Blue Movie

by Terry Southern

  Boris nodded, gave the Sid sign of circled thumb and forefinger and a big wink. “She loves it,” he said, “absolutely loves it.”

  Arabella was delighted. “Oh wonderful, wonderful!”

  “Yeah, it’s beautiful,” said Boris, “you just hang in there, you hear?”

  She squeezed his arm. “Oh, chéri, you can count on that!”

  13

  AT ONE O’CLOCK in the afternoon, Lips Malone returned from a two-day trip to Paris, and a mission of considerable import. It had been his task to comb the streets, clubs, and whorehouses of Montmartre and the Champs Elysées, in search of a girl whose legs and bottom resembled Arabella’s—at least adequately enough that, in the close-ups of Uncle-penetration, it would not be discernible that it was, in fact, a different girl. He had succeeded remarkably well, considering the short time in which he did it. She was twenty—or so she said, and didn’t look much over it—dark eyes, and the right skin coloring. After some painstaking work by Du Couvier, including an Arabella hairpiece, the resemblance was quite astonishing. Most importantly, however, she had Arabella’s slender willowy waist, her long rounded dancer’s legs, and her perfect derrière—the principal parts slated for the silver screen.

  Her name was Yvette, and her price was one hundred francs (N.F.), about thirty-five dollars, for what she termed an “acte normal”—all deviations therefrom being negotiable. After learning the nature of the job, and that it might engage her for as much as two days, she made certain calculations and announced that her price would be 4,800 francs.

  Lips, who was accustomed to getting things wholesale, or at least at a discount when buying in bulk, couldn’t understand. “Forty-eight hundred francs? That’s fifteen hundred bucks, for Chrissake! How’d you figure that?”

  “I think one hour per customer,” she said, “that’s one hundred francs per hour, times forty-eight hours, is forty-eight hundred francs.”

  “But what about sleeping?” asked Lips, “don’t you ever sleep?”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes I go forty-eight hours without sleeping.” Then she added, “Besides that, Arabella is rich, and so are movie companies.”

  “Okay,” said Lips, “what the hell.” Actually he had been prepared to go much higher than that for the right girl—and Yvette was right . . . as Boris and Sid agreed when they met her now back at the studio.

  Sometime before lunch, it had started to rain, putting an end to shooting at the lake for the day; so the company had returned to the studio—which was perhaps just as well, since Pamela had twice reached the breaking point, and very nearly the point of collapse.

  On the first retake, she had been more relaxed, in the beginning—lying there closed-eyed, her hands back alongside her head as though pinioned at the wrists, her body writhing slowly in, presumably, feigned response . . . while Arabella, kneeling between her legs, massaged her breasts and ran her tongue up and down the lips of her vage, pausing at the top every second or third time to dart it playfully against her clitoris.

  Then, as the camera came in very close, she dropped her hands from the breasts to the lips of the vage, and slowly drew them apart.

  “Are you getting it?” Boris asked Lazlo in a whisper, referring to the glistening pink-pearl clit which the opened lips revealed, while Arabella paused momentarily, just gazing at it, as in anticipation, before reaching out to it with her equally pink tongue.

  “Got it,” Lazlo whispered back, “the highlight was beautiful.”

  The shot had been lit for exactly that—to catch a point of shimmering light on the top of the clitoris—and Arabella had been instructed to pause momentarily before flicking her tongue out lizardlike, and then slowly obscuring it with her whole beautiful mouth.

  Afterward she placed her hands under Pamela’s buttocks (which she had earlier described as “like two foam-rubber cantaloupes”) and applied herself, lips and tongue, with renewed zeal, while the distressed Pamela sighed and moaned, eyes closed, her head thrown back, moving from side to side.

  “Now, Pam,” said Boris, “as you get more excited, bring it up to meet her—bring your thing up to meet her mouth. And raise your legs a little more.”

  It was a sound-take, of course, but they would lose his voice in the cutting—and Pamela obeyed, straining upward from the waist down.

  “That’s it,” said Boris, “now put one hand—your left hand—on her head, and pull it toward you, and move your right to your breast and hold it. Beautiful. Now just try to go with it, Pam. Please.”

  “I am, I am,” she murmured, almost painfully, “Oh, God . . .” and her breath began coming in gasps, and then she was moaning, biting her lower lip and tossing her head from side to side, before her body was seized with a violent shudder and her head back, her mouth opened in a soft wail, “. . . oh God, please, please, oohhhh . . .” and she gave a great gasp and began to sob, pulling away from Arabella, and putting one hand protectively over her vage.

  “Okay, cut” said Boris quietly and went out to comfort the girl, who was crying profusely.

  “It was beautiful, Pam,” he said softly, “absolutely beautiful. You’re a really great actress.”

  “What does acting have to do with it?” she asked tearfully, but it was apparent that the compliment had at least a modicum of appeasing effect on her, and she began dabbing at her eyes.

  Helen Vrobel noticed as she arrived with the robes, and called out over her shoulder: “Makeup—tissues please!”

  “I mean it, Pam,” Boris continued, “it was terrific—you too, Arabella,” he added, putting an arm around his super-star, she who seemed vaguely annoyed.

  “But why did we stop?” she wanted to know.

  Boris looked at Pam. “Yeah, it was so great . . . I mean, I thought you were going to come.”

  “But I did come,” exclaimed Pam, looking from one to the other in astonishment. “Good heavens, couldn’t you tell?”

  Arabella’s hurt and sullen expression stayed the same. “But that’s no reason to stop,” she said, “and to push me from you—that way it looks like you did not enjoy it.” She turned to Boris. “Is it not true, Boris?”

  “Well—”

  Pamela couldn’t believe it. “But I thought I was going to faint or something. I mean, surely you don’t believe I could have kept that up?”

  “Well, the thing is,” said Boris, “we need to go out on your submission to her—I mean, we can’t go out on your rejecting her, can we?” He thought about it for a second. “You know, the fainting thing might not be a bad idea.”

  “Well, said Pamela ruefully, “I can’t very well faint if she doesn’t stop, can I?”

  “Yeah, well maybe not faint exactly, but just sort of look . . . you know, satisfied.”

  “But that’s what I’m saying—I can’t do anything if she keeps on doing it . . .”

  “You mean after you come?”

  She sighed, and demurely looked away. “Yes.”

  “Well . . . what if you come twice?”

  This suggestion caused her to burst into tears anew. “Oh, I just couldn’t, I couldn’t, I couldn’t . . .”

  “Okay,” said Boris, “we’ll work it out.” And he smiled to himself. Great, at least now she had accepted actually having an orgasm as part of the scene.

  The third take went according to plan—except, of course, that Arabella didn’t stop as promised, and Pamela came twice—the second time, almost hysterically, when Arabella inserted two fingers while still sucking and biting her clit—and then she fell limp like a broken doll.

  14

  THE COVER-SHOT—that is, the shot which was scheduled as an alternate to the lake sequence in case of rain—was the love scene between Arabella and her uncle . . . uncle to be played by a certain gross Sid Krassman.

  “If Sid actually tries to stick it in her,” Boris was saying to Tony, “she may get pretty uptight—I mean, like actually violent . . . you know, scratch his face, try to disfigure him, or something.”

 
Tony went into his deadpan minstrel routine: “Now, er, uh, Mistah B., does yoah mean dis-figure, or does yoah mean dis-membah? Hee-hee-hee!” and he did a quick soft-shoe two-step.

  “Well, the thing is,” Boris explained, “we ought to get one shot of his face while he’s coming, right? Now, the only way to be sure of getting that is with the other girl . . . Yvette—I mean, we can’t count on Arabella to stand still for that sort of thing, can we? And most of all we can’t risk her blowing her stack, and walking off the picture. No, we better shoot all the stuff with Sid and the hooker first—you know, all the penetration stuff.”

  15

  SID, UNDERSTANDABLY, WAS somewhat nervous, making his screen debut in such an auspiciously questionable manner.

  “You look great, Sid,” Boris told him, when he came out of wardrobe.

  Sid studied himself—dirty, faded coveralls, gray workshirt, and big brogans—in the long mirror. “Christ, I must be outta my mind, letting you guys talk me into a thing like this!”

  Tony feigned astonished admiration. “Now I can see it, Sid—your true and fundamental nature! A man of the soil! From the great heartland of America! ‘ . . .plowing your swift, broad acres . . . as the wind carries the smell of pine and dung across the fields, and the rhythm of an old, old work enters your soul.’ Underneath that veneer of cynical corruption, Sid Krassman, you’re a simple honest farmer! The backbone of this grand land of ours! How’s about a quick cornhole?!?” And he rushed against Sid’s great bottom with out-thrust pelvis.

  Boris broke up, but Sid was not amused. “Will you guys be serious, for Chrissake! Here I am, about to make a real schmuck outta myself, and you guys kid around . . .”

  “Now come on, Sid,” Boris assured him, “you know I wouldn’t ask you to do anything like that. Don’t forget, you’re going to get a shot at Arabella’s fabulous cooze—her whole store, man, right there, open for you! And besides that, you’re doing it for the sake of art.”

  “Art Linkletter, that is,” said Tony.

  “Art, my ass,” said Sid, “this is a dirty movie, that’s what this is! Aw, what the hell—come on, let’s get it over with.”

  16

  NICKY HAD DESIGNED and built the set exactly as Arabella had remembered and described it: a dark-walled Provencal room—small, with a high ceiling and one wide, white-curtained window, a big four-poster bed and quilted eiderdown, small stone fireplace, dark wide-board floor, marble-top washstand, earthenware pitcher, and a kerosene lamp with a cracked chimney.

  When Boris, Sid, and Tony arrived, the eiderdown was crumpled on the floor at the foot of the bed, along with the bottom part of Yvette’s pajamas—while their cutie-pie owner, lying on the bed, wearing only the unbuttoned top, was being lit by Lazlo and focused by the operator.

  Tony gave Sid a nudge. “Wow,” he whispered, “dig that! Ready to dip in, Sid?”

  This shot was to begin where another, which had not yet been done, left off—that is, just at the moment of penetration; in other words, everything prior to penetration (unbuttoning the top, fondling the breasts, pulling off the bottoms, etc.) would be done later, with Arabella.

  “Okay,” said Boris, motioning Sid to accompany him toward the bed, “you want to take them off now?” He was referring to the coveralls—since, for the sake of good cinematic imagery, Boris and Tony had decided, poetic-license style, to alter Arabella’s version somewhat, and have the uncle naked during the scene.

  “Christ,” Sid exclaimed, “I don’t think I can get a hard-on, for Chrissake!”

  “Oh, she’ll know how to do that, all right,” Boris assured him, “what do you think she’s getting fifteen hundred bucks for? Now come on, Sid, you’re holding up the shot.”

  “And if you’re holding up the shot,” quipped Tony, “you’re holding up the picture. Right, Sid?”

  “Well, wait a minute,” said Sid anxiously, “at least lemme work up a little heft to it!” and he stopped and reached down and began squeezing his penis beneath the coveralls.

  “Okay, Sid,” shouted Tony from the edge of the set, “get that coarse animal member out front! Let’s see some action!”

  “Well, just look at her, Sid,” said Boris when they reached the bed, “She looks like Arabella, for Chrissake! You can pretend you’re fucking Arabella.” And to the girl: “Baby, you look marvelous—see if you can give our friend here a nice big fifteen hundred dollar hard-on, okay?”

  “Heart-on?” asked Yvette, “what is this ‘heart-on’?”

  “Hard-on,” said Boris carefully, as though for a lip-reader, and pointed to where Sid’s hand was still squeezing.

  “Ah yes, hard-on,” she said, face alight with understanding, “yes, I know hard-on. Come, chéri . . .” and she reached out her hand for Sid, “come into the bed, Yvette give you nice big hard-on.”

  “Yeah, go, Sid,” said Boris.

  Sid resignedly began taking off his coveralls. “You know,” he muttered, “I never liked getting into bed with a broad without a little heft—I don’t like to have a full-on erection when I get into bed with a broad, but I do like it to have a little heft.”

  While Sid got into bed, Boris arranged the coveralls on the floor, so that the crude, dirty garment was slightly entwined with the delicately flowered, girlishly innocent pajama-bottom. He called Lazlo out, and pointed to it. “We’ll hit that on the way up, okay? We’ll go for a beauty-and-beast feeling on the whole thing.”

  “Terrific.”

  Boris stared down at the two pieces of clothing. “Maybe hers ought to be torn a little,” he said half aloud, then called Tony out, and asked what he thought.

  Tony shrugged. “I don’t think he forced her, I think he tricked her.”

  “Yeah, you’re right.”

  They started back to the camera.

  “But wait a minute,” said Boris, stopping. “Suppose he tears them before he tricks her—I mean, he can start pulling at them, and she instinctively resists, and he pulls harder, and that’s when they tear—then he tricks her, you know, telling her he just wants to hold it against her, and all that bullshit. Right? I mean, it’s such a great image—a girl’s torn pajama-bottoms.”

  “Sure, that works.”

  They went back to the bed where Yvette was simultaneously massaging and sucking Sid’s organ. Her Arabella make-up caused Boris’s mind to do a flash-replay of the previous day’s big event. “Wow,” he said, “she sure looks a lot like Arabella, doesn’t she?”

  Tony considered it. “Hmm. Well, if she were doing anything other than sucking a cock, she would—I mean, I can’t quite see Arabella sucking a cock.”

  “You can’t huh? And you’re supposed to have all that imagination.” He leaned over and picked up the pajama-bottom. “Now, where exactly should it be torn?”

  “Right at the top.”

  He held it in both hands at the top, where the drawstring was, and pulled.

  “Christ, they won’t tear—whatta drag.”

  Tony reached out for them. “Let me try . . . hmm, you’re right.”

  “Wait a minute, they’ll tear at the bottom of the opening.” Boris took them back and tore them slightly at the fly. “That’ll make a nice shot, too, when it happens—a close-up of it tearing, gradually revealing her young cooze.”

  “Young cooze? How you going to make it look young?”

  “Hmm. We’ll have to trim it.” He waved at Du Couvier’s assistant: “Hey, Makeup! Bring your scissors!”

  “Terrif.”

  Boris replaced the garment, and arranged it to his satisfaction—while Tony leaned forward to peer at Sid and Yvette, or rather at Yvette’s head and Sid’s member. She raised her eyes to him without stopping, which produced the rather odd effect of a five-year-old looking up wide-eyed and inquisitive from the popsicle in her mouth, while now, hovering over her in the manner of a horror-film surgeon, the assistant makeup man adroitly and selectively thinned the beaver.

  Tony reached out and touched her hair, smiling. “Listen, com
e around to my place when we break—I want to talk to you about your part.”

  Sid broke up their little tête-à-tête with a gruff shout: “Will you get the fuck outta here, fer Chrissake! I’m just about to get a good hard-on!”

  Tony winked at her as he turned away, crooning under his breath: “‘You ought to be in pictures . . .’”

  Boris, kneeling and absorbed in the minutiae of arranging the torn pajama-bottom to best advantage, stood up, still looking down at it, hands on hips. “We’ll have to come in very close,” he said half aloud, “very close . . . or it won’t make any sense . . . we’ve got to see the fibers, the thread fibers, right where it’s torn . . .” and he turned to walk toward the camera, Tony following—but they were stopped short by a shout from behind: “Hey, you guys, get a load of this! Some whopper, huh?” and they turned to see Sid flashing—in fact, flaunting—a quite serious erection, proffering it forward to best advantage. “How about this, huh? Like to see you guys match this blockbuster!”

  Boris, thinking of other things, cast a look merely in response to the noise. “That’s great, Sid,” he said, without much enthusiasm—then, more seriously, stopping and looking back at the sucking Yvette, he intoned in a slow shout: “Don’t let him come! Not yet!” and, by way of insurance, repeated it in French: “Attention, faut pas le faire jouir! Pas encore!” Then he and Tony continued walking back toward the camera. “I think it can be a fantastic scene, Tone,” he said, so serious it was almost morose. Behind them Sid was still yelling: “Hey, you guys, Yvette says it’s perfect! ‘Par-fait,’ she says! You hear that, Tone? Par-fucking-fait! Haw!”

  The shot to precede the present one would be of the pajama-bottoms coming off and falling to the floor, crumpled and torn. The camera, after holding on that poignant image, would pan up and in close to where the uncle was trying to force penetration.

  “Okay, Sid,” said Boris, “put it just on the edge of the cooze, like you’re trying to push it in but it won’t go . . . that’s right. How is it, Laz?”