Luc & Juro watch a movie at the Fria

“Want to join me for a screening at the Fria tonight?” Juro asked as he and Luc walked to the college dining hall for lunch. “It should be, uh, an interesting one.”

Juro was studying in the Film department, and he and Luc had met in their first year Documentary Techniques course. They hit it off immediately and have been close friends since.

“It’s something about porn from the 60s.”

“Count me in.”

They met in front of the museum just as the sun was going down behind the building’s dome, silhouetting the gilded statue of Venus against the pink clouds. “Our lady,” Juro said appreciatively.

“She really does have a nice butt,” Luc said, finishing his friend’s thought.

A sizeable crowd had gathered, and people were slowly filtering into the museum lobby and the theater beyond. A poster beside the door announced the evening’s event: a panel discussion between faculty from the Departments of Film and Anthropology on the topic of “age disparity in midcentury erotic cinema”, along with a screening of the 1969 short film “The Ample Embrace”.

Inside, they found a place to sit near the middle of the theater and settled in, watching the seats around them fill. Many of the attendants were from the college — some of whom Luc and Juro recognised — but others seemed to be random people from around town. A middle-aged straight couple sat in front of them, a professorial man in a corduroy jacket sat to one side, a group of three fellow students to the other. Luc enjoyed speculating to himself about what drew each of these strangers to such an event on a Wednesday evening. He happened to look toward the aisle when his heart jumped to his throat. Lena & Margot walked by and sat a few rows ahead. They were talking intently, and to Luc’s relief, hadn’t looked his way as they passed. What are they doing here? But before he could follow that train of thought further, the lights fell, and with them the murmur of quiet conversation.

The film’s title appeared onscreen in bold letters, followed by “A film by Ursula Bernal”.

The scene opened with a young man pushing a wheelbarrow across the yard of a Southern California ranch. A middle-aged woman wearing white capris and a floral shirt tied at the waist walked out onto the porch. She was perhaps 20 years older than the young man, who didn’t look a day over 20 himself. The camera cut to a low shot that accentuated her prominent bust. “Oh honey! Won’t you come in for a glass of water?”

Luc’s mind wandered back to the women a few rows in front of him. He could just see Margot in profile through the crowd, watching the screen with an amused expression. Lena’s shoulder was visible beside her. He was simultaneously mortified and excited that the two women had shown up for an event he had come to because it sounded hot — mortified because they might see him and want to talk, and excited because surely they knew what they were in for.

He looked back to the screen as the woman handed the young man a glass covered in perspiration. They were standing in the kitchen, and she had undone the top three buttons of her shirt to reveal her hypnotically deep cleavage. Luc felt his friend stir next to him.

“I don’t mean to be forward Mrs B, but your double Ds are giving me a real boner.”

“Honey, these aren’t double Ds,” the woman said, smiling and hefting her large breasts one at a time out into full view.

Luc glanced over at Juro who looked back with his eyebrows raised and mouthed a silent “Whoa”. The camera panned down, to the amusement of the audience, to focus plainly on the woman’s chest. The two young men couldn’t look away.

“Why don’t you show me what you’re working with there honey?”

As the young man onscreen unzipped his fly, Luc shifted in his seat to keep his own erection from becoming too obvious. A few people in the audience giggled as the camera cut to a tight, low-angle shot of the actor’s exceptional anatomy.

“Wouldn’t you know it, I have the perfect place for you to put that,” the woman said as she squeezed her breasts around the young man’s arched erection and began to work them up and down. Luc looked over toward Margot, whose face was illuminated by the screen. Lena leaned over to whisper something and Margot laughed and pushed her away. He felt conscious of the strange juxtaposition between watching such an explicit scene one moment and glancing at that familiar face in profile the next. He felt his erection strain against his pants and hoped neither she nor Lena would see him here. He was jolted back by a hand on his knee.

“Don’t miss it,” Juro whispered. “He’s about to blow!”

Luc looked back to the enormous screen just as the young man pulled his erection from between the older woman’s voluminous breasts and began to masturbate enthusiastically against them. He announced what everyone already knew was coming. “Oh my gosh Mrs B, I’m gonna… I’m gonna jizz!”

“Give me that hot spunk, honey!”

In a final gratuitously tight shot, the young man ejaculated one pearly rope after another onto the woman’s neck and breasts, to her obvious delight. It ran down into her cleavage as she smiled up at the young man, who looked dazed and spent. The credits rolled and the audience murmured in restrained appreciation.

Juro leaned in. “I hope they don’t expect us to stand up for a while.” Luc laughed.

The panel came onstage and began their discussion of the way age gaps were portrayed in mid to late 20th century erotic films, but Luc wasn’t particularly interested. He looked back toward the two older women he knew in the audience. Lena, a family friend for as long as he could remember and frequent cameo in his teenage fantasies on account of her near-total abstinence from bras — and Margot, his boss, landlord, and aunt by marriage (but since divorced). He involuntarily recalled seeing her sunbathing topless on the Celandine roof deck last summer, and how he had paused for a moment to take in the sight of her bare breasts. Not that different from the woman’s in the film, come to think of it. He stopped himself when he remembered that he was still fully hard from the scene they had all just watched together. Too far. Take it easy.

When the panel discussion ended and the audience stood in applause, Luc and Juro slipped into the aisle and left the theater for the museum lobby and the cool night air beyond. “What percentage of all those people do you think is going to go home and beat it?” Juro asked with a smile.

“At least 50,” Luc replied, pretending to give the matter serious thought. He knew which half he belonged to. The two friends set off along the Promenade back towards the hotel as Venus glittered in the moonlight atop the dome.