"Lew, that may have been the single strangest telephone conversation I've ever had. Fill me in." The stuntwoman and the producer were talking in a small office on the studio lot.
"Well, here's the thing." The balding, round little man got up from his chair, and pretended to study pictures on the wall. "We've got this director, this young kid, y'see-- Darnell Krum. Made a big noise at Sundance last year. You know how this show survives on good press; I figured snagging a hot young talent for his first TV job-- well, you know, it coulda been like Spielberg doing Duel, or something."
"Only it hasn't worked out that way."
"Who knows? Before we're done, it might. Problem is, we hit a snag. Y'see, this episode takes place during a bank robbery. Hostage situation, an hour of tension inside the bank, while the police try and take out the bad guys without anyone getting killed; you know our style: realism, hand-held camera, that kind of thing. Kid's great with stuff like that, the first day's shooting looks fabulous."
"Sounds good. What's the problem?"
"Well, y'see, the caper here is that the bad guys get into the bank by kidnapping a woman executive as she arrives for work. They handle her pretty rough-- you know, we don't have "comic book" bad guys on this show, we try to make these lowlifes as true to life as we can. This morning, we tried to shoot the scenes where they grab her from her car and force her inside the bank, y'see, and... well, the girl just freaked."
"She what?"
"I gotta admit, I thought the kid was being pretty hard on her. He had them yank her out of her car by the hair, y'see, and start wrapping this heavy duct tape all over her, tying up her arms, her legs. It was getting in her mouth, her hair, and all the time he's got these guys yelling and screaming at her...geez, I don't blame her for getting a little upset with it."
"She's an actress, isn't she? If she can't cut it, replace her."
The man cringed. "Yeah, I know I should, but... it really does seem to me that he's bein' awful rough on her, almost like he enjoys it. Besides, I replace her, and agents will start telling their clients that they're gonna get manhandled if they work on our show." He looked earnestly at Kit now, almost pleadingly. "Look, that's why I called you, y'see? They tell me that when Merry was making a stink about bein' tied up yesterday, you tied her up, and made things go real smooth. Awright, this is different—Merry’s just a prima donna; this girl’s actually getting scared. Still, I figure maybe if you work with this girl, you can get her tied up, and calm her down before things get outta hand. Your standard rate, of course."
Kit remembered the grip staring at her yesterday, almost like I do this for a living!, she remembered thinking. Is that what people are going to think of me? I know producers are always hiring "animal wranglers"; am I about to become "Kit Palmer, Bondage Wrangler"? Aloud, she asked, "Where's the girl now?"
"They're just finishing lunch. She's supposed to be back at the bank interior set afterwards, but no one's quite sure if she's gonna do it or not. Hey, you're agreeing to help me, here, aren't you?"
Kit paused before answering. She could already tell that saying "yes" might change her career in some strange ways. On the other hand, she'd be damned if she liked the idea of some snot-nose film school grad terrorizing actresses for laughs. "I'll talk to her, Lew, and we'll see."
"Great, great!" The little man was already at the door. "C'mon, let's try and catch her before they get started."
"Let's go by my car, first. There's some stuff I want to get."
When Kit arrived at the set, most of the production staff was just returning. Several of the men waved or nodded in Kit's direction; they were listening to a long-haired young man, whom Kit took to be the director. He seemed to glance in the direction his staff was looking, but otherwise didn't acknowledge Kit's presence. There was one chair off in a darkened corner of the set, and Kit could see a young Aisan woman sitting there in the shadows.
"Kit, I'll introduce you to our director--"
"You talk to him, Lew. I want to meet the girl." The little man looked doubtful, but Kit was already past him, extending a hand to the girl in the chair.
"Hi, I'm Kit Palmer. And you're--" Sullen almond eyes looked up at Kit from the shadowed corner. The young woman glanced at the figure of Lew Wainwright over Kit's shoulder as she responded.
"I'm Tracy Li, and I have a few choice words for that jerk behind you. You know, when you hired me, you never said anything about--"
"Please, Tracy," Lew practically whined from over Kit's shoulder, "It'll be OK, y'see? Kit's here to help."
The girl looked puzzled. "Help? How? Are you a director? Are you replacing that asshole over there?"
"No, it's not like that. Lew--" Kit nodded in the direction of the young director, "why don't you go let Wonder Boy know I'm here. Give me a few minutes alone with Tracy." The little man scampered off, and Kit turned her attention to the actress.
"I hear things have been pretty rough here."
Pretty dark eyes rolled as the girl responded. "Oh, that guy is such a prick. Thinks he's God's gift to film, then gets his jollies trying to make me cry." Her eyes clouded. "He did, too, damn him."
"You look like you're OK, now."
"At lunch, I went home and showered. I do feel better, but before I get back in front of a camera, I want that jerk to come over here and apologize to me, or I'm gone."
Kit sighed. "You know, just watching him for a couple of minutes, he doesn't strike me as the apologizing type." Both women could see the young director engaged in a heated conversation with Lew Wainwright. "And quitting isn't really your best option. Let's face it, Lew's a good guy, but if you push him, he'll have an easier time finding another young Aisan actress than replacing this director."
"This is your idea of help?"
"No, what I'm going to try and do is make this scene work for everyone-- make it look as realistic as Lew and young Mr. Krum need it, without making you uncomfortable."
"Hah. 'Uncomfortable'; now that's an understatement. He's just being a complete--"
"Well, hello ladies." Lew was beaming a preposterously stupid grin at the two women as he and Darnell Krum approached. "Darnell, let me introduce you to--"
"Hi. My name's Kit Palmer, and I'm going to be co-ordinating Tracy's stunt work this afternoon."
The young director looked startled. "Her what?"
"Technically, I guess it won't be 'stunt' work, since Tracy's not in the union, but she's being asked to do some heavy physical acting, and I'm here to help make the scene work."
"You know, ma'am," the director smirked, "I don't really think we need--"
"Don't 'Ma'am' me, unless you want me calling you 'Junior' all afternoon." Krum blinked beneath his smoked glasses, and seemed to be having trouble forming a reply. "Well," Kit went on, "don't just stand there with your face showing, we've got work to do. Let's get going."
Kit waited until Krum had given up trying to meet her gaze before she took a peek at Lew, watching him turn several shades of purple.
"Ah, Kit, please, can we talk?," Lew spluttered desperately, cringing as though waiting for Krum to throw down his clipboard and walk off the set. Instead, before Kit could answer, Krum narrowed his eyes, and appeared to be deciding whether the stuntwoman would be a more formidable ally or adversary. He shrugged.
"Your money, Lew. If you think we need help from Mizz Palmer, that's fine with me."
"Oh, that's great, isn't it? Y'see, Tracy, I told you it'd all--"
"Lew, how about you let us get to work, here." Kit turned briskly away from the producer, to reinforce to Tracy that she was on her side. She figured Lew would understand.
"O.K., first we'll do the gag."
Krum made another flailing attempt to regain control of the situation. "Wait a minute-- shouldn't we tie her up first?"
Kit looked pityingly at him. "If this was a real kidnapping, you might tie her up first, so she couldn't pull the gag off. But this isn't a real kidnapping, now is it? We do the gag first so that Tracy can put in on herself. Then we'll get her tied up."
"Put it on herself?" It was plain that the simple idea had never occurred to the young director. Krum took the lecture with reasonably good grace, and pulled a roll of heavy duct tape from the pocket of his jacket.
"Here, she can use this."
"Are you kidding?" Kit snapped. "This stuff is miserably uncomfortable, and sticks to everything except heating ducts! Part of the reason you have a problem here is that you're trying to make Tracy as uncomfortable as she'd really be in this situation."
"Well, it's important that the scene is realistic."
"No, Darnell, it's important that it look realistic. We can do that without making the whole thing a misery"-- here Kit's voice dropped to a low mutter-- "for an actress that just might sue your butt for harassment if you keep this up! Now," she continued, without waiting for a response, "this stuff is called coban." Kit held up a roll that looked remarkably like the gray duct tape. "It's sort of like a disposable Ace bandage. It sticks very nicely to itself, but only very lightly to skin and hair. You can wear this stuff all day and not lose little pieces of yourself when you take it off. Plus, it's colored so that, on TV, it'll read just like duct tape. Tracy--" Kit tossed the roll to the young actress-- "go ahead and wrap this over your mouth and around your head." The girl looked somewhat dubious, but she took the bandage and unrolled one end. Gingerly, she held it to her lips, as though testing the stickiness. Kit watched as her eyes registered surprise, then relief.
"Y'know, you're right. This won't be so bad." More confidently now, Tracy pressed the bandage firmly across her mouth, and used one hand to smooth it in place while the other held the roll.
"Mmmmmm Hmmmmh," she commented matter-of-factly.
Kit smiled. "I think that means she feels a lot better about this, now." Tracy nodded, and began to wind the bandage around her head.
"Wait a sec, Tracy--" Kit reached up and used her fingers to muss the actress' silky locks. "I think we can assume these guys aren't exactly neatness freaks." Tracy nodded, and unwound the neat turns she had made with the bandage; Kit then guided her hands to make the gag look less carefully-applied; more as though it had been done in the heat of the abduction. Tracy let the stuntwoman's strong hand direct hers as the bandage made a half-dozen turns around her head.
As they worked, Kit stole a glance out of the corner of her eye: yep, once again she had the attention of every guy on the set. Too bad she wasn't planning to make this scene as sexy as yesterday's; there was no question the young actress looked fetching with her mussed hair, and dark eyes twinkling over the gag, but there would be none of the overt sexuality she had encouraged in Merry yesterday. Still, though, that didn't seem to do anything to dampen the enthusiasm of the men watching. Kit made certain to leave room on each cheek so that some "bruises" could be applied to Tracy’s makeup.
Finished, Kit stood back and flashed the actress an encouraging grin. "O.K., Tracy-- ready to go on?"
The girl nodded.
"All right, now, here's a little something I made it out of bits of an old sweatshirt I had in the car." The stuntwoman was holding a thick strip of gray cloth, looped to look like a figure "8". Darnell Krum looked as though he was about to offer some objection, that the bad guys had been going to use tape, but thought better of it.
"Now, Tracy, this will allow you to hold your hands pretty comfortably behind your back: it'll be tight enough to keep them from slipping, and you can just relax your arms." She traced a finger around the inside of one of the loops. "I wrapped some cotton gauze in there to give you some extra padding. Once it's on, we just wrap more of the bandage around it, and it'll look like your hands are all taped up."
Kit's confidence and consideration had clearly had their desired effect on the young actress: Tracy turned her back on Kit, and held her hands behind her almost playfully. Kit then placed the figure "8" loops around each of Tracy's wrists, and cinched them snugly.
"Stretch your arms and shoulders for me," Kit said, and the girl responded with a luxurious shrug of her upper body that rippled from her shoulders to her breasts. Kit suppressed a giggle at the rapidly-becoming-familiar intake of breath from the crew. "O.K.," Kit went on, "it looks like you shouldn't have any problems with stiffness or circulation." With that, she took another roll of the gray bandage material, and wound it around Tracy's wrists, making certain to give it a carelessly-applied look.
"Give a tug on that," Kit instructed her. Tracy pulled against the bonds on her wrists, and allowed her eyes to bug crazily above the gag.
"Hmmmmmfff! UUUhhhhmmm!" Tracy moaned melodramatically, rolling her eyes in mock panic.
"Looks like this is going to work out fine," Kit smiled, and was pleased at the enthusiastic nod Tracy gave her in return.
For the next few minutes, Kit once more found herself in the spotlight, so to speak. Where it wouldn't stick to the skin, Kit used rolls of duct tape, rather than the expenseive coban, to secure Tracy’s arms, wrapping them tightly against her body. She criss-crossed one roll above and below the girl’s small breasts, so that her upper body appeared to be encased in a cocoon of duct tape. The young actress pulled playfully at her bonds, and Kit had to quietly remind her that she was supposed to be helpless with terror. Kit was impressed at how quickly Tracy responded, her body language suddenly brittle and fearful, tears rimming her lovely eyes. Impressive, Kit thought. I wonder if Darnell knows just how good this girl can be.
Kit turned to the young director; though clearly still unhappy at having his set hijacked, his respect for Kit, if grudging, was unmistakable.
"OK, Darnell," Kit said, "Roll 'em."
The balance of Kit's afternoon was spent scrutinizing the work she had done on Tracy Li, and in the end, she was pleased to see just how effective it had been. The Director of Photography seemed gently amused by Kit’s earnestness, but he allowed her to watch his setups, and check shooting through his viewfinder, to insure that the scene had the realistic look she had promised. Finally, a little after four o’clock, Tracy’s scenes were done for the day.
"Oh, Kit," the young actress gushed as she tossed the last of the medical wrap into a trash can. "I really don’t know how to thank you. This whole thing could have been incredibly ugly, but you made it work. In the end, I think even that clown Darnell was happy with how it came out." Tracy gave the stuntwoman a hug. "If there is ever anything I can do for you, call me, OK?"
"Thanks." Kit glanced at her watch, and for the first time thought about the fact that she hadn’t eaten since breakfast. "I’m gonna head over to the commissary to grab a bite. Care to come?"
"No, thanks. I gotta run. Hope we can work again, soon!" With a last wave, Tracy headed off for the parking lot. Kit smiled and headed for the commissary.
The lunchroom was nearly empty; Kit grabbed herself a packaged sandwich and a can of iced tea, and sat at a table near the door, running over the Fox Force concept in her mind. Recruiting "big name" guest stars would be important, of course—she had told Jan she could do that; for the series regulars, though, she realized, she would have to look for young, upcoming actresses, whose salary demands wouldn’t bankrupt the program before it got started. Tracy? , Kit thought. I’d never heard of her before today, but she sure handled that situation well. I wonder if she’d--
"Pardon me, but would you be Kit Palmer?"
"Would be and usually am." Kit looked up from her lunch. A short, slender woman was regarding her with an odd smile, as though the two shared a secret of some kind.
"It's a pleasure to meet you. My name is Anne Cleaves." Her accent said upper-class London to Kim, but without the stiffness she often associated with English people she'd met.
"I'm sorry," Kit said. "If we've met, I don't recall, but you certainly look familiar." In fact, Kit had trouble believing she could forget meeting a woman as striking as this one: porcelain skin, rich chestnut hair cascading to her waist, and penetrating green eyes that twinkled over rose-petal lips.
"Oh, I hear that all the time," the woman smiled. "I'm afraid that most of the work I've been able to find here in the States has been in TV adverts, so people often know my face much better than they know my acting. That may change, soon, since we now share the same agent."
"You're a client of Jan's?"
"Yes, I’ve actually known Jan for some time. I dropped in to see her yesterday- she's pursuing a few opportunities for me right now, but in the meantime," the woman dropped her voice into a low, conspiratorial tone, "she suggested that I contact you."
"Me?"
"Yes, she says that you're working on a rather, um, "special" project."
"I am?"
"Fox Force, I believe she called it."
That took Kit aback. Evidently, Jan had overcome her skepticism enough to put this woman in contact with her.
"Well, you're right," Kit said carefully. "This is a sort of pet project that I'd like to get off the ground--"
"As I understand it, the appeal of your proposed series is to be based on attractive women in situations of bondage."
Kit blinked in surprise; she had never put it that starkly to herself, but... "Well, yeah, that's the general idea."
"That's why Jan recommended I see you. She knows that this is an area which I have... well, more than a little experience with."
"You do?"
"Kit, I doubt you've ever met a woman who's been tied up as often as I have."
The stuntwoman couldn't help registering surprise at this. "What are you, an escape artist?"
The Englishwoman laughed. "Well, actually, by now, I could probably give lessons! But, no, that’s not it. I am simply a woman who has an appreciation of the…um…sensual pleasures which can be found in a woman’s fantasies of being taken against her will. And, if you are genuinely interested in making bondage erotic for a network TV audience, I'd dearly love to be a part of it!"