He put his fork on the plate, beside the half-eaten salmon. He raised a glass of wine to his lips, glancing at me, before averting his eyes, and then finding mine again. "Are you sure you want to do this?"
"That's what my agent asked me," I said. I looked at him. A bit of a smile crossed his slightly wrinkled face. My unspoken question was, "Do I want to do it with him?"
Six weeks before this actor and I met for dinner, my agent brought me a proposal from a Spanish director whom I admired. It was a bold script. Just two characters. Both middle-aged, both wounded in love by spouses who had had affairs. They meet at a park. The connection is apparent. Her house in the forest is a place they can explore who they are.
"This won't work if you and I don't work," I said. "I've seen your films. You've never played a character close to Manuel. I've never approached the intimacy Raoul wants from Sonia. I don't know why he thinks we can pull this off." He put his wine down and leaned in.
"I'm not sure we can," he said. I've never undressed in a film. You haven't either. He wants us to do a lot more than undress." We were meeting for the first time. We're both very good at our craft. He's got a girlfriend. I'm currently single.
"What's your girlfriend think about this?" I said. "Is she willing to share you with me?"
"She says she is. It's just acting, she said."
"Raoul's going to put us in a room and we're going to do a lot of things in front of a crew. An audience is going to see a whole lot of us up close. Really up close. Are you sure your girlfriend is ready for that?"
"I go back to my first question to you: Are you ready for this?" he said. I looked around the restaurant. There was a chance, I thought, that some of these people might see me on a screen fucking the man sitting across from me. A few heads turned when I first came into the room. I've been in some popular films. I've got a good reputation as a character actor. He does too. He may be more familiar to more people than I am. And here we are, a make or break point in our careers.
"So far, you haven't repulsed me," I said.
"Well, that's something," he said. We both smiled and, then, we spoke seriously about our feelings, our fears, our desires. We both saw this as an artistic challenge, an adventure, and a big risk. We both saw this as something we couldn't pass up.
"It's settled, then," I said. "I'll see you in Madrid." Of course, it wasn't quite settled. Raoul insisted that we do some rehearsal, with the crew filming us, to make sure that his hunch about casting us was correct. We had to get tested medically, so that we knew we were clean and had no diseases. Once we started, we couldn't be with anyone else until shooting was complete. That meant his girlfriend stayed back in the states. We left the restaurant. He hailed a cab for me. I kissed him on the cheek. He smelled nice.
Two weeks later, I was sitting in a small cafe near the Prado, drinking black coffee and waiting for Raoul's assistant to pick me up. She was right on time and we drove to a rustic farmhouse a half hour outside the city. Five cars were parked in the gravel motor court. A small van was backed up toward a side door. We walked in the front entryway. Raoul and my co-star were huddled in a corner of the large living room.
"Joanna!" Raoul said. He kissed my cheeks. "At long last! I've admired your work for so long. It's a pleasure to finally meet you." He gestured to Armand. "You two have met," he said. It all seemed so formal, in light of what we were about to do. I gave Armand a light hug.
"It's good to see you again," I said. "I'm glad that neither of us got cold feet. How was your flight?"
"Uneventful," he said, with that slight smile of his. Raoul took us aside and told us what he wanted to do. He was intentionally vague. He thought that would be the way to get realistic performances out of us. For today, he wanted to break the ice. He wasted no time in doing so. He said something in Spanish to the five-person crew. They each took their positions behind two cameras, a boom mike, and lights. He turned to us.
"Stand by the table," he said, "and face each other." Armand and I walked to the center of the room. On the table was a small plate of orange wedges. A black piece of cloth lay nearby. "Joanna, take an orange slice and slowly feed it to Armand." I did as I was told. "Put your index finger in his mouth. Armand, you suck on it. Slowly." His mouth was wet and warm. His tongue rested under my finger.
