Aurélie, you’ve got your jumper on.

Johan is shouting at me, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.
I’m just staring at her.
This is the fourth day of the shoot and I’ve been in love with her since the first.
Johan walks right up to me and stands at my side. He is a lot smaller than me. He stands on his tiptoes and shouts into my ear.

“Danny, we need that polyboard from the van.”

His voice rattles my brain and I shut my eyes.

“Alright mate,” I whisper, “there’s no need to shout.”

Johan lowers himself back to his runtish height and eyeballs me. He thinks the baseball cap he is wearing makes him look more like a director. He thinks it makes him look more authentic. All his heroes wear them; Spielberg, Lucas, Howard, Bay, Travolta. I think he looks a leukemic tribute to Michael Moore. My heroes don’t wear baseball caps; Allen, Cook, Zimmerman, Sellers.

I avoid Johan’s eye and spin one hundred and eighty degrees on my heel. I peer over my shoulder to see if she noticed my professionally executed move. She’s talking to the cameraman. He’s trying really hard not to look at her breasts. He doesn’t have the safety of distance like I do.

Johan kicks me in the leg.

I’m only helping him out because our mothers are friends.

I walk back in the direction of the van.

In the Barbican Estate there are thick yellow lines that run along every walkway. They are signposted with yellow paint; ‘Liverpool Street’, ‘Farringdon’, ‘Barbican Centre.’ When you’re in the Barbican Estate at night these lines look like demonic trails of custard tempting you further and further into the dark heart of the 1960s concrete compound. They seem endless, disorientating, deceptive and duplicitous. The custard line I am trailing is supposed to take me to the car park. I seem to be walking past the same buildings over and over again but it could be that I can’t spot the subtle changes in architecture between each block.
It doesn’t matter if I get a little lost. It gives me time to develop my tactics for seduction. I list the facts I know about her.

1) She is French.
2) She used to date Johan but dumped him because, she says, “he did not make me laugh in the right way.”
3) She’s preposterously attractive.
4) She’s twenty-four. That’s five years older than me.

I stop at four because the list is already intimidating enough. The most obvious thing for me to do is make her laugh in the right way. What does that even mean, ‘the right way’? It sounds like one of those indecipherable phrases that French people use that only French people understand. Even after studying A Bout de Souffle and Jules et Jim repeatedly I have no idea what the hell the French are going on about half the time.

Maybe she means that he wasn’t making her laugh in bed? Is that what she wants, someone to do Charlie Chaplin impressions naked whilst she rubs herself? I remember reading somewhere that sex should be fun, not just serious thrusting and smouldering eyes. I think I could manage that – it might even ease the pressure when she realises I’m not as experienced as her. She must be way more experienced than me – she is French after all. What if she laughed at him in bed because his dick was too small? Is that what she meant by not in ‘the right way’? This isn’t an encouraging thought.

Luckily the van appears out of nowhere and emergency stops my train of thought. I must have a sixth sense for direction. Better than Johan’s anyway. I open the van’s side door and pull out the polyboard that Johan wants in order to create some more soft light. Who uses soft light these days anyway? Sometimes I think Johan is just shooting a sexless porno, other times I remember he has no idea what he is doing.

I follow the custard lines back to the location. The polyboard gets heavier and heavier. I shift it around – held above my head, held at my side, held out in front of me. The struggle with the board stops me from thinking about my next move too much but I decide that the best thing to do may be to make her laugh. By saying something witty or clowning around, obviously. I must ignore all pathological voices in my head telling me it would be funny to pull my cock out of my trousers and tell her it is bigger than the Swede’s.

When I get back, out of breath and a bit sweaty.

Johan says, “What took you so long?”

I refuse to reply, instead pulling up my t-shirt to dab the sweat off my forehead. Carrying the board gave my abs a slight work out, I think it’s best if I show them to her while they’re at their finest.

Johan says, “We don’t need it now anyway, I’ve decided to use the diffuser.”

I pull my t-shirt over my face to signal my disdain and frustration at the ‘director’. This should give her ample time to perv on my stomach but also see that I too am annoyed by porno-Bergman. We can bond through our hatred of his blonde eyelashes and asymmetrical haircut. Through the white cotton mask, I see Johan walk over to the cameraman and make that clichéd 16:9 frame with his hands. He looks at the scene through this hand ‘screen’ and tells the cameraman to roll the film. She walks into shot and stares out over the balcony to the city below. The other runner, Lucy, blows a fan at her. Her thick black hair ruffles, exposing her neck. She looks stunning. The cold temperature visibly hardens her nipples under her red dress. I visibly harden in my trousers.

I pull my t-shirt back down after the Swedish sub-Guy Ritchie shouts, “cut”. I take a step towards her, ignoring the pain in my pants, hoping to impress her with a witty anecdote about the time I was making a film about the dangers of drink driving. The make-up team, if you can call one art student a team, immediately busies itself around my French objet de la passion.
Next time I will have to be quicker than the make-up girl.

Johan walks over to talk to her. He touches her on the arm. She flinches; at least it looks like she flinches. Johan is smaller than her. Maybe this is what she didn’t find funny? Maybe she didn’t like looking down on him when he lay on top of her, fumbling for an entry point for his tiny penis.
I watch Johan smarm his way around her, waiting to see what it is she truly detests in him so I can be the complete opposite of that. She seems to hate him touching her. She seems to hate his fake laugh. She seems to hate it when he claps loudly to get the attention of the crew. He hands a red jumper to her, she puts it on and says thank you. She doesn’t smile though, Johan walks back to the cameraman and they start discussing the next shot.

I see my chance to speak to her open up in front of me.

If I can get her alone for a few minutes I can ridicule Johan and make her laugh and show her who the alpha male is on this film set.
It’s not the twat in the hat.
It’s the runner you see before you.

She is still stood by the balcony. She is rubbing her arms, trying to warm herself up. With the jumper on I can no longer see her nipples. I make my way over to her, carefully stepping over lighting cables strapped to the floor with gaffer tape. I accidentally kick a box. She doesn’t turn around. My palms start to get clammy as I get within three paces of her. I can smell her. She’s an overpowering combination of French perfume, strong coffee and Gauloises. I can’t believe she smells of Gauloises – it’s almost too perfect. I stop to wipe my palms on my thighs, I don’t want to touch her or shake her hand with clammy skin. That would be creepy.

At the precise moment I am bending down and rubbing my hands on my thighs, she turns around and stares at me. I stop rubbing instantly and stand up straight.

“Bonjour,” I say, hoping my surprising knowledge of French will distract her.

“The camera is set. Let’s go,” shouts Johan.

“Er... Hello,” says my French amour.

“What are you doing Danny?” shouts Johan, “get out of the shot.”

I skip out of the shot and stand over by the wall where the generator is. I lean against the wall commanding my heart to slow down. I rub my hands on the back of my jeans – I still don’t want clammy hands.

Johan shouts, “Ok, positions guys – Aurélie stand back over where you were before.”

The rest of the crew, boom operator, sound recordist, cameraman, clapper loader, gaffer, focus puller and make up girl all shuffle around.

Johan shouts, “Right. Everyone set? Ok. Roll sound!”
The sound recordist shouts, “Rolling!”
Johan shouts, “Roll Camera!”
The camerman shouts, “Speed!”
Johan shouts, “And Action. Wait! No... stop!”
The crew moan audibly.
Johan shouts, “Aurélie, you’ve got your jumper on. Please take it off.”

Aurélie sighs a beautiful Gallic sigh and pulls her jumper off. She looks around for somewhere to put it down where it won’t get dirty. She looks over at me. I smile, the heat rising from my stomach and spreading out to my hands once more. She beckons me over with a flick of her wrist. I push off the wall like a sprinter out of his blocks and get to her as quickly as possible. She takes a step back, looking slightly afraid.

“Um, they’re all waiting,” I say as an explanation with a cheeky shrug of the shoulders.
This is half a chance for a first impression. I must come across as fun, funny but also cool and mysterious.

“Yes,” she says, “they are. Please will you look after my jumper while I do this scene?”

My brain searches frantically for something witty or sexy to say. Something along the lines of, “I am your jumpers keeper, my liege” or “With pleasure, though I must say you look ravishing without it.” I can hear the seconds ticking away on my watch, each second ticking louder than the last.

Then without warning my lips and tongue conspire against me and I say, “Only if I can sniff it.”

I shut my mouth with a snap.
In my head a huge bell tolls.

Aurélie looks at me in disbelief. “Um... yes?” she replies with raised tone.

Johan shouts, “Come on Danny, get the jumper and get out of the shot.”

Aurélie hands me her jumper with trepidation.

I mouth “sorry’ to her and run off the set back to the wall where I came from.

Johan restarts his director count down and the scene starts.

Leaning against the wall, I slap my face and bite my tongue, punishing them for going off message. The jumper is warm and soft. It feels really good in my sweaty hands. A faint waft of perfume-cigarette-coffee finds my nose. I look over at Johan watching Aurélie acting. What did she ever see in him? Maybe she accidentally slept with him one time and then felt she had to pretend to like him for a while so it didn’t appear as if she had made a mistake, or was just a one-night stand kind of girl. Maybe she was one of those French girls who believed in free love and sharing their beauty around.

Johan cuts the scene and asks for an immediate retake. I can see that Aurélie is getting cold again. I’m going to have to go over and give her back her jumper once Johan is happy he has what he wants in the can (what is it that he wants? Nobody knows). I’m going to have to make a funny joke about what I said before. I’m going to have to reassert my superiority over Johan. Then I can impress her with everything else after that.

Another waft of Aurélie comes drifting past. I look down at the jumper. It doesn’t take long to decide that I am going to sniff it properly. She’s already pretty much given me permission. And I am looking after it on the condition to do that specifically. I didn’t say, “Only if I can lick it.” I didn’t say, “Only if I can rub it on my pubes.” I could have done, but I didn’t.

No, I definitely have the right to sniff it.
I bring the jumper up to my face and take in a huge lungful of eau de Aurélie. A tingly wave of pleasure runs from the top of my head and disperses down my arms and legs. I arch my back and my left leg shakes.

Johan shouts, “Cut! That was great.”

I whip the jumper away from my face.
Aurélie calls me over again.

I try to affect a swagger but the lighting cables keep interrupting my strutting flow. When I reach Aurélie she is shivering, I hand her the jumper with a smile, ready to respond to her gratitude with magical linguistic improvisation. I imagine us to be jazz players – I’m waiting for her lead before we set our conversation on a path to melodic heaven.

She takes the jumper and smiles back. Her eyes dance in the luminescence of the 4K lamp lighting the set.

She asks, “So, what did it smell like?”

I pause, allowing the question to hang in the air, grateful that she’s given me the opportunity to make light of the previous conversation and come back with a witty response that will blow anything Johan has ever said to her out of the water.

She looks at me expectantly, almost with impatience.

She wants me to say something quickly.

She is hanging on the edge of my words.

I open my mouth but nothing comes out. I close it. I try again, opening my mouth wider this time.
It suddenly dawns on me that I haven’t prepared or thought of any tactics for this situation.
My mind goes blank in panic, shutting down right at the crucial moment.
I slap my face, hoping to spur my brain into action.
Aurélie looks shocked.
I say the first thing that comes into my head.

“It smells of woman.”

Aurélie laughs.
I laugh. It seems I am being funny in the right way.
She then stares at me and a look of confusion comes over her. She glances over at Johan and raises her eyebrows.
Is this a signal to him to say, ‘look mister, your times over – there’s a new guy in town’?
I remain standing in front of her waiting for her to say something.

Johan shouts, “OK guys, let’s set up for scene twenty seven.”

Everyone shuffles around and Aurélie walks over to her new position.

Johan shouts something at me but I can’t quite work out what it is.
He walks over to me and stands at my side.

“Danny, I need a red filter for the next scene can you go and get it from the van,” he says into my ear.

“Alright mate,” I say, “there’s no need to whisper.”

I turn away from the set and start walking back to the van. Johan doesn’t know what he’s doing, sending me to the van for the tenth time today.
All that time walking, it gives me time to develop and hone my tactics for seduction.

******