John Styles answered.
“This is JeriLee Randall,” I said. “You asked me to call.”
His voice was quiet. “I’m sorry if my brother upset you, Miss Randall. I’d like you to do the part. I wish you would reconsider.”
“What for? You know how I feel about the screenplay.”
“That’s the script, Miss Randall. But films are a director’s medium. The script can be changed. And I’m the director.”
My voice was skeptical. “You mean that you’d rewrite for me?”
“No, Miss Randall,” the gentle voice replied. “For myself.”
“But my part isn’t important enough for that.”
“Right. But within the context of the film it can be valid. And I think that you’re the one that can make it work.”
“Do I have time to think about it?”
“Not much. We’ll have to have your answer by tomorrow morning. We go on the floor Monday.”
“I’ll call you in the morning.”
“Thank you, Miss Randall.”
“Thank you, Mr. Styles.” I put down the phone and called Harry on his direct line.
“John Styles just called me,” I said.
“I know. He called me first. I let him talk me into giving him your number.”
“Why’d you do that?”
“Two reasons. One, it’s now five grand for the two weeks’ work. Two, John says you’ll be treated right and I believe him. He’s got a good reputation.”
“Then what do we do now?”
“We take the job.”
“Right,” I said. And we did.
***
John Styles did something special with what began as a stereotyped role. Suddenly the hooker developed into a frightened desperate girl trying to survive in society with the only talents at her disposal. Still it was a small role and since I didn’t have that much to do, I spent a good part of my time just hanging around the set.
John was good. In his own low-key manner he kept everything moving and under control. There were no flaps, no panic, no pressure. He just moved from shot to shot putting together his film. He came over to me after I had finished my last scene.
“You were very good, JeriLee. Thank you.”
“You made it possible,” I said. “Thank you.”
He smiled. “You were right for the part. I couldn’t let my brother frighten you away.”
“I’m glad you didn’t.”
“How about dinner tonight?” he asked. “No shooting tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said, surprised. He had given no sign of any special interest while we had been working.
“I can pick you up about eight o’clock.”
“Fine.”
***
“Twenty One, okay?” he asked when I got into the cab.
“Lovely.” I hadn’t been there for dinner since my divorce.
Chuck greeted us at the door as we came in. “Mr. Styles,” he said. Then he saw me and his eyes widened. “Hi, Mrs. Thornton.” He beckoned to a maitre d’. “We have a table for Mr. Styles in the main dining room upstairs.”
“But I reserved in the bar,” John said.
Chuck flushed with embarrassment. “It’s a bit crowded in there,” he said quickly. “You’ll be more comfortable upstairs.”
“Okay, Chuck,” I said. “Out with it.”
“Your ex is in there, Mrs. Thornton. And the only table open is right opposite his.”
John looked at me.
“I don’t mind if you don’t,” I said.
The bar was crowded. We followed the waiter to our table. Walter was with George Fox. He didn’t see us until after we sat down. When he did, he rose and came over to our table.
I held up my cheek for his kiss, then I introduced him to John. They shook hands with a display of show business cool but my legs were trembling.
Walter smiled. “George told me how well you were doing. I’m pleased.”
“I’ve been lucky.”
“You’ve got talent. I always said that.” He looked at John. “How the picture coming?”
“Good. We’ve wrapped up here and move back to the Coast over the weekend.”
“Are you going out too, JeriLee?”
“No. I finished today.”
“Maybe we can have lunch one day next week then?”
“I’d like that.”
“I’ll call you.” He smiled. “Enjoy your dinner.”
I thought as I watched him walk back to his table that he looked a little tired. But then he was always a little tired. It seemed to be a condition of his existence.
“Why don’t you?” John’s voice interrupted my thoughts.
“Why don’t I what?”
“Come out to the Coast with us.”
“That’s ridiculous. What on earth for?”
“To get away. I think you need a change of scene.”
“Maybe I do. But I can’t afford it. I have to stick around here and look for another job.”
“There’s work out there too.”
“My agent thinks I have a better chance here. He doesn’t want me to go out there except for a film job.”
“Agents like to keep clients under their thumb.”
“I’d need a better reason than that.”
“Okay. How about this one? Because I want you to.”
I was silent, looking at him.
“No strings,” he said quickly. “I’m not my brother.”
I shook my head. “Not yet.” I took a sip of water. My mouth had suddenly gone dry. “Maybe later. When I’m sure I can handle things.”
“Like what?”
“Myself.”
“I think you do very well.”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Chuck is smarter than we are,” he said. “It would have been better if we had gone upstairs.”
I felt the pressure of the tears behind my eyes but I managed a smile. “You know something? You’re absolutely right.”
Then we both laughed and it wasn’t as bad after that.
Chapter 9
It was about one o’clock in the morning when the telephone rang. I had just dozed off, and I reached for the phone still in the fog of early sleep.
“Are you alone?” It was Walter.
I came out of the fog. “Yes.”
“I had to call you.” He paused for a moment and I could hear the wheeze deep in his chest. He was still smoking too much. “There were so many things I wanted to say to you when I saw you in the restaurant.”
I fished for a cigarette and lit it. The lighter made a loud rasping click.
“Are you sure you’re alone?”
“I’m alone.”
“I thought I heard something.”
“It was my cigarette lighter.” I was getting annoyed. One of the most difficult things in our relationship had been his insatiable desire to know everything I had done and thought every minute of the day. “I’m tired. You woke me. What was so important that you had to call me tonight?” I knew he had been in town almost a month.
“I just wanted to know one thing. Are you sleeping with John Styles?”
“No,” I answered without thinking. Then I got angry. “Besides what difference would it make to you if I were? What I do is none of your business.”
“It would make a difference. I don’t want to see you used.”
“Nobody’s using me. Just because I had dinner with him doesn’t mean that I’m sleeping with him.”
“That’s not the talk around town. They said he paid you double the money they offered anyone else for that part.”
“Who is they?” I asked sarcastically. “George Fox?”
He didn’t answer.
“George is a prick. He’s trying to make points with you. It could be that he can’t get it through his head that maybe John thought I was worth twice as much as anyone else.”
“I know John Styles. That’s not his reputation.”
“You’ve got him mixed up with his brother Tony.”
“No, I haven’t,” he said. “I’ve heard he’s worse, in his own quiet way.”
“I’ll believe that when I see it. He’s been a perfect gentleman with me.” I ground out the cigarette. “And if that’s the only reason you woke me up, let me go back to sleep. I’m tired.”
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Okay.”
“Can we still have lunch next week?”
“Yes, call me after the weekend.”
“Goodbye,” he said.
I hung up and rolled back on my pillow. There was no use trying to sleep now. I was wide awake. I got out of bed and went to the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. I was looking for a Librium or a Valium but there weren’t any. Then I remembered.
The last time Guy had been here working on the play he had left me a joint. I went back into the living room and took it out of the drawer under the coffee table. It was a big one. Guy called it a bomber. Two tokes were guaranteed to put you away.
I carried it back into the bedroom and got into bed. I leaned back against the headboard, lit the joint and took the first hit deep into my lungs. I did it again, holding my breath for what seemed almost half an hour. I felt the warm easy feelings come over me. I took one more toke, then carefully pinched it out before I floated away on the tide. No sense wasting it. I already had a beautiful high.
I looked across the empty king-sized bed. Instinctively I put my hand out to where Walter would have been, then took my hand away quickly. Walter would never be there anymore.
Still I couldn’t help remembering how it was when we were together and had a joint and got a little high. Sex was better than when we were straight. Walter didn’t seem uptight and he lasted longer. Without it, he either came almost as soon as he entered me or he had problems getting it hard. It got so that most of the time he either brought me off orally, manually or mechanically with the aid of a little vibrator. But even then it hadn’t mattered. I had loved him and been perfectly happy. And if I got too uptight, I helped myself. It was something I could rely on, something I’d been into since I was fifteen.
Again I looked at the empty bed. There had to be something the matter with me. Other girls were getting it. They had no trouble. But not me. I had even gotten a new birth control pill that had come out last year, thinking it would free me of inhibitions. But it didn’t help.
I looked good, I knew that. Everybody told me that I was sexy, but nobody made a move, nobody touched. Something in me was putting them off. Even Beau Drake, who fucked everything that came his way, never laid a hand on me.
I remembered one afternoon when, over coffee between the matinee and evening performance, he’d gone into a vivid description of what he would do to me if we were alone. It was so vivid that when I got back to my dressing room my panties were soaking wet. I eased my tensions while taking a shower but went through the whole evening performance in a state of sexual excitement.
By the time I got home that night I thought my cunt was on fire. The note from Walter on the night table said he was having a late dinner at Twenty One with George Fox and a producer.
I couldn’t wait. I took off my clothes, stretched out naked on the bed and reached into the drawer of the night table for the little “Green Hornet”—our name for the vibrator. I slipped my hand through the strap so that the motor rested on the back of my hand and plugged it in. The soft familiar sound filled the room and I put my hand between my legs.
I don’t know how long I say there riding the waves but suddenly I became aware that Walter had come into the room. I opened my eyes. He was standing looking down at me with a curious expression on his face.
“Walter… I—”
“Don’t stop,” he said.
“I… want…” I couldn’t finish, as another orgasm flowed through me.
He knelt beside the bed, his face very close to me, but not touching me. “What turned you on?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Thinking of you. I… wanted—”
“What did you want? A big stiff prick?”
“No.”
He ignored my answer. “A big stiff prick? One like Beau Drake’s?”
At the mention of the name, I came again.
He didn’t miss the reaction. “So that’s it,” he said softly.
“No, no. I want you. Give me your cock, Walter, please.”
He got to his feet slowly and stood looking down at me.
I pulled at his zipper and took him out. His penis was soft and fragile. I kissed it gently and took it in my mouth. But no matter what I did nothing happened.
After a moment he took my head between his hands. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m tired and I drank too much.”
I didn’t speak.
“Sometimes I feel I’m too old for you,” he said. “I wouldn’t blame you if you took another man.”
“No, Walter, no!” I buried my face against his trousers. “I only want you!” I began to cry.
Absently he stroked my hair. “It’s okay,” he said. “I understand.”
But he really didn’t. He only knew enough to manipulate my own sense of guilt. And in the end even I came to understand that. Shit. I looked at the empty bed, then touched myself, feeling the tiny nerve endings. My buddy the Green Hornet called to me from the night table: Hey, baby! I’m always ready, whenever you are.
I spoke aloud. “But you’re not real. You’re not alive.”
Don’t quibble, baby. You can’t have everything.
“Why not?” I asked. “I want everything.”
That ain’t human either, baby.
I shook my head. I had to be going around the bend, holding a conversation with a vibrator. Suddenly I was alone. The apartment was empty. Maryjane had left me.
I got out of bed, lit a cigarette and went to the living room. I looked out the window but there was nothing to see except the apartment houses across the street. It was not anything like Central Park South, where I had a view of the park and the city stretching out into the night.
I looked at the clock. Two in the morning. The trouble with being alone was there was no one to talk to. I wondered if the darkened windows of the city held other people like me. Alone with no one to talk to.
It was eleven o’clock on the Coast. Guy would still be awake. I put in a call. But his room didn’t answer. He had not returned from dinner.
I sat there with the telephone in my hand and without thinking further dialed a number. By the second ring I had changed my mind and was about to hang up.
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “Did I wake you?”
“No,” John said. “I was reading.”
“Your offer still open?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t think I’m crazy, do you?”
“No.”
“I suddenly felt as if I had to get out of the city.”
“I’m glad,” he said quietly.
“When are we leaving?”
“The noon flight on Sunday,” he said. “If you’ll be downstairs I’ll pick you up at ten thirty.”
“Will you make a reservation for me at the Beverly Hills Hotel?”