Read Online Kamikaze Lust by Lauren Sanders - Free Book Online Page A

here for?”
    I couldn’t help smiling. So, Alexis Calyx was a little neurotic. This talking at warp speed, and like everyone in my family, she followed her words with emphatic hand movements and pushed the envelope on facial expressions. I felt immediately comfortable with her.
    “Right,” she pointed her index finger at me and looked down. I watched curiously as she moved her iridescent blue fingernails over the shiny white pages in front of her, which I assumed included the resume and clips I’d faxed her. Her lips cracked into a shrewd smile. “So, Brooklyn College?” she said.
    “Yeah, I almost went away, but things happened.”
    “Tell me about it.” She put down the resume and looked at me. “I did a semester at Queens, back when I was getting into the business, but, believe me, school was the last thing on my mind. Took me twenty years to get my degree. You grew up in Brooklyn then?”
    “I did.”
    “What part?”
    “Bay Ridge.”
    “Me, I’m just a little Italian girl from Bensonhurst myself, but nothing like Miss Norma Jean or the other one. Shit, who was the other one? Come on, help me out here, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes? ”
    “Jane Russell.”
    “The Cross Your Heart bra lady, I’m impressed. But I’m hardly from the wrong side of the tracks. So don’t you get any ideas.” She smiled, and I thought, that’s it—Alexis Calyx was the Jane Russell of Bensonhurst, a grown-up version of my youthful wanna-be fantasies. I couldn’t help wondering how this little girl from Bensonhurst made it to the front lines of the sex industry.
    “I didn’t know Brooklyn had any right sides,” I tested.
    “ Au contraire, my dear journalist. Sorry to say I had a happy childhood.”
    “Really? What was that like?”
    She laughed. “In due time, all in due time. Today, I get to ask the questions.”
    I leaned my right elbow back on the chair and said: “Fire away.”
    She took out a pen and yellow legal pad, then launched into a rapid succession of questions. Whenever I spoke she scribbled on the pad. She asked me who my favorite actor was. I couldn’t think of any. Actress? Too tempted to say Jane Russell, I begged off that one as well. Who would I be voting for in the Mayoral election? I never voted, in journalism school some professors said it wasn’t entirely ethical. Did I believe politicians had any business messing with people’s sex lives? Absolutely not. Interfering with the arts? No way. Regulating pornography? Well…um…maybe when it came to children. Did I have a favorite X-rated film? Aside from fragments on cable television and the original Last Tango in Paris, which I hated, I’d never actually seen an X-rated film.
    I enjoyed the question-and-answer game and the congenial badinage that stemmed from her queries. It was the easiest job interview ever, and I had to admit she was intriguing, this brick shithouse from Bensonhurst. A bit frazzled, yes, but she was smart in an actions-speak-louder-than-words way, frankly the kind of intelligence I always admired.
    “Okay, let’s cut to the chase.” She put down her pen, locked her fingers beneath her chin, and looked me straight in the eye. “You’d have to watch my erotica, some of the hard core, too. You’re okay with that?”
    “Sure.”
    “And come to the set, of course.”
    “No…I mean, it’s no problem.” Even if it were a problem, I wouldn’t have said anything. I don’t know what kind of brainwashing or subliminal seduction was going on in that office, but my do-the-right-thing claims to truth and public service were dwarfed in the presence of Alexis Calyx. I wanted the job with her.
    “Brilliant,” she beamed, and I wasn’t sure whether she meant me or my porno naïveté. Either way, it didn’t matter. Nor was I concerned that we spoke no specifics about the job itself. I figured I was in when she started picking through the shelves lined with videotapes, some still masked in plastic, others in generic, white boxes