Sidney Sheldon - A Stranger in the Mirror

“It’s just a little indie. They’re shooting it in back of someone’s garage.”

Jill said, “What can we lose? It’s a part.”

The garage was on the south side of Los Angeles, in an area that in one generation had gone from exclusivity to middle-class gentility to seed.

They were greeted at the door by a short, swarthy man who took Alan’s hand and said, “You made it, buddy. Great.”

He turned to Jill and whistled appreciatively. “You told it like it is, pal. She’s an eyeful.”

Alan said, “Jill, this is Peter Terraglio. Jill Castle.”

“How do you do!” Jill said.

“Pete’s the director,” Alan explained.

“Director, producer, chief bottle washer. I do a little of everything. Come on in.” He led them through the empty garage into a passageway that had at one time been servants’ quarters. There were two bedrooms off the corridor. The door to one was open. As they approached it, they could hear the sound of voices. Jill reached the doorway, looked inside and stopped in shocked disbelief. In the middle of the room four naked people were lying on a bed; a black man, a Mexican man, and two girls, one white and one black. A cameraman was lighting the set while one of the girls practiced fellatio on the Mexican. The girl paused for a moment, out of breath, and said, “Come on, you cock. Get hard.”

Jill felt faint. She wheeled around in the doorway to start back down the passageway, and she felt her legs start to give way. Alan had his arm around her, supporting her.

“Are you all right?”

She could not answer him. Her head was suddenly splitting, and her stomach was filled with knives.

“Wait here,” Alan ordered.

He was back in a minute with a bottle of red pills and a pint of vodka. He took out two of the pills and handed them to Jill. “These will make you feel better.”

Jill put the pills in her mouth, her head pounding.

“Wash it down with this,” Alan told her.

She did as he said.

“Here.” Alan handed her another pill. She swallowed it with vodka. “You need to lie down a minute.”

He led Jill into the empty bedroom, and she lay down on the bed, moving very slowly. The pills were beginning to work. She started to feel better. The bitter bile had stopped coming up into her mouth.

Fifteen minutes later, her headache was fading away. Alan handed her another pill. Without even thinking about it, Jill swallowed it. She took another drink of vodka. It was such a blessing to have the pain disappear. Alan was behaving peculiarly, moving all around the bed. “Sit still,” she said.

“I am sitting still.”

Jill thought that was funny and began to laugh. She laughed until the tears streamed down her face. “What—what were those pills?”

“For your headache, honey.”

Terraglio peered into the room and said, “How we doin’? Everybody happy?”

“Every—everybody’s happy,” Jill mumbled.

Terraglio looked at Alan and nodded. “Five minutes,” Terraglio said. He hurried off.

Alan was leaning over Jill, stroking her breast and her thighs, lifting her skirt and working his fingers between her legs. It felt marvelously exciting, and Jill suddenly wanted him inside her.

“Look, baby,” Alan said, “I wouldn’t ask you to do anything bad. You’d just make love to me . It’s what we do anyway, only this time we get paid for it. Two hundred bucks. And it’s all yours.”

She shook her head, but it seemed to take forever to move it from side to side. “I couldn’t do that,” she said, fuzzily.

“Why not?”

She had to concentrate to remember. “Because I’m—I’m gonna be a star. Can’t do porno films.”

“Would you like me to fuck you?”

“Oh, yes! I want you, David.”

Alan started to say something, then grinned. “Sure, baby. I want you, too. Come on.” He took Jill’s hand and lifted her off the bed. Jill felt as though she were flying.

They were in the hallway, then moving into the other bedroom.

“Okay,” Terraglio said as he saw them. “Keep the same setup. We’ve got some fresh blood coming in.”

“Do you want me to change the sheets?” one of the crew asked.

“What the fuck do you think we are, MGM?”

Jill was clinging to Alan. “David, there are people here.”

“They’ll leave,” Alan assured her. “Here.” He took out another pill and gave it to Jill. He put the bottle of vodka to her lips, and she swallowed the pill. From that point on, everything happened in a haze. David was undressing her and saying comforting things. Then she was on the bed with him. He moved his naked body close to her. A bright light came on, blinding her.

“Put this in your mouth,” he said, and it was David talking.

“Oh, yes.” She stroked it lovingly and started to put it in her mouth and someone in the room said something that Jill could not hear, and David moved away so that Jill was forced to turn her face into the light and squint in the glare. She felt herself being pushed down on her back and then David was inside her making love to her, and at the same time she had his penis in her mouth. She loved him so much. The lights bothered her and the talking in the background. She wanted to tell David to stop them, but she was in an ecstasy of delirium, having orgasm after orgasm until she thought that her body would tear itself apart. David loved her , not Cissy, and he had come back to her and they were married. They were having such a wonderful honeymoon.

“David…” she said. She opened her eyes and the Mexican was on top of her, moving his tongue down her body. She tried to ask him where David was, but she could not get the words out. She closed her eyes while the man did delicious things to her body. When Jill opened her eyes again, the man had somehow turned into a girl with long red hair and large bosoms trailing across Jill’s belly. Then the woman started doing something with her tongue and Jill closed her eyes and fell into unconsciousness.

The two men stood looking down at the figure on the bed.

“She gonna be all right?” Terraglio asked.

“Sure,” Alan said.

“You really come up with ’em,” Terraglio said admiringly. “She’s terrific. Best looker yet.”

“My pleasure.” He held out his hand.

Terraglio pulled a thick wad of bills out of his pocket and peeled off two of them. “Here y’are. Wanna drop by for a little Christmas dinner? Stella’d love to see you.”

“Can’t,” Alan said. “I’m spending Christmas with the wife and kids. I’m catching the next plane out to Florida.”

“We’re gonna have a hell of a picture here.” Terraglio nodded toward the unconscious girl. “What kind of billing should we give her?”

Alan grinned. “Why don’t you use her real name? It’s Josephine Czinski. When the picture plays in Odessa, it’ll give all her friends a real kick.”

23

They had lied. Time was not a friend that healed all wounds; it was the enemy that ravaged and murdered youth. The seasons came and went and each season brought a new crop of Product to Hollywood. The competition hitchhiked and came on motorcycles and trains and planes. They were all eighteen years old, as Jill had once been. They were long-legged and lithe, with fresh, eager young faces and bright smiles that did not need caps. And with each new crop that came in, Jill was one year older. One day she looked in the mirror and it was 1964 and she had become twenty-five years old.

At first, the experience of making the pornographic film had terrified her. She had lived in dread that some casting director would learn about it and blackball her. But as the weeks went by and then months, Jill gradually forgot her fears. But she had changed. Each succeeding year had left its mark upon her, a patina of hardness, like the annual rings on a tree. She began to hate all the people who would not give her a chance to act, the people who made promises they never kept.