0 comments/ 49864 views/ 1 favorites Leading Lady By: Cal Y. Pygia Howard Clifton ignored his leading lady's plaintive look, regarding it, quite rightly, as being a final, last-minute, silent appeal. Several times, she'd asked not to have to film the film's love scenes in the nude--to no avail. Her repeated requests that Howard use a body double had also been turned down. "There's nothing wrong with your body," he'd assured her, and, of course, there wasn't. Like most Hollywood actresses, her body was as flawless as her beautiful face. "Lights!" Upon Howard's command, the lights dimmed, except for one that, in a subtle fashion, spotlighted Stella as she stood on her mark at the foot of the bed, awaiting her cue to act. Howard hoped that she could act. It would be just his luck if she couldn't. He scowled. Time and again, he'd asked Brett Bowers, the film's producer, to let him cast the movie's leading lady, but the bastard had steadfastly refused--probably because he was boning the bitch. As a result, Stella was an unknown quantity. Maybe she could act, and maybe she couldn't. It would serve Brett right if she couldn't, the director thought. "Camera!" The cameraman turned the camera slightly. "Action!" Stella let the robe slide from her body, and it fell in a heap around her ankles, displaying as perfect an ass as Howard or the rest of the crew had ever seen. Smooth, firm, round, and full, her buttocks were as beautiful and photogenic as the rest of her. She stepped around the foot of the bed, striding up to the man who slept therein. Without waking him, she eased back the blankets and the top sheet and crept into bed with him. According to the script, she'd been out with her friends and had returned late. She didn't want to awaken him, lest he learn the hour of her return. "Beth?" he called sleepily. "Yes, honey." "What time is it?" The camera showed the luminous alarm clock on his bedside table. 3:00 a. m. "Hold me," she replied, ignoring his question. "I'm cold." They snuggled together. "It seems awfully late," he observed. "What time is it?" "Did you turn off the heat?" "I turned it down." She shivered in his arms. "It's cold." She paused. Her tone was suggestive when she spoke again: "Warm me up." His mouth found hers, and they kissed. The camera showed a close up shot of their tongues twirling inside one another's mouths. His hand squeezed one of her buttocks beneath the blankets. Then, he rolled on top of her, and the cameraman focused on her breasts as they were revealed by the lifted blankets. "Cut!" Howard cried, pleased. He still had no idea whether Stella Starr could act, but, one thing was sure, she was good in bed. Good? Hell, she was fantastic! If she was balling Brett, the producer was certainly getting his money's worth. The actor, Robert Randolph, rolled off Stella, a sheepish grin on his face, and she sat up, exposing both her splendid breasts and her firm, concave tummy as she gathered the top blanket to herself, making a robe out of it, and climbed out of bed. "Now, that wasn't so bad, was it?" Howard asked as she strode past his chair. "Couldn't we use a body double, please?" she begged again. "For the thousandth time, no, we can't." He looked pointedly at her. "If you don't want to do nude work, you shouldn't have signed the contract." And, he added to himself, you should stay the hell out of Brett Bowers' bed! Stella scowled at the director. Tightening the blanket around her ample charms, she strode angrily away from him. Howard watched her buttocks swivel left and right as she crossed the set. Yes, he told himself, Brett knew how to pick his ingénues; Stella was one fine piece of ass! In her dressing room, as she repaired her makeup and donned an actual robe, Stella bit her lower lip. She'd gotten off lightly in this scene, with just a brief disclosure of her buttocks and a short revelation of her breasts. But, she knew, one scene called for full-frontal nudity on her part. Her brow furrowed at the thought of her sex exposed to the cast and crew--and, if the scene didn't end up on the cutting-room floor, to millions of moviegoers as well. Her career could be over before it began. Howard would be delighted, she thought. He seemed to hate her for some reason. He probably assumed she was sleeping with the producer. She snorted. If only she had been! At least, then, Brett would have known her secret. He'd either have been all right with it or he wouldn't have been all right with it, and, if he hadn't been all right with it, he wouldn't have offered her the part. She thought of the contract that she'd signed. Had she done something illegal? Had she committed fraud? Could she be fined or, even worse, jailed for having misrepresented herself? All her life, she'd wanted to be an actress. Now that she'd gotten her big break, she wasn't as sure of her choice of occupations. Maybe she should have been a waitress, a secretary, or a maid. Well, it was too late now. Not only had she signed a contract, but the movie had begun to be filmed as well. Maybe all was not lost, after all, she thought. Maybe there was some way that she could-- No, there was no way. She was fucked. The next day, they filmed the scene in which her character, Melanie, and Robert's character, James, met. Fortunately, Melanie didn't believe in having sex on the first date, and she was able to keep her clothes on throughout the filming sequence. She and Robert (or Melanie and James) wandered a craggy bluff set against a frothy emerald sea while gulls careened in the cloudless azure sky behind them. They walked hand in hand along the golden sands of the private beach, he looking fit and tan in dark burgundy trunks and she looking gorgeous in her floral thong bikini. They sipped margaritas under a large umbrella on a nightclub balcony as the stars glittered in the heavens. It was a splendid day, devoid of nudity. Stella Starr had been born Dan Stanley. At age eighteen, she went from her high school graduation ceremony to Los Angeles, where she worked at whatever job she could find. Within the three years it had taken for her to be "discovered," she'd worked as a receptionist, a waitress, a secretary, a maid, a delivery person, and a telemarketer. She'd fended off about a hundred sexual advances, from women and men alike, and, finally, when she'd been about to give up, pack her bags, and head back home to Des Moines, Iowa, Brett Bowers' secretary had called her and invited her to audition for the part of Melanie Charles. She hadn't slept with Brett, of course. Not once. She wasn't that kind of girl. He'd asked her to audition for the part because his daughter, Sandra, had been served by her in one of the restaurants in which Stella had waited tables, and Sandra had been impressed with Stella's poise, charm, and beauty. Long one to trust his daughter's instincts, Brett had had his secretary invite Stella to try out for the part. The audition hadn't called for nudity, and no one had mentioned the requirement that she strip naked to perform her love scenes with Robert. The contract had mentioned the requirement, of course; however, as Howard pointed out every time she asked to be allowed to wear at least a pair of panties or to use a body double instead of exposing herself. She should have read the damned document before she'd signed it, but she'd been so excited to get the part that she'd signed immediately. Now, it was too late. She had no alternative but to follow through. Stella stood beside the bed. She wore a thin silk robe. Robert sat on the bed, naked. She shivered, not because she was cold but because she was dreadfully nervous. In a moment, she would also be naked. She gulped. Her secret would be out, for all to see. "Lights!" Howard cried. Robert sat up straight on the bed. Stella's heart fluttered in her breast. The moment had come at last. "Camera!" the director ordered. Robert squared his shoulders. His deep, chiseled chest stood out, tan and muscular. Stella felt gooseflesh rise along her arms and on the nape of her neck, and her nipples poked against the thin silk of the robe that, in less than a second, she would doff. "Action!" Howard commanded. Robert's head turned toward his leading lady. Stella let the robe fall to the carpeted floor. My future's over, she thought miserably, even before it starts! The scene went as horribly as Stella had anticipated it would go. Robert stared at her crotch as his mouth gaped. The rest of the crew wore the same shocked, horrified expressions on their faces--all of them, that is, except Howard. The director grinned. To look upon her moment of ruin with such obvious delight confirmed her suspicion that Howard, for some reason, detested her. Why else would he have taken such pleasure in the ruin of her career? "My God!" the cameraman cried. Then, calling to Howard, he asked, "Should I cut?" "No!" the director ordered. "Keep filming!" "But, Howard," the cameraman argued, "she's not a she! Stella, your star, the leading lady is a man!" "Don't you think I can see that?" Howard demanded. "She has a bigger prick than mine." "You want to keep filming?" "Yes, damn it!" "Hey, I'm not kissing some chick with a dick," Robert protested. With a glance at his leading lady, he'd added, "Nothing personal." "You will damned well follow the script," Howard told him. "The script says you kiss her, you kiss her; the script says you fondle her, you fondle her; the script says you simulate sex with her, you simulate sex with her." "She's not a 'her,' damn it, Howard!" Robert protested. They argued back and forth until Robert stormed off the set and out of the studio. There was no way, he declared, that he was going to perform any more love scenes with a transsexual than the one he'd already shot. That's how it had ended. Remembering the ordeal as she sobbed at the table in her dressing room, Stella wished, for the hundred-thousandth time, that she'd been born a woman. If only she'd been born with a cunt instead of a cock and a pair of balls-- Her introspection was interrupted by the sharp rap at her door. "Who is it?" she demanded, not wanting to see or speak to anyone, ever again. "Howard." "What do you want?" she cried. "May I come in?" "You can go to hell!" "Please, Stella. Just for a moment." The wannabe-used-to-be star shrugged, sneering at the reflection of the beautiful face in the huge mirror behind her dressing table. She may as well hear whatever the bastard had to say. She rose, trudged to the door, and admitted the director. "You've been crying," he noted. "Wouldn't you?" "I'd be laughing," Howard said. "Why do you hate me?" "Hate you?" The director seemed genuinely surprised, even astonished, by her question. "I don't hate you." Stella didn't look convinced. "On the contrary, I love you." "Okay, what's the joke?" "Brett Bowers is the joke," Howard said. "He insists on casting his own movies, based on what his daughter says or his wife or the plumber or a woman in the produce section at the local supermarket or a dream he has after too many martinis. Then, I--or some other director--has to live with his choice. Our reputation is on the line, but he won't let us cast the leads in his movies. Fortunately, in your case, you can act, at least." "Why do you agree to direct his movies if you resent his casting the leads?" "Why? I'm desperate." "You?" Stella's tone clearly suggested that she found his statement difficult to believe. "Among directors, you're one of Hollywood's living legends, right up there with Hitchcock and--" "Even Hitchcock would have had to start making schlock and trash if he'd lived past his prime." He smiled at Stella. "But, at least, this time, the bastard has gotten his comeuppance! Imagine, making a romantic comedy in which the leading lady is a man!" "I'm not a man," Stella protested. "A transsexual, then." Howard rubbed his hands together, as if washing them. "It serves him right!" There was another knock at the door. "Come in," Stella called, resigned to surrendering her privacy just as she'd surrendered her dignity. Pete Horn, the assistant director, stepped into the room. "Sorry to interrupt," he said, looking at Howard and avoiding eye contact with the transsexual. "What is it?" "Mr. Bowers called. He's heard the news." Howard grinned. "What did the son of a bitch say?" Pete gulped. "He likes it." "Likes what?" "The fact that--" Pete cast a nervous glance in Stella's direction--"she's a he." Howard's face fell. "What? How could he like something like that?" "He says the transsexual twist is perfect for a romantic comedy. It gives the genre a new spin, maybe even a whole new direction, he says." Howard looked faint. "He wants us to continue, right away. He wants the movie released in time for Valentine's Day." "He wants to release it?" Howard repeated, trying to understand. "With her as the leading lady?" "Exactly." Pete darted a glance at Stella. "Congratulations. You're going to be a star!"