The scripting called for the scene to go as such: Haverty walks Lyndsay to her car and they pause there at the driver’s door to exchange a few last words of farewell. She thanks him for taking her to the bar and talking her through her emotional ordeal as best he could. He tells her to go home and get some sleep and that if she does not show up for any more shifts, he understands. She assures him that she’ll be back for the next scheduled shift in three days. He smiles and nods and then, just before she can open the door, he steps forward and gives her a hug that starts out friendly. She returns the embrace in that vein for a few moments but then, as they hold each other, the sexual tension, which had been building in them for the previous six or seven scenes, comes to a head. They gaze into each other’s eyes for a moment and then suddenly they are kissing.
Fletch wanted to capture this entire first part of the scene in one take. From there, they could cut for later print and then move onto the next take, which would involve the progression of the embrace from just kissing to groping and raw passion. The third take would be their breathless discussion in which they decide that Haverty will follow her back to her condo.
“Okay, is everyone clear on what we’re trying to do here?” Fletch asked Greg, Mindy, and the crew. The crew for this session of filming was as minimal as possible, as this fell under the heading of an adult situation scene, the rules and procedures for which were heavily regulated and aggressively enforced by the Screen Actors Guild.
Everyone was clear. The actors took their positions. Fletch himself acted as the clapperboard operator since camera assistants were considered unnecessary for an adult situation scene. Action was called and they performed their roles.
It took seven takes and more than forty minutes of trying before Greg and Mindy were able to pull off the complete conversation between them without one of them flubbing a line or Fletch being dissatisfied with their projection. Greg, standing eighteen inches away from Mindy in the muggy night, sweat trickling down his back, was fighting down frustration, but, as always, this seemed to help him lock in his character as they tried and tried again. Finally, they reached the end of the dialogue portion without Fletch yelling “cut!”. It was time to start the embrace.
Greg, fully into the Haverty character now, looked into Mindy’s eyes, seeing Lyndsay in them, put a slightly nervous, slightly shy smile on his face, and then held out his arms, stepping forward. Mindy took in a slight intake of breath, let a doubtful look flitter across her own face, and then opened her own arms. The two of them came together in a hug. As soon as their bodies came into contact, Greg lost a little of his focus on this being Lyndsay. He felt the soft press of Mindy’s breasts against his chest, smelled the scent of her sweat, the press of her cheek against his shoulder. It felt pretty damn good.
“Cut!” Fletch barked out.
Greg instantly released her. Mindy did the same. They stepped back away from each other and then looked at their director for his explanation of why he had stopped the scene.
“Too quick,” he said simply. “You both jumped into the hug too eagerly. You got the shyness expressions right, but that was not the beginning of a friendship hug that will soon turn passionate. That was a hug that said you two want to start groping each other immediately.”
They both nodded, digesting the criticism he had offered. Greg did not know what Mindy was thinking, but he himself was forced to agree with the director. He really had been concentrating on generating the right emotional expression and had not really been thinking much about the mechanics of entering the embrace. And had he perhaps been a little overeager to finally get his arms around Mindy? To feel her against him? He was self-honest enough to suspect that that was entirely possible.
“Got it, Fletch,” he said, giving him a respectful nod.
“Understood, Fletch,” Mindy echoed. She then let a sour expression form on her face. “Do we have to go through the entire dialogue again?”
“Well,” Fletch said with a sigh, “it was my intention to capture the entire dialogue, hug, and first kiss connection as a single take, but, realistically, we’ll be here all goddamn night if I go for that. That last dialogue take was damn near perfect. We’ll keep the cut there and pick up just before the hug starts. Fair?”
The entire assembled cast and crew breathed a collective sigh of relief.
“Fair,” Greg said, nodding.
“Fair,” Mindy agreed.
They resumed their positions, receiving guidance from the script supervisor, who told them exactly where they had both been standing and the precise angle they had been facing each other when the cut had been called.
“All right. Picking up from the end of dialogue,” Fletch announced, picking up the clapperboard. He called out the scene and take, clapped it out in front of the cameras, and then called for action.
Greg put the nervous look back on his face. He opened his arms and stepped forward, concentrating on making the hug look innocent at first, the kind of hug two friends would share after a trying day. Mindy opened her arms in return. Once again, their bodies came together, her breasts pushing into his chest, the smell of her in his nose. She really did feel pretty good in his arms.
Fletch kept silent and the cameras kept rolling. Innocence turns to passion, Greg’s mind told him. That’s what this moment is all about. Project it. He didn’t have to dive very deep to embrace this projection. He rubbed his hands up and down Mindy’s back a few times. He could feel her bra strap under his fingers, could feel the firm flesh of her body. He felt her arms around him, her fingernails scratching lightly at him through his shirt. He let his upper body lean back a bit, so he was looking into her eyes.
I want her, he told himself, no longer sure if he was just staying in character and projecting onto Lyndsay or was a real human being expressing his thoughts about Mindy. It didn’t really matter when you came down to it. The goal was to carry off the scene in a believable fashion. It didn’t hurt a bit to tap into one’s true feelings in the name of projection, did it?
They stared into each other’s eyes for a long moment. Greg was able to see wanting in Mindy’s eyes, a reflection of his own. She nibbled her lip nervously. And then, by some unspoken signal that fired between them, they leaned toward each other and brought their lips together.
Jesus Christ, he thought, feeling a surge of passion blast through him as they shared their first kiss. He had kissed dozens of women in the line of acting duty in his career, starting with high school stage productions, moving onto off Broadway theater, and then working his way into television and film projects. It was a part of his job and he rarely, if ever, had felt anything other than mild embarrassment at the act. This was something different, however. Mindy’s lips were soft, sensual, and they moved against his in a way that an actress’s lips usually did not in such a situation. He could feel her hot breath against his, could taste the flavor of her lipstick, could feel the hunger radiating from her essence.