I slumped with my back against the rail of the bridge until Walter glanced at me and gave me a ‘thumbs up’ sign. “We’re done,” he smiled.
I was still breathing raggedly. The thrill for a man standing when he orgasms is always more intense than if he’s laying or sitting down at the moment he comes. My legs were still trembling.
“Great work, girls,” I grinned and then glanced over my shoulder to where Connie had been standing quietly off set while we filmed. She was writing notes, but somehow instinctively seemed to sense my eyes on her. She glanced up from the notepad and gazed at me with an expression that was completely unreal.
Chapter 19.
Lily and Becky showered together while I sat with my two cameramen, playing back the footage of the scene we had just shot. We were slumped on the sofa, eyes glued to the playback monitor as Walter ran through everything that had been shot.
“It looks good,” I couldn’t keep the bubble of enthusiasm from my voice. “The girls look incredible together, don’t they?”
Walter nodded. He was passionate about his profession and constantly critical, but even he was smiling. “It’s a good one,” he agreed.
Connie came in from the sunlight with her notebook clutched tightly in her fingers. The pages were frayed and curling, filled with her flowing looping handwriting. She came to a halt when she saw us and her eyes flicked to the monitor. She watched without comment for several minutes as Walter replayed the come shot, then she turned her eyes to where we sat.
“You guys look like the three wise monkeys,” she said, “hear no evil, see no evil and speak no evil.”
For some reason, that amused her immensely. She gave a little chortle of laughter and then foraged in her handbag for a new notebook.
“I know you’re not a film critic,” I ignored the aspersion she cast. “But what did you think of the filming?”
Connie looked blank for a moment, but I could see there was a lot going on behind her eyes. When she had assembled her thoughts, she inclined her head and then nodded. “It was more tasteful than the previous scenes you have filmed,” she declared in a comment that could have been praise or could have been a criticism.
I shrugged and gestured with my hands. “What does that mean? Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
“It’s a good thing,” Connie conceded. “I felt you were able to capture something more than just porn,” she said. “Even I thought that was sexy.”
I almost fell off the sofa. Maybe I was hear no evil – maybe I wasn’t hearing her correctly.
“You thought that was sexy?” I was shocked.
“I did,” Connie nodded, and then she blushed and became flustered, like maybe she had said too much. She turned her attention quickly back to whatever was in her handbag. I pushed myself up off the sofa and gave my camera guys both a hardy slap on the back.
“Nice work, guys.”
I drifted down the hallway towards the bathroom. I needed a shower.
As I came level with one of the spare bedrooms, I noticed the door was slightly ajar, and I paused, reaching out for the handle to draw it closed.
From within the room beyond came the sound of sexy feminine giggles, and a voice made husky with emotion and broken by panting gasps of breath. I nudged the door open with my elbow and saw Becky and Lily on their hands and knees, naked on the bed. Spread out between them was Yvette. The young girl had her eyes closed and her legs spread wide with Becky and Lily hovering over her, taking turns to lick her pussy.
I watched for just a moment… no, I didn’t. I watched for several minutes, and then reluctantly wandered into the bathroom.
Damn! Now I needed another cold shower.
Chapter 20.
It was late in the afternoon before the three actresses emerged from the bedroom. They were dressed and looked like they were going somewhere. They were.
With filming finished, the girls were no longer needed. We exchanged hugs and kisses and promises to stay in touch and made plans to film together again in the near future. My camera guys were on their way back to Europe, and I stood on the front step of the house as all five of them piled into a hired car and drove away.
When I came back inside, it was just Connie and I – alone in the house.
“Well,” I said with a lazy smile. “Now that you have me all to yourself, whatever would you like to do with me?”
Connie flicked me a smile. “I’d like to ask you a question.”
I looked disappointed. “Is it a personal question? Is it a sexy question?”
“It’s a question about sex,” Connie said flatly.
“Is it a question about you and me having sex?”
(Okay, I had pushed it as far as I could).
Connie did the sensible thing – she ignored me. She opened up her notebook to a blank page, and then stared down at it like maybe the question had been written in invisible ink. “Why don’t you make films that have a BDSM theme?” she asked. “That genre is very popular right now, you know?”
I put on my game face. “I do know BDSM is popular at the moment,” I admitted. “But it’s only popular with women, and only with women who read particular erotic novels. BDSM might seem like a new trend that is suddenly sweeping the world, but the reality is that BDSM is nothing new. And there’s nothing new in porn either.”
Connie looked a little surprised. “So there has always been porn films made for people who have an interest in bondage and discipline?”
“Of course,” I said. I dropped down onto the sofa with a weary sigh. “Connie, there are porn films made to cater for every imaginable fetish – and that includes BDSM. However, the BDSM films that are made are generally filmed for a male audience because men are the ones who largely watch porn films.”
“So you don’t feel that the interest over recent years in BDSM would translate to something marketable you could film?”
I shook my head. “The phenomenon you are referring to is largely confined to women readers. I make my films for male viewers,” I emphasized the words.
Connie scribbled in her notebook, and when she looked up she suddenly seemed to realize that it was getting dark. She looked around with a curious expression on her face as if to say ‘where did the sun go’.
“Where did the sun go?” she asked.
I glanced over my shoulder and shrugged. “It’s been a long day. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having sex.”
Connie got to her feet and ran her fingers down over her bottom and thighs to smooth the wrinkles out of her skirt. Her eyes flicked away from me and suddenly she was glancing past my shoulder. She was checking her reflection in one of the windows.
“Are you coming to dinner with me? Or do you want to meet me at the restaurant?”
Connie glanced at her watch. “What time have you made the reservation for?”
“Seven,” I said, and then made a mental note to book a table for seven o’clock as soon as I could discreetly get to a phone.
Connie glanced down at her wristwatch again, and I saw her lips move silently like she was talking to herself – working something out in her mind. Maybe she was calculating travelling time, or maybe she was calling me a jerk under her breath. I didn’t know.
She looked up at last. “I’ll meet you there,” she decided. “It’s called ‘Still Water’, right?”
I nodded. “It’s on Seventh Street.”
Chapter 21.
I was waiting in the restaurant parking lot when Connie arrived a few minutes before seven. She was wearing a white blouse and a red leather skirt, cut half-way up her thigh. She looked classy – in a sexy kind of way. She smiled a greeting and I took her arm and we walked together round the corner of the building, her high heels clipping on the pavement.
The ‘Still Water’ was one of those intimate, low-lit restaurants that love-lost guys take their girlfriends to when they propose.
There were no lights – the place was lit by thousands of candles flickering from fittings
along the walls and twinkling on every table. There was a piano in a corner behind the reception counter where a grizzled little old man played show tunes and love songs with a kind of effortless ease that only comes from familiarity. He smiled at me from behind his spectacles as Connie and I stood waiting in the small foyer. I smiled back. The pianist took a discreet gulp of his martini and then launched into a tinkling rendition of ‘My Heart Will Go On’.
The maître d’ drifted out of the shadows like he was gliding an inch above the carpet. I never saw his legs move. He was a thin man in his fifties, immaculately dressed in suit and tie. He had a crop of wavy, silvered hair and a pencil moustache. He ran his finger down the reservations register and chewed on his lip so that it looked like his moustache was crawling into the corner of his mouth. He stabbed the page suddenly with a stub of his finger and looked up with a dramatic ‘ahh’, like he had discovered the secret elixir of life. “There you are,” he said. “Welcome, Mr. and Mrs. Cassidy.”
I felt Connie go stiff beside me.
“We’re not married,” I explained, and then I patted my trouser pocket as if I had something there.
The maître d’ caught the gesture and gave me a knowing wink. “Very good, sir,” he inclined his head. “‘Still Water’ would like to present you with a complimentary bottle of champagne,” and then he leaned close to me and gave me a conspiratorial nod. “Good luck,” he whispered.
I nodded back. “I’ll need it,” I whispered. “I’m sure the bottle of champagne will help tremendously.”
The maître d’ gestured with his hands to suggest it was the least he could do for a couple deeply in love, on the brink of their proposal. He led us to a table and pulled Connie’s chair out for her to sit. He bowed to me and smiled at Connie. “Enjoy your evening,” his voice was soft and smooth. “Your complimentary champagne will be brought right out. Hopefully, by the end of this night, you will both have something wonderful to celebrate.”
The maître d’ disappeared back into the gloom. Connie looked a question at me. “Are you a regular here?”
I shook my head.
Connie frowned. “Strange,” she mused. “The maître d’ spoke to you like he knew you. I thought he might have been a fan of your films, and that’s why we’re getting the complimentary champagne.”
I shook my head and shrugged with innocent wonder. “It’s a mystery.”
It was early evening, and many of the restaurant tables were empty, but reserved. I glanced past Connie’s shoulder and saw a dozen other couples leaning close together over the intimate candlelit settings of their tables. There was a confidential hum of whispered conversation around the room. I heard a woman behind me chuckle in that throaty, sexy way that women do when they are aroused – or drunk. A man at the table across from us reached out and rubbed the forearm of the woman he was sitting opposite like he was trying to soothe her temper. The woman didn’t respond.
“Have you ever watched people?” I asked Connie.
She frowned. “In what way?”
I flapped my hand. “Just watched them. Just sat somewhere and observed strangers – how they move, the gestures they make, the habits…”
Connie was still frowning. “I’m a journalist,” she said, as if that answer was enough.
“So?”
“I’m trained to observe,” she said. “I make a living writing about people, Rick. It has taught me to be a good observer.”
I sat back and thought about that. “Then you must have plenty of observations to make about me.”
“A notebook full,” she said dramatically.
I sucked in a breath through my teeth. It made a little hissing sound. “So tell me,” I invited. “Don’t hold back.”
Connie laughed lightly and glanced away for an instant. “You want me to tell you what I really think about you?”
“I do,” I nodded and made the brave kind of face a man makes when he’s being stood before a firing squad. “Blaze away.”
Connie shook her head. “I won’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because…” Connie’s voice dropped to a whisper so I could barely hear her.
I leaned forward across the table. “Because why?”
“Because you haven’t paid for dinner yet.”
(Beautiful and witty!)
“You can say whatever you feel, Connie,” I encouraged her. “You may not think so, but I actually am a gentleman and I’ve got a pretty thick skin. I asked for your honesty, so please, be honest. Do I need to change my name and go into hiding once your article is published? Or should I buy a set of those plastic spectacles with a big rubber nose and moustache attached?”
Connie smiled and the warmth of it reached all the way to her eyes. “My story in ‘Infinity’ won’t be published for another month,” she said.
“So?” I leaned across the table again.
“So by then, you could have a pair of breasts and go by the name of Gloria.”
(Okay, now she was just being evil).
Not funny.
Connie’s smile kept spreading. It turned up the corners of her mouth and became a playful grin. “Relax,” she reached out and patted my arm. It was the first time she’d ever deliberately touched me and I felt the chilled shock of it. Her fingers were warm and delicate. “I think you will be pleasantly surprised when you read the published article.”
I sat back, and I realized to the casual observer that all of my sudden leaning backwards and forwards probably made me look like I was in the grips of some uncontrollable spasm. “I’m shocked,” I said, meaning it. “I thought you thought I was an ass.”
“I do,” Connie said. “But you have some redeeming qualities, Rick Cassidy – even for an ass.”
A waiter arrived with an iron stand and a silver bucket. In the bucket was a bottle of champagne in a nest of ice. The waiter made an elaborate show of presenting the label to me and then popped the cork and missed the woman’s head beside us by just an inch.
The waiter filled both our glasses and then backed away from the table in smooth effortless actions – until he dropped to the floor and crawled around to retrieve the cork.
Connie snatched up her glass and sipped at the champagne. “It’s true,” she sounded surprised. “The bubbles really do tickle your nose.” She took another longer sip of champagne and set the glass down close by her hand. She looked at me and there was a glistening twinkle in her eye that hadn’t been there a few moments earlier. She frowned for an instant, as though trying to recall where the conversation had left off.
“You are brash and arrogant and egotistical,” Connie said without any venom at all. “Women treat you like you are some magnificent sex god. They throw themselves at you, and you love the adoration. But I understand that,” Connie took another sip of champagne before she went on. “I understand that because it’s part of the image you need to present for your work. But it’s not the real you. Beneath everything you show yourself to be is the real Rick Cassidy. Not the porn star, I mean Rick, the man.”
“Hell,” I said. “You’re starting to worry me.”
Connie shook her head, shaking off my concern. “I told you not to worry,” she said. “My article will be a glowing endorsement of your morals and ethics in an industry where so often those high standards you set are diminished or ignored completely. I intend to portray you as the dedicated professional that I believe you are.”
And then she added like she was pronouncing the sentence, “I promise, the true Rick Cassidy will not be revealed.”
“It sounds like you’ve got me all summed up,” I said.
“The exterior façade, yes.”
I looked intrigued. “You think there’s more to me?”
“Much more,” Connie said with feeling. She took another sip of champagne. The glass was almost empty. “I think you are a hopeless romantic,” Connie declared. “I didn’t think it was possible. When I first met you, I didn’t think you had a caring sensitive bone in
your big rippling body.” She paused for a moment and her eyes fixed onto mine. “And then you told me about Amelia, the girl you loved and lost in Italy. In that short conversation I realized the real you is nothing like the image you show the world. Deep down, you’re not happy because you’re not in love. Rick Cassidy isn’t ten foot tall and bulletproof. He is as vulnerable and as lonely and as lost in this life as the rest of us.”
Ouch!
I reached for my champagne and emptied the glass. I snatched the bottle from the bucket and refilled my glass, then splashed a little more into Connie’s glass. I sat there, stunned. I tried to keep my gaze expressionless, but I felt tiny cracks at the edges of my face. “You gained all that insight from one brief conversation we had about a girl I knew seven years ago?”
Connie said nothing. She just stared at me knowingly from over the rim of her champagne glass.
I caught sudden movement from the corner of my eye and the inept waiter who had almost decapitated the lady with the champagne cork came to the table, clutching two menus under his arms like they were the stone tablets Moses brought down from the mountain. He laid them out with great care on the table and stood there silently.
Maybe he was waiting for applause.
“I’ll have steak,” I said without looking at the menu.
“How would you like your steak cooked, sir?” the waiter asked in a sing-song voice.
“Burned,” I said. “Tell the chef to cook it until he gets the shits.”
The waiter looked confused. “Shits?”
I nodded. “It means I want the steak cooked until the chef is incensed about cremating a perfect piece of steak. Understand?”
The waiter nodded, but there was a grim look on his face like it was bad news he didn’t want to bear. He turned his attention to Connie. “Madam?”
Connie flipped open the menu and ran her eyes in quick appraisal down the two pages of elegant script. She looked up and smiled sweetly. “I’ll have the same,” she said.
“A steak, madam?”