Pornstar 2: Nancy
Nancy is... well, Nancy is... well, hot. Nancy is well hot. But Nancy is more than hot. Nancy is so cool with her quiet courtesy and her beautiful clothes. Nancy never does mocking, never does the ganging up thing with the rest of the bibbie crowd, never has to build herself up by putting other people down. Nancy is courteous to everyone, doesn't treat anyone like dirt. She's tall - at least as tall as me, even if she wore flat shoes - and she probably even weighs a touch more than me, but that isn't to say she's even an ounce overweight anywhere, just that she curves. And she has eyes, and cheeks, and lips, and my head just wouldn't let go of that shot - that imagined vision - of that golden face orgasming in the golden light of dawn. I met Nancy just outside the school gate, the next morning, just by chance, if hanging around for half an hour can be called chance... if staying up half the night trying to work out what to say and find the nerve to say it can be called chance.
"Errr... excuse me..."
"Hey, Kyle?"
"Err.. I have to ask you this. It's not like ... I mean, I know what your answer will be, but like, I mean, it's..."
"OK, Kyle, what's up?"
She's looking at me sort of quizically with the sun behind making golden haloes in that golden blond hair that Lill says is dyed. I can feel my face getting redder.
"You know the crone role?"
"Mmm?"
"We... I... I want you to do it but..."
"You want me to do it?"
"Yes, but..."
"You want to shoot that last scene, the one you talked about?"
Huge relief, she'd said it, I didn't have to.
"Yes."
"Are you playing the brother?"
"No. No, I'm doing the camera..."
"So who is doing it?"
"Paul."
"Paul!"
She turned away, walking back the way she'd come about a dozen paces, and then came back. The sun was right behind her, I couldn't read her expression.
"Do I have to be naked?"
"Well, sort of no... I mean, there's those robey things that are getting peeled away, like so most of the time you aren't really - like until the last bit and then the camera can only see you down to about here..." - I draw a line across the bottom of my ribcage with my hand... "...I mean, unless you're not cool with that in which case it could be sort of..."
"No, that's kind of OK, I guess. I mean he won't actually be on top of me when you get round to there, will he?"
"No, but..."
Suddenly her head jerked up, and she sort of whisper-shouted.
"Do I have to have SEX?"
I nodded, red as a brick wall.
"With Paul?"
I nodded.
"No. No way."
She turned away again... and came back.
"Could it be someone else in the close up?"
"You mean not Paul?"
"I mean not me!"
I thought about it.
"No, because... it's all just one long take... I mean like it's not like gross or gynaecological or anything like that, it just like if you're not really doing it it's going to show..."
"I don't have to kiss him?"
"No."
"Just sex?"
"Just sex."
She turned, turned back, walked away a little, turned back, turned away, came slowly back.
"If I won't do it, I don't get the part?"
I shook my head, sadly.
"If you won't do it, we don't shoot the scene. I mean..." I looked at her. I looked around. There were other people going by. I looked at her. I held my hands out. "I mean, I see you in that scene. I see your face. Nobody else is... nobody else is - golden - enough... I mean - I mean if we're going to make this big magic moment, the face has to be iconic, like completely... like holy, do you see what I mean? And no-one else has got that!"
"Wow, is that how you see me?" she asked. "Like you really want me to do this?"
"Please."
"But you want Paul to screw me, not you? Like, with you watching?"
"No, but..."
"You want to screw me..."
"It isn't like that..."
"But you do..."
and I started to cry. Fuck! Why? Why then? Why can I just never keep cool when it matters?
"Look," I said, "I'm sorry. I apologise. I shouldn't ever have asked you..."
I ran away.
-----
Days that start bad get worse.
About half past ten I was going down a corridor when an elemental force grabbed me, spun me round, and bounced me off a wall. When I came to later in casualty I had two broken ribs as well as concussion. My face was pretty sore too, and my lips were split and swollen which didn't make talking too easy.
After a while the Deputy Principal from the school came in and asked me what had happened, but I told her I couldn't remember. It was true enough. She asked me if I could think of any reason why anyone would attack me, and I said I couldn't. That was, like, less true, but I didn't want to bring it up.
I mean, like, we call him the cow pie man behind his back, but it isn't really to make fun of him. It's really to pretend to ourselves we're not intimidated by him. Dan McCoy is like... well, he's big. He's not just big, he's just good at everything. He's stroke in the rowing team. He's captain of the football team. He wins all the interschool swimming stuff. And he was Head Boy. And his father is like the biggest farmer for miles around and also big in a lot of the business in the town and stuff.
Dan's not just a bag of muscles, he's also good looking, and has girls chasing after him. He had Nancy chasing after him. He had Nancy going out with him. He (at least according to the talk) had Nancy.
I didn't know that the cow pie man had hit me, because I couldn't actually remember. And I didn't want to mix it with the cow pie man because if he wanted to make life comprehensively miserable for me in that school in that town he could. But the main reason I didn't want to accuse Dan - the main reason I didn't even want to think it was Dan - was I didn't want to think about Nancy telling him what I'd said...
That was a bad day.
The next day wasn't too good either. I sat around the house feeling too sore and miserable to do very much, although I did do a bit of work on the story boards.
My mom went out to work about 3 o'clock for the late shift. She'd been kind of cool and only marginally sympathetic all morning. She didn't believe that I didn't know why I'd got beat up, and didn't guess that there was anything else wrong bar being sore and sorry for myself. Which I guess was pretty much right.
About four o'clock the doorbell rang, and I hollered "come in," thinking it would be Paul.
A voice called "Kyle? Where are you?" and I went out into the living room and there was Nancy looking like summer sunshine.
"Hi."
"Hey, what a mess!"
She walked up to me and cupped my bruised cheek in one hand. I kept quite still, just looking at her.
"I just wanted you to know it wasn't me who told him."
Some sort of stiffness went out of me so I sort of sagged, and she put her other hand on my shoulder to steady me.
"Hey!" she said again, "Hey, you were really afraid it was me!"
I nodded. I started crying again, hating myself for crying in front of her, hating myself for my lack of control, unable to stop.
"Look," I said, "can I make you a coffee?"
"Hey!" she said, not letting go. I lifted my head and looked at her, desperately trying to control my tears.
"Hey," she said, "come here."
She pulled me into her, pulled my face into the curve of her shoulder, into the rough clean linen of her jacket shoulder, into her smell of cleanness, of fresh laundry and clean hair and unperfumed soap and, faintly but distinctly, of woman; pulled my body against the curves of hers. She rocked me, gently, like a baby, and I was at the same time humiliated and hugely comforted and also turned on. After a little while she moved her hands, and I straightened up and moved gently away.
"Sorry, Nancy," I said, "sore ribs. Coffee?"
I went over to the counter and made her coffee and we sat looking out on the lawn and drinking it. She asked about the beating and I told her I didn't remember anything at all about it. She asked about the broken ribs and I told her I didn't know how I'd got them.
"Was it Dan?" I asked.
"Yes, it was." She paused. "Did he kick you? Like, when you were down?"
"I honestly don't know. I don't remember. But," I looked at her, over the rim of the coffee mug, "I wouldn't have thought it was his style."
"No," she said, kind of sadly, "neither would I. I'm not going out with him any more. I've already told him."
"Because of me?"
"Well, sort of. Partly." She looked down, blushing. "Mostly because he thought he owned me, and no-one is ever going to own me. No-one is going to decide for me what I can do and what I can't do, like no-one." She looked up at me again, and reached the back of a finger over to stroke my bruised cheek. "But even if it weren't for that I'd tell him now I've seen you. I don't like bullies."
"Hey, Nancy, I'm, like, I'm not exactly Mr America. I'm kind of like wet string. He probably didn't mean to..."
"It's OK, Kyle, It doesn't make any difference. It's over."
We drank coffee, and watched blackbirds on the lawn. After a while she asked what I'd been doing and I said about the storyboards and she said could she see and I went and got them. She flipped through, slowly, looking carefully at this one or that, until she came to the page where I'd worked out the dawn shot. She looked at it for a long time.
"Wow." She turned on to the final head and shoulders shot. "Wow. Like, who else has seen these?"
"Well, no-one yet... Did... did he say you couldn't do it?"
She laughed, flushing slightly.
"He didn't know about this bit. He just said I couldn't act in a film at all... Hey Kyle, I've got to understand this..."
"Uh-huh?"
"You want me to do this?"
I nodded. "Yes, very much. I said so."
"You want somebody else to screw me?"
"No, it isn't like that..."
"Kyle!" She didn't exactly raise her voice, but it was sharp, intent. "Do you want to screw me?"
"Look, of course I do. Hey, you don't need to say, I know I've got no chance. But even nerds have dreams, you know."