Mould, 1962

“You are the sweetheart in the scene,” he says, handing me the stapled papers.

I breathe in slowly, and sigh out even slower, still.

“Jill, you are the scorned mother…Sabine, you are the vixen,” he continues.

“Damn-it,” I think, “She’s always the vixen.” I scowl the best I can in hopes someone, anyone, will take notice and cast me differently. Like, “Did you see her angry face? That was sexy.”

I look around. No such luck. John winks at me and smiles as everyone else looks over their scenes.

I escape to a vision in my head, and everything in my mind’s eye moves in slow motion: A long trench nearly drags on the ground and gently glides with the woman’s every elegant step. One of her legs glistens from under the slip of her dress and her black, messy hair moves like an ocean of locks in a thunderstorm. A thankful cigarette rests in between crimson lips and one can only be certain she dons a leather garter to nestle a dangerous, engraved derringer on her inner thigh. Her eyes pierce through anyone she encounters and no one can be certain she has any heart at all, although her apparent convictions run deep.

Her nights are spent in a book or with a rugged man; the home is sleek, minimalist, and she fears nothing, whatsoever. Her cherry wood cabinets are empty as she sustains her life with only fine red wine, carefully elected and selfish sex, long cigarettes, and the occasional hazelnut gelato…

Vogue

My acting coach continues, breaking me out of my fantasy, “Miss Brenda, you’re holding back. I think you’re darker than you let on.” I laugh and he squints through me, as though he can see the truth.

My eyes land on Sabine. Well, I can’t be alone on this one; no one can keep their eyes off of her. Some poor boys in my class have probably only seen the likes of such a creature in magazines. Miss Switzerland traveled to LA in hopes of becoming a star, and she is on the right path indeed. It’s difficult to imagine her speaking on world peace or puppies because there seems to be a dark, sexual, fiery candor within her. To top it off, she is the crème de la crème: naturally tan skin, thick accent, chestnut eyes, waif thin frame, and donning colossal, flowing honey brown hair to her elbows. The fire behind her eyes speaks of a girl that will wrap a man around her slender, manicured finger and slam his heart to the ground, for fun.

There is, of course, a reasonably good chance that my assessment of Sabine is completely off-center. The point is not that she must be the bad goddess we all assume her to be; it’s just that we can imagine it.

Meanwhile, the heartless woman in my fantasy is the alternate me. Even the thought that she resides in my mind is probably laughable to anyone I know. However, it is so very true. As early as 12, I would lock my bedroom door, blast a boom box, slip on my highest heels, and roll up my skirt as high as possible. Sometimes I would just lie on my bed and envision I played Catwoman in Batman or the sexiest Bond girls; these fantasies never escaped into reality, but they certainly have not ceased to invade my imagination.

The actor and actress couple I work for continually tell me that I am on the brink of discovering who I am. The wife says that she can see things longing to burst out of me as soon as I simply accept that they exist within. Of course, only Drew will ever see the extent and the intensity of my sexuality but I am not just thinking of intercourse here. I have an increased knowing that there’s a warring spirit that is me, to the depths. The black-tressed woman in my fantasy life will pop out of me in far healthier ways than I imagine her now; it’s really her strength that attracts me so. She represents the joy I imagine pure freedom to be, void of fear and continuously giving herself away and yet somehow remaining entirely intact. Presently, her crusades burst out of me when I seek out justice, when I hear gossip, when I see an old lady treated poorly, or when I watch To Catch a Predator. More intense still are the dark writings I am waiting to put onto paper; screenplay ideas that expose evil and treachery in its most vile state, subjects that only the fantastical, dark side of me holds the courage to summon. Writing is the derringer I hold in a garter on my thigh.

So, I memorized the “sweetheart” scene John gave me with a sparkle in my eye, knowing there’s a raven-haired woman in me, sneering at the present scene, waiting for the moments I need to bravely embrace more of her and change the world as I know it. As even the brilliant, famously Christian C.S. Lewis wrote, God “told us to be not only ‘harmless as doves’, but also ‘as wise as serpents.” Also, he said to be full of “Fortitude…-the kind that faces danger as well as ’sticks it’ under pain.” My fantasy just seems a little more serpent, and a little more danger. Bring it on…

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