“And after that rough handling, you still wanted to become a nun,” I questioned.
“Right up to the point, I was swept up in the Push — Ahead — Program,” Zaftig replied, “Even in College I believed I might return to the Nunnery as a Novitiate.”
“How is that possible?” I was dumbfounded.
“Yes, I was stripped bare for inspection like cattle,” Zaftig cast that faraway look she bore when she slipped into a lecture, “but what are they really trying to take away, the vanities and superciliousness of egotism, not through humiliation but through self — mortification.”
“After such a warm reception, I’m more surprised that you still wanted to become a nun,” I expressed my credulity, “than your decision to play that role in this skin flick.”
Indeed, I was surprised when Zaftig raised Al Mandy’s offer. In my first semester in Law School, I had been rooming with Zaftig in her cozy apartment in a brownstone on State Street for a couple of months when Zaftig shocked me by relaying Al Mandy’s offer for a part in this movie.
That fall blew in exceptionally cold, but the apartment we shared was so comfortably warm that in a frigid mid — December when I could sit at the kitchen table, as bare as I would dare, in my Che Guevarra T Shirt and panties. I was looking out the window waiting to deliver glum news to Zaftig. I had just spoken with the landlord. How would Zaftig react? Should I be prepared to move again?
Though the window was frosted, I could see Zaftig bounce down the steps of the number 12 bus. Whipping off her scarf as she stepped inside, Zaftig took a deep breath. “You’re home–Oh I forgot you’re still in school. Must be nice.”
“Some holiday I get Dolly! I have exams before Christmas,” I turned to her as I moaned, “I need to catch up on studying. Or I could end up flipping burgers for living.”
“At least you’re paid flipping burgers,” Zaftig answered, “You get a paycheck. I don’t get to punch a time — clock for my day, grueling day.” Shaking her head, Zaftig commented, “I must have seen just about a gut — wrenching wound or burn to just about every anatomical part imaginable. What are you reading?” Zaftig sent me a tingle when she leaned on me to read over my shoulder.
I shot her a smile and clutched her hand. “Nothing important, Dolly,” I answered, “just a notice that since the electric and gas both’ve gone up, our Landlord wants a whopping increase to cover his costs.”
Giggling at the notice, Zaftig quipped, “I guess I’ll have to join you flipping burgers.
“Christmastime here in Capitalland, Dolly,” I sighed, “is bleak in the flipping burgers business. My hours get cut. In Capitalland, everybody comes from somewhere else and picks up to go home.”
Zaftig sighed. “I can’t expect to be bailed out by Father. Father cut my allowance. He has other priorities –. `Your brothers Ian and Josh are now in medical and law school respectively,'” Zaftig rendered the rejection in sing-song, “‘Rough it in the dorms,'” shock entered her voice, “Father dismissed my request,” returning to sing — song, “‘Graduation, only a few months away.'”
“These days,” I sighed, “medicine has produced marvels. They can transplant a heart from one body to another. Perhaps they could combine two bodies into one: your button nose instead of my roman nose, your cute round fface for my rectangular face, your DDs on my sleek long — legged frame. Too bad, but even your double DDs bouncing atop my narrow waist and long legs wouldn’t be in line for a job with the strip clubs,” I shook my head, “The clubs are slow with the state house and senate in recess.”
Zaftig bit her lip. “I was approached by my classmate Al Mandy. You know him. He introduced us. He can get us parts in ugh — Blue Movie. I don’t know how you’d feel about that.”
“Blue movie–hmm is that a new type of film?” I tried to make a joke out of it. “Or is Al trying to test out my theory that our bodies could be combined somehow — into that of an awesome stripper?” Was Zaftig teasing me with this suggestion?
“You wouldn’t have to disrobe. In our role, we would play nuns greeting girls entering a convent school,” Zaftig explained, “Pay is better than a short order cook but not as much as an exotic dancer. It would pay some of these bills.” After a pause, Zaftig added, “I told Al I wouldn’t take it unless you did too.”
“Dolly, you need me for protection, like a gaggle of ladies herding together to take a trip to the toilet,” I chided her.
“No, because you drive and I don’t,” Zaftig replied. She leaned into me and felt under my T — Shirt. “Hey, I knew it! You’re wearing two shirts under that oversized man’s T — shirt. How come you’re not overheating? I’m sweltering. I need to get these clothes off before I melt!”
“Don’t let me stop you, Dolly!” I giggled as I teased her. “But first, I need to ask. Why you the wannabe nun should want to appear in a skin flint?”
“Every single day, I see corpus damaged from caput to the hallux and everyplace in between,” Zaftig fell into that distant stare, “What’s wrong with viewing beautiful bodies?”
As a maintenance man photographed the half — naked young women in the corridor of the school, my attention was drawn to their chatter in the corridor. Many were drama students looking for experience on camera in addition to spending money. Their principal complaint was that they had to utilize their own clothes. “I came commando; last film I lost several pairs of panties,” standing around gloriously naked, big breasts, full bush, Jenny explained. I envied her projection of supreme self — confidence in the uncovered natural state.
If my chest wasn’t deformed, would I be as prissy? I wondered.
Others were housewives or students, like Zaftig and me, trying to make ends meet. “If my guy complains he noticed someone who looks like me in a film,” one housewife told another, “he’d be afraid I’d take his balls off for watching porn. `Watching porn? Do you want to get warts?’ I’d ask him.”
Al lifted Zaftig to plant a passionate kiss on her lips. “You don’t know how long Father has waited for me to be swept off my feet by you,” Zaftig pulling back from his embrace declared. “Father thinks so highly of your dad’s skill as a Physician. Iranian, Father tells me?”
“Hardly romantic cooing,” Al continued to clutch her.
“At my weight, lifting me could give you a bilateral Inguinal hernia,” Zaftig remarked with a smile, “At university hospital, a female urologist performing herniorrhaphies, hernia repair, cutting through the abdominal wall to make repairs often finds evidence of cancer, necessitating an orchiectomy,” Zaftig bore that teasing smile.
Al looked to me for an explanation. I shrugged my shoulders. “It isn’t what Zaftig says, but surely the way she says it. Maybe she should speak in subtitles.” Opps did I give away my secret name for my roommate?
“Capital idea, Ms Ehrlich — excuse me, Sister Evelyn!” Al declared, “Blimey, I wish I’d have thought of that! Dr Zoptic! We’ll costume Becky eh — Dr Rebecca Barton — in a white lab coat to administer the physical inspection of the newly arrived students.”