Popcorn

SCOUT

If they’re dirty sheets, if they’re stained.

WAYNE

Honey plum, these people are millionaires, billionaires even. They ain’t going to have no stained sheets. Besides which, even if they did you couldn’t catch no Aids offa them ‘less you put them in the liquidizer and injected them directly into your body! Now I bet these people have satin and silk, and I do not often get the chance to fuck my little girl on satin and silk.

SCOUT

We do not…

(She spells it out)

… FUCK, we make love, and I don’t care if you’re coming at me from behind in the restroom of a greasy spoon, it’s still making love and if it ain’t making love we ain’t doing it no more because I do not fuck.

Wayne nuzzles up to Scout. Close two shot.

WAYNE

You’re right, honey, I stand corrected. And right now I’m just about bustin’ to make love your brains out. So come on, honey.

Wayne draws Scout to him. Her resistance is weakening. His lips are now at her ear. Close two shot.

WAYNE

Let’s have us a party. I’ll bet they’ve got a water bed and a mirror on the ceiling and everything… You know something, baby girl? When I get a hold of your ass, I guess I wouldn’t let go of it to pick up a hundreddollar bill and a case of cold beer.

SCOUT

Oh Wayne, you know I can’t resist your sweet-talking.

WAYNE

Well, you don’t have to, honey.

Wide shot.Wayne gets up and slings the various weapons over his shoulder. Then he gathers Scout up in his arms. We linger briefly on the tension in his impressive muscles. He carries her out of the room.

Chapter Fourteen

The first thing that struck Brooke as Bruce ushered her into the lounge of his fabulous Hollywood home was how designed it looked. It was beautiful but completely impersonal with its vast white couches, glass and steel tables and shelves sparsely decorated with extremely costly objets d’art. Like an enormous and incredibly expensive hotel. Brooke loved it.

The truth was that in the previous three or four years Bruce’s workload had been so high and his ascendance so meteoric that he had had no time at all to arrange his personal life. He still owned his old apartment off Melrose Avenue, and in it were all his old framed movie posters and stuff like his Star Wars space gun. But it was just gathering dust. Perhaps one day he would move it all and repersonalize his world, but for the time being he was happy simply to decide upon a price and purchase a lifestyle appropriate to his rising status. Farrah, his nearly exwife, who had previously provided Bruce with the semblance of a private life, had long since tired of being married to a workaholic movie nut. She had retreated from his world, taking most of their stuff (which was hers anyway) and their daughter with him.

Bruce had never been very interested in personal lifestyle. Even as a student he had been famous for owning only one pair of jeans and one saucepan. He had always put all his huge creative energies into his work. There was none to spare for picking out cushion covers or visiting kitchenware shops. All Bruce required from a home was somewhere to wash and sleep. Of course, the more luxurious it was the better, and with his current abode he had pretty much reached the pinnacle of luxury. As far as he was concerned, he would be happy to stay exactly where he was for ever.

He was not going to get the chance.

The first thing he should have noticed as he followed Brooke into the room was a pair of pink Doc Martens boots lying on the carpet, boots that had not been there when he had left the house that morning. He should have spotted them instantly; there should have been a fast zoom to a closeup on the boots, and a sinister musical sting to inform him that things were terribly and dangerously amiss. But there was no sting and no closeup. Bruce scarcely registered the boots and remained oblivious of the fact that their presence indicated he was in very big trouble.

In the brief moment of thought he gave them, he imagined that they must be the property of his fourteen- yearold daughter, left under a couch on some past visit and only now dislodged by the cleaner. He kicked them back out of sight. The last thing a man wants in midseduction is to be reminded that the object of his lust is only a few years older than his own child.

Midseduction? Hardly. He hadn’t even started yet and the sun was already up. He would have to get a move on.

A boyish grin, a nervous halfsmile.

Extreme closeup on girl’s lips.

Lips part slightly, revealing white teeth teased by tip of tongue.

Fuck music plays. Bang, they are at it like rabbits on E.

Not quite. Even Oscarwinning directors can’t edit reality. The dull presex preamble had to be gone through, and there was not a great deal of time to do it in. It was Bruce’s own fault that they were so late. It was he who had suggested that they watch Ordinary Americans, a twohour picture, and they had sat through the whole thing.

It had been worth it, though, there was no doubt about that, a real ego buzz. There is nothing quite like having a gorgeous girl gasp at your masterpiece. Brooke had loved his film, or at least she had professed to – and done so with sufficient conviction to satisfy Bruce. It had been a very curious sensation, sitting beside this girl, all wound up to make a move on her but not wanting to disturb her enjoyment of his great work. Which would be more exciting, hearing her gasp at his powers as a director or at his powers as a lover? Every time he had got himself ready to chance brushing a gentle kiss along her delectable bare shoulders, those same shoulders shook with mirth at one of the many dazzlingly witty ironic juxtapositions of image and dialogue with which the movie was peppered. Every time he was ready to slide an arm round her or ‘accidentally’ lay his hand on top of hers, the movie arrived at another of his favourite bits and he had to stop to let her concentrate.

Bruce had lots of favourite bits and vanity had been stronger than desire. He had let her watch the whole movie unmolested. Hence the lateness of the hour, the coldness of the approaching dawn and the fact that he was not even at the proverbial first base. He cursed himself for not having made a shorter film. He had always thought about cutting the discotheque sequence; after all seventies kitsch had been done and doubledone. On the other hand, it was such a funny scene, the way the guy kept getting more and more stains on his white Travolta suit,