Smutti cautioned Penny as he positioned her on the ermine rug. His eyes were stern. Then he strode over to his director’s chair. Pastrami returned and got into position. Smutti hefted his megaphone. “Lights!” he called. “Camera! Action!”
Penny wriggled. After a few moments, she found herself looking up at Smutti riding the boom of the camera directly over her. She wiggled out of the mink coat. The camera dipped so low over her nude body that it practically touched her writhing skin. Finally it reached her face, closed in on her eyes, and then abruptly retreated while a second camera picked up the approaching Pastrami. Now he stood over her and she felt the rnozarella twine around her breast. A moment later he had torn open the pillow and was sprinkling her with feathers. These made Penny itch so much that she didn’t even have to try to wriggle. It just came naturally. Then he was tickling her with the feather and the darling girl thought she would go out of her mind. Her little honey-hive felt as though a million bees were buzzing inside it. Penny didn’t have to act. She stood it as long as she could, and then wrenched the feather from Pastrami’s hand and pulled her torturer over on top of her.
At last, the darling girl was to be deflowered. And she didn’t care how many people were watching. It was strange that it should happen this way, but she was too aroused to even ponder the strangeness. “Now,” she breathed into Pastrami’s ear. “Give it to me now!”
“You’re too excited,” he whispered back. “Smutti will have a fit. Remember, you are empty!”
“I know I am. I want you to fill that void.”
“You are forgetting. This is to be a mechanical act. You feel nothing.”
“The hell you say! Will you please hurry up?”
“All right. All right. Control yourself.” Pastrami drew back for the all-important thrust and—
“Bianca! You stoppa dat and come home! She’sa no the way I bring you up! Bad girl! You gonna go straight to the priest now and make-a you confession!”
A large, burly, middle-aged Sicilian with flowing, handlebar moustaches had suddenly appeared like some Roman god of vengeance in the middle of the movie set.
“Cut!” Smutti’s scream was a howl of professional frustration. “Cut!”
The orgy stopped abruptly as everybody looked to see what was happening. All but one couple. The very couple over whom the intruder was standing continued performing the act of love.
“Cut! I said cut!” Smutti screamed again. Finally, he hopped down from the camera boom and marched over to the unhearing twosome. He bent over them and shouted directly into the man’s ear. “Cut!”
“Go away!” the man replied.
“Yes, go away,” the girl named Bianca echoed.
“I’ma gonna kill her she don’t stoppa dat!” the Sicilian father threatened, pulling a butcher’s cleaver from the waistband of his pants and brandishing it. “She’sa no even engage to this fella.”
“Cut!” With the help of some grips, Smutti succeeded in prying the pair apart.
“Sonomagun!” the Sicilian father exclaimed. He sa no even Italian! He’sa Jewish!”
“What’s wrong with being Jewish?”'the young man demanded in an injured tone as he hastily buttoned his fly.
“For you’sa nothing wrong. For my Bianca, isa no so good. Isa make her confession twice as hard. Things, she’sa pretty serious all right. You gonna marry her?”
“Good Lord, no!” the young man said. “You want me to give my mother a heart attack? My family is very orthodox. I could never do that to them. I am not going to marry her.”
“Thanka God!” The Sicilian father crossed himself devoutly.
“Besides, I never met her before tonight,” the young man added.
“Bianca, she’sa true? You never meet him before tonight and you make-a da bang-bang like-a dis?”
“I’m just playing a part, Papa. An actress has to do what she’s told. It’s just a role.”
“Froma rolling arounda like-a dis, lotsa girl getta theyself knock up. You stoppa to think of that?”
“Oh, Papa, you’re so old-fashioned.” Bianca turned to the group of interested spectators and spread her hands wide in a plea for understanding. “Can you imagine in this day and age having a father who objects to his daughter being an actress on moral grounds? It’s right out of East Lynn. Papa, you’ve got to stop being so square.”
“I’m square, maybe, but you play sucha parts like this, you gonna be round in da belly and I don’t mean froma eat too much ravioli.”
The argument continued, but Penny’s attention turned from it to consider her immediate situation. Pastrami still straddled her. Like her, he had been watching the real-life drama unfolding. Now Penny sought his attention.
“Say,” she said, “aren’t you ever going to lower that boom?”
“What for? The camera’s have stopped.”
“How about just for the fun of it?” Penny cooed.
“What fun? I feel nothing.”
“Then you,” Penny said, surveying his erect manhood, “are certainly the world’s greatest actor.”
“Yes, I am.” Pastrami admitted.
“Well, if you’re determined to let all that talent go to waste, would you mind getting off me? You may think you’re empty, but I feel the decided weight of too many spaghetti dinners pressing down on me.”
“I don’t care.” Pastrami got to his feet.
Penny shrugged into her mink coat and also stood up. It was just then that there was a commotion at the door to the studio. Smutti went to investigate. He opened the door a crack, and it was immediately battered down on top of him. A throng of camera-wielding young men stampeded over Smutti and invaded the studio.
“Paparazzi!” Pastrami exclaimed.
“Is that the thing they make with veal and peppers?” Penny asked.
“No. They are reporters. Scandal vultures. Somehow they must have gotten wind of what was happening here. They smell such things out. And then they twist and turn things so that they can implicate everybody present. Come on! Let’s get out of here before it’s too late.”
“But I haven’t done anything,” Penny protested, adding a silent, rueful “Damn it!” to herself.
“That doesn’t matter. Believe me. They’ll crucify you anyway. Come on. Out the back.”
Persuaded by his panic, Penny followed. They emerged in a narrow alley behind the tenement. As they came out of the mouth of the alley, a stream of photographers started for them and flashbulbs started exploding. Pastrami bolted, with Penny behind him.
But Pastrami was too fast for her, and Penny soon lost him. She kept running, aware that the paparazzi were closing the distance between her and them. As she ran across an intersection, her eye happened to catch a sign identifying the street down which she was fleeing. Veneto St. the sign said.
Penny tried to run faster. Her feet tangled as she hopped a curb. Her ankle twisted out from under her. She fell to the gutter. The pain was excruciating.
And then the vultures were upon the hapless girl.
CHAPTER TWELVE
PENNY LAY helpless in the gutter. Flashbulbs exploded in her eyes, half blinding her. A babble of voices assailed her ears: questions, insinuations, insults, orders to move this way and that. Throughout it all, her injured ankle throbbed agonizingly.
There’s no telling how long it might have gone on if one of the paparazzi hadn’t happened to spot a figure running in the distance. “Pastrami!” the newshawk shouted.
“I don’t even want any food,” Penny said, dazed. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”
“Pastrami!” The cry was picked up by the other paparazzi. “Pastrami!” They stampeded up the block, hot on the trail of the fleeting celebrity.
Now Penny found herself alone. Suddenly the street was very quiet. The unfortunate girl tried to rise from the gutter. But she couldn’t. Her injured ankle buckled under her and she sank back to the curb. She began to cry. She sat there, sobbing to herself, seeing no chance of help in the deserted street around her.