by Smith, Skye
The video was raw footage, and not from the movie camera, but from the much smaller digital camera that was linked to the movie camera. There wasn't one file but twenty. She watched all of them and then chose the four that were the most complete and changed the numeric file name to begin with an 'a'. She was careful not to copy them onto the computer, and thus break the copyright.
The guys were late getting home, but for once she didn't care. She was mesmerized, watching herself play the tease and the victim, over and over. She now understood why Wendy had said that even she wanted to rip her clothes off. No wonder the taxi cab driver was such an ass the other night. She was every dirty old man's dream come true.
An hour later, Karl said almost exactly the same thing word for word. Erik was less kind. He told her again what the monk had said. "Don't you get it, Maya? This is exactly what Sarthani was warning us about. You seem to be hell-bent on bringing yourself to the attention of psycho predators." She felt crushed at the unexpected rebuke for something she was so proud of. She stomped into her room and slammed the door.
At about midnight, after Erik had finished seducing his man, and they had both fallen asleep entwined, they felt another weight on the end of the king mattress. Maya crawled in between them, and then told them to go back to sleep. They did so bathed in her almost sleeping aura.
The next morning she got up with them and the alarm clock, and made a real pest of herself trying to help them get ready for work. Now that she didn't need to cloak her aura, she was cycling through her wardrobe of thrift store treasures including some Victoria Secret shortie nighties that could have been used to seduce the Pope. Needless to say, between this morning's nightie and her soft aura, they were both so distracted that Erik had to return home for his forgotten lesson plans, and Karl for his Blackberry.
She was one of the first extras to arrive at the west parking lot of Jericho Park, where most of the huge white trucks were parked for the duration of the filming. She was early, despite having walked the whole way along the various roads and paths that kept her close to the waterfront, and then along the entire length of Jericho Beach to reach the movie camp.
She was ever so thankful to the plastic raincoat, because the early mornings were now chilly, and the school-girl kilt that the wardrobe department had issued to her was six inches shorter than her own, and of lighter material.
Mike was already drinking coffee when she arrived at the catering van. "Oh Maya, thank you for being here early." He pulled some pages out of an envelope and handed them to her. "I had the writers pen you into one of the main scenes with Karen Marshall, you know, the star. She has that TV show where she runs around killing vampires.
Anyway, she has all the lines, but we are going to use you to add some wiggle and jiggle." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Karen is way too old to play a school girl anymore, and she looks it." He motioned her to sit. "Anyway, it's the scene where some of the school girls are on a hike in the forest and they discover a cave, and in the cave is a musty old coffin. The cave is protected by Ravens, which chase them away, but the close proximity of the girls makes the vampire in the coffin wake up.
You don't have to do much except walk and crawl, run and duck, and of course scream. Unfortunately we can't have you in a close up with Karen," he dropped his voice again, "because the youth of your face and figure will give her age away." He went back to his normal voice, "but I will try to give you a few close ups. Stand up and turn around. Do you have another white blouse?"
"Is it dirty?" Her heart dropped, "Last night I washed out the mud from yesterday's take. Did I miss some?"
"No, it's just that it will be simpler if we don't have to pin it back to strain the buttons. Go and see what wardrobe has. If you have a choice, get one without breast pockets and of a thinner fabric."
"Okay, sounds good. Do I have any lines?"
"You mean other than screaming? We may be able to work something out. It would give us an excuse to include a close up of your face and mouth. "
His Blackberry barked at him, and he jumped up and disappeared into a motorhome. She took her coffee and wandered over to where the ravens were caged, and talked to the raven wrangler. She expected them be like crows, but the likeness stopped with the color. They were huge, and their beaks were huge, and when they looked at you, you felt like shivering.
"How will you get them back after they fly around chasing us?"
"Oh, these ones all have clipped wings. They can't fly more than, say, ten feet off the ground. They are for the close-ups. The ones that will fly and swoop at your are imaginary. They will be added to the film by special effects."
"Aren't vampires supposed to turn into bats?" she asked. "I don't get the ravens."
"I get them, I get them all the way to the bank."
She couldn't talk longer because they were gathering all the extras for the mass shots. School girls walking across a meadow, walking on paths though high bush, walking under the forest canopy. Being told to split up and collect specimens for biology class. Small groups of girls goofing off, and so on. Then all the young girls were sent home, and the more detailed shots began. Maya's, or rather Karen's was first.
Karen did not even acknowledge Maya's presence. They and two others were the bad girls, hiding from the teachers and smoking and talking about boys. There was an entrance to the cave, but of course no cave. The cave shots would be done in the studio. Maya did what was expected of her and skipped and wiggled, bounced and jiggled, but again with taped nipples.
The light man took ten minutes setting up exactly the right light to give the impression that her blouse was diaphanous when it was her turn to crawl into the mouth of the cave. She now understood the need for lightweight fabric and no pockets.
She was almost glad she didn't have a speaking part, because the dialogue was terrible, as in embarrassingly silly. The last thing they did was the panic of the raven attack. That was because their clothes were to be strategically ripped by thorn bushes as they ran.
The part of the huge park where this was being filmed was quite wild and overgrown. She was running behind Karen so that the camera could focus on her pert bum rather than Karen's spreading one. Karen misstepped or tripped over a vine, because the next thing she knew Karen went down hard, and then there was an ominous hum.
One of Maya's duties growing up in Albion was helping the migrant bee keeper who turned up every year during fruit blossom season. This was not the hum of bees. This was the more agitated hum of wasps. Karen must have crashed into a nest, and she was starting to swat at them, trying to get up to run away. Maya jumped on her back and held her down.
"Stay down, stay down. Stop swatting at them. If you panic and run they will attack as a swarm." She sounded brave, but all she could think of was how short her skirt was and how bare her legs were. If she couldn't calm Karen down they would both be repeatedly stung by the whole hive. She decided to try using her aura to calm Karen down. She put her hands together in prayer and calmed her own mind. Her aura leaped out of sleep mode.
She was touching Karen, skin to skin, in many places, so she concentrated on sending her aura through Karen's body. She felt the woman relax. It was working. The loud hum was calming too. Then she felt them. It was as if a thousand teeny tiny feet were crawling on her aura. She looked to the left of Karen's hand. There was a ragged hole in a mudded over decaying stump. Mud wasps were floating in and out of it.
"Karen, are you still with me or have you passed out?" she asked. She heard a muffled answer. "I am going to lift my weight off you and then we have to crawl backwards, very slowly, very calmly. The wasp nest is next to your left hand. When we get about ten feet away, we are going to very calmly stand and walk towards the cameras." There was a muffled "okay".
Maya lifted herself slowly and crawled backwards, and then Karen did the same. Three feet, six feet, ten feet. She started to stand. She helped Karen to stand. They turned their back on the swarm that was now circling the nest like a torna
do, and walked towards the cameras. As soon as they reached them, blankets were thrown around them both.
The raven wrangler came running up to them with some roll-on underarm deodorant. "Here quick, put this on any stings right away." Maya had none. Karen had four, all on her left arm. The deodorant worked like a charm. The stings didn't even swell up, or turn red. Within a minute, all you could see of the stings was the tiny blemish where the stingers had gone in.
"What is that stuff?" asked Maya.
"Just roll-on," said the wrangler, shrugging his shoulders. "It's got a lot of Aluminum chlor-something-or -other in a vanishing cream. It's a strong base. Most natural poisons are proteins, you know, amino-acids. Bases neutralize acids. This stuff goes right under the skin and cancels out the wasp poison immediately." He saw the blank stares around him. "You know, like baking soda and vinegar." Finally, some of them nodded.
Karen was looking at her stings, waiting for them to hurt or swell. When they didn't, she turned to Mike and to the camera crew and started yelling at them. "You didn't even come and help! You effing well kept the cameras rolling the whole effing time!"
"We didn't know there was a problem. We though it was great stuff, like you were ducking the imaginary ravens. It was only when Maya jumped on your back to hold you down that we realized there was a problem. By then, what could we do that wouldn't get everyone stung?"
"Actually, it was pretty weird," said the wrangler. "Something I've never seen before. The wasps created like a dome around them, almost as if they were protecting them as part of their hive. Weird, I say, and I train ravens for a living."
"You'd better say that is a wrap, Mike," seethed Karen, "else I'm on the phone to L.A."
"That's a wrap for the girls!" yelled Mike. "Let's go back up to the cave and do the close-ups of the ravens. The girls can take an early lunch break."
"Come on, Maya," muttered Karen, still angry, "let's get out of here and have some decent food, on expenses." She waved to her personal assistant and then yelled for her get a limo.
"We don't need a limo. The Dinghy Club right there has one of the most scenic snack bars in the world. They make fabulous nachos."
"Do I look like I'm allowed to eat nachos?" snarled Karen. "Every nacho would go right onto my ass. I'm on a starvation diet."
"Uh, well, I'm finished for the day, and my place is pretty close to here. If you drop me at home, I can offer you sushi and sashimi and sake. It was all blessed by a Buddhist monk."
The limo bumped over the rough trail and stopped in a long puff of dust. Karen waited for the door to be opened for her, and got in, then slid over and patted the seat inviting Maya. The assistant got in beside the driver. "I'll see where you live before I commit. Give the address to the driver."
* * *
"Nice," Karen said as she walked from the front door right through to the deck. "So how come, you a nothing extra, gets billeted here, and I am in a downtown hotel suite?"
"I'm just couch-surfing with friends. Wealthy friends. Do you want to eat in the sun or the shade?"
"This is Vancouver. The sun is about as strong as the shade in L.A. Sun, for sure." She then stripped out of her torn and dirty costume and lay out in her bra and panties. When Maya came through with the cold sushi and the hot sake, she placed them down on the deck and then shucked her own clothes.
As soon as the sake and sushi were put down beside her, Karen started motoring through the choicest bits, never touching the rice. "Mmm," she spoke while she chewed and slurp with her mouth open, "this city has the best sushi outside of Japan."
Maya was taken aback. This was a wealthy and successful star, yet she had the same lack of common table manners that the guys had complained about with her and Alicia. She was now very, very glad the guys had given them lessons in manners.
What had Sarthani quoted after she had chastised them for eating at the computer. "I watched them eat and I knew who they were." Well if that was true then Karen was a pig. She looked away from Karen, and towards the view so she wouldn't say something rude. She watched the view until it seemed like Karen was slowing down.
"Sorry about that," Karen said. "I sort of porked it down, didn't I? Like I said, I'm on a starvation diet. That’s the real reason I joined you for lunch. It meant I could shake loose from my driver and my assistant. They are my watchers, you know, and my conscience." She looked along the deck. "Hot tub work?"
"Yeah, but we rarely use the Jacuzzi. Too noisy. Do you want me to open it?"
"Sure, but no splashing. It took them an hour this morning to put this base coat on my face." She looked at the lithe young blonde as they both put up their hair. She looked like that, once, about ten years ago. She sighed and undid her push-up bra and felt her breasts drop, then she slipped out of her panties and let the passing sailing dinghies see that she was not a real blonde.
They sat in the tub, armpit deep, drinking sake. Karen asked her if she had ever played the truth game.
"You mean truth or consequences?"
"Not just the truth game. We take turns asking questions. The other person has to answer them completely truthfully or take a drink and miss a turn at questioning. You can be truthful or miss, but no lying."
"Sure, who goes first?" asked Maya.
"I do, I'm the guest. What did you do to me when you were on top of me? You said you were calming me, but it felt more like you were making love to me."
"I have a strong aura. I can project feelings into people. I was trying to calm you, but I was scared myself, so I probably got the feelings mixed up," Maya said crisply. "My turn. Why are you making this movie? Any episode of your series is better than this dog."
"I have points in the movie."
"What are points? Oops is that another question? Do I have to drink? I think I will anyway." They both drank and Maya poured more.
"Points are percentages of profit. Zero profit, zero dollars. For every million profit I get a hundred grand. My turn. Are you a lesbian? I mean there are a lot of them in this town, no offense."
"No."
"Bi?"
"I don't know yet," replied Maya. "My turn. Why kill vampires in your series and not, say psychopaths and serial rapists and murderers?"
"Vampires are an allegory for serial rapists and murderers. They can't be human or else the censors wouldn't allow us good guys to brutalize them without losing our family rating. Besides, there are a lot of powerful people who are psychopaths, and they would shut us down if we came too close to telling the truth about them." She started to snicker. "Executive producers come to mind, you know, our bankers, our money men."
"Alleghony, what's that?"
"Allegory, um alternative, in place of, sort of," Karen replied. "My turn. Will you do that aura thing with me again? This time with no wasps and no cameras and no thorns sticking into my belly."
"Sure. It would be good practice for me."
"I mean now, before my watchers come back."
"Come on then, let's go upstairs to the yoga room, or would you prefer a bed?"
* * *
She watched Karen lying peacefully on top of her bed. She was one tightly-wound lady. That explained why her efforts to calm her in the bushes had come across as sexual. It was the fastest way to cut through her defenses and start calming her. She'd had to do the same thing here on the bed. Well, that answered another question about her aura. It wasn't just men that she could sexually arouse.
She had sort of suspected that with Alicia and Emma, only they were too proud to admit it to her, or too ashamed. Not Karen. She begged for more and more, until she was writhing in sexual ecstasy. It was just like Erik and Karl. Once their sexual organs were satisfied, then you could reach the inner person and their inner feelings. This woman, however, felt as empty and as cold as a cave.
She took her elbows in her hands and started withdrawing the waves of sensuous non-touch from the woman. For the first time in any of the people she had swathed with her aura, she found no trace of one to strengt
hen. There was none. What had Sarthani told her? The fauxpaths have no aura left. What was the psychological name for fauxpath. The name of another white flower. Narcissus. Narcissistic personality disorder. Consummate actors. Well, she was a well-known actress.
She had felt so sorry for Karen that she had tried and tried to find and then build an aura in her. That was why she let the sexuality get so out of hand. In hopes that some aura would emerge from deep within her womb. That was the other thing. Her womb felt gray, sick, dead.
Karen opened her eyes and looked at her and moaned in pleasure. "My turn," Maya said. "Can you have children?"
Karen flopped back into her pillow and said, "You know, any other girl your age would ask me what Brad was like in the sack."
"Do you want me to get you some Sake?" Maya asked.
"No more, I have to go back to work. Okay, I'll answer. No, I can't. I grew up in a state that did not allow abortions. In high school I was butchered by a dentist who did abortions on the side." She rolled onto her side and then crawled off the bed. "I'd better call my ride. Hell, they are probably sitting in your driveway as we speak."
"Ooh, ooh, I'll go back with you. I'll get out at that last shopping precinct and catch a bus to U.B.C.."
"You a university student?"
"Nah, I just use their nude beach. You know, Wreck Beach."
"I envy you. I can't go anyplace where there may be cameras. All the new phones even have cameras built in. I have zero privacy any more. The other day I was recognized coming out of my hotel and twenty people formed a ring around me and held up twenty phones and started taking stills and videos. It was disgusting."
"Yeah, the nude beach is hanging by a thread for the same reason," replied Maya. "What U.B.C. debutante wants to take her clothes off for an allover tan, only to have her boyfriend find her on YouTube?"
"The way I hear it," said Karen, "it's the boyfriends that are taking the pictures and then selling them to porn sites. I hate them, I hate them all. If I had my way, taking photos without permission would be a hanging offense. What's that old saying? They are killing the golden egg."