Arnold, Janet and Bettie

In the car, Janet asked: "What did you think of that plot idea? The porno catalogue?"

After a long pause, Arnold responded. "Janet, I hated it. I really did. It's

about all the stuff we were skirting around the edge of earlier today--the turn on of brutality, stuff like that. This script is full of degradation, pain, pseudo slavery--there's not a bit of Bettie's humor and cheerful sexuality that I can see, just a stroke flick that will sell about a million copies to the nation's sickos, and make you and me and Sid very rich--except, not me. I won't film this. What it is--and I thought a lot about this last night--this isn't really what I started out to do. "

"Arnold--this is what we've been doing. Just a little bit rawer. Hey, I'm ready to go with it. Maybe we can fake the piercing. After that brutal and glorious fucking you gave me this morning, I don't see your problem."

Another long silence. Then Arnold sighed and said: "My problem is, I think, my fantasy life is running out of gas. It got too real to be fantasy anymore. Let me think this through--I have this fetish thing about Bettie Page, safely divorced from reality, then you come along and suddenly it's real life. And you are the most glorious sexy woman I've ever known, a fantasy in itself. And we make these dirty films. Dirtier and dirtier, more sadistic, less--fun. And we both dig it. You more than me, maybe, but not by much. This morning, I was raping you--raping you--you know it wasn't in the script--and enjoying it way too much. So--I don't like where this is going--where I am going--and I'm going to quit."

"Arnie--my love, my man--my bondage master--you can't just quit!" Janet turned to him, beseeching, her hand on his cheek. They had reached the parking lot in front of the camera store. Arnold parked, and sat quietly for a moment; Janet was in his arms. He kissed he perhaps more tenderly than he ever had before, feeling a vague sadness at the same time..

"Janet--this has been a strange two or three days. I've got the weird feeling that I might be growing up. What it feels like, is maybe I'll do what I gotta do, and you'll do what you gotta do, and if they're not the same, then that's how it is, even if it's horrible, even if it breaks my heart--even if--we go different ways for a while. And I still love you--and respect your choices."

They sat quietly in the car for several minutes, then entered the Camera Shop, arms around each other.

SEVENTEEN

Sid and Stacy were sitting in the store's back room, giggling over some over the top tinseltown story Sid, always on the make, was regaling her with. Ever resourceful, he had ordered some take out from the Thai restaurant next door; prawns, noodles, lemon grass and ginger laced soups, and chai tea and beer. Arnold felt a bit like an uninvited guest at a party for a second, then realized what he had to do.

"Sid, We made a great film this morning, I think. Bettie gets tricked, imprisoned, whipped, and fucked--closeups and cum shots--everything your customers slaver for. And it's my last one."

Sid straightened. "Arnold. Arnold. What is this nonsense? You are a great cameraman, and Janet--Bettie-- is incomparable! We are just at the beginning of a--I don't know, a series that will be historic, a dynasty! What is this about quitting? It's crazy!"

"Janet's not quitting. Just me. We've talked this over. It's personal. OK, I think the Bettie we've got now is not the Bettie--my boyhood Bettie, if you will, that I set out to film. I know this sounds dumb. Janet--Stacy--you especially, Sid, you've got this thing off the ground--but its what I've got to do. Hell, you don't need me; Janet has most of the script ideas, cameramen are a dime a dozen down in LA, and I"m probably the least convincing porno actor you've ever seen."

Sid stuttered, protesting: "A-A-Arnold!"

"Let me finish, Sid. I'd like the percentage from the tapes up to now, including this morning's shoot--an absolute winner. But nothing more. And take care of Janet--financially, I mean, or every other way, if that works out--she's the absolute sexual center of this whole enterprise; I know you're aware of that."

"Arnold. You don't know how valuable you are to this--if its money-- or maybe sleep on it, think it over..."

Janet has been strangely quiet, almost frozen in place, during this exchange.

Arnold took two strides towards Sid and hugged him. "Sid, you have been such a good friend. Absolutely straight and honest with me, And such a hustler with everyone else! But I don't need to sleep on this. I'm sailing off into the sunset while Bettie Page is being gang banged on the beach."

He turned to Janet, and held her close for a long time. They didn't kiss. "You darling. You sweet fool." she whispered in his ear. "Whatever, I'll always be in your heart--and you in mine." She smiled at him, eyes glistening, then turned, straightened, put on a dazzling smile and called to Sid.

"Sid, dear, could you take me home now? I need to pack for that LA flight tonight we decided on."

EIGHTEEN

Janet was gone. Really gone. To LA. With Sid. Just like that. Arnold tried to get his mind around that fact. On the first day, he didn't even go down to the store; he called Stacy to apologize. And then he tried to figure out what had happened --and how he felt about it. Empty, of course--the last six weeks had been so absolutely full of Janet/Bettie--so, where was he now?

At first, he was filled with swirls of anger, loss, self pity, confusion. Gradually he realized that his brave words of that last day were true: we've gotta do what we gotta to do. He hadn't betrayed Janet; she hadn't betrayed him. He began to feel that the overwhelming , Disneyland-like events of the last two months were just another fantasy. but a real one, one that might just let him--well, grow up. Easy to say, but it didn't heal the ache in his heart. Janet--God, he missed her--had he been a fool to turn his back on what her Bettie had become?

Finally, he decided not. That took a day, but he knew he wasn't finished with her; and maybe would never be. And, maybe, that was how it was going to be. So, glumly, he returned to the store, planning to pick up the pieces of his low profile, Janet-less, Bettie-less, life. He sleepwalked through the boring retail routine. Who needed a fucking wedding gig?

Four days later, Stacy put her hand lightly on Arnold's shoulder. He sat in the back office of the store. where his Bettie Page collection had been . These shelves were now empty. He almost absently noted the cashiers checks in front of him, totalling 470,000 dollars and a scribbled note from Sid: 'More--lots more --to come. Janet insists you get your 40 percent. What a woman! If you ever decide to come back, you've got a job waiting. Hang in there!--Sid.' He turned at her touch. Stacy said:

"Arnold--I've tried to respect your space, but--you're moping around like a zombie. You've got to pay attention to the store, you've got to--I mean : get on with your life. Not my business, really. I'm sorry..."

Arnold smiled at her, ruefully. "Stacy--your timing is just about right. I'm coming out of it, I think. Do you want to listen to this emotional garbage?"

"Of course." She settled beside him on the couch.

"Stacy, you are a goddamn jewel--well, we'll deal with that later--it's taken me three or four days trying to get over Janet and finally realizing that I don't have to get over her--and can't! and maybe don't want to! So here I was, with my dumb schoolboy Bettie Page fantasy, and suddenly she walks in the door, and I'm bewitched and soon splendidly pussy whipped, and we're both working through the dark side of our psyches, if that's not too fancy, and I'm--I'm totally out of control. I don't know what made me realize that this was not quite real life; I think maybe it was those weird British spanking films, when I started being that perverted old character.

" Anyway, it's over. And I'm sad--God, I'm desolated--but also, just today, I'm a little bit glad. Feeling empty, emptied out, hollow--but also like clean and free. LIke--I don't know, like walking along an ocean beach on a grey overcast mornling, and I'm all alone. And the earth abides, like they say, and it's going to be OK. Hey, I'm babbling--sorry. Too many hokey similes."

He turned to her, his eyes brimming with tears. Stacy was in his arms, hugging, consoling, smoothing his lank hair as he sobbed quietly, then hugged her back. They were almost still for a time.

"Wow. That was--something-, Arnold. And I think you mean it. I know you're hurting. Maybe --maybe we can walk along that grey ocean beach together for a while. I don't want to be pushy here..."

Arnold looked at her a long while, this young--well, maybe not that young--wise person. He smiled slightly, and realized that was his first smile in days.

"Stacy, you are absolutely right; let's unpack those cameras, pay attention to business and get on with it, OK? You know what? I feel like I've

been through a hurricane, washed up and hung out to dry, and today the sun is starting to shine, barely--- and I think I may survive--they name hurricanes after women, don't they? I was a survivor of hurricane Bettie--or Janet--or both! I'm sorry about these shitty metaphors. And Stacy, I'd like to take you out to dinner tonight--if that's OK."

"Yes, Arnold. I'd love to. And --hey! welcome back!"

Two weeks later there was a small item in the entertainment section of the Chronicle. Bettie Page, aged 74, had surfaced from a long period in a religious retreat in rural Georgia--with a high priced lawyer. Allegations of fraud and character asassination were being levied at an as yet unnamed producer and his X-rated star. This story, the columnist breathlessly confided, was just beginning and was going to be big.

In the meantime, more cashiers checks had arrived. Arnold's rough calculations added up to about 970,000 dollars. He had checked with his lawyer friend (he showed him the schoolmaster tapes first; Wendell was more than grateful), and decided that overseas deposit, rather than tax reporting, was the way to go, albeit a tad illegal.

"Stacy, my pussy" Arnold murmered into her bare shoulder. They were in the master bedroom of the Piedmont mansion, where Arnold was more or less in residence, following the dinner two weeks ago and the torrid sex that followed. Stacy had been transformed; no more Valley Girl, she was now lounging around the mansion in her sheer negligee, or often, nude except for garter belt and black hose; Arnold was being seduced, to his delight, three or four times a day. *

He continued, now fondling one of Stacy's resilient breasts: "I think we ought to close the store for a while and take a long trip to the Cayman islands--where our money is--and then, Costa Rica, Belize, wherever. Until this Bettie Page unpleasantness simmers down. I hope Sid and Janet can fend for themselves; I'm sure thay can."

"What a good idea!" She turned lazily and straddled him. "You bring your cameras and I'll bring my B and D goodies and my scripts!. But first, why don't you join me for a little going away party? In the library."

*

THE END