Shooting Star (Beautiful Chaos)

by Arianne Richmonde

  I was lonely.

  His house was grand; enormous, with polished Spanish tiled floors stretching across huge, echoey hallways. I took to going barefoot so my shoes wouldn’t make clicking sounds. There were elegant arched windows, a sweeping staircase, and oil paintings looming big on every wall. One was of a beautiful 1920s flapper with cropped black hair, holding a cigarette in a silver holder, and looked like an original Tamara Lempicka. In the garage behind the house were not just one, but two, classic cars: an old silver Rolls Royce from the 1950s and a navy blue Bugatti sports car. Jake had opulent but unusual taste.

  With nothing to do but learn my lines, I made friends with Jake’s dog, a huge Rhodesian Ridgeback with golden eyes and, like his namesake, he had a permanent ridge of hackles that stuck up along his backbone. His name was Fierce but he was a sweetheart and we quickly became close.

  Jake ignored members of my staff as they came and went: my masseuse, my chef, my hairdresser, who passed by to touch up my highlights. Jake was polite but reserved. Never once did he berate me for having so many people invading his home, and for the first time I became self-conscious—aware that having a team fluttering about me wasn’t really normal; not the way most people lived. Jake had money but he didn’t seem to need an entourage to support him, to cater to his every whim. I had indulged myself too much and now it was beginning to dawn on me that privacy—having moments completely to myself with just the dog, for instance—was actually a good thing.

  There was a magical peace in Jake’s house that I hadn’t experienced before. A calming experience. Jake was there physically but also benignly absent—an old married couple who no longer spoke to each other—that’s what it felt like between us. At least to me. I still couldn’t work out what his game plan was—if he had one. Every so often, I’d catch him observing me. A flicker of a second, a dart of the eyes, but then he’d go back to pretending I hardly existed.

  The more he ignored me, the more I wanted his attention.

  After a couple days of this (we were about to start filming in two days’ time) Jake finally broke the silence.

  “You know all your lines or just the first few scenes?” he asked out of the blue.

  “I always like to learn the whole script so I know it backwards.”

  “Good girl.”

  “I’m not a girl, I’m a woman, if you hadn’t noticed.” But when he said “good girl” my heart skipped a beat. He had just come out of the pool, trailing water as he walked into the living room, and his dirty blond hair was slicked back wet, a white towel carelessly slung about his hips, accentuating that manly V, his body bronzed—and for the first time I got to see how beautiful the contours of his muscles were: his arms taut and strong, his chest wide, narrowing beautifully down to a segmented stomach. Not bulky or thick—but lean like a tennis or soccer player—somebody muscular because of sport, not because of weights. It was the first time he’d had a swim since I’d been here—usually he was in the main living room, his head buried in a huge great art book, gleaning inspiration for a scene or watching old movies with the blinds drawn, freeze-framing and snapping a shot with his iPhone or sketching a new idea for his storyboards. Then he’d be on the phone forever, talking to producers or location managers, or with Leo about the shooting schedule, changing things up at the last minute. Pre-production details. Cool, calm, on top of things.

  In this instant I had him to myself, as I drank in his body, admiring him the way you might a Greek marble statue at the Met or some Italian fountain in Rome.

  “I like to be flexible,” he told me, his eyes flickering for just a millisecond to my breasts before he settled back on my eyes. Water was dripping from his body like raindrop crystals. Everything seemed in slow motion—freeze-framed for me as I blinked like a camera lens to take in the shot—to save the image for later. I swear I could feel the electricity charging between us but then he looked away (upward to the right, funnily enough) squinting his gray eyes in thought, and I understood it was my imagination that had had him wanting me, desiring me. Because never had a guy ignored my come-ons so much as Jake. Never. My nipples were poking through a see-though top—I too had been swimming earlier, my hair still damp—and the air conditioning in the room had chilled them into little peaks. All for nothing! I could have been a chair or a table as far as he was concerned—so little did I matter to him, except as a tool for his movie.

  “I thought we could do a few acting exercises,” he said. “Not the scenes themselves but a bit of improvisation.”

  I loved improv. Some indie directors did whole films by way of improvisation; practically ignoring the script or making it up it as they went along—letting their actors come up with ideas to shape the scenes.

  Jake wasn’t looking at me when he asked, “You’re into the Method, I hear?”

  I nodded. “It’s the only way I know how to work—to get into character. Except I can’t exactly go around killing people so I guess for Skye’s The Limit I’ll have to actually act and forget the Method.” I thought he’d laugh but he didn’t.

  “There’s the sex scene,” he said, choosing his words carefully, “and I don’t know how we should go about shooting it. I’ve been worrying about it for days. Have you got any ideas, Star? Of Skye’s motivation in this scene?”

  “It’s all about control,” I answered. Skye and I were so similar in many ways—I really identified with this part. “She wants to get her way so she’s using sex as a weapon.”

  “You see, I don’t see it as black and white as that. I think she’s yearning for attention—to be loved. A need for love is driving this scene, not control. She’s using sex as a way to get close to men, as it’s the only way she knows. I think this scene is pivotal; its when the audience needs to realize how alone she is. It’s imperative that the audience fall in love with her at this point.” He looked up and his penetrating eyes locked with mine. I felt myself tingle all over. But I also wondered if there was some message—a personal one for me—buried in his words.

  “You look cold, Star. I’ll turn off the air con.” As he said this, his eyes ran down to my breasts again. Double messages, dammit. Then he walked over to the wall switch and flicked off air con, meanwhile dimming the lights. A beam of late afternoon sunlight shot through a crack in the blinds leaving a golden ray across the dark wooden floor but apart from that we were in semi darkness. I was hoping he’d want to enact the scene from the movie with me, when I seduce the prison guard.

  “Shall we do that scene?” I asked eagerly, “when I kiss the—”

  “No kissing, Star. Just . . . let’s pretend you want to dance with me—you can take this scene in any direction you want; it doesn’t have to be dancing—that’s just an idea. But you need to persuade me—get my attention.” He sat down in a chair and picked up a book, ignoring me the way he had for the past few days. Get his attention? So far it had been impossible and I’d been working on it, practically around the clock.

  How could I break him down this time? Get to him? My iPod was lying on the coffee table atop a pile of art and film books. I picked it up, scrolled through my playlist and chose “Drunk in Love” by Beyoncé. I padded over to him in my bare feet and stood before him. Nothing. No reaction. I began to swing my hips in time to the music, hovering my ass over his lap—yeah, I’d do a lap dance just for him. In my previous movie I’d played a stripper who had a child to support and a mom with Alzheimer’s—my character desperately needed the money. I’d trained enough to know what I was doing—spent weeks learning to pole dance. I was good.

  I began to gyrate slowly, leaning in on him, with my ass brushing past his stomach. Did I feel a hard rod dig into me as I eased my butt in little circles? Or was it my imagination again? I bent down so he could get the full peachy view, my short skirt edging higher up my thighs so he could see my panties. I was moist down there—turned on by our proximity. I could hear his heavy breaths and he grabbed my hips. Hard. His fingers digging into my flesh, his grip firm, his thu
mbs pushing into each cheek as he steadied me so I couldn’t move an inch. His touch shot shivers down my spine—goose bumps crept all over me. I could feel myself moisten up even more. His hold on me was dominating. Raw.

  “No, Star.” His grip was relentless. The music continued but I couldn’t move.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I asked you to get me to dance with you.”

  “I am dancing with you.”

  “You’re dancing at me. I need to want to participate.”

  My back was still to him—he couldn’t see, thank God—the tears of humiliation welling in my eyes. Rejection. Being spurned. “What do you want?” I whispered.

  There was a long pause and he said, “You need to break me. Not sexually but in a deeper more metaphysical way.”

  Metaphysical? WTF? “Oh.”

  “What’s the action in this scene?”

  “To cry?” That would be easy at this point.

  “That could be the result. What’s the action?”

  The lump in my throat hardly let me say the words, “I don’t understand you.”

  “The action that’s driving this scene? What does Skye want?”

  “She wants to get the hell out of jail!”

  “And what’s stopping her?”

  “The prison guard.” Duh! “He’s her last hurdle. He’s the only thing stopping her freedom.” You know that, you jerk!

  “This guard is being played by a fifty-year-old. And remember this is set in 1964 and things were different then. You’ll have to think of a better way to ‘seduce’ him because if you do it like this—so blatantly—the audience will not only lose respect for Skye, they’ll be turned off.”

  Jake was turned off. He had lost respect for me. This playing-out-a-scene game before official rehearsals was bullshit and I’d had enough.

  “Let me go, you asshole!” I cried out, freeing myself from his grasp. “You’ve been screwing with my head for days. Ignoring me. Making me feel small and worthless like I’m invisible! You’re worse than my father. Using me for your own ends. Not even thinking for one moment that I’m only nineteen and just because I look like a woman on the outside and grew up before my time—” The words flew out of my mouth surprising even me—“I’m . . . I’m . . . People just want me for what I can offer them: money, a performance for their movies—it fucking sucks!”

  He spun me around so I was facing him. A glow of warmth flickered in his eyes, and his lips lifted into an almost imperceptible smirk as if he’d won a prize. But then he frowned. He looked up at me and he said, “Bring that vulnerability to this scene, Star.”

  “What? Are you serious? I am not acting right now! This is for real, Jake. I feel used, like you just don’t give a shit about me as a person.” I struggled from his grip but he pulled me close so my crotch was practically in his face—he was still sitting. He bit his lower lip, lust oozing from his pores like rising steam. My eyes dropped down. His swim shorts were tented. He was huge. Hard as a rock. So I did affect him after all—my little dance had turned him on! But he suddenly let me go and stood up abruptly, turning his back on me.

  “Coward,” I spat out at his strong golden shoulders.

  “Fighting your demons head on is not cowardly, Star, you should know that by now.”

  I stared at the back of him, imagining myself tussling his hair, grabbing it as he pinned me on the sofa. I wanted him to kiss me, shut the words coming out of his mouth with my mouth.

  “You don’t know me, Star. Just think of me as your director, nothing more. The only thing I’m good for, as far as you’re concerned, is getting a great performance out of you. Trust me—I’m bad for you on any other level.”

  “Can’t we at least be friends?” my voice croaked.

  He jerked around and looked me hard in the eye. “Honestly? I doubt that very much.”

  His words were like daggers. “Why do you dislike me?”

  “Dislike you? Is that what you think?” He shook his head. “Come here, Star. Let’s sit down and talk, this is crazy.”

  I slumped down on to the oversized couch, sinking into its feathery comfort, watching him watch me. Boy, was he a mind fuck, or what.

  “Hang on,” he said, “I’ll get us some drinks.”

  There was a liquor cabinet hidden in a bookshelf, which I’d had no idea about. The hinges were so small when it swung open, revealing a mindboggling array of bottles—like something out of a Bond movie. Jake poured a couple of Cokes, clinked in some ice and slices of lemon. I tucked my knees under me and wondered what he wanted to talk about. My character, Skye, no doubt. Jake—a one-track mind: the Movie, with a capital M.

  He sat down, close enough, but making sure he wasn’t touching any part of my body. His erection had calmed down and I had that niggling question again; had I imagined it? He had his “I’m a Director” look on again.

  “Look, Star,” he began.

  “I’m looking,” I retorted childishly. “And I can’t see the freaking wood from the trees. You’re giving me double messages, Jake. You think I want to be here as your prisoner? I could be in a hotel with my friends having fun, not alone here where the only person—I mean creature—that pays any attention to me is your dog!”

  “I don’t know how to deal with you.” He took a long slug of his soda. Was he abstaining from booze for my sake? “You’re disarming me. I’m trying to be professional and I’m finding it extremely difficult the way you’re . . . you’re . . . look . . I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Ha! They warned me that you were a player but nobody filled me in about your arrogance. Hurt me? Star Davis? I don’t fall in love, Jake. Least of all with directors.”

  “Then why are you acting all wounded when I don’t pay you more attention?”

  He had a point. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “This business is a lonely, dog-eat-dog one, and people are out for your blood. I’m just trying to protect you, Star. Like you pointed out earlier, you’re only nineteen.”

  “Oh yeah? Like you’re not one of them? You want my blood just as much as the next person. Last I heard, all you cared about was getting a great performance out of me and that there’s no way we can be friends!”

  “You think we can be buddies when you run around in tiny little skirts—your exposed legs all long and golden, your sexy little arse cheeks peeking out all over the place? Oh, and naked as well! With your beautiful tits in my face? Don’t you get it, Star? Course I want to fuck you! Any straight man would. All day long, all I think about is sex. With you. But we simply can’t go there!”

  I felt my stomach flip with triumph. Excitement. I’d got to him! I felt powerful. Like holding a great hand of cards, I knew I could win this game. “I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand lightly on his thigh. I could hear the pattern of his breath was uneven and when my eyes strayed to his newly tented shorts—that comforting telltale sign—it sent a tingle between my legs. He desired me. And his desire was turning me on.

  “We need to talk—get to know each other a bit better. I’m sorry I haven’t handled things so well, it’s just . . . I find you disconcerting.”

  “Disconcerting?” I played the innocent.

  Then he said between gritted teeth, “Do you always get what you want, Star?”

  “You’re a person who gets what he wants,” I answered, “you should understand. But there’s one difference between us: I had to fight for my privileges but you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth.”

  He laughed. “The spoon was pretty bloody tarnished, I can tell you.”

  “Oh, yeah. Your dad’s one of the richest producers this side of Hollywood, and your uncle and grandfather are Academy Award winning directors with a list as long as my arm of hit movies. Tough life, Jake Wild.”

  He shook his head, an ironic smile tilting up his lips. “It wasn’t all roses I can tell you.”

  It was true. Who was I to decide who he was? I hardly knew the guy, excep
t what I’d read in the papers or heard about through friends. “What about your mom?” I asked, “you see her much?”

  “My mother?” His face changed to an expression of disgust—no, more like ‘disappointment’—a sad flicker of his eyes gave it all away.

  “They divorced?” I said.

  “Yeah, when I was eight.”

  “Oh well, what’s new? Most parents get divorced. Sticking together is pretty rare.” I took a swig of Coke, hoping I didn’t sound too cavalier. “What happened?”

  He let out a deep sigh, “In a nutshell? She’s an alcoholic. In all these years she’s never cleaned up her act.”

  “Oh. Well, I can relate to that.”

  “Yeah, I suppose you can.”

  “I’m not talking about myself—I mean my mom.”

  “Your mum’s a drinker?”

  “Was. She died a long time ago. Well, actually, her drug of choice wasn’t drink exclusively—she was more into pill popping.”

  He frowned. “I’m sorry you lost your mum—must have been tough.”

  “And yours? Where’s she now?”

  “In England. She lives in a small village in the countryside. My dad still supports her—supports her habit, rather.”

  “But she managed to raise you, all the same?—get you to school, make your meals? You turned out okay. Just,” I added jokily.

  Jake snickered. “God, no. I was sent to boarding school—I was eight—they take boys as young as that in the UK. Tradition. Character building, you know? Then in the holidays—vacation time—I came to Los Angeles to be with my father and whoever happened to be his wife at the time. He went through a string of them.”