Chapter 12
"I tell you, bringing marijuana in at this point could be a disaster!" said Dr. Gorman, an angry edge creeping into his voice as he faced his employer across the table in the gazebo. "We've accomplished miracles with her from the sexual standpoint. She'll react to any discussion of marijuana, and that reaction could very well destroy all we have created."
"Calm down, Carl. I've only developed this idea in the last forty-eight hours, so I couldn't have covered all the bases," Guzman replied. "I recognize the danger, but perhaps this can be overcome with a clever script and some good film editing. We have Miss Horner deliver one of her famous anti-marijuana statements, which Marks writes so that by removing a sentence here and there it becomes exactly what we want. Then in the same setting and with the same clothes, we have her do a sex statement later. Afterward, we slice them up and put them together. How about it, Mark?"
Mark was standing at the edge of the gazebo looking to the east where the twin volcanos were hidden behind a thin veil of mist. His mind was on his personal situation, but with an effort he pulled it back to the subject at hand.
"I know very little about film editing, Senor ' Guzman," Mark replied, "but I don't see any reason why it couldn't be done. Tell me exactly what you want and I'll have a talk with the men Tony brought down, and we'll see what we can do."
Jane could hardly believe her good fortune. Her own room in the main house! A bed with sheets and blankets! Her own clothes, all cleaned and pressed, her panties and bra washed and sparkling white! And she was free to walk about the house. She could even go outside if she called Dr. Gorman and arranged for someone to go with her.
The first thing she did when Dr. Gorman brought her to the room was to run about opening and closing drawers in the chest on the wall. Then she raced to the window, the first one she had seen in what seemed to her an eternity, touching the glass with the tips of her fingers and opening and closing the window to prove to herself that it was real. Tears flooded her eyes when she opened the closet and found her two suitcases, the ones she had left at the hotel in Mexico City what seemed like a hundred years ago. She unpacked them, admiring the clothes as if she had never seen them before. Putting things in the chest and hanging dresses in the closet gave her a feeling of being in touch with reality. She almost wondered if the past few weeks had been a horrible nightmare.
The trouble was that Jane's mind was all a jumble. She couldn't concentrate on any one thing too long. It made her nervous to try to remember things. Jane could only be comfortable living for the moment.
Her undergarments made her feel uncomfortable, so she slipped them off and put on a multi-colored cotton print. Looking at herself in the mirror, Jane was thankful that she had a bust line which needed no support. She'd always been able to get by without a bra when she felt like it. The dress was loose at the waist and Jane felt certain she had lost weight recently. She remembered the cotton dress as always being marginal, just a bit tight.
Disregarding stockings and slipping into some white pumps, she went downstairs and found the dining room. She no sooner sat down than a maid in a white uniform appeared with a steaming dish of arroz con polio, a crisp garden salad, warm rolls and piping hot coffee. Jane didn't mind eating alone; it was so good to be free again Jane didn't mind a bit.
The workmen began just before noon on the Game Room. Holes were cut in the walls for the cameras, wires were strung back and forth across the ceiling, lights were installed, checked, changed, and then more lights added. Men stood with light meters in various parts of the room calling their readings to a man in a bright, black and white checked coat. The man would make notes and then call for more light here and less there. Mark, Dr. Gorman, Tony and two men from Mexico City held hurried conferences and then changed the location of furniture.
Microphones were hidden in the silk folds across the ceiling and concealed under the beds. The complicated wiring to a master control board had to be torn apart three times and redone until each microphone had its own control. Needles on dials bounced and vibrated as sound levels were tested and retested.
Mark and Dr. Gorman left the Game Room at five. The workmen gathered their tools and called the job complete at eight, but no one was completely satisfied. They had done what normally took three days in under nine hours, and everyone felt they should have more time and more tests. Jorje Gonzales, the director, had serious doubts that the generator on the estate would carry the load required for the lights, but he would do the best he could with what they had given him to work with, after all, one hundred thousand pesos for two days' work was something you didn't run into every day!
The lights blinded Jane, made her eyes water and perspiration form under her arms. She was seated on a French provincial chair before the large micro in the game room. A screen had been placed behind her and there was a small marble cocktail table at her side.
She was confused. Dr. Gorman had tried to explain it all to her half a dozen times, but she was still confused. It was something about a rehearsal to see if she had potential as an actress. Mark had given her a script and she was supposed to recite it from memory. They had told her to pretend that she was talking to a group of her friends. That was something else. They said that if she did well they might let her make a short film to send home to her friends so they would know she was enjoying her vacation. Jane could hardly remember her friends, and she really didn't care about sending them a message.
Then there was all the business about sitting down at the beginning, standing up on a certain sentence, turning and walking toward the mirror-all that! Jane knew she would never remember it all. She wanted to do well, to please Dr. Gorman who had been so good to her, but she just knew she wouldn't be able to do everything they wanted.
Dr. Gorman signaled her from the side of the room.
"Hello, I'm Jane Homer and I'm so glad you ... come this evening."
"Cut!" a voice boomed from the other side of the room. The man in the bright colored sports coat came over to Jane.
"Relax, Miss Horner," he said. "You have to relax and be natural. Just pretend you're talking to your friends. You don't sound like that when you talk to your friends, now do you? Don't worry about making mistakes. We'll handle those as we come to them. All I want you to do is relax and be natural."
"Please, Jane, just do what he says. Relax and be yourself," Gorman added, as the director moved back to the side of the room.
"Hello, I'm Jane Horner and I'm so glad you could come this evening. I have something important to tell you and I'm using this means because I can't be there personally.
"As you know, in the past we have disucssed how marijuana leads to immoral sexual behavior, especially among our younger generation. We criticized youngsters for their permissive attitude toward sex and their openly sensual behavior."
Jane looked up with a helpless and confused expression on her face.
"I'm sorry," she stammered. "I think I was supposed to stand up here or something. And I've forgotten what comes next."
"Don't worry, Jane, that was excellent," Dr. Gorman said. "You're doing very well. Very well indeed. We know you can't remember it all, so just stop when you've forgotten your lines and we'll start from there. If you keep this up, I'm certain you'll be able to sleep in your own room in the house tonight. Here's the script. Study it and we'll go on in a moment or two."
The thought of sleeping in a bed with blankets and having a window of her own was enough to make it all worth while to Jane. She read the words on the pages carefully, saying them aloud several times.
"You can just start from where you left off, Jane," the director said.
"This horrible behavior not only ruins the individual, it destroys the very society in which we live. These wild sex orgies breed degenerates, and that's only one short step from rape and murder."
Dr. Gorman gestured with his hands and Jane stood up and continued.
"Medical men tell us there's no relationship between marijuana and sexual conduct. As intelligent people we must bow to their scientific facts. At times, one cannot help but think they are wrong. Never having smoked a marijuana cigarette, I can tell you only what others have told me. You become very stimulated, sexually aroused, and you have to have sex. It intensifies the contact and makes the act more exciting. It prolongs the orgasm. Medical men should talk to the potheads to learn the truth about how marijuana and sex are tied together.
"I have just completed extensive personal research...."
Jane stammered and then shrugged her shoulders in frustration.
"I'm sorry, I've forgotten what comes next. And wasn't I supposed to walk to the mirror on that line?" she asked.
"Relax, Jane, you're doing just fine," Dr. Gorman said.
She picked up her script and concentrated hard on the words which seemed to swim before her eyes. Over and over again, Jane practiced the things she was supposed to say.
"Okay, let's take it from that 'personal research' part," said the director.
Jane felt comfortable with what she was saying. These were words she had said before, words that somehow comforted her. She went on, remembering the movements she was supposed to make. They stopped a dozen times and she practiced her lines out loud, placing emphasis where the director wanted it. She could not hear the hum of the camera in the background, and she had no idea she was being filmed. It was all like a big game, tiring but fun.
It was almost midnight when they quit. Two hours and thousands of feet of film for what would be a three minute segment. They all congratulated her and Dr. Gorman said they would try a different script in the morning.
Jane went to bed in her room in the main house, happy and content.