For dessert we each had three Irish coffees and by the time we got up to leave at one o’clock in the morning I could hardly manage to stand straight As soon as we got back to the suite, he plopped himself down on the couch and picked up the script. “Now we can go to work,” he said.
I couldn’t believe my ears.
“We improved it,” he said. “But that’s not the important thing. I have other plans for you. Big plans. Do you understand?”
I could only shake my head. I didn’t understand.
“The minute you walked into that office I knew you were the girl I had been looking for.” He paused to let the importance of his statement sink in. “You know, I’m not staying on this show. I’m preparing a feature. A big picture. The deal’s already closed.”
“Congratulations,” I managed to say.
He nodded. “And you’re the girl. The lead. Today’s girl. Feisty. Tough. Sexy. Intelligent. That’s why it was important that I get you for this show. I had to show them what I could do with you.”
I didn’t speak. My head was beginning to buzz.
He opened the script. “Now, let’s go over this.”
The hammers were really beating my scull now. “Chad,” I said. “Mr. Taylor.”
He looked up at me with a puzzled expression.
“It’s not that I’m not grateful, I really am,” I said, speaking as clearly as I could. “But if you don’t let me get to bed, I’m going to pass out right here.”
His expression cleared and he rose with a rueful smile. “Of course. I forgot the kind of a day you’ve had.”
I followed him to the door. “I’ll see you in the morning,” he said.
I was beginning to feel dizzy.
“Don’t worry about getting to the studio. I’ll have a car and driver here for you at seven o’clock.”
I managed to nod.
He gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Good night,” he said, then drew back and looked at me. “The next time we go to dinner don’t wear a dress with so much décolletage. I had a hard-on all night and half the time I didn’t know what the hell I was saying.”
I closed the door and felt the nausea rising. I just about made it to the bathroom. Then, still dressed, I threw myself across the bed and passed out.
Chapter 14
I was naked and they were all staring at me as if I were a piece of meat. I tried to hide behind my hands but no matter which way I turned I couldn’t escape their eyes. The white merciless spotlights tore at me from all sides.
Somehow, of all the men there, I didn’t seem to mind the strangers as much as those that knew me. I didn’t even seem to mind the way the men all were dressed in football uniforms, helmets, face guards, bright red sweatshirts with black numbers. And they were all wearing the same number—One. Perhaps the strangest thing about the uniform was that the heavy padded pants had no fronts and their huge cocks hung out almost to their knees.
Abruptly they all went into a huddle. I tried to hear what they were whispering but the words were lost. Then they broke from the huddle and went into a playing formation. The only man I recognized in the line was the center, Harry Gregg. Behind him I could see the faces of the backfield. George Fox as quarterback, halfbacks Chad and John and, not too far behind, Walter as fullback.
George straightened up and gestured violently toward me, then pointed at Harry. Responding to a compulsion I did not understand, I walked toward the line, got down on my knees and crawled between Harry’s legs. Curling myself into a fetal ball, I hugged my knees close to my chest and pressed my face into my thighs.
I heard Harry grunt as he crouched even lower and forced his large hands between my arms until each one was firmly locked on my breasts. He nudged his knees against my buttocks and I raised myself slightly. He grunted again and I felt his long tool ram into me from behind. It was strange, but I felt nothing. Neither surprise, nor resentment, nor excitement. Then he exploded inside me and I felt his semen dripping down my legs as George shouted “Hup!” in a strange hoarse voice.
Abruptly I was flung backward between his legs into George’s hands. They felt rough and calloused, not at all like the soft manicured hands I knew he had. Still locked in the fetal position, I felt his heavy hands pressed down on my breasts forcing me onto his cock. Then he was running, his cock moving in and out of me with his strides. A moment later I heard Walter’s voice shouting “Get rid of her! Goddamn it! Get rid of her!”
George’s orgasm splashed into me, firing me into the air like a rocket. I felt myself spinning sideways, over and over, and the air was cold against my skin.
I was floating over them now and suddenly I felt free.
There was something about soaring high like a bird. Nothing could touch you except the wind. And the wind loved you. You were safe. Then I began to fall.
I looked down. Chad and John were running toward the center of the field.
I felt the fear knotting my stomach. I could hear myself screaming inside my head but no sound came out. I willed the wind to keep me up. But I kept falling, falling toward them until I could see their faces grim with power behind their masks.
The scream finally tore from my throat. “No! No! This is not a game. I am not a football!”
Then I woke up cold, sweating and shaking, with tears running down my cheeks. For a moment I lay staring into the darkness. Then, still trembling, I reached across and turned on the lamp.
The ghosts of my dream fled before the light. I looked down at myself. My dress was totally crushed and the long skirt was ripped on one side where it had caught on the heel of my shoe while I was asleep.
I checked the time—almost five o’clock. Another two hours and the car would be here to take me to the studio. My mouth felt dry. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom.
The first thing I did was brush my teeth and rinse out my mouth. Then I looked at myself in the mirror.
My eyes were puffy and my face white and drawn. I stared at myself in disgust. It would take at least two hours to make myself presentable. I started the water running in the tub and I opened a jar of cream to begin removing my makeup.
I noticed my hands were still shaking and without thinking reached for a tranquilizer. Then I stopped. Between the pills and the drinking, I had really done a job on myself. There was no other explanation for that crazy nightmare.
I put the pill back in the bottle. There had to be a better way to keep going.
***
I spent two hours in Makeup and Hairdressing, where they toned down the blond in my hair and eyebrows and covered my body with a dark makeup that turned my skin to a dull copper. Then came the selection of my costume—a short loose-fitting chamois dress with a few touches of colored beads. They called it the Debra Paget. She had worn it last while playing the mother of Cochise in an old Jeff Chandler film. By ten o’clock I had been driven to the back lot where they were doing the filming.
Chad came over to the car as I got out. He kissed my cheek. “You look sensational,” he said. “Sleep okay?”
I nodded.
“Good,” he said. Chad then introduced me to the man who had ambled over to us. “This is your director. Marty Ryan. JeriLee Randall.”
Ryan was wearing a faded blue shirt and cowboy jeans. His grip was firm. “Glad to meet you, JeriLee,” he said with a Western twang.
“My pleasure,” I said.
“Ready for work?”
I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “We’re ready for your first set up.”
I felt a moment of panic. “I just got the script last night,” I said quickly. “I haven’t had a chance to read it yet. I don’t know my lines.”
“No problem,” he said. “You don’t have any dialogue in these scenes anyway. Come with me.”
I followed him down to the camera and sound truck, which was standing in front of the Indian camp set. A number of men in Indian costumes were seated around a wooden crate playing cards. Near the corral two wranglers were tending to the horses.
“Hey, Terry,” the director shouted, “bring her horse over here.”
The smaller wrangler cut a large white horse out of the pack and started toward me. The director turned back to me. “It’s a simple shot,” he explained. “You come from the tent over there, look around for a moment, then run to the horse, jump up and ride away.”
I stared at him, too dumbfounded to speak.
He mistook my silence for confusion. “It sounds more complicated than it really is,” he explained gently.
I shook my head. “Somebody made a big mistake.”
He was puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“The script I read had no scenes of me on horseback.”
“We rewrote the script to give you more to do,” he said. “We’ve given you a key part now. You’re practically the chief of the tribe. You’re in charge because your father has been wounded.”
“Sounds great,” I said. “Except for one thing. I can’t ride.”
“What did you say?”
“I can’t ride,” I repeated.
He stared at me dumbly. Chad came up to us, sensing something was wrong.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
The director turned to him. “She can’t ride.”
Chad stared at me. “You can’t ride?”
I shook my head. “I’ve never even been on a horse.”
“Holy shit!” Chad exploded. “Why the hell didn’t you say something?”
“You never asked me,” I said. “Besides the script that I saw didn’t have any riding scenes.”
“What do we do now?” the director asked him.
“We use a double,” Chad said.
“No chance,” the director said firmly. “This is television. Every shot is in close. There’s no way to fake it.”
Chad turned toward the wrangler. “How much time do you think it would take you to teach her?”
The little wrangler looked at me with slitted eyes, then shifted a wad of tobacco in his cheek and spat into the dirt. “If she learns fast, about a week to do what’s called for in the script.”
“We’re fucked!” the director said in a disgusted voice and walked off.
“I knew it,” Chad said. “I knew it. The first minute you walked into my office, I smelled trouble.”
“Don’t blame me,” I said angrily. “I didn’t want the damn part to begin with. But you couldn’t take no for an answer.”
“How the hell was I supposed to know you couldn’t ride?” he snapped.
“The only horses I even saw were outside the Plaza Hotel in New York hitched to a carriage,” I said.
“I’m jinxed,” Chad said.
“What do you want me to do with Queenie here?” the little wrangler asked.
Chad gave him a look which left no doubt as to what he would like him to do. I turned to the wrangler. “Is the horse gentle?” I asked.
“She’s like a baby,” he said. “Loves evvabody.”
“Help me up,” I said. “Let me see how it feels.”
He squatted at the side of the horse, making a clasped cup of his two hands. “Put your left foot in here,” he said. “An’ swang your right foot over.”
“Okay.” I followed directions and everything was going fine until the horse moved as I crossed my leg over her back. I kept right on going and wound up in a puddle of mud on the other side.
“Are you all right?” Chad asked in a frightened voice.
I raised myself up on one elbow. The mud was all over my face and dress. I stared up at them. “Sorry, fellers,” I said. Then the absurdity of it all got to me and I began to laugh.
Thinking that I was becoming hysterical, they quickly helped me to my feet. “Get a doctor!” Chad yelled. Then he turned to me. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, everything will be all right.”
But I couldn’t stop laughing and by that night I was off the picture.
Chapter 15
Chad drove me back to the motel. On the way he stopped off at a package store and bought a bottle of scotch. Within an hour after we got to my room, he had put away half the bottle. It was almost eight o’clock when he finally got to his feet, weaving unsteadily. “WE better get something to eat.”
He was in no condition to drive. “Maybe we ought to get something from room service,” I suggested.
“They don’t have any. Do you think the studio’s going to put you somewhere where you can run up room service charges?”
I didn’t answer.
“We’ll go out for something.”
“I don’t want you driving,” I said.
“We can walk. There are a few places down the block on Sunset.”
“Okay,” I said.
We went to a restaurant on the north side of the street opposite Schwab’s Drug Store. The place was dimly lit like most California restaurants and there was a piano player sitting in the bar area near the entrance. A few people sat around the piano nursing their drinks. We walked past them and a headwaiter escorted us to a table.
“The prime ribs are extra good tonight,” he said.
Chad looked at me and I nodded. “Make it two,” he said to the headwaiter. “But first bring me a double scotch on the rocks.”
The ribs were as good as the man promised but Chad left his untouched while he drank his dinner.
“You’re not eating,” I said.
“Don’t be a woman,” he said.
I was silent. The waiter brought coffee and Chad took a sip. “What are your plans now!” he asked.
“I’ll probably go back to New York tomorrow.”
“Anything special doing back there?”
“I’ll start climbing on my agent’s back again.”
“I’m sorry about what happened,” he said.
“The luck of the draw,” I said.
“I want to thank you for trying to get on that horse,” he said. “If you hadn’t done that, I could have blown my job.”
I didn’t understand but I kept silent.
“It gave us a perfect out. The doctor called it an accident. Insurance took over the delay in shooting. It didn’t cost the studio one penny and this way everybody’s happy.”
I still didn’t speak.
He looked at me. “Except me. I felt we could have done great things together.”
“Maybe we will someday,” I said.
“No.” He shook his head dolefully. “It doesn’t work like that. The pressure’s too great. Each week there’s another show. You got to go forward.”
“But what about the future you were telling me about?” I asked. “We can still take a shot at that.”
“Maybe, but that’s why I wanted you in this show. The studio likes to go with people out of their own productions.”