“I’m aware.”
“This movie, it is almost done.”
“Yes.”
“And I think it is missing something.”
“Like what?”
“I think that the viewer needs to understand the raw magnetism of Patricia and Mark’s attraction.”
“I agree. That’s why I agreed to really show my breasts. You’re getting what no other filmmaker, including yourself, has ever gotten from me before. I’d think you’d be thrilled.”
“Yes, of course, I am, but I think we need to show that Patricia is a woman who takes what she wants, who delights in the sins of the flesh. She is, right now, such a martyr. She is a saint, helping Mark all through the film, standing by him.”
“Right, because of how much she loves him.”
“Yes, but we also need to see why she loves him. What does he give to her, what does she get from him?”
“What are you getting at?”
“I want us to shoot something almost no one does.”
“Which is?”
“I want to show you screwing because you love it.” His eyes were wide and excited. He was creatively enthralled. I always knew Max was a little lascivious, but this was different. This was a rebellious act. “Think about it. Sex scenes are about love. Or power.”
“Sure. And the purpose of the love scene next week is to show how much Patricia loves Mark. How much she believes in him. How strong their connection is.”
Max shakes his head. “I want it to show the audience that part of the reason Patricia loves Mark is because he makes her orgasm.”
I felt myself pulling back, trying to take it all in. It shouldn’t have felt so scandalous, and yet it absolutely was. Women have sex for intimacy. Men have sex for pleasure. That’s what culture tells us.
The idea that I’d be shown to enjoy my body, to desire the male form just as strongly as I was desired, to show a woman putting her own physical pleasure at the forefront . . . it felt daring.
What Max was talking about was a graphic portrayal of female desire. And my gut instinct was that I loved the idea. I mean, the thought of filming a graphic sex scene with Don was about as arousing to me as a bowl of bran flakes. But I wanted to push the envelope. I wanted to show a woman getting off. I liked the idea of showing a woman having sex because she wanted to be pleased instead of being desperate to please. So in a moment of excitement, I grabbed my coat, put out my hand, and said, “I’m in.”
Max laughed and hopped out of his chair, taking my hand and shaking it. “Fantastique, ma belle!”
What I should have done was tell him I had to think about it. What I should have done was tell Celia about it the moment I got home. What I should have done was give her a say.
I should have given her the opportunity to express any misgivings. I should have respected that while she had no place to tell me what I could and could not do with my body, I did have a responsibility to inquire about how my actions might affect her. I should have taken her out to dinner and told her what I wanted to do and explained why I wanted to do it. I should have made love to her that night, to show her that the only body I was truly interested in deriving pleasure from was hers.
These are simply things you do. These are kindnesses you extend to the person you love when you know that your job will entail the world seeing images of you having sex with another person.
I did none of that for Celia.
Instead, I avoided her.
I went home and checked on Connor. I went into the kitchen and ate a chicken salad Luisa had left in the fridge.
Celia came in and hugged me. “How was shooting?”
“Good,” I said. “Completely fine.”
And because she didn’t say, How was your day? or Anything interesting happen with Max? or even How’s next week looking? I didn’t bring it up.
I HAD TWO shots of bourbon before Max yelled “Action!” The set was closed. Just me, Don, Max, the cinematographer, and a couple of guys working lighting and sound.
I closed my eyes and told myself to remember how good it felt to want Don all those years ago. I thought of how sublime it was to awaken my own desire, to realize I liked sex, that it wasn’t just about what men wanted, that it was about me, too. I thought of how I wanted to put that seed of a thought into other women’s brains. I thought of how there might be other women out there scared of their own pleasure, of their own power. I thought of what it would mean to have just one woman go home to her husband and say, “Give me what he gave her.”
I put myself in that place of desperate wanting, the ache of needing something only someone else can give you. I used to have that with Don. I had it then with Celia. So I closed my eyes, I focused in on myself, and I went there.
Later on, people would say that Don and I were really having sex in the movie. There were all sorts of rumors that the sex was unsimulated. But those rumors were complete and utter bullshit.
People just thought they saw real sex because the energy was searing, because I convinced myself in that moment that I was a woman in urgent need of him, because Don was able to remember how it felt to want me before he ever had me.
That day on set, I truly let go. I was present and wild and unrestrained. More than I ever had been on film before, more than I ever have been since. It was a moment of purely imagined reckless euphoria.
When Max yelled “Cut!” I snapped out of it. I stood up and rushed to my robe. I blushed. Me. Evelyn Hugo. Blushing.
Don asked if I was all right, and I turned away from him, not wanting him to touch me.
“I’m fine,” I said, and then I went to my dressing room, closed the door, and bawled my eyes out.
I wasn’t ashamed of what I’d done. I wasn’t nervous for audiences to see it. The tears that fell down my face were because I realized what I had done to Celia.
I had been a person who believed she stuck by a certain code. It may not have been a code that others subscribed to, but it was one that made sense to me. And part of that code was being honest with Celia, being good to her.
And this was not good to Celia.
Doing what I had just done, without her blessing, was not good for the woman I loved.
When we wrapped for the day, I walked the fifty blocks home instead of grabbing a car. I needed the time to myself.
I stopped on the way and bought flowers. I called Harry from a pay phone and asked him to take Connor for the night.
Celia was in the bedroom when I got home, drying her hair.
“I got you these,” I said, handing her the bouquet of white lilies. I did not mention that the florist had said that white lilies mean My love is pure.
“Oh, my God,” she said. “They are gorgeous. Thank you.”
She smelled them and then grabbed a water glass, filled it from the tap, and put the flowers in it. “Just for a moment,” she said. “Until I have a chance to choose a vase.”
“I wanted to ask you something,” I said.
“Oh, boy,” she said. “Are these flowers just to butter me up?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said. “The flowers are because I love you. Because I want you to know how often I think of you, how important you are to me. I don’t tell you that enough. I wanted to tell you this way. With those.”
Guilt is a feeling I’ve never made much peace with. I find that when it rears its head, it brings an army. When I feel guilty for one thing, I start to see all the other things I should feel guilty for.
I sat on the foot of our bed. “I just . . . I wanted to let you know that Max and I have discussed it, and I think the love scene in the movie will be more graphic than you and I were thinking.”
“How graphic?”
“Something a bit more intense. Something that conveys Patricia’s desperate need to be pleasured.”
I was lying outright to hide a lie of omission. I was crafting a new narrative, in which Celia would believe that I had asked for her blessing before doing what I had already done.
“Her need to be pleasured?”
“We need to see what Patricia gets out of her relationship with Mark. It’s not just love. It has to be more than that.”
“That makes sense,” Celia said. “You’re saying it answers the question Why does she stay with him?”
“Yeah,” I said, excited that maybe she would understand, maybe I could fix this retroactively. “Exactly. So we are going to shoot an explicit scene between Don and me. I’ll be mostly nude. For the heart of the movie to really sink in, we need to see the two main characters truly vulnerable together, connecting . . . sexually.”
Celia listened as I spoke, letting the words sink in. I could see her grappling with what I was saying, trying to make it fit for her. “I want you to do the movie as you want to do it,” she said.
“Thank you.”
“I just . . .” She looked down and started shaking her head. “I’m feeling very . . . I don’t know. I’m not sure I can do this. Knowing you’re with Don all day, with these long nights, and I never see you, and . . . sex. Sex is sacred between us. I’m not sure I can stand to watch that.”
“You won’t need to watch it.”
“But I’ll know it happened. I’ll know it’s out there. And everyone will see it. I want to be OK with this. I really do.”
“So be OK with it.”