"You're a grown woman, and your children are grownups too. Or at least they should be. They can accept it. Besides – they don't write you, they don't visit you, they don't call you. Didn't you tell me yourself that you only see them on the obligatory holidays? Do you think they'd really care?"
"Let's not argue. Maybe I'm just an old-fashioned lady at heart. We called it shacking up when I was young, and nice people didn't do it. I suppose I still have that lingering moral reluctance, love. Anyway – isn't it nice to have a woman whisper in your ear 'My place or yours'? Give me a kiss, and let's go to sleep. Seven o'clock comes mighty early in the morning."
The second day of shooting was nice, Connie decided. Roger had told her that porno movie people in New York were like a big, rather incestuous family, and she was understanding what he meant. Everyone knew everyone else, and nearly everyone had screwed everyone else at least once. Two separate sex scenes, one of them a rather complicated threesome, were slated for today, along with some covering dialogue passages, but it went well.
Ellen Pascoe even showed up. She didn't have any other commitments for the day, and so she dropped by the location for some socializing. Connie felt more at ease with her today, and the girl didn't repeat her invitation of the previous day. Instead they talked, shared a couple of sandwiches and some coffee, and Connie found herself granting that Ellen was at least a nice, personable young woman with a bit of intelligence.
The third day saw more sex scenes put on film, and by now Connie fully realized that porno acting was a job like any other. The performers not only had to perform, they also had to memorize lines, to remember their blocking, and all the other necessities of acting. Of course, they were principally there for the sex angle. If they hadn't been loose enough to get it on in front of a camera someone else would have gotten the job. But no one appeared to be discontented. A delicate-bodied blonde girl was fucked in the ass by a Negro with an enormous cock. A bubbly brunette cheerleader type accommodated two men at the same time, one in her mouth and one in her cunt. Connie found herself growing quite blase about the whole scene.
Saturday was the last day scheduled for shooting, and there were two more sex scenes on tap. One was a quick lesbian encounter that the hero witnessed through a window on his way to work. Connie watched it with an unshakable feeling of interest. This was what Ellen had wanted her to try.
"No," she said to herself, watching the two girls. She didn't think she was interested at all. But Connie stared at the way feminine hands fondled feminine breasts, at tiny pink tongues diving between moist pink labia, at sinuous smooth legs curling and stretching. She shook her head firmly. Not interested. But when Roger touched her arm to ask her a question she nearly jumped out of her skin.
After a lunch break Roger and the technicians set up the final scene. When this footage was in the can, the film would be ready for editing and release. And she'd have him to herself until he got another assignment.
There were perhaps a dozen people on the set, some of them visitors from the porno family. Ellen and a girl who'd been in yesterday's shooting were playing cards in a corner. The cameraman was changing film in his camera. Roger and Connie were at work on blocking and lighting for the final sequence. And Frank, the star, sat in a chair examining the current issue of Hustler, rubbing his crotch as he spread out the centerfold.
The girl hadn't arrived yet, and Roger was beside himself with nervous tension. "That bitch," he snarled, showing a side of his character that surprised Connie. "Three to one she's changed her mind and neglected to let me know. Goddamn her!"
Connie shared her lover's anxiety, for she knew as well as he that a delay in shooting could be expensive. They were on a very short schedule, and most of the budget had already been spent. Coming back to finish up on Monday would be ruinous.
"Can't you just skip this, if she doesn't show?" Connie asked.
He shook his head. "I contracted to deliver a film of at least seventy minutes. I've been cutting in the camera, so to speak, to cut down expenses, and I know that what we've already shot will edit out to just under an hour. So, no, I can't skip the sequence. Unless I hustle around and write up another one to take its place. And that means. I'll still have to find a girl or two on extremely short notice. I will murder the bitch. I swear I'll murder her."
The girl in question was named Denise, and everyone agreed that she was a knockout blonde. Connie was interested in meeting her, because Denise was a graduate of Connie's own alma mater, Ohio University. She hadn't been to Athens in years; it would be nice to find out if it was still there.
Denise was a professional, with some credentials as an actress. She'd been in a few R-rated movies, some off-Broadway theater work, and she'd even done a bit of television on the West Coast last summer. But she felt her career wasn't going anywhere, that she needed to make a splash to get proper attention. Porno could provide that big splash, as it had done for Linda Lovelace and Marilyn Chambers. She and Roger were old friends – Connie inferred that they had been intimate friends on occasion – and this cameo role would be her porno screen-test. If she showed up for it.
She was nearly an hour late, and she didn't look a bit well. Her face was a pasty white and she smiled in a halfhearted fashion that did no justice whatsoever to her neatly capped teeth. "I'm sorry," she said to everyone. "I was partying last night."
Roger looked at his watch, very conspicuously. "Okay, Denise. Your costume is in the other room. Why don't you get into it, so we can get started? I hope you know your lines, because we're running late and we don't have time to rehearse. Con, will you give her a hand?"
Connie went with Denise into the next room, and the blonde girl began to undress. She made nasty faces as she removed her blouse and slacks, and Connie didn't think it was a good time to reminisce about Ohio University.
Denise was lovely, in spite of her chalky complexion and queasy expressions. She had silky reddish-blonde hair and fair, milky skin. Her breasts were proportionately full, well separated, and capped by salmon-pink nipples the size of silver dollars. When Denise removed her panties Connie noticed that the girl was a natural blonde, though the pubic hair had been neatly clipped and trimmed, so that only a fringe remained, bordering the discernable slice of her cunt. Young and gorgeous, Connie thought, and Roger used to fuck her, too.
She wondered why it was "used to". Denise was beautiful. Any man would have salivated to contemplate her. But, Connie thought smugly, Roger seemed quite contented with her. Maybe young and beautiful wasn't the only thing in life.
Denise was playing the part of a young war widow living in the apartment building where the hero's working day had taken him. When Frank entered her apartment to repair a telephone, she was to seduce him. It was written as a frisky, sexy romp, but Denise didn't seem any too frisky at the moment. She looked as if she were on the verge of nausea.
Her costume consisted of a frilly pink robe and hair curlers, all of which she shed during the scene's progress. While Denise rouged her cheeks to wipe out some of the pastiness, a not entirely successful ploy, Connie worked the curlers into the girl's hair. It was so fine, so touchable, like threads of silk. Connie had forgotten that hair could feel so good on her fingers. But she wouldn't have taken a hundred dollars to be inside Denise's body at the moment. The girl really looked unwell.
The scene got underway, with Frank coming to the door and Denise letting him in. The previous sequence had been filmed day before yesterday, but the final editing would show that he had just been peeping on a wild sex orgy taking place in another apartment, explaining the erection that blossomed in his pants as he came through Denise's door.