“Maybe she just needed time to digest your wise words, whatever they were.”
Nathaniel and I, by the way, became lovers. It happened after the filming of the imitation Jane Austen movie, and it was his doing. Under normal circumstances, I would resist the sexual overtures of a man in whom I had no strong romantic interest. But I didn’t care anymore. It all seemed of little importance. So I allowed Nathaniel to play with me. And he made good and constant use of me. The more he noticed my indifference, the more his usage became urgent. When I say I was indifferent, I don’t mean unaroused. I was indifferent to the fact that I was aroused. And I was indifferent on a more general level as well. He claimed he loved me. He said this made him happy because he never thought he’d be capable of loving someone like me.
“Like me? What do you mean like me?”
He didn’t want to say. I pressured him to no end. I withheld sex. He finally insinuated that what he meant by “like me” was someone whose degree of beauty was not significantly above average. I laughed. Insults to my degree of beauty had never bothered me much, but even if they had, I could not have been offended in this case: he hadn’t been able to love Chriskate, the most beautiful woman in the world.
During the usage, I was passive. He used me like an object, and he used me with fascination. Sometimes he had sex with me as if wishing it to be an insult to me. I didn’t know why, and I didn’t care, and maybe I was wrong anyway. It was never anything specific he said, or anything violent he did. The attempted insult was all in his thrusting. That’s where I got the vibe of it.
And then, he turned out to be right: I saw Damon again. It was on a crowded subway platform. I saw him far away, tall, looking at me above people’s heads. He moved toward the exit. I was rooted to my spot, and then made a dash to intercept him.
He was gone. I called the police who had worked on my case, and told them about it. They said I should be careful; that I should not go alone to deserted places. I repeated that this had been a crowded subway platform. They said they knew, but that regardless, I should not go alone to deserted places. I said okay, but what should I do to catch him. They said I should keep doing what I was doing.
“Which is?” I asked.
“Ask the help of a nearby police officer, if there happens to be one.”
I reminded them that that wasn’t what I had done: I had tried to catch Damon myself. They said they knew, but that they were sure that if there had been a police officer nearby, I would have asked for his or her help.
I was relieved when the absurd conversation ended.
I wanted Damon to be caught. He had altered my life against my will, and so what if it turned out well? That was beside the point. It was the principle of it that mattered.
If he were to be caught, it would make an interesting trial.
When I told Nathaniel I had seen Damon, he became agitated, said he wasn’t surprised, asked what my plan was for next time. I told him I had no plan. He said that was okay, that I shouldn’t scare Damon off or he would be harder to catch.
A few days later, I was walking down the street and saw Damon driving by me slowly in a car. He was looking at me with a very focused expression. He seemed to be scrutinizing my face. I stood still on the sidewalk and watched him drive away. At the last moment, I looked at his license plate, but its number was covered with masking tape.
A couple of days later, I went off to star in a medieval movie, thinking it would be fun to fight with swords while acting. I was offered the part before they even knew I fenced, and they were very pleased when I gave them a demonstration. I had finished the Jane Austen movie a month before and had been able to rest, but my encounter in the street with Damon caused me to be plagued by thoughts of him during the filming, which spoiled my enjoyment of the experience and of my fighting with the swords. I did my job anyway, and well, but I was in a constant state of anxiety. That’s when, and why, I first came up with the germ of the idea for my plan.
Two months later, the medieval movie was done. And a few weeks after that, my first two movies came out in theaters simultaneously, due to the fact that one had been delayed and the other had been completed unusually quickly. It was the most exciting moment of my life, and I wanted to savor the experience to the fullest. I bought myself a pair of Rollerblades, donned a black coat, a hat, and a beard and mustache that Chriskate had left behind at Nathaniel’s apartment and which he lent me for my purpose. With my beard flowing in the breeze of my skating, I spent my days zooming from one theater to the next, watching my movies, watching people’s faces watching my movies, devouring their facial expressions, and listening to their comments. I always brought a notebook with me to write down what I heard, what I saw, and my impressions of both. I also brought a small tape recorder to capture the sounds of the audience in relation to the sounds of the film. Nathaniel came with me sometimes, when his multiple jobs schedule allowed it. We would sit at opposite ends of the audience, and he would report back to me his findings, so that I’d have a double dose of information.
Then we’d go back to his place and have sex, often, because the beard turned him on when he was in a good mood. When he was feeling low he’d ask me to take it off.
After spending about a week watching my movies every day, all day, I was still at it. And one day, as my beard fluttered in the wind and my black coat flapped behind me like a cape while I was skating down a one-way street to get to a distant theater, a car slowed down next to me. It was Damon.
Through his open window, he said, “Are you happy?”
I saw his amputated finger resting on the steering wheel.
“Did I escape?” I asked.
“Are you happy?” he repeated sincerely. He wasn’t referring to the job I had done on his finger, as I thought for a second, but to the job he had done on my life.
We both slowed our rolling and came to a standstill.
I glanced around to see if there was a policeman nearby. There wasn’t. But there were some male pedestrians. I didn’t know what to do.
I turned to two of the men, pointed at Damon, and said, “Help! Stop this man! He stole my wallet!” This, I thought, sounded better than saying, “Stop this man! He kidnapped me!”
The two male pedestrians only stopped their walking; not the man. They remained standing there, staring at the woman in the beard on skates who had forgotten to adopt a man’s voice when calling for their help. And Damon drove away.
I reproached myself later for my lack of resourcefulness. Yet I still had no idea what I could have done.
Nathaniel reproached me too. He said I was stupid, that I had scared Damon off.
“So?” I said.
“You’ll have a harder time catching him now. He’ll be more careful.”
“How am I supposed to catch him? I can’t have an undercover cop following me every day.”
Something good started happening at around that time, but, still unnerved over my encounter with Damon, I wasn’t able to appreciate it fully. This good thing was that my two movies, both of them, became sleepers. First I noticed it myself: each day the theaters got a little more crowded. And the things I heard people say when I followed them afterward were good. From my past experience going to movies and overhearing people’s comments, I couldn’t remember if this was usual. So, to check, I went to a few other movies and compared. I got the distinct impression that people said more good things about my movies.
Another indication I got about my movies being sleepers was a call from the director of the science-fiction movie, telling me so. Then it was a call from my agent, telling me so. Then I heard it on TV. And the TV said it was because of me; because I was in both. I thought it very nice of it to say that, but I wasn’t sure it was true. Then the critics said it too. And the TV wanted me to go on it and talk. Many times. I did. One time I went on Joe Letterman. I had trouble being completely present for the experience, because thoughts of Damon still harassed me; I was a little more subdued and tired than I normally would have been. And magazines interviewed me. I had to pose for their photo shoots. Out of all my experiences involving acting in movies and then promoting them, posing for shoots is what made me by far the most uncomfortable. I had never been photogenic. Nothing required my personality as little as being photographed, and I was not good at things that didn’t require my personality. The result is that I looked either utterly expressionless or overly expressionful. I could never find a middle ground and just look natural. The frustrated magazine photographers always had to resort to catching me by surprise, which wasn’t very convenient for them, since it drastically fouled up the carefully planned poses and backgrounds they had dreamed up for me. They’d grab shots of me while I was getting my makeup touched up, for example, or they’d discreetly instruct the lighting person or the stylist to distract me for a moment. Click.