On the edge of the L.A. suburb Hollywood was a sprawling set of buildings surrounded by a concrete wall topped with barbed wire. Apart from the neon sign that said 'Shooting Star Studios,' it looked like a bunch of warehouses in a prisoner-of-war camp. However, enter one of those buildings and you would be transported to another place and time—the interior of an ancient Egyptian temple, for example, or a 17th century French bedchamber or, indeed, a prisoner-of-war camp.
Studio 69 was dressed to look like a millionaire's bedroom. It contained a huge pink bed that stood like a huge marshmallow on a pink carpet surrounded by pink curtains. The bed's wooden frame was reinforced with steel brackets and dressed with seven layers of covering, the topmost being French satin and the undermost industrial-strength plastic hospital sheeting. This was a working bed, co-star of more than two thousand films such as 'Tittie Parade,' 'The Great Go-Go Girl Gangbang' and that immortal classic 'Hot Women Get Fucked By Armies of Huge Cocks.' Milling around the edge of the pink carpet were the supporting players—cameras, lights, boom microphones, cables and thousands of dollars-worth of recording equipment held together with gaffer tape. A team of operators took care of their own corners of the universe, each one of them male, pale and either overweight or skeletal.
Among this small army of technicians were three people important to our story. The first was Roger Ramrod, a man with an extraordinary body and a huge chin. He was dressed in a purple silk shirt and leather trousers and was studying his image on one of the many monitors, occasionally touching his impressive moustache and sideburns with a careful finger. The slim girl with jeans and perky tits who stood next to him was Shirley Goober. She held a script in one hand, a bottle of water in the other and was trying to drops hints to Roger that she gave world-class blow-jobs. In fact, as a fluff girl, that was her job. The third and most important figure in the room was a small man with a carefully trimmed goatee bard and blue-tinted glasses. He wore a French beret and a red polka dot scarf which didn't quite cover the loose skin of his neck. Like Shirley, he held a script, but his was rolled up and he was banging it against his thigh. This was Cyrus Bender, the director.
'God damn it! Where is she?' he bellowed.
'Where's who?' said Roger, still touching his sideburn.
'Our star! Who d'you think?'
'I thought I was the star?'
Cyrus looked at him sadly.
'Oh, Roger,' he said. 'Do you really believe people pay to watch you fuck?'
Cyrus gave Roger a fatherly pat on the arm and then turned away to check his watch. Roger looked at Shirley with hurt confusion on his face. She gave him a sympathetic look back. She was about to suggest he might like a blow-job to make him feel better when Cyrus interrupted.
'Shirley, go and get her, would you?'
The girl went pale.
'Don't you need me to give blow-jobs?' she said.
'No. I need you to get Lola,' said Cyrus.
'But I was contracted to give blow-jobs.'
'You were contracted to do whatever the fuck you were told!'
'Yeah, but I thought that meant being gangbanged and sodomised and cum over. I didn't realise it meant ... dealing with Lola.' Shirley leaned close and lowered her voice. 'She's nuts!'
'She may be nuts,' said Cyrus, 'but her films make nearly three million a year. So do me a favour and get her.'
'Are you sure you wouldn't like a nice blow-job yourself? With all this pressure—'
'Now!'
Shirley jumped and scuttled off. She had a good figure and every man in the room watched her run out before getting back to his work. Roger went up to the director and shook his head.
'Poor old Shirley,' he said with a sigh. 'Wanted to be a star and ended up being a fluff girl.'
'Well,' said Cyrus, 'if it makes you feel better, we pay her twice what we pay you.'
'Oh good.'
Cyrus walked away leaving Roger to smile and touch his moustache. It took a while before Roger's smile faded.
Shirley zigzagged her way through the corridors that led out of the studio building, the sound of groaning coming through the sound-proofing. She reached the double doors of the nearest fire exit and slammed her hands down on the crossbar to open it. There was a shout from nearby Studio 61—'Hey! We're trying to make a movie in here!'—but Shirley let the door bang shut as she walked into the L.A. sunshine. Her sunglasses were hooked onto her belt and she now put them on as she walked.
There was a line of warehouse buildings with signs that said 'Studio 60-69,' 'Studio 70-71' and so on and beyond them a bunch of parked trailers of varying sizes and colours. One trailer stood out amongst them. It was huge, silver and had a couple of metres of faded red carpet laid out before the doorway. On both sides of the red carpet were enough potted plants to constitute a small garden and there was a man watering them with a spluttering hosepipe. He was old—at least forty—and he wore a Panama hat and yellow flip-flops. Shirley walked up to him.
'You're Juan, right?' she said.
'Felipe,' said the man, tipping his hat.
'Felipe, right.' Shirley put her script under her arm so she would look more official. 'Well, Felipe, I need you to go knock on Lola's door.'
There was a sudden burst of Spanish cursing from within the trailer. It was followed by rat-a-tat shouting and the crash of something breakable. Felipe pointed his hose at another plant.
'I need to finish this,' he said. 'But you may knock if you wish.'
Shirley glared at him and then looked back to the trailer. One foot began to tap nervously on the grey tarmac. It was possible to hear a woman's voice having a one sided conversation that was clearly disagreeable to her.
'How long will she be on the phone?' asked Shirley.
'I don't think she is,' said Felipe.
'What makes you say that?'
'Because she threw her phone out the car window this morning and it was run over by a truck.'
Shirley blinked.
'You mean, someone is actually in there with her?'
'No, no.' Felipe seemed to find the idea amusing. 'If I know Lola, she is talking with her pussy.'
'She has a cat?'
'No, no. Her pussy. You know ... her secret garden. Her tunnel of love. Her rose petals of pleasure.'
'Her vagina?'
'Yes.'
Shirley blinked twice more. Her foot was tapping double speed.
'Lola talks ... to her vagina?' she said.
'Yes.'
There was another crash of crockery.
'And I don't think the conversation is going too well,' sighed Felipe.
Roger was trying to engage Cyrus in a conversation about which side of his face looked better when Shirley came in alone. As she walked over to them, Cyrus put his hands over his face and swore. Shirley stopped, folded her arms and looked at Cyrus, her foot tapping. Roger frowned.