WILDCAT

“Don’t leave me here. Please take me with you. I don’t want to live in the wild anymore. I want to see the world!” pleads Nina in her scanty jungle bikini, holding fast to her debonair lover.

“PLEOOOOOOOOOOKATAKAKAKATAKA!”

“Cut!” bellows the director.

“Reset!” chimes the assistant director.

The camera, lighting and audio crew toy with their sensitive equipment in the hot afternoon sun as the hair and makeup department close in on Nina to work on the starlet’s sweating brow while she readjusts her bikini outfit that’s barely hugging her hips.

“Again?” complains Nina to the director. “How many times do we have to run this scene? I’m overheating and running out of gas here.”

“Nina, please be patient,” calms the director. “We have to get this shot. We’re over budget and tomorrow’s our last day on location in this tropical island paradise. Aren’t you enjoying your quasi-working vacation? Camera ready?”

“Picture up!”

“Rolling!”

“Action!”

“Don’t leave me here. Please take me with you. I don’t want to live in the wild–”

“PLEOOOOOOOOOOKATAKAKAKATAKA!”

“CUT!”

“Oh for the love of corn,” cries Nina. “Can you just go shoot that bird so we can get on with this and I can enjoy the rest of the afternoon on my quasi-working vacation?”

“Wrangler, go see what you can do about the bird,” barked the director. “Everyone, let’s call for dinner early and move on to the night scene after break. We’ll grab this one again tomorrow before we wrap.”

The beach clears quickly as actors, extras, crew and security abandon their posts with alacrity to the base camp on the other side of the island.

“Drive you to your trailer?” optioned her co-star.

“No, you go on. I want some time to myself on a white sand beach, just doing nothing,” rejoins Nina.

At long last. Nina is alone. She pulls up a beach lounger and settles in, peering out at the calming gentle waves from under her beach visor. It’s not long before her eyes close and she drifts off for a much-needed kip. She dreams...

A warm breeze sweeps up a little girl’s golden curls as she runs to greet her dear father whom she misses terribly. Eight-year-old Nina runs into daddy’s arms the moment he can step from the car.

“Please don’t ever leave again, daddy.”

“Nina, you know how my work is. I must take a plane tomorrow for Paris to start a new film. But we will spend this day together to last until I return again in three months.”

“No, daddy, no. Don’t leave me here. Please take me with you. I don’t want to live–”

“PLEOOOOOOOOOOKATAKAKAKATAKA!”

Nina is rudely awakened. Or is she?

A golden lithe figure, stark naked, dashes across the sand and dives like a loon and disappears under the ocean surface. Nina tries to get a look, shielding the lowering sun from her eyes.

Minutes pass. What was that? It looked human. How can it breathe underwater?

The figure emerges triumphant from the waves with a prize catch, holding a violently wiggling fish up to the sky.

“PLEOOOOOOOOOOKATAKAKAKATAKA!” screeches the golden goddess, now swimming swiftly to the shore.

The native goddess now struts with her fish, noticing Nina alone, staring at her. The native cautiously approaches Nina.

“Hello. Are you real?”

“PLEOOOOOOOOOOKATAKAKAKATAKA!”

“What does that mean?”

“PLEOOOOOOOOOOKATAKAKAKATAKA!”

“Can’t you say anything else?”

“Are you hungry?” bids the native girl in perfect english.

“Famished, actually, now that you ask. I hadn’t realized it until now.”

“Come with me.”

As if in a hypnotic trance Nina, locked on to the native girl’s stunning aqua eyes, rises. The native girl holds out a hand and Nina grasps securely.

A fire crackles in the cool dusk in a clearing. Nina reclines after a satisfying meal. She regards her hostess’s golden complexion, supple breasts springing from a very long flowing mane.

“How long have you been on this island?” piques Nina.

“I ran off from home when I was thirteen with a friend to see the world. When we came here, I stayed. She went home. That was fifteen years ago.”

“You live alone?”

“Yes. The island is small. There’s no one else. Except for the occasional movie people, like yourself.”

“How do you survive?”

“It’s easy, actually. I mostly eat off the forest floor. I learned to fish.”

“With your bare hands.”

“And you must be a good actress.”

“You still look thirteen. You’re like a freak of nature.”

“I am a freak of nature.”

“I thought I was dreaming when I saw a nature freak streak.”

“What are you thinking now?”

“I, I don’t know what to think.”

The native girl slowly and seductively reaches out to touch Nina’s hair. Nina is strangely at ease.

The two women pull together in an embrace as they each let out a sigh.

“Don’t leave me here. But please don’t take me with you,” whispers the native girl into Nina’s ear.

“I’m staying here with you,” whispers Nina.