Passing Through the Flame Read Free

Larry. We’re all getting a little antsy.”
    Farber smiled. “Okay, so let’s wrap it up and go home and get laid.” Kalif, the setup man, Farber’s chick, and even Paul managed pale laughs. Only Velva didn’t think it was funny.
    Kalif stretched out on his back with his head on the pillow, and Velva mounted him easily, facing the camera so that his head and upper torso were completely blocked by her body, so that all she saw of him were his hairy legs projecting straight out between hers as she straddled him. Out of sight, out of mind, as they said. “Fine. Good position. Action. Let ‘er roll.”
    Velva began a deliberate rocking motion, lifting her body with her thighs and knee joints, bringing it down with a rolling twist of her hips. She arched her back as far as it would go, bringing her breasts up and out with each upstroke, wetting her lips occasionally with a languid sweep of her tongue.
    Up, around, down, up, around, down.... It was like riding a wooden horse on the merry-go-round at the State Fair or the calisthenics she did each morning and night to keep her body in professional shape. She felt the mechanical friction of Kalif within her, but sex with the man who happened to be inside her was about the farthest thing from her mind.
    “More feeling!” Farber shouted. “Let’s see some passion!” She increased the tempo of her rhythm.
    “I said feeling, passion , not another thousand rpm.”
    How am I supposed to feel passion riding this greasy merry-go-round horse? Velva thought. She could feel Kalif slowly losing it. She wanted nothing more than to get this damn take over with, get out of this crummy place, and....
    Her eyes fixed on Paul Conrad, watching her through the viewfinder of the camera.
    Yes, she thought, that’s who I want inside me right now. Somebody young and strong who’s going up from the bottom of Hollywood, not sinking back further into the muck. Somebody a star could feel good balling, who could feel good balling a star.
    Up, around, and down.... Velva kept her eyes fixed on the camera lens, filled her mind’s eye with the image of the man watching her through it. Standing there in tight blue Levis, legs slightly spread, doing competent things with his camera, his attention on her body as it went up, around, and down.
    As she rode the merry-go-round, she turned her performance into a kind of dance for Paul Conrad. Arching her breasts toward him, she ran her tongue around her lips in a rhythm far more sensual than what was dimly taking place below and stared into the camera lens, trying to make her eyes say, “For you! For you!”
    “Good, good, much better!” Farber said. “Now you’re getting into it!”
    Up, around, and down.... She moved her hips mechanically, while the rest of her body danced for Paul, for the camera’s eye, for the thousands, the millions, who would see this performance, see Velva Leecock up there on a huge white screen in the darkness, like Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor, Raquel Welch, a star ten times larger than life. She felt that power fill her body, inflating it like a balloon. She felt herself glowing, radiating. So what if this was a cheap fuck film? She was a star because she felt like a star and because Paul Conrad was capturing all this on film. When the film was shown, what she felt would come across because she was a star inside. A real star was a star before she happened to be discovered. That’s why she inevitably would be discovered.
    “That’s it!” Farber shouted. “Now let’s have a come. If you can’t make it, fake it.”
    I’ll do a come for you , Paul, Velva thought. I’ll show you what it’s going to be like. She knew that she could ride the merry-go-round like this for a thousand years and never have an orgasm. So this was an opportunity to really act.
    She held her head stiffly in position while moving her body and arms more wildly, so that she looked straight into the lens of the camera even as she appeared to