Chapter 3
Three days later the film had been processed and edited. Bob and Red had worked through lunch and at two-thirty had the first print ready for viewing. They sat in the living room of their rented house, Red worrying and smoking a cigarette as Bob loaded the film on a projector and set up the screen.
"Relax, Red," Bob said confidently. "It's a damned good flick."
"Yeah, I know," Red agreed. "It'll sell." "Then what's bugging you so?"
"I'm starving, for one thing."
"Wash and Lotta will be back with the chicken any minute now."
"That's only part of it," Red muttered.
"You still fretting because the rape isn't real enough?"
"Shit. .. That fuckin' Lotta can't act worth a damn!"
"So what? We got a real hot stag here. Who gives a good fuck whether she looked scared when Wash broke in on her fingering scene? "
"I do," Red grumbled. "So we got a hot movie. So what? Well make money on it. . . but it's not the movie we started out to make."
"Next time," Bob told him, moving over to shut the blinds and drapes against the bright Arkansas afternoon. "Here comes the food. Wash and Lotta are turning in the drive."
"About time," Red muttered, grinding out his cigarette as he got to his feet. "She shouldn't have gone with him. Not down here in redneck land."
"Relax, will you? She's riding in the back seat and Wash is driving-just like you told them."
"The cock-hungry bitch should know better. She's lived here all her live."
"Forget it," Bob said as he returned from darkening the room. "Everything is going fine. I'm gonna wash up."
"Go ahead," Red told him, moving to the front door as he heard Wash and Lotta coming up the steps. "I already did."
As Bob went into the bathroom to wash his hands, Red held open the door and sniffed eagerly at the aroma of fried chicken when Wash and Lotta swept past him. He shut the door and followed them to the couch.
"Damn, it's dark in here," Lotta commented as she took the lid off the cardboard bucket. "The film ready to run?"
"Yeah," Red said, taking a seat on the couch and holding out his hand. "Gimme."
Lotta passed him a thigh and a napkin, then did the same for Wash. She left the open bucket sitting on the coffee table after taking a breast for herself, then plopped between the two men on the couch.
"Where's Bob?" asked Wash, before taking a big bite of chicken and glancing at Red.
Red had a mouthful of juicy thigh. Before he could answer, Bob came walking into the room. "Smells delicious," Bob groaned, heading straight for the bucket and diving in to fish for a drumstick.
"Did you run it yet?" Lotta asked. "How is it?"
"Just got it set up," Bob said. "Show it," Lotta coaxed. "I'm dying to see it." "While we're eating?" Red asked, making a face. "Jesus Christ," she groaned. "Don't tell me a little pussy juice and come could bother you!" "Don't be vulgar," Red snapped.
"Vulgar? Look who's talking," she chuckled, then shook her head and bit into the breast again.
"Go ahead and flip it on," Red said. "At least it'll shut her up."
Bob laid down his chicken in the napkin, took another and wiped his fingers, then snapped on the projector and picked up his drumstick to go on eating as Lotta came nude and alone in bed on the screen.
They ate as the movie played, Red muttering disapproval occasionally and Lotta squealing pleasure at the sight of herself being spanked and thoroughly screwed by Wash.
"Goddamn," Lotta breathed when it ended. "Makes me hot all over again just to watch it. How about you, baby?"
She reached over and took Wash's hand, wiggling her fingers between his and squeezing intimately. Wash carried her hand to his loins and rubbed it back and forth over his standing peter. Lotta let out a chuckle and a sigh, turning to kiss him full on his lips with neither of them bothering to wipe off the grease from the fried chicken.
"Good show," Bob said. "Looks like we've got ourselves a winner."
"Even if I do say so myself," Wash drawled, "Me and Lotta did it up right."
"Damn right. It's great!" Lotta exclaimed.
"What the shit would you two know about it?" Red growled.
"Lay off, Red," Bob pleaded.
"Bullshit!" he retorted. "If it weren't for the expert way you handled the camera, it would be a flop. It's very little better than the run-of-the-mill stag."
"What the hell did you expect?" Lotta demanded angrily. "Hire professionals if you want a goddamned masterpiece!"
"Forget it," Red said, suddenly calming down. "It's not your fault. You and Wash were both damned good, except it came across just like I knew it would. The only real gripe I got is you were too hot from the start."
Lotta grinned and shrugged. "That's the way I'm made," she said. "Besides, I don't hear anyone but you complaining."
"I wanted to film a rape scene," he said. "Maybe it can't be done realistically. Maybe if the girl knows what is coming and agrees to it, she just can't come over with a horrified expression."
Bob laughed. "What we need to do is kidnap a virgin and really rape her. Or better yet, a pretty housewife that has an aura of propriety."
Red jumped out and hung precariously on the edge of the couch. "Goddamn, Bob! I think you've got the answer!"
Huh?" Bob asked, swinging to look askance at Red. "No. No, man. I was just kidding.
"Huh?"
Bob stared at Red as if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses. "It's out of the question . . . too risky," he said.
"No, baby. No. We can carry it off and come out with the best stag ever made! Listen to me now ..."
Talking rapidly, Red laid out his half-baked plan. He contradicted himself several times, but backed up every time and corrected his own words. When he'd finished talking, the other three were almost convinced they could get away with it.
"Well?" Red asked, sticking a cigarette between his lips and lighting it excitedly. "I don't know," said Bob.
"Are we all gonna share the profits from this one too?" Lotta asked.
"Sure, baby. Sure." Red exclaimed, patting her thigh out of gratefulness for her well-placed words.
"Then I know just the girl," Lotta grinned.
"Tell me," Red said, motioning with both hands to direct her words toward him.
"A twenty-one-year-old gal that works where I did before I met Bob. She's a wife . .. mother of a toddler, but she's pretty as any starlet Hollywood has got. I think she's just what you want, Red."
"How so?" Red asked. "Looks alone are not enough."
"She's what you want. Her father is a hell-fire preacher and it took on her. This babe wouldn't say shit if she had a mouthful of it. I'd lay odds that her husband is the only guy to ever touch her precious twat, let along screw it."
At five minutes past five Mrs. Virginia Holden came out of the employees' entrance of the big central office of Hitchcock Life and Casualty in downtown Little Rock. She walked straight to her parking space at the back of the large lot and climbed into her Chevy station wagon. Her dress, which was a compromise between the fashionable mini length and a below-the-knee hem that she found preferable, hiked up from just above her knee as she scooted under the wheel.
Half of her well-shaped thigh was revealed before she properly smoothed her dress down and shut the door. She started the engine, backed from her slot, then drove carefully to the street and started for the day nursery to pick up her young son before going home to start supper for her family. She didn't notice the car that pulled away from the curb and followed her, nor had she known that her exit from the building and her thigh-revealing entrance into her car had been closely watched by a red-haired man with binoculars.
She stopped at the nursery, her dress again hiking up her thigh as she swung out of the car and hurried in to get her son. The muscles of her calves and the undulations of her full hips were again watched through binoculars without her knowledge until she disappeared into the building.
In a car parked a discreet distance from Mrs. Holden's station wagon, Red took the binoculars from his eyes and pulled them onto his lap. "What a broad!" he exclaimed, reaching nervously into his shirt pocket for a cigarette.
"Didn't I tell you?" Lotta asked. She beamed as she struck a match and held it to Red's cigarette.
Red accepted the light, then exhaled smoke as he groaned, "What a fabulous body .. . and that sweet face! Wow! Just like you'd expect the Virgin Mary to look! The purity she exudes is almost non-existent in this day and age.
"You gonna use her?" Bob asked, still a trifle hesitant about the whole thing.
"Christ yes! Well gang her. What a flick that will make! How about it, Wash?" Red asked. "You want to cut yourself a piece of her white tail?"
"Whenever you're ready, boss," Wash grinned. "One thing I'll bet you ..."
"What's that?" Red asked, when Wash didn't finish.
Wash grinned broader as he rubbed the bulge in his pants. "I bet you that white cunt won't disappoint you. When she gets a good look at my black cock coming at her, you ain't gonna have to prompt her to look scared."
Bob sat quietly under the steering wheel as the other three roared with laughter. What they were planning to do to that unsuspecting woman didn't sit well with his conscience.
"We should forget it," Bob said dryly.
The laughter died out. Red turned to look at Bob.
"What did you say, Bob?"
"I said we should just forget it. It's wrong."
"Look, man. Now don't go getting cold feel on me."
Red said slowly. "You already agreed. Remember?"
"We don't need it," Bob said. "We've got a good movie with Wash and Lotta. Let's peddle it first and see how much it will bring."
"That has nothing to do with it," Bob said.
"Bullshit! I know what you're thinking," Lotta sneered. "It was all right for me to screw it up for profit, but it's not all right for such a good girl like her! Fuck you, Bob. And your goddamned scruples, too. She's it. . . isn't she, Red?"
"She's it," Red assured. "You in or out, Bob? This is the wire, baby. Either you help us or pack up and clear out right now. We're gonna do it anyway, so you might just as well go along and get your cut of the gravy."
Mrs. Holden came out of the nursery. A small boy was in her arms. Both mother and child were smiling and secure as Mrs. Holden walked to her car and got in. She put the boy into his special seat with his own steering wheel, which hung in the middle of the front seat. After she strapped him in, she started the car and drove toward home.
"Either follow her and go along for the whole bit or get out so I can drive," Red said.
Bob reached for the handle to open the door.
"Don't be stupid," Lotta barked. "You won't save her a damned thing by walking away."
"Yeah," Red said. "We're gonna give it to her with or without you."
Bob watched her car moving off down the street. "What the fuck is she to me?" he mumbled, suddenly reaching to switch on the ignition and start the car.
"Now you're talking sense," Red sighed.
Bob quickly pulled away from the curb and easily overtook Mrs. Holden's station wagon. He followed her home, all the while beating down his conscience as he drove silently. By the time she pulled into the driveway of a brick home in a middle-class neighborhood, Bob was reconciled to his part in the woman's forthcoming rape. He pulled a little way down the street and stopped the car. All four of them watched as Mrs. Holden got out and went into the house.
Red wrote down the address and grinned as he put the scrap of paper and ballpoint pen into his shirt pocket. "Drive us home, Bob," Red said confidently. "We've got to get us a script in mind before tomorrow morning."