Jack O'Connell - The Skin Palace

She stares at the acrobatics while Hugo continues to whisper. “One thousand floor seats of symmetric Moderne perfection. Another two hundred up here in the balcony. And nine private owner’s boxes running above us.”

He leads her to the balcony railing. She looks down from the screen to the floor and is shocked to see the theater half-filled in the middle of the day.

“The stars that have played in this room,” he says. “W. C. Fields on opening night. Mr. Ray Bolger. The Flying Wallendas. Chaplin was here. Never performed, but he was in the audience. A personal favor to Herzog himself. The next day a peasant from the Spy had the gall to call this treasure, this Xanadu, a vulgar curiosity. Can you imagine, Sylvia? It was too much for the arbiters of taste to comprehend. Vulgar curiosity. They say those two words broke Herzog’s heart. That he never got over the affront. The moment he read that review was the beginning of his decline.”

Sylvia listens to his words, but she’s watching a woman having sex with three men simultaneously. It’s broad daylight and she’s standing in what must be the most luxurious pornographic theatre in America being lectured by a bald Viennese man as she watches graphic sex acts on a three-story screen.

“I would put my Palace,” Hugo says, “up against any of them. The Pantages. The Avalon in Chicago. The Fox in Atlanta. Even S. Charles Lee and his Los Angeles. They may be larger, perhaps more ornate. But there is a feel here. An aura and an atmosphere that is unsurpassed.”

He lowers his voice and adds, “Of course, I am a bit prejudiced.”

“It’s a stunning building,” Sylvia says.

His eyes turn to the screen. “I hope you’re not offended by our feature.”

For some reason she wants to laugh. “This isn’t exactly how I planned the day.”

“Surprise,” Hugo says, “is the essence of life, Sylvia. Didn’t anyone ever tell you that?”

“I thought that was variety.”

Before he can respond a voice behind them says, “You want to keep it down,” and Sylvia flinches. They look up to the last row to see the only person in the balcony, sitting up directly under the beam of the projection light.

Hugo puts his hands on his hips and says out of the corner of his mouth, “Speaking of variety,” and then, “Come with me, Sylvia. You’ll love this.”

She follows him up the steep stairs to the second to last row where they slide in to face this audience of one. It’s a woman, about Sylvia’s age, dressed in a silk, rose-colored bathrobe, but she’s got her feet resting on the chair in front of her and her robe breaks away to reveal her bare legs up to her thighs. She’s got blonde hair and even in this light Sylvia can tell she’s got killer skin. There’s a bucket of popcorn in her lap and as Hugo comes to a stop in front of her, blocking her view of the screen, she throws a kernel at him.

“Ever the narcissist,” Hugo whispers, brushing at his jacket.

“Learned from the best, Schickster.”

Hugo angles awkwardly in the aisle and says, “Sylvia Krafft, I would like you to meet Leni Pauline.”

Sylvia reaches over and shakes Leni’s hand, brings her own back wet with butter.

Leni ignores her and says to Hugo, “That’s it boss, keep recruiting the amateurs. God, you couldn’t do a cost analysis if your life depended on it.” Then she tilts her body to the side to try to see around Hugo and says, “Honey, don’t you sign a thing until you and I have a long talk.”

“Once again,” Hugo says, “your instincts couldn’t be more wrong.”

Leni throws another kernel of corn and says, “We’ll see.” She looks at Sylvia and says. “So are you a fan? How do you like my work?”

“Your work?” Sylvia repeats and Leni gives a huge smile and points to the screen.

Sylvia turns and looks and realizes that the woman up on the screen, the naked woman enlarged to three stories high and currently having a jar of honey dripped on her by a very tall man, also naked except for a chef’s toque on his head, that woman is this woman. That woman on the screen writhing under the coating of golden liquid is Leni Pauline.

“You’re very …” Sylvia starts and when nothing comes to her, she says, “you have beautiful skin.”

Leni looks from Sylvia to Hugo and says, “What is she, a cosmetologist?”

Sylvia doesn’t know whether to laugh or be annoyed, but it’s Hugo that responds.

“In fact,” he says, his accent seeming to get thicker, “Sylvia is an artist.”

Leni tosses a kernel above her head and makes a production of catching it in her mouth.

“That right?” she says.

Sylvia starts to say no, but Leni continues. “I’m an artist too.” She juts her jaw out and says defiantly. “Can you do that?”

They all pivot and look at the screen in time to see Leni writhing on a flour-covered tabletop in the midst of what looks like a large restaurant kitchen as she’s doused with olive oil by a swarthy young chef.

“My God,” Sylvia hears herself whisper and then hears Leni behind her say, “You still think you’re an artist, sister?”

Hugo leans to Sylvia’s ear and says conspiratorially, “Leni is our current starlet and raging prima donna.”

Leni hits him with another popcorn kernel and mimics his voice, “And Hugo is our current washed-up, never-made-it, almost-broke, can’t-get-it-up porno king.”

Hugo keeps his composure and says, “Your gratitude is humbling, my child.”

“My gratitude,” Leni laughs and looks to Sylvia. “What do you think, honey, should I be grateful here for the chance to hump the sandwich boy in this scene?”

Sylvia glances over her shoulder and there’s Leni, spread out on a long table surrounded by luncheon meats and a roasted turkey, piles of sliced tomato and bulkie rolls, loaves of rye bread and croissants and French sticks, dishes of mustard and mayonnaise.

Leni mutters, “I was picking parsley out of my hair for a week.”

Sylvia turns to Hugo and hesitantly asks, “You made this movie?”

He smiles, closes his eyes and bows his head.

“I thought you owned the theater?”

“Hugo,” Leni says, “is a man of many talents.”

Another piece of popcorn bounces off the huge skull and leaves a shine in the blue light from the movie. Hugo ignores it, folds his arms, stares at the screen and whispers, “Glutton for Ravishment II was something of an indulgence for me. I’ll concede that to the critics. But I simply felt there was more to be said after the first film. I just wasn’t done with these characters. They hadn’t released me yet. And though I quake at the thought of further expanding her swelled head, Leni is genuinely breathtaking here. Truly astounding. I took us both to the brink and tore that performance out of her. But, as you can see, it was worth it.”

On the screen, Leni is using a plastic spatula to smear mayonnaise on the chests of two over-endowed waiters.

Hugo puts his mouth next to Sylvia’s ear and says, “You’d be amazed how little editing was required. She can be miraculous when handled properly.”

Sylvia feels a second set of lips at her other ear and she flinches and turns to see Leni up out of her seat and leaning across the chair that separates them.

“Tell me you’re not a bored little rich girl from Windsor Hills,” she says. “Tell me you weren’t jogging past Casa Schick when the bald one offered to teach you about art. Please, Sylvia, tell me.”

Her tone annoys Sylvia. They shift so they’re eye to eye and Sylvia says, “I work for a living.”

Leni doesn’t get angry. Her voice stays even and she looks to the screen and says, “You don’t think that’s work, sister?”