“I’m writing everything in order.”
“Just do it.”
“Fine—fuck you!” She hammers away at the keyboard with her pretty little fingers. “I like the line, but how do we justify her saying it?...Never mind, I know.” She types up some stage direction and another line of dialogue as connective tissue, and the scene works. It’s like alchemy. We’re awesome together.
I hold up my hand for a high-five, which she reluctantly gives me. “It’s just…”
I roll my eyes. Here comes the neurotic whining. “What now?”
“What if we’re getting the demon possession stuff wrong? I think we should be doing more research.”
“How many people in the audience do you think are going to be demonologists? It’s a movie. It’s entertainment. People will go to this movie to be scared and entertained. Let it go.”
“I’m just used to doing more research.”
“That’s a delaying tactic. It’s our job to make up our own rules that make sense within the world that we have created, and to stick to those rules. That’s it. Moving on.”
She sighs. Not in the good way. “I just think it’s irresponsible.”
“To whom?! Demons?!”
She purses her lips. She knows I’m right. Instead of saying so, she goes back to typing. Atta girl.
She’s wearing a really thin T-shirt and no bra and I can see the outline of her perfect pink nipples and she’s wearing a casual little short skirt so I can see her taut golden legs and she’s acting like it’s no big deal. This is how she dresses at home and she doesn’t care how she looks. Her hair is up in a ponytail, like that day when I first saw her in Boston. She’s pretty and sexy and she smells like a delicious cookie that I want to eat and Christ Almighty I’ve had my work cut out for me today.
She raises her arms over her head and stretches, making her tiny T-shirt stretch tighter over her flirty nipples and I make a soft guttural sound in the back of my throat. I give her a look. She knows what the look means.
“We have to get to the end of the act break today.” She sounds like a first grade teacher talking to a naughty little boy, and it just makes me want to fuck her even more.
“Okay.”
She rubs her neck and groans. It’s obviously really stiff. So is her neck.
I remove my glasses and offer to massage her neck and shoulders.
She looks at me like I just told her I’m an exiled Nigerian prince who needs to borrow money that I will repay in one month with interest. But, to my surprise, she says okay.
She will regret this, immediately. Because I’m good at this. I’m very good at this. She remains seated in her chair at the dining table. I stand behind her, rub my hands together to warm them up, then place them on her shoulders. I massage her neck, gently at first, before I start to knead her flesh more deeply, pressing in with my thumbs, pinching and tugging and rubbing and circling and pounding.
She takes a deep breath and holds it for a long time before she exhales. I take a risk and kiss the back of her neck. She tilts her head back, eyes closed. She doesn’t flinch. My hands move down her back then around and under her T-shirt, up to her beautiful soft breasts. I kiss her neck as I massage her swelling tits, her petal pink nipples hard beneath my hands.
She sighs. “I’m going to keep working.”
“Good idea, keep working.” She leans forward and starts typing.
Meanwhile, I keep working on her. My left hand squeezes her left breast and my right hand makes its way down her belly and into the front of her skirt. “You spelled ‘their’ wrong,” I say. She is breathing heavily. She re-types the word as my fingers slide past her panties and gently massage her clit. She whispers, “oh shit” but continues typing.
“You just typed ‘fuck you Braddock.”
“Fuck you Braddock.”
My fingers are inside of her now. She’s so warm and slippery and tight.
“This is very unprofessional,” she says. She starts to rock back and forth, ever so slightly, in sync with my movements.
“Not if we end up with a great script.”
I’m so hard and I want to fuck her but I want to make her come first.
I remove my hands from her. She looks up at me, wondering why I’m stopping. I walk over to the other side of the table, pull the chair out. “Keep working,” I say. “Get us to the end of the act. She hears the noises in the basement and she’s looking for him and the noises suddenly stop.”
“Yes I know I know.”
I kneel down on the floor and make my way over to her, under the table.
She squeezes her legs together at first. I run my hands up her legs, then down to her knees and I gently squeeze them. Let me in. Her legs relax just a bit. I pull her panties down and she lets me, kicks them off from around her ankles. I grab onto her ass and she is dripping wet when I lick her. I feel her tense up. She holds onto the edge of the desk. She’s already so close. My thumb keeps pressure on her clit while my tongue goes to work below, alternately gentle and vigorous, swirling around and pulsating. She’s running her fingers through my hair and then I suck on her clit, and her whole body stiffens and then releases and I dig my fingers into her flesh and push my tongue inside of her as far as it will go—I could live inside of her there—I feel the waves start, and then I hear her say “wait, stop. Get inside of me. Hurry up.” She pulls away.
“Yes ma’am,” I say. I pull a condom out of my wallet, tear it open with my teeth.
She stands up and gestures for me to sit in the chair. I sit down, saluting her with my giant erection, and in one second she’s on top of me, pressing down onto me and it feels amazing. She does a lot of work, tightening and relaxing around my cock, her hips rocking back and forth, showing me that she’s in charge now, and we’re both breathing hard and loud and she’s there—her head tilts back and she’s so loud, “Oh God oh God oh FUCK!” and I have to force myself not to say her name because I know that would freak her out, so I grunt and groan and I thrust and I hold tight to her hips as I come and she tightens her legs around me, pressing up as close to me as possible, and it’s brilliant.
“To reiterate,” she deadpans, once she’s caught her breath, “we are not dating.”
“No we aren’t. But we sure do fuck good.”
“You are not wrong about that, sir.”
I smile. “Writing partners with benefits.”
“Temporary writing partners,” she says. “With limited benefits.”
After I have freshened up, I return to the sofa, where she is now sitting with her laptop, in her flimsy top and boyshorts. I hear her talking, but all of the blood is rushing straight to my dick again. I want a poster of her like this. I think she’s asking me about my former fiancée. Which is interesting, because she doesn’t usually ask me personal questions.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone about it back at Emerson?”
“’It?’”
“Your engagement.”
“Because I was starting over in a new city. I didn’t want to talk about it.”
“Fair enough. What was her name?”
“Courtney.”
“Of course it was.”
“She was my first girlfriend. From senior year.”
“You loved her?”
“She was my first girlfriend. I was still trying to be someone else back then. Someone who belonged in my family. She was the right girl for that guy.”
“Why did it end?”
I take a deep breath. I don’t want Erin to know that much about Courtney. Not that I have anything to hide, I just don’t want her thinking that there was anyone all that important before her. But I do want her to know that she can ask me anything, so here goes: “It ended because I told her I wanted to be a screenwriter, and that I was dropping out of business school. She moved out the next day. I haven’t spoken to her since.”
She laughs. “You’re joking.”
“Nope. She said she should have known I was a writer because I fu
cked like an alcoholic manic-depressive with no money.”
She wrinkles her brow, God bless her. “What does that even mean?”
“I don’t think she knew what it meant. I was the first person she ever had sex with. But I’m sure she’s happy now. She’s married to a guy who fucks like a real estate developer on Prozac.”
“Sounds like a smart lady.”
“She did the right thing.”
“So you were sad when I met you.”
“I was pissed. And humiliated.” You helped me to get over that.
“I don’t blame you. I am sorry. That sucks…I’m glad you’re a screenwriter.” She says it shyly, almost blushing, like it’s embarrassing for her to say something even vaguely nice to me.
“Thanks. I’m glad you’re a screenwriter.”
She smiles and shakes her head.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Have you been in love before?”
“’Before?’”
“Have you ever been in love?”
“I was madly in love with my high school boyfriend, yes. Peter. He was very nice.”
I almost regret asking. “St. Peter. From Idaho?”
“Yes. Peter from Idaho. He was a great first boyfriend. He was really cute and sweet and he was…safe.”
“Glad to hear it. So what happened?”
“Well, I went to college in Boston, he eventually went to Germany, we were supposed to spend that first Christmas break together, but he called and told me that he’d fallen in love with a French girl. So I never saw him again.”
“Are you kidding me?”
She shrugs.
“He didn’t try to talk to you anymore or anything?”
“He sent a few apology emails, wanting to be friends, but I mean, what was there to talk about. It was over. He broke my heart.”
Well now I know who she was talking to on the phone that first time I saw her, the one who made her smile so beautifully, but I’m searching my memory trying to remember a time when she seemed to be heartbroken at Emerson. There was never a period where she had swollen eyes or missed classes or was out drinking like crazy. “How did you…I mean. Were you upset?”
“Yeah, Braddock. I was upset. But I was also kind of relieved, to be honest. Once I’d gotten busy at Emerson, and was super into writing, it became really obvious that I didn’t have that much to talk to Peter about anymore, and we were growing apart. We didn’t fight or anything, I just…I guess I fell out of love with him. Which was depressing. But at least I got to experience a really nice first love…So that’s that.”
You are amazing.
“You look surprised. I know—it’s like the only thing I have a relatively healthy attitude about, and I don’t even know why I’m not all broken up about it, but I just like remembering the good times with him. It’s weird.”
I feel myself leaning towards her. I want to kiss her. She leans away from me. “Back to work.”
Perhaps, because I am feeling vulnerable after talking about my terrible ex, I start blabbing on about how we need to make the dialogue “less dialogue-y” while she is typing. She hates it when I go on about this, because dialogue is her thing, but I can’t seem to stop and I can tell it’s getting on her nerves. Without saying a word, she gets up, grabs the roll of duct tape, rips off a piece and sticks it over my mouth. This does shut me up but it also pisses me off. What an asshole. Then she removes my shirt. I am less pissed off, because this is interesting. She disappears behind me, forces my arms behind my back and I feel her duct taping my wrists together. You little minx. This definitely beats “potato chip bag sealer” for best use of duct tape. She frowns at me, but can’t hold the frown for long. She grins. She gets down on her knees, between my legs, unzips me, and does things to my genitals that I am quite certain I will be thinking about daily until I die.
That does it.
Erin Duffy owns my cock.
I am ruined.
Chapter 14
*Erin*
He has a strange obsession about home security and my total lack of it. He stopped by the hardware store on the way to my place today, and has brought me a bunch of locks for the sliding windows in my apartment, the kind you screw in place, and a security bar for the front door, that you rest against the bottom of the doorknob. I can’t use it unless Maya is home at night too, which is rare now, but I appreciate the sentiment nonetheless. He doesn’t want anyone breaking in here and stealing my computer with our script on it. I don’t blame him. It’s pretty great. And it’s done!
We’ve finished the first draft, a few days earlier than expected. It’s amazing how quickly we got work done once I’d figured out how to get Braddock to shut up. Thanks, duct tape and my mouth skills! I can’t wait for our interview in the Writers Guild’s monthly magazine. I’m such an inspiration for female screenwriters everywhere…As a feminist, I’d just like to make it clear that I gave him really impressive, powerful, socially-progressive blowjobs—with integrity—because I wanted him to shut up and show him who’s boss.
Well anyway, he totally let me write dialogue the way I want to write it, and he says we should celebrate by ordering in from the good Italian place in my neighborhood, and having a great bottle of wine, because he knows I won’t want to go out with him and to his surprise I agree.
“But…no sex until we’re finished with the rewrite.”
“Define ‘sex.’”
“No touching each other in any way.”
“Can we be naked while working and not touching each other?”
“Absolutely not.”
“What if we’re—“
“Even if we’re in different rooms or blindfolded! I’m serious, Braddock, we need to finish this script and get it out there.”
“Do you need money?”
“Of course I need money.”
“I can loan you money for rent if you need it. I know you’re good for it.”
“Oh my God. No. I do not accept personal loans, especially not from people with penises.”
“Well—you should know by now that I only have one penis.”
I am in so much shock over his offer to loan me money that it takes me a few seconds to get his joke. I don’t even laugh, I just slap his arm.
“What if I give the money to Maya and she gives it to you?”
“No! I’m fine, I just need more money coming in, in like two months, that would be great.”
“Well, it can take a while to get a check from the studios.”
“I know, but as long as I know a check’s coming then I won’t have to get a job at a restaurant. I can eat ramen and drink tap water, cancel Netflix and HBO Now, downgrade my internet speed, sell clothes at a consignment store.”
“Are you that close to getting a job at a restaurant?”
“Yeah. I’m very close.”
“Why didn’t you say so? Okay. No sex until we’ve finished the rewrite…Or how about this…No sex until New York City.”
“What?”
He straightens up and leans in towards me. “Come with me to New York in two weeks. I’m going to my cousin’s wedding and a lot of my family will be there, and I need a date. My usual plus-one is preoccupied with your go-to plus-one. It doesn’t mean we’re dating and I’ll explain to everyone that you’re just my temporary writing partner and not my girlfriend, but…I’d really like you to come with me.”
He just said so many things in those few sentences, it takes me a while to process a response, but all I can really say is this: “Shit. I love New York. Especially at the end of Spring.”
“Then come with me.”
“Do you have a hotel room?”
“I booked a room at the Parker Meridien.”
“And you want me to stay with you?”
“Yeah.”
“In the same room?”
“Yes.”
“It sounds an awful lot like a really big date.”
“Think of it as a wo
rk date. A workation. We can polish up the script when we’re there and celebrate Manhattan-style when we’ve sent it off to the agents.”
Temporary writing partner. Not your girlfriend. It’s fine for me to say it but when you say it it’s mean…“Family, huh?”
“I’m not going to lie to you, a lot of them are rich assholes. I mean I know you think that’s what I am, but they’re ten times worse. My mom’s mostly sweet. My cousin who’s getting married is great. Natalie, she’s awesome, you’d like her. She’s marrying a British guy. It would mean a lot to me if you were there, so I could actually enjoy it, and I think it would be fun for you, to hang out in NYC. Take a break.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good.”
“Okay I’ve thought about it. I’ll go. But only because it’s New York.”
This could be dangerous. I always feel like I’m in love when I’m in New York, because I get so caught up in the energy of it. What if I get confused and think it’s Braddock and not Manhattan that’s making me feel that way?
Still, it’s a sweet offer. I put my hand on his thigh and lean in towards him.
He looks down at my hand on his thigh, and then up at me. He shakes his head. “Work. No fooling around until we have an amazing second draft.”
“Well. We don’t have to start on the next draft tonight.”
“Yes we do. We need to sell this thing ASAP and make you some dough.” He seems very earnest. It’s cute. He removes my hand from his thigh. “Get to work, you little sex maniac. We can’t work our asses off and fuck each other’s brains out at the same time, we aren’t in college anymore.”
This makes me laugh. “Okay, Gramps. Should we have a bowl of oatmeal and some prunes with Metamucil for dinner instead of Italian?”
He doesn’t even riff on my joke. He’s opened up his laptop. “How about I type up the next draft?”
“Seriously, we need to order something now I’m starving.”
“Grab some trail mix from the kitchen, I’ve got an idea for the opening scene I want to run through with you before I forget it.”
He’s not joking.
“Hurry up—let’s work on the opening and then we’ll break for dinner.”
The Wedding Season Page 9