Muse

The director stopped editing the film and looked at the computer screen. For several minutes he had been alone in the dark, windowless room facing the street, which had once been loaded with desks and editing tables. Technology had evolved, and his small commercial production business had adapted to the trends. He had sent the other team members home earlier. He also had reason: he hadn’t decided on the ending since the commercial for which he had signed a commitment. So there was no point in keeping them in the makeshift studio. He would have paid overtime and he didn’t want that. The filmed advertising contract was for a hotel that was going to open the summer season on the seaside.

The indecision awakened the Director’s need for solitude. This is what he always did when he was nearing the end of a production.

For the past three weeks he had been working hard to produce a marketable commercial. He had received an important commitment and total freedom from the contractor so he had written the script, thought of the locations, chosen the cast, directed. He was greedy for money. He intended to pay off the bank loan on the downtown apartment and take his wife on the dream trip he’d been promising her for ten years, since she’d left him the second time for infidelity, then returned convinced by his heavy tears and skillfully told lies.

The director was staring at the frozen image on the screen: he was looking at his Muse, actually his mistress, a non-professional actress, a bit past physical in her forties, but useful when she wanted to save her budget. The muse came for little money because she lived with the hope that, once and for all, he would divorce her and she would take the place of the one who now bore the master’s name.

The muse hoped to get a little higher on the social ladder as well. She had succeeded in life because, although she had just graduated from a bitter high school, she had married the grocer from the corner of the block where she had grown up. The man adored her, she was just the artist of the family. He made Muse want to: he had the feeling that for him she had botoxed herself, for him she had tattooed her back, for him she had put on piercings and roughly cupped her eyebrows to mask her too big and crooked nose. No, the Muse had done all this for the Director at whose disposal she was day and night. He did not even imagine that she, the Muse, inspired the artist when he had no other conquest. She was his spare wheel, he paid her, he found her a small engagement, and she was available at all hours. If the Muse’s husband had somehow found out, he would have been killed.

The director was thinking how to end his film: with the Muse walking idly on the beach in front of the hotel, with her figure in the foreground or with the seagulls flying over the sea. He didn’t want to show off her angular face, vulgar make-up, nor her slightly exaggerated curves and masculine gait. He deeply disliked them, but that was the commodity: for little money you get mediocre or poor quality service. And he needed a very good advertising spot. Besides, he still needed her services, both professional and sexual offered for next to nothing. He never looked at her in bed anyway. They contorted silently in total darkness, fast and efficient.

It usually happened, right here at his workplace. That is if they didn’t go to a hotel together under the pretext of festivals or gender contests. He knew from his own experience that in this industry, if you don’t know how to sell yourself, you’re stuck where you are. He had experienced it in his youth when he had messed with the National Screenwriter to break into the world of film and television. He really didn’t care about the subsequent rumors that the Lady Director had threatened to break up with him. He knew she wouldn’t get a divorce either. She loved him passionately, more recently she pretended not to see his relational slips. Thanks to him and his commercials he had a house in a good area, a social position, access to the bohemian world of the city.

Muse… Anyway, it was inappropriate to call her that: she had never been beautiful, not even feminine, no matter how hard she tried. But it inspired him in a sordid way, especially when he felt the need to go back to his experiences with men.

Still thinking about Muse and the end of his commercial, the Director remembered that there were no windows in the room. He looked at the clock. It was past ten in the evening. Then he makes the decision to remove all close-ups with the amateur actress and his backup mistress and put seagulls flying over the sea with the hotel’s slogan.

The phone next to the computer made a soft sound. It was a message: „My sweet, I’m still waiting for you with dinner. Are you still going to be editing?”. It was the wife.