26 February in Southern California began as it had ended the preceding year: with the warm spell that continued from the end of January and that those misinformed people who did not call it unseasonable called false spring. But for Jenny Galvin, newly returned from the true winter of Park City, Utah, it was simply spring, the season that allows people to wear whatever they please and feel comfortable. And what she pleased to wear on that first Sunday in February was simply nothing. It was warm, and she was all alone in the well-shielded backyard of Barry Bergman’s house. Barry was in Mexico, so that she had the house to herself. And two days before, she had driven Mario to the airport for his flight to New York and thence to Barcelona, so that, for the first time in weeks, she had her bed, or any bed, to herself. Sleeping with Mario night after night was fantastic, but so was being able to stretch and loll at will. Her plan, or rather Alan Marcus’s, for buying a place of her own had been put on hold. As a precaution against possible federal prosecution, Barry had pulled not only Vixens at Play but also the hugely successful Campus Capers (which had been made when Leslie was still seventeen) from video stores and theaters, at least in America. Moving Around had just been released, and, though it had looked good in previews, it wasn’t clear yet how big a hit it was going to be, while A Bard in the Bush was, for the moment, doing only moderately well. Consequently Jenny’s income – beyond her salary under her contract with BB Productions – was not going to be quite what Alan, as he had told her the last time he had come by for a visit, had originally projected. Of course she would be able to rent a pretty nice place, but she liked living in Barry’s guest cottage, and Barry liked having her there. Barry had, in fact, said something strange to Alan on that occasion: “If anything happens to me, I want this house to be Jenny’s. Put it in my will, Alan.” And Alan had said, “Sure.” The mention of a will had made her curious about who the other beneficiaries might be. Probably his family back in Cleveland, she thought, the one that he was the black sheep of. But that would imply liquidating the studio, and the real estate, when not occupied by BB Productions, probably wasn’t worth all that much. But why bother her head with such stuff? Barry had a lot of life left in him, and in any case his life was about to change drastically, with the Dangerous Acquaintances project. She had taken what was left of the Sunday Times, after getting rid of the advertising sections and supplements, with her to Mort’s, read some of it there, and now she was reading some more of it beside Barry’s pool with nothing on her except sunhat, glasses and sunscreen, under the caressing noontime sun. She opened the Calendar section and found an article titled ‘Park City Wrap-up.’ This year’s record at the United States Film Festival at Park City, Utah, which insiders are beginning to call the Sundance Festival (for its organizing body, Robert Redford’s Sundance Institute), does not bode well for the young festival’s future. For the first time, not a single distribution deal was struck. On the gossip front, the biggest item concerns the eagerly anticipated US opening of Swiss director Albert Bosch’s Lady G in Paradise, starring Hollywood adult-cinema queen Gina George (who co-wrote and co-produced the film), hunky Spanish actor Mario Farga and his countrywoman Sofia Mares. According to reports from Europe, the film contains the most explicit sex scenes – featuring Mr. Farga, Ms. George, and a body double for Ms. Mares – ever seen in an art film, even a European one. The film’s showing was, however, abruptly canceled by festival authorities when it was learned that Lady G in Paradise is being marketed in Europe as erotica. “Much as we believe in artistic freedom,” a Sundance Institute spokesperson said, “this festival cannot become a showplace for porn.” It was also reported that at the film’s openings in London, Paris and Barcelona (where most of it was shot), the X-rated footage was replaced by a soft-core version, so that reviews coming from there did not reflect the film’s true nature. It was only in the more liberal countries of Northern Europe – Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Northern Germany – that the hard-core version was shown from the start, barely causing a ripple in those tolerant climes. At the press conference that took place at the time scheduled for the showing, Mr. Bosch argued that the decision regarding video distribution was a purely economic one and represented the only way for the producers to recoup their investments. He predicted that such marketing would become the norm in the future. He regretted the cancellation of the showing, but said that he understood the power of American censorship wielded by the country’s highest authorities, a clear reference to the recent Meese Commission report. A festival spokesperson, however, denied any governmental influence on the decision to cancel. Of the film’s stars, only Mr. Farga came to Park City; Ms. Mares works in the theater in Barcelona, and Ms. George was kept away by an unspecified illness. This reporter can attest to the magnetic power the Spanish Adonis exercised over the women, and even some of the men, at the scene. What saved him from perhaps unwanted attention by hordes of women in Park City was the constant company of the hitherto unknown young American actress Jenny Galvin, a striking auburn-haired beauty. Some of those present claimed to have recognized her from adult movies, but as of this writing the claim could not be confirmed. “Striking auburn-haired beauty”: that didn’t sound bad. “Hitherto unknown”: that implied that henceforth she would be known, but as what? As the constant companion of the Spanish Adonis, or as someone trying to cross over from adult movies? Neither one, she hopefully said to herself. The reporter couldn’t know about it, but she was going to be a co-star in a sensational production of Dangerous Acquaintances. She put down Calendar and picked up the main news section, whose first six pages she had scanned at Mort’s. On page seven she saw an item under the heading ‘LA Pair Feared Lost in Mexico.’ A private plane belonging to Mexican movie mogul Alfredo Rosen Rivera did not arrive in Mexico City when expected on its flight from Acapulco Saturday morning. Mexican aviation authorities expressed the fear that the plane may have crashed over the rugged mountains of Guerrero state. Aboard were a crew of three, three members of Rosen Rivera’s production staff, and two prominent Angelenos: producer Barry Bergman, noted for his high-quality adult movies, and psychologist Nancy Fishman (formerly Nancy Fishman Kruger), the author of the popular college textbook Being and Personality and its best-selling version for the general public, Being a Person. Nancy Fishman is the estranged wife of plastic surgeon Paul Kruger, and she, her husband and Bergman were all involved in an incident last December in which Kruger allegedly took a shot at Bergman, injuring him slightly, and justifying his act by claiming that Bergman was his wife’s lover, something that Nancy Fishman categorically denied at the time. Since then, however, Bergman and Fishman have been seen out on the town together continually, and they flew to Mexico together to visit Rosen Rivera, an old friend of Bergman’s. Nancy Fishman and Paul Kruger have a 19-year-old daughter, Helena, a sophomore at UC San Diego. Barry Bergman was never married. No reports of a plane crash or wreckage sighting have as yet been received from the Guerrero mountain region, but this is an area of intense political unrest and guerrilla activity, and relations between the local population and state and federal police have been strained for years. One Mexico City commentator even suggested that one or more crew members may have been disguised guerrillas and that the plane may have been hijacked. Others, however, expressed skepticism about this hypothesis. Rosen Rivera said that no resource, public or private, would be spared in the effort to find the missing plane and its occupants. Not again, Jenny said to herself. This is too much. Lesli – well, she did it to herself. Doc shooting Barry – that didn’t turn out too bad: Barry and Nancy got together at last. But Barry and Nancy in a plane crash? Why? Why why why why why? And who besides her knew about it? Has it been on the TV news? Did Alan know? Did Doc? How about Gina George, whom Jenny had not met yet? She would call Alan. And then she remembered: if Barry was dead, the house was hers. I don’t want the house, she said to herself as she walked into the cottage and put on a robe. No, I don’t want the house. I don’t want the fucking house. Alan’s phone was busy. She looked at her watch. It was now eight in the evening in Barcelona. Mario might be home. But first she would try Alan again. Still busy. She dialed 011-343 and the seven-digit number Mario had left her. There were two rings. “Digui’m.” The voice was Mario’s, and a tender feeling shot through her. “Mario? It’s Jenny.” “Jenny, my love...” “I love you too, but I have some terrible news. Muy malas noticias, mi amor. I just read in the paper that an airplane that Barry and Nancy were flying in, in Mexico, may have crashed.” “No,” Mario said firmly after a long silence. “Impossible. I don’t believe it.” “I wish I could say the same. These crashes do happen in Mexico.” “I know how much Barry means to you. I wish that I could be with you.” She heard the call-waiting signal on her phone. “So do I,” she said, “but someone is trying to call me. I’ll call you again.” And she pressed the flash button. “Hello,” she said. “Hi, it’s Alan...” “Alan! I’ve been trying to...” “So you know! I’ve been on the phone with someone who was listening to short-wave radio from Mexico, and they’ve found the wreckage. No bodies, but they expect them to have been burned.” She heard his voice breaking. “Barry and Nancy...” and he could do nothing more but sob. She felt her tears welling up. “Thanks, Alan,” she said with all the calm she could muster. “It’s better to know than not to know.” She hung up the receiver gently, as though it too were a tender creature. She lay down on her bed and let herself cry in silence. Tears began to drop softly onto her pillow. It was evening and a soft rain was falling over the lake, but, as Albert Bosch looked out the train window toward the Alpine foothills, it seemed to him that it was snowing on that side. It was hard to tell in the dark. Perhaps it was just wishful thinking on his part. After the fiasco of the festival he had indulged himself in a few days of skiing in Utah. Not in Park City – he had wanted at all cost to get away from that place – but in Alta. He skied alone, but he had après-ski company. The company appeared on the day of his leaving Park City, right after saying good-bye to Mario Farga and his beautiful new American girlfriend. He was checking out at the hotel desk when a young woman, wearing big sunglasses and a heavy ski cap over bleached hair, approached him. “Hi, Mr. Bosch,” she said. “Remember me?” He did not recognize her until, giggling, she removed the accoutrements that blocked her face. “Oh, hello, Carla,” he said. “What are you doing here?” “I, like, had some free time between jobs, so I thought I’d come here to see the movie we made, I mean that you made, with my body in it,” she said with another giggle, “and I didn’t get to.” “Well,” he said, “I have a videotape, and I’m on my way to Alta. Maybe at the hotel there they have a machine...” “You mean, like, a VCR?” “Yes,” he said, having forgotten what Americans called a magnetoscope. “Would you like to come with me?” “Sure,” she said, “if you don’t mind stopping at my hotel so I can get my bag.” And so they drove in his rented car to Alta, where the hotel rented him a VCR. They watched the film sitting side by side, with their shoes off, on the foot end of the bed. At the first sex scene – between Mario and Gina – she took his hand, and with each successive one she squeezed it and moved her body closer to his. At her orgasm shot, which had been spliced into the beach scene shortly before the end, she seemed to be almost reliving the experience, and pressed her right breast hard into his back. At the end he asked her what she thought and she said, “I’m so excited! Aren’t you?” When he said yes she gave him a quick but hard kiss on the mouth, with one movement pulled down her pants, underpants and socks, and with another pulled up her sweater and whatever she was wearing under it. He took a little more time undressing, but when he was done she pulled him on top of her and into her. They finished in a short time, and she said, “I needed that. That was great, Mr. Bosch!” “You’re still calling me Mr. Bosch?” he asked. “Yeah,” she replied, “I like calling you Mr. Bosch. I like it that you’re, like, older. You’re older than my dad! He also likes younger women. He left my mom for a younger woman, and she was, like, only thirty, but she’d gotten fat, ‘cause she’d had us kids bang-bang-bang one after another and never got a chance to get her figure back. And then he had two more kids with the other woman and left her for a younger one. You know, my boss, Bill Martinez, he’s like my dad’s age, and all the girls that work for him compete over who gets to sleep with him.” “I suppose you get to,” he said. “Yeah,” she said, “but not that much, ‘cause I’m, like, just a starlet, not a star. I would’ve been one if it had worked out with Mario, but he chickened out. And then he met this girl that works for Barry Bergman!” “Yes, I saw her,” he said. “By the way,” she said, “How long are you staying here?” “Three days,” he said. “Can I stay with you?” she asked, adding “I’ve got the rest of this week off.” “Well,” he said, “yes, but what will you be doing during the day when I ski?” “I’ll ski too,” she said, “I took a lesson in Park City and I can take some more here.” “All right,” he said as he reached to the nightstand for the phone and called the desk to tell them that his room would be double occupancy and to ask about the ski school. “It’s okay,” he said to her after hanging up, “the ski school even has a shuttle that will pick you up.” “Cool!” she said and, putting her arms around him, began to rub him with her breasts. “Let’s do it again,” she said. This time it took longer to start and to finish, and when it was over he was hungry. “Let’s have lunch,” he said. They dressed quickly and went to the hotel’s coffee shop. The food there was mediocre, but after the afternoon’s skiing they went there for dinner as well, because Carla had brought a low-cut, short black dress and high-heeled shoes and wanted to wear them, but it was too cold and snowy to go out in such an outfit. Albert did not mind; the insipid food was worth the sight of Carla’s sexy look. He enjoyed the contrast between her exotic, youthful – almost adolescent – face, framed by hair that was now blond, and her ripe body with its full hips and large breasts, not quite the perfect hemispheres that graced Gina George but nicely outlined by the low, round neckline of the dress. He thought that some day he might write a type like Carla into one of his films. But he did not find that the mere fact of her youth – she was twenty, as he found out when he tried to order wine for her – was the stimulant that it was reputed to be. He also felt cloyed by her intense, unusual perfume, and by their third night together he found himself missing the familiar, well-explored, muscular contours of Sylvie Cottier. He had also come to relish Sylvie’s company on the slopes, despite her tendency to mock him at every opportunity. Skiing had provided many such opportunities, since she was by far the better skier. She was practically born on skis, and the story she told – he never knew whether to believe it – was that her mother, feeling labor pains, had simply skied over to the clinic. But there had not been any point in going back to Lausanne while Sylvie was still in Thailand. He had therefore spent a couple of days in London, talking business with Julian Burroughs, and only then flown to Geneva, from where he was now returning to Lausanne. Sylvie was due back the next morning. She was taking the nonstop night flight from Bangkok to Zurich and then the InterCity from Zurich airport to Lausanne. If everything worked out according to schedule, she would be arriving at 10:40, and he would meet her at the station. She would call him only if she missed that train. Was it really despite Sylvie’s mocking that he enjoyed her company, he wondered upon reflection, or because of it? He had to admit that she helped him keep a sense of proportion about himself and not take himself too seriously. Certainly her calling him a pornographer made it a lot easier to strike the distribution deal with Julian and Geoff, and Julian had told him that within a year their investment would have been recouped, and Albert would begin to have some significant income. He felt somewhat guilty about not clearing the deal ahead of time with Gina, but only leaving her a message announcing the fait accompli. Her share as an investor was a small one; she certainly had no veto power; but it was she who had initiated the project, conceived as an art film. But, he told himself, the moment the change to hard-core was made, the dynamic changed; specifically, it had foreclosed any possibility of a deal at Park City. He wished Gina well; she really had it in her, he felt, to make it as a legitimate actress. But perhaps not in an Albert Bosch film. Gina George’s ordeal by radiation was finally over. It left her exhausted. For six weeks she had felt her energy ebb day by day, hour by hour. Sex had been out of the question, as had partying of any kind. She had spent Christmas eve alone with her mother, who had brought over a Christmas dinner that was delicious but for which she had no appetite. New Year’s eve was spent alone with Paul. In previous years they would both be at Barry’s party, but after what had happened last year... Paul had come to see her every day, and at first he had stayed to spend the night with her, just to cuddle, but after a while the forced abstinence proved too frustrating for both of them, and, for her, worse than sleeping alone. A few times she even thought that it might have been better if she had been given something to suppress her libido. But now it was over. The tests had proved negative, and she could expect her natural vigor to begin its return. She was looking forward to Paul’s visit that afternoon with growing excitement. Maybe they would do it this time. She untied her robe and looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. Her boobs looked good. Slightly uneven, from the lumpectomy, but Paul would take care of that. The creams she had used to counteract the drying effects of the radiation had worked. They still looked creamy and sweet, as someone had once told her... Who was it? Oh yes, Albert Bosch. Poor Albert... She buzzed Paul in, and felt her excitement grow even more. That morning she had eaten her breakfast with gusto, having felt hungry for the first time this year, and now it was her pussy’s turn to feel hungry. She retied the sash of her robe, leaving just the right amount of cleavage showing. She stepped into her high-heeled slippers in order to meet him at the door. His face looked tired and grave, without a trace of the smile that he usually had for her. He kissed her lightly but held the kiss for a long time. “Gina, will you marry me?” he asked as he stepped back from her, almost bumping into the still-open door. “What are you talking about?” she said as she closed the door behind him. “You’re nowhere near being divorced.” He sighed deeply. “I’m a widower,” he said. “Nancy’s dead, and so’s Barry. They got killed in a plane crash in Mexico.” She felt her knees buckling beneath her. Paul helped her to her living-room sofa, where he sat her down and then sat beside her, putting one arm around her neck. He pulled her toward him and kissed her again. “Barry’s dead?” she asked incredulously, almost in a whisper. “Barry and Nancy,” he said. “And, by the way, the charges against me have been dropped, since without them there’s no case. My lawyer just called me this morning.” “Good for you,” she said, feeling slightly disgusted. She moved away from a little, but not enough to get out of his one-armed embrace. He’ll always be Doc, she thought. “You can imagine how hysterical Helena got when she found out,” he said. No, she could not imagine. She had never even met the little bitch, who, if Doc had his way, would be her stepdaughter. She moved away a little more. “Is your office open again?” she asked. “As of tomorrow,” he said, almost gleefully. “We should talk about my reconstruction,” she said, “but not now. I think I need to be alone.” He seemed surprised. “Really?” he asked. “Alone? At a time like this?” She patted his knee and smiled. “Yes,” she said. “I didn’t love Barry, but he was very important in my life. I feel like I need to grieve. I’m Greek, you know.” He didn’t seem to know. “All right,” he said as he stood up from the sofa and stroked her hand. His stroking felt good. “Just remember, I’m there for you. And I meant what I said.” “Thanks, Paul,” she said without getting up. She watched him walk toward the door and said, “Good-bye, Paul!” only when he was on the threshold. “Take care, Gina,” he said and closed the door behind him. Her pussy still felt hungry, and she decided to satisfy its hunger all by herself. Her own stroking felt good, too.