Although I appreciate the weather in Thailand, I was somehow enticed up to Seoul by a Korean network exec of a rather obscure television network, a Mr. Lee (not his real name [and of course this is completely fictional anyways]). He wanted me to make some interesting historical dramas with sexual themes. A recent Korean supreme court ruling had paved the way to showing more sex on television, and his company wanted to take the lead with some tasteful but erotic period pieces. He explained to me that anything contemporary and sensitive has to be dramatized in the context of a historical drama or it would seem too radical.
He had seen my masterpiece parody/parody masterpiece NOT Waiting For Godot XXX, and thought very highly of it, or at least of Sylvia's performance. In fact, he seemed to talk of nothing but Sylvia's performance, but I assumed he liked the movie too.
He would put us (Sylvia and me) up in his guesthouse villa in the foothills overlooking Seoul while we made a 90 part epic historical pornomentary with a cast of about a hundred. Historical sites would be leased, and numerous costumes and props would be made. It was easily the biggest project I had ever led. He asked me to prepare a script, and I spent the next several weeks while arrangements were being made writing what I thought, in my humble opinion, was a very fine piece of porno-historical-epic mockudramady.
Working Title: NOT Korean Historical Television Drama XXX
***
We had arrived in Seoul and settled in. The first night there, us "guys" meaning Mr. Lee, two of his junior execs, and me, found ourselves in a Karaoke Bar in a private room, each of us flanked by two gaudily attractive women who tittered at our every word, drinking beer and soju around a large u-shaped table.
Mr. Lee was talking about his favorite topic: Sylvia. "She has *really* big ..." a kind of glottal hissing sound to emphasize "really" and "big" emanating from his mouth, and then he made a kind of hand pantomime of boobs on his own chest, and smiled satisfied that he had conveyed both his meaning and his appreciation of my assistant's bosoms. He was beaming broadly at me. The girls behaved as if he had said something amazingly clever.
"It's a good thing after all that it's just us guys here," I thought. "Yes, she certainly does," I agreeably bantered to him.
"Korean women..really small..really small..." he paused, "you understand?" He asked hopefully.
I looked around to see if the Korean women present were taking offense at being called small-chested, but actually one of them was nodding.
"But you have excellent customs here," I replied.
"Customs?" he asked, and one of his junior execs translated it into Korean.
"yes, we have customs." he said proudly. I was beginning to like this Mr. Lee more and more.
"Like sitting around in a Karaoke Room, with two girls for every guy." I said with an impish grin. The exec translated again.
"Right...it very good custom...very good." It seemed like Mr. Lee could not have been prouder of his country at that moment.
Then I got up, and loaded the song "Surf city" (with Korean subtitles) and sang it to raucous approval and applause: "...two girls for every boy..." It was probably horribly out of tune, but in our drunken testosterone fueled guy-fest, I thought it sounded pretty good.
After more clowning around we piled into his limo and the chauffeur took us up to the guest house. Sylvia came out to meet us. Mr. Lee asked me, "so..if it ok...I take Sylvia...my secretary?"
"You want Sylvia to be your secretary?" I asked, a bit surprised.
"Yes. That's right."
One of the junior execs butted in at this point and explained, "we'd take Sylvia, but you'd get Mr. Lee's daughter to replace her. It's a pretty good deal."
I looked at Sylvia. She was all smiles. We were both on the same page.
I smiled at Mr. Lee. I definitely needed Sylvia on the inside to get this project pushed through.
I extended my hand to him and he shook it. "Deal" I said. Mr. Lee couldn't have been happier. He went up and shook Sylvia's hand like he had just had a baby. "You my secretary now." He told her, and smiled at all of us, and then back at her. "That's right, Sir." Sylvia said.
"Oh she a very good secretary." again with glottal emphasis on "very" and "good" and we all had to laugh.
***
The deal was that Mr. Lee's daughter would be my assistant or rather my collaborator. Mr. Lee assured me that his daughter was educated at the best university in America, and would help me with the translation, which seemed like a very good thing given I knew almost no Korean. Still, I began to miss Sylvia even before she had left.
That changed though when Mr. Lee's daughter walked into my temporary office down the hall from Mr. Lee's in downtown Seoul. Mr. Lee's daughter was immeasurably more beautiful than, by way of comparison, someone like Sung Hi Lee. She walked and moved with amazing poise and had long flowing perfectly combed silken hair. Everything about her was perfectly tasteful and charming. In fact, one look at Ms. Lee and I immediately forgot about losing Sylvia (I hope that Sylvia isn't reading this, and if she is, that she understands.)
"I am very pleased to meet you." She said demurely, extending her hand and allowing me to shake it, but without firmly grasping mine.
"Have you seen any of my movies?" I asked.
"I haven't. I am not a true porn fan, I'm afraid." She replied, her hand still being held.
"This will be interesting", I thought. "Oh, well, I don't make porn." I said somewhat immodestly, "I make parodies of existentialist theater that happen to have pornographic images as a selling point."
She looked up at me and smiled. "How interesting."
I smiled back at her. "Won't you please sit down."
She sat in a chair in front of my desk. She was wearing a fairly fluffy white angora sweater with a plunging v-neck, a pig-skin miniskirt and a matching pair of shoes that all served to accentuate her beautiful long thin legs.
As I'm sure you can tell, she made quite an impression and had thereby taken the upper hand before things had even gotten started.
She caught me admiring her legs.
"It's O.K., I'm immune to women." I said jovially.
She arched her eyebrow.
"Oh really!" she said drawing out the word "really."
"Oh yes. I'm up to date with my cootie shots."
Ms. Lee laughed. In fact, there was a little snort too.
"Your what!?" she said laughing.
"You know." I winked at her.
I knew then that it would be a pleasure to work with her.
***
Later in the day we were editing my script, or rather she was editing it, sitting side by side in managers chairs at a conference table, whilst I inhaled the intoxicating perfume wafting delicately off of her skin (what was that scent?)
"Well first of all, we can't use the word 'gangbang' in any kind of Korean drama." She informed me.
