“Okay. Okay. Come on in.”

The door clicked. Brenda pushed on it and it swung open. They stepped inside.

Oxnard blinked. It was like the first time he had tried sky-diving. One minute you’re safely strapped into the plane and the next you’re out in the empty air, falling, disoriented, watching the blur of Earth spinning up to hit you.

The door slammed behind him. The entryway of the house was ablaze with lights. Oxnard and Brenda stood there dripping and disheveled, gaping at the cameras, people, props, chairs, lights.

“Smile!” a voice shouted. “You’re on candid camera.”

“What?”

Ron Gabriel pushed past a tripod-mounted camera directly in front of them, a huge grin on his face.

“Only kidding, buhbula. Don’t panic.”

He was wearing nothing but a bath towel draped around his middle. He was a smallish, compactly built man in his thirties, Oxnard guessed: dark straight hair cut in the latest neo-Victorian mode, blazing dark eyes, hairy chest, the beginnings of a pot belly.

He grabbed Brenda and kissed her mightily. Then turning casually to Oxnard, he asked, “You her husband or something?”

“Or something,” Oxnard replied, feeling testy.

“Hey come on, I’m paying overtime already!”

A large, lumpy, bearded man stepped out from behind the cameras. He was swathed in a green and purple dashiki. Some sort of optical viewer hung from a silver cord around his neck.

Gabriel grabbed Brenda and Oxnard by the arms and walked them back behind the cameras.

“What’s going on?” Brenda asked.

“I’m renting my foyer to Roscoe for filming his latest epic.”

“Roscoe?” Oxnard was impressed. “The guy who did the underground film festival at Radio City Music Hall?”

“Who else?” Gabriel answered.

Now it all made sense to Oxnard. Two dozen girls of starlet dimensions stood around languidly, in various styles of undress. A couple of muscular, hairy guys were doing pushups over in a far corner of the foyer. Electricians, lighting women, camera persons of indeterminate gender, and a few other handymen were busily moving cameras and lights around the long, narrow foyer.

“All right already!” Roscoe bellowed in a voice four times too large for Grand Central Station, “Everybody take their places for the grope scene!”

Brenda said, “I’m awfully chilled. Could I borrow a hot shower?”

“Sure,” Gabriel said. “Throw your clothes in the dryer and grab a couple of robes out of my closet. Brenda, you know where everything is. Show him around.”

Oxnard stammered, “Uh... we’re not... not together. I mean, not like that.” Dammit! he raged to himself. Why should I feel embarrassed?

With a grin, Gabriel led him to the guest room and took a terryplastic robe from a drawer.

“Gotta get back to work now,” he said.

“You’re in the movie?”

Gabriel’s grin broadened. “I’m an assistant groper.”

Brenda looked good with a rich brown robe pulled snugly around her, Oxnard decided. One glance in a mirror after his steamshower had convinced him that wearing a robe two sizes too small was better than prancing around nude. But not much. His hairy legs showed to midcalf. He had to be careful how he sat.

Brenda, Gabriel and Oxnard were sitting in the living room. It was furnished in old-fashioned Nineteen Sixties style, with authentic green berets and protest posters artfully arranged here and there. The walls were covered with paintings, drawings, sketches—all from stories that Gabriel had written.

The camera crew was in the process of stowing gear into the truck they had parked outside. Roscoe himself had borrowed Brenda’s keys to move her car out of the driveway. Now, as the three of them sat in the comfortable living room, they could hear the wind-whipped rain and the sounds of grunting people moving heavy pieces of equipment out into the wet.

Oxnard and Brenda had brandy snifters in their hands. Gabriel, still clad in only his bath towel, had graciously poured them the drinks while making dates with three of Roscoe’s starlets. He refrained from drinking, himself.

“When did you become a movie actor?” Brenda asked, a quizzical smile on her lips.

“Always been an actor, sweetie,” he replied. “You think sitting through a story conference with some of those assholes you call executives doesn’t take thespic talents?”

“I’ve seen histrionics from you....”

One of the starlets walked barefoot into the living room as far as Gabriel’s slingback chair. She was wearing a knit sweater that barely reached her thighs. Her cascading blonde hair was slightly longer. Her eyes didn’t seem to focus well.

“Hey Ron, honey, can I use your shower?”

“Sure, sure,” he said.

“Thanks.” She bent over and kissed him on the cheek. The sweater rode up and Oxnard found himself tugging at the hem of his borrowed robe, trying to make certain that he was covered adequately. The blonde plodded sleepily out of the room without rearranging her sweater.

“But I don’t understand why you’re performing in Roscoe’s movie,” Brenda resumed.

Gabriel made a sour face. “Money, kid. Why else? You have any idea how much it takes to keep this house going? My gardener makes more than that cutesy-poo does.” He jerked a thumb in the general direction of the partially sweatered starlet.

“But you’ve got so many books and filmscripts... you must make plenty on royalties.”

With a wave of his hand that took in all the illustrations on the walls, Gabriel said, “What books? You know what you get from books? Nickels and dimes. Unless you write a book about a veterinarian’s carnal lust for his customers. Nobody reads about people anymore. I write about people.”

Oxnard felt puzzled. “Aren’t you the Ron Gabriel who writes science fiction? I’ve read some of your stuff.” Gabriel’s eyebrows went up a centimeter. “Yeah? Like what?”

“Let’s see now...” Oxnard concentrated. “It was... oh yes, The Beast That Had No Mouth’ and ‘Repent...’ something about a watchmaker.”

Nodding furiously, Gabriel said, “Yeah. And you know how much money I made from those two books? Peanuts! The goddam publishers give you peanuts for an advance, then they sell a zillion copies and claim that they haven’t made enough money to start paying royalties yet!”

“I didn’t know....”

Gabriel leaped out of his chair. “Those humpers! You don’t know the half of it!”

He stomped out of the room. Confused, Oxnard got up and watched Gabriel duck down the house’s central atrium and into a doorway. He slammed the door behind him. “That’s his office,” Brenda said.

“What’s he....”