Then I got reported to The Decency Commission, which is actually a corporation that handles Los Angeles county's censorship laws—which I thought was a thing from the 1800s..but I was wrong.
"How did I get reported?"
"Excuse me, Miss Teacup..Pritchett?"
"I mean does someone file a report and then a trial just automatically begins?"
"This isn't a trial, Miss Pritchett, this is a hearing. And here in the Great State of California, we protect our citizens' privacy. When someone working on a theatrical production such as yours wants to alert the government of possible indecency, we honor their anonymity, for their own protection against employers such as yourself."
"Like..the employers they're trying to shut down?"
"Excuse me! Do not interrupt me when I'm speaking to you!"
"Excuse me. If this isn't a trial, then why is there a judge?"
The judge turns to me.
"Miss Pritchett, just answer his questions as briefly as possible."
"Judge Kessler—" I start.
But the judge interrupts me.
"We'll proceed now," he says.
"Judge Kessler, I am politely and properly asking you if, when this man asks me a question, I am to endure interruptions by him as—if his goal is to get me to answer a question—then it doesn't make much sense for him to interrupt me while I'm giving him the answer, does it?"
"Just answer with a yes or no."
"With every respect, Judge Kessler, politely and properly, I swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth and a yes or no does not always allow me to do the second. Some questions cannot be answered giving the whole truth with a simple yes or no. Some questions, if answered by either a simple yes or a simple no, will be answered untruthfully, and I aim to keep my oath here today."
The papers picked up on that one. Oh yeah. That was all over southern California like a fucking orange.
"Also," I said, "How do you file a complaint against a film that's not even out yet? Can you file this complaint against a production? What's the precedent for that?"
I grilled those fuckers like Howard Hughes in Scorcese's Aviator.
When I return from court, everyone wants me to berate them for leaking the footage that landed me in the hot seat at The Decency Commission, but I don't. I just stand on the catwalk and say:
"Let's get to work."
While shooting a sex scene—which is pretty much half my movie—Kristen catches me reading the warning labels on my pack of Kamels.
"You're not that into sex, are you?"
"Why would you say that?" I say, and flip over my cigarettes.
She's waiting for an answer.
"Sex is overrated," I say. "Guys..have an extra flap of skin between their legs. Women..we basically have an open wound. I like it when I'm doing it but when I think about it too much..the technicalities..it's just disgusting."
Kristi laughs.
"That funny to you? Most people spend their entire lives playing out their sex role. What a waste. We're so much more than that. But people are content with attracting a mate..over and over and over. It's subhuman, in my opinion."
"But you do like to fuck, don't you?"
"I love to fuck. I mean, yeah, I'm a dumb fucking animal like the rest of us. Put a nice fat cock in my puss and I cease to be a philosopher and turn into a panty-dropping freak. Desperate for some guy to make me cum. But some women spend their whole life doing that. Don't you think there's something more?"
Kristi shrugs.
"Trust me, there's something more."
I look back at my cigarettes.
"The body is just a metaphor."
"I wanna play with your metaphors."
I roll my eyes.
Kristi leans over and whispers to me.
"I want to eat your pussy."
"GTFO little girl!!"
I push her away.
But she leans back, in the dark of the studio while we're still shooting.
"I want to get into all the ins and outs. Take those panties off.."
"They're adult diapers."
"I know. I've seen them, remember? I want to suck your pee."
"You're aware you work for me, right?"
"We don't even have to fuck," she says, and licks my ear.
I push her away.
"Ha. Would you please get back to work?"
I put my head in my hand.
" 'We don't even have to fuck.' "
"I thought that was pretty good!" Kristi says.
"That's the oldest line in the book, kid."
When I was interviewing potential assistants in the Borders cafe, I told each potential employee that first thing is to know what's good. Then I put two objects in front of them and asked which one was good. Most people said "the keys" or "the pen." When I got to Kristi, she said:
"Well, if I had a pen, I could write on a pig, and keep myself entertained even if I was locked out of the house."
"Kristi, where are you from?"
"The OC."
"Have you ever seen a pig?"
"Like in person?"
I nod.
"No," she says.
That's why I hired her.
And I did want to have sex with her—but I never let her know. I needed our relationship to be simple, but I wanted to play with her metaphors, too. I had seen the outline of her cunt and I wanted to rub our cunts together, do things like the characters in my movie. If we had sex, though, she would have power over me, and I needed to have all the power with my assistant. Well, most of it. You never really have all the power in a relationship. The other person can always just shut down or leave. Kristi never left me, though, even though I wouldn't have sex with her. That's one of the regrets of my life, though—and I have to admit that while writing this—that Kristi and I could never have balance in our relationship.