When she finally caught her breath, still chuckling, she said, "Okay, I give up. I promised myself I wouldn't make a nuisance running around asking people—"
Harry's grin broadened. "What's a nice boy like me doing in a place like this?"
Barbara found herself coloring. "Sorry," she said, "but, yes, exactly."
"Good practice." He raised a brow to the precise angle that made the line suggestive, but she understood he meant the acting, not the sex.
She jerked her chin in Dick's direction just as he stuck his fingers up Mary's ass and got his hand slapped for it. "All of you, do you think?"
"No," said Harry, amused, "not all of us. So I haven't spared you from asking the rest . . . or spared them from being asked." He leaned nearer and said sotto voce, "If Dick's answer is any different from what we both expect, let me know, will you?"
John, the DP, flung a finger at one of the PAs. "Nooky light," he commanded and, distracted by the words, Barbara only nodded response to Harry. The "nooky light" was nothing more exotic than the one on the two-inch-high stand, but Barbara grinned at the coinage and collected it in her notebook.
Tommy shook his head as if saddened by it all: "Blinding teddy bears . . . I'm ashamed of you, John." John cackled and switched on the light. Then he held a light meter to Suzy's crotch and said with great satisfaction, "Got that little bugger."
The soundman, who claimed she was a Korean orphan and went by the wonderful pornonym (that was Harry's coinage, also collected) of "Kim Chee," rose from behind her pile of equipment and nodded at Tommy. He raised his voice to carry throughout the living room: "All right, people! Quiet for sound check!"
Kim pulled on her huge earphones and stepped into the circle of lights. She clapped her hands sharply, twice, at each of the walls. Then she swung the boom mike a fraction of an inch to the right and repeated the ritual.
The ripple of Kim's waist-length black hair put the finishing touch to Barbara's sense of reality and despite all her promises to keep out of the way Barbara found herself tagging along behind.
A few hand-claps later, Kim said, "I need a sound-blanket there, Tom." She pointed her there, rounded without warning on Barbara and said "Writers . . . !" Then, grinning, she peeled off her earphones and positioned them over Barbara's ears. "Clap your hands and listen for the echoes."
Feeling like the sorcerer's apprentice, Barbara did as she was told and learned to her wonder that she could hear an odd but very distinct boing-boing in response to her claps in that position. As Tommy and one of the PAs taped a thick quilted blanket across the corner the boing disappeared, to be replaced by a still odder sound.
She twisted to place it, then realized that she had to place it In reference to the mike. It was outside the house, but coming closer.
Once, in a hotel room in Amsterdam, she'd heard something similar coming from the street below. Sure she was imagining things, she had nonetheless gone to the balcony to look—and had been rewarded by the sight of eight draft horses pulling a beer wagon. Advertisement it might have been, but she'd ordered their beer that very evening for the sake of those magnificent horses and their feathered hooves.
Puzzled, she frowned at Kim, who said, "Still a problem?" and held out her hand for the return of the earphones. After listening intently for a few hand-claps, Kim nodded at Tommy. "That's got it," she said, of the sound-blanket.
That deepened Barbara's puzzlement. Even without the earphones, she could still hear it, clip-clopping around the outside of the house in the direction of her kitchen. More distinct now, the sound had lost the metallic sharpness of hoofbeats. Oblivious to it, Kim returned to her equipment.
Barbara, still remembering Amsterdam, followed the sound toward the kitchen, just in case it led to something as interesting as the previous occasion had.
In the hallway, the sound was muffled by book-lined walls, but it sharpened again as Barbara opened the door to the kitchen. At the kitchen table, the brunette—what was her pornonym? "Glinda Goodwitch," that was it—sat wrapped against the morning chill in a faded chintz housecoat. She was so utterly absorbed in a fantasy paperback that she heard neither Barbara not the hoofbeats and, not wishing to disturb her, Barbara moved on tiptoe to the window overlooking the front yard.
There was something there. Barbara pressed her nose to the glass and caught a glimpse of its brilliant white hindquarters through the branches of the weeping willow.
Unicorn, she thought, identifying it from the flick of its lion-like tail and the parting kick of a classic cloven hoof as richly feathered as the heels of those Dutch draft horses. Ah! That explained the difference in sound . . . unshod cloven hoof. Then she thought, Oh, god, do I need coffee.
The unicorn vanished as if it had never been there.
She turned from the window, to find Glinda staring at her. Realizing she'd spoken aloud, Barbara said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to startle you!" even before she saw the glint of tears. Barbara took two steps toward her. "Glinda . . . are you okay?"
Glinda blinked and, for the first time, focused on Barbara.
"Okay?" she echoed. "Oh!" She laid aside her book to swipe at her eyes and said, "It's the story that's making me cry."
Relieved, Barbara angled her head for a look at the title. She'd read it—a fairly standard Celtic fantasy, competent writing but nothing inspired. The author got points for his unicorn, though it was hardly on a par with the one in the willow branches. That reminded her. "I'm putting up some water. Want some coffee? tea?"
"Coffee, thanks."
As Barbara waited for the water to boil, she borrowed Glinda's copy of the script and ruthlessly changed Dick's character altogether. Given a little luck and a lot of Harry's gift for farce, the film might still be passable.
It was Glinda who brought the coffee. "Thanks," said Barbara. Accepting the hot cup gingerly, she pushed aside the script. As she spooned sugar into the coffee and lit a cigarette, Glinda leafed through the script. "I didn't have to change any of your dialogue," Barbara said hastily.
"Yeah, I see," Glinda said, then she smiled sympathetically and added, "I bet writing's easier without actors."
Barbara shook her head. "I wish it were, but—I wrote a fantasy novel—that was just me and the page, and it's not the least bit easier."
After a long moment, Glinda said, "You have the oddest expression . . . Are you okay?"
Barbara realized she'd been staring and blushed. "May I ask you a question? You don't have to answer it. In fact, I promised myself I wouldn't ask it but now I find I can't not ask it. Just slug me if I'm out of line, will you?" After the tumble of words, she suddenly found herself without anything more to say and closed her mouth, blushing a deeper red still.
"You want to know what it's like?"
That surprised Barbara. "Oh, no! I can see what it's like: it's a lot of hard work for very little return. And the guys might be in it for the sex but the women aren't—I haven't seen one of you actually get off on the sex yet. The way you're positioned for the camera doesn't allow it. Mary's pretty good at faking it but . . ."
Glinda grinned. "So what's a nice girl like me doing in a place like this?"
Barbara closed her eyes. "Go ahead. Hit me. That's the question. I was trying to think of a way to ask without sounding incredibly stupid. Why this profession, when it's so looked-down-on? Why not something . . . I don't know quite how to put this . . . with a little more prestige?"
Glinda took a sip of her coffee, set the cup aside, and considered Barbara for a long moment. Barbara was about to apologize again, prepared to drop the subject completely, when Glinda said, "I was a nurse—a surgical nurse. Do you know what that is?"
"The one who slaps the scalpel into the doctor's outstretched hand."
"Yes. Only the doctor was so drunk he dropped the scalpel." Glinda's face changed, darkened. "Among other things. The patient died. I was the one who was fired." What the plainness of her words could not express, her eyes did: anger and hurt and impotence.
Barbara's throat tightened in response. Although she knew what the answer would be, she asked anyway, forcing the words out—"There wasn't anything you could do about it?"
"In the end, no. I tried until I was exhausted. In the end, there wasn't anything I could do about it."
"In the end," Barbara said darkly, "you could only get as far away from nursing as you could."
Glinda nodded. "So I wanted to be in the movies—wide screen fantasies. Only you know what the movies are like, you said it yourself: hard work for very little return. I make fantasies for other people, not for me—" Glinda touched a finger to her paperback and her face brightened a little. "I need somebody else to make fantasies for me."
Barbara, welcoming the chance to look away from what hurt and anger remained, followed her pointing finger to the cover, where a hugely-muscled, empty-faced hero and a handful of lumpy elves protected the usual limp but big-breasted princess from the prospective reader. "I wouldn't eat that if you paid me," she said involuntarily, "no self-respecting dragon would." Even before the comment was completely out of her mouth, she realized how it might be misinterpreted in the context of a porn shot. "I mean . . ." she said, looking up at Glinda.
"It's a lousy cover," Glinda agreed. "I try not to look at the covers. They only get in the way. The words I can see in my head. That's not really his unicorn you see—it's yours."
"My unicorn . . . !" Glinda breathed it out and gave Barbara such a look of wonder that Barbara suddenly felt like some mythical beast herself.
Thoroughly disconcerted, Barbara thought, maybe it was her unicorn I saw! Intrigued by the idea, Barbara flipped open her notebook to jot it down. When she looked up again, she found Glinda still staring at her. "It's a good idea for a story," she explained. "I don't want to forget it."
"Oh," said Glinda, and inexplicably her face saddened, "then someone else will get the unicorn." Puzzled, Barbara frowned, and Glinda said, with half a smile, "Well, I'm hardly the type who winds up with the unicorn."
Still frowning, Barbara thought about that for a long moment. "Oh," she said at last, "you're thinking of all those silly damned virgins, aren't you?" When Glinda nodded ruefully, Barbara said, "But you're wrong!"
Delighted by her own discovery, Barbara went on, "All those silly damned virgins trapped the unicorns so they could be slaughtered for their horns. You wouldn't do that."
"No, of course not!" said Glinda, shocked by the very suggestion.
"You see?" Barbara said, with a sweep of her hand, "You're the ideal person to have a unicorn! You'd protect him, just by being who you are."
This pronouncement earned her another of Glinda's wide-eyed stares of wonder, but this time Barbara was pleased enough by her own invention to bear it without being disconcerted. Sometimes, she thought, I get something right. I only wish it would work that way on paper.
The two of them smiled at each other for a long moment—until the mood was shattered by a long drawn-out shriek from the living room.
Barbara jumped to her feet in alarm, but Glinda caught her before she could reach the door and said, "It's just Dick, Barbara. It's nothing to worry about, honestly."
"You're sure?"
"I'm sure. I've worked with him before. I recognize that shriek. Whatever he's doing, he's loving it." Glinda paused, then added, "You only have to worry if you hear a female shriek when Dick's in the same room."
Barbara, not wholly convinced, hovered halfway between the table and the door. It opened to frame a broadly grinning Harry.
At the sight of her, Harry sobered instantly. Clearing his throat, he straightened and—for all that he was stark naked—became the maitre d'hotel.
The towel that draped his forearm was silver tabby. "Your cat, modom," he announced, lifting his arm to present the utterly complacent ER.
"Oh, lord," said Barbara, much relieved. "I have a feeling that explains the shriek." ER turned his rumbling purr up a notch or two and stretched to meet her hand in mutual caress. "ER, I thought you were outside."
"Modom, I assure you, Mr. Dick wishes your assumption had been correct . . ." With a laugh, Harry broke character and finished, "Dick's going to need butt makeup for the rest of the film."
ER poured himself into Barbara's arms, still rumbling with pleasure, and she resumed her seat at the kitchen table.
So did Glinda, eyeing them both askance. "You named that gorgeous thing 'Emergency Room'?"
"No, no," said Barbara, "it's short for 'Edgar Rice.' "
"Edgar Rice?" Harry echoed—proving himself as good a straight man as anyone could have wished.
"He burrows," said Barbara, dead-pan.
"Of course," said Glinda, and Harry rewarded her with a perfect comic double-take.
Barbara waited until he was done then, still chuckling appreciatively, said, "Now, tell me what he did." ER rubbed her chin with his forehead.
"He jumped from the top of the speaker into the sex scene between Suzy and Dick," Harry said, "and rode Dick's hip right through the cum shot." He inclined his head at ER, who looked aggrieved (but only because of Barbara's laughter), and added, "I don't blame you for putting out your claws. That was some rough ride!"
"Oh, dear," said Barbara, through her laughter. "I wish I'd seen that!"
"You will. Tom kept the camera rolling and it's all on film. Dick, I'm sorry to report, loved every minute of it."
"Oh, well," Barbara said to the cat, "thanks for trying, anyway." Gathering him up in her arms, she rose. "I suppose you'll have to go outside now. I've got to check these changes with Tommy and you obviously can't be trusted alone."
But ER had other ideas. As Barbara bent for the script he poured from her arms onto Glinda's thigh, where he peered into the housecoat's neckline and butted her bare breast with the flat of his head, his purr echoing Glinda's giggle. "Tomcats," said Barbara, and reached to retrieve him before he could embarrass her further.
"It's all right," said Glinda, stroking the cat and getting a louder purr for her efforts. "I think he's sexy too. I'll look after him if you like." She grinned suddenly and added, "Don't worry—I'm not into bestiality."
"He is," said Barbara. At Glinda's surprised look, she explained, "He'll hump your arm—that's bestiality from his point of view, isn't it?—either that or just a good day for fucking."
Harry laughed. "Don't tell John," he said, "he'll want it on film."
Barbara looked at Harry, then at ER—who insinuated himself inside Glinda's housecoat to settle with smug content. She sighed and said, "He'd get a better cum shot than he does from Dick. ER goes off like Vesuvius." She stubbed out the cigarette she'd left burning in the ashtray. "Okay, Glinda—but if he gives you a hard time, and you can take that however you want, just chuck him out the door."
"Okay." Glinda settled back and picked up her book. Clearly she had no intention of chucking ER anywhere.
Harry, once again maitre d', held the door for Barbara. Once it had closed behind them however he caught her eye and, dead-pan, turned her own question back on her: "And what's a nice girl like you doing in joint like this?"
Barbara blushed. "Tommy asked me if I could write him a porno script. In a moment of bravado, I said I could write anything I could see three of. I sat through a triple feature at our local triple-X emporium, doing 'research'—you were in two of them!" She grinned up at him. "It was a gag. At least, I thought it was. I never for a moment believed he'd film it!"
"So the joke's on you."
"I'm not slumming, if that's what you think. The ones I saw were so badly written, I had to write one that would be . . . a real movie."
"Good practice," he said. "Now I understand why you want to break Dick's legs. Suzy may be a bitch but you get on fine with her because she knows her job and does it. Dick—''
Barbara turned away, shocked to find tears of frustration starting from her eyes. She took a deep breath and said, "I'm not naive, Harry. I knew the actors Tommy hired wouldn't have the same faces I saw in my mind's eye . . ."
He was watching too closely and much too sympathetically. "All right," she said angrily, "I am naive. I did my damnedest to make it a good script—funny, even a little bit inventive—but I didn't count on somebody who couldn't shout 'Fire!' convincingly if you lit his eyebrows." She raised her hand, brandishing the rolled script like a bludgeon. Stupid, she thought with a guilty start, to be so upset over something so trivial. Glinda has cause for tears, and she isn't crying—she's just looking for a believable unicorn. More disgusted with herself than with Dick, Barbara dropped the script to her side and said, "Dick is ruining my fantasy."
Harry put his hands on her shoulders, and Barbara looked up, met his eyes and surprised herself by saying, "All I want is to be able to make someone see it."
"I'll do my best for you. I promise."
"Thanks, Harry." She'd meant anything she wrote—not the film specifically—but if Harry was willing to try, handicapped as he was by Dick, the least she could do was track down the right unicorn for Glinda. Which, she decided on the spot, should be very much like Harry. The thought that led to made her giggle.
"What?" asked Harry, smiling.
"Oh, Harry, don't be mad—it gets a little weird in here sometimes." She tapped her temple. "You're being strong and sympathetic and reassuring and . . ."
"And?" he said, wary now.
"And, in case you haven't noticed—you're stark naked and wearing a pink bow on your prick. So why is it I'm the one who's feeling vulnerable?"
He scrutinized her from head to toe, then himself. Discovering that she was right in all cases, he treated her to a double-take of heroic proportion.
". . . Because you don't have a pink bow?" he suggested and, peeling the bow from his skin with extreme care (and a burlesque wince that made Barbara wince in sympathy), he pressed it to her shirt as if conferring a medal on her.
"There," he said, admiring his own handiwork, "don't you feel better already?"
Unicorns II Page 22