She wanted that shaft in her mouth. It had been ages since she'd felt this horny making a film. Not since she'd had that bit part as a girl kidnapped by a motorcycle gang. At one point the leader had taken her by her long blonde hair and told her she was going to be their plaything and that she had better get used to the idea of being their bitch.
Not being the leading lady at the time (Julie never had managed that feat except in a couple of really, really forgettable pictures) no one came to rescue her. She had a few minutes squirming on screen as they stripped off her clothes and threw her to the floor of their clubhouse and then, as it usually does, the scene had faded just before the really good parts.
Such was Julie's lot, always in the background, never in the limelight. Sure, she could have gone the adult film route with the body she had, but that was a line she'd drawn in the LA sands a long time ago. At age thirty-four, she'd about given up on a real career until Ambrosiano had given her a call out of the blue.
"I have a picture,” he'd said, and there was no need to ask further. When Giovanni Claudio Ambrosiano says he has a picture it's like Elton John telling you he's working on a little ditty. Ambrosiano was film-the whole history of cinema for the last thirty years could be traced in one way or another to this man's innovations. He'd been a recluse for years, though, which made it all the more strange he would resurface now, wanting to produce what for all intents and purposes was shaping up to be a campy gladiator/slave story using none too significant actors.
But Julie wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. As for Ambrosiano's strange moods and even stranger filming habits, she would take that in stride. Anything to realize her dream of being a star. This was her final shot and she knew it. A thirty four year old blonde bit actress had no future in Hollywood; she was living on borrowed time, natural breasts and hair color not withstanding.
"Where is the intensity?” cried Ambrosiano, sounding more and more like an disgruntled fan at a Manchester United soccer match with each utterance. “I want my intensity!"
Julie turned looked over her shoulder in defeat, breaking the action. “Signor Ambrosiano, with all due respect, I am just not grasping this scene. Perhaps if we used some dialogue?"
"How dare you stop?” The man challenged. “Continue the scene, at once. Slap him and find your intensity."
"Sir?” Had Julie heard him correctly?
Ambrosiano rose to his feet imperiously. He was an excellent specimen for his age, his perfectly oval face angular and wrinkle free. The director was one of those men who would only ever get sexier as he got older. Everything about him was intriguing. He wore a black silk shirt, sleeves rolled up, half unbuttoned. His hair was a lion's mane, stark white, unbound, hanging to the middle of his back, the line of recession barely noticeable. He had piercing black eyes like an owl's or a hawk's and the nose of an ancient philosopher or sorcerer.
It was the mouth that most transfixed, however. You could not help but hang on its every motion, the complexity of its pursed lips-lips that had directed, dominated and seduced every top star of the last thirty years, male and female alike.
"Slap him,” repeated those fearsome lips, the order given as though there were no other possible action in the world that could be taken at this moment. “Draw your hand across the face of the slave. Teach him the power of the mistress."
Julie swallowed. Surely this was not in the contract. Surely there was some way out of this.
"But … what if he thinks I am attacking him?” she asked reasonably.
The Great Ambrosiano raised his eyes to the heavens, invoking something in his native Italian from his ancestors. He was on the move now, long purposeful strides in his black silk trousers, pleated and his hand-made loafers, part of a special line out of Milan reserved just for him.
"Step back,” he said to his leading lady. Then to the Dasklovian, whose shoulder he was now clutching in his fine, bony hand, he said, “Watch, Grigori … molto bene."
Julie gasped audibly as the director leaned in with savage intent and struck the man with the palm of his hand. The wrestler's head was rotated slightly by the blow, but he remained expressionless.
"Now,” Ambrosiano nodded deadpan to the five foot three, one hundred and ten pound actress. “Your turn."
Julie looked at the hapless Dasklovian. Three months ago he'd been tossing bears and bending bars of iron for the Kiev Circus. Probably had a girlfriend back there and a nice ancient mother in a kerchief who wept with joy when he told her he was going to be a movie star. And here he was half naked in silly wooden shackles about to be slapped by a down-on-her-luck American actress whose great claim to fame was being the Wink Girl for Wink Detergent.
"I don't think I can do it, Signor Ambrosiano. I'm sorry."
Ambrosiano tore at the roots of his hair, an unprecedented display of raw feeling in the man. There was a commotion back inside the house and at once two of his assistants rushed in with hand-held cameras, focusing on either profile of the man, capturing every nuance of the director's frustration.
"And so it continues,” narrated the one pseudo director, pole thin and dressed in black turtleneck and black jeans. “From dust to dust. To rain, to prune, to prepare … Piovare, potare, preparare…"
"Piovare, potare, preparare,” repeated the other solemnly in his tank top and shorts.
Julie sighed. Roughly translated they were saying “To rain, to be able, to prepare.” What sense did that make? This was how it went, every time a shoot went bad-the two would rush in chattering as they started filming Ambrosiano's reaction to his own movie making.
"Ho dimenticato,” decried the Great Master, dramatically stretching his arms out over the edge of the balcony. “I have forgotten."
The two assistants turned off their cameras and dropped to one knee, sharing in what seemed to be a ‘moment.'
Julie was about to ask if they could take five for a cigarette when the director whirled back to face her on the radius a dime-or whatever passed for dimes over here. This time his eyes looked like the sea, swept by an ancient storm.
"Kiss,” he pronounced, as though this were the solution not only to the current difficulties in filming but to those of existence as a whole. “You must kiss him."
Julie sucked in her lower lip, puffy and tingling. As aroused as she was, an on camera lip lock in front of a dozen cologne soaked witnesses named Guido really was not the best idea. “Is slapping him still an option, Signor Ambrosiano?"
Unless you want this odd little piece of cinematography to have an X rating, that is…
"No,” he roared, “the moment is passed … everything has shifted, like the plates beneath the earth. Kiss, now!"
To her utter and complete astonishment, it was the statue Grigori who made the first move, taking his leading lady in his arms, leaning down to plant his lips. He plastered their bodies, decisively but without coercion, the remains of his faux shackles lying in bits and splinters at their feet. Before her mind could think to resist, her body was right there, meeting him point for point, her curves fitted to his angles, every gaping space of her, desperate for filling.
Oh, fuck.
He did have a monster cock under that skirt and right now it was at half-mast, aimed point blank at the apex of her thighs, the rough leather making a mockery of the damp silk covdring and the even damper lips beneath. What else was she supposed to do but lift herself off her heels, driving her pussy against him, plowing her nipples suicide style into those yummy pecs, her arms draping suggestively over his shoulders?