“You keep this up, I won’t let you see any
of it ‘til you pay for it like everybody else! Go on, git!”
We waited ‘til we heard him crunchin’ away
down the driveway before we got back to business. I had temporarily
lost my handle, but Junie just eased me back on the couch and bent
over me with that smile she always uses. She said she reckoned she
could bring the big feller back and it was true, he was a’comin’ up
to meet her halfway. I tried to ignore Fat Jimmy movin’ around for
a better angle and just concentrated on the intoxicatin’ site of my
pretty wife openin’ her pretty mouth and…
The phone rang, and I’m afraid I took the
Lord’s name in vain, four or five times at least. Junie twisted
around and picked up with one hand while she kept on tuggin’ at me
with the other. Now we’ve been interrupted aforetimes, and any
other time I might’ve been able to continue like that, but it would
take a better man than me to stay focused while his wife is yellin’
into a phone and a sweating man looks like Junior Samples with a
video camera is pokin’ it over my head for a bird’s eye view. It
didn’t help none that the madder Junie got, the tighter she tugged
on me, and Fat Jimmy’s breath was causing me to have grave concerns
over his health. Suddenly I had a new appreciation for what porn
stars had to do every day.
“Yes, we are filming it right now, and you
are interruptin’! No, I will not tell you about it. No, I will not
tell you what I am wearin’! We’re in the middle, Margaret, and
you’re breakin’ my mood!” She slammed the phone down and turned
back to me and Jimmy, still fumin’. “Don’t believe the nerve of
some people, think they can just call you up whenever they please.
I’m sorry honey, where were we?”
Fat Jimmy pipes up, “You was about to do
that thing on him, Miss June.”
June beamed at him. “Yes, I surely was.
Thank you, Jimmy.” And she bent down over me again. I could feel
her lips slipping over my…
It was the doorbell, this time, and this
time it was June what started cussin’. Not because I didn’t want
to, but I was busy biting my forearm through to the bone. June
stormed right over to the door, naked as a jaybird, threw it open,
and yelled, “Henry, if you don’t AAAAAAGH!” She slammed the door
shut and dove behind the recliner, trying to cover herself with the
slipcover.
I sez, “Baby, what is it? Delivery? Girl
scouts? Them God people?”
“Garden club.”
It was, too. They started cooing in the
winders, “Junie?” “Is we interruptin’?” “We wanted to see how the
movie’s coming along.” “Looks like you’re losing your tan early
this year, June.” “Who-all’s in there? Can we come in?” “You gonna
take it up the bee-hind, Junie?” “Don’t let him get in your
bee-hind, June, that’s the devil’s work!”
June stood up behind the recliner and gave
me a sad look, and Fat Jimmy lowered his camera and looked away.
She sez, “I’m real sorry honey, Jimmy, but I cain’t do this,” and
she grabbed her dress and ran upstairs. Me, I just sat there on the
couch, my co-star floppin’ over on my leg and wonderin’ what
happened, while outside five old ladies tried to offer porno advice
through the mail slot.
Henry showed up later that afternoon, angry
and hurt because he had heard that we let the Garden Club watch. He
wasn’t any happier when we told him the truth. “Now what am I gonna
do? I’m ruined,” he sez. “I even bought one of them dee-rector’s
chairs at K-Mart, and now I gotta take it back.” He sighed a deep
sigh. “My dream is over.”
June had come back downstairs, dressed and
neat and calm, and made Fat Jimmy give her the tapes he made. “I’m
real sorry, everybody. But while I really don’t have anything
against helping you make your porno movie, I cain’t bear the
thought of everyone in town thinkin’ I’m a slut.” I started to say
something but she shushed me and sez, “Yeah, Ollie, they do. For
three days I hain’t been able to walk down the street without
someone askin’ me if’n I swallered or let it dribble. They just
won’t shut up about it, and I think I would go plumb crazy if
everyone in town knew all about what I did and how I acted and what
I sounded like. I’d never hear the end of it. I’m sorry about your
dream, Henry.”
Henry stood up, bowed to June, and sez,
“Miss June, there is nothing in the world so important to me that’s
worth your dignity or your reputation. I will go on searchin’ for
someone else to be in my movie, because that way I can keep you as
my friend.” Well I’ll tell you, that was the purtiest thing
anybody’s ever heard Henry Vanderkin say, and Junie just fell all
over him because of it. Fat Jimmy chimed in and said him too, and
got a kiss on the cheek. They packed up the equipment and left,
which left me and June settin’ on the couch alone. We sat there for
a long time, just settin’, until it got dark.
Next mornin’ at church everyone seemed to be
buzzin’ about somethin’ that we weren’t privy to. Lots of little
groups of people would mutter back and forth, and then look over at
us, and then split up and reform into different little groups and
mutter some more. Me and Junie just stared straight ahead the whole
time and paid more attention to the Sunday sermon than I think we
ever have. I even remember parts of it. I stroked Junie’s arm and
whispered to her to try and settle her down, but I could feel her
getting’ her dander up and knowin’ her as I do I was afraid of
where it’d let fly.
When we left the service, we walked out of
the chapel into a crowd scene. Pretty near the entire town of Hinch
Hill, population 2,316 last census, was a’waitin’ for us outside.
Me and Junie stopped and looked around, and Margaret Kempsey (you
know, the librarian? ) stepped forward.
“Oliver, June, we all want you to know that
we’re sorry for the way we acted. Henry done told us what you said,
and we’re real sorry you got the impression you did.”
Wilhemina pushed her way out in front of us
and sez, “That’s right! And we’re not looking down on you for
wantin’ to be in a ee-rotic movie! I dunno about everybody else,
but I’m… I’m kinda jealous. I’d love for millions of men to want to
touch me.”
Junie’s Garden Club ladies all gathered
around her like hens. “We’re so very sorry, dear!” “That’s right!”
“We support our members in all their endeavors, no matter what
branch of the arts they choose!” “Just don’t let him get in your
bee-hind, that’s all I’m saying…” “You go, dearie. We’re right here
with you.”
Everybody else just sorta crowded around and
let us know in no uncertain terms that any kinda porno movie we
wanted to make was all right with them, and me and Junie laughed
and cried and hugged everybody we could get to. It was a beautiful
moment, and one I’d like to see on a greetin’ card, it was that
good. Finally Granny Hopkins stepped out of the crowd and hugged
June and said, “Junie, you always was the brightest star in this
town. You go make us proud.”
June looks up over the crowd and spots Henry
standing under a tree, looking proud fit to bust. “Henry,” she
sings out, “git over here! We got us a porno to make!” Everybody
cheered and picked us up over their shoulders and marched us around
the churchyard three times afore they let us down next to our
truck. Junie had that fierce-hungry-loving look in her eyes again,
and they gave me great hopes for the immediate future. Henry and
Fat Jimmy and Tollie and the Judge pulled up alongside, and we all
drove back to the barn in high style a’tootin’ our horns while the
crowd kept on cheering behind us.
What happened? Well, about a week later
Wilbur and Dolly Sue Tubbs showed up, still holding on tight to one
another and looking all starry-eyed and in love. Still are, and now
there’s a little Tubbs on its way. They gonna call it John Holmes
Tubbs, if’n it’s a boy, and Linda Lovelace Tubbs if’n it’s a girl.
Call me sentimental, but I think it’s fittin’.
Our movie come out, called “Mountain Maids,”
and became a minor sensation amongst the smut-lovin’ crowd even
though there wasn’t a single mountain appearing in the whole thing.
Ay-dult Video Reviews gave us four A’s, and Dolly Sue got more
offers from other movie companies than you can shake a stick at.
One reviewer called her “the wildest thing to hit California since
the Great Quake, and twice as exciting.” She turned ‘em all down,
sayin’ she was retired from the bizness. Henry still has hopes he
can coax her back for a reunion tape.
Henry did in fact did use the money to start
up a production company for home-made mountain movies; he called it
“Chicken-Fried Porn.” He bought his own camera and some lights, put
Fat Jimmy on the payroll and even paid one of the Thomas kids to
build him up a web site. He’s hopin’ to put out at least ten titles
a year, so he tells me, and he wants me to whomp out some more
scripts. I don’t know why, he ain’t touched the first one yet.
Either way, it looks like Hinch Hill finally has an industry to
call its own. Already Henry’s got more new local porno stars than
he knows what to do with and he’s taken to walking around town
wearing a white seersucker suit and wraparound sunglasses. I think
he’s got himself a ways to go afore he’ll be mistaken for that
Orson Wells, but around here he looks real Hollywood.
Me and Junie are together and always will
be. She was surprised and real flattered she got nominated for
“Best New Talent” over Dolly Sue, but we both think that Henry was
robbed over not gettin’ nominated for “Best Non-Sex Performance”
(we left that part in where he was outside a’whinin’ and bitchin’
that first time, and the part later on he got his feet tangled up
in June’s undies and whanged his head off the coffee table).
Henry’s already asked us to do the sequel, so we’re starting to
walk a little every day and swim more to tone up a little. Once
you’re a star, you got certain responsibilities.
Oh, how did our scene go? Well friend, I
reckon you should just go buy it and find out, you think?
-------------------------
Afterword
For those sick, sick people who are
interested in such things (or who think that the more pages of
original stuff, the better the value), here’s some thoughts about
all the weird crap you just read.
Found: One
Dildo
Based on a true story. Seriously.
Are You Sexy
Enough?
Written early on in Hoot Island history
because all the newsstand magazines had sexually explicit,
neurosis-inducing quizzes designed specifically to make their
readers feel wholly inadequate and in scrambling need of those same
magazines’ sage sexual advice, and we felt left out. Sadly, it
turned out that Hoot Island’s readership was a self-selecting bunch
of informed sexual dynamos, which is great for society in general
but lousy for advertising campaigns, so we had to make do with
funny sex.
How Was Your
Service?
An actual conversation, as near as I could
remember it. It would be more accurate but she gets really annoyed
at me when I take notes in bed, especially when I start correlating
my data, making charts and calling in control groups.
An Unsigned Love Letter
Stuffed in a Locker
This has gone through
several name changes and is one of the two strangest things I’ve
ever written (the other being a hilarious x-rated
X-Files
parody that I’m
not stupid enough to reprint here, as I have a keen interest in
keeping my own house), both of which were written with my
heterosexual life-mate Dave adding every other line. I’m taking the
byline, though, so nyah.
Make Mine
Vanilla
Written after some friends complained they
just didn’t feel perverted anymore, what with bondage gear being
sold in the mall and piercing parties popping up in the local
Kiwanis clubs.
Self-Paced
Course
Written just so I could give a character a
rubber vagina. I’ve always wanted to.
ASK MISS DILDO
Self-explanatory, really. What’s funny about
this one-shot article is how many e-mails I continue to get, years
later, addressed to her.
Sex in the
Suburbs
It’s a lot easier to parody pop culture than
it is to create something true and insightful, and I’m an
easy-going kind of guy. My only problem is when pop culture comes
up with something so tacky and ridiculous that a parody is almost
impossible, i.e. the FOX network.
Valentine’s For
One
While I admire and recommend
Betty Dodson’s classic how-to manual
Sex
for One: The Joy of Self-Loving
, I couldn’t
help noticing it skipped the romantic side of the relationship.
Every loving relationship needs a romantic side.
Sex au Jus
Originally written for an
erotic short story collection called
Meat:
Tales of Lust, Appetite, and 100% Grade A Beef
from Suspect Thoughts Press. I got the request to let it be a
featured story on Erotica-Readers.com the same day I got the
rejection letter from the anthology, which caused an interesting
sort of flattered anguish that I’ve yet to duplicate.
How to Bag a
Supermodel
Another of the many “how-to” articles for
which Hoot Island is known and feared the world over. It works,
though.
POV
I wrote a column comparing Romance Novels
vs. Porn (they’re a lot more alike than you’d think, although the
romance covers tend to have fewer mentions of “Hot and Horny
Neighbors”) and while I was writing it, this is what else came
out.