Chapter One

Kelly watched them doing it on the bed. There were brief flashes of nakedness from beneath the cover, and panting, moaning sounds from the girl's parted lips. Occasionally they rolled over, spilling the sheet and revealing a full view of bare buttock. Then he was on top, more active. The girl's breath now heightened into accelerated gasps, crescendoed into a wild little cry of ecstasy. There was a pause followed by diminishing convulsions, a relaxed creeping smile and stillness.

"Cut and print."

Two "all clear" rings from sound.

The director, pudgy, bald pated, stubble bearded, wiped his fogged glasses as he and his camera operator straightened up from their kneeling position, bedside. Their proximity to the subject had compressed the focus range of the hand-held camera to its close-up limits.

"That's lunch! One hour for the cast, half hour for the crew!"

The A.D.'s announcement galvanized the set. Work lights popped on. Scene lights popped off as sound level on stage jumped with the general resumption of conversation and happy migration toward the door.

Kelly stood for a moment. She had watched the scene with the rest of the crew -- he new ones, glassy eyed, drooling, the old hands yawning.

Copulation, she noted, even simulated, still packs substantial viewer appeal.

Kelly posed herself a question. Would she ever take her clothes off in public like that, and simulate this ultimately personal and properly private act of physical intimacy -- for money?

Not on your cotton-picking life she told herself as the subliminal flash from her catechism hit her subconscious readout screen.

"As a jewel of gold in a swine's snout, so is a fair woman which is without discretion."

"Where the **** is my bathrobe?" Superstar hunk, Brooks Rutherford's voice challenged the set.

Three assistants jumped. "Wardrobe! Where the hell is wardrobe?"

"Mister Rutherford's bathrobe! On the double!"

"Your car is waiting, Mister Rutherford."

"Your lunch is ready in your motor home, Mister Rutherford."

By the time Mister Rutherford's bathrobe arrived, his simulated sex partner had already slipped into hers and quietly departed.

While Rutherford donned his robe, Kelly noticed him consciously favoring the new script girl with a flash of his considerable physical endowments, enjoying her blush. There was no doubt that he "owned" the set, was aware of it, and let you know he was aware of it.

They were almost to the door when it happened.

Had Kelly followed the crowd, gone directly to lunch without volunteering to help her brother move some lamps, it would never have happened.

Bending over to unplug a cable just as this top-level trio sauntered by, Kelly's well-formed jeans-filling derriere became their focal point.

As they passed, the super star, with a smirk and a wink to his companions, dragged his hand lightly, caressingly, across Kelly's tempting bottom. They snickered.

Having played touch football with her brothers and their friends as far back as she could remember, when tackled by some fresh new kid and touch went to feel, it triggered instant response from Kelly, long remembered by previous recipients. Automatic, swinging from the floor, Kelly Ryan's leather gloved fist caught Rutherford full on the mouth, knocking him off balance and backward into the arms of his producer.