Taken aback, the actress gasped "You must be kidding."
She shook her head in disbelief. The words "You are here to be trained as a dog" still filled her ears.
The man sat back in his recliner and grunted rather happily. "Of course I mean it. I've read the script. You know how to be a mother, but what you don't know is how to be a dog." He turned and picked up his copy of the script and flung it into her lap.
"That character thinks she is turning into a dog. To make that part of the role work, you need to know what it is to be a dog. I can help you with that."
The actress focused on the bound script in her lap. She flipped it open at random to read some lines, so the man's words would not affect her. "He can't be right," she told herself. "He must think I am a method actor or something." The actress concentered on the printed words before her. The scene she had turned to was in the middle of the movie, where where she read:
55 EXT. FRONT LAWN - CONTINUOUS 55
Mother, on all fours, chases after cat
The actress slammed the script shut and held it to her chest. Tears began to fill her eyes, as she looked up and met the man's dark gaze. "See," he told her, rather gently. "Anyone can be human. You need to be a dog."
Still holding the script to her chest, she sobbed "How?"
The man rose from his recliner, bending over to put his pipe in a nearby ashtray, and walked to a closed door in the corner of the room. As he passed by the couch, he uttered a single word to her: "Heel."
Without looking back, he reached into his front pants pocket and retrieved a set of keys. Using one of the keys on the ring, he unlocked the door and walked inside. The actress hesitantly got up from the couch and followed him inside. Looking around, she was shocked to see what was in the room.
Much like the first room in the house, this one was also lined with framed photographs. But instead of pictures of dogs, these were pictures of women in poses of dogs.
Naked women.
Women with dog ears clipped on them. Some with fake dog muzzles on their faces. Still others with dog tails sticking out behind them. All of them were wearing dog collars.
Here and there were photos of the man holding a leash attached to the collars. Some of the women were sitting on their haunches with their hands on the ground. Most of the photos were showing the women on all fours. What really caught the actress's attention is every woman pictured was smiling and looking up with a shine in their eyes.