Martine in the Movies
by Noël Burch  nburch@wanadoo.fr
Judo-wise French nurse confronts evil kunoichi.


MARTINE IN THE MOVIES

The head nurse, Madame Girardon, put her head through the door: « Martine,
come give us a hand, please... It's No. 119 again. »

Martine looked up from the belly covered with little bruises: she was giving
his daily shot of anticoagulant to a senior patient whose multiple ulcers were
complicated by a general phlebitis.

"Not again! I'm fed up with that! Why don't they send him to the psychiatric
ward! He shouldn't be here at all!

"I know, I know... but you know perfectly well that Doctor Choron thinks..."

"... ‘that from a gastro-enteric point of view, his pathology is interesting
and he wants to keep an eye on it.' I've heard it all before... OK, OK, I'm
coming..."

She finished the injection and put a plaster over the tiny wound which would
heal very slowly in the ageing flesh.

She started to remove her rubber gloves but changed her mind: they were going
to be useful for what followed. She stepped into the hallway and immediately
saw what the problem was.

Some ten meters away, a North-African in a terry-cloth bathrobe and
basket-balls shoes was pacing about the TV area. In passing, he kicked at the
armchairs lining the walls, screamed insults at the nurses and their
auxiliaries standing about, none daring to approach him. Martine parked her
rolling table by the wall, and strode towards the scene of the disturbance.
Her white tennis shoes made almost no noise on the grey linoleum and the
adherence of her rubber soles felt pleasantly reassuring.

In passing, she noted that the poor man had already broken the TV set: blood
was dripping from a cut on his hand... which he seemed not to feel.

"Fucking bitches, you're all alike, you want to steal my fluids, that's what
all those needles are for, all those enemas, those rubber tubes and the rest!
Bitches, I'll kill ya!"

The head nurse stepped forward and spoke to him, slowly, softly,
confidentially: "Monsieur, please go back to your room, no one here is going
to harm you, no one at all, no one at all... you need rest, you feel tired, so
very tired... You want to sleep, your eyelids are getting heavy... Listen to
my voice, listen to my words, you're feeling so sleepy..."

Madame Girardon had taken a course in hypnotism a few years before and now she
was trying to use her powers of suggestion on the poor fellow. Last year, they
had worked quite well with another manic patient... But with this one, Martine
knew, her superior was wasting her time.

Now it was she who would have to take matters in hand, using her powers of
persuasion.

She moved towards the man called Ahmed, silently, unhurriedly, hands dangling
at her sides, shaking her rubber-clad wrists almost imperceptibly: relaxation,
respiration, concentration, she focused all her energy on this man whom she
was obliged to regard as a maniac.

"You're all bitches, I'm gonna waste every fuckin' one o' you! Ain't this a
public hospital? Well, I'm the public, ain't I? Ain't I? So why'm I being
treated like this?"

Deep down inside, Martine said to herself that this poor mental case was
absolutely right... She could not bear the thought that in the name of science
– or rather for the further glory of some medical honcho – this man, the other
patients on the floor and, above all, from her point of view, the personnel on
duty, should have to suffer so needlessly.

Which was all very well, of course, but the fact was that she was the only
nurse on duty at this hour capable of settling the immediate problem with a
minimum of fuss.

The patient was only three steps away.

"Ahmed, you must be off to bed now."

"No, I said! No, I won't go to bed, they're stealing my fluids while I sleep!"

"Now, Ahmed," she said, "don't talk cock!"

He was almost within her grasp when he recognized her and backed away to the
wall.

"No, no, not you! You're not gonna lay a hand on me! You already hurt me
enough with your dirty tricks!"

"I won't hurt you if you come quietly back to your room..."

Ahmed sidled along the corridor wall, fuming and cursing the nurse, who came
after him relentlessly, stepping firmly on her rubber soles, still trying to
reason him...

Soon she was only a step away.

"No, no, no..." he shouted, thrusting out an arm to repulse her, a clumsy
gesture, half-slap, half-shove. This was exactly what Martine was waiting for
and she reacted swiftly and immediately: easily blocking the awkward blow with
her forearm, she wrapped her arms with scientific precision around her
patient's arm, stepping behind him and twisting it powerfully up his back, at
the same time reaching across his throat and seizing the collar of his
bathrobe: his larynx was caught in a vice and his flailing free arm could not
reach his persecutor.

"Now, now, calm down, I don't want to hurt you... But if you keep struggling,
this hold can hurt you a lot... You can't fight my judo, you've learned that
already... Now we're going to go quietly back to your room and you're going to
rest..."

And while talking thus softly into his ear, Martine propelled him forward with
little thrusts of her knees against the back of the man's calves.

Each time Ahmed tried to slow their advance or escape from the lock, the
rubber-clad wrist dug into his Adam's apple, and the uncomfortable arm-lock
suddenly threatened to dislocate his shoulder.

The vanity of all resistance finally penetrated his agitated mind; he began to
sob and abandoned himself to the judo nurse's skill.

In Room 119, three nurses' aides helped Martine put the man to bed and tie his
wrists to the edge with leather straps. After which Madame Girardon gave him
an injection. Finally, she leaned over him, laid her finger-tips on his
temples and spoke to him in soft, monotonous tones... "She's certainly keen to
try that hypnosis stuff again!" Martine thought with a shade of contempt as
she returned to her rolling table and continued her evening round.

*

**

Three days later, Martine entered the room of one Mister Berkowitz, whose
dossier had informed her he was a movie producer, born in Columbus, Ohio USA,
now a Paris resident, with a serious case of diverticular disease, which had
required surgery.

The routine of treatment went as usual, with polite indifference on both
sides. Until, in the middle of his antibiotic injection, the patient opened
his mouth and, in his awful French, made a surprising statement: "Me make you
good offer..."

Martine smiled: this one was American to the fingertips!. "And what kind of
offer is that?" she smiled.

When the injection was finished, the American – a Jew in his fifties, still
quite youngish but far too overweight to be Martine's cup of tea – rolled over
on his back.

"Saw you handle crazy Arab... You good at judo, me admire you..."

Martine was both intrigued and suspicious... Another one of those amiable
perverts who want to feel a woman's strength? Well, she was generally ready to
go along with that, had done so several times in the past... except that this
one really didn't appeal to her.

"I put you in movie."

Martine was only slightly relieved, and her reply was guarded: "What kind of
movie?"

"Judo film, only judo, nothing else, no sex... Good pay, five thousand francs
hour, screen-test, too... Test takes two, three hours... America... big
sales... I hire you, maybe... then big money for you ..."

Martine was greatly amused by the man's offer, but also secretly tempted...
but she didn't let on.

"Well, anyway, Mister Berkowitz, we both have plenty of time to think it over,
you're in here for another fortnight, at least."

"Sure, sure, but me out, me back, take you screen-test, OK?"

Martine laughed and said, in the tone she used when humouring a patent: "Fine,
you can come and get me on your big white horse."

"OK," said the producer with a big confident smile and closed his eyes.

Martine shrugged and left the room.

*

**

During the fortnight that Mister Berkovitz' convalescence lasted indeed,
Martine was reminded of his proposition on two very precise occasions.

The first came the day she quarrelled with her boyfriend Max in the thrall of
yet another fit of paranoid jealousy and she began to wonder how much longer
she could put up with him in her bed. The second came in front of a downtown
store window wherein she admired a lovely slack-suit of raw silk... which cost
over a month of her nurse's pay.

*

**

Mister Berkowitz' release was set for Tuesday lunchtime, as usual.

Martine came into his room as he was putting on his street clothes.

"So, Martine, still OK?" he asked. "Remember: 5 000 francs, one hour!" And
Martine heard herself saying: « OK, Mister Berkovitz."

"Fine, fine... You off duty at three?"

"Yes..."

"Secretary come, talk good French... She explain...bring you me."

With these words, he handed his suitcase to the nurses' aide and walked with
still uncertain step to the lift-doors.

*

**

Berkowitz's secretary was a brunette, a slim, cat-like woman, wearing
fashionable beige linen slacks with long matching jacket. She spoke fluent
French with a pronounced American accent.

"He wants you for a screen test, deary, wants to see if you're photogenic and
if you can fight convincingly... What was your speciality again...?"

"Judo..."

"Ah yes, a little out of fashion these days, not violent enough, but if you
can throw them around, it makes a good show... And then after all, those
choke-holds could kill if you wanted... I was in judo for a few years... till
I disovered nin-jitsu..."

She smiled a tight little smile that sent shivers down Martine's back.

Speaking to this woman, Martine couldn't for the life of her, bring herself to
use "tu", as the other had just done. But neither did she want snub her: "Ah,
so you too are a practitioner..."

"All of Mister Berkovitz' female personnel are martial artists... and all of
Mister Berkovitz's employees are women..."

As the woman described them, Martine found the peculiarities of this company
very dubious... but not a little exciting.

Whatever the case, she couldn't see how such a venture could possibly bring
her harm. She'd made it a point of checking out Mister Berkovitz: before he
came to France, and he turned out to be well-known in Hollywood as a producer
of "exploitation films" (Martine wasn't exactly sure she knew what these
were). And so she had said to herself: "Might as well see what it's all about.
If it's porn, well, they can't very well us me against my will!"

After a few minutes with this disquieting secretary, however, she was being to
feel far ess confident...

But now another, more trivial worry appeared:

"I haven't got my gi! If I'm going to shoot a screen-test..."

The secretary's smile grew a bit friendlier: "Don't worry, our wardrobe
department has a wide choice of gear."

*

**

Berkowitz and his troop had taken up quarters – specifically for Martine's
sake it seemed - in an unused warehouse on the outskirts of town. Metal trunks
and cases were strewn about the vast floor, in the centre was the "arena": a
big mat lit from above by strip-lights. A large painted cyclorama like an
expressionistic comic strip panel represented a devastated urban landscape.

Still flanked by the secretary – whose name she had learned was Nancy –
Martine approached the mat and tested it with her foot: it was really too thin
to absorb the impact of an untrained falling body.

"Too hard," she said to Nancy.

"For you?"

"No, but for anyone who doesn't know how to fall..."

Martine thought she heard the woman say, under her breath "That's the idea..."
before she hurried her away. "Come along, dear; let me show you the dressing
rooms."

These were lodged outside the warehouse, in a huge trailer-truck on the
parking lot, and were very comfortable indeed.

The wardrobe was predictable but amusing nonetheless, Martine thought. She
rummaged among an assortment of cat-suits made of PVC, rubber and leather.
There were Lycra tights and leotards, evening-dresses with skirts slit to the
hips (and cut from fabrics that were much tougher than they looked). Though
she'd understood a gi was out of the question, she had difficulty finding
fighting gear which would give her the freedom of movement she needed.

She finally opted for a fashionably cut overall of beautiful black leather,
soft and shimmering. It was flatteringly tight around the waist and bust, but
loose enough over the shoulders

and around the hips and thighs that her moves would go unhampered.

She was only half-surprised to discover a cod-piece between the legs, held in
place by two strips of Velcro.

A make-up woman gave her such a dramatic mask that she hardly recognized
herself in the mirror. But then, of course, it occurred to her this disguise
was probably a blessing: one never knew who might one day happen to see
whatever it was they were about to shoot here.

The makeup woman also insisted on sticking a transfer tattoo just over her
breast: a scarlet peony, drawn in the Japanese manner.

Then Nancy brought in a pair of what looked like wrestlers' boots in black
leather, laced to mid-calf and some long soft gloves that encased her arms to
the elbow but ended at the base of the palm with a loop of leather between
thumb and forefinger which left the hand bare.

Martine took the gloves but declined the boots. "I'd rather be barefoot."

The woman's voice grew harder. "The boots go with the rest!"

Martine started to protest but then thought better of it and obediently took
the boots. She'd just remembered that she'd spent only one hour with these
Americans, and had already earned 5 000 francs.

Nancy's voice broke in on this comforting thought. "I think I ought to tell
you the boy you're going to meet is very motivated: we told him that if he
pins you, he can fuck you... on camera, of course."

"Martine's jaw gaped: "You told him what?"

"Don't worry, his only experience is a little boxing... You can take him
easily... Especially since I somehow forgot to tell him you're a black belt,"
and that evil smile reappeared on her face.

Martine glared at the woman, but said nothing and instead stooped to roll the
bottom of the leather trousers, which were too long. While she wrestled with
the bootlaces, Nancy, having inspected her ankles, left the room and returned
with a pair of unbleached wool gaiters and matching head-band.

"These will make a nice contrast with the leather and they'll make you look
more authentic, more athletic." Martine adjusted the gaiters so that they hid
the rolled bottoms of the overall, swept her hair back and held it in place
with the headband. A glimpse at the big mirror on the dressing room wall
showed her to be definitely unrecognizable... and to offer a satisfactorily
disquieting vision to titillate the johns out there in the darkened theatre...

Martine left the dressing-room truck and headed for the makeshift sound-stage.
She was walking as calmly as she could towards the bright-lit arena where her
cinematic future was at stake, when a young female assistant – a native
French-speaker but whose language was abundantly spiced with obscure English
expressions – took Martine in tow and led her behind the cyclorama.

"For these talents tests, Mister Berkovitz always likes the two contestants to
meet on camera... It's more dramatic... Stay here and wait for your cue" That
was the fourth word Martine hadn't understood.

"My what?"

The young woman finally consented to say one whole sentence in the language of
Descartes: "A gong will sound and you'll make your entrance through that flap
in the cyclorama."

The assistant vanished. Martine did a few limbering-up exercises, waiting for
her Big Moment...

*

**

It was in a bar near the Berkowitz "studio" that François Morillon – "Bill" to
his friends – had been accosted by an extremely attractive woman, a bit thin
to his taste perhaps, but with truly fascinating eyes. He laughed out loud
when she made her offer: try his luck against a pretty young wrestler for a TV
show. But she stared into his eyes and whispered in his ear and promised him
five hundred francs for an hour of his time. And then promised him that if he
won, which was probable, big and strong as he was, he could probably expect to
get some hanky panky... Because the woman he was going wrestle was a good
wrestler but she also had a little masochistic streak in her, and being
dominated by a big heavy man like himself, would probably turn her on...

Bill said to himself in petto that these American women were pretty kinky. But
he also knew he was quite bewitched by this one with her intense gaze and
couldn't imagine turning her down.

He showed up at the studio on time, playing it cool, swaggering a little, and
was taken to the arena. The woman from the café introduced him to a man whom
she said was the producer. Then both of them withdrew into a big lorry full of
equipment. A pretty girl came and rubbed some skin-coloured cream on his face
with a sponge, and then another, even prettier than the first, led him onto a
king-sized, brightly lit gym mat, with a strange big picture on a curved cloth
hanging behind it. There, two more women awaited him, one of them carrying a
big camera on her shoulder, the other a little tape-recorder on a shoulder
strap and a telescopic rod with a microphone at the end.

He expressed his surprise: "Nothing but chicks here!"

"All except Mister Berkowitz," said the French assistant and there was a hint
of sarcasm in her voice. "Now go sit on that stool. When you hear the gong,
your opponent will appear right there, where it's marked bar... that door
painted on the canvas is actually opens..."

Bill sat down.

A few minutes went by and then he heard an order in English over a PA system.
The woman with the tape-recorder tapped the microphone with her finger-tip and
the gong sounded, its vibrations long and mysterious, like in a horror movie.

The false door opened and a young woman appeared. Bill almost laughed aloud:
was this some sort of joke? This was supposed to be a wrestler? Why the top of
her head didn't come up to his chin, he must have outweighed her by 30 lbs. at
least!

And then he thought: "OK, this must be part of their kinky stuff, there must
be creeps who'll pay to see a woman smashed by a guy like me. But I gotta go
easy, I might hurt her!"

He stood up then and walked towards the woman. He saw right away she was
pretty, just like he'd been promised. She was waiting for him in the middle of
the "ring", arms dangling at her sides, knees slightly flexed. She was wearing
a weird pair of low-cut leather overalls and long sexy gloves, but it was her
bare shoulders – pretty muscular, they were, too that turned him on: he
couldn't wait till he pinned them to the mat!

He strode forward recklessly and grabbed those tempting shoulders. He was
hardly aware the woman had seized his sleeve and his lapel, so delicate was
her grip, hardly aware that she was drawing back, pulling... He felt off
balance, took a step forward...

And from that moment on Bill completely lost control of his body.

The woman gave a little shout and leaning backward, blocked his knee with the
sole of her sneaker... Before he realised what was happening to him, his feet
had left the floor and she was pulling him into a veritable somersault which
ended when his back landed heavily on the mat... Dazed, he started to sit up
and had just time to say to himself "the bitch knows judo" when already she
was upon him: taking advantage of his half-sitting position, she dropped to
the ground and wrapped her legs around his shoulders in an irresistible
scissors hold; with a graceful twist of her hips, she effortlessly lay him on
the ground again, seized his right wrist and with a practiced twist drew his
arm over the taut leather thigh and locked it in a painful grip.

Bill's legs beat the air wildly like an animal in a trap, desperately trying
to kick the woman off. But the position she occupied was designed precisely to
keep out of range of her victim's legs... She gazed down at him with an ironic
smile on her lips. He had no way of fighting back, he was paralyzed by the
pain in his arm and the powerful leverage of her diabolical hold.

This little chit of a woman, seated now with one buttock on his chest, had
ridiculed him in seconds. They might have warned him! They could have told him
she knew judo! He would have been more careful.

Suddenly he became aware that the two technicians were busily circling them,
shooting the scene under every angle.

"Twist it more... Go on... The pain on his face, his screams..."

His tormentress didn't need any coaxing and with what seemed like no effort at
all, elicited a shrill scream from her victim.

"Harder than that!"

"Any more and his arm will break!"

"OK, later then..."

Bill preferred to think he hadn't heard right.

*

**

The technicians finally stopped filming and withdrew to the edge of the mat,
talking in low tones.

A loud-speaker was heard, Nancy's voice: "That was fine, Martine, but a bit
too quick. We'll have to begin again."

Martine released her victim and sprang to her feet.

"You OK? she asked the stranger who was looking up at her with resentment in
his eyes. "You didn't hurt yourself falling?"

"I'm OK," grumbled Bill, "but you caught me off guard, it wasn't fair..."

Martine smiled: men never accepted defeat at the hands of a woman gracefully.
As she had often had the opportunity to observe...

When she'd first found herself face to face with this Rambo clone, Martine had
gasped inwardly: the guy was too heavy for her, she'd have to catch him by
surprise and end it right away. This she had effectively accomplished with
hizaguruma, which put him on the floor in two ticks. But now she was a little
annoyed with herself: she'd been thinking only of the fight, she'd forgotten
the show she was being paid to give.

And yet, faced with the obligation to begin over again – perfectly
understandable in the interests of the show and the people who were paying her
– she felt a little worried. Was she really going to be able to defeat this
colossus so easily, now that he was on guard against her skills?

Her only hope was a choke hold... But for that, she'd have to get him on the
ground.

Again the opponents prepared to grapple – but during a pause requested by the
technicians, the man had removed his shirt and jacket, which his judo-wise
opponent had used so effectively to defeat him.

They were now within reach of one another, but each time the judokate reached
for her opponent, he batted her away with hands as big as meat-hooks, trying
in vain to grab her wrist, looking for an opening in the on guard stance of
his highly trained adversary.

Martine decided to try seionagi ippon, a throw which she didn't think she
could perform correctly against someone that size, but it would at least have
the advantage of putting them both on the floor, where she had her chances. So
as soon as the occasion arose, she grabbed his wrist and spun round, ramming
her buttocks as sharply as she could into the man's lower abdomen, her pelvis
connecting with his pubis – his "oof" was music to her ears – and started to
flip him in her purest style.

But the young giant instinctively went flaccid and heavy, so that they fell
together in a graceless tangle. Because she was expecting this failure,
Martine managed their fall in such a way that they landed on their sides, with
the man behind her.

He threw his powerful arms around her in a bear-hug, but made the mistake of
locking his fingers together. Overcoming the "fair play" reflexes acquired in
competition, Martine resorted to jiu-jitsu: she got hold of two fingers,
squeezing them tight around a finger of the opposite hand, then pulled with
all her strength. The man could only release her, cursing: "Fuckin' itch,
‘I'll get ya for that!"

He butted her on the back of the neck, hard enough to make her release her
hold in turn... But she had achieved what she wanted: she could roll over now
to face her opponent... who immediately wrapped his arms around her again.

*

**

When Bill threw his arms for the second time around this sensuous body that
was putting up such scientific resistance, he thought he was home free: all he
had to do now was squeeze till she gave up... He could feel the soft curve of
her firm breasts against his chest, and he had the feeling she'd stopped
fighting back any more. So he rolled her over to be on top of her, his arms
still squeezing the breath out of her chest... But he held only her torso, he
had failed to pin her arms, and this he would soon bitterly regret. Suddenly,
he realized that his joined hands were trapped beneath the double weight of
their bodies, and that by lifting her legs, the woman had cleverly increased
the pressure which effectively imprisoned his hands... If he could only pull
them free, he'd have her!

He felt her soft hands on either side of his neck, he felt her thumbs digging
around his windpipe, felt suddenly dizzy and weak. He could still breathe
normally but there was a kind of congestion in his face skull, he tried to
struggle to his knees, but could not...

As if in a dream, he heard her speak: "Sorry, old boy, but I like to choose my
sex partners..."

And he whirled down into darkness...

*

**

In the position in which she found herself and with an opponent who wore no
collar, Martine was obliged to resort once again to a jiu-jitsu technique, the
butterfly strangle-hold, her crossed thumbs digging into the throat on either
side of the larynx, cutting off the blood-supply to the brain, and if
necessary paralyzing the adversary's respiratory apparatus, but usually
unconsciousness set in first, after some seven or eight seconds. She felt the
young giant's body go limp: victory was hers again. But then an imperative
voice came over the speaker system:

"Keep hold, great shot."

And so Martine pretended to be maintaining the pressure... because to maintain
it in fact would have been fatal to her victim.

Finally the two technicians moved away again and Martine could hear a confab
involving Berkovitz and Nancy over near the technical van.

She pushed away the unconscious body and sat up. Kneeling behind her victim
she lifted his torso and braced it against her bosom, then began compressing
the man's diaphragm with powerful strokes: once, twice, three times... But the
young man still showed no signs of regaining consciousness.

The Americans lost interest in the matter and vanished from the "set".

Patiently, Martine continued her ministrations... Finally, the man opened his
eyes... He was obviously feeling very unwell.

"You OK now?"

"No, I feel dizzy, I feel sick... What did ya do to me?"

"Jiu-jitsu trick, sorry about that but otherwise you're much too big for
me..."

Martine went on with her healing manipulations, rubbing away the man's anger
and frustration at the same time.

"I'm really sorry, but... well, for 5 000 francs an hour, isn't it worth
taking a few knocks?"

"Me, I only get 500."

Martine gaped: "No kidding? The bastards... OK, I'll give you some of mine,
it's only fair, you're the one who's getting beat up... And you don't even
enjoy it!"

But so saying, her gazed moved down and she saw the tell-tale hump in the
boy's crotch.

"Ah, but you do like having your diaphragm massaged..."

Gently, she lowered the colossus' torso to the mat, for he was still groggy.

If the truth be told, Martine had been deeply aroused by this wrestling match
of a type that was new to her – part street fight, part erotic exhibition. She
decided to do something about it.

She unbuckled the young man's belt, unzipped his flies, and with a screech of
Velcro tore open the leather cod-piece concealing her own private parts.
"Convenient, this thing," she thought to herself as she climbed onto the
giant's prone body.

*

**

"If you'll be kind enough to come with me, Mademoiselle?"

Martine wondered how long the assistant had been standing there watching
them... More breathless from her recent efforts than from the other wrestling
match, she sat up and disengaged herself, with the characteristic sucking
sound. Bill seemed still pretty well out of it. She stood up and fastened the
cod-piece again, observing a faint smile on the assistant's face.

The young woman glanced at the man lying with his eyes clothes, dropped a thin
envelope on the stool and took Martine by the arm.

In Berkovitz' office, he and his secretary congratulated Martine on her
performance. Nancy handed her a thick envelope and asked her if she could take
a fortnight off next month to come to Paris.

"We already have a script which could easily be adapted to suit your special
talents. It's about a female detective... Incidentally, you didn't tell us
about the jiu-jitsu, that was very good..."

Martine felt slightly embarrassed. She lowered her gaze.

"But you don't even know if I can act," she protested.

"Oh that'll be all right," said Nancy dismissively," I'm sure you're very
good."

"We send contract to you," said Berkovitz.

And then she was made to understand that the interview was at an end.

Back on the "set", Bill was putting on his shirt and jacket. Martine waited
for him by the warehouse door, examining the contents of her envelope. 15 000
francs in 500 franc notes. She counted out ten and gave them to Bill, who
didn't put up much pretence of refusing. They walked away, wondering cynically
about the nature of the shenanigans that might motivate these undocumented
payments in cash.

And of course, Bill wanted to see her again. Martine took down his phone
number but remained elusive, gave him an affectionate peck on the cheek and
headed for the nearest bus stop.

*

**

And so it came to pass that six weeks later, having put in for leave to make
up for holiday time owed her for more than a year, Martine, a juicy contract
in her pocket, entered the little studio in the Thirteenth arrondissement of
Paris where Mister Berkovitz had set up his European operations... Which
operations, Martine was soon to understand, consisted of using the resources
Europe could offer – mainly actors and natural settings, but also certain
subsidies – to shoot films of such mediocre quality that they could be shown
only in the Third world and... the United States. There was thus no reason to
fear that any of her family or friends would ever see the one in which she was
about to play the lead ...

And when she learned that her voice would also be dubbed by an American
actress, she stopped worrying about her acting ability.

The title of the film was Miss Judo-cat, an idea which had come to the
producer when he discovered the French feminisation of the word judoka –
judokate. Under the direction of a friendly Quebecois director, Martine was to
star in a "detective thriller" as trite as it was obscure, and in the course
of which the heroine had to defend herself with monotonous regularity against
one, two or three opponents and even once against a woman, Her antagonist was
the little production assistant who turned out to be an accomplished
karatekate and gave Martine as good as she got in her role as a professional
assassin. Because indeed, despite what Martine had assumed from her reading,
the fights were scarcely planned in advance and were quite rough: already a
few of her fellow actors had sustained minor injuries, one by her fault – a
sprained wrist from an over-vigorous jiu-jitsu lock! Up till now, Martine
herself was unscathed, but she was amazed at the risks the actors were willing
to take in the name of realism.

Actually, the screenplay did not always let Martine win her confrontations;
sometimes, on the contrary, she was overpowered by numbers or succumbed to a
treacherous attack from behind. She would then find herself, for example,
locked in a trunk and thrown into the Seine, escaping death only by the skin
of her teeth... subsequently wreaking athletic vengeance on her enemies. Or
else, another time, locked in a dank cellar, escaping only by taking advantage
of a horny jailer who unwisely freed her legs only to be rendered unconscious
by a long, cruel scissors hold, carefully shot from every possible angle.

Etc. etc.

But what actually did amuse Martine were the torture scenes, where she was
meant to make a suspect or a witness "talk" with an excruciating joint-lock or
a life-threatening strangle-hold... Deep inside, the excitement she invariably
felt performing such scenes frightened her, too. But then she knew from long
experience that these matters of desire were very, very complicated...

And indeed, one day, entering the producer's office without knocking, she came
upon a spectacle that was unexpected but hardly surprising, she thought:
Berkowitz lay flat on his face in an extremely uncomfortable position,
rendered helpless through a complicated arm-and-leg lock, applied by none
other than his own secretary, the comely Nancy.

Wearing a leather mini-sheath over a black Lycra cat suit, she was like a
huge, spindly arachnid poised above its prey. Her tight little behind pinned
one of his calves to the floor while her high heel hooked around the far ankle
kept the producer's legs splayed out at an impossible angle: her dainty
fingers applied a vicious, twisting wristlock to his captive hand (Martine saw
that the pinkie was bent painfully back, as well) while a slender forearm
pressed his elbow to near breaking point: it was thus that Nancy, showing no
visible signs of exertion, was pressing her boss' nose into the thick carpet.

Martine had just enough time to analyse a hold which was new to her, before
Nancy noticed her presence and detached herself from her boss's martyrized
body as if nothing were amiss.

Mister Berkovitz stood up in turn as naturally as he good, nursing his savage
wrist at the same time as he tried to rearrange his clothes, striving in vain
to hide the bump in his trousers.

"Nancy and me... discussion... argument... Come back later... contract
detail."

And Martine quickly left, hardly able to choke back her mirth: so Bekowitz was
"one of them", a member of the brotherhood of "viragophiles" as she had once
read they were called. And Nancy was his "accommodator". She'd had her
suspicions since that first day at the hospital. Martine knew about
viragophiles: she'd been married to one ... who wouldn't own up to his
passion! Married her because she was a black belt but never emerged from his
closet! The marriage did not last long...

A few days later, the whole affair took a more sinister turn.

Martine had quickly grown tired of the company of the other women in the
group, most of whom hardly spoke French. As for the little karatékate, she
found her just as boring with all her American words and her obsession with
money.

Consequently, she began taking her meals in little bistros in the
neighbourhood, where the conviviality suited her better than the high-priced
restaurants where her colleagues lunched.

Now, it was while partaking one evening of an excellent andouillette
pommes-en-l'air at a rear table in one of these establishments which had
caught her fancy, that Martine saw seated on the terrasse the strangest couple
one could imagine: Nancy, wearing a fashionable trouser suit and booties
across the table from an ill-dressed, blotchy-faced man who looked very much
as if he belonged to the army of the homeless.

Nancy ordered a bottle of wine. When the waiter had brought it to their table,
the woman scarcely drank but repeatedly encouraged her guest, who was clearly
out of his depth, to pour himself another. And all the while, Nancy was
leaning forward, staring into the man's eyes, whispering in his ear. Soon a
stupid smile spread over his face.

In the end, the woman slipped him what might have been a hundred franc note,
paid for the wine and went off towards the studio. But not without a last
remonstrance to the down-and-out, who hastened to reassure her: he would keep
whatever promise he had just made her.

Martine thought about that strange encounter for the rest of the day.

The next day she'd forgotten all about it.

But on the third day after that, waiting to be called to the set for the next
scene and leafing through a tabloid left on a table, she came upon a photo
with a caption: the police were trying to identify the body of a homeless man
found in the sewers, with multiple fractures and a broken back, apparently
beaten to death. And in the photo that accompanied the brief news-item,
Martine was quite sure she recognized the man she had seen with Nancy...

Go to the police? She had no proof, it would be her word against theirs. She
had to find proof and there was only one way to do that...

*

**

The shooting day ended at 6 PM. Martine changed her panties and slipped into
the Lycra leggings, suede jacket and tennis shoes that had become her habitual
attire. She buckled the belt-pouch which had recently replaced her hand-bag,
then returned to the sound-stage and ostentatiously said good night to the
technicians preparing the next day's shoot.

She headed for the exit.

But as she passed the women's lavatory, she stopped and glanced furtively
about, then slipped silently through the lavatory door.

Surprisingly, considering the size of the female personnel, the room was empty
for the moment, which would facilitate her plan.

From her pouch, she took a pad of post-its and a felt pen, wrote "OUT OF
ORDER" in big caps, tore off the slip, stuck it on a cubicle door and locked
herself in.

Time passed. The restroom received five visits from women "answering the call
of nature" as her American colleagues jokingly called it.

But Martine, squatting on a lowered seat, could not be seen from without.

*

**

It was after ten when she decided that everyone must have left the building,
even Berkowitz and Nancy, who often worked late.

With great caution, she left the toilets and cocked an ear. Silence. Darkness.

She hurried silently down the hall leading to the producer's office.

She'd already noticed that the lock on the door was very primitive; and
indeed, she picked it easily with a bent nail she had prepared for the task.

She'd also noticed that Berkowitz kept the many keys to his installation in
the bottom drawer of his big oak desk. The drawer was locked of course, but
Martine forced it quickly with a thin chisel purchased earlier from a nearby
hardware store.

She then made her way to the video control room and lost another two minutes
searching through the thirty odd keys for the one which would open the steel
door.

Finally the 27th key slipped into the lock... and turned.

Martine switched on the overhead light and went straight to the metal cabinet
where the technicians kept the recorded tapes.

More time lost finding the right key... and then the cabinet stood open.

Martine began examining the labels on the cassette cases: she recognized the
titles of scenes from Judo-cat, skipped over tapes labelled "Test" with a name
and date (her own test was among them). But then she came upon an isolated
cassette, bearing only the word "Extras".

Obeying a sudden hunch, she turned on a viewing monitor as she had seen the
technicians do time and again when crew and cast viewed rushes. After a few
long seconds, the screen lit up. She took the big cassette out of its box,
slipped it into the tape player and pushed the appropriate button.

And it was there, in that cramped and cluttered control room, on that small
rectangle of curved glass... that our heroine had a glimpse of Hell.

First came a full-length frontal, low-angle shot of a woman silhouetted
against a white ground. She was dressed in black leather dominatrix gear:
thigh-boots and bustier, shoulder-length gloves with cut-off fingers, and her
skull, upper face and throat were tightly encased in a black leather hood. She
stood stock still at first, as though listening. Then gradually she lifted her
arms and spread her legs in a threatening guard position and gazed into the
lens.

A title appeared: "KUNOICHI SNUFF" which sent shivers down Martine's back. She
knew that the kunoichi were the female ninjas of old Japan, trained in the
arts of mayhem and death... And had she not read somewhere, a few years back,
a terrifying article about something called "snuff movies", where women were
killed in front of the camera for the delectation of rich Americans? Women
recruited in Mexico or further South? At the time, of course she'd been more
than sceptical...

But this evening her doubts gave way to dread, all the more powerful as the
close-up behind the title revealed that the terrifying female figure behind
the mask was none other than Nancy, Mister Berkovitz' precious secretary...
and enthusiastic specialist of deadly ninjitsu.

Fade to black.

Next to be seen was the cyclorama that Martine knew well, it had served as a
backdrop for her screen-test. And soon a figure came into the shot that she
had dreaded seeing there, it was the homeless man who had been alive and well
at a sidewalk café three days before... and dead on the last page of this
morning's Parisien Libéré.

And Martine knew she was about to see exactly how the poor fellow met with a
sticky end.

Nursing a half-empty bottle of wine, the man moved hesitantly along the
cyclorama like someone who had no idea where he was, who'd been kept waiting
for too long, who was already a little anxious, perhaps, in spite of the wine,
and who was looking for a way out. Martine heard him muttering, but couldn't
catch the words.

Suddenly, the door in the backdrop was flung open and Nancy, in her leather
disguise, stood before him.

The man started with a little shout.

"Ya scared the shit outa me! I wan' outa here... Where am I? Who're you ?" the
poor man stammered.

The terrifying figure took a step towards him and pronounced, in English, but
so clearly that Martine understood every word : "I am your death."

Next, a close-up showed the woman's fingers weaving strangely in front of her
face, as if to fascinate her prey while she moved towards him.

Completely nonplussed by what was happening, fascinated indeed by the woman's
hypnotic routine, it was not till the last minute that the down-and-out had a
defensive reflex, a gesture born of many a pathetic street-fight: he raised
his wine-bottle and struck out at the apparition, as scary as it was sexy.

This was what the kunoichi was waiting for.

Seizing the poor man's wrist in a flash, she drew him sharply towards her:
there followed a series of moves whose precision and brutality made Martine's
blood run cold, not only because they were used on such a defenceless victim,
but because they were executed in something close to slow motion, deliberately
decomposed for the benefit of the camera filming the scene!

With the man's wrist still gripped in her steel fingers, Nancy assumed a horse
position and drove the sole of her boot into his kneecap. The man uttered a
howl of terror and fell forward onto his assailant who proceeded to deliver a
double strike with the heels of both hands to either side of his jaw (breaking
it, no doubt, if Martine was to judge by the scream that ensued); she slapped
the man simultaneously on both ears, hands clinging to his skull to hold him
erect, while the camera deftly zoomed in for a big close-up of a razor-sharp
thumb-nail ripping open a tender gum; the frame enlarged again to show the
man's face, screaming, swearing, moaning, begging for mercy... Still in
close-up, one saw the woman's thumbs hook the corners of the man's lips and
brutally tear them apart at the same time as she struck him on the nose with
her leather-covered forehead. Blood spouted from his torn cheeks and no doubt
broken nose.

Now the camera panned down to the one shabby shoe, and we heard Nancy's voice
faintly asking : "OK?" When the frame was in focus, a man's voice (Martine
recognized Mister B. himself: the camerman!) answered: "Yes, go on!" An
elegantly booted foot came into the frame and pinned her victim's shoe to the
floor and immediately the camera panned up the shimmering thigh-boot to catch
the sudden pressure which the woman's knee exerted against that of her victim,
who lost his balance and fell heavily to the floor on his back. And over
screams of pain that were louder than ever, Martine could hear the sounds of
torn cartilages and broken bone, for the man's foot was still pinned flat on
the floor.

The sadistic female looked down at her handiwork for a few seconds while the
camera lingered complacently on the masked face, then returned to the man
writhing in pain on the floor.

At length, Nancy stooped down, lifted the uninjured leg by the ankle and broke
it with a quick stamp of her heel on the extended knee. Using the broken limb
as a lever, seemingly oblivious to the screams of the man who was about to
die, she flipped him over on his stomach, released his leg to grab hold of his
hair. Pulling back his head she stood up, folded up her legs and dropped with
all her weight on the man's back, knees landing just between his shoulder
blades: this time the sound of snapping vertebrae was louder than the faint
cry... no doubt the last sound the homeless nobody would make, Martine thought
to herself as she sat paralyzed with horror.

A Wagnerian shot of the kunoichi contemplating her vicitim was followed by an
inter-title: "The Nine Hands of Nin-Jitsu" and a montage of the different
body-weapons at the disposal of a practitioner of that murderous art: hands,
elbows, knees, feet and head (a montage commented in voice over by Nancy
herself, with a shadowy figure Martine identified as Berkovitz in the role of
the victim). Then the whole show was repeated ... in slow motion.

Martine turned off the deck: she felt dizzy, she felt sick.

How much would a film like that sell for in the USA? How much did one have to
pay to view it? The magazines she read were forever condemning
"anti-Americanism", but after what she had just seen it was hard not to think
that there was one sick society!

"So, did you like my little movie? Did it turn you on? Admit you'd like to do
that some day, no? Deep down inside, you'd like to know what it's like to
carry a choke hold to the end, now wouldn't you? I've been watching you, dear;
I know it excites you to beat up guys! But it's much more exciting to kill
them, believe me!"

Nancy's voice... but where was it coming from? Martine was still alone in the
control room. And then suddenly she saw the familiar silhouette standing
behind a pane of glass in the darkened sound bay...

"You and I are going to fight now and you are going to realize that your judo
is... how should I say?... old hat!"

"Martine, you come... Very sorry, but you come now..." She spun to face
Berkovitz, but he stood holding her at gun-point, a revolver equipped with a
silencer. Martine was seriously beginning to regret playing amateur detective:
was she going to die for a murdered down-and-out?

The producer's gun left Martine no choice, and she let herself be taken to the
sound-stage... As they passed the heavy door, an invisible hand threw a
switch, setting the décor ablaze with light.

The set represented the hall of a bank ("Judo-cat" was meant to foil a robbery
there) and presented a more labyrinthine arena for a fight than that
"expressionist" cyclorama, Martine said to herself. Indeed, when she heard her
name called by the disembodied, ambivalent voice – both sexy and threatening -
of the feline secretary, it was from somewhere in the centre of the set but
she could not tell exactly where: "Here I am, old girl, I'm not far, come and
find me, I'm all yours!"

Martine thought she'd situated the voice at the back of the set and to the
left, behind a counter. She moved slowly in that direction, stepping
cautiously around each desk, each chair, each semi-partition.

But even as she moved towards her enemy, she asked herself if there wasn't
some other way out of this rather than engaging the redoubtable Nancy in
hand-to-hand-combat; true, she had only seen her beating men incapable of
fighting back – Berkovitz and that homeless guy... But still she was afraid.

And suddenly it became brutally clear that her fears were justified.

A thin, supple body suddenly dropped onto her back and dragged her down;
before they even hit the floor, her neck was caught in an unfamiliar
strangle-hold, slim but incredibly powerful arms were wrapped around her neck
and her opponent's hard forehead exerted inexorable, paralyzing pressure on
her temple.: "You poor girl, a kunoichi knows how to throw her voice,
ventriloquism is one of our specialties!" Nancy whispered in oddly caressing
tones.

Martine pivoted on her behind and partially executed a backward somersault
that enabled her to loosen the hold, escape and leap to her feet. But she had
the unpleasant feeling that her strategy had been successful only because her
enemy had willed it.

The other woman was on her feet too, now, ready to grapple again, conveying
with her smile the impression of indeed playing cat and mouse with her
adversary. Martine saw now that she'd removed the mini-skirt from her usual
office get-up and wore now only the cat-suit, with her long blond hair hastily
knotted in a bun. She'd also taken care to replace her usual high heels with a
pair of black jazz boots.

The blonde kunoichi began weaving her fingers before her eyes in that
mysterious way which had so fascinated the poor down-and-out. Martine
concentrated her gaze on the feet sliding slowly towards her. Which didn't
prevent her seeing the deadly fingertips aimed at the base of her neck: she
blocked the strike with her forearm and grabbed the top of Nancy' cat suit,
whilst her foreword foot narrowly escaped being pinned to the floor by the
woman's black rubber sole.

A head strike under the chin caught her by surprise and a knee-strike inside
her thigh hurt her badly. But Martine held on tight, all her energy focused on
a single goal: getting this dangerous female on the floor again. There she had
a slender chance of gaining the upper hand, if only because she weighed a good
dozen pounds more than her enemy.

Despite the pain in her thigh-bone where the kunoichi had struck her, she
finally managed to hook her foot behind the woman's calf and drop with her to
the ground. In passing, she had the bitter satisfaction of feeling and hearing
Nancy's head collide brutally with some piece of furniture.

This accident providentially deprived the fearful nin-jitsuan of some of her
resources, as Martine immediately sensed with an inward sigh of relief... She
was desperately anxious to end this fray in a hurry. She managed to apply an
arm lock and slip beneath her opponent's body. Nancy struck her knee-caps a
series of vicious blows with her heels that made her shriek with pain... but
were not enough to loosen the powerful combination arm lock and strangle-hold
which was crushing the kunoichi's neck and larynx.

Martine's efforts to immobilise her enemy's dangerous feet with a scissors
hold were finally successful, putting an end to the painful kicks... And after
some ten seconds of the sleeper-hold, Nancy's wiry body went slack.

Fearing a ruse, Martine did not relax her grip. Was she going to have to kill
this woman... who certainly deserved death a hundred times over? Was she about
to experience, in spite of herself, the thrill that Nancy had teased her about
only moments ago?

That thought made her recoil in horror. She pulled herself out from under her
defeated enemy and leapt to her feet... Nancy wasn't dead, but she breathed
with difficulty: raspy sounds were coming out of her throat. And she was
definitely unconscious.

Martine turned slowly towards Berkovitz. His face had gone dead white and the
gun he was still pointing at the judokate trembled in his hand.

"Stay where you are or I'll shoot!"

Martine was fed up with all these people, every last one of them, but the
anger and hatred she felt towards this American producer knew no bounds. All
her hatred was in her eyes, as she walked slowly towards the monster. When she
calculated she was near enough and that the snivelling coward might finally
manage to pull the trigger anyway, she dropped to her hands while her legs
shot out like pistons; there was a "plop" and a bullet whistled over her head
just as her tennis shoes locked around the man's ankle and she rolled over
sharply, flinging the plump body to the floor.

In his fall, Berkovitz dropped the revolver and Martine, quick as a flash,
scooped it up and threw it across the studio.

"Seems you like a good beating when a woman is in charge? Well, I'm going to
show you some judo like you never knew existed! You'll probably die coming,
you bastard...

She clamped on an arm lever and obliged the man to stand, then grasped the
sleeve and lapel of his jacket...

"Seoi nage," she announced," you'll love it!"

She pivoted on her rubber soles, bent sharply forward and threw the American
over her shoulder with all the force she could muster, letting go in mid-air
so that nothing would brake his fall.

He screamed all the way and the fall was as painful as could be, but the hated
producer was still able to wiggle and whine on the floor. With a nasty
thumb-lock, Martine made him stand again, grabbed his collar with both hands
and planted the sole of her shoe firmly on his pubis.

"Tomoenage... isn't worth a damn in competition, with fatheads like you..."

She dropped onto her back and her leg snapped straight with all the strength
of her muscular thighs: a spectacular somersault and a brutal landing knocked
the producer out cold.

Martine took from her pocket the tiny pair of thumb-cuffs which she was never
without and used them to attach Nancy' thumbs behind her, having bent one leg
up to the small of her back and imprisoning the foot beneath the cuffs. Her
dangerous enemy, who was beginning to regain consciousness, was thus made
completely helpless in an extremely uncomfortable position bordering on
torture.

Martine put the man into similar bondage, using one of his shoe-laces to tie
one big toe and both thumbs behind his back.

And now Martine stood up, walked off the set, out of the studio... and made
her way to the nearest police station.

*

**

For reasons Martine never could fathom, the affair was more or less hushed up.
True, there was one feature article in Détective, but it did not appear till
eighteen months after "the infernal couple" had been extradited to the United
States. For, following Martine's denunciation, it had quickly come to light
that under cover of their legitimate activities, Berkovitz and his evil
mistress had already made several "snuff movies" under identical conditions
before travelling to France.

Some Parisian papers hinted at the reason for the cover-up and easily granted
extradition: it was feared that in a pre-electoral period unhealthy publicity
would develop around the jury trial of such a case. Martine found this
reasoning strange indeed.

*

**

When she returned to work at the hospital, her colleagues, whom she had told
of her forthcoming career in the movies, plied her with countless questions.

And Martine fed them pretty fairy tales...

...instead of an ugly tale of human werewolves.