chapter 3: a small spark that lights a fire

I huddle on the floor, beside the huge bed, while the box-laden moving men shuffle in and out of the hotel room. I'm not hiding. I'm getting in touch with my new ground. The low, checked carpet is immaculately clean, even underneath the bed's puce paisley dust ruffle. I search the carpet fibres for bugs, chewing gum, stray Ecstasy tablets, anything, anything that might be a problem. I'm not hiding, I'm concerned.

OK, sod it, I am hiding. I'm not reading the script, as I was assigned to do. The script, my whole future, is just sitting on my lap, unopened. I can't concentrate on it. It doesn't seem real.

Of course Java had confronted me, right as I was packing my personals. My room at the Jurys Kensington is right down the hall from Crezi Casini's room. Java didn't accept that news very well. I tried to smudge the truth to Java, telling him the nicer facts: Crezi had rented the room for me. She insisted I had to be on hand to begin casting and rehearsals and pre-production whatnot. The film's production has a severely tight schedule. I had to immerse myself in her world. Nonetheless, Java, with his keen Apache eyes (even though he really is Armenian), saw right through my duplicity, and called me out. "I can't believe you tried to sneak out while I was at Mum's, you chickenshit. You didn't even have the guts to say it to my face. I can't believe you're trying that hard to get away from me," he said. "You're terrified of what I showed you, you're afraid of what I represent." I told him that I wasn't afraid of anything; I was just sick of imposing on him. I'd lived with him, and let him nurse me like a broken baby bird, for almost an entire year. I was sick of being his pet psycho, and I wasn't about to become his overmedicated fuck toy. The last bit, I admit, came out a bit harsh. I immediately tried to apologise, but he just threw his coffee in my face and left. What could I do?

I took an extra Ativan and retreated to the hotel, where I now have my nose pressed to the carpet, to see if it smells odd. When did I become a parody of myself?

I finally get up and resettle on the sofa in the sitting room. It's good that it's a two-room suite, because I have a huge amount of stuff, even after I sorted through and got rid of the binge-shopping irrelevancies. I am thankful that it's all crated up. The amount of clothing I have is simply embarassing, let alone the records, the toys, the hand instruments, the small-scale audio gewgaws. I'm going to end up putting all of it into storage and probably never looking at it again.

I don't have a home anymore. No place to put my gear. I'm thankful – if I had to look at it, it'd grow and expand until it strangled me. Perhaps I should become a permanent vagabond. Citizen of the world. Half there already – I don't know if I'm English or American or something else. I spent my childhood moving from city to city, country to country, out of place everywhere.

On tours, that same thing shattered me, and the only thing that put me back together was Mary. And now she's gone.

Heaven's trumpets shout, "We made a mistake!" And my heart stops.

Oh, not Heaven after all. It's only that the phone in my room is simply too loud. I lunge backwards for it, twisting my back over the back of the sofa, desperate not hear that sound a second time. My shaking hand struggles to put the reciever up to my face. "This is Jane," says a voice on the phone. I lose my grip and the receiver slides down to my neck, script pages flopping around everywhere. Jane is the film crew's hotel-designated minder and receptionist, and she seems to be the only one who thinks any of this is real. The movers all stop, and watch me flailing, with open amusement. I hear Jane's voice transmitted through the flesh of my throat. "A Ms. Elke Ankarstrand from E-POP is here for your two o'clock interview–may I send her in?"

"Don't use the room phone, Jane," I yell, fumbling with the slippery handpiece. "I hate the sound of it. Call me on my mobile from now on."

A moment of controlled silence. "All right, Mr. Whitworth. May Ms. Ankarstrand come in for the interview now?"

"Yeah, yeah," I say. I hang up, and then unplug the hateful thing. The movers all applaud and whistle. I give them the finger and smile. "You're officially finished. Whatever else is left in the van, you're free to take it or sell it or give it away or burn it; I don't care."

Elke Ankarstrand comes in and we do the hello-shake hands thing. I lead her out to the room’s balcony–I don't want her staring at my things and coming to the right conclusions. I offer her a cigarette. She says no thank you. She's fairly unimpressed by me as a person, as far as I can tell, even though my reported exploits have sold thousands of copies of her trashy "youth culture" magazine. Elke Ankarstrand is a notorious exploiter of my natural tendency to talk too much, though she assures me it's nothing personal. It's just the business. She's got a talent.

She softens me up by admiring my hotel room, and my haircut, and the fact that I look "fit". I tell her I've been eating an avocado every day to gain back the weight I lost. Her pencil lightly sketches over her notepad. At once, her slightly-accented voice becomes more official. "Your band has self-destructed in your absence... Do you think you'll ever sing again?" she asks.

"I don't know, " I tell her. The thought used to pitch me into a sickening vertigo of shame and loathing, but these days, as I voice it more and more, it just feels like telling the time. I've done three interviews this weekend, and everyone asks. "At this point, I doubt it. I can't create new tonal relationships, and I can't keep time. If you can't keep time, you have no business singing. I mean, my voice still sounds the same, so with enough studio trickery it could sound like I'm not basically a rhythm cripple. But it wouldn't be the right thing to do. I've got other things I can do besides sing."

Elke smiles at me. She's really stunning, like golden stalks of sun-bleached bamboo. She became a journalist when she got sick of modeling. I want to poke my head under her miniskirt and lick the curved space where her thighs don’t meet."Do you think this rhythm problem will be a liability in your acting?"

"I don't think so," I lie. "I'm going to have a lot of help. The actor's role in filmmaking is really pretty minimal–certainly the audience either makes an emotional connection with the character, or it doesn't… So much of what finally ends up on the screen has to do with the editors and the cinematograhy. I'll be working on it, certainly. I'm creating the sound design. Atmospheres an' that. It's exciting."

"You did give a remarkable performance in that episode of Melville Mysteries," Elke says. Before I can faux-modestly thank her and admit that a large part of that role was the chemistry that Mary and I had in the roles of the twins, she adds, "Then again, you were fourteen years old then, and… you are now… what is it…"

"Tw-twenty-six-seven," I stumble. Remember the missing year. "Twenty-seven," I reinforce. "Where did you see Melville Mysteries?" I deflect, smiling. "I thought it was only shown in the UK."

She blushes a little under her perfect Swedish freckles. "Actually, E-POP bought a third-generation copy of the video from the Internet auctions a few years ago. It's out there."

How ghastly. I haven't seen the thing since it was originally broadcast, back in the eighties, and it was mediocre then. The show had always been crap. Acting was all I wanted have to do with it. It was an actual dramatic role; no more of that idiotic work in commercials. I thought I was the luckiest bloke in the world. And then I met Mary Singleton, and I knew I was.

She'd been in films and things since she was a toddler. Mary was a natural. With her, I was a natural. We had almost no dialogue with each other, but we developed an unspoken communication, a "twin language", of nonsense words and subtle gestures, until it became instinctive. She would express her desires to me, and I would interpret them to the outside world. Strange that I would do the talking, when Mary was the more clear-headed, the stronger, the calmer, the fiercer of the two of us. We presented this connection to the director, and he thought we were little geniuses.

There was no genius involved. It, literally, just came naturally. We are twins, born of different parents in different parts of the world, but composed of the same substance.

She is not gone. She's waiting for me. She must be so worried by now...

"Jack? Hello?"

"Sorry."

"You were just sitting there staring at the wall," Elke tells me. She sounds genuinely concerned and there's a deep worry line cutting into her forehead. "Does that happen a lot?"
"It happens sometimes," I say. "It happens to everybody."

"Not for three minutes straight, Jack."

Not good. It's the stress. "I'm fine, Elke. I was just thinking. I'm allowed to think, aren't I?"

She scratches her temple with the rubber on her pencil. "It's been hinted that you underwent shock therapy after your breakdown."

I stare at her, and light another cigarette, even though the previous one is only half done. "Hinted from whom?" I bet it was that creep Brian Mayfield. Or maybe Java got to her – oh, Java would never do that. Would he?

"I can't reveal my sources," she says dismissively.

"If I whip out my medical history, won't it take some of the romance out of the whole 'Mad Jack' angle?" I ask. "I can't comment unless you give me your source."

"Not even off the record?"

"I know you, Elke, there's no such thing as off the record. People already sling judgement about things that don't concern them. Mental illness is unfairly stigmatised, and you know that as well as I do. It's not a choice. Next you'll be asking me if I dress to the left or to the right. Or if I’m a member of the Communist Party. Or if I'm gay or straight."

Elke raises her eyebrows. I want to swallow my tongue. Instead I do a bit of the old Mad Jack and smoke both lit cigarettes at once. She laughs a little. "That's really terrible for your health," she says.

It doesn’t taste or feel very good, either. "I'm committing suicide right in front of you. Just very slowly. You had your interview guidelines; please stick to them, OK?"

"I had to ask," she sighs.

"Of course you did." She abruptly becomes unattractive to me. All of a sudden, she's far too tall, her flat wheat hair is boring, and I don't like the combination of a miniskirt and short boots. I want her to go away, with her notes and insider information, and leave me alone. "Is there anything else you'd like to ask me? Because I'm very much inclined to finish this. I've got a lunch appointment with Crezi and her crew at three."

"Crezi Casini, the director? Are you familiar with her father's horror films?"

This, I can work with. I put out the shorter cigarette. "Yeah, I've seen almost every single one of old Carlo's movies. I would rent them from the shop next door to Acetone when I worked there. They had loads of them. They were a great place to get video nasties – zombie flicks, Nazi sexploitation...."

"Do you like Casini's films especially?"

"He's not my favorite director or anything, but I do like his films. I've seen almost all of them. It's not easy to find some of his movies, you know – I had to get a lot of them from, like, Japan or Italy. The ones that the shop didn't have. They have a really unique quality – they're sort of... excessively, stylishly sadistic. Mary loves them, but she's always attracted to the extreme."

Elke gives me an odd look. "Is that the reason why you decided to star in his daughter's film?"

"Well," I say slowly. "No, of course not. I'm working on the film because Crezi asked me, and because I was interested, and available. And because I think it's a daring experiment and I'll learn a lot about filmmaking from her. It's an adventure. I'm a fan of Crezi's and she's a fan of mine."

"Do you fancy her as a replacement for Mary?"

I stand up and put out the other cigarette. I thrust my hand in Elke Ankarstrand's direction. "You've just said that name that you're not allowed to say, and you've insulted me at the same time. You've violated the guidelines. The interview is over," I say. Dazedly, she shakes my hand, and I spin on my heel, walk into the bathroom, and slam the door.

I start shaking, and throw myself onto the tile floor, retching, clutching the toilet bowl with arms slick with cold sweat.

I can't remember Mary's face. When I look into my reflection in the water, I can no longer see her. She's gone. She's even gone from inside me. The whole world can see it.

Half of my self is missing.

***

Twenty minutes later, I finally leave my room, script in hand. I've done everything I can to get myself back together –, the cold sweat showered away, clean teeth, a new shirt, shoelaces tied. One foot in front of the other down the hall, one hand skimming along the moldings on the wall. I want to make sure that I don't fall over and smash my nose and ruin my face. My face is going to get my record label out of debt and catapult me into a free and shining tomorrow. I have to protect my valuable resource. I'm fine, I'm fine. Everything's fine.

Shit, I never read the script.

"Jack?"

My hand has pushed open an unlocked door, leading into the largest suite on the entire floor. Inside the room, Crezi Casini and another young woman are standing around, jaws silently working. A huge table in the middle is covered with different kinds of food–a bunch of things I've never even seen before, some too pretty to seem edible. In the corner, Minder Jane speaks into a headset attached to the telephone.

Here goes everything.

Crezi swallows whatever she's eating, and walks up to me, dusting her hands on the legs of her white jeans. When she gets to me, she reaches out to shake my hand. I want her to take me in her arms and kiss me on the neck. I need a hug. I need girl-smell. "You're right on time. That's awesome. I wanted you to meet Kat before we go on. Kat, this is Jack Whitworth. Jack, this is Kat Wilhem, my assistant director, and she'll also be working in casting with us. It's just us for today – we're just going to do a quickie screen test and take your measurements."

I shake hands with Kat. She's a little taller than I am, has a good body in jeans and a red T-shirt, and looks like the kind of girl who can change a tire without chipping her nail varnish. "Crezi's told us crew all about you," she says. Her gentle smirk has a dimple.

"Only really damning, hostile things, I hope," I say. I pour myself a glass of water and stand by the window, trying to strike a rakish pose.

Kat and Crezi stay by the door, their heads slightly together. "You're right," says Kat in a low, but clearly audible voice, "he is foxy."

She obviously has taste.

"Even if he ain't no bigger 'n a minute," Kat adds.

"The camera won't care," Crezi replies. "We'll stand him on a box if we need to."

I can't tell if they're joking. I decide to take everything seriously unless explicitly shown otherwise. "So you said in your message that the producers will be here this evening?" I ask.

"Yes, we'll be meeting them for dinner at 6. I can't wait. I haven't seen them since the end of last month. They're such great people. They make you feel good just being around them." Crezi takes a seat by the window, then gets up again and grabs something that looks like a biscuit from the table. "They're really excited to meet you."

"What is that?" I blurt, pointing towards the biscuit.

Crezi examines the object. "It's a Mexican wedding cookie," she says.

"Why is it all… whitish?"

"The chef went a little overboard with the powdered sugar "

She dusts her hands again, sweetening her thighs. I've been trying to keep from staring at her chest, but now it seems like a great idea. She's wearing a shaggy white fake-fur hoodie, unzipped to the belly, and an orange T-shirt that visibly strains to contain her. Does she do this on purpose just to torment me? The diamond under her smile winks at me. She knows I'm looking.

"I do like your hair better curly," I tell her.

She pats her tousled hair. "Yeah, me too," she says, "way less effort. I'm all about minimal effort right now – it's nonstop gangbusters from six in the morning till two in the morning from this point. Do you need to have lunch? Feel free to eat while we work. We gotta get started."

I grab some things I recognize – radish roses, asparagus spears, bread and blue-veined cheese –and wolf them down. While I'm eating, Kat and Crezi test a small digital camera and a microphone attached to a mini-disc recorder, meanwhile shooting demands at the unflappable Minder Jane. "I need a wake-up call for Jack at seven o'clock tomorrow morning – breakfast in his room by seven-fifteen. Jack, I hope you're listening to this; let them know what you want for breakfast. Sasha Never and Travis Anderson will be arriving here at a quarter past five; please have the concierge advise them to meet us in the restaurant. They must not, under any circumstances, be disturbed; they're bringing their own list of wants and I advise you to follow them to the letter. I don't need to remind you that they are financing this entire venture. I need a massage at eleven a.m. tomorrow, and I'll take it in here. Breakfast for me tomorrow needs to be Weetabix with whole milk and brown sugar, a very ripe banana, and one of those awesome sausages I had today – whatever kind that was, I want that again."

"I didn't know you ate meat," I interrupt. Oh dear, she won't taste as good as I hoped she would.

Crezi looks at me. "I started again," she says. "Combination health and quality-of-life decision. My doctor told me I'd better increase my protein if I was going to make a feature film."

"What about the quality of life for the animals who are imprisoned and tortured for you?"

Kat laughs and murmurs "oh Jesus". Crezi smiles at me patiently, and sighs. "All I have to say is that your priorities are yours and yours alone. My priorities are my business. This is the last time we'll discuss this," she says. "Dig it?"

I shrug my shoulders. I'm done eating anyway. Minder Jane gathers her things and leaves the three of us alone in the room. Kat turns the camera on and points it in my direction. "Get up and walk to the far end of the room, and then walk back," says Kat. "Just do it naturally, don't worry about getting into character."

I shamble over to the windows. The gray day has turned very dark suddenly, fuzzy-edged blobs of slate and dove strangling the tiny strip of blue sky. "Those clouds look like rain," I say.

Crezi comes towards me with the mini-disc recorder, and takes a look herself. "It sure does. Say that again, but closer to the mike," she says.

I repeat myself, then walk back over to Kat. She is frowning at the camera. "Your posture needs a lot of work," she says."I can barely see your face. Try to relax."

"I'm a little bit tense, sorry."

"I understand. But don't be. Whatever it takes, don't be." Without setting down the camera, she whips out her mobile. "Jane? yeah, it's Kat. Could you schedule a massage for Jack this evening at five?... thanks. Bye."

"That's cutting it close," Crezi murmurs.

Kat shakes her head, tucking her phone between her blue-jeaned thighs. "It can be done. It's gotta be done. It'll only be a half-hour massage, so he can have time to get dressed for dinner. If he can't loosen up and show his face to Sasha and Travis, we've got no picture. Jack, please stretch your head back. Now give me your left side. Right side. Hold out your hands. Stand up ve-e-ery straight. Get as tall as you can be. Ten feet tall."

Crezi says, "Jack, please read me the first three lines on page twenty of your script."

I open the binder and locate the page, clearing my throat. I shouldn't have eaten the cheese. "I have been sent here to determine the source of these deaths, not to advise you on the effectiveness of your staff," I recite clumsily.

"From the middle of your abdomen, please, not from the throat."

I try again, attempting to project my voice this time, but it comes out sounding horrible. Crezi sighs and shakes her head, staring at me with wide eyes. "Jack, what's going on?" she says.

"I haven't lost it," I declare. "I'm just... having a bad day."

"No, I believe you," Crezi replies gently. "I believe that you're having a bad day and that you're better than this. You're just all frozen up. You can't move, and you can't talk. But Jack, you're an actor now. You have to be able not to just be brilliant, but be good enough on demand, at all times, where it doesn't matter if you've had a bad day or the best day of your life – you have to be there and you have to get the work done. You're all blocked off right now – I don't think you've lost it, but I can see that you can't access it. And my job is to help you access it."

I absorb this. Kat turns off her camera and gets a tape measure from a plastic tool box sitting on the floor. "Stand here," she says. "Remember – ten feet tall!"

"Five foot four, if I strain," I reply.

She kneels next to me and holds the end of the tape measure against my crotch. I try to think about math. "You're a hundred feet tall," she murmurs, unspooling the measure to the floor. "You're a thousand feet tall. Your head pierces the magnetosphere." She whips the tape around my hips, my belly, my chest, down the length of my right arm, around my wrist.

"Three-fifty-four... You know that song," I realize, tingling as I remember that I wrote that line. "That one's really obscure."

"That's my favorite Spiders song," she says, writing down the measurements on the screen of her PDA with a clear plastic stylus."I did go to school with Crezi – it's not like I was unaware of your presence. I made a video for that song as a final project in this one class - which was great, since the song's only sixty seconds long. It turned out pretty cool. I got an A."

"Course you did," I say. "45 Spiders blesses everything it touches."

Crezi smiles at me and says, "Look like you're getting it back already, Jack."

***

I might have to ask for a massage every day.

The difference is remarkable. The plump young hippie girl stretched, yanked, petted and stroked my arms and back until I was a well-oiled blob of bones, then sent me off to shower with a solid smack on my bum. Now I look at myself in the mirror, gussied up in pale-blue silk shirt and plain black suit, and I do look taller, robust, glowing. I'm far from perfect, but I'll be the best-looking chap in the place, guaranteed.

We have one of the private back rooms at the restaurant, so private that you can't see them at all when you walk in. A headwaiter hustles me through the restaurant. "You're a couple of minutes late," he whispers agitatedly. "They're all already there. We've been waiting for you to arrive to select the wine for dinner." He props me in front of the door and gallops away. I watch him leave, his white apron strings twitching, and put my hand against the door. I wonder that I don't feel more anxious, but I guess the massage stripped all my tension away. What do I care? I've been around richer people than this. Maybe.

I come in and everyone stands. I let my eyelids droop, buying a few more precious moments of solitude. "Hey, sorry I'm late – my massage went a few minutes over," I lie cozily.

Completely not true-fell in love with your own reflection.

Yes...

Not that I don't understand that. Beautiful, fragile angel Jack, you are a filigree spun from chaos.

Yes I am.

You are mine now, you understand.

Yes, perfectly, I am eager.

Crezi and Kat, dressed to the nines, pro hair, designer shoes. Gorgeous woman in a corset dress with an expanse of warm, blushing, creamy bare chest and shoulders, honey-colored curls spilling down, no taller than me, a gaze as piercing and direct as a sunrise. It must be Sasha Never. Isn't she supposed to be as old as my mother? But she looks no more than twenty. She looks the same as she did in that film...that one film...

...from...never...

A long time ago. I'm wasting time trying to remember things that aren't even real. What's real is the vision hovering before me, picturesque wafts of smoke bending the light around her red velvet gloves. Is it real? Are the cameras rolling already and I'm in a celluloid fantasy? I want to throw myself at her feet, tangle myself in her dense skirt, drink champagne from her shoe. She's the most beautiful woman – the most beautiful thing -I've ever seen. My breath stalls in my chest. Crezi is introducing her, but her words are no more than gentle buzzing vibration against my eardrums. I have already memorized her. Please tell me that I she will never leave me, that she will never die.

The touch of her gloved hand fills my body with bliss.

At the back of the table, a tall, pale-skinned young man leans the weight of his thighs against the table. I hardly even saw him when I came in, but I become abruptly aware of his presence. As soon as I've looked at him, he announces in a warm, rich California voice, "Hi, I'm Travis Anderson." He holds out his hand over the table for me to shake.

I think I'm having an acid flashback because his hand goes all long, elastic, stretchy, like Plasticman reaching his fingers out to me. I've been through flashbacks in my life, so I just react normally – as normally as I can under the circumstances – and take his hand. He smiles at me and I know I've done all right. I look at his hand – it's fine. It's great, in fact.

I know now that I'm far from being the best-looking bloke in the place – Travis Anderson looks exactly as I would look, if I had the choice. He's about my age, perhaps a few years older. He's as tall as Java, and almost as thin, but with broader shoulders. His pearl-gray Italian suit fits so well I'm convinced that it was designed and made specifically for him. He's got light brown hair, a sardonic smirk, and Art Nouveau eyes. James Bond, as an American.

He touches my hand.

I sit behind the garden shed – home – Stansted, Essex – the camera awkward in my hands as I watch my mother silently weep. I'm just a kid – what can I do? I don't even know what's wrong – I want to help her - but there's a barrier between us, transparent but impenetrable. I don't know her. I hide and watch the tears illuminate her cheeks.

And I'm back in the flat in King's Cross, in bed, with Mary rocking on top of me, flinging back her head, gasping and screaming and crying my name, elated because I'm coming, damn the new medications, I'm finally coming after weeks of not being able to, and at the moment of my orgasm, the skies outside open up and send a deluge onto the street. Wet, wet, all of London wet.

Travis drops my hand, and it lands in a glass of water. "Now," he says. My heart takes a great, choking bound into my throat. Outside, a sound rages like a truck has been dropped onto a barn, but Kat takes a look out the curtained window and announces that it's a hailstorm.

I stare at my wet hand, then back up at Travis. "What-?" I plead with him in a desperate, dizzy whisper.

He's still got the same smile on. "It's only a storm, Jack," he murmurs back. "Don't worry – they're your memories."

My heart keeps pounding. "I don't understand. I just remembered something I haven't "

Travis's smile grows wider. "We're glad you could join us – not just here, but for the project. You'll bring something extraordinary to the role. I can already tell." He turns towards the room. "Sasha, isn't he amazing?"

Sasha Never comes to me and takes my face between her hands. To be so close to her, I am drowned in my own helpless, idiot worship. Her skin is as perfect as the surface of milk. Her smell... it is like nothing else I've ever smelled, girl or beast or bloom. Her velvet touch calms my thudding heart. "An extraordinary face," she says, examining me. Will she kiss me? She takes her hands away and addresses Crezi and Kat. "If we can cast the rest of this well, we've got nothing to worry about." She sounds like she learned English from instructional cassettes – utterly accentless. "Jack, I hope you're ready for two weeks of casting decisions." Travis pulls out a chair, and Sasha seats herself, settling her skirts into perfect peaks around her.

I am amazed that when I speak, it sounds like my normal voice. I expected blobs of distortion. "I should be able to," comes out of me. "I'm in, uh, good shape."

"Can we order some wine already?" Kat moans. "I'm hungry as hell."

We all sit down and Crezi orders wine by mobile phone. I try not to stare at Sasha, or at Travis, or at Crezi, so I find myself gaping at Kat or staring at the tablecloth. Kat doesn't notice me staring at her, as enmeshed as she is at gazing at Travis, without even blinking. Crezi and Sasha are chattering away at each other like old school chums, gossiping about the party people they both know. Travis is just relaxing, smoking a cigarette, leaning back with his shiny leather shoes up on an unused chair. I feel woozy, and I wonder if I took a double dose of my meds without knowing that I had. "I'd better eat soon," I say, interrupting the stream of female communication. Even Kat looks over at me. "I shouldn't have any wine until after dinner."

"Oh, yeah," Crezi says, half disbelieving, but gentle. "Whatever you need to do, Jack." She cocks her head and gives me a closer look. "Are you OK?"

"I'm uh... it's just been a very, very long day."

"Starting on a whole new life can really take it out of you," Travis drawls casually, watching me. "But you've got our support. Believe you me, I understand what it's like."

"Yeah?" I get out a cigarette of my own. Travis leans across the table again to light it for me, but this time it all seems perfectly straight... nothing weird... but for the fact that he's got long fingernails, and a lighter with a naked lady on the side. He immediately hands it to me for a closer inspection.

"I got my start as an actor," he continues. "Before I realized I'd do a whole hell of a lot more behind the camera. I didn't get the kind of roles I wanted, but it wasn't enough to make me bag the business entirely. I like to make magic happen. I'm hooked on it."

My hands are empty. Across the table, Travis gently fondles his naked-lady lighter, and with a turn of his hand, makes it vanish.

"Keep an eye on this guy," Crezi says lovingly, "He could steal the underpants off the Queen Mother."

"That wouldn't be too hard," Kat adds, her attention focused back on the splendor of Travis Anderson.

"Without her knowledge," Crezi amends.

"Oh, well, that's no fun," says Travis.

I actually laugh.

When the wine arrives, I have a glass.

When the food arrives, I eat some. I have no idea what it is, I just imitate what everyone else is doing, fork to mouth, dab with napkin, wash the lot down with more red wine. The wine is excellent and the food is superb. And I am in love with Sasha Never, while Travis performs more sleight-of-hand across the table with whatever he can find – napkins that reveal pens from the concierge's desk, pulling one of Kat's earrings from his soup, waving coins idly between his long, deft fingers. I am glad he's distracting me so that I don't stare too hard at his radiant, witty wife. "She's the money, you see," he tells me in a mutter, half-buried under Sasha and Crezi's animated conversation. "That's why I'm only the associate producer. She gets more creative control because it's her money that's doing this."

"Why do you say it's money? Doesn't it belong to both of you, since you're married?"

"We have a business together," he says, "in which we are partners. Since she brought more money into the partnership, she has the upper hand. Don't get me wrong – I've made money for the company on my own – but she started with more. It's fair." With a wave of his hand, the four 25p coins tucked between his fingers disappear. "Our marriage itself is a separate concept." He darts his eyes to Crezi, who is holding Sasha's hand against her cheek.

Kat shouts, "Yea, dessert!"

I look up to see a waiter wheeling in a dessert cart covered in a white muslin dropcloth, and then backing away immediately. Kat leaps from her chair and whips the cloth away. "The selections we asked for, madame!"

I see the usual suspects – profiteroles in chocolate, rum trifle, creme brulee with raspberry sauce – but in the middle of the setting is a tall cake, with thick white icing in swervy peaks, and a Queen of Hearts card stuck onto a pin in the top. Kat does a happy butt-shaking dance. "All right, Jack, this one's for you."

She plunges a massive wet knife into the cake, and the knife comes up slick with gore.

I blink a few times, hoping that I'm seeing things in the low candlelight, my eyes are playing tricks. She carves again, and a thin slab of cake falls onto a waiting plate, the white icing containing wide dark scarlet bands.

She places it in front of me. I nearly scream. It's a cake made of raw meat, crumbs of moist viscera, the color of a heart torn, still beating, from the chest of its victim. I try to speak, but only a weak croak of protest emerges from my throat.

"It's red velvet cake," Crezi explains, bending over and speaking close to my ear. "It's my favorite. Kat's, too."

"Lucrezia introduced us to his marvelous delicacy when we were in Los Angeles," Sasha murmurs. "I found it quite astonishing. Very delicious."

"It's... meat," I whisper.

Peals of wine-soaked laughter ring out from everyone. Travis even puts his head down onto the tablecloth and goes into hiccups. "It's not meat, Jack," Crezi says. "It's just red. The color comes from tomato soup. Try it. It's really great."

"It's a classic American mom-with-an-apron thing," says Kat.

"'It's meat,'" Travis impersonates me perfectly, his face quivering. "Jesus. Who'd make a cake out of meat?"

I poke at the slice of cake with my fork. It has the perfect texture for cake – dense, tender, and shiny. "What's that on the outside?" I ask cautiously.

"Cream cheese frosting," Kat says. "It's totally harmless. Go on, Jack, it won't hurt you. It's completely vegetarian."

I have to do this. I have to impress these people, get out of debt, make a new life. I take up a corner on my fork, and shove it into my mouth, swallowing as fast as I can. The flavor is quite unexpected – unlike anything I've tasted before – sweetish without being cloying, full of nice vanilla, slightly fruitlike... "It seems like it should be savory, doesn't it?" I mention, taking another small bite. The icing is delicious, and it all melts on my tongue, filling my mouth with that ineffable taste.

Crezi runs her hand gently over the back of my neck, then bends down and kisses me on the top of my head. "Jack, I wouldn't ever ask you to do anything I wouldn't do myself," she says, turning the stroke into a little hug, pulling my shoulder into the firm, yielding swell of her hip. Through the slit in her skirt, I see that her stockings are held up by garters filigreed with silver, leaving the tops of her brown thighs bare. "Trust me, OK?"

She tips my chin up with her fingers, forcing me to look into her eyes. She is not as beautiful as Sasha Never – nothing ever could be – but I am cheered to look into Crezi's honest face, her compassionate eyes, her smooth, unpainted full lips, and I know that I do trust her. That I have to trust her. That I have nothing if I don't trust her.

I eat the rest of the slice of cake and thank them all for dinner.

***

I am doing the Fish! I am finally doing the Fish! After years of doing yoga, I am doing the Fish pose, Matsya-asana, in classic style and good form – legs hooked in a lotus position, bending backwards, my shoulders and head touching the floor. I am a human pretzel. I don't remember if Mary or Java first showed me the pose, but at first, it seemed beyond the limits of human ability.

Maybe this accomplishment will give me the cojones to go out there and face that excruciating excuse for a film again.

It isn't just my own shortcomings that frustrates me to the point where I want to grab my parka, my Speak-And-Spell, and my golly-gee-whiz brand new boots, and head to the nearest Metro station. It's … that I feel like I'm drowning.

I haven't seen Sasha or Travis since Sunday night's dinner. I can't believe how much I miss them. When I asked after them, miserably, on Tuesday, Minder Jane told me that they had gone to Luxembourg to personally check on the creation of the sets on location. I can't believe they fucked off to Luxembourg and left us all here, desperate for their guidance and reassurance. All I know is that I fell into a hypnotic, easful sleep on Sunday night, and woke up the next day with Monday's bitterness pulverizing my bones. Mary calls this state "the moans". And it's not just me. No one seems content. There are endless annoyances, complications, tiny setbacks, adding up to one huge headache.

Nerves are raw, and by now, mine are bleeding.

There are a lot more people here now – both members of the crew, and the actors who will or won't be working with me. There are eight other speaking roles – twenty-two other actors, with all their own odd insecurities, run through in an unending stream from nine in the morning until seven at night. I'd forgotten how much I hate actors. Some of them have really terrible speaking voices. During one scene, this West Country bloke, trying out for the part of Rothschild, yawed and hammed through his lines like a half-witted farmer. I turned to Crezi and said, "Are we going to re-dub the dialogue? 'Cos this guy looks the part, but his voice sounds like shit." The West Country chap kept his cool – he just glared at me with his squinty Cornish eyes – but Crezi immediately got up, grabbed my arm, and hustled me into the other room.

She sat me down on a chair and then paced for a few steps, her mouth twisting and her fingers held stiffly in front of her. "Jack, you're gonna listen to what I'm saying to you. OK? OK, here it goes. You may be the center of the universe, but remember how it feels when someone you don't even know craps on you when you're trying to perform. Just because something in particular doesn't work for you, doesn't mean you get rude, you get bitchy, you pitch a fit, or any of that diva crap. We don't have time or money for that shit. The only thing keeping me sane right now is the knowledge that I'm not going to die if this movie doesn't get made. If you're not willing to act like a courteous professional, we can call the whole thing off right now."

She sat down next to me, and gave a deep sigh. The orange T-shirt that was skin-tight two weeks ago now had breathing room, and her hands were shaking. "It's the first time you've made a feature, and the intensity is much higher than you were prepared for, so I'm going to cut you some slack," she continued, her voice softer now. "And also, I'm convinced of your talent, and I like you as a person. This is a collaboration between us – between all of us - but I am the director. I'm the one who tells everyone what they need to do to make everything happen. I think about the big picture, so you don't have to; you can think about your role. And… I haven't slept in a couple of nights, so cut me some slack, too, OK?" She smiled at me. "OK?"

"Do I really have to memorize all that?" I asked, twiddling her a little smile. Poor Crezi's eyelids drooped, then, the corners of her mouth and her shoulders. She looked so sad that I took one of her trembling hands and held it between mine. "I'm sorry. I know it's been hard. For you, too."

I let her hand go. She immediately took my hand again, and squeezed it. Her half-dozen silver rings dug hot and slick into my fingers. "Yeah, it has been hard. And it'll keep being hard. But the harder we work, the better the show will turn out. Just keep repeating to yourself, 'This is fun!'" She gave a desperate little laugh. "It is fun," she said with actual conviction. "Just that this part kinda sucks. It will get more fun. We just have to get along, make the film our highest priority, and we'll eventually get into the flow. Now let's get on with it, so we can get to the really fun parts." She stood up, pulling me along with her, and we returned to the main suite, smiling.

Since then, I haven't spoken up unless my opinion is asked for. I didn't tell Aileen, the costumer, that my overcoat made me look like a kiddie playing Dress Up As Dad. I didn't tell Kat that Brodie Mack, the actor they finally cast as Langley Rothschild, may vaguely resemble her heartthrob, Travis Anderson, but he hasn't got a tenth of the grace or the looks. Plus, he sounds like he's imitating James Mason all the time. I didn't even tell Minder Jane that I preferred the big hippie girl as my masseur, and not the iron-haired Polish lady who surprised me naked in my suite yesterday lunchtime. I've been a good, obedient little boy, keeping it all inside.

I came in from the morning's casting-and-costuming session today and stabbed a pen into the guts of my sofa until I hit metal and the purple upholstery bled yellow polystyrene foam.

Just as begin to unravel from the pose, my mobile purrs from the padded chair by my unmade bed. I lean over without standing up and grab the phone without looking at it first. My new mobile is half the size of a pack of cigarettes, and has a lavender scent insert on top of the battery. The new phone was a "welcome to the process" present from Crezi. "This is Jack," I say into space, inches below the bottom of the tiny device.

"…Hi."

I know that voice – though it seems a lifetime since I've heard it. Quite deep, masculine but very soft, a hint of mock-reluctance. "Java?" I sit up against the bed. "It's you, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"My God. Wow. I wasn't expecting-" I cut myself off to ask how long it's been since we spoke, then cut myself off again. "How are you?"

"I miss you," Java says simply.

"I miss you too," I tell him. Suddenly, I feel like I'm going to cry. "Hey, I did the Fish perfectly today."

"In yoga? That's good." He sounds a little breathless. "See, I did tell you you'd get it eventually. It's actually only an intermediate pose. I'm glad you've kept practicing."

"Oh, yeah, all the time," I say. "It's nothing to do with you."

He makes a quiet grunting sound that I interpret as indignance. Remorsefully, I shake the phone to see if I could stop the words from being transmitted. "Java, no, I'm sorry, I don't mean it like that."

"No, I know, no worries."

"It's just no-no-no-no-no with you," I tease. I hear a vague whisper that I recognize as his laugh. "I do miss you. Sometimes I get scared without you here. I start to worry that I've been taking my meds wrong or forgetting that… I dunno. Something's gone wrong that you used to worry about for me."

"I worry too," he says. "But you're right, I was treating you like an ill child. And I know you're better, but I've got to believe – we've both got to believe – that you're not so ill anymore. You can take care of yourself. And we're both on our own. And that's all right."

It doesn't feel all right.

Java continues, "How's the film?"

I rub my forehead. "Oh, it's sort of a nightmare right now. We're a week behind schedule and Crezi and Aileen are freaking out on a quarter-hourly basis."

"Who's Aileen?"
"She's, uh, the production designer. She's the one who decides what everything will look like. And because the project is so low-budget, she also has to do all our costumes. She's very quiet and nice – I think it's because she's making up complicated scenarios of how to kill us all and make it look really stunning. Kat's all right, though – she's the assistant director, and besides this really crippling crush she has on Travis, Travis Anderson, he's our producer-"

"I see," says Java. "I'll never keep track of all this, Jack."

"Oh aye, sorted. Sorry, I got carried away. Would you - would you come to Jurys for a little chat? We can have a drink – I think I'm free from seven o'clock tonight. I'd love to see you."

"No," he tells me. He rustles some more. "I can't. I've got to do this promo thing. It's Clapton and Nova's record release party, in fact. My presence has been requested for the sake of the press – so they can have photographic proof that I was there, that I support 'is new project. I could give a fuck about it. But it's politics, y'know?"

"I'm out of touch," I realize. "I never heard about this. Why wasn't I invited?"

"I think you were," Java says, "and Crezi Casini intercepted."

"You don't think-! She wouldn't-!"

"I just called to tell you that you're still my best mate," Java presses ahead. "The things you said and did hurt a lot, but I'm working on getting over them."

"I'm sorry about all that."

"I know," he says. "It doesn't make it hurt any less."

I want to tell him that I'll be right here, if he needs to talk to anyone. But I know good and well that I won't be right here, and I won't be available for anybody to talk to who isn't part of the Vintage Mystery gang. I am still fishing for the words to express myself when Java sighs, "Bye, Jack," and hangs up.

I'm stunned. Crezi, intercepting my mail? Is that part of her style? It's not like I really want to go to Clapton's solo release party – he's bound to be insufferably smug, especially with his whisker-thin female warbling at his side – but it's the principle of the thing. I want to trust Crezi. And Java's gone from being good mates with her to accusing her of stealing my mail.

Ugh, this is the last thing I need right now.

I turn my phone off, and toss it back onto the bed. Fifteen minutes left on my lunch break. I leaf through the pages of the scenes I'm meant to be reading today – some bollocks with Ian Juno and Regina Rothschild rediscovering their lost love for one another – but I only touch the raised printing on the page without reading. I know I won't know my lines until I've done it loads of times, and put the lines into the context of discovering the other actor, where I put myself into a relationship with him. I've read the Langley scenes enough times now to have them printed on my teeth, ready to display at a moment's notice.

For the past six days, I've been working over potential Langleys; for the next six days, it'll be all females. Love interests – or at least libido interests.

I lie back on my bed and inspire myself with Sasha Never. She's almost too beautiful, too abstract to be a sex object – but not quite. Her bombastic, pin-up figure is far too reminiscent of earthy matters to be ignored in favor of her saint-like face. DaVinci's Madonna meets Jayne Mansfield. I wonder what she'd look like in a pair of frayed daisy-duke shorts and one of those tops that looks like an artfully folded bandanna. And a halo; she definitely needs a halo.

I looked for her old movie credits on the internet. I couldn't find anything at all; it's as though the movies never existed, that she never had any roles. And I would almost swear that I've seen her before, in something filmed in the early 1960s, in a blue dress with a lot of flouncy skirts and lacing up the front. For the life of me, I can't remember the film's name, the director's name, or who else was in it. I guess it's just another casualty of the electroshock.

Mary would be able to remember the movie. She is –

-dead-

She was ace at remembering details.

The mobile phone chimes; it's time for me to take my lunchtime medications (a pleasant melting fondue of relaxation and mental acuity) and head back to the main suite. I put on a T-shirt I've never worn before – bought from a street vendor in San Francisco, with a gaudy psychadelic fish printed on the front. I need the reminder that I am able, occasionally, to achieve the impossible.

Everyone's on the phone – Aileen, Kat, Minder Jane, Crezi, the soundman Chris, the two cameramen Tom and Barney. Chatting away on their various devices; wireless, cellular, hands-free, powered by the subtle electricities coming through the walls. There are no other actors present, for once. Nobody seems to notice me. I find a corner not already occupied by tall lighting rigs, lengths of coiled cable, or second-hand clothes, and slide down the wall, curling up, keeping to myself. Getting small.

Crezi disentangles herself from the various cords of her headset, the kind that makes you look like you're talking to yourself. She dumps the mess onto the table next to Jane, lays a finger on it (Minder Jane gives the tiniest of acknowledging nods), and comes over to me. "Jack, I'm going to need you for the rest of the day. There's something I want to show you. You coming?" She holds out her hand.

Show me? I live in London. I've lived in this neighborhood for the last eleven months. What does she know about that I don't? The rest of the crew remain on the phone, ignoring us. I let her pull me up.

We walk out of the Hotel Jurys Kensington into the chilly, shy spring sunshine. Crezi squints up at it, then fishes a pair of pink plastic shades out of her lumpy shoulder bag. While she has it open, I see a light meter, a collection of photographic lenses, a roll of Polo mints, a packet of Camels, and what I'm quite certain is some kind of lacy, satiny lingerie. And I didn't even see clear through to the bottom. "You're prepared for everything," I comment, just to say something.

She grins at me, puts the sunglasses on (the lenses are star-shaped), and gets out her cigarettes. "This is a much smaller bag than the one I used to carry," she says. "I used to carry two cameras with me at all times. I still have the filters in here." Once her cigarette is lit, clenched between her cherry lipgloss lips, she grasps a lens filter and hands it to me.

I hold it up to a patch of sunlight reflecting from the glass windows of Harrod's, and sun glow bursts into a six-pointed, brilliant star. And the stars are everywhere – cars, buildings, stray tinfoil on the sidewalk. "Star-Six," Crezi says reverently. "Best trip toy known to mankind – besides beaches, that is."

"Star-Six," I echo, looking at Crezi through the filter. "Great name for a band." The sunlight catches the edges of her sunglasses, and the twinkle of the metal stud under her lips. She grins, and gives me shiny teeth, too. "Wow, Crezi. You're a movie star."

She laughs at me. "My dad gave me that filter," she says, and I quickly hand it back before I scratch it or sweat on it or something. "It was my Christmas present from him the year before he died. He didn't give it to me in person – it was sent Fed-Ex. He didn't wrap it or anything, it was just in the box it was bought in, and he'd written on the front of the box 'mandar'alla figlia'. Send to daughter." She glances at me. "Did your folks stay together?"

"No," I tell her softly. "They split up when I was fourteen. I didn't really notice so much because I was working on a TV show. I'm not very close to my parents. Their lives have always been separate from mine."

"Oh yeah? Really? Interesting to know."

We've walked up to a different hotel, this one further down Kensington, much less posh-looking than Jurys. Crezi walks right in, and I follow, imagining we're going to the hotel bar for a change of cuisine, but she walks right past the registration desk to the lifts. "What's this?" I ask."Where are we going?"

"We're going to do some work, one-on-one," she says, impatiently thumbing the lift button for a second and a third time. "I wanted us to take some time specifically get to know each other. I don't feel like we've been communicating very well this week. I thought it'd be beneficial to do some exercises so that we can understand each other better - so that you can better take direction from me, and I can better express to you what I want."

"Oh, aye, sorted," I say, not really understanding why we had to switch hotels for this.

We go up to the third storey and Crezi pulls a key card from her bag. "I rented this room this morning," she says. "We have it until tomorrow morning. That should be all the time we need."

"Are you just burning your way through the budget?" I worry, going through the opened door. I progress into a smallish single room with a big bed and white canvas curtains that trail all the way to the floor. There is a bottle of clear yellow wine in an ice bucket on the bureau."I thought that money was tight."

"I'm paying for this out of my own pocket," she tells me. She takes off her jacket and drapes it over the back of one of the chairs. "I felt that this was a necessary expense. I'll write it off on my taxes." I take off my parka and hang it up in the closet. I feel like we're skipping school, breaking into some stranger's bedroom. Crezi opens the wine. "C'mon, help me move this bed."

Hotel beds are heavy. Their weighty steel bottoms keep the things from sliding about while you're banging your new bride or your secretary. Crezi's my height and strength, and between the two of us, it takes us about twenty minutes to take the mattresses off and then push the bedframe up against the wall by the window. When we've finished, we're both sweaty and gasping for breath, sprawled on the floor. "Good... warm-up," she pants. "Gets the blood flowing."

Almost immediately she turns a sloppy somersault across the bare, brightly colored carpet where the bed used to me. "OK, now you," she says.

I somersault, with a lot less effort than her, but it's still not easy. I haven't done somersaults since I was a kid. "I do yoga, you know," I tell her.

"See, that's something I didn't know about you. There's so much I don't know about you. It's a shitty way to get to know someone, by reading articles about them in magazines." She pours a glass of wine and hands it to me.

I agree.

"How long have you been doing yoga?" she asks. Her next somersault is done well, and she ends by stretching out on her back, her top riding up over her flat, soft, golden belly. More tattoos show.

"You've got more tattoos than I know about," I comment.

"Answer my question, and I'll show you a few."

I stand up and stretch my legs, walking back and forth across the room. Without the bed, there is plenty of space. Crezi keeps her eyes on me. "I've been doing yoga regularly for the last six months or so," I tell her. "I started learning yoga... maybe eight years ago? Maybe. I don't remember exactly."

The sound of ripping Velcro turns my head towards her. Her top wraps around her and fastens with a strip of Velcro at the waist. Undone, it reveals her torso, with two black stags leaping towards each other on her stomach, nicely outlined where her muscles dip into her. Her dark nipples smolder under the translucent white netting of her bra.

"Pretty nice, aren't they?"

I quickly turn and face the window. I chew the edge of my wine glass. I shouldn't be drinking, this soon after my afternoon meds. I could be sick, I could lose control.

"Could you tell me a little bit about why you went into the hospital?" she asks in a softer, less challenging tone. It makes my dick ache even worse than the sight of her breasts.

"I don't really talk about it."

"I need for you to. I'm sorry. It's blocking you – and as much as I wish you could just skirt around it, you're not that good of an actor yet. Arms for hostages. Ask me anything. Ask me about anything, and I'll tell you." I hear her sit up, the Velcro tab catching the carpet and ripping free. "Please?"

"Crezi... to be honest...I don't know if I can trust you."

"Trust me? Is that what this is about?" I say nothing. She sighs. "Jack, you have to trust me. You have to trust me, or I can't direct you. I would never, never betray your trust – for anyone or anything. I swear. I swear."

She's begging. Oh me, oh my.

I ask, "What's that piercing in your lip?"

She's quiet for a long time, and I turn round and look at her. She's shaking her head and laughing silently to herself. "It's called a labret," she says, pouring herself a glass of wine and taking a gulp. "I used to have the bridge of my nose pierced, too. I got kicked out of Catholic school for it, so it was worth it." She shrugs out of her top and lets it fall to the floor. "I got six piercings and a tattoo on the same day. Actually, I think the tattoo on my chest got me kicked out more than anything. I did it to prove that I'd really read the Bible. It was a weekend orgy of misbehavior." She gets a cigarette out of her bag. "Do you have any tattoos?"

"Uh... no."

"Didn't you use to?"

I stare at her blankly. What's she talking about?

"Jack, would you please take your shirt off?"

I fight off panic. I need the shirt as a talisman... but that's crazy. I mustn't be crazy. The air of the room feels good against my still-hot, carpet-scraped skin. Crezi approaches me, then puts her hand on my bare arm and turns it over. "There," she says to me. She points to a thick wad of scar tissue on the inside of my elbow. "It used to say 'Mary' there," she tells me. "I've seen a photo of it."

I am baffled. "I don't remember ever having had a tattoo."

She is staring at me, not with shock or judgement. Her dark eyes shimmer. "You took it off," she whispers. Her thumb strokes the scar. "You took it off yourself. It must have nearly killed you... You must have lost a huge amount of blood..."

"I don't remember," I tell her.

"The hospital," she says. Her thumb leaves the scar, instead tracing up the thick green vein that branches up from my elbow – classic skinny rock star junkie veins. Her fingertips find the other scars striping my chest and my abdomen. "God..."

"I did all those myself," I say. "It was an orgy of misbehavior." I have to swallow back the familiar nausea, but the next words fall from my lips. "And it's perfect – I don't remember a thing."

I touch the tattooed words on her chest. They're raised, warm, swollen and pulsing from the exercise.

"Why?" A hesitant whisper.

"I had the memories burned out of me. Technology – it's such a merciful thing." I laugh. It's horrible, but I can't help it. My inhibitions have melted out of me like so much candlewax.

"So it's true," Crezi says. "You had shock treatments."

"Electro-convulsive therapy," I rephrase. The stags on her stomach lie smooth and flat. Standing this close to her, I can see faint dots of scar on either side of the bridge of her nose. She moves even closer and I feel the contact of her lips. Not yet, Crezi, not yet. I keep talking against her mouth. "It works. It worked. It was the only thing that could help me. And now I'm all right. It's good because now I've forgotten about all that stuff."

"All that stuff," she echoes. She moves a few inches further away, takes my hand, extends my arm. "Do you think you've really forgotten it? Or is it just ... repressed?" She releases my hand, but holds her hand out, close enough to mine that I can feel her warmth.
"No, it's gone," I insist. "The most painful part of my life is gone. It doesn't haunt me anymore."

Her face is blank. She doesn't believe me. Let her disbelieve; she can't read my mind, she only knows what she sees and what I tell her. "Let's work," she says."Mirror me as best you can."

We walk around the empty floor space, our bodies not really touching except occasionally, accidentally. She dips her knees and I follow. She walks to the window and tosses back her head as though she's got a vast mane of hair; I imitate her as best I can. She walks to the chair with the coat, rests her hand on the back, and with the other hand, unzips her jeans. I stand still and watch her.

"I'm directing you," she says. "Can you do it like this?"

I walk to the other chair, rest my hand, and unzip my jeans.

"Close your eyes, and imagine the one woman you've ever loved, though a thousand women have offered themselves to you," Crezi says.

I am short-circuting inside. I cannot remember Mary's face. Should this come from within myself; should I use my own memories as fodder? Last time I acted, I had no memories to use. I had only imagination. And Mary is reality, is existence; this is just pretend. But I don't remember what Mary looks like! Mary is just a half-erased, girl-shaped void, reflecting me like a mirror. My imagination fails me, when faced with the glowing reality of Crezi, smoke curling lazily from between her lips, her unzipped jeans spread open, showing the briefest of matching white mesh underwear. I don't want to close my eyes. And when I do, everything tangles up.

"Imagine her standing right in front of you. Your lover. The one you thought you'd never see again."

Oh, the sacrilege.

"Now imagine that she's with another man – the man you've always wished you were and know in your soul that you can never be. And yet – all you have is your restraint. All you have is the knowledge that you are right. Let me see it in your face."

I feel the muscles in my face settling into stark planes – every muscle brittle and tight, lips compressed into nonexistence. This is not happening. This is not real.

"Open your eyes," she whispers.

Crezi stands inches away from me. Her expression is simply delicious – she looks horrified, delighted, amazed, disbelieving. She smiles, her eyes close, and she kisses me again. I must admit, being kissed does relax my face.

"Was that good?" I ask when she comes back for air.

"I wish I was a camera." She tucks some of my hair behind my ear, angles away to drain her wineglass, and turns back to me with a smile. She rests her arms around my waist. "Do you play? Ever have friendly-sex?" she asks me.

"You what?"

"You know... just a good time...without clothes... with a friend...with someone you weren't in a serious relationship with? Someone you weren't in love with." She runs her fingers down my back, stroking the flat plane of my tailbone.

"I..." I'm going out of my mind. Am I hobbled by the density of drugs in my bloodstream? Or am I perfectly happy where I am? Good Lord, I'm half-naked in a hotel room with Crezi Casini, and nobody's going to stop us. "I've only had sex with one – with two people, ever in my life."

She seems surprised. "Really?"

"One of them... I wasn't in love with. But I don't think that made any diffrence to him."

Crezi blinks. "Oh? Oh. OK." She begins to move away. And it's then that I realize that I'm not afraid of her, I'm not afraid of touching her, that I'd rather be touching her than be alone.

I want her. And I can have her.

"It's not that," I say hastily. "I mean, I like girls."

Her eyes shine, like she's just gotten a puppy for Christmas.

"So... no," I say. I put my arms awkwardly round her shoulders. I suddenly realize that I'm practically a virgin.

"Would you like to? God, let's have some fun. I think we both really need it, after the week we've had."

"Yeah," I say. "All right."

She seems quietly pleased. "Hey, I gotta ask... Are you a freak? I mean, do you like anything kind of freaky?" she asks. "I like to know what I can get away with. I don't want to scare you or anything." She briskly pulls her bra over her head and steps out of her jeans and pants. She looks better naked – everything falls into proportion very nicely, she is comfortable in the drafty room. I won't be – I haven't got nearly the soft padding of flesh to keep me warm.

"I don't think I scare very easily," I say.

I don't know why I feel that way, but sex seems much simpler, more innate, than having conversations that make logical sense, trying to express myself verbally, trying to make sense of the world. I reach out and take hold of the most tempting part of her body that I see, which happens to be the round swell of her belly. She giggles, and climbs aboard one of my legs.

"That's good," she says. Then, her ankles tangling mine, she wrestles me to the floor.

She takes great pleasure in showing me how much stronger she is, pinning my arms to the carpet above my head, holding both my legs down with her shin across them, laughing constantly. However, my yoga skills grant me much more flexibility than she, and I manage to wiggle away from her and scamper across the room, trying to hide under the table. She follows me, corners me, melts all over me. I've never felt anything like it before. My memories of loving Mary – which, I grant you, were far from conventional – are nothing like this. When Mary and I made love, we made love. Crezi and I are playing. It never approaches the solemnity, the sacredness, the divine mystery that I used to feel. Maybe that part is burnt out of me, too.

Good fucking riddance.