Charles Baxter - The Feast of Love

Anyway, she was sitting there with the videotape on the table. She gave me a sort of bored wave of hello, like I was already a disappointment to her before our first words had been spoken, very Hollywood agent, and she flipped her head back with this girl-of-the-world shake, accompanied by her patented wolf smile, which looks better on guys than it does on her. “Hey, Barlow,” she said. Barlow is my last name. “Whassup?”

“Not much,” I said. “How ’bout you?”

She shook one of her hands like there was water on it. “Do you ever get bored with weather? The weather is so sobering around here.” I didn’t know what she was talking about, so I pretended to smile, which came out as a real smile. “I’m going to move to Seattle or somewhere where they have some goddamn actual weather. You know: real rain? Rain and heroin. As opposed to what we get here? Oh, and guess what. I’m discovering something,” she said, sipping her cappuccino. “Guess what I discovered.”

I leaned back. “No idea.”

“Try to guess.”

“Janey, I gotta be at work in a coupla hours. I don’t have time to guess.” She was staring at me like she wanted to dine out on me, and she flashed me a quick thing, an event-horizon thing lowering and happening on her face, and then it was gone, and she was normal again. “Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Okay,” she said. “The video we made? The one with you and Oscar, that I shot and directed? We’re not going to make any serious money out of it. In fact,” she said, “we’re not going to make any money at all, almost.”

“Like how much?”

She leaned back. “Like almost nothing. Like zilch.”

“Jeez.” I felt that punch in your arm you feel when you’re disappointed. I hadn’t minded Janey taping us doing our mating dance because I figured we’d get enough for a deposit on a better apartment. Besides, you could tell straight sex just bored her silly, when it was happening in front of her, and she wasn’t paying attention, except technically. “I was expecting a lot more,” I said. “Considering how easy it was, doing it.”

“Well it just goes to show. I guess it’s harder to break into the sex industry than I thought. They’re sort of going for the details, those guys. People are bored with what we served up. They want exotica. They didn’t say anything about exotica in the ad. But get this. They said the video was too dull. I have to tell you, I was offended. I mean, hey, I worked on that video. I put a lotta effort into it.”

“How do you mean? Dull?” Suddenly my pride got up. Oscar and me, dull? In bed? No way.

“They called me.” She leaned her head back and her eyes went up just like a shark after a bite of leg and shoe. “They said they could maybe, maybe, use a few minutes of it someday in a video anthology devoted to today’s youth. They said the marketing would be tough, though. There’s no target audience for watching people like you and Oscar. The only thing they liked was Oscar’s skull tattoo and the ‘Die’ underneath it. They said the sex was too midwestern. And they said the setting was bad. Unimaginative. I asked them what was bad about it, and they said it was just a bedroom somewhere. When I asked them where it was supposed to be, they said, well, someplace different, like an office at a used-car lot.” She thrummed her fingers on the table. “And no offense, Chloé, but they said you were pretty but not voluptuous. What do they expect? And they said that the costumes you and Oscar were wearing weren’t any good. They were very critical, these people.”

“What do you mean, the sex was too midwestern? And what was wrong with the costumes?”

“Well, like I told you, they said it wasn’t exotic enough. Like, track star and cheerleader aren’t exotic? But they said they weren’t. Your bodies were okay but nothing special. You took your shoes off. That’s a no-no. What’s the big deal with feet? Anyway, you’re supposed to keep your shoes on. And they claimed you guys didn’t have a ‘look.’ Hey, I argued with them. Chloé, I really did. I defended you. And they said there were other problems.”

“Like?”

“The love thing.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“They said that it looked like you and Oscar were in love.”

“So?”

“They said the love thing makes the video off-putting. That was the word the guy used. ‘Off-putting.’ It wrecks it visually. That you can just tell by watching. It kinda takes the kick out of it. It makes it creepy to watch. The way you two look at each other was alienating, like you had a thing going. And he really had a deal about the way you went at it. Creepy, he said, too plain-style and also too midwestern. Can you imagine? Fuckin’ mondo. This guy on the phone, working for who he works for, tellin’ me about creepy? I got a little indignant. He blamed the pacing on me, as the director. He said it would a better video if you guys had used your imaginations.”

“No way.”

“That’s what I figured. Well, he was one mean guy, and I guess the result is, I’m not going to make my fortune with you and Oscar.” She poked down at a bag. “Here’s your videocam back. I’m getting another one.”

“What about the money?”

“What about it?”

“You mentioned a figure.”

“First I have to sign an agreement. Then he said the check would be in the mail. It’s not here yet.”

“He said that?”

“Those,” she said in a kind of weird half-whisper, “were his exact words.”

“So you haven’t got the money?”

“Chloé, would I lie to you?” She pouted for a split second.

“I don’t know. I guess not.” It occurred to me just then that Janey hadn’t talked to anybody, that she had made the tape for herself.

“There’s this other thing.”

“What other thing?”

“I’ve been asking around town. I made a few inquiries. I found someone. You wouldn’t believe some of the people I talked to. But I guess the Midwest is like anywhere else. I know someone here in town who’ll pay you and Oscar a lotta money if you do something. I brokered it, so I’d have to get fifty dollars out of that.”

“What?”

“Well, it’s pretty, uh, slight. All you and Oscar have to do is make love to each other. You can do that, for sure. All you have to do is sex, and all you need is love.” She looked disgusted.

“Yeah.”

“There’s a catch.”

“What’s the catch?”

“Well, this person here in town wants to watch.”

“Watch us?”

“Yeah, I guess. You know, he’ll be there in the room, sitting on a chair, watching you. That’s all. It’s not exactly what you’d call a job, Chloé. I mean, it isn’t work. You just make love and then you get paid.”

I got instantly depressed. Ordinarily I have high spirits. This scene was getting worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse and worse, like an event out of somebody else’s life that you don’t even want to hear about in a story. What had happened to how holy we were, Oscar and me? I had fallen low, I could see that, thanks to economics, the hunger for money in a hurry, and I was worried about dragging Oscar down with me. Thinking about foyers can corrupt you, I guess. “Janey,” I said, “did you ever think when we were in fifth grade that we’d be having this conversation?”

“I didn’t think we’d be having this conversation last week.”

“So who is this guy?”

“I don’t know. Just some ordinary horrible guy I met. He’s harmless. Some typical man with eyes. The world is full of them.”

“Is it safe?”