Blue Movie

by Terry Southern

  “Umm-hmm,” she murmured, “. . . warmer,” and snuggled a bit, like a cat settling down to a saucer of cream.

  Tony, who had arrived on the set just in time to see the “great cock-switch,” as he later dubbed it, watched in disturbed fascination. “Now, you can’t tell me she doesn’t know that’s a real cock she’s got there!”

  “I wonder,” said Boris, “but I bet it’s going to look pretty wild up on the big screen. Dig that face—its angelic, for Chrissake! We’ve got to get her a halo! And he looked about wildly for one of the lighting crew.

  Whether it was the drug causing her to be unaware of what was really happening, while at the same time she pretended that it was happening, or whether it was the drag enabling her to accept the transition from pretense to reality, it was not yet possible to discern. What it was most like was the kind of dream wherein the dreamer, aware that it is, in fact, a dream, and therefore harmless, allows it, even encourages it, to go on.

  While Nicky and the lighting crew were working to get a halo effect, Lazlo moved around to shoot at the other (Feral-tongue) end. “Listen,” he asked Boris, continuing to shoot, hardly moving his lips, “what about that ass-hole stuff you mentioned?”

  “Fantastic,” said Boris. “We’ll get anal-tongue and halo in the same composition! Beautiful.” And he was just about to convey this pom-pom-to-derrière move to Feral himself when he caught a fleeting telltale look in his eyes that suggested he was on the brink of an orgasm. “No, no, Feral,” he pleaded, “not yet, please! No boom-boom! Please, no boom-boom yet!” Frantically pushing Lazlo in front of him, he rushed to the other (Angie-head) end of the set, as though he could somehow prevent it at the source. But naught could avail, as was all too evident from the moaning wail of ecstatic release that rose from Feral’s lips, and the convulsive shudder that seized his body and limbs. As for Angela Sterling, at the initial instant of spasm, it seemed she still felt it was all part of a romantic dream, a sexual pretense, and that she could go along with it, even repeating her murmured “hmmm . . .”—as in pleasure, or anticipation of same, as a kitten about to get comfy and snuggle down for some more warm cream. But with the first spurt came the rude awakening, and she snatched the member from her mouth, regarding it with wide-eyed incredulity, a tiny trickle of semen glistening down from the corner of her lips, while in her firm grasp the stout org began to unleash its main salvo . . . but now straight into Angie’s smart, new, studio coif. She simply could not believe it, or so it seemed—she, who was frozen, mesmerizmo-ville, holding it as though it were a spitting cobra, at the same time turning away, so that the great bulk of the discharge went point-blank into her golden tresses from right profile, causing, as Helen Vrobel later described it, the “most godawful icky mess you can imagine!”

  However, the immediate effect of Feral’s massive emission into her immaculate coif was fairly traumatic, heightened perhaps by the devilish meth. In any case, she flew from the set, completely naked (devoid of rig) and shrieking like a madwoman, with Helen Vrobel closing in pursuit, blue brocade wrapper extended and flying.

  Boris, in a state of extreme agitation, stamped around the cameras. “What did you get, Laz? What did you get?”

  Laz shrugged. “Well, we got it . . . I mean, I’m not sure what it was, but we got it.”

  “Wow,” Tony said, “that sure was a bossload of jissem—those guys must be oversexed or something. Hey, did you hear about old man Harrison, fucking a stiff?”

  Boris sighed, looking at his watch—four-thirty—they’d never get her back today. “Okay, Freddie,” he called, “wrap-wrap.”

  “No kidding,” Tony continued, as they started walking toward the trailer, “right here in town, a couple of hours ago—Morty Kanowitz watched him do it. Can you imagine that? Fucking a fucking corpse, for Chrissake? Man, that must really be weird.”

  “Hmm,” Boris was thinking that he might have just made his first serious miscalculation. The question was, had the scene actually been that much better than it would have been using inserts, to justify the risk of permanently alienating the actor? His mind’s eye began to re-create it, image by image . . . yes, he decided (or at least, so rationalized), her sucking toward the end . . . her face, the angelic quality . . . it could only have been gotten the way they had gotten it—by doing it for real. And that image alone, he felt, had made it worth the risk. Moreover, if Feral hadn’t come so soon, who knows what other extraordinary things they might have gotten? It was just bad luck.

  As they reached the trailer, they were overtaken by Feral himself, now wearing his loincloth, and, for once, not smiling—in fact, looking pretty depressed.

  “Very sorry,” he said. “Feral no try boom-boom. Just happen. Feral very sorry.”

  Boris patted his shoulder. “That’s okay, Feral. It happens to all of us.”

  “And Missy Sterling? She angry, yes?”

  “Don’t worry, she’ll be all right. You did good pom-pom work, Feral.”

  “Yes?” That set him smiling again. “Good. Pompom very good taste. Feel very good to Feral-tongue.”

  “Well, I’m glad you liked it, Feral.”

  The latter nodded enthusiastically. “You tell Missy Sterling, yes? Feral say her pom-pom very good! Feral say her pom-pom best ever!”

  “Yeah, I’ll do that, Feral. See you tomorrow.”

  22

  BORIS AND TONE were having a “pre-sundowner” in the trailer and considering the ironic vagaries of art and existence; at that same moment, a meeting of certain import was going forward in the penthouse suite of the Imperial Hotel in downtown Vaduz—a “gathering of eagles,” so to speak . . . C.D., Les, and Lynx Letterman. Les, quite disheveled, still wearing his gray nuthouse bathrobe, and totally strung-out in coming off the big M, had been trying to brief them as to the true nature of the movie they were producing.

  “Dad, I swear to God, it’s a stag film!”

  But Dad wasn’t buying. Never one to be easily convinced—certainly not by some strung-out disheveled person in a nut-robe, and, above all, not by his own son—he was quick to take the offensive. “You’ve got pussy-on-the-brain, boy,” he said sternly, “now go in the bathroom and get cleaned up!”

  After Les, sullen and slightly staggering, had left the room, C.D. sighed and poured a couple of large ones.

  “I don’t know,” he wagged his head in pious despair, “young people today—they just don’t seem able to take care of fundamentals. You know what I mean, Lynx?”

  Lynx was now deep into his intuitive bag. “I know what you mean, Mr. Harrison,” he said with a sympathetic nod, but he had already decided that it was probably true . . . what Les had said about the film. And that was bad news indeed; for Lynx to contemplate any changes in Angie’s image was like contemplating a series of needless amputations on his own body.

  “Is that the only footage you’ve seen, Mr. Harrison—the stuff with Jenny Jeans?”

  “Beautiful,” said C.D., “beautiful footage—reminds me of Selznick.”

  “Nothing with Angie?”

  “Eh? No, no, nothing with Angie yet—something came up, you see, during the screening . . .”

  “Don’t you think you’d better find out what sort of movie Angie’s making over here, Mr. Harrison?”

  The old man winked and smiled mischievously, “Lynx, my lad, that’s exactly why I’m here.”

  The instant Angela went into her freak-out, Fred the First had summoned the company physician, Dr. Werner, who hurried to the dressing room, arriving only seconds after Angie—with a strong assist from Helen Vrobel—had stumbled in, still hysterical, and collapsed on the bed.

  Since no one except Tony knew what drug she was on, Dr. Werner could not administer a specific antidote, but he did inject her with a strong sedative, which put her to sleep at once, whereupon he listened to her heart with his stethoscope for a minute, then opened her wrapper and gave her a once-over-lightly from shoulder to knee. “Just to make sure, uh, there are no broken bones, e
h?” he explained. “Better safe than sorry in matters of this sort, heh-heh.”

  “She didn’t fall,” Helen Vrobel observed coldly.

  “Hmm? Oh yes, of course,” said Dr. Werner, closing her wrapper and carefully adjusting it. “What’s this in her hair? Where it’s wet here?”

  “I can manage that, Doctor.”

  He touched it, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together, noting its texture, smelled it, tasted it. “Hmm, curious,” he murmured, standing, staring down at her for a moment, as in a reverie. “Right,” he said then, coming out of it. “You stay with her until she wakes up. She should be fine by then . . . if she isn’t, call me.” As he spoke, he absently picked up a box from the dressing table. “Ah, perhaps this is what she was taking.” He raised the lid to reveal twelve small compartments, all empty. “Oh well,” he said with a shrug, dropping the box into the wastebasket, “whatever it was, it looks like she’s finished with it now.”

  23

  THE SEQUENCE TONY had written for Dave and Debbie Roberts was simple and romantic, even sentimental. It was a story of sibling love between two beautiful, sensitive children—brother and sister—who, because of their situation as the only children on a ducal estate were constantly together, and, in their aloneness turning ever closer to one another, until, when they were sixteen, their rapport reached its moment of ultimate consummation. The opening of the sequence called for a montage of shots to establish their idyllic life and their happiness in doing things together—skiing, sailing, riding, swimming, tennis—all in joyous camaraderie. There was also a scene in which they look at photographs in a family album; these further establish their closeness, progressively, from their infancy to the present. The climactic love scene was to occur in a conventionally romantic setting; caught in the woods during a rainstorm, they take shelter in an abandoned cabin. Soaking wet and freezing, they build a fire; they take off their clothes to dry, wrapping themselves in two blankets they’ve found. The storm continues, and they have to spend the night in the cabin. It becomes increasingly cold, and they snuggle together for warmth beneath the blankets. Their embrace, which, in its childish beginning, was one simply of warmth, laughter, and deep affection, is gradually infused with sexuality. And they make love, in a pure and innocent way, on the blankets in the firelit cabin. In the subsequent lovemaking scenes, their passion would become much stronger, growing, as would their love and understanding, and the intensity of their attachment to each other. They would neither express, nor feel, any form of guilt or taboo-violation regarding their relationship, but they would be circumspect about it since they were aware of society’s attitude. And because of this attitude, there would be one scene wherein each had just returned from making love to someone else, in an experimental attempt to at least soften the intensity of their involvement. However, it hasn’t worked, and they fall into each other’s arms and make love more passionately than ever. Thus, it ends in uncertainty as to what the future holds, and the last images in the sequence are of their lovemaking and their happiness together.

  “Wow,” said Dave softly, when Boris had finished telling him, “that’s pretty far out, man . . . I mean, like that’s a heavy line . . . that’s a groove and a gas.”

  “Have you ever had any, uh, experiences, or feelings like that?”

  “You mean with Deb? Naw, not really—well, maybe some kid stuff, a long time ago, like looking through the bathroom window, that kind of thing. But I guess I was always too dumb maybe. Anyhow, we were usually away at different schools. I mean, it just never happened.”

  “Well, how would you feel about doing it now?”

  “You mean actually balling her? Deb?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Yeah, well, like wow, man, I mean, for one thing I don’t know how that would go down with my old lady . . .”

  “I didn’t know you were married.”

  “Yeah, well we decided it’s not exactly the best PR right now, so we’re just sort of cooling it—but the thing is, she’s pretty uptight in front about Debbie, so the idea of my actually balling her might just snap her wig . . . you dig? Hey, rhyme-time! ‘Her wig, you dig’!”

  “Well, we could tell her we used inserts—that the actual balling parts were somebody else.”

  “Hmm,” he seemed dubious, but not really caring too much, “yeah, that might work . . . anyway, she’s been a pain in the ass lately.” He shrugged. “Well, man, if it’s cool with Deb, I’m ready.”

  “But you’re not particularly turned on by it . . .”

  “Yeah, well, I mean it’s like this, man, sex is not such a heavy groove for me any more—I’m into more like a spiritual bag, you dig? I mean, like I’ve been making some heavy trips, and, well, balling has gotten to be, you know, like kind of . . . ‘irrelevant?’ Is that the word?”

  “But you can stay off trips for a little while, can’t you?”

  Dave laughed. “You mean like long enough to fuck my sister?”

  “Well, yeah, but also to dig doing it.”

  “Sure, man—I mean, if she can get it up for me, I’ll stick it in.”

  “Fair enough,” said B.

  “Yeah, well, you know, like I’m not here to rumble, man, I’m here to groove . . . I mean, I dig all those heavy lines you’ve been laying down, and, well, you know, like I’m loose, you dig?”

  “Dig it,” said B.

  Dr. Werner having advised that Angie have a day’s rest, it was decided to begin the Dave and Debbie sequence the next morning.

  Pert Debbie Roberts was America’s perennial cute-as-a-button favorite teen-ager, who had, in fact, reached Hollywood by route of the coveted “Miss American Teen” crown, and now was star of the TV series The Girl Next Door. This prime-time show—a classic in the “Gosh-Golly-Gee Whiz” tradition—enjoyed a very favorable rating among older viewers, whereas, due to its canned laughter and never-land content, it was anathema to anyone under forty. Like Angela Sterling, Debbie was keen for a change of image. Ironically, however, despite her vast notoriety as a libertine and “swinger extraordinaire” in her personal life, she had acquired, during her two years as “Barbie” (the Girl Next Door), a striking number of that character’s inanely cute mannerisms and expressions, so that her remarks at the initial script conference with Boris, Tony, and Dave assumed a curious incongruity.

  “Gosh,” she exclaimed in wide-eyed surprise, though not without interest, “you mean he’s really going to (gulp) screw me? Davey?”

  “Big deal, huh, Sis?” Dave stretched lazily. “We’d have to cool it with Trix though—might put her pretty uptight.”

  “Trix? Good grief, what about Mother?!?”

  “No, what we’d do,” Boris explained, “we’d say it was inserts—I mean, the actual lovemaking shots—we’d say we used doubles there.”

  She looked from one man to another, cute, puzzled: “Well, can’t we just do it that way?”

  Boris shook his head. “Somehow it doesn’t have the same overall quality—it doesn’t have the aesthetic tone. It seems false.”

  “Also,” Tony added, “with doubles, you can’t pan—you have to cut away each time.”

  “Dig?” asked her brother.

  Still wide-eyed, she nodded at each of them to show understanding. “I guess so. I mean Mother’s going to have conniptions about this whole thing anyway . . . no matter how we do it.”

  “Not when you get an Oscar for it, Debbie,” suggested Tone.

  She clapped her hands, then gripped Dave’s arm, beaming with delight. “Oh, wouldn’t that be just too terrif!”

  So, by mid-morning, they were shooting Debbie undressing (“First things first, eh, B.?” Tone had quipped) in the foreground, while her brother knelt, his back to camera (and to Debbie) building the fire.

  “Gosh, even my underclothes are wet,” went the line, when she was down to her white panties and bra.

  “Well, take ’em off,” he said, “you don’t want to catch pneumonia,” and, as he reached his hand over h
is shoulder behind him, he added teasingly, “Don’t worry, I won’t look.”

  “Silly,” she said, laughing, and handed him the small garments, which he held up in front of him for a second—first, the bra, stretched horizontally between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and he gave a mock wolf-whistle; then, the panties, holding them the same way. “Hey, you can see the fire right through them! Ha, bet those sure keep you warm, all right!”

  “You nut,” she said, and laughed again, while he arranged them alongside her other clothes on the firescreen, and she enveloped herself in one of the blankets, and sat down beside him, shaking her hair loose and leaning toward the fire to dry it.

  “Now, your turn,” he said, getting up to stand behind her and take off his clothes, handing them to her one at a time, while she accepted them, hand back over shoulder, just as he had done, then draped them across the other end of the fire-screen.

  “Wow,” Tony whispered to Boris, even before Debbie stepped out of her panties, “she must have one of the cutest asses in the industry.”

  Boris nodded accord. “Nice little knockers, too.”

  “Perfect little knockers,” Tony agreed. “You know anyone who’s fucked her?”

  Boris, squinting through his view-finder, muttered halfheartedly, “Oh . . . one or two, I guess . . . maybe three.”

  “Yeah, what’d they say?”

  “Great,” said Boris.

  “I’m hip it is,” said Tony, not taking his eyes off it. “Did they say it was freaky?”

  “Freaky?” Boris shrugged. “No,” he said, absorbed in the view-finder still to his eye, “just your average . . . nice, wet, tight, hot, cheer-leading, baton-twirling, teenage American pussy. Ha, how does that grab you, Tone?”

  “Dig it,” said Tone, grooved by the image, “can’t beat that!”

  However, while Boris and Tone were thus engaged in innocent badinage, sinister things were afoot in another quarter of the town—penthouse-time, Hotel Imperial—where the resourceful Lynx Letterman was presiding over an exclusive, audience-of-two-soirée-cinégraphique—projecting color slides onto a screen in the darkened room . . . slides he maintained were single frames of 35-mm. motion-picture film, snipped from the work-print of Angela’s sequence in The Faces of Love.