The Greatest Lie Part 13

She brightened as I had never seen her, and said "I am so happy, and I love you."

We kissed again and lay in one another's exhausted arms, nesting like spoons. Her breathing evened, and slowed, and she drifted off to sleep. When she was settled, I gently uncoupled from her and flipped open my laptop.

Inspired by our exquisite interlude, I stayed up until I had edited and e-mailed Allenina the final drafts of our screenplays.

When I woke up a few hours later, I had an e-mail from Allenina. She had arranged a location and was lining up the talent and crew for the coming weekend. I went on the Internet, checked the L.A. weather (early morning overcast clearing to hazy sunshine after noon; some fog at the beach). June weather in L.A. sucks, but we were going to be working inside most of the time. I bought a couple of cheap tickets from a Website and finished packing. The lease that Finch had arranged was up, and Tran and I were leaving our home on Hennepin forever.

On the flight to L.A., I let Tran play Solitaire on my laptop after the movie ended while I read something Allenina had recommended: "The Second Sex," by Simone de Beauvoir. I had absorbed Sartre and Camus in high school, but de Beauvoir's conception of women as the "other," and "that women is not born, but made," made a startling counterpoint to the male perspective on life's meaning and purpose; especially for me, now. I was even more astonished that my prospective porn director had absorbed the seminal text of feminism and had encouraged me to read it.

I thought de Beauvoir's work offered a delightfully revealing window into her prodigious intellect. Her application of the concept of alienation to feminism was all the more impressive for having been written in 1949.

Allenina met us the baggage claim, elegantly dressed in white silk capris, Dolce and Gabbana top, and Prada shoes. Her hair was perfect, she glowed with a year round SoCal tan, and she greeted us with a friendly, conspiratorial smile. She gave Tran and me film industry hugs-and-double-kisses, and then called for a porter to help us with our bags.