‘Halfway through we go into a short commercial break and then we open up the floor to questions from the audience, some of which will be dumb and some of which will be stupefyingly dumb. See if you can coax the audience to come up with some personal anecdotes about sexual domination . . . you know the kind of thing – I make my husband fry pork chops in the nude.’
‘What’s wrong with frying pork chops in the nude?’ asked Dr Fortensky.
‘Nothing,’ said Jean Lassiter, ‘so long as you wear a little frilly apron.’
‘What did I tell you?’ said Sara Velman. ‘All men secretly want to be women. Under every business suit is a metaphorical garter belt.’
‘OK, then,’ said Gary Sherman, smacking his hands together. ‘Let’s get out there and shake our tambourines.’
He led the way along a corridor stacked with folding chairs and pieces of studio backdrop. At last they came out into the studio itself, under hot and dazzling lights. An audience of over a hundred people were sitting waiting for them, and when Garry walked over to his big white leather chair, there were whoops and whistles and a clatter of applause.
Studio assistants led Garry’s three guests up on to a raised platform, where three white chairs were positioned, with white side tables and glasses of water. The audience stared at them as if they were human exhibits on
‘Why do we do this? We must be mad,’ Sara said.
Jean flapped her hand dismissively. ‘We do it to sell books, dear. Can you think of a better reason?’
‘Who cares about books?’ said Dr Fortensky. ‘They give us warm white wine and curled-up Kraft cheese sandwiches and our plane fare home. What more could anybody ask for?’
‘Quiet, please,’ said the producer, raising his arm.
Tuesday, September 28, 3:41 P.M.
Outside Studio V, where
The lot was almost deserted, except for two stage hands outside Studio III, moving pieces of Greek columns and lengths of scaffolding with a forklift truck. Now that the studio tours had been suspended, the whole Panorama TV complex was eerily quiet. Bill and Joan had only had cause to challenge one visitor today, and he had turned out to be a plumber who had been called to unblock the executive toilets, and got lost in costumes.
‘Three weeks, two days, five hours and forty-one minutes,’ Bill announced.
‘Since when?’
‘Since I gave up smoking.’
‘That’s very
‘I don’t have time to be proud of myself. I’m too busy feeling like something the dog sicked up.’
Joan sat up straight and put on her sunglasses. ‘You’ll get over it. One day you’ll go to bed and you’ll realize that you’ve not even thought about smoking all day.’
‘I’ll be dead from overeating by then. I’ve put on seven pounds already, and all I can think of is cheeseburgers. I’m thinking of cheeseburgers right now, as a matter of fact.
Bill had worked for Studio Security for over eleven years. Back at home, he had photographs all over the living-room walls. Bill and Warren Beatty; Bill and Meryl Streep. Bill and Leonardo DiCaprio. He was an ex-traffic cop, a big dog-faced man with a scar down his left cheek. He looked as if he would tear your arms off just for looking at him funny, but in reality he was shy, soft spoken and careful in his ways. His hobby was collecting the tiniest moths.
Joan was small and wiry, with a big nose and frizzy blonde hair. Her alcoholic husband Carl had left her eighteen months ago with two children under five to take care of, and for a time she had held down two jobs – one behind the deli counter at Ralph’s and the other as an office cleaner. But then her best friend’s husband had told her that Studio Security were looking for recruits, male or female, big or little, white or black, and she had astonished herself by being accepted. She didn’t know that she had impressed Studio Security’s personnel manager by the fact that she never stopped talking. People would stop causing trouble just to shut her up.
‘You should try acupuncture,’ she suggested. ‘My friend Lena lost seventeen pounds with acupuncture. Mind you, she lost her husband as well. He said that if he had wanted a human skeleton he would have married Calista Flockhart. Now there’s the inflated male ego for you. He looked like an orangutan in a plaid sport coat.’
‘Acupuncture, that’s when they stick needles in you? I can’t stand needles. Brrr.’
‘Well, maybe you should try hypnotism. Or aversion therapy.’
‘What’s aversion therapy?’
‘What they would do is, they would make you eat triple cheeseburgers all day, every day, so that you never want to
Bill shook his head. ‘Sounds great. Wouldn’t work on me. But I sure wouldn’t mind trying it.’
As they talked, a dark blue Mack truck came around the corner of Studio IV, and drove slowly toward them.
Tuesday, September 28, 3:47 P.M.
In the studio, the audience were screaming with laughter. Sara Velman had said that women were sexually excited by hurting their lovers, and so Garry had invited her to prove it by hurting him. She had strutted over to his seat and climbed on to his lap. Now she was twisting his ears and pulling his hair.
‘Hey, be careful with the hair, all right? This cost me nearly fourteen hundred dollars!’
One tall ginger-freckled woman put up her hand and said, ‘I love to bite my husband. I give him love bites all over, especially on his tush.’
‘Well, biting your partner is an indication of possessiveness, rather than domination,’ said Dr Fortensky. ‘You want your husband physically marked so that any other woman will know that he belongs to you. It’s like branding a steer.’
Garry said, ‘No, I think it’s simpler than that. I think it’s an indication that she’s not getting nearly enough to eat.’
‘Hurting your lover isn’t necessarily an act of sexual domination,’ put in Jean Lassiter. ‘In my experience, many men are highly aroused by being bitten or scratched or whipped. They
‘The scratcher or the scratchee?’ Garry added. ‘The whipper or the whipped?’
Sara Velman suddenly lunged her head forward and nipped at Garry’s neck.
‘Ow! No!’ he protested, kicking his feet. ‘Get off! Honest injun! Honest injun!’
Tuesday, September 28, 3:49 P.M.
The dark blue truck turned right and parked very close to the studio wall. Its side panels were painted with reels of film, and in each frame of film there was chicken or salad or pasta or lobsters. Underneath, in white lettering, it read: A MOVIEBLE FEAST, CATERING SPECIALISTS FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY.
Joan picked up her clipboard and ran her finger down it. ‘Here it is. Sixteen hundred hours, catering supplies.’
‘I’ll check it out,’ said Bill, rousing himself off the mock-stone bench. ‘Maybe they can spare us a couple of subs.’
He straightened his cap and walked around the corner. The truck was stationary and its doors were still closed but its engine was running. Bill walked up to the cab and gave the driver a wave. The driver waved back. He was a swarthy-looking guy with dark glasses and a black beard. Sitting next to him was a suntanned girl, around eighteen or nineteen years old, wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and a red head scarf. She waved, too.
‘You delivering to
The driver cupped his hand to his ear to show that he couldn’t hear.
Bill made a twisting gesture with his right hand to tell the driver that he should cut his engine. ‘Switch your engine off! I have to check your ID!’
But the driver kept the engine running, and both he and the girl went on staring at Bill through the windshield and smiling that same vacant smile. Bill did the twisting gesture again but the driver simply shrugged.
