Dope (Part 6)

     Okay, things are getting ridiculous.  While we were in production for "Succubus,' Inana's little ode to "Road Warrior," boredom was a common malady on location.  My performers would be sitting around in the desert of Imperial County, nothing to do, waiting for their scene.  The girls would laze around in the modified attack vehicles nude, getting tan, waiting for director Small Steve to call for their shot.  To kill the boredom, they would make out with each other (and much more).  I swear, if Inana girls didn't have a serious bisexual streak before working for me, they had one when they left.  Observing this, I shouldered a camera and told the girls that they would get a cash bounty, payable that day upon return to the motel, for whichever girls engaged in the hottest impromptu lesbian activity while in or on one of the vehicles.  By the second day of this offer, Small Steve demanded vehicles be parked further away, as the panting and moaning was being picked up by the boom mike.  I got a whole lot of damn footage, and paid out nearly ten grand of my own money to girls who had found surprisingly photogenic ways of making each other come.

     After we completed "Good Girl/Bad Girl," Steve was doing some housekeeping in his office and ran across the tapes I made.  I'd shot about nine hours of video ---- that's how bored we were --- and maybe four minutes of that made it into "Succubus."  Every Inana girl was involved, including Bekka, who got together with either Tawny or Feather.  Her footage with Feather won the prize that day.  She refused the money, instead insisting I take the girls out for drinks at the bar of the Mexican restaurant around the corner.  The locals found out just how lewd porn sluts can be when loosened up by tequila and meth, regardless of their surroundings.  Around drink seven (and bowl three) I found myself leaning against a table at the back of the bar, my dick being shared orally by Jolene and Rio.  Bekka --- more accurately, Becky --- stood to one side with a savage grin and one hand shoved into her shorts.  The words "El Centro" and "decadence" are rarely used in conjunction with each other, but we were doing our best to change that.  In a bit of role reversal, Gayla, Sue, and Jackie (size queens all) ran a train on Roach under a booth table in the back of the bar.  You could just see Roach's boots sticking out.  They'd mount up, ride Roach, get off, then let the next girl get on.  They each did this twice.  Roach, my nineteen year old powerhouse, stayed hard for all of them.  When they'd all finished again, Gayla bent down and asked Roach, "So, you want us to make you come or what?"
     Roach pulled up his pants and slid out from under the table with a smile.  "Nope.  Saving it up for tomorrow.  I've got a scene with Feather, and my little fellow punk rock tribe member is getting a two gallon money shot."
     The three girls laughed.  Roach already shot a load like Peter North, he had a prostate the size of a soccer ball.  And if he was saving up, well....  Poor Feather, shit, the girl would need to be wearing a snorkel.
     Anyway, Steve spent some late nights at the studio, reviewing what had been shot and editing it all into a rough cut. about two hours and fifteen minutes of video, a compilation tape.  It was just a side project for him, he was like Frank Zappa, in that he relaxed by working.  He sent it off to the editors in LA with the instructions to cut it down some, make it slick.  Steve expected to get a ninety minute tape back.  It came back at three minutes short of two hours, the maximum for a commercial tape.   Angel gave a "what the hell, why not" approval for this little project, and it went off for duplication and artwork.
     Wham.  600,000 copies out in the first six weeks.  For what was just a compilation tape of girl/girl scenes shot in the desert, in and on the ugliest vehicles you could imagine.  No plot, no planning, scratch audio, and my own barely competent camera work.  What threw us was the fan mail we began receiving.  Addressed simply to "THE INANA GIRLS!!" and the P.O. box, we'd hit a market totally untapped by producers of straight video: lesbians, and femme-leaning bisexual chicks.  Between my filming, Small Steve's editing, and the ardent (and genuine) displays of girl/girl love shown, news of the video hit the dyke grapevine coast to coast, in a big way.  And they were impressed.  High-quality lesbian video, showing women who were actually enjoying each other, not just going through the motions, and it was hardcore.  There's the rub.  Most XXX releases aimed at lesbians tended to have an artsy feel to them.  We'd released something that had no other goal than making people hot and bothered, and the daggers loved us for it.
     Bekka and I provided some heavy fan service to some of the fans, those who told us that they loved the video, but dammit, they wanted more Becky.  We were friends with the members of a San Francisco dyke-rock band called Chromewagon, whose lead singer, Dolly, had a major crush on Bekka (or, more accurately, Becky).  A massive amount of Bay Area dykes had a serious hang-up on Becky Page, which I found strange, as a good 85% of the Becky Page video lexicon was strictly straight....  Okay, knock it down to 75%, if you count three-way (girl-girl-guy) couplings.  The Sapphic sisters didn't care, they thought Becky was hot, and happily sought out both her movies and her magazine shoots.  A copy of Bekka's Penthouse Pet spread now sold for over $100, and the girls were scooping them up.  I'd written it off as a regional thing, but the way the video sold, her lesbian fan base was spread far and wide.
     Anyway, we'd get these fan letters from women wanting to know how they could see more of Becky with other girls, without having to sit through the straight crap in her movies.  Months earlier, we'd put out a video called "Becky's Friends," which was a compilation tape of Becky Page girl/girl scenes, from both features and her early loops, when she was just twenty or twenty-one.  Ten scenes over two hours, it was just an editing exercise for Small Steve.  I had Angel send me down fifty copies of this tape, which Bekka autographed, chucked in a couple (signed) cheesecake photos, and short hand-written notes which thanked the fans (by name) for being fans, yes, Becky is genuinely bisexual and not just for the cameras, and please continue enjoying the releases from Inana Productions.
      Over the course of about two weeks, Bekka and I sent out about thirty of these packages.  Bekka would write short hand-written notes, I'd assemble them and box them for mailing, and sent them off the next day.   A week later, the packages started arriving.  Not letters, packages.  Candy.  Homemade cookies.  Jerseys from local sports teams (sized extra large, so she could wear them as nightshirts).  Panties.  A pair of Tony Lama boots, that were even the right size.  Lots and lots of photos of women, all shapes and sizes, in various states of undress.  They were all from the women we'd sent videos to, they wanted to give a gift back.  Once again, fan contact had produced a surprisingly ardent response.
     Bekka was rather captivated by one response.  A girl named Mallory from Minneapolis sent a pressed flower: a lady slipper, the state flower of Minnesota.  She also wrote a long but intelligent letter, explaining how she was also bisexual (although she mostly leaned towards girls), she knew Becky Page was married and unavailable, but still liked to entertain fantasies, and hoped that if Becky ever visited Minneapolis, she would look up Mallory, who would provide a tour of the area.  Mallory also included a phone number and photo.  The picture showed a girl about twenty-five with a blonde pixie haircut smiling widely at the camera while leaning against a rather rusty-looking AMC Eagle.  (AMC Eagles were known as "Minnesota Maseratis," their build quality was not great, but they were a fairly heavy sedan-sized vehicle which also had four wheel drive, a necessity in Minnesota winters.  Being part of the Rust Belt, passive-aggressive jingoism prevented people from buying Subarus.)
     "I'm calling her," said Bekka.  "Her little gift is probably the most thoughtful and interesting ones I've received, she seems intelligent, and she seems a little lonely from what she said in her letter.  I don't know....  Lenny, how would you feel about visiting Minneapolis?"
     I replied, "Doesn't bother me, I've never been.  There's gotta be some fun to be had, it's the town that gave the world Prince, The Cows, and Husker Du. If we do go, let's do it sooner rather than later, like within the next two weeks.  I've got a couple scripts I'm knocking around right now, but no projects coming up.  Sure, what the hell, let's blow this chick's mind and visit Minneapolis for a few days.  I'll talk to Angel about just chartering a flight there and back, the family is in tight with a charter service called Elite Flights.  Owner is a wise guy named Mario Falcone, who's supposed to be an even bigger hotshot pilot than Rico Carelli, and Rico is a damn nut at the controls of a helicopter.  Yeah, call the girl."
     "Tell you what.  Get on the extension in the bedroom, so you can listen in.  Don't say anything though, I'd like her to think it's a private conversation.  I'll yell up the stairs when I'm dialing."
     I went up to our room and sat on the bed.  Bekka yelled, and I picked up the phone to hear her pressing the buttons, my hand firmly clasped over the mouthpiece.  After three rings, a young woman's voice said, "Greetings."
     "Is this Mallory?" asked Bekka.
     "Um, it is," came the reply.
     "Mallory, this is Becky Page."
     There was brief silence on the line.  Then the young woman's voice said, "What?"
     Bekka said, "This is Becky Page.  You sent me a flower and a very nice letter, and you included your phone number, so I thought I'd call you and thank you."
     There was only the sound of somewhat wavering breath over the phone.
     "Mallory?" prodded Bekka.
     "Oh my God," said Mallory with a quivering voice.  "I am just....  I don't know what to say.  I never dreamed you would....  Oh my God...."  And she began softly crying.
     Bekka let Mallory blubber briefly, then said, "I didn't mean to upset you by calling.  It's just, both your gift and your letter were thoughtful and intelligent, and since you included your phone number, I thought I'd give you a ring instead of continuing on with correspondence.  So, how's life with you?"
     Mallory cleared her throat and chuckled.  "At the moment I am totally blown away.  The sexiest, most awesome woman on the darn planet...."  Yes, she used the word "darn."  "....is on the phone with me now.  She called me up.  Um, I'm in shock at the moment, I'm sorry.  I never dreamed you would actually call me, I was totally blue-skying when I did that.  Why did you decide to call me?"
     "Like I said, I liked the intelligence of your little gift and your letter.  Also, I've never spoken directly with a fan from Minnesota.  I am intimately familiar with my fans in California, but I felt I could expand my scope of comprehension by talking to a Midwest fan, especially a female one, instead of the groupies I run into out here in SoCal.  So tell me, how did you become a Becky Page fan?  I don't think I'm much special, but I seem to have drawn quite a crowd of followers.  How did you first find out who I am?"
     "From the movie 'Bewitched,'" said Mallory.  "Some straight friends were watching it one night, it struck me as kind of weird, here's four straight girls sitting around watching a porno movie.  But I started watching too, and was totally drawn in.  Then you did that scene with the other witch, and uh, wow.  I'd never been turned on watching any kind of porn, but seeing you and her together just....  Oh boy.  My heart was racing.  And I really liked the movie overall, too.  I never knew porn could be so.... involving, I guess.  So I checked out your other movies, um, and got on your studio's mailing list so I'd know when your new stuff came out.  You are just so incredible.  I, uh, I only like guys part of the time, and the rest of the time straight sex has no appeal, but I even love watching your scenes with men, you're just so, like, powerful and erotic, I guess.  Heh, you were hilarious as the devil in 'Good Girl/Bad Girl.'"
     "Thank you," said Bekka.  "I'm curious, how am I viewed by bi and lesbian women out there?  I learned a while back that I have a fairly rabid lesbian fan base in the Bay Area, which surprised me.  I have always been open about my own bisexuality, but I also know there's plenty of lesbians who think bisexual chicks are just being trendy, or can't make up their minds, or whatever.  The girls in San Francisco seem just fine with me, though...."
     "Honestly?  Even if you were totally straight, plenty of girls around here would still think you're hot.  Overall, your professed bisexuality is accepted at face value.  I'm sure there's a couple total bulls that probably think you're just posing, but they'd hate you anyway, just for wearing makeup, heh.  No, the girls around here definitely sorta swoon over you, you know?  They generally even seem aware that you're married in real life, but the assumption seems to be it's an open relationship, since you, y'know, do what you do for a living."
     Bekka chuckled at this.  "Our marriage is somewhat open.  To be honest, my husband has lovers besides me.  All three are friends of mine, in fact I arranged for them, which surprised the hell out of Lenny.  He is very loyal to me, it never would have occurred to him to have another partner besides me.  It struck me a while back that it was horribly unfair, my God, I spend my days in the physical act of sex for a living, and sometimes I would, well....  I would literally be to sore to make love with my own husband when I got home.  Why shouldn't Lenny have the opportunity for more frequent  sex in his life?  But we're not swingers.  As much as I love the tenets of polyamory, I am hopelessly devoted to my husband, he is the one man who truly turns me on and satisfies me.  And I don't wish to pursue any other lovers, male or female."
     "Gosh," stated Mallory.  (Yes, she used the word "gosh.")  "How many lovers does your husband have?"
     "Three.  Obviously, he's not seeing all three every day, although his stamina is pretty incredible.  Um, one is a girl who lives with us named Jane.  She actually shares our bed on a routine basis, which allows me to indulge my own taste for girls.  One girl, Sue, is another performer at Inana, you'd know her as Susan Black, if you pay attention to the credits in our videos.  Lenny and her might fool around once or twice a week, just sort of burning off steam.  The third is a girl named Terry, who is an interesting case.  She started working for Inana on the crew and developed a massive crush on Lenny.  While we were making 'Succubus,' she was his personal assistant, practically his shadow every waking moment.  She came to me and told me how she felt, and I gave them permission to have some fun together.  Lord, Terry started off by blatantly propositioning Lenny.  He turned her down, telling her he took his wedding ring seriously, but that only seemed to make her think he was an even more awesome guy.  Terry is an outlaw biker chick, and was amazed at meeting a man who would turn down an offer of pussy on principle, she'd never met a guy who would do that.  Anyway, Lenny and Terry see each other off and on, he'll spend the night with her, and Jane and I will share a bed.
     "Yes, my husband has four women he makes happy," laughed Bekka.  "Fortunately, he's twenty-three, so he still has plenty of energy.  He has never turned down my advances, even on a couple occasions when I knew he had been with one of the other three less than an hour earlier.  I know you said you don't have much interest in men, but I will tell you Lenny is one hell of a lover.  Um, how does that work?  Sometimes men have appeal, and other times they don't?"
     Mallory sighed and said, "Um, it's kind of weird.  Guys turn me on about five days out of the month.  I noticed it was a pattern, most of the time only women made me hot, but at the same time every month, um, all I could think about was men, and, uh, penises.  I went to my gynecologist and confirmed my suspicions, which is that when I'd feel like that, I was ovulating.  My genetic imperative was riding me in a big way."
     "Amazing," said Bekka.  "I never knew the reproductive urge could have such an effect on one's thought processes.  If you don't mind me asking, under what circumstances did you realized you liked other girls?"
     "Oh, that's easy.  Junior high, in the locker room, surrounded by other naked girls.  Heh, it's a good thing I don't have a penis, because I would have had a raging hard-on every day in the showers.  I sort of went through the motions of trying to be interested in boys in high school, but my heart wasn't really into it....  Except for about five days a month.  I didn't have any great epiphany about my sexuality, I've just always found girls sexy, and not guys, not much anyway.  Uh....  My dad had a stash of Hustler magazines in his workshop that I found.  I'd get home from school every day, both my parents worked, and uh, I'd spend a while in my dad's workshop, you know?"
    "At least you had some release.  Do you have a girlfriend now?"
     "No," Mallory stated glumly.  "I've been having bad luck with my love life for a while now.  I like being feminine, I like wearing makeup and skirts.  For some reason, I've been attracting fairly butch girls for about the past year.  We'll go on a date, and they'll make it clear they want to turn me butch too, God knows why.  I'll explain that no, I really am a femme, and wasn't that what attracted them to me to begin with?  The response has always been a lot of Queer Nation boilerplate about how I shouldn't hide my sexual identity, that if I'm into girls, it should be obvious to any observer.  Basically, if I'm sexually attracted to women, I owe it to the activists to look like an aggressive butch dyke.  You've seen a picture of me, I'm kind of a tom boy, but I keep running across these women who assume that because I wear mascara, I'm trying to be closeted....  Even though they will admit that it's the fact that I'm a femme that attracted them to me to begin with!"
     "I can empathize," Bekka commented.  "I had a series of relationships, from age twenty to twenty-six, that all ended in disaster.  Every single guy screwed me over, in one way or another.  Some decided they didn't like my career, and demanded I quit.  Others tried to constantly juice me for my money.  I had a few born-again Christians who wanted to save me from my path of evil.  I dated a few girls, but none of them wanted anything remotely resembling commitment, and they were usually also bugged by my career.  I fucked around Lenny for the longest time.  We started out as friends, it became physical, we were always around each other, Lenny had a massive crush on me....  But I kept pushing him away, since I'd been hurt so many times already and figured he'd hurt me too.  Poor Lenny was miserable, because I was sending some incredibly mixed signals.  It finally took him getting shot and ending up in the hospital for me to admit to myself I loved him.  He was protecting a friend of ours who was being attacked by a rapist.  He got shot, and kept fighting.  I realized that here was a man who would sacrifice all to protect those he cared about, and I wanted to push him away.  I was a cazzo idiota."
     "Beg pardon?" said Mallory.
     "Sorry, I was a fucking idiot.  Every now and then I lapse into Italian when I talk."
     "Uh....  Why?"
     "I am a hundred percent Sicilian," explained Bekka.  "My parents were war babies, and immigrated from Sicily to the U.S. as young adults.  I was pretty much raised bilingual, Mama and Papa spoke in English to me and my brother, but in Italian to each other.  They wanted us to be fully American, and not feel any sort of cultural partisanship over a country we'd never even seen.  Fluency in Italian, a love of pesto, and a certifiable Sicilian temper are my only real ethnic traits.  And my skin tone."
     Mallory commented, "Wow.  Jeez, my family roots are in Norway, they originally came over around 1866, and my family is still obsessed over their heritage.  Ever eaten lutefisk?"
     "Never even heard of it."
     "It's dried cod which is re-hydrated in a lye solution and baked.  It is disgusting, but every damn Norskie in Minnesota forces themselves to eat it, during the holidays if nothing else.  I think it may be a form of penance for Norwegian Lutherans.  Really, if you've ever read any Garrison Keillor, every darn thing he says is true.  Lutefisk, Lutheranism, and a love of a country our ancestors couldn't get away from fast enough when they emigrated.  Sorry, I'm American, I'm agnostic, and I want a gol-darn bacon cheeseburger from Hardee's, not poison-soaked whitefish."
     "Ever had carne asada?" asked Bekka.
     "I'm not familiar," answered Mallory.
     "Carne asada is a Mexican invention, it's a marinated steak.  Usually it's cut unto chunks and put in a burrito, that's how we get it most of the time.  Realistically, it's like most Mexican cuisine, it exists because they had no refrigeration but needed to keep their food from spoiling.  A carne asada burrito from any taco stand in Southern California is both a full meal and a gastronomic joy.  Also carnitas, machaca, chorizo, quesadillas, and Coca Cola that was actually bottled in Mexico.  They use real sugar, not corn syrup, when they bottle soda."  Bekka paused.  "Tell me Mallory, if Lenny and I were to visit Minneapolis for a few days in the next couple weeks, would we be able to visit with you?  Would you have any time?"
     "Are you serious?  Really?"
     "Absolutely," replied Bekka.  "We've never been there, but I've always heard good things about the place.  We have some free time, so what the hell, we'll fly out and spend a few days.  Stalk Bob Mould or something, meet a fan.  Would we be imposing?"
     "No!" said Mallory.  "Not at all, that would be fantastic.  Um, I work four day weeks, I have Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off.  If you could visit on those days, I could give you my undivided attention.  I'll show you around, give you a good tour."
     "What do you do for a living?"
     "I'm a meter reader.  I work four ten hour days.  Dull, but pays well and keeps me in shape with all the walking.  Gosh....  You really want to visit?"
     "I think I'll enjoy it greatly," smiled Bekka.  "I always like meeting fans, but knowing I'll be meeting a truly intelligent fan makes it worth the trip.  We'll bring you a nice SoCal Mexican dinner for the first night.  Obviously we'll need to do a bit of planning and firm things up, but I see no reason Lenny and I can't visit next weekend."
     "Golly," said Mallory.  "How will you get here?"
     "To save time and bother, we'll charter a flight.  I have a terrible hunch that there is no such thing as a business class flight from San Diego to Minneapolis, and I am at a point in my life where I refuse to fly cattle class.  Do you recommend any hotels?  Is there a Hilton, or a Radisson, or....?"
     "Um, I know there's a Radisson downtown.  Wow, you'll really charter a plane?"
     Bekka said, "To be frank, Mallory, Lenny and I are absolutely fucking rolling in dough at this point.  We are constantly amazed at our success.  But Lenny keeps producing and writing dirty movies, which I appear in, that sell millions of copies each.  We love where we live, we love what we drive, our tastes are not expensive, and the damn money keeps rolling in.  Chartering a jet to Minneapolis and back is not a big deal for us at this point."  Bekka paused again.  "Besides, we will probably insist on bringing a few, uh, recreational chemicals with us, and flying privately means not having some prick security guard digging through our luggage.  Tell me, have you ever taken Ecstasy, Mallory?"
     "No," Mallory answered.  "I've heard about it.  Like, there's supposed to be some new kind out there that is the most incredible experience, I think it's called 'Happy.'  The serious club-goers seek it out, and the stuff costs forty dollars for a single hit, that's just crazy.  It better be incredible.  Why?"
      Chuckling, Bekka said, "Yes, the Ecstasy you're thinking of is called 'Smiley.'  I didn't know it demanded such a steep price out there, it's twenty-five dollars in California.  It is an amazing experience, though, I take it on weekends to clear my mind, break out of a work mindset.  If you'd like, we'll bring some Smiley with us, we'll get high Saturday and you can show us around the more interesting spots of Minneapolis.  Would that be all right?"
     "Uh....  Sure!  Um, I almost never take drugs, this stuff won't be, you know, scary for me, will it?"
     "No, not at all.  Smiley Ecstasy causes strong euphoria, confidence, energy, a feeling of mental dexterity, and a sense that you are very much in tune with your surroundings, the world around you.  The high lasts about ten hours.  There is no come-down, you just sort of realize you're not high any more, but you still feel okay with that.  It is not a psychedelic, there is no distortion of reality or feeling of lack of control.  If anything, you feel much more in control, like you understand things more clearly.  It is an experience, but not a trip.  We'll probably also bring some weed with us, do you smoke marijuana?"
     "That's really about the only drug I ever touch," said Mallory.  "Friends of mine smoke it at the end of the day, like a cocktail, you know?  They're always complaining about quality, though, saying they wish they had a good line on the stuff from Mexico."
     "Mexico?" Bekka queried, confused.  "Why on earth would they want Mexican weed?"
     "I guess it's the good stuff.  That's how people talk, anyway."
     "Oh boy.  Yes, I will be bringing some weed with me, enough to share with your friends.  Ours comes out of the Sierra Nevada mountains, and is fantastic.  I'm surprised your friends aren't actively seeking out stuff from Humboldt or Mendocino counties, they're well known for high quality."
     Mallory considered this briefly.  "I guess that stuff comes through every now and then, but it's incredibly expensive, and a lot of the time it's not legitimate, it's just regular Mexican marijuana that's a little better than average.  If I remember correctly, the really good California stuff goes for something crazy like seventy an eighth.  It's just not worth it to a lot of people."
     Bekka said, "Listen Mallory, I need to let Lenny know of our plans.  We're between features right now, so I don't believe he has anything meaningful pending at work.  Tell you what, let me call you back in two days around this same time, and I will have firmed up plans and times.  We'll actually probably fly in on Thursday night and leave Monday morning.  Do you suggest we rent a car, or is there good taxi coverage in Minneapolis?"
     "Um....  I'd say rent a car, I never see cabs outside downtown.  If your flight arrives past 6:30, I can just meet you at the airport and take you where you need to go.  If that's okay."
     "That would be most kind of you.  Again, we wouldn't want to impose."
     "Not at all!" exclaimed Mallory.  "Oh my God, this is just too crazy, Becky Page is making travel plans around....  me.  I am, gosh, really honored.  You were that impressed that I sent you a flower?"
     "You sent your state flower, which meant you put some thought into what you did," said Bekka.  "Normally people send me cookies or candy.  To be frank, in the past two years I've probably received five thousand Polaroids of men's penises.  I don't know what they're thinking.  A colleague suggested these men believe I will come across their dick pic and say, 'That's perfect, that's what I've always wanted!' and write the guy back, asking him to run away with me or something.  No, with you, both your gift and your letter displayed intelligence, and I always love to meet smart fans.  Again, I don't want to be an imposition."
     "Are you kidding?  Like I said, I'm honored!  I'm just some scrawny half-dyke --- well, mostly dyke --- from the Midwest, and Becky Page wants to meet me.  Um....  Is it okay if I introduce you to some of my friends?  I've gotten the impression you value your privacy, so it's totally cool if you say no."
     With a chuckle, Bekka said, "So long as you're not giving out our room number at the hotel, I would love to meet your friends.  I also hope you show us around the scene in Minneapolis.  For reasons of both size and political expediency, the queer scene in San Diego is pretty integrated between gays and lesbians.  They have their own bars, but both groups congregate in Hillcrest and live in Mission Hills.  Obviously, San Francisco's scenes are huge, and also independent of each other.  There's no social or political hostility between S.F. gays and lesbians, it's just that both groups are large enough they are self-supporting.  I'm curious about the climate in Minneapolis.  Obviously, it's an urbane enough town that a scene can exist openly, but....  I don't know, I may be demonstrating my ignorance here, I'm just not picturing the Midwest as being very accepting of rainbow flags, pink triangles, and free jars of condoms and dental dams in bars.  And don't answer me now, wait until we're out there.  Mallory, I must go, I really have to pee.  Thank you for talking to me, and I look forward to meeting you face to face.  I'll call you in two days with firm plans, is that all right?"
     "Ms. Page, that is wonderful.  I can't wait to meet you, I'll do anything I can to help make your visit a nice one.  This is just....  My mind is reeling.  Do you often meet fans like this?"
     "No, not like I'm doing with you," replied Bekka.  "I meet lots of fans, just by dint of being in public places and also being easily recognizable.  But Lenny and I could stand a few days out of town, Minneapolis has always struck me as an intriguing place, and you strike me as an intriguing fan.  I really must go, I'll talk to you in two days.  Goodnight."
     "Goodnight, Ms. Page!  I love you!"  (*click*)
     I hung up and rubbed my ear, then headed downstairs.  Bekka reappeared from the bathroom and smiled at me.  "I think we will have made a young woman very happy," she said.
     "Um, possibly very happy," I told Bekka.  "I got to thinking about it, and uh, if you two sorta click and there is some attraction there, you have my blessing to spend the night together.  I know she wouldn't turn you down."
     Bekka pondered this.  "I don't know.  I get the impression she's looking for a relationship, not just to get laid.  I think that she would be left empty by a one-night stand, even with Becky Page.  And I wouldn't want to give any false impressions that her and I might have a future together.  But thank you for your blessing.  We'll see how things go, and work from there."
     "Fair enough."