.

“Debbie?”

“It feels
nice,”
she said, “nice and warm,” and she snuggled up a little closer.

“Well, I think the way it should happen,” Boris went on, “is that after you lie there for a minute, embraced, and you’re no longer cold, you begin to feel, you know, sexually aware of each other’s presence—and so, Dave, you slowly take the blanket off, to look at Debbie’s body, which you’ve never really done before—I mean like
deliberately.”

“But isn’t it supposed to be
cold
in the room?” the girl wanted to know, instinctively grasping at straws.

“Not anymore. Remember, the scene opens with you both asleep, under separate blankets . . . the fire is very low, the room is cold—Dave wakes up, shivers, puts some more wood on the fire, sits in front of it, huddled in his blanket . . . then
you
wake up and ask him what’s wrong. ‘I’m freezing,’ he says. ‘So am I,’ you say. He moves closer, still shivering, a genuine chill, teeth chattering, that kind of thing, so you say ‘Maybe we should get under
both
blankets . . . until the room is warmer.’ And that’s what you do. I know it may be cheating a little, timewise, but we’ve got to lose the blankets—I mean, we can’t put the camera
under
the blankets. Dig?”

“Dig it,” said Dave, and then to Debbie: “Okay, Sis?”

“Well, gosh . . .” she sighed, “I guess so.” “Everything’s cool, Sis,” he went on, “just stay loose,” and then to Boris, “About how slow with the blanket, B.—like this?” And he moved it down, gradually uncovering her.
‘Wow,
Sis,” he admitted softly, “that
is
a pretty wild bod you’ve got going. Yeah, I think I’m going to dig this.”

She giggled, grasping the top of the blanket just as it passed her navel, “Well, you don’t have to pull it down all the way
now!
I mean, they’re not even shooting!”

“That’s perfect, Dave,” said Boris, “just take it a fraction slower—we’ll get a little
tantalization time
going for us.”

“Dig it,” said the young man. “Mr. Adrian,” Debbie called, now demurely holding the blanket just below her chin, “when we make the shot, do you think it would be possible to get just a
few
of these people off the set?”

Boris smiled. “Somehow I
thought
you might get around to asking that. Yes, of course,” telling Fred the First to clear all but essential personnel from the set.

And it was just then that Angela arrived, looking very distraught indeed.

“I’ve got to talk to you,” she said, looking everywhere but at him, “there’s something I’ve got to tell you.”

Because they were nearly ready to shoot, his first impulse was to give her a momentary brush, but she appeared so seriously upset that he decided against it.

“Okay, let’s go to my trailer,” he suggested, since that happened to be the place of privacy most convenient to the new set. “You go on,” he added, “I just have to speak to Tony for a second.” While she went ahead, he stopped by the set, and took Tony aside. “Listen, I’m going to talk to Angie for a minute, she seems to be flipping out. But we’ve got to keep this thing going between Debbie and Dave—if we work it right, I think they’ll actually
do
it—so why don’t you go over the lines with them, try to get them excited, tell them about your own sister-fucking fantasies. Okay? Besides, it’ll give you a few shots at Debbie’s perfect cooze and knockers. Right?”

“‘Full rehearsal,’ I’ll tell them.”

“Well, as long as they don’t actually
make
it—I mean, we’ve got to save that for the camera . . . it might be a
one-shot.
Ha.”

When he reached the trailer, he found Angela sitting on the edge of one of the chairs, hands clasped in her lap, staring down at the floor.

“What’s wrong, Ange?”

“I can’t be in the picture.”

Boris silently counted to
eight—
a number which he (sometimes) considered of occult significance. “Why do you say that?”

“Well . . . Mr. Harrison, who’s head of the studio, and his son, who’s vice-president in charge of production, they’re over here now, and so is my agent, Mr. Letterman . . . and they explained to me how it would destroy my career completely, and how I could never work again, ever, if I went through with it—and they showed me a bunch of stills from the picture, and I could see what they mean, how a lot of people might not understand that it was
art
—”

“Stills?”
said Boris, frowning. “What are you talking about?”

“You know, color slides—from some of the scenes we did.”

“Those dirty
bastards”
he muttered, “they must have bribed someone at the lab . . .”

“And then they told me that they were ready to sue me for twelve million dollars if I didn’t do what they said—and I don’t think I even
have
twelve million dollars. So you see, I just don’t have any choice.”

Boris leaned back, staring at the ceiling without expression; then he took a deep breath, and slowly expelled it. “Listen,” he said softly, “you know what those people
are,
don’t you?”

“Huh?” she looked at him as if he were obviously crazy. “Are you
kidding?
Well, of
course,
I know what they are!” She gave a snort of contempt. “I bet I know them one
helluva
lot better than
you
do! C.D. is head of the studio, and Les is vice-president in char—”

“No, no, I mean what they
really
are. Angie, they’re
parasites . . . leeches
. . .
vultures.
They
feed
on other people’s talent . . . they’re
merchants
. . . merchants of
crap.
They have no interest in
art . . .
or in
truth
. . . or in
beauty
—their notion of
beauty
doesn’t go beyond a Vegas chorus line. They have one interest, Angie . . .
power. Power
through
money.
And that’s it—that’s how simple they are. Simple and corrupt.”

She shook her head like she might not have been listening. “They told me not to come here, or talk to you any more . . . they told me you’d say all that—all those things you’re saying right this minute, about
art
and so on. But they said it didn’t make any difference, it’s an
exploitation
film no matter how you slice it.”

Boris gave a short laugh. “That’s very funny. Tell me something, Angie . . . why do you think they’ve kept you doing those tits-and-ass movies all this time? Why do you think you’re still known as the ‘queen of the tits-and-ass flicks’? Don’t you understand?
They’re
the ones who do the
‘exploiting.’
Christ, Angie, I thought you wanted to
change
that image.”

She looked at him with a terrible frown. “Oh yeah? Well, I got news for you . . .” What had begun as a merely defensive, almost apologetic attitude, was transforming—through the miraculous alchemy of guilt and adrenaline—into a cornered-cat viciousness: “. . .we talked about
that
part of it too—I mean, just how the hell is me getting
fucked,
on camera, by a bunch of . . .
stupid . . . dumb-ass
. . .
nigger extras going to help my image?!?”

Boris sighed, and after a minute, he got up and walked to the door, where he stood looking down at his hand on the knob. “Okay, Angie,” he finally said, “I guess I was wrong about you . . . I thought you had . . .”—he broke off with a shrug—“well, never mind, I’ve got to get back to the set . . . so, you know, do whatever you have to.” He opened the door, and started to step out; then he turned and looked at her again. “Maybe you’re right,” he said, with a soft smile, “about fucking ‘nigger extras’—maybe you should have stuck to seventeen-year-old ‘seconds.’” And he left, closing the door behind him.

“Deb got too horny,” Dave jokingly explained, when he reached the set, and found them under separate blankets.

She squealed with delight. “
You’re
the one who got too horny!”

“Listen, B.,” said Tony, “we worked out a great scene. We actually ran through it—well, right up to the nitty-gritty part, and it’s beautiful. Dig this: first, he uncovers her, looks at her body, then he touches it—you, know, like ‘wondrously,’ first her face, then slowly moves his hand down . . . over her throat, her shoulder, her breast, the curve of her waist, her hip, along her thigh, moving to the back of it, behind the knee, along the calf . . . then slowly up again, stopping on cooze, and at the same time bringing his lips forward to her breast. Right? Okay, meanwhile,
she’s
started moving
her
hand over
him,
beginning the same way, but beginning
after
he did, so by the time he gets back up to the cooze, she’s arriving at his—pardon the expression, Debbie—
cock,
which by now, needless to say, is plenty erect.”

“You ain’t just a’ jivin’!” Dave interjected, and Debbie giggled and squirmed in her blanket.

“Now, dig,” Tony continued to Boris, “all this is happening with no dialogue . . . just exploring each other’s body, with an innocent sense of wonder, not even kissing . . . I think if we save the kiss for the climax—save the kiss until they’re actually
coming
. . .
together
. . . it could be
fantastic—
it would really be a
kiss
then, wouldn’t it? I mean, they’ve never
kissed
before—except, you know, brother and sister style, on the cheek, or lightly on the lips—so that when they finally do this full-on, open-mouth, lots-of-tongue, hot, wet, soul kiss while they’re
coming
. . . well,
that
will be like the real taboo-breaker, the
kiss,
even more than the
fuck.
Dig?” He looked from one to the other.

“Gosh,” said Debbie.

“Heavy,” said Dave.

“Let’s shoot it,” said Boris.

What had ensued was quite remarkable. Apparently, Tony’s fantasy as to the intense sexual potential between siblings was not without certain psychological basis. The relationship (and the action) between Dave and Debbie progressed almost exactly as he always dreamed (and then written) it might. It was as though they were filming at the Masters-Johnson clinic—that is to say, an authentic lovemaking couple . . . but, instead of
clinical,
it was
beautiful
—beautiful
people,
beautiful
lighting,
beautiful
photography . . .
only the credibility of the sexual experience was the same—except, with Dave and Debbie, it had an
intensity
quite beyond anything previously documented.

For Dave, aside from whatever extraordinary psychic impact the relationship itself (“fucking his sister,” so to speak) may have had, the pure
sexual fact
of it—for someone coming off an extensive drug-and-celibacy trip—was like a child’s rediscovery of a forgotten toy.

The first time he
came,
even though it was very dramatic, and obviously complete, he continued, hungrily, compulsively striving, as though he could never possibly get enough of it—while the fabulous Debbie held on, it seemed, for dear life—great eyes closed, wet red mouth open, not moaning or sighing, just sort of gulping and swallowing, as though coming with each breath—these being about one eighth of a second apart—with her perfect “Miss All-American Teen” face transfixed by an unaltering expression of
nirvana toto.

It was going so well that Boris decided to do a little overtime for a second take. There was a serious consideration at this point as to whether to reshoot the same scene, or to shoot it as though it were a different scene, one occurring later on in their relationship—in which case, certain variations could be introduced . . . different positions, and so on. While Boris and Tony were quietly discussing the pros and cons of doing a segment with Debbie on top—and Boris was suggesting that Tony might have ulterior motives, just wanting to observe Debbie’s incredible derrière in motion—they both suddenly noticed Sid, standing with Morty near the stage door, acting very strangely, his clenched fist raised against his forehead, striking it from time to time as though to express some unspeakable grief.

“What’s with him?” said Tony.

“Looks like he just got the news.”

“What news?”

“Angie . . . I think she’s walking.”

Tony looked at him in bewilderment. “You’re kidding,” he said softly.

Boris shrugged. “Well, that’s what she said . . .” He sighed. “The old man got to her . . . and Les . . . all of them.”

“Wow,” Tony shook his head, “. . . what about the stuff that’s already been shot?”

Boris grimaced. “I don’t know, man. All I know is
I’ve
got a print of it. If
they
don’t want to show it anywhere . . . well, that’s
their
problem.”

Tony shrugged. “That’s one way to look at it.” He continued to stare at Sid, who was now grasping Morty by the shoulders and shaking his own head as though in tears. “Wow, dig Sid, he’s really flipping out.”

Boris stared at him too. “Yeah . . . Sid’s very sensitive,” he said, as though his thoughts were elsewhere, “. . . about some things.” He looked back at the set, where Dave and Debbie lay propped on their elbows, talking quietly, and, he noticed, holding hands. “Okay,” he said. “I think they can probably make it again now. Maybe the best thing is to see how
they
feel about it. I mean, I’ll tell them about your idea of her being on top, but maybe they’ll want to do something else . . .”