Читать книгу Something Remains - Hassan Ghedi Santur - Страница 9

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Before Sarah knows it, his tongue is in her mouth and they are kissing with the intimacy and intensity of long-lost lovers. They are lying on a bed, he on top of her, his crotch grinding against hers. Both are naked except for the flesh-coloured patch of nylon material attached to their crotches with double-sided tape. Her raised legs are wrapped tightly around him.

“Cut!” yells the director, his booming voice resonating throughout the small set.

Christopher Hastings, a stocky man of fifty with a shiny, shaved head and a greying goatee, strides away from the small monitor from which he has been observing the scene. He comes over to the bed where Sarah and her fellow actor lie and leans over them, resting his palms on his knees.

Everyone else on the set is motionless, waiting to see what wisdom the director will impart to these actors about the secret art of pretend-fucking for film. Since this is a closed set, there aren’t many people around, only the minimum, consisting of the director, the cinematographer, the boom mike operator, the focus puller and script supervisor, and one or two other necessary individuals. Very few, indeed, considering the number of crew and the team of producers who would otherwise swarm the set had they not been shooting the most explicit sex scene of a film filled with frank depictions of sex.

Staring into his eyes, Sarah senses that her loud but otherwise amiable director, who came to filmmaking via art direction, is a bit uncertain, which isn’t surprising since he has never directed a movie let alone two nude actors. It seems pretty clear to her that he doesn’t really know what he is doing, but she appreciates his attempt to appear confident.

“Brilliant guys, just brilliant,” he tells them as if he has read every book on directing he could get his hands on. No doubt, she thinks, the one thing every book advised was to compliment actors after each take, even after a rubbish one. Actors are a sensitive, fragile bunch, these books must have instructed, and they are prone to unprovoked hysterical outbursts, so be wary of them.

“That was brilliant,” he tells them again in case they didn’t hear him before. “But I’m not seeing the passion. I’m not feeling it. Remember, Constance and Mellors have been dying to make love ever since they laid eyes on each other.”

Sarah, playing the part of Constance Chatterley, nods as if she is hearing this for the first time, as if he is giving her a piece of information without which she could never gain insight into the complex interior life of her character.

“Let’s give it another go, shall we?” Christopher requests in his fake Cockney accent, no doubt to hide his ridiculously posh background. “This time, gimme more. Give me more. Give me everything.” He wobbles over to a little monitor and stands behind it, excited, eager to see the result of his great direction. “More sweat,” he demands, and suddenly an obliging production assistant in his early twenties with long, oily black hair that appears not to have seen shampoo in months materializes out of nowhere, runs over to Sarah and Ian, and sprays them with water from a Windex-like container. He squirts liquid rather liberally on Ian’s back, making it seem as if the actor is dripping with perspiration, the kind that comes from a hot, passionate romp.

Shit! Sarah curses silently as she and Ian exchange a glance, as if to ask: “What the fuck does ‘give me more, give me everything mean’?” This sort of vacuous direction infuriates her. She wants to scream: “Give me an action. For fuck’s sake, give me an action to play.” But her fear of being labelled “difficult” doesn’t permit her to make such a demand, even if it would help her do the job better.

Sarah can understand action because she has spent the better part of her life trying to interpret human behaviour, why people do the crazy things they do. But today, it seems, she will have to settle for “give me more.”

“Set!” the camera operator yells.

A bell goes off, more like an annoying beep than a ring, which means a red light is flashing on the stage door, instructing people not to enter or exit until the shot is completed.

“Rolling!” the first assistant director cries.

Christopher places the headset on his tiny red ears and takes a quick look around to see if everything is to his liking. All is quiet. Nervous expectation hovers. “Action!” he shouts.

Sarah and her scene partner go at it again. Since the dialogue track has been stripped out, Christopher feels free to comment without worrying about his voice being recorded. “Go slower,” he whispers to Ian. “You’re rushing it. Slow is good here.”

Ian does as he is told, slowly kissing Sarah on the mouth, then making his way down to her neck and breasts.

How strange, Sarah thinks as she feels Ian’s lips enclose her nipples. What a miracle that she can trick her body into responding to the stimulation of a stranger. Her brain and all its complicated neurons and sensors, it appears, can’t tell the difference between real lovemaking and make-believe.

Ian’s task is to kiss, lick, and nibble his way down Sarah’s belly slowly, but he has rushed this on every take. Maybe his nerves are getting to him. Maybe he is uncomfortable about kissing the naked breasts of a woman he barely knows. Whatever his reason, he is going too fast for the director’s liking.

“Stay there a little longer, Ian,” Sarah hears Christopher say in his unbearably loud voice. “Don’t head down too fast. Now circle your tongue around her nipples. Yes, that’s brilliant. And, Sarah, dig your nails into his back. I want to see marks on his back. Yes. Very good, indeed.” There is a creepy trace of fatherly pride in his voice.

Magically, Sarah Turlington, the celebrated stage actor making her feature film debut, and scene partner, Ian Harmer, the hunky movie star, pull off the tricky scene. Despite their director’s blow-by-blow commentary and booming voice, they accomplish what good actors always strive for but rarely achieve — a synchronicity of action and emotion, of give and take, so much so that for a moment they convince the onlookers on the set, and themselves, that they are indeed lovers lost in bliss. With increasing speed and passion they gyrate in unison, their moans rising to a crescendo like the high notes of an aria. She kisses his mouth and forehead, tasting the mixture of sprayed-on water and sweat. She bites the side of his neck. Suddenly, she feels him get hard. His erection, thankfully still covered by the modesty patch, presses against her. Since this is a master shot that shows their entire naked bodies, it is imperative that they keep in constant contact to give the impression of intercourse.

Sarah is gripped by a strange combination of discomfort and excitement. She desperately wants to remain in the moment and not ruin the sense of intimacy they have been trying to achieve for the past eight takes, but she also can’t help the excitement, the sense of actual sex invading, contaminating, what should be a completely platonic relationship between professional actors. Sarah does her best not to register his hardness, not to mention the increasing friction of his hips against hers.

During the fleeting moments between action and cut, Sarah and Ian are Lady Chatterley and her lover. Not wanting to take herself and her partner out of the loop, Sarah continues in this dangerous fashion, waiting and hoping to hear the director’s voice cry, “Cut!” But the command never comes. She imagines Christopher sitting in his chair, staring at the little monitor, lost in the flickering vision of untamed passion before his eyes, mesmerized by its theatricality, its staged realness. Sarah knows a good director wouldn’t cut a scene this good, this authentic, but she hopes Christopher will, anyway.

Red with embarrassment, Ian continues his vigorous humping. Sarah, now lost in this strange terrain of real/fake orgasm, clings to her partner, desperately trying not to betray what is happening — that she is really feeling something she should only be experiencing in theory. A part of her also cherishes this delicious secret like a kid stealing candy and getting away with it. Of course, in the past she has sensed the overlapping of her real sentiments and those of her characters’ as she portrayed anger and sadness and all other human emotions onstage night after night, but never has she encountered this extraordinary meeting of her own sexual awakening and that of a character — the infamous Lady Chatterley no less.

The director finally yells, “Cut,” when the scene reaches its natural conclusion and he gets what he needs: a genuine sense of two people drawn to each other so viscerally that they have no choice but to surrender. As uncomfortable a situation as it is, Sarah understands why she and Ian have to be pushed to such extremes of passion. More important, she knows they must be willing to force themselves to do whatever is needed if the audience is expected to buy the scene.

“Print!” Christopher shouts to no one in particular. “That’s a wrap! Thanks, everyone.” He runs to the two actors, who scuttle to cover their nakedness. “That was bloody beautiful. Brilliant work, guys.” This time Sarah almost thinks his compliments are genuine, but he has said those very words so many times before that they now sound hollow.

Having already changed into her comfort clothes — a pair of blue jeans and a cream cashmere sweater — Sarah stands in front of the mirror in her trailer. She studies her face, delight flashing in her eyes for handling what could have been a difficult day rather well. Sarah is also happy about how she looks. Although people have been telling her how lovely she is all her life, she has never allowed herself to believe it, or more accurately, never permitted herself to take joy in it because she has always thought one should be proud of one’s accomplishments, not a blessing as random as physical beauty. She is quite Puritan that way. But of late, especially after her thirty-third birthday a month ago, she has become much more interested in herself, not only in her intellect and emotions to which she has always paid utmost attention but in her body, as well — its appearance, the way she feels in it, and the many pleasures it has to offer.

Hers is a beauty composed of parts that are individually ordinary, even flawed. The neck is a centimetre or so too long, the nose too thin and pointed. The ears have an elfish, upward drift that makes them stick out more than she cares for, the lips appear too plump, almost collagenated, and the skin is fairer than is fashionable.

Add these oddities, however, and the effect is stunning yet approachable, with a kind of Audrey Hepburn vulnerability that makes everyone around her either want to fuck her or protect her from those who want to fuck her. As she stares in the mirror, apparently fascinated with herself, Sarah ties her brown hair in a high, loosey-goosey ponytail, puts on her coat, and leaves.

When she steps out of the trailer, which is parked outside a closed-off street, she finds Ian at the foot of the vehicle. For a moment he looks like a star-struck teenager waiting for an autograph from his favourite actress. Ian offers his hand and helps her down the trailer’s steep steps.

“I thought you’d gone home,” Sarah says.

“Before I left, I just wanted to thank you for a really amazing day.”

At first Sarah doesn’t read much into this compliment. She knows how obnoxiously self-congratulatory actors can be and that they say this sort of thing to one another all the time, especially on the first days of a shoot. But something in Ian’s eyes, the way he gazes at Sarah but quickly turns away as if the gratitude he feels is too overwhelming, convinces her of his sincerity. She stands close to him, peers into his eyes, and kisses him on the lips softly, barely touching them. “You’re so sweet, you know that? You’ve waited just to tell me that?”

“That and …”

“And what?” she prompts.

“I … well, the thing is. Back then, when we were making love, I mean, pretending to … I just want to say I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? What for?”

He hesitates as though trying to find a discreet way to speak his mind.

“What on earth are you sorry for?” she asks again.

“For getting, you know …”

“Oh, that …” she says with a smile of sudden recognition — a perverse grin, actually.

“I just wanted to assure you that it was no disrespect on my part.

I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I couldn’t help myself.”

Sarah finds his clumsy apology endearing, touching even.

“You’re so very sweet.”

This behaviour isn’t what she anticipated from a man who has become a box office sensation by playing bigger-than-life heroes who save East Coast cities from psychopathic Arab terrorists or who single-handedly terminate giant bloodthirsty bugs invading from South America, wavy brown hair blowing beautifully in the wind. Sarah expected him to strut around the set, sweet-talking female crew members out of their pants, charming them into making a pilgrimage to his sizable trailer. Sarah even figured he would attempt a quick on-set fling with her. She didn’t imagine herself standing in front of a man so shy, so quiet, that she can barely hear him.

Suddenly, Sarah is overcome by guilt for almost refusing to take the role in the film when she discovered that Ian Harmer would be her co-star, that her first foray into cinema would be alongside a man whose movies she can only bring herself to watch when she takes her godchildren and even then finds it difficult to sit through them. But having actually done some scenes with him now, she sees that underneath the matinee idol is a good actor who could someday be great if only he challenged himself more often. She feels a strong physical attraction toward him. Her desire made sense when he was naked and she was touching his beautiful body, feeding off his reaction to her, but fully clothed outside her trailer on a cold, rainy September night, she can’t make sense of it.

“Would you like to have dinner with me?” Sarah asks him, almost before the thought fully forms in her head. “The food at the hotel is … well, let’s just say I’m not looking forward to it.” She realizes she might have stepped over an invisible line whose crossing could have very serious consequences, especially only two weeks into principal photography. What if something does actually happen between us? she wonders.

Sarah doesn’t entertain that idea any further, for there is Michael, her husband, to consider. It is Michael who really makes her think twice about what lies on the other side of desire. If she had an affair with Ian, it would break Michael. She knows he would find out, too, not due to his own cleverness but because she could never keep something as big as that to herself. No matter how hard she tried to wipe away the residue of another man such a secret would manifest itself in some unforeseen way.

A part of Sarah admires people who possess the peculiar talent of taking from others what they can’t get from their husbands or wives while at the same time holding on to those things they cherish most in their spouses, those things that made them say “I do” in the first place.

Could I be one of those people? Sarah asks herself as she and Ian walk side by side on the wet, shimmering pavement on their way to dinner, shoulders occasionally touching. There is one thing she knows, though — her capacity to surprise herself.