STS Ch-63

I peeked into the dining room a little carefully, hoping to spot a certain someone. Inside, I wasn’t sure whether I wanted her to be there or not. I wanted her there because she was a beautiful girl who had just taken my virginity, and I didn’t want her there because the whole thing felt a little awkward. Not to mention, I knew she’d want money.

Something I hadn’t planned properly in the heat of the moment when I called her last night.

I walked forward wearing a skin-tight T-shirt and jeans, my hands tucked inside my pockets. Each step was full of uncertainty, not knowing what would happen next.

In front of me sat a beautiful girl reading the newspaper at the patio table while smoking a cigarette. The moment she noticed me, a bright smile appeared on her face.

“It’s a beautiful place you’ve got here, Zach,” she said happily. “Is it all yours?”

“It’s my folks’, actually,” I said, shaking my head slowly.

“Do you know what it’s worth?” Daryl Hannah asked as she got up from the chair.

“A lot, probably,” I replied.

“Oh, yeah,” she agreed. “Real estate? It’s fabulous!”

She twirled around in place, giving me a view of her fabulous body. She was dressed in a skin-hugging pink top and denims that accentuated her behind a little too much. Any guy would fall head over heels in love with her just from seeing that moment.

“Look, Mia,” I said seriously. “My name’s not really Zach. It’s Josh.”

She walked toward me, and for a moment my breath hitched in my throat. She paused beside me as if teasing, leaned closer, and whispered in my ear, “I need $300… Josh.”

The moment I heard the line, reality came crashing down on me. She didn’t really like me. She was just a girl I’d hired for the night, and she only cared about the money she was owed.

“You’re kidding,” I said in disbelief.

“No, I don’t believe I am,” she shot back, though her voice never rose above a soft, sultry volume that made me want to ask her out for real.

“Can I send it to you?” I offered.

“Can you send it to me?” she repeated.

“It’s just because I don’t have that much in the house.”

“Well, how much do you have?”

“Around $50?”

“$50?” She rolled her eyes, moving toward me with each step before stopping right in front of me. “What are we gonna do about this?”

“Well… I…” I stammered. It didn’t help that one of her hands, the one not holding the cigarette, trailed a finger down my cheek until it reached the corner of my lips. This wasn’t scripted at all, but Daryl was still doing it, because Paul had a last-minute idea for adding this part to the scene, and it was making it hella difficult for me.

“I have a bond at the b..bank that I could cash!” I offered.

She shook her head slightly. “I’m not very good at waiting, Josh.”

“I’ll be quick,” I promised.

She inclined her head, but her gaze told me she didn’t believe me at all. “Give it a try.”

I gave her a nod and walked away.

“Cut!” a male voice rang out on the set. “Print. Check the gate.”

I turned toward Daryl Hannah and gave her the biggest smile I could. “Holy moly! You were on fire!”

And she was. I hadn’t seen a more effortless young actress in my limited acting career. Even Julie, whom I considered one of the best, couldn’t have pulled this off on her first day of the shoot.

Daryl looked away from me the moment that happened. Her cheeks colored, and she grew visibly uncomfortable with my presence near her.

“Thanks,” she whispered, doing a full 180 from her role as a confident call girl just moments ago.

“Is… everything alright, Daryl?” I asked. “Am I making you uncomfortable? I can walk away if you want.”

“No!” she almost shouted before realizing she had raised her voice. She lowered it again, returning to her soft tone. “It’s not you. It’s everyone. I’m not… I mean… I am…”

She squirmed under my gaze, so I turned away. “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me everything. I just wanted to know you better, but I understand if you don’t want that.”

I took a step away, fully intending to change into my street clothes since this was the last shoot of the day, but someone grabbed my arm. I turned around to see Daryl behind me. The moment I looked at her, she released me and took a step back.

“I want to talk to you,” she said after a moment. “But I can’t talk here. Can we go somewhere else?”

I studied her determined expression and knew she had something important to discuss. So I nodded. “We can go for a drive in my car, if that’s what you’d prefer.”

She thought about it for a moment before nodding. “But I want the windows rolled down all the way.”

A strange condition, but not a deal breaker for me in this pre-smartphone era where everyone doesn’t have a camera in their hands. “Okay.”

So together we left the set under the curious gaze of the crew members. My friends looked a little surprised since we had driven to the set together, but when they saw me with a beautiful girl, they just exchanged grins and gave knowing nods.

I ignored them and drove Daryl away from the set in my Porsche 911. It didn’t take long for us to get away from the set and race down a road free of traffic. I knew a nearby spot where we could talk without anyone disturbing us. It wasn’t really a cliff, but it looked like one, and it was secluded, so I stopped the car there.

We both got out, admiring the greenery around us along with the beautiful sky above.

Daryl had been oddly quiet the entire time.

“The weather’s good today, isn’t it?” I asked conversationally.

“Of course, it’s lovely,” she said with a huge smile before looking at me. “I have autism.”

It took me a few seconds to process what she had said.

When I did, I was surprised , not because of the information, but the way she delivered it. Who says something important like that? One moment we were talking about the weather, and the next she’s talking about autism… oh.

Now it all made sense. Her audition with me, her behavior on set, even her conflicting behavior now. But still, something didn’t sit quite right with me.

“Are you sure about that?” I asked. “Because you seem pretty normal to me.”

“Of course I’m sure,” she said blandly. “I was diagnosed when I was really young, and the doctors even recommended that I go to a school for special-needs children.”

“I hope you didn’t,” I said. “Those schools will make you a child with special needs, even if you weren’t one before.”

She smiled at that. “That’s what my mom said. She made it crystal clear that I wasn’t going to any such school. Initially, she homeschooled me and made me focus on other aspects, like art, music, drama.”

I thought about it for a moment before nodding. “Art makes sense, but why drama? You do know that drama means getting in contact with multiple people on a regular basis, right?”

She was quiet for a while before speaking softly. “My life is the biggest acting performance I could ever give. Every day, every waking second, I act to make sure the people around me aren’t uncomfortable if I don’t laugh at a joke, or make a particular expression in a particular situation, or just don’t make eye contact. I’ve gotten so good at it that I thought, why not try to make this my career?”

That made a lot of sense now that I thought about it.

“I’m honored that you chose to confide your secret in me,” I said slowly. “But why tell me at all?”

“That’s why I told you,” she said, as if it were obvious. “Jerry, the first AD, told me that Paul didn’t want me in the role, and I got it only because you insisted that I should. If I’d told anyone about my condition before, they would’ve rejected me without even auditioning me.” She paused for a bit before adding, “It helps that you’ve been extremely helpful ever since the audition. Even today you made me feel comfortable, and I didn’t want you to think I hate you. This is how I am with everybody.”

I nodded slowly. “I promise I won’t tell a soul about your secret.”

She shrugged. “Thank you. But the studio already thinks I’m stupid, so it doesn’t matter much.”

I frowned slightly. “What happened?”

“I asked my agent to insist on a condition in my contract that I won’t be forced to do any promotions for the movie. I can participate in some events of my free will, but absolutely no situation where I have to face any sort of crowd. They agreed to it, but in return they paid me much less than I would’ve gotten otherwise for my first film.”

I snorted. “Of course they did. They’re leeches, all of them. Unfortunately for us, we’re stuck with these leeches for the foreseeable future if we want to continue in this line of business.”

She didn’t say anything, but I could sense that she agreed with me.

“So,” I said, deciding to change the topic, “since we’re already here, why don’t you and I go for coffee?”

She gave me a strange look. “Have you seen the time of day? You want to drink coffee now?”

I wanted to laugh at her innocence, but I didn’t because I didn’t want her to think I was making fun of her.

“If not coffee, then maybe a snack?” I changed tactics. “I know this great Japanese place that serves mean sushi.”

“I’m vegetarian,” she deadpanned. “I hate even the thought of eating another creature.”

“Alright.” I raised my hands in surrender. “I also know a great falafel place. It’s made out of chickpeas. No animals in it.”

She considered the idea for a bit before nodding slowly. “Alright. Falafel it is. Don’t tell anyone I ate those. I’m supposed to be on a diet for this role.”

I laughed at that. “Finally. And here I was thinking you’d never agree to go on a date with me.”

She blinked in confusion, completely caught off guard. “You’re asking me out on a date? Why?”

“Why not?” I shot back. “You’re young, hot, beautiful, and a great actress.”

“But I’m also autistic,” she argued. “Or a nutcase, in simple language.”

I slowly reached forward, making sure she could see what I was about to do, and took her hand in mine.

“Daryl,” I began softly, “you’re not less than anyone else just because you think and behave differently. People won’t see you for who you truly are until you start believing that yourself. So please, stop putting yourself down.”

She was silent for a few moments, still looking away from me, before finally nodding. “Okay.”

I smiled. “Good. Come on now. I’m hungry for some falafel and maybe some hummus to go along with it.”

(Break)

“You’re not doing it right, Noah,” Daryl said softly. “Place your hands on my hips and slowly pull the dress off as your hands go up. It’s simple, really. If we switch places, I can show you.”

Daryl was an enigma, to say the least. When she was shy, she was fully shy, and now that we were friends, it was like no one else existed on the set besides us. Slowly but surely, she had even started making eye contact with me when we weren’t shooting, though she mostly ignored everyone else. Crew members felt she was a stuck-up, spoiled girl who thought she was too far above everyone else to talk to them, but only I knew the truth.

I so badly wanted to tell everyone the reason for Daryl’s behavior, but I didn’t because I had promised her I wouldn’t. And if I think about it, it’s probably better that people think she’s rude rather than autistic.

“You want to switch places with me?” I asked dubiously.

“Yeah,” she nodded plainly. “So you’ll know how to pull this off.”

The scene we were shooting today was on a closed set because it was the first sex scene of the movie, where my character, Josh, hires her character, Mia, for a night of passion.

She was wearing a beautiful purple dress that went down to her knees. I was supposed to bend down to the hem of her dress and slowly lift it up with my hands while touching her body. But for some reason, Paul didn’t like what he was getting and wanted the two of us to practice it by ourselves. Something I preferred much more than him barking instructions at us.

After all my time shooting sex scenes, I had learned one important thing: they’re never easy. Mostly because the requirements aren’t that simple. They want the scene to look good, but after ten retakes, you just want to go home. Even if I was fully clothed in this one, knowing that Daryl might be more uncomfortable than she let on made me hesitate.

“Alright then,” I agreed, motioning for her to stand behind me. “You show me how it’s done.”

She didn’t hesitate for a second. She stood behind me, bending slightly as her hands grabbed my hips possessively.

“And then you move up like this.”

She stood slowly, her hands moving all over my body, even resting briefly on my crotch before coming up to my pecs.

“You grab me by the breasts like this and then pull me toward you, like this.”

Then her boobs pressed against my clothed back. I was suddenly regretting the decision to have myself wearing a shirt in this scene. She let of me soon enough.

As much as I wanted to do that same thing to her, I had to be certain of one thing. “Are you sure you’re comfortable with that? Given everything.”

“I am,” she insisted. “I don’t mind touching, kissing, or other sorts of intimacy, as long as I know what’s going to happen. It’s the suddenness of a moment that I don’t like.” Then she lowered her voice and added, “Also, I don’t mind you touching me at all.”

That was something I knew by now. With Daryl, I improvised my lines, but never my actions. It would just make her uncomfortable, so it was better to avoid it.

“Okay,” I conceded before switching our places again.

Paul called out for the scene to begin, and it did. I put my hands under the hem of her dress, slowly lifting it as Daryl undid the buttons at the front. Her bare breast peeked out from the dress as a strong gust of wind blew the doors open, courtesy of the huge industrial fans used in film productions. I kissed the base of her neck as she ground her shapely behind against my crotch.

I lifted her dress completely, throwing it to the side as my right hand grabbed her right breast while my left crept closer to her bush. But I knew that was a line I wouldn’t cross on a film set, so instead of letting the hand rest there awkwardly, I brought it up slowly, caressing her torso until I cupped her other breast as well.

She moaned out loud, which was my cue to turn her around. I did, and within moments our lips were locked in a heated kiss. The moment wasn’t meant to be tender, but hungry. It was meant to be about passion, lust, and need, not romance, love, or softness.

Daryl and I delivered on that.

We had gone on that one falafel date two weeks ago, but that was it. We hadn’t moved things beyond that, other than our friendship when we weren’t shooting. This was the first time I was kissing her, and I loved every moment of it.

Our lips moved in sync as my hands lowered to her butt and pulled her closer to me. For a few moments, I even forgot we were on a set.

But that illusion was broken a few moments later when I heard that blasted sound.

“Cut! Print! Check the gate. That’s what I wanted all along. Thank you for that scene, Noah, Daryl.”

The girl in my arms jumped away from me in embarrassment, clearly spooked by the suddenness of the director’s shout. I quickly bent down and retrieved her dress, draping it over her shoulders, and she was quick to cover herself.

“You’re a pervert,” she said matter-of-factly.

“I’m not!” I said indignantly. “I did what the scene required. What you wanted me to do!”

She nodded. “I think I misspoke. I didn’t say you acted like a pervert just now. I meant that you are a pervert for coming up with this scene. You knew you were casting yourself in the lead role, so you kept yourself covered while I’m like this.”

She motioned toward her rumpled dress, and I couldn’t deny that she had made a very good point. So I defended my decision.

“I didn’t have a choice. I had to sell the script. The sad thing is that if our roles were reversed, and you wrote something where you were fully covered and I wasn’t, the studio execs wouldn’t approve it,” I added. “It’s less about my perversion and more about knowing what would be approved and what wouldn’t.”

“But you could have made an effort to keep things balanced between us. You didn’t.”

Having said her last word, she turned around and started walking toward her trailer.

Autism or not, one thing couldn’t be denied: Daryl was a very intelligent girl who had just shown me that the last year and a half in Hollywood had turned me into just another money-minded filmmaker.