Out of Bondage by Linda Lovelace Read Free Book Online Page B

directed at the man who had caused the pain.
    “I just want to know one thing,” he said. “Where’s that son of a bitch now?”
    “He’s still out there somewhere,” I told him, “and he’s still doing what he’s always done. Now he has a new victim, but he’s back at the same old stand.”
    “What can we do?”
    “We can’t do anything,” I told him. “Avoid him, stay away from him.”
    That was easier said than done. When we returned to California, Larry went looking for Chuck. He learned that Chuck hung out at Schwab’s drugstore. He stationed himself there and waited. Thank God they didn’t meet. It would have been Larry’s sense of outrage against a pistol or even a submachine gun, and that’s an unequal battle at best.
    Larry’s outrage came from his basic decency. I knew Larry Marchiano was the man with whom I could spend the rest of my life.

eight
    Larry never came to grips with the Hollywood scene. He’d show up for meetings with lawyers and accountants, and he’d leave those meetings shaking his head and muttering to himself. If he ever felt overwhelmed by their polish and relative sophistication, he didn’t let on. He was there with a specific goal in mind. He was there to ask questions, hard questions, and to get answers, even harder answers. One by one my business advisers disappeared. Finally, Larry and I were left with each other. With each other and very little else.
    “I’ve got some good news and some bad news,” he said one night. “Which would you like to hear first?”
    “Larry, tell me the bad news.”
    “Okay; you’re roughly $50,000 in debt.”
    “And you also have some good news?”
    “I love you.”
    “Fifty-thousand dollars in debt?” This time I skipped right by the good news. “How could that happen? I’ve made an awful lot of money.”
    “For everyone but yourself,” he said.
    “But how can that be?”
    “Easy—you’ve been getting screwed by everyone.”
    “So what else is new?”
    Getting screwed by everyone —would those words someday find their way onto my tombstone? I wouldn’t be surprised. Being in financial hot water was new to me. It was clear that I had to earn money, a great deal of money, just to keep from going under. Although small economies would not make a dent, we did start by living modestly, eating dinner at home, carefully scrutinizing every offer that came our way.
    One offer seemed different from the others. This one came through an acquaintance and it seemed, if not ideal, well, at least all right. The title of the movie was Laure and it was to be a French-Italian co-production shot in the Philippines. There would be no nudity and no sex.
    The money was good—$10,000 down and $5,000 a weeek. Not just for a one-shot but for a three-picture contract. As an added bonus, we would be flown to Rome to meet the producers and to iron out details. We had positive feelings about the project. No nudity, no sex—this one sounded good.
    The movie, unlike many I’d been offered, even came with a screen treatment. On most projects that found their way to me, this would have been an optional extra. There was even a description of my character: “Daughter of the director of the Lance Institute for Pacific Studies. Postgraduate student in Social Ethnology.” All right ! That certainly sounded good. So what if I had to look up “ethnology” in a dictionary? The roles I’d played up until then couldn’t be looked up in any legitimate reference work.
    I started to read the treatment: “Four Europeans arrive at Emelle, an island in the south of the Philippines. . . . These four people have come to Emelle to shoot a documentary film about an unknown tribe. . . .” The film involved some voodoo and some romantic byplay. But basically it was a love story. In fact, I was delighted with the way the first love scene was described: “We do not see them making love, but their actions can be read from the expression on the face of the hotel boy