by Raina Wilde
“. . . Are you serious? ”
“We have the chefs in, ” Isaac reasoned. “I've got the movie screening room opposite the gym. You can take that. So long as you're on call for me here, it's alright. I can live with that; that's a compromise. Okay? ”
Marla met his eyes for a few moments, searching for the catch. When none surfaced, she cleared her throat and lifted the phone again, still not feeling entirely certain about this. It was probably about to sound kind of weird. “Hey, Jack. New suggestion. ”
“Shoot. ”
“He says you're welcome to come here. ”
“To his caretaking place…? ”
“It's a penthouse, ” Marla admitted, her voice deliberately tempting – but the words she was using alone could have done the trick. “In Tribeca. ”
Jack cleared his throat. “I mean… alright. What's the address? ”
She delivered it with a grin, and it didn't slide off her face for the rest of the phone call. Though she'd spent most of her time here lusting after Isaac, she'd clearly failed to realize the obvious fact of her own loneliness. Having Jack come here would be good for her. It would give her a break from the monotony of her own company, and Isaac's deliberate distance. She was excited. “So, you'll come? ”
“We're going to say… tomorrow at 8pm. Right? ”
“Make it 7pm? ” Marla suggested. “My employer needs everyone out by 10pm, so… should give us more time. There are chefs here – no need to bring anything. ”
“Sounds great. Jesus, Marla. What's your life like now? ”
“Amazing, ” she admitted, without thinking. With the promise of this interaction in place, she did feel lucky once again. She did feel amazing. “You'll see. I'll see you tomorrow, then, I guess? ”
“Sure. Looking forward to it. Wear something nice, right? ”
“I will. I look forward to it too. See you then. ”
She hung up her cell with a grin, slipping it back into her pocket and utterly failing at attempting to look calm and collected. Isaac had one brow raised coolly as she returned to the table, his lips quirked up in a smile that betrayed his amusement, no mater how hard he tried to hide it.
“Was that your mom? ”
Marla snorted at the joke, pulling her water back over towards herself. “God, I hope not. ”
Isaac grinned, eyes down on the plate. “Who, really? ”
“One of my actor friends, ” Marla told him. “This guy I always had a… well. Not a thing with, per se? But he was always kind of touchy-feely. I figured he was either a flirt with everybody or I was reading him wrong, but… I guess not. ”
“Well, that's good. ”
There were a few moments of silence before Isaac spoke up again.
“You know, you're not allowed to have sex after 7:30pm in this house. ”
Marla looked up, ready for an all-guns-blazing argument again, but thankfully realized just in time that Isaac was grinning down at his plate, in no way serious.
“I hate you, ” she said, swatting at him from across the table, and completely missing. “You scare the shit out of me. I can never tell if you're serious or not. ”
“Oh, you'll know when I'm serious, ” Isaac insisted, going back to his omelet. “I can promise you that. ”
Marla thought back to the moment Isaac kissed her, pressed up hard against the vault wall, and tried to ignore the flash of red that burned across the back of her neck and his ears. Not now, brain. In fact, not ever.
Chapter Eight
When the night in question finally arrived, Marla was as close to a nervous wreck as it was possible to be – perhaps even more so than she had been to turn up for this interview in the first place. She wasn't sure why that was. As hot as Jack undoubtedly was, and as much as she was looking forward to his company, Jack wasn't someone whose opinion had ever seriously mattered to her, and if things didn't turn out, it wouldn't be a huge burden.
Part of her wondered if it was the risk that Jack would just identify that what was going on here with Isaac was incredibly weird. If somebody else confirmed it, after all, then she'd have no recourse for ignoring it anymore.
Besides, Jack was sure to talk about what he saw here. It seemed vitally important to Marla that he talked in a very positive way, not just about Marla herself, but about the entire setup. About the penthouse – about Isaac.
Isaac was surprisingly even about the whole thing, even checking the way Marla looked once Jack was on his way up in the elevator. “You look beautiful, ” he assured her, smoothing something-or-other that Marla hadn't seen away from her shoulder. “He won't be able to resist, I'm sure. I'll… make myself sparse, I suppose. ”
“Not in your own home, ” Marla insisted. “You're not going to eat with us? ”
“I'd rather stick pins in my eyes, ” Isaac said, dry-voiced and apparently serious. “Present company excluded, the vast majority of young male actors I've met have been completely intolerable. From the way you've described him, I don't think I'd get on with this Jack of yours. ”
“He's not my Jack, ” Marla insisted, full of blushes as the elevator arrived on their floor. She headed to the door. “Wish me luck. ”
“Good luck, ” Isaac consented, bowing his head at her warmly as he made his way out of the corridor and into one of his many comfortable rooms.
Jack was personable, when he arrived, but not as handsome as Marla remembered. Was it unkind to think so? Perhaps – but compared to Isaac's 30-year-oldchiseledfeatures and well-cut suits, Jack seemed like a young boy in comparison. A jock.
It didn't help that he wrinkled his nose at the idea of what the chef was preparing. “Sounds kind of… you know. Over-formal. You don't just want to order pizza in, or something? ”
It was with a sizable amount of guilt that Marla asked if it was possible that these meals be frozen for her to eat tomorrow, and some pizza be brought in instead. The chef understood, and she was more than happy to take over ordering for her, but it didn't stop the crushing feeling in her stomach. She didn't think it'd be physically possible for her to refuse a meal cooked by a home chef when she was a guest in someone else's home – especially not when the food was already nearly done.
Jack, however, seemed to see no problem with it. He also saw no problem with casually announcing that it was good that they were here instead of out at a restaurant. “Way cheaper date, ” was the way he described it.
It was like the charismatic and charming man on the phone and in those flirty, mid-audition moments had a twin brother, and was trying to get him laid instead. Jack was aloof and had an unkind sense of humor, laughing at things in the movie – which played over their conversation – which were not meant to be funny. He answered all of Marla's polite questions about how he was doing, and how his career was going, and asked none of Marla herself.
She'd been excited for this, and it had turned out to be a washout. She'd pushed at Isaac's boundaries and wheedled this favor out of him, allowing a stranger to come into his home – and this was what it was for?
Frankly, she felt disillusioned. No matter how hard she kept trying to engage with the date and listen to Jack's endless self-centered rants, all she wanted to do was check her watch and urge the time on to 10pm, when she could finally see him out and go back to Isaac's company.
Things weren't technically romantic between them, because Isaac didn't want them to be. She knew that. All the same, she couldn't help but long for the chemistry and the back-and-forth of her evenings spent with the older man.
Apparently, however, Jack had sorely misinterpreted her intentions as she checked her watch. He grinned, so broad that it turned his handsome face into a caricature of itself. It could have starred in a cartoon about the dangers of arrogance. She could imagine it in the paper tomorrow.
“Look, ” he said. “If you're worried about missing this 10pm deadline, we can start right now. You really don't have to be coy about it. ”
“Oh, ” said Marla, her cheeks fil
ling up with red. Honestly, after how horrendous Jack's company had been, she was no longer really interested in sleeping with him. She had figured it'd be easy to play off that she didn't sleep with anyone on the first date, and usher him out like that – no harm, no foul. As it turned out, however, sex seemed to be the primary thing on Jack's mind. He had already started inching towards Marla, as though her answer was a foregone conclusion.
Marla hated that more than all his other bad behavior combined.
She lifted a hand, smiling weakly to try and take the head off the tension. “Oh, honestly; I'm… I don't think we should. First date. . . ”
“Date? ” Jack said. “Or just a booty call? ”
Did people even still say booty call in 2016? Really? She shook her head, shrinking back against the wall. “I'm sorry if we've had crossed wires, but… you know, you said dinner, so I assumed you meant dinner and not a hookup, and I'd really kind of rather-”
“Come on. We've been looking at each other in the audition corridors for weeks. I know what you want. ”
“I really just want to finish this pizza and the movie, then I'm probably going to go to bed. Really, I'm not in the mood. . . ”
“I can put you in the mood, ” he said, low-voiced and possibly attempting to be seductive, as he pulled his shirt off over his head. Either that or he was soothing Marla – talking her into sedation so she'd be an easier prey. “I'm good at this. Just – c'mon, lift your dress up. . . ”
Marla had been intending on shoving him back, but in reality she never got there. Half a beat after Jack's hand came near her, a vicious roar came from the doorway of the room – the kind of noise you heard from a wild animal. Both their heads whipped over to look, half-expecting one of the movie surround sound speakers to have fallen and tricked their minds.
Instead, however, a wild snow leopard stood in the doorway, large and muscular. Its bright white fur, sprinkled with spots, glistened under the low lighting of the movie room, eyes fresh and furious.
“Holy shit, ” said Jack – which was about all he had time to say before the leopard leaped forward and separated him from Marla.
In one gut-wrenching move, it ripped the hand that had pulled at Marla's dress right off his body; blood gushed from the open wound with more force than Marla had ever imagined there would be when she heard about blood pressure and circulation. Jack's screams were enough to push her into action, scampering away from the corner of the room where Jack was being ravaged – but the movie room door was already sealed shut, and no amount of banging on it yielded any reward.
“Please help me, ” she begged, shouting through the door. She hadn't yet had time to wonder where in god's name a leopard had come from in central New York – only to panic for her life. “Isaac! Please, please. Please help me. ”
But no answer came, and pulling on the door handle did not help. Terrified that the animal would soon turn on her, and haunted by the sound of Jack's raw screams behind her, she moved to a different part of the wall in the hopes that it would disturb another room – maybe alert Isaac to her plight.
“Please!”
In shoving this wall, however, she made a mistake. She knocked into the shelves that lined most of the wall as she tried to batter it with her shoulder and her fists, and in doing so dislodged a marble bust that she had never seen before, balanced precariously on the top shelf. When it fell, she barely felt the impact of it against her head – just remembered the world spinning around her as she dropped to the floor, vision fading out to black.
I'm going to die, she thought, as she lost her consciousness. And there was no evidence her logical mind had to combat that with. In the brief moments of wakefulness she had left, she made the mistake of glancing over to Jack's corner.
Needless to say, it was the leopard's corner now.
Chapter Nine
Sometime in the night, drifting in and out of consciousness, Marla realized that the snow leopard had come to sit with her. Perhaps it had noticed she was injured and saw no need to attack, or perhaps it was sated after killing Jack; either way, it was placid as it laid beside her, identifiable as a living creature only by the rise and fall of its ribcage, and the light in its eyes.
Was she dreaming? She didn't think so, but she must be. When she made a sound of fear, involuntary and rather too loud, the leopard lifted its head to look at her, with serious gray eyes that were unmistakably familiar.
Unmistakably Isaac's.
The leopard lifted his great head and shuffled closer, choosing instead to rest it against Marla's stomach, one great paw in gentle contact with the fabric of her dress.
It had to be a dream, of course. It had to be – but somehow, Marla knew full well that she was properly, really awake.
When she woke properly in the morning, it was in slightly different circumstances.
Remembering the interruption in her sleep, and the gentle contact with that wild creature that had come so close to hurting her – and probably killed her date – she felt the weight of something against her body, and her eyes flew open to look.
It wasn't a leopard. It was Isaac, and those eyes she'd recognized so easily looked back up at her with a baleful look.
“Do you understand now? ” he asked, voice soft with something that sounded remarkably like fear, if not for the fact that it came from Isaac's mouth. Up until now, Marla hadn't believed Isaac to be capable of fear. “The chains. The secrets. The lack of answers. All for this. ”
Marla swallowed, head aching and still full of panic. The room smelled faintly of copper and iron – like blood. “Jack…? ”
Isaac's eyes dropped. He didn't need to say a word.
“Isaac, I don't understand. ”
“It just happens, ” he insisted. “The shift. I don't choose it. Every night at 11pm, and until every morning at 5am. I give myself an extra hour as a buffer, and I lock myself away. But it happens when I'm angry, too, ” he said, words coming out like the floodgates had opened. Marla wasn't surprised. If this was true – and her head was hurting far too much to decide either way – then she doubted Isaac had found much opportunity to discuss it in the past, even a handful of times. “I… I wasn't spying on you, but my hearing is… exceptional. I was walking by in the corridor and I heard him begin to insist, and you begin to refuse, and. . . ”
“You lost control, ” Marla finished for him, too stunned to feel anything else.
“I gave up my company for this, ” Isaac told him. “Years ago people knew my name. I was a big player in the city, and it all had to end. I've been up here ever since – a prisoner to my own emotions. I try so hard to keep them in check. Kissing helps, ” he added. “It's a distraction. I don't know how else to cope. I don't think this counts as coping. ”
“It's not your fault, ” Marla assured him. “You didn't do this on purpose, and… you can. . . ”
She just couldn't get her head around Jack. The guy was an asshole, but could she really overcome the thought that he'd been violently ripped apart last night, and that Isaac had been the one to do it – however out of his mind he was?
She swallowed. “It'll be fine, ” she said. “I'm not going to tell, but… I think I need to be on my own for a while. ”
“Of course, ” said Isaac. “Go get some rest. We'll see to your head later; I had a brief look while you slept, but it doesn't seem too serious, so-”
“No, ” Marla interrupted. She was too overwhelmed to be polite. “Not here. I mean – out. Out there. I've got to just… get away. I can't be here where he died. It's my fault; I mean. If I'd just. . . ”
“It's not your fault. ”
“But it happened because of me, ” Marla insisted, holding eye contact briefly before a shiver up her spine sent her staring off in the other direction again. “I don't think I can do this anymore, Isaac. I don't – I don't blame you, I don't think you're a freak. I'm not angry. I'm not afraid of you. I just can't be here right now. I just can't. ”
Isaac swallowed, ey
es down at the floor. Marla took the opportunity to look over into the corner where Jack's corpse had lain, but there was nothing there now – not even a blood stain. It was as though he'd never been here.
Marla wanted to feel as though she'd never been here, too.
“Stay with me, ” Isaac asked, after a beat. “I know you miss the stage, and I know this can't have helped, with your friend, but… he wasn't right for you, and the stage isn't right for you. It could be just us here – you and me. . . ”
“This isn't about that, ” Marla countered, disgusted at what she was hearing. “Not at all, and I do belong on the stage. We've talked about this; that's my dream. I thought you cared more than that about me. ”
“Of course I care about you, ” Isaac promised, voice softer than Marla had ever heard it – but he had not apologized, and it didn't make up for what he'd just said. Not in the slightest.
Marla shook her head. “You're mistaken about me. You barely know me at all, and I barely know you. I – I have to leave. I won't tell, but… please just leave me alone. This isn't me; this isn't my life. Not this. ”
She stood, head spinning, and Isaac stood with her. The cut on his lip had reopened sometime last night, and it looked red and sore now, a harsh contrast against the paleness of his face, and the mess of his hair. “Will you let me set you up? ” he asked, voice low. “With an apartment somewhere. Just while you get established – just so I know that you're safe. ”
“No, ” said Marla. She surprised herself, hearing that, but of course no other answer was possible. If she was going to prove to herself and to Isaac that she could do this, and that she was worth this, then she had to do it on her own. “You don't have to feel guilty, Isaac. You haven't screwed me up; I'm not escaping from you. It's just… it reminds me what I need from you. What you won't give me. I can't get past that. ”
Isaac nodded down at the ground, one arm crossed over himself. For the first time, he seemed cowed by his nudity. “I can't stop you. ”
Marla shook her head. “No, ” she agreed. “You can't. ”