Chapter 2

On the weekend before the shooting was to start, Molly called me and told me to go and see her at the salon that she had shares in. When I got there, she and her business partner did more than I thought was needed. Who was going to see if I had smooth legs and arms anyway?

What they did to my eyebrows was going to cement the story about me being on the RuPaul show into the wall of gossip that had swirled around me. OK, I could have the breasts taken off with solvent, and the big-bottomed pants that hid my penis could be taken off. But nothing would hide the puffed lips, the shapely brows, and the earrings. Molly had brought a bag with all the things to make me a copy of my sister, and she gave me a new hairstyle taken from a photo taken at the trial. When I had been dressed, and made-up, I looked in the mirror and saw young Lor looking back at me. It was uncanny, and a bit scary.

“How about you mimic Lor like you used to do when you were young?”

I had to think back at how I used to make her voice.

“All right, sister. Now you have me like this, what do we do now?”

She grinned and clapped her hands.

“Now, Lauren, we are going shopping. You can’t wear that outfit every day, and the ones for the shoot are too precious for you to use as day wear.”

“I can’t go out like this, it’s crazy!”

“What’s crazy is how much you look like our big sister. You’ll be on a set on Monday, and they want you to look like Lor ten years ago. I have to say that it was easy to create. Come on, you have to meet the public sooner or later. If someone thinks you’re Lauren Havers, the famous model, go along with it and let them take selfies with you. It will make their day and will have you thinking like her. Give me a few minutes to change out of this smock into something where I won’t look out of place beside you. It’s time that you spend a bit of your savings on looking good.”

I had brought back a couple of handbags that Lauren had used during the trial, one was large and used to great effect on her day in the witness box. The other was a black bag that any woman would carry, if she shopped on Rodeo Drive. Molly had brought the black one and the cosmetics that had been used on me were added, along with my cash and cards in a black purse. There were other items in the bag that I saw but refused to comment on.

I was coached on my walk as we went to her car, then told how to enter, and exit, a car. It was starting to enter my consciousness just how different women move, and why. Once I caught on with the why, my brain could understand the how. She drove us to Chelsea, and we walked into a shop called ‘Aftershock’. I wondered if that was what a lot of husbands had suffered when they saw the account.

I was pleasantly surprised at the prices that I saw on things we were looking at. Molly had decided that I would need seven outfits to go to the set in. I had thought that I would turn up in my running gear and would be changed for the shoot. She assured me that none of the other models would be seen dead on a set unless they were looking good, and I had to follow suit.

We ended up with me walking out with three skirts and six tops, plus four dresses that made me look like some guys wet dream. I had tried everything, had two shopgirls running around getting the right shoes and accessories, had selfies taken with both and their manager, who had remembered Lor in her modelling days, and asked me what I was doing now. I told her that I was in town to watch over a recreation of the trial days, and she gave me a hug, telling me that what I, and the other girls, had done, had changed the dynamic in the fashion industry. She also gave Molly a hug when I said that I was staying with my sister. Didn’t give me a discount, though.

I paid with my credit card, which luckily only had G. L. Havers on it. When the manager looked at me, I smiled.

“My real name is Gloria Lauren, and I dropped the Gloria off for work purposes. It’s easier to let the bank keep the actual initials. You can’t make things too complicated with banks, can you?”

She laughed. Back in the car, I put my bags on the back seat. Molly turned to me.

“So, the great Lauren is staying with her sister. You actually got that right, but I was holding off bringing it up in case you didn’t want to. If we’re going to the shoot together, it’ll be a lot easier if I help you get made-up in the mornings. I’ve sent Lor some pictures of you in different outfits and told her not to do anything which would get her name in the papers. So, Garth Lawrence, we need to get you some frillies.”

We weren’t far from the big Westfield shopping centre. When we had parked, we hit Victoria’s Secret for some slips which I would need under a few of the dresses, and a couple of nighties and matching gown. I had long ago stopped thinking about complaining about the cost. I would just have to save up for an extra year to buy my Porsche.

As we shopped, several of the older women asked me if I was Lauren, and when I said I was, they all told me that I didn’t look a day older than when I walked the fashion runways. All my life I had been a backroom geek, and this adoration was intoxicating. Back in the car, with more bags added to the pile, Molly drove us into the countryside, to a secluded pub where two ladies could have a private lunch. I was coached in the ladylike method of eating, and chastised when I thought I might have the steak.

I had been spending the day in one-inch heels, and Molly got me to change into three-inch ones for the afternoon, which altered my perception of beauty, realising what women go through to look good. We parked near the rowing museum at Henley-on-Thames, and I had to stroll, leisurely, with Molly on my arm, until I mastered the technique of walking tippy toe. By the time we got back to her place, I was very glad to take the shoes off.

We had a light tea, and changed for bed, sitting in our nighties and gowns to watch some mindless TV, drink a few glasses of wine, and talk about things to come. It was surreal, now I look back on it, just what a sight we must have looked. I didn’t care. I was psyching myself up to be in front of the camera.

Sunday morning, I woke up with the nightie wound around my legs and panicked before I realised where I was, in Molly’s spare bedroom. We had breakfast and I had a shower with a shower cap on to protect my hairdo. I was dressed in one of the skirts and tops, having put everything on without help. Molly worked on the cosmetics and declared that we were good looking enough to go to an art gallery, so we parked at the closest tube station and went into the city and spent some time at the National Gallery. I was much more fluid in the heels today, and we were able to look around without anyone asking me if I was Lauren.

From there we strolled to the National Portrait Gallery, where I nearly caused a riot when I was looking at a painting of Lauren in a glorious gown and some people wanted selfies and autographs. The attendant had to come along and help me tell them that I wasn’t famous any longer and move them along. The likeness was remarkable, and I could now also appreciate why Lauren gave it all up when she did.

By the time we arrived at Elstree Studios for the shoot on Monday, I was able to channel Lauren quite easily. Elstree was once the centre of British film making, churning out comedies, action films and hosting the long list of British actors of past years. Now, it was the centre of TV show production, mainly game shows and reality programs.

Molly parked and we walked in to find our way to the right studio, with her carrying the suitcase. Luckily, there was a signboard with ‘Great Crimes – Studio Seven’ and a map showing us where to go. When we walked into the studio, the first person who noticed us was Hugh Withers, and the look on his face showed that I had made a new friend.

“Lauren, is that really you?”

“You asked me that outside a men’s store, Hugh. Remember what I told you then?”

“Garth? You can’t be. Garth is a bloke, and you certainly don’t look like a bloke to me.”

“You’re in TV, Hugh. Haven’t you seen what a good make-up artist and some lumps of foam can do before. I’m still Garth underneath, but I would like you to call me Lauren as it helps me stay in character.”

He smiled and called Albert over.

“Albert, this is Lauren Havers in the flesh, so to speak. I think that any scene with her in it won’t need it to be back views or long shots anymore.”

“Hello, Albert. I hope you don’t mind but Molly and I thought that me appearing as close as I could to Lauren of those times would make things easier for you. The suitcase contains most of the actual outfits that she wore during the trial. That may save your costume people some time. When I saw her, she read the documentation and endorses the project. She said, at the time, that she may come over to see it being filmed, but Molly has sent her pictures of me and told her to stay low. I’ve already been mobbed, had to stand for selfies, and written autographs for older women fans. And I’ve only been dressed like this since Saturday.”

“Lauren Havers, you are every inch the woman that I saw, years ago, on the pages of the magazines that I smuggled into my bedroom when I was a teenager. As an old song goes, ‘I loved you then, and I love you now.’ Welcome to the set, your being here will lift the game of the others. So far, they’ve been considering this an acting job, not a recreation of real life.”

As we walked towards the others, Molly whispered to me.

“On set five minutes, and you have one guy remembering his crush on you, and another telling you that he jacked off looking at your picture. What on earth did we create?”

We were given revised schedules for filming. They had built a set of steps that copied the court and there would be scenes of us going up, and then coming down them. As the trial ran for two weeks, we would all have to do that in ten different outfits. I had six of them in the case, and costume could provide the other four, all being normal sorts of things that Lauren had continued wearing until they had gone to fashion heaven.

The seven of us were told that we would now be in speaking parts, as they had decided to recreate some of the testimony from the trial. We lined up to sign the contracts and then went to be dressed.

There had been seven models giving evidence in the trial, with a lot more telling their stories in interviews as it unfolded. Each scene that we did had to be as per the pictures and news footage from the day, with us to be in the exact places on the steps. It took until the Thursday morning to do all the variations. We were given the afternoon off, and we seven were joined by all the costume and make-up girls to go for lunch.

Over the week, we had been bonding. The other models had accepted me as Lauren, and so had the rest of the crew. I was staying with Molly, and we were living like a pair of sisters. I had none of my normal clothes, she had put the things I wore to the salon aside, along with all my other things other than my credit card.

We were joined at the lunch by the owner of the agency that the other girls worked for. She was one of the new breed of women running agencies, with a lot of the men that had been in charge dropping by the wayside after the trial. I was introduced to her as Lauren Havers, and she nearly fainted. When she had been sitting for a little while, one of the girls told her who I really was, which made her almost faint again.

Over the course of the lunch, she asked me if I would go into her office for a photo shoot. Molly thought that it was a grand idea. We followed her to her office, and I spent the afternoon posing with some very opulent gowns on. I had fun, but it never entered my head that it would lead to anything else.

On Friday, we walked into the studio to see that the steps had been removed and the mock court had been installed. We started the process once more, being filmed along with a lot of extras playing legal types, the judge, the jurors and the public gallery. Some were playing the news media, who we had worked with on the other scenes.

The seven of us weren’t in shot during the Friday. We sat back and watched as the actors made the opening statements, all taken from the court records. The trial had been brought due to Lauren going to the police, and then other investigations bringing other complainants to light. The defence, of course, was that all the sex had been consensual, as all had taken place in hotel rooms with thin walls, and none of the others had gone to the police at the time.

Monday was the day that we filmed the first two girls being grilled. The story was the same – the accused had gone into their bedroom while on location, had inserted a rubber bung in their mouths and then raped them. When he left, he took the bung out and told them to say nothing or never work in the industry any longer. The defence always ended with the comment that the sex was consensual, and the complaint was just a way of gaining notoriety and get some money from TV interviews.

Tuesday and Wednesday was the same, leaving me to be in the witness box on Thursday. I had read the court transcriptions and had rehearsed my part. That day, I was wearing the expensive linen business suit with the skirt below the knees and carried the big bag that Lauren had taken in that day. When I was tested for sound and the cameras ready, we went into the scene. Most of the others had taken breaks during their scenes but I was determined that I wouldn’t be the one to break the tension as mine unfolded.

The guy playing the prosecution lawyer was very smooth in the part, called me ‘Miss Havers’ and led me through my history that led to that day, emphasising that I had been a model since I was sixteen, and was now only twenty-one. When I related my experience, the defence guy and the accused were looking smug. It had been the same at the actual trial, as far as the reports went. At the end of my statement, the lawyer sat, and the defence lawyer stood. We all had the script in front of us, with the lawyers having theirs on their desks and I had a teleprompt in the witness box where it couldn’t be seen.

The actor playing the defence lawyer was smirking as he started to surmise that I had only gone to the police to gain notoriety. My answer was that I was already famous as a model and that I had enough money saved. He pushed the question that I allowed the accused to have sex with me to enhance my position and leaving it six months before going to the police was unusual for a rape victim. This is where his, and the accused, research had let them down, being so sure that we would all be painted as money-grabbing, lying, sluts, out to tarnish a successful man’s name.

At that point, Laurel had pointed out that the shoot location was in Saudi Arabia, where a woman crying rape was likely to be in prison as the rapist was free to leave the country. They had been on location there, and then Morocco, for three months, so going to the police in the UK was hardly possible.

He then suggested that she had invited him to her room. Lauren had told him that she was from a good family, with breeding, and that she was saving herself for her husband, so was a virgin at the time. The defence grabbed at that and finished his cross-examination with the comment that her going to the police was only a way to wriggle out from the shame of her perfidy.

At that point in the trial, the prosecution lawyer stood and requested a further cross-examination. This was the place where the trial became very real for the reporters. The costume people had supplied me with a white nightie, similar to the one that Lauren had pulled out of her bag and shown the court. When the lawyer asked if I had any proof of the rape, I pulled the actual nightie from the bag and held it up, getting real gasps from the actors on set.

“As you can see. this nightie is torn at the bust, where he had torn it to suck my breasts. It is also stained where I bled when my hymen had been broken. Here is another stain, where he had wiped himself, leaving a blood smear with remnants of his semen. The prosecution has had this tested, and the stains have been proved to be mine and the accused.”

The director had intended to stop the scene as the nightie was being lifted, but the sight of the actual evidence, some ten years after the fact, had him making frantic gestures to carry on. The actors, being professionals, did just that. The defence lawyer stood to object and the judge dismissed it, the prosecution tendered the nightie as evidence and also the forensic report that proved that the blood was Lauren’s, and the semen was positively the accused. That’s where Albert called ‘Cut’ and came over to hug me as the rest of the cast cheered.

“Lauren, that almost gave me a heart attack. Why didn’t you tell me that you had the actual evidence all this time?”

“You heard the effect it had on the cast, Albert. Knowing what was to come wouldn’t have had the same sound. Lauren told me that it had been a surprise to everyone in that court when she pulled it out, and I wanted to recreate that surprise. That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it? Re-creation of that day.”

The other models wanted to touch the famous nightie before I folded it and put it back in the plastic bag. That single item of nightwear had improved their work life since that day. The rest of the show was to be footage of reporters and commentators from the time. Without a need for a second run at the scene, our jobs were over. I, and the models, went to change into everyday wear. That I opted to stay in a dress was a surprise to both me and Molly, with her bringing a small bag with my Garth clothes. I wanted to come down slowly, going back to my apartment after the salon had done it’s best to erase Lauren

That afternoon, after we had all had lunch in the studio canteen, my original contract was torn up, with another given to me to sign, with some more money. Albert told us all that we would be shown the finished product before it went to air, but that he was confident that it would be a blockbuster episode in the series, and that, ‘Each of you seven girls are likely to be offered future roles when it was shown’. That made me stop and think. I had really enjoyed the bustle of filming, and had, I thought, acquitted myself well.

I stayed with Molly on Thursday night, and we talked about the drama of the show, made more dramatic with the actual nightie that sealed his future. The case, up until then, had been she says - he says hearsay. The physical piece of evidence that demonstrated the brutality and total disregard for a woman’s feelings was enough for the jury to bring a guilty verdict after just an hour of deliberation.

After that conversation, she asked the one question that had remained in my mind since we finished filming. What am I? For two weeks playing the part of Lauren, I had been hugged and spoken to more times by strangers than any other time in my life. I had found an aptitude for acting and had fun posing for a lot of cameras over the period. I looked, and sounded, exactly like my famous sister. We rang her around ten that night, nearly teatime in Montreal.

Molly spoke first and gave her the wrap up of the filming, telling her that it was a very powerful piece. When I spoke to her, I was still in character, and we hadn’t been speaking long before she started laughing.

“What did I say?”

“It’s not what you said, Gee, it’s how you’re saying it. You sound just like I did at your age. I only speak different now because I talk to my children a lot, and the social scene here would not allow me to talk with the old accent. You finished filming, why the voice?”

“Because dear Lor, I’m sitting here, still wearing a dress. I don’t know what I’m going to do. If I go back to work as Garth with puffy lips, thin eyebrows and earrings, they’ll laugh. I’m thinking about calling the office next week, to ask if I can go back as Gloria.”

“Where did Gloria come from?”

“I paid with my credit card at the dress shop, and it has G. L. Havers on it. As the lady thought I was you, I told her that my real name was Gloria Lauren but had dropped the Gloria. My contract with the TV company was in the G. L. name, and everyone on the set has called me Lauren for the last two weeks. I believe that the credits will have the same, Albert told me that after my performance, it wouldn’t be any good to have me listed as Garth Havers, as nobody would believe it. I can hardly believe it myself.”

“So, why not stay as Gloria. Molly has told me that you have had a photo shoot at an agency. Call them up, tomorrow, and ask if you can see the portfolio. I’m sure that it will be ready. If the manager has any business sense, she would have already shown it to likely clients. A clone of me on the catwalk will create a sensation.”

“I’m not sure that they want a clone of you, Lor. I’m just so befuddled with all that has happened, I wonder if I’ll be any good at my old job, any longer. I may just start looking at fashion sites. Do you realise that I now have more changes of outfit here than I have in my wardrobe at home. The trouble is that I can find a reason for changing to suit the hour, rather than dressing for a week.”

“You’ve discovered the joys of being a woman, Gee. You don’t have to send the suitcase back, keep the things I put in it. The nightie might find a home in the agency when you’re working for them. It can be framed in all its gory glory.”

“It certainly created something when I pulled it out on the set. All the other models wanted to touch it before I packed it away.”

“See, the next thing is that they’ll want to touch is the hem of your skirt.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024