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© 2009 by Chrissie Bentley
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PREFACE
It is more than Twenty years since Miranda Bradley first walked into our evening television viewing, the butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth girl-next-door who captured our hearts in her first ever role, and has retained her hold on them ever since.
Living a life without scandal or mishap, or any of the behind-the-scenes shockers that habitually shake the image of her small-screen contemporaries, Bradley was long ago dubbed the Virgin Queen by the tabloids.
But the time has come to puree that purity – and who better to flick the switch than Bradley herself?
Titled for her first television role, but a long way from the freckled minx who delighted the nation with her mischievous innocence, Naughty Miranda is Bradley’s own no-holds-barred sexual autobiography, a kaleidoscope of taste, touch and exquisitely vivid story telling.
But Naughty Miranda is not another ‘hot’ Hollywood memoir. Bradley might work in Tinseltown, but she lives in the real world. There are NO incredible casting couch seductions, NO torrid affairs with steamy leading men, and NO on set sex scenes that slipped a few inches too far.
Bradley’s loves take place away from the cameras, far from the hot lights and microphones, in a world of shopping malls, parked cars, camping trips and bus-stops, in a world where she is plain Miranda, and most people don’t even notice her…unless she decides she wants them to. In other words, butter still wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But her men always do.
BEGINNINGS - LOS ANGELES - 2007
If you have any memory of Naughty Miranda, your first question upon seeing an autobiography is probably “Why?”
It’s what my agent asked, when I first told her about this book. It’s what the publisher asked, when I first delivered an outline. And it’s what the studio said as they combed through my contract and discovered, to their horror, there wasn’t a single line in there to prevent me from writing whatever I wanted.
What I wanted to write was this book. And, as for why I wanted to write it, how’s this…
The Princess Hyacinth Books readers club never really caught on particularly strongly. Every month, the same dozen or so girls… women… whatever we call ourselves these days… would gather on the main floor of the store after closing. We would arrange ourselves in a vague circle of hard plastic chairs and try to find some interesting points to make about whichever tome we’d most recently been assigned.
Invariably half the group had not finished it, a few had not even started it, and the one who did get from cover to cover only did so because she was new to the group and thought that’s what she was meant to do.
Wrong. The book club wasn’t about books. It was about getting away from everything else for an hour or so to sit and talk. A group of ladies who were fast becoming very good friends – Janet, a 50 something housewife with weary eyes and flyaway hair, Lesley, a college graduate with a vicious sense of humor and a job in computers, Sandra, the no-nonsense grandmother who barely said a word at her first three visits but then opened up into one of the loveliest people I’d ever met, and the rest just as varied.
Every fourth Wednesday, we’d troop into the store at a little after six, take our seats and take out our books, and promptly start talking about something else.
This week was different, though. Patsy, the once gorgeous, now merely glamorous woman who’d owned the store for the past quarter-century, and who launched the book club in the first place, had decided to shake things up a little, and order up a book she said might give us something else to talk about other than our usual chorus of cackles and gossip. I can’t remember what it’s called, and I can’t be bothered to cross the room to the bookshelf on the off chance I kept my copy. But, basically, it was a long and somewhat rambling study of how society’s perceptions of young women have changed over the past hundred years.
I’m looking at the notes I made as I read it. I’ll confess I’m a compulsive note-taker. There are two sentences, leaping off the page, bold red ink, every letter two lines high.
FIRST BLOWJOB – COERCION, NOT CONSENT. WHAT CRAP THIS WOMAN WRITES.
What exactly did she write? I can’t remember. But it was very different from anything I experienced and from conversations I’d had with the rest of the group over the years, it was very different for them as well. Now I was wondering – well, we’d talked about almost everything else at the book club, why not oral sex?
The meeting was already underway when I arrived at the store and I was astonished to discover, for perhaps the first time in all the years I’d been attending the club, everybody had something to say about the book, opinions that ranged from outright admiration, to sheer hatred.
Sandra, especially, had an arsenal of opinions – she was old enough to have lived through the events covered in the early chapters of the book, could remember what it was like to be a gangly teenager in a Midwest steel town at the height of the depression, to be married at eighteen to a man twice her age. Tonight, her snorts of derision were probably audible all the way back there as well.
I sat quietly while the others finished up the line of thought they were already pursuing and then made my play.
“The book was too negative, too whiney, and far too generalized. But I think the line that got me was about halfway down page…”
There was a rustling as the others found the page, a silence as they read down, and then an arched eyebrow from Laura, a prim little thing who bred poodles for a living or a hobby, I never found out.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“I just thought, again, it was too negative, too generalized. One quote from one bad experience.”
“Probably because ten quotes from ten bad experiences would have been overstating the obvious.” She said.
Patsy stepped in. “Is that you speaking, or have you actually asked around?”
Laura’s voice took on a defensive edge. “Well, let’s ask around, then. Anybody want to start the ball rolling? Tell us all about the first time you sucked a guy’s cock?”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then another. For a moment, the room was silent. Then Sandra spoke up.
“Why not? But maybe we should move into one of the back rooms, call home say we’ll be late, and someone should run out to the liquor store and get in some wine?”
The others looked around, a silent nod of consent passed around the room. There was a cacophony of bleeps and clicks as a dozen cell phones hummed into action. I was astonished. Nobody backed out, nobody remembered an urgent appointment and, as they hung up from their calls, nobody had been apprised of an unforeseen family emergency, demanding they rush home immediately. Patsy was already moving the chairs into the backroom suite that was normally her office, I was collecting cash from the others to fund the liquor run and was handed enough for bottle each.
As I walked, I recalled my own first time. His name was Marty; we were at college, fooling around late one night. We’d been sleeping together for a while now, but though I’d often thought about it, I’d never actually… lying there now, my eyes were fixed on his cock, bigger now than I’d ever believed it could be, and alive with a danger I wasn’t sure I could face.
What if he came in my mouth? Would I be able to take it? Would I choke, would I bite him? Would I throw up? I wondered if I’d have any warning beforehand, if he’d say something, or maybe, I’d know from his movements. I eyed the liquid already oozing out of the slit in the tip of his helmet. Okay, just a little bit.
I leaned forward and let my tongue dart out to touch him, pulled it back, conscious of the long thin string of viscous liquid that now streaked from my mouth to his penis. But I couldn’t taste anything, so I leaned forward again and ran my tongue through the thickening pool, my mind so set on the quest-at-hand that, as Marty let out a moan of sheer pleasure, I scarcely even heard him, barely connected it with anything I’d done.
The liquid danced lightly on my tongue, a delicate tang that teased, rather than tasted, and I needed more. This time my tongue swirled across the end of his cock, across the crest and then down and around, to pick off any drops of dew that might be hiding beneath the thick ridge of the head.
My lips brushed his flesh. Stop writhing behind me, I’m busy. I closed them over the thick end and sucked slightly, drawing his mystery juice from the depths, then taking him a little bit deeper… just a little bit more… feeling cheated as the full taste of his juices continued to elude me.
My mouth widened, stretching to accommodate the full bulk of his cock head. I felt my teeth scrape against his flesh and hoped the gasp from behind me was not one of pain. Then, just as I was convinced I could not open my jaw any wider, there was a sudden, magical moment of release as the head of his penis slipped full into my mouth, and my lips closed over his steel-stiff shaft. “Gotcha,” I thought, and my sucking grew greedier, hungrier.
I felt his hips begin to move rhythmically below me. Two can play at that game. Deliberately timing my movements to oppose his, I started moving back, using my mouth as a warm, tight pussy – only it was a pussy whose every movement I could control. Tight, then loose, gentle, then hard. I let my teeth sink into his skin in a brief nip, then pushed my tongue to the same spot as a kind of cushion. Now I could taste him, hot, sweet and salty. But it was different to before, stronger and deeper. I wondered, how many other secret flavors was this man holding back from me?
I withdrew him from my mouth. There was a satisfying “plop” as my lips released him, and another deep groan, then I wrapped my lips again across the head, concentrating all my energies, all my taste buds, on that one sensitive area, sucking, swirling, swamping him in saliva. I breathed warm air on his skin and he twitched. I held him lightly between two fingers, and smeared the end of his cock across my face, enjoying the sensation of hot moistness as it traced livid, liquid lines across my lips, cheeks and chin.
His moans and gasps were almost non-stop now, an animal backdrop to my own adventuring. I was glad he seemed to be enjoying himself, and I was shocked to realize his fingers were inside me, punching deep inside my own soaked sex, the rhythmic squelching setting up a secondary symphony behind his gasps.
Pausing for a moment, I plunged him back into my mouth, timing my own movements to match his fingers, slowing when he slowed, faster as he quickened the pace. I could feel my cunt pulse around his driving digits, as his cock moved effortlessly in and out of my mouth. I lost myself to the exquisite motion, drinking in his hot, hard flesh and feeling for the first time the hairs on his balls brush the tip of my nose, a dainty tickle that fascinated me.
I pushed my chin forward, wondering if I could reach the other hairs above his cock, and a rough scratching sensation informed me I could. I paused, nestled my nose in the folds of his balls, resting the tip of my chin on his stomach, then I closed my teeth gently round the base of his cock, as though marking out my territory – this is mine!
Marty’s fingers were still slamming me. I wondered how many he had inside me. I felt like I was stretching further than I ever had before, but the slickness of my juices dulled any sensation beyond the most exquisite sense of pressure. I picked up my pace again, sliding up and down that long greasy pole, then, feeling my jaw tire, I slowed and concentrated back at the head, in – out, in – out, in… oh!
There was no warning, or if there was, I never heard it. No telltale pulsing, or perhaps I never felt it. But there was no mistaking the hot, hot jet that sprayed into my mouth, that shot across my face as I jerked, startled, away; that blasted from the cock I held just inches away from my face.
For a moment I almost let it go, for a second, I felt panic stir in my stomach. But then my mind took over again, calm and analytical, questioning and curious. Gulping down the cum already sliding towards the back of my throat, I closed my mouth firmly over his still dribbling cock, and guided more of his flavor onto my tongue, sucking until there was none left to savor, while his hardness slowly ebbed away on my lips.
That was my first time. I wondered what everyone else’s might have been like.
Sandra had already started her tale by the time I got back to the store, although Patsy whispered that I’d only missed some background; who her husband was, how she met him, that sort of thing. Now she was preparing for her wedding night, with her nose buried deep within a copy of Ideal Marriage, a scholarly how-to guide that was the bible of “how to do it” for most of the 20th century.
“It was going fine. And then I got to the section on genital kisses. I remember I had to read that paragraph three times before I was sure I’d not imagined it – that all the other things I’d read hadn’t twisted my mind so much that I was reading ‘genital’ everywhere. I don’t think I was horrified, though. My feelings about sex – you have to remember, I was only eighteen – were completely ambivalent. I thought of it like going to the dentist. I might not like it, I might not know what was going to happen, but it had to be done and that was all there was to it. So I might as well get on with it.
“The idea of kissing his genitals, though, wouldn’t leave my mind, even when I was reading about other things. So I made up my mind. I didn’t know how things were going to happen that night, or what he was expecting to happen. But I decided I’d just do it like it said in the book, whether he asked me to or not. Then, when it was over, we’d go onto the next thing.”
“You really didn’t have a clue, did you?” Patsy smiled, and Sandra shook her head. “Not a clue. The most we’d ever done before we married was kiss lips. He may have squeezed my breast once, but I think it was an accident. So no, as far as I was concerned, there was a routine you had to follow. That’s what Ideal Marriage seemed to be saying, and I was going to follow it.
“We went to bed and he was holding onto me immediately, pressing himself against me. I could feel his… I thought of it as his thing… pushing into my thigh, not as hot as I thought it would be, but very hard, and he was trying to direct my hand down towards it, casually, as though he thought I wouldn’t notice. So I touched it, and he groaned so loud I thought I’d hurt him. I let go and leaped back, and it took him a while to reassure me everything was okay. I put my hand back there, and he had his hand on me. Anyway, I don’t need to tell you all that stuff, but finally he was trying to roll on top of me and I was trying to remember what it said in the book, that this was the climax of our love-making, and that the genital kiss should come first, so I pushed him back, and then just dived down there, held his thing as straight as I could, and kissed it.
“He swore. I’d never heard him so much as cuss before, but he almost cried out a loud ‘goddammit’. I was sure the other people in the hotel must have heard him too, but then he said ‘do that again,’ so I did, and I kept on doing it, my lips pursed tightly together, hard pecks smack on the tip. A genital kiss. ‘Not so hard,’ he said, so I started doing it more lightly. ‘Not so fast.’ So I slowed down, and I was wondering whether I’d ever get it right, because now he wasn’t making a sound. Poor man, later I realized he was wondering how to say what he actually wanted me to be doing, but of course I didn’t know that, so I just kept on kissing him there, until finally he reached down and held my head still with one hand, and started pushing his thing against my mouth with the other.
“I didn’t know what he was doing! My lips were tight together, and I could feel him pushing them back against my teeth, but I was so worried I might bite him there, I didn’t dare open my mouth, until the pressure was so hard that finally I had to – and there he was, inside my mouth. Not far, probably not even half an inch, and my jaw was straining around him, but now I could feel him moving his hips, and trying to rock my head up and down, and … I don’t know, it was like a light suddenly went on in my head, because this wasn’t anything like I’d read in the book, but it seemed to be what he wanted, so I took a deep breath through my nose, and let him push himself in. And that was it, because suddenly he pulled out again, let out another cuss, and his stuff just came spurting out all over his hand.
“So it wasn’t pleasant, it wasn’t unpleasant. It was just something I did that he enjoyed. It was different later – you get to know someone, you get to know what they like, and soon I was doing it and knowing exactly what I was doing. But that was my first time – so who’s next?”
Laura. Somehow I knew it would be Laura. And I knew it would be unpleasant – the brutish boyfriend who couldn’t believe she wouldn’t put out, but he was willing to put up with it if she’d just do this one thing for him. So she did it, and she hated it, and just to make things worse, he didn’t pull out when he came, he simply shot his load in her mouth, and then held her head down so she didn’t have any choice but to swallow it. And, of course, he dumped her the next week anyway, and the whole bitter, brief experience probably ruined the sex life of every guy she’s ever dated since then.
“My first was almost like that.” Patsy. “We were making out in his car, and suddenly his pants were open and it was in my hand, so I knew what to do. I was jerking him, and wishing I’d rolled my sleeve up first, because it was a new blouse and I didn’t want to get his ick all over it. Then he started pushing my head down – not hard, but insistently, and part of me was thinking ‘oh God, he wants me to do that,’ and the other part was, ‘well, maybe it won’t be so gross,” so I let him.
“But then I got cold feet and thought, ‘well, I don’t want it in my mouth,’ so I did it like Sandra, I just started kissing him, and then I thought I’d lick him for a change, and Christ, I thought I was going to cum there and then, because it suddenly flashed into my mind what I was doing, a really vivid mental picture of my tongue running up this huge… well, I thought it was huge… shaft, and I could see the colors of his helmet, and there was that wonderful smell, and I just wanted to coil my tongue around and around. I still didn’t want him inside my mouth, but I wanted my mouth all around him, licking his cock and his balls, and he was going wild, gasping and swearing, and saying my name over and over, and how much he loved me, and no-one had ever done it like this before. Which probably wasn’t quite the right thing to say, because I didn’t want to think anyone had ever done anything to him before.
“Which is when I had this really weird thought, wondering if I could give him a hickey on it. So I tilted my head, and got him between my teeth, about halfway down, and I started to suck as hard as I could, until I could taste the blood coming to the surface. I was rubbing his balls with my free hand, and when he came, it was so funny because, there I’d been worrying about my new blouse, I’d completely forgotten my hair, which I’d only had done that afternoon. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to get great globs of dried cum out of your hair, but it’s not easy. Even in the shower, it just got stickier, I ended up having to cut it out with nail scissors. But I’ll tell you one thing. That hickey was still there a week later!”
My story was next, in all its greedy, greasy detail and, as I looked around the group to see who would go next, I really wasn’t sure if that was shock or envy I saw flash back from at least four pairs of eyes. But when Madeleine cleared her throat, I knew anything I’d had to say on the subject was about to be placed firmly in the shade.
You only had to look at Madeleine to know she was man-eater, in every sense of the word. She had one of those mouths that was simply made to swallow cock, and the kind of body that made every cock want to be swallowed. Just walking down the road with her, as I sometimes did after book club, every guy on the street would turn to look at her, while she kept up a running commentary, just loud enough for me to hear, on why she would, or wouldn’t, go home with each of them.
“I used to practice on bananas.”
She paused. “Really, before I ever had a guy, I used to practice on bananas. I’d peel ‘em back and see how far down my throat I could stick one. The first wet dream I ever had, I was blowing the guy next door, and when I did start dating, I almost went mad waiting for him to make the first move, just so I could get him in my mouth.
“None of the other stuff interested me. I didn’t care about losing my virginity, or having my tits felt, or my pussy licked. I just wanted to suck a cock and it was ridiculous, because you’d think every guy in the world would have been queuing up at my door, but I went through four boyfriends before I even got my hands down somebody’s trousers. And when it did finally look like happening, the idiot got so excited so quickly, he’d cum all over my hand before I’d even got his pants down.
“Anyway, one night I was babysitting for a family down the road. They just wanted me to stay until their older kids got home. They’d gone to a party or something, there was a boy who was about a year older than me, and his sister who was a couple of years younger. And the boy offered to walk me home. He didn’t know I only lived about five doors away, so I took him in the opposite direction entirely, and we wound up on the baseball diamond, it was pitch black, and we just started fooling around. Not kissing or anything, more like wrestling. He’d grabbed my wrap and started running off with it, and I caught him, and we were on the ground, he was sitting on my chest, pinning me down, and I was trying to get him off me, by tickling his ribs.
“He was squirming, and pushing forward, his crotch was right in my face, and that was when I noticed he was H-A-R-D., hard. Now, I should mention it was early summer, and really warm, so all he had on down there was a pair of shorts, so this was a real tent-pole sticking out, and I thought, ‘well, it’s halfway there anyway,’ so I just popped it out of his shorts, opened my mouth and in he went.
“It was nothing like I’d expected. A lot bigger, for a start. Fatter. I’d never found a banana that thick, so that surprised me. And it tasted different as well. I’d never really thought about what a cock would taste like, I just assumed it would be a lot like any other part of the body, your arm or something, so that surprised me as well, although not as much as I surprised him. I think it took him a moment or two to realize precisely what was happening, but suddenly he was ‘what are you doing?’
“Now, you all know it’s impossible to speak with something that big in your mouth, so I just made a muffled mmpphh-mmpphhh sort of sound, and held on a little tighter in case he tried to pull away – which he did, because I think he was getting a little scared now, in case I bit it off, maybe, or I didn’t know what I was doing and might freak out when I found out.
“So I let go and said, ‘what do you think I’m doing? If you’re going to go round sticking things like that in people’s faces, what do you expect to happen?’ That completely threw him, so while he was thinking about it, I just reached up and popped him back in my mouth.
“The problem was, he was so big I couldn’t do anything once it was in there. I couldn’t suck, I could barely move my tongue, I just lay there with him sticking in there. So I took hold of his hips and started swaying him back and forth, until I could feel him sliding in and out. And, of course, he figured that out very quickly. He leaned forward, with his hands on the ground, and started fucking my mouth.
“He was so gentle about it, and as my muscles began to relax, I found I could do all sorts of little tricks, little sucks and nips, and he was moving faster and faster, and it was so smooth, my eyes were closed and this really was the best thing I’d ever felt in my entire life, the happiest I’d ever been, just lying there with him moving in and out of me. My lips were tracing the little bumps and veins on his prick, and the ridge, and the smooth curve, it was everything I’d ever dreamed it could be and more.
“I didn’t ever want it to end, even when my mouth started aching, but of course it had to. He was thrusting harder and harder, until suddenly he jerked himself out and, in the same instant, I felt his spunk whip across my cheeks and my lips, which was great because that’s the one thing I’d never actually figured out how to handle. I know now, of course, but back then, I really wasn’t sure, I figured I’d just deal with it when it came. If you’ll pardon the pun.
“I licked a little off my lips, and I wasn’t sure about the taste, so I wiped the rest off with my hand, and smeared it on the grass, while he just collapsed in a heap beside me, panting. It was so funny, he was completely exhausted, and it was ages before he even opened his eyes again, let alone said anything.”
“So what did he say?” Laura asked.
“I really can’t remember,” Madeleine replied. “I was too busy wondering how long it would take him to get it up again.”
“And talking of the time,” Patsy interrupted, “I don’t know whether any of you ladies have noticed, but it’s gone ten o’clock. So, I suggest we convene an emergency meeting of the book club for the same time next week, and maybe we can pick up where tonight’s left off?”
There was a chorus of affirmatives as everybody rose, and began picking up their things.
I looked around. Pretty much the entire stock of wine had gone. There were going to be some well-toasted women rolling home this evening, and I hoped their husbands, boyfriends, partners, whoever, would be in the mood to appreciate them. I saw Madeleine nod goodbye as she went out the door, then felt a hand on my arm as another girl, Sarah, sidled over.
Cute, slender, a little younger than me, in her early thirties, maybe less. I’d never really spoken to her, didn’t know anything about her aside from the fact she rarely had a harsh word to say about anything she read. “A bit of a doormat,” had been Madeleine’s snap summary, but I thought maybe she was just shy. Well, tonight would surely have broken the ice for her. Wouldn’t it?
“Will you be back next week?” I asked.
She nodded. “Only I don’t really have a story to tell. Not like the other girls have.”
“Come on, everyone has one. Even me!”
She smiled. “So I gathered. I still can’t believe it. Naughty Miranda really has been naughty!”
“I know, you wouldn’t believe it to look at me,” I chuckled. “Or to read my clippings.” I could have said more, but Sarah interrupted me, laughter in her voice but something deadly serious in her eyes. “Don’t say anything. That was my entire adolescence you were trampling on back there. When I was 15, 16, I wanted to be just like you.”
“So did I.” I tried to keep my voice light. “But really, nobody could live like Miranda did… the TV Miranda… even if they’d wanted to.”
“You’re probably right,” she agreed in a voice that screamed disagreement. She clambered into her jacket. “Well, I’d better be off. See you next week?” She stepped out into the night, I stepped back in astonishment. All these years on, and people still believed.
In 1986, I was one of around a thousand unknown actors and actresses, all over the country, who applied for a role in a new primetime teen drama, revolving around a youth club in exclusive Beverley Hills, and the (usually harmless) pranks that ensued.
It was a big deal. Auditions were held in every major city, the producers flying from town to town to watch countless kids clunk through their paces, in the belief that somewhere among them, there must be one freckle-faced redhead, with a cheeky smile and impudent eyes, and enough wit and wisdom to step into a script and convert it into reality. And they were right, there was. Me.
It was a different time in television. 21 Jump Street and Beverly Hills 90210 weren’t too far away… in fact, I think Jump Street debuted just before we did. But teen TV was still more likely to be Cosby or Different Strokes, and that was the market Naughty Miranda was aiming for.
It was a little grittier, a little less comfortable, and a little less reliant upon parental authority to make its decisions for it. But it was still prime time feel good TV, and it would stay that way for the next decade, long after its original audience had grown away, and long after its cast had grown up. In fact, by the end of the show’s run, I was the only cast member who could even remember the first two seasons, and that wasn’t necessarily my choice. I’d been trying to get away from Miranda for years, but that was one thing my contract had foreseen. I was tied up tighter than… well, use your favorite analogy there. I know I used to.
Every aspect of my life was controlled by the show. The press office got its hooks in early, portraying the titular Miranda as – well, yes, a little Naughty. But she had a heart of gold and the morality of a saint. No matter what else was going on around her, whether it was Betty falling pregnant, or Ricky buying drugs, Jose falling across the wrong side of the tracks, or Lester considering suicide, Miranda was the rock to which they would all flock, knowing that, though her methods were sometimes unconventional, her advice was always sound.
She was a good girl.
She still is. Eight years in prime time, and ever since in syndication, Naughty Miranda remains the eternal eighteen year old, Patty Duke meets Dennis the Menace’s big sister, and I remember wardrobe having to positively wrestle my frame into my bindings before I began to get dressed, because someone decided my breasts were too big, and they detracted from my saintliness.
Of course I complained, but they’d tell me it was the same technique Judy Garland used when she was shooting The Wizard of Oz. The difference was, Judy was only on set for six weeks. I was making 26 thirty-minute episodes a year, and that was only the start of it.
If I was attending any public function, or showbiz event, out would come the tape and bindings. My contract even insisted I wear them when I went to the store, in case any fans recognized me on the street, and wondered where the boobs had come from. The funny thing was, it (or, should I say, they) made an amazing disguise when I did venture out unencumbered. “Has anybody ever told you that you look just like Naughty Miranda?” I’d be asked. “They have,” I’d reply. “Except I have tits.”
In fact, the tits were only the start. It would be a lie to say I lived my “real” life in absolute defiance of everything my television character represented. But the fact I even lived a real life was, in some strange way, anathema to the publicists who worked for the show, who couldn’t understand why I’d rather spend a weekend in Colorado opening the town fete, than be seen at Elton John’s birthday party (“because I don’t know Elton John, I’ve never met Elton John, and I wouldn’t know what to say to him if I did”), who thought I must be crazy to insist on doing my own grocery shopping, instead of trusting some flunky to pick it up for me, and who positively hated the fact I’d garaged the sports car an advertiser gave me, and still drove the Toyota I bought with my second month’s paycheck.
And, as for boyfriends…. I couldn’t pick up a magazine without reading that I was romantically involved with one hunk or another, usually guest-stars on my own show, or rising stars elsewhere around the network stud farm. But when the journalists caught up with me, my reply was always the same. “He’s very sweet, and we’re really good friends. But I’m too busy with my career to get involved with anyone now, even on a casual basis. I’ll know when I meet the right person, but until I do, I’m staying single.”
They believed every word, every time, not only during the show’s first run, but in the years since then as well. Part of it’s my own fault, of course. I’ve scarcely gone out of my way to choose roles that might challenge the public’s conception of who and what I am, and I’ve been lucky the press corps is as smitten by my image as everyone else is.
I don’t know how many times I’ve been caught out by a journalist, and gone home convinced the bubble has burst, only to open the paper the next morning and discover it’s even more air tight than ever. I guess Hollywood already has its share of bad girls. It needs a good girl to balance them all out.
But then you wake up one morning and you wonder just what on earth you’ve been doing all these years. I’m almost 40 years old and the world still thinks I’m a virgin.
It’s a good job I never had children.
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS – CO. SPRINGS, 1985 -
I always knew I wanted to be an actress. I was just never sure what sort. As a kid, watching The Sound of Music on Christmas Day, I wanted to star in musicals. As a pre-teen, glued to Animal House, I saw myself as the next Karen Black. War Games convinced me my future lay in adventure romps, but only if I could be Ally Sheedy. I watched Dallas religiously, and wondered if JR needed a teenaged daughter, and I wrote a screenplay for a Star Wars reunion, in which I played Carrie Fisher’s sister.
And then I discovered Lily Lamarr, and I realized the best acting doesn’t actually require you to act. You just do, and the only lines you need to learn are the ones that get you into the bedroom the quickest. Or any other room, for that matter.
Not many people remember Lily today. To the best of my knowledge, she made just one movie and, to be honest, it wasn’t exactly a masterpiece. The Sexorcist is a genuine golden oldie, a mid-1970s attempt to cling onto the coat-tails of the post-Exorcist boom in supernatural chillers, during that peculiar period when hardcore thought it might actually be able to enter the Hollywood mainstream. Porn with a plot.
Whatever happened to Lily? I don’t know. I Googled her and got nowhere. Maybe she burned out making this one movie. Or maybe she made more under a different name. Or maybe she’s living a completely different life some place, with her youthful indiscretions far, far behind her. The Sexorcist was pretty heavy going, after all, and her character came to a very grisly end. But still she remains my all-time cinematic heroine, the one girl with whom, even today, I would trade places in a flash. And why? Because when she sucked cock, I saw my every dream and fantasy come true.
It is said that a stereotype is only truly offensive (and stereotypical) if it is true. In which case, memories of a certain Adults Only theater, in one of those seldom-trod side streets off South Cascade Ave, are very offensive indeed.
Even from the outside, the building stood out like a dirty nail on a manicured hand, an off-white pile that was erected in the 30s as the latest in contemporary architecture, and had neither been painted nor refurbished in the half-century since then.
Once, it had indeed been a proud and beautiful theater, but the mainstream movies had long stopped playing there. Instead, a proprietor who looked as seedy as his establishment, specialized in what the low-key marquee insisted were Continental and Scandinavian features, all of which apparently starred the same blowsily made-up cartoon blonde, scantily clad and long since defaced beneath precisely the kind of graffiti you’d expect to find in such a place. Ink-scrawled cocks and balls assailed her from every direction, ribald commentaries blossomed in speech bubbles, and there were enough jets of Magic Markered semen to float a battleship.
The place never closed. Early morning, on the way to class, late into the evening, on the way home from a friend’s house, and at any hour in-between, one of two or three bored looking youths would be seated in the ticket booth, and, occasionally, you’d see an actual customer shuffling in or out of the main door, and he’d be as clichéd as the establishment itself. He really would look furtive, he really would be wearing a raincoat, and nine times out of ten, he really would be wearing a flat cap, which he’d pull down over his eyes the moment he saw someone else on the street outside.