Chapter Four
Elly
I sat in the library and tried hard to concentrate on what was going on in my study group. I had a big exam coming up and Susie had rightfully insisted I go with her to this group. I wasn’t getting anywhere trying to study at home. All I could think about was Tristan.
We were sitting in a circle and the group leader was asking questions that we had given him. We didn’t all have the same instructors, but our textbooks, quizzes and tests were basically the same. Sam, the group leader takes the notes we give him, and designs a test which we then take orally during the group and we each take a written copy home with us to practice.
“Okay Elly,” Sam asked me, “What’s a two shot?” He was going around the circle and he’d landed on me. This was an easy one, first semester stuff.
“Um...It’s a shot that’s used a lot when there are two subjects who need to be in a frame.”
“Good, are they both facing the shot?”
“No, one is face on and the back of the other’s head in in the shot.”
“Great!” Sam said. He moved on to the next person in the circle and asked their question as my mind wandered to my troubles with Tristan.
I had never in my life just been someone’s booty call. At first, I was disturbed about that being all he wanted from me. The truth was though, I didn’t really want more than that from him either. I didn’t know him all that well since we really didn’t talk, but I knew enough to know that what he had to offer was not what I was looking for. To be exact, I wasn’t really even looking for anything, but now that I’d had the sex with Tristan, I loved it. God help me I think I’ve even started to crave it. I had come to the conclusion that I only had two problems with our current arrangement. First of course is that we had to sneak around. I needed to make sure he understood how important it was that there were no PDA’s between us. Second, I had to be sure that I was the only one he was having sex with. It was the only way that I’d be okay with…whatever you wanted to call this.
I had gone through all of the labels in my head. We weren’t friends, and I didn’t imagine that we’d have much in common if we even tried to be. We definitely weren’t lovers…lovers talked to each other and laid lazily in each other’s arms before and after they “made love.” What Tristan and I did was not even close to “making love.” It was sex, damned good sex and I loved it. I guess I didn’t have to give it a name or put a label on it. I did need him to promise me that I wasn’t only one girl in a string of ten. I wasn’t bothered by the thought of him being with someone else in general, it was the creepiness of him being with some chick and then me coming along right afterwards and him being with me.
“Okay Elly, what is an Ambassador?”
“That is the name for the liaison who communicates between the film crew and the area or culture that they want to film.”
“You’re on fire, Elly.” That was truer than he knew. Every stinkin’ time I thought about Tristan, that fire in my belly started flaring up. When he touched me it turned white hot. That was why I had such a hard time just walking away from him. But I shouldn’t have to, right? As long as we both acted like adults and kept things to ourselves that weren’t anyone else’s business….
“Elly.”
“Me again?” I asked. Susie gave me a look that said she knew where my head was at. I smiled at Sam and said, “Shoot.”
“Okay, let me find a hard one for you Miss Smarty. Here we go, define Double system audio.”
“Damn! Wait a sec, I know this one.” I had to dig down deep for it….”Okay, I got it. Double system audio is an audio that’s recorded with a separate audio recorder apart from the camera. “
“And…”
“Gimme a sec! And…When shooting double system, the audio is synched up with the picture by using a clapper slate, so the sound of the clap can be aligned with physical clap seen on camera. Also it’s used when shooting video to record a "dirty" reference track with a camera mic to help with synching.”
“You’re amazing!” Sam told me. I suddenly let myself imagine Tristan saying that to me and I got a little shiver down my spine.
Susie leaned over and said, “Stop it; get your mind back on your studies.” she was grinning.
I smiled and said, “What makes you think I’m not concentrating on my studies?”
“That shiver,” she whispered with a grin. “You’re thinking about him, perv.”
I laughed out loud and got a stern look from Sam who by the way is probably still a virgin. All Sam ever thinks about is production, production and more production.
I made up my mind during the study group that I was going to have to talk to Tristan about the exclusivity thing. That was probably going to be easier said than done. He was not much of a talker. I almost laughed out loud as I thought about the fact that if we had that conversation it would be the longest one we’d ever had. Yet, I’d had a crush on him since I was a little girl and he was a rock star. Now I’m grown up and he’s my sex God. It was all so surreal that I felt like I needed to pinch myself to see if it was even real life. I did and it was. Susie was watching me again. This time she only shook her head.