“Mind if I join you?”
The voice came from behind me, but I soon saw who it belonged to: Castile’s sex-star wife, who was wearing a green terry-cloth full-length robe, belted at the waist, with a white towel turbaned around her head. She wore no make-up at all, now, and the effect was startling: she was pretty, with a fresh quality, almost an innocence, that seemed incongruous with the image of her I had in mind, which was of her being humped from behind while cameras dispassionately rolled on.
“Sit down, baby,” Castile said.
Janet stood aside, so Castile’s wife could push through and sit next to him in the booth. Then Janet said she’d go off to the kitchen and make a platter of sandwiches for everybody, if Castile wanted her to, and he did, and she went.
“Doesn’t she mind playing cook?” I asked.
“When you’re shooting a picture with a crew this small,” he said, “everybody has to be ready to do just about anything. Fixing lunch is just one of the jobs that’s fallen to Janet. She’s been making the sandwiches every day we’ve been here and hasn’t complained yet. And that’s three days now.”
“Brownie points,” his wife said.
“Pardon me?” I asked.
“She’s just trying to rack up some brownie points with Jerry. She’s as bad as that little nerd over there, what’s-his-name, that Richie. Both of ’em got visions of Hollywood in their empty little heads.”
“Baby, you’re being a little harsh…”
“Not at all. Realistic is all. I bet the little bitch’d take her clothes off in front of the camera if you asked her to.” She caught a glint of skepticism in my eye, and said, “You don’t think so, mister, uh, what was it?”
“Murphy. And not mister… Jack. And no, I don’t think she’d take her clothes off on camera. Not and do the kind of things that’d be expected of her, anyway.”
“And why not?”
“She doesn’t seem the type.”
“Who is? I’d still be running a beauty shop if I hadn’t done it.”
“Why did you? Money?”
“No, not money. The beauty shop was making money. I guess I got a little exhibitionist in me. I’m no whore, I’ll tell you that. I’m an actress. And there is a difference. Sure, I know what you’re thinking. I was screwing that guy, and was getting paid to do it. Now a whore will sometimes be something of an actress, I’ll admit, and can fool a guy into thinking he’s brought her off, that she’s really digging what he’s doing to her, what she’s doing to him. But how many of ’em could hump a turkey like that Frankie Waddsworthless on camera, on cue, on screen, and make it look like she’s enjoying it? Having the greatest goddamn climax since the Virgin Mary had the big wet dream?”
Castile seemed a little uncomfortable during this speech. Apparently he didn’t want Oui magazine to know his wife/star considered the star of the picture a turkey.
“And speaking of Frankie,” she said, now talking directly to her husband, “I’ve decided I don’t want to shoot that insert this evening. Maybe tomorrow morning.”
“Now, baby…”
“Jerry, please. When I washed my hair, my make-up got messed up, and so I took a shower, and I’d have to start all over again with the makeup, and…” (She spoke to me now.) “… and on a fuck movie make-up is a real nightmare. You got to go the whole glamour route, foundation, eye make-up, nails, and then body make-up, some of it going in places where you don’t generally put make-up, I mean, when you get your tits, among other things, blown up the size of a steamship on some movie screen, make-up is pretty important, believe me, and…” (She spoke to Castile.) “… I just can’t bear to go through that whole trip again. Not when I know what’s waiting for me when I get there. Please. Maybe tomorrow morning. What the hell, we’re snowbound anyway.”
Castile thought about it. His ever-present smile was not present, however, when he nodded assent.
“Thanks, doll,” she said and gave him a peck on the cheek.
“I’ll go tell him,” Castile said, gesturing for her to get out to let him out, which she did, and he put his smile back on long enough to shrug goodbye to me, and left.
His wife got back in the booth.
“My movie name is Helen Ready. That’s R-e-a-d-y. My real name is Mildred Castile. Glad to meet you.”
She extended a small, almost dainty hand and I shook it.
“My husband’s a little upset with me, I think,” she said.
“Because you don’t want to shoot that scene.”
“That, and because I got a big mouth. I mean, he’d rather I put on a front for you, since you’re a media person and all.”
“Your front looks okay to me.”
“The back ain’t bad, either, but that’s something else I don’t do that my husband would probably go for.”
“Pardon?”
“He’d probably like me to come on to you and take you off in the bushes somewhere and give you something to remember me by.”
“I was just making a smart remark. I wasn’t coming on to you, Mrs. Castile.”
“Millie, please. No, I know you weren’t, but I was just trying to get back on a subject we were talking about earlier, which is my being an actress and not a whore. See, my husband thinks that since there’s nothing wrong with me humping on screen, why not hump an occasional media guy for a little better press, you know? Only familiarity breeds contempt and I don’t think giving the boys in the press room a free ride would do my career any good, and certainly not my husband’s. I mean, I would think it would tend more to make media people contemptuous of him, and do his career harm in the long run.”
“You’re certainly frank about all this.”
“Which is what makes my husband upset with me. He’s afraid you’ll put every word I say into your article. Will you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Do you want me to?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” She smiled. Very genuinely, showing her gums. “All this frank talk may be a front after all, huh? Just my way of catching your imagination and getting some play in your magazine? And without even once going into the bushes with you.”
We both laughed a little at that, and I said, “You said before you ran a beauty shop. Do you mean you worked in one, or managed it, or what?”
“I owned it. It was my family’s. My folks and my only sister got killed in a plane crash when I was in high school. So I inherited the family business. An aunt helped me run it. She ran it solo, while I went to beauty school. Why? That’s certainly boring stuff. Does Oui want that?”
“I don’t know. I’m just interested. What about your husband? How did you meet him?”
“Well, he’s older than me, I’m just over thirty. He’s in his thirties, too, but closer to forty. He was managing a restaurant in the same neighborhood… this was in New York… and we were going together. He was into old movies, was taking some courses at a college, not going for a degree or anything, just taking courses, anything to do with film: I was bored with what I was doing. I’d done some little theater type stuff, and high school drama before that, and liked it, liked it a whole lot better than doing somebody’s hair. Always did have stars in my eyes, I guess, and so Jerry and me hit it off, and he’d heard about the porno stuff people were doing, a lot of it was on the West Coast, nothing too good was being done in the east, so we decided to get into it. I financed it… I had money, from my parents, and I have an uncle who’s a soft touch, and is to this day.. and we started making movies, That’s, what… maybe five years ago. And we both always figured we’d use it as a springboard… never had any intention of staying in porno. We always knew we’d go aboveground. And it’s finally happening.”
“You mean the contract your husband signed to do a movie for American International.”
“Well, it’s really more than that. It’s got options that make it a multi-picture contract, really. It’s the bigtime, it really is.”
“What about you? Your movie career?”
“I’ll be in everything Jerry does. You just saw me shoot my last fuck scene, kiddo. I may take my clothes off on camera again, but it won’t be to do anything obscene.”
