DECEMBER 1, 2002
MY SUMMER WITH THE MOVIE STAR
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I threw up, I'm afraid, somewhere, before I could get to my bed. I knew the suit was still damp from the pool, and that it wouldn't be so great for the bedspread, but it was all I could do just to lie down before I passed out.
It could have been a minute or ten days later, I wouldn't know, when I felt someone touching my shoulder. No, not touching my shoulder, hauling down the straps on my swimsuit. It was Carol. I thought that perhaps she was trying to help me, so I could sober up and get back to work sooner or later.
"Wake up, Sylvia, sweetie," she was whispering. It was getting dark in the guest room, so, apparently, I had missed the last twelve rounds of martinis, and also Carol's flying, fucking leap off the side of the mountain.
"Dear Sylvia, lie still," she kept mumbling in my ear in this low sing-songy voice I had never heard her use before. "Let Carol undress you. Carol will strip you, and make you ready for…ahhh…our own dear Ezra."
I'll tell you she was carried away something fearful to behold. She didn't exactly have on an overcoat herself, and her breasts were swinging away right in front of my face again, just like the time I passed out at the séance after imbibing absolutely nothing. Anyway, I really wasn't all that jealous of her breasts anymore, now that I was manifesting two of my own.
Carol started moving me from side to side, trying to work down the wet suit and I didn't stop her. At first, I think I was merely curious. So, maybe I even helped by wiggling my hips a little. I refuse to start lying now, no matter how objectionable it all sounds, when what happened shortly thereafter, is the whole point of this goddamn book.
She had my suit down around my knees, and she brushed her hand across the lower area. "Such sweet, childish pubic hair, so little of it." So little of it was right. I had already tried shaving just the outer edges, but I gave up early when I cut myself, and had to stick toilet paper all over to stop the blood.
Was she actually a female homosexual, or had the martinis affected her mind? I had the passing thought that she should switch to beer in that case, no matter how fattening. I started to roll over, finally, to try and remove the area in question. But she pushed me back, and she wasn't particularly gentle about it either.
For God's sake, she had a razor in her hand. "Don't be afraid," she crooned, in a voice like a mother rocking and singing her child to sleep. "Carol's going to shave you, and make you all pure and clean and sweet just the way our Ezra likes his girls. He hates all that nasty hair." She was lathering me all over you-know-where with a brush from a shaving mug and, I thought, my God, he is going to use it on his face tomorrow!
"Don't move, dear, Carol doesn't want to cut Sylvia." Even now, I can't describe the mechanics of the operation without wanting to hide. In fact, I wish I could hire someone to type up this part while I tell it, and with a grocery bag over my head. But that wouldn't work either. Here's how that would go:
Now, Miss Dormir, I understand you want me to add the part about the shaving. Is that correct?
Yes, that's right.
O.k. What kind of shaving and where?'
In the lower area.
Oh, you mean something like what happens in a hospital?
That's exactly what I mean.
Well, Miss Dormir, I don't know what is so terribly bad about that, or why you have to wear a bag over your head to talk about it. Many fine people have their body hair shaved before operations.
But you don't understand what kind of operation it was. That's why I am having you type this part, which I wish to have inserted in the book later, after I am dead.
Probably it was necessary. Where was your surgery?. Exactly where was the operation?
There was no operation. It was to get me ready for her boyfriend, so he wouldn't be offended by my body hair when he raped me.
Really, Miss Dormir, you will have to get yourself another typist. When I applied, you said you had a literary manuscript in mind, but you didn't indicate it was simply a piece of trash. I have a reputation to maintain.
At this point, the woman would just pick up her purse and stalk out, and I would still need to go on with what happened.
I plan to skip over the next few parts fast because it is all so disgusting and degrading. He came into the guest bedroom, and just climbed on board, and tried to stuff it into me, while she tried to hold me down, and now I was scared. He acted so crazy, trying to perform the act, and he couldn't. If you need to ask why, you shouldn't be reading this. All in all, it was one terrible, frantic mess; they were getting a little rough, and I was feeling sick, too, from all the drinks and the crazy shaving routine. I was desperate and so I screamed. I screamed out a good one, not that anyone had a prayer of hearing me on top of that mountain, but it stopped them. He got up, and tied the belt on his terry cloth robe, which had been flapping around him the whole time.
"Get her ass out of here, Carol," he said. "Now."
This man whom I loved and respected, and thought cared for me, if only just a little, talked as if he had found me lying in an alley somewhere.
Carol said, "After she's dressed, she can call a cab." She took Ezra Godland's hand and added, "Come on, Honey, I'll get you a couple of aspirin and put you to bed."
Honest to God, that is exactly all she had to say, and the two of them walked out of the room and left me sitting on that filthy, messed-up bed, and there were some blood stains on it too.
I didn't call a cab. I didn't want to ever go back into that den/study where the phone was. Not to mention the books and the typewriter and all the things I thought would lead to an important, intellectual and, maybe, even famous life for me. Besides if you know me by now, which you must-- inside and out--you know I didn't have the innate sense to call a cab. I just threw everything in my carrying case and, and put on my jeans and shirt I wore up there, and didn't bother to comb my hair. But I splashed cold water on my face so I would be alert.
Of course, I left everything he bought me at Hanson's hanging in the guest closet, if you are wondering about that pathetic aspect of my morality. But I took the earrings because I could not part with them, even as I cannot to this day.
When I was ready to leave the guest room, I looked up and down the hall to make sure they weren't lying in wait for me, but they weren't. I went out the front door, which I am afraid I left standing wide open, and started down the little dirt road by myself, carrying my stinking little case. I wasn't crying because it was a trifle worse than that, and also because I didn't want to make any noise, just in case something was lurking out on the road.
(To be continued)
