...the Shetland pony. That was in New Orleans and it was great being in show business until the night the pony’s platform broke.
I can imagine.
No, you can’t... (Camera pulls back further to disclose tape recorder on table beside Pluto.)
...Not unless you fell off a roof and landed on a broomstick.
96. Camera pulls back further to show us MADGE. She is a big, full-breasted woman. She smokes a cigarette in a long ivory holder. At this point, she is wearing a rather shapeless velvet robe. Early on in the recorded conversation the phone on her desk rings. She picks it up and says, “Yes, right,” a couple of times and hangs up. Then she stands and removes the robe, under which she is stark naked. We see her from PLUTO’S POV as the recorded conversation continues. In very businesslike fashion she moves about her office getting dressed in every ferocious S-and-M prop the Pleasure Chest can provide — anklets and wristlets, studded leather belts, etc. Puts on a pair of towering high-heeled boots. The whole number.
...And then there was the time I got raped by all those guys. Fifteen of the bastards, and they still couldn’t get me off. You can imagine how it wound up. They were the ones who had to call the cops.
Not that I’m not enjoying this, Sophie, but we’re wasting time.
You already know all this?
We have an extraordinary research department. Look at the pool we have to draw on. All the researchers and statisticians in the world — oh, maybe one or two of them might have signed with the other firm, but the rest of them wound up in Hell.
It figures.
What it comes down to is that you’ve had everything between your legs but a toll booth. But it doesn’t work for you anymore.
I don’t get off.
Well, I can get you off.
You?????
97. At this point MADGE is dressed to maim, if not to kill. She reaches over and shuts the tape recorder off.
It gets better, Madge. If you...
I was hoping it would. But it’ll have to wait for a minute. I’m on a tight schedule.
Oh?
98. MADGE POV PLUTO. She picks a dildo off the desk, uses it as a prop-cigar, does the Groucho Marx duck walk, and says, eyes rolling and alclass="underline"
It’s my last chance to beat the other couples. (She takes the world’s most menacing whip from a hook on the wall and strides to the door. She goes out the door.)
99. Close-up PLUTO. We stay on him and watch his reactions as we hear horrible sounds from the next room; MADGE flailing with the whip and male and female screams.
100. The door, POV PLUTO, as MADGE comes in, briskly crosses to the desk and turns the recorder on again. During the rest of this she methodically undresses, winding up in the shapeless robe again, her air throughout one of business as usual.
I can’t get you off personally, but I can bring all my resources to bear. Three times, if necessary. That’s the terms of the agreement.
And in return you get my immortal soul.
That and nothing more.
I was never even sure I had a soul.
It’s just a carry-over from the days when people needed them. Like the appendix. The way human life has evolved over the years, the soul really isn’t important You don’t use it...
If you don’t use it, you gotta lose it.
Exactly. (The tape spins in silence, with MADGE and PLUTO drumming their fingers impatiently, waiting in suspense.)
Oh, hell. I’m probably damned anyway... And if all the sex is Hell’s department, what’s left for heaven? (SOUND of her signing the paper.)
You won’t regret this, Sophie.
I guess not. (Two beats.) You didn’t answer my question. What’s left for Heaven if Hell gets all the sex?
Oh, nothing much... Just all the love.
101. The camera has come in close for MADGE’S reaction to this last line of PLUTO’S. A grand sigh, and then she reaches to shut off the recorder.
Signed and countersigned. Good job. (She studies the document.)
102. Two-shot favoring MADGE.
Wait a minute. This is just an option agreement.
I know.
Something new?
It’s the latest thing the boys in Legal have dreamed up. A contract’s only valid if it’s equally binding upon both parties. Thus we have to fulfill our promise to satisfy Sophie sexually or the rights to her soul revert to her. I don’t pretend to understand all the whereases and thereinafters but it’ll hold up this way.
Of course it will. We’ve got the best damned legal department in existence. But they keep switching things around.
103. Close-up PLUTO POV MADGE.
It’s the same all over Hell. It’s just too crowded. Too cumbersome. The red tape you have to go through—
104. Close-up MADGE POV PLUTO.
— Filling out fifteen forms to requisition a few pounds of brimstone—
105. Close-up PLUTO POV MADGE.
— Going through a dozen channels for permission to strike a match—
106. Dolly and pan to a two-shot.
— All this bureaucracy. Well, honey, what can you expect? When you wind up with every lawyer who ever lived, and every thieving politician, and every pen-pushing government hack, what do you expect? I don’t want to keep you. You’ve got the devil’s own job ahead of you, getting that old bag’s rocks off.
Don’t I know it. (He stands up and gathers his papers, closes his attaché case. Then he walks over to the roaring fire which we have seen a lot of but which I forgot to mention earlier. He snaps his fingers. There is a small explosion, more like a wheeze. He frowns and snaps his fingers again, same result.)
Let me do it, honey. (She puts her hands alongside her breasts. We do a quick zoom to get tight on her breasts. We see nothing but them with her two hands alongside them. She snaps her fingers and there is an enormous explosion, thunder, lightning, etc.)
107. Wide shot of the room, PLUTO has disappeared.
108. Montage of New York By Night: PLUTO and SOPHIE getting in and out of cabs, walking in and out of nightclubs, lots of establishing shots, maybe a pan of Eighth Avenue hookers and massage parlors from a car window, etc.