"Dolores and Serena make a Femdom Movie!...
Or, at least they stress out about it!"
NOVEL EXCERPT: Pages 210 - 213
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To begin with, I had to get my ass back to Brooklyn.
I couldn’t ask Serena to come back to the East Village. Not now, maybe not ever.
We met up at Verb Café on Bedford, where I finally got my much needed, long-delayed breakfast and coffee and discussed damage control.
“Okay, now that we’re in this fuckin’ hole,” I said to her. “How do we dig our way out?”
“We need to get organized,” she insisted. “First, I’ll meet with the writer, get his help, arrange to pick up the van, get the lighting equipment.” On and on, she babbled, like she was possessed.
Nearly everything she mentioned had to do with the movie shoot.
“Serena,” I told her. “You can’t pin all your hopes on this thing flying.”
“I am pinning my hopes on it,” she replied. “Because I know the money’s there! Ready to drop straight into our hands!”
She went on to say how she emailed the scenario to the LA tool last night and how he’d already called her up this afternoon full of enthusiasm. “Dolores, he was impressed. Seriously. Said he could see ‘clear potential’ in it. Even went so far as to say that if we pulled it off, this could be a whole new beginning, that he could ‘envision a whole lineup of video products’ with me as the star and director-slash-writer.”
“Writer?” I said. “But you didn’t write it.”
“Well,” she chuckled, a little embarrassed. “I kinda had to fudge that. Tell him it was mine. Didn’t think the writer would mind.”
“You better hope the writer really is submissive,” I told her.
“I already talked to him on the phone,” she said. “I think he’ll be all right with it. I mean, I think he’ll be fine.”
“Who is he?”
“Who, the writer?” said Serena, with a shrug and a smirk. “Oh, ya know. Just another loser.”
And just how she said it stuck in my throat, right along with the dry carrot muffin and bitter overpriced coffee.
I got put out and she could see it.
“Kidding, I’m just kidding!” she said, changing her tact. “He’s just y’know, a writer with a shitload of unpublished work. I think he also wrote for The Voice. Or maybe The New York Times, I’m not sure.”
“He seemed okay, though? Cool?”
“Cool?” she frowned, giving me a look. “He’s a writer, okay?”
“But, I mean, laid-back?”
“Yeah, maybe.” She shrugged. “I dunno. I still gotta meet him.”
“And when are you planning on doing that?”
“Soon. Right here. In like an hour,” she said. “Wanna hang around?”
I still felt nauseated. “Not likely. You take care of it.”
“I will. I mean, I plan to take care of it,” she said. “In the meantime, I need to ask you a favor.”
“What’s that?”
“Camera equipment.”
“Yeah?”
“I need you to talk to Primus.”
“Primus?”
“The NYU student,” she said.
“I know who he fuckin’ is.”
“He’s worked on some porn films. Even made a short video of his own, he told me.”
“When did he tell you that?”
“At the bar. Otto’s, remember? You left?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Yeah. So he has access to equipment. From the shoots. Or from the school or whatever. Can’t remember which.”
“And what makes you think he’ll help out?”
“He won’t help out. He’ll just borrow us some equipment: a camera and a few more things.”
“Maybe he can help us shoot it? Since he’s done this before.”
Serena snapped, “No, Dolores! I don’t want that. Some dickhead, hanging around. Taking control. While we’re both vulnerable and exposed!”
“Oh, shit!” Of course I forgot about that.
“We can do this,” she said. “Just you and me. On the downlow.”
“And the sub.”
“And the sub. Whose name is Dick.”
“’Dick’?”
“That’s the writer. And our actor/performer.”
“You spoke to him about that?”
She nodded. “He agreed to be in it. Said he even may find it ‘therapeutic.’”
“Does he know he’s doing it for nothing?”
“I made that crystal clear. He seemed fine with it. Still wants to be a part. Even offered to help set up equipment.”
“Are you sure we can trust him?”
“Why not? He’s already invested time and effort on the project.”
I finished slurping down my coffee and offered Serena the rest of my muffin, since I couldn’t seem to keep it down.
“So what about Primus?” I asked.
“What about him?”
“Why do you need me to speak to him?”
“Because he’s already agreed to help us get the stuff. He said so, over the phone.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So, I said I’d pick it up from him, in person. Only, I can’t go back into the East Village. I mean, right now.”
“Serena, what else did you tell him?”
“Whaddaya mean?”
“You didn’t make any promises, did you?”
“What promises?”
“He’s expecting you to show up in person, right?”
“Yeah, so?”
“Was he expecting to see you? Get something from you? I can’t see why he’d go out of his way to help us out.”
“He likes me.”
“I know that.”
“He really likes me.”
“Okay,” I said.
“I also promised to give him a blow job.”
“You fuckin’ what!”
“Just a quick one, D.”
“Serena!”
“More like a hand job. With a little bit of lip action.”
“Oh right.”
“No big deal.”
“Damn right, no big deal,” I told her. “’Cause I ain’t helping you out there!”
“Hah?”
“You’re the director, you suck cock!”
“I wasn’t telling you to suck his cock. Just mention the fact that I can’t be in the East Village. At this very moment.”
“You’re fucking insane, you know that?” I shook my head, in disbelief. “Do I even know you?”
Serena took a moment. “Listen. I’m not saying you should give any blow jobs.”
“Oh really? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I was just kidding about that, anyway…. Talk. Just talk to the guy,” she said. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“Then what?”
“Then grab his equipment, hail a cab and beat it the hell out of there!”
I snorted. “Should I steal his wallet, too?”
Serena said, “Just make sure his daddy’s charge card is in it!”
“Bad. You’re bad, girl!”
“Fuck, Dolores. This is about getting the assholes off our backs! We only have one chance.”
“So I’m supposed to do your dirty work?”
“Listen, I’m doing all that I can,” she said. “I can’t meet with the writer, get the funding for the movie, work out all the kinks and deal with some horny-ass fratboy.”
“So that’s my job?”
“We’re partners, Dolores. We’ll be splitting the take 50/50. Just talk to him, that’s all I’m saying. Make him a bunch of empty promises. We’re filmmakers now. We need to talk like filmmakers. You know the drill. Offer him percentages.”
“What?”
“Offer him ‘points.’”
“I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“’The back end,’ I don’t know. Promise him something. Anything.”
“But no blowjobs.”
“Just tell him I owe him one. Owe him big time. Tell him I love him. Anything.”
“Whoa, you have gone Hollywood!”
“Let’s hope so, Dolores. Let’s hope we can parlay this little experiment into a string of projects. ’Cause once we got that, we got money. And once we got money, all our problems will be solved!”
True.
I suppose it came down to that.
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Girl had it all worked out.
Obviously.
She was the sun. And I was a revolving planet.
But there was no denying it: Serena had enthusiasm and a singularity of vision.
Or something.
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IS THIS EXPLOITATION NOVEL RIGHT FOR YOU?
I need to emphasize that PERMANENT OBSCURITY is not "erotica," although it has BDSM overtones (leaning toward so-called "femdom"). It's really a dark comedy about bohemia and the difficulty of relationships (female/male and female/female) and finally the big question for anyone in the arts (or in the tabloid media): sudden fame vs. permanent anonymity. The style of the novel is inspired by '60s over-the-top sexploition films like those of Russ Meyer (FASTER PUSSYCAT KILL KILL, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS) and those Something Weird Videos, like A SWEET SICKNESS and BAD GIRLS GO TO HELL [so-called “cautionary tales”]) -- updated to the Bush era (circa 2006).
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or a Cautionary Tale of Two Girls and Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography and Death by Dolores Santana (as told to Richard Perez)
Written in the 3 parts:
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: PART 1 - THE KINKY HOOK
Whereupon we are introduced to Dolores and Serena and their kinky shenanigans.
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: PART 2 - STRANGE HUNGERS
Whereupon Dolores and Serena grapple with relationship/sexuality issues, life-threatening drug dealers, irreversible money woes. Culminating in a desperate attempt at making a so-called "femdom" film.
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: PART 3 - NO MAN'S LAND
Whereupon Dolores and Serena find themselves in a place not expected. Namely, hell.
PERMANENT OBSCURITY: Or a Cautionary Tale of Two Girls and Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography and Death by Dolores Santana (as told to Richard Perez)
¤*.¸¸.·´¨`°*» PERMANENT OBSCURITY: the title and where it came from -->
http://permanentobscurity.com/perm-obsc-origins-title.htm
¤*.¸¸.·´¨`°*» The subversive power of sexploitation:
pre-porn era sexploitation and its influence --
http://permanentobscurity.com/perm-obsc-sexploitation-1.htm
¤*.¸¸.·´¨`°*» BAD GIRL CINEMA (and its influence on the novel):
http://permanentobscurity.com/perm-obsc-origins-badgirls.htm
Buy now from AMAZON (U.S.) >>
http://www.amazon.com/Permanent-Obscurity-Cautionary-Misadventures-Pornography/dp/0971341540
¤*.¸¸.·´¨`°*» To purchase (foreign countries):
http://permanentobscurity.com/perm-obsc-buy.htm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~: About the Author:
Initially published small literary magazines, Richard Perez has also written for The New York Times (a newspaper he doesn't read.) His first novel, The Losers' Club (aka: The Losers' Club: Complete Restored Edition) has three foreign translations to date: Korean, Turkish, Italian. PERMANENT OBSCURITY: or a Cautionary Tale of Two Girls and Their Misadventures with Drugs, Pornography, and Death — his second novel — also reflects his infatuation with bohemia and willful nonconformists.
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