seeing images of you having sex with another person. I did none of that for Celia. Instead, I avoided her. I went home and checked on Connor. I went into the kitchen and ate a chicken salad Luisa had left in the fridge. Celia came in and hugged me. “How was shooting?” “Good,” I said. “Completely fine.” And because she didn’t say, How was your day? or Anything interesting happen with Max? or even How’s next week looking? I didn’t bring it up. kk * I HAD TWO shots of bourbon before Max yelled “Action!” The set was closed. Just me, Don, Max, the cinematographer, and a couple of guys working lighting and sound. I closed my eyes and told myself to remember how good it felt to want Don all those years ago. I thought of how sublime it was to awaken my own desire, to realize I liked sex, that it wasn’t just about what men wanted, that it was about me, too. I thought of how I wanted to put that seed of a thought into other women’s brains. I thought of how there might be other women out there scared of their own pleasure, of their own power. I thought of what it would mean to have just one woman go home to her husband and say, “Give me what he gave her.” I put myself in that place of desperate wanting, the ache of needing something only someone else can give you. I used to have that with Don. I had it then with Celia. So I closed my eyes, I focused in on myself, and I went there. Later on, people would say that Don and I were really having sex in the movie. There were all sorts of rumors that the sex was unsimulated. But those rumors were complete and utter bullshit. People just thought they saw real sex because the energy was searing, because I convinced myself in that moment that I was a woman in urgent need of him, because Don was able to remember how it felt to want me before he ever had me. That day on set, I truly let go. I was present and wild and unrestrained. More than I ever had been on film before, more than I ever have been since. It was a moment of purely imagined reckless euphoria.