SOPHISTICATED TITTY
“I got this idea for a movie. It’s never been done. Totally original—totally mine. It’s like that one with that little kid and the burglars when he was stuck at home all on his lonesome. I forget the title. But instead of a house in the suburbs it’s this shop up on Hollywood. And instead of a kid it’s this teenage runaway. Hot but no dope.”
“Boy or girl?”
“Girl like I said. And just come into the fruit of womanhood.” Hands became tits. “The burglars, instead of burglars they’re perverts. Or pimps! Pervert pimps. It happens where it does so for traps she has to use sex toys. A guy could take this big dildo to a face, or fall on a big dildo so it goes up his ass, or trip on a dildo on some stairs.”
“How big is the dildo he trips on?”
“Or she could like squirt a bunch of lube on the floor. One of the guys, he’d skate into this big rack of dirty magazines and be all aaaaaah! and they’d pin him down. A fag one could land open before his very eyes and turn him gay.”
“Very eyes. And totally yours.”
No dreams bore fruit in the withering company of Velma Goebbels. Not even those of Garry Brahma, casting agent, producer, enthusiast. But through the stony fence of her Games magazine there was a repartee, and that did help pass the time. Nor was that the sole advantage she brought to the office. Good to keep her around, the witch.
Said office was a converted apartment in a complex on a stretch of DeLongpre where all the palms had died. The grubby courtyard was open to desaturated skies and a waft of brake pad dust, this from Santa Monica Boulevard and Sunset. All other shingles put out along that wrought-iron rail were mail-order and Asiatic. The Bangkok–Manila axis could mind its piece and Garry Brahma, enthusiast, et cetera, could mind his.
A rough shove through the slot filliped the band off the bundled mail. Been there, Garry thought, sleazy to the last. Velma would never rise to gather up deliveries and even Garry might have let it sit. But he saw the trades in the mix. Up and at ’em. Honk.
“Damn! You’ll never guess who died,” he said on the headline scan.
“The ghost of Christmas Past?”
“No! What? Hugh Hefner!”
“How could they tell?”
Dorothy Parker, Garry knew, but no good could come of shaming Velma. The comeback at the table had been better anyway. “He had an erection.”
“That’s a Robert Benchley line.”
What he put up with. Though he supposed for that zinger Calvin Coolidge had been the better patsy. No cord of wood had ever counted short when it came to Hefner, no sir. The man had opened doors left and right and even some mucky crawlspaces.
Speaking of which, a demure rap—their two o’clock. Velma put down a three-star sudoku. Bitch eyebrows, as the arches there tweezed and drawn were known, and makeup so precise it looked stamped to eyes and mouth. The hairdo was from some old noir, a Barbara Stanwyck where indemnities were multiple. Up to the door she went, spiky heels in a click as Garry slid into his desk. For all the venom in the ovipositor Velma did make for a pretty view. Velma was short but taut and worked nights as a dom. The short part was irrelevant. Mouth off to her and she would just shinny up and choke you out. For whatever reason on opening the door she liked to mix in a Southern affect—of the sort heard in a movie plantation house, not down by the crick. “Why hello there! Are you Amber?” Garry was in character now, too, but not without weary reflection on the names that had come through. One more Amber for the heap—so many Ambers and Tiffanys and Amberleys and Pamelas. Variety was the stuff of life and chippy names were such a goddam rut. Honk honk. He would die for just one more Constance. Shown in, the subject took the brief bounce up to his desk. “This is Garry Brahma,” Velma said.
A fresh stick of gum kept the talk moist. “Charmed. Amber, right?”
“That’s me”—best smile and a giggle. The presentation was not remarkable. Collagen lips, dual floatation devices, Valley hair on South Bay clothes, a thirst to be liked—so cookie cutter. Almost all these girls had work done—those bound for soft video and the specialty mags anyway. In recent years standouts in hardcore had begun to pass up knife and silicon even though companies offered to front the tabs. Free agency, healthy attitudes—virtues such as these left men like Garry low on resort. But women on the soft path had bigger hopes—mainstream careers, dignity—so this sort of casting had remained useful for the sidelines. Hope and desperation—where one left off for the other was a question for beardy old Greeks, who were all boy lovers anyway.
“Please, have a seat. Just make yourself comfortable. May Velma bring you a refreshment? A La Croix, maybe, from the minibar? We have apricot, pamplemousse, and pure. Now you do know what we’re doing here today, right? You’ve done a body check for a call sheet? Not your first rodeo. I take it you know what to expect then—what we’re going to do with the backdrop there and the camera set up on the tripod. Did you bring a signed release? All the tees crossed and eyes dotted? True, true—there’s no eye in Amber.” How Garry hated to pass up an easy double. “We’ve put up a shoji for you to disrobe. Screen—it means screen. There’s a bathrobe hung up but you probably won’t need it. Easy peasy. Fifteen minutes, tops. Quick in, quick out.” Base hit.
To scrub shadow lights were shined onto the backdrop. Those for foreground were set up with reflector umbrellas to scatter beams. Velma held a round board no bigger than an Irish drum, one side matte white, the other silver. Sometimes she chose a clipboard instead and then you knew the tactic would be intellect. Either way just when the broom would land, the hex spoken out, was anyone’s guess. Velma needed no cue—would only be standing there on the task while Garry said “Beautiful” or “Thank you” as directions to turn, smile, bend over, were met with ditzy aplomb. An instinct for the throat, for soft underparts—that was Velma. Shutter noises were digital only.
“Excuse me, Garry.”
“Can it wait? We’re just about to wrap.”
“One moment. If I may.” As Velma clacked in, gaze steady on the subject, Garry shuffled back with a frown. Amber grew uneasy. One of Velma’s stabber shoes swiveled on a heel like a javelin on turf. “Amber would you turn to your left, please? Now the right?” A thoughtful hum. “To the left again, please? The right?” A stare. “Straight ahead. Hm. Right? No, the other right. Okay—left, please? Left?” She stroked her chin. “All right then. Straight ahead.”
“What is it,” Amber asked at last, smile up but draining.
“Hm? Oh, never mind that, bless your heart. Straight ahead, please.” The stare was for tits alone and had not wavered by an inch. Garry had seen this sort of play before, and timing was key. He knew to intervene late.
“All right, Velma, I think that’s enough.”
The grin got a little deader. “Something wrong?”
Velma leaned in to Garry. The whisper had just enough volume to project.
“One is bigger than the other.”
Even the carcass of a smile was gone. Garry said, “We’re finished for the day. Velma, give us a minute.” Off she went to the back—back being a walk-in closet with a phony darkroom curtain. Garry came close to Amber once she had put her clothes back. He gave her a card. “Give me a call, okay? That’s a direct line. It doesn’t go through the office,” with a glance toward Velma’s icky games. “We can talk.”
Some models did the crying then and there, and some waited for the curb. Amber went out dry but past vertical blinds shut tight on the courtyard he heard a sob. Getting them alone was not the ploy it once had been. He would find out who she knew, where she lived, how strong a grip she had on the surface world. And, sure, take the blue pill.
“What made Hefner special,” a moment later, back at his desk, “was innovation. Consider it. Because he did what he did a titty rag could come out from below the drugstore counter. No brown wrappers need apply. His magazine, it ran interviews with celebrities, think pieces, top-rate fiction, and it had the cash to afford the best. You got Susan Sontag in there, Gore Vidal, Kurt Vonnegut—before Hef came along that would have been unthinkable. Sophistication came to what was known only as sleaze.”
Velma had switched to a crossword. “What’s a three-letter word for masturbation?”
“May Hugh Marston Hefner rest in peace. O Captain my captain. That passing will leave a hole—it will leave so many holes.” Honk. “Somebody will need to step up, put on a nice outfit, bring class back to an industry that needs it. What do youngsters watch now, with their nerd shit—what do you call it, streaming? Weird. Glass-bottom boats. From a hippopotamus. On Arbor Day. My youth, you had the Playboy Channel on scrambled video or you had nothing. You studied it, hoping to catch an areola in the weeds. For years afterward I got hard whenever a bird landed on the aerial.”
Here Velma put down the puzzles. Eyes-on like that could only mean a lesson had come due. “You’re creeping up on another million-dollar idea. Have you ever been up to the mansion, even once? It’s a dump. It’s falling apart. It stinks of dog and mildew and the famous people who go there are the kind you’ve never heard of.”
“You prove my very point, Miss Goebbels! Take James Caan, star of Rollerball. In the Seventies he used to frequent those parties, right? Hell—he practically lived there, on site—not just up in the house but out in the Grotto, night and day. He did more swimming than an Ashkenazi merman! And not exactly rudderless either. So pray tell, Velma, what changed? Was it Jimmy Caan, or the Grotto, or the world at large? Just how does two girls blowing a movie star go out of style?” Velma muttered into her page—something about turning mermen into ships—and had no more to add.
Knock-knock, three-o’-clock.
“Well hello there! Are you Irene?”
This time Velma had gone with boarding school English. Thereby Garry knew that this one was a black even before the crossing of the welcome mat. Dulcet plantation tones did not sit well with that bunch. In she came: no hoe de la Crenshaw but light and pretty, with straightened bob-cut hair and spaghetti straps. “Thanks for your time, Mr. Brahma.” Demure, polite. Santa Monica voice, mild lisp. Still, you never could tell—leave a chad hanging on the beauty card and you found the chic handbag had room for an icepick. Irene—at least that part was new. The name said coastline. It said money. It said mad at Daddy. Well every name said mad at Daddy but this Daddy had money and lived somewhere on the coast. No candidate for the referral to Sodemadze, so no kickback, but she had good length of bone and a natural beauty and maybe, just maybe, some good would come of it—an actual production contract.
“Please, sit down and make yourself comfortable. Velma can get you a drink if you like. A cold can of La Croix brand sparkling water? We have pure, apricot, and, pamplemousse. Have you ever been to one of these, Irene? In the industry it’s called a body check. Think of me as a casting agent. That backdrop behind you, all those lights, the camera, it’s like a short but sweet modeling session. We’re respectful of the talent. Velma here, consider her your chaperone. If you need anything, you just let her know. We want to make you feel comfortable, and if we bring the right attitude to this, it can even be fun, like a goof. Spring Break! Well said. Did you bring a printout? No, not a headshot, a release.” Honk. “Signed and dated, yeah? Great. We’ve set up a screen for you to disrobe, and when you’re ready we can have it all done inside of fifteen minutes.”
Once again he was looking at a naked woman—this one more real and healthy than those from earlier—and once again it could only leave him cold. Never go at it for the money, he might have warned his younger self. Also, maybe buy a lot of Pfizer stock.
“One thing, Irene.” Velma was improvising. “Since this is for a speaking role, we’re going to ask you to read a little from the script.”
“Right now, like this?” Meaning stark in the headlights.
Velma looked to Garry to ask for silence. “Let me fetch the lines. One moment.” Of course there were no lines and Velma made a clumsy show, searching the inbox, a pile atop the filing cabinet, for a script as Irene stood her ground, and nude. “Well, I do apologise,” Velma said at last, and damn if that did not impress Garry, saying the word in such a way as to suggest a British spelling. “I hope you don’t mind my saying so, Irene, but there’s the small matter of your speech impediment.”
“My what?”
“It’s ever so slight, but it might affect the line reading. Perhaps we could resort to a phrase from speech therapy instead. Just to demonstrate that you have the problem mastered well enough. Please, repeat after me: Jimmy Caan is making jellyfish in the pool by the Playboy Grotto.” Garry turned away and he hoped it would play like anger. An in-joke—the toy-with here was plural. What a spectacular bitch Velma was.
Though not without suspicion: Irene was less dumb than average.
“Please, Irene: Jimmy Caan is making jellyfish in the pool by the Playboy Grotto.”
Same as always, hope made a chump of dignity. “Jimmy Caan is making jellyfish in the pool by the Playboy Grotto.”
“Jimmy Caan is making jellyfish in the pool by the Playboy Grotto.”
“Jimmy Caan is,” a swallow, “making jellyfish—”
“Enough,” Garry said at last. “Velma, go check the back stock.”
There was no back stock, whatever the stock might have been, nor much of a back. Velma knew to look nervous, as if for a boom in mid-lower. Irene had already gone behind the screen to pull up the spaghetti. When she came out Garry had a card to lend. “I’m sorry. That’s not how people are in this business. Give me a call. I think I have an idea. I’ll look into it for you.” Irene left with a smile. Maybe she was picturing Velma being fired. Garry had run that scenario himself but only for a desultory rub.
“Cash infusion,” soon after, a cold pamplemousse in hand and both feet up on the desk. “That’s all it would take. Maybe open a little club on the boulevard to start. No mansion at first—hell only knows how you get to a mansion, but you work your way up.”
“It’s a different world, Garry.” Velma put her pencil in the desktop sharpener.
“No, it’s the same world it’s always been. The startup cash is the thing.”
“And how many cookie jars will you be hitting up for that?”
“I know some people.”
“People?”
“People. You have a client tonight?”
“Explain the part where that’s any of your business.”
“Just making chitchat. We’re friends, aren’t we?”
Garry caught a glimpse of the face beneath the face. Once Velma had been the girl to sort and process in that line of work. And he sought a joke to crack about the faint sadness when the door came open—no knock of any kind, neither hard nor demure.
Another woman, what do you know—though this one was dressed for cleanup, not a tryout. A black hooded sweatshirt, ball cap, dark jeans. She carried a rolled-up yoga mat—the only incongruity. Her hair had been dyed black and her face revealed nothing.
“Quién eres tu?” Garry asked. “Housekeeping?”
Velma had stood up. “You don’t just barge in. This is a place of business. By appointment only.”
“I have one.”
Garry checked his wristwatch. “Bit early—not four yet. And a knock would be nice.”
“Oh, I did. I knocked. But it was a while ago.”
Velma had the call sheet memorized. The southern accent crept in late. “So you’re ... pardon me, but you’re Annoushka?”
“Constance,” the woman said, and Garry felt a thrill even before mention of a second name. “Ioseb Sodemadze sent me your way.” The yoga mat unscrolled.
“Who?” Velma asked. “That’s no producer we know. And whatever are you—”
Shotgun, sawed-off, five-round autoloader. The stink of powder was in its barrel. Velma gave a shriek and sat down hard in her chair. “Sodemadze was a trafficker,” Constance said, “and now he’s a work of art.” Pancake did not sit well on an ashen face. Velma looked like a frightened mime. “Imagine my surprise when I got it out of him—that this is how he’d heard of me. This is where it all started—my world tour—this sad little shop. Hi, Garry.”
“Hi, Constance.” His voice was mild. He had not moved an inch, except for three. “I remember. Three years ago? You came in for a check?” So different then—a nonentity like the rest. He was amazed at the sight of her now—amazed and brought to life. Frumpy clothes, murder weapon, deadpan and plain. The old self had been worn away. He had never seen a woman more beautiful. “Didn’t you have,” and in one last display the hands became tits.
“Jesus Christ, Garry,” Velma said.
“No, he’s right—and it’s fair. I had silicone implants. Big ones. I bought them with my own cash and paid a man to put them into my body. And after I escaped from the Philippine brothel I cut them out myself. A motel bathtub to catch the blood, and a pocket knife. Couldn’t stand seeing them there anymore. Carrying that. The scars are amazing. How does she not know who Sodemadze is?”
“Velma wasn’t in on that,” Garry said. “It’s not her fault.”
Velma’s mascara had run. Wide eyes seemed that much wider atop black alluvial streaks. She looked at him aghast, and in a breaking voice, asked, “People?”
“People.”
Velma looked to Constance. “He—he did—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I never would have. I had no idea.”
“So what,” Constance said, and the clap took off Velma’s paint. Garry shut his eyes to the pelt of blood and teeth, and when he opened them again she lay on her side, mostly out of sight. A stiletto had come off, and the foot shivered in its nylon. He could taste what had got in his mouth and smell the pepper of the blast, and he let the stain track even as he began to shake.
Constance seemed in no rush. She was lost in consideration of Velma on the floor.
“You won’t have long. Better finish up here and run for it.”
“These aren’t neighbors who call nine-one-one.” True. “If she wasn’t in on it—if those games weren’t part of a con—then why tear us down like that? Why was she here?”
No answer. None he could say. But he had a vision. “For payback here’s what you could do. Have me strip naked right here, the way I made you and all the rest. March me out. We can go west up Sunset Boulevard clear to the Holmby Hills so that everyone can get a good look at my bald spot and my paunch and my sad, used-up little pecker.” Honk. “The Playboy Mansion is that way, and Hugh Hefner just died.” But Garry did not get to run down a final dream, and the mansion four miles off stood ready for the raze.