The Fame Game (17 page)

Except for Shadrach, who was a darling beast, and Dick, who was sweet and romantic, Lizzie did not really bother to rate any one of her famous lovers as any better than the others in the kip, since the feeling that overwhelmed her when she saw each famous face above hers in the feathers was something akin to a heady drunkenness. She had even been happy with Peter Potter, even though he was a premature ejaculator, because after all, he
was
a B.P. and he
was
with her. If she had been asked to describe any of her sexual encounters—and Dr. Picker, her analyst, always wanted her to describe them—she would have been at a loss, almost an amnesiac. It was great. She had been happy, overjoyed, ecstatic.

“Did you come?” Dr. Picker would ask (oh, those old fossils, they really tried to talk so hip!), and she always said “Yes,” because it was none of his business. She was not in analysis to discuss her womanliness, although Dr. Picker seemed to consider that an issue.

Why was she in analysis? Well, because she cheated on her husband, she supposed, since that wasn’t a well-adjusted thing to do. And because she was bored to death, and talking to Dr. Picker gave her something to think about when she wasn’t with him, trying to think of new, lively stories to tell him. She was sure she was Dr. Picker’s most interesting client, although he insisted on telling her dull stories about other interesting patients, which Lizzie truly did not think was very ethical. Of course, he never mentioned names, but he gave out enough hints as to background and occupation and marital difficulties that if she had really tried she could have figured out who they were.

Dr. Picker was a shrunken little old man from Germany, fortunately not a Nazi, and besides being at least a hundred years old he sat in his dingy office, laden with Biedermeyer furniture, all day long, so she supposed the juicy stories the patients told him gave him his view of what life outside was really all about. It killed her the way he tried to alter his language to get on the patient’s wavelength, the poor old vicarious letch.

DR. PICKER:
“It iss not zat ve haf zis problem vit scwewing, as you put it, but zat ve scwew only stars.”

LIZZIE:
“Dr. Picker, I wish you would stop saying ‘we.’”

She supposed he really did think it was the two of them that were busy
scwewing
stars, but she had news for him: while she was doing it she never gave him a thought.

It had all started years ago in Hollywood. Not that she didn’t love Sam—she did, she adored him. He was the most brilliant man she had ever met. Why else would she have married him? But Sam had opened up a whole new world to her in Hollywood, and she was proud to think (if it was something to be proud of) that she had
never
, never even
kissed
a beachboy, gigolo, or unknown male starlet, nor any of her friends’ husbands, unless, of course, the friends’ husbands were famous.

She had never been predatory, and she had never even intended to start. But at one party (she even remembered what she had been wearing) there had been a great circle of people around Douglas Henry, who was young then and terribly attractive. Douglas Henry never cheated on his wife, and he was known to be kind but aloof. Knowing he was no danger whatsoever, Lizzie had been nice to him at the party (the first time she’d ever met him) and had proceeded to do his horoscope. He was a Virgo, and she had told him that Virgos were undersexed. He had raised an eyebrow at her.

“Oh?”

She had glanced at his attractive wife across the room. “Well, I mean that if they do love anybody, they love that person forever and are always faithful.”

“Thank you very much,” Douglas Henry had said, and the next day he had called her.

She told him Sam was already at the office, but Doug said he wanted to see her. So he had come over, and Lizzie, demurely dressed in a sundress, had tried to hand him a drink. There she was with the drink in her hand, and he had unzipped quick as a flash and laid his cock in her other hand. None of those young stars wore underwear. Well, what was she to do? She just held it, with the drink still in her other hand, and she thought it (his cock) was certainly very large. Then he had picked her up and tossed her on the couch, pulled her clothes off, and proceeded to show her that Virgos weren’t undersexed at all.

She wasn’t drunk, having had only one drink before he arrived, but sleeping with him absolutely intoxicated her. She felt the room reeling, and knew she was grinning and giggling like an idiot. He thought his masculinity had really flipped her out, and they had an affair for several weeks before he had to go away on location to do another picture. Lizzie did a lot of investigation among the industry gossips and discovered that if Douglas Henry ever had any affairs he had always been so discreet about it that no one knew for sure. Why, she had been the chosen one! She couldn’t figure out why. She certainly wasn’t sexy or beautiful. Hollywood was full of carefully manufactured sex machines. But he had chosen
her!

Her success with Doug gave her an aura, perhaps visible to others, of triumph, of knowing she could conquer the whole world. She, a little housewife, had been Douglas Henry’s mistress! So when the next star approached her, and the next, she was never really surprised, only more intoxicated, more gloriously happy.

She still slept with Sam once in a while, whenever he thought about it, but he loved his career first and put in a twenty-hour day. She was quiet and discreet about her love life, although she would have loved to have bragged, but she was clever enough to know that none of her friends would trust her any more if they knew she had slept with even one husband. She never felt guilty. With Elaine Fellin, for example, who was her best friend, she only felt pity. Elaine was soon to be dumped because Mad Daddy liked little girls. He had intimated that to her, Lizzie, that is. And he had chosen
her!
She was older than he was, and he had chosen
her!

Of course Sam didn’t know. He didn’t have a clue. He didn’t cheat on her, poor thing, although he certainly had the chance. But Sam was a nice, old-fashioned boy at heart, and he thought husbands were supposed to be faithful. She didn’t know what she would do if Sam cheated; probably laugh and forgive him. After all, he was entitled.

No, she loved Sam and he loved her. Their marriage was forever. It lacked a lot of things, and she felt she could have been of more use to him if he had let her, but it was a good marriage and it satisfied her. They had no children, for which Lizzie was just as glad. Somehow she thought it would have been immoral for a mother to carry on the way she did. They didn’t even have a dog.

She had started going to Dr. Picker on one of Sam’s and her trips to New York, and she enjoyed it at first. She thought analysis would give her a firmer grasp on what she was all about. And she had a secret dream: to write the greatest dirty book in the world, and she felt analysis would give her the discipline to do it.

Her book was to be called
An Elegant Book
, and it would concern the adventures of a beautiful, innocent young girl who always found herself in extraordinary sexual experiences. Then, right in the middle of the experience, just as things were really getting wild, the girl would cry: “Get out, get out! This is an elegant book!” and would extricate herself and go about her business. The possibilities were limitless, and so was the humor—the girl with a cock in her mouth trying to mumble “Get out!” for example. Pornography was in, and the book could make Lizzie famous in her own right, not just as the wife of Sam Leo Libra.

But except for dinners and cocktail parties, where she regaled all within earshot with the amusing possibilities of her book, and of course her sessions with Dr. Picker, who was an inexhaustible audience, Lizzie had not written a word of it. She just didn’t have the energy to start. She knew just what she wanted to say, but when faced with a blank piece of paper she couldn’t manage to make even the first sentence come out to her satisfaction. She fervently hoped that her analysis would give her the discipline to start in earnest; perhaps she could retreat to Palm Springs, where she and Sam had friends, and become a recluse. A recluse writer! Wouldn’t that be divine?

Meanwhile, of course, all her friends loved to hear about the book. Everybody said Lizzie Libra had a great sense of humor and was really fun to talk to. And her experiences with her famous lovers had given her further grist for her mill. If Sam ever asked her where she learned all those things she would tell him from reading dirty books, of course. Anything went nowadays in fiction. There was a mint in pornography, especially humorous pornography, although she had enough money now. It was fame she wanted. She had everything else. She had a darling, famous husband, she had a glorious past, a glorious future coming up with stars she hadn’t even met yet, and she had so many good friends she could hardly count them. She was a happy woman. If only Nelly Nelson wasn’t such a fruit. It would be heaven to be the only woman Nelson had ever slept with, but Lizzie was wise enough to know that even in the glitter world she lived in no one could have
everything
he wanted.

Sam Leo Libra, pacing the living room of his suite at the Plaza, could hardly contain his elation. Fred, that bitch, had finally called and said she wanted to see him. He had sent Gerry out on a wild-goose chase so he could be alone with Fred when she arrived. Not that he didn’t trust Gerry completely, but the business he had in mind with Fred would have to be done in private.

He had been yearning for Fred for two months now, ever since he had met her. She had that patrician kind of looks he found so sexy—he had always believed that girls who looked like icicles were the hottest when you finally thawed them out. Not that he would pass up someone inferior to Fred, and he certainly hadn’t in the past: a man had to get his heart started some way. In fact, some of the girls he had balled were pretty odd—Ingrid, for instance. He’d always secretly thought she was either a dike or one of those ladies who took a whip to men—he didn’t like the look in her eyes. But luckily, the affair with Ingrid had been brief and expedient, and now she was just his doctor, as if nothing had happened. He knew very little about Ingrid, and she seemed to prefer it that way, so he had never questioned her about her life, even during the cozy time in bed after the dirty deed was done, which he had found was just about the best time to pry secrets out of anybody. And don’t think he hadn’t used that time to best advantage. He remembered that lady agent…

He looked at his watch impatiently. Tardiness infuriated him. Fred had exactly four minutes to be on time, and then she would be late, putting him at a disadvantage and wasting his precious time. He had taken his second shower of the day at the gym and he was fresh and clean as a baby. Ah Fred … beautiful ice maiden! He wouldn’t even make her take a shower before he touched her; he trusted her. She was always so perfectly groomed. Fred … He hoped to God she had clean underwear. Oh, Fred would, he knew it, and Sam Leo Libra was a perfect judge of people.

The doorbell rang. He waited a beat, then walked slowly to the door, his heart pounding. She was exactly on time. Oh, she was going to get it, the royal screwing of her life! He opened the door, smiling welcome.

The bitch had brought someone with her! A girl. He tried to conceal his look of furious disappointment and ushered them both in. He would have to get rid of that other girl. What did Fred have in mind, anyway, a business meeting?

“Hello, Mr. Libra,” Fred said sweetly. “I’d like you to meet my friend, Bonnie Parker.”

Bonnie Parker! What was the fool, anyway, a stripper? She didn’t look like a stripper. She was as tall as Fred, and as thin, with pale blond hair cut like Twiggy’s, and enormous, innocent violet eyes. Her face was all soft curves, with a mouth that curved upward at the corners all the time, even when she was not smiling, and lips that looked very soft. She was probably a model.

“Hello,” Bonnie Parker said, in a voice that was so soft and husky that it was almost inaudible. She looked down shyly. She did not shake hands. She was like a terrified little fawn—if he hadn’t been crazy about Fred he would have been interested.

“Aren’t you going to ask us to sit down?” Fred asked.

“Sit down.”

The girls sat, legs crossed, side by side on the couch in their mini-skirts: two of the loveliest girls in New York, he decided.

“Bonnie’s new in New York,” Fred said. “She wants to be a model. I think she has a great future, more even than me. I’m not being modest … I know I haven’t got a chance with my voice to become anything more than a model, but I think Bonnie could make it in the movies. That’s why I brought her to you.”

“Who am I? Central Casting?” He glared at Bonnie. She looked down again. “What’s your real name?”

“Me?”

“Yes, you.”

“Bonnie Parker.”

“Now come on,” Libra said. “We all saw the movie. What was your name before?”

“Jewel,” the girl murmured.

“No wonder you changed it. Have you ever modeled before?”

“No, but she brought pictures,” Fred said, taking the model’s portfolio away from Bonnie and opening it. “Look at these, just look!”

Grudgingly, because Fred was standing so close to him that he could smell the scent of Ivory soap that drove him wild, he looked at the girl’s pictures. They were superb. Even he could tell that. The girl definitely had something—an air of … sexless sex. A look of innocent amoral giving. And the clothes hung on her perfectly because she was built like a slat. She was not so thin or small-boned as Twiggy, and her face, although young, was not so much the face of a child as that of a young girl.

“How old are you?” he asked.

“Eighteen.”

“Speak up. How do you expect to get in the movies if you mutter like that?”

“I thought they used microphones,” the girl said.

He laughed. It wasn’t so much that what she said was funny, although the kid seemed sharp, but that she had a sort of deadpan delivery that made the line seem hilarious. She’d be great on interviews …